The Invaders Plan

I smiled, "Well, I should hope so! He is my great-uncle on my mother's side!" Instant awe! Instant adoration!

"He's a wonderful man," said Prahd.

"He certainly is," I agreed heartily. "Now, to business. Are you set up for the test case?" He loped ahead of me and we went into the hospital. A side room was piled with empty cases, big and small. The main invalid room had been all pushed about and a big portable operating table was centered. Lights were ready to beam down. Racks of knives were ready to probe. Spin drills were ready to spin. Culture flasks were ready to culture. Heaters and flame were ready to burn Hells out of everything in sight. What a layout!

"I see you've used the table already," I said.

He blushed faintly and, yes, I noticed there were a couple telltale spots on it.

"No, no, I mean the Widow Tayl." He blushed harder and started to look hangdog.

"No, no, no!" I said. "I mean her operations."

"Oh, that," he said, instantly relieved. "The poor woman. Warts are so easy to handle. And there's no reason for her breasts to sag. By introducing a muscle-cord catalyst to the mammora fermosa..." What a dedicated cellologist!

I forestalled lecture 205. "It's all right. I know you had to see if the equipment works."

"Oh," he said, glowing, "her equipment really works!" He shook his head in wonder. "But there are several more things I can do to her. . . ." I'll bet you will do them, I said to myself. Standing on one's head in the swimming bath or trying it in a tree might be novel. "The test case!" I said firmly.

He was all attention.

"You realize it is very secret and your presence here more secret still. I am here today to see if you are set up and to bring you more equipment."

"Good Lords," he said, "I have more equipment here now than we had in the whole hospital!"

"We will install one set of these in the test case," I said. "I want you to study the directions and get all set up. There must be no slip-up. Your future, I hate to have to remind you, depends on this first test case. My grandfather ..."

"You mean your great-uncle, don't you?"

"My grandfather was a cellologist," I corrected quickly. "I have heard him say that the first case tells the tale. And although my great-uncle was very impressed with your record, it is I," I said very firmly, "that you must please. One leak of your presence here, one slip of the knife in this test operation and . . "I made the gesture of good-bye.

That scared him. "Oh . . . I . . . I . . . I will obey you, Officer Gris. I will . . . will d . . . d . . . d ..." I went to the door. I bawled, "Driver! Bring in those boxes." I found an additional storage space. My driver, Ske, muttering under his breath, began to make trip after trip, lugging in the cartons and filling the spare room. The one marked with an Xwas early and I opened it and got out the directions and the hearing and sight buttons, one set. I put them down on a table. I briefed him in detail and then concluded, "You study these. They will go into the test case." He said he would. And although I tried to dissuade him that the rest were of no interest, he kept pawing around the other cartons. I didn't know or care what was in them, really.

"These aren't all cellological," he said.

"They have relevant applications," I said learnedly, although how you could treat a long-distance, miniature, pocket, electronic, automatic sound-aiming rifle sight as cellological I wouldn't know.

Ske finally finished and went grumpily back to the car. Young Doctor Bittlestiffender suddenly turned from his examination of cases. "There's blood on these boxes!" Ah, me. Apparatus training has to be good, the demands made on it. I said, "Horrors!" I rushed madly out to the car. Ske was just sitting down in it, very sweaty and cross.

"Let me see your hands!" I demanded.

He was willing to do that. And sure enough, the boxes of gold had gouged the flesh a trifle here and there. But not enough to bleed.

I held the hand firmly.

"Aha," I said. "Steel slivers!" I shot the Knife Section knife out of my sleeve. I stabbed him in the palm!

He screeched!

I grabbed the other hand before he could get away. I stabbed it!

He screeched again.

I vanished the Knife Section knife up my sleeve.

Young Doctor Bittlestiffender was coming across the lawn behind me.

"The poor fellow," I said. "I've got the steel slivers out now. Perhaps you better bandage his hands. He is not used to rough work." The blood was dripping. "I could have done that much less painfully," said young Doctor Bittlestiffender.

"Sometimes stern measures are required," I said.

Ske looked at me with blazing eyes. And then the pain got to him and he gripped his palms together to ease it.

Young Doctor Bittlestiffender looked at me with new respect. He led the whimpering Ske off across to the hospital.

A voice at my elbow. "They will be a moment. I want to talk to you. Could you come into the main house? There's nobody else here." It was the Widow Tayl.

I should have known better. She led me into a gorgeous morning room, all white and gold. The slanted sun was pouring in on a glistening, white rug.

Her slippered foot was hooked behind my boot as I tried to back up.

The jar of my hitting the rug made a gri

The gri

The cupid was rocking again. Pratia said, "So starved . . . so starved . . . so starved . . . Oh. Oh. Oh!" My hand almost broke its fingers on the edge of the rug. "There!" shuddered Pratia.

The cupid fell over with a crash against the floor.

The servant's broom threw up a cloud of dust.

My hand finally reached my tunic as she said, in a more relaxed voice, "I just wanted you to know how great he is in bed." I was pulling on a boot. "Well, thank you for telling me," I said. There is nothing quite so discouraging as going through this sort of thing with a woman telling you how great another man is. Wearing.

A glimpse of the servant's surprised face through the half-open hall door should have warned me. "Oh, don't leave!" said Pratia.

My boot flew out the window as she cried, "I haven't told you enough yet!" I knew Ske would be looking at his watch.

The other set of curtains at the window came down.

A murmur of voices outside told me that the servant was chatting with Ske, probably about the weather, out at the airbus.

The open window let in Ske's distempered call, "Officer Gris! You going to be in there all day?" The yard was very peaceful. The servant had changed his uniform. Ske was picking up my boot and cap.

I stood in the door, trying to button my tunic. Difficult since now half the buttons were gone and I was having a hard time: it kept going askew.

Ske handed me my boot and cap.

Widow Tayl's face was at the window, smiling an enormous smile.