The Puppet Masters

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.