“Suppose nothing happens?”
“I plan to make it happen. First, I am going where the space ship landed, bull my way on through. We’ll get close-up pix of the real ship, piped right into the White House. After that I plan to go back to Barnes’s office and investigate those round shoulders. I’ll tear shirts off right in front of the camera. There won’t be any finesse to the job; I’ll just bust things wide open with a sledge hammer.”
“You realize you would have the same chance as a mouse at a cat convention.”
“I’m not so sure. As I see it, these things haven’t any superhuman powers. I’ll bet they are strictly limited to whatever the human being they are riding can do—maybe less. I don’t plan on being a martyr. In any case I’ll get you pix, good ones.”
“Hmm—”
“It might work,” Mary put in. “I’ll be the other agent, I can—”
The Old Man and I said, “No,” together—and then I flushed; it was not my prerogative to say so. Mary went on, “I was going to say that I am the logical one because of the, uh, talent I have for spotting a man with a parasite on him.”
“No,” the Old Man repeated, “It won’t be necessary. Where he’s going they’ll all have riders—assumed so until proved otherwise. Besides, I am saving you for something.”
She should have shut up, but for once did not. “For what? This is important.”
Instead of snapping at her the Old Man said quietly, “So is the other job. I’m planning to make you a presidential bodyguard, as soon as I can get it through his head that this is serious.”
“Oh.” She thought about it and answered, “uh, boss—”
“Eh?”
“I’m not certain I could spot a woman who was possessed. I’m not, uh, equipped for it.”
“So we take his women secretaries away from him. Ask me a hard one. And Mary—you’ll be watching him, too. He’s a man, you know.”
She turned that over in her mind. “And suppose I find that one has gotten to him, in spite of everything?”
“You take necessary action, the Vice President succeeds to the chair, and you get shot for treason. Simple. Now about this mission. We’ll send Jarvis with the scanner and I think I’ll include Davidson as an extra hatchet man. While Jarvis keeps the pick-up on you, Davidson can keep his eyes on Jarvis—and you can try to keep one eye on him. Ring-around the-rosy.”
“You think it will work, then?”
“No—but any plan of action is better than no plan. Maybe it will stir up something.”
While we headed for Iowa—Jarvis, Davidson, and I—the Old Man went back to Washington. He took Mary along. She cornered me as we were about to leave, grabbed me by the ears, kissed me firmly and said, “Sam—try to come back.”
I got all tingly and felt like a fifteen-year-old. Second childhood, I guess.
Davidson roaded the car beyond the place where I had found a bridge out. I was navigating, using a large-scale ordnance map on which had been pinpointed the exact landing site of the real space ship. The bridge, which was still out, gave a close-by and precise reference point. We turned off the road two tenths of a mile due east of the site and jeeped through the scrub to the spot. Nobody tried to stop us.
Almost to the spot, I should say. We ran into freshly burned-over ground and decided to walk. The site as shown by the space station photograph was included in the brush fire area—and there was no “flying saucer”. It would have taken a better detective than I will ever be to show that one had ever landed there. The fire had destroyed the traces, if any.
Jarvis scanned everything, anyhow, but I knew that the slugs had won another round. As we came out we ran into an elderly farmer; following doctrine we kept a wary distance, although he looked harmless.
“Quite a fire,” I remarked, sidling away.
“Sure was,” he said dolefully. “Killed two of my best milk cows, the poor dumb brutes. You fellows reporters?”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but we’ve been sent out on a wild-goose chase.” I wished Mary were along. Probably this character was naturally round-shouldered. On the other hand, assuming that the Old Man was right about the space ship—and he had to be right—then this all-too-innocent bumpkin must know about it and was covering it up. Ergo, he was hag-ridden.
I decided that I had to do it. The chances of capturing a live parasite and getting its picture on the channels back to the White House were better here than they would be in a crowd. I threw a glance at my teammates; they were both alert and Jarvis was scanning.
As the farmer turned to go I tripped him. He went face down and I was on his back like a monkey, clawing at his shirt. Jarvis moved in and got a close up; Davidson moved over to cover point. I had his back bare before he got his wind.
And it was bare. It was as clean as mine, no parasite, no sign of one. Nor any place on his body, which I made sure of before I let him up.
I helped him up and brushed him off; his clothes were filthy with ashes and so were mine. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said. “I’ve made a bad mistake.”
He was trembling with anger. “You young—” He couldn’t seem to find a word bad enough for me. He looked at all of us and his mouth quivered. “I’ll have the law on you. If I were twenty years younger I’d lick all three of you.”
“Believe me, old timer, it was a mistake.”
“Mistake!” His face broke and I thought he was going to cry. “I come back from Omaha and find my place burned, half my stock gone, and my son-in-law no place around. I come out to find out why strangers are snooping around my land and I like to get torn to pieces. Mistake! What’s the world coming to?”
I thought I could answer that last one, but I did not try to. I did try to pay him for the indignity but he slapped my money to the ground. We tucked in our tails and got out.
When we were back in the car and rolling again, Davidson said to me, “Are you and the Old Man sure you know what you are up to?”
“I can make a mistake,” I said savagely, “but have you ever known the Old Man to?”
“Mmm…no. Can’t say as I have. Where next?”
“Straight in to WDES main station. This one won’t be a mistake.”
“Anyhow,” Jarvis commented. “I got good pick-up throughout.”
I did not answer.
At the toll gates into Des Moines the gatekeeper hesitated when I offered the fee. He glanced at a notebook and then at our plates. “Sheriff has a call out for this car,” he said. “Pull over to the right.” He left the barrier down.
“Right it is,” I agreed, backed up about thirty feet and gunned her for all she was worth. The Section’s cars are beefed up and hopped up, too—a good thing, for the barrier was stout. I did not slow down on the far side.
“This,” said Davidson dreamily, “is interesting. Do you still know what you are doing?”
“Cut the chatter,” I snapped. “I may be crazy but I am still agent-in-charge. Get this, both of you: we aren’t likely to get out of this. But we are going to get those pix.”
“As you say, chief.”
I was running ahead of any pursuit. I slammed to a stop in front of the station and we poured out. None of “Uncle Charlie’s” indirect methods—we swarmed into the first elevator that was open and punched for the top floor—Barnes’s floor. When we got there I left the door of the car open, hoping to use it later.
As we came into the outer office the receptionist tried to stop us but we pushed on by. The girls looked up, startled. I went straight to Barnes’s inner door and tried to open it; it was locked. I turned to his secretary. “Where’s Barnes?”
“Who is calling, please?” She said, polite as a fish.
I looked down at the fit of the sweater across her shoulders. Humped. By God, I said to myself, this one has to be. She was here when I killed Barnes.
I bent over and pulled up her sweater.
I was right. I had to be right. For the second time I stared at the raw flesh of one of the parasite
s.
I wanted to throw up, but I was too busy. She struggled and clawed and tried to bite. I judo-cut the side of her neck, almost getting my hand in the filthy mess, and she went limp. I gave her three fingers in the pit of her stomach for good measure, then swung her around. “Jarvis,” I yelled, “get a close up.”
The idiot was fiddling with his gear, bending over it, his big hind end between me and the pick up. He straightened up. “School’s out,” he said. “Blew a tube.”
“Replace it—hurry!”
A stenographer stood up on the other side of the room and fired, not at me, not at Jarvis, but at the scanner. Hit it, too—and both Davidson and I burned her down. As if it had been a signal about six of them jumped Davidson. They did not seem to have guns; they just swarmed over him.
I still hung onto the secretary and shot from where I was. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to find Barnes—“Barnes” number two—standing in his doorway. I shot him through the chest to be sure to get the slug I knew was on his back. I turned back to the slaughter.
Davidson was up again. A girl crawled toward him; she seemed wounded. He shot her full in the face and she stopped. His next bolt was just past my ear. I looked around and said, “Thanks! Now let’s get out of here. Jarvis—come on!”
The elevator was still open and we rushed in, me still burdened with Barnes’s secretary. I slammed the door closed and started it. Davidson was trembling and Jarvis was dead white. “Buck up,” I said, “you weren’t shooting people, you were shooting things. Like this.” I held the girl’s body up and looked down at her back myself.
Then I almost collapsed. My specimen, the one I had grabbed with its host to take back alive, was gone. Slipped to the floor, probably, and oozed away during the ruckus. “Jarvis,” I said, “did you get anything up there?” He shook his head and said nothing. Neither did I. Neither did Davidson.
The girl’s back was covered with a red rash, like a million pinpricks, in the area where the thing had ridden her. I pulled her sweater down and settled her on the floor against the wall of the car. She was still unconscious and likely to stay that way. When we reached street level we left her in the car. Apparently nobody noticed, for there was no hue-and-cry as we went through the lobby to the street.
Our car was still standing there and a policeman had his foot on it while making out a ticket. He handed it to me as we got in. “You know you can’t park in this area, Mac,” he said reprovingly.
I said, “Sorry,” and signed his copy as it seemed the safest and quickest thing to do. Then I gunned the car away from the curb, got as clear as I could of traffic—and blasted her off, right from a city street. I wondered whether or not he added that to the ticket. When I had her up to altitude I remembered to switch the license plates and identification code. The Old Man thinks of everything.
But he did not think much of me when we got back. I tried to report on the way in but he cut me short and ordered us into the Section offices. Mary was there with him. That was all I needed to know; if despite my flop the Old Man had convinced the President she would have stayed.
He let me tell what had happened with only an occasional grunt. “How much did you see?” I asked when I had finished.
“Transmission cut off when you hit the toll barrier,” he informed me. “I can’t say that the President was impressed by what he saw.”
“I suppose not.”
“In fact he told me to fire you.”
I stiffened. I had been ready to offer my resignation, but this took me by surprise. “I am perfectly will—” I started out.
“Pipe down!” the Old Man snapped. “I told him that he could fire me, but that he could not fire my subordinates. You are a thumb-fingered dolt,” he went on more quietly, “but you can’t be spared, not now.”
“Thanks.”
Mary had been wandering restlessly around the room. I had tried to catch her eye, but she was not having any. Now she stopped back of Jarvis’s chair—and gave the Old Man the same sign she had given about Barnes.
I hit Jarvis in the side of the head with my heater and he sagged out of his chair.
“Stand back, Davidson!” the Old Man rapped. His own gun was out and pointed at Davidson’s chest. “Mary, how about him?”
“He’s all right.”
“And him.”
“Sam’s clean.”
The Old Man’s eyes moved from one of us to the other and I have never felt closer to death. “Both of you peel off your shirts,” he said sourly.
We did—and Mary was right on both counts. I had begun to wonder whether or not I would know it if I did have a parasite on me. “Now him,” the Old Man ordered. “Gloves, both of you.”
We stretched Jarvis out on his face and very carefully cut his clothing away. We had our live specimen.
VI
I felt myself ready to retch. The thought of that thing travelling right behind me in a closed car all the way from Iowa was almost more than my stomach could stand. I’m not squeamish—I hid once for four days in the sewers of Moscow—but you don’t know what the sight of one can do to you unless you yourself have seen one while knowing what it was.
I swallowed hard and said, “Let’s see what we can do to work it off. Maybe we can still save Jarvis.” I did not really think so; I had a deep-down hunch that anyone who had been ridden by one of those things was spoiled, permanently. I guess I had a superstitious notion that they “ate souls” whatever that means.
The Old Man waved us back. “Forget about Jarvis!”
“But—”
“Stow it! If he can be saved, a bit longer won’t matter. In any case—” He shut up and so did I. I knew what he meant; the principle which declared that the individual was all important now called for canceling Jarvis out as a factor, i.e., we were expendable; the people of the United States were not.
Pardon the speech. I liked Jarvis.
The Old Man, gun drawn and wary, continued to watch the unconscious agent and the thing on his back. He said to Mary, “Get the President on the screen. Special code zero zero zero seven.”
Mary went to his desk and did so. I heard her talking into the muffler, but my own attention was on the parasite. It made no move to leave its host, but pulsed slowly while iridescent ripples spread across it.
Presently Mary reported, “I can’t get him, sir. One of his assistants is on the screen.”
“Which one?”
“Mr. McDonough.”
The Old Man winced and so did I. McDonough was an intelligent, likeable man who hadn’t changed his mind on anything since he was housebroken. The President used him as a buffer.
The Old Man bellowed, not bothering with the muffler.
No, the President was not available. No, he could not be reached with a message. No, Mr. McDonough was not exceeding his authority; the President had been explicit and the Old Man was not on the list of exceptions—if there was such a list, which Mr. McDonough did not concede. Yes, he would be happy to make an appointment; he would squeeze the Old Man in somehow and that was a promise. How would next Friday do? Today? Quite out of the question. Tomorrow? Equally impossible.
The Old Man switched off and I thought he was going to have a stroke. But after a moment he took two deep breaths, his features relaxed, and he slumped back to us, saying, “Dave, slip down the hall and ask Doc Graves to step in. The rest of you keep your distance and your eyes peeled.”
The head of the biological lab came in shortly, wiping his hands as he came. “Doc,” said the Old Man, “there is one that isn’t dead.”
Graves looked at Jarvis, then more closely at Jarvis’s back. “Interesting,” he said. “Unique, possibly.” He dropped to one knee.
“Stand back!”
Graves looked up. “But I must have an opportunity—” he said reasonably.
“You and my half-wit aunt! Listen—I want you to study it, yes, but that purpose has low priority. First, you’ve got to keep it alive. Second, yo
u’ve got to keep it from escaping. Third, you’ve got to protect yourself.”
Graves smiled. “I’m not afraid of it. I—”
“Be afraid of it! That’s an order.”
“I was about to say that I think I must rig up an incubator to care for it after we remove it from the host. The dead specimen you gave me did not afford much opportunity for studying its chemistry, but it is evident that these things need oxygen. You smothered the other one. Don’t misunderstand me, not free oxygen, but oxygen from its host. Perhaps a large dog would suffice.”
“No,” snapped the Old Man. “Leave it right where it is.”
“Eh?” Graves looked surprised. “Is this man a volunteer?”
The Old Man did not answer. Graves went on, “Human laboratory subjects must be volunteers. Professional ethics, you know.”
These scientific laddies never do get broken to harness; I think they keep their bags packed. The Old Man calmed himself and said quietly, “Doctor Graves, every agent in this Section is a volunteer for whatever I find necessary. That is what they sign up for. Please carry out my orders. Get a stretcher in here and take Jarvis out. Use care.”
The Old Man dismissed us after they had carted Jarvis away, and Davidson and Mary and I went to the lounge for a drink or four. We needed them. Davidson had the shakes. When the first drink failed to fix him I said, “Look, Dave, I feel as bad about those girls as you do—but it could not be helped. Get that through your head; it could not be helped.”
“How bad was it?” asked Mary.
“Pretty bad. I don’t know how many we killed, maybe six, maybe a dozen. There was no time to be careful. We weren’t shooting people, not intentionally; we were shooting parasites.” I turned to Davidson. “Don’t you see that?”
He seemed to take a brace. “That’s just it. They weren’t human.” He went on, “I think I could shoot my own brother, if the job required it. But these things aren’t human. You shoot and they keep coming toward you. They don’t—” He broke off.
All I felt was pity. After a bit he got up to go to the dispensary to get a shot for what ailed him. Mary and I talked a while longer, trying to figure out answers and getting nowhere. Then she announced that she was sleepy and headed for the women’s dormitory. The Old Man had ordered all hands to sleep in that night, so, after a nightcap, I went to the boys’ wing and crawled in a sack.