It had no visibleexternal features.
It flung itself about with incredible darts and jerkings. It could stopstock still as no plane could possibly stop, and accelerate at a rate nohuman body could endure. It tried savagely to get through the swarmingfighters to the transport. Its light weapon flashed--but the pilotswould be wearing oxygen masks and there were no casualties among thehuman planes. Once a fighter did fall off in a steep dive, and flutteredalmost down to the cloud bank before it recovered and came back with itsguns spitting.
That one appeared to end the fight. It came straight up, pumping tracersat the steel flier from below. And the glittering Thing seemed to stopdead in the air. Then it shuddered. It was bathed in the flaring sparksof tracers. Then--
It dropped like a stone, tumbling aimlessly over and over as it dropped.It plummeted into the cloud bank.
Suddenly the clouds were lighted from within. Something inside flaredwith a momentary, terrifying radiance. No lightning bolt ever flashedmore luridly.
The transport plane and its escort flew on and on over the moonlit bankof clouds.
Presently orders came by radio. On the report of this attack, the flightplan would be changed, for safety. If the air convoy had been attackedonce, it might be attacked again. So it would be wisest to get itimmediately to where there would be plenty of protection. Therefore, thetransport plane would head for Naples.
Nearly the whole of the United States Mediterranean fleet was in the Bayof Naples just then. It had been there nearly a week, and by day itsliberty parties swarmed ashore. The merchants and the souvenir salesmenwere entranced. American sailors had money and they spent it. Thefleet's officers were social assets, its messes bought satisfyingly oflocal viands, and everybody was happy.
All but one small group. The newspapers of one of the Italian politicalparties howled infuriatedly. They had orders to howl, from behind theIron Curtain. The American fleet, that one party's newspapers bellowed,was imperialistic, capitalistic, and decadent. In short, there wasvirulent propaganda against the American fleet in Naples. But mostpeople were glad it was there anyway. Certainly nobody stayed awakeworrying about it.
* * * * *
People were staying awake worrying about the transport plane carryingCoburn and Janice, however. On the plane, Janice was fearful and pressedclose to Coburn, and he found it an absorbing experience and was movedto talk in a low tone about other matters than extra-terrestrialInvaders and foam suits and interstellar travel. Janice found thoseother subjects surprisingly fitted to make her forget about beingafraid.
Elsewhere, the people who stayed awake did talk about just the subjectsCoburn was avoiding. The convoy carrying Coburn to tell what he knew hadbeen attacked. By a plane which was definitely not made or manned byhuman beings. The news flashed through the air across continents. Itwent under the ocean over sea beds. It traveled in the tightest and mostclosely-guarded of diplomatic codes. The Greek government gave the otherNATO nations a confidential account of the Bulgarian raid and what hadhappened to it. These details were past question. The facts brought outby Coburn were true, too.
So secret instructions followed the news. At first they went only tohighly-trusted individuals. In thirty nations, top-ranking officials andmilitary officers blindfolded each other in turn and gravely stuck pinsin each other. The blindfolded person was expected to name the placewhere he had been stuck. This had an historical precedent. In oldendays, pins were stuck in suspected witches. They had patches of skin inwhich there was no sensation, and discovery of such areas condemned themto death. Psychologists in later centuries found that patches ofanaesthetic skin were typical of certain forms of hysteria, andtherefore did not execute their patients. But the Invaders, by the factthat their seemingly human bodies were not flesh at all, could not passsuch tests.
There were consequences. A Minister of Defense of a European nationamusedly watched the tests on his subordinates, blandly excused himselffor a moment before his own turn came, and did not come back. A generalof division vanished into thin air. Diplomatic code clerks painstakinglydecoded the instructions for such tests, and were nowhere about whenthey themselves were to be tested. An eminent Hollywood director and anOlympic champion ceased to be.
In the free world nearly a hundred prominent individuals simplydisappeared. Few were in position to influence high-level decisions.Many were in line to know rather significant details of world affairs.There was alarm.
It was plain, too, that not all disguised Invaders would have had tovanish. Many would not even be called on for test. They would stay wherethey were. And there were private persons....
* * * * *
There was consternation. But Janice, in the plane, was saying softly toCoburn: "The--creature who telephoned and said she was me. How did youknow she wasn't?"
"I went to the Breen Foundation first," said Coburn. "I looked into youreyes--and they were right. So I didn't need to stick a pin in you."
The thought of Coburn not needing to stick a pin in her impressed Janiceas beautiful trust. She sighed contentedly. "Of course you'd know," shesaid. "So would I--now!" She laughed a little.
The convoy flew on. The lurid round disk of the moon descended towardthe west.
"It'll be sunrise soon. But I imagine we'll land before dawn."
They did. The flying group of planes flew lower. Coburn saw a singlelight on the ground. It was very tiny, and it vanished rearward withgreat speed. Later there was another light, and a dull-red glow in thesky. Still later, infinitesimal twinklings on the ground at the horizon.They increased in number but not in size, and the plane swung hugely tothe left, and the lights on the ground formed a visible pattern. Andmoonlight--broken by the shadows of clouds--displayed the city and theBay of Naples below.
The transport plane landed. The passengers descended. Coburn saw Hallen,the American colonel, the Greek general, and a Greek colonel. The otherhad been left behind to take charge of things in Salonika. Here theuniforms were American, and naval. There were some Italian police inview, but most of the men about were American seamen, ostensibly onshore leave. But Coburn doubted very much if they were as completelyunarmed as men on shore leave usually are.
A man in a cap with much gold braid greeted the American colonel, theGreek general, and the Greek colonel. He came to Coburn, to whose armJanice seemed to cling.
"We're taking you out to the fleet. We've taken care of everything.Everybody's had pins stuck in him!"
It was very humorous, of course. They moved away from the plane.Surrounded by white-clad sailors, the party from the plane moved intothe hangar.
Then a voice snapped a startled question, in English. An instant laterit rasped: "Stop or I'll shoot!"
Then there was a bright flash of light. The interior of the hangar wasmade vivid by it. It went out. And as it disappeared there were thesounds of running footsteps. Only they did not run properly. They ran ingreat leaps. Impossible leaps. Monstrous leaps. A man might run likethat on the moon, with a lesser gravity. A creature accustomed to muchgreater gravity might run like that on Earth. But it would not be human.
It got away.
There was a waiting car. They got into it. They pulled out from theairport with other cars close before and behind. The cavalcade raced forthe city and the shoreline surrounded by a guard less noisy but no lesseffective than the Greek motorcycle troopers.
But the Greek general said something meditative in the dark interior ofthe car.
"What's that?" demanded someone authoritatively.
The Greek general said it again, mildly. This latest attempt to seizethem or harm them--if it was that--had been surprisingly inept. It wasstrange that creatures able to travel between the stars and putregiments and tanks out of action should fail so dismally to kill orkidnap Coburn, if they really wanted to. Could it be that they were notquite sincere in their efforts?
"That," said the authoritative voice, "is an idea!"
They reached the waterfro
nt. And here in the darkest part of the nightand with the moon near to setting, the waters of the Bay of Naplesrolled in small, smooth-surfaced, tranquil waves. There was a Navy bargewaiting. Those who had come by plane boarded it. It cast off and headedout into the middle of the huge harbor.
In minutes there was a giant hull looming overhead. They stepped outonto a landing ladder and climbed interminably up the ship's metal side.Then there was an open door.
"Now," said the American colonel triumphantly, "now everything's allright! Nothing can happen now, short of an atomic bomb!"
The Greek general glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. He saidsomething in that heavy accent of his. He asked mildly ifcreatures--Invaders--who could travel between the stars were unlikely tobe able to make atom bombs if they wanted to.
There was no answer. But somebody led Coburn into an office where thiscarrier's skipper was at his desk. He looked at