Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer by The invaders are Coming Page B
Authors: The invaders are Coming
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passed through, and a haze of cigarette smoke rose
in the room, sucked upward by the ventilators. Telephones buzzed sharply; at
some of the desks men were handling two and three calls at a time, speaking in
rapid, hushed voices. For all the activity there was an unnatural hush over
the place; a bank of teletypes clattered along one wall, and a dozen
unit-dispatchers were speaking into sound-dampened microphones.
Everywhere
was a flurry of clerks, division heads, scribes, all so feverishly intent on
what they were doing that they nearly tripped over her as she came down the
corridor.
Across
the dispatching room she could see a huge wall map, with red flags mounted for
each DIA field unit alerted —the focal point for all the activity—and Libby
felt a sudden sick, uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was an air
of tension here, a sense of suppressed urgency that suddenly recalled to her
the confused, puzzling nature of the morning TV-cast she had seen. A powder keg smoldering, with the DIA working full strength to keep
it under control, working so silendy and smoothly
that no one else sensed it, while the whole country coasted along in its usual
indifferent, video-hypnotized, confident, imperturbably stable way.
She
had a mental picture, suddenly, of a calm ripple-free ocean surface, with
monsters locked in some sort of leviathan death struggle just beneath the
surface.
The
door to McEwen's office was wide open. Julian Bahr sat at the director's desk,
the cone of a dictating machine in one hand. Frank Carmine was nearby. A dozen
other people were there, shoving reports under Bahr's nose, leaning over to
exchange a word or phrase, nodding sharply and hurrying off. He saw her, and
said something almost audible and unpleasant to Carmine, and went back to his
dictating. His voice cut sharply across the murmur in the room, incisive, impatient, commanding .
She did not see McEwen, and the sick feeling
grew stronger. Here was the center of the sense of urgency and tension that
pervaded the place. Bahr's face was tense and angry, his eyes bloodshot, his
mouth a hard, confident line as he dictated. With her trained psychologist's
eye Libby could see the danger signals like foot-tall handwriting on the wall.
The controls, the adjustments she had tried so hard to build into his
personality were beginning to snap, one by one.
"Julian, I want to
talk to you."
He slammed the microphone
down and pulled her to the side of the room. "Damn it, Libby, I can't see
you now. Go on down below and I'll be down when I can break away."
"We have an
appointment now."
"Yes, I know. In an hour."
"You're lying. You're
stalling me, and you know it."
His scowl deepened.
"So I'm lying. I told you I'm busy."
"I
know you're busy. So am I. That's why I've got to talk to you today. Now."
"Look,"
he said, "I've got a Condition C problem to handle, and a new job to get
under control. I don't have time for your . . .
interview."
The
deliberate vulgar connotation on the last word made her face flush red, but she
refused to be driven off with insults. "All right," she said,
"then I'll drop your case right now. I'll have another worker assigned to
you tomorrow, if you like. A man, in case you don't want any
more . . . interviews . . . with women."
Bahr
stared at her, his face heavy with anger. She knew she had struck his Achilles'
heel—his savage, almost pathological fear of the DEPCO mind invaders, the one
beast in his Twenty-First Century jungle he did not know how to cope with. He
glared at her, his hand still clutching her arm. Then he nodded to the anteroom
that still had his name on the door, and pushed her roughly inside. He kicked
the door shut and turned on her. "All right, what do you want?"
"Julian, what's going on here? Where's
Mac?"
Bahr
told her. It was like a slap in the face. "We're keeping it out of the
newscasts until we have things under better control. Of course we notified the
key government people."
"But
. . . dead."
in the room, sucked upward by the ventilators. Telephones buzzed sharply; at
some of the desks men were handling two and three calls at a time, speaking in
rapid, hushed voices. For all the activity there was an unnatural hush over
the place; a bank of teletypes clattered along one wall, and a dozen
unit-dispatchers were speaking into sound-dampened microphones.
Everywhere
was a flurry of clerks, division heads, scribes, all so feverishly intent on
what they were doing that they nearly tripped over her as she came down the
corridor.
Across
the dispatching room she could see a huge wall map, with red flags mounted for
each DIA field unit alerted —the focal point for all the activity—and Libby
felt a sudden sick, uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was an air
of tension here, a sense of suppressed urgency that suddenly recalled to her
the confused, puzzling nature of the morning TV-cast she had seen. A powder keg smoldering, with the DIA working full strength to keep
it under control, working so silendy and smoothly
that no one else sensed it, while the whole country coasted along in its usual
indifferent, video-hypnotized, confident, imperturbably stable way.
She
had a mental picture, suddenly, of a calm ripple-free ocean surface, with
monsters locked in some sort of leviathan death struggle just beneath the
surface.
The
door to McEwen's office was wide open. Julian Bahr sat at the director's desk,
the cone of a dictating machine in one hand. Frank Carmine was nearby. A dozen
other people were there, shoving reports under Bahr's nose, leaning over to
exchange a word or phrase, nodding sharply and hurrying off. He saw her, and
said something almost audible and unpleasant to Carmine, and went back to his
dictating. His voice cut sharply across the murmur in the room, incisive, impatient, commanding .
She did not see McEwen, and the sick feeling
grew stronger. Here was the center of the sense of urgency and tension that
pervaded the place. Bahr's face was tense and angry, his eyes bloodshot, his
mouth a hard, confident line as he dictated. With her trained psychologist's
eye Libby could see the danger signals like foot-tall handwriting on the wall.
The controls, the adjustments she had tried so hard to build into his
personality were beginning to snap, one by one.
"Julian, I want to
talk to you."
He slammed the microphone
down and pulled her to the side of the room. "Damn it, Libby, I can't see
you now. Go on down below and I'll be down when I can break away."
"We have an
appointment now."
"Yes, I know. In an hour."
"You're lying. You're
stalling me, and you know it."
His scowl deepened.
"So I'm lying. I told you I'm busy."
"I
know you're busy. So am I. That's why I've got to talk to you today. Now."
"Look,"
he said, "I've got a Condition C problem to handle, and a new job to get
under control. I don't have time for your . . .
interview."
The
deliberate vulgar connotation on the last word made her face flush red, but she
refused to be driven off with insults. "All right," she said,
"then I'll drop your case right now. I'll have another worker assigned to
you tomorrow, if you like. A man, in case you don't want any
more . . . interviews . . . with women."
Bahr
stared at her, his face heavy with anger. She knew she had struck his Achilles'
heel—his savage, almost pathological fear of the DEPCO mind invaders, the one
beast in his Twenty-First Century jungle he did not know how to cope with. He
glared at her, his hand still clutching her arm. Then he nodded to the anteroom
that still had his name on the door, and pushed her roughly inside. He kicked
the door shut and turned on her. "All right, what do you want?"
"Julian, what's going on here? Where's
Mac?"
Bahr
told her. It was like a slap in the face. "We're keeping it out of the
newscasts until we have things under better control. Of course we notified the
key government people."
"But
. . . dead."
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