V03 - The Pursuit of Diana

by Allen L. Wold

Martin did the same. Mike and Julie and Elias put down their own weapons, stood up from their hiding place, and with no attempt at concealment walked toward the gate in the fence.

  The soldiers on guard didn't see them until they had swung the gate open. The Guardsmen didn't seem at all concerned, though they unslung their rifles and held them at ready.

  Mike walked up to the nearest guard. "We've come to ask about the suspended people who were brought here recently," he said. "Some of them may be friends of ours. Do you know if any more have been revived?"

  "They're all still there," the guard said, "still in those plastic coffins." The other three soldiers came closer, keeping their eyes on the three rebels.

  "I don't think they can stay in that condition indefinitely," Julie told him. "Have you been able to bring any more back from the ship?"

  "They can't figure out how to open the hatches," one of the other guards said. He seemed calm enough, but he kept his gun at the ready.

  "You should get a couple of Caltech students," Elias suggested. "They can break into anything."

  "You know any?" the first guard started to say, and then the rebels Chris had dispatched appeared behind them.

  "Just lay them down easy," Mike said. The guards knelt to put their rifles on the pavement.

  "Too easy," Elias said as the other rebels used the soldiers' belts to tie them up. Other people now moved across the field, quickly but quietly barricading the plant door. Phyllis, Joanna, and Ralph hurried from their hiding places to the shuttle hatches and triggered the codes that opened them.

  "Much too easy," Ham repeated, coming up from behind. "Unless opening those shuttles was exactly what they wanted us to do." The entire rebel force was now hurrying across the pavement toward the three shuttles.

  "It's not going to help them much," Caleb Taylor told him, brandishing a large pair of wire cutters. "Their phone line's gone on the blink, and their doors are jammed." He shook his head in mock dismay.

  The rebels were loading quickly. The children were taken on early, leaving only adults exposed in case there should be trouble.

  "Do we need all three of those things?" Ham asked.

  "No sense leaving one for our enemies," Julie told him. Just then the lights started coming on in the plant, and seconds later there were shouts.

  "All right," Ham shouted, walking deliberately across the area, herding the last of the rebels before him. "Let's get moving."

  The soldiers inside the plant had discovered that they were effectively locked in, and were now trying to smash their way out. But Ham's plan had been too thorough and had been carried off to perfection. The soldiers were effectively trapped.

  As soon as the full import of this came to them, the soldiers started shooting from every available window. The last of the rebels, caught outside the shuttles, returned the fire, but the shuttle hatches were facing the building, and Mike, Julie, Ham, and the rest who had not yet boarded were unable to enter them now. They could only crouch behind the shuttles, firing back at the soldiers. Other rebels shot from safe positions just inside the shuttle hatches.

  "I knew it was too damn easy," Ham shouted. "They won't stay penned up in there long, and then they'll have the shuttles, just like they planned."

  "I wouldn't be too sure of that," Mike said as the shuttle nearest the building's loading docks suddenly lifted up a few inches and started swinging around. He couldn't tell who was at the controls, but he suspected it was Martin. The nose of the shuttle slowly turned toward the double doors, and then the craft's heavy weapons fired. The shots, showing Martin's marksmanship, were aimed perfectly, fusing the doors shut while driving the soldiers behind them to deeper cover.

  Meanwhile the other two shuttles had also lifted a few inches and turned 180 degrees, so that the hatches were now facing away from the plant. While elevated, the rebels on the ground were exposed to enemy fire, but the first shuttle placed its shots strategically, spoiling the soldiers' aim.

  When this subtle maneuver was completed, the last of the rebels were at last able to climb aboard. The shuttle hatches were just closing on them as one set of garage doors finally gave way, spilling fully armed soldiers into the area. The soldiers fired at the shuttles as they started their ascent, and sirens started belatedly going off. From somewhere beyond the front of the building came the sound of racing engines as more troops were finally mobilized. But by the time the soldiers got there, the shuttles were just specks in the black night sky.

  Chapter 11

  The shuttles received no challenge as they approached the underbelly of the Mother Ship. Martin tried to raise the flight controller, but there was no response.

  "How do we get inside?" Julie asked.

  "I can trigger an emergency override from here," Martin said, opening a safety cover on the control panel to reveal a red button inside. He pushed it, and the docking-bay doors slid open.

  The three shuttles drifted in and settled down on the deck. There was nobody in sight. The sound of the three hatches coming open echoed hollowly in the cavernous space.

  "I hope there's somebody left alive," Martin said.

  "We never did find out how many turncoats there were," Caleb said. "You don't suppose they've taken over the ship?"

  "They could have," Barbara said, panting. Caleb reached out a hand to steady her.

  "What's the matter?" he asked her.

  "I've not been feeling too well the last half hour—short of breath, pains in my chest."

  "It sounds like your antitoxin is wearing off," Julie said, "and you've been exposed for a long time down on Earth. We're going to have to get a new supply made up as soon as possible. I wish we hadn't lost what we'd made at the mine." The others who had been on the shuttle were now out on the deck, so she and her friends in the cockpit followed them out now.

  Sancho Gomez and William, who'd come up in one of the other shuttles and had been among the first to disembark, were moving along the elevated catwalk toward the flight controller's office, high above the docking-bay floor.

  "There's no one inside," Sancho called down to the others.

  "Can you operate the communicator in there?" Mike Donovan yelled back.

  "I can," William said, and stepped into the glass-fronted booth. They could see him punching buttons, then talking into the microphone.

  "It's all right," he said as he came back out onto the catwalk. "Peter and Aaron are in the command center. They've got the ship under control, but there are still some armed turncoats loose, and people are beginning to get sick."

  "We've got to make that antitoxin fast," Julie said. She and Barbara went over to the shuttle that had carried her equipment while Mike and Martin and the others who knew their way started leading the newcomers toward the command center.

  Grace Delaney and Fred Linker were handing boxes out to Paul Overbloom and Claire Bryant.

  "Let those go till later," Julie told them. "We need the ones marked with the green circle right now."

  "They're the next ones in the stack," Grace said.

  "Fine, get them all and come with me. We've got to work fast or a lot of the fifth columnists will die."

  "But there's no toxin in here now," Barbara said. "At least there shouldn't be."

  "Perhaps not," Julie said, "but everybody who was down on Earth was exposed to it and so may be carrying some in their systems. You're probably breathing it out of your lungs right now. Those of your people who were never exposed at all will probably be all right for a little while, but everybody else is going to need a new dose."

  At last everybody except Juliet Parrish and her crew was moving toward the command center. Instead, she and those who would be making the antitoxin went to the labs. In the absolute silence of the ship, they were taken by surprise by a turncoat who, waiting on the other side of a corner, fired on them. Phyllis was hit in the shoulder and dropped her box, and the others, encumbered by their own loads, were not able to return fire before the turncoat turned and fled.

 
; "Don't let him get away," Juliet commanded, putting down her box and drawing her gun. While someone attended to Phyllis, she and the others raced after the Visitor, who had turned into a long corridor. He was a hundred yards ahead, but the concentrated fire of seven guns brought him down.

  Returning to where Phyllis was getting painfully to her feet, they recovered their supplies and went on to the labs.

  Meanwhile, Mike Donovan and the main rebel force found Peter and Aaron in the command center with half a dozen other visitors. None of them looked well.

  "Thank God you're back," Peter said. "There was no way we could have gone down to get you, and now we're all coming down sick with something."

  "It's the effect of the toxin," Mike explained. "Those who were exposed before still have some in their systems, and the antitoxin is wearing off. Julie's making up a new batch right now," he reassured them. "Are you all right otherwise?"

  "We are now," Peter said. "We weren't sure you were ever going to come back and were beginning to give up hope. We've had the tables turned on us. I think there are only a dozen or so turncoats, but they're playing guerrilla against us just like we did when we were in the minority. A couple of people have been hurt, but nobody killed. What took you so long?"

  Between them, Mike and Martin and Ham Tyler told about the betrayal, imprisonment, and rescue, concluding with the news that Diana had escaped yet again, and this time seemed to have some human friends.

  "She'll have to wait her turn," Aaron said. "Those turncoats will have to be attended to first. None of us are very good leaders. I'm sure you wouldn't have let the turncoats stay free for so long, but with you back, we should be able to make the ship really secure."

  "Most of those who we confined to quarters," Peter went on, "are still there. We just haven't been able to test them

  "We'll get to that when we have time," Martin said, holding his hand to his chest as if he was having some difficulty breathing. "Right now we need more antitoxin."

  Juliet Parrish came through with the antitoxin before any of the Visitors became seriously ill. Fortunately, not all of those who had been exposed suffered ill effects, and were able to renew the business of administering truth serum to the rest of the crew. Those who passed the truth test were given their freedom, and those who failed were consolidated in secure quarters. It looked as if about one in four were going to prove sympathetic to the human cause. That made for a mighty thin crew, but enough to keep the ship operating in its stationary position over Los Angeles.

  Even before those who had been taken sick had time to recover, Mike, Julie, Martin, Barbara, Grace, Peter, Fred, and Annie started planning their next step. Their primary concern, aside from Diana's whereabouts, was to inform the public of the facts concerning the conversion process. The ship's communications center was capable of interrupting and overriding television and radio broadcasting, even to the extent of controlling the phone lines linking studios to transmitting towers. Julie had taken advantage of this fact when she had announced the return of the Mother Ship so recently.

  This time they would have to do a better job, both in the preparation of the message and in timing its broadcast. With the assistance of several proven communications technicians, the eight rebels and fifth columnists set to work making a videotape that they would be able to play over and over again, at least once an hour during the day and night. Using the Visitors' translating equipment, they prepared versions in every major language, even though with only one ship they could not directly influence the broadcasts in countries that were out of line of the transmission. They could, however, put the message through regular communications satellites, and hope that other broadcasters around the world would play it voluntarily.

  Caught between the need to get the message on the air as soon as possible and the need to take the time to do it right, they had to compromise. Twenty-four hours after returning to the Mother Ship, the tape, though not perfect, was done

  All over the United States, Canada, and Mexico, TV programs were interrupted. Even radio stations carried the message. Those who saw it on TV saw four humans and four Visitors, sitting or standing in a huge room with incomprehensible instruments, devices, and controls humming and blinking all around them. It was the command center, and in the background other rebels and Visitors went about their business.

  "People of the United States," Julie said, "and of the world, my name is Juliet Parrish. A short while ago I spoke to you announcing our return to Earth in the great Los Angeles Mother Ship. We are speaking to you from there now. Our forces, the very same who devised and executed the plan that drove the Visitors from your skies, are in complete control of this ship, its resources, its technology.

  "Those Visitors you see with us have demonstrated a loyalty higher than that to any one person or government or race, or even world. They are loyal to all of humanity, whether mammalian or reptilian. Between us, we can restore order to our now confused planet, and perhaps, in time, to their planet as well.

  "There are some Visitors among you, left behind when the rest of their fleet departed in such haste. We beg that you treat these survivors both With caution and with respect. Some will be your enemies, some your friends, and we have the means of determining which is which. We beg that you neither give these Visitors your trust until proven, nor kill them out of hand. They should all be taken into custody, given an antitoxin treatment which a number of laboratories and hospitals can provide, and kept safe until they can be tested.

  "The Visitors among you can be easily identified because of their voices. But there are others, perhaps less trustworthy though many of them may be innocent, who cannot be so easily marked. I'm speaking of any person who, for whatever reason, ever spent any time aboard a Visitor ship during the last year."

  Mike took over at this point and explained about the process of conversion. Martin and Barbara helped by describing the process and what it was supposed to do to people. Julie told of her own experience, and Mike told how it had affected his son, Sean. He went on to describe the extent of the danger, citing their own arrest as evidence of the untrustworthiness of any government official, any person in power who had been converted, whether they were being controlled by a Visitor or not.

  They concluded with a plea.

  "Those of you," Julie said, "who suspect you may have been converted, whether you remember it happening to you or not, can fight back. With the help of your families and friends, you can discover whether or not you have ever been under Visitor control. Accepting that, and knowing how it has affected you, is the first and biggest step.

  "I can testify from my own experience that conversion is not absolute, not irreversible. In time, we will have perfected a method of returning all convertees to normal. In the meantime, listen to your friends. Listen to your families. Try to resist the brainwashing that has been done to you. And if you cannot resist, let someone else temporarily assume your responsibilities. Except for our friends here, the Visitors have gone. But this war is not won yet."

  During the next twelve hours, while Mike Donovan and Juliet Parrish and the others who had participated in preparing the message slept, the business of testing the Visitor crew members continued. At the same time, a new organization of those found trustworthy was developed to make the best use of the radically reduced crew. Monitors were set up to receive the major network programming in order to learn how the message had gone over and to plan out revisions accordingly, should that be necessary.

  Elsewhere, the humans held in suspended animation were attended to preparatory to returning them to the Los Angeles plant for unprocessing. Though there was equipment aboard the ship that could do that, the rate of revival was very low. It had never been intended to bring the grim cargo back to life on board.

  Still, two humans an hour were brought back to life. Most of these people could be of little help to the rebel forces, being just plain citizens from San Pedro and elsewhere, not soldiers or technicians or doctors. The extra human popul
ation was something of a burden, since the ship was not equipped to provide much in the way of human food. Still, it was thought better to bring as many out of suspension as possible in order to shorten the process once they were sure they could return to the Earth plant.

  Aaron, Arnold, Caleb Tayloi; and Robert Maxwell were in charge in the command center when William came in, in a state of excitement.

  "I think there are some Visitors alive in one of the compartments where the bodies are being kept," he said. "Maybe in more than one. I didn't believe it at first when people reported sounds coming from inside, but I went to one and I could hear it too, like someone knocking on the door."

  "How can there be survivors?" Arnold, the conversion technician, asked.

  "It must be that natural immunity Julie mentioned," Aaron said.

  "It has to be that," Robert agreed. "Apparently, instead of just dying, they go catatonic for a period of time of from two to four days, and then recover. It's happened on Earth."

  "I thought all those survivors had respirators," Arnold said, "or else were in uncontaminated areas."

  "Most of them were, but not all."

  "We can't just leave them in those compartments with all those dead bodies," William said.

  "What a nightmare," Caleb Taylor agreed. "Waking up sick to death in a pile of rotting corpses and probably starving too."

  "But we can't just let them out," Aaron objected. "They're heavily contaminated with the toxin, and the greater the concentration, the shorter the effective period of the antitoxin."

  "We can take a portable air lock with us," Arnold suggested. "Just a bag we can seal around the door, with us inside, before we open it. And then, if anybody's alive inside, we can seal them up in suspension coffins while we take them somewhere to be decontaminated."

  "But then we'll be contaminated," Caleb objected.

  "We'll carry an air tank and filter. When we're ready to leave, we'll flush out the air lock into the filter and dump that off the ship."

  "There may be some risk," Aaron went on, "but we shouldn't let too much of the toxin into the ship. I find the idea of leaving anybody alive in one of those mausoleums intolerable. Let's do it."