Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer

by The invaders are Coming

  "The man didn't just vanish," Bahr snarled.

  "We've got 'copters working the brush with flares," Carmine said. "They haven't turned up anything."

  "But this is impossible. Whatever killed Bernstein wouldn't let his partner just run off. It doesn't make sense."

  "It seems to me," MacKenzie said slowly, "that it's pretty obvious what happened. If I had your resources at hand, I'd send for an aqua-lung team."

  Bahr turned to stare at him. "You think the ship landed in the lake?"

  "What better place for concealment? And why do you assume that the aliens in the ship would immediately take off across the countryside? Seems to me they'd need information (list-about the country, routes, places of concealment—from somebody acquainted with the area. Like Russel, for instance."

  Bahr scratched his jaw. "They've been picking up men all over the country . . . we're sure of it." He turned to Carmine. "How fast could you get Van Golfer up here? With a complete outfit?"

  Carmine calculated rapidly. "Maybe three hours."

  "Get him," Bahr said. "This time there won't be any Wildwood tricks. If that ship is in there I'll get it out if I have to dam and drain the lake to do it."

  Several hundred feet of birdlife flickered by on the screen, good, bad, occasionally out of focus. Then suddenly there was a switch to a sky shot, without a filter, and nearly into the sun. Bahr squinted at the brightness, and slapped mosquitos in the little field-projection tent.

  "Must have seen the ship," Bahr said. MacKenzie grunted as die next sequence came on. It was much darker, taken across the lake . . . something slanting down toward the water, a splash as a flat, discus-like object scaled like a rock, hit a second time and sank. The camera followed the bounce, then showed a long stretch of film as the lake settled and the waves damped down.

  "Too far from the camera to see much," Bahr said. "We'll have some blown-up stills."

  "The lighting was very bad," MacKenzie said.

  Something small and indistinct popped out of the lake like a cork, fell back and floated. The camera followed it, a barely visible dot, as it approached from the middle of the lake. The dot left a small wake, approached within a few yards of shore, directly under the camera, then began to rise out of the water.

  It was quite clear, in spite of the slight tremor of the camera. A bulbous, gleaming helmet two feet in diameter, and below the helmet a dripping pressure suit, a bisymmetri-cal body, completely humanoid except for grotesquely long thin legs. It slogged out of die water, easily ten feet tall, and moved toward the camera.

  Abruptly, the film stopped.

  MacKenzie scowled at the screen as the lights came on. "That's part of your answer," he said. "It landed in the lake."

  "Get those lung men down there," Bahr said. "I want two 'copters overhead with cables down, ready to pull them out fast. And, Carminel"

  "Yes, Chief?"

  "I want a report on the slop back of the tent and the stuff from Bernstein's chest."

  "I'll check," Carmine said. "And they're holding an urgent for you at the radio."

  Bahr found the radio 'copter and took the yellow message sheet. It was signed by the New York DEPEX chief.

  BAHR DIRECTOR DIA STOP REFERENCE PROJECT FRISCO STOP JAMES CULLEN AND ARNOLD BECK REPORTED MISSING SUNDAY PM FROM UNIV MICH FOUND WANDERING IN DAZED CONDITION CENTRAL LOS ANGELES BY POLICE 2200 HOURS STOP TOTAL FORTY THREE OTHERS MISSING SIMILAR CONDITIONS STOP BELIEVE IMPORTANT STOP PLEASE ADVISE

  Bahr suddenly grinned at Carmine and handed him the slip. "Some of our missing people are turning up. Frank, I want you to take over here. Don't miss a thing. Keep MacKenzie with you if he insists, but have those men find that ship if it's the last thing you do. I want to know why they're here, and what they've done to this man Russel." He paused. "I'm going to see what they've done to Cullen and Beck. . . ."

  The radioman looked up from the headset. "Another urgent, Chief. Personal from Abrams in Chicago."

  The message was just three words long, and Bahr swore when he saw it.

  "What is it?" Carmine asked.

  "Alexander," Bahr said hoarsely. "Our nice, innocent, bumbling Major Alexander. He's broken out of the Kelley."

  Carmine blinked at him. "Chief, if he gets through to DEPCO . . ."

  "He won't." Bahr scribbled a quick message with Project Frisco priority and handed it to the radioman. "Abrams knows his stuff. Or he'd better."

  MacKenzie came up the path with a smocked, balding DIA technician. "We were right about Bernstein. It was a proteolytic enzyme of some sort." The technician pointed to a small ulcerous area on the back of his hand. "Still active as hell."

  "And the slop?"

  "Nothing there. The food wasn't chewed at all, just decomposed by acids and spewed out."

  Bahr nodded. "All right, keep at it. And call down a 'copter. I have to go to Chicago. Carmine! Nail that ship."

  He was actually looking right at the lake when the blast came—a sudden burst of light and a column of water shooting into the air, followed immediately by the shock wave which hit them as a muffled crash. The light went out, and the trees rocked and squeaked as the sudden wind passed through them. Bahr stared, then broke at a dead run for the water's edge, MacKenzie at his side.

  "Those poor bastards," somebody said.

  "Poor devils didn't have a chance," MacKenzie muttered. Still Bahr said nothing. For a long moment his stubborn, determined face had sagged, drained of color, the heavy jaw hanging slack as if he could not breath. Then he turned away, his head still shaking.

  "It's too late to do anything now," MacKenzie said.

  "Again," Bahr said slowly. "They did it again!" With an effort, he caught control again, and his jaw shut and clenched. His eyes met MacKenzie's, and the two men looked at each other, the hostility strangely absent from Bahr's eyes. For an instant MacKenzie had the fleeting feeling that if he could say exactly the right thing, things between him and Bahr would be permanently different, but no idea came, and then the moment had passed. Bahr's face was hard and remote as he turned back to Frank Carmine.

  "Get some medical up here. Do what you can, and then join me in Chicago. Be ready to bring MacKenzie down when he wants to go."

  Carmine nodded and went about organizing the DIA activities while Bahr, still sobered to an almost passive point, climbed into the 'copter and sat brooding and silent while die rotor whined up to speed and lifted off the ground.

  The last thing he saw in the glare of the floodlights was Paul MacKenzie, standing back out of the way and watching him, and he wondered, vaguely, at the look of puzzlement and concern on the BRINT man's troubled face.

  Chapter Seven

  "You CAN'T question these poor devils now," Dr. Petri said. "They're exhausted. They're just recovering from shock. The only reason they're not under heavy sedation right now is because your men told me . . ."

  "I know, I know," Bahr said impatiently. "It's too bad, but they've got to be questioned."

  "You'll get much farther with them if you'll let them sleep for eight hours." The doctor flicked a 3-V switch. "Look at them."

  Bahr glanced at the 3-V image of the Critical Ward. The men were there, not two, but seven—including the eminent James Cullen of the University of Michigan, one of the leading socio-economists in the country, and, it was said, one of the ten men in the world who fully understood the social, economic, and psychological implications of the Vanner-Elling equations. They were sprawled in R-chairs, glassy-eyed and haggard, trying to relax and sleep in the face of the sustaining drugs they had been given. They did not look like the leading scientists of a nation. They looked like living dead men.

  "We can't wait," Bahr said. "If we let them sleep, they won't come out of it for days, and we've got to know what happened to them."

  "Mr. Bahr, you don't understand the strain . . ."

  Bahr pulled himself to his feet. "You take care of the bodies, Doctor. I'll make the decisions about what we do with them. I'll want each of them in a
separate room, and I'll want somebody with me who can keep them awake. Is that clear? I mean wide awake."

  The doctor took a breath and left the office, leaving Bahr glaring at the wall clock. Fleetingly, he thought of the return trip from Canada. A DIA car had met him at the landing field, whisked him through the downtown Chicago streets with siren at full blast, but even that brief ride had brought him back shockingly to the change that had been taking place since the Wildwood raid.

  He had not seen the normal early-morning bustle of people on the streets. Instead, people were gathered on street corners, moving listlessly into the buildings. A huge crowd had gathered to watch the morning newscast, projected on the eight-story screen on the Tribune building, with John John relaying the latest news from BURINF, but it had been an uneasy crowd. A dozen times on the way to the hospital he had heard police sirens wailing.

  And at the hospital, the sudden appearance of TV cameras, and a dozen newsmen, all of diem talking at once about the European newsbreaks and about an alien landing, asking for confirmation or denial, complaining bitterly about the anemic information BURINF had made available.

  He had shouldered his way through them, repeating his "Sorry, boys, nothing now," until a woman's voice, quite loud, cut through the babble of voices.

  "Isn't it true, Mr. Bahr, that your appointment as Director of DIA has not been approved, pending a DEPCO check?"

  Bahr stopped, found the woman's face. "Who gave you that information?"

  "Just rumors, Mr. Bahr."

  "Well, you can publish that I have assumed John McEwen's post in DIA, pending appointment of a new director, for reasons of National Security, and you can serve the interests of National Security a great deal by refusing to spread any more nasty rumors than you can help." He started on, and added, "I don't know who the new director will be, and right now I don't care. I'm simply doing a job that has to be done."

  It had sounded all right, he thought now, but it had come too close to the mark. He looked up as Dr. Petri came to the door, nodded to him.

  "All right, Mr. Bahr. But I warn you—"

  One of Bahr's aides stopped them in the corridor. "There's a Mr. Whiting from DEPCO here to see you, Chief."

  Bahr scowled. "Too busy," he said.

  "He has an AA priority. And he says it's about this alien business."

  "What office of DEPCO?" Bahr said, stopping suddenly.

  "Foreign affairs. It's about those broadcasts."

  Bahr relaxed. It was not Adams' office. He was not eager to talk to anybody in DEPCO right now, but an AA priority was hard to sidestep. "Ask him to wait. I'll be up as soon as I can."

  He turned into a small white room. The polygraph operator was ready, and a sterile tray rested on the desk. "All right," Bahr said to the doctor. "Bring Cullen in."

  Two DIA men led Cullen into the room, a grey-haired man of about sixty with a wrinkled, haggard look, stooped and squinting as if the glaring white walls hurt his eyes. He was leaning heavily on his two escorts, obviously on the verge of nervous collapse. His eyes had the raw, unnatural brightness of amphetamine-induced wakefulness.

  Bahr motioned him to the PG seat, held out his wallet with ID card showing. "I'm Julian Bahr, Dr. Cullen. Director DIA. We'd like to ask you some questions."

  "Please," Cullen said dully. "Let me sleep. I've been questioned for days, I can't think any more."

  "We'll be as brief as possible," Bahr pressed him. He nodded, and the technicians strapped one of the Gronklin polygraph receptors around Cullen's chest.

  The old man shook his head feebly. "Let me alonel I can't answer any more questions."

  "Who's been asking you questions?"

  "I don't know, I don't know. Somebody. My mind is a blank."

  Bahr's jaw settled grimly. "Your name is James Cullen?" Cullen did not answer.

  "Dr. Cullen, I have some idea of what you've been through. If what we think is right, more than forty of your colleagues are going through the same thing right now. Don't you want to help stop that?"

  The old man shook his head helplessly. "I don't know anything. I'm tired. I don't remember what happened."

  "We'll help you remember."

  "Does my family know I'm safe?"

  Bahr's fist clenched at the digression. "They'll be told. Now just answer yes or no to my questions." He eased back in his chair and rolled the polygraph paper ahead. "You are a professor of Vanner-Elling principles at the University of Michigan?"

  Again Cullen did not answer. Bahr smashed his hand down on the desk, noticing with satisfaction the sudden change of blood pressure at the noise. "I think you're tired," he said solicitously. "I think you'd better have a little stimulation."

  "Please . . ."

  "Just a little adrenalin and amphetamine. You'll feel like a new man." The technician clamped Cullen's arm down, deliberately missing the vein twice. In a minute Cullen's heart was thumping desperately against the chest constrictor, his eyes blinking rapidly. "Have another dose ready in case he begins to doze off," Bahr said.

  Cullen was really quite co-operative after that, and his memory became remarkably clear, at least in places. There were aggravating holes in his story, but the pattern was clear enough.

  He had been abducted from his home in Ann Arbor sometime Sunday night. He could not remember how, nor what his captors had looked like. He did recall, vaguely, a long ride somewhere in some sort of vehicle, a strange room, and blindingly bright fights.

  And the questions . . .

  "Who was questioning you?"

  "I couldn't see. Just a voice. An odd voice."

  "A human voice?"

  "No. Definitely not . . . not what I heard." The old man hesitated. "It didn't make sense, but I was sure it was a tik-talker."

  Bahr's eyebrows went up, and he glanced excitedly at the technician. The electronic tik-talker, which converted punched tape patterns into speech sounds, had first been developed for long-distance speech communication, particularly useful when scrambled signals were necessary. Scrambled voice, bouncing off a fluctuating ionosphere, was likely to emerge Irom the descrambler as a series of moans, pops and whisties. The uk-talker reduced speech to a burst of seven pulse characters, reassembling and unscrambling them at the receiving end. It was quite reliable, but the speech itself always had the tonal curiosities of electronically sliced language, and was easily identified by anyone who had ever heard it before.

  "You've heard a tik-talker before?" Bahr asked.

  "We've used them at the Center. For distant communications and translation purposes."

  "And what were the questions like?"

  Here Cullen was very clear. He had been asked hundreds of questions about his work at Michigan, especially with regard to the Vanner-Elling equations and their current application to controlling the psychological and economic stability of the country since the economic collapse of the crash in 1995. He had been asked about the poll-taking functions, the work of the machines in outlining production schedules and anticipating psychological soft-spots in various segments of society.

  He had refused to answer questions on one very highly classified project, and was given repeated low-voltage electroshocks until he passed out. He could not remember being reawakened. His next recollection was wandering in confusion through the downtown Los Angeles streets until the police picked him up for vagrancy.

  He also refused to tell Bahr what the project was, or anything about it, even though Bahr threatened him with more amphetamine. Cullen knew about security, and nothing short of a BRINT unrestricted examination would have gotten topsec information out of him. Bahr made a note on the spot to give Cullen a type 4 background check as soon as things quieted down; Bahr did not like people to refuse him anything.

  The following six men, far more co-operative, had also been picked up, as far as they knew, from their homes on Sunday night by unidentifiable captors. There were two sociologists, a biologist, two linguists, and one of the few physicists in the country still worki
ng on physics. They had all been questioned intensively about their respective fields, never seeing their questioners and all confirming the curious sing-song of a tik-talker intermediary. One of them had been indiscreet enough, after two hours of electroshock, to divulge certain information about a topsec project he was connected with for DEPCO. It showed on the PG, of course, and Bahr made a note to frighten as much information out of the man as he could about DEPCO research plans before turning him over to DEPCO for prosecution.

  This procedure was not ultimately carried out, due to the subject's suicide sometime after the interview, which annoyed Bahr considerably. Bahr did not as a rule allow people to change his plans for him.

  But the pattern was unmistakably clear, when all the data had been gathered. All seven men had been abducted by someone, taken somewhere, and systematically drained of information, then dumped in widely distributed areas in a state of confusion and extreme nervous exhaustion.

  Bahr slammed the folders shut and went down to the room where the repatriates had been herded after their interrogation. Dr. Petri was hovering there, anxiously awaiting permission to administer sedation. Bahr shrugged oS his protests, and nodded to the two DIA men standing guard at the door. One of them was a tall, heavy man with a crew cut and a hard, convict's face; he returned the nod briefly, and straightened his shoulders automatically when Bahr came into the room.

  The repatriates looked up apathetically as Bahr put a heavy foot up on a chair and faced them. "All right, we're through questioning you for now," Bahr said. "When Dr. Petri is satisfied that you're in good medical shape, you'll be released." He watched the sagging heads, heard the tiny sigh of relief around the room. "However, you will be kept under full security surveillance."

  It was the equivalent of house arrest. The sagging heads jerked up again in protest.

  "But you've already questioned us," Cullen said feebly.

  "Obviously you must realize that under the circumstances we can't assume that anydiing you've told us is true," Bahr said.