The Invaders Part 2

He was. He was merely a boy. Twenty or thereabouts. He lay on his back, his eyes closed. His face was upturned like a dead man's. But his breast rose and fell rhythmically. He slept as if he were drugged.

But that was more incredible than if he'd been dead. Regiments of men fallen simultaneously asleep....

Coburn's flow of raging speech stopped short. He stared. He saw other fallen soldiers. Dozens of them. In coma-like slumber, the soldiers who had come to loot and murder lay like straws upon the ground. If they had been dead it would have been more believable. At least there are ways to kill men. But this ...

Dillon parted the group of villagers about him and came toward Coburn and Janice. He was frowning in a remarkably human fas.h.i.+on.

"Here's a mess!" he said irritably. "Those Bulgars came marching down out of the pa.s.s. The cavalry galloped on ahead and cut the villagers off so they couldn't run away. They started to loot the village. They weren't pleasant. Women began to scream, and there were shootings--all in a matter of minutes. And then the looters began to act strangely.

They staggered around and sat down and went to sleep!"

He waved his hands in a helpless gesture, but Coburn was not deceived.

"The tanks arrived. And they stopped--and their crews went to sleep!

Then the infantry appeared, staggering as it marched. The officers halted to see what was happening ahead, and the entire infantry dropped off to sleep right where it stood!

"It's bad! If it had happened a mile or so back ... The Greeks must have played a trick on them, but those cavalrymen raised the devil in the few minutes they were out of hand! They killed some villagers and then keeled over. And now the villagers aren't pleased. There was one man whose son was murdered, and he's been slitting the Bulgars' throats!"

He looked at Coburn, and Coburn said in a grating voice: "I see."

Dillon said distressedly: "One can't let them slit the throats of sleeping men! I'll have to stay here to keep them from going at it again. I say, Coburn, will you take one of their staff cars and run on down somewhere and tell the Greek government what's happened here?

Something should be done about it! Soldiers should come to keep order and take charge of these chaps."

"Yes," said Coburn. "I'll do it. I'll take Janice along, too."

"Splendid!" Dillon nodded as if in relief. "She'd better get out of the mess entirely. I fancy there'd have been a full-scale ma.s.sacre if we hadn't come along. The Greeks have no reason to love these chaps, and their intentions were hardly amiable. But one can't let them be murdered!"

Coburn had his hand on his revolver in his pocket. His finger was on the trigger. But if Dillon needed him to run an errand, then there obviously were no others of his own kind about.

Dillon turned his back. He gave orders in the barbarous dialect of the mountains. His voice was authoritative. Men obeyed him and dragged uniformed figures out of a light half-track that was plainly a staff car. Dillon beckoned, and Coburn moved toward him. The important thing as far as Coburn was concerned was to get Janice to safety. Then to report the full event.

"I ... I'm not sure ..." began Janice, her voice shaking.

"I'll prove what I said," raged Coburn in a low tone. "I'm not crazy, though I feel like it!"

Dillon beckoned again. Janice slipped off the donkey's back. She looked pitifully frightened and irresolute.

"I've located the chap who's the mayor of this village, or something like that. Take him along. They might not believe you, but they'll have to investigate when he turns up."

A white-bearded villager reluctantly climbed into the back of the car.

Dillon pleasantly offered to a.s.sist Janice into the front seat. She climbed in, deathly white, frightened of Coburn and almost ashamed to admit that his vehement outburst had made her afraid of Dillon, too.

Dillon came around to Coburn's side of the vehicle. "Privately," he said with a confidential air, "I'd advise you to dump this mayor person where he can reach authority, and then go away quietly and say nothing of what happened up here. If the Greeks are using some contrivance that handles an affair like this, it will be top secret. They won't like civilians knowing about it."

Coburn's grip on his revolver was savage. It seemed likely, now, that Dillon was the only one of his extraordinary kind about.

"I think I know why you say that," he said harshly.

Dillon smiled. "Oh, come now!" he protested. "I'm quite unofficial!"

He was incredibly convincing at that moment. There was a wry half-smile on his face. He looked absolutely human; absolutely like the British correspondent Coburn had met in Salonika. He was too convincing. Coburn knew he would suspect his own sanity unless he made sure.

"You're not only unofficial," said Coburn grimly. His hand came up over the edge of the staff-car door. It had his revolver in it. It bore inexorably upon the very middle of Dillon's body. "You're not human, either! You're not a man! Your name isn't Dillon! You're--something I haven't a word for! But if you try anything fancy I'll see if a bullet through your middle will stop you!"

Dillon did not move. He said easily: "You're being absurd, my dear fellow. Put away that pistol."

"You slipped!" said Coburn thickly. "You said the Greeks played a trick on this raiding party. But you played it. At Ardea, when you climbed that cliff--no man could climb so fast. No man could run as you ran down into this village. And I saw that body you're wearing when you weren't in it! I followed you up the cliff when--" Coburn's voice was ragingly sarcastic--"when you were taking pictures!"

Dillon's face went impa.s.sive. Then he said: "Well?"

"Will you let me scratch your finger?" demanded Coburn almost hysterically. "If it bleeds, I'll apologize and freely admit I'm crazy!

But if it doesn't ..."

The thing-that-was-not-Dillon raised its eyebrows. "It wouldn't," it said coolly. "You do know. What follows?"

"You're something from s.p.a.ce," accused Coburn, "sneaking around Earth trying to find out how to conquer us! You're an Invader! You're trying out weapons. And you want me to keep my mouth shut so we Earth people won't patch up our own quarrels and join forces to hunt you down! But we'll do it! We'll do it!"

The thing-that-was-not-Dillon said gently: "No. My dear chap, no one will believe you."

"We'll see about that!" snapped Coburn. "Put those cameras in the car!"

The figure that looked so human hesitated a long instant, then obeyed.

It lowered the two seeming cameras into the back part of the staff car.

Janice started to say, "I ... I ..."

The pseudo-Dillon smiled at her. "You think he's insane, and naturally you're scared," it said rea.s.suringly. "But he's sane. He's quite right.

I am from outer s.p.a.ce. And I'm not humoring him either. Look!"

He took a knife from his pocket and snapped it open. He deliberately ran the point down the side of one of his fingers.

The skin parted. Something that looked exactly like foam-rubber was revealed. There were even bubbles in it.

The pseudo-Dillon said, "You see, you don't have to be afraid of him.

He's sane, and quite human. You'll feel much better traveling with him."

Then the figure turned to Coburn. "You won't believe it, but I really like you, Coburn. I like the way you've reacted. It's very ... human."

Coburn said to him: "It'll be human, too, when we start to hunt you down!" He let the staff car in gear. Dillon smiled at him. He let in the clutch, and the car leaped ahead.

In the two camera-cases Coburn was sure that he had the cryptic device that was responsible for the failure of a cold-war raid. He wouldn't have dared drive away from Dillon leaving these devices behind. If they were what he thought, they'd be absolute proof of the truth of his story, and they should furnish clues to the sort of science the Invaders possessed. Show the world that Invaders were upon it, and all the world would combine to defend Earth. The cold war would end.

But a bitter doubt came to him. Would they? Or would they offer zestfully to be viceroys and overseers for the Invaders, betraying the rest of mankind for the privilege of ruling them even under unhuman masters?

Janice swayed against his shoulder. He cast a swift glance at her. Her face was like marble.