The Flying Eyes (15 page)

Radioactivity? Linc tried to absorb the vast array of information the Eye was feeding him, and to bring up questions that were to the point, but it was difficult. He wasn't quite himself, quite his own.

“Then you didn't crash here by accident?” he finally asked.

“Of course not. Why should we have an accident? We chose this place and sank our ship into the coolness of the earth, always to be near this place. We wanted the dark of the ground to protect us. Your gravity is too intense. We can barely move on your earth. We are too large, and accustomed to far less gravity. It is difficult. Thus to save our energy, we hit on the method of sending our sensory-visual organs about. This requires little energy, whereas if we tried to move ourselves, we would exhaust your meager, artificial supply within hours.

“The horrors you have perpetrated on our defenseless eyes shall not soon be forgotten. But we had to persist in spite of them. We need another—bomb, I think you called it. We need radioactivity. The natural radiation of your planet is enough to keep us alive, but we need freedom to move, freedom to live comfortably.”

“And that's why you sent Hendricks to blow the reactor?” Linc understood now.

“We have searched the minds of countless men for the ones who have the secret of the bombs. He, alone, had it here. But we failed in the new situation and he didn't complete his mission. We want this place—this reactor—to be free to feed us, and the bombs free to feed us. We must have more food.”

“This searching of minds—is this what caused those people to return brainless?”

“I suppose it is. We drained the knowledge from them, wiped them clean for what we needed. It is unfortunate that they were changed, but they will grow again.”

“They're all dead!” Linc shot back, hatred replacing his docility.

The whisper voice was still, and there was a feeling of shock, followed quickly by a sense that it was, after all, too bad, but necessary.

“Radioactivity kills us,” Linc thought on. “You eat it—but it kills us. Just being in the hole with you killed all of those people.”

“I see.” The whisper was hesitant. “Then I take it you would be opposed to testing all of your bombs at once—to letting us have a huge quantity of food in reserve?”

“You're damn right we'd be opposed. We couldn't do it. It would ruin our world.”

“For you, yes, but not, of course, for us.”

“And we don't care about you, so that's an easy decision.”

“Too quick a decision. You are overlooking our power when you stand here, dwarfed before me, and say you do not care that this pitiful remnant of a great race is lacking comfort.”

“I'm forgetting nothing.”

“No, I see you aren't,” the Eye whispered. “I see in your mind an anger. I do not appreciate threats against my people. Therefore I will counter your threat with another. If we do not have our way, then we will spread ourselves about, and if we die, millions of you will die, too. It will be a death struggle between two races, and we shall win it. We will cover great distances and take millions of you captive. We will sear the minds of all of you! There will be none of you left to run this world. You are cocky people, we have seen that. But your cockiness will shrivel before our hypnotic power, and you will all become cringing dead men. All like the ones we released from the hole—mindless idiots!”

Linc's swiftly thought threat had backfired. If the Eyes weren't given their radiation, then they would cast themselves world-wide and do to the minds of millions what they had done to Wes. And there was no way to prevent them, not when they could teleport pieces of themselves, shrink and grow at will, rejoin shattered parts of their bodies.

They needed no physical strength—the power of their mentality was enough to conquer the earth. The natural radiation of the planet was enough to keep them alive, to keep them conscious; and consciousness was all they needed to sear out the minds of every man, woman and child on earth. In any such struggle, they would win.

Yet there was hope. There were only nine of them, after all.

“That is a false hope,” came his answer. “You are thinking—nine Zines, eighteen Eyes. Why do you presume it must be Eyes? All the atoms of a body are one—all cells are one, belonging to one controlling mind. We could send a hand to capture, just as well as an eye. It is not the organ, but the brain behind it that hypnotizes. Therefore, why not separate cells?”

Linc stood mute and stunned. Separate cells? That would mean millions of hypnotizing agents—millions exploding out of the hole all at once to saturate the earth and capture the minds of every living human being. Millions of cells controlled by each monster. No one could escape that—not a mind or a soul anywhere. The monsters would decompose their bodies, keeping only the brain, and each separate cell would become an agent of hypnotic destruction. In the end, the cells would return to the monsters, rejoin them as the Eyes had done, and the monsters would be whole again.

“In our world-wide search, somewhere we will find the men who control the bombs,” the Eye continued, “and with them, we will bring down a rain of radioactivity on your nation, on your world, and feed ourselves.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Linc demanded. “If we do as you ask, it will kill us; if we refuse, you will kill us. You're leaving us no choice. It's useless for us even to talk.”

“Are not nine of us greater than millions of you? Are we not more important? To me, we are.”

“Then you've decided and I can't do any more good here.”

“Perhaps you can. Perhaps we can compromise for the present. For I must think of our future. The time of reproduction—of splitting ourselves into fours—will soon arrive, and I must think of our regeneration. Our new, divided selves will require food, too. Therefore, I am willing to compromise for the present.”

The Eye was smirking with its victory and Linc knew that the compromise was no concession to him or the human race, just a delay against the inevitable day of destruction. But he would accept the delay.

“Give us a bomb within three days, before we lose patience with this subsistence feeding entirely. Then a week later, give us another, and another a week after that, and so on. This is a good plan and a good compromise.”

“But it isn't!” Linc objected. “It would be a slower annihilation for us, but still annihilation. We couldn't keep that up for very long without killing ourselves. The expense alone—”

“I see you picturing yourselves as slaves to us. That is of no matter to me. You are slaves to us already. As for the danger to your people, you must work that out among yourselves. This is a compromise, and I am bending a great deal to offer it. You will have to accept. You have no other choice.”

Linc was caught between the two impossible choices. He had nothing to say or to think. He was done.

“Good,” the Eye answered his unspoken words. “You have realized your position. Now we will accomplish something. We will quit this communication and you will return to your people and arrange for the first bomb. Within three days, remember. And again, two days after that. It will be beautiful to return to full energy. Maybe then we can even overcome this terrible gravity and find our place in the greatness we used to possess. Your earth will do as our home. We can become used to its crowdedness.”

Immediately as the words whispered across his brain, the contact broke, and Linc was himself again, alone beside the lab, staring into the watery-blue of the giant Eye. The Eye was blank and alien, all contact gone. It swayed, then bobbed up, hitting him with the breeze of its wake. It zoomed away toward the woods, leaving him gazing stupidly after it, like the insignificant thing it believed him to be.

He had a report to make—a long report—he thought, as he went doggedly back to Iverson.

So the end of the world had come, and he wondered if it wouldn't actually be better to give them what they wanted—a big bang that shook the globe and killed everyone at once—than to drag it out and perish inch by inch in the fall-out from the monsters' food?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The meeting in Iverson's office was an echo of the previous ones. Iverson, Stanley and Collins at first listened to his report eagerly, then slowly fell into despondency. When Linc concluded, not even Collins was gloating over the fact that his bombing plan was not only acceptable, but demanded by the Eyes themselves.

“We're lost, aren't we?” Stanley murmured, the discipline and fight gone out of him. No one answered, and he continued, listing points for his own clarification. “If we give them the radiation, it will eventually kill us all. Certainly it will when they have reproduced, dividing into fours. Do you realize that it means thirty-six of them the first time alone? They'll want more radiation—thirty-six need more than nine. The next time there will be one hundred and forty-four, and we'll surely be drowned in the fall-out.”

“Nevertheless, we have to do it,” Iverson said. “We have to commit racial suicide, and within three days, because if we don't, they'll do it for us. I can't stand to think of them separating and sending their cells out. The horror alone would be too much for a normal mind to tolerate. If they do it, there won't be a sane or sensible person left in the world within a week. Or we'll all go fast when they find the right men and blow up the bomb stockpiles. We're lost, all right. The whole earth is lost to man and animal. It belongs to the Zines from now on.”

Despite their previous opposition to him, Linc felt the need to encourage them. Yet he could find no encouragement in the threats. The Zines had hemmed them in, and there was nothing to do but surrender up the earth to the greater power and greater horror of the monsters from space.

“Unless they're bluffing,” Collins interjected, “unless they read your mind and are bluffing, and the bombing will kill them, after all.”

“How?” Linc asked. “If they can separate their cells and bring them back together again, they can't be killed by an explosion. They heal themselves. We've all seen it. Explode them, and they'll simply gather in their atomized particles and fuse them together again.”

“But maybe the bomb would entomb them in the hole, and—”

“You can't entomb them! Not when they can teleport.” Linc stood, worn out. “If there was a way to weaken them, to weaken them to the point where they couldn't use their mental powers to full advantage, we'd have a chance. But that's out, too. There's enough radiation on earth itself to keep them alive and able without our artificial help. We may as well face it. We're going to have to give them their bomb in three days, and then another and another, and that's all there is to it.”

As the stark truth settled over the room, he said brief good-byes and left. He had fought and lost. He wanted no more of this struggling for a nonexistent answer. Stanley and Collins didn't need him, they had made that plain before. They didn't like him or need him, and he let resentment take him and lead him home.

Ichabod received him joyously, and he stooped to pat the little dog's head, then set out his dinner. The dog ate like a small wolf, and Linc remembered the way Wes had joked about it, and he said the same joking words aloud in the kitchen, just to fill the silence.

He cooked dinner for himself, then sat despondently in the living room. For the first time in his life he was completely unsure. He had always envisioned himself as invincible, and certainly his past record supported that self-image. Now, suddenly, he was defeated. He was a small man, invincible in small crises; but bring on a big one and he was through.

Two hours passed and the day waned and Ichabod awoke from his nap. His feet clicked on the wood, were silent on the carpet, and then he was there before Linc, one paw raised and brushing Linc's knee, a high whine in his nose, and his mouth full of rubber rat.

Linc grinned despite his lethargy. “You want me to throw it, old boy?” he asked the spotted dog.

Ichabod immediately dropped the rat, wet and forlorn, on the carpet. Linc picked it up, squeezed it to produce the artificial noise Ichabod dearly loved, and heaved it into the dining room. The dog tore away after it, skidding on the waxed floor. He snuffled it around a bit, then brought it back. Linc repeated the game, once, twice, five times, until Ichabod's fat stomach panted for breath.

“Enough, friend,” Linc told him. “You've got to watch your heart. You're too fat.”

He straightened, realizing what he was doing. In the deadly silence of the house, in the loneliness, he was talking to the dog as Wes had talked to him, treating Ichabod as someone willing to listen and share. He started to reproach himself, then said, “What the hell,” and patted his lap as Wes had always done to coax the dog into it. Ichabod jumped up, turned around and sat down. Linc stroked the hard, springy hair. The smell of the dog was strong, but not unpleasant.

“Whatever you are, I think I'm beginning to understand. You're automatic companion and mind-eraser combined, aren't you?”

Ichabod swiveled his head about and licked Linc's chin.

“Maybe I've missed a lot, ignoring you. But then, you didn't offer much either. It was always and only Wes.”

The dark, dog eyes stared into his, partly puzzled, partly sad, like all dog eyes. “I don't blame you for being confused, little dog. I guess you never had such problems thrust upon you. But, you see, I'm in a blind alley, and I haven't found a way out.”

The phone bell erupted into the quiet, and Ichabod sat bolt upright. “Pay no attention,” Linc quieted him. “We're not going to answer it. Let them consider us evacuated, or dead. Tomorrow we're going to be evacuated. I have enough power of my own left to get both of us out safely. And, by heaven, we're not going to stay here and be irradiated to death.”

His voice covered the jangling of the phone, and then it stopped and he sat back, his hands on the dog's body. Ichabod was warm and the steady rhythm of his breathing was comforting. Linc cast his doubts aside and accepted friendship where he found it.

During the next hour, the phone rang eight times, and there was one knock on the door. It wasn't late, yet outside it was dark with the early twilight of autumn. Linc didn't put on any lights. Let everyone think him gone. Tomorrow he would be.

When he dozed in the chair with Ichabod, the dog left him to stretch out more comfortably on the carpet. The clock striking eight woke him. No sooner had the last chime faded than another pounding came at his door. After a short wait, a key fitted into the lock, clicked, and the door opened. The lights snapped on, and Kelly stood there, looking anxious.

“For heaven's sake, you're home,” she said. “I thought you'd left the dog all alone from the way he was barking.”

“No. We've been keeping each other company.”

“And not answering phones.”

“Were you the one who called?” he asked.

“I called twice. It was time for Ichabod's dinner, and I wanted to be sure you were here to feed him.”

“We're a fine pair. The world is coming apart around us, and all we're concerned about is a dog.”

“I intend to stay concerned. Ichabod belonged to Wes—I intend to be concerned as long as Ichabod lives.”

“If you're concerned about anything else, you've come to the wrong place.” As he looked at her, the old guilt came back to stifle him.

“I've come to the only place I have,” Kelly said. “To the only person I have left—or care one damn about. I heard about your experience today.”

“How did you hear? I imagined it would be top-secret.”

“Dr. Iverson called me. He's been trying to reach you.”

“I suspected as much when the phone wouldn't stop ringing. I have no further business with him.”

“He wants you back on the team. He said that whether or not anything was accomplished, he'd like to have you there—that he'd feel more secure with you behind him.” Kelly slipped out of her coat and switched on more lights. “It's too dark and morbid in here.”

“You may as well use them all. Before long there won't be any electricity. There won't be any more anything.”

She stopped in the middle of a motion, and studied him. Her green eyes were soft and concerned. There was something different about her, although Linc couldn't exactly pin-point it. All the teasing had gone out of her voice, the flirting from her eyes; she was suddenly more woman than girl—and, he could have sworn, sincere for the first time since he'd known her.

She came toward him slowly, and he swung away. He couldn't face it—not the touch, nor the embrace she obviously intended.

“Don't push me off again,” she pleaded. “If we're all either of us have left, why can't we be together? Is it still because you don't trust me?”

Linc shrugged.

“You can trust me now, Linc. In the last few days, I've done a lifetime of growing—growing up, and growing wiser. I've come to sense, to know, myself and you. I realize it sounds trite at this moment, but I love you, Linc. I love you and need you—not as a protector, but as a part of myself.”

Linc still avoided direct contact with her.

“You can't deny that you've changed either,” she continued. “Those hairs on your coat are dog hairs. You've been holding Ichabod. That tells me a lot. You've come to need, just like everybody else needs. You need to be loved now, and now I can give it to you.”

She was saying that the change in him had made it possible for her to find affection where she hadn't before. Could that be true?

“Before, you always had to be the one to give. You wanted to wait on me, to order me. By caring for the little things, you thought you could demand the bigger things. I couldn't face that.”

“But that's not true at all,” he protested. “I catered to you simply because I knew no other way; I had no other way. I wasn't Wes, who could ply you with poetry and gentleness.”

Kelly shook her head, wonderingly. “I never saw it that way. I never understood.”

“It doesn't matter now.” He tried to put an end to the mutual confession. “All that is done.”

“It is not! If we've both changed and become new human beings, then don't deny these new beings a chance. Linc, the guilt is past. What we did is done, and keeping apart will never rectify it. You still have work to do. Despite what you're feeling now, you're the only one who has a prayer of solving this terrible problem. And you can't do it if you're torn, and denying yourself the things you need. Admit them, and then get on with your work.”

“I have no work.”

“You're simply discouraged. Don't you see, Linc, if there is any hope left in the world, that hope is you. You are the only man to make contact with the Eyes, to ever stand against them and come out alive. No one else can do what you can do. You know things no one else knows. You've experienced things they've only heard secondhand. Yes, and if it comes to it, no one else can even go down swinging as well as you.”

He stared at her, absorbing what she said and weighing it. Something stirred in him in answer to her, because she was making such sense. He wanted to express it, but all that came forth was, “You have changed, Kelly. Astoundingly.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you.” She sat down beside him. He didn't shy away. Her hand covered his, and then her arms were about him, and he was holding her closely and tightly. His sense of guilt ebbed in the embrace. He had paid the debt.

She murmured into his ear,” I think we're worthy of each other now. We've grown up, and I had a terrible lot of it to do.”

“And I,” he answered. “I've discovered my own weaknesses, finally, and surprisingly enough, it hasn't made me vulnerable.”

He kissed her, then drew her still closer. All that he had wanted a few weeks before was suddenly his, born out of horror and guilt and despair, but his. And all the sweeter because of it.

“I don't ever want to move again,” he said to her.

“No, Linc. We can have tonight. But tomorrow I must give you back to Iverson. Promise that you'll go?”