The Flying Eyes (17 page)

“We have no need of them. Out of all of them, we found only one who was of help to us. Three others had glimmerings of help, but not enough. It is strange that your kind lives so separately. We expected all to know what one knows.”

The Eye was referring to Hendricks—then to Myers, Bennet and Wes. “We don't have your power of mind,” Linc said. He wanted to get away now. He was exhausted from the long pretense, the long struggle to keep secrets from them.

“You may go.” The Eye read his wish. “Prepare our way. And do it well!”

He retreated from the hole with shivers running down his back where they continued to watch him out of sight. He had carried it off, but he wasn't sure he could relax. This contact had held no shadows or swirls; it had been clean and easy, so he had no way of knowing when it was broken.

As he reached his car, he shrugged his worries off. He had to consider the contact broken, for he needed to think out the plan. What would come of it, he didn't know, but his courage, absent for so many days, was back, and along with it fresh hope and confidence.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They left the flat vans parked at the edge of the woods and walked the road together, carrying the great stretchers. They walked the road, clad in the awkwardness of radiation suits, and they were all together—all but Linc. He was apart from them through the necessity of keeping the plan to himself.

These Guardsmen who had volunteered to join Kellroy knew only that they were to transport the Zines to the Lab, and that the creatures would be fed a sumptuous dose of radioactivity. That was all they knew, and therefore all the Eyes could pick from their brains.

Linc knew the truth, and he set in play the emotions he had found effective in jamming the discovery that he was lying. For now the plan was set and he had more to cover than before.

The men halted at the start of the ramp. Kellroy swung to Linc. “Do we go down?”

“We have to,” Linc answered. “They can't take a step. But don't let that give you any ideas. They don't need physical strength.”

“And I don't need to be told.” Kellroy was defensive. Linc paid no attention. He had specifically asked for Kellroy, wanting the man's bravery and level head. “I still don't understand the whys of it,” Kellroy complained. “Why should we cater to them?”

“To save ourselves,” Linc told him. It was what Kellroy had to believe. “Come on, Lieutenant, order your men down.”

The branches were nearly bare about them, the color gone with the wind and morning rain, and these steps down, Linc knew, would demand all the courage these soldiers had in their bodies.

As the order was passed along, and a stiffening was visible among the men, Linc took the first stride onto the ramp.

He knew his way too well. Soon the light would fade and there would be darkness, and that in turn would bloom into the violet glow of the Eyes' radiation. Terror breathed with him as he walked, remembering the other time. The men behind him mustn't see the terror. He had to set the example because he had been here before.

The darkness waxed thick and a stench came to meet him. The stench of dirty human bodies and the special stench of the creatures themselves. It hadn't been so strong before. But the sodden air, heavy from the rain, had crept this way and held it inside the earth.

At the point where the glow should have sprung up to light the way, only a vague dimness met him. And it grew better as he progressed. “The men with lights,” he shouted, “turn them on.”

Light shafted out from behind him like horizontal pillars. He reached the bottom of the ramp and swung to the right.

In the cavern, he stepped carefully among the people who squatted there, staring at nothing, knowing nothing, vomiting and sighing. Sick, mindless and dying, they screamed at him with their silence to help, to revenge, to retch himself, but he picked his way through them, ignoring them. He had to set the example.

Against the far wall was the semicircle of limbed whales he had witnessed before. Different from before was their faintness of glow. They were weak from lack of radiation, but not dying, he reminded himself. Never dying, these creatures, for earth alone could support them, even if uncomfortably. The light of the lamps hit them suddenly and they were horrors.

Giant, bloated things, black and shiny, they watched him come with their now little eyes. Pig eyes—eight inches across, but still pig eyes in the bulk of their bodies.

The men stopped and he couldn't blame them, but couldn't let them spread fear to each other either. “Let's work!” he shouted. Nothing could go wrong now, or earth was doomed under the promised assault of hypnotizing cells.

A boy grunted close to Kellroy. His head drew back, his mouth opened, and a cry of anguish echoed through the cavern. He fled, and his footsteps were loud as he made for fresh air.

Kellroy was quick to take control. “Get those stretchers spread out and start helping the Zines on. Move!”

The men didn't respond, caught between panic and the need to obey. Linc and Kellroy acted together, grabbing the nearest stretcher and spreading it open by the semicircle of bloated things that waited and watched with their empty, alien eyes. As they did so, the other men spread theirs, too.

Together with three others, Linc and Kellroy reached for one of the creatures. Linc remembered the feel of the Eye he had pushed into the cage, and his hands didn't want to touch the shiny black skin, but he forced them forward. He made contact, and the skin was cold—not slimy, but cold and hard, almost a shell. It was evolved to absorb and withstand the burn of radiation. It would have to be thick and protecting.

They heaved to lift the great form and barely raised it from the ground. As they shifted it to the stretcher, the appendages that were arms and legs flapped against them, and even with the strain of the weight, gooseflesh erupted on Linc's skin. When the Zine was settled, Linc wanted to wipe his hands and shudder. He didn't dare. Instead, he said inside his mind, “Are you comfortable?”

“Fairly,” the creature whispered back. “Get on with this. If your plan doesn't work, and soon, we will demand a bomb.”

“Right away.” Linc mentally bowed and scraped.

He supervised the loading of the others and when it was done, a new problem arose. There was no path through the squatting people, and carrying the weight, the men couldn't pick their way.

“Would you clear a path for us?” Linc asked the shape that housed a watery-blue Eye he thought he recognized.

“Walk over them,” was the answer.

He took the chance of angering the thing, and countered, “My men won't do that. Neither will I.”

He got no answer, but almost immediately the crowded people rose and shuffled off to the sides. The ones who were too far gone into idiocy to obey themselves were pulled aside by the others. The path was clear.

“Thank you,” Linc said.

“It is of no importance. Get on with your promise.”

The men bent down, six to a stretcher, and hefted the Zines into the air, walking in a dirgelike rhythm toward the ramp. The people along the sides of the cavern paid them no attention. Their captors were leaving, but they didn't know. They were free, but they didn't care. They had nothing left to know or to care with.

Bearing the weight of the stretchers was exhausting, but they finally emerged into the sun. In the brightness of day, the creatures looked even more grotesque. Like huge, shiny seals, only lacking their sleekness and grace, but blubbery and bloated, they rode on their stretchers, blinking about with their reinstated eyes. They were obscenities in the forest, for they were not of earth, and it was impossible to believe that they were even of God.

One by one the men loaded them, three to a van, then climbed inside the cabs and jammed into the available cars to avoid riding with the things.

Linc found the blue Eyes he knew and clambered into the van. He had to ride with the creatures. He had no choice but to ride along and reassure them, thinking his lie, so they wouldn't come looking for him mentally and unnoticed and catch him thinking the truth.

The ride was interrupted only once, when going over a bump a creature felt discomfort, and emitted a sound that was hair-raising. It was half-roar, half-yelping scream.

The lab, coming into sight, was a great relief. Linc was already worn from the mental battle, but primed himself for his greatest effort, and jumped down.

“You know the room we have prepared for them,” he told Kellroy. “See that they're placed there gently. I'll find Iverson and get their feast ready.”

“Will it be soon?” a whisper asked.

“Very soon. Don't tax yourselves.”

He left quickly and strode the halls to Iverson's office. The old man looked at him warily, wanting to ask, but not daring.

“We'll have to chance it,” Linc answered his unspoken question. “I can't tell if they're tuned to me or not, but we'll have to chance it. Have you got the piece of hot stuff?”

“All ready.” Iverson bobbed his head. “It's in that shielded box over there. Now be sure you don't stay one second in the room with it, or you're as good as dead. The lead plating is ready. The men are ready. All that remains is for you to say the word.”

“I'll say it soon enough. Are you all straight on your part?”

“Straight and eager. It's an unfamiliar feeling. I thought it was gone forever. You'll have your G's when you need them.”

“They're all in place,” Kellroy called as he stuck his head in.

Linc went to the corner and picked up the lead box by its carrying handle. “Here we go,” he breathed.

The men he passed on his way to the artificial gravity room where the creatures were housed wore strained faces and clenched fists. The tension was high and tight about him, and it rasped in his own voice as he whispered to them to get set.

He entered the artificial gravity room, keeping all thought of its formal name from his mind. It was full now—full of the shiny, nakedly glowing black bodies with their Eyes.

“I've brought it,” he said mentally.

“Only that?” one of them whispered back.

“It's enough. You'll see.”

He set the box close to the bulk of one of the Zines. “Don't touch it yet,” he warned. “It's not safe for me, and if you value me at all, you'll let me get clear.”

“Get clear? What are your instructions then?”

“Wait until I leave the room and shut the door. Then one of you may open the box. There will be a great flux of radioactivity and you will have your feast. When you're through with this box—have used it up—call, and I'll bring another.”

“Very well,” came the thought. And Linc caught a mental image of hunger, and salivation, and gluttony.

“We've shielded this room from the outside so none of your radiation can escape and harm us.” He began the biggest part of the lie, clouding it over, concentrating on dual thoughts—what he was communicating and joy and relief at being near safety. “By the same token, none of the radiation will be lost. You'll have it all for yourselves. For added protection, we're going to erect more shielding, so if you hear pounding, you'll know what it is. We didn't have time to complete the work this morning.”

His lie was accepted, for all he received in response was a hurry-up to get out so the meal could begin.

“When will you close the door so we may safely start?” he was asked, almost in unison.

“Right now. Forgive me for being so slow.”

He retreated from the room and closed the door, checking its seal and shielding. The radiation counter they had placed in the room immediately began to sputter. The box was open and the feast was beginning. He smiled. They would gobble it up quickly because they were hungry and thought more was forthcoming. He had carried the mental part off perfectly. Now there only remained the physical.

The men were already moving up to the walls with heavy shields of lead and fastening them into place. In an hour's time the room would be secure against radiation. None would get out—and more importantly, none would get in. Not even the background radiation of the earth would penetrate these walls. The Zines would be cut off entirely from every source of food.

“Good,” he called to the men. “Work fast. Make it quick.”

As the radiation counter grew less active, indicating that the radiation in the room was dwindling fast, he hurried to Iverson's little control room. The old man was seated before his panel, waiting for the signal.

“Now?” he shouted.

“Now!” Linc cried. “Let them have all five G's!”

The lights blinked, and somewhere buried in the wall machinery started to whir. Inside the room, the gravities piled on top of each other, riveting the Zines to the floor. One, two, three, four, five! And now, Linc figured, it would require effort for them even to breath. With the energy they'd be expending they would soon use up the effects of their meal and be helpless. Then they would start down the road to starvation, unable to protest, unable to defend themselves. And, he prayed, unable to separate their cells and put through their threatened attack.

He caught Iverson's hand in a hopeful clasp, and went back to help with the lead plates. He lifted one of the pieces into place and was just about to secure it when a cry broke out at his left. He dropped the plate, startled, and looked for its source.

The sight froze him. Sticking through the wall, grasping one of the workmen by the throat, was a bloated arm, one of the shiny, black arms of the Zines. It choked the man into unconsciousness and dropped him with a thud upon the floor. Beside it, an Eye popped through the wall, small and ugly, and expanding. It grew to fill its section of the corridor, and although it wasn't focused on him, Linc could feel its hypnotic power spreading out.

It was fantastic, and the beginning of his worst fears. What the Eyes had done before, teleporting themselves over the earth, was nothing compared to this! They had never gone through solid matter. But this proved that they could, and that they hadn't been bluffing in any of their threats.

They were here, in the corridor, and his work crew was being drained as men crumpled to the floor, crushed like dolls by the arms, or shuffled away, hypnotized. And the next step? He shuddered as he realized that the next step would be the appearance of the separate cells, in retaliation and revenge.

His only chance, and earth's only chance, lay in the hope that the Zines wouldn't realize the full consequences of this situation in time; that they would fight this battle as they had started it, with arms and flying Eyes, and not proceed to the separation into cells. If they did that, then the world was lost.

More arms were coming through. Unattached arms that ended abruptly at the neck, including shoulder muscles for strength. He had to move. He had to do something to protect his men. Where did the Zines get their strength? The gravity should have stopped them.

He grabbed up a length of metal piping and started down the row, banging away at the appendages, making every blow tell. Something grabbed him from behind and pulled him off his feet. It was an arm. He clawed at it, but its grip was beyond his strength. He cried for help, but none came. He was choking in its grasp.