Operation Terror

by Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER 7

  The driver was avidly curious about the area where supposedly no humanbeing could survive. He asked absorbed questions, especially andinsistently about the aliens. Jill said that she'd seen a few of them,but only at a distance. They'd been investigating the evacuatedconstruction camp. They were about the size of men. She couldn'tdescribe them, but they weren't human beings. He seemed to find itunthinkable that she hadn't examined them in detail.

  Lockley came to her rescue. He observed that he'd been a prisoner ofthe invaders, and had escaped. Then the driver's curiosity becameinsatiable. He wanted to know every imaginable detail of thatexperience. He expressed almost incredulous disappointment thatLockley couldn't give even a partial description of the creatures.When convinced, he launched a detailed recital of the descriptionsoffered by the workmen from the camp. He pictured the aliens as hoofedlike horses, equipped with horns like antelopes, fitted with multiplearms like octopi and huge multi-faceted eyes like insects.

  He seemed to contemplate this picture with vast satisfaction as thetruck growled and rumbled through the night.

  The headlights glared on ahead of the truck. There were dark fieldsand darker mountains beyond them. From time to time little side roadsbranched off. They undoubtedly led to houses, but no speck of lamplight appeared anywhere. This part of the world was empty, with theloneliness of a landscape from which every hint of human activity hadbeen removed.

  Jill asked a question. The driver grew garrulous. He gave a dramaticpicture of terror throughout the world, the suspension of all ordinaryantagonisms in the face of this menace to every man and nation on theearth. There was peace even in the world's trouble spots as appalledagitators saw how much worse things could be if the monsters took overthe world to rule. But the driver insisted that the United States wascalm. Us Americans, he assured Lockley, weren't scared. We wereeducated and we knew that them scientists would crack this nutsomehow. Like only yesterday a broadcast said this Belgian guy hadcome up with calculations that said this poison beam had to besomething like a radar beam or a laser beam or something like that.And the American scientists were right out there in front, along withguys from England and France and Italy and Germany and even Russia.All the big brains of the world were workin' on it! Those Martianswere gonna wish they'd come visitin' polite instead of barging in likethey owned the world! They'd be lucky if they wound up ownin' Mars!

  Lockley pressed for details about the scientists' results. He didn'texpect to get them, but the driver cheerfully obliged.

  Radio, said the driver largely, worked by making waves like those ona pond. They spread out and reached places where there wereinstruments to detect them, and that was that. Radar made the samekind of waves, only smaller, which bounced back to where there was aninstrument to detect them. These were ripple waves.

  Lockley interpreted the term to mean sine waves, rounded at top andtrough. It was a perfectly good word to express the meaning intended.

  These were natural kindsa waves, pursued the driver. Lightning madethem. Static was them, and sparks from running motors and blown fuses.Waves like that were generated whenever an electric circuit was madeor broken besides their occurrence from purely natural causes.

  "We can't feel 'em," said the driver expansively. "We're used to waveslike that. Animals couldn't do anything about 'em and didn't need tobefore there was men. So when we come along, we couldn't notice 'emany more than we notice air pressure on our skin. We're used to it!But these scientists say there's waves that ain't natural. They ain'tlike ripples. They're like storm waves with foam on 'em. And that'sthe kind of waves we can notice. Like storm waves with sharp edges. Wecan notice them because they do things to us! These Martians make 'emdo things. But now we know what kinda waves they are, we're gonna messthem up! And I'm savin' up a special kick for one o' those Martianswhen they're licked just as soon as I can find out which end of him iswhich an' suited to that kinda attention!"

  Lockley found himself suspicious and was annoyed. Jill was safe now.This driver was well-informed, but probably everybody waswell-informed now. They had reason to become so!

  The truck trundled through the night. High overhead, a squadron ofplanes arrived to take its place in the ever-moving patrol around thePark. Another squadron, relieved, went away to the southwest. Therewas a deep-toned, faraway roaring from the engines aloft. All the skybehind the trailer seemed to mutter continuously. But the roof ofstars ahead was silent.

  Lockley stayed tense and was weary of his tenseness, Jill was safe. Hetried to reason his uneasiness away. The cab of the truck wobbled andswayed. The feel of the vehicle was entirely unlike the feel of apassenger car. It felt tail-heavy. The driver had ceased to talk. Heseemed to be musing as he drove. He'd asked about the invaders butseemed almost indifferent to any adventures Jill and Lockley mighthave had on their way out. He didn't ask what they'd done for food. Hewas thinking of something else.

  Lockley found himself questioning the driver's statements just afterthey got in. Driving for the Army. The Army kept track of where theterror beams existed, and notified this truck by truck radio, and hedodged all such road barriers. That was what he said. It seemedplausible, but--

  "One thing strikes me funny," said the driver, musingly. "Thosecritters blindfoldin' you and those other guys. What' you think theydid it for?"

  "To keep us from seeing them," said Lockley, curtly.

  "But why'd they want to do that?"

  "Because," said Lockley, "they might not have been Martians. Theymight not have been critters. They might have been men."

  On the instant he regretted bitterly that he'd said it. It was aguess, only, with all the evidence against it. The driver visiblyjumped. Then he turned his head.

  "Where'd you get that idea?" he demanded. "What's the evidence? Whyd'you think it?"

  "They blindfolded me," said Lockley briefly.

  A pause. Then the driver said vexedly, "That's a funny thing to makeyou think they was men! Hell! Excuse me, ma'm!--they coulda had allkindsa reasons for blindfoldin' you! It coulda been part of theirreligion!"

  "Maybe," said Lockley. He was angry with himself for having saidsomething which was needlessly dramatic.

  "Didn't you have any other reason for thinkin' they were men?"demanded the driver curiously. "No other reason at all?"

  "No other at all," said Lockley.

  "It's a crazy reason, if you ask me!"

  "Quite likely," conceded Lockley.

  He'd been indiscreet, but no more. He'd said what he thought, perhapsbecause he was tired of watching all the country round him for amenace to Jill, and then watching every word he spoke to keep her fromabandoning hope for Vale.

  Jill said, "Where are we headed for? I hope I can get to a telephone.I want to ask about somebody.... He wants to tell the soldierssomething."

  "We're headed for a army supply dump," said the driver comfortably,"to load up with stuff for the guys that're watching all around thePark. We'll be goin' through Serena presently. Funny. Everybody movedout by the Army. A good thing, too. The folks in Maplewood couldn'tha' been got out last night before the Martians got there."

  The trailer-truck went on through the night. The driver lounged in hisseat, keeping a negligent but capable eye on the road ahead. Theheadlights showed a place where another road crossed this one andthere was a filling station, still and dark, and four or fivedwellings nearby with no single sign of life about them. Then thecrossroads settlement fell behind. A mile beyond it Jill saidstartledly, "Lights! There's a town. It's lighted."

  "It's Serena," said the driver. "The street lights are on because theelectricity comes from far away. With the lights on it's a marker forthe planes, too, so they can tell exactly where they are and the Parktoo. They can't see the ground so good at night, from away up there."

  The white street lamps seemed to twinkle as the trailer-truck rumbledon. A single long line of them appeared to welcome the big vehicle. Itwent on into the town. It reached the business district. There wer
eside streets, utterly empty, and then the main street divided. Thetruck bore to the right. There were three and four-story buildings.Every window was blank and empty, reflecting only the white streetlamps. No living thing anywhere. There had been no destruction, butthe town was dead. Its lights shone on streets so empty that it wouldhave seemed better to leave them to the kindly dark.

  Jill exclaimed, "Look! That window!"

  And ahead, in the dead and lifeless town, a single window glowed fromelectric light inside it, and it looked lonelier than anything else inthe world.

  "I'm gonna look into that!" said the driver. "Nobody's supposed to behere."

  The truck came to a stop. The driver got out. There was a stirring,behind, and the small man who'd given his place to Jill and Lockleypopped out of the trailer body. Lockley saw the name of a localtelephone company silhouetted on the lighted windowpane. He opened thedoor. Jill followed him instantly. The four of them--driver, helper,Lockley and Jill--crowded into the building hallway to investigatethe one lighted room in a town where twenty thousand people weresupposed to live.

  There was a door with a frosted glass top through which light showed.The driver turned the door-knob and marched in. The room had analcoholic smell. A man with sunken cheeks slept heavily in a chair,his head forward on his chest.

  The driver shook him.

  "Wake up, guy!" he said sternly. "Orders are for all civilians toclear outa this town. You wanna soldier to come by an' take you for alooter an' bump you off?"

  He shook again. The cadaverous man blinked his eyes open. The smell ofalcohol was distinct. He was drunk. He gazed ferociously up at thedriver of the truck.

  "Who the hell are you?" he demanded belligerently.

  The driver spoke sternly, repeating what he'd said before. The drunkassumed an air of outraged dignity.

  "If I wanna stay here, that's my business! Who th' hell are youanyways, disturbin' a citizen tax-payer on his lawful occasions? Areyou Martians? I wouldn't put it pasht you!"

  He sat down and went back to sleep.

  The driver said fretfully, "He oughtn't to be here! But we ain't gotroom to carry him. I'm gonna use the truck radio an' ask what to do.Maybe they'll send a Army truck to get him outa here. He could set thewhole town on fire!"

  He went out. The small man who was his helper followed him. He hadn'tspoken a word. Lockley growled. Then Jill said breathlessly, "Theswitch-board has some long distance lines. I know how to connect them.Shall I try?"

  Lockley agreed emphatically. Jill slipped into the operator's chairand donned the headset. She inserted a plug and pressed a switch.

  "I did an article once on how--Hello! Serena calling. I have a veryimportant message for the military officer in command of the cordon.Will you route me through, please?"

  Her manner was convincingly professional. She looked up and smiledshakily at Lockley. She spoke again into the mouthpiece before her.Then she said, "One moment, please." She covered the mouthpiece withher hand.

  "I can't get the general," she said. "His aide will take the messageand if it's important enough--"

  "It is," said Lockley. "Give me the phone."

  She vacated the chair and handed him the operator's instrument withits light weight earphones and a mouthpiece that rested on his chest.

  "My name's Lockley," said Lockley evenly. "I was in the Park on aSurvey job the morning the thing came down from the sky. I relayedVale's message describing the landing and the creatures that came outof the--object. I was talking to him by microwave when he was seizedby them. I reported that via Sattell of the Survey. You probably knowof these reports."

  A tinny voice said with formal cordiality that he did, indeed.

  "I've just managed to get out of the park," said Lockley. "I've had achance to experiment with a stationary terror beam. I've informationof some importance about detecting those beams before they strike."

  The tinny voice said hastily that Lockley should speak to the generalhimself. There were clickings and a long wait. Lockley shook his headimpatiently. When a new voice spoke, he said, "I'm at Serena. I wasbrought here by a Wild Life Control trailer-truck which picked us upjust outside the Park. I mention that because the driver says he'sdriving it for the Army, now. The information I have to pass on is...."

  Curtly and succinctly, he began to give exact information about theterror beam. Its detection so that one need not enter it. The totallack of effectiveness of a Faraday cage to check it. Its use to blockhighways and its one use against a low-flying plane. The failure tosearch him out with that terror beam was to be noted. There was otherevidence that the monsters were not monsters at all--

  The new voice interrupted sharply. It asked him to wait. Hisinformation would be recorded. Lockley waited, biting his lips. Thevoice returned after an unconscionably long wait. It told him to goahead.

  The driver of the truck was taking a long time to make contact withthe military. He'd have done better by telephone instead of shortwave.

  The new voice repeated sharply for Lockley to go on with his story.And very, very carefully Lockley explained the contradictions in thebehavior of the invaders. The blindfolds. The fact that it had beenabsurdly easy for four human prisoners in a compost pit shell toescape--almost as if it were intended for them to get away and reportthat their captors regarded men as on a par with game birds andrabbits and porcupines. True aliens would not have bothered to givesuch an impression. But men cooperating with aliens would contriveevery possible trick to insist that only aliens operated at BoulderLake.

  "I'm saying," said Lockley carefully, "that they do not act likealiens making a first landing on earth. Apparently their ship isdesigned to land in deep water. On a first landing, they should havechosen the sea. But they knew Boulder Lake was deep enough to cushiontheir descent. How did they know it? They didn't kill us local animalsfor study, but they dropped in other local animals to convince us thatthey wouldn't mind. Why try to fill us with horror--and then let usescape?"

  The voice at the other end said sharply, "_What do you infer from allthis?_"

  "They've been briefed," said Lockley. "They know too much about thisplanet and us humans. Somebody has told them about human psychologyand suggested that they conquer us without destroying our cities orour factories or our usefulness as slaves. We'll be much more valuableif captured that way! I'm saying that they've got humans advising andcooperating with them! I'm suggesting that those humans have made adeal to run earth for the aliens, paying them all the tribute they candemand. I'm saying that we're not up against an invasion only byaliens, but by aliens with humans in active cooperation and acting notonly as advisers but probably as spies. I'm--"

  "_Mr. Lockley!_" said the voice at the other end of the wire. It wasstartled and shocked. It became pompous. "_Mr. Lockley, what has beenyour training?_" The voice did not wait for an answer. "_Where haveyou become qualified to offer opinions contradicting all theinformation and all the decisions of scientists and military menalike? Where do you get the authority to make such statements? Theyare preposterous! You have wasted my time! You--_"

  Lockley reached over and flipped back the switch he'd seen Jill flipover. He carefully put down the headset. He stood up.

  The driver and the small man came back. They picked up the sleepingdrunk and moved toward the door. Something fell out of the drunk'spocket. It was a wallet. They did not notice. They went out, carryingthe drunk. Jill stooped and recovered it. She looked at Lockley'sface.

  "What--"

  "I'm trying," said Lockley in a grating voice, "to figure out what todo next. That didn't work."

  "I'll be right back," said Jill.

  She went out to deliver the wallet to the driver, who had apparentlybeen ordered to put the drunk in the trailer body and deliver himsomewhere.

  Lockley swore explosively when she was gone. He clenched andunclenched his hands. He paced the length of the room.

  Jill came back, her face white.

  "They opened the door of the trailer to pass him in
," she said in a thin,strained voice. "And there were other men back there. Several of them! Andmachinery! Not cages for animals but engines--generators--electricalthings! I'm frightened!"

  "And I," said Lockley, "am a fool. I should have known it! Lookhere--"

  The frosted-glass door opened. The driver came back. He had a revolverin his hand.

  "Too bad!" he said calmly. "We should've been more careful. But thelady saw too much. Now--"

  The revolver bore on Lockley. Jill flung herself upon it. Lockleyswung, with every ounce of his strength. He connected with thedriver's jaw. The driver went limp. Lockley had the revolver almostbefore he reached the floor.

  "Quick!" he snapped. "Where was the machinery? Front or back part ofthe trailer?"

  "All of it," panted Jill. "Mostly front. What--"

  "The hall again," Lockley snapped. "Hunt for a back door!"

  He thrust her out. She fumbled toward the back of the building whilehe went to the street entrance. The trailer-truck loomed huge. Thedriver's helper came out of it. Another man followed him. Stillanother....

  Lockley fired from the doorway. One bullet through the front part ofthe truck. One near the middle. Then a third halfway between the firsttwo. The three men dived to the ground, thinking themselves histargets. But Jill called inarticulately from the back of the darkhall. Lockley raced back to her. He saw starlight. She waited,shivering. They went out and he closed the door softly behind him.

  He took her hand and they ran through the night. Overhead there was aluminous mistiness because of the street light, but here were abysmaldarknesses between vague areas on which the starlight fell. Lockleysaid evenly, "We've got to be quiet. Maybe I hit some of themachinery. Maybe. If I didn't, it's all over!"

  The back of a building. An alleyway. They ran down it. There was astreet with trees, where the street lights cast utterly black shadowsin between intolerable glare. They ran across the street. On the otherside were residences--the business district was not large. Lockleyfound a gate, and opened it quietly and as quietly closed it behindthem. They ran into a lane between two dead, dark, dreary structuresin which people had lived but from which all life was now gone.

  A back yard. A fence. Lockley helped Jill get over it. Another lane.Another street. But this street was not crossed--not here, anyhow--byanother which led back to the street of the telephone office. A mancould not look from there and see them running under the lights.

  The blessed irregularity of the streets continued. They ran and ranuntil Jill's breath came in pantings. Lockley was drenched in sweatbecause he expected at any instant to smell the most loathesome ofall possible combinations of odors, and then to see flashing lightsoriginating in his own eyes, and sounds which would exist only in thenerves of his ears, and then to feel all his muscles knot in total andhorrible paralysis.

  They heard the truck motor rumble into life when they were many blocksaway. They heard the clumsy vehicle move. It continued to growl, andthey knew that it was moving about the streets with its occupantstrying to sight fleeing figures under the darknesses which were trees.

  "I hit--I hit the generator," panted Lockley. "I must have! Elsethey'd swing a beam on us!"

  He stopped. Here they were in a district where many large homes pooledtheir lawns in block-long stretches of soft green. The street lightscast arbitrary patches of brightness against the houses, but theirwindows were blank and dark. This street, like most in this smalltown, was lined with trees on either side. There were the fragrancesof flowers and grass.

  "We aren't safe now," said Lockley, "but I just found out there maynot be any safety anywhere."

  Jill's teeth chattered.

  "What will we do? What was that machinery? I felt--frightened becauseit wasn't what he said was back there. So I told you. But what wasit?".

  "At a guess," said Lockley, "a terror beam generator. The invadersmust have human friends. To us they're spies. They're cooperating withthe monsters. Apparently they're even trusted with terror beamprojectors."

  He stood still, thinking, while in the distance the trailer-truckground and rumbled about the streets. It was not a very promisingmethod for finding two fugitives. They could hide if it turned onto astreet they used. It could not continue the search indefinitely. Themost likely final course would be to leave some of the unknown numberof men in its trailer to search the town on foot. Even that might notbe successful. But it wouldn't be a good idea for Lockley and Jill toremain here, either.

  "We look for two-car garages," said Lockley. "It's not a good chance,but it's all we've got. _If_ somebody had two cars, they might haveleft one behind when they evacuated. I can jump an ignition switch ifnecessary. Meanwhile we'll be moving out of town, which is a good ideaeven if we do it on foot!"

  They ceased to use the streets with their dramatic contrast of vividlights with total shadows. They moved behind a row of what would beconsidered mansions in Serena, Colorado. Sometimes they stumbled overflower beds, and once there was a hose over which Jill tripped, andonce Lockley barked his shin on a garden wheelbarrow. Most of thegarages were empty or contained only tools and garden equipment.

  Then something made Lockley look up. A slender, truss-braced, mastliketower rose skyward. It began on the lawn of a house with wide porches.There was a two-car garage with one wide door open.

  "A radio ham," said Lockley. "I wonder--"

  But he looked first in the garage. There was a car. It looked allright. He climbed in and opened the door. The dome light came on. Thekey was still in the ignition. He turned it and the gauge showed thatthe gas tank was three-quarters full. This was unbelievable goodfortune.

  "They probably intended to use this and then changed their minds,"said Lockley. "I'll get the door open and attempt a little burglary.Just one burglary with a prayer that he used a storage battery forhis power!"

  Breaking in was simple. He tried the windows opening on the main wideporch. One window slid up. He went inside, Jill following.

  The ham radio outfit was in the cellar. Like most radio hams, this onehad battery-powered equipment as a matter of public responsibility. Incase of storm or disaster when power lines are down, the ham operatorsof the United States can function as emergency communication systems,working without outside power. This operator was equipped asmembership in the organization required.

  Lockley warmed up the tubes. He tuned to a general call frequency. Hebegan to say, "May Day! May Day! May Day!" in a level voice. Thisemergency call has precedence over all other calls but S.O.S., whichhas an identical meaning. But "May Day" is more distinct andunmistakable when heard faintly.

  There were answers within minutes. Lockley snapped for them to staytuned while he called for others. He had half a dozen hams waitingcuriously when he began to broadcast what he wanted the world to know.

  He told it as briefly and as convincingly as he could. Then he said,"Over" and threw the reception switch for questions.

  There were no questions. His broadcast had been jammed. Some otherstation or stations were transmitting pure static with deafeningvolume, evidently from somewhere nearby. Lockley could not tell whenit had begun. It could have been from the instant he began to speak.It was very likely that not one really useful word had been heardanywhere.

  But a direction finder could have betrayed his position.