Operation Terror

by Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER 4

  "The evidence," said Lockley as Jill looked at him ashen-faced, "theevidence is all for monsters. But there was something in thatbroadcast that calls for courage, and I want to summon it. We're goingto need it."

  "If they aren't monsters," said Jill in a stricken voice, "Then--thenthey're men. And we have a cold war with only one country, and they'rethe only ones who'd play a deadly trick like this. So if they aren'tmonsters, in the ship, they must be men, and they'd kill anybody whofound it out."

  "But again," insisted Lockley, "the evidence is still all formonsters. You've been very loyal and very confident about Vale. Butwe're in a fix. Vale would want you in a safe place, and there'ssomething in that broadcast that doesn't look good."

  "What was in the broadcast?"

  Lockley said wryly, "Two things. One was there and one wasn't. Therewasn't anything about soldiers marching up to Boulder Lake to welcomevisitors from wherever they come from, and to say politely to themthat as visitors they are our guests and we'd rather they didn't shootterror beams or paralysis beams about the landscape. We were more orless counting on that, you and I. We were expecting soldiers to comeup the highway headed for the lake. But they aren't coming."

  Jill, still pale, wrinkled her forehead in thought.

  "That's what wasn't in the broadcast," Lockley told her. "This is whatwas. The troops have formed a cordon about the Park. They've run intothe terror beam. The broadcast said it was weakened by distance andonly made the soldiers uncomfortable. But they've moved back. You seethe point? They've moved back!"

  Jill stared, suddenly understanding.

  "But that means--"

  "It means," said Lockley, "that the terror beam is pretty much of aweapon. It has a range up in the miles or tens of miles. We don't knowhow to handle it yet. Whoever or whatever arrived in the thing Valesaw, it or they has or have a weapon our Army can't buck, yet. Thepoint is that we can't wait to be rescued. We've got to get out ofhere on our own feet. Literally. So we forget about highways. Fromhere on we sneak to safety as best we can. And we've got to put ourwhole minds on it."

  Jill shook her head as if to drive certain thoughts out of it. Thenshe said, "I guess you're right. He would want me to be safe. And if Ican't do anything to help him, at least I can not make him worry. Allright! What does sneaking to safety mean?"

  Lockley led her down the highway running from Boulder Lake to theoutside world. They came to a blasted-out cut for the highway to runthrough. The road's concrete surface extended to the solid rock oneither side. There was no bare earth to take or hold footprints, andthere was a climbable slope.

  "We go up here and take to the woods," said Lockley, "because we'renot as easy to spot in woodland as we'd be on a road. The charactersat the lake will know what roads are. If we figure out how to handletheir terror beam, they'll expect the attack to come by road. Sothey'll set up a system to watch the roads. They ought to do it assoon as possible. So we'll avoid notice by not using the roads. It'slucky you've got good walking shoes on. That could be the decidingfactor in our staying alive."

  He led the way, helping her climb. There would be no sign that they'dabandoned the highway. In fact, there'd be no sign of their existenceexcept the small smashed car. Lockley's existence was known, but nothis and Jill's together.

  Lockley did not feel comfortable about having deliberately shockedJill into paying some attention to her own situation instead ofstaying absorbed in the possible or probable fate of Vale. But forthem to get clear was going to call for more than sentimentality onJill's part. Lockley couldn't carry the load alone.

  There was an invasion in process. It could be, apparently, an invasionfrom space, in which case the terror produced would be terror of theunknown. But Lockley had conceived of the possibility that it might bean invasion only from the other side of the world. Such an invasionwas thought of by every American at least once every twenty-fourhours. The fears it would arouse would be fears of the all toothoroughly known.

  The whole earth had the jitters because of the apparently inevitabletrial of strength between its two most gigantic powers. Their rivalryseemed irreconcilable. Most of humanity dreaded their conflict withappalled resignation because there seemed no way to avoid it. Yet itwas admittedly possible that an all-out war between them might endwith all the world dead, even plants and microbes in the deepest seas.It was ironic that the most reasonable hope that anybody could havewas that one or the other nation would come upon some weapon so newand irresistible that it could demand and receive the surrender of theother without atomic war.

  Atom bombs could have done the trick, had only one nation owned them.But both were now armed so that by treacherous attack either couldalmost wipe out the other. There was no way to guard against desperateand terrible retaliation by survivors of the first attacked country.It was the certainty of retaliation which kept the actual war a coldone--a war of provocation and trickery and counter-espionage, but notof mutual extermination.

  But Lockley had suggested--because it was the worst ofpossibilities--that America's rival had developed a new weapon whichcould win so long as it was not attributed to its user. If the UnitedStates believed itself attacked from space, it would not launchmissiles against men. It would ask help, and help would be given evenby its rival if the invasion were from another planet. Men wouldalways combine against not-men. But if this were a ship from nofarther than the other side of the earth, and only pretended to befrom an alien world ... America could be conquered because it believedit was fighting monsters instead of other men.

  This was not likely, but it was believable. There was no proof, but inthe nature of things proof would be avoided. And if his idea shouldhappen to be true, the disaster could be enormously worse than aninvasion from another star. This first landing could be only a test tomake sure that the new weapon was unknown to America and could not becountered by Americans. The crew of this ship would expect to besuccessful or be killed. In a way, if an atom bomb had to be used todestroy them, they would have succeeded. Because other ships couldland in American cities where they could not be bombed without killingmillions; where they could demand surrender under pain of death. Andget it.

  Lockley looked at the sun. He glanced at his watch.

  "That would be south," he indicated. "It's the shortest way for us toget to where you'll be reasonably safe and I can tell what I know tosomeone who may use it."

  Jill followed obediently. They disappeared into the woods. They couldnot be seen from the highway. They could not even be detected fromaloft. When they had gone a mile, Jill made her one and final protest.

  "But it can't be that they aren't monsters! They must be!"

  "Whatever they are," said Lockley, "I don't want them to lay hands onyou."

  They went on. Once, from the edge of a thicket of trees, they saw thehighway below them and to their left. It was empty. It curved out ofsight, swinging to the left again. They moved uphill and down. Now thegoing was easy, through woods with very little underbrush and a carpetof fallen leaves. Again it was a sunlit slope with prickly bushes tobe avoided. And yet again it was boulder-strewn terrain that might benearly level but much more often was a hillside.

  Lockley suddenly stopped short. He felt himself go white. He graspedJill's hand and whirled. He practically dragged her back to the patchof woods they'd just left.

  "What's the matter?" The sight of his face made her whisper.

  He motioned to her for silence. He'd smelled something. It was faintbut utterly revolting. It was the smell of jungle and of foulness.There was the musky reek of reptiles in it. It was a collection of allthe smells that could be imagined. It was horrible. It was infinitelyworse than the smell of skunk.

  Silence. Stillness. Birds sang in the distance. But nothing happened.Absolutely nothing. After a long time Lockley said suddenly, "I've gotan idea. It fits into that broadcast. I have to take a chance to findout. If anything happens to me, don't try to help me!"

  He'd smelled the foul odo
r at least fifteen minutes before, and haddragged Jill back, and there had been no other sign of monsters ornot-monsters upon the earth. Now he crouched down and crawled amongthe bushes. He came to the place where he'd smelled the ghastly smellbefore. He smelled it again. He drew back. It became fainter, thoughit remained disgusting. He moved forward, stopped, moved back. He wentsideways, very, very carefully, extending his hand before him.

  He stopped abruptly. He came back, his face angry.

  "We were lucky we couldn't use the car," he said when he was near Jillagain. "We'd have been killed or worse."

  She waited, her eyes frightened.

  "The thing that paralyzes men and animals," he told her, "is aprojected beam of some sort. We almost ran into it. It's probably akinto radar. I thought they'd put watchers on the highways. They didbetter. They project this beam. When it blocks a highway, anybody whocomes along that highway runs into it. His eyes become blinded byfantastic colored lights, and he hears unbearable noises and feelsanguish and they smell what we smelled just now. And he's paralyzed.Such a beam was turned on me yesterday and I was captured. A beam likethat on the highway at the lake paralyzed three men who were carriedaway, and later two others whose car ditched and who stayed paralyzeduntil the beam was turned off."

  "But we only smelled something horrible!" protested Jill.

  "You did. I rushed you away. I'd smelled it before. But I went back.And I smelled it, and I crawled forward a little way and I began tosee flashes of light and to hear noises and my skin tingled. I pushedmy hand ahead of me--and it became paralyzed. Until I pulled it back."Then he said, "Come on."

  "What will we do?"

  "We change our line of march. If we drove into it or walked into itwe'd be paralyzed. It's a tight beam, but there's just a littlescatter. Just a little. You might say it leaks at its edges. We'll tryto follow alongside until it thins out to nothing or we get where wewant to go. Unless," he added, "they've got another beam that crossesit. Then we'll be trapped."

  He led the way onward.

  They covered four miles of very bad going before Jill showed signs ofdistress and Lockley halted beside a small, rushing stream. He sawfish in the clear water and tried to improvise a way to catch them. Hefailed. He said gloomily, "It wouldn't do to catch fish here anyhow. Afire to cook them would show smoke by day and might be seen at night.And whatever's at the Lake might send a terror beam. We'll leave herewhen you're rested."

  He examined the stream. He went up and down its bank. He disappearedaround a curve of the stream. Jill waited, at first uneasily, thenanxiously.

  He came back with his hands full of bracken shoots, their ends tightlycurled and their root ends fading almost to white.

  "I'm afraid," he observed, "that this is our supper. It'll taste a lotlike raw asparagus, which tastes a lot like raw peanuts, and aone-dish meal of it won't stick to your ribs. That's the trouble witheating wild stuff. It's mostly on the order of spinach."

  "I'll carry them," said Jill.

  She actually looked at him for the first time. Until she found herselfanxious because he was out of sight for a long time, she hadn't reallyregarded him as an individual. He'd been only a person who was helpingher because Vale wasn't available. Now she assured herself that Valewould be very grateful to him for aiding her. "I'm rested now," sheadded.

  He nodded and led the way once more. He watched the sun for direction.Two or three miles from their first halt he said abruptly, "I thinkthe terror beam should be over yonder." He waved an arm. "I've got anidea about it. I'll see."

  "Be careful!" said Jill uneasily.

  He nodded and swung away, moving with a peculiar tentativeness. Sheknew that he was testing for the smell which was the first symptom ofapproach to the alien weapon.

  He halted half a mile from where Jill watched, resting again while shegazed after him. He moved backward and forward. He marked a place witha stone. He came well back from it and seemed to remove his wristwatch. He laid it on a boulder and stamped on it. He stamped again andagain, shifting it between stampings. Then he pounded it with a smallrock. He stood up and came back, trailing something which glitteredgolden for an instant.

  He halted before he reached the rock he'd placed as a marker. He didcryptic things, facing away from Jill. From time to time there was agolden glitter in the air near him.

  He came back. As he came, he wound something into a little coil. Itwas the silicon bronze mainspring of his non-magnetic watch. He heldit for her to see and put it in his pocket.

  "I know what the terror beam is--for what good it'll do!" he saidbitterly. "It's a beam of radiation on the order of radar, and forthat matter X-rays and everything else. Only an aerial does pick it upand this watchspring makes a good one. I could barely detect the smellat a certain place, but when I touched the laid out spring, it pickedup more than my body did and it became horrible! Then I moved in towhere my skin began to tingle and I saw lights and heard noises. Thespring made all the difference in the world. I even found thedirection of the beam."

  Jill looked frightened.

  "It comes from Boulder Lake," he told her. "It's the terror beam, allright! You can walk into it without knowing it. And I suspect that ifit were strong enough it would be a death ray, too!"

  Jill seemed to flinch a little.

  "They're not using it at killing strength," said Lockley coldly."They're softening us up. Letting us find out we're frustrated andhelpless, and then letting us think it over. I'll bet they intendedthe four of us to escape from that compost pit thing so we could tellabout it! But we'll know, now, if we find dead men in rows in awiped-out town, we'll know what killed them, and when they ask uspolitely to become their slaves, we'll know we'll have to do it ordie!"

  Jill waited. When he seemed to have finished, she said, "If they'remonsters, do you think they want to enslave us?"

  He hesitated, and then said with a grimace, "I've a habit, Jill, oflooking forward to the future and expecting unpleasant things tohappen. Maybe it's so I'll be pleasantly surprised when they don't."

  "Suppose," said Jill, "that they aren't monsters. What then?"

  "Then," said Lockley, "it's a cold war device, to find out if theother side in the cold war can take us over without our suspectingthey're the ones doing it. Naturally those in this ship will blowthemselves up rather than be found out."

  "Which," said Jill steadily, "doesn't offer much hope for...."

  She didn't say Vale's name. She couldn't. Lockley grimaced again.

  "It's not certain, Jill. The evidence is on the side of the monsters.But in either case the thing for us to do is get to the Army with whatI've found out. I've had a stationary beam to test, however crudely.The cordon must have been pushed back by a moving or an intermittentbeam. It wouldn't be easy to experiment with one of those. Come on."

  She stood up. She followed when he went on. They climbed steephillsides and went down into winding valleys. The sun began to sink inthe west. The going was rough. For Lockley, accustomed to wildernesstravel, it was fatiguing. For Jill it was much worse.

  They came to a sere, bare hillside on which neither trees norbrushwood grew. It amounted to a natural clearing, acres in extent.Lockley swept his eyes around. There were many thick-foliaged smalltrees attempting to advance into the clear space. He grunted insatisfaction.

  "Sit down and rest," he commanded. "I'll send a message."

  He broke off branches from dark green conifers. He went out into theclearing and began to lay them out in a pattern. He came back andbroke off more, and still more. Very slowly, because the lines had tobe large and thick, the letters S.O.S. appeared in dark green on theclayey open space. The letters were thirty feet high, and the lineswere five feet wide. They should show distinctly from the air.

  "I think," said Lockley with satisfaction, "that we might getsomething out of this! If it's sighted, a 'copter might risk coming inafter us." He looked at her appraisingly. "I think you'd enjoy a goodmeal."

  "I want to say something," said Jill caref
ully. "I think you've beentrying to cheer me up, after saying something to arouse me--which Ineeded. If the creatures aren't monsters, they'll never actually letanybody loose who's seen that they aren't. Isn't that true? And if itis--"

  "We know of six men who were captured," insisted Lockley, "and I wasone of them. All six escaped. Vale may have escaped. They're not goodat keeping prisoners. We don't know and can't know unless it'smentioned on a news broadcast that he's out and away. So there'sabsolutely no reason to assume that Vale is dead."

  "But if he saw them, when he was fighting them--"

  "The evidence," insisted Lockley again, "is that he saw monsters. Theonly reason to doubt it is that they blindfolded four of us."

  Jill seemed to think very hard. Presently she said resolutely, "I'mgoing to keep on hoping anyhow!"

  "Good girl!" said Lockley.

  They waited. He was impatient, both with fate and with himself. Hefelt that he'd made Jill face reality when--if this S.O.S. signalbrought help--it wasn't necessary. And there was enough of grimness inthe present situation to make it cruelty.

  After a very long time they heard a faint droning in the air. Theremight have been others when they were trudging over bad terrain, andthey might not have noticed because they were not listening for suchsounds. There were planes aloft all around the lake area. They'd beensent up originally in response to a radar warning of something comingin from space. Now they flew in vast circles around the landing placeof that reported object. They flew high, so high that only contrailswould have pointed them out. But atmospheric conditions today weresuch that contrails did not form. The planes were invisible from theground.

  But the pilots could see. When one patrol group was relieved byanother, it carried high-magnification photographs of all the park, tobe developed and examined with magnifying glasses for any signs ofactivity by the crew of the object from space.

  A second lieutenant spotted the S.O.S. within half an hour of thefilms' return. There was an immediate and intense conference. Thelengths of shadows were measured. The size and slope and probablecondition of the clearing's surface were estimated.

  A very light plane, intended for artillery-spotting, took off from thenearest airfield to Boulder Lake.

  And Lockley and Jill heard it long before it came in sight. It flewlow, threading its way among valleys and past mountain-flanks to avoidbeing spotted against the sky. The two beside the clearing heard itfirst as a faint mutter. The sound increased, diminished, thenincreased again.

  It shot over a minor mountain-flank and surveyed the bare space withthe huge letters on it. Lockley and Jill raced out into view, wavingfrantically. The plane circled and circled, estimating the landingconditions. It swung away to arrive at a satisfactory approach path.

  It wavered. It made a half-wingover, and it side-slipped crazily, andcame up and stalled and flipped on its back and dived....

  And it came out of its insane antics barely twenty feet above theground. It raced away as close as possible to touching its wheels toearth. It went away behind the mountains. The sound of its goingdwindled and dwindled and was gone. It appeared to have escaped from adeliberately set trap.

  Lockley stared after it. Then he went white.

  "Idiot!" he cried fiercely. "Come on! Run!"

  He seized Jill's hand. They fled together. Evidently, something hadplayed upon the pilot of the light plane. He'd been deafened andblinded and all his senses were a shrieking tumult while his musclesknotted and his hands froze on the controls of his ship. He hadn'tflown out of the beam that made him helpless. He'd fallen out of it.And then he raced for the horizon. He got away. And it would appear tothose to whom he reported that he'd arrived too late at thedistress-signal. If fugitives had made it, they'd been overtaken andcaptured by the creatures of Boulder Lake, and there'd been an ambushset up for the plane. It was a reasonable decision.

  But it puzzled the pilot's superior officers that he hadn't beenallowed to land the plane before the beam was turned on him. He couldhave been paralyzed while on the ground, and he and his plane couldhave yielded considerable information to creatures from another world.It was puzzling.

  Lockley and Jill raced for the woodland at the clearing's edge.Lockley clamped his lips tight shut to waste no breath in speech. Thearrival and the circling of the plane had been a public notice thatthere were fugitives here. If the beam could paralyze a pilot inmid-air, it could be aimed at fugitives on the ground.... There couldbe no faintest hope....

  Wholly desperate, Lockley helped Jill down a hillside and into avalley leading still farther down.

  He smelled jungle, and muskiness, and decay, and flowers, and everyconceivable discordant odor. Flashes of insane colorings formedthemselves in his eyes. He heard the chaotic uproar which meant thathis auditory nerves, like the nerves in his eyes and nostrils andskin, were stimulated to violent activity, reporting every kind ofmessage they could possibly report all at once.

  He groaned. He tried to find a hiding-place for Jill so that if orwhen the invaders searched for her, they would not find her. But heexpected his muscles to knot in spasm and cramp before he couldaccomplish anything.

  They didn't. The smell lessened gradually. The meaningless flashingsof preposterous color grew faint. The horrible uproar his auditorynerves reported, ceased. He and Jill had been at the mercy of theunseen operator of the terror beam. Perhaps the beam had grazed them,by accident. Or it could have been weakened....

  It was very puzzling.