Operation Terror

by Murray Leinster

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Geoffrey Kidd, Sankar Viswanathan,and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  OPERATION TERROR

  Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER 1

  On the morning the radar reported something odd out in space, Lockleyawoke at about twenty minutes to eight. That was usual. He'd slept ina sleeping bag on a mountain-flank with other mountains all around.That was not unprecedented. He was there to make a base linemeasurement for a detailed map of the Boulder Lake National Park,whose facilities were now being built. Measuring a base line, evenwith the newest of electronic apparatus, was more or less acommonplace job for Lockley.

  This morning, though, he woke and realized gloomily that he'd dreamedabout Jill Holmes again, which was becoming a habit he ought to break.He'd only met her four times and she was going to marry somebody else.He had to stop.

  He stirred, preparatory to getting up. At the same moment, certainthings were happening in places far away from him. As yet, no unusualobject in space had been observed. That would come later. But far awayup at the Alaskan radar complex a man on duty watch was relieved byanother. The relief man took over the monitoring of the giant,football-field-sized radar antenna that recorded its detections onmagnetic tape. It happened that on this particular morning only oneother radar watched the skies along a long stretch of the PacificCoast. There was the Alaskan installation, and the other was in Oregon.It was extremely unusual for only those two to be operating. Thepeople who knew about it, or most of them, thought that officialorders had somehow gone astray. Where the orders were issued, nothingout of the ordinary appeared. All was normal, for example, in theMilitary Information Center in Denver. The Survey saw nothing unusualin Lockley's being at his post, and other men at places correspondingto his in the area which was to become Boulder Lake National Park. Italso seemed perfectly natural that there should be bulldozeroperators, surveyors, steelworkers, concrete men and so on, allcomfortably at breakfast in the construction camp for the project.Everything seemed normal everywhere.

  Up to the time the Alaskan installation reported something strange inspace, the state of things generally was neither alarming norconsoling. But at 8:02 A.M. Pacific time, the situationchanged. At that time Alaska reported an unscheduled celestial objectof considerable size, high out of atmosphere and moving withsurprising slowness for a body in space. Its course was parabolic andit would probably land somewhere in South Dakota. It might be abolide--a large, slow-moving meteorite. It wasn't likely, but theentire report was improbable.

  The message reached the Military Information Center in Denver at 8:05A.M. By 8:06 it had been relayed to Washington and everyplane on the Pacific Coast was ordered aloft. The Oregon radar unitreported the same object at 8:07 A.M. It said the object wasseven hundred fifty miles high, four hundred miles out at sea, and washeaded toward the Oregon coastline, moving northwest to southeast.There was no major city in its line of travel. The impact pointcomputed by the Oregon station was nowhere near South Dakota. As othercomputations followed other observations, a second place of fall wascalculated, then a third. Then the Oregon radar unbelievably reportedthat the object was decelerating. Allowing for deceleration, threesuccessive predictions of its landing point agreed. The object, saidthese calculations, would come to earth somewhere near Boulder Lake,Colorado, in what was to become a national park. Impact time should beapproximately 8:14 A.M.

  These events followed Lockley's awakening in the wilds, but he knewnothing of any of them. He himself wasn't near the lake, which was tobe the center of a vacation facility for people who liked theoutdoors. The lake was almost circular and was a deep, rich blue. Itoccupied what had been the crater of a volcano millions of years ago.Already bulldozers had ploughed out roads to it through the forest.Men worked with graders and concrete mixers on highways and on bridgesacross small rushing streams. There was a camp for them. A lakesidehotel had been designed and stakes were driven in the ground where itsfoundation would eventually be poured. There were infant big-mouthedbass in the lake and fingerling trout in many of the streams. A hugeWild Life Control trailer-truck went grumbling about such trails aswere practical, attending to these matters. Yesterday Lockley had seenit gleaming in bright sunshine as it moved toward Boulder Lake on thehighway nearest to his station.

  But that was yesterday. This morning he awoke under a pale gray sky.There was complete cloud cover overhead. He smelled conifers andwoods-mould and mountain stone in the morning. He heard the faintsound of tree branches moving in the wind. He noted the cloud cover.The clouds were high, though. The air at ground level was perfectlytransparent. He turned his head and saw a prospect that made being inthe wilderness seem entirely reasonable and satisfying.

  Mountains reared up in every direction. A valley lay some thousands offeet below him, and beyond it other valleys, and somewhere a streamrushed white water to an unknown destination. Not many wake to such ascene.

  Lockley regarded it, but without full attention. He was preoccupiedwith thoughts of Jill Holmes, and unfortunately she was engaged tomarry Vale, who was also working in the park some thirty miles to thenortheast, near Boulder Lake itself. Lockley didn't know him wellsince he was new in the Survey. He was up there to the northeast withan electronic survey instrument like Lockley's and on the same job.Jill had an assignment from some magazine or other to write an articleon how national parks are born, and she was staying at theconstruction camp to gather material. She'd learned something fromVale and much from the engineers while Lockley had tried to think ofinteresting facts himself. He'd failed. When he thought about her, hethought about the fact that she was engaged to Vale. That was anunhappy thought. Then he tried to stop thinking about her altogether.But his mind somehow lingered on the subject.

  At ten minutes to eight Lockley began to dress, wilderness fashion. Hebegan by putting on his hat. It had lain on the pile of garments byhis bed. Then he donned the rest of his garments in the exact reverseof the order in which he'd removed them.

  At 8:00 he had a small fire going. He had no premonition that anythingout of the ordinary was going to happen that day. This was stillbefore the first Alaskan report. At 8:10 he had bacon sizzling and asmall coffeepot almost enveloped by the flames. Events occurred and heknew nothing at all about them. For example, the Military InformationCenter had been warned of what was later privately called OperationTerror while Lockley was still tranquilly cooking breakfast andthinking--frowning a little--about Jill.

  Naturally he knew nothing of emergency orders sending all planesaloft. He wasn't informed about something reported in space andapparently headed for an impact point at Boulder Lake. As the computedimpact time arrived, Lockley obliviously dumped coffee into his tincoffeepot and put it back on the flames.

  At 8:13 instead of 8:14--this information is from the taperecords--there was an extremely small earth shock recorded by theBerkeley, California, seismograph. It was a very minor shock, aboutthe intensity of the explosion of a hundred tons of high explosive avery long distance away and barely strong enough to record itslocation, which was Boulder Lake. The cause of that explosion or shockwas not observed visually. There'd been no time to alert observers,and in any case the object should have been out of atmosphere untilthe last few seconds of its fall, and where it was reported to fallthe cloud cover was unbroken. So nobody reported seeing it. Not atonce, anyhow, and then only one man.

  Lockley did not feel the impact. He was drinking a cup of coffee andthinking about his own problems. But a delicately balanced rock ahundred yards below his camp site toppled over and slid downhill. Itstarted a miniature avalanche of stones and rocks. The loose stuff didnot travel far, but the original balance
d rock bounced and rolled forsome distance before it came to rest.

  Echoes rolled between the hillsides, but they were not very loud andthey soon ended. Lockley guessed automatically at half a dozenpossible causes for the small rock-slide, but he did not think at allof an unperceived temblor from a shock like high explosives going offthirty miles away.

  Eight minutes later he heard a deep-toned roaring noise to thenortheast. It was unbelievably low-pitched. It rolled and reverberatedbeyond the horizon. The detonation of a hundred tons of highexplosives or an equivalent impact can be heard for thirty miles, butat that distance it doesn't sound much like an explosion.

  He finished his breakfast without enjoyment. By that time well overthree-quarters of the Air Force on the Pacific Coast was airborne andmore planes shot skyward instant after instant. Inevitably themultiplied air traffic was noted by civilians. Reporters began totelephone airbases to ask whether a practice alert was on, orsomething more serious.

  Such questions were natural, these days. All the world had thejitters. To the ordinary observer, the prospects looked bad foreverything but disaster. There was a crisis in the United Nations,which had been reorganized once and might need to be shuffled again.There was a dispute between the United States and Russia oversatellites recently placed in orbit. They were suspected of carryingfusion bombs ready to dive at selected targets on signal. The Russiansaccused the Americans, and the Americans accused the Russians, andboth may have been right.

  The world had been so edgy for so long that there were falloutshelters from Chillicothe, Ohio, to Singapore, Malaya, and back again.There were permanent trouble spots at various places where practicallyanything was likely to happen at any instant. The people of everynation were jumpy. There was constant pressure on governments and onpolitical parties so that all governments looked shaky and allparties helpless. Nobody could look forward to a peaceful old age, andmost hardly hoped to reach middle age. The arrival of an object fromouter space was nicely calculated to blow the emotional fuses of wholepopulations.

  But Lockley ate his breakfast without premonitions. Breezes blew andfrom every airbase along the coast fighting planes shot into the airand into formations designed to intercept anything that flew on wingsor to launch atom-headed rockets at anything their radars could detectthat didn't.

  At eight-twenty, Lockley went to the electronic base line instrumentwhich he was to use this morning. It was a modification of the devicesused to clock artificial satellites in their orbits and measure theirdistance within inches from hundreds of miles away. The purpose was tomake a really accurate map of the park. There were other instrumentsin other line-of-sight positions, very far away. Lockley's schedulecalled for them to measure their distances from each other some timethis morning. Two were carefully placed on bench marks of thecontinental grid. In twenty minutes or so of cooperation, thedistances of six such instruments could be measured with astonishingprecision and tied in to the bench marks already scattered over thecontinent. Presently photographing planes would fly overhead, takingoverlapping pictures from thirty thousand feet. They would show thesurvey points and the measurements between them would be exact, thephotos could be used as stereo-pairs to take off contour lines, and ina few days there would be a map--a veritable cartographer's dream foraccuracy and detail.

  That was the intention. But though Lockley hadn't heard of it yet,something was reported to have landed from space, and a shock like animpact was recorded, and all conditions would shortly be changed. Itwould be noted from the beginning, however, that an impact equal to ahundred-ton explosion was a very small shock for the landing of abolide. It would add to the plausibility of reported deceleration,though, and would arouse acute suspicion. Justly so.

  At 8:20, Lockley called Sattell who was southeast of him. Themeasuring instruments used microwaves and gave readings of distance bycounting cycles and reading phase differences. As a matter ofconvenience the microwaves could be modulated by a microphone, so thesame instrument could be used for communication while measurementswent on. But the microwaves were directed in a very tight beam. Thedevice had to be aimed exactly right and a suitable receptioninstrument had to be at the target if it was to be used at all. Also,there was no signal to call a man to listen. He had to be listeningbeforehand, and with his instrument aimed right, too.

  So Lockley flipped the modulator switch and turned on the instrument.He said patiently, "Calling Sattell. Calling Sattell. Lockley callingSattell."

  He repeated it some dozens of times. He was about to give it up andcall Vale instead when Sattell answered. He'd slept a little laterthan Lockley. It was now close to nine o'clock. But Sattell hadexpected the call. They checked the functioning of their instrumentsagainst each other.

  "Right!" said Lockley at last. "I'll check with Vale and on out of thepark, and then we'll put it all together and wrap it up and take ithome."

  Sattell agreed. Lockley, rather absurdly, felt uncomfortable becausehe was going to have to talk to Vale. He had nothing against the man,but Vale was, in a way, his rival although Jill didn't know of hisfolly and Vale could hardly guess it.

  He signed off to Sattell and swung the base line instrument to make asimilar check with Vale. It was now ten minutes after nine. He alignedthe instrument accurately, flipped the switch, and began to say aspatiently as before, "Calling Vale. Calling Vale. Lockley callingVale. Over."

  He turned the control for reception. Vale's voice came instantly,scratchy and hoarse and frantic.

  "_Lockley! Listen to me! There's no time to tell me anything. I've gotto tell you. Something came down out of the sky here nearly an hourago. It landed in Boulder Lake, and at the last instant there was aterrific explosion and a monstrous wave swept up the shores of thelake. The thing that came down vanished under water. I saw it,Lockley!_"

  Lockley blinked. "Wha-a-at?"

  "_A thing came down out of the sky!_" panted Vale. "_It landed in thelake with a terrific explosion. It went under. Then it came up to thesurface minutes later. It floated. It stuck things up and out ofitself, pipes or wires. Then it moved around the lake and came in tothe shore. A thing like a hatch opened and ... creatures got out ofit. Not men!_"

  Lockley blinked again. "Look here--"

  "_Dammit, listen!_" said Vale shrilly, "_I'm telling you what I'veseen. Things out of the sky. Creatures that aren't men. They landedand set up something on the shore. I don't know what it is. Do youunderstand? The thing is down there in the lake now. Floating. I cansee it!_"

  Lockley swallowed. He couldn't believe this immediately. He knewnothing of radar reports or the seismograph record. He'd seen a barelybalanced rock roll down the mountainside below him, and he'd heard agrowling bass rumble behind the horizon, but things like that didn'tadd up to a conclusion like this! His first conviction was that Valewas out of his head.

  "Listen," said Lockley carefully. "There's a short wave set over atthe construction camp. They use it all the time for orders and reportsand so on. You go there and report officially what you've seen. To thePark Service first, and then try to get a connection through to theArmy."

  Vale's voice came through again, at once raging and despairing, "_Theywon't believe me. They'll think I'm a crackpot. You get the news tosomebody who'll investigate. I see the thing, Lockley. I can see itnow. At this instant. And Jill's over at the construction camp_--"

  Lockley was unreasonably relieved. If Jill was at the camp, at leastshe wasn't alone with a man gone out of his mind. The reaction wasnormal. Lockley had seen nothing out of the ordinary, so Vale's reportseemed insane.

  "_Listen here!_" panted Vale again. "_The thing came down. There was aterrific explosion. It vanished. Nothing happened for a while. Then itcame up and found a place where it could come to shore. Things cameout of it. I can't describe them. They're motes even in my binoculars.But they aren't human! A lot of them came out. They began to landthings. Equipment. They set it up. I don't know what it is. Some ofthem went exploring. I saw a puff of steam where something moved.Lockley?
_"

  "I'm listening," said Lockley. "Go on!"

  "_Report this!_" ordered Vale feverishly. "_Get it to MilitaryInformation in Denver, or somewhere! The party of creatures that wentoff exploring hasn't come back. I'm watching. I'll report whatever Isee. Get this to the government. This is real. I can't believe it, butI see it. Report it, quick!_"

  His voice stopped. Lockley painfully realigned the instrument againfor Sattell, thirty miles to the southeast.

  Sattell surprisingly answered the first call. He said in an astonishedvoice, "_Hello! I just got a call from Survey. It seems that the Armyknew there was a Survey team in here, and they called to say thatradars had spotted something coming down from space, right after eighto'clock. They wanted to know if any of us supposedly sane observersnoticed anything peculiar about that time._"

  Lockley's scalp crawled suddenly. Vale's report had disturbed him, butmore for the man's sanity than anything else. But it could be true!And instantly he remembered that Jill was very near the place wherefrighteningly impossible things were happening.

  "Vale just told me," said Lockley, his voice unsteady, "that he sawsomething come down. His story was so wild I didn't believe it. Butyou pass it on and say that Vale's watching it. He's waiting forinstructions. He'll report everything he sees. I'm thirty miles fromhim, but he can see the thing that came down. Maybe the creatures init can see him. Listen!"

  He repeated just what Vale had told him. Somehow, telling it tosomeone else, it seemed at once even less real but more horrifying asa possible danger to Jill. It didn't strike him forcibly that otherpeople were endangered, too.

  When Sattell signed off to forward the report, Lockley found himselfsweating a little. Something had come down out of space. The factseemed to him dangerous and appalling. His mind revolted at the ideaof non-human creatures who could build ships and travel through space,but radars had reported the arrival of a ship, and there were officialinquiries that nearly matched Vale's account, which was therefore nota mere crackpot claim to have seen the incredible. Something hadhappened and more was likely to, and Jill was in the middle of it.

  He swung the instrument back to Vale's position. His hands shook,though a part of his mind insisted obstinately that alarms werecommonplace these days, and in common sense one had to treat them asfalse cries of "Wolf!" But one knew that some day the wolf mightreally come. Perhaps it had....

  Lockley found it difficult to align the carrier beam to Vale's exactlocation. He assured himself that he was a fool to be afraid; that ifdisaster were to come it would be by the imbecilities of men ratherthan through creatures from beyond the stars. And therefore....

  But there were other men at other places who felt less skepticism. Thereport from Vale went to the Military Information Center and thence tothe Pentagon. Meanwhile the Information Center ordered aphoto-reconnaissance plane to photograph Boulder Lake from aloft. Inthe Pentagon, hastily alerted staff officers began to draft orders tobe issued if the report of two radars and one eye-witness should befurther substantiated. There were such-and-such trucks available here,and such-and-such troops available there. Complicated paper work wasinvolved in the organization of any movement of troops, but especiallyto carry out a plan not at all usual in the United States.

  Everything, though, depended on what the reconnaissance planephotographs might show.

  Lockley did not see the plane nor consciously hear it. There was thefaintest of murmuring noises in the sky. It moved swiftly toward thenorth, tending eastward. The plane that made the noise was invisible.It flew above the cloud cover which still blotted out nearly all theblue overhead. It went on and on and presently died out beyond themountains toward Boulder Lake.

  Lockley tried to get Vale back, to tell him that radars had verifiedhis report and that it would be acted on by the military. But thoughhe called and called, there was no answer.

  An agonizingly long time later the faint and disregarded sound of theplane swept back across the heavens. Lockley still did not notice it.He was too busy with his attempts to reach Vale again, and with grislyimaginings of what might be done by aliens from another world whenthey found the workmen near the lake--and Jill among them. He picturedalien monsters committing atrocities in what they might considerscientific examination of terrestrial fauna. But somehow even that wasless horrible than the images that followed an assumption that theoccupants of the spaceship might be men.

  "Calling Vale ... Vale, come in!" He fiercely repeated the call intothe instrument's microphone. "Lockley calling Vale! Come in, man! Comein!"

  He flipped the switch and listened. And Vale's voice came.

  "_I'm here._" The voice shook. "_I've been trying to find where thatexploring party went._"

  Lockley threw the speech switch and said sharply, "The Army askedSurvey if any of us had seen anything come down from the sky. I gaveSattell your report to be forwarded. It's gone to the Pentagon now.Two radars reported tracking the thing down to a landing near you. Nowlisten! You go to the construction camp. Most likely they'll getorders to clear out, by short wave. But you go there! Make sure Jill'sall right. See her to safety."

  The switch once more. Vale's voice was desperate.

  "_A ... while ago a party of the creatures started away from the lake.An exploring party, I think. Once I saw a puff of steam as if they'dused a weapon. I'm afraid they may find the construction camp, andJill_...."

  Lockley ground his teeth. Vale said unsteadily, "_I ... can't findwhere they went.... A little while ago their ship backed out into thelake and sank. Deliberately! I don't know why. But there's a party ofthose ... creatures out exploring! I don't know what they'll do_...."

  Lockley said savagely, "Get to the camp and look after Jill! Theworkmen may have panicked. The Army'll know by this time what'shappened. They'll send copters to get you out. They'll send help ofsome sort, somehow. But you look after Jill!"

  Vale's voice changed.

  "_Wait. I heard something. Wait!_"

  Silence. Around Lockley there were the usual sounds of the wilderness.Insects made chirping noises. Birds called. There were those smallwhispering and rustling and high-pitched sounds which in the wildconstitute stillness.

  A scraping sound from the speaker. Vale's voice, frantic.

  "_That ... exploring party. It's here! They must have picked up ourbeams. They're looking for me. They've sighted me! They're coming_...."

  There was a crashing sound as if Vale had dropped the communicator.There were pantings, and the sound of blows, and gaspedprofanity--horror-filled profanity--in Vale's voice. Then somethingroared.

  Lockley listened, his hands clenched in fury at his own helplessness.He thought he heard movements. Once he was sure he heard a sound likethe unshod hoof of an animal on bare stone. Then, quite distinctly, heheard squeakings. He knew that someone or something had picked upVale's communicator. More squeakings, somehow querulous. Thensomething pounded the communicator on the ground. There was a crash.Then silence.

  Almost calmly Lockley swung his instrument around and lined it up forSattell's post. He called in a steady voice until Sattell answered. Hereported with meticulous care just what Vale had said, and what he'dheard after Vale stopped speaking--the roaring, the sound of blows andgasps, then the squeakings and the destruction of the instrumentintended for the measurement of base lines for an accurate map of thePark.

  Sattell grew agitated. At Lockley's insistence, he wrote down everyword. Then he said nervously that orders had come from Survey. TheArmy wanted everybody out of the Boulder Lake area. Vale was to havebeen ordered out. The workmen were ordered out. Lockley was to get outof the area as soon as possible.

  When Sattell signed off, Lockley switched off the communicator. He putit where it would be relatively safe from the weather. He abandonedhis camping equipment. A mile downhill and four miles west there was ahighway leading to Boulder Lake. When the Park was opened to thepublic it would be well used, but the last traffic he'd seen was thebig trailer-truck of the Wild Life Control service.
That huge vehiclehad gone up to Boulder Lake the day before.

  He made his way to the highway, following a footpath to the spot wherehe'd left his own car parked. He got into it and started the motor. Hemoved with a certain dogged deliberation. He knew, of course, thatwhat he was going to do was useless. It was hopeless. It was possiblysuicidal. But he went ahead.

  He headed northward, pushing the little car to its top speed. This wasnot following his instructions. He wasn't leaving the Park area. Hewas heading for Boulder Lake. Jill was there and he would feelashamed for all time if he acted like a sensible man and got to safetyas he was ordered.

  Miles along the highway, something occurred to him. The base lineinstrument had to be aimed exactly right for Vale or Sattell to pickup his voice as carried by its beam. Vale's or Sattell's instrumentshad to be aimed as accurately to convey their voices to him. Yet afterthe struggle he'd overheard, and after Vale had been either subdued orkilled, someone or something seemed to have picked up thecommunicator, and Lockley had heard squeakings, and then he had heardthe instrument smashed.

  It was not easy to understand how the beam had been kept perfectlyaligned while it was picked up and squeaked at. Still less was itunderstandable that it remained aimed just right so he could hear whenit was flung down and crushed.

  But somehow this oddity did not change his feelings. Jill could be indanger from creatures Vale said were not human. Lockley didn't whollyaccept that non-human angle, but something was happening there andJill was in the middle of it. So he went to see about it for the sakeof his self-respect. And Jill. It was not reasonable behavior. It wasemotional. He didn't stop to question what was believable and whatwasn't. Lockley didn't even give any attention to the problem of how amicrowave beam could stay pointed exactly right while the instrumentthat sent it was picked up, and squeaked at, and smashed. He gave thatparticular matter no thought at all.

  He jammed down the accelerator of the car and headed for BoulderLake.