William Fitzgerald Jenkins - Operation Terror

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"How?" demanded the chunky man.

Lockley said carefully, "This box is resting on top of the ground.
I've dug down through the sand and found the bottom edge of the metal
sidewall. If it's resting only on dirt, not stone, we ought to be able
to dig out with our hands. I'll start now. You listen."

He began to dig with his hands, first clearing away the sand for a
reasonable space. He felt a certain sardonic interest in what might
happen. He strongly suspected that nothing undesirable would take
place.

It was at least quaint that aliens from outer space should accept a
bottomless metal shell as a suitable prison for animals. It was quaint
that they'd put in a sandy floor. How would they know that such a
thing meant a cage, on earth?

Of course the whole event might have been a test of animal
intelligence. Almost any animal would have tried to burrow out.

Lockley dug. The earth was hard, and its upper part was filled with
tenacious grass roots. Lockley pulled them away. Once he'd gotten
under them, the digging went faster. Presently he was under the metal
side wall. He dug upward. His hand reached open air.

"One of you can spell me now," he reported in a low tone. "It looks
like we'll get away. But we've got to make our plans first. We don't
want to be talking outside the tank, or even when the hole's
fair-sized. For instance, will we want to keep together when we get
outside?"

"Nix!" said the chunky man. "We wanna tell everybody about these
characters. We scatter. If they catch one they don't catch any more.
We couldn't fight any better for bein' together. We better scatter. I
call that settled. I'm scatterin'!"

He crawled to Lockley in the darkness.

"Where you diggin'? OK. I got it. Move aside an' give me room."

"Everybody agrees on that?" asked Lockley.

They did. Lockley was relieved. The chunky man dug busily. There was
only the sound of breathing, and the occasional fall of thrown-out
earth against the metal of the thing that confined them. The chunky
man said briskly, "This dirt digs all right. We just got to make the
hole bigger."

In a little while the chunky man stopped, panting. The tall man said,
"I'll take a shot at it."

There was a breakthrough to the air outside. The atmosphere in the
tank improved. The smell of fresh-dug dirt and cool night air was
refreshing. The moustached man took his turn at digging. Lockley went
at it again. Soon he whispered, "I think it's OK. I'll go ahead. No
talking outside!"

He shook hands all around, whispered "Good luck!" and squirmed through
the opening to the night. Innumerable stars glittered in the sky. They
were reflected on the water of the lake, here very close. Lockley
moved silently. In the blackness just behind him, his eyes had become
adjusted to almost complete darkness. He headed away from the shining
water. He got brushwood between himself and his former companions. He
stood very, very still.

He heard them murmuring together. They were outside. But they had
proposed entirely separate efforts at escape. He went on, relieved. It
happened that the next time he'd see them, circumstances would be
entirely different. But he believed they were competent men.

Guided by the Big Dipper, he moved directly toward the place where
Jill should be waiting for him. By the angle of the Dipper's handle he
knew that it was almost midnight. Jill would surely have known that
nearly the worst had happened. He'd have to find her....

It was two o'clock when he reached the place where Jill had intended
to wait. He showed himself openly. He called quietly. There was no
answer. He called again, and again.

He saw something white. It was a scrap of paper speared on a brushwood
branch which had been stripped of leaves to make the paper show
clearly. Lockley retrieved it and saw markings on it which the
starlight could not help him to read. He went deep into the woods,
found a hollow, and bent low, risking the light of his cigarette
lighter for a swift look at the message.

_"I saw creatures moving around in the camp. They weren't
men. I was afraid they might be hunting me. I've gone to
wait by the car if I can find it."_

She'd written in English, in full confidence that creatures from space
would not be able to read it. Lockley was not so sure, but the message
hadn't been removed. If it had been read, there'd have been an ambush
waiting for him when he found it. So it appeared.

He headed through the night toward the ditched small car.

It seemed a very long way, though he did stop and drink his fill from
a little mountain stream over which a highway bridge had almost been
completed. In the night, though, and with hard going, it was not easy
to estimate how far he'd gone. In fact, he was anxiously debating if
he mightn't have passed the abandoned bulldozer when he came upon the
place where blasting had been going on. Still, it was a very long way
to be negotiated over still-remaining tree stumps and the unfilled
holes from which others had been pulled.

He reached the bulldozer and turned south, and at long last reached
the highway. His car should be no more than a quarter-mile away. He
moved toward it, close to the road's edge. He heard music. It was
faint, but vivid because it was the last sound that anybody would
expect to hear in the hours before dawn in a wilderness deserted by
mankind. He scraped his foot on the roadway. The music stopped
instantly. He said, "Jill?"

He heard her gasp.

"I found where Vale had been," he said steadily. "There was no blood
there. There's no sign that he's been killed. Then I was caught
myself. I was put with three other men who were believed killed but
who are still alive. We escaped. It is within reason to hope that Vale
is unharmed and that he may escape or somehow be rescued."

What he said was partly to make her sure that it was he who appeared
in the darkness. But it was technically true, too. It was within
reason to hope for Vale's ultimate safety. One can always hope,
whatever the odds against the thing hoped for. But Lockley thought
that the odds against Vale's living through the events now in progress
were very great indeed.

Jill stepped out into the starlight.

"I wasn't--sure it was you," she said with difficulty. "I saw the
things, you know, at a distance. At first I thought they were men. So
when I first saw you--dimly--I was afraid."

"I'm sorry I haven't better news," said Lockley.

"It's good news! It's very good news," she insisted as he drew near.
"If they've captured him, he'll make them understand that he's a man,
and that men are intelligent and not just animals, and that they
should be our friends and we theirs."

The girl's voice was resolute. Lockley could imagine that all the time
she'd been waiting, she'd been preparing to deny that even the worst
news was final, until she looked on Vale's dead body itself.

"Do you want to tell me exactly what you found out?" she asked.

"I'll tell you while I work on the car," said Lockley. "We want to get
moving away from here before daybreak."

He went down to the little car, wedged in the saplings it had
splintered and broken. He began to clear it so he could lever it back
on to the highway. He used a broken sapling, and as he worked he told
what had happened, including the three men in the compost pit shell
and the dumping of assorted small wild life specimens into it with
them.

"But they didn't kill you," said Jill insistently, "and they didn't
kill those three, and there were the two others you say got over the
paralysis and went back to the camp. Counting you, that's six men they
had at their mercy that we know weren't harmed. So why should they
have harmed a seventh man?"

Lockley did not answer at once. None of the spared six, he thought,
had put up a fight. Only Vale had exchanged blows with the crew of the
spaceship. Nobody else had seen them.

"That's right, about Vale," he said after a moment in which he had
been busy. "But this doesn't look good!"

He felt under the car. He squeezed himself beneath its front end.
There was a small, fugitive flicker of flame. It went out and he was
silent.

Presently he got to his feet and said evenly, "We're in a fix. One of
the front wheels is turned almost at a right angle to the other. A
king pin is broken. The car couldn't be driven even if I managed to
get it up on the road. We've got to walk. There ought to be soldiers
on the way up to the lake today. If we meet them we'll be all right.
But this is bad luck!"

It happened that he was mistaken on both counts. There were no
soldiers moving into the park, and it was not bad luck that his car
couldn't be driven. If he'd been able to get it on the road and
trundling down the highway, the car would have been wrecked and they
could very well have been killed. But this was for the future to
disclose.

They took nothing from the car because they could not see beyond the
present. They started out doggedly to follow the highway that soldiers
would be likely to follow on the way to the lake. It was not the
shortest way to the world outside the Park. It was considerably longer
than a footpath would have been. But Lockley expected tanks, at least,
against which eccentric unearthly weapons would be useless. So they
headed down the main highway. Lockley was unarmed. They had no food.
He hadn't eaten since the morning before.

When day came--gray and still--and presently the dew upon grass and
tree leaves glittered reflections of the sky, he moved aside into the
woods and found a broken-off branch, out of which by very great effort
he made a club. When he came back, Jill was listening attentively to
the little pocket radio. She turned it off.

"I was hoping for news," she explained determinedly. "The government
knows that there are creatures in the spaceship, and he--" that would
be Vale "--will be trying to make them understand what kind of beings
we are. So there could be friendly communication almost any time. But
there aren't any news broadcasts on the air. I suppose it's too
early."

He agreed, with reservations. They made their way along the dew-wetted
surface of the highway. As the light grew stronger, Lockley glanced
again and again at Jill's face. She looked very tired. He reflected
sadly that she was thinking of Vale. She'd never thought twice about
Lockley. Even now, or especially now, all her thoughts were for Vale.

When sunlight appeared on the peaks around them, he said detachedly,
"You've had no rest for twenty-four hours and I doubt that you've had
anything to eat. Neither have I. If troops come up this highway we'll
hear the engines. I think we'd better get off the highway and try to
rest. And I may be able to find something for us to eat."

There are few wildernesses so desolate as to offer no food at all for
one who knows what to look for. There is usually some sort of berry
available. One kind of acorn is not bad to eat. Shoots of bracken are
not unlike asparagus. There are some spiny wild plants whose leaves,
if plucked young enough, will yield some nourishment and of course
there are mushrooms. Even on stone one can find liverish rock-tripe
which is edible if one dries it to complete dessication before soaking
it again to make a soup or broth.

Before he searched for food, though, Lockley said abruptly, "You said
you saw the creatures and they weren't men. What did they look like?"

"They were a long way away," Jill told him. "I didn't see them
clearly. They're about the size of men but they just aren't men. Far
away as they were, I could tell that!"

Lockley considered. He shrugged and said, "Rest. I'll be back."

He moved away. He was hungry and he kept his eyes in motion, looking
for something to take back to Jill. But his mind struggled to form a
picture of a creature who'd be the size of a man but would be known
not to be a man even at a distance; whose difference from mankind
couldn't be described because seen at such great distance. Presently
he shook his head impatiently and gave all his attention to the search
for food.

He found a patch of berries on a hillside where there was enough earth
for berry bushes, but not for trees. Bears had been at them, but there
were many left.

He filled his hat with them and made his way back to Jill. She had the
pocket radio on again, but at the lowest possible volume. He put the
berry-filled hat down beside her. She held up a warning hand. Speckles
of sunshine trickled down through the foliage and the tree trunks were
spotted with yellow light. They ate the berries as they heard the
news.

A new official news release was out. And now, twelve hours after the
last, wholly reassuring bulletin, there was no longer any pretense
that the thing in Boulder Lake was merely a meteorite.

The pretext that it was a natural object, said the news broadcaster,
resuming, had been abandoned. But reassurance continued. Photographic
planes had been attempting to get a picture of the alien ship as it
floated in the lake. So far no satisfactory image had been secured,
but pictures of wreckage caused by an enormous wave generated in the
lake by the alien spaceship's arrival were sharp and clear. Troops
have been posted in a cordon about the Boulder Lake Park area to
prevent unauthorized persons from swarming in to see earth's visitors
from space. Details of its landing continue to be learned. Workmen
from the construction camp have been questioned, and the two men who
were paralyzed and then released have told their story. So far four
human beings are known to have been seized by the occupants of the
spaceship. One is Vale, an eye-witness to the ship's descent and
landing. The three others went to investigate the gigantic explosion
accompanying the landing in the lake. They have not been seen since.
This, however, does not imply that they are dead. Quite possibly the
invaders--aliens--guests--who have landed on American soil are trying
to learn how to communicate with the American people who are their
hosts.

Lockley watched Jill's face. As she heard the references to Vale, she
went white, but she saw Lockley looking at her and said fiercely,
"They don't know that the visitors didn't kill you and let you and the
other three men escape. Someone ought to tell these broadcasters...."

Lockley did not answer. In his own mind, though, there was the fact
that of the two workmen who'd been paralyzed and released, the three
men in the compost pit shell, and himself, none had seen their
captors. But Vale had.

The broadcaster went on with a fine air of confidence, reporting that
yesterday afternoon a helicopter had flown into the mountains to
examine the landing site in detail since it could not be examined from
a high-flying plane.

Lockley remembered the droning he and the others had heard through the
metal plates of their prison.

The helicopter had suddenly ceased to communicate. It is believed to
have had engine trouble. However, later on a fast jet had attempted a
flight below the extreme altitude of the photographic planes. Its
pilot reported that at fifteen thousand feet he'd suddenly smelled an
appalling odor. Then he was blinded, deafened, and his muscles knotted
in spasms. He was paralyzed. The experience lasted for seconds only.
It was as if he'd flown into a searchlight beam which produced those
sensations and then had flown out of it. He'd instinctively used
evasive maneuvers and got away, but twice before he passed the horizon
there were instantaneous flashes of the paralysis and the pain.
Scientists determined that the report of the men who'd been paralyzed
and released agreed with the report of the pilot. It was assumed that
whatever or whoever had landed in Boulder Lake possessed a beam--it
might as well be called a terror beam because of the effects it
had--of some sort of radiation which produced the paralysis and the
agony. Unless the three men missing from the construction camp had
died of it, however, it was not to be considered a death ray.

The news went on with every appearance of frankness and confidence. It
was natural for strangers on a strange planet to take precautions
against possibly hostile inhabitants of the newly-found world. But
every effort would be exerted to make friendly contact and establish
peaceful communications with the beings from space. Their weapon
appeared to be of limited range and so far not lethal to human beings.
Occasional flashes of its effects had been noted by the troops now
forming a cordon about the Park, but it only produced discomfort, not
paralysis. Nevertheless the troops in question have been moved back.
Meanwhile rocket missiles are being moved to areas where they can
deliver atom bombs on the alien ship if it should prove necessary. But
the government is extremely anxious to make this contact with
extra-terrestrials a friendly one, because contact with a race more
advanced than ourselves could be of inestimable value to us. Therefore
atom bombs will be used only as a last resort. An atom bomb would
destroy aliens and their ship together--and we want the ship. The
public is urged to be calm. If the ship should appear dangerous, it
can and will be smashed.

The news broadcast ended.

Jill said, obviously speaking of Vale, "He'll make them realize that
men aren't like porcupines and rabbits! When they realize that we
humans are intelligent people, everything will be all right!"

Lockley said reluctantly, "There's one thing to remember, though,
Jill. They didn't blindfold the rabbits or the porcupine. They only
blindfolded men."

She stared at him.

"One of the men in the pit with me," said Lockley, "thought they
didn't want us to see them because they were monsters. That's not
likely." He paused. "Maybe they blindfolded us to keep us from finding
out they aren't."

CHAPTER 4

"The evidence," said Lockley as Jill looked at him ashen-faced, "the
evidence is all for monsters. But there was something in that
broadcast that calls for courage, and I want to summon it. We're going
to need it."

"If they aren't monsters," said Jill in a stricken voice, "Then--then
they're men. And we have a cold war with only one country, and they're
the only ones who'd play a deadly trick like this. So if they aren't
monsters, in the ship, they must be men, and they'd kill anybody who
found it out."

"But again," insisted Lockley, "the evidence is still all for
monsters. You've been very loyal and very confident about Vale. But
we're in a fix. Vale would want you in a safe place, and there's
something in that broadcast that doesn't look good."

"What was in the broadcast?"

Lockley said wryly, "Two things. One was there and one wasn't. There
wasn't anything about soldiers marching up to Boulder Lake to welcome
visitors from wherever they come from, and to say politely to them
that as visitors they are our guests and we'd rather they didn't shoot
terror beams or paralysis beams about the landscape. We were more or
less counting on that, you and I. We were expecting soldiers to come
up the highway headed for the lake. But they aren't coming."

Jill, still pale, wrinkled her forehead in thought.

"That's what wasn't in the broadcast," Lockley told her. "This is what
was. The troops have formed a cordon about the Park. They've run into
the terror beam. The broadcast said it was weakened by distance and
only made the soldiers uncomfortable. But they've moved back. You see
the point? They've moved back!"

Jill stared, suddenly understanding.

"But that means--"

"It means," said Lockley, "that the terror beam is pretty much of a
weapon. It has a range up in the miles or tens of miles. We don't know
how to handle it yet. Whoever or whatever arrived in the thing Vale
saw, it or they has or have a weapon our Army can't buck, yet. The
point is that we can't wait to be rescued. We've got to get out of
here on our own feet. Literally. So we forget about highways. From
here on we sneak to safety as best we can. And we've got to put our
whole minds on it."

Jill shook her head as if to drive certain thoughts out of it. Then
she said, "I guess you're right. He would want me to be safe. And if I
can't do anything to help him, at least I can not make him worry. All
right! What does sneaking to safety mean?"

Lockley led her down the highway running from Boulder Lake to the
outside world. They came to a blasted-out cut for the highway to run
through. The road's concrete surface extended to the solid rock on
either side. There was no bare earth to take or hold footprints, and
there was a climbable slope.

"We go up here and take to the woods," said Lockley, "because we're
not as easy to spot in woodland as we'd be on a road. The characters
at the lake will know what roads are. If we figure out how to handle
their terror beam, they'll expect the attack to come by road. So
they'll set up a system to watch the roads. They ought to do it as
soon as possible. So we'll avoid notice by not using the roads. It's
lucky you've got good walking shoes on. That could be the deciding
factor in our staying alive."

He led the way, helping her climb. There would be no sign that they'd
abandoned the highway. In fact, there'd be no sign of their existence
except the small smashed car. Lockley's existence was known, but not
his and Jill's together.

Lockley did not feel comfortable about having deliberately shocked
Jill into paying some attention to her own situation instead of
staying absorbed in the possible or probable fate of Vale. But for
them to get clear was going to call for more than sentimentality on
Jill's part. Lockley couldn't carry the load alone.

There was an invasion in process. It could be, apparently, an invasion
from space, in which case the terror produced would be terror of the
unknown. But Lockley had conceived of the possibility that it might be
an invasion only from the other side of the world. Such an invasion
was thought of by every American at least once every twenty-four
hours. The fears it would arouse would be fears of the all too
thoroughly known.

The whole earth had the jitters because of the apparently inevitable
trial of strength between its two most gigantic powers. Their rivalry
seemed irreconcilable. Most of humanity dreaded their conflict with
appalled resignation because there seemed no way to avoid it. Yet it
was admittedly possible that an all-out war between them might end
with all the world dead, even plants and microbes in the deepest seas.
It was ironic that the most reasonable hope that anybody could have
was that one or the other nation would come upon some weapon so new
and irresistible that it could demand and receive the surrender of the
other without atomic war.

Atom bombs could have done the trick, had only one nation owned them.
But both were now armed so that by treacherous attack either could
almost wipe out the other. There was no way to guard against desperate
and terrible retaliation by survivors of the first attacked country.
It was the certainty of retaliation which kept the actual war a cold
one--a war of provocation and trickery and counter-espionage, but not
of mutual extermination.

But Lockley had suggested--because it was the worst of
possibilities--that America's rival had developed a new weapon which
could win so long as it was not attributed to its user. If the United
States believed itself attacked from space, it would not launch
missiles against men. It would ask help, and help would be given even
by its rival if the invasion were from another planet. Men would
always combine against not-men. But if this were a ship from no
farther than the other side of the earth, and only pretended to be
from an alien world ... America could be conquered because it believed
it was fighting monsters instead of other men.

This was not likely, but it was believable. There was no proof, but in
the nature of things proof would be avoided. And if his idea should
happen to be true, the disaster could be enormously worse than an
invasion from another star. This first landing could be only a test to
make sure that the new weapon was unknown to America and could not be
countered by Americans. The crew of this ship would expect to be
successful or be killed. In a way, if an atom bomb had to be used to
destroy them, they would have succeeded. Because other ships could
land in American cities where they could not be bombed without killing
millions; where they could demand surrender under pain of death. And
get it.

Lockley looked at the sun. He glanced at his watch.

"That would be south," he indicated. "It's the shortest way for us to
get to where you'll be reasonably safe and I can tell what I know to
someone who may use it."

Jill followed obediently. They disappeared into the woods. They could
not be seen from the highway. They could not even be detected from
aloft. When they had gone a mile, Jill made her one and final protest.

"But it can't be that they aren't monsters! They must be!"

"Whatever they are," said Lockley, "I don't want them to lay hands on
you."

They went on. Once, from the edge of a thicket of trees, they saw the
highway below them and to their left. It was empty. It curved out of
sight, swinging to the left again. They moved uphill and down. Now the
going was easy, through woods with very little underbrush and a carpet
of fallen leaves. Again it was a sunlit slope with prickly bushes to
be avoided. And yet again it was boulder-strewn terrain that might be
nearly level but much more often was a hillside.

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