The Sex Life of the Gods

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Russian?" Brice asked, looking at Sam Morgan.

  The dark complected Fed pulled the mangled cigar from his mouth andpointed it toward the twisted wreckage. On the far side, Cartwell andDickson were looking it over.

  "Why not?" Morgan asked.

  "It seems outlandish, somehow."

  Morgan grinned, his peg-like teeth flashing. "You small town cops aregood. I won't take that from you. But you look at everything from alocal viewpoint. In our business, you broaden, you might say.

  "Look at the facts, Nolan. The Defense boys spotted the thing up north.Radar locked on it and gave it a speed of over two thousand miles per.So it crashes and we find no wings, no tail assembly ... and I have thehunch that the damned thing ran on nuclear power."

  "Atomic?" Nolan whispered, amazed. While the Federal cop talked aboutnuclear power and fantastic speeds, all Brice could think of was thewatch he'd found at the scene. How the hell could an artist learn topilot a thing like that in a mere thirteen months, and what the hell wasbehind it all. "You mean, atomic power?"

  Morgan nodded. "See that funnel shaped gismo over there, with the roundball-like affair?" He was pointing to what was probably the tail of theship, at least it was not the section that had absorbed the smash intothe ground.

  Nolan nodded.

  "That's a nuclear reactor," Sam went on. "Uncle Sam doesn't haveanything in the air with that kind of power. I think we're testing a fewengines, but nothing flying yet."

  "Then it is Russian?"

  "That's my guess. No other country would build it. Oh, Great Britaincould, but if it was one of theirs, they would have plastered the redand blue targets on it. Offhand, it looks to me like a glorified versionof the old U-2 thing, only on their side."

  Brice didn't answer. He stared at the wreckage as though it were somesort of demon, while a million thoughts burst in his brain. Nick Dansonwas in this? He flew it? Where did he get it? How did he get it? Was itRussian? Was Nick a Russian spy?

  He tried to cover the amazement on his face by lighting a cigarette."How come it didn't develop into a pint sized Hiroshima, if it hasatomic power in it?"

  Morgan grinned at him, as though he was a kid. "I said it was powered byatomic energy, not atomic bombs. There's a kind of difference in..."

  "Hey, Sam! C'mere!"

  Both of the men turned to look across the twisted mass of wreckage towhere Cartwell and Dickson were standing. The blond Fed was holding up apiece of the wreckage and his face glowed with excitement that he didn'ttry to cover.

  "C'mon, Nolan," Sam grinned. "Let's go see what my buddy dug up ... I'llbet its a Russian manufacturer's trade mark."

  They skirted the wreck and trotted up to where Cartwell stood with thepiece of metal. "Russian, huh?" asked Sam.

  "Russian, hell," Cartwell snorted. "It looks like a cross betweenChinese and Arabic."

  Sam took the piece and looked at it, the cigar clamped belligerently inhis jaws. After a tense moment, he grunted noncommittally and passed thething to Nolan Brice.

  He knew nothing of Russian, Chinese or Arabic, but he knew what Chinesecharacters looked like. The imprinted marks on the metal bore a certainresemblance to the Chinese language, but yet were not the same. Itconsisted of strange marks that were like nothing Brice had ever seenbefore.

  "There are similar markings on the control panel," Dickson said into thesilence.

  "Crap," Sam Morgan snorted. "I say Russian. How about you, partner?"

  Cartwell furled his blond brows. "I think I'd rather let an expert lookthis piece over before I make any kind of guess as to where that wreckflew from." He turned to Nolan. "Where can we find an expert, Brice?"

  "Everett College would be the only place I know of."

  "Okay, we'll give them a try. Where's Lieutenant Peters?"

  Morgan jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the other side of theclearing. "Over there," he said, "dressing down one of his WeekendWarriors."

  "Sam. How about going over and remind him to keep any characters off thesite. I have a horror of having the news boys scoop us on this."

  Sam nodded and took off to talk with the Army. Dickson looked atCartwell.

  "Anything for me?" he asked.

  "No. Just continue with your investigators. You can make thearrangements about having this thing hauled down to Everett, but checkwith me before you do. Okay?"

  Dickson nodded.

  "C'mon, Brice," Cartwell said. "Let's get Morgan and find out what thecollege professors can tell us about this screwy thing."

  They wrapped the piece of metal in Cartwell's jacket and the three ofthem headed through the forest toward the road in the valley.

  * * * * *

  Professor Nichols was a wisp of a man who peered at them through small,bright eyes nearly hidden in fleshy folds. Although his body was aboutthe shortest Brice had ever seen on a man, the brain beneath his crop ofwhite hair had made him a giant. A linguist all his life, ProfessorNichols spoke a dozen languages fluently, in addition to reading andwriting them. Brice knew him by reputation and grinned at him as he cameinto the empty Dean's office.

  "Gentlemen?" He favored them with a smile. "I'm Nichols. Doctor Bendtolzsaid you wanted to speak with me."

  Brice introduced himself and the Federal men and, after a round ofhandshaking, Cartwell handed the chunk of metal to the professor.

  "We'd like to know about the writing, Professor," Sam put in.

  Nichols examined the etching on the metal for some time before he lookedup. His small eyes searched their faces in turn, then he smiled thinlyas though witnessing a very bad gag.

  "Are you gentlemen playing some sort of joke?" he asked.

  "The Government doesn't pay us to play jokes," Cartwell informed himcryptically. "Do you know the language?"

  Professor Nichols shook his head. "I know every spoken language in theworld, and I know many of the dead languages at least by sight. I don'tknow this one."

  "You're serious?"

  The old man nodded. "This must be some sort of jest on me. There is nolanguage on Earth, dead or alive, that matches this."

  "We aren't joking, Professor," Nolan said seriously.

  "Then, my friend, someone must be playing a joke on you. No linguist canidentify this language. I'll stake my reputation on that. Where did youget this?"

  Cartwell smiled. "I'm sorry, professor, but we cannot disclose thatinformation. We'll also have to ask you to forget about it. Governmentbusiness, you know."

  "Yes, of course. Is there anything else? I have a class in threeminutes..."

  "No, that's all. Thank you, Professor Nichols."

  "You're welcome. Good day, gentlemen."

  As the door closed behind him, a thick silence fell over the three men.Cartwell looked out the window and pulled at his lower lip with a bluntthumb and forefinger; Nolan sat on the edge of a desk, looking at thestrange writing as an ethnologist might stare at the bones of themissing link.

  "What now?" Sam asked, softly. "Call in a Martian to get his opinion?"

  "It's not funny, Sam."

  "Don't I know it," Sam shot back. "We've got some kind of tiger by thetail in this case ... a tiger bigger than the Kremlin, and I'm wonderinghow this will all sound in a report to the capital."

  Cartwell snorted and ran a hand through his blond hair. "I'll let youwrite the report, Sam."

  "You go to hell. I like my job and I don't want to get booted outbecause of a science fiction twist on an otherwise normalinvestigation."

  "What's the next move?" Nolan asked, trying to ignore the sinkingfeeling in his stomach.

  Cartwell shrugged. "Go back to the wreck, I guess and try to figure outsomething."

  Sam suddenly slammed his fist on the table and several textbooks danced."John," he exploded. "You _know_ what this means, don't you? If theprofessor's right, and this gibberish on this chunk of metal _isn't_ anEarth language, then we got problems! You know what we got up there? Wegot a
Flying Saucer! A space ship!"

  "Oh, my God, Sam cut it out! I don't believe in the damned things, Irefuse to."

  Sam snickered. "It looks to me as though you haven't any choice in thematter. It's like refusing to believe in a Ford V-8; it don't make anydifference whether you believe it or not, it's there."

  "Jesus," Cartwell said softly.

  "And that isn't the payoff. We didn't find a body in the wreckage.Unless that ship traveled by remote control, it had a pilot who iswandering around the country right now. I can see it now. A woundedlittle green man running around trying to hitch a ride back to Mars.It'd be funny if it wasn't so damned serious."

  Cartwell nodded at his partner. "We'd better get back up there to thesite. Maybe the air search or the rescue squads picked something up.Coming, Brice?"

  Nolan forced a grin. "With little green men running around?" Then hebecame serious. "I'll be up a little later. I have something to do downhere."

  Morgan snorted as they headed for the door. "See if you can locate aBuck Rogers ray gun. We might need it."

  They went back to their cars and Nolan Brice wedged himself behind thewheel but he didn't start the engine. He sat there, instead, watchingthe Government men drive off down the street, his mind whirling with amillion jangling thoughts that tore through him viciously. Flyingsaucers, Martians, little green men! The whole damned thing wasimpossible, ridiculous...

  But true. A man just couldn't sit down and say "I refuse to believe inlightning." It didn't make sense. You had to believe what your mind toldyou ... and his mind was telling him wild things.

  It all fit. Hell, it fit with a perfection that was absolutelyfantastic, but crazy enough to be the truth. Nick Danson, commercialartist, disappeared thirteen months ago and every police agency in thecountry can't locate him. It was as if the earth had opened andswallowed him; but it hadn't been the earth, it had been the sky. _They_had done it ... the Martians, or whatever the hell they were.

  Why? Why steal a Terran?

  To replace him? To send an alien being down to take the place of theTerran they had stolen. That took care of the confusion the watch hadrepresented. For awhile it had looked as though Nick had piloted thatspace ship, but now Nolan knew better. It wasn't Nick. It was an alien!

  Beth!

  Had an alien, posing as Nick, located Beth and was now engaged in usingher to help in whatever they had come here to do? How many other MissingPersons cases were wrapped up in this thing? How many aliens werewalking the streets of earth right now? To hell with that, Nolan, heroared at himself. The important thing is Beth. You've got to find outabout this thing and stop it, before something happens to her.

  He started the car, slammed it into gear and gunned it out onto thestreet, the tires screaming a protest...