Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack - Edmond Hamilton - Страница 19

“Oh, oh,” Julia whispered. “You keep your mouth shut, Walt.”

She projected a distortion field around him.

The bed now appeared untenanted.

Walt was silent.

Julia opened the door. The manager stormed in.

“You, you creature!” he cried. “Tying a defenseless man on the bed for God knows what evil pur—oh. Hummm,” he stared at the bed.

“Oh,” he said.

“There’s no one here but me.”

“The bell boy—”

The manager searched the room. He looked in the closet. He looked in the shower. His face slowly began to take on color.

Foolishly he got down on his knees and peered under the bed.

“Well,” he said, dusting off his trousers as he stood up, “well . . . oh . . . . Is the service all right, Miss? Do you have any complaints? Plenty of towels? Soap? Did the bell boy raise the window—yes, I see he did. There’s enough heat? I, I seemed to have—I was on the wrong floor entirely. You see—”

His face grew even more puzzled. “There’s a woman on the, on the ninth floor I guess it is—how could I ever have made such a mistake? this is the seventh floor, isn’t it?—has a man in her bed.” His face got redder. He waved his hands. “Tied to the bed.”

“Oh, my,” Julia said.

“Yes, isn’t it. Now, if you want anything, don’t hesitate to ring. I’m sorry about this mistake. Silly of me. This is the seventh floor . . . isn’t it?”

“Yes, this is the seventh floor.”

The manager left.

Julia locked the door behind him.

She dissolved the distortion field.

“Whew!” she said. “He was mad, wasn’t he?”

Walt tried to sit up.

“No—wait. I think I’ll take a chance. I’m going to leave you alone to think over what I’ve said. Then I’m going to come back and untie you. You’re going to help me, Walt.”

“I, I don’t know what to think.”

“Here’s one thing I want you to remember when you’re thinking everything out. People can be convinced of anything as long as they have no way of checking beliefs against facts. Remember that. Forential had complete control over you. You believed what he told you to. Now you’ve had a chance to see for yourself. You’re just like an earthling. There is no war. Things like that. Think for yourself, Walt.”

“How long will you be gone?”

Julia gathered up her handbag. She folded the birth certificates and stored them in it. “I don’t know. I’ve got to convince someone of some facts that are going to be very hard to believe.” She paused at the door. “I won’t forget you, Walt. I’ll be back soon.” She smiled almost shyly. “If Calvin contacts you again, don’t go away. I’ll just have to hunt you down.”

*

After she had gone, Walt relaxed. His body was still weak. He lay staring at the ceiling. Outside, the sun’s rays slanted even more. A breeze, chill with approaching night, rustled the curtain.

There were shadows along the far wall.

I’ve been an instrument, Walt thought, a piece of metal, to be used as Forential saw fit: if she were not lying. My parents are somewhere down here on this planet, the third from the sun. They are not on Lyria. I might have killed them during the invasion. That would be worse than killing Forential, even. If Julia weren’t lying to me. Forential has been raising me to fight my own people!

Forential. Saucer eyed. Tentacled. Moist and slippery. Breathing in labored gasps under high gravity. Air bubbling in his throat. Tentacles caressing, fondling—not with affection (if Julia is right) but with calculating design: to fashion my personality to his purpose . . . .

Walt closed his eyes.

Forential, he thought.

Forential was far away in space; every second he was growing farther away in time. I’ve lost him, Walt thought. So much has happened, so much, so fast, since last I saw him, that I’m changing away from him every minute.

Earthlings aren’t so bad. They’re—they’re not too much different from Lyrians, from . . . mutants.

I’m a mutant?

I’m not a Lyrian?

FORENTIAL!

But Forential could not hear him.

I’ll have to think for myself, Walt decided. Julia said I couldn’t be fooled if I just looked at the facts.

Earthlings aren’t like Forential always told us they were. They’re pleasant enough. In their way. I don’t see how they can menace Lyria (if there is such a place). I don’t think they’ve even got space travel!

He tossed restlessly on the bed.

And Julia, he thought. Well, she’s nice. She’s all right.

She’s . . . .

Again the new emotion troubled him. He missed her. He wished she would hurry back.

Julia!

. . . and why did she lose her powers if she’s a Lyrian? Why did I? Lyrians shouldn’t lose their powers.

What about the machines on the ship?

Can there really be another compartment of—mutants?

Is that why the walls of the ship were impenetrable?

Is that why we were never permitted in more than a fraction of the overall space of the ship?

I don’t think, I don’t think I like Forential any more.

*

Julia consulted a phone directory for the address of the local F. B. I. office.

It was four thirty when she arrived, and only one man was still in the office. He had his feet propped up on the desk; he was smoking a pipe and reading a law book.

“Yes?” he said, standing up as Julia came forward.

“You better sit back down,” she said.

“Well, now . . . . And who are you?” He said it not unkindly.

Julia gave her name. Gravely he shook hands with her.

“Sit over there, Julia,” he said.

When she was seated, he sat down. He bent forward and cleared his throat.

Oh, dear, how can I start? she thought. How can I ever start? “What, what was the page you were reading in your book?”

He ignored the question. His eyelids drooped wearily. He took out a notebook. He unscrewed his pen cap.

“I suppose you want to report on the family next door?” he said.

“Well, as a matter of fact, no,” Julia said. “I wanted—” And again her resolve faltered.

“Yes?” the F.B.I. man asked.

His law book floated from the table behind him and drifted over his shoulder. It opened itself before his face. The pages riffled.

“What page?” Julia asked intently.

The F.B.I. man took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it. “Page one hundred and fifteen,” he said.

The book fell open to that page.

The F.B.I. man plucked it out of the air. He felt all around it. He put it in his lap. His eyelids were no longer weary.

“I think I underestimated you,” he said. “I believe I’m going to sit right here and take down every word you say.” He gestured with his pipe. “Start talking.”

Julia spoke slowly. She gave the F.B.I. man all the information she had. His pen skimmed rapidly, making short hand squiggles over the white pages of his notebook.

*

When she had finished, he looked up. He tossed the law book toward the desk. She caught it and let it down gently, so that it landed without a sound.

“Julia,” the man said, “put yourself in my position. What would you do if someone came to you with a story like this?”

“I’d send that person to Washington, where she could talk to somebody.”

“I’d like a little more proof.”

Julia passed her hand through the back of the chair. “I should certainly be investigated: just on the basis of being able to do that, shouldn’t I?”

The F.B.I. man nodded. “Do that again.”

Julia did.

“Excuse me a minute,” he said. He swiveled to his desk. He picked up his phone and dialed. He waited. “ . . . Peggy? This is me. I won’t be home for dinner tonight. A case just came in . . . .” He hung up.

He turned back to Julia.

“Now, about this space station. How is it we haven’t seen it?”

“I assume it has a distortion field around it. It’s invisible.”

“Hummmm.” He entered that in his notebook. “Is there any way we could detect it?”

“I . . . . If I were able to talk to a physicist, he might be able to build detection equipment. It would take time.”

“I see. Now, about this Walt. How dangerous would you say he is?”

“I disconnected the bridge in his mind.”

“Bridge?”

“I call it that. It’s what makes us different. It could be built into a normal human being, I think.”

“You mean,” he said, “I could be fixed up to do the things you can do? Teleportation? Telepathy?”

“If I were a surgeon, I think I could change your brain to our pattern. I can see how it should be done. But I’d have to train to be able to. Surgery is a skill; it takes practice to master it.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long until the invasion?”

“I don’t know that either. I don’t know whether or not I can find out from Walt. I doubt if he has enough information to tell me. Very soon now. Less than a month. Maybe even tomorrow.”

“There’s no time, then,” he said. He chewed his lip. “I see . . . . The Air Force still has its saucer files. I’m going to refer you to it.”

“We haven’t much time. Remember that.”

The F.B.I. man looked at his watch. “There’s a plane to Washington in three hours. I’ll get you reservations on it. I’ll phone the head office there. There’ll be somebody from the Air Force to meet you.”

“I’ll leave at eight, is that right?”

“From the city airport. Just a minute. I’m going to assign a man to you. I don’t want anything happening between now and then.”

“I can look out for myself,” Julia said. “I’ll pick up my ticket and Walt’s at the reservation booth. ‘Bye.”

The F.B.I. man blinked his eyes. She had vanished. He got up and searched the office carefully. The door had not opened.

But she was gone.

Sweating, he went to the phone.

In less than two minutes, he was talking to Washington. When he recradled the phone, he was shaking. He took out his pipe, filled it, lit it, walked to the window.

He looked out at the twilight city. A lone star sparkled in the sky. He stared upwards.

“My God,” he said softly to himself.

He crossed to the teletype, switched the current on. He began typing his notes on it for the benefit of Washington.

*

Back in the hotel room, Julia released Walt. Free, he stood up uncertainly.

“I think you’ll help me,” she said levelly. “I disconnected the bridge in your mind; I’m going to leave it that way. I can’t afford not to. But am I right, Walt?”

“I’m not sure. I, I’ll have to see.”

“We’re going to fly to Washington tonight.”

“Washington?”

“The seat of the government. You clean up in the bathroom, now. But hurry. We’ll have to catch a plane out of here at eight o’clock. It’s after six.”

“All right.”

While she was waiting, she studied herself despairingly in the mirror. I look, she thought, like something the cat dug up.

When Walt came back, she took his arm possessively.

“I’m hungry,” he said.

“Oh?” Julia said. “We’ll have time to eat, I guess. I wish we didn’t have to eat hotel food, though. I’m a good cook.” She led Walt to the door. “You’ll see what I mean, if we can get this invasion stopped. I’m going to make you invisible, now.”

After they ate, Julia drove her car to the airport. The reservations were waiting. So was the F.B.I. man.

“I teletyped my report to them. They wanted me to accompany you.”

He introduced himself to Walt.

Walt shook his hand. Walt no longer recoiled from the touch of an earthling.

In the plane, the F.B.I. man ordered cocktails. Walt had never tasted alcohol before. It was an unpleasant taste. But once it was down, it was not objectionable.

He forced himself to drain the glass. He felt himself relaxing.

“Ugh,” he said.

The F.B.I. man ordered another round. Julia declined. Walt accepted.

Walt said, “I feel warm.”

The F.B.I. man kept glancing out the window of the plane, up at the stars. Clouds hung below; moonlight played over them.

Walt found that he was very . . . fond . . . of Julia. If only, he thought, she weren’t so damned superior!

The alcohol filtered through his body. The compartment of the airplane danced not unpleasantly. He longed to feel Julia very close to him. He wanted to reach out and touch her uncovered skin.

Faintly, far off, barely heard was the sound of the others talking.

He grew heavy and sleepy. He closed his eyes.

He awakened once, and Julia was not beside him. He moved his tongue. It felt fuzzy and thick.

He wanted Julia.

“Julia!” he cried.

“I’m just up here,” she called softly.

Disturbed passengers muttered their annoyance.

The stewardess came to Walt’s seat.

“I don’t want you!” Walt said. “Julia!” he shouted.

Julia came back to him.

“Sit down beside me,” he commanded. And when she did, he went promptly back to sleep.

*

It was after three o’clock Wednesday morning when their plane set down wheels on the Washington airport runway.

A sleepy-eyed Air Force colonel was waiting at the gate. The F.B.I. man approached him. “Here they are.”

“Okay.”

The colonel crossed to them. “You’re to come along with me.”

“All right.”

Walt shook his head to clear the sleep from his eyes.

They followed the colonel to the waiting, olive drab passenger car. The F.B.I. man had departed.

The colonel helped Julia in.

“We’ve got rooms for you downtown.”

“Whatever you’ve decided,” Julia said.

The colonel gave his driver the address.

Half an hour later, Julia and Walt and the colonel reached their destination.

“I must be a mess,” Julia apologized. “I haven’t had time to change clothes or anything.”

“I’ll order you some,” the colonel said.

They went immediately to the third floor.

“This is your room,” the colonel told Walt, opening the door.

“I want to stay with Julia,” Walt said.

“This is your room,” the colonel said stiffly. He signaled the guard lounging at the end of the corridor. The guard came.

“This is your man,” the colonel told the guard.

The guard nodded.

“He’s not to leave.”

Walt planted his feet. “I’m not—”

“Go on in, Walt,” Julia said.

Walt hesitated.

“Go on.”

Reluctantly, Walt entered the room. The guard pulled the door closed.

“You’re to come here,” the colonel said. He led the way.

Once in her room, he said, “I know you’re tired . . . .”

Julia realized that she was tired. Even her mutant powers could not keep fatigue out of her body forever. Her muscles ached. The strain and excitement had sapped her energy to a greater extent than she had realized.

“I am, a little. A few hours rest—”

“Would you sign this first?” the colonel asked. “It’s a transcript of your conversation with the F.B.I. man. To make it official. It’s all we need for the moment.”

Julia flipped through it. It was very accurate.

The colonel produced a pen.

Julia signed.

“Now, one last thing. What sort of clothing did you want? I’ll have my secretary buy the things in the morning.”

Using hotel stationery, Julia made a list.

The colonel took it. “We’ll call you in sometime tomorrow morning to get your testimony.”

“I better give you some money for the list.”

The colonel smiled. “You’re a guest of the Air Force. We’ll take care of it.” At the door he said, “Oh, by the way, don’t try to leave this room.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

Julia undressed quickly.

She fell into bed.

Six hours later, at ten o’clock in the morning, she awoke with a start. Someone was knocking.

“Yes?”

“A package for you.”

She drew the bed clothes around her. “Just set it inside the door.”

The sentry complied.

Julia got up. She felt completely refreshed. She showered.

Opening the package, she was delighted with the clothing the colonel’s secretary had selected.

She dressed and combed her hair.

When she tried to leave the hotel room, the sentry barred her way.

“What about breakfast?”

“Order whatever you want from room service,” the man told her.

Julia closed the door. I should show him—! she thought.

But then: Where could I go if I did go out? Suppose they come for me and I’m gone?

She phoned for breakfast.

The guard stood by while it was brought in. To keep me, she thought, from talking to the waiter.

By noon she still had received no word from the government.

She was growing annoyed.

*

It was after two o’clock when the colonel—the same one who had met them at the airport last night—came for her. “Sorry to keep you so long,” he said. “They’re ready to see you now.”

“I’m ready.”

“We’re going over to the Pentagon.”

“Let’s go.”

They stopped to pick up Walt.

He had gotten a razor from somewhere; the stubble on his face was gone. His skin was smooth and boyish. He was dressed in a single breasted, brown suit. His white shirt was open at the neck.

Julia’s heart caught in her throat with pride when she saw him. She blushed.

“He’s been pacing the floor for the last hour,” the guard said.

“We’re going to talk to some government official,” Julia said. She smiled up at him. “How do you feel, Walt?”

“I’m fine. Fine. Nervous. But I feel fine.”

“They’re waiting,” the colonel said. “We better hurry.”

Julia took Walt’s hand. “It’s all right. You don’t need to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said.

The same olive drab car was waiting for them outside the hotel. They got in—the colonel in front with the driver, Walt and Julia in back.

The car moved into Washington traffic.

Bleak, harsh winter lay over the town; the very air seemed weary and exhausted. Julia stared out the window at the passing buildings.

The invasion, she thought. Flying saucers settling down upon such a commonplace, solid scene as this. Terrified faces in the streets. Crys. The whine of a police car. An air raid warning, wailing like a lost night express. Brick and cement buckling and exploding. Walls crashing. Smoke billowing up. The helpless, ironic chuckle of a machine gun seeking a target. The drone of a plane . . . .

Suppose the government won’t believe our story after all! she thought.

“You’re going to help us all you can, aren’t you, Walt?” she whispered. Her fingers plucked nervously at her dress.

“This morning, I had a long talk with the man at my door. I’ll help you all I can. He’d never even heard of Lyria; he—”

The colonel swiveled his head. “We consulted with the President this morning.”

Julia felt herself grow tense. “Yes?”

“He instructed us to have the two of you interviewed by some of the best authorities we could round up on such short notice. You will be required to demonstrate this ability you seem to have to teleport objects.”

“I’ll do everything I can.”

The colonel grunted and turned back to watching the road.

The Tidal Basin lay to one side of the car; the Washington Channel to the other. Off the highway, the rotunda dome of the white marble Jefferson Memorial glistened in the weak sunlight; the cherry trees around it were naked with winter.

Julia listened to her own breathing; she forced herself to relax. I’ve got to convince them, she thought.

In spite of her superiority, she felt like a little girl venturing into a big, unfamiliar world.

Shortly, the car drew up at the huge Pentagon building.

Inside it, army men—officers and enlisted men—were scurrying about, up and down ramps, in and out of the endless maze of corridors. There was a brisk hum of voices; it was like a giant bee hive. The high heeled shoes of female personnel chattered efficiently from room to room.

“Stay close,” the colonel said. “It’s easy to get lost.”

*

All the noises of the building were swallowed up when the colonel closed the office door on the third floor. The elderly female receptionist at the desk looked up.

“They’re waiting, Colonel Robertson. Go right in.”

“Right through here,” the colonel said.

Walt and Julia followed.

He opened the door, and they issued into the conference room. Talking broke off; faces swung to confront them.

“Gentlemen,” the colonel said, “this is the girl, and this—this is the man from the space station.”

The audience around the table rustled.

“You’ll sit right here,” the colonel told them. He helped Julia to her chair. When they were both seated, the colonel withdrew.

Chairs scraped and squeaked.

One of the men across from Julia cleared his throat. He was in civilian clothes. He was slightly stooped and partly bald. He wiped his glasses nervously. “We would like a demonstration of your—your, um, um unusual propensities.” He adjusted his glasses.

The glasses disengaged themselves from his ears and floated toward Julia. Julia stood up and walked through the table toward them.

She reached out. Both she and the glasses vanished.

One of the general officers made a check mark on his note book. “I’d say our report is substantially correct.”

The other civilian in the room, a youngish blonde woman, lit another cigarette. The ash tray before her was overflowing. Her fingers were nicotine stained. “Very extraordinary.”

Julia materialized back in her chair. She replaced the glasses.

The conferees began to whisper softly.

The blonde nodded her head. She turned to Julia. “About this space station—”

“This is Doctor Helen Norvel,” one of the general officers told Julia.

Dr. Norvel ignored him. “Is there some way we could detect it?”

“I’d like to try to explain the nature of the distortion field surrounding it to a physicist.”

“Dr. Norvel,” someone said, “is one of our better experimental physicists.”

“Oh?”

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Norvel said, “let me talk to her in the next room while you question this man.”

The bald civilian said, “Go right ahead, Doctor.”

The doctor stood up. Lighting another cigarette, she said, “We’ll go right in there, if you don’t mind.”

Julia got to her feet.

When they had gone, a lieutenant sitting beside the civilian looked up from a sheaf of papers in front of him. “Walt Johnson, isn’t it?”

Walt gulped. He felt clammy and frightened.

“I’m supposed to interrogate you—ask you some questions.”

“All, all right,” Walt said nervously.

“Now, Mr. Johnson, if you’ll just tell us—take it slowly; take your time—about life on this space station. Any details you can remember will prove helpful. Describe your quarters, the nature of the aliens—anything at all.”

*

Walt twisted in the seat. He looked around at the waiting faces. A general lit a cigarette. The heating system hummed softly.

Walt began to talk.

From time to time, someone interrupted him with a question.

It seemed to go on forever.

“About this focus rod?”

“It sends out a, a radiation. Something. I don’t understand too well. It’s lethal.”

“What is the radius of destruction?”

“I don’t know; I don’t remember.”

Pens scribbled.

“Please continue,” the lieutenant said.

Walt’s throat grew dry as he talked. Someone got him a drink of water.

“Could you estimate the number of mutants in this other compartment?”

“I couldn’t say. I couldn’t swear that there is another compartment.”

“A hundred? Five hundred?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“I see.”

“About,” a general asked, “how much of the total area of the ship would you say your compartment occupied?”

On and on.

“Let’s go over the description of that machine again. Did you ever see this Fierut disassemble any part of it?”

Walt was limp and exhausted. His mind was dulled by the effort of concentrating continuously. “Yes.” “No.” “To understand that . . . .” “I don’t know.” “No, no more than that . . . . Please. I’m getting confused.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Johnson,” the lieutenant said. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid he’s getting a little tired. Shall we postpone further questioning?”

“I believe we better. Would you call in Dr. Norvel, please.”

Walt slumped down in his seat.

The conferees whispered among themselves and compared notes.

Julia and the doctor came back.

“It took longer than I thought,” Dr. Norvel said. “I had to teach her quite a bit of math.”

“What’s your opinion?” the bald civilian asked.

“I believe her, gentlemen. She has just shown me how to build some electronic equipment. I’ll have a picture of that space station for you within two weeks.”

“That will be all, then, for right now,” the civilian said. He nodded at Walt and Julia. “The colonel is waiting to take you back to your hotel.”

“You’re not to talk to anyone about this,” one of the generals said.

*

Thursday. They came for Walt and Julia at nine o’clock. The hotel was aswarm with the military.

“Security measures,” the colonel explained as they waited for the elevator. “If any information about this leaks out, the whole country will be thrown into a panic.”

Julia nodded.

“We’ve evacuated the civilians to another hotel,” the colonel said.

Two guards with rifles stood at the street doorway.

“It’s going to be a hard day for you both,” the colonel said once they were in the car. “You’re scheduled to meet representatives of some foreign countries at ten o’clock. And after that, we’ll spend the rest of the day picking both your brains as clean as we know how.”

“That’s the way it’s got to be,” Julia said. “I understand.”

It was after midnight when she returned to her hotel. Surprisingly, she was able to sleep until dawn. She arose and showered in the first sunlight and dressed and ordered breakfast. The sergeant on duty at the desk downstairs went out himself to get it for her.

At nine (this was Friday morning) she and Walt were back in the Pentagon. Walt’s face was puffy, his eyes were red. “I’m tired,” he murmured as an officer hurried him toward a meeting with the Ordnance Section. For a moment Julia considered restoring his mutant bridge. But she was not completely certain that she could trust him; even the tiniest doubt was an excuse not to—since there was no overwhelming advantage to be gained from having two mutants instead of one in the Pentagon.

A few minutes later, Julia was ushered into the office of one of the very high ranking general officers. He rose to greet her, and then returned to his desk. Julia sat down across from him and he pushed stacks of reports to one side until he located his cigarette box.

Julia took a cigarette.

“Julia? I may call you that?”

“Please do.”

He bent across the desk to light her cigarette. He pushed an ash tray toward her.

“I expect you’d like to know what we’ve done so far?”

“Very much.”

“I’m preparing a report for the President. I hope to have it for him by noon.” He glanced at his watch. “I want to verify with you everything that goes into it.”

*

The smoke made Julia dizzy. She cleared her brain. It was a relief to hear someone else talking for a change.

“ . . . we’re preparing an atomic rocket to intercept their space station,” he said. “I understand from this report that your mutant powers aren’t infinite. It says in here somewhere that it would be impossible to stop by, by teleportation you call it, don’t you? an object as large as a rocket?”

“It’s mostly a question of inertia. There’s a mass-speed-time ratio involved. The greater the first two, the more time required to divert the missile from its path. The mass-speed must be sufficient to create a greater diversion period than exists between the time of detection and the time of impact.”

“You would say that the rocket could get through?”

“If the same rule holds for the aliens as for us, I don’t think they would have time to teleport it away.”

“That’s what I wanted.”

“Just a minute, though. How long will it take you to complete it?”

“Give us another week,” the general said. “That’s one of the things I wanted to see you about. It will take Doctor Norvel longer than that to plot the orbit of the station. I want you to plot that orbit for us—”

“I’m sorry, General. This is in your reports somewhere, too. I can’t. Not until Doctor Norvel can locate it. It’s too far out for me to locate. I’d have to have an, an anchor on that end—something I could contact—before I could center on it. And I don’t have. I can’t even feel it, if you see what I mean. There’s, nothing to get ahold of. If I could . . . I could just teleport an atom bomb there, and we wouldn’t need to worry with the rocket at all.” She snubbed out her cigarette.

“Couldn’t you get a fix on this frequency that controls your mutant powers and locate the space station that way?”

“Neither Dr. Norvel nor I could detect it with the available equipment: we tried. There’s no way of knowing what equipment’s required. It’s probable the frequency is displaced from normal space; if it is, we can’t even tell the increment of displacement. It’s just a hopeless task.”

“Well, it will take us two weeks or more, then . . . .” He crossed out something on the paper before him.

“Suppose they attack before that?”

“I’m coming to that possibility . . . . I see you say here that mutants can be destroyed by bomb concussions because they can’t displace sufficiently far without teleporting. What do you mean there?”

“It’s complicated. If the bomb has too much inertia to be teleported off target, they have to remove themselves from the blast area. And they can’t remove themselves far enough—not in space, but in relation to space; so they’d have to teleport, and that would be fatal.”

“Ummm. Bullets?”

“They could displace themselves far enough to avoid a bullet.”

The general wrote something down. “How large an explosion would suffice?”

“I believe Dr. Norvel has those figures. I didn’t stay long enough to see the results of her computations. She figured it out. They rushed me off somewhere else.”

“I’ll have to ask her . . . . Now. I’m counting on there being five hundred saucer ships in the first wave. With luck, our Air Force will get a few of them. You say—ah, yes, right here: ‘If hit in the air, the pilots cannot displace out of the ship because they would be killed by the fall to Earth.’ That’s correct, isn’t it?”

Julia nodded. “Yes.”

“But I expect we’ll have to destroy the majority of them after they land; luck only goes so far.”

“If they scatter all over the planet?” Julia asked.

“We have bombers alerted.”

“Suppose they land in a city? You’d have to bomb immediately. You’d have to destroy the whole area before they could escape. You wouldn’t have any time to evacuate the population. But even so, they could destroy the bomber crews with their focus rods before the planes were over the target—”

“Automatic bombers,” the general said. “I hope we’ve got enough of them. As for the populations, I hope they don’t land in our cities.” He puckered his lips. “I’ve alerted all our ground forces. We’ll have our whole supply of atomic artillery available. Whenever we discover a focus rod in operation, we intend to hit the center of the area of destruction with everything we’ve got.”

“What do you honestly think?” Julia asked.

He shuffled papers, thinking. He looked up from the report. “ . . . it will take us over a week to get even partially ready. If they strike before that, we’ll be able to kill some of them. If they give us a week, we might even hope to kill half of them—half of the first wave—before we’re destroyed . . . . I was hoping you might offer us an alternative, or a supplement; or something.”

Julia took another cigarette. She fumbled in her handbag for a match. She lit the cigarette. “No,” she said.

“I rather thought not,” he said. “I expected you’d have already told us.”

“I’ve thought about it every way I know how . . . . I thought about displacing all of them when they land; keeping them displaced, where they couldn’t reach us . . . . But there’ll be too many of them. I might be able to hold one mutant in displacement, even if he resisted me. I know more than he does. But five hundred?” She shook her head.

“Could we build a machine to do that job?”

“You’d have the rocket done much sooner.”

“ . . . I expect that’s right. I hope they just give us time.”

“If I think of anything else—”

“Oh, I wanted to mention that,” the general said. “I want to give you a phone number. You can reach me any time, day or night, through it.” He wrote it on a piece of paper.

Julia memorized it at a glance.

The general made a few more notes. He glanced at his watch again. “I guess that’s the size of it, Julia.”

*

In the space station, the aliens were readying for the invasion.

Lycan had just finished issuing clothing to the mutants in the larger compartment. Once dressed, they were indistinguishable from earthlings. And more important, when the larger transmitter was eventually cut off, Forential’s mutants would easily mistake them for earthlings.

Forential had finished assigning sectors of Earth to his own charges. Each was to cover a given area. They were told that the war on the planet was nearing its conclusion; destruction was everywhere. There would be no opposition to bother them. (In reality, Lycan’s mutants, the first wave, having taken care of that.) They could clean up their assigned sectors slowly, thoroughly, methodically. Forential instructed them in all the details of detecting and tracking down earthlings. A month after their arrival, they would be, Forential said, the only survivors.

**It is,** the Elder commented covetously, **one of the prettiest little planets I’ve ever seen. We will be well rewarded for our work.**