They have gained a man, Mr. Lee realized. They are ahead. But ultimately we will win. Because ultimately we will manage to destroy all the empathy boxes, and without them Wilbur Mercer can do nothing. This is the only way he has—or it has—of reaching and controlling people, as it has done here with unfortunate Mr. Crofts. Without the empathy boxes the movement is helpless.
VI
At the UWA desk, at Rocky Field in New York City, Joan Hiashi said to the uniformed clerk, “I want to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on the next flight. Jet or rocket; it doesn’t matter. I just want to get there.”
“First class or tourist?” the clerk asked.
“Aw, hell,” Joan said wearily, “just sell me a ticket. Any kind of a ticket.” She opened her purse.
As she started to pay for the ticket a hand stopped hers. She turned—and there stood Ray Meritan, his face twisting with relief.
“What a place to try to pick up your thoughts,” he said. “Come on, let’s go where it’s quiet. You have ten minutes before your flight.”
They hurried together through the building until they came to a deserted ramp. There they stopped, and Joan said, “Listen, Ray, I know it’s a trap for you. That’s why they let me out. But where else can I go except to you?”
Ray said, “Don’t worry about it. They were bound to pick me up sooner or later. I’m sure they know I left California and came here.” He glanced around. “No FBI agents near us yet. At least I don’t pick up anything suggesting it.” He lit a cigarette.
“I don’t have any reason to go back to L.A.,” Joan said, “now that you’re here. I might as well cancel my flight.”
“You know they’re picking up and destroying all the empathy boxes they can,” Ray said.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t know; I was just released half an hour ago. That’s dreadful. They really mean business.”
Ray laughed. “Let’s say they’re really frightened.” He put his arm around her and kissed her. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll try to sneak out of this place, go to the lower East Side and rent a little cold-water walk-up. We’ll hide out and find an empathy box they missed.” But, he thought, it’s unlikely; they probably have them all by now. There weren’t that many to start with.
“Anything you say,” Joan said drably.
“Do you love me?” he asked her. “I can read your mind; you do.” And then he said quietly, “I can also read the mind of a Mr. Lewis Scanlan, an FBI man who’s now at the UWA desk. What name did you give?”
“Mrs. George McIsaacs,” Joan said. “I think.” She examined her ticket and envelope. “Yes, that’s right.”
“But Scanlan is asking if a japanese woman has been at the desk in the last fifteen minutes,” Ray said. “And the clerk remembers you. So—” He took hold of Joan’s arm. “We better get started.”
They hurried down the deserted ramp, passed through an electric-eye operated door and came out in a baggage lobby. Everyone there was far too busy to pay any attention as Ray Meritan and Joan threaded their way to the street door and, a moment later, stepped out onto the chill gray sidewalk where cabs had parked in a long double row. Joan started to hail a cab…
“Wait,” Ray said, pulling her back. “I’m getting a jumble of thoughts. One of the cab drivers is an FBI man but I can’t tell which.” He stood uncertainly, not knowing what to do.
“We can’t get away, can we?” Joan said.
“It’s going to be hard.” To himself he thought, More like impossible; you’re right. He experienced the girl’s confused, frightened thoughts, her anxiety about him, that she had made it possible for them to locate and capture him, her fierce desire not to return to jail, her pervasive bitterness at having been betrayed by Mr. Lee, the Chinese Communist bigshot who had met her in Cuba.
“What a life,” Joan said, standing close to him.
And still he did not know which cab to take. One precious second after another escaped as he stood there. “Listen,” he said to Joan, “maybe we should separate.”
“No,” she said clinging to him. “I can’t stand to do it alone any more. Please.”
A bewhiskered peddler walked up to them with a tray suspended by a cord which ran about his neck. “Hi, folks,” he mumbled.
“Not now,” Joan said to him.
“Free sample of breakfast cereal,” the peddler said. “No cost. Just take a box, miss. You mister. Take one.” He extended the tray of small, gaily colored cartons toward Ray.
Strange, Ray thought. I’m not picking up anything from this man’s mind. He stared at the peddler, saw—or thought he saw—a peculiar insubstantiality to the man. A diffused quality.
Ray took one of the samples of breakfast cereal.
“Merry Meal, it’s called,” the peddler said. “A new product they’re introducing to the public. There’s a coupon inside. Entitles you to—”
“Okay,” Ray said, sticking the box in his pocket. He took hold of Joan and led her along the line of cabs. He chose one at random and opened the rear door. “Get in,” he said urgently to her.
“I took a sample of Merry Meal, too,” she said with a wan smile as he seated himself beside her. The cab started up, left the line and pulled past the entrance of the airfield terminal. “Ray, there was something strange about that salesman. It was as if he wasn’t actually there, as if he was nothing more than—a picture.”
As the cab drove down the auto ramp, away from the terminal, another cab left the line and followed after them. Twisting, Ray saw riding in the back of it two well-fed men in dark business suits. FBI men, he said to himself.
Joan said, “Didn’t that cereal salesman remind you of anyone?”
“Who?”
“A little of Wilbur Mercer. But I haven’t seen him enough to—” Ray grabbed the cereal box from her hand, tore the cardboard top from it. Poking up from the dry cereal he saw the corner of the coupon the peddler had spoken about; he lifted out the coupon, held it up and studied it. The coupon said in large clear printing:
HOW TO ASSEMBLE AN EMPATHY BOX FROM ORDINARY HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS
“It was them,” he said to Joan.
He put the coupon carefully away in his pocket, then he changed his mind.
Folding it up, he tucked it in the cuff of his trousers. Where the FBI possibly wouldn’t find it.
Behind them, the other cab came closer, and now he picked up the thoughts of the two men. They were FBI agents; he had been right. He settled back against the seat.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Joan said, “Could I have the other coupon?”
“Sorry.” He got out the other cereal package. She opened it, found the coupon inside and, after a pause, folded it and hid it in the hem of her skirt.
“I wonder how many there are of those so-called peddlers,” Ray said musingly. “I’d be interested to know how many free samples of Merry Meal they’re going to manage to give away before they’re caught.”
The first ordinary household object needed was a common radio set; he had noticed that. The second, the filament from a five-year light-bulb. And next—he’d have to look again, but now was not the time. The other cab had drawn abreast with theirs.
Later. And if the authorities found the coupon in the cuff of his trousers, they, he knew, would somehow manage to bring him another.
He put his arm around Joan. “I think we’ll be all right.”
The other cab, now, was nosing theirs to the curb and the two FBI men were waving in a menacing, official manner to the driver to stop.
“Shall I stop?” the driver said tensely to Ray.
“Sure,” he said. And, taking a deep breath, prepared himself.
The War with the Fnools
Captain Edgar Lightfoot of CIA said, “Darn it, the Fnools are back again, Major. They’ve taken over Provo, Utah.”
With a groan, Major Hauk signaled his secretary to bring him the Fnool dossier from the locked archives. “What form are they assuming this ti
me?” he asked briskly.
“Tiny real-estate salesmen,” Lightfoot said.
Last time, Major Hauk reflected, it had been filling station attendants. That was the thing about the Fnools. When one took a particular shape they all took that shape. Of course, it made detection for CIA fieldmen much easier. But it did make the Fnools look absurd, and Hauk did not enjoy fighting an absurd enemy; it was a quality which tended to diffuse over both sides and even up to his own office.
“Do you think they’d come to terms?” Hauk said, half-rhetorically. “We could afford to sacrifice Provo, Utah, if they’d be willing to circumscribe themselves there. We could even add those portions of Salt Lake City which are paved with hideous old red brick.”
Lightfoot said, “Fnools never compromise, Major. Their goal is Sol System domination. For all time.”
Leaning over Major Hauk’s shoulder, Miss Smith said, “Here is the Fnool dossier, sir.” With her free hand she pressed the top of her blouse against herself in a gesture indicating either advanced tuberculosis or advanced modesty. There were certain indications that it was the latter.
“Miss Smith,” Major Hauk complained, “here are the Fnools trying to take over the Sol System and I’m handed their dossier by a woman with a forty-two inch bosom. Isn’t that a trifle schizophrenic—for me, at least?” He carefully averted his eyes from her, remembering his wife and the two children. “Wear something else from here on out,” he told her. “Or swaddle yourself. I mean, my God, let’s be reasonable: let’s be realistic.”
“Yes, Major,” Miss Smith said. “But remember, I was selected at random from the CIA employees pool. I didn’t ask to be your secretary.”
With Captain Lightfoot beside him, Major Hauk laid out the documents that made up the Fnool dossier.
In the Smithsonian there was a huge Fnool, standing three feet high, stuffed and preserved in a natural habitat-type cubicle. School children for years had marveled at this Fnool, which was shown with pistol aimed at Terran innocents. By pressing a button, the school children caused the Terrans (not stuffed but imitation) to flee, whereupon the Fnool extinguished them with its advanced solar-powered weapon… and the exhibit reverted to its original stately scene, ready to begin all over again.
Major Hauk had seen the exhibit, and it made him uneasy. The Fnools, he had declared time and time again, were no joke. But there was something about a Fnool that—well, a Fnool was an idiotic life form. That was the basis of it. No matter what it imitated it retained its midget aspect; a Fnool looked like something given away free at supermarket openings, along with balloons and moist purple orchids. No doubt, Major Hauk had ruminated, it was a survival factor. It disarmed the Fnool’s opponents. Even the name. It was just not possible to take them seriously, even at this very moment when they were infesting Provo, Utah, in the form of miniature real-estate salesmen.
Hauk instructed, “Capture a Fnool in this current guise, Lightfoot, bring it to me and I’ll parley. I feel like capitulating, this time. I’ve been fighting them for twenty years now. I’m worn out.”
“If you get one face to face with you,” Lightfoot cautioned, “it may successfully imitate you and that would be the end. We would have to incinerate both of you, just to be on the safe side.”
Gloomily, Hauk said, “I’ll set up a key password situation with you right now, Captain. The word is masticate. I’ll use it in a sentence… for instance, ‘I’ve got to thoroughly masticate these data.’ The Fnool won’t know that—correct?”
“Yes, Major,” Captain Lightfoot sighed and left the CIA office at once, hurrying to the ‘copter field across the street to begin his trip to Provo, Utah. But he had a feeling of foreboding.
When his ‘copter landed at the end of Provo Canyon on the outskirts of the town, he was at once approached by a two-foot-high man in a gray business suit carrying a briefcase.
“Good morning, sir,” the Fnool piped. “Care to look at some choice lots, all with unobstructed views? Can be subdivided into—”
“Get in the ‘copter,” Lightfoot said, aiming his Army-issue .45 at the Fnool.
“Listen, my friend,” the Fnool said, in a jolly tone of voice. “I can see you’ve never really given any hardheaded thought to the meaning of our race having landed on your planet. Why don’t we step into the office a moment and sit down?” The Fnool indicated a nearby small building in which Lightfoot saw a desk and chairs. Over the office there was a sign:
EARLY BIRD
Land Development
Incorporated
“ ‘The early bird catches the worm,’ ” the Fnool declared. “And the spoils go to the winner, Captain Lightfoot. By nature’s laws, if we manage to infest your planet and pre-empt you, we’ve got all the forces of evolution and biology on our side.” The Fnool beamed cheerily.
Lightfoot said, “There’s a CIA major back in Washington, D.C. who’s on to you.”
“Major Hauk has defeated us twice,” the Fnool admitted. “We respect him. But he’s a voice crying in the wilderness, in this country, at least. You know perfectly well, Captain, that the average American viewing that exhibit at the Smithsonian merely smiles in a tolerant fashion. There’s just no awareness of the menace.”
By now two other Fnools, also in the form of tiny real-estate salesmen in gray business suits carrying briefcases, had approached. “Look,” one said to the other. “Charley’s captured a Terran.”
“No,” its companion disagreed, “the Terran captured him.”
“All three of you get in the CIA ‘copter,” Lightfoot ordered, waving his .45 at them.
“You’re making a mistake,” the first Fnool said, shaking its head. “But you’re a young man; you’ll mature in time.” It walked to the ‘copter. Then, all at once, it spun and cried, “Death to the Terrans!”
Its briefcase whipped up, a bolt of pure solar energy whined past Lightfoot’s right ear. Lightfoot dropped to one knee and squeezed the trigger of the .45; the Fnool, in the doorway of the ‘copter, pitched head-forward and lay with its briefcase beside it. The other two Fnools watched as Lightfoot cautiously kicked the briefcase away.
“Young,” one of the remaining Fnools said, “but with quick reflexes. Did you see the way he dropped on one knee?”
“Terrans are no joke,” the other agreed. “We’ve got an uphill battle ahead of us.”
“As long as you’re here,” the first of the remaining Fnools said to Lightfoot, “why don’t you put a small deposit down on some valuable unimproved land we’ve got a listing for? I’ll be glad to run you out to have a look at it. Water and electricity available at a slight additional cost.”
“Get in the ‘copter,” Lightfoot repeated, aiming his gun steadily at them.
In Berlin, an Oberstleutnant of the SHD, the Sicherheitsdienst—the West German Security Service—approaching his commanding officer, saluted in what is termed Roman style and said, “General, die Fnoolen sind wieder zuruck. Was sollen wir jetz tun?”
“The Fnools are back?”Hochflieger said, horrified. “Already? But it was only three years ago that we uncovered their network and eradicated them.” Jumping to his feet General Hochflieger paced about his cramped temporary office in the basement of the Bundesrat Gebaude, his large hands clasped behind his back. “And what guise this time? Assistant Ministers of Domestic Finance, as before?”
“No sir,” the Oberstleutnant said. “They have come as gear inspectors of the VW works. Brown suit, clipboard, thick glasses, middle-aged. Fussy. And, as before, nur six-tenths of a meter high.”
“What I detest about the Fnools,” Hochflieger said, “is their ruthless use of science in the service of destruction, especially their medical techniques. They almost defeated us with that virus infection suspended in the gum on the backs of multi-color commemorative stamps.”
“A desperate weapon,” his subordinate agreed, “but rather too fantastic to be successful, ultimately. This time they’ll probably rely on crushing force combined with an absolutely synchr
onized timetable.”
“Selbsverstandlich,” Hochflieger agreed. “But we’ve nonetheless got to react and defeat them. Inform Terpol.” That was the Terra-wide organization of counterintelligence with headquarters on Luna. “Where, specifically, have they been detected?”
“In Schweinfurt only, so far.”
“Perhaps we should obliterate the Schweinfurt area.”
“They’ll only turn up elsewhere.”
“True.” Hochflieger brooded. “What we must do is pursue Operation Hundefutter to successful culmination.” Hundefutter had developed for the West German Government a sub-species of Terrans six-tenths of a meter high and capable of assuming a variety of forms. They would be used to penetrate the network of Fnool activity and destroy it from within. Hundefutter, financed by the Krupp family, had been held in readiness for just this moment.
“I’ll activate Kommando Einsatzgruppe II,”his subordinate said. “As counter-Fnools they can begin to drop behind Fnool lines near the Schweinfurt area immediately. By nightfall the situation should be in our hands.”
“Gruss Gott,” Hochflieger prayed, nodding. “Well, get the kommando started, and we’ll keep our ears open to see how it proceeds.”
If it failed, he realized, more desperate measures would have to be initiated.
The survival of our race is at stake, Hochflieger said to himself. The next four thousand years of history will be determined by the brave act of a member of the SHD at this hour. Perhaps myself.
He paced about, meditating on that.