Operation Terror Part 13

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

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

"They blindfolded me," said Lockley briefly.

A pause. Then the driver said vexedly, "That's a funny thing to make you think they was men! h.e.l.l! Excuse me, ma'm!--they coulda had all kindsa reasons for blindfoldin' you! It coulda been part of their religion!"

"Maybe," said Lockley. He was angry with himself for having said something 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, perhaps because he was tired of watching all the country round him for a menace to Jill, and then watching every word he spoke to keep her from abandoning 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 soldiers something."

"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 the Park. We'll be goin' through Serena presently. Funny. Everybody moved out by the Army. A good thing, too. The folks in Maplewood couldn't ha' been got out last night before the Martians got there."

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

"It's Serena," said the driver. "The street lights are on because the electricity comes from far away. With the lights on it's a marker for the planes, too, so they can tell exactly where they are and the Park too. 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 rumbled on. A single long line of them appeared to welcome the big vehicle. It went on into the town. It reached the business district. There were side streets, utterly empty, and then the main street divided. The truck bore to the right. There were three and four-story buildings.

Every window was blank and empty, reflecting only the white street lamps. No living thing anywhere. There had been no destruction, but the town was dead. Its lights shone on streets so empty that it would have 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 from electric light inside it, and it looked lonelier than anything else in the world.

"I'm gonna look into that!" said the driver. "n.o.body's supposed to be here."

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 Lockley popped out of the trailer body. Lockley saw the name of a local telephone company silhouetted on the lighted windowpane. He opened the door. Jill followed him instantly. The four of them--driver, helper, Lockley and Jill--crowded into the building hallway to investigate the one lighted room in a town where twenty thousand people were supposed to live.

There was a door with a frosted gla.s.s top through which light showed.

The driver turned the door-k.n.o.b and marched in. The room had an alcoholic 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 to clear outa this town. You wanna soldier to come by an' take you for a looter an' b.u.mp you off?"

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

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" he demanded belligerently.

The driver spoke sternly, repeating what he'd said before. The drunk a.s.sumed an air of outraged dignity.

"If I wanna stay here, that's my business! Who th' h.e.l.l are you anyways, disturbin' a citizen tax-payer on his lawful occasions? Are you 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 got room 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 the whole town on fire!"

He went out. The small man who was his helper followed him. He hadn't spoken a word. Lockley growled. Then Jill said breathlessly, "The switch-board has some long distance lines. I know how to connect them.

Shall I try?"

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

"I did an article once on how--h.e.l.lo! Serena calling. I have a very important 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 smiled shakily at Lockley. She spoke again into the mouthpiece before her.

Then she said, "One moment, please." She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

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

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

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

"My name's Lockley," said Lockley evenly. "I was in the Park on a Survey job the morning the thing came down from the sky. I relayed Vale's message describing the landing and the creatures that came out of the--object. I was talking to him by microwave when he was seized by them. I reported that via Sattell of the Survey. You probably know of 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 a chance to experiment with a stationary terror beam. I've information of some importance about detecting those beams before they strike."

The tinny voice said hastily that Lockley should speak to the general himself. There were clickings and a long wait. Lockley shook his head impatiently. When a new voice spoke, he said, "I'm at Serena. I was brought here by a Wild Life Control trailer-truck which picked us up just outside the Park. I mention that because the driver says he's driving it for the Army, now. The information I have to pa.s.s on is...."

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

The new voice interrupted sharply. It asked him to wait. His information would be recorded. Lockley waited, biting his lips. The voice returned after an unconscionably long wait. It told him to go ahead.

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

The new voice repeated sharply for Lockley to go on with his story.

And very, very carefully Lockley explained the contradictions in the behavior of the invaders. The blindfolds. The fact that it had been absurdly easy for four human prisoners in a compost pit sh.e.l.l to escape--almost as if it were intended for them to get away and report that their captors regarded men as on a par with game birds and rabbits and porcupines. True aliens would not have bothered to give such an impression. But men cooperating with aliens would contrive every possible trick to insist that only aliens operated at Boulder Lake.

"I'm saying," said Lockley carefully, "that they do not act like aliens making a first landing on earth. Apparently their s.h.i.+p is designed to land in deep water. On a first landing, they should have chosen the sea. But they knew Boulder Lake was deep enough to cus.h.i.+on their descent. How did they know it? They didn't kill us local animals for study, but they dropped in other local animals to convince us that they wouldn't mind. Why try to fill us with horror--and then let us escape?"

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

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