Ten From Infinity Part 1

Ten From Infinity.

by Paul W. Fairman.

SOMETHING WAS WRONG

It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab in New York City. No doubt it was the only motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the stars--for far out in s.p.a.ce a signal was registered: _Something has gone wrong...._

And something had gone wrong, for the doctors discovered their accident patient had _two_ hearts. It was the beginning of the discovery that the Earth had been invaded by 10 such creatures from Outer s.p.a.ce.

Every effort was made to learn their purpose. An orbital flight was launched to spot alien bodies--only to be destroyed in s.p.a.ce. One of the alien men was captured--but no threat of pain or death could unlock the secret in his brain.

Something had gone wrong. And somehow, some way had to be found to make it right--before the threat of danger overwhelmed all mankind.

AUTHOR'S PROFILE

Ivar Jorgensen is the pen name of a former topflight magazine editor who is now devoting his full time to free-lance writing.

He was born in St. Louis and spent most of his early years in the Midwest. Before getting into the publis.h.i.+ng field he held a number of jobs, including those of elevator operator and theater usher.

Mr. Jorgensen has written numerous science-fiction short stories as well as several contemporary and suspense novels. TEN FROM INFINITY is his first full-length science-fiction novel.

1

It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab at the corner of 59th Street and Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.A. No doubt it was the first motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the stars.

The pedestrian was walking south on Park Avenue, toward Grand Central Station. He was looking at the upper skeleton of the vast new Pan Am Building which blocked out the sky in that direction. But he should have been watching traffic because a yellow cab tagged him neatly and knocked him across the walk into a clump of pigeons that scattered upward in all directions.

The cab driver swore. Citizenry gathered. An alert free-lance news photographer who happened to be pa.s.sing took the most important shot of his career. After a while, the ambulance came and the dazed pedestrian was pointed toward the nearest emergency ward, which happened to be in the Park Hill Hospital.

The pigeons settled back. The curious went their different ways.

And far out in s.p.a.ce, among the yellow pinpoints we call stars, a signal was registered. The signal was of grave import to those who received it.

The signal said, _Something has gone wrong._

From the springboard of this incident, there emerged several occurrences of note. The first in sequence took place in the Park Hill Hospital. The time of that particular ambulance's arrival was 11:15 P.M. At that hour the harvest of violence in Manhattan was being delivered to its logical granaries in the form of broken heads, slashed bodies, and dazed, shock-strained eyes. The examining rooms at Park Hill were full, and some cases of lesser import were waiting on stretchers and benches in the corridors.

That was where the pedestrian waited. Unlike others, he was very patient. He seemed to understand that this sort of thing took time; or perhaps he didn't. At any rate, he lay staring up at the ceiling, unmoving, seemingly uncaring, until an intern named Frank Corson stopped beside his stretcher and looked down at him in moody-eyed weariness.

Then Corson managed a smile.

"Sorry about the service, mister. Full house tonight."

"That's quite all--right."

Corson touched the broken leg. "I can give you a shot if the pain's. .h.i.tting too hard."

"It does not--pain."

"Stout fellow." Frank Corson probed with fingers that were growing more expert day by day. "Good clean break. Not swelling, either." He touched the patient's wrist, then put a stethoscope to his chest.

Actually, he was thinking of a different chest and different legs at the time--the ones belonging to a copper-haired girl named Rhoda Kane.

Rhoda's legs were far more alluring. Her chest had added equipment that was a haven of rest under trying circ.u.mstances, and Corson yearned for midnight when he would quit this charnel house and climb into Rhoda's convertible and--perhaps later--do a little chest a.n.a.lysis without benefit of stethoscope.

Now he sighed, commandeered a pa.s.sing orderly, and went to work.

Twenty minutes later he saw his patient deposited in a ten-bed ward. He transcribed his data onto the clipboard at the foot of the bed, and looked guiltily into the hall to see how things were going. He felt guilty because he was tempted to dog it. And he did. He headed for the locker room where he punched a cup of coffee out of the machine and thought some more about Rhoda's legs.

Fifteen minutes later, Corson climbed into the convertible and leaned over and kissed Rhoda Kane. "Hi, baby. You smell wonderful."

"You smell of disinfectant, darling." She wore a yellow print dress that exposed a lot of healthily tanned skin. "Did you have a rough day?"

He leaned back against the seat and pushed his legs as far under the dashboard as possible. He sighed and closed his eyes. But then he opened them again and his face went blank.

She waited a few more moments and then said, "Honey--I'm here. Little Rhoda. Remember me?"

The vague, thoughtful look vanished as he jerked his head around. "Oh, sure--sure, baby." He grinned. "A rough one. If I'd known doctoring was like this I'd have been a nice prosperous butcher."

"Do you want to drive?"

"No, you drive. I'll sit here and look at your beautiful profile."

They drove to Rhoda's apartment--Frank couldn't afford one--and he put Rhoda at one end of the sofa and stretched out with his head in her lap.

He unb.u.t.toned her blouse, put a hand over her breast, and teased the nipple.

"Mr. Corson, you're a wolf."

"Kiss me."

"Well, I don't know," she teased.

He pulled her head down and she murmured, "Oh, darling...."

But he let go of her in the middle of the kiss and, when she straightened, the blank, thoughtful look was back on his face.

"Frank--what is it?"

The look stayed. "I don't know."

"Something's bothering you."

"It seems to be. But I don't know what it is."