Collected Short Fiction, page 321
Deserters.
He looked for his brother as they filed past him, but Carl was not here. None of the faces looked familiar, in fact; searching his memory, he tried to reconstruct the looks of the men on those tridim photos, but the faces his mind brought up did not jibe with the ones before him.
They were all in the room now—more than twenty of them. And, he saw, they weren’t looking for him at all. They had Silusian guns trained oh them, and they were standing packed together uneasily. These weren’t traitors, Dirk realized.
They were the twenty-three captives taken from the new ship. And something was going to be done to them—something that involved the machine at the far end of the room.
Chilled, he watched the Silusians go to work.
TWENTY-THREE MEN DIED in five minutes. Unable to move, realizing it was sure death to venture, out of hiding, Dirk was compelled to stand by while three of the Silusians moved rapidly down the Terran ranks, removing facemasks, while the fourth kept his heavy-cycle blaster trained on the group.
They dropped one by one as their suit air rushed out and was replaced with the oxygenless atmosphere of the Silusian planetoid. Dirk gasped; he fought back the temptation to rush from the closet and take as many Silusians with him as he could before that heavy-cycle job asked him.
But he stayed, and his camera recorded it all. He knew he was more valuable to Earth in hiding here, even though twenty-three men were being murdered before his eyes.
But the real horror was yet to come.
After all twenty-three lay in stiffening postures on the metal floor, the four Silusians moved efficiently among them, dragging the bodies toward the machine at the back of the lab.
He watched as the aliens drew gleaming electrodes from the body of the machine and, reaching in the open facemasks, attached them to the heads of the dead Terrans.
When the job was done, the leader of the four aliens reached high above his head and yanked down on a switch. Dials spun crazily on the face of the machine, recording the power flow. Bright electric arcs hummed and crackled about the spacesuits of the dead Terrans.
And then they began to rise and do a crazy dance.
Dirk’s stomach turned to lead and sank as he stared. The dead men were moving awkwardly about like so many puppets at the ends of their electrodes, while power throbbed in the machine.
No. Not puppets, he thought coldly.
Zombies.
It went on for three minutes; then the alien cut the switch and the power died. The Terrans removed the electrodes of their own accord and closed their facemasks.
“Welcome to the ranks of the Silusian Army,” the alien said in faultless Terran. “I am General Holk-forgan of His Imperial Majesty’s Army. I will be in charge of your Indoctrination.”
Dirk felt cold sweat pouring down his face. Not even the most persuasive Terran propaganda had led him to think the Silusians were capable of this.
They were coldly killing prisoners-of-war. and then—through some weird process of their alien science—bringing them back to life as loyal vassals of Silusia, with all their previous habits and beliefs left untouched. It was virtually fool-proof; in case any of the “converted” Terrans were recaptured, there would probably be the way of detecting the alteration.
But the evidence was down on the tiny retina of Dirk’s minicam. He knew if he could only escape from the planetoid and return to Earth with it the Silusian propaganda barrage would be punctured for good.
Mingled with his horror was a sort of relief. Carl was not a traitor. The Carl he knew was dead; the thing that wore his body was no traitor, for it had never known allegiance to Terra. He knew that both he and his father would be happier knowing Carl was dead than that a Summers had been a traitor to Earth.
General Holk-forgan was finishing hi? speech to the “recruits” now. He was telling them to wander around, to investigate the planetoid for the rest of the day, to get used to their new home.
The group broke up. As they left the lab, Dirk casually slipped from the closet and entered their midst. No one would notice an extra spacesuit in a group of more than twenty.
IT WAS STRANGE, walking in a group of these zombies. They said little. As the group came out into the corridor, Dirk noticed a few other Terrans join them.
“We’re previous recruits,” they announced. Dirk saw that his brother was among them, and turned away so his facemask would be averted. He didn’t want to be spotted. “We’ve come to show you around,” Carl told them.
“What are these Silusians like?” one of the new “converts” asked.
“They’re fine men. All you heard about them on Earth was just lies—”
“We knew that all along!”
“Good. Anyone could see that they’re just as human as we are, that they want to live in peace with Earth but that the warmongers and fools down there insist on killing and murdering instead of negotiating.”
Dirk listened to the stream of lies pouring from his brother’s lips with a dull horror. He had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t Carl, that it was only some alien puppet speaking.
But it was all down on the camera, sight and sound. What he had would be dynamite; the entire galaxy would explode in rage when Terra beamed Dirk’s film to them.
He edged to the front of the group. They were coming close to a fork in the corridor which Dirk recognized as the way to the escape-hatch through which he had entered. His spaceship was waiting for him outside. Satisfied, he dropped back and let the others pass him. Now that he knew where he was, all he had to do was wait until he was behind the others, then make a dash for the hatch. They wouldn’t notice him until he was gone.
He glanced warily back. There was no one behind him.
Now!
He cut off to the side and leaped for the catwalk that led to the hatch. But as he did so he felt something tug on his boot, and a voice said, “Not so fast, friend. Where do you think you’re going?”
He looked down. One of the zombies had grabbed his foot and was tugging. Dirk kicked, but it was no use; he was yanked down.
He landed lightly and confronted the man who had spotted him. Behind the other’s face-mask was—
Carl.
“I thought it was you,” Carl said coldly. “Jaggers said there was a double of me running around here a while ago—and it could only be you. What were you doing up on that catwalk, Dirk?”
Numbly Dirk stared at his brother, unable to speak.
“Don’t tell me your indoctrination didn’t take,” Carl said. “I thought it worked every time.”
“I’m not indoctrinated, Carl. Get out of my way and let me get out of here.”
Carl grinned. It was a chilling sight to see his kid brother’s familiar grin coming from this alien thing. “You weren’t indoctrinated? How sad, Dirk. But let me take you to General Holk—”
Carl reached for him. Dirk slapped the hand away. There were just the two of them, alone in the corridor, brother against brother—human against thing.
Carl’s mailed fist crashed into his stomach, and Dirk gagged. The two of them had been just about even in strength since their teens, but Dirk had had the faintest edge because of his age. Only now he was fighting—this.
Carl drove him back; Dirk defended himself desperately. To his horror he saw Carl’s object was to smash his faceplate. Dirk clamped his teeth together and batted away Carl’s blows.
“I’m your brother, Carl,” he gritted. “Or don’t you remember?”
“My brother, Earthman? Maybe—once. But not any more.”
Carl accompanied his taunting words with a barrage of blows that left Dirk reeling. Dirk still found it difficult to understand that he was fighting for his life—and against his own brother. His brother.
How can I kill my own brother? he asked himself.
As Carl’s fists grazed his faceplate he realized that Carl himself had given him the answer a moment before. They were no longer brothers. And the Carl of old would have been the first to applaud what he was going to do.
Grimly he drew close to Carl, fighting with desperate force. This is for Carl, he thought. The Carl I grew up with. And for Dad. And for all of Earth.
His fists hammered mercilessly at the thing before him. He drove the creature that had been Carl back, back—finally smashed him to the ground with a fierce blow. Carl began to rise, but Dirk was on him in an instant, pinning him with a knee in his chest_
He brought his glove down back-handed across Carl’s faceplate and the air came rushing out. Dirk looked away; it wasn’t pleasant to see a man die this way. Even Carl.
When it was over, he heaved the body over his shoulder and started to climb the catwalk. No one had heard the sound of the struggle; he emerged unopposed on the skin of the planetoid.
There was his ship, still untouched. He ran toward it as quickly as he could, with the corpse slung over his shoulder.
It would have been foolish to leave Carl there. The aliens would only have put him back through the machine and revived him again. No; Carl was dead—the Carl he knew—and Carl was to get a decent burial.
FIVE MINUTES LATER, the XL832a hovered for an instant over the surface of the planetoid. At the controls of the ship, Dirk kept the blast on high, until the cremation was over. Carl’s ashes would drift out through the entire galaxy—a hero’s burial.
Then he set the course for Earth. With the minicamera safely aboard, he’d have enough evidence to damn the Silusians in the eyes of the galaxy forever. And proof that Carl had been loyal to Earth to his dying breath. Dirk Summers relaxed inside the tiny ship, knowing that his father, the old Commander, could be proud of both his sons.
Vanishing Act
These crimes were perfect—no clues, no fingerprints—no nothing. Even the police hod no idea exactly how perfect they really were!
THE HEADLINE in the morning telefax said,
CRIME WAVE STILL
PLAGUES CITY
Detective Bailey frowned and brought the telefax sheet closer to his somewhat myopic eyes. He read:
“N’Yok found itself in the third day of the worst crime wave in its history today. More than one hundred individual thefts were reported—most of them from supposedly “thief-proof” places.
“The N’Yok Federal Reserve Bank reported the loss of nearly $25,000 in gold bullion and the same amount in paper money. The N’Yok Public Library reported theft of fifty books and pamphlets of all descriptions. More than $1000 worth of food pellets was taken from the laboratories of—”
Bailey sighed and put the ’fax sheet down. Things were getting worse and worse and it was his job to find the thieves.
Except that they obstreperously insisted on breaking into sealed vaults, museum cases, closed shelves of libraries, and extracting their loot without disturbing locks, doors, windows or anything else.
There were no clues, no fingerprints. No nothing, Bailey thought sourly. And there would be a big shakeup in the Detective Bureau if this went on. He’d be pounding a beat somewhere in Outer Canarsie before long.
Another item in the telefax caught his eye.
CALLISTANS
REPORTED MISSING
“The pair of Callistan natives brought back to Earth by the Smathers Expedition earlier this week are missing from the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Life, it was learned today.
“The two alien creatures vanished three days ago, a Bureau official declared, but word was withheld until today in hope that the Collisions might be found somewhere in the Bureau building in Washington. Plans are—”
Gears meshed in Detective Bailey’s mind. The crime wave had begun three days ago. The pair of Callistans had vanished at the same time.
Now, either the Callistans were victims of the crime wave—
Or they were causing it!
It seemed logical. It was worth investigating. With his badge hanging on the outcome of the crime wave, Detective Bailey could hardly afford to pass up any possibility whatsoever.
THE BUREAU OF EXTRA-terrestrial Life was just off the Mall, in Washington. Bailey paused outside for a moment, then went in.
“I’d like to see the curator, please.”
“Sorry, Mr. Hegley isn’t seeing anyone today. These Callistans—”
“I’m Bailey. New York Detectives. I’d like to see the curator.”
“Oh—sorry, sir. One flight up and first door to your left.” Curator Hegley was a small, wrinkled man who might well have been an extraterrestrial himself. He bore a haggard, hunted look.
“I’m Bailey. New York Detectives.”
“What cart I do for you, Mr. Beely? And please make it brief. These Callistans—”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh? Do you have any information about them, Mr. Beely?”
“Bailey. No, I don’t know much about them. But you know of this crime wave we’re having in N’Yok?”
“Vaguely. Things disappearing out of locked rooms and so forth. You think our Callistans were stolen the same way, you mean?”
“Quite possibly,” Bailey said. “But I’m operating on a different assumption just now. I think the Callistans are doing the stealing!”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said the Curator.
“Tell me something: what sort of cage were the Callistans in while being examined?”
“Completely sealed, Mr. Bailey. There was no possible way for them to get out or for anyone to get in. And the seals were undisturbed.”
Bailey took a deep breath. “Do you think it’s at all likely, Mr. Hegley, that the Callistans could have passed through the cage?”
“What?”
“I mean, de-materialize themselves and come out on the other side. And then go on a rampage of theft.”
The curator scowled suspiciously. “That sounds like a Sunday-supplement idea, Mr. Boolie. We didn’t have time to examine them, of course, but—well, really—”
“It’s not as far-fetched as it seems,” Bailey said. “Look here, Mr. Hegley: something, is going through walls to perpetrate those crimes. There’s no doubt of that; locked rooms are being entered and stolen from. So there’s a force at large that we don’t understand.”
“Perhaps.”
“Not perhaps! Definitely! All right, now: your Callistans have been removed from their cage by this force. It seems logical to me that they themselves are exerting the force! They’re the only extraneous factors in the case. No such phenomenon has ever happened at a time when the Capstans weren’t on Earth. Only in the last three days—”
Bailey suddenly realized he was wasting his breath. Hegley could be of no help and there was nothing to be won by convincing him of his theory.
BUT BY NIGHTFALL it wasn’t a theory any more. Bailey had caught the 6 p.m. commuting rocket back to New. York and, standing jammed elbow-to-elbow with busy, tired office-workers, he heard everyone discussing the case.
“Seems someone saw a little green man appear and vanish right in front of her,” a man said.
“Yeah. I heard it on the late afternoon newscast. Must be one of those aliens that escaped.” Bailey frowned but took it all in. And when he returned to his office he demanded an immediate resume from Stein, his subordinate.
“It seems a woman teller was writing up an account at the Chase Bank today,” Stein informed him. “Suddenly this tiny goblin-like figure appeared.”
“Description?”
“About two feet high, four arms, two legs, greenish-gray in color.” Bailey nodded. That matched the description Hegley had given him of the missing Capstans. “Go ahead,” he snapped.
“Well, this little goblin appeared, grinned at her, and vanished. She reported it to her manager and he immediately thought about the bank vault.”
“Smart man,” Bailey commented.
“The time-lock was set for an hour later, so they couldn’t get in there till then. But when they finally opened it up they found $10,000 missing.”
Bailey scratched his forehead as he digested the data. “Okay, Stein. That all?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Get out there and dig up anything else you can. We’ve got to crack this case. N’Yok’s at the mercy of these alien beings.” He stared fiercely at Stein, trying to communicate some of the suppressed rage that his own superiors would no doubt be hurling at him before much more time had passed. Stein quailed, just as Bailey would be quailing later.
“Yessir.”
BAILEY REMAINED at his desk a long while, brooding. Life had been so simple just three days before. Nothing but a few murders, rapes, robberies. Simple robberies, committed by human beings wielding guns and bludgeons and making finger-prints SO they could be caught.
Now, no guns. No fingerprints.
No human beings. Just invisible pixies from Jupiter’s moons who flitted in and out of bank vaults at will. And it was Bailey’s job to catch them.
Sighing, he rose and opened the faxfile. He found the information he wanted.
Three days before, the Smathers Expedition had returned from Callisto, Jupiter’s largest moon. The expedition had consisted of one man, Leroy Smathers, an adventurer and space-pilot who had volunteered to make the closest approach to giant Jupiter yet known to man.
Smathers had made the trip safely and had brought back two natives of the large moon. These, as was Earth’s custom, were immediately taken from his ship upon landing and conveyed to Washington, to the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Life, for study and observation.
Smathers himself had retired to his home and was working on a book detailing his experiences on Callisto. He refused to let anyone see him and after his landing would not speak to any reporters.
And the Callistans, Bailey reflected, had escaped from the Bureau almost immediately after they had arrived there.
Well, Smathers had succeeded in capturing two of the creatures. Evidently he knew how to make them refrain from popping back and forth through walls. Otherwise he never would have been able to bring them back from their home world.
The next man to see was Smathers.
