Operation Terror

by Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER 6

  It was nine o'clock at night when Lockley killed the porcupine, andten by the time Jill had gone back to sleep huddled between theprojecting roots of a giant tree. Shortly after midnight Lockley hadbeen awakened when a skunk defeated a hungry predator within a hundredyards of their bivouac. But some time in between, there was anotherhappening of much greater importance elsewhere.

  Something came out of Boulder Lake National Park. All humans hadsupposedly fled from it. It was abandoned to the creatures of thething from the sky. But something came out of it.

  Nobody saw the thing, of course. Nobody could approach it, which wasthe point immediately demonstrated. No human being could endure beingwithin seven miles of whatever it was. It was evidently a vehicle ofsome sort, however, because it swung terror beams before it, andterror beams on either side, and when it was clear of the Park itplayed terror beams behind it, too. Men who suffered the lightesttouch of those sweeping beams of terror and anguish moved franticallyto avoid having the experience again. So when something moved out ofthe Park and sent wavering terror beams before it, men moved to oneside or the other and gave it room.

  On a large-scale map in the military area command post, its progresscould be watched as it was reported. The reports described adevelopment of unbearable beam strength which showed up as a bulge inthe cordon's roughly circular line. That bulge, which was the cordonitself moving back, moved outward and became a half-circle some milesacross. It continued to move outward, and on the map it appeared likea pseudopod extruded by an enormous amoeba. It was the area ofeffectiveness of a weapon previously unknown on earth--the area wherehumans could not stay.

  Deliberately, the unseen moving thing severed itself from the similarand larger weapon field which was its birthplace and its home. Itmoved with great deliberation toward the small town of Maplewood,twenty miles from the border of the Park.

  Jeeps and motorcycles scurried ahead of it, just out of reach of itsbeams. They made sure that houses and farms and all inhabited placeswere emptied of people before the moving terror beams could engulfthem. They went into the town of Maplewood itself and frantically madesure that nothing alive remained in it. They went on to clear thecountryside beyond.

  The unseen thing from the Park moved onward. High overhead there was adull muttering like faraway thunder, but it was planes with filledbomb racks circling above the starlit land. There were men in thoseplanes who ached to dive down and destroy this separated fraction ofan invasion. But there were firm orders from the Pentagon. So long asthe invaders killed nobody, they were not to be attacked. There wasreason for the order in the desire of the government to be on friendlyterms with a race which could travel between the stars. But there wasan even more urgent reason. The aliens had not yet begun to murder,but it was suspected that they had a horrifying power to kill. So itwas firmly commanded that no bomb or missile or bullet was to be usedunless the invaders invited hostilities by killing humans. Theircaptives--the crew of a helicopter--might be freed if aliens and menachieved friendship. So for now--no provocation!

  The thing which nobody saw moved comfortably over the ground betweenthe park and Maplewood. In the center of the weapon field there was asomething which generated the terror beam and probably carriedpassengers. Whatever it was, it moved onward and into Maplewood andfor seven miles in every direction troops watched for it to move outagain. Artillerymen had guns ready to fire upon it if they ever gotfiring coordinates and permission to go into action. Planes were readyto drop bombs if they ever got leave to do so. And a few miles awaythere were rockets ready to prove their accuracy and devastatingcapacity if only given a launching command. But nothing happened. Noteven a flare was permitted to be dropped by the planes far up in thesky. A flare might be taken for hostility.

  The thing from the Park stayed in Maplewood for two hours. At the endof that time it moved deliberately back toward the Park. It left thetown untouched save for certain curious burglaries of hardware storesand radio shops and a garage or two. It looked as if intensely curiousnot-human beings had moved from their redoubt--Boulder Lake--to findout what civilization human beings had attained. They could guess atit by the buildings and the homes, but most notably in the technicalshops of the inhabitants.

  It went slowly and deliberately back into the Park. Humans movedcautiously back into the area that had been emptied. Not many, butenough to be sure that the thing had really returned to the place fromwhich it had come. Soldiers were tentatively entering theagain-abandoned town of Maplewood when the unseen thing changed therange of its weapon bearing on that little city. It was thenpresumably not less than seven miles on its way back to Boulder Lake.The military had congratulated themselves on what they'd learned. Thebeam projectors at the lake had a range of much more than seven miles,but this movable, unidentifiable thing carried a lesser armament. Fromit, men and animals seven miles away were safe. This was notable news.

  Then the unseen object did something. The terror beam that flickedback and forth doubled in intensity. The soldiers just reenteringMaplewood smelled foulness and saw bright lights. Bellowings deafenedthem. They fell with every muscle rigid in spasm. Beyond them othermen were paralyzed. For five minutes the invaders' mobile weaponparalyzed all living things for a distance of fifteen miles. Then forthirty seconds it paralyzed living things for a distance of thirtymiles. For a bare instant it convulsed men and animals for a greaterdistance yet. And all these victims of the terror beam knew,thereafter, an invincible horror of the beam.

  The thing from the Park which nobody had seen went back into the Park.And then men were permitted to return to exactly the same placesthey'd been allowed to occupy before the thing began its excursion.

  It seemed that nothing was changed, but everything was changed. Ifthere were mobile carriers of the invasion weapon, then victory couldnot be had by a single atom bomb fired into Boulder Lake. There mightbe a dozen separate mobile terror beam generators scattered throughthe Park. Any atomic attack would need to be multiplied in itsviolence to be certain of results. Instead of one bomb there might bea need for fifty. They would have to destroy the Park utterly, evenits mountains. And the fallout from so many atom bombs simply couldnot be risked. The invaders were effectively invulnerable.

  While this undesirable situation was being demonstrated, Jill sleptheavily between two roots of a very large tree, and Lockley dozedagainst a nearby tree trunk. He believed that he guarded Jill mostvigilantly.

  He awoke at dawn with the din of bird song in his ears. Jill openedher eyes at almost the same instant. She smiled at him and tried toget up. She was stiff and sore from the hardness of the ground onwhich she'd slept. But it was a new day, and there was breakfast. Itwas porcupine cooked the night before.

  "Somehow," said Jill as she nibbled at a bone, "somehow I feel morecheerful than I did."

  "That's a mistake," Lockley told her. "Start out with a fewpremonitions and the day improves as they turn out wrong. But if youstart out hoping, the day ends miserably with most of your hopesdenied."

  "You've got premonitions?" she asked.

  "Definitely," he said.

  It was true. As yet he knew nothing of last night's temporaryoccupation of a human town, but he believed he knew how the terrorbeam worked even if he couldn't figure out a way to generate it. Hecould imagine no defense against it. But if Jill had awakened feelingcheerful, there was no reason to depress her. She'd have reason enoughto be dejected later, beginning with proof of Vale's death and goingon from there.

  "We might listen to the news," she suggested. "A premonition or twomight be ruled out right away!"

  Silently, he turned on the little radio. Automatically, he set it forthe lowest volume they could hear distinctly.

  The main item in the news was a baldly factual but toned-down reportof the thing from the lake which had left the park and examined asmall human town in detail and then had returned to the Park. Therewere reports of peculiar hoofprints found where the invaders had been.They were not the hoof
prints of any earthly animal. There was anoptimistic report from the scientists at work on the problem of thebeam. Someone had come up with an idea and some calculations whichseemed to promise that the beam would presently be duplicated. Once itwas duplicated, of course a way to neutralize it could be found.

  Lockley grunted. The broadcast was enthusiastic in its comments on thescientists. It talked gobbledegook which sounded as if it meantsomething but was actually nonsense. It barely touched on the factthat human beings were now ordered out of a much larger space than hadbeen evacuated before. There was a statement from an importantofficial that panic buying of food was both unnecessary and unwise.Lockley grunted again when the newscast ended.

  "The idea that anything that can be duplicated can be canceled," heannounced gloomily, "is unfortunately rot. We can duplicate sounds,but there's no way to make them cancel out! Not accurately!"

  Jill had eaten a substantial part of the porcupine while the newscastwas on. It was not a satisfying breakfast, but it cheered herimmensely after two days of near-starvation.

  "But," she observed, "maybe that won't apply to this business when youreport what you know. It's not likely that anybody else has stood justoutside a beam and made tests of what it's like and how it's aimed andso on."

  They started off. For journeying in the Park, Lockley had theadvantage that as part of the preparation for making a new map, he'dfamiliarized himself with all mapping done to date. He knew verynearly where he was. He knew within a close margin just where theterror beam stretched. He'd smashed his watch, which during sunshinesubstituted admirably for a compass, but he could maintain areasonably straight line toward that part of the Park's border theterror beam would cross.

  They moved doggedly over mountain-flanks and up valleys, and once theyfollowed a winding hollow for a long way because it led toward theirdestination without demanding that they climb. It was in this areathat, pushing through brushwood beside a running stream, they cameabruptly upon a big brown bear. He was no more than a hundred feetaway. He stared at them inquisitively, raising his nose to sniff fortheir scent.

  Lockley bent and picked up a stone. He threw it. It clattered onrocks on the ground. The bear made a whuffing sound and movedaggrievedly away.

  "I'd have been afraid to do that," said Jill.

  "It was a he-bear," said Lockley. "I wouldn't have tried it on ashe-bear with cubs."

  They went on and on. At mid-morning Lockley found some mushrooms. Theywere insipid and only acute hunger would make them edible raw, but hefilled his pockets. A little later there were berries, and as theygathered and ate them he lectured learnedly on edible wild plants tobe found in the wilderness. Jill listened with apparent interest. Whenthey left the berry patch they swung to the left to avoid a steepclimb directly in their way. And suddenly Lockley stopped short. Atthe same instant Jill caught at his arm. She'd turned white.

  They turned and ran.

  A hundred yards back, Lockley slackened his speed. They stopped. Aftera moment he managed to grin mirthlessly.

  "A conditioned reflex," he said wryly. "We smell something and we run.But I think it's the old familiar terror beam that crosses highways tostop men from using them. If it were a portable beam projector withsomebody aiming it, we wouldn't be talking about it."

  Jill panted, partly with relief.

  "I've thought of something I want to try," said Lockley. "I shouldhave tried it yesterday when I first smashed my watch."

  He retraced his steps to the spot where they'd caught the first whiffof that disgusting reptilian-jungle-decay odor which had bombardedtheir nostrils. Jill called anxiously, "Be careful!"

  He nodded. He got the coiled bronze watchspring out of his pocket. Hewent very cautiously to the spot where the smell became noticeable.Standing well back from it, he tossed one end of the spring into it.He drew it back. He repeated the operation. He moved to one side.Again he swung the gold-colored ribbon. He dangled it back and forth.Then he drew back yet again and wrapped his left hand and wrists withmany turns of the thin bronze spring, carefully spacing the turns. Hemoved forward once more.

  He came back, his expression showing no elation at all.

  "No good," he said unhappily. "In a way, it works. The spring acts asan aerial and picks up more of the beam than my hand. But I tried tomake a Faraday cage. That will stop most electromagnetic radiation,but not this stuff! It goes right through, like electrons through aradio tube grid."

  He put the spring back in his pocket.

  "Well," he grimaced. "Let's go on again. I had a little bit of hope,but some smarter men than I am haven't got the right gimmick yet."

  They started off once more. And this time they did not choose a pathfor easier travel, but went up a steep slope that rose for hundreds offeet to arrive at a crest with another steep slope going downhill. Atthe top Lockley said sourly, "I did discover one thing, if it meansanything. The beam leaks at its edges, but it's only leakage. Itdoesn't diffuse. It's tight. It's more like a searchlight beam thananything else in that way. You can see a light beam at night becausedust motes scatter some part of it. But most of the light goesstraight on. This stuff does the same. It's hard to imagine a limit toits range."

  He trudged on downhill. Jill followed him. Presently, when they'dcovered two miles or more with no lightening of his expression, shesaid, "You said you understand how it works. Radio and radar beamsdon't have effects like this. How does this have them?"

  "It makes high frequency currents on the surface of anything it hits.High frequency doesn't go into flesh or metal. It travels on thesurface only. So when this beam hits a man it generates high frequencyon his skin. That induces counter currents underneath, and theystimulate all the sensory nerves we've got--of our eyes and ears andnoses as well as our skin. Every nerve reports its own kind ofsensation. Run current over your tongue, and you taste. Induce acurrent in your eyes, and you see flashes of light. So the beam makesall our senses report everything they're capable of reporting, true ornot, and we're blinded and deafened. Then the nerves to our musclesreport to them that they're to contract, and they do. So we'reparalyzed."

  "And," said Jill, "if there's a way to generate high frequency on aman's skin there's nothing that can be done?"

  "Nothing," said Lockley dourly.

  "Maybe," said Jill, "you can figure out a way to prevent that highfrequency generation."

  He shrugged. Jill frowned as she followed him. She hadn't forgottenVale, but she owed some gratitude to Lockley. Womanlike, she tried topay part of it by urging him to do something he considered impossible.

  "At least," she suggested, "it can't be a death ray!"

  Lockley looked at her.

  "You're wrong there," he said coldly. "It can."

  Jill frowned again. Not because of his statement, but because shehadn't succeeded in diverting his mind from gloomy things. She hadreason enough for sadness, herself. If she spoke of it, Lockley wouldtry to encourage her. But he was concerned with more than his ownemotions. Without really knowing it, Jill had come to feel a greatconfidence in Lockley. It had been reassuring that he could find food,and perhaps more reassuring that he could chase away a bear. Suchtalents were not logical reasons for being confident that he couldsolve the alien's seemingly invincible weapon, but she was inclined tofeel so. And if she could encourage him to cope with themonsters--why--it would be even a form of loyalty to Vale. So shebelieved.

  In the late afternoon Lockley said, "Another four or five miles and weought to be out of the Park and on another highway we'll hope won't beblocked by a terror beam. Anyhow there should be an occasionalfarmhouse where we can find some sort of civilized food."

  Jill said hungrily, "Scrambled eggs!"

  "Probably," he agreed.

  They went on and on. Three miles. Four. Five. Five and a half. Theydescended a minor slope and came to a hard-surfaced road with tiremarks on it and a sign sternly urging care in driving. There wereploughed fields in which crops were growing. There was a row of stubbytelephone poles
with a sagging wire between them.

  "We'll head west," said Lockley. "There ought to be a farmhousesomewhere near."

  "And people," said Jill. "I look terrible!"

  He regarded her with approval.

  "No. You look all right. You look fine!"

  It was pleasing that he seemed to mean it. But immediately she said,"Maybe we'll be able to find out about ... about...."

  "Vale," agreed Lockley. "But don't be disappointed if we don't. Hecould have escaped or been freed without everybody knowing it."

  She said in surprise, "Been freed! That's something I didn't thinkof. He'd set to work to make them understand that we humans areintelligent and they ought to make friends with us. That would be thefirst thing he'd think of. And they might set him free to arrange it."

  Lockley said, "Yes," in a carefully noncommittal tone.

  Another mile, this time on the hard road. It seemed strange to walk onso unyielding a surface after so many miles on quite different kindsof footing. It was almost sunset now. There was a farmhouse set wellback from the road and barely discernable beyond nearby growing corn.The house seemed dead. It was neat enough and in good repair. Therewere clackings of chickens from somewhere behind it. But it had thefeel of emptiness.

  Lockley called. He called again. He went to the door and would havecalled once more, but the door opened at a touch.

  "Evacuated," he said. "Did you notice that there was a telephone lineleading here from the road?"

  He hunted in the now shadowy rooms. He found the telephone. He liftedthe receiver and heard the humming of the line. He tried to call anoperator. He heard the muted buzz that said the call was sounding. Butthere was no answer. He found a telephone book and dialed one numberafter another. Sheriff. Preacher. Doctor. Garage. Operator again.General store.... He could tell that telephones rang dutifully inremote abandoned places. But there was no answer at all.

  "I'll look in the chicken coops," said Jill practically.

  She came back with eggs. She said briefly, "The chickens were hungry.I fed them and left the chicken yard gate open. I wonder if the beamhurts them too?"

  "It does," said Lockley.

  He made a light and then a fire and she cooked eggs which belonged tothe unknown people who owned this house and who had walked out of itwhen instructions for immediate evacuation came. They felt queer,making free with this house of a stranger. They felt that he mightcome in and be indignant with them.

  "I ought to wash the dishes," said Jill when they were finished.

  "No," said Lockley. "We go on. We need to find some soldiers, or atelephone that works...."

  "I'm not a good dishwasher anyhow," said Jill guiltily.

  Lockley put a banknote on the kitchen table, with a weight on it tokeep it from blowing away. They closed the house door. They'd eatenfully and luxuriously of eggs and partly stale bread and the sensationwas admirable. They went out to the highway again.

  "West is still our best bet," said Lockley. "They've blocked thehighway to eastward with that terror beam."

  The sun had set now, but a fading glory remained in the sky. They sawthe slenderest, barest crescent of a new moon practically hidden inthe sunset glow. They walked upon a civilized road, with a fence onone side of it and above it a single sagging telephone wire that couldbe made out against the stars.

  "I feel," said Jill, "as if we were almost safe, now. All this looksso ordinary and reassuring."

  "But we'd better keep our noses alert," Lockley told her. "We knowthat one beam comes nearly this far and probably--no, certainlycrosses this road. There may be more."

  "Oh, yes," agreed Jill. Then she said irrelevantly, "I'll bet they domake him a sort of--ambassador to our government to arrange formaking friends. He'll be able to convince them!"

  Again she referred to Vale. Lockley said nothing.

  Night was now fully fallen. There were myriad stars overhead. They sawthe telephone wire dipping between poles against the sky's brightness.They passed an open gate where another telephone wire led away,doubtless to another farmhouse. But if there was no one at the otherend of a telephone line, there was no point in using a phone.

  There came a rumbling noise behind them. They stared at one another inthe starlight. The rumbling approached.

  "It--can't be!" said Jill, marvelling.

  "It's a motor," said Lockley. He could not feel complete relief."Sounds like a truck. I wonder--"

  He felt uneasiness. But it was absurd. Only human beings would usemotor trucks.

  There was a glow in the distance behind them. It came nearer as thesound of the motor approached. The motor's mutter became a grumble. Itwas definitely a truck. They could hear those other sounds that trucksalways make in addition to their motor noises.

  It came up to the curve they'd rounded last. Its headlight beamsglared on the cornstalks growing next to the highway. One headlightappeared around the turn. Then the other. An enormous trailer-truckcombination came bumbling toward them. Jill held up her hand for it tostop. Its headlights shone brightly upon her.

  Airbrakes came on. The giant combination--cab in front, gigantic boxbody behind--came to a halt. A man leaned out. He said amazedly, "Hey,what are you folks doin' here? Everybody's supposed to be long gone!Ain't you heard about all civilians clearing out from twenty milesoutside the Park? There's boogers in there! Characters from Mars orsomewhere. They eat people!"

  Even in the starlight Lockley saw the familiar Wild Life Controlmarkings on the trailer. He heard Jill, her voice shaking with relief,explaining that she'd been at the construction camp and had been leftbehind, and that she and Lockley had made their way out.

  "We want to get to a telephone," she added. "He has some informationhe wants to give to the Army. It's very important." Then sheswallowed. "And I'd like to ask if you've heard anything about a Mr.Vale. He was taken prisoner by the creatures up there. Have you heardof his being released?"

  The driver hesitated. Then he said, "No, ma'm. Not a word about him.But we'll take care of you two! You musta been through plenty! Jud,you go get in the trailer, back yonder. Make room for these two folksup on the front seat." He added explanatorily, "There's cases andstuff in the back, ma'm. You two folks climb right up here alongsideof me. You sure musta had a time!"

  The door on the near side of the truck cab opened. A small man gotout. Silently, he went to the rear of the trailer and swung up out ofsight. Jill climbed into the opened door. Lockley followed her. Hestill felt an irrational uneasiness, but he put it down to habit. Thepast few days had formed it.

  "We've been cartin' stuff for the soldiers," explained the driver asLockley closed the door behind him. "They keep track of where thatterror beam is workin', and they tell us by truck radio, and we dodgeit. Ain't had a bit of trouble. Never thought I'd play games withMartians! Did you see any of 'em? What sort of critters are they?"

  He slipped the truck into gear and gunned the motor. Truck andtrailer, together, began to roll down the highway. Lockley wasirritated with himself because he couldn't relax and feel safe, asthis development seemed to warrant.

  Later, he would wonder why he hadn't used his head in this as in othermatters during the few days just past.

  He plainly hadn't.