The Invader 2
Keith Laumer
THE SURVIVOR
Chapter ONE
Late-afternoon sunlight slanting through dusty leaves made a pattern across the tables of the sidewalk cafe. As David Vincent pulled out a chair, a waiter in a stained apron strolled over.
“Si, Senor,” he greeted him, offering a dog-eared Spanish-English menu.
“Just a couple of tacos and a cup of coffee,” David said, thinking of the few worn bills in his pocket. The waiter grunted and went away. From inside, a radio wailed a sad Latin tune. David sat with his back to the tree, scanning the diners scattered across the narrow terrace. They were nondescript, roughly clad South Texans. Like himself, they were here because the food was cheap, not because they expected it to be good. It had been a long time since David Vincent had eaten a satisfying meal. His clothes hung loosely on his lean, powerful frame. Sun and wind had bronzed his strong-lined face, bleached his blonde hair almost platinum. For many months now, since the shattering experiences that had proven to him that creatures not human, but seeming to be human, moved among men―accepted as men―he had lived like a nomad. His life was spent searching for any clue that might lead him to the Invaders. For only when he found them could he hope to expose the fact that Earth was under attack by aliens . . . enemies from beyond.
The music had stopped, replaced by the voice of an announcer. Suddenly the import of the glib words penetrated David’s thoughts:
“ . . . sinking of the freighter Cornubia in the Gulf of Mexico. Naval authorities declined comment on the statement of a seaman that the vessel had been the victim of unprovoked enemy attack. The lone survivor of the disaster, hospitalized by his injuries, declared that the vessel was destroyed by a weapon of unprecedented power, which he described as a giant disintegrator ray ..
The chair toppled as David came to his feet, strode toward the source of the voice. The waiter, emerging from the interior with a tray, called after him. David ignored him, listening as the report continued:
“ . . . the area was clear of shipping at the time of the sinking, and that enemy action was ruled out. A freak typhoon, a State Department spokesman suggested, was the most probable cause of the tragedy which sent the ship to the bottom with a loss of twenty-one lives ..
“Here, Senor, you can’t come in here―” the waiter was at David’s elbow. “This room is closed―”
“It’s all right; I’m through now,” David said, turning away.
“Senor, your coffee is―”
“Never mind the coffee,” David handed the man a bill. “I’ve just remembered urgent business a few hundred miles south of here . . . .” The man stared after him as he crossed the terrace and went out into the twilit street.
2
It was twilight again when David paid off his cab in a narrow side street of an old port city, many hundreds of miles distant. He looked both ways along the unlit way, then set off toward the grim red brick building rising two blocks away behind a screen of royal palms and live oak, its castellated towers gaunt against the painted sky.
The wrought-iron gates stood open. Through the deep shadows, the windows of the wide building gleamed a wan and cheerless yellow. Letters incised in granite over the entrance doors of black-varnished oak spelled out mercy hospital. David pushed through, found himself in a low-ceilinged, brown painted hall, smelling of disinfectant. An elderly nurse in severe, starched whites occupied a desk at the far side of the room. In the silence, the only sound was the rasp of David’s shoes as he crossed toward her.
“I understand you have Mr. Ladislaw here,” he said in reply to her raised-eyebrow expression. “I’d like to see him for a few minutes, if I may.”
The woman’s eyes went to the clock on the wall; the hands stood at 8:05.
“Visitors’ hours are from six to eight,” she said flatly.
“I’ve come a long way,” David said. “It’s important that I see him.”
The woman’s face tightened. “You may come back tomorrow at ten o’clock―”
“Tomorrow may be too late,” David said.
“It so happens that this hospital has certain rules,” the woman snapped. “If you have the idea that you’re above rules, you’d better speak to Dr. Anclote!” She pressed a button on her desk. A harsh buzzing sounded in the distance. A door opened down the hall, and a tall, round-shouldered man emerged. His feet whispered on the floor as he approached, narrow eyes in a lined face looking David over.
“What’s the difficulty, Miss Wycherly?” he asked in an impatient voice.
“This man demands that he be allowed to see one of the patients, Doctor―at this hour! I told him―”
“I need to see Mr. Ladislaw on a matter of great importance,” David said. “Time is of the essence, I’m afraid.”
“Ladislaw? That’s the chap from the ship, isn’t it?” The doctor eyed David keenly. “The patient has undergone a very harrowing experience,” he said. “You know that he was the only survivor of the disaster .. ?”
“I know.”
“In addition, he’s suffered concussion, multiple fractures, possible internal injuries―as well as burns covering almost sixty percent of his body. He’s in very serious condition, Mr. . . . . . . ?”
“Vincent. David Vincent. I understand he’s a very sick man. I only want a few minutes with him. I’m sorry to be after regular hours, but it couldn’t be helped.”
“You’re, ah, with the government?” the doctor’s expression was sly now.
David looked at him. “Would that make any difference in the patient’s condition, doctor?”
The medical man clamped his jaw tight. “Very well, I shan’t pry. You may have fifteen minutes. I needn’t warn you that it’s imperative you not excite the patient.” He turned and led the way along the corridor to a bank of newly-installed elevators, their smooth doors contrasting strangely with the dark, old woodwork.
“I understand that you couldn’t speak freely in front of Miss Wycherly,” the doctor looked sideways at David after the doors had closed on them. “But as resident physician, I think I should be advised as to why all the official interest in this patient, Mr. Vincent.”
“Is there official interest?” David asked, expressionlessly.
“Of course!” the doctor snapped. “The naval people, the State Police―” he broke off, fixing David with a suspicious look. “See here, perhaps I’d better have a look at your identification.”
David looked him in the eye, coldly. “You know better than that,” he said softly.
“Oh,” the doctor clamped his jaw shut, rode in silence to the fifth floor. David followed him along to a pair of windowless doors barring further passage. A solidly built man in rumpled whites sat on a stool, reading a magazine. He rose at a nod from the doctor, unlocked the door. Anclote caught David’s surprised look, smiled a humorless smile.
“I assumed you knew,” he said, “that Mr. Ladislaw was in the psychiatric ward.”
3
It was a private room, stark and cheerless, with barred windows, a dark chest of drawers with a glass vase containing withered marigolds, and a narrow bed in which a thin-haired man lay on his back, his neck and chin swathed in bandages above which dark stubble showed. His eyes were open, watching David fixedly as he came to the bedside.
“Mr. Ladislaw, I’m David Vincent,” he said softly. “I heard of the accident, and I’ve come to talk to you about it, to ask you some questions.”
“They already ask,” Ladislaw’s voice was thick, husky, heavily accented. “I tell ‘em, stupid cops, they don’t listen, they say I lie―” He broke off, looked past David toward the door, standing ajar. David went to it, caught a glimpse of Dr. Anclote standing near it as he shut it carefully.
“I’m not a cop,” David said. “And I’ll listen to what you tell me. I read the newspaper account. It said the ship was apparently destroyed by a freak typhoon―”
“No typhoon, no!” Ladislaw paused to breathe hoarsely. “I saw! I saw whole thing! I know what I see!”
“You stated that the column of water came up from the surface, isn’t that correct?” David prompted. “That it burst through from below―”
“Was no water; live steam! I know live steam, Mister! Sixteen years below decks, I know live steam when I see! Listen!” Ladislaw’s bandaged hand groped out, caught David’s sleeve. “I was in lifeboat deck, see? My detail, check gear. I’m in number two boat, port side. I hear it; right through hull, one big bang, like depth charge, far away. Then I feel lifeboat rock in davits. Whole ship lift up. I stick my head out; men are on deck, yelling, lots of noise. Somebody point, and I look and see it off port bow, maybe half a mile away. Whole sea bulge up, like big dome pushing up through sea! Then it blows wide open! I hear it blow! The sound! And steam shoot up in sky maybe five hundred yard! And then fire! I tell you, whole sky black in two seconds, black soot all around me, can’t see! But feel ship list hard aport, broach to! I hear rushing sound, like big surf on rocky beach! And I know by wind she’s moving awful fast toward fire, and I can see it through smoke, and now stuff, rocks, falling around me. We go into smoke cloud, and I choke and then we break through into clear! I see big column steam, dead ahead, so hot I feel it scald from hundred yards away! Prow of ship go in it―and I tell you, Mister, it shear steel away like acetylene torch! Deck-plates forward tear away like paper, I see men fall―then . . . he fell back against the pillow, gasping for breath. “I wake up in bed, aboard Coast Guard cutter. I tell the fools, but they all say tornado! But I know! I know what I see!”
“The newspapers say you called it a disintegrator ray.”
“Pah! Can’t even say word! Was five steam, Mister! From bottom of sea!”
“They found you in the smashed lifeboat, decks awash,” David said. “You were a lucky man, Mr. Ladislaw. Probably the boilers blew when the sea water hit them, and your lifeboat was thrown clear somehow―with you in it. Tell me, what do you think caused this . . . column of steam?”
“Who are you?” Ladislaw whispered. “Why you ask me this? You doctor, too, think I’m crazy?”
“I believe every word of what you said,” David said steadily, looking the injured man in the eyes. Eyes, he saw, that were filled with a nameless emotion.
“Why you want to know?” the man persisted. “What you after?”
“You seem to think that what you saw―the thing that wrecked your ship―may not have been a natural phenomenon,” David said. “Did you see anything―anything at all―that might be evidence of intelligent manipulation?”
“Not natural?” Ladislaw whispered. “I tell you, by damn, not natural, Mister! That fire from Devil, himself! Fire and brimstone! I smell it, and the sulphur stink out of the Pit!”
“You smelled sulphur? Anything else? Explosives?”
Ladislaw sat up in bed, his eyes wide, red-rimmed. “No explosion, Mister! I tell you, Hell open up to swallow the Cornubia! I know! I don’t care what doctors say! I’m not crazy man! I got proof―from the boat―”
Behind David, the door burst open. Dr. An-clote was there, the attendant behind him.
“Here, what in the world are you doing to my patient?” The doctor headed for the bedside. Ladislaw recoiled, half fell from the bed, to be caught in the grip of the stocky attendant and lifted back against the pillows.
“Get away!” the seaman yelled. “You don’t give me no more drugs, make me sleep! I stay awake! I watch! I know what’s loose in the world now!”
“Mr. Vincent, you’ll leave immediately!” An-clote barked. “You’ve done this man immeasurable harm by upsetting him like this!”
“No!” Ladislaw shouted. “You, Mister, you don’t leave! You believe me, you stay, tell ‘em I’m not crazy!” He reached out to David, who stepped forward, took the man’s hand. As he did, a hard, angular object the size of a silver dollar passed from Ladislaw’s palm to his.
“Here―I ordered you to leave the room!” An-clote rushed in as the attendant rounded the bed. David stepped back, his eyes holding Ladislaw’s.
“I’m going,” he said. “I know you’re not crazy, Mr. Ladislaw. Don’t worry. You’ll be all right―”
“Out! Now!” Anclote’s face was dusky red with rage.
At the door, David looked back; his eyes caught those of the injured man, held them for a moment before the door was slammed in his face. He recognized the expression in them now. Terror. Stark, unrelieved terror.
Chapter TWO
Looking across the shabby hotel room at David Vincent, Paul Lieberman shook his head, frowning.
“David, I don’t understand all this. You call me, ask me to meet you here, in this place . . . “ his eyes swept the dingy carpet, the stained walls, the sagging bed. “Why didn’t you come out to the house? And all this mystery―not saying what it’s about . . . “
“You’ve been sick, Paul,” David said. “It was an imposition, calling on you; but I wouldn’t have asked you if it hadn’t been of real importance.”
“I’d go anywhere, anytime, to help you out, Dave! It’s just that . . . I don’t understand!” The physicist rubbed a hand across his forehead, still bearing a livid scar as a reminder of the injuries that had kept him in the hospital for two wearying months.
David rose, paced the room restlessly. “I have no business dragging you into this,” he said, half to himself. “It’s just that there’s no one else I can completely trust―and no one else with your knowledge and abilities!” He turned to face his friend. “All I want you to do is look at a mineral specimen, Paul. Look at it, and tell me what you can about it. Then I want you to go home and forget I ever asked you. Will you do that?”
“Let’s see this mineral.”
Vincent went to his suitcase, opened it, took out his shaving kit, went into the cramped bathroom. In the sink, he opened the bottom of a tube of toothpaste, dug out the object Ladislaw had given him, rinsed it off. Back in the bedroom, he handed it to the physicist. Lieberman turned the flattened, faceted bit of rock in his fingers.
“Clear, with a yellowish color, specific gravity of around 2.5,” he said. “An allotropic form of sulphur, I’d say off-hand. Where did it come from?”
“That’s what I’d like you to tell me,” David said.
“I’d have to make laboratory tests, microscopic studies, before I could tell you anything worthwhile,” Lieberman said. “Can’t you tell me where you got it? It might help save time.”
David shook his head. “I don’t want to give you any preconceptions, Paul.”
The physicist studied David’s face. “Dave, you know that since my accident, I’ve had some trouble with my memory. Nothing serious―just a confusion about the last few weeks before―whatever happened. But now―somehow I get the feeling we’ve been over all this before―sometime, somewhere.”
“No, Paul. You’ve never seen this before. As for your accident―yes, you were helping me with something when it happened. That’s why I don’t want to involve you again―not any more than I have to. And I wouldn’t ask it of you at all if I thought there were any other way.”
“It must be something big,” Lieberman said quietly.
“As big as the end of the world,” David said, holding the other’s eyes.
Lieberman shook his head wonderingly. “You were never one for exaggeration, Dave,” he said. “The end of the world?”
“Please―don’t ask me any more. I won’t tell you, Paul. I could never justify it if you were hurt again, because of me. Just look at the mineral, give me your opinion, and let it go at that.”
“Dave, whatever it is, let me―”
“No. That’s final, Paul. Help me, or don’t help me―but don’t ask me to involve you again.”
Lieberman put his hand up, touched the scar on his forehead. “I’d like to know more about where and how I got this,” he said. “If it wasn’t an accident―”
“I didn’t say that!”
“If it wasn’t an accident,” Lieberman repeated, “it seems to me I have unfinished business―with someone.”
“Let me handle the business, Paul,” David said. “I’ve got a hard head. You’re more valuable alive―in your laboratory.”
Paul nodded slowly. “All right, Dave―if that’s the way you want it. Now . . . “ He stood. “Let’s go out to my place and see what it is we’ve got here.”
“Let’s get this over with,” David said as he stepped from the car. “Every minute I’m here is a minute of danger to you.”
Inside the house, Lieberman made drinks, then led the way to his elaborately equipped basement laboratory. As always, David stared in admiration at the fantastically equipped room, much of the apparatus in which was of Lieberman’s own design, more advanced than anything commercially available.
“This is why I don’t drive a late-model car, and have the house painted,” Lieberman said with a smile. “But it’s well worth it.”
He placed the lump of material on a marble-topped table, began assembling apparatus, while David sat by, watching every move. For an hour and a half, the slight, grey-haired scientist tested the sample with various reagents, using tiny particles chipped away with great difficulty, using a miniature chisel. He wagged his head, muttering, as test after test gave ambiguous results. He prepared slides, set up a massive binocular microscope, pored over the instrument, jotting notes on a pad.
“This is fantastic stuff, David,” he said. “I was correct in assuming it was a form of sulphur―a sulphur compounded with various other minerals, to be precise. But its crystalline structure and physical properties are like nothing I’ve seen before.”
“What’s so unusual about it?”
“Its strength, for one thing. It has a hardness of 9.8―second only to diamond. In fact, in a number of ways it reminds me of diamond. The gem-stone, of course, is merely a special form of carbon―the same material as coal and graphite―or soot. But its properties are completely different, due to the conditions under which it was formed. This material, too, was formed under conditions of extreme heat and pressure―a pressure suddenly released, with a simultaneous quenching to low temperature. Tell me, Dave―is this an artificial material, or was it found in nature?”
“I’m not certain,” Vincent said somberly. “But the indications are that it was formed naturally.”
Lieberman wagged his head. “In that case, I find it difficult to imagine under what circumstances it came to exist.”
“Difficult―or impossible?” David asked intently.
Lieberman’s expression was mildly surprised. “Why, as to that, I could postulate the circumstances required. A pressure on the order of a million tons per square inch, a temperature above 600 degrees Centigrade; of course the material would be in a fluid state―”
“Do such conditions occur naturally, anywhere on Earth?”
“No―not on the surface. But under the surface, deep in the planet, yes.”
“How deep?”
“I should say about twenty to twenty-five miles, depending on the precise point on the globe. Crustal conditions differ widely over the surface of the planet.”
“Could it have been produced by a volcano?”
“...
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