The Invaders Plan

"C . . . can I pad the box inside? S . . . so I don't h . . . h . . . hit my h . . . h . . . head?" I was feeling indulgent. "Of course," I said. I pulled out a note to Captain Bolz. It just said, "This is him. Gris." I gave it to him.

"I guess . . . I guess there's a lot I don't know about secret operations," he confessed.

There's a lot you don't know about beautiful widows, I muttered to myself. "Now, two more things."

"M . . . more?"

"On that ship there will be a young homosexual. You are not to associate with or speak to him. You must remain unknown to him. He is an enemy spy."

"A . . . and?"

"And if you are not delivered to that ship, if you do not arrive as I have said, its captain will bring a ferocious, blastgun-packing crew right here, seize you and . . ."I was about to say "rape the Widow Tayl" but she'd be overjoyed by that. "... burn down this whole estate and maim and shoot your dear Pratia on suspicion of being an enemy agent. Understood?" He was paralyzed. Well, he'd have to get used to the operating climate. Might as well start now. I had worked out how he could make me a personal fortune. Except for that, I didn't need him and could have shot him right where he shivered. But, as Lombar says, money talks.

I sat there smiling in a Lordly way. Let him see I could also be his friend. Police psychology is the applicable branch. Crush them and then pretend friendship. But he didn't seem to be responding. However, if I sat there long enough with lifted lips, gazing down my nose at him in a superior way, it would eventually work.

But the psychotherapy was ruined. A voice came from the house, over a loud speaker. "Yoo-hoo, you boys," the musical lilt of the Widow Tayl. "Don't keep sitting out there like the dear little angels you are. Comeinto the house and get some lunch." So we went in. It was a gorgeous dining room. All done in blue and gold with little gold nymphs having a rare time of it all over the ceiling. There were soft couches at various levels. The center of the room was utterly sagging under the weight of canisters, platters of cakes and dried rare meats and fruits.

She was dressed in the filmiest of films and she had her hair piled up and held with diamonds. She looked at the two of us. "Where's the other one?"

"He won't come to for another three or four hours," I said brutally.

She looked at the spread. She glanced at herself in a wall mirror. And she got a very, very sad look on her face. "Well, go ahead and eat," she said dispiritedly.

I ate. Prahd was just sitting there.

Finally he said, "Not burn down the whole estate!" What a fool. To talk like that in front of the Widow Tayl. It was my lot to deal with fools and amateurs.

But the Widow Tayl had not heard him. She was sitting on the sofa behind him. Her eyes were dreamy. With one of her hands she was curling the hair on the back of Prahd's neck. In the other she idly grasped a large, soft fruit.

Prahd suddenly looked at me and said, "Oh, you mustn't doubt me. I'll come. I'll come!" The Widow Tayl's eyes went glassy. Her breathing quickened. She yelled suddenly, "And he put his red cap in . . . in . . . in ..." The fruit in her hand was clenched into an explosion of soft white meat. "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHH!" I was glaring. (Bleep) her. She was thinking of Heller. She had dressed and primped and laid out this huge lunch THINKING ABOUT HELLER!

I attacked a sweetbun like it had bit me!

I'd show HIM!

Chapter 4

Late in the afternoon. Heller came out of the gas. Prahd gave me the signal and I made Ske shift the airbus to the confined space just outside the hospital door – a thing he cursed over, as landing on some shrubs scratched his paint. But I was taking no chances on the Widow Tayl seeing Heller again. She might remember what he looked like: it would be out security.

I whisked Heller through the hospital door and into the airbus and we took off at once.

The recorder was still locked to his wrist. It was ru

He was still groggy. He had a cup-like dressing over his right temple and several more at different places on his body. Prahd had told him they contained "heal-fast" fluid, that they wouldn't come loose if he showered. Prahd had given him a small vial of solvent and in twenty-four hours, Heller could apply it and the cups would come off: the spots would be a light pink for another day, but Prahd had given him another vial of false-skin coating which would eradicate even that. Heller had received the data and vials with a minimum of attention. He seemed to want to go back to sleep.

I was very anxious to see how this equipment worked. The whole success of the Earth operation depended upon it. I had the rest of the items of one whole set with me. My hopes were high but there was a bit of anxiety, too.

At the hangar, fortunately, most of the contractor crews had gone for the day and nobody wanted to see him. I passed him into the airlock of the tug: he seemed to be heading for the rooms in back.

With speed – which Ske objected to – I rushed through the evening sky and soon arrived at my rooming house. I grabbed the box containing the rest of the set and went zooming up the stairs. Meeley was on her hands and knees on a landing trying to scrub the floor and I almost knocked her flat. She swore at me with surprising violence but I ignored her.

Locking my door, I swept some empty canisters off a table and hastily began to set up the equipment. With hands quivering with eagerness, I got the activator-receiver going. I was only twenty miles from the Apparatus hangar and this thing was good, the late Spurk had said, for two hundred miles.

I turned on the separate receiver-viewscreen.

Nothing!

Not even a crackle!

I turned up the activator-receiver until it was practically shooting blue streams!

Nothing.

I turned up the receiver-viewscreen.

Nothing!

(Bleep) Spurk! He must have been lying! It served him right to get himself killed!

I sat back. I thought. Then it occurred to me that the whole rig might just be underpowered. So I picked up and added the 831 Relayer to the setup. It was supposed to boost the signal between the activator-receiver and the receiver-viewscreen so strongly that they could be ten thousand miles apart!

Nothing.

I boosted every manual gain knob I could find!

Wait. I heard something in the viewscreen speaker. A faint rhythmic sound.

I looked at the viewscreen. I thought I must have turned the power up too high. Maybe a component was burning in it. It was a blurred, wavery pink.

I counted the rhythmic sound. It was going at about eighteen times a minute. Hard to recognize. The quality was poor.

Suddenly I had it! The sound was breathing! The dim pink was faint light coming through the eyelids. Heller was asleep! If it was Heller.

Well, it had gotten something. But Gods, with every manual gain at maximum and even the 831 Relayer on the line, it was only doing twenty miles! I despaired of ever using this in Turkey when Heller was in the Americas.

I sat back, wondering what to do now. With this rig so poor, Heller could just waltz around the United States as free as a bird; I wouldn't know what he was doing! I wouldn't be able to use information gained on this cha

For some time I sat there glooming. I was almost ready to give it up when I heard footsteps coming from the speaker. Very faint, hard to recognize as footsteps. They were a bit louder now. They stopped.