I did not get to sleep at once. I could hear the rumble of the city above us and I kept imagining it in the state Des Moines was already in.
The air-raid alarm woke me. I stumbled into my clothes as the blowers sighed off, then the intercom bawled in the Old Man’s voice, “Anti-gas and anti-radiation procedures! Seal everything—all hands gather in the conference hall. Move!”
Being a field agent I was a supernumerary with no local duties. I shuffled down the tunnel from the living quarters to the Offices. The Old Man was in the big hall, looking grim. I wanted to ask him what was up, but there was a mixed dozen of clerks, agents, stenos, and such there before me and I decided not to. After a bit the Old Man sent me out to get the door tally from the guard on watch. The Old Man called the roll himself and presently it was clear that every living person listed on the door tally was now inside the hall, from old Miss Haines, the Old Man’s private secretary, down to the steward of the staff lounge—except the door guard on watch and Jarvis. The tally had to be right; we keep track of who goes in and out a good bit more carefully than a bank keeps track of money.
I was sent out again for the door guard. It took a call back to the Old Man to persuade him it was all right for him to leave his post; he then threw the bolt switch and followed me. When we got back Jarvis was there, being attended by Graves and one of his lab men. He was on his feet and wrapped in a hospital robe, conscious apparently, but he seemed dopey.
When I saw him I began to have some notion of what it was all about. The Old Man did not leave us in doubt. He was facing the assembled staff and keeping his distance; now he drew his gun. “One of the invading parasites is loose among us,” he said. “To some of you that means something—too much. To the rest of you I will have to explain, as the safety of all of us—and of our whole race—depends this moment on complete cooperation and utter obedience.” He went on to explain briefly but with ugly exactness what a parasite was, what the situation was. “In other words,” he concluded, “the parasite is almost certainly here in this room. One of us looks human but is actually an automaton, moving at the will of our deadliest and most dangerous enemy.”
There was a murmur from the staff. People stole glances at each other. Some tried to draw away. A moment before we had been a team, picked for temperament compatibility; we were now a mob, each suspicious of the other. I felt it myself and found myself edging away from the man closest to me—Ronald the lounge steward, it was; I had known him for years.
Graves cleared his throat. “Chief,” he started in, “I want you to understand that I took every reasonable—”
“Stow it. I don’t want excuses. Bring Jarvis out in front. Take his robe off.”
Graves shut up and he and his assistant complied. Jarvis did not seem to mind; he seemed only partly aware of his surroundings. There was a nasty blue welt across his left cheekbone and temple, but that was not the cause; I did not hit him that hard. Graves must have drugged him.
“Turn him around,” the Old Man ordered. Jarvis let himself be turned; there was the mark of the slug, a red rash on the shoulders and neck. “You can all see,” the Old Man went on, “where the thing rode him.” There had been some whispers and one embarrassed giggle when Jarvis had been stripped; now there was a dead hush.
“Now,” said the Old Man, “we are going to get that slug! Furthermore, we are going to capture it alive. That warning is for you eager boys with itchy trigger fingers. You have all seen where a parasite rides on a man. I’m warning you; if the parasite gets burned, I’ll burn the man who did it. If you have to shoot the host to catch it, shoot low. Come here!” He pointed his gun at me.
I started toward him; he halted me halfway between the crowd and himself. “Graves! Take Jarvis out of the way. Sit him down behind me. No, leave his robe off,” Jarvis was led across the room, still docile, and Graves and his helper rejoined the group. The Old Man turned his attention back to me. “Take out your gun. Drop it on the floor.”
The Old Man’s gun was pointed at my belly button; I was very careful how I drew mine. I slid it some six feet away from me. “Take off your clothes—all of them.”
I am no shrinking violet, but that is an awkward order to carry out. The Old Man’s gun overcame my inhibitions.
It did not help any to have some of the younger girls giggling at me as I got down to the buff. One of them said, not too sotto voce, “Not bad!” and another replied, “Knobby, I’d say.”
I blushed like a bride.
After he looked me over the Old Man told me to pick up my gun and stand beside him. “Back me up,” he ordered, “and keep an eye on the door. You! Dotty Something-or-other—you’re next.”
Dotty was a girl from the clerical pool. She had no gun, of course, and she had evidently been in bed when the alarm sounded; she was dressed in a floor length negligee. She stepped forward, stopped, but did nothing more.
The Old Man waved his gun at her. “Come on—get ’em off! Don’t take all night.”
“You really mean it?” she said incredulously.
“Move!”
She started—almost jumped. “Well!” she said, “no need to take a person’s head off.” She bit her lower lip and then slowly unfastened the clasp at her waist. “I ought to get a bonus for this,” she said defiantly, then threw the robe from her all in one motion.
Whereupon she ruined her buildup by posing for an instant—not long, but you couldn’t miss it. I concede that she had something to display, although I was in no mood to appreciate it.
“Over against the wall,” the Old Man said savagely. “Renfrew!”
I don’t know whether the Old Man alternated men and women on purpose or not, but it was a good idea, as it kept resistance to a minimum. Oh, shucks, I do know—the Old Man never did anything by accident. After my ordeal the men were businesslike though some were obviously embarrassed. As to the women, some giggled and some blushed, but none of them objected too much. I would have found it interesting if the circumstances had been different. As it was, we were all bound to learn things about each other that we had not known. For instance there was a girl whom we used to call “Chesty”—never mind. In twenty minutes or so there were more square yards of gooseflesh exposed than I had ever seen before and the pile of guns on the floor looked like an arsenal.
When Mary’s turn came, she set a good example by taking off her clothes quickly and in a completely unprovocative manner—the Old Man should have called her first, instead of that Dotty baggage. Bare, Mary made nothing of it, and wore her skin with quiet dignity. But what I saw did nothing to cool down my feelings about her.
Mary had added considerably to the pile of hardware. I decided she just plain liked guns. Me, I’ve never found use for more than one.
Finally we were all mother naked and quite evidently free of parasites, except the Old Man himself and his secretary, Miss Haines. I think he was a bit in awe of Miss Haines; she was older than he and inclined to boss him. It dawned on me whom it had to be—if the Old Man were right. He could have been wrong; for all we knew the parasite might be on a ceiling girder, waiting to drop on someone’s neck.
The Old Man looked distressed and poked about in the pile of clothing with his cane. He knew that there was nothing in it—or perhaps be was really making sure. Finally he looked up at his secretary. “Miss Haines—if you please. You are next.”
I thought to myself. Brother, this time you are going to have to use force.
She did not move. She stood there, facing him down, a statue of offended virginity. I could see that he was about to take action, so I moved closer to him and said, out of the corner of my mouth, “Boss—how about yourself? Take ’em off.”
He jerked his head around and looked startled. “I mean it,” I said. “It’s you or she. It might be either. Get out of those duds.”
The Old Man can relax to the inevitable. He said, “Have her stripped. And I’m next.” He began fumbling at his zippers, looking grim.
I told Mar
y to take a couple of the women and peel Miss Haines. When I turned back the Old Man had his trousers at half mast—and Miss Haines chose to make a break for it.
The Old Man was between me and her and I couldn’t get in a clean shot—and every other agent in the place was disarmed! Again, I don’t think it was accident; the Old Man did not trust them not to shoot when the parasite was discovered. He wanted that slug, alive.
She was out the door and running down the passage by the time I could get organized. I could have winged her in the passageway but I was inhibited by two things—first, I could not shift gears emotionally that fast. I mean to say she was to me still old Lady Haines, the spinster secretary to the boss, the one who bawled me out for poor grammar in my reports. In the second place, if she was carrying a parasite I did not want to risk burning it, not after what we had been told. I am not the world’s best shot, anyhow.
She ducked into a room; I came up to it and again I hesitated—sheer habit; it was the ladies’ room.
But only a moment. I slammed the door open and looked around, gun ready.
Something hit me back of my right ear. It seemed to me that I took a long leisurely time in getting to the floor.
I can give no clear account of the next few moments. In the first place I was out cold, for a time at least. I remember a struggle and some shouts: “Look out!” “Damn her—she’s bitten me!” “Watch your hands! Watch your hands!” Then somebody said more quietly, “Bind her hands and feet, now—careful.” Somebody said, “How about him?” and someone else answered, “Later. He’s not really hurt.”
I was still practically out as they left, but I began to feel a flood of life stirring back into me. I sat up, feeling extreme urgency about something. I got up, staggering a little, and went to the door. I hesitated there, looked out cautiously; nobody was in sight. I stepped out and trotted down the corridor, away from the direction of the conference hall.
I slowed down momentarily at the outer door, then realized with a shock that I was naked and tore on down the hallway toward the men’s wing. There I grabbed the first clothes I could find and pulled them on. I found a pair of shoes much too small for me, but it did not seem to matter.
I ran back toward the exit, fumbled, and found the switch; the door opened.
I thought I had made a clean escape, but somebody shouted, “Sam!” just as I was going out. I did not wait, but plunged on out. At once I had my choice of six doors and then three more beyond the one I picked. The warren we called the “Offices”, being arranged to permit any number of people to come and go without being noticed, was served by a spaghetti-like mess of tunnels. I came up finally inside a subway fruit and bookstall, nodded to the proprietor—who seemed unsurprised—and swung the counter gate up and mingled with the crowd. It was not a route I had used before.
I caught the up-river jet express and got off at the first station. I crossed over to the down-river side, waited around the change window until a man came up who displayed quite a bit of money as he bought his counter. I got on the same train he did and got off when he did. At the first dark spot I rabbit-punched him. Now I had money and was ready to operate. I did not know quite why I had to have money, but I knew that I needed it for what I was about to do.
VII
Language grows, so they say, to describe experience of the race using it. Experience first—language second. How can I tell how I felt?
I saw things around me with a curious double vision, as if I stared at them through rippling water—yet I felt no surprise and no curiosity about this. I moved like a sleepwalker, unaware of what I was about to do—but I was wide-awake, fully aware of who I was, where I was, what my job at the Section had been. There was no amnesia; my full memories were available to me at any moment. And, although I did not know what I was about to do, I was always aware of what I was doing and sure that each act was the necessary, purposeful act at that moment.
They say that post-hypnotic commands work something like that. I don’t know; I am a poor hypnotic subject.
I felt no particular emotion most of the time, except the mild contentment that comes from being at work which needs to be done. That was up on the conscious level—and, I repeat, I was fully awake. Someplace, more levels down than I understand about, I was excruciatingly unhappy, terrified, and filled with guilt—but that was down, ’way down, locked, suppressed; I was hardly aware of it and in no practical way affected by it.
I knew that I had been seen to leave. That shout of “Sam!” had been intended for me; only two persons knew me by that name and the Old Man would have used my right name. So Mary had seen me leave—it was a good thing, I thought, that she had let me find out where her private apartment was. It would be necessary presently to booby-trap it against her next use of it. In the meantime I must get on with work and keep from being picked up.
I was in a warehouse district, moving through it cautiously, all my agent’s training at work to avoid being conspicuous. Shortly I found what seemed to be a satisfactory building; there was a sign: LOFT FOR LEASE—SEE RENTAL AGENT ON GROUND FLOOR. I scouted it thoroughly, noted the address, then doubled back to the nearest Western Union booth two squares behind me. There I sat down at a vacant machine and sent the following message: EXPEDITE TWO CASES TINY TOTS TALKY TALES SAME DISCOUNT CONSIGNED TO JOEL FREEMAN and added the address of the empty loft. I sent it to Roscoe and Dillard, Jobbers and Manufacturers Agents, Des Moines, Iowa.
As I left the booth the sight of one of the Kwikfede chain of all-night restaurants reminded me that I was very hungry, but the reflex cut off at once and I thought no more about it. I returned to the warehouse building, found a dark corner in the rear, and settled quietly back to wait for dawn and business hours.
I must have slept; I have a dim recollection of ever repeating, claustrophobic nightmares.
From daylight until nine o’clock I hung around a hiring hall, studying the notices; it was the one place in the neighborhood where a man of no occupation would not attract attention. At nine o’clock I met the rental agent as he unlocked his office, and leased the loft, paying him a fat squeeze on the side for immediate possession while the paperwork went through on the deal. I went up to the loft, unlocked it, and waited.
About ten-thirty my crates were delivered. I let the teamsters leave; three were too many for me and I was not yet ready in any case. After they were gone, I opened one crate, took out one cell, warmed it, and got it ready. Then I went downstairs, found the rental agent again, and said, “Mr. Greenberg, could you come up for a moment? I want to see about making some changes in the lighting.”
He fussed, but agreed to do so. When we entered the loft I closed the door behind us and led him over to the open crate. “Here,” I said, “if you will just lean over there, you will see what I mean. If I could just—”
I got him around the neck with a grip that cut off his wind, ripped his jacket and shirt up, and, with my free hand, transferred a master from the cell to his bare back, then held him tight for a moment until his struggles stopped. Then I let him up, tucked his shirt back in and dusted him off. When he had recovered his breath, I said, “What news from Des Moines?”
“What do you want to know?” he asked. “How long have you been out?”
I started to explain, but he interrupted me with, “Let’s have a direct conference and not waste time.” I skinned up my shirt; he did the same; and we sat down on the edge of the unopened case, back to back, so that our masters could be in contact. My own mind was merely blank and I have no idea how long the conference went on. I watched a fly droning around a dusty cobweb, seeing it but not thinking about it.
The building superintendent was our next recruit. He was a large Swede and it took both of us to hold him. After that Mr. Greenberg called up the owner of the building and insisted that he simply had to come down and see some horrendous mishap that had occurred to the structure—just what, I don’t know; I was busy with the super, opening and warming several more cells.
/> The owner of the building was a real prize and we all felt quiet satisfaction, including, of course, he himself. He belonged to the Constitution Club, the membership list of which read like the index of Who’s Who in Finance, Government, and Industry. Better still, the club boasted the most famous chef in town; it was an even chance that any given member would be lunching there if he were in the city.
It was pushing noon; we had no time to lose. The super went out to buy suitable clothes and a satchel for me and sent the owner’s chauffeur up to be recruited as he did so. At twelve-thirty we left, the owner and I, in his own car; the satchel contained twelve masters, still in their cells but ready.
The owner signed: J. Hardwick Potter & Guest. One of the flunkies tried to take my bag but I insisted that I needed it to change my shirt before lunch. We fiddled around in the washroom until we had it to ourselves, save for the attendant—whereupon we recruited him and sent him out with a message to the resident manager that a guest had taken ill in the washroom.
After we took care of the manager he obtained a white coat for me and I became another washroom attendant. I had only ten masters left but I knew that the cases would be picked up from the warehouse loft and delivered to the club shortly. The regular attendant and I used up the rest of those I had been able to bring before the lunch hour rush was over. One guest surprised us while we were busy and I had to kill him, as there was no time to save him for recruiting. We stuffed him into the mop closet.
There was a lull after that, as the cases had not yet arrived. Hunger reflex nearly doubled me over, then it dropped off sharply but still persisted; I told the manager, who had me served one of the best lunches I have ever eaten, in his office. The cases arrived just as I was finishing.