The Puppet Masters

  He opened the door and slid out. “Hey!” I yelled.

  He looked back. “Over that way,” he admitted. I turned the car, not really expecting to find a highway, but finding one, nevertheless, only fifty yards away. The brat had caused me to drive around three sides of a large square.

  If you could call it a highway—there was not an ounce of rubber in the paving. Still, it was a road; I followed it to the west. All in all, I had wasted more than an hour.

  Macon, Missouri seemed normal—much too normal to be reassuring, as Schedule Bare Back obviously had not been heard of here. There were a number of bare backs, but it was a hot day. There were more backs that were covered and any of them might have concealed a slug. I gave serious thought to checking this town, rather than Kansas City, then beating back the way I had come, while I could. Pushing further into country which I knew to be controlled by the masters made me as nervous as a preacher at a stag party; I wanted to run.

  But the Old Man had said “Kansas City”; he would take a dim view of a substitute. Finally I drove the belt around Macon and pulled into a landing flat on the far side. There I queued up for local traffic launching and headed for Kansas City in a mess of farmers’ copters and suchlike local craft. I would have to hold local speeds all across the state, but that was safer than getting into the hot pattern with my transponder identifying my car to every block control station.

  The field was automatically serviced, no attendants, not even at the fuelling line. It seemed probable that I had managed to enter the Missouri traffic pattern without arousing suspicion. True, there was a block control station back in Illinois which might be wondering where I had gone, but that did not matter.

  XVII

  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 bone-shaking 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 burn 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.

  XVIII

  The city did not look right. I tried to discount my own keyed-up state and to see what was actually there—not what I expected to see nor what I was expected to see. Superficially there was nothing wrong, but it did not have the right flavor, as if it were a clumsily directed play. I kept trying to put my finger on it; it kept slipping away.

  Kansas City has many wide neighborhoods made up of family units a century old or more. Time seems to have passed them by; kids roll on lawns and householders sit in the cool of the evening on their front porches, just as their great-grandparents did. If there are bomb shelters around, they do not show. The queer, old, bulky houses, fitted together piece by piece by guildsmen long since dead, have homely charm. Seeing them, one wonders how Kansas City got its gamy reputation; those old neighborhoods feel like an enclave of security, impregnable, untouchable.

  I cruised through, dodging dogs and rubber balls and toddlers who chased after each, and tried to get the feel of the place. It was the slack of the day, time for the first drink, for watering lawns, and for neighborly chatting.

  And so it seemed. Ahead of me I saw a woman bending over a flower bed. She was wearing a sun suit and her back was bare as mine—more so, for I had that wad of cloth stuffed under my jacket. But clearly she was not wearing a master, nor were the two young kids with her. So what could be wrong?

  It was a hot day, hotter even than Washington had been; I began to look for bare shoulders, sun-suited women and men in shorts and sandals. Kansas City, despite its reputation, is in the Bible Belt and feels its puritanical influence. People there do not strip to the weather with the cheerful unanimity of Laguna Beach or Coral Gables. An adult fully covered up is never conspicuous, even on the hottest day.

  So I found people dressed both ways—but the proportions were wrong. Sure, there were plenty of kids dressed for the weather, but in several miles of driving I saw the bare backs of only five adult women and two adult men.

  I should have seen more like five hundred. It was a hot day.

  Cipher it out. While some jackets undoubtedly did not cover masters, by simple proportion well over ninety percent of the population must be possessed.

  This city was not “secured” the way we had secured New Brooklyn; this city was saturated. The masters did not simply hold key points and key officials; the masters were the city.

  I felt a panicky urge to blast off right from the street and streak out of Zone Red at emergency maximum. They knew that I had escaped the toll gate trap; they would be looking for me. I might be the only free man driving a car in the entire city—and they were all around me!

  I fought it down. An agent who gets the wind up is no use to himself or his boss and is not likely to get out of a tight spot. But I had not fully recovered from what it had done to me to be possessed; it was hard to be calm.

  I counted ten, delayed my reactions, and tried to figure the situation. It seemed that I must be wrong; there could not possibly be enough masters available to permit them to saturate a city with a million population. I remembered my own experiences hardly two weeks earlier; I recalled how we picked our recruits and made each new host count. Of course that had been a secondary invasion in which we had depended on shipments, whereas Kansas City almost certainly had had a flying saucer land nearby.

  Still it did not make sense; it would have taken, I felt sure, not one saucer but a dozen or more, to carry enough masters to saturate Kansas City. If there had been that many surely the space stations would have spotted them, radar-tracked their landing orbits.

  Or could it be that they had no trajectories to track? That they simply appeared instead of swooping down like a rocket? Maybe they used that hypothetical old favorite, the “space-time warp”? I did not know what a space-time warp was and I doubted if anyone knew, but it would do to tag a type of landing which could not be spotted by radar. We did not know what the masters were capable of in the way of engineering and it was not safe to judge their limitations by our own.

  But the data I had led to a conclusion which contradicted common logic; therefore I must check before I reported back. One thing seemed sure: if I assumed that the masters had in fact almost saturated this city, then it was evident that they were still keeping up the masquerade. For the time being they were permitting the city to look like a city of free human beings. Perhaps I was not as conspicuous as I feared.

  While I was thinking I had moseyed along another mile or so, going nowhere. Once I found myself heading into the retail district around the Plaza; I swung away; where there are crowds, there are cops. But I skimmed the edge of the district and in so doing passed a public swimming pool. I observed it and filed what I had seen. My mind works by delays and priorities; an item having a low priority is held until the circuits are cleared and ready for it.

  To put it bluntly, I am subject to doubletakes.

  I was several blocks away before I reviewed the swimming pool datum; it had not been much: the gates were locked and it carried a sign—“CLOSED FOR THE SEASON”.

  A swimming pool closed down during the hottest part of the summer? What did it mean? Nothing at all; swimming pools have gone out of business before and will again. On the other hand it was contrary to the logic of economics to close such an enterprise during the season of greatest profit except through utter necessity. The odds against it were long.

  But a swimming pool was the one place where the masquerade could not possibly be maintained. From the viewpoint of humans a closed pool was less conspicuous than a pool unpatronized in hot weather. And I knew that the masters noted and followed the human point of view in their maneuvers—shucks, I had been there!

  Item: a trap at the city’s toll gates; item: too few sun suits; item: a closed swimming pool.

  Conclusion: the slugs were incredibly more numerous than had been dreamed by anyone—including myself who had been possessed by them.

  Corollary: Schedule Counter Blast was based on a mistaken estimate of the enemy and would work as well as hunting rhinoceri with a slingshot.

  Counter argument: what I thought
I saw was physically impossible. I could hear Secretary Martinez’s restrained sarcasm tearing my report to shreds. My guesses referred only to Kansas City and were insufficiently grounded even there. Thank you kindly for your interest but what you need is a long rest and freedom from nervous strain. Now, gentlemen—

  Pfui!

  I had to have something strong enough for the Old Man to convince the President over the reasonable objections of his official advisers—and I had to have it right away. Even with a total disregard of traffic laws I could not clip much off two and a half hours running time back to Washington.

  What could I dig up that would be convincing? Go farther downtown, mingle with crowds, and then tell Martinez that I was sure that almost every man I passed was possessed? How could I prove it? For that matter, how could I myself be certain; I did not have Mary’s special talent. As long as the titans kept up the farce of “business as usual” the tell-tales would be subtle, a superabundance of round shoulders, a paucity of bare ones.

  True, there was the toll gate trap. I had some notion now of how the city had been saturated, granting a large enough supply of slugs. I felt sure that I would encounter another such trap on the way out and that there would be others like it on launching platforms and at every other entrance and exit to the city proper. Every person leaving would be a new agent for the masters; every person entering would be a new slave.

  This I felt sure of without being inclined to test it by visiting a launching platform. I had once set up such a trap in the Constitution Club; no one who entered it had escaped.

  I had noticed a vendo-printer for the Kansas City Star on the last corner I had passed. Now I swung around the block and came back to it, pulled up, and got out. I shoved a dime in the slot and waited for my paper to be printed. It seemed to take unusually long, but that was my own nervousness, I felt that every passer-by was staring at me.