"Robert Heinlein - The Puppet Masters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

The Puppet Masters

Robert A. Heinlein

Copyright 1951

Chapter 1

    Were they truly intelligent? By themselves, that is? I don't know and I don't know how we can ever find out. I'm not a lab man; I'm an operator.

    With the Soviets it seems certain that they did not invent anything. They simply took the communist power-for-power's-sake and extended it without any "rotten liberal sentimentality" as the commissars put it. On the other hand, with animals they were a good deal more than animal.

    (It seems strange no longer to see dogs around. When we finally come to grips with them, there will be a few million dogs to avenge. And cats. For me, one particular cat.)

    If they were not truly intelligent, I hope I never live to see us tangle with anything at all like them, which is intelligent. I know who will lose. Me. You. The so-called human race.

    For me it started much too early on July 12, '07, with my phone shrilling in a frequency guaranteed to peel off the skull. I felt around my person, trying to find the thing to shut it off, then recalled that I had left it in my jacket across the room. "All right," I growled. "I hear you. Shut off that damned noise."

    "Emergency," a voice said in my ear. "Report in person."

    I told him what to do with his emergency. "I'm on a seventy-two hour pass."

    "Report to the Old Man," the voice persisted, "at once."

    That was different. "Moving," I acknowledged and sat up with a jerk that hurt my eyeballs. I found myself facing a blonde. She was sitting up, too, and staring at me round-eyed.

    "Who are you talking to?" she demanded.

    I stared back, recalling with difficulty that I had seen her before. "Me? Talking?" I stalled while trying to think up a good lie, then, as I came wider-awake, realized that it did not have to be a very good lie as she could not possibly have heard the other half of the conversation. The sort of phone my section uses is not standard; the audio relay was buried surgically under the skin back of my left ear-bone conduction. "Sorry, babe," I went on. "Had a nightmare. I often talk in my sleep."

    "Sure you're all right?"

    "I'm fine, now that I'm awake," I assured her, staggering a bit as I stood up. "You go back to sleep."

    "Well, uh-" She was breathing regularly almost at once. I went into the bath, injected a quarter grain of "Gyro" in my arm, then let the vibro shake me apart for three minutes while the drug put me back together. I stepped out a new man, or at least a good mock-up of one, and got my jacket. The blonde was snoring gently.

I let my subconscious race back along its track and realized with regret that I did not owe her a damned thing, so I left her. There was nothing in the apartment to give me away, nor even to tell her who I was.

    I entered our section offices through a washroom booth in MacArthur Station. You won't find our offices in the phone lists. In fact, it does not exist. Probably I don't exist either. All is illusion. Another route is through a little hole-in-the-wall shop with a sign reading RARE STAMPS & COINS. Don't try that route either-they'll try to sell you a Tu'penny Black.

    Don't try any route. I told you we didn't exist, didn't I?

    There is one thing no head of a country can know and that is: how good is his intelligence system? He finds out only by having it fail him. Hence our section. Suspenders and belt. United Nations had never heard of us, nor had Central Intelligence-I think. I heard once that we were blanketed into an appropriation for the Department of Food Resources, but I would not know; I was paid in cash.

    All I really knew about was the training I had received and the jobs the Old Man sent me on. Interesting jobs, some of them-if you don't care where you sleep, what you eat, nor how long you live. I've totaled three years behind the Curtain; I can drink vodka without blinking and spit Russian like a cat-as well as Cantonese, Kurdish, and some other bad-tasting tongues. I'm prepared to say that they've got nothing behind the Curtain that Paducah, Kentucky doesn't have bigger and better. Still, it's a living.

    If I had had any sense, I'd have quit and taken a working job.

    The only trouble with that would be that I wouldn't have been working for the Old Man any longer. That made the difference.

    Not that he was a soft boss. He was quite capable of saying, "Boys, we need to fertilize this oak tree. Just jump in that hole at its base and I'll cover you up."

    We'd have done it. Any of us would.

    And the Old Man would bury us alive, too, if he thought that there was as much as a 53 percent probability that it was the Tree of Liberty he was nourishing.

    He got up and limped toward me as I came in. I wondered again why he did not have that leg done over. Pride in how he had gotten the limp was my guess, not that I would ever know. A person in the Old Man's position must enjoy his pride in secret; his profession does not allow for public approbation.

    His face split in a wicked smile. With his big hairless skull and his strong Roman nose he looked like a cross between Satan and Punch of Punch-and-Judy. "Welcome, Sam," he said. "Sorry to get you out of bed."

    The deuce he was sorry! "I was on leave," I answered shortly. He was the Old Man, but leave is leave-and damned seldom!

    "Ah, but you still are. We're going on a vacation."

    I didn't trust his "vacations" so I did not rise to the bait. "So my name is 'Sam'," I answered. "What's my last name?"

    "Cavanaugh. And I'm your Uncle Charlie-Charles M. Cavanaugh, retired. Meet your sister Mary."

    I had noticed that there was another person in the room, but had filed my one glance for future reference. When the Old Man is present he gets full attention as long as he wants it. Now I looked over my "sister" more carefully and then looked her over again. It was worth it.

    I could see why he had set us up as brother and sister if we were to do a job together; it would give him a trouble-free pattern. An indoctrinated agent can't break his assumed character any more than a professional actor can intentionally muff his lines. So this one I must treat as my sister-a dirty trick if I ever met one!

    A long, lean body, but unquestionably and pleasingly mammalian. Good legs. Broad shoulders for a woman. Flaming, wavy red hair and the real redheaded saurian bony structure to her skull. Her face was handsome rather than beautiful; her teeth were sharp and clean. She looked me over as if I were a side of beef.

    I was not yet in character; I wanted to drop one wing and run in circles. It must have showed, for the Old Man said gently, "Tut tut, Sammy-there's no incest in the Cavanaugh family. You were both carefully brought up, by my favorite sister-in-law. Your sister dotes on you and you are extremely fond of your sister, but in a healthy, clean-cut, sickeningly chivalrous, All-American-Boy sort of way."

    "As bad as that?" I asked, still looking at my "sister".

    "Worse."

    "Oh, well-howdy, Sis. Glad to know you."

    She stuck out a hand. It was firm and seemed as strong as mine. "Hi, Bud." Her voice was deep contralto, which was all I needed. Damn the Old Man!

    "I might add," the Old Man went on in the same gentle tones, "that you are so devoted to your sister that you would gladly die to protect her. I dislike to tell you so, Sammy, but your sister is a little more valuable, for the present at least, to the organization than you are."

    "Got it," I acknowledged. "Thanks for the polite qualification."

    "Now, Sammy-"

    "She's my favorite sister; I protect her from dogs and strange men. I don't have to be slapped with an ax. Okay, when do we start?"

    "Better stop over in Cosmetics; I think they have a new face for you."

    "Make it a whole new head. See you. 'By, Sis."

    They did not quite do that, but they did fit my personal phone under the overhang of my skull in back and then cemented hair over it. They dyed my hair to the same shade as that of my newly acquired sister, bleached my skin, and did things to my cheekbones and chin. The mirror showed me to be as good an authentic redhead as Sis. I looked at my hair and tried to recall what its natural shade had been, way back when. Then I wondered if Sis were what she seemed to be along those lines. I rather hoped so. Those teeth, now-Stow it, Sammy! She's your sister.

    I put on the kit they gave me and somebody handed me a jump bag, already packed. The Old Man had evidently been in Cosmetics, too; his skull was now covered by crisp curls of a shade just between pink and white. They had done something to his face, for the life of me I could not tell just what-but we were all three clearly related by blood and were all of that curious sub-race, the redheads.

    "Come, Sammy," he said. "Time is short. I'll brief you in the car." We went up by a route I had not known about and ended up on the Northside launching platform, high above New Brooklyn and overlooking Manhattan Crater.

    I drove while the Old Man talked. Once we were out of local control he told me to set it automatic on Des Moines, Iowa. I then joined Mary and "Uncle Charlie" in the lounge. He gave us our personal histories briefly and filled in details to bring us up to date. "So here we are," he concluded, "a merry little family party-tourists. And if we should happen to run into unusual events, that is how we will behave, as nosy and irresponsible tourists might."

    "But what is the problem?" I asked. "Or do we play this one entirely by ear?"

    "Mmmm . . . possibly."

    "Okay. But when you're dead, it's nice to know why you're dead, I always say. Eh, Mary?"

    "Mary" did not answer. She had that quality, rare in babes and commendable, of not talking when she had nothing to say. The Old Man looked me over, his manner not that of a man who can't make up his mind, but rather as if he were judging me as I was at that moment and feeding the newly acquired data into the machine between his ears.

    Presently he said, "Sam, you've heard of 'flying saucers'."

    "Huh? Can't say that I have."

    "You've studied history. Come, now!"

    "You mean those? The flying-saucer craze, 'way back before the Disorders? I thought you meant something recent and real; those were mass hallucinations."

    "Were they?"

    "Well, weren't they? I haven't studied much statistical abnormal psychology, but I seem to remember an equation. That whole period was psychopathic; a man with all his gaskets tight would have been locked up."

    "But this present day is sane, eh?"

    "Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that." I pawed back through the unused drawers of my mind and found the answer I wanted. "I remember that equation now-Digby's evaluating integral for second and higher order data. It gave a 93.7 percent certainty that the flying-saucer myth, after elimination of explained cases, was hallucination. I remember it because it was the first case of its type in the history of science in which the instances had been systematically collected and evaluated. Some sort of a government project, God knows why."

    The Old Man looked benignly avuncular. "Brace yourself, Sammy. We are going to inspect a flying saucer today. Maybe we'll even saw off a piece for a souvenir, like true tourists."

Chapter 2

    "Seen a newscast lately?" the Old Man went on.

    I shook my head. Silly question-I'd been on leave.

    "Try it sometime," he suggested. "Lots of interesting things on the 'casts. Never mind. Seventeen hours-" he glanced at his finger watch and added, "-and twenty-three minutes ago an unidentified spaceship landed near Grinnell, Iowa. Type, unknown. Approximately disc-shaped and about one hundred fifty feet across. Origin, unknown, but-"

    "Didn't they track a trajectory on it?" I interrupted.

    "They did not," he answered, spacing his words. "Here is a photo of it taken after landing by Space Station Beta."

    I looked it over and passed it to Mary. It was as unsatisfactory as a telephoto taken from five thousand miles out usually is. Trees looking like moss . . . a cloud shadow that loused up the best part of the pie . . . and a gray circle that might have been a disc-shaped space ship and could just as well have been an oil tank or a water reservoir. I wondered how many times we had bombed hydroponics plants in Siberia, mistaking them for atomic installations.

    Mary handed the pic back. I said, "Looks like a tent for a camp meeting to me. What else do we know?"

    "Nothing."

    "Nothing! After seventeen hours! We ought to have agents pouring out of their ears!"

    "Ah, yes. We did have. Two within reach and four that were sent in. They failed to report back. I dislike losing agents, Sammy, especially with no results."

    Up to then I had not stopped to wonder about the Old Man himself being risked on a job-it had not looked like risk. But I had a sudden cold realization that the situation must be so serious that the Old Man had chosen to bet his own brain against the loss of the organization-for he was the Section. Nobody who knew him doubted his guts, but they did not doubt his horse sense, either. He knew his own value; he would not risk himself unless he believed coldly that it would take his own skill to swing it and that the job had to be done.

    I felt suddenly chilly. Ordinarily an agent has a duty to save his own neck, in order to complete his mission and report back. On this job it was the Old Man who must come back-and after him, Mary. I stood number three and was as expendable as a paper clip. I didn't like it.

    "One agent made a partial report," the Old Man went on. "He went in as a casual bystander and reported by phone that it must be a space ship although he could not determine its motive power. We got the same thing from the newscasts. He then reported that the ship was opening and that he was going to try to get closer, past the police lines. The last thing he said was, 'Here they come. They are little creatures, about-' Then he shut off."

    "Little men?"

    "He said, 'creatures'."

    "Peripheral reports?"

    "Plenty of them. The Des Moines stereocasting station reported the landing and sent mobile units in for spot cast. The pictures they sent out were all fairly long shots, taken from the air. They showed nothing but a disc-shaped object. Then, for about two hours, no pictures and no news, followed later by close ups and a new news slant."

    The Old Man shut up. I said, "Well?"

    "The whole thing was a hoax. The 'space ship' was a sheet metal and plastic fraud, built by two farm boys in some woods near their home. The fake reports originated with an announcer with more sense of humor than good judgment and who had put the boys up to it to make a story. He has been fired and the latest 'invasion from outer space' turns out to be a joke."

    I squirmed. "So it's a hoax-but we lose six men. We're going to look for them?"

    "No, for we would not find them. We are going to try to find out why triangulation of this photograph-" He held up the teleshot taken from the space station. "-doesn't quite jibe with the news reports-and why Des Moines stereo station shut up for a while."

    Mary spoke up for the first time. "I'd like to talk with those farm boys."

    I roaded the car about five miles this side of Grinnell and we started looking for the McLain farm-the news reports had named Vincent and George McLain as the culprits. It wasn't hard to find. At a fork in the road was a big sign, professional in appearance: THIS WAY TO THE SPACESHIP. Shortly the road was parked both sides with duos and groundcars and triphibs. A couple of hastily built stands dispensed cold drinks and souvenirs at the turn-off into the McLain place. A state cop was directing traffic.

    "Pull up," directed the Old Man. "Might as well see the fun, eh?"

    "Right, Uncle Charlie," I agreed.

    The Old Man bounced out with only a trace of limp, swinging his cane. I handed Mary out and she snuggled up to me, grasping my arm. She looked up at me, managing to look both stupid and demure. "My, but you're strong. Buddy."

    I wanted to slap her, but gave a self-conscious smirk instead. That poor-little-me routine from an agent, from one of the Old Man's agents. A smile from a tiger.

    "Uncle Charlie" buzzed around, bothering state police, buttonholing people to give them unasked-for opinions, stopping to buy cigars at one of the stands, and in general giving a picture of a well-to-do, senile old fool, out for a holiday. He turned back to us and waved his cigar at a state sergeant. "The inspector says the whole thing is a fraud, my dears-a prank thought up by some boys. Shall we go?"

    Mary looked disappointed. "No space ship?"

    "There's a space ship, if you want to call it that," the cop answered. "Just follow the suckers, and you'll find it. It's 'sergeant', not 'inspector'."

    "Uncle Charlie" pressed a cigar on him and we set out, across a pasture and into some woods. It cost a dollar to get through the gate and many of the potential suckers turned back. The path through the woods was rather deserted. I moved carefully, wishing for eyes in the back of my head instead of a phone. According to the book six agents had gone down this path and-none had come back. I didn't want it to be nine.

    Uncle Charlie and Sis walked ahead, Mary chattering like a fool and somehow managing to be both shorter and younger than she had been on the trip out. We came to a clearing and there was the "space ship".

    It was the proper size, more than a hundred feet across, but it was whipped together out of light-gauge metal and sheet plastic, sprayed with aluminum. It was roughly the shape of two giant pie plates, face to face. Aside from that, it looked like nothing in particular. Nevertheless Mary squealed. "Oh, how exciting!"

    A youngster, eighteen or nineteen, with a permanent sunburn and a pimply face, stuck his head out of a sort of hatch in the top of the monstrosity. "Care to see inside?" he called out. He added that it would be fifty cents a piece more and Uncle Charlie shelled out.

    Mary hesitated at the hatch. Pimple face was joined by what appeared to be his twin and they started to hand her down in. She drew back and I moved in fast, intending to do any handling myself. My reasons were 99 percent professional; I could feel danger all through the place. "It's dark in there," she quavered.

    "It's perfectly safe," the second young man said. "We've been taking sightseers through all day. I'm Vine McLain, one of the owners. Come on, lady."

    Uncle Charlie peered down the hatch, like a cautious mother hen. "Might be snakes in there," he decided. "Mary, I don't think you had better go in."

    "Nothing to fear," the first McLain said insistently. "It's safe as houses."

    "Just keep the money, gentlemen." Uncle Charlie glanced at his finger. "We're late as it is. Let's go, my dears."

    I followed them back up the path, my hackles up the whole way.

    We got back to the car and I pulled out into the road. Once we were rolling, the Old Man said sharply, "Well? What did you see?"

    I countered with, "Any doubt about that first report? The one that broke off?"

    "None."

    "That thing over in the woods wouldn't have fooled an agent, even in the dark. This wasn't the ship he saw."

    "Of course not. What else?"

    "How much would you say that fake cost? That was new sheet metal, fresh paint, and from what I saw of the inside through the hatch, probably a thousand feet, more or less, of lumber to brace it."

    "Go on."

    "Well, the McLain house hadn't been painted in years, not even the barn. The place had 'mortgage' spelled out all over it. If the boys were in on the gag, they didn't foot the bill."

    "Obviously. You, Mary?"

    "Uncle Charlie, did you notice the way they treated me?"

    "Who?" I said sharply.

    "Both the state sergeant and the two boys. When I use the sweet-little-bundle-of-sex routine, something should happen. Nothing did."

    "They were all attentive," I objected.

    "You don't understand. You can't understand-but I know. I always know. Something was wrong with them. They were dead inside. Harem guards, if you know what I mean."

    "Hypnosis?" asked the Old Man.

    "Possibly. Or drugs perhaps." She frowned and looked puzzled.

    "Hmm-" he answered. "Sammy, take the next turn to the left. We're investigating a point about two miles south of here."

    "The triangulated location by the pic?"

    "What else?"

    But we didn't get there. First it was a bridge out and I didn't have room enough to make the car hop it, quite aside from the small matter of traffic regulations for a duo on the ground. We circled to the south and came in again, the only remaining route. We were stopped by a highway cop and a detour sign. A brush fire, he told us; go any farther and we would probably be impressed into firefighting. He didn't know but what he ought to send me up to the firelines anyhow.

    Mary waved her lashes and other things at him and he relented. She pointed out that neither she nor Uncle Charlie could drive, a double lie.

    After we pulled away I asked her, "How about that one?"

    "What about him?"

    "Harem guard?"

    "Oh, my, no! A most attractive man."

    Her answer annoyed me.

    The Old Man vetoed taking to the air and making a pass over the triangulated spot. He said it was useless. We headed for Des Moines. Instead of parking at the toll gates we paid to take the car into the city proper, and ended up at the main studios of Des Moines stereo. "Uncle Charlie" blustered his way into the office of the general manager, us in tow. He told several lies-or perhaps Charles M. Cavanaugh was actually a big wheel with the Federal Communications Authority. How was I to know?

    Once inside and the door shut he continued the Big Brass act. "Now, sir, what is all this nonsense about a spaceship hoax? Speak plainly, sir; I warn you your license may depend on it."

    The manager was a little round-shouldered man, but he did not seem cowed, merely annoyed. "We've made a full explanation over the channels," he said. "We were victimized by one of our own people. The man has been discharged."

    "Hardly adequate, sir."

The little man-Barnes, his name was-shrugged. "What do you expect? Shall we string him up by his thumbs?"

    Uncle Charlie pointed his cigar at him. "I warn you, sir, that I am not to be trifled with. I have been making an investigation of my own and I am not convinced that two farm louts and a junior announcer could have pulled off this preposterous business. There was money in it, sir. Yes, sir-money. And where would I expect to find money? Here at the top. Now tell me, sir, just what did you-"

Mary had seated herself close by Barnes's desk. She had done something to her costume, which exposed more skin, and her pose put me in mind of Goya's Disrobed Lady. She made a thumbs-down signal to the Old Man.

    Barnes should not have caught it; his attention appeared to be turned to the Old Man. But he did. He turned toward Mary and his face went dead. He reached for his desk.

    "Sam! Kill him!" the Old Man rapped.

    I burned his legs off and his trunk fell to the floor. It was a poor shot; I had intended to burn his belly.

    I stepped quickly to him and kicked his gun away from his still-groping fingers. I was about to give him the coup de grace-a man burned that way is dead, but it takes him a while to die-when the Old Man snapped, "Don't touch him! Mary, stand back!"

    We did so. The Old Man sidled toward the body, like a cat cautiously investigating the unknown. Barnes gave a long bubbling sigh and was quiet-shock death; a gun burn doesn't bleed much, not that much. The Old Man looked him over and poked him gently with his cane.

    "Boss," I said, "about time to git, isn't it?"

    Without looking around he answered, "We're as safe here as anywhere. Safer, probably. This building may be swarming with them."

    "Swarming with what?"

    "How would I know? Swarming with whatever he was." He pointed to Barnes's body. "That's what I've got to find out."

    Mary gave a choked sob, the first honest feminine thing I had known her to do, and gasped, "He's still breathing. Look!"

    The body lay facedown; the back of the jacket heaved as if the chest were rising. The Old Man looked at it and poked at it with his cane. "Sam. Come here."

    I came. "Strip it," he went on. "Use your gloves. And be careful."

    "Booby trap?"

    "Shut up. Use care."

    I don't know what he expected me to find, but he must have had a hunch that was close to truth. I think the bottom part of the Old Man's brain has a built-in integrator which arrives at a logical necessity from minimum facts the way a museum johnny reconstructs an extinct animal from a single bone.

    I took him at his word. First pulling on gloves-agent's gloves; I could have stirred boiling acid with my gloved hand, yet I could feel a coin in the dark and call heads or tails-once gloved, I started to turn him over to undress him.

    The back was still heaving; I did not like the look of it-unnatural. I placed a palm between the shoulder blades.

    A man's back is bone and muscle. This was jelly soft and undulating. I snatched my hand away.

Without a word Mary handed me a fancy pair of scissors from Barnes's desk. I took them and cut the jacket away. Presently I folded it back and we all looked. Underneath the jacket the body was dressed in a light single, almost transparent. Between this shirt and the skin, from the neck halfway down the back, was something which was not flesh. A couple of inches thick, it gave the corpse a round-shouldered, or slightly humped, appearance.

    It pulsed like a jellyfish.

    As we watched, it slid slowly off the back, away from us. I reached out to peel up the singlet, to let us at it; my hand was knocked away by the Old Man's cane. "Make up your mind," I said and rubbed my knuckles.

    He did not answer but tucked the end of his cane under the bottom of the shirt and worried it up the trunk. The thing was uncovered.

    Grayish, faintly translucent, and shot through with darker structure, shapeless-it reminded me of a giant clot of frogs' eggs. It was clearly alive, for it pulsed and quivered and moved by flowing. As we watched it flowed down into the space between Barnes's arm and chest, filled it and stayed there, unable to go farther.

    "The poor devil," the Old Man said softly.

    "Huh? That?"

    "No. Barnes. Remind me to see to it that he gets the Purple Heart, when this is over. If it ever is over." The Old Man straightened up and slumped around the room, as if he had forgotten completely the gray horror nestling in the crook of Barnes's arm.

    I drew back a bit and continued to stare at it, my gun ready. It could not move fast; it obviously could not fly; but I did not know what it could do and I was not taking chances. Mary moved closer to me and pressed her shoulder against mine, as if for human comfort. I put my free arm around her.

    On a side table there was an untidy stack of cans, the sort used for stereo tapes. The Old Man took a double program can, spilled the reels on the floor, and came back with it. "This will do, I think." He placed the can on the floor, near the thing, and began chivvying it with his cane, trying to irritate it into crawling into the can.

    Instead it oozed back until it was almost entirely under the body. I grabbed the free arm and heaved what was left of Barnes away from the spot; the thing clung momentarily, then flopped to the floor. After that, under dear old Uncle Charlie's directions, Mary and I used our guns set at lowest power to force it, by burning the floor close to it, into the can. We got it in, a close fit, and I slapped the cover on.

    The Old Man tucked the can under his arm. "On our way, my dears."

On the way out he paused in the partly open door to call out a parting to Barnes, then, after closing the door, stopped at the desk of Barnes's secretary. "I'll be seeing Mr. Barnes again tomorrow," he told her. "No, no appointment. I'll phone first."

    Out we went, slow march, the Old Man with the can full of thing under his arm and me with my ears cocked for alarums. Mary played the silly little moron, with a running monologue. The Old Man even paused in the lobby, bought a cigar, and inquired directions, with bumbling, self-important good nature.

    Once in the car he gave me directions, then cautioned me against driving fast. The directions led us into a garage. The Old Man sent for the manager and said to him, "Mr. Malone wants this car-immediately." It was a signal I had had occasion to use myself, only then it had been "Mr. Sheffield" who was in a hurry. I knew that the duo would cease to exist in about twenty minutes, save as anonymous spare parts in the service bins.

    The manager looked us over, then answered quietly, "Through that door over there." He sent the two mechanics in the room away on errands and we ducked through the door.

    We ended up presently in the apartment of an elderly couple; there we became brunets and the Old Man got his bald head back. I acquired a moustache which did nothing for my looks, but I was surprised to find that Mary looked as well dark as she had as a redhead. The "Cavanaugh" combination was dropped; Mary got a chic nurse's costume and I was togged out as a chauffeur while the Old Man became our elderly, invalid employer, complete with shawl and temper tantrums.

    A car was waiting for us when we were ready. The trip back was no trouble; we could have remained the carrot-topped Cavanaughs. I kept the screen turned on to Des Moines, but, if the cops had turned up the late Mr. Barnes, the newsboys hadn't heard about it.

    We went straight down to the Old Man's office-straight as one can go, that is-and there we opened the can. The Old Man sent for Dr. Graves, the head of the Section's bio lab, and the job was done with handling equipment.

    We need not have bothered. What we needed were gas masks, not handling equipment. A stink of decaying organic matter, like the stench from a gangrenous wound, filled the room and forced us to slap the cover back on and speed up the blowers. Graves wrinkled his nose. "What in the world was that?" he demanded. "Puts me in mind of a dead baby."

    The Old Man was swearing softly. "You are to find out," he said. "Use handling equipment. Work it in suits, in a germ-free compartment, and don't assume that it is dead."

    "If that is alive, I'm Queen Anne."

    "Maybe you are, but don't take chances. Here is all the help I can give. It's a parasite; it's capable of attaching itself to a host, such as a man, and controlling the host. It is almost certainly extra-terrestrial in origin and metabolism."

    The lab boss sniffed. "Extra-terrestrial parasite on a terrestrial host? Ridiculous! The body chemistries would be incompatible."

    The Old Man grunted. "Damn your theories. When we captured it, it was living on a man. If that means it has to be a terrestrial organism, show me where it fits into the scheme of things and where to look for its mates. And quit jumping to conclusions; I want facts."

    The biologist stiffened. "You'll get them!"

    "Get going. Wait-don't use more of it than necessary for your investigations; I need the major portion as evidence. And don't persist in the silly assumption that the thing is dead; that perfume may be a protective weapon. That thing, if alive, is fantastically dangerous. If it gets on one of your laboratory men, I'll almost certainly have to kill him."

    The lab director said nothing more, but he left without some of his cockiness.

    The Old Man settled back in his chair, sighed, and closed his eyes. He seemed to have gone to sleep; Mary and I kept quiet. After five minutes or so he opened his eyes, looked at me, and said, "How many mustard plasters the size of that thing Doc just carted out of here can arrive in a space ship as big as that fraud we looked at?"

    "Was there a space ship?" I asked. "The evidence seems slim."

    "Slim but utterly incontrovertible. There was a ship. There still is a ship."

    "We should have examined the site."

    "That site would have been our last sight. The other six boys weren't fools. Answer my question."

    "I can't. How big the ship was doesn't tell me anything about its payload, when I don't know its propulsion method, the jump it made, or what supply load the passengers require. It's a case of how long is a piece of rope? If you want a horseback guess, I'd say several hundred, maybe several thousand."

    "Mmm . . . yes. So there are several hundred, maybe several thousand zombies in the State of Iowa tonight. Or harem guards, as Mary puts it." He thought for a moment. "But how am I to get past them to the harem? We can't go around shooting every round-shouldered man in Iowa; it would cause talk." He smiled feebly.

    "I'll put you another question with no answer," I said. "If one space ship lands in Iowa yesterday, how many will land in North Dakota tomorrow? Or in Brazil?"

    "Yes, there's that." He looked still more troubled. "I'll answer it by telling you how long is your piece of rope."

    "Huh?"

    "Long enough to choke you to death. You kids go wash up and enjoy yourselves; you may not have another chance. Don't leave the offices."

    I went back to Cosmetics, got my own skin color back and in general resumed my normal appearance, had a soak and a massage, and then went to the staff lounge in search of a drink and some company. I looked around, not knowing whether I was looking for a blonde, brunette, or redhead, but feeling fairly sure that I could spot the right chassis.

    It was a redhead. Mary was in a booth, sucking on a drink and looking much as she had looked when she was introduced to me as my sister. "Hi, Sis," I said, sliding in beside her.

    She smiled and answered, "Hello, Bud. Drag up a rock," while moving to make room for me.

    I dialed for bourbon and water which I needed for medicinal purposes and then said, "Is this your real appearance?"

    She shook her head. "Not at all. Zebra stripes and two heads. What's yours?"

    "My mother smothered me with a pillow the first time she saw me, so I never got a chance to find out."

    She again looked me over with that side-of-beef scrutiny, then said, "I can understand her actions, but I am probably more hardened than she was. You'll do, Bud."

    "Thanks." I went on, "Let's drop this 'Bud-and-Sis' routine; I find it gives me inhibitions."

    "Hmm . . . I think you need inhibitions."

    "Me? Not at all. Never any violence with me; I'm more the 'Barkis-is-willing' type." I might have added that, if I laid a hand on her and she happened not to like it. I'd bet that I would draw back a bloody stump. The Old Man's kids are never sissies.

    She smiled. "So? Well, note it down that Miss Barkis is not willing, at least not this evening." She put down her glass. "Drink up and let's reorder."

    We did so and continued to sit there, feeling warm and good, and, for the moment, not worried. There aren't many hours like that, especially in our profession; it makes one savor them.

    One of the nicest things about Mary was that she did not turn on the sex, except for professional purposes. I think she knew-I'm sure she knew-what a load of it she possessed. But she was too much of a gentleman to use it socially. She kept it turned down low, just enough to keep us both warm and comfortable.

    While we sat there, not saying much, I got to thinking how well she would look on the other side of a fireplace. My job being what it was, I had never thought seriously about getting married-and after all, a babe is just a babe; why get excited? But Mary was an agent herself; talking to her would not be like shouting off Echo Mountain. I realized that I had been lonely for one hell of a long time.

    "Mary-"

    "Yes?"

    "Are you married?"

    "Eh? Why do you ask? As a matter of fact I'm not-now. But what business-I mean, why does it matter?"

    "Well, it might," I persisted.

    She shook her head.

    "I'm serious," I went on. "Look me over. I've got both hands and both feet. I'm fairly young, and I don't track mud in the house. You could do worse."

    She laughed, but her laugh was kindly. "And you could work up better lines than that. I am sure they must have been extemporaneous."

    "They were."

    "And I won't hold them against you. In fact, I'll forget them. Listen, wolf, your technique is down; just because a woman tells you that she is not going to sleep with you tonight is no reason to lose your head and offer her a contract. Some women would be just mean enough to hold you to it."

    "I meant it," I said peevishly.

    "So? What salary do you offer?"

    "Damn your pretty eyes. If you want that type of contract, I'll go along; you can keep your pay and I'll allot half of mine to you . . . unless you want to retire."

    She shook her head. "I didn't mean it; I'd never insist on a settlement contract, not with a man I was willing to marry in the first place-"

    "I didn't think you would."

    "I was just trying to make you see that you yourself were not serious." She looked me over soberly. "But perhaps you are," she added in a warm, soft voice.

    "I am."

    She shook her head again. "Agents should not marry. You know that."

    "Agents shouldn't marry anyone but agents."

    She started to answer, but stopped suddenly. My own phone was talking in my ear, the Old Man's voice, and I knew she was hearing the same thing. "Come into my office," he said.

    We both got up without saying anything. Mary stopped me at the door, put a hand on my arm, and looked up into my eyes. "That is why it is silly to talk about marriage. We've got this job to finish. All the time we've been talking, you've been thinking about the job and so have I."

    "I have not."

    "Don't play with me! Consider this, Sam-suppose you were married and you woke up to find one of those things on your wife's shoulders, possessing her." There was horror in her eyes as she went on, "Suppose I woke up and found one of them on your shoulders."

    "I'll chance it. And I won't let one get to you."

    She touched my cheek. "I don't believe you would."

    We went on into the Old Man's office.

    He looked up just long enough to say, "Come along. We're leaving."

    "Where to?" I answered. "Or shouldn't I ask?"

    "White House. See the President. Shut up."

    I shut.

Chapter 3

    At the beginning of a forest fire or an epidemic there is a short time when a minimum of correct action will contain and destroy. The B. W. boys express it in exponential equations, but you don't need math to understand it; it depends on early diagnosis and prompt action before the thing gets out of hand. What the President needed to do the Old Man had already figured out-declare a national emergency, fence off the Des Moines area, and shoot anybody who tried to slip out, be it a cocker spaniel or grandma with her cookie jar. Then let them out one at a time, stripping them and searching them for parasites. Meantime, use the radar screen, the rocket boys, and the space stations to spot and smash any new landings.

    Warn all the other nations including those behind the Curtain, ask for their help-but don't be fussy about international law, for this was a fight for racial survival against an outside invader. For the moment it did not matter where they came from-Mars, Venus, the Jovian satellites, or outside the system entirely. Repel the invasion.

    The Old Man had cracked the case, analyzed it, and come up with the right answer in a little more than twenty-four hours. His unique gift was the ability to reason logically with unfamiliar, hard-to-believe facts as easily as with the commonplace. Not much, eh? I have never met anyone else who could do it wholeheartedly. Most minds stall dead when faced with facts which conflict with basic beliefs; "I-just-can't-believe-it" is all one word to highbrows and dimwits alike.

    But not to the Old Man-and he had the ear of the President.

    The Secret Service guards gave us the works, politely. An X-ray went beep! and I surrendered my heater. Mary turned out to be a walking arsenal; the machine gave four beeps and a hiccough, although you would have sworn she couldn't hide a tax receipt under what she was wearing. The Old Man surrendered his cane without waiting to be asked; I got the notion he did not want it to be X-rayed.

    Our audio capsules gave them trouble. They showed up both by X-ray and by metal detector, but the guards weren't equipped for surgical operations. There was a hurried conference with a presidential secretary and the head guard ruled that anything embedded in the flesh need not be classed as a potential weapon.

    They printed us, photographed our retinas, and ushered us into a waiting room. The Old Man was whisked out and in to see the President alone.

    "I wonder why we were brought along?" I asked Mary. "The Old Man knows everything we know."

    She did not answer, so I spent the time reviewing in my mind the loopholes in the security methods used to guard the President. They do such things much better behind the Curtain; an assassin with any talent could have beaten our safeguards with ease. I got to feeling indignant about it.

    After a while we were ushered in. I found I had stage fright so badly I was stumbling over my feet. The Old Man introduced us and I stammered. Mary just bowed.

    The President said he was glad to see us and turned on that smile, the way you see it in the stereocasts-and he made us feel that he was glad to see us. I felt all warm inside and no longer embarrassed.

    And no longer worried. The President, with the Old Man's help, would take action and the dirty horror we had seen would be cleaned up.

    The Old Man directed me to report all that I had done and seen and heard on this assignment. I made it brief but complete. I tried to catch his eye when it came to the part about killing Barnes, but he wasn't having any-so I left out the Old Man's order to shoot and made it clear that I had shot to protect another agent-Mary-when I saw Barnes reach for his gun. The Old Man interrupted me. "Make your report complete."

    So I filled in the Old Man's order to shoot. The President threw the Old Man a glance at the correction, the only expression he showed. I went on about the parasite thing, went on, in fact, up to that present moment, as nobody told me to stop.

    Then it was Mary's turn. She fumbled in trying to explain to the President why she expected to get some sort of response out of normal men-and had not gotten it out of the McLain boys, the state sergeant, and Barnes. The President helped her . . . by smiling warmly, managing to bow without getting up, and saying, "My dear young lady, I quite believe it."

    Mary blushed, then went on. The President listened gravely while she finished. He asked a couple of questions, then sat still for several minutes.

    Presently he looked up and spoke to the Old Man. "Andrew," he said, "your section has been invaluable. On at least two occasions your reports have tipped the balance in crucial occasions in history."

    The Old Man snorted. "So it's 'no', is it?"

    "I did not say so."

    "You were about to."

    The President shrugged. "I was going to suggest that your young people withdraw, but now it does not matter. Andrew, you are a genius, but even geniuses make mistakes. They overwork themselves and lose their judgment. I'm not a genius but I learned to relax about forty years ago. How long has it been since you had a vacation?"

    "Damn your vacations! See here, Tom, I anticipated this; that's why I brought witnesses. They are neither drugged nor instructed. Call in your psych crew; try to shake their stories."

    The President shook his head. "You wouldn't have brought witnesses who could be cracked. I'm sure you are cleverer about such things than anyone whom I could bring in to test them. Take this young man-he was willing to risk a murder charge to protect you. You inspire loyalty, Andrew. As for the young lady, really, Andrew, I can't start what amounts to war on a woman's intuition."

    Mary took a step forward. "Mr. President," she said very earnestly, "I do know. I know every time. I can't tell you how I know-but those were not normal male men."

    He hesitated, then answered, "I do not dispute you. But you have not considered an obvious explanation-that they actually were, ah, 'harem guards'. Pardon me, Miss. There are always such unfortunates in the population. By the laws of chance you ran across four in one day."

    Mary shut up. The Old Man did not. "God damn it, Tom-" I shuddered; you don't talk to the President that way. "-I knew you when you were an investigating senator and I was a key man in your investigations. You know I wouldn't bring you this fairy tale if there were any way to explain it away. Facts can't be ignored; they've got to be destroyed, or faced up to. How about that space ship? What was in it? Why couldn't I even reach the spot where it landed?" He hauled out the photograph taken by Space Station Beta and shoved it under the President's nose.

    The President seemed unperturbed. "Ah, yes, facts. Andrew, both you and I have a passion for facts. But I have several sources of information other than your section. Take this photo-you made quite a point of it when you phoned. I've checked the matter. The metes and bounds of the McLain farm as recorded in the local county courthouse check precisely with the triangulated latitude and longitude of this object on this photograph." The President looked up. "Once I absent-mindedly turned off a block too soon and got lost in my own neighborhood. You weren't even in your own neighborhood, Andrew."

    "Tom-"

    "Yes, Andrew?"

    "You did not trot out there and check those courthouse maps yourself?"

    "Of course not."

    "Thank God for that-or you would be carrying three pounds of pulsing tapioca between your shoulder blades this minute-and God save the United States! You can be sure of this: the courthouse clerk and whatever agent was sent to see him, both are hag-ridden by filthy parasites this very moment." The Old Man stared at the ceiling. "Yes, and the Des Moines chief of police, newspaper editors around there, dispatchers, cops, all sorts of key people. Tom, I don't know what we are up against, but they know what we are, and they are pinching off the nerve cells of our social organism before true messages can get back-or they cover up the true reports with false ones, just as they did with Barnes. Mr. President, you must order an immediate, drastic quarantine of the whole area. There is no other hope!"

    "Barnes," the President repeated softly, as if he had heard nothing else. "Andrew, I had hoped to spare you this, but-" He broke off and flipped a key at his desk. "Get me stereo station WDES, Des Moines, the manager's office."

    Shortly a screen lighted on his desk; he touched another switch and a solid display in the wall lighted up. We were looking into the room we had been in only a few hours before.

    Looking into it past the shoulders of a man who filled most of the screen-Barnes.

    Or his twin. When I kill a man, I expect him to stay dead. I was shaken but I still believed in myself-and my heater.

    The man in the display said, "You asked for me, Mr. President?" He sounded as if he were dazzled by the honor.

    "Yes, thank you. Mr. Barnes, do you recognize any of these people?"

    He looked surprised. "I'm afraid not. Should I?"

    The Old Man interrupted. "Tell him to call in his office force."

    The President looked quizzical but did just that. "Barnes" looked puzzled but complied. They trooped in, girls mostly, and I recognized the secretary who sat outside the manager's door. One of them squealed, "Ooh-it's the President," and they all fell to buzzing.

    None of them identified us-not surprising with the Old Man and me, but Mary's appearance was just as it had been in that same office, and I will bet that Mary's looks would be burned into the mind of any woman who had ever seen her.

    But I noticed one thing about them-every single one of them was round-shouldered.

    The President eased us out. He put a hand on the Old Man's shoulder. "Seriously, Andrew, take that vacation." He flashed the famous smile. "The Republic won't fall-I'll worry it through till you get back."

    Ten minutes later we were standing in the wind on the Rock Creek platform. The Old Man seemed shrunken and, for the first time, old. "What now, boss?"

    "Eh? For you two, nothing. You are both on leave until recalled."

    "I'd like to take another look at Barnes's office."

    "Don't go near the place. Stay out of Iowa. That's an order."

    "Mmm-what are you going to do, if I may ask?"

    "You heard the President, didn't you? I am going down to Florida and lie in the sun and wait for the world to go to hell. If you have any sense, you'll do the same. There's damned little time."

    He squared his shoulders and stumped away. I turned to speak to Mary, but she was gone. His advice seemed awfully good, and it had suddenly occurred to me that waiting for the end of the world might not be too bad, with her help.

    I looked around quickly but could not spot her. I trotted off and overtook the Old Man. "Excuse me, Boss. Where did Mary go?"

    "Huh? On leave no doubt. Don't bother me."

    I considered trying to relay to her through the Section circuit, when I remembered that I did not know her right name, nor her code, nor her I. D. number. I thought of trying to bull it through by describing her, but that was foolishness. Only Cosmetics Records knows the original appearance of an agent-and they won't talk. All I knew about her was that she had twice appeared as a redhead, at least once by choice-and that, for my taste, she was "why men fight". Try punching that into a phone!

    Instead I found a room for the night. After I found it I wondered why I had not left the Capital and gone back to my own apartment. Then I wondered if the blonde were still in it. Then I wondered who the blonde was, anyway? Then I went to sleep.

Chapter 4

    I woke up at dusk. The room I was in had a real window-the Section pays well and I could afford little luxuries. I looked out over the Capital as it came to life for the night. The river swept away in a wide bend past the Memorial; it was summer and they were adding fluorescine to the water above the District so the river stood out in curving sweeps of glowing rose and amber and emerald and shining fire. Little pleasure boats cut through the colors, each filled, I had no doubt, with couples up to no good and enjoying it.

    On the land, here and there among the older buildings, the bubble domes were lighting up, giving the city a glowing fairyland look. Off to the east, where the Bomb had landed, there were no old buildings at all and the area was an Easter basket of color giant Easter eggs, lighted from within.

    I've seen the Capital at night oftener than most, because of my business, and, while I like the place, I had not thought much about it. But tonight I had that "Last Ride Together" feeling. It was so beautiful it hurt but it was not its beauty that choked me up; it was knowing that down under those warm lights were people, alive and individual people, going about their lawful occasions, making love or having spats, whichever suited them . . . doing whatever they damn well pleased, each under his own vine and his own fig tree with nobody to make him afraid, as it says.

    I thought about all those gentle, kindly people (with only an occasional heel) and I thought about them each with a gray slug clinging to the back of his neck, twitching his legs and arms, making his voice say what the slug wished, going where the slug wanted to go.

    Hell's bells-life under the commissars couldn't be that bad. I know-I've been behind the Curtain.

    I made myself a solemn promise: if the parasites won. I'd arrange to be dead before I would let one of those things ride me the way one had ridden Barnes. For an agent it would be simple; just bite my nails- or, if your hands happen to be off, there are a couple of other ways. The Old Man planned for all professional necessities.

    But the Old Man had not planned such arrangements for such a purpose and I knew it. It was the Old Man's business-and mine-to keep those people down there safe, not to run out on them when the going got rough.

    I turned away from the window. There was not a confounded thing I could do about it now; I decided that what I needed was company. The room contained the usual catalog of "escort bureaus" and "model agencies" that you'll find in almost any big hotel except maybe the Martha Washington. I thumbed through it, looking the girls over, then slammed it shut. I didn't want a whoopee girl; I wanted one particular girl-one who would as soon shoot as shake hands and would bite in the clinches. And I did not know where she had gone.

    I always carry a tube of "tempus fugit" pills; most agents do, as one never knows when giving your reflexes a jolt will get you through a tight spot. Despite the scare propaganda, tempos pills are not habit-forming, not the way the original hashish is.

    Nevertheless a purist would say I was addicted to them, for I had the habit of taking them occasionally to make a twenty-four hour leave seem like a week. I admit that I enjoyed the mild euphoria which the pills induced as a side effect. Primarily, though, they just stretch out your subjective time by a factor of ten or more, chop time into finer bits so that you live longer for the same amount of clock and calendar.

    What's wrong with that? Sure, I know the horrible example story of the man who died of old age in a calendar month through taking the pills steadily, but I took them only once in a while.

    Maybe he had the right idea. He lived a long and happy life-you can be sure it was happy-and died happy at the end. What matter that the sun rose only thirty times? Who is keeping score and what are the rules anyhow?

    I sat there, staring at my tube of pills and thinking that I had enough to keep me hopped up and contented for what would be, to me, at least two "years". If I wanted to, I could crawl in my hole and pull it in after me.

    I took out two pills and got a glass of water. Then I put them carefully back in the tube, put on my gun and phone, left the hotel and headed for the Library of Congress.

    On the way I stopped in a bar for a quick one and looked at a newscast. There was no news from Iowa, but when is there any news from Iowa?

    At the Library I went to the general catalog, put on blinkers, and started scanning for references. "Flying Saucers" led to "Flying Discs", then to "Project Saucer", then "Lights in the Sky", "Fireballs", "Cosmic Diffusion Theory of Life Origins", and two dozen blind alleys and screwball branches of literature. I needed some sort of a Geiger counter to tell me what was pay dirt and what was not, especially as what I wanted was almost certain to carry a semantic-content code key classing it somewhere between Aesop's fables and the Lost Continent myths.

    Nevertheless, in an hour I had a double handful of selector cards. I handed them to the vestal virgin at the desk and waited while she fed them into the hopper. Presently she said, "Most of the films you want are in use. The rest will be delivered to study room 9-A. Take the south escalator, puhlease."

    Room 9-A had one occupant-who looked up as I came in and said, "Well! The wolf in person, how did you manage to pick me up again? I could swear I gave you a clean miss."

    I said, "Hello, Mary."

    "Hello," she answered, "and now, good-by. Miss Barkis still ain't willin' and I've got work to do."

    I got annoyed. "Listen, you conceited little twerp, odd as it may seem to you, I did not come here looking for your no-doubt beautiful white body. I occasionally do some work myself and that is why I'm here. If you will put up with my unwelcome presence until my spools arrive, I'll get the hell out and find another study room,fa stag one."

    Instead of flaring back, she immediately softened, thereby proving that she was more of a gentleman than I was. "I'm sorry, Sam. A woman hears the same thing so many thousand times that she gets to thinking that no other topic is possible. Sit down."

    "No," I answered, "thanks, but I'll take my spools to an unoccupied room. I really do want to work."

    "Stay here," she insisted. "Read that notice on the wall. If you remove spools from the room to which they are delivered, you will not only cause the sorter to blow a dozen tubes, but you'll give the chief reference librarian a nervous breakdown."

    "I'll bring them back when I'm through with them."

    She took my arm and warm tingles went up it. "Please, Sam. I'm sorry."

    I sat down and grinned at her. "Nothing could persuade me to leave. I did not expect to find you here, but now that I have, I don't intend to let you out of sight until I know your phone code, your home address, and the true color of your hair."

    "Wolf," she said softly, wrinkling her nose. "You'll never know any of them." She made a great business of fitting her head back into her study machine while ignoring me. But I could see that she was not displeased.

    The delivery tube went thunk! and my spools spilled into the basket. I gathered them up and stacked them on the table by the other machine. One of them rolled over against the ones Mary had stacked up and knocked them down. Mary looked up.

    I picked up what I thought was my spool and glanced at the end-the wrong end, as all it held was the serial number and that little pattern of dots which the selector reads. I turned it over, read the label, and placed it in my pile.

    "Hey!" said Mary. "That's mine."

    "In a pig's eye," I said politely.

    "But it is--I read the label when it was faced toward me. It's the one I want next."

    Sooner or later, I can see the obvious. Mary wouldn't be there to study the history of footgear through the Middle Ages. I picked up three or four more of hers and read the labels. "So that's why nothing I wanted was in," I said. "But you didn't do a thorough job; I found some that you missed." I handed her my selection.

    Mary looked them over, then pushed all the spools into a single pile. "Shall we split them fifty-fifty, or both of us see them all?"

    "Fifty-fifty to weed out the junk, then we'll both go over the remainder," I decided. "Let's get busy."

Even after having seen the parasite on poor Barnes's back, even after being solemnly assured by the Old Man that a "flying saucer" had in fact landed, I was not prepared for the monumental pile of evidence to be found buried in a public library. A pest on Digby and his evaluating formula! Digby was a floccinaucinihilipilificator at heart-which is an eight-dollar word meaning a joker who does not believe in anything he can't bite.

    The evidence was unmistakable; Earth had been visited by ships from outer space not once but many times.

    The reports long antedated our own achievement of space travel; some of them ran back into the seventeenth century-earlier than that, but it was impossible to judge the quality of reports dating back to a time when "science" meant an appeal to Aristotle. The first systematic data came from the United States itself in the 1940's and '50's. The next flurry was in the 1980's, mostly from Russo-Siberia. These reports were difficult to judge as there was no direct evidence from our own intelligence agents and anything that came from behind the Curtain was usually phony, ipso facto.

    I noticed something and started taking down dates. Strange objects in the sky appeared to hit a cycle with crests at thirty-year intervals, about. I made a note about it; a statistical analyst might make something of it-or more likely, if I fed it to the Old Man, he would see something in that crystal ball he uses for a brain.

    "Flying saucers" were tied in with "mysterious disappearances" not only through being in the same category as sea serpents, bloody rain, and such like wild data, but also because in at least three well-documented instances pilots had chased "saucers" and never come back, or down, anywhere, i.e., officially classed as crashed in wild country and not recovered- an "easy out" or "happy hurdle" type of explanation.

I got another wild hunch and tried to see whether or not there was a thirty-year cycle in mysterious disappearances, and, if so, did it phase-match the objects in-the-sky cycle? There seemed to be but I could not be sure-too much data and not enough fluctuation; there are too many people disappearing every year for other reasons, from amnesia to mothers-in-law.

    But vital records have been kept for a long time and not all were lost in the bombings. I noted it down to farm out for professional analysis.

    The fact that groups of reports seemed to be geographically and even politically concentrated I did not try very hard to understand. I tabled it, after trying one hunch hypothesis on for size; put yourself in the invaders' place; if you were scouting a strange planet, would you study all of it equally, or would you pick out areas that looked interesting by whatever standards you had and then concentrate?

    It was just a guess and I was ready to chuck it before breakfast, if necessary.

    Mary and I did not exchange three words all night. Eventually we got up and stretched, then I lent Mary change to pay the machine for the spools of notes she had taken (why don't women carry change?) and got my wires out of hock, too. "Well, what's the verdict?" I asked.

    "I feel like a sparrow who has built a nice nest and discovers that it is in a rain spout."

    I recited the old jingle. "And we'll do the same thing-refuse to learn and build again in the spout."

    "Oh, no! Sam, we've got to do something, fast. The President has to be convinced. It makes a full pattern; this time they are moving in to stay."

    "Could be. In fact I think they are."

    "Well, what do we do?"

    "Honey chile, you are about to learn that in the Country of the Blind the one-eyed man is in for a hell of a rough ride."

    "Don't be cynical. There isn't time."

    "No. There isn't. Gather up your gear and let's get out of here."

    Dawn was on us as we left and the big library was almost deserted. I said, "Tell you what-let's find a barrel of beer, take it to my hotel room, bust in the head, and talk this thing over."

    She shook her head. "Not to your hotel room."

    "Damn it, this is business."

    "Let's go to my apartment. It's only a couple of hundred miles away; I'll fix you breakfast when we get there."

    I recalled my basic purpose in life in time to remember to leer. "That's the best offer I've had all night. But seriously-why not the hotel? We'd get breakfast there and save a half hour's travel."

    "You don't want to come to my apartment? I won't bite you."

    "I was hoping you would-so I could bite back. No, I was just wondering why the sudden switch?"

    "Well-perhaps I wanted to show you the bear traps I have arranged tastefully around my bed. Or perhaps I just wanted to prove to you I could cook." She dimpled for a moment.

    I flagged a taxi and we went to her apartment.

    When we got inside she left me standing, while she made a careful search of the place, then she came back and said, "Turn around. I want to feel your back."

    "Why do-"

    "Turn around!"

    I shut up and did so. She gave it a good knuckling, all over, then said, "Now you can feel mine."

    "With pleasure!" Nevertheless I did a proper job, for I saw what she was driving at. There was nothing under her clothes but girl-girl and assorted items of lethal hardware.

    She turned around and let a deep sigh. "That's why I didn't want to go to your hotel room. Now we're safe. Now I know we are safe for the first time since I saw that thing on the station manager's back. This apartment is tight; I turn off the air and leave it sealed like a vault every time I leave it."

    "Say-how about the air conditioning? Could one get in through the ducts?"

    "Possibly-but I didn't turn on the conditioner system; I cracked one of the air-raid reserve bottles instead. Never mind; what would you like to eat?"

    I wanted to suggest Mary herself, served up on lettuce and toast, but I thought better of it. "Any chance of about two pounds of steak, just warmed through?"

    We split a five-pound steak between us and I swear I ate the short half. While we chomped, we watched the newscast. Still no news from Iowa.

Chapter 5

    I did not get to see the bear traps; she locked her bedroom door. I know; I tried it. Three hours later she woke me and we had a second breakfast. Presently we struck cigarettes and I reached over and switched off the newscast. It was devoted principally to a display of the states' entries for "Miss America." Ordinarily I would have watched with interest but since none of the babes was round-shouldered and their contest costumes could not possibly have concealed humps bigger than mosquito bites, it seemed to lack importance that day.

    I said, "Well?"

    Mary said, "We've got to arrange the facts we have dug up and rub the President's nose in them. Action has to be on a national scale-global, really."

    "How?"

    "We've got to see him again."

    I repeated, "How?"

    She had no answer for that one.

    I said, "We've got only one route-via official channels. Through the Old Man."

    I put in the call, using both our codes so that Mary could hear, too. Presently I heard, "Chief Deputy Oldfield, speaking for the Old Man. He's not available. Shoot."

    "It's got to be the Old Man."

    There was a pause, then, "I don't have either one of you down as on assignment. Is this official or unofficial?"

    "Uh, I guess you'd call it unofficial."

    "Well, I won't put you through to the Old Man for anything unofficial. And anything official I am handling. Make up your mind."

    I thanked him and switched off before I used any bad language. Then I coded again. The Old Man has a special code, in addition to regular channels, which is guaranteed to cause him to rise up out of his coffin-but God help the agent who uses it unnecessarily. I hadn't used it in five years.

    He answered with a burst of profanity.

    "Boss," I said, "on the Iowa matter-"

    He broke off short. "Yes?"

    "Mary and I spent all night digging former data out of the files. We want to talk it over with you."

    The profanity resumed. Presently he told me to brief it and turn it in for analysis and added that he intended to have my ears fried for a sandwich.

    "Boss!" I said sharply.

    "Eh?"

    "If you can run out on the job, so can we. Both Mary and I are resigning from the Section right now-and that's official!"

    Mary's eyebrows went up but she said nothing. There was a silence so long that I thought he had cut me off, then he said, in a tired, whipped voice, "Palmglade Hotel, North Miami Beach. I'll be the third sunburn from the end."

    "Right away." I sent for a taxi and we went up on the roof. I had the hackie swing out over the ocean to avoid the Carolina speed trap; we made good time.

    The Old Man was sunburned all right. He lay there, looking sullen and letting sand dribble through his fingers, while we reported. I had brought along a little buzz box so that he could get it directly off the wire.

    He looked up sharply when we came to the point about thirty-year cycles, but he allowed it to ride until he came to my later query about possible similar cycles in disappearances, whereupon he stopped me and called the Section. "Get me Analysis. Hello, Peter? This is the boss. I want a curve on unexplained disappearances, quantitative, starting with 1800. Huh? People, of course--did you think I meant latch keys? Smooth out known factors and discount steady load-what I want to see is humps and valleys. When? I want it two hours ago; what are you waiting for?"

    After he switched off he struggled to his feet, let me hand him his cane and said, "Well, back to the jute mill. We've no facilities here."

    "To the White House?" Mary asked eagerly.

    "Eh? Be your age. You two have picked up nothing that would change the President's mind."

    "Oh. Then what?"

    "I don't know. Keep quiet, unless you have a bright idea."

    The Old Man had a car at hand, of course, and I drove us back. After I turned it over to block control I said, "Boss, I've got a caper that might convince the President, if you can get him to hold still."

    He grunted. "Like this," I went on, "send two agents in, me and one other. The other agent carries a portable scanning rig and keeps it trained on me the whole time. You get the President to watch what happens."

    "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 parasites.

    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.

Chapter 6

    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, you'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.

    I did not get to sleep at once. I could hear the rumble of the city above us and I kept imagining it in the state Des Moines was already in.

    The air-raid alarm woke me. I stumbled into my clothes as the blowers sighed off, then the intercom bawled in the Old Man's voice, "Anti-gas and anti-radiation procedures! Seal everything-all hands gather in the conference hall. Move!"

    Being a field agent I was a supernumerary with no local duties. I shuffled down the tunnel from the living quarters to the Offices. The Old Man was in the big hall, looking grim. I wanted to ask him what was up, but there was a mixed dozen of clerks, agents, stenos, and such there before me and I decided not to. After a bit the Old Man sent me out to get the door tally from the guard on watch. The Old Man called the roll himself and presently it was clear that every living person listed on the door tally was now inside the hall, from old Miss Haines, the Old Man's private secretary, down to the steward of the staff lounge-except the door guard on watch and Jarvis. The tally had to be right; we keep track of who goes in and out a good bit more carefully than a bank keeps track of money.

    I was sent out again for the door guard. It took a call back to the Old Man to persuade him it was all right for him to leave his post; he then threw the bolt switch and followed me. When we got back Jarvis was there, being attended by Graves and one of his lab men. He was on his feet and wrapped in a hospital robe, conscious apparently, but he seemed dopey.

    When I saw him I began to have some notion of what it was all about. The Old Man did not leave us in doubt. He was facing the assembled staff and keeping his distance; now he drew his gun. "One of the invading parasites is loose among us," he said. "To some of you that means something-too much. To the rest of you I will have to explain, as the safety of all of us-and of our whole race-depends this moment on complete cooperation and utter obedience." He went on to explain briefly but with ugly exactness what a parasite was, what the situation was. "In other words," he concluded, "the parasite is almost certainly here in this room. One of us looks human but is actually an automaton, moving at the will of our deadliest and most dangerous enemy."

    There was a murmur from the staff. People stole glances at each other. Some tried to draw away. A moment before we had been a team, picked for temperament compatibility; we were now a mob, each suspicious of the other. I felt it myself and found myself edging away from the man closest to me-Ronald the lounge steward, it was; I had known him for years.

    Graves cleared his throat. "Chief," he started in, "I want you to understand that I took every reasonable-"

    "Stow it. I don't want excuses. Bring Jarvis out in front. Take his robe off."

    Graves shut up and he and his assistant complied. Jarvis did not seem to mind; he seemed only partly aware of his surroundings. There was a nasty blue welt across his left cheekbone and temple, but that was not the cause; I did not hit him that hard. Graves must have drugged him.

    "Turn him around," the Old Man ordered. Jarvis let himself be turned; there was the mark of the slug, a red rash on the shoulders and neck. "You can all see," the Old Man went on, "where the thing rode him." There had been some whispers and one embarrassed giggle when Jarvis had been stripped; now there was a dead hush.

    "Now," said the Old Man, "we are going to get that slug! Furthermore, we are going to capture it alive. That warning is for you eager boys with itchy trigger fingers. You have all seen where a parasite rides on a man. I'm warning you; if the parasite gets burned, I'll burn the man who did it. If you have to shoot the host to catch it, shoot low. Come here!" He pointed his gun at me.

    I started toward him; he halted me halfway between the crowd and himself. "Graves! Take Jarvis out of the way. Sit him down behind me. No, leave his robe off," Jarvis was led across the room, still docile, and Graves and his helper rejoined the group. The Old Man turned his attention back to me. "Take out your gun. Drop it on the floor."

    The Old Man's gun was pointed at my belly button; I was very careful how I drew mine. I slid it some six feet away from me. "Take off your clothes-all of them."

    I am no shrinking violet, but that is an awkward order to carry out. The Old Man's gun overcame my inhibitions.

    It did not help any to have some of the younger girls giggling at me as I got down to the buff. One of them said, not too sotto voce, "Not bad!" and another replied, "Knobby, I'd say."

    I blushed like a bride.

    After he looked me over the Old Man told me to pick up my gun and stand beside him. "Back me up," he ordered, "and keep an eye on the door. You! Dotty Something-or-other-you're next."

    Dotty was a girl from the clerical pool. She had no gun, of course, and she had evidently been in bed when the alarm sounded; she was dressed in a floor length negligee. She stepped forward, stopped, but did nothing more.

    The Old Man waved his gun at her. "Come on-get 'em off! Don't take all night."

    "You really mean it?" she said incredulously. "Move!"

    She started-almost jumped. "Well!" she said, "no need to take a person's head off." She bit her lower lip and then slowly unfastened the clasp at her waist. "I ought to get a bonus for this," she said defiantly, then threw the robe from her all in one motion.

    Whereupon she ruined her buildup by posing for an instant-not long, but you couldn't miss it. I concede that she had something to display, although I was in no mood to appreciate it.

    "Over against the wall," the Old Man said savagely. "Renfrew!"

    I don't know whether the Old Man alternated men and women on purpose or not, but it was a good idea, as it kept resistance to a minimum. Oh, shucks, I do know-the Old Man never did anything by accident. After my ordeal the men were businesslike though some were obviously embarrassed. As to the women, some giggled and some blushed, but none of them objected too much. I would have found it interesting if the circumstances had been different. As it was, we were all bound to learn things about each other that we had not known. For instance there was a girl whom we used to call "Chesty"-never mind. In twenty minutes or so there were more square yards of gooseflesh exposed than I had ever seen before and the pile of guns on the floor looked like an arsenal.

    When Mary's turn came, she set a good example by taking off her clothes quickly and in a completely unprovocative manner-the Old Man should have called her first, instead of that Dotty baggage. Bare, Mary made nothing of it, and wore her skin with quiet dignity. But what I saw did nothing to cool down my feelings about her.

    Mary had added considerably to the pile of hardware. I decided she just plain liked guns. Me, I've never found use for more than one.

    Finally we were all mother naked and quite evidently free of parasites, except the Old Man himself and his secretary, Miss Haines. I think he was a bit in awe of Miss Haines; she was older than he and inclined to boss him. It dawned on me whom it had to be-if the Old Man were right. He could have been wrong; for all we knew the parasite might be on a ceiling girder, waiting to drop on someone's neck.

    The Old Man looked distressed and poked about in the pile of clothing with his cane. He knew that there was nothing in it-or perhaps be was really making sure. Finally he looked up at his secretary. "Miss Haines-if you please. You are next."

    I thought to myself. Brother, this time you are going to have to use force.

    She did not move. She stood there, facing him down, a statue of offended virginity. I could see that he was about to take action, so I moved closer to him and said, out of the corner of my mouth, "Boss-how about yourself? Take 'em off."

    He jerked his head around and looked startled. "I mean it," I said. "It's you or she. It might be either. Get out of those duds."

    The Old Man can relax to the inevitable. He said, "Have her stripped. And I'm next." He began fumbling at his zippers, looking grim.

    I told Mary to take a couple of the women and peel Miss Haines. When I turned back the Old Man had his trousers at half mast-and Miss Haines chose to make a break for it.

    The Old Man was between me and her and I couldn't get in a clean shot-and every other agent in the place was disarmed! Again, I don't think it was accident; the Old Man did not trust them not to shoot when the parasite was discovered. He wanted that slug, alive.

    She was out the door and running down the passage by the time I could get organized. I could have winged her in the passageway but I was inhibited by two things-first, I could not shift gears emotionally that fast. I mean to say she was to me still old Lady Haines, the spinster secretary to the boss, the one who bawled me out for poor grammar in my reports. In the second place, if she was carrying a parasite I did not want to risk burning it, not after what we had been told. I am not the world's best shot, anyhow.

    She ducked into a room; I came up to it and again I hesitated-sheer habit; it was the ladies' room.

    But only a moment. I slammed the door open and looked around, gun ready.

    Something hit me back of my right ear. It seemed to me that I took a long leisurely time in getting to the floor.

    I can give no clear account of the next few moments. In the first place I was out cold, for a time at least. I remember a struggle and some shouts: "Look out!" "Damn her-she's bitten me!" "Watch your hands! Watch your hands!" Then somebody said more quietly, "Bind her hands and feet, now-careful." Somebody said, "How about him?" and someone else answered, "Later. He's not really hurt."

    I was still practically out as they left, but I began to feel a flood of life stirring back into me. I sat up, feeling extreme urgency about something. I got up, staggering a little, and went to the door. I hesitated there, looked out cautiously; nobody was in sight. I stepped out and trotted down the corridor, away from the direction of the conference hall.

    I slowed down momentarily at the outer door, then realized with a shock that I was naked and tore on down the hallway toward the men's wing. There I grabbed the first clothes I could find and pulled them on. I found a pair of shoes much too small for me, but it did not seem to matter.

    I ran back toward the exit, fumbled, and found the switch; the door opened.

    I thought I had made a clean escape, but somebody shouted, "Sam!" just as I was going out. I did not wait, but plunged on out. At once I had my choice of six doors and then three more beyond the one I picked. The warren we called the "Offices", being arranged to permit any number of people to come and go without being noticed, was served by a spaghetti-like mess of tunnels. I came up finally inside a subway fruit and bookstall, nodded to the proprietor-who seemed unsurprised-and swung the counter gate up and mingled with the crowd. It was not a route I had used before.

    I caught the up-river jet express and got off at the first station. I crossed over to the down-river side, waited around the change window until a man came up who displayed quite a bit of money as he bought his counter. I got on the same train he did and got off when he did. At the first dark spot I rabbit-punched him. Now I had money and was ready to operate. I did not know quite why I had to have money, but I knew that I needed it for what I was about to do.

Chapter 7

    Language grows, so they say, to describe experience of the race using it. Experience first-language second. How can I tell how I felt?

    I saw things around me with a curious double vision, as if I stared at them through rippling water-yet I felt no surprise and no curiosity about this. I moved like a sleepwalker, unaware of what I was about to do-but I was wide-awake, fully aware of who I was, where I was, what my job at the Section had been. There was no amnesia; my full memories were available to me at any moment. And, although I did not know what I was about to do, I was always aware of what I was doing and sure that each act was the necessary, purposeful act at that moment.

    They say that post-hypnotic commands work something like that. I don't know; I am a poor hypnotic subject.

    I felt no particular emotion most of the time, except the mild contentment that comes from being at work which needs to be done. That was up on the conscious level-and, I repeat, I was fully awake. Someplace, more levels down than I understand about, I was excruciatingly unhappy, terrified, and filled with guilt-but that was down, 'way down, locked, suppressed; I was hardly aware of it and in no practical way affected by it.

    I knew that I had been seen to leave. That shout of "Sam!" had been intended for me; only two persons knew me by that name and the Old Man would have used my right name. So Mary had seen me leave-it was a good thing, I thought, that she had let me find out where her private apartment was. It would be necessary presently to booby-trap it against her next use of it. In the meantime I must get on with work and keep from being picked up.

    I was in a warehouse district, moving through it cautiously, all my agent's training at work to avoid being conspicuous. Shortly I found what seemed to be a satisfactory building; there was a sign: LOFT FOR LEASE-SEE RENTAL AGENT ON GROUND FLOOR. I scouted it thoroughly, noted the address, then doubled back to the nearest Western Union booth two squares behind me. There I sat down at a vacant machine and sent the following message: EXPEDITE TWO CASES TINY TOTS TALKY TALES SAME DISCOUNT CONSIGNED TO JOEL FREEMAN and added the address of the empty loft. I sent it to Roscoe and Dillard, Jobbers and Manufacturers Agents, Des Moines, Iowa.

    As I left the booth the sight of one of the Kwikfede chain of all-night restaurants reminded me that I was very hungry, but the reflex cut off at once and I thought no more about it. I returned to the warehouse building, found a dark corner in the rear, and settled quietly back to wait for dawn and business hours.

    I must have slept; I have a dim recollection of ever repeating, claustrophobic nightmares.

    From daylight until nine o'clock I hung around a hiring hall, studying the notices; it was the one place in the neighborhood where a man of no occupation would not attract attention. At nine o'clock I met the rental agent as he unlocked his office, and leased the loft, paying him a fat squeeze on the side for immediate possession while the paperwork went through on the deal. I went up to the loft, unlocked it, and waited.

    About ten-thirty my crates were delivered. I let the teamsters leave; three were too many for me and I was not yet ready in any case. After they were gone, I opened one crate, took out one cell, warmed it, and got it ready. Then I went downstairs, found the rental agent again, and said, "Mr. Greenberg, could you come up for a moment? I want to see about making some changes in the lighting."

    He fussed, but agreed to do so. When we entered the loft I closed the door behind us and led him over to the open crate. "Here," I said, "if you will just lean over there, you will see what I mean. If I could just-"

    I got him around the neck with a grip that cut off his wind, ripped his jacket and shirt up, and, with my free hand, transferred a master from the cell to his bare back, then held him tight for a moment until his struggles stopped. Then I let him up, tucked his shirt back in and dusted him off. When he had recovered his breath, I said, "What news from Des Moines?"

    "What do you want to know?" he asked. "How long have you been out?"

    I started to explain, but he interrupted me with, "Let's have a direct conference and not waste time." I skinned up my shirt; he did the same; and we sat down on the edge of the unopened case, back to back, so that our masters could be in contact. My own mind was merely blank and I have no idea how long the conference went on. I watched a fly droning around a dusty cobweb, seeing it but not thinking about it.

    The building superintendent was our next recruit. He was a large Swede and it took both of us to hold him. After that Mr. Greenberg called up the owner of the building and insisted that he simply had to come down and see some horrendous mishap that had occurred to the structure-just what, I don't know; I was busy with the super, opening and warming several more cells.

    The owner of the building was a real prize and we all felt quiet satisfaction, including, of course, he himself. He belonged to the Constitution Club, the membership list of which read like the index of Who's Who in Finance, Government, and Industry. Better still, the club boasted the most famous chef in town; it was an even chance that any given member would be lunching there if he were in the city.

    It was pushing noon; we had no time to lose. The super went out to buy suitable clothes and a satchel for me and sent the owner's chauffeur up to be recruited as he did so. At twelve-thirty we left, the owner and I, in his own car; the satchel contained twelve masters, still in their cells but ready.

    The owner signed: J. Hardwick Potter & Guest. One of the flunkies tried to take my bag but I insisted that I needed it to change my shirt before lunch. We fiddled around in the washroom until we had it to ourselves, save for the attendant-whereupon we recruited him and sent him out with a message to the resident manager that a guest had taken ill in the washroom.

    After we took care of the manager he obtained a white coat for me and I became another washroom attendant. I had only ten masters left but I knew that the cases would be picked up from the warehouse loft and delivered to the club shortly. The regular attendant and I used up the rest of those I had been able to bring before the lunch hour rush was over. One guest surprised us while we were busy and I had to kill him, as there was no time to save him for recruiting. We stuffed him into the mop closet.

    There was a lull after that, as the cases had not yet arrived. Hunger reflex nearly doubled me over, then it dropped off sharply but still persisted; I told the manager, who had me served one of the best lunches I have ever eaten, in his office. The cases arrived just as I was finishing.

    During the drowsy period that every gentlemen's club has in the mid-afternoon we secured the place. By four o'clock everyone present in the building-members, staff, and guests-were with us; from then on we simply processed them in the lobby as the doorman passed them in. Later in the day the manager phoned Des Moines for four more cases.

    Our big prize came that evening-a guest, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. We saw a real victory in that; the Treasury Department is charged with the safety of the President.

Chapter 8

    The jubilation caused by the capture of a high key official was felt by me only as absent-minded satisfaction, then I thought no more about it. We-the human recruits, I mean-hardly thought at all; we knew what we were to do each instant, but we knew it only at the moment of action, as a "high school" horse gets his orders, responds to them instantly, and is ready for the next signal from his rider.

    High school horse and rider is a good comparison, as far as it goes-but it goes not nearly far enough. The horseman has partly at his disposal the intelligence of the horse; the masters had at their disposal not only our full intelligences, but also tapped directly our memory and experiences. We communicated for them between masters, too; sometimes we knew what we were talking about; sometimes we did not-such spoken words went through the servant, but the servant had no part in more important, direct, master-to-master conferences. During these we sat quietly and waited until our riders were through conferring, then rearranged our clothing to cover them up and did whatever was necessary. There was such a conference on a grand scale after the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury was recruited; I know no more of it than you do, although I sat in on it.

    I had no more to do with words spoken by me for my master than had the audio relay buried behind my ear to do with words it sounded-the relay was silent all this time, incidentally; my phone proper I had left behind me. I, like it, was a communication instrument, nothing more. Some days after I was recruited I gave the club manager new instructions about how to order shipments of masters' carrying cells. I was fleetingly aware, as I did so, that three more ships had landed, but I was not aware of their locations; my overt knowledge was limited to a single address in New Orleans.

    I thought nothing about it; I went on with my work. After the day spent at the club, I was a new "special assistant to Mr. Potter" and spent the days in his office-and the nights, too. Actually, the relationship may have reversed; I frequently gave oral instructions to Potter. Or perhaps I understand the social organization of the parasites as little now as I did then; the relationship may have been more flexible, more anarchistic, and vastly more subtle than I have the experience to imagine.

    I knew-and my master certainly knew-that it was well for me to stay out of sight. Through me, my master knew as much of the organization we called the "Section" as I did; it knew that I was one human known to the Old Man to have been recruited-and my master knew, I am sure, that the Old Man would not cease to search for me, to recapture me or kill me.

    It seems odd that it did not choose to change bodies and to kill mine; we had vastly more potential recruits available than we had masters. I do not think it could have felt anything parallel to human squeamishness; masters newly delivered from their transit cells frequently damaged their initial hosts; we always destroyed the damaged host and found a new one for the master.

    Contrariwise, my master, by the time he chose me, had controlled not less than three human hosts-Jarvis, Miss Haines, and one of the girls in Barnes's office, probably the secretary-and in the course of it had no doubt acquired both sophistication and skill in the control of human hosts. It could have "changed horses" with ease.

    On the other hand, would a skilled cowhand have destroyed a well-trained workhorse in favor of an untried, strange mount? That may have been why I was hidden and saved-or perhaps I don't know what I am talking about; what does a bee know about Beethoven?

    After a time the city was "secured" and my master started taking me out on the streets. I do not mean to say that every inhabitant of the city wore a hump-no, not by more than 99 percent; the humans were very numerous and the masters still very few-but the key positions in the city were all held by our own recruits, from the cop on the comer to the mayor and the chief of police, not forgetting ward bosses, church ministers, board members, and any and all who were concerned with public communications and news. The vast majority continued with their usual affairs, not only undisturbed by the masquerade but unaware that anything had happened.

    Unless, of course, one of them happened to be in the way of some purpose of a master-in which case he was disposed of to shut his mouth. This used up potential hosts but there was no need to be economical.

    One of the disadvantages we worked under in serving our masters-or perhaps I should say one of the disadvantages our masters worked under-was the difficulty of long-distance communication. It was limited to what human hosts could say in human speech over ordinary communication channels, and was further limited, unless the channel was secured throughout, to conventionalized code messages such as the one I had sent ordering the first two shipments of masters. Oh, no doubt the masters could communicate ship-to-ship and probably ship-to-home-base, but there was no ship nearby; this city had been stormed as a prize-of-opportunity, as a direct result of my raid on Des Moines in my previous life.

    Such communication through servants was almost certainly not adequate to the purposes of the masters; they seemed to need frequent direct body-to-body conference to coordinate their actions. I am no expert in exotic psychologies; some of those who are maintain that the parasites are not discrete individuals, but cells of a larger organism, in which case-but why go on? They seemed to need direct-contact conferences.

    I was sent to New Orleans for such a conference.

    I did not know I was going. I went out on the street as usual one morning, then went to the uptown launching platform and ordered a cab. Cabs were scarce; I thought about moving over to the other side and catching the public shuttle but the thought was immediately suppressed. After a considerable wait my cab was lifted to the loading ramp and I started to get in-I say "started to" as an old gentleman hustled up and climbed into it ahead of me.

    I received an order to dispose of him, which order was immediately countermanded by one telling me to go slow and be careful, as if even the masters were not always sure of themselves. I said, "Excuse me, sir, but this cab is taken."

    "Quite," the elderly man replied. "I've taken it." He was a picture of self-importance, from briefcase to dictatorial manner. He could easily have been a member of the Constitution Club, but he was not one of our own, as my master knew and told me.

    "You will have to find another," I said reasonably. "Let's see your queue ticket." I had taken my ticket from the rack as soon as I reached the platform; the cab carried the launching number shown by my ticket.

    I had him, but he did not stir. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

    "New Orleans," I answered and learned for the first time my destination.

    "Then you can drop me off in Memphis."

    I shook my head. "It's out of my way."

    "All of fifteen minutes!" He seemed to have difficulty controlling his temper, as if he were not often crossed. "You, sir, must know the rules about sharing cabs in these days of shortages. You cannot preempt a public vehicle unreasonably." He turned from me. "Driver! Explain to this person the rules."

    The driver stopped picking his teeth just long enough to say, "It's nothing to me. I pick 'em up, I take 'em, I drop 'em. Settle it between yourselves or I'll ask the dispatcher for another fare."

    I hesitated, not yet having been instructed. Then I found myself chucking my bag in and climbing inside. "New Orleans," I said, "with stop at Memphis." The driver shrugged and signaled the control tower. The other passenger snorted and paid me no further attention.

    Once in the air he opened his briefcase and spread papers across his knees. I watched him with disinterest. Presently I found myself shifting my position to let me get at my gun easily. The elderly man shot out a hand and grabbed my wrist. "Not so fast, son," he said, and his features broke into the Satanic grin of the Old Man himself.

    My reflexes are fast, but I was at the disadvantage of having everything routed from me to my master, passed on by it, and action routed back to me. How much delay is that? A millisecond? I don't know. As I was drawing, I felt the bell of a gun against my ribs. "Take it easy."

    With his other hand he thrust something against my side; I felt a prick, and then through me spread the warm tingle of a jolt of "morpheus" taking hold. I've been knocked out by that drug twice before and I've given it more times than that; I knew what it was.

    I made one more attempt to pull my gun free and sank forward.

    I was vaguely aware of voices-voices which had been going on for some time before I got around to sorting them out as meaning. Someone was handling me roughly and someone was saying, "Watch out for that ape!" Another voice replied, "It's all right; his tendons are cut," to which the first voice retorted, "He's still got teeth, hasn't he?"

    Yes, I thought fretfully, and if you get close enough I'll bite you with them, too. The remark about cut tendons seemed to be true; none of my limbs would move, but that did not worry me as much as being called an ape and not being able to resent it. It was a shame, I thought, to call a man names when he can't protect himself.

    I wept a little and then fell into a stupor.

    "Feeling better, son?"

    The Old Man was leaning over the end of my bed, staring at me thoughtfully. His chest was bare and covered with grizzled hair; he showed a slight paunch.

    "Unh," I said, "pretty good, I guess." I started to sit up and found I could not move.

    The Old Man came around to the side of the bed. "We can take those restraints off now," he said, fiddling with clasps. "Didn't want you hurting yourself. There!"

    I sat up, rubbing myself. I was quite stiff. "Now," said the Old Man, "how much do you remember? Report."

    "Remember?"

    "You were with them-remember? They caught you. Do you remember anything after the parasite got to you?"

    I felt a sudden wild fear and clutched at the sides of the bed. "Boss! Boss-they know where this place is! I told them."

    "No, they don't," he answered quietly, "because these aren't the Section offices you remember. Once I was convinced that you had made a clean getaway, I had the old offices evacuated. They don't know about this hang-out-I think. So you remember?"

    "Of course I remember. I got out of here-I mean out of the old offices and went up-" My thoughts raced ahead of my words; I had a sudden full image of holding a live, moist master in my bare hand, ready to place it on the back of the rental agent.

    I threw up on the sheet. The Old Man took a corner of it, wiped my mouth, and said gently, "Go ahead."

    I swallowed and said, "Boss-they're all over the place! They've got the city."

    "I know. Same as Des Moines. And Minneapolis, and St. Paul, and New Orleans, and Kansas City. Maybe more. I don't know-I can't be every place." He looked sour and added, "It's like fighting with your feet in a sack. We're losing, fast." He scowled and added, "We can't even clamp down on the cities we know about. It's very-"

    "Good grief! Why not?"

    "You should know. Because 'older and wiser heads' than mine are still to be convinced that there is a war on. Because when they take over a city, everything goes on as before."

    I stared at him. "Never mind," he said gently. "You are the first break we've had. You're the first victim to be recaptured alive-and now we find you remember what happened to you. That's important. And your parasite is the first live one we've managed to capture and keep alive. We'll have a chance to-"

    He broke off. My face must have been a mask of terror; the notion that my master was still alive-and might get to me again-was more than I could stand.

    The Old Man took my arm and shook it. "Take it easy, son," he said mildly. "You are still pretty sick and pretty weak."

    "Where is it?"

    "Eh? The parasite? Don't worry about it. You can see it, if you wish; it's living off your opposite number, a red orangutan, name of Napoleon. It's safe."

    "Kill it!"

    "Hardly-we need it alive, for study."

    I must have gone to pieces, for he slapped me a couple of times. "Take a brace," he said. "I hate to bother you when you are sick, but it's got to be done. We've got to get everything you remember down on wire. So level off and fly right."

    I pulled myself together and started making a careful, detailed report of all that I could remember. I described renting the loft and recruiting my first victim, then how we moved on from there to the Constitution Club. The Old Man nodded. "Logical. You were a good agent, even for them. "

    "You don't understand," I objected. "I didn't do any thinking. I knew what was going on, but that was all. It was as if, uh, as if-" I paused, stuck for words.

    "Never mind. Get on with it."

    "After we recruited the club manager the rest was easy. We took them as they came in and-"

    "Names?"

    "Oh, certainly. Myself, Greenberg-M. C. Greenberg, Thor Hansen, J. Hardwick Potter, his chauffeur Jim Wakeley, a little guy called 'Jake' who was washroom attendant at the club but I believe he had to be disposed of later-his master would not let him take time out for necessities. Then there was the manager; I never did get his name." I paused, letting my mind run back over that busy afternoon and evening in the club, trying to make sure of each recruit. "Oh my God!"

    "What is it?"

    "The Secretary-The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury."

    "You mean you got him!"

    "Yes. The first day. What day was that? How long has it been? God, chief, the Treasury Department protect the President"

    But I was not talking to anyone; there was just a hole in the air where the Old Man had been.

    I lay back exhausted. I started sobbing softly into my pillow. After a while I went to sleep.

Chapter 9

    I woke up with my mouth foul, my head buzzing, and a vague sense of impending disaster. Nevertheless I felt fine, by comparison. A cheerful voice said, "Feeling better?"

    A small brunet creature was bending over me. She was as cute a little bug as I have ever seen and I was well enough to appreciate the fact, however faintly. She was dressed in a very odd costume, what there was of it-skin-tight white shorts, a wisp of practically transparent stuff that restrained her breasts, but not much, and a sort of metal carapace that covered the back of her neck, her shoulders, and went on down her spine.

    "Better," I admitted, then made a wry face.

    "Mouth taste unpleasant?"

    "Like a Balkan cabinet meeting."

    "Here." She gave me some stuff in a glass; it was spicy and burned a little, and it washed away the bad taste at once. "No," she went on, "don't swallow it. 'Pit it out like a little man and I'll get you some water." I obeyed.

    "I'm Doris Marsden," she went on, "your day nurse."

    "Glad to know you, Doris," I answered and stared at her with increasing appreciation. "Say-why the get up? Not that I don't like it, but you look like a refugee from a comic book."

    She looked down at herself and giggled. "I feel like a chorus girl. But you'll get used to it-I did."

    "I'm already used to it. I like it fine. But why?"

    "The Old Man's orders."

    I started to ask why again, then I knew why, and I started feeling worse again. I shut up. Doris went on, "Now for some supper." She got a tray and sat down on my bed.

    "I don't believe I want anything to eat."

    "Open up," she said firmly, "or I'll rub it in your hair. There! That's a good boy."

    Between gulps, taken in self-defense, I managed to get out, "I feel pretty good. Give me one jolt of 'gyro' and I'll be back on my feet."

    "No stimulants for you," she said flatly, still shoveling it in. "Special diet and lots of rest, with maybe a sleepy pill later. That's what the man says."

    "What's wrong with me?"

    "Extreme exhaustion, starvation, and the first case of scurvy I ever saw in all my born days. As well as scabies and lice-but we got those whipped. There, now you know-and if you tell the doctor I told you, I'll call you a liar to your face. Turn over on your tummy."

    I did so and she started changing dressings. I appeared to be spotted with sores; the stuff she used stung a bit, then felt cool. I thought about what she had told me and tried to remember just how I had lived under my master.

    "Stop trembling," she said. "Are you having a bad one?"

    "I'm all right," I told her. I did manage to stop shaking and to think it over calmly. As near as I could remember I had not eaten during that period oftener than every second or third day. Bathing? Let me see- why, I hadn't bathed at all! I had shaved every day and put on a clean shirt; that was a necessary part of the masquerade and the master knew it.

    On the other hand, so far as I could remember, I had never taken off my shoes from the time I had stolen them until the Old Man had recaptured me-and they had been too tight to start with. "What sort of shape are my feet in?" I asked.

    "Don't be nosy," Doris advised me. "Now turn over on your back."

    I like nurses; they are calm and earthy and very tolerant. Miss Briggs, my night nurse, was not the mouth-watering job that Doris was; she had a face like a jaundiced horse-but she had a fine figure for a woman her age, hard and well cared for. She wore the same sort of musical-comedy rig that Doris sported, but she wore it with a no-nonsense air and walked like a grenadier guard. Doris, bless her heart, jiggled pleasantly as she walked.

    Miss Briggs refused to give me a second sleeping pill when I woke up in the night and had the horrors, but she did play poker with me and skinned me out of half a month's pay. I tried to find out from her about the President matter, for I figured the Old Man had either won or lost by that time. But she wasn't talking. She would not admit that she knew anything about parasites, flying saucers, or what not-and she herself sitting there dressed in a costume that could have only one purpose!

    I asked her what the public news was, then? She maintained that she had been too busy lately to look at a 'cast. So I asked to have a stereo box moved into my room, so I could catch a newscast. She said I would have to ask the doctor about that; I was on the 'quiet' list. I asked when in the deuce I was going to see this so-called doctor? She said she didn't know; the doctor had been very busy lately. I asked how many other patients there were in the infirmary anyway? She said she really didn't remember. About then her call bell sounded and she left, presumably to see another patient.

    I fixed her. While she was gone, I cold-decked the next deal, so that she got a pat hand-then I wouldn't bet against her.

    I got to sleep later on and was awakened by Miss Briggs slapping me in the face with a cold, wet washcloth. She got me ready for breakfast, then Doris relieved her and brought it to me. This time I fed myself and while I was chomping I tackled her for news, with the same perfect score I had made with Miss Briggs. Nurses run a hospital as if it were a nursery for backward children.

    Davidson came around to see me after breakfast. "Heard you were here," he said. He was wearing shorts and nothing else, except that his left arm was covered by a dressing.

    "More than I've heard," I complained. "What happened to you?"

    "Bee stung me."

    I dropped that subject; if he didn't want to tell how he had gotten burned, that was his business. I went on, "The Old Man was in here yesterday, getting my report, when he left very suddenly. Seen him since?"

    "Yep."

    "Well?" I answered.

    "Well, how about you. Are you straightened out? Have the psych boys cleared you for classified matters, or not?"

    "Is there any doubt about it?"

    "You're darn tootin' there's doubt. Poor old Jarvis never did pull out of it."

    "Huh?" I hadn't thought about Jarvis. "How is he now?"

    "He isn't. Never did get right in his head. Dropped into a coma and died the next day-the day after you left. I mean the day after you were captured. No apparent reason-just died." Davidson looked me over. "You must be tough."

    I did not feel tough. I felt tears of weakness welling up again and I blinked them back. Davidson pretended not to see and went on conversationally, "You should have seen the ruckus after you gave us the slip. The Old Man took out after you wearing nothing but a gun and a look of grim determination. He would have caught you, too, my money says-but the civil police picked him up and we had to get him out of hock." Davidson grinned.

    I grinned feebly myself. There was something both gallant and silly about the Old Man charging out to save the world single-handed dressed in his birthday suit. "Sorry I missed it. But what else has happened- lately?"

    Davidson looked me over carefully, then said, "Wait a minute." He stepped out of the room and was gone a short time. When he came back, he said, "The Old Man says it's all right. What do you want to know?"

    "Everything! What happened yesterday?"

    "I was in on that one," he answered, "That's how I got this." He waved his damaged wing at me, "I was lucky," he added, "three agents were killed. Quite a fracas."

    "But how did it come out? How about the President? Was he-"

    Doris hustled into the room. "Oh, there you are!" she said to Davidson. "I told you to stay in bed. You're due in prosthetics at Mercy Hospital right now. The ambulance has been waiting for ten minutes."

    He stood up, grinned at her, and pinched her cheek with his good hand. "The party can't start until I get there."

    "Well, hurry!"

    "Coming." He started out the door with her.

    I called out, "Hey! How about the President?"

    Davidson paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Oh, him? He's all right-not a scratch on him." He went on.

    Doris came back a few minutes later, fuming. "Patients!" she said, like a swear word. "Do you know why they call them 'patients'? Because it's patience you have to have to put up with them. I should have had at least twenty minutes for his injection to take hold; as it was I gave it to him when he got into the ambulance."

    "Injection for what?"

    "Didn't he tell you?"

    "No."

    "Well . . . no reason not to tell you. Amputation and graft, lower left arm."

    "Oh." Well, I thought, I won't hear the end of the story from Davidson; grafting on a new limb is a shock. They usually keep the patient hopped up for at least ten days. I wondered about the Old Man: had he come out of it alive? Of course he had, I reminded myself; Davidson checked with him before he talked.

    But that didn't mean he hadn't been wounded. I tackled Doris again. "How about the Old Man? Is he on the sick list? Or would it be a violation of your sacred run-around rules to tell me?"

    "You talk too much," she answered. "It's time for your morning nourishment and your nap." She produced a glass of milky slop, magician fashion.

    "Speak up, wench, or I'll spit it back in your face."

    "The Old Man? You mean the Chief of Section?"

    "Who else?"

    "He's not on the sick list, at least not here." She shivered and made a face. "I wouldn't want him as a patient."

    I was inclined to agree with her.

Chapter 10

    For two or three more days I was kept wrapped in swaddling clothing and treated like a child. I did not care; it was the first real rest I had had in years. Probably they were slipping me sedatives; I noticed that I was always ready to sleep each time after they fed me. The sores got much better and presently I was encouraged-"required" I should say-by Doris to take light exercise around the room.

    The Old Man called on me. "Well," he said, "still malingering, I see."

    I flushed. "Damn your black, flabby heart," I told him. "Get me a pair of pants and I'll show you who is malingering."

    "Slow down, slow down." He took my chart from the foot of my bed and looked it over. "Nurse," he said, "get this man a pair of shorts. I'm restoring him to duty."

    Doris faced up to him like a banty hen. "Now see here," she said, "you may be the big boss, but you can't give orders here. The doctor will-"

    "Stow it!" he said, "and get those drawers. When the doctor comes in, send him to me."

    "But-"

    He picked her up, swung her around, paddled her behind, and said, "Git!"

    She went out, squawking and sputtering, and came back shortly, not with clothes for me, but with the doctor. The Old Man looked around and said mildly, "Doc, I sent for pants, not for you."

    The medico said stiffly, "I'll thank you not to interfere with my patients."

    "He's not your patient. I need him, so I am restoring him to duty."

    "Yes? Sir, if you do not like the way I run my department, you may have my resignation at once."

    The Old Man is stubborn but not bull-headed. He answered, "I beg your pardon, sir. Sometimes I become too preoccupied with other problems to remember to follow correct procedure. Will you do me the favor of examining this patient? I need him; if he can possibly be restored to duty, it would help me to have his services at once."

    The doctor's jaw muscles were jumping, but all he said was, "Certainly, sir!" He went through a show of studying my chart, then had me sit on the bed while he tested my reflexes. Personally, I thought they were mushy. He peeled back my eyelids, flashed a light in my eye, and said, "He needs more recuperation time-but you may have him. Nurse-fetch clothing for this man."

    Clothing consisted of shorts and shoes; I had been better dressed in a hospital gown. But everybody else was dressed the same way, and it was downright comforting to see all those bare shoulders with no masters clinging to them. I told the Old Man so. "Best defense we've got," he growled, "even if it does make the joint look like a ruddy summer colony. If we don't win this set-to before winter weather, we're licked."

    The Old Man stopped at a door with a freshly lettered sign: BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY-STAY OUT! He dilated the door.

    I hung back. "Where are we going?"

    "Going to take a look at your twin brother, the ape with your parasite."

    "That's what I thought. Not for me-no point in it. No, thanks!" I could feel myself begin to tremble.

    The Old Man paused. "Now, look, son," he said patiently, "you've got to get over your panic. The best way is to face up to it. I know it's hard-I've spent a good many hours in here myself, just staring at the thing, getting used to it."

    "You don't know-you can't know!" I had the shakes so badly now that I had to steady myself by the doorframe.

    He looked at me. "I suppose it's different," he said slowly, "when you've actually had it. Jarvis-" He broke off.

    "You're darn right it's different! You're not going to get me in there]"

    "No, I guess not. Well, the doctor was right. Go on back, son, and turn yourself in at the infirmary." His tones were regretful rather than angry. He turned and started into the laboratory.

    He had gotten three or four steps away before I called out, "Boss!"

    He stopped and turned, his face expressionless. "Wait," I added, "I'm coming."

    "You don't have to."

    "I know. I'll do it. It-It just takes . . . a while-to get your nerve back."

    He did not answer but, as I came alongside him, he grasped my upper arm, warmly and affectionately, and continued to hold it as we walked, as if I were a girl. We went on in, through another locked door and into a room that was conditioned warm and moist. The ape was there, caged.

    He sat facing us, his torso supported and restrained by a strap-metal framework. His arms and legs hung limply, as if he had no control over them-which he did not have, as I learned.

    As we came in he looked up and at us. For an instant his eyes were malevolent and intelligent; then the fire died out and they were merely the eyes of a dumb brute, a brute in pain.

    "Around to the side," the Old Man said softly. I would have hung back but he still had me by the arm. We moved around; the ape followed us with his eyes, but his body was held by the frame. From the new position I could see-it.

    My master. The thing that had ridden my back for an endless time, spoken with my mouth-thought with my brain. My master.

    "Steady," the Old Man said softly. "Steady. You'll get used to it." He shook my arm. "Look away for a bit. It helps."

    I did so and it did help. Not much, but some. I took a couple of deep breaths, then held it and managed to slow my heart down a little. I made myself stare at it.

    It is not the appearance of a parasite which arouses horror. True, they are disgustingly ugly, but not more so than slime in a pond-not as much so as maggots in garbage.

    Nor was the horror entirely from knowing what they could do-for I felt the horror the first time I saw one, before I really knew what one was. I tried to tell the Old Man about it, letting the talk steady me. He nodded, his eyes still on the parasite. "It's the same with everybody," he said. "Unreasoned fear, like a bird with a snake. Probably its prime weapon." He let his own eyes drift away, as if too long a sight of it were too much even for his rawhide nerves.

    I stuck with him, trying to get used to it and gulping at my breakfast but not losing it. I kept telling myself that I was safe from it, that it couldn't harm me.

    I looked away again and found the Old Man's eyes on me. "How about it?" he said. "Getting hardened to it?"

    I looked back at it. "A little." I went on savagely, "All I want to do is to kill it! I want to kill all of them-I could spend my whole life killing them and killing them." I began to shake again.

    The Old Man continued to study me. "Here," he said, and handed me his gun.

    It startled me. I was unarmed myself, having come straight from bed. I took it but looked back at him questioningly. "Huh? What for?"

    "You want to kill it, don't you? If you feel that you have to, go ahead. Kill it. Right now."

    "Huh? But-Look here, boss, you told me you needed this one for study."

    "I do. But if you need to kill it, if you feel that you have to kill it, do so. I figure this particular one is your baby; you're entitled to it. If you need to kill it, to make you a whole man again, go ahead."

    " 'To make me a whole man again-' " The thought rang through my head. The Old Man knew, better than I knew, what was wrong with me, what medicine it would take to cure me. I was no longer trembling; I stood there, the gun cradled in my hand, ready to spit and kill. My master . . .

    If I killed this one I would be a free man again-but I would never be free as long as it lived. Surely, I wanted to kill them, every one of them, search them out, burn them, kill them-but this one above all.

    My master . . . still my master unless I killed it. I had a dark and certain thought that if I were alone with it, I would be able to do nothing, that I would freeze and wait while it crawled up me and settled again between my shoulder blades, searched out my spinal column, took possession of my brain and my very inner self.

    But now I could kill it!

    No longer frightened but fiercely exultant I raised the gun, ready to squeeze the trigger.

    The Old Man watched me.

    I lowered the gun a little and said uncertainly, "Boss, suppose I do kill it. You've got others?"

    "No."

    "But you need it."

    "Yes."

    "Well, but-For the love o' God, why did you give me the gun?"

    "You know why. This one is yours; you've got first claim. If you have to kill it, go ahead. If you can pass it up, then the Section will use it."

    I had to kill it. Even if we killed all the others, while this one was still alive I would still crouch and tremble in the dark. As for the others, for study-why, we could capture a dozen any time at the Constitution Club. With this one dead I'd lead the raid myself. Breathing rapidly, I raised the gun again.

    Then I turned and chucked the gun to the Old Man; he plucked it out of the air and put it away. "What happened?" he asked. "You were all set."

    "Uh? I don't know. When it got right down to it, it was enough to know that I could."

    "I figured that it would be."

    I felt warm and relaxed, as if I had just killed a man or had a woman-as if I had just killed it. I was able to turn my back on it and face the Old Man. I was not even angry with him for what he had done; instead I felt warm toward him, even affectionate. "I know you did, damn you. How does it feel to be a puppet master?"

    He did not take the jibe as a joke. Instead he answered soberly, "Not me. The most I ever do is to lead a man on the path he wants to follow. There is the puppet master." He hooked a thumb at the parasite.

    I looked around at it. "Yes," I agreed softly, " 'the puppet master'. You think you know what you mean by that-but you don't. And boss . . . I hope you never do."

    "I hope so, too," he answered seriously.

    I could look now without trembling. I even started to put my hands in my pockets, but the shorts had no pockets. Still staring at it, I went on, "Boss, when you are through with it, if there is anything left, then I'll kill it."

    "That's a promise."

    We were interrupted by a man bustling into the cage room. He was dressed in shorts and a lab coat; it made him look silly. I did not recognize him-it was not Graves; I never saw Graves again; I imagine the Old Man ate him for lunch.

    "Chief," he said, trotting up, "I did not know you were in here. I-"

    "Well, I am," the Old Man cut in. "What are you doing wearing a coat?" The Old Man's gun was out and pointed at the man's chest.

    The man stared at the gun as if it were a bad joke. "Why, I was working, of course. There is always a chance of splattering one's self. Some of our solutions are rather-"

    "Take it off!"

    "Eh?"

    The Old Man waggled his gun at him. To me he said, "Get ready to take him."

    The man took his coat off. He stood there holding it and biting his lip. His back and shoulders were bare, nor was there the telltale rash. "Take that damned coat and burn it," the Old Man told him. "Then get back to your work."

    The man hurried away, his face red, then hesitated, glanced at me, and said to the Old Man, "Chief, are you ready for that, uh, procedure?"

    "Shortly. I'll let you know."

    The man opened his mouth, closed it, and left. The Old Man wearily put his gun away. "Post an order," he muttered. "Read it aloud. Make everybody sign for it-tattoo it on their narrow little chests-and some smart Aleck thinks it doesn't apply to him. Scientists!" He said the last word in the way in which Doris had said, "Patients!"

    I turned back to looking at my former master. It still revolted me, but there was a gusty feeling of danger, too, that was not totally unpleasant-like standing on a very high place. "Boss," I asked, "what are you going to do with this thing?"

    He looked at me, rather than at the slug. "I plan to interview it."

    "To what? But how can you-What I want to say is: the ape, I mean-"

    "No, the ape can't talk. That's the hitch. We'll have to have a volunteer-a human volunteer."

    When his words sank in and I began to visualize what he meant by them the horror struck me again almost full force. "You can't mean that. You wouldn't do that-not to anybody."

    "I could and I'm going to. What needs to be done will be done."

    "You won't get any volunteers!"

    "I've already got one."

    "You have? Who?"

    "But I don't want to use the volunteer I've got. I'm still looking for the right man."

    I was disgusted and showed it. "You ought not to be looking for anyone, volunteer or not. And if you've got one, I'll bet you won't find another; there can't be two people that far out of their minds."

    "Possibly," he agreed. "But I still don't want the one I've got. The interview is a necessity, son; we are fighting a war with a total lack of military intelligence. We don't know anything, really, about our enemy. We can't negotiate with him, we don't know where he comes from, nor what makes him tick. We've got to find out; our racial existence depends on it. The only, the only way to talk to these critters is through a human volunteer. So it will be done. But I'm still looking for a volunteer."

    "Well, don't look at me!"

    "I am looking at you."

    My answer had been half wisecrack; his answer turned it dead serious and startled me speechless. I finally managed to splutter, "You're crazy! I should have killed it when I had your gun-and I would have if I had known what you wanted it for. But as for me volunteering to let you put that thing-No! I've had it."

    He ploughed on through as if he had not heard me. "It can't be just any volunteer; it has to be a man who can take it. Jarvis wasn't stable enough, nor tough enough in some fashion to stand up under it. We know you are."

    "Me? You don't know anything of the sort. All you know is that I lived through it once. I . . . I couldn't stand it again."

    "Well, maybe it will kill you," he answered calmly, "but it is less likely to kill you than someone else. You are proved and salted; you ought to be able to do it standing on your head. With anyone else I run more risk of losing an agent."

    "Since when did you worry about risking an agent?" I said bitterly.

    "Since always, believe me. I am giving you one more chance, son: are you going to do this, knowing that it has to be done and that you stand the best chance of anybody-and can be of most use to us, because you are used to it-or are you going to let some other agent risk his reason and probably his life in your place?"

    I started to try to explain how I felt, that I was not afraid to die, no more than is normal, but that I could not stand the thought of dying while possessed by a parasite. Somehow I felt that to die so would be to die already consigned to an endless and unbearable hell. Even worse was the prospect of not dying once the slug touched me. But I could not say it; there were still no words to describe what the race had not experienced.

    I shrugged. "You can have my appointment back. There is a limit to what one man can be expected to go through and I've reached it. I won't do it."

    He turned to the intercom phone on the wall. "Laboratory," he called out, "we'll start the experiment right now. Hurry it up!"

    The answering voice I recognized as that of the man who had walked in on us. "Which subject?" he asked. "It affects the measurements."

    "The original volunteer."

    "That's the smaller rig?" the voice asked doubtfully.

    "Right. Get it in here."

    I started for the door. The Old Man snapped, "Where do you think you are going?"

    "Out," I snapped back. "I'm having no part of this."

    He grabbed me and spun me around as if he had been the bigger and younger. "No, you don't. You know more about these things than the rest of us; your advice could be of help."

    "Let go of me."

    "You'll stay and watch!" he said savagely, "strapped down or free to move, as you choose. I've made allowance for your illness but I've had enough of your nonsense."

    I was too weary to buck him; I felt nervously exhausted, tired in my bones. "You're the boss."

    The lab people wheeled in a metal framework, a sort of chair, more like a Sing Sing special than anything else. There were metal clamps for ankles and knees, more of the same on the chair arms for the wrists and elbows. There was a corselet effect to restrain the waist and the lower part of the chest, but the back was cut away so that the shoulders of the person unfortunate enough to sit in it would be free.

    They brought it over and placed it beside the ape's cage, then removed the back panel of the cage and the panel on the side nearest the "chair" rig.

    The ape watched the procedure with intent, aware eyes, but his limbs still dangled helplessly. Nevertheless, I became still more disturbed at the cage being thus opened. Only the Old Man's threat of placing me under restraint kept me from leaving.

    The technicians stood back and waited, apparently ready for the job. The outer door opened and several people came in; among them was Mary.

    I was caught off balance by her sudden appearance; I had been wanting to see her and had tried several times to get word to her through the nurses-but they either honestly could not identify her or had received instructions. Now I saw her first under these circumstances. I cursed the Old Man to myself, knowing it was useless to object. It was no sort of a show to bring a woman to, even if the woman was an agent. There ought to be some sort of decent limits somewhere.

    Mary saw me, looked surprised, and nodded. I let it go with a nod myself; it was no time for small talk. She was looking good, as always, though very sober. She was dressed in the same sort of costume as the nurses had worn, shorts and a skimpy halter, but she did not have on the ludicrous metal helmet and back plate.

    The others in the party were men. They wore shorts, like the Old Man and myself. They were loaded with recording and stereo equipment as well as other apparatus.

    "Ready?" inquired the lab chief.

    "Get going," answered the Old Man.

    Mary walked straight to the metal chair and sat down in it. Two of the technicians knelt at her feet and started busying themselves with the clamps. Mary reached behind her, unfastened her halter and let it fall, leaving her back bare.

    I looked at this in a frozen daze, as if caught in a nightmare. Then I had grabbed the Old Man by the shoulders and had literally thrown him aside and I was standing by the chair, kicking the technicians out of the way. "Mary!" I screamed, "get up out of there!"

    Now the Old Man had his gun on me and was motioning me back with it. "Away from her," he ordered. "You three-grab him and tie him up."

    I looked at the gun, then I looked down at Mary. She said nothing and did not move; in fact her feet were already bound. She simply looked at me with compassionate eyes. "Get up from there, Mary," I said dully, "I want to sit down."

    They removed the chair Mary had sat in and brought in another, larger one. I could not have used hers; both of them were tailored to size. When they finished clamping me in place I might as well have been cast into concrete. Once secured, my back began to itch unbearably, although nothing, as yet, had touched it.

    Mary was no longer in the room; whether she had left or had been ordered out by the Old Man I do not know and it did not seem to matter. The Old Man stepped up to me after I had been prepared, laid a hand on my arm, and said quietly, "Thanks, son."

    I did not bother to answer.

    I did not see them handle the parasite as it took place behind my back. There was a rig which I had seen them bring in which appeared to be modified from the remote-handling gear used on radioactives; no doubt they used that. I was not interested enough to look, even if I had been able to turn my head far enough, which I couldn't.

    Once the ape barked and screamed and someone shouted, "Watch it!"

    There was a dead silence as if everyone was holding his breath-then something moist touched the back of my neck and I fainted.

    I came out of it with the same tingling energy I had experienced once before. I knew I was in a tight spot, but I was warily determined to think my way out of it. I was not afraid; I was contemptuous of those around me and sure that in the long run I could outwit them.

    The Old Man said sharply, "Can you hear me?"

    I answered, "Of course I can. Quit shouting."

    "Do you remember what we are here for?"

    I said, "Naturally I remember. You want to ask some questions. What are you waiting for?"

    "What are you?"

    "Now that's a silly question. Take a look at me. I'm six feet one, more muscle than brain, and I weigh-"

    "Not you. You know to whom I am talking-you."

    "Guessing games?"

    The Old Man waited a bit before replying, "It will do you no good to pretend that I don't know what you are-"

    "Ah, but you don't."

    "Or, rather, that I don't know that you are a parasite talking through the body of a man. You know that I have been studying you all the time you have been living on the body of that ape. I know things about you which give me an advantage over you. One-" He started ticking them off.

    "You can be killed.

    "Two, you can be hurt. You don't like electric shock and you can't stand the amount of heat even a man can stand.

    "Three, you are helpless without your host. I could have you removed from this man and you would die.

    "Four, you have no powers except those you borrow from your host-and your host is helpless. Try your bonds; then be sensible. You must cooperate-or die."

    I listened with half an ear; I had already been trying my bonds, neither hoping nor fearing, but finding them, as I expected, impossible to escape. This did not worry me; I had neither worries nor fears. I was oddly contented to be back with my master, to be free of troubles and tensions. My business was to serve and the future would take care of itself.

    In the meantime I must be alert, ready to serve him.

    One ankle strap seemed less tight than the other; possibly I might drag my foot through it. I checked on the arm clamps; perhaps if I relaxed my muscles completely-

    But I made no effort to escape. An instruction came at once-or, I made a decision, for the words mean the same; I tell you there was no conflict between my master and me; we were one-instruction or decision, I knew it was not time to risk an escape. I ran my eyes around the room, trying to figure who was armed and who was not. It was my guess that only the Old Man was armed; that bettered the chances.

    Somewhere, deep down, was that dull ache of guilt and despair never experienced by any but the servants of the masters-but I was much too busy with the problem at hand to be troubled by it.

    "Well?" the Old Man went on. "Do you answer my questions, or do I punish you?"

    "What questions?" I asked. "Up to now, you've been talking nonsense."

    The Old Man turned to one of the technicians. "Give me the tickler."

    I felt no apprehension although I did not understand what it was he had asked for. I was still busy checking my bonds. If I could tempt him into placing his gun within my reach-assuming that I could get one arm free-then I might be able to-

    He reached past my shoulders with a rod. I felt a shocking, unbearable pain. The room blacked out as if a switch had been thrown and for an undying instant I was jolted and twisted by hurt. I was split apart by it; for the moment I was masterless.

    The pain left, leaving only its searing memory behind. Before I could speak, or even think coherently for myself, the splitting away had ended and I was again safe in the arms of my master. But for the first and only time in my service to him I was not myself free of worry; some of his own wild fear and pain was passed on to me, the servant.

    I looked down and saw a line of red welling out of my left wrist; in my struggles I had cut myself on the clamp. It did not matter; I would tear off hands and feet and escape from there on bloody stumps, if escape for my master were possible that way.

    "Well," asked the Old Man, "how did you like the taste of that?"

    The panic that possessed me washed away; I was again filled with an unworried sense of well being, albeit wary and watchful. My wrists and ankles, which had begun to pain me, stopped hurting. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Certainly, you can hurt me-but why?"

    "Answer my questions."

    "Ask them."

    "What are you?"

    The answer did not come at once. The Old Man reached for the rod; I heard myself saying, "We are the people."

    "The people? What people?"

    "The only people. We have studied you and we know your ways. We-" I stopped suddenly.

    "Keep talking," the Old Man said grimly, and gestured with the rod.

    "We come," I went on, "to bring you-"

    "To bring us what?"

    I wanted to talk; the rod was terrifyingly close. But there was some difficulty with words. "To bring you peace," I blurted out.

    The Old Man snorted.

    " 'Peace'," I went on, "and contentment-and the joy of-of surrender." I hesitated again; "surrender" was not the right word. I struggled with it the way one struggles with a poorly grasped foreign language. "The joy," I repeated, "-the joy of . . .nirvana." That was it; the word fitted. I felt like a dog being patted for fetching a stick; I wriggled with pleasure.

    "Let me get this," the Old Man said thoughtfully. "You are promising the human race that, if we will just surrender to your kind, you will take care of us and make us happy. Right?"

    "Exactly!"

    The Old Man studied me for a long moment, looking, not at my face, but past my shoulders. He spat upon the floor. "You know," he said slowly, "me and my kind, we have often been offered that bargain, though maybe not on such a grand scale. It never worked out worth a damn."

    I leaned forward as much as the rig would allow. "Try it yourself," I suggested. "It can be done quickly-and then you will know."

    He stared at me, this time in my face. "Maybe I should," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe I owe it to-somebody, to try it. And maybe I will, someday. But right now," he went on briskly, "you have more questions to answer. Answer them quick and proper and stay healthy. Be slow about it and I'll step up the current." He brandished the rod.

    I shrank back, feeling dismay and defeat. For a moment I had thought he was going to accept the offer and I had been planning the possibilities of escape that could develop. "Now," he went on, "where do you come from?"

    No answer . . . I felt no urge to answer.

    The rod came closer. "Far away!" I burst out.

    "That's no news. Tell me where? Where's your home base, your own planet?"

    I had no answer. The Old Man waited a moment, then said, "I see I'll have to touch up your memory." I watched dully, thinking nothing at all. He was interrupted by one of the bystanders. "Eh?" said the Old Man.

    "There may be a semantic difficulty," the other repeated. "Different astronomical concepts."

    "Why should there be?" asked the Old Man. "That slug is using borrowed language throughout. He knows what his host knows; we've proved that." Nevertheless he turned back and started a different tack. "See here-you savvy the solar system; is your planet inside it or outside it?"

    I hesitated, then answered, "All planets are ours."

    The Old Man pulled at his lip. "I wonder," he mused, "just what you mean by that?" He went on, "Never mind; you can claim the whole damned universe; I want to know where your nest is? Where is your home base? Where do your ships come from?"

    I could not have told him and did not; I sat silent.

    Before I could anticipate it he reached behind me with the rod; I felt one smashing blow of pain, then it was gone. "Now, talk, damn you! What planet? Mars? Venus? Jupiter? Saturn? Uranus? Neptune? Pluto? Kalki?" As he ticked them off, I saw them-and I have never been as far off Earth as the space stations. When he came to the right one, I knew-and the thought was instantly snatched from me.

    "Speak up," he went on, "or feel the whip."

    I heard myself saying, "None of them. Our home is much farther away. You could never find it."

    He looked past my shoulders and then into my eyes. "I think you are lying. I think you need some juice to keep you honest."

    "No, no!"

    "No harm to try." Slowly he thrust the rod past me, behind me. I knew the answer again and was about to give it, when something grabbed my throat. Then the pain started.

    It did not stop. I was being torn apart; I tried to talk, to tell, anything to stop the pain-but the hand still clutched my throat and I could not.

    Through a clearing blur of pain I saw the Old Man's face, shimmering and floating. "Had enough?" he asked. "Ready to talk?" I started to answer, but I choked and gagged. I saw him reach out again with the rod.

    I burst into pieces and died.

    They were leaning over me. Someone said, "He's coming around. Watch him; he might be violent."

    The Old Man's face was over mine, his expression worried. "Are you all right, son?" he asked anxiously. I turned my face away.

    "One side, please," another voice said. "Let me give him the injection."

    "Will his heart stand it?"

    "Certainly-or I wouldn't give it to him." The speaker knelt by me, took my arm, and gave me a shot. He stood up, looked at his hands, then wiped them on his shorts; they left bloody streaks.

    I felt strength flowing back into me. "Gyro", I thought absently, or something like it. Whatever it was, it was pulling me back together. Shortly I sat up, unassisted.

    I was still in the cage room, directly in front of that damnable chair. The cage, I noticed without interest, was closed again. I started to get to my feet; the Old Man stepped forward and gave me a hand. I shook him off. "Don't touch me!"

    "Sorry," he answered, then snapped, "Jones! You and Ito-get the litter. Take him back to the infirmary. Doc, you go along."

    "Certainly." The man who had given me the shot stepped forward and started to take my arm. I drew away from him.

    "Keep your hands off me!"

    He stopped. "Get away from me-all of you. Just leave me alone." The doctor looked at the Old Man, who shrugged, then motioned them all back. Alone, I went to the door, through it, and on out through the outer door into the passageway.

    I paused there, looked at my wrists and ankles and decided that I might as well go back to the infirmary. Doris would take care of me, I was sure, and then maybe I could sleep. I felt as if I had gone fifteen rounds and lost every one of them.

    "Sam, Sam!"

    I looked up; I knew that voice. Mary hurried up and was standing before me, looking at me with great sorrowful eyes. "I've been waiting," she said. "Oh, Sam! What have they done to you?" Her voice was so choked that I could hardly understand her.

    "You should know," I answered, and found I had strength enough left to slap her.

    "Bitch," I added.

    The room I had had was still empty, but I did not find Doris. I was aware that I had been followed, probably by the doctor, but I wanted no part of him nor any of them just then; I closed the door. Then I lay face down on the bed and tried to stop thinking or feeling anything.

    Presently I heard a gasp, and opened one eye; there was Doris. "What in the world?" she exclaimed and came over to me. I felt her gentle hands on me. "Why, you poor, poor baby!" Then she added, "Just stay there, don't try to move. I'll get the doctor."

    "No!"

    "But you've got to have the doctor."

    "No. I won't see him. You help me."

    She did not answer. Presently I heard her go out. She came back shortly-I think it was shortly-and started to bathe my wounds. The doctor was not with her.

    She was not more than half my size but she lifted me and turned me when she needed to as if I had been the baby she had called me. I was not surprised by it; I knew she could take care of me.

    I wanted to scream when she touched my back. But she dressed it quickly and said, "Over easy, now."

    "I'll stay face down."

    "No," she denied, "I want you to drink something, that's a good boy."

    I turned over, with her doing most of the work, and drank what she gave me. After a bit I went to sleep.

    I seem to remember being awakened later, seeing the Old Man and cursing him out. The doctor was there too-or it could just as well have been a dream.

    Miss Briggs woke me up and Doris brought me breakfast; it was as if I had never been off the sick list. Doris wanted to feed me but I was well able to do it myself. Actually I was not in too bad shape. I was stiff and sore and felt as if I had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel; there were dressings on both arms and both legs where I had cut myself on the clamps, but no bones were broken. Where I was sick was in my soul.

    Don't misunderstand me. The Old Man could send me into a dangerous spot-and had done so, more than once-and I would not hold it against him. That I had signed up for. But I had not signed up for what he had done to me. He knew what made me tick and he had deliberately used it to force me into something I would never have agreed to, had I not been jockeyed into it. Then after he had gotten me where he wanted me, he had used me unmercifully.

    Oh, I've slapped men around to make them talk. Sometimes you have to. But this was different. Believe me.

    It was the Old Man that really hurt. Mary? After all, what was she? Just another babe. True, I was disgusted with her to the bottom of my soul for letting the Old Man talk her into being used as bait. It was all right for her to use her femaleness as an agent; the Section had to have female operatives; they could do things men could not do. There have always been female spies and the young and pretty ones had always used the same tools.

    But she should not have agreed to use them against another agent, inside her own Section-at least, she should not have used them against me.

    Not very logical, is it? It was logical to me. Mary shouldn't have done it.

    I was through, I was finished. They could go ahead with Operation Parasite without me; I'd had it. I owned a cabin up in the Adirondacks; I had enough stuff there in deep freeze to carry me for years-well, a year, anyhow. I had plenty of tempus pills and could get more; I would go up there and use them-and the world could save itself, or go to hell, without me.

    If anyone came within a hundred yards of me, he would either show a bare back or be burned down.

Chapter 11

    I had to tell somebody about it and Doris was the goat. It may have been classified information but I did not give a hoot. It turned out that Doris knew all about Operation Parasite; there was no reason to try to keep any part of it secret. The trouble was to make it not a secret-but I am ahead of myself.

    Doris was indignant-shucks, she was sore as a boiled owl. She had dressed what they had done to me. Of course, as a nurse, she had dressed a lot worse, but this had been done by our own people. I blurted out how I felt about Mary's part in it. "You know that old slaughterhouse trick," I asked her, "where they train one animal to lead the others in? That's what they got Mary to do to me."

    She had not heard of it, but she understood me. "Do I understand you that you had wanted to marry this girl?"

    "Correct. Stupid, ain't I?"

    "All men are, about women-but that's not the point. It does not make any difference whether she wanted to marry you or not; her knowing that you wanted to marry her makes what she did about eight thousand times worse. She knew what she could do to you. It wasn't fair." She stopped massaging me, her eyes snapping. "I've never met your redhead, not yet-but if I ever do, I'll scratch her face!"

    I smiled at her. "You're a good kid, Doris. I believe you would play fair with a man."

    "Oh, I'm no angel, and I've pulled some fast ones in my time. But if I did anything halfway like that. I'd have to break every mirror I own. Turn a bit, and I'll get the other leg."

    Mary showed up. The first I knew about it was hearing Doris say angrily, "You can't come in."

    Mary's voice answered, "I'm going in. Try to stop me."

    Doris squealed, "Stay where you are-or I'll pull that hennaed hair out by the roots!"

    There was a short silence, sounds of a scuffle-and the smack! of someone getting slapped, hard. I yelled out, "Hey! What goes on?"

    They appeared in the doorway together. Doris was breathing hard and her hair was mussed. Mary managed to look dignified and composed, but there was a bright red patch on her left cheek the size and shape of Doris's hand. She looked at me and ignored the nurse.

    Doris caught her breath and said, "You get out of here. He doesn't want to see you."

    Mary said, "I'll hear that from him."

    I looked at them both, then said, "Oh, what the hell-Doris, she's here; I'll talk to her. I've got some things to tell her, in any case. Thanks for trying."

    Doris waited a moment, then said, "You're a fool!" and flounced out.

    Mary came over to the bed. "Sam," she said. "Sam."

    "My name isn't 'Sam'."

    "I've never known your right name."

    I hesitated. It was no time to explain to her that my parents had been silly enough to burden me with 'Elihu'. I answered, "What of it? 'Sam' will do."

    "Sam," she repeated. "Oh Sam, my dear."

    "I am not your 'dear'."

    She inclined her head. "Yes, I know that. I don't know why. Sam, I came here to find out why you hate me. Perhaps I can't change it, but I must know why."

    I made some sound of disgust. "After what you did, you don't know why? Mary, you may be a cold fish, but you aren't stupid. I know; I've worked with you."

    She shook her head. "Just backwards, Sam. I'm not cold, but I'm frequently stupid. Look at me, please-I know what they did to you. I know that you let it be done to save me from the same thing. I know that and I'm deeply grateful. But I don't know why you hate me. You did not have to do it, I did not ask you to do it, and I did not want you to do it."

    I didn't answer; presently she said, "You don't believe me?"

    I reared up on one elbow. "I believe you. I believe you have yourself convinced that that is how it was. Now I'll tell you how it was."

    "Do, please."

    "You sat down in that trick chair knowing that I would never let you go through with it. You knew that, whether that devious female mind of yours admitted it to itself or not. The Old Man could not have forced me into that chair, not with a gun, not even with drugs. But you could. You did. You were the one who forced me to go through with something which I would rather have been dead than touched... a thing that now leaves me dirty and spoiled. You did it."

    She had grown steadily whiter as I talked, until her face was almost green against her hair. She caught her breath and said, "You believe that, Sam?"

    "What else?"

    "Sam, that is not the way it was. I did not know you were going to be in there. I was terribly startled. But there was nothing to do but go through with it; I had promised."

    "'Promised'," I repeated. "That covers everything, a schoolgirl promise."

    "Hardly a schoolgirl promise."

    "No matter. And it doesn't matter whether you are telling the truth or not about knowing that I would be in there-you aren't, of course, but it doesn't matter. The point is: you were there and I was there-and you could figure what would happen if you did what you did do."

    "Oh." She waited a bit, then went on, "That's the way it looks to you and I can't dispute the facts."

    "Hardly."

    She stood very still for a long time. I let her. Finally she said, "Sam-once you said something to me about wanting to marry me."

    "I remember something of the sort. That was another day."

    "I didn't expect you to renew the offer. But there was something else, a sort of corollary. Sam, no matter what you think of me, I want to tell you that I am deeply grateful for what you did for me. Uh, Miss Barkis is willing, Sam-you understand me?"

    This time I grinned at her. "A female to the very end! Honest so help me, the workings of the female mind continue to delight and astound me. You always think you can cancel out the score and start over with that one trump play." I continued to grin at her while she turned red. "It won't work. Not this time. I won't inconvenience you by taking up your no-doubt generous offer."

    She continued to blush but she came back at me in a steady, level voice, "I let myself in for that. Nevertheless, it's true. That-or anything else I can ever do for you."

    My elbow was going to sleep; I sank back and lay down. "Sure, you can do something for me."

    Her face lit up. "What?"

    "Go away and quit bothering me. I'm tired." I turned my face away. I did not hear her leave, but I heard Doris come back in. She was bristling like a fox terrier; they must have passed in the hall. She faced me, fists on her hips, looking cute and adorable and very indignant. "She got around you, didn't she?"

    "I don't think so."

    "Don't lie to me. You went soft on her. I know-men always do. The idiots! A woman like that, all she has to do is shake her fanny at a man and he rolls over and plays dead."

    "Well, I didn't. I gave her what for."

    "You're sure you did?"

    "I did-and sent her packing."

    Doris looked doubtful. "I hope you did. Maybe you did-she wasn't looking too pert as she came out." She dismissed the matter. "How do you feel?"

    "Pretty good"-it was a lie, net.

    "Want some massage?"

    "No, just come here and sit on the bed and talk to me. Want a cigarette?"

    "Well-as long as the doctor doesn't catch me." She perched up on the bed; I struck cigarettes for both of us and stuck hers in her mouth. She took a deep drag, swelling out her chest and pushing her arrogant breasts against her halter almost to the breaking point. I thought again what a sweet dish she was; she was just what I needed to take my mind off Mary.

    We talked for a while. Doris gave her views on women-it appeared she disapproved of them on principle, although she was not in the least apologetic about being one herself-on the contrary! "Take women patients," she said. "One of the reasons I took this job was because we don't get a woman patient once in a coon's age. A man patient appreciates what is done for him. A woman just expects it and boilers for more."

    "Would you be that sort of patient?" I asked, just to tease her.

    "I hope not. I'm healthy, thank the Lord." She crushed out her cigarette and jumped off the bed, bouncing a little. "Got to get out of here. Scream if you want anything."

    "Doris-"

    "Yes?"

    "You got any leave coming up?"

    "I plan to take two weeks shortly. Why?"

    "I was thinking. I'm going on leave-at least. I've got a shack in the Adirondacks. How about it? We could have a nice time and forget this madhouse."

    She dimpled. "You know, that's mighty white of you, podnuh." She came over and kissed me full on the mouth, the first time she had done so. "And if I weren't an old married lady, with a pair of twins in the bargain, I might take you up."

    "Oh."

    "Sorry. But thanks for the compliment. You've made my day."

    She started for the door. I called out, "Doris, wait a minute." When she stopped I added, "I didn't know. Look, why don't you take me up on it anyhow? The cabin, I mean-take your old man and the kids up there and give 'em a good time. I'll give you the combo and the transponder code."

    "You mean that?"

    "Of course I do."

    "Well-I'll talk to you later. Thanks." She came back and kissed me again and it made me wish she had not been married, or, at least, not working at it. Then she left.

    The doctor came in a bit later. While he was fiddling with the futile things doctors do, I said, "That nurse. Miss Marsden-is she married?"

    "What business is it of yours?"

    "I just wanted to know."

    "You keep your hands off my nurses-or I'll fit you with mittens. Now stick out your tongue."

    The Old Man put his head in late that afternoon. My immediate response was pleasure; the Old Man's personality is hard to shake off. Then I remembered and went cold.

    "I want to talk to you," he started in.

    "I don't want to talk to you. Get out."

    He ignored my remarks and came in, dragging his bad leg. "Mind if I sit down?"

    "You seem to be doing so."

    He ignored that, too. He wrinkled his face and scowled. "You know, son, you are one of my best boys, but sometimes you are a little hasty."

    "Don't let that worry you," I answered, "as soon as the doctor lets me out of here. I'm through." I had not really decided up until then, but it seemed as necessary as syrup with buckwheat cakes. I no longer trusted the Old Man; the rest was obvious.

    He was not hearing anything that he did not choose to hear. "You're too hasty. You jump to conclusions. Now take this girl Mary-"

    "Mary who?"

    "You know who I mean; you know her as 'Mary Cavanaugh'."

    "You take her."

    "You jumped all over her without knowing the score. You've got her all upset. Matter of fact, you may have ruined a good agent for me."

    "Hmmph! I'm in tears about it."

    "Listen, you young snot, you didn't have any call to be rough on her. You don't know the facts."

    I did not answer; explanations are a poor defense.

    "Oh, I know that you think you do," he went on. "You think she let herself be used as bait to get you to take part in that job we did. Well, you've got it slightly wrong. She was being used as bait, but I was using her. I planned it that way."

    "I know you did."

    "Then why blame her?"

    "Because, although you planned it, you couldn't have carried it out without her active cooperation. It's mighty big of you, you no-good, heartless bastard, to take all the blame-but you can't."

    He did not hear my profanity, either. He went on, "You understand everything about it but the key point, which is-the girl didn't know."

    "Hell's bells, she was there."

    "So she was. Son, did you ever know me to lie to you?"

    "No," I admitted, "but I don't think you would hesitate."

    He looked pained but answered, "Maybe I deserve that. I'd lie to one of my own people if the country's safety depended on it. I haven't found it necessary up till now because I've been choosy about who works for me. But this time the country's welfare doesn't depend on it and I'm not lying and you'll just have to test it for yourself, any way you can figure out, and make up your mind whether or not I'm lying. That girl didn't know. She didn't know you were going to be in that room. She didn't know why you were in there. She didn't know that there was any question about who was going to sit in that chair. She didn't have the faintest suspicion that I didn't mean for her to go through with it, or that I had already decided that you were the only party who would suit me, even if I had to have you tied down and forced-which I would have done, if I hadn't had a double whammy up my sleeve to trick you into volunteering. Hell's bells yourself, son; she didn't even know you were off the sick list."

    I wanted to believe it, so I did my damnedest not to believe it. If it were a lie, it would be just the shape of lie he would tell. As to whether he would bother to lie-well, getting two prime agents back into the groove might be something he would class, just now, as involving the country's safety. The Old Man had a complex mind.

    "Look at me!" he added. I snapped out of my brown study and looked up. "There is something else I want you to know and I want to rub your nose in it. First off, let me say that everybody-including me-appreciates what you did, regardless of your motives. I'm putting in a letter about it and no doubt there will be a medal in due time. That stands, whether you stay with the Section or not. And if you go, I'll help you with any transfer or such you may want."

    He paused for breath, then went on. "But don't go giving yourself airs as a little tin hero-"

    "I won't!"

    "-because that medal is going to the wrong person. Mary ought to get it.

    "Now hush up; I'm not through. You had to be forced into it, like building a fire under a mule. No criticism; you had been through plenty. But Mary was a real, honest-to-God, Simon-pure volunteer. When she sat down in that chair, she didn't know what was going to happen to her. She didn't expect any last minute reprieve and she had every reason to believe that, if she got up alive, her reason would be gone, which is worse. But she did it-because she is a hero, which you miss by a couple of points."

    He went on without waiting for me to reply; "Listen, son-most women are damn fools and children. But they've got more range than we've got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better and the vile ones are viler, for that matter. What I'm trying to tell you is: this one is more of a man than you are and you've done her a serious wrong."

    I was so churned up inside that I could not judge for the life of me whether he was telling the truth, or manipulating me again. I said, "Maybe so. Maybe I lashed out at the wrong person. But if what you say is true-"

    "It is."

    "-it doesn't make what you did any sweeter; it makes it worse."

    He took it without flinching. "Son, I'm sorry if I've lost your respect. But I'd do it again under the same circumstances. I can't be choosy about such things any more than can a commander in battle. Less, because I fight with different weapons. I've always been able to shoot my own dog. Maybe that's good; maybe that's bad-but that is what my job takes. If you are ever in my shoes, you'll have to do it, too."

    "I'm not likely to be."

    "Why don't you take leave, rest up, and think about it?"

    "I'll take leave-terminal leave."

    "Very well." He started to leave; I said,

    "Wait-"

    "Yes?"

    "You made me one promise and I'm holding you to it. About that parasite-you said I could kill it, personally. Are you through with it?"

    "Yes, I'm through with it, but-"

    I started to get out of bed. "No 'buts'. Give me your gun; I'm going to kill it now."

    "But you can't. It's already dead."

    "What! You promised me."

    "I know I did. But it died while we were trying to force you-to force it-to talk."

    I sat down and started to shake with laughter. I got started and could not stop. I was not enjoying it; I could not help it.

    The Old Man grasped my shoulders and shook me. "Snap out of it! You'll get yourself sick. I'm sorry about it, but there's nothing to laugh at. It could not be helped."

    "Ah, but there is," I answered, still sobbing and chuckling. "It's the funniest thing that ever happened to me. All that-and all for nothing. You dirtied yourself and you loused up me and Mary-and all for no use."

    "Huh? Whatever gave you that idea?"

    "Eh? I know-I know everything that went on. And you didn't even get small change out of it-out of us, I should say. You didn't learn anything you didn't know before."

    "The hell we didn't!"

    "And the hell you did."

    "It was a bigger success than you'd ever guess, son. True, we didn't squeeze anything out of it directly, before it died-but we got something out of you."

    "Me?"

    "Last night. We put you through it last night. You were doped, psyched, brain-waved, analyzed, wrung out, and hung out to dry. The parasite spilled things to you and they were still there for the hypno-analysts to pick up after you were free of it."

    "What?"

    "Where they live. We know where they come from and can fight back-Titan, sixth satellite of Saturn."

    When he said it, I felt a sudden gagging constriction of my throat-and I knew that he was right.

    "You certainly fought before we could get it out of you," he went on reminiscently. "We had to hold you down to keep you from hurting yourself-more."

    Instead of leaving he threw his game leg over the edge of the bed and struck a cigarette. He seemed anxious to be friendly. As for me, I did not want to fight with him further; my head was spinning and I had things to get straight. Titan-that was a long way out. Mars was the farthest men had ever been, unless the Seagraves Expedition, the one that never came back, got out to the Jovian moons.

    Still, we could get there, if there were a reason for it. We would burn out their nest!

    Finally he got up to go. He had limped almost to the door when I stopped him again. "Dad-"

    I had not called him that in years. He turned and his face held a surprised and defenseless expression. "Yes, son?"

    "Why did you and mother name me 'Elihu'?"

    "Eh? Why, it seemed the thing to do at the time. It was your maternal grandfather's name."

    "Oh. Not enough reason. I'd say."

    "Perhaps not." He turned again and again I stopped him.

    "Dad-what sort of a person was my mother?"

    "Your mother? I don't exactly know how to tell you. Well-she was a great deal like Mary. Yes, sir, a great deal like her." He turned and stumped out without giving me any further chance to talk.

    I turned my face to the wall. After a while I steadied down.

Chapter 12

    This is a personal account of my angle of view on events known to everybody. I'm not writing history. For one thing, I don't have the broad viewpoint.

    Maybe I should have been sweating about the fate of the world when I was actually stewing about my own affairs. Maybe. But I never heard of a man with a blighty wound caring too much about how the battle turned out.

    Anyhow, there did not seem much to worry about. I knew that the President had been saved under circumstances which would open up anybody's eyes, even a politician's, and that was, as I saw it, the last real hurdle. The slugs-the titans, that is-were dependent on secrecy; once out in the open they could not possibly hold out against the massed strength of the United States. They had no powers except those they borrowed from their slaves, as I knew better than anybody.

    Now we could clean up their beachhead here; then we could go after them where they lived. But planning interplanetary expeditions was hardly my job. I knew as much about that subject as I knew about Egyptian art.

    When the doctor released me I went looking for Mary. I still had nothing but the Old Man's word for it, but I had more than a suspicion that I had made a big hairy thing of myself. I did not expect her to be glad to see me, but I had to speak my piece.

    You would think that a tall, handsome redhead would be as easy to find as fiat ground in Kansas. She would have been had she been a member of the in staff, but she was a field agent. Field agents come and go and the resident personnel are encouraged to mind their own business. Doris had not seen her again-so she said-and was annoyed that I should want to find her.

    The personnel office gave me the bland brush off. I was not inquiring officially, I did not know the agent's name, and just who did I think I was, anyway? They referred me to Operations, meaning the Old Man. That did not suit me.

    I had no more luck and met with even more suspicion when I tried the door tally; I began to feel like a spy in my own section.

    I went to the bio lab, could not find its chief, and talked to an assistant. He did not know anything about a girl in connection with Project Interview; the subject had been a man-he knew; he had seen the stereo. I told him to take a close look at me. He did and said, "Oh, were you that guy? Pal, you sure took a beating." He went back to scratching himself and shuffling reports.

    I left without saying thank you and went to the Old Man's office. There seemed to be no choice.

    There was a new face at Miss Haines's desk. I never saw Miss Haines again after the night I got taken. Nor did I ask what had become of her; I did not want to know. The new secretary passed in my I.D. code and, for a wonder, the Old Man was in and would see me.

    "What do you want?" he said grumpily.

    I said, "Thought you might have some work for me," which was not at all what I intended to say.

    "Matter of fact, I was just fixing to send for you. You've loafed long enough." He barked something at his desk phone, stood up and said, "Come!"

    I felt suddenly at peace, and followed him. "Cosmetics?" I asked.

    "Your own ugly face will do. We're headed for Washington." Nevertheless we did stop in Cosmetics, but only for street clothes. I drew a gun-my own had gone where the woodbine twineth-and had my phone checked.

    The door guard made us bare our backs before he would let us approach and check out. Then we tucked our shirts in and went on up, coming out in the lower levels of New Philadelphia, the first I had known as to the location of the Section's new base. "I take it this burg is clean?" I said to the Old Man.

    "If you do, you are rusty in the head," he answered. "Keep your eyes peeled."

    There was no opportunity for more questions. The presence of so many fully clothed humans bothered me; I found myself drawing away from people and watching for round shoulders. Getting into a crowded elevator to go up to the launching platform seemed downright reckless. When we were in our car and the controls set, I said so. "What in the devil do the authorities in that dump think they are doing? I could swear that at least one cop we passed was wearing a hump."

    "Possibly. Even probably."

    "Well, for crying in church! What goes on? I thought you had this job taped and that we were fighting back on all fronts."

    "We're trying to. What would you suggest we do about it?"

    "Why, it's obvious-even if it were freezing cold, we ought not to see a back covered up anywhere, not until we know they are all dead."

    "That's right."

    "Well, then-Look, the President knows the score, doesn't he? I understand that-"

    "He knows it."

    "What's he waiting for? For the whole country to be taken over? He should declare martial law and get action. You told him, a long time ago."

    "So I did." The Old Man stared down at the countryside. "Son, are you under the impression that the President runs the country?"

    "Of course not. But he is the only man who can act."

    "Mmmm-They sometimes call Premier Tsvetkov 'the Prisoner of the Kremlin'. True or not, the President is the prisoner of Congress."

    "You mean Congress hasn't acted?"

    "I have spent my time the past several days-ever since we stopped the attempt on the President-trying to help the President convince them. Ever been worked over by a congressional committee, son?"

    I tried to figure it out. Here we sat, as stupid as dodoes walking up a gangplank to be slugged-yes, and Homo sapiens would be as extinct as the dodo if we did not move. Presently the Old Man said, "It's time you learned the political facts of life. Congresses have refused to act in the face of dangers more obvious than this one. This one isn't obvious, not until a man has had it in his lap, the way we have. The evidence is slim and hard to believe."

    "But how about the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury? They can't ignore that."

    "Can't they? The Assistant Secretary had one snatched off his back, right in the East Wing, and we killed two of his Secret Service guards. And now the honorable gent is in Walter Reed with a nervous breakdown and can't recall what happened. The Treasury Department gave out that an attempt to assassinate the President had been foiled-true, but not the way they meant it."

    "And the President held still for that?"

    "His advisers told him to wait until he can get congressional support. His majority is uncertain at best and there are stalwart statesmen in both houses who want his head on a platter. Party politics is a rough game."

    "Good Lord, partisanship doesn't figure in a case like this!"

    The Old Man cocked an eyebrow. "You think not, eh?"

    I finally managed to ask him the question I had come into his office to ask: where was Mary?

    "Odd question from you," he grunted. I let it ride; he went on, "Where she should be. Guarding the President."

    We went first to a room where a joint special committee was going over evidence. It was a closed session but the Old Man had passes. When we got there they were running stereos; we slipped into seats and watched.

    The films were of my anthropoid friend. Napoleon-the ape himself, shots of him with the titan on his back, then close-ups of the titan. It made me sick to see it. One parasite looks like another; but I knew which one this was and I was deeply glad it was dead.

    The ape gave way to me myself. I saw myself being clamped into the chair. I hate to admit how I looked; real funk is not pretty. A voice off screen told what was going on.

    I saw them lift the titan off the ape and onto my own bare back. Then I fainted in the picture-and almost fainted again. I won't describe it and it upsets me to tell about it. I saw myself writhing under the shocks given the titan-and I writhed again. At one point I tore my right hand free of the clamps, something I had not known, but which explained why my wrist was still not healed.

    And I saw the thing die. That was worth sitting through the rest.

    The film ended and the chairman said, "Well, gentlemen?"

    "Mr. Chairman!"

    "The gentleman from Indiana is recognized."

    "Speaking without prejudice to the issue, I must say that I have seen better trick photography from Hollywood." They tittered and someone called out, "Hear! Hear!" I knew the ball game was gone.

    The head of our bio lab testified, then I found myself called to the stand. I gave my name, address, and occupation, then perfunctorily was asked a number of questions, about my experiences under the titans. The questions were read from a sheet and the chairman obviously was not familiar with them.

    The thing that got me was that they did not want to hear. Two of them were reading newspapers.

    There were only two questions from the floor. One senator said to me, "Mr. Nivens-your name is Nivens?"

    I agreed that it was. "Mr. Nivens," he went on, "you say that you are an investigator?"

    "Yes."

    "F.B.I., no doubt?"

    "No, my chief reports directly to the President."

    The senator smiled. "Just as I thought. Now Mr. Nivens, you say you are an investigator-but as a matter of fact you are an actor, are you not?" He seemed to be consulting notes.

    I tried to tell too much truth. I wanted to say that I had once acted one season of summer stock but that I was, nevertheless, a real, live, sure-enough investigator. I got no chance. "That will do, Mr. Nivens. Thank you."

    The other question was put to me by an elderly senator whose name I should have known. He wanted to know my views on using tax money to arm other countries-and he used the question to express his own views. My views on that subject are cloudy but it did not matter, as I did not get to express them. The next thing I knew the clerk was saying, "Stand down, Mr. Nivens."

    I sat tight. "Look here," I said, "all of you. It's evident that you don't believe me and think this is a put-up job. Well, for the love of heaven, bring in a lie detector! Or use the sleep test. This hearing is a joke."

    The chairman banged his gavel. "Stand down, Mr. Nivens."

    I stood.

    The Old Man had told me that the purpose of the meeting was to report out a joint resolution declaring total emergency and vesting war powers in the President. The chairman asked if they were ready to consider the resolution. One of the newspaper readers looked up long enough to say, "Mr. Chairman, I call for clearing the committee room."

    So we were ejected. I said to the Old Man, "It looks bad to this boy."

    "Forget it," he said. "The President knew this gambit had failed when he heard the names of the committee."

    "Where does that leave us? Do we wait for the slugs to take over Congress, too?"

    "The President goes right ahead with a message to Congress and a request for full powers."

    "Will he get them?"

    The Old Man screwed up his face. "Frankly, I don't think he stands a chance."

    The joint session was secret, of course, but we were present-direct orders of the President, probably. The Old Man and I were on that little balcony business back of the Speaker's rostrum. They opened it with full rigamarole and then went through the ceremony of appointing two members from each house to notify the President.

    I suppose he was right outside for he came in at once, escorted by the delegation. His guards were with him-but they were all our men.

    Mary was with him, too. Somebody set up a folding chair for her, right by the President. She fiddled with a notebook and handed papers to him, pretending to be a secretary. But the disguise ended there; she had it turned on full blast and looked like Cleopatra on a warm night-and as out of place as a bed in church. I could feel them stir; she got as much attention as the President did.

    Even the President noticed it. You could see that he wished that he had left her at home, but it was too late to do anything about it without greater embarrassment.

    You can bet I noticed her. I caught her eye-and she gave me a long, slow, sweet smile. I grinned like a collie pup until the Old Man dug me in the ribs. Then I settled back and tried to behave but I was happy.

    The President made a reasoned explanation of the situation, why we knew it to be so and what had to be done. It was as straightforward and rational as an engineering report, and about as moving. He simply stated facts. He put aside his notes at the end. "This is such a strange and terrible emergency, so totally beyond any previous experience, that I must ask very broad powers to cope with it. In some areas, martial law must be declared. Grave invasions of civil guarantees will be necessary, for a time. The right of free movement must be abridged. The right to be secure from arbitrary search and seizure must give way to the right of safety for everyone. Because any citizen, no matter how respected or how loyal, may be the unwilling servant of these secret enemies, all citizens must face some loss of civil rights and personal dignities until this plague is killed.

    "With utmost reluctance, I ask that you authorize these necessary steps." With that he sat down.

    You can feel a crowd. They were made uneasy, but he did not carry them. The president of the Senate took the gavel and looked at the Senate majority leader; it had been programmed for him to propose the emergency resolution.

    Something slipped. I don't know whether the floor leader shook his head or signaled, but he did not take the floor. Meanwhile the delay was getting awkward and there were cries of, "Mister President!" and "Order!"

The Senate president passed over several others and gave the flow to a member of his own party. I recognized the man-Senator Gottlieb, a wheelhorse who would vote for his own lynching if it were on his party's program. He started out by yielding to none in his respect for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and, probably, the Grand Canyon. He pointed modestly to his own long and faithful service and spoke well of America's place in history.

    I thought he was beating the drum while the boys worked out a new shift-when I suddenly realized that his words were adding up to meaning: he was proposing to suspend the order of business and get on with the impeachment and trial of the President of the United States!

    I think I tumbled to it as quickly as anyone; the senator had his proposal so decked out in ritualistic verbiage that it was a wonder that anyone noticed what he was actually saying. I looked at the Old Man.

    The Old Man was looking at Mary.

    She was looking back at him with an expression of extreme urgency.

    The Old Man snatched a pad out of his pocket, scrawled something, wadded it up, and threw it down to Mary. She caught it, opened it, and read it-and passed it to the President.

    He was sitting, relaxed and easy-as if one of his oldest friends were not at that moment tearing his name to shreds and, with it, the safety of the Republic. He put on his old-fashioned specs and read the note. He then glanced unhurriedly around at the Old Man and lifted his eyebrows. The Old Man nodded.

    The President nudged the Senate president, who, at the President's gesture, bent over him. The President and he exchanged whispers.

    Gottlieb was still rumbling along about his deep sorrow, but that there came times when old friendship must give way to a higher duty and therefore-The Senate president banged his gavel. "If the senator please!"

    Gottlieb looked startled and said, "I do not yield."

    "The senator is not asked to yield. At the request of the President of the United States, because of the importance of what you are saying, the senator is asked to come to the rostrum to speak."

    Gottlieb looked puzzled but there was nothing else he could do. He walked slowly toward the front of the house.

    Mary's chair blocked the little stairway up to the rostrum. Instead of getting quietly out of the way, she bumbled around, turning and picking up the chair, so that she got even more in the way. Gottlieb stopped and she brushed against him. He caught her arm, as much to steady himself as her. She spoke to him and he to her, but no one else could hear the words. Finally they got around each other and he went on to the front of the rostrum.

    The Old Man was quivering like a dog in point. Mary looked up at him and nodded. The Old Man said, "Take him!"

    I was over that rail in a flying leap, as if I had been wound up like a crossbow. I landed on Gottlieb's shoulders.

    I heard the Old Man shout, "Gloves, son! Gloves!" I did not stop for them. I split the senator's jacket with my bare hands and I could see the slug pulsing under his shirt. I tore the shirt away and anybody could see it.

    Six stereo cameras could not have recorded what happened in the next few seconds. I slugged Gottlieb back of the ear to stop his thrashing. Mary was sitting on his legs. The President was standing over me and pointing, while shouting, "There! There! Now you can all see." The Senate president was standing stupefied, waggling his gavel.

    The Congress was just a mob, men yelling and women screaming. Above me the Old Man was shouting orders to the presidential guards as if he were standing on a bridge.

    We had this in our favor; doors were locked and there were no armed and disciplined men present except the Old Man's own boys. Sergeants-at-arms, surely-but what are they? One elderly Congressman pulled a hogleg out of his coat that must have been a museum piece, but that was a mere incident.

    Between the guns of the guards and the pounding of the gavel something like order was restored. The President started to talk. He told them that an amazing accident had given them a chance to see the true nature of the enemy and he suggested that they file past and see for themselves one of the titans from Saturn's largest moon. Without waiting for their consent, he pointed to the front row and told them to come up.

    They came.

    I squatted back out of the way and wondered what was accidental about it. With the Old Man you can never tell. Had he known that Congress was infested? I rubbed a bruised knee and wondered.

    Mary stayed on the platform. About twenty had filed by and a female Congressman had gotten hysterics when I saw Mary signal the Old Man again. This time I was a hair ahead of his order.

    I might have had quite a fight if two of the boys had not been close by; this one was young and tough, an ex-marine. We laid him beside Gottlieb, and again the Old Man and the President and the Senate president, shouting their lungs out, restored order.

    Then it was "inspection and search" whether they liked it or not. I patted the women on the back as they came by and caught one. I thought I had caught another, but it was an embarrassing mistake; she was so blubber fat that I guessed wrong.

    Mary spotted two more, then there was a long stretch, three hundred or more, with no jackpots. It was soon evident that some were hanging back.

    Don't let anyone tell you that Congressmen are stupid. It takes brains to get elected and it takes a practical psychologist to stay elected. Eight men with guns were not enough-eleven, counting the Old Man, Mary, and me. Most of the slugs would have gotten away if the Whip of the House had not organized help.

    With their assistance, we caught thirteen, ten alive. Only one of the hosts was badly wounded.

    But the Congress of the United States has not been such a shambles since Jefferson Davis announced his momentous decision. No, not even after the Bombing.

Chapter 13

    So the President got the authority he needed and the Old Man was his de facto chief of staff; at last we could move fast and effectively. Oh, yes? Did you ever try to hurry a project through a bureaucracy?

    "Directives" have to be "implemented"; "agencies" have to be "coordinated"-and everything has to go to the files.

    The Old Man had a simple enough campaign in mind. It could not be the straightforward quarantine he had proposed when the infection was limited to the Des Moines area; before we could fight back, we had to locate them. But government agents couldn't search two hundred million people; the people had to do it themselves.

    Schedule Bare Back was to be the first phase of the implementation of Operation Parasite-which makes me talk like a bureaucrat. Never mind-the idea was that everybody, everybody was to peel to the waist and stay peeled, until all titans were spotted and killed. Oh, women could have halter strings across their backs, but a parasite could not hide under a bra string.

    We whipped up a visual presentation to go with the stereocast speech the President would make to the nation. Fast work had saved seven of the parasites we had flushed in the sacred halls of Congress and now they were alive on animal hosts. We could show them and we could show the less grisly parts of the film taken of me. The President himself would appear in the 'cast in shorts, and models would demonstrate what the Well Undressed Citizen Would Wear This Season, including the metal head-and-spine armor which was intended to protect a person even if a parasite got to him in his sleep.

    We got it ready in one black-coffee night and the President's writers had his lines ready for him. The smash finish was to show Congress in session, discussing the emergency, and every man, woman, and page boy showing a bare back to the camera.

    With twenty-eight minutes left until stereocast time the President got a call from up the street. I was present; the Old Man had been with the President all night, and had kept me around for chores. Mary was there, of course; the President was her special charge. We were all in shorts; Schedule Bare Back had already started in the White House. The only ones who looked comfortable in the get-up were Mary, who can wear anything, the colored doorman, who carried himself like a Zulu king, and the President himself, whose innate dignity could not be touched.

    When the call came in the President did not bother to cut us out of his end of the conversation. "Speaking," he said. Presently he added, "You feel certain? Very well, John, what do you advise . . . . I see. No, I don't think that would work. . . . I had better come up the street. Tell them to be ready." He pushed back the phone, his face still serene, and turned to an assistant. "Tell them to hold up the broadcast." He turned to the Old Man. "Come, Andrew, we must go to the Capitol."

    He sent for his valet and retired into a dressing room adjoining his office; when he came out, he was formally dressed for a state occasion. He offered no explanation, the Old Man raised an eyebrow but said nothing and I did not dare say anything. The rest of us stayed in our gooseflesh specials and so we went to the Capitol.

    It was a joint session, the second in less than twenty-four hours. We trooped in, and I got that no-pants-in-church nightmare feeling, for the Congressmen and senators were dressed as usual. Then I saw that the page boys were in shorts without shirts and felt somewhat better.

    I still don't understand it. It seems that some people would rather be dead than lose dignity, with senators high on the list. Congressmen, too-a Congressman is a man who wants to be a senator. They had given the President all the authority he asked for; Schedule Bare Back itself had been discussed and approved-but they did not see where it applied to them. After all, they had been searched and cleaned out; Congress was the only group in the country known to be free of titans.

    Maybe some saw the holes in the argument, but not one wanted to be first in a public striptease. Face and dignity are indispensable to an office holder. They sat tight, fully dressed.

    When the President took the rostrum, he simply looked at them until he got dead silence. Then slowly, calmly, he started taking off clothes.

    He stopped when he was bare to the waist. He had had me worried for a moment; I think he had others worried. He then turned slowly around, lifting his arms. At last he spoke.

"I did that," he said, "so that you might see for yourself that your Chief Executive is not a prisoner of the enemy." He paused.

"But how about you?" That last word was flung at them.

    The President punched a finger at the junior Whip. "Mark Cummings-how about you? Are you a loyal citizen or are you a zombie spy? Get up! Get your shirt off!"

    "Mister President-" It was Charity Evans, from the State of Maine, looking like a pretty schoolteacher. She stood and I saw that, while she was fully dressed, she was in evening dress. Her gown reached to the floor, but was cut as deep as could be above. She turned like a mannequin; in back the dress ended at the base of her spine; in front it came up in two well-filled scallops. "Is this satisfactory, Mr. President?"

    "Quite satisfactory, madam."

    Cummings was on his feet and fumbling at his jacket; his face was scarlet. Someone stood up in the middle of the hall.

    It was Senator Gottlieb. He looked as if he should have been in bed; his cheeks were gray and sunken; his lips showed cyanosis. But he held himself erect and, with incredible dignity, followed the President's example. His old-fashioned underwear was a one-piece job; he wriggled his arms out and let it dangle over his galluses. Then he, too, turned all the way around; on his back, scarlet against his fish-white flesh, was the mark of the parasite.

    He spoke. "Last night I stood here and said things I would rather have been flayed alive than utter. But last night I was not my own master. Today I am. Can you not see that Rome is burning?" Suddenly he had a gun in his hand. "Up on your feet, you wardheelers, you courthouse loafers! Two minutes to get your duds off and show a bare back-then I shoot!"

    Men close to him sprang up and tried to grab his arm, but he swung the gun around like a flyswatter, smashing one of them in the face. I had my own out, ready to back his play, but it was not necessary. They could see that he was as dangerous as an old bull and they backed away.

    It hung in balance, then they started shucking clothes like Doukhobors. One man bolted for a door; he was tripped. No, he was not wearing a parasite.

    But we did catch three. After that, the show went on the channels, ten minutes late, and Congress started the first of its "bare back" sessions.

Chapter 14

    "LOCK YOUR DOORS!"

    "CLOSE THE DAMPERS ON YOUR FIREPLACES!"

    "NEVER ENTER A DARK PLACE!"

    "BE WARY OF CROWDS!"

    "A MAN WEARING A COAT IS AN ENEMY-SHOOT!"

    We should have had every titan in the country spotted and killed in a week. I don't know what more we could have done. In addition to a steady barrage of propaganda the country was being quartered and sectioned from the air, searching for flying saucers on the ground. Our radar screen was on full alert for unidentified blips. Military units, from airborne troops to guided-rocket stations, were ready to smear any that landed.

    Then nothing happened. There was no work for them to do. The thing fizzled like a damp firecracker.

    In the uncontaminated areas people took off their shirts, willingly or reluctantly, looked around them and found no parasites. They watched their newscasts and wondered and waited for the government to tell them that the danger was over. But nothing happened and both laymen and local officials began to doubt the necessity of running around the streets in sunbathing costumes. We had shouted "Wolf!" and no wolf came.

    The contaminated areas? The reports from the contaminated areas were not materially different from the reports from other areas.

    Our stereocast and the follow-ups did not reach those areas. Back in the days of radio it could not have happened; the Washington station where the 'cast originated could have blanketed the country. But stereo-video rides wavelengths so short that horizon-to-horizon relay is necessary and local channels must be squirted out of local stations; it's the price we pay for plenty of channels and high resolution pictures.

    In the infected areas the slugs controlled the local stations; the people never heard the warning.

    But in Washington we had every reason to believe that they had heard the warning. Reports came back from-well, Iowa, for example, just like those from California. The governor of Iowa was one of the first to send a message to the President, promising full cooperation. The Iowa state police were already cruising the roads, he reported, stopping everybody and requiring them to strip to the waist. Air travel above Iowa was stopped for the duration of the emergency, just as the President had urged.

    There was even a relayed stereo of the governor addressing his constituents, bare to the waist. He faced the camera and I wanted to tell him to turn around. But presently they cut to another camera and we had a close up of a bare back, while the governor's voice went cheerfully on, urging all citizens to work with the police.

    If any place in the Union was a pest house of slugs, Iowa should have been it. Had they evacuated Iowa and concentrated on heavier centers of population?

    We were gathered in a conference room off the President's office. The President had kept the Old Man with him, I tagged along, and Mary was still on watch. Secretary of Security Martinez was there as well as the Supreme Chief of Staff, Air Marshal Rexton. There were others from the President's "fishing cabinet", but they weren't important.

    The President watched the 'cast from Iowa and turned to the Old Man. "Well, Andrew? I thought Iowa was a place we would have to fence off."

    The Old Man grunted.

    Marshal Rexton said, "As I figure it-mind you, I have not had much time to evaluate this situation-they have gone underground. We may have to comb every inch of every suspicious area."

    The Old Man grunted again. "Combing Iowa, corn shock by corn shock, does not appeal to me."

    "How else would you tackle it, sir?"

    "Figure your enemy! He can't go underground. He can't live without a host."

    "Very well-assuming that is true, how many parasites would you say are in Iowa?"

    "Damn it, how should I know? They didn't take me into their confidence."

    "Suppose we make a top estimate. If-"

    The Old Man interrupted him. "You've got no basis for an estimate. Can't you folks see that the titans have won another round?"

    "Eh?"

    "You just heard the governor; they let us look at his back-or somebody's back. Did you notice that he didn't turn around in front of the camera?"

    "But he did," someone said. "I saw him."

    "I certainly had the impression that I saw him turn," said the President slowly. "You are suggesting that Governor Packer is himself possessed?"

    "Correct. You saw what you were meant to see. There was a camera cut just before he was fully turned; people hardly ever notice them; they are used to them. Depend on it. Mister President, every message out of Iowa is faked."

    The President looked thoughtful. Secretary Martinez shook his head emphatically and said, "Impossible. Granted that the governor's message could have been faked-a clever character actor could have faked it. Remember the inaugural address in the crisis of '96, when the President Elect was laid up with pneumonia? Granted that one such 'cast could be faked, we've had our choice of dozens of 'casts from Iowa. How about that street scene in Des Moines? Don't tell me you can fake hundreds of people dashing around stripped to their waists-or do your parasites practice mass hypnotic control?"

    "They can't that I know of," conceded the Old Man. "If they can, we might as well throw in the towel and admit that the human race has been superseded. But what made you think that that 'cast came from Iowa?"

    "Eh? Why, damn it, sir, it came over the Iowa channel."

    "Proving what? Did you read any street signs? It looked like any typical street in a downtown retail district. Never mind what city the announcer told you it was; what city was it?"

    The Secretary let his mouth hang open. I've got fairly close to the "camera eye" that detectives are supposed to have; I let that picture run through my mind-and I not only could not tell what city, I could not even place the part of the country. It could have been Memphis, Seattle, or Boston-or none of them. Allowing for special cases like Canal Street in New Orleans, or Denver's Civic Center, the downtown districts in American cities are as standardized as barber shops.

    "Never mind," the Old Man went on. "I couldn't tell and I was looking for landmarks. The explanation is simple; the Des Moines station picked up a Schedule Bare Back street scene from some city not contaminated and rechanneled it under their own commentary. They chopped out anything that would localize it . . . and we swallowed it. Gentlemen, this enemy knows us, inside and out. This campaign has been planned in great detail and they are ready to outwit us in almost any move we can make."

    "Aren't you being an alarmist, Andrew?" said the President. "There is another possibility, that the titans have moved somewhere else."

    "They are still in Iowa," the Old Man said flatly, "but you won't prove it with that thing." He gestured at the stereo tank.

    Secretary Martinez squirmed. "This is ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "You are saying that we can't get a correct report out of Iowa, as if it were occupied territory."

    "That is what it is."

    "But I stopped off in Des Moines two days ago, coming back from Alaska. Everything was normal. Mind you, I grant the existence of your parasites, though I haven't seen one. But let's find them where they are and root them out, instead of dreaming up fantasies."

    The Old Man looked tired and I felt tired. I wondered how many ordinary people were taking it seriously, if this was what we ran into at the top.

    Finally the Old Man replied, "Control the communications of a country and you control the country; that's elementary. You had better take fast steps. Mister Secretary, or you won't have any communications left."

    "But I was merely-"

    "You root 'em out!" the Old Man said rudely. "I've told you they are in Iowa and in New Orleans, and a dozen other spots. My job is finished. You are Secretary of Security; you root 'em out." He stood up and said, "Mister President, I've had a long pull for a man my age; when I lose sleep I lose my temper. Could I be excused?"

    "Certainly, Andrew." He had not lost his temper and I think the President knew it. He doesn't lose his temper; he makes other people lose theirs.

    Before the Old Man could say goodnight. Secretary Martinez interrupted. "Wait a moment! You've made some flat-footed statements. Let's check up on them." He turned to the Chief of Staff. "Rexton!"

    "Uh, yes, sir."

"That new post near Des Moines, Fort something-or-other, named after what's-his-name?"

    "Fort Patton."

    "That's it, that's it. Well, let's not dally; get them on the command circuit-"

"With visual," put in the Old Man.

    "With visual, of course, and we'll show this-I mean we'll get the true situation in Iowa."

    The Air Marshal handed a by-your-leave-sir to the President, went to the stereo tank and patched in with Security General Headquarters. He asked for the officer of the watch at Fort Patton, Iowa.

    Shortly thereafter the stereo tank showed the inside of a military communications center. Filling the foreground was a young officer. His rank and corps showed on his cap, but his chest was bare. Martinez turned triumphantly to the Old Man. "You see?"

    "I see."

    "Now to make certain. Lieutenant!"

    "Yes, sir!" The young fellow looked awestruck and kept glancing from one famous face to another. Reception and bi-angle were in synch; the eyes of the image looked where they seemed to look, as if he were actually sitting in the receiver tank.

    "Stand up and turn around," Martinez continued.

    "Uh? Why, certainly, sir." He seemed puzzled, but he did so-and it took him almost out of scan. We could see his bare back, up to about the short ribs-no higher.

    "Confound it!" shouted Martinez. "Sit down and turn around."

    "Yessir!" The youth seemed flustered. He leaned over the desk and added, "Just a moment while I widen the view angle, sir."

    The picture suddenly melted and rippling rainbows chased across the tank. The young officer's voice was still coming over the audio channel. "There-is that better, sir?"

    "Damn it, we can't see a thing!"

    "You can't? Just a moment, sir."

    We could hear him breathing heavily. Suddenly the tank came to life and I thought for a moment that we were back at Fort Patton. But it was a major on the screen this time and the place looked larger. "Supreme Headquarters," the image announced, "Communications officer of the watch. Major Donovan."

    "Major," Martinez said in controlled tones, "I was hooked in with Fort Patton. What happened?"

    "Yes, sir; I was monitoring it. We've had a slight technical difficulty on that channel. We'll put your call through again in a moment."

    "Well, hurry!"

    "Yes, sir." The tank rippled and went empty.

    The Old Man stood up again. "Call me when you've cleared up that 'slight technical difficulty'. Meantime, I'm going to bed."

Chapter 15

    If I have given the impression that Secretary Martinez was stupid, I am sorry. Everyone had trouble at first believing what the slugs could do. You have to see one, then you believe in the pit of your stomach.

    There were no flies on Air Marshal Rexton, either. The two must have worked all night, after convincing themselves by more calls to known danger spots that "technical interruptions" do not occur so conveniently. They called the Old Man about four a.m. and he called me, using our special phones. Those flesh-embedded receptors should not be used as alarm clocks; it's too rough a way to wake a man.

    They were in the same conference room, Martinez, Rexton, a couple of his high brass, and the Old Man. The President came in, wearing a bathrobe and followed by Mary, just as I arrived. Martinez started to speak but the Old Man cut in. "Let's see your back, Tom!"

    The President looked surprised and Mary signaled that everything was okay, but the Old Man chose not to see her. "I mean it," he persisted.

    The President said quietly, "Perfectly correct, Andrew," and slipped his robe off his shoulders. His back was clean. "If I don't set an example, how can I expect others to cooperate?"

    The Old Man started to help him back into the robe, but the President shrugged him off and hung it over a chair. "I'll just have to acquire new habits. Difficult, at my age. Well, gentlemen?"

    I thought myself that bare skin would take getting used to; we made an odd group. Martinez was lean and tanned, carved smooth from mahogany. I'd judge he was part Indian. Rexton had a burned-in, high-altitude tan on his face, but from his collar line down he was as white as the President. On his chest was a black cross of hair, armpit to armpit and chin to belly, while the President and the Old Man were covered front and back with grizzled, wiry fur. The Old Man's mat was so thick that mice could have nested in it.

    Mary looked like a publicity pic-low angle shot to bring out the legs and careful posing, that sort. Me-well. I'm the spiritual type.

    Martinez and Rexton had been shoving push pins into a map, red for bad, green for good, and a few amber ones. Reports were still coming and Rexton's assistants kept adding new pins.

    Iowa looked like measles; New Orleans and the Teche country were as bad. So was Kansas City. The upper end of the Missouri-Mississippi system, from Minneapolis and St. Paul down to St. Louis, was clearly enemy territory. There were fewer red pins from there down to New Orleans-but there were no green ones.

    There was another hot spot around El Paso and two on the East Coast.

    The President looked it over calmly. "We shall need the help of Canada and Mexico," he said. "Any reports?"

    "None that mean anything, sir."

    "Canada and Mexico," the Old Man said seriously, "will be just a start. You are going to need the whole world with you on this job."

    Rexton said, "We will, eh? How about Russia?"

    Nobody had an answer to that one; nobody ever has. Too big to occupy and too big to ignore-World War III had not settled the Russian problem and no war ever would. The parasites might feel right at home behind the Curtain.

    The President said, "We'll deal with that when we come to it." He drew a finger across the map. "Any trouble getting messages through to the Coast?"

    "Apparently not, sir," Rexton told him. "They don't seem to interfere with straight-through relay. But all military communications I have shifted to one-link relay through the space stations." He glanced at his watch finger. "Space Station Gamma, at the moment."

    "Hmmm-" said the President. "Andrew, could these things storm a space station?"

    "How would I know?" the Old Man answered testily. "I don't know whether their ships are built for it or not. More probably they would do it by infiltration, through the supply rockets."

    There was discussion as to whether or not the space stations could already have been taken over; Schedule Bare Back did not apply to the stations. Although we had built them and paid for them, since they were technically United Nations territory, the President had to wait until the United Nations acted on the entire matter.

    "Don't worry about it," Rexton said suddenly.

    "Why not?" the President asked.

    "I am probably the only one here who has done duty in a space station. Gentlemen, the costume we are now wearing is customary in a station. A man fully dressed would stand out like an overcoat on the beach. But we'll see." He gave orders to one of his assistants.

    The President resumed studying the map. "So far as we know," he said, pointing to Grinnell, Iowa, "all this derives from a single landing, here."

    The Old Man answered, "Yes-so far as we know."

    I said, "Oh, no!"

    They all looked at me and I was embarrassed. "Go ahead," said the President.

    "There were at least three more landings-I know there were-before I was rescued."

    The Old Man looked dumbfounded. "Are you sure, son? We thought we had wrung you dry."

    "Of course I'm sure."

    "Why didn't you mention it?"

    "I never thought of it before." I tried to explain how it feels to be possessed, how you know what is going on, but everything seems dreamy, equally important and equally unimportant. I grew quite upset. I am not the jittery type, but being ridden by a master does something to you.

    The Old Man put his hand on me and said, "Steady down, son." The President said something soothing and gave me a reassuring smile. That stereocast personality of his is not put on; he's really got it.

    Rexton said, "The important point is: where did they land? We might still capture one."

    "I doubt it," the Old Man answered. "They did a cover-up on the first one in a matter of hours. If it was the first one," he added thoughtfully.

    I went to the map and tried to think. Sweating, I pointed to New Orleans. "I'm pretty sure one was about here." I stared at the map. "I don't know where the others landed. But I know they did."

    "How about here?" Rexton asked, pointing to the East Coast.

    "I don't know. I don't know."

    The Old Man pointed to the other East Coast danger spot. "We know this one is a secondary infection." He was kind enough not to say that I had been the means of infecting it.

    "Can't you remember anything else?" Martinez said testily. "Think, man!"

    "I just don't know. We never knew what they were up to, not really." I thought until my skull ached, then pointed to Kansas City. "I sent several messages here, but I don't know whether they were shipment orders, or not."

    Rexton looked at the map; around Kansas City was almost as pin-studded as Iowa. "We'll assume a landing near Kansas City, too. The technical boys can do a problem on it. It may be subject to logistic analysis; we might derive the other landing."

    "Or landings," added the Old Man.

    "Eh? 'Or landings'. Certainly. But we need more reports." He turned back to the map and stared at it thoughtfully.

Chapter 16

    Hindsight is confoundedly futile. At the moment the first saucer landed the menace could have been stamped out by one determined man and a bomb. At the time "The Cavanaughs"-Mary, the Old Man, and I-reconnoitered around Grinnell and in Des Moines, we three alone might have killed every slug had we been ruthless and, more important, known where they all were.

    Had Schedule Bare Back been ordered during the fortnight after the first landing it alone might have turned the trick. But by the next day it was clear that Schedule Bare Back had failed as an offensive measure. As a defense it was useful; the uncontaminated areas could be kept so, as long as the slugs could not conceal themselves. It had even had mild success in offense; areas contaminated but not "secured" by the parasites were cleaned up at once... Washington itself, for example, and New Philadelphia. New Brooklyn, too-there I had been able to give specific advice. The entire East Coast turned from red to green.

    But as the area down the middle of the country filled in on the map, it filled in red, and stayed so. The infected areas stood out in ruby light now, for the simple wall map studded with push pins had been replaced by a huge electronic military map, ten miles to the inch, covering one wall of the conference room. It was a repeater map, the master being located down in the sublevels of the New Pentagon.

    The country was split in two, as if a giant had washed red pigment down the Central Valley. Two zigzag amber paths bordered the great band held by the slugs; these were overlap, the only areas of real activity, places where line-of-sight reception was possible from both stations held by the enemy and from stations still in the hands of free men. One such started near Minneapolis, swung west of Chicago and east of St. Louis, then meandered through Tennessee and Alabama to the Gulf. The other cut a wide path through the Great Plains and came out near Corpus Christi. El Paso was the center of a ruby area as yet unconnected with the main body.

    I looked at the map and wondered what was going on in those border strips. I had the room to myself; the Cabinet was meeting and the President had taken the Old Man with him. Rexton and his brass had left earlier. I stayed there because I had not been told where to go and I hesitated to wander around in the White House. So I stayed and fretted and watched amber lights blink red and, much less frequently, red lights blink amber or green.

    I wondered how an overnight visitor with no status managed to get breakfast? I had been up since four and my total nourishment so far had been one cup of coffee, served by the President's valet. Even more urgently I wanted to find a washroom. I knew where the President's washroom was, but I did not have the nerve to use it, feeling vaguely that to do so would be somewhere between high treason and disorderly conduct.

    There was not a guard in sight. Probably the room was being scanned from a board somewhere; I suppose every room in the White House has an "eye & ear" in it; but there was no one physically in view.

    At last I got desperate enough to start trying doors. The first two were locked; the third was what I was looking for. It was not marked "Sacred to the Chief" nor did it appear to be booby-trapped, so I used it.

    When I came back into the conference room, Mary was there.

    I looked at her stupidly for a moment. "I thought you were with the President?"

    She smiled. "I was, but I got chased out. The Old Man took over for me."

    I said, "Say, Mary, I've been wanting to talk with you and this is the first chance I've had. I guess I-Well, anyway, I shouldn't have, I mean, according to the Old Man-" I stopped, my carefully rehearsed speech in ruins. "Anyhow, I shouldn't have said what I did," I concluded miserably.

    She put a hand on my arm. "Sam. Sam, my very dear, do not be troubled. What you said and what you did was fair enough from what you knew. The important thing, to me, is what you did for me. The rest does not matter-except that I am happy again to know that you don't despise me."

    "Well, but-Damn it, don't be so noble! I can't stand it!"

    She gave me a merry, lively smile, not at all like the gentle one with which she had greeted me. "Sam, I think you like your women to be a little bit bitchy. I warn you, I can be so." She went on, "You are still worried about that slap, too, I think. All right, I'll pay it back." She reached up and patted me gently on the cheek, once. "There, it's paid back and you can forget it."

    Her expression suddenly changed, she swung on me-and I thought the top of my head was coming off. "And that," she said in a tense, hoarse whisper, "pays you back the one I got from your girlfriend!"

    My ears were ringing and my eyes did not want to focus. If I had not seen her bare palm, I would have sworn that she had used at least a two-by-four.

    She looked at me, wary and defiant, not the least apologetic-angry, rather, if dilated nostrils meant anything. I raised a hand and she tensed-but I just wanted to touch my stinging cheek. It was very sore. "She's not my girlfriend," I said lamely.

    We eyed each other and simultaneously burst out laughing. She put both her hands on my shoulders and let her head collapse on my right one, still laughing. "Sam," she managed to say, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done it-not to you, Sam. At least I shouldn't have slapped you so hard."

    "The devil you're sorry," I growled, "but you shouldn't have put English on it. You damn near took the hide off."

    "Poor Sam!" She reached up and touched it; it hurt. "She's really not your girlfriend?"

    "No, worse luck. But not from lack of my trying."

    "I'm sure it wasn't. Who is your girlfriend, Sam?" The words seem coquettish; she did not make them so.

    "You are, you vixen!"

    "Yes," she said comfortably, "I am-if you'll have me. I told you that before. And I meant it. Bought and paid for."

    She was waiting to be kissed; I pushed her away. "Confound it, woman, I don't want you 'bought and paid for'."

    It did not faze her. "I put it badly. Paid for-but not bought. I'm here because I want to be here. Now will you kiss me, please?"

    So help me, up to that moment she had not turned on the sex, not really. When she saw that the answer was yes, she did so and it was like summer sun coming out from a cloud. That is inadequate but it will have to do.

    She had kissed me once before; this time she kissed me. The French are smart; they have two words for it . . . this was the other one. I felt myself sinking into a warm golden haze and I did not ever want to come up.

    Finally I had to break and gasped. "I think I'll sit down for a minute."

    She said, "Thank you, Sam," and let me.

    "Mary," I said presently, "Mary, my dear, there is something you possibly could do for me."

    "Yes?" she said eagerly.

    "Tell me how in the name of Ned a person gets anything to eat around here? I'm starved. No breakfast."

    She looked startled; I suppose she had expected something else. But she answered, "Why, certainly!"

    I don't know where she went nor how she did it. She may have butted into the White House pantry and helped herself. But she returned in a few minutes with a tray of sandwiches and two bottles of beer. Corned beef and rye put the roses back in my cheeks. I was cleaning up my third when I said, "Mary, how long do you figure that meeting will last?"

    "Let me see," she answered, "fourteen people, including the Old Man. I give it a minimum of two hours. Why?"

    "In that case," I said, swallowing the last bite, "we have time to duck out of here, find a registry office, get married, and get back before the Old Man misses us."

    She did not answer and she did not look at me. Instead she stared at the bubbles in her beer. "Well?" I insisted.

    She raised her eyes. "I'll do it if you say so. I'm not welshing. But I'm not going to start out by lying to you. I would rather we didn't."

    "You don't want to marry me?"

    "Sam, I don't think you are ready to get married."

    "Speak for yourself!"

    "Don't be angry, my dear. I'm not holding out-honest. You can have me with or without a contract, anywhere, anywhen, anyway. But you don't know me yet. Get acquainted with me; you might change your mind."

    "I'm not in the habit of changing my mind." She glanced up without answering, then looked away sadly. I felt my face get hot. "That was a very special circumstance," I protested. "It could not happen to us again in a hundred years. That wasn't really me talking; it was-"

    She stopped me. "I know, Sam. And now you want to prove to me that it didn't really happen or at least that you are sure of your own mind now. But you don't have to prove anything. I won't run out on you and I don't mistrust you. Take me away on a weekend; better yet, move into my apartment. If you find that I wear well, there's always time to make me what great grandmother called an 'honest woman', heaven knows why."

    I must have looked sullen; I felt so. She put a hand on mine and said seriously, "Take a look at the map, Sam."

    I turned my head and looked. Red as ever, or more so-it seemed to me that the danger zone around El Paso had increased. She went on, "Let's get this mess cleaned up first, dear. Then, if you still want to, ask me again. In the meantime, you can have the privileges without the responsibilities."

    What could be fairer than that? The only trouble was that it was not the way I wanted it. Why will a man who has been avoiding marriage like the plague suddenly decide that nothing less will suit him? I had seen it happen a hundred times and never understood it; now I was doing it myself.

    Mary had to go back on duty as soon as the meeting was over. The Old Man collared me and took me for a walk. Yes, a walk, though we went only as far as the Baruch Memorial Bench. There he sat down, fiddled with his pipe, and stared into space. The day was as muggy as only Washington can get, but the park was almost deserted. People were not yet used to Schedule Bare Back.

    He said, "Schedule Counter Blast starts at midnight."

    I said nothing; questioning him was useless.

    Presently he added, "We swoop down on every relay station, broadcast station, newspaper office, and Western Union office in 'Zone Red'."

    "Sounds good," I answered. "How many men does it take?"

    He did not answer; instead he said, "I don't like it. I don't like it a little bit."

    "Huh?"

    "See here, bub-the President went on the channels and told everybody to peel off their shirts. We find that the message did not get through into infected territory. What's the next logical development?"

    I shrugged. "Schedule Counter Blast, I suppose."

    "That hasn't happened yet. Think, it has been more than twenty-four hours: what should have happened and hasn't?"

    "Should I know?"

    "You should, if you are ever going to amount to anything on your own. Here-" He handed me a combo key. "Scoot out to Kansas City and take a looksee. Stay away from comm stations, cops, and-shucks, you know their attack points better than I do. Stay away from them. Take a look at anything else. And don't get caught." He looked at his finger and added, "Be back here a half hour before midnight, or sooner. Get going."

    "A lot of time you allow me to case a whole city," I complained. "It will take nearly three hours just to drive to Kansas City."

    "More than three hours," he answered. "Don't attract attention by picking up a ticket."

    "You know dam well I'm a careful driver."

    "Move."

    So I moved, stopping by the White House to pick up my kit. I wasted ten minutes convincing a new guard that I really had been there overnight and actually had possessions to pick up.

    The combo was to the car we had come down in; I picked it up at Rock Creek Park platform. Traffic was light and I commented on it to the dispatcher as I handed in the combo. "Freight and commercial carriers are grounded," he answered. "The emergency-you got a military clearance?"

    I knew I could get one by phoning the Old Man, but bothering him about minutiae does not endear one to him. I said, "Check the number."

    He shrugged and slipped the combo in his machine. My hunch had been right; his eyebrows shot up and he handed it back. "How you rate!" he commented. "You must be the President's fair-haired boy."

    He did not ask for my destination and I did not offer it. His machine probably broke into "Hail, Columbia!" when the Old Man's number hit it.

    Once launched, I set the controls for Kansas City at legal max and tried to think. The transponder beeped as radar beams hit it each time I slid from one control block into the next, but no faces appeared on the screen. Apparently the Old Man's combo was good for the route, emergency or not.

    I began to wonder what would happen when I slipped over into the red areas-and then realized what he had been driving at when he talked about "the next logical development". Would the control net pass me on through into areas we knew darn well were infested by titans?

    One tends to think of communications as meaning the line-of-sight channels and nothing else. But "communications" means all traffic of every sort, even dear old Aunt Mamie, headed for California with her head stuffed with gossip. The slugs had seized the channels and the President's proclamation had not gotten through, or so we assumed-but news can't be stopped that easily; such measures merely slow it down. Behind the Soviet Curtain Aunt Sonya does not go on long trips; it ain't healthy. Ergo, if the slugs expected to retain control where they were, seizing the channels would be just their first step.

    It stood to reason that they were not numerous enough to interfere with all traffic, but what would they do?

    I reached only the unhelpful conclusion that they would do something and that I, being a part of "communications" by definition, had better be prepared for evasive action if I wanted to save my pretty pink skin.

    In the meantime the Mississippi River and Zone Red were sliding closer by the minute. I wondered what would happen the first time my recognition signal was picked up by a station controlled by masters. I tried to think like a titan-impossible, I found, even though I had been a slave to one. The idea revolted me.

    Well, then, what would a security commissar do if an unfriendly craft flew past the Curtain? Have it shot down, of course. No, that was not the answer; I was probably safe in the air.

    But I had better not let them spot me landing. Elementary.

    "Elementary" in the face of a traffic control net which was described proudly as the No-Sparrow-Shall-Fall plan. They boasted that a butterfly could not make a forced landing anywhere in the United States without alerting the search & rescue system. Not quite true-but I was no butterfly.

    What I wanted was to land short of the infested area and go in on the ground. On foot I will make a stab at penetrating any security screen, mechanical, electronic, manned, or mixed. But how can you use misdirection in a car making westing a full degree every seven minutes? Or hang a stupid, innocent look on the nose of a duo?

    If I went in on foot the Old Man would get his report come next Michaelmas; he wanted it before midnight.

    Once, in a rare mellow mood, the Old Man told me that he did not bother his agents with detailed instructions-give a man a mission; let him sink or swim. I suggested that his method must use up a lot of agents.

    "Some," he had admitted, "but not as many as the other way. I believe in the individual and I try to pick individuals who are survivor types."

    "And how in the hell," I had asked him, "do you know when you've got a 'survivor type'."

    He had grinned at me wickedly. "A survivor type is an agent who comes back. Then I know."

    I had to reach a decision in the next few minutes. Elihu, I said to myself, you are about to find out which type you are-and damn his icy heart!

    My course would take me in toward St. Louis, swing me in the city loop around St. Louis, and on to Kansas City. But St. Louis was in Zone Red. The military-situation map had showed Chicago as still green; as I remembered it the amber line had zigzagged west somewhere above Hannibal, Missouri-and I wanted very badly to cross the Mississippi while still in Zone Green. A car crossing that mile-wide river would make a radar blip as sharp as a desert star.

    I signaled block control for permission to descend to local-traffic level, then did so without waiting, resuming manual control and cutting my speed. I headed north.

    Short of the Springfield loop I headed west again, staying low. When I reached the river I crossed slowly, close to the water, with my transponder shut down. Sure, you can't shut off your radar recognition signal in the air, not in a standard rig-but the Section's cars were not standard. The Old Man was not above using gangster tricks.

    I had hopes, if local traffic were being monitored while I crossed, that my blip would be mistaken for a boat on the river. I did not know certainly whether the next block station across the river was Zone Red or Zone Green, but, if my memory was correct, it should be green.

    I was about to cut in the transponder again on the assumption that it would be safer, or at least less conspicuous, to get back into the traffic system when I noticed the shoreline opening up ahead of me. The map did not show a tributary there; I judged it to be an inlet, or possibly a new channel cut in the spring floods and not yet mapped. I dropped almost to water level and headed into it. The stream was narrow, meandering, and almost overhung by trees and I had no more business taking a sky car into it than a bee has of flying down a trombone-but it afforded perfect radar "shadow"; I could get lost in it.

    In a few minutes I was lost, not only from any monitoring technician, but lost myself, right off the map. The channel switched and turned and cut back and I was so busy bucking the car by hand, trying to keep from crashing that I lost all track of navigation. I swore and wished that the car were a triphib so that I could land on water.

    The trees suddenly broke on the left bank; I saw a stretch of level land, kicked her over and squatted her in with a deceleration that nearly cut me in two against my safety belt. But I was down and no longer trying to play catfish in a muddy stream.

    I wondered what to do. There seemed to be nobody around; I judged that I was on the back end of someone's farm. No doubt there was a highway close by. I had better find it and stay on the ground.

    But I knew that was silly even as I thought it. Three hours from Washington to Kansas City by air-I had completed almost all the trip and now I was how far away from Kansas City? By land, about three hours. At that rate, all I needed to make the trip complete was to park the car ten or twelve miles outside Kansas City and walk; then I would still have three hours to go.

    I felt like the frog who jumped halfway to the end of the log with each hop, but never got there. I must get back into the air.

    But I did not dare do so until I knew positively whether traffic here was being controlled by free men, or by slugs.

    It suddenly occurred to me that I had not turned on the stereo since leaving Washington. I am not much for stereo; between the commercials and the junk they sandwich between them I sometimes wonder about "progress". But a newscast may have uses.

    I could not find a newscast. I got (a) a lecture by Myrtle Doolightly, Ph.D., on Why Husbands Grow Bored, sponsored by the Uth-a-gen Hormone Company-I decided that she probably had plenty of experience in her subject; (b) a trio of girl hepsters singing 'If You Mean What I think You Mean, What are We Waiting For?' (c) an episode in 'Lucretia Learns About Life'.

    Dear Doctor Myrtle was fully dressed and could have hidden half a dozen titans around her frame. The trio were dressed about the way one would expect them to be, but they did not turn their backs to the camera. Lucretia appeared to alternate having her clothes torn off with taking them off willingly, but the camera always cut or the lights always went out just before I could check on whether or not her back was bare-of slugs, that is.

    And none of it meant anything. Those programs could have been taped weeks or months before the President announced Schedule Bare Back. I was still switching channels, trying to find a newscast-or any live program-when I found myself staring into the professionally unctuous smile of an announcer. He was fully dressed.

    Shortly I realized it was one of those silly give-away shows. He was saying: "-and some lucky little woman sitting by her screen right this minute is about to receive, absolutely free, a General Atomics Six-in-One Automatic Home Butler. Who will it be? You? You? Or lucky you! He turned away from scan; I could see his shoulders. They were covered by shirt and jacket and distinctly rounded, almost humped. I was inside Zone Red.

    When I switched off I realized that I was being watched-by a male urchin about nine years old. He was wearing nothing but shorts, but the brown of his shoulders showed that such was his custom. I threw back the windscreen. "Hey, bub, where's the highway?"

    He continued to stare before replying, "Road to Macon's up there yonder. Say, mister, that's a Cadillac Zipper, ain't it?"

    "Sure thing. Where yonder?"

    "Give me a ride, huh, will you?"

    "Haven't got time. Where's the road?"

    He sized me up before answering, "Take me along and I'll show you."

    I gave in. While he climbed in and looked around, I opened my kit, got out shirt, trousers, and jacket, and put them on. I said conversationally, "Maybe I shouldn't put on this shirt. Do people around here wear shirts?"

    He scowled. "I've got shirts!"

    "I didn't say you didn't; I just asked if people around here wore shirts."

    "Of course they do. Where do you think you are, mister; Arkansas?"

    I gave up and asked again about the road. He said, "Can I punch the button when we take off, huh?"

    I explained that we were going to stay on the ground. He was frankly annoyed but condescended to point out a direction. I drove cautiously as the car was heavy for unpaved countryside. Presently he told me to turn. Quite a bit later I stopped the car and said, "Are you going to show me where that road is, or am I going to wallop your backsides?"

    He opened the door and slid out. "Hey!" I yelled.

    He looked back. "Over that way," he admitted. I turned the car, not really expecting to find a highway, but finding one, nevertheless, only fifty yards away. The brat had caused me to drive around three sides of a large square.

    If you could call it a highway-there was not an ounce of rubber in the paving. Still, it was a road; I followed it to the west. All in all, I had wasted more than an hour.

    Macon, Missouri seemed normal-much too normal to be reassuring, as Schedule Bare Back obviously had not been heard of here. There were a number of bare backs, but it was a hot day. There were more backs that were covered and any of them might have concealed a slug. I gave serious thought to checking this town, rather than Kansas City, then beating back the way I had come, while I could. Pushing further into country which I knew to be controlled by the masters made me as nervous as a preacher at a stag party; I wanted to run.

    But the Old Man had said "Kansas City"; he would take a dim view of a substitute. Finally I drove the belt around Macon and pulled into a landing flat on the far side. There I queued up for local traffic launching and headed for Kansas City in a mess of farmers' copters and suchlike local craft. I would have to hold local speeds all across the state, but that was safer than getting into the hot pattern with my transponder identifying my car to every block control station.

    The field was automatically serviced, no attendants, not even at the fuelling line. It seemed probable that I had managed to enter the Missouri traffic pattern without arousing suspicion. True, there was a block control station back in Illinois which might be wondering where I had gone, but that did not matter.

Chapter 17

    Kansas City is an old-fashioned city; it was not hurt in the bombings; except on the East Side where Independence used to be. Consequently, it was never rebuilt. From the southeast you can drive almost downtown, as far as Swope Park, without having to choose between parking or paying toll to enter the city proper.

    One can fly in and make another choice: land in the landing flats north of the Missouri River and take the tunnels into the city, or land on the downtown platforms south of Memorial Hill.

    I decided against both of these; I wanted the car near me but I did not want to have to pick it up through a checking system. If it came to a pinch, I could not shoot my way out while offering my combo to a parking attendant. I did not like tunnels in a pinch, either-nor launching platform elevators. A man can be trapped in such.

    Frankly I did not want to go into the city at all.

    I roaded the car on Route 40 and drove into the Meyer Boulevard toll gate. The line waiting to pay toll for the doubtful privilege of driving on a city street was quite long; I began to feel hemmed in as soon as another car filled in behind me and wished mightily that I had decided to park and go in by the public passenger ways. But the gatekeeper took my toll without glancing at me. I glanced at him, all right, but could not tell whether or not he was being ridden.

    I drove through the gate with a sigh of relief-only to be stopped just beyond the gate. A barrier dropped in front of me and I just managed to stop the car, whereupon a cop stuck his head in the side I had open. "Safety check," he said. "Climb out."

    I protested that my car had just been inspected. "No doubt," he agreed, "but the city is having a safety drive. Here's your car check. Pick it up just beyond the barrier. Now get out and go in that door." He pointed to a low building a few steps from the curb.

    "What for?"

    "Eyesight and reflexes," he explained. "Come on. You're holding up the line."

    In my mind's eye, I saw the map, with Kansas City glowing red. That the city was "secured" I was sure; therefore this mild-mannered policeman was almost surely hag-ridden. I did not need to look at his shoulders.

    But, short of shooting him and making an emergency take-off from that spot, there was nothing I could do but comply. With a normal, everyday cop I would have tried the bribe direct, slipping him money as he handed me my car check. But titans don't use money.

    Or do they?

    I got out, grumbling, and walked slowly toward the building. The door near me was marked "IN"; there was one at the far end marked "OUT"; a man came out from it as I approached. I wanted very badly to ask him what he had found.

    It was a temporary building with an old-style unpowered door. I pushed it open with a toe and glanced both sides and up before I entered. It seemed safe. Inside was an empty anteroom with open door beyond.

    Someone inside called out, "Come in." Still as cautious as the setup permitted, I went in.

    There were two men, both in white coats, one with a doctor's speculum strapped to his head. He looked up and said briskly, "This won't take a minute. Step over here." He closed the door I had entered; I heard the latch click.

    It was a sweeter setup than we had worked out for the Constitution Club; had I had time I would have admired it. Spread out on a long table were transit cells for masters, already opened and warmed. The second man had one ready-for me, I knew-and was holding it tilted toward him, so that I could not see the slug inside. The transit cells would not arouse alarm in the minds of victims; medical men always have things at hand which are odd to the layman.

    As for the rest, I was being invited to place my eyes against the goggles of a quite ordinary visual acuity tester. The "doctor" would keep me there, blindfolded without knowing it and reading test figures, while his "assistant" fitted me with a master. No violence, no slips, no protests.

    It was not even necessary, as I had learned during my own "service", to bare the victim's back. Just touch the master to the bare neck, then let the new recruit himself adjust his clothing to cover his master before he left.

    "Right over here," the "doctor" repeated. "Place your eyes against the eyepieces."

    Moving very quickly I went to the bench on which was mounted the acuity tester and started to comply. Then I turned suddenly around.

    The assistant had moved in closer: the cell was ready in his hands. As I turned he tilted it away from me. "Doctor," I said, "I wear contact lenses. Should I take them off?"

    "No, no," he snapped. "Let's not waste time."

    "But, Doctor," I protested, "I want you to see how they fit. Now I've had a little trouble with this left one-" I lifted both hands and pulled back the upper and lower lids of my left eye. "See?"

    He said angrily, "This is not a clinic. Now, if you please-" They were both within reach; lowering my arms in a mighty bear hug I got them both-and grabbed with clutched fingers at the spot between each set of shoulder blades. With each hand I struck something soft and mushy under the coats and felt revulsion shake me at the touch.

    Once I saw a cat struck by a ground car; the poor thing leapt straight up about four feet with its back arched the wrong way and all limbs flying. These two unlucky men did the same sort of thing; they contorted in every muscle in a grand spasm as if every motor cell in each body had been stimulated at once.

    Which is perhaps just what happened when I clutched and crushed their masters.

    I could not hold them; they jerked out of my arms and flopped to the floor. But there was no need to hold them; after that first boneshaking convulsion they went limp, unconscious, possibly dead.

    Someone was knocking at the door. I called out, "Just a moment. The doctor is busy." The knocking stopped. I made sure that the door was fastened, then went back, bent over the "doctor" and pulled up his coat to see what I had done to his master.

    The thing was a ruptured, slimy mess, already beginning to stink. So was the one on the other man-which facts pleased me heartily as I was determined to bum the slugs if they were not already dead and I was not sure that I could do so without killing the hosts as well. I left the men, to live or die-or be seized again by titans, as might be. I had no way to help them.

    The masters waiting in their cells were another matter. With a fan beam and a max charge I burned them all in seconds only. There were two large crates against the wall. I did not know that they contained masters but I had no reason to believe otherwise; I beamed them through and through until the wood charred.

    The knocking at the door resumed. I looked around hastily for somewhere to hide the two men. There was nowhere at all, so I decided to execute the classic military maneuver. As I was about to go out the exit, I felt that something was missing. I hesitated and looked around again.

    The room was almost bare; there seemed to be nothing suited to my purpose. I could use clothing from the "doctor" or his helper, but I did not want to touch them. Then I noticed the dust cover for the acuity tester lying on the bench. I loosened my shirt, snatched up the dust cover, wadded it up, and stuffed it under my shirt between my shoulder blades. With my shirt collar fastened and my jacket zipped tightly it made a bulge of the proper size.

    Then I went out, "-a stranger and afraid, into a world I never made."

    As a matter of fact I was feeling pretty cocky.

    Another cop took my car check. He glanced sharply at me, then motioned me to climb in. I did so and he said, "Go to police headquarters, under the City Hall."

    " 'Police headquarters, the City Hall'," I repeated and gunned her ahead. I started in that direction and turned onto Nichols Freeway. I came to a stretch where traffic thinned out and punched the button to shift license plates, hoping that no one would notice. It seemed possible that there was already a call out for the plates I had been showing at the toll gate. I wished that I had been able to change the car's colors and body lines as well.

Before the freeway reached Magee Traffic Way, I turned into a down ramp and stuck thereafter to residential side streets. It was eighteen hundred, zone six time, and I was due in Washington in four and one-half hours.

Chapter 18

    The city did not look right. I tried to discount my own keyed-up state and to see what was actually there-not what I expected to see nor what I was expected to see. Superficially there was nothing wrong, but it did not have the right flavor, as if it were a clumsily directed play. I kept trying to put my finger on it; it kept slipping away.

    Kansas City has many wide neighborhoods made up of family units a century old or more. Time seems to have passed them by; kids roll on lawns and householders sit in the cool of the evening on their front porches, just as their great-grandparents did. If there are bomb shelters around, they do not show. The queer, old, bulky houses, fitted together piece by piece by guildsmen long since dead, have homely charm. Seeing them, one wonders how Kansas City got its gamy reputation; those old neighborhoods feel like an enclave of security, impregnable, untouchable.

    I cruised through, dodging dogs and rubber balls and toddlers who chased after each, and tried to get the feel of the place. It was the slack of the day, time for the first drink, for watering lawns, and for neighborly chatting.

    And so it seemed. Ahead of me I saw a woman bending over a flower bed. She was wearing a sun suit and her back was bare as mine-more so, for I had that wad of cloth stuffed under my jacket. But clearly she was not wearing a master, nor were the two young kids with her. So what could be wrong?

    It was a hot day, hotter even than Washington had been; I began to look for bare shoulders, sun-suited women and men in shorts and sandals. Kansas City, despite its reputation, is in the Bible Belt and feels its puritanical influence. People there do not strip to the weather with the cheerful unanimity of Laguna Beach or Coral Gables. An adult fully covered up is never conspicuous, even on the hottest day.

    So I found people dressed both ways-but the proportions were wrong. Sure, there were plenty of kids dressed for the weather, but in several miles of driving I saw the bare backs of only five adult women and two adult men.

    I should have seen more like five hundred. It was a hot day.

    Cipher it out. While some jackets undoubtedly did not cover masters, by simple proportion well over ninety percent of the population must be possessed.

    This city was not "secured" the way we had secured New Brooklyn; this city was saturated. The masters did not simply hold key points and key officials; the masters were the city.

    I felt a panicky urge to blast off right from the street and streak out of Zone Red at emergency maximum. They knew that I had escaped the toll gate trap; they would be looking for me. I might be the only free man driving a car in the entire city-and they were all around me!

    I fought it down. An agent who gets the wind up is no use to himself or his boss and is not likely to get out of a tight spot. But I had not fully recovered from what it had done to me to be possessed; it was hard to be calm.

    I counted ten, delayed my reactions, and tried to figure the situation. It seemed that I must be wrong; there could not possibly be enough masters available to permit them to saturate a city with a million population. I remembered my own experiences hardly two weeks earlier; I recalled how we picked our recruits and made each new host count. Of course that had been a secondary invasion in which we had depended on shipments, whereas Kansas City almost certainly had had a flying saucer land nearby.

    Still it did not make sense; it would have taken, I felt sure, not one saucer but a dozen or more, to carry enough masters to saturate Kansas City. If there had been that many surely the space stations would have spotted them, radar-tracked their landing orbits.

    Or could it be that they had no trajectories to track? That they simply appeared instead of swooping down like a rocket? Maybe they used that hypothetical old favorite, the "space-time warp"? I did not know what a space-time warp was and I doubted if anyone knew, but it would do to tag a type of landing which could not be spotted by radar. We did not know what the masters were capable of in the way of engineering and it was not safe to judge their limitations by our own.

    But the data I had led to a conclusion which contradicted common logic; therefore I must check before I reported back. One thing seemed sure: if I assumed that the masters had in fact almost saturated this city, then it was evident that they were still keeping up the masquerade. For the time being they were permitting the city to look like a city of free human beings. Perhaps I was not as conspicuous as I feared.

    While I was thinking I had moseyed along another mile or so, going nowhere. Once I found myself heading into the retail district around the Plaza; I swung away; where there are crowds, there are cops. But I skimmed the edge of the district and in so doing passed a public swimming pool. I observed it and filed what I had seen. My mind works by delays and priorities; an item having a low priority is held until the circuits are cleared and ready for it.

    To put it bluntly, I am subject to doubletakes.

    I was several blocks away before I reviewed the swimming pool datum; it had not been much: the gates were locked and it carried a sign-"CLOSED FOR THE SEASON".

    A swimming pool closed down during the hottest part of the summer? What did it mean? Nothing at all; swimming pools have gone out of business before and will again. On the other hand it was contrary to the logic of economics to close such an enterprise during the season of greatest profit except through utter necessity. The odds against it were long.

    But a swimming pool was the one place where the masquerade could not possibly be maintained. From the viewpoint of humans a closed pool was less conspicuous than a pool unpatronized in hot weather. And I knew that the masters noted and followed the human point of view in their maneuvers-shucks, I had been there!

    Item: a trap at the city's toll gates; item: too few sun suits; item: a closed swimming pool.

    Conclusion: the slugs were incredibly more numerous than had been dreamed by anyone-including myself who had been possessed by them.

    Corollary: Schedule Counter Blast was based on a mistaken estimate of the enemy and would work as well as hunting rhinoceri with a slingshot.

    Counter argument: what I thought I saw was physically impossible. I could hear Secretary Martinez's restrained sarcasm tearing my report to shreds. My guesses referred only to Kansas City and were insufficiently grounded even there. Thank you kindly for your interest but what you need is a long rest and freedom from nervous strain. Now, gentlemen-

    Pfui!

    I had to have something strong enough for the Old Man to convince the President over the reasonable objections of his official advisers-and I had to have it right away. Even with a total disregard of traffic laws I could not clip much off two and a half hours running time back to Washington.

    What could I dig up that would be convincing? Go farther downtown, mingle with crowds, and then tell Martinez that I was sure that almost every man I passed was possessed? How could I prove it? For that matter, how could I myself be certain; I did not have Mary's special talent. As long as the titans kept up the farce of "business as usual" the tell-tales would be subtle, a superabundance of round shoulders, a paucity of bare ones.

    True, there was the toll gate trap. I had some notion now of how the city had been saturated, granting a large enough supply of slugs. I felt sure that I would encounter another such trap on the way out and that there would be others like it on launching platforms and at every other entrance and exit to the city proper. Every person leaving would be a new agent for the masters; every person entering would be a new slave.

    This I felt sure of without being inclined to test it by visiting a launching platform. I had once set up such a trap in the Constitution Club; no one who entered it had escaped.

    I had noticed a vendo-printer for the Kansas City Star on the last corner I had passed. Now I swung around the block and came back to it, pulled up, and got out. I shoved a dime in the slot and waited for my paper to be printed. It seemed to take unusually long, but that was my own nervousness, I felt that every passer-by was staring at me.

    The Star's format had its usual dull respectability-no excitement, no mention of an emergency, no reference to Schedule Bare Back. The lead news story was headed PHONE SERVICE DISRUPTED BY SUNSPOT STORM, with a subhead City Semi-Isolated by Solar Static. There was a 3-col, semi-stereo, trukolor of the sun, its face disfigured by cosmic acne. The pic carried a Palomar date line, as did one of the substories.

    The picture was a good fake-or perhaps they pulled a real one out of the paper's library. It added up to a convincing and unexciting explanation of why Mamie Schultz, herself free of parasites, could not get her call through to Grandma in Pittsburgh.

    The rest of the paper looked normal. I tucked it under my arm to study later and turned back to my car . . . just as a police car glided silently up and cramped in across the nose of it. A cop got out.

    A police car seems to condense a crowd out of air. A moment before the comer was deserted-else I would never have stopped. Now there were people all around and the cop was coming toward me. My hand crept closer to my gun; I would have dropped him had I not been sure that most, if not all, of those around me were equally dangerous.