V03 - The Pursuit of Diana

by Allen L. Wold

  The suspendees were being unprocessed rapidly. The shuttles were still bringing them down about four times as fast as they could be handled, but the technicians had smoothed out the revival process, and about fifty volunteers from Pomona, Montclair, Glass Mountain, and other nearby towns were doing a heroic task of getting people back on their feet and into the custody of trustworthy people, if not to their actual families.

  Mike Donovan, sprawled out in one of the larger chairs in a front office, was roused from a badly needed nap by one of the technicians.

  "We've got a call from Ham," the man said.

  Mike hurried over to the communicator room and took the microphone from the rebel on duty.

  "Ham, what's the news?"

  "The proof that 'No news is good news' is a lie," Ham Tyler's voice said from the speaker. "Mike, I just can't find any trace of Diana anywhere. Whoever it was that took her away from that sanitarium left no tracks at all. And that means they were real professionals."

  "No clue as to who they were?" Mike asked.

  "None at all. These guys are so good, they could be colleagues of mine, for all I know."

  "So what now?"

  "To tell you the truth, Mike, I just don't know. If I don't learn something within the next twelve hours, I'm going to pack it in and come back to the plant."

  "It's not like you to give up, Ham."

  "Everyone's got his limits, Mike. You know how to get in touch with me." The speaker went dead.

  "She must have found the right tool," the communications operator said.

  "That's exactly what I'm afraid of," Mike agreed. He wanted a couple more hours' sleep, but he knew it would be useless to try. Instead he went back into the office area of the plant, where a TV had been set up and where a number of rebels and off-duty technicians were sitting. It was ten minutes past the hour, and Julie's recorded message was just concluding. The networks, yielding to the inevitable, had rescheduled their programming to take this interruption into account.

  But instead of the next episode of Dallas, there was a special message from Dennis W. Simon, the Lieutenant Governor. This was one of the things people were watching for, so all small talk stilled.

  "I am very happy to tell you," Simon said into the bank of microphones, "that at last report, nearly two thousand human prisoners have been brought down to Earth from the Mother Ship, and that of those, nearly five hundred have been revived and returned to their familes."

  "An exaggeration and out of date at the same time," Martin said, coming in to stand behind Mike.

  "I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks," Simon was saying, "to all the people, both human and Visitor, who have been working so hard to liberate these victims.

  "However, I must deplore the actions of a few, who have been trying to impede the speedy release of our citizens." Behind him were several other people, slightly out of focus. "I ask you, I beg you, to cooperate with the brave men and women, and with the National Guard, who are doing their best to bring our loved ones home to us."

  "He's awfully damn slick," someone said.

  "Even more sadly," Simon said, "a number of our citizens have taken this time of crisis as an opportunity to loot, to rob, and to create crippling public disturbances. I implore you all to—"

  "Wait," Martin said, moving up closer to the screen. He turned down the volume, then pointed to one of the men directly behind the Lieutenant Governor, a heavyset man with a

  particularly thick head of hair. "That's one of the men who came to the sanitarium to speak to Diana," he went on. "Well, goddamn," Mike said. "Are you sure?" "Watch the way his eyebrows work. Yes, I'm sure." "What do you know?" Mike said. "Ham will love this. Those guys weren't so sharp after all. Diana's in the governor's mansion."

  Chapter 12

  Juliet Parrish stared at Victoria Cohen in shocked dismay. "You can't be serious," she said. They were sitting in the conversion lab, Barbara and the others watching as they talked.

  "But I am," Victoria insisted. "Sean was converted, and quite successfully too. He doesn't even know he's been converted, so that makes him a perfect subject."

  "But he's only a child," Julie protested. "We can't experiment on a child."

  "He's fourteen, old enough to be a man. Besides, if we don't figure out how to deconvert people, how many other children will sulfer?"

  "I don't like it, Victoria."

  "You don't have to like it. You've told us yourself, sometimes you have to sacrifice the few for the sake of the many."

  Juliet looked at the younger woman. Sean had been involved that time too, held on this ship, and she'd roundly criticized Mike for running the risk of trying to rescue him. "All right," she said. "Will you bring Sean in here?"

  "He's right outside," Victoria said, going to the door. She opened it and Sean came through. He smiled brightly enough, but his movements lacked a certain energy.

  "Hello, Sean," Julie greeted him as he came over to take a chair next to her. "How have you been?"

  "Oh, just fine," he answered. His words were bright, his expression happy, but it was all false. There was nothing underneath.

  "What do you know about conversion, Sean?"

  "Nothing." No curiosity, just a flat statement.

  "This is the room where it's done," Julie said, turning to look at the glass-enclosed chamber where she had once undergone such torture. "I'm sure you remember it."

  "No, ma'am."

  "Maybe he never saw it from here," Victoria said. "Come with me, Sean," she said, and led him through the side access up to the conversion platform itself.

  "Oh," Sean said when he was inside. "Yes, now I remember—sort of."

  "What do you remember, Sean?" Julie asked.

  "Diana was sitting there where you are, and there were other people, and she made all these pictures come into my head. It was sort of like a dream, but I was awake at the same time. It was very real. I liked it, but I've forgotten most of it."

  "That was part of the conversion process," Victoria said gently.

  "Was I converted?"

  "Yes," Julie said, "we think you were."

  "Let's go back out there and talk about it," Victoria said, and led Sean down to the control console again.

  "Seems like an awfully expensive way just to make dreams," Sean said as he took his chair

  "It does more than that," Julie said. "It changes your mind for you."

  "It didn't change mine," Sean said.

  "Do you like baseball?" Victoria asked.

  "Nah," Sean answered, taking the non sequitur in stride. "I think it's dumb."

  "Do you remember how you felt about it last week?"

  "I guess I thought it was dumb then too."

  "Can you remember your last birthday?" Julie asked. "What did your father get you?"

  "A baseman's glove."

  "Think about it, Sean. Think about how you felt when you got that glove."

  Sean looked at her, and for the first time since he'd come back from the ship, there was some depth to his expression, more than just surface questioning and doubt.

  "I—I used to like baseball a lot, didn't I?" he said at last.

  "A real hard-core fan," Julie said.

  Sean's gaze turned inward for a moment. Julie could see his composure begin to crumble, then she watched as he pulled himself back together by sheer force of will. "No," he said. "They didn't do anything to me." , *

  "Yes they did, Sean," Julie said, "just like they did to me. We think we can undo the conversion, make you and me both like we were before. You want to try?"

  "Yes," he said simply, surprisingly without any hesitation. "When can we do it?"

  "Right now," one of the technicians said. "Come with me, and we'll get you prepped." He led Sean through a side door.

  "Oh, boy," Julie said, sitting back with a sigh of released tension. "If we hurt Sean and Mike finds out, we're all going to be in bad trouble."

  "I know," Victoria said, "but if Sean is deconverted, then we'll ha
ve a chance of saving our world after all."

  The last few shuttles had carried more than just suspended people down to the processing plant. Helping to unload the coffins were a few rebels who somehow didn't get back up to the ship again. Ham Tyler and Mike Donovan had consulted after the discovery of Diana's hideout, and had decided that though they could probably trust Lieutenant Wallace, it would not do to advertise a gathering of strength.

  At last they were ready with a core of twenty hardened fighters, all human but armed with the best Visitor weapons. They met in a parking garage where Ham had stored the fast vans that would take them to Sacramento. They had decided that a shuttle seen moving in that direction would give up any surprise advantage they might have.

  Robert Maxwell was the last to arrive, bringing with him not another rebel but an older man whose manner bespoke propriety and authority, though his clothes were not what he might have been accustomed to.

  "Who's that?" Elias Taylor asked. He and Sancho Gomez and Thomas Lee would be going up in the first truck.

  "This is Sidney Carvelle," Robert said. "He's one of those we revived up on the ship."

  "And I'm more than grateful to you," Carvelle said. His voice was measured and cultured. "Under the circumstances, I see that it is only my duty to assist you in your enterprise."

  "What can you do for us, Mr. Carvelle?" Grace Delaney asked while Fred Linker looked on.

  "I was chief of domestic staff at the governor's mansion," Carvelle answered. "You might need some assistance in finding your way around inside."

  "Maxwell," Ham said, "you're a genius."

  "Pure luck," Robert said, "but better than that, with Carvelle's help we were able to locate the Governor himself, Abe Riggsbee."

  "I don't like what I've seen of Simon lately," Carvelle said with carefully concealed disdain. "Mr. Riggsbee should relieve him of his responsibilities."

  "Unfortunately," Robert said, "Riggsbee's not a well man. They're doing what they can for him up at the ship now. Caleb will bring him down in a small shuttle as soon as he's able to travel. But we can't coordinate with him until he arrives."

  "Then we're going to have to just do what we can," Mike Donovan said. "We'd better get moving. We've got a long drive ahead of us."

  Diana sat with Dennis Simon in a superbly furnished parlor in the governor's mansion.

  "Professor Mauritz at Berkeley," Simon told her, "has just informed me that he's been able to reproduce the antitoxin."

  "That's excellent," Diana said. "Then the blood samples we sent him did the trick?"

  "Exactly. There was too little antitoxin in your own blood to do them any good, but Richard, being a survivor, had a fully developed spectrum of antibodies—whatever that means."

  "That means that Joyce won't have to wear her respirator any longer, once we get a supply of the antitoxin here. And I won't have to wear the damned thing at all. How long till supplies arrive?"

  "They sent a car from Berkeley even as Mauritz was phoning," Simon said, "so it shouldn't be too many hours."

  "Diana," a feminine voice called from a side door. It was Zenia. "Colonel Fletcher is here."

  "I'll be right there," Diana called to her companion, then turned back to Simon.

  "Do let me know as soon as the antitoxin comes in," she said, getting to her feet. Then she went through the door from which she had been summoned.

  Beyond was a short corridor off which opened several doors. Zenia stood in one of these and stepped aside so that Diana could enter.

  Seated around the table were Colonel Fletcher and three other officers. Diana nodded and took her place at the table, Zenia sitting at her right. A moment later two other Visitors entered to join them, a woman in a respirator and a man whose human disguise looked as if it didn't fit him too well.

  "All right, Colonel," Diana said, "we are ready to begin. You know Joyce and Richard." This was said for the benefit of the Major, whom Diana had not met.

  "I do," the colonel said. "And this is Major Garret. You've met Captain Broadbent and Lieutenant Casey."

  "Now that the formalities are disposed of," Diana said with a small smile, "can you get the weapons?"

  "A bit abrupt, aren't we?" Major Garret said tightly.

  "Why take a thousand flowery words to say what can be said in ten plain ones," Diana retorted. She turned back to the colonel.

  "We can," Colonel Fletcher said in answer to her previous question. "Captain Broadbent has secured two mobile rocket launchers, three tanks, several heavy machine guns, and other mobile artillery—nothing too heavy but plenty big enough for what we want to do."

  "That's excellent, Captain," Diana said. "Then I'm sure we'll have no difficulty capturing a shuttle."

  "We know their schedule," Lieutenant Casey said. "We estimate they will have brought down the last of the suspendees

  sometime tomorrow. Our observers will note any subsequent variation in activity at the plant."

  "It will be interesting to see what real American firepower can do against Visitor technology," Major Garret said.

  "You'll have plenty of opportunity to find out," Diana said, "after we get hold of one shuttle intact."

  "I intend to take all three intact," Garret said, "or as many as are on the ground when we attack. But if I know these rebels, they won't accept a simple coup. And if they fight back, I'll just blow them away."

  "Should have been done long ago," Richard said. His face looked as if the person under the mask had lost weight.

  "I agree," Diana said. "I have a personal bone to pick with several of the rebels, but I think I'll have to forgo any satisfaction. When taken, they are to be killed immediately."

  "Abrupt again?" Garret asked. Only this time his wry sense of humor was more evident.

  "As abrupt as I have to be. I'm sure, Major Garret, that your weapons can do all you say they can. But there are heavier guns on board the Mother Ship as well. Except to shoot down one balloon, these have never been fired on your planet. We-won't have won until we regain control of the ship and of those weapons as well."

  "That will put you into an incredibly strong position," Colonel Fletcher said. "I'd like some reassurance that you'll keep your end of our bargain."

  "I can't carry out the next step without your help," she said. "The Lieutenant Governor should do anything you tell him, even if you don't have direct control over him as I do. Given him as your starting point, you'll soon have control of the whole state. Playing from the background is not my way, but if you can stomach it, then you should very well succeed."

  "I'd much rather have true power and anonymity," Colonel Fletcher said, "than the appearance of power and publicity."

  "I agree," Garret said, "and I'm sure Broadbent and Casey do too. It's easier to control the masses if they don't know who's doing the controlling."

  "If we make a mistake," Broadbent said, "we just switch figureheads and try again."

  "Then you should have no trouble gaining control of the state legislature," Diana said. "You'll need some of my people to help you with that until we can learn how humans can telepathically communicate with each other."

  "The important thing," Joyce said, speaking for the first time through her respirator, "is that we turn all this bad feeling about Visitors into at least tolerance."

  "It's ironic," Richard said, "that the broadcasts from the rebels are emphasizing the same thing. They're playing right into our hands."

  "We've been noticing an improvement in your public image already," Lieutenant Casey said, "except, that is, for you personally, Diana. You're too strongly identified with what happened before. Nobody will believe that you'd tum around and become Earth's friend."

  "That will be no problem," Diana said. "We can change these faces we wear if we wish. Richard will need a new one, in any event. Once we regain control of the ship, I'll assume a new face, a new identity, that will be known only among the eight of us here."

  "Won't people suspect something when a new person sh
ows up?" Lieutenant Casy asked.

  "A number of Visitors have died," Diana said. "I'll just pick the identity of one of those."

  "And you don't like to work from the background," Captain Broadbent murmured.

  "I don't like it, but I'll do it if I have to."

  "I think we ought to mix strategies too," Colonel Fletcher said. "Until we have complete control of the legislature, have weeded out those who could cause us trouble, and replace them with our own people, I think we ought to have our Lieutenant Governor extend martial law. That way I can act up front in my regular capacity."

  "I will put the weapons on board my ship at your disposal," Diana said, "though they should probably not be used too often, or we'll destroy our credibility."

  "I agree," the colonel said, "and if used, there should be plenty of supportive publicity before and after. But it's not California I'm worried about. It's the President, and the Congress and the Senate."

  "We've already made some tentative inquiries in that direction," Lieutenant Casey said. "It may take two months to make all the contacts, but several Visitors are already in position and only need coordination and direction."

  "And once you have the President of this country under your control," Diana said, "then you shouldn't have too much difficulty with other governments around the world."

  "Not if we act carefully and secretly," Colonel Fletcher agreed. "I foresee complete control within three years."

  "And then," Diana said, "you must cooperate in letting us take more water back to our own world."

  "I thought the toxin the rebels spread had spoiled everything for you," Captain Broadbent questioned.

  "The animal life, yes," Joyce answered, "but water can be purified and filtered."

  "But if I understand your situation correctly," Garret objected, "you need so much water that you'll turn Earth into a desert, and then what good will that do us?"

  "Compromises must be made," Diana said. "We can restrict ourselves to just the water that is in your ice caps. If we're careful, you won't even notice any changes in your coastlines."

  "And besides," Richard continued, "once we're back on our feet again, Our Leader will be far more amenable to considering an alliance between us. By combining our technologies, we should be able not only to defeat Our Leader's enemies, but also insure your continued mastery of this planet. And there are other planets, you know."