Read Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer Online
Authors: The invaders are Coming
It was silent in the room, and outside the
rain was coming down against the window. Libby Allison was talking, and Harvey
Alexander listened. Gradually the pieces were falling into place, the picture
he was trying to see.
"They
worked for five years," Libby went on. "They built this country up
again, from a dying giant to a prosperous,
stable
world power. It was only supposed to be a temporary measure, a chance for the
country to get back on its feet again, to get its bearings. I wanted to help. I
wanted to do more. Do you know how many years I spent getting my doctorate?
Eight years, and three years of field work. I had the highest rating of any
L-12 in fifteen years. I got a letter of commendation for some of the work I
did on the Playschool analysis. And then Julian Bahr came into power. He hated
DEPCO, and he was afraid of DEPCO, and in one week-less than one week—he
destroyed the DEPCO organization that it took twenty-five years to build."
"But
that DEPCO organization wasn't all good," Alexander said. .
"Of
course it wasn't all good, but the point is,
it wasn't all bad,
either. And me, I was the fool, the wide-eyed
virgin." She bit her lip. "I suppose you know how Bahr got through
the DEPCO screening for the last five years. I first ran across him when he was
being screened after his court-martial. I couldn't believe that his IQ was
really that low, I wanted to help him channel that awful drive and ambition,
I
practically forced him to work with me. I was terribly in
love with him when we first met, and I told myself lies about him and made
myself believe things that never could have been true. But then, when he had
broken down DEPCO, even I couldn't pretend to myself that I could ever control
him. I could see what he had done to
me.
He
knew I had the same kind of hate in me that he did; he saw that when I hit
Adams. But when I found myself standing there deliberately mutilating a man
that I hated, I knew if I stayed with Bahr I would have to destroy things the
way
he
wants to destroy things. I had already
compromised DEPCO and broken every promise and moral contract I'd ever made,
and betrayed everything I'd ever believed in."
She
took a deep breath, and spread her hands again. "I knew then that I
couldn't do it, and it wouldn't make any difference what he did to me, no
matter how much he hated me, I couldn't do it."
She was silent for a long time, and Alexander
gave her time to recover. She looked at him, and gave a brittle laugh.
"There isn't much more. I got out of New York. The police had me in for
questioning twice. I spent a night in jail for vagrancy, and I saw he wasn't
going to quit, not until I was pounded right down into the ground. I stole a
car and drove to Boston and ran the car into the river. I had no money and no
papers, so I couldn't get a job. I didn't dare register for relief, because
Bahr would find me. Well, he'll find me eventually, anyhow, but right now he's
too busy. There isn't any work for me here. I have three college degrees and an
IQ of 150, and I can't even get a job as a waitress. I hadn't eaten for two
days when I got to Boston, but I found a way to live. No papers, no clearance.
I can't even be a registered whore, so I take what I can get. I'm young, I
learn fast, I'm scared sick and I get myself drunk as much as I can stand it. I
hate myself, but I swear to God I hate him worse."
He
knew that any comment now would only rub salt in the wounds, and finally the
shell fell away completely and she began to cry, and he let her he on the bed
and cry herself to sleep as if she were a little girl. She had a nightmare and
woke up screaming, but he held her and talked to her like a child and after a
while she lay quiet. Finally she woke up, for which Alexander was duly thankful
because he was getting a trifle impatient, and he knew that he had not yet
begun.
Later, a quieter, more restrained Libby
showed
every evidence
that her confidence had
returned a little. Alexander recognized that at least one important point had
been won: that to her he was the reincarnation of Mark
Vanner
.
He played his cards skillfully then as he made sandwiches and coffee for them.
He told her about his own blitzing from BURINF to Wildwood, let her realize
that he was an outlaw like herself, although in a stronger position, and able
to help her. She accepted this; even though she had drawn herself in after the
naked release of the morning, he could see that she wanted his friendship
desperately.
In a flash of insight he sensed that she
was
Mark
Vanner's
daughter. In the BRINT dossier
she looked like her mother, but now, watching her . . . the flair for
organizing uncertain and inexact ideas, the talent for abstraction
...
it was clear.
He
waited until he was certain that the time was right before he said, "I
think that I might be able to find out where your son is," and a door that
had been slammed shut in Libby's life swung open again.
"He's
somewhere in the Playschool system," she said, hardly daring to believe
what she heard. "The records will have been changed. And Bahr's people
have infiltrated."
"I
know that," Alexander said. "I still think we could locate him. If he
is in the system, BRINT will have duplicate files."
She stared at him. "If you could do it,
if you could only do it." She was interested, desperately interested.
Alexander suggested a plan.
If
they could locate the boy, BRINT would get him out of the Playschool. Money
would be made available, and Libby and Tim would be conducted out of the
country, probably to Canada. In return, Libby would help Alexander.
"How?" she wanted
to know.
"It
has to do with Bahr. I can't tell you more right now, except that it may be
dangerous for you."
"And Tim will be
gotten out of the school in any case?"
"Before
anything else begins," Alexander promised her. "There's one thing,
though. You may have to face Bahr personally and fight him. If you're afraid
to, you'd better say so now."
Libby
was silent for a long time. Then she turned away. "I don't want anything
to do with Bahr," she said dully.
"All
right, but what are you going to do with your life? Drink yourself blind?
Forget Bahr and your son? Just stand by and turn into a low-grade prostitute?
Look, you're part of this. Julian Bahr didn't just happen out of a clear blue
sky. You made him. DEPCO made him.
Vanner
. . . yes,
Mark
Vanner
made him, hate by hate."
"I know that," she said sharply.
"I know the life he's had.
I
know what DEPCO did to him when he was in Riley. He was washed up when I met
him. I made him stand up again. I made him fight . . ." She stopped.
"Yes,
you made him fight, to build an empire to
lay
at your
feet." He faced her, forced her to meet his eyes. "Do you know why
you ran away from Bahr? I'll tell you why.
Because you'd
already destroyed DEPCO.
You always wanted to."
"I didn't! I wanted to help, to do all I
could."
"By shielding Bahr?
By putting him in power?"
She whirled on him. "Why
do you want to torment me? I hate you!"
"You hate Bahr. Fight him."
"All
right, I will. I'll get even with him!" She bit off the rest of the
sentence, but her eyes were narrowing and hardening in anger, and Alexander
knew that the White Queen was already taken.
It had gone
smoothly for Bahr, everything had gone smoothly
during the weeks while the continent was torn, hammered and smelted into a
space industry under his ruthless reform. There had been enough work to tax
even Bahr's e-
normous
reserves, and exhaustion gave
him occasional stretches of dreamless sleep. On his desk was the report from
White Sands announcing the first successful pilot model of the new atomic
drive, and he was pleased, vastly pleased, until the memo came into his
hands—an innocuous enough note except that it came in under a special code
heading that guaranteed it would come to his personal attention.
He
read the memo, and threw his office door open, bellowing for Walters, from
whom the memo had come. "What does this thing mean?" he roared,
waving the memo sheet under Walters' nose.
"Just
what it says," Walters told him. "She took the child back."
"What
do you mean, she took the child back? Who said she could take the child
back?"
Walters
showed him the papers. The whole matter was perfectly legal and
straightforward, and much as he wanted to, Bahr could find nothing out of
order. An attorney representing Libby Allison had paid a quiet visit to the
authorities at the Bordentown Playschool. He had made the proper identification
in Libby's behalf, and presented satisfactory evidence of her desire and
ability to support the child properly. She had a sufficiently good
job,
and a suitable standing account in a Canadian bank.
The paperwork had been carried through, and Tim had been released in her care.
The
last Bahr had heard directly from Libby, she had been dispossessed from her New
York apartment. After that, there had been too much demand on his time, too
many things to do, and not enough of his personal staff to handle the load. Now
he alerted four of his men and ordered them to make an investigative pounce.
They
found her apartment in Boston in ten hours flat, but Libby Allison was gone,
permanently. Her forwarding address was in Quebec, Canada. A check with the
Border Guard Intelligence gave the tantalizing information that Libby had
driven into Canada with a permanent residence passport the previous day.
The boy had been with her.
The
very audacity of it infuriated Bahr even more than the fact itself. A
conference with
Braelow
, his personal attorney, and
he laid it on the line. "I want that boy back here. I don't care how, I
don't even care whether he's dead or alive,
I
just want him back!"
Braelow
studied the situation, and came back with empty hands. The DIA team that Bahr
had sent to Canada for surveillance returned with a report as detailed as it
was useless. Libby had a job; she left Tim in a nursery during the day, and
took him home to an apartment a few blocks away at night. Her Canadian job was
actually a civil service job. Bahr saw an opening wedge there, and put pressure
on various people to get her fired, so that she would be unable to manage
support, but something or somebody seemed to be exerting equal pressure on the
other side, and Libby was not fired from her job. . . .
He
had
Braelow
contact Libby indirectly, delicately suggesting
certain material advantages that would accrue if Bahr were permitted to adopt
the
boy,
and certain unpleasant consequences if she
continued her ridiculous attempt to thwart him; but Libby made a scene, and
chased the contact man out. Bahr listened to the tape recording, and seethed,
driving his fist into his palm until his arm was numb to the elbow.
He
tried diplomatic channels then, demanding to have Libby extradited on certain
legal and political charges, but this curiously came a cropper, and the
Legation, in a huff, returned him a sharp warning against trying to violate political
sanctuary. By this time Bahr was boiling.
Then
he received a personal letter from Libby, through her attorneys. Bahr read it,
and tore it into shreds, and shortly thereafter planned the kidnapping.
His DIA men did not return at the appointed time; in
fact, they did not return at all, so he did not know exactly
what had gone wrong. But not only did the kidnapping
mis
-
sion
fail, the incident hit the newspapers, and the
Canadian
police found out somehow that there was a DIA linkage in
the kidnapping attempt. Although it was only rumor and
completely unconfirmed by Canadian officials, the European
news nets played the story up as fact. Quite suddenly Bahr
found the devoted public of Federation America catching
the scent of scandal and looking to him confidently for ex-
planation
. BURINF handled the cover story very
skillfully
,
but still there was a stir, an unpleasant aftertaste, and Bahr
was beyond reason.
^
He
faced
Braelow
in private conference. "I want
that boy back," he said furiously. "If she hasn't had enough yet,
then I'll give her enough. I'll break her into little pieces. I want that boy,
and I don't care what it costs you to get him. Just get him."