Shadow on the Sand

Chapter VIII Explosion

The convertible went slowly through the outskirts of Harlingen, the government sedan a half block behind it, Jack close behind the government sedan.

They had confided their plan to Jake and he was faintly and uncomfortably skeptical about it. The only advantage it had was its quality of innocuousness. If there was nothing at all peculiar about the trio, two supposed field men from the Bureau of Internal Revenue asking questions about the whereabouts of Quinn French would not alarm them. But the uneasiness within Jake persisted. The flaw in the idea was to his way of thinking the lack of a second line of defense. He vowed that he would stay close, but not too close.

The convertible turned right near the hotel, paused for the light while the government sedan idled along in its wake. A half block beyond the light it pulled in to the curb where diagonal parking was permitted. The government sedan picked a neighboring empty slot. Jake found a hole five or six cars away and was out as soon as he had cut the motor, not very comforted by the weight of the.38 special.

The Raymonds and the Kaynan girl got out of the convertible. Jake saw that the Kaynan girl looked sick and dizzy. Henry and Will moved in casually and the trio became a quintet, a casual conversation group on the sun-hot sidewalk of the small Texas city.

It was all so casual and so ordinary that Jake slowly relaxed the muscles of his right arm, ready to take his sweaty palm from the revolver grip.

Then Henry turned visibly pale and took two wooden steps backward. At the same moment Martha Kaynan, half crouching as though expecting a blow from behind, scuttled down the sidewalk toward where Jake stood, half concealed by the parked cars.

Jake was indecisive but then he saw the naked terror on the Kaynan girl’s face. It was as though for one moment he had been permitted to look down into a hell of fear so vast as to be barely comprehended. And the result was to immediately inflame him with a hate and detestation of those two who stood facing down the two FBI agents.

The woman turned and Jake saw the fury on her face, the narrowed blazing eyes as she stared after Martha. Martha fell and rolled on the sidewalk, scraping her knees and elbows, her head hitting with a small dismal thud.

Jake felt an arrow of pain sizzling behind the sturdy bone of his forehead and he crouched, pulling the special clear of the holster. He saw Will, falling backward, his face still contorted, rip out his own gun, aim it with a wavering hand.

Mr. Raymond reached inside the sport shirt and his hand reappeared. In it he held a small powder blue tube, as ridiculous as a child’s beanshooter. Jake clamped his teeth hard on the pain and took careful aim for a shoulder of Mr. Raymond. Raymond fired first. Jake only knew that he fired by the effect on Will.

There was no sound of explosion, no visible flash. A ragged hole the size of a basketball appeared in the center of Will’s chest and, as he slid over backward Jake, for an incredulous fraction of a second could see through Will, could see the pale stone wall beyond him.

He squeezed down on the trigger, knowing as the shot kicked off that he was a tiny bit high for a shoulder shot. But he was unprepared for the result. Jake had been Navy. The nearest thing to it in his experience was a forty millimeter H.E. The top half of Mr. Raymond detonated with a crack-thoom that shook the street.

After it came the drip and tinkle of broken glass, the distant plaintive cries of frightened women, the bellows of alarmed men, the scream and crash of nearby traffic accidents.

The sound of Henry’s shot was feeble by comparison, a flat empty snap that sounded like a cap pistol, but the woman staggered and fell with a spreading redness on the hem of her blue skirt.

Just as Jake began to feel that maybe it was ended, just as he began to suck in the deep breath of relief, the writhing woman on the sidewalk began to scream in a strange tongue. And an enormous invisible whiplash flailed the air. It whined without sound, criss-crossing, flicking, stinging. It cracked against Jake’s mind and he bounced off the fender of his own car as he fell.

People a half block away dropped to their knees and hugged their heads and moaned. A car ran up over the sidewalk on the other side of the street and smashed through the plate glass window of a supermarket. Jake lay panting for a moment and started to struggle up. The impact against his mind smashed him flat again and he gagged.

He rolled onto his stomach and, looking under the car, he saw the woman slowly crawling toward the convertible. Beyond her Henry lay helpless, blood on his chin from his chewed lip. Those who had come running to the source of the explosion lay on the sidewalk, moving weakly, trying to stand, then dropping again as the whistling lash of power hit them.

The woman had stopped screaming in her peculiar language. Martha lay huddled and silent.

Jake Ingram was a stubborn man with an exceptional capacity for anger. Five times he tried to center his sights on her and each time the enervating blast thudded the gun back against the asphalt. But the sixth time he was given a fractional part of a second and he pulled the trigger before the mind-whip was due to return. He could drive a nail at thirty paces. She was ten paces away and a woman’s head is considerably larger than a nail.

The second massive detonation came. From the waist down she was intact. The rest of her had ceased to exist. There was a pinkish spray on the side of the building, an enormous dished cavity in the door of the convertible. The street was once again at peace.

The people slowly got to their feet. They wore dazed expressions. They licked dry lips and their eyes rolled. Henry sat up, wiped his mouth, stared at Will and began to curse. Jake walked over and picked Martha up. Her eyes opened wide and she struggled.

“It’s all over, baby,” Jake said thickly. “All over. Cry if you want to.”

Amro came to his feet as he sensed the presence outside his door. The mind exuded an odd effluvium of triumph and peace. He stood, awaiting the known fate, as the door was unsealed. It swung open and he saw the Chief standing in the corridor. The Chief’s eyes were odd. For a moment Amro couldn’t understand. Then he remembered having seen children cry. He had never seen a man cry.

The guard, standing at attention in respect for the toga of rank, said, “The orders from Lofta were that the prisoner is to be—”

“I countermand his orders. Amro will come with me.”

Amro walked slowly out of the room, faking calmness, his senses alert, waiting for any chance, no matter how remote.

“Walk beside me,” the Chief said.

Amro did so. The Chief said when they were out of earshot of the guard, “Do not attempt an escape, Amro. I am helping you.”

“What sort of a trick is this?”

“No trick. You told me once that it would be good if I were to walk in the streets of the twin world. And there isn’t much time. I’d like to try it.”

“What do you mean — not much time?”

“Don’t question me, Amro.”

They walked past the corridor guards and the Chief took their salutes without response. Amro saw that the guards looked uncertain. He sensed that they were on the verge of objecting. There was a small cold spot in the small of his back as he passed each of them.

The Chief walked too slowly, he thought. He walked like a man in a strange dream. They reached the ramp and started down. “You will show me the twin world, Amro,” the Chief said. His voice was gentle.

“So you can plan to spoil it.”

“Do you think so?”

“What other reason would you have?”

“That’s right. What other reason would I have?”

On the third landing the guard said, “You cannot pass below this level. No one can pass unless I am told by Lofta to permit it.”

The Chief lost his odd lethargic manner. He straightened and his lips grew thin. His palm cracked off the guard’s cheek. “Take that to Lofta with my compliments. Stand aside.”

The guard hesitated, licked his lips. His cheek was red. He saluted and stood aside. They continued down the ramp.

Hope grew slowly in Amro. Free on Earth he would have a chance. Maybe, if the Earthpeople could be made to believe him, he could help them fight against this thing, this doorway. It would be a losing fight but a good one. For the first time in his life he sensed that something was worth fighting for.

They reached the last corridor, the ground level corridor, stretching to where, at the very end, two agents guarded the switch which controlled the exit to Earth. They studied with interest the two who approached.

“Open the doorway,” the Chief said. It was a tone heavy with the custom of years of command, which did not admit of any possibility of disobedience.

An agent dutifully turned and threw the switch. The blank end of the corridor was suddenly darker than any night. The other agent moved into the center of the corridor. “You’ll wait for Lofta to send orders,” he said.

The Chief was mild. “You know who I am?”

“Of course. But I have known of other agents tested in this manner. And so I shall follow my orders.” The deadly blue tube appeared in his hand.

“You would even kill me?”

“Yes sir. I would kill you should you try to pass me.”

The black doorway was so near. Amro moved a bit to one side. The blue muzzle flicked in his direction and the agent said, “You have no chance, you see.”

It began as a deep heavy vibration, a trembling that was transmitted from the corridor floor to legs and skull. Amro looked quickly at the Chief. The smaller man’s head was cocked to one side and he wore the look of one who listens carefully.

“What is that?” the agent demanded.

“You could call it the end of the world,” the Chief said. And then, almost to himself, “The Center strikes first.”

The vibration became deeper and stronger as though the crust of Strada quivered on the jellied rock underneath. A far-off rumble, like the sound of heavy machines, slowly climbed up through the octaves to a roar, a drone, a whine, a rising, unbearable scream. The whole corridor shook violently, throwing them off their feet. Bits of the wall flaked off, dropped on them as they tried to rise.

And then it was as though a giant’s hands grasped the far end of the corridor floor, snapping it like a rug. A section of the roof fell in yards behind them and the white heat slanted through the opening, destroying vision, crisping exposed skin.

Amro struggled to his feet, getting his balance, remaining upright despite the spasms of the corridor floor which lifted him into the air. One of the agents lay still. The other, thinking blindly of duty even at the obvious end, clawed his way up toward the switch.

His hand was inches from it as Amro plunged toward the black doorway. He thought in mid-stride that he was too late. The whole corridor tilted over at a crazy angle as he lunged through the blackness. There was a great pain in his legs and he tumbled over and over.

They had stood and watched the oblong of blackness which had so startlingly appeared on the sunlit beach. Henry had raced to the sedan and ordered that a fifty-caliber Browning with a field mount be borrowed from the National Guard arsenal and rushed out to the beach. He returned and stood beside Jake and the others, gun drawn, waiting for what might come out of the blackness.

Jake stood with the cold sweat running down his ribs. Martha stood a little behind and twice he turned and told her to take shelter behind the cars. She appeared not to hear him.

Henry said, “If we get time to get that gun set up we can pepper the hell out of anything that tries to come through.”

Jake nodded, sensing the hollowness of Henry’s confidence. It matched his own. He was certain that Henry knew that something could come out of there that would make the machine gun as effective as throwing wild rice at armor plate. But all you can do is try.

All you can do is stand and think of how neat and explicable everything was until all of a sudden you found out that other beings aren’t going to come from the distant stars sometime in the unknown future — but out of an obscene blackness right in your own back yard, here and now. And then you know that no matter what you do you aren’t ready for them — never were — never will be.

The afternoon radio programs were on, the Texas disc jockeys featuring slightly nasal lonesome cowhands. A commentator was speaking in stern voice of the latest Russian veto and in White Sands they were readying another big one of the booster type, proud of their knowledge, not knowing how feeble and primitive it was. There was unrest on Hawaiian docks and critical acclaim for the new Bergman epic and a novelist’s anatomical details banned in Boston...

But here, with the sand yellow-white in the sun, with the porpoises playing in the green water a thousand yards out, with a crab scuttling down toward the breakers, a knot of men and a quiet girl watched the deep and impossible blackness with all the forlorn courage of a Neanderthal village attacking a tank column. Here was the end of a world and its color was black.

Surprise froze them as the figure came tumbling out of the blackness, rolling over and over in the sand. Jake was the first to respond, snap-shooting, the slug kicking up sand near a brown shoulder — and then Martha was in front of him, right in the line of fire, screaming, “No, don’t!” as she ran toward the figure on the sand.

The black oblong had canted over to a strange angle, a rectangle standing on one point. With a roar that covered the sound of the sea, with a long upreaching tongue of white flame that dimmed the sun, the oblong disappeared.

The man lay still. Jake recognized him as Quinn French. He said, “‘Get out of the way and I’ll give him one in the head. I can see him breathing.”

“Hold it!” Henry snapped.

Martha sat and pulled the man’s head into her lap. She stared defiantly at them. “You’re not going to kill him!”

She looked down at him as his eyes opened. He looked up into her eyes and, before she had a chance to erect the wall she felt his thoughts in her mind. Joy at her presence, thankfulness, humility. All her doubt and fear was gone.

She said, “This isn’t one of them. This is Quinn French. I’m sure of it.”

He sat up, got unsteadily to his feet. “One of them looked just like me. I don’t understand.” He knuckled his forehead.

“They were having some sort of a war among themselves. I escaped in the excitement. I guess I got through just in time. The whole place was exploding. They were smashing their own world.”

“They’re tricky,” Jake said to Henry. “Don’t trust him.”

“Hey,” Amro said, “I’m not one of them. I’m Quinn French. Why don’t you check instead of waving those guns. Take my prints. They’ll check with the ones the Army took of me. Go get some people who have known me all my life. Have them ask me questions. I don’t know what the hell has been going on here. All I know is that it’s over. Where are Fran and Jerry?”

“They’re dead,” Henry said.

“Look. I’m burned. The blisters are coming up. Why don’t you stop all this talking and take me to a doctor?”

Martha’s hand closed warningly on his. Immediately she felt the thought of reassurance in her mind.

“Right,” Henry said, “but you’re under guard until we’re satisfied.”

“That suits me,” Amro said.

Some ten days later Martha and Amro lay on a strip of sand side by side. Three miles away scientists and a detachment of the regular army waited for the reappearance of the black oblong. The whole affair had been carefully kept from public knowledge, due to the risk of panic. “Marriage,” said Amro, “is an interesting custom. A bit primitive, of course, but I find that I approve.”

“Males,” said Martha, “no matter what world they come from, are insufferable.”

He propped himself up on his elbows. His glance was very direct. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “How did you make yourself take such a risk? You had to assume that I had grown to believe in the things you believe in — and you also had to assume that I wouldn’t suddenly stop looking like Quinn and start looking like a monster.”

“I reserve the right to be illogical.”

“Be illogical out loud. It isn’t good taste to invade your mental privacy.”

“Go ahead and invade. I’m not modest.”

She bared her mind and he reached in, tasted the strength of her belief in him, the love that was there, the perfect trust. It made him feel proud and humble. Her eyes were wet as she turned to smile at him.

“We must plan,” he said. “My people have lost the way to this world. They won’t find it again for a long time. Strada is dead. But they will find the way again from another planet, when it is habitable again, from Strada. By that time we must be ready.”

“We? I like to hear you say that.”

“You have a lot to teach me, Martha. I’m such a miserable amateur at this way of life.”

“I think you’re doing very nicely.”

He frowned. “I suppose the best thing to do would be to set up a laboratory. Some of my technical training, even though on Strada it was considered elementary, will lead to things that are new here. First we’ll have to get advanced texts so that I can see how much has been done.”

“Darling,” she said. “So much energy! Don’t think about it yet. Not for a little while.”

He stared at her and grinned. “So?”

Her blush was violent. “This mind-reading,” she said, “takes a bit of getting used to.”