Collected Short Fiction, page 142
Carefully, Kevin picked out the point of the jaw and followed through with a right from the shoulder. The alien’s head twisted sharply. He went over backwards, limp.
“Man!” Kevin said prayerfully, turning to O’Leary. “I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Do you make a practice of rescuing poor suckers who jump into horrible predicaments feet first?”
“Only you, son,” O’Leary said, reaching through the panel to unlock the door. “But I take back what I said about amateurs—you showed us something that I don’t even believe now I’m seeing it.” He knelt beside the alien and tied its wrists tightly behind its back. He began inspecting its body.
“How the deuce did you know where I was going? Nobody followed me.”
“Somebody phoned headquarters,” O’Leary said absently, his face twisted as he stared at the alien’s unhuman torso. A patch of skin was broken over what would have been the abdomen on a man; something black and metallic stuck through.
Kevin rubbed his fist. “Maybe that’s part of a speaking aid.”
“We got to the lobby just as you started up in the elevator. We waited until the arrow stopped and started after you. Fourteen flights of stairs delayed us a little.”
“Somebody phoned you?” Kevin picked up belatedly. “Who?”
“Me,” said an out-of-breath voice from the doorway.
It was Sara, panting. “Those stairs,” she said, leaning bonelessly against the doorjamb. “I’ll never be the same.”
In two quick steps Kevin was beside her, his arm around her, holding her up. “I didn’t want you mixed up in this. What do you mean by coming into the city by yourself!”
“I had to,” she said, her dark eyes studying his face. “I wasn’t sure the F.B.I. would cooperate. They thought I was crazy until I mentioned your name—then they acted sure of it.”
Kevin smiled warily. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’d hate to find out.”
“If that means what I think it does,” she said, wide-eyed, “you’ll have to speak plainer, Mr. Gregg.”
“Later. If we get through this alive.”
“What do you mean by that, Gregg?” O’Leary asked him sharply.
“These are aliens, man. They came from another planet, probably another star. They aren’t playing games. They didn’t flood the world with Silencers just for fun. They want Earth. If we want to keep it, we’d better prepare ourselves for a long, bloody struggle.”
“Don’t let your imagination run wild,” O’Leary said skeptically. “We’re onto them now. They won’t have a chance now we’re watching for them.”
“Maybe,” Kevin conceded, “but I think the old free-and-easy days are over. From now on every new invention introduced into our society will have to pass inspection, every person will be suspect until he proves himself human. . . . I wonder why he was so anxious to tell someone that they were discovered. There must have been a human on the other end or a mechanical device for translating sound into thought—”
O’Leary had spun to the phone. A staccato report to Brooks used up two minutes while Kevin stooped for the bell-muzzled gun, looked at it curiously, and stuck it away. O’Leary picked up the alien who had called himself Fleming and tossed him over one shoulder. In the waiting room, the other two agents had wrapped up the remains of the other alien in a carpet. It had bled red.
They crossed to the elevator. Kevin moved the chair that had propped open the door. The door slid closed. The car lurched downward.
Nobody said anything. They listened to the little noises of people breathing and scuffling, the clatter and clang of the elevator. . . .
Then the silence enveloped them.
To Kevin it was like falling into a deep, dark grave, like sinking down through still, black depths that set nerve endings screaming for something to hear and knotted muscles for defense against the unseen.
The door opened noiselessly. The narrow lobby was beyond. Kevin stepped out and pantomimed a search through his clothing for a Silencer. He found his, clicked it; it didn’t help. Even when he threw it away, the silence remained behind. The F.B.I. men looked helpless and bewildered.
O’Leary tossed his alien burden to one of his men and gestured a question. Kevin shrugged, had a thought, pulled a sheaf of copy paper out of his coat pocket, and scribbled a note: Don’t know reason; don’t like it. Our headquarters: Central Research Lab. Will want to see aliens. We might learn something.
O’Leary took the pencil and scribbled back: Nuts. We’re going to Ped. Building. You, too. Later maybe you can call in friends.
May not have time, Kevin wrote furiously. Don’t think you realize seriousness.
O’Leary pulled him away impatiently. He led the way toward the door.
The man Kevin had clubbed was still on the lobby floor. Kevin still didn’t care.
O’Leary motioned his men into a dark sedan with the two aliens, the living and the dead. He slid behind the wheel of Kevin’s old convertible, took the keys, started the motor, and headed north on Grand. The silence was complete.
Kevin propped his sheaf of paper on the dashboard and wrote: Silence is total. Let’s get out of here! He tried to put the paper on the windshield in front of O’Leary’s eyes, but the F.B.I. man brushed it away.
Sara was tugging at Kevin’s arm. She pointed out the right rear window. A shiny balloon was descending gently over the city. Only it didn’t look quite right for a balloon. It looked too big, too solid. Finally it slid behind the buildings to the southeast and out of sight.
Kevin decided that it would land in the middle of the baseball park—if it was as big as he thought it was. . . .
(Taped eyewitness account)
We was sitting in the stands still—just a few of us account of the silence business. The Blues was behind three to one, but we was cheering because we had won the first game and it was the last of the ninth, a man on first, a man on third, and one out. . . .
It didn’t make much noise, but all at once that was gone. There was a big, shiny balloon coming down from the sky. We saw it in the stands first and pointed. Then the pitcher looked up. For a minute there nobody moved; the players just watched the thing come down on ’em.
Then they scattered. All but the second baseman escaped. Didn’t make much difference though, because I was sliding down a pillar in back. Nobody else came out of the park. . . .
(Comment)
This was the third sphere to land, apparently. Two others had already come down: one at Municipal Airport, the other at Penn Valley Park. Later, four more landed: Mt. Washington Cemetery, Swope Park, Victory Hills Golf Course, and Milburn Country Club.
It is estimated that each ship carried one thousand soldiers. A total of seven thousand in all, then, was assigned the task of conquering the city. With their advantages, weapons, and the aid of aliens already within the city, this was not particularly foolhardy. Anything more would have been impractical. The world situation demanded at least three million soldiers, and the logistics of interstellar travel made that a fantastic task. . . .
O’Leary had seen the shiny sphere, but he didn’t stop. They had traveled a block already. It was only one block farther north to the Federal Building.
They didn’t make it.
Ahead of them, the black sedan swerved suddenly. It climbed over the curb and smashed silently through a store front before it stopped.
Kevin jerked on the convertible’s emergency brake. O’Leary turned toward him angrily. Kevin pointed up the street. Over the hill came a smooth, shiny thing like a stream-lined tank. On top of it was a trumpet-shaped thing revolving slowly. It reminded Kevin of the advertising cars that had been equipped with loudspeakers to annoy the residential districts.
On second thought, it reminded him of the gun with a barrel like a blunderbuss.
O’Leary shifted into reverse, released the brake, and gunned the car swiftly around the corner, and swung it back into the street headed south.
Five blocks away he pulled it to a stop. He looked questioningly at Kevin.
Evacuate city, Kevin wrote hastily. Only hope.
How? O’Leary asked with shoulders and eyebrows.
Kevin shrugged. Every man for himself, he wrote. No time for organization. No communications. Organize resistance outside. Here we haven’t got chance.
Sara had been reading over his shoulder. She grabbed the pencil and wrote: Skywriting?
Good, Kevin scribbled. O’Leary pointed to Kevin and Sara, jerked his thumb south, and got out of the car. Kevin frowned questioningly: Where?
O’Leary tugged at his ears and pointed north. He trotted in that direction, his automatic in his hand, his head weaving cautiously like a hunter.
Good luck! Kevin framed with his lips as he slid into the driver’s seat. He put the car in gear and let out the clutch. Sara moved over close to him.
People were streaming into the streets now. The stores and restaurants and hotels were emptying. The people stood on the sidewalks and stared at the sky. Far to the south, a silvery balloon was descending over Swope Park. It looked like something a child had lost.
People looked bewildered and afraid. Then panic struck. Some of them turned and ran crazily in all directions, aimlessly. Two men started a fight. Another grabbed the front of a girl’s dress and ripped it away viciously.
At Fourteenth and Grand the car was doing forty. It was the best Kevin could do even by ignoring the stoplights. People were getting in cars now, filled with a sense of catastrophe. Kevin waved them south. The streets began to clear.
At Fourteenth he turned. It was a narrow one-way street, and he scraped fenders, silently, with a car speeding the wrong way. At Baltimore the street widened to four lanes. Kevin hit fifty. Five blocks later he reached the Trafficway and turned south again.
He was hitting sixty-five when he reached the viaduct. The Institute was only minutes away. Then he saw the sphere looming over the hill of Penn Valley Park.
Seconds later, a gleaming tankthing with a loudspeaker revolving on top came around the corner. . . .
Panic spreads in mysterious ways. Even without speech, people were streaming south over the viaduct, up the hill, on foot, in cars. . . . Those walking and running toppled as if a giant scythe had cut their feet from under them. The orderly lanes of cars scattered like drops of water in smoking grease. They mowed bloody paths before they crashed into one another or a lamppost or a house.
And it was all silent, unreal somehow. They died in pantomime.
Kevin stood on the brake and spun the wheel madly. The car rocked over on two wheels. Silently. The thick stench of burning rubber drifted into the car. Sara was thrown violently against him.
The car hesitated, straightened, and they were headed north again. They were on the wrong side of the viaduct, dodging cars. Kevin twisted the car into an approachway and threaded it around tight turns and through narrow streets onto Southwest Boulevard.
As he turned under the railroad bridge at Twenty-Fourth, he felt a hammering blow against his head. Then it was gone.
The traffic was light. So far there was no sign of the aliens on this side of the city. But the silence was just as impenetrable.
They turned north on Seventh Street Trafficway. When they reached the top of the hill, Kevin turned left and sped east on Thirty-Ninth. Two minutes later they pulled up in front of the Institute.
Two trucks, piled high with equipment and stores, pulled away. Beside the driver in the cab of each one sat a man with a submachine gun. In the back were three men with rifles.
Five trucks were still being loaded. Pryor had his back toward them. He was gesturing wildly at two lab workers. They were doing their best to get a crate over the tailgate of the truck without dropping it. Pryor impatiently stepped in and shoved. It slid over and in.
Kevin and Sara ran up to the truck. Pryor turned. Strapped to his chest was something resembling a television picture tube. It glared at them whitely. Pryor’s bandaged fingers moved on a keyboard beside the tube, like an accordion bass. Black letters printed themselves across the tube: Never mind what happened. We’re evacuating. How’s it in town?
Kevin looked grim. He made a gesture for a sphere, indicated it dropping, imitated the movement of a tank with something revolving overhead, and people toppling over. He pointed to his eye and then to Pryor questioningly: Have you seen them?
It was like a horrible game of charades. Not funny—desperate.
Pryor was good at it. No, hut had report. Where are they?
Kevin swung a baseball bat, made like an airplane, and pretended he was an Indian scout staring out over the valley—the statue on the hill over Penn Valley Park. He shrugged to indicate there might be more.
Pryor looked around at the Institute as if he would like to pack it up entire and take it along. He turned back, shrugged helplessly, and tapped out: Okay. Let’s get out of here before they catch up with us.
They climbed over the tailboard, Kevin hoisting Sara and then Pryor. Their truck was the last. They jerked away from the curb. For a moment Pryor stood at the railing and stared back wistfully. Then he turned and dug out two rifles and a submachine gun.
Kevin appropriated the submachine gun. He had used one before, and it took an experienced hand. It pulled up sharply and to the right.
They wound west on Fortieth until they hit Rainbow Boulevard. The traffic was heavy there. Several wrecks had almost blocked the lanes; cars were lined up for miles. The people walking along the sidewalk were making better time.
The truck pushed its way across the street, shoving a car helplessly out of the line. Some of the pedestrians pleaded mutely for places in the truck. A few of them held up children.
Sara reached for a two-year-old girl, but Pryor pulled her back. His chubby face was drawn and tight as he punched out: No room. Head west. Get out of the city. Keep moving until you drop.
He stood there, staring grimly down at them, one hand clutching the side of the truck, the other arm cradling the rifle. The pedestrians moved back and started on.
As the truck bulled across the street, a gang of men ran toward them—eight or nine of them, purposefully, organized. Kevin grimaced and fired a warning burst over their heads, feeling the gun jerk silently in his hands, get hot. He brought the muzzle down to cover them. Sullenly, they fell back.
A block past Rainbow, they turned south to Forty-Third, where the traffic was surprisingly light. They headed west easily until they reached Mission Road, turned south again, reached U.S. 50, and turned right once more. The sun was straight ahead of them, beaming brilliantly as though nothing had happened.
The silence was unbroken.
Pryor was leaning gray-faced against the side of the truck. Kevin indicated the sphere, and then clasped his hands questioningly over his ears: The whole world?
Without changing expression, Pryor tapped out: Impossible. Then he turned and stared gloomily over the tailgate once more.
It was a rout. Pure and simple. Without even half-trying the aliens had won the first battle and maybe the whole war. The silence had done it. Without sound, communication was impractical. Defense could not be coordinated. Instead of a well-organized city, it was a hysterical mass of individuals, each seeking his own salvation.
Kevin touched his pocket, drew out the blunderbuss pistol, and presented it to Pryor. Hugh’s face lit up like a child who had just been given a new toy.
The houses had thinned out along the edges of the highway. The traffic wasn’t bad; they were making a good twenty-five miles per hour.
But they had lost the protective camouflage of trees and houses. Kevin felt exposed. He scanned the sky, shading toward violet in the east now, but there were no silver balloons. The truck swayed and jolted; Kevin put an arm around Sara to steady her. She let herself sink back against him wearily.
Something went “Shhhh!”—long, drawn out. They were born, explosively, into the world of sound: the rumble of the truck, the long roar of traffic, the backfire of a motorcycle, the wail of a child, the scream of a jet flying low. . . .
Pryor clawed his way over the piled crates and hammered on the cab of the truck. “Pull over. On the shoulder. Stop here!” Five minutes later they had located a dirt side road that let the truck climb the low hill to the right.
The highway cut through below, a crowded ribbon as far as they could see, four lanes, all heading west away from the haunted city. There was no visible indication where the zone of silence, the hemisphere of death, began, but it was there, a poisonous, intangible curtain.
Pryor had no time to look at it. He was organizing, and in spite of his mad scurry order was being created out of confusion. “Break out the radio! Got to get in touch. Worldwide, I know, but some of smaller places should be unsilenced: army bases, air fields, towns. . . . Kevin—command the defense. Set up roadblock below. Get ’em off the road—maybe the weight station there. Ear test for everybody. Trustworthy men, recruit. Incompetents and children send west. When that’s running smooth, mount guard—hills, the rest. Use rifles and pistols until we can round up some artillery.
“Sara—welfare. Chiefly food and lost children right now. Get the women organized. Well, what are you two waiting for—my blessing?
“Haven’t you got that transmitter set up yet . . .?”
The headlights stared down through the night at the brightness of the highway where the other lights converged. Out of caution, Kevin sat fifty feet away. He listened to the gentle throb of the car motor. It was an inefficient method of generating electricity—the gasoline truck was due again within the hour—but it would do until something more permanent could be arranged.
He leaned back gently against the parapet of earth and stones, careful not to disturb the five-inch bazooka propped to cover the patch of highway just this side of the darkness. But the highway was empty. The last, pitiful stragglers had come through two hours ago. There had been nothing since except the waiting and the imagining how it was in there.
Kevin shivered and lit a cigarette.
“Cold?” Rocco asked.
