Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer (13 page)

"What
better place for concealment? And why do you assume that the aliens in the
ship would immediately take off across the countryside? Seems to me they'd need
information (list-about the country, routes, places of concealment—from
somebody acquainted with the area.
Like
Russel
,
for instance."

Bahr
scratched his jaw. "They've been picking up men all over the country . . .
we're sure of it." He turned to Carmine. "How fast could you get Van
Golfer up here?
With a complete outfit?"

Carmine calculated rapidly.
"Maybe three hours."

"Get
him," Bahr said. "This time there won't be any Wildwood tricks. If
that ship is in there I'll get it out if I have to dam and drain the lake to do
it."

Several
hundred feet of birdlife flickered by on the screen, good, bad, occasionally
out of focus. Then suddenly there was a switch to a sky shot, without a filter,
and nearly into the sun. Bahr squinted at the brightness, and slapped
mosquitos
in the little field-projection tent.

"Must
have seen the ship," Bahr said.
MacKenzie
grunted as die next sequence came on. It was much darker, taken across the lake
. . . something slanting down toward the water, a splash as a flat, discus-like
object scaled like a rock, hit a second time and sank. The camera followed the
bounce,
then
showed a long stretch of film as the lake
settled and the waves damped down.

"Too
far from the camera to see much," Bahr said. "We'll have some
blown-up stills."

"The lighting was very
bad,"
MacKenzie
said.

Something
small and indistinct popped out of the lake like a cork, fell back and floated.
The camera followed it, a barely visible dot, as it approached from the middle
of the lake. The dot left a small wake, approached within a few yards of shore,
directly under the camera,
then
began to rise out of
the water.

It
was quite clear, in spite of the slight tremor of the camera. A bulbous,
gleaming helmet two feet in diameter, and below the helmet a dripping pressure
suit, a
bisymmetri
-cal body, completely humanoid
except for grotesquely long thin legs. It slogged out of die water, easily ten
feet tall, and moved toward the camera.

Abruptly, the film stopped.

MacKenzie
scowled at the screen as the lights came on.
"That's part of your answer," he said. "It landed in the
lake."

"Get
those lung men down there," Bahr said. "I want two 'copters overhead
with cables down, ready to pull them out fast. And,
Carminel
"

"Yes,
Chief?"

"I
want a report on the slop back of the tent and the stuff from Bernstein's
chest."

"I'll
check," Carmine said. "And they're holding an urgent for you at the
radio."

Bahr
found the radio 'copter and took the yellow message sheet. It was signed by the
New York DEPEX chief.

BAHR
DIRECTOR DIA STOP REFERENCE PROJECT FRISCO STOP JAMES CULLEN AND ARNOLD BECK
REPORTED MISSING SUNDAY PM FROM UNIV MICH FOUND WANDERING IN DAZED CONDITION
CENTRAL LOS ANGELES BY POLICE 2200 HOURS STOP TOTAL FORTY THREE OTHERS MISSING
SIMILAR CONDITIONS STOP BELIEVE IMPORTANT STOP PLEASE ADVISE

Bahr suddenly grinned at Carmine and handed
him the slip. "Some of our missing people are turning up. Frank, I want
you to take over here. Don't miss a thing. Keep
MacKenzie
with you if he insists, but have those men
find
that
ship if it's the last thing you do. I want to know why they're here, and what
they've done to this man
Russel
." He paused.
"I'm going to see what they've done to Cullen and Beck. . . ."

The
radioman looked up from the headset. "Another urgent,
Chief
.
Personal from Abrams in Chicago."

The
message was just three words long, and Bahr swore when he saw it.

"What is it?"
Carmine asked.

"Alexander,"
Bahr said hoarsely.
"Our nice, innocent, bumbling Major
Alexander.
He's broken out of the Kelley."

Carmine blinked at him. "Chief, if he
gets through to DEPCO . . ."

"He
won't." Bahr scribbled a quick message with Project Frisco priority and
handed it to the radioman. "Abrams knows his stuff. Or he'd better."

MacKenzie
came up the path with a smocked, balding DIA
technician. "We were right about Bernstein. It was a
proteolytic
enzyme of some sort." The technician pointed to a small ulcerous area on
the back of his hand.
"Still active as hell."

"And
the slop?"

"Nothing there.
The food wasn't chewed at all, just decomposed by acids and spewed
out."

Bahr
nodded. "All right, keep at it. And call down a 'copter. I have to go to
Chicago. Carmine! Nail that ship."

He
was actually looking right at the lake when the blast came—a sudden burst of
light and a column of water shooting into the air, followed immediately by the
shock wave which hit them as a muffled crash. The light went out, and the trees
rocked and squeaked as the sudden wind passed through them. Bahr stared, then
broke at a dead run for the water's edge,
MacKenzie
at his side.

"Those poor
bastards," somebody said.

"Poor
devils didn't have a chance,"
MacKenzie
muttered. Still Bahr said nothing. For a long moment his stubborn, determined
face had sagged, drained of color, the heavy jaw hanging slack as if he could
not
breath
. Then he turned away, his head still shaking.

"It's too late to do
anything now,"
MacKenzie
said.

"Again,"
Bahr said slowly. "They did it again!" With an effort, he caught
control again, and his jaw shut and clenched. His eyes met
MacKenzie's
, and the two men looked at each other,
the hostility strangely absent from Bahr's eyes. For an instant
MacKenzie
had the fleeting feeling that if he could say
exactly the right thing, things between him and Bahr would be permanently
different, but no idea came, and then the moment had passed. Bahr's face was hard
and remote as he turned back to Frank Carmine.

"Get some medical up here. Do what you
can, and then join me in Chicago. Be ready to bring
MacKenzie
down when he wants to go."

Carmine
nodded and went about organizing the DIA activities while Bahr, still sobered
to an almost passive point, climbed into the 'copter and sat brooding and
silent while die rotor whined up to speed and lifted off the ground.

The
last thing he saw in the glare of the floodlights was Paul
MacKenzie
,
standing back out of the way and watching him, and he wondered, vaguely, at the
look of puzzlement and concern on the BRINT man's troubled face.

"You
can't
question these poor devils now," Dr. Petri said. "They're
exhausted. They're just recovering from shock. The only reason they're not
under heavy sedation right now is because your men told me . . ."

"I
know, I know," Bahr said impatiently. "It's too bad, but they've got
to be questioned."

"You'll
get much farther with them if you'll let them sleep for eight hours." The
doctor flicked a 3-V switch. "Look at them."

Bahr glanced at the 3-V image of the Critical
Ward. The men were there, not two, but seven—including the eminent James Cullen
of the University of Michigan, one of the leading socio-economists in the
country, and, it was said, one of the ten men in the world who fully understood
the social, economic, and psychological implications of the
Vanner-Elling
equations. They were sprawled in R-chairs, glassy-eyed and
haggard,
trying to relax and sleep in the face of the sustaining drugs they had been
given. They did not look like the leading scientists of a nation. They looked
like living dead men.

"We can't wait," Bahr said.
"If we let them sleep, they won't come out of it for days, and we've got
to know what happened to them."

"Mr. Bahr, you don't
understand the strain . . ."

Bahr pulled himself to his feet. "You
take care of the bodies, Doctor. I'll make the decisions about what we do with
them. I'll want each of them in a separate room, and I'll want somebody with me
who can keep them awake. Is that clear? I mean wide awake."

The
doctor took a breath and left the office, leaving Bahr glaring at the wall clock.
Fleetingly, he thought of the return trip from Canada. A DIA car had met him
at the landing field, whisked him through the downtown Chicago streets with
siren at full blast, but even that brief ride had brought him back shockingly
to the change that had been taking place since the Wildwood raid.

He
had not seen the normal early-morning bustle of people on the streets. Instead,
people were gathered on street corners, moving listlessly into the buildings. A
huge crowd had gathered to watch the morning newscast, projected on the
eight-story screen on the Tribune building, with John
John
relaying the latest news from BURINF, but it had been an uneasy crowd. A dozen
times on the way to the hospital he had heard police sirens wailing.

And
at the hospital, the sudden appearance of TV cameras, and a dozen newsmen, all
of
diem
talking at once about the European newsbreaks
and about an alien landing, asking for confirmation or denial, complaining
bitterly about the anemic information BURINF had made available.

He
had shouldered his way through them, repeating his "Sorry, boys, nothing
now," until a woman's voice, quite loud, cut through the babble of voices.

"Isn't
it true, Mr. Bahr, that your appointment as Director of DIA has not been
approved, pending a DEPCO check?"

Bahr
stopped, found the woman's face. "Who gave you that information?"

"Just rumors, Mr.
Bahr."

"Well,
you can publish that I have assumed John McEwen's post in DIA, pending
appointment of a new director, for reasons of National Security, and you can
serve the interests of National Security a great deal by refusing to spread any
more nasty rumors than you can help." He started on, and added, "I
don't know who the new director will be, and right now I don't care. I'm simply
doing a job that has to be done."

It
had sounded all right, he thought now, but it had come too close to the mark.
He looked up as Dr. Petri came to the door, nodded to him.

"All right, Mr. Bahr. But I warn
you—"

One
of Bahr's aides stopped them in the corridor. "There's a Mr. Whiting from
DEPCO here to see you, Chief."

Bahr scowled. "Too busy," he said.

"He
has an AA priority. And he says it's about this alien business."

"What office of DEPCO?" Bahr said,
stopping suddenly.

"Foreign affairs.
It's about those broadcasts."

Bahr
relaxed. It was not Adams' office. He was not eager to talk to anybody in DEPCO
right now, but an AA priority was hard to sidestep. "Ask him to wait. I'll
be up as soon as I can."

He
turned into a small white room. The polygraph operator was ready, and a sterile
tray rested on the desk. "All right," Bahr said to the doctor.
"Bring Cullen in."

Two DIA men led Cullen into the room, a
grey-haired man of about sixty with a wrinkled, haggard look, stooped and
squinting as if the glaring white walls hurt his eyes. He was leaning heavily
on his two escorts, obviously on the verge of nervous collapse. His eyes had
the raw, unnatural brightness of amphetamine-induced wakefulness.

Bahr
motioned him to the PG seat, held out his wallet with ID card showing.
"I'm Julian Bahr, Dr. Cullen. Director DIA. We'd like to ask you some
questions."

"Please,"
Cullen said dully. "Let me sleep. I've been questioned for days, I can't
think any more."

"We'll
be as brief as possible," Bahr pressed him. He nodded, and the technicians
strapped one of the
Gronklin
polygraph receptors
around Cullen's chest.