The Silent Invaders

TEN

He rode alone in the gravshaft and emerged at street-level, in the lobby of the great building. The lobby was less crowded now. He had gone down into the Medlin headquarters in the middle of the day, but unaccountably hours had passed. It was very dark now, though the lambent glow of street-lights brightened the path. He wondered if the other five had waited for him all this time, or if they had gone along to their own places.

The stars were out in force now, bedecking the sky. Harris paused in front of the building and looked up. Up there somewhere was Darruu, not visible to the eye, but there in one of those glittering clusters all the same. Perhaps now was the time of the mating of the moons on Darruu, that time of supernal beauty that no living creature could fail to be moved by.

Well, never mind, he thought. It did not matter now.

He reached the corner where they had arranged to wait for him. Earthers moved by, rapidly, homeward bound. Harris looked around, at first seeing no one, then catching sight of Carver standing casually by the lamppost, his sharp-featured slabjawed face a study in suppressed, simmering impatience.

As Harris approached, Carver said, “You took long enough about it. Well?”

Harris stared at the other man and thought bleakly of the squirming ropy thoughts that nestled in the other’s brain like festering, living snakes.

He said, “They’re all dead. Didn’t you get my message?”

“Sure we did. But we couldn’t be sure.”

“Where are the others?”

“I sent them away,” Carver said. “It was too risky, hanging around here all day. How did you manage to spend so much time up there?”

“They were scattered all over,” Harris said. “I was waiting to get the greatest number of them at the same time. It took time.”

“Hours, though?”

“Sorry,” Harris said.

He was thinking, This man is a Servant of the Spirit, a man of Darruu. A man who thinks only of Darruu’s galactic dominion, a man who hates and kills and spies, a man whose mind is a nesting-place for every revolting monstrosity that can be imagined.

“How many of them did you get?” Carver asked.

“Five,” Harris said.

Carver looked disappointed. “Only five? After all that time?”

Harris shrugged. “The place was empty. I waited and waited, but no more showed up. At least I got five, though. Five out of a hundred. That’s not bad, is it?”

“It’ll do for a start,” Carver said gruffly. He put his hand to his forehead and pressed it, and muttered a curse.

“Something wrong?” Harris asked.

“Headache,” Carver grunted. “Hit me all at once. I feel like I’ve been blackjacked.”

Harris looked away and smiled. “It’s the gravity,” he said. “It does peculiar things.”

He realized he was stalling, unwilling to do the thing he had come out here to do.

A silent voice said within him, Will you betray us again? Or will you keep faith this time ?

The street was too busy, too crowded, even now after dark. He could not do anything here. If he activated the subsonic, people would drop like flies for forty feet around. He had to get Carver alone.

Carver was saying something to him, Harris realized. He did not hear it. Carver said again, “I asked you—were there any important documents there?”

“No,” Harris said.

A cold wind swept in from the river. Harris felt a chill.

He said, “Look, let’s go get a drink somewhere, Carver. I feel pretty tired out. And it’ll be good for your headache too. We can celebrate—we’ve killed our first five Medlins.”

Carver shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind a drink.”

They started up the street. Carver pointed to a gay, brightly-lit saloon, but Harris shook his head. “Too noisy in there. Let’s find someplace quiet.”

They turned the corner, onto a narrow sidestreet. A winking sign at the end of the block advertised a bar, and they headed toward it. An autobar, Harris thought. That was what he wanted.

They went in.

The place was empty. Glistening banks of control devices faced them. As they crossed the threshold, a dull, booming voice from an overhead grid said, “Change is available to your left. We change any denomination of any accepted currency. Change is available to your left. We change any denomination of any accepted currency. Change is avail…”

“All right!” Carver snapped. “We heard you!”

The robot voice died away. Harris took an Earther bill from his pocket and laid it across the platen of the change-making machine. A shower of small coins came tinkling down.

“What do you recommend this time?” Harris asked.

Carver shrugged. “There’s a Terran whiskey called Scotch. Very ancient. Try some.”

Harris put a coin in the slot, waited, took the drink. He bought another one for Carver, and they settled down at a table. The emptiness of the bar was eerie. There were no sounds but the clicking of relays somewhere behind the facade of gadgetry, the soft purring of complex mechanisms.

Harris gulped the drink so fast he hardly tasted it. His raw, scraped nerves cried out for relaxation. He put another coin in the slot.

He watched Carver, thinking automatically of the inner world of madness that lay behind the austere, almost noble features.

He is a Servant of the Spirit, Harris thought. He is my superior. It would rot the eternal roots of my birth-tree if 1 were to raise my hand against him.

Carver said, “I suppose it’ll take us another two or three weeks to root out the rest of the Medlins. Then we’ll have a free path here.”

“Until more Medlins come.”

“Don’t worry,” Carver said. “Everything’s all arranged. We’ll take over their headquarters and operate it as though they’re still alive. Any new Medlins will be killed the moment they arrive.”

Harris drained his second drink, making no comment.

Carver went on, “I’ve applied for augmented forces here. Word hasn’t come through yet, but I’d guess that in another month we’ll hear. I’ve asked for fifty more trained agents as a starter.”

“Think you’ll get them?”

“You know how it is. Ask for fifty, get twenty-five. If I asked for twenty, I’d get five. You’d think Earth wasn’t important to them.” Carver tapped the empty glass in front of him and said, “Be a good fellow and get me another drink, will you?”

“Sure,” Harris said.

He slipped out from the table and walked to the control console. That put him more than three feet from Carver—beyond the shielding range of the subsonic. He took a deep breath, turned, and activated the subsonic generator in his hip.

“What…” Carver started to say, and fell slumped over the table, his empty glass going skittering to the floor as his limp hand slapped it.

This was the moment, Harris thought.

His pulse raced at triple-time. His hand stole into his pocket, his fingers closed on the small cool butt of the disruptor. In this empty bar, with nothing but robots around, he could squeeze off a quick shot, finish Carver in a moment…

There was a clicking sound behind him. Then a gate opened inward and some sort of mechanical creature came rolling out from the bowels of the autobar’s mechanism.

The voice from the speaker grid overhead said, “It violates federal law to serve intoxicating beverages to a person who is already intoxicated. It violates federal law to serve intoxicating beverages to a person who is already intoxicated. It violates…”

The mechanical creature was approaching the slumped Carver. The robot was about three feet high, bullet-headed and gleaming, with two telescopically extensible arms that were sliding out of recesses in its chest. It rolled across the floor and, as Harris goggled in amazement, wrapped its arms around the unconscious Darruui, lifted him easily into the air, and continued rolling, to the door of the autobar, and out into an adjoining alleyway. A moment later, the robot returned alone.

Of course, Harris thought. An automated bouncer! Keeping watch over the patrons, making sure each drinker remained conscious, and providing a robotic bum’s rush for anyone who keeled over!

The little robot vanished into its gate, which flicked shut immediately. The voice of the speaker grid died away. Gulping down his drink, Harris rushed outside, and into the alleyway.

Carver lay sprawled on the pavement. The effects of the subsonic were wearing off. He was groaning, stirring, starting to open his eyes.

This is the opportunity to destroy him, came the voice in his brain.

Harris’ hand closed on the disruptor a second time. Out here, in the dark alley, a quick bolt of nerve-searing fury and it would be all over.

But he could not do it.

His entire body trembled and shook like a ghiarr-tree bending in the wind. Criss-cross currents of conflicting desires ripped through him.

He closed his eyes and saw Darruu glistening in the crimson mist. Saw the annual procession of the Servants of the Spirit, each holding his candle, heard the melancholy chant, the prayer drifting back on the wind. We are a holy fraternity. And to kill …

He couldn’t.

Impossible.

He hesitated, quivered, tensed. He fought with himself to bring the disruptor into aim, to squeeze the trigger, to burn the life out of the half-conscious man on the pavement.

Carver groaned.

Once again Harris saw the writhing monsters in the other’s mind. Feathery limbs poked up out of the churning ooze.

Hot tears scalded Harris’ eyes. He tried once more to aim the disruptor and failed. Carver stirred again. Harris turned and fled.