A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy plainly, nor knows positively where he is. The most experienced eye cannot be certain whether it sees the whole of the enemys army, or only three-tenths of it. It is by the eyes of the mind, by the combination of all reasoning, by a sort of inspiration, that the general sees, commands and judges.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, Memoirs
COUNTDOWN: H PLUS 120 HOURS
Harry spent the night in a wheat field, using wheat straw for bedding and more of it piled on top to stay warm, He didnt dare risk a fire. There were flashes and thunder all around him. By counting time between flash and sound, he estimated some were as close as three miles, far too close.
Morning came, and he missed Jeris camp stove and cocoa. Cant think about that. Got to get moving. But goddammit. 1 should have done something; 1 should have saved her. Hell, I should have left her by her carshed have been safer Come with me. Ill take care of you, shit
The motorcycle ran fine. He estimated that he had another twenty miles to go, and fuel for thirty.
Harry turned up the lane toward the big house and shook his head in disbelief. Made it, by God! At least it certainly looked like the place Wes had once described, and it was on the right road, ten miles west of Dighton, and there was no other house within a mile.
It was nearly noon. The skies were blue and clear, and there were only occasional thunderclaps and flashes of colored light.
He frowned. An army Light Armored Vehicle stood in front of the house. There were deep tread marks on both sides of the drive, leading out behind the house. Half a mile out through the fields were at least six tanks, a couple of obsolete M-1 Abrams tanks and at least two Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
A big blue GM Jimmy four-wheel-drive truck stood in the driveway beside the LAV. Harry nodded at it approvingly. He let the motorcycle coast up to the front porch. Two soldiers older than Harry sat on top of the armored car. One waved at Harry.
"Hi," Harry called.
"Hi," one of the soldiers answered.
Something moved behind the glass-paneled front window.
"Is Mrs. Dawson at home?" Harry asked. No point in asking why the army had surrounded the house.
"Think so," a sergeant said. "Hey, Juana, visitor for your sister.
"The front door opened. Carlotta Dawson, in blue jeans, her hair bundled into a kerchief, rushed down the steps. She didnt say anything. She just grabbed Harry and pulled herself against him, burying her face in his beard.
She stood that way for a moment, then looked up at the soldiers on the LAV. "He came all the way from L.A.," she said. "To help me."
"Tough going?" the sergeant asked.
"Some," Harry said.
"Heard it was bad out west."
"Hoover Dams gone," Harry said. "They took out all the cities along the Colorado River. Same thing happened with all the dams along the Platte. They seem to like hitting dams."
An officer came out of the house. "Colonel Halverson, this is Harry Reddington," Carlotta said. "A friend ofof Wes and me. Hes come from L.A. Harry, you must be starved."
"Yeah, but, Miz Dawson, weve got to move. The damned elephants"
"Elephants?" Colonel Halverson demanded. "Elephants?"
"Yes, sir," Harry said. "The invaders"
"Why do you say elephants?"
"They look like baby elephants with two trunks."
"Youve seen them, then?"
"Yes, sir, I sure have." Harry winced. This wasnt going to be easy. Why tell it at all? "Shot one, too, but they wear armor, so I doubt if I hurt it."
"Armor?"
"Yeah. Body armor, and they have rifles. They kill people. They kidnappedthey took some people prisoner from a farmhouse. Killed the farmer."
"Just how close did you get to them?"
Harry shuddered, "Too damn close! Close as you and me!" One stood on my chest He wouldnt say that. It shamed him.
Halverson looked skeptical. "Howd you get away from them?"
"They let me go. Look, you guys do what you want, but Mrs. Dawson and me have to get out of here. Theyre all around, its damned lucky they didnt get here yet."
"Tell me more," Colonel Halverson said. "Tell me everything."
"Theres just not that much," Harry said. They wore elevator shoes and they came down on paper airplanes. If I say that "They came down on hang gliders. Then bigger stuff landed"
"How big? Where?"
"Near Logan. They had flying things about as big as a jetliner only not so wide in the wings. And a floating thing about as big as a diesel semi. Thats what I saw. There may have been bigger."
"Tanks? Field guns?"
"None I saw."
"And they let you go?"
"Yeah, sort of."
"They let others go?"
"Yes"
"From Logan. Southwest of here." Halverson pounded his right fist into his left hand. "But we know theyre east of us, and nobodys come out of there. They would, too, if theif those things would let them. Maybe theres something they want to hide. Son, you better tell me everything you know."
Gradually Halverson dragged the story out of Harry. Finally it was done. "So I found the gun," Harry said. "I thought about going after Mrs. Wilson, but I came here, instead."
Halverson looked thoughtful. "Hell, what else could you do? Youre no army. The next time theyd just shoot you. But I sure wish I knew what theyre hiding out to the east"
"Colonel?" The sergeant seated on top of the armored car jumped off. He looked older than Halverson.
"Yeah, Luke?"
"Colonel, I heard a funny story last night. Over in Collinston."
"Collinston? Thats fifty miles from here! What were you doing in Collinston?"
"Took some of the boys over for a drink. You didnt need us. We werent going anywhere."
"Next time you leave camp, you tell me," He chuckled. "Okay, so you found a bar open in Collinston. Guess it takes more than war and a parachute invasion to close the bars in that town."
"Sure does. Anyway, there was a guy in the bar. Hed been drinking a lot, so nobody paid much attention. He said hed seen an elephant. A little one. In a willow patch outside of town. Thought it escaped from some circus, because it was a trained elephant."
"Trained? Trained how?" Halverson demanded, "Dont know."
"Harry." Carlottas voice was low and urgent. "Harry, thats an invader. We have to go capture it. We have to get it alive. Maybe it knows about Wes. Harry, we have to!"
Harry gulped hard. "Sure, but I need gas"
"Ill get it out of Davids car,"
"Hey, hold on," Colonel Halverson said. "I cant let you do that"
"Why not?" Carlotta demanded. "Youre going east. Youll see lots of invaders, you dont need this one."
"Butlook, those things are armed"
"It didnt hurt that man in the bar," Carlotta said. "Why would he think it was trained? Maybemaybe it lay down and rolled over!"
"Holy shit!" Harry said. "Hey, she might be right."
"Yeah, but"
"Colonel, my husband was a personal friend of the President. President Coffey himself sent Wes up to meet the aliens. Its my right to find out what happened to him. You give Harry some gasoline, and then go fight your war. Harry and I will do the rest."
Yeah, Harry thought, sure.
"I say we go in after them." Evan Lewis sounded very sure. "Hell, Joe, we have to! We cant let thosethings run all over Kansas,"
"Wasnt me arguing with you. Captain," Lieutenant Colonel Halverson said. He looked at the others seated at Juana Morgans dining room table. Evan Lewis, who ran a tractor sales and repair agency, and commanded the tanks. George Mason, lawyer, who commanded the six helicopter gunships. The fourth man at the table was David Morgan, retired professor of business administration, Halversons adjutant and chief of staff. Morgan was the smallest one at the table, and he spoke with a clipped eastern accent that irritated hell out of Joe Halverson, but he was certainly the smartest man in the battalion.
"And I still dont like it," George Mason said. "Colonel, we dont know what were up against, and we dont know what the Army has in mind."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Halverson asked.
"Wait for orders."
"How heroic," Captain Lewis said.
"Enough." David Morgan spoke quietly, but they all heard him. "We dont need bickering."
"So which side are you on, Professor?" Evan Lewis had never liked Professor Morgan. On the other hand, it was David Morgans house, and they all felt like guests, military uniforms or not.
"I agree with Colonel Halversons reasoning," Morgan said. "The invaders are hiding something to the east. Were a cavalry outfit. Its our duty to explorebut carefully. In particular, we have to be certain that any information we get will be useful. That wont be easy. Theyre jamming all communications and the phones dont work."
Joe Halverson nodded thoughtfully. "Suggestions, Major?"
"Well have to string things out. Use the Bradley vehicles as communications links." He sketched rapidly on the table cloth. "Corporal Lewis"Morgan nodded to Evan Lewis; everyone knew that Evans son Jimmy was an electronic genius"Jimmy rigged up those shield things that let the tanks talk to each other, as long as the antennas are aimed straight at each other. Fine. We send the choppers forward as scouts and flankers, making sure they stay in line of sight to the tanks. Tanks in the middle, concentrated enough to have some firepower, spread out enough to not make such a good target. Then string the Bradleys and the LAVs out behind as connecting links."
"What do they connect to?" Mason asked.
"We leave two troopers here with my wife and a radio. Juana writes down everything, if we dont come back, she gets the hell out."
"Not much chance shed have to do that," Halverson said. "Hell, were not an army, but weve got a fair amount of strength here." He looked out the window at his command. Six helicopters, with missiles. A dozen tanks, with guns and missiles. The communications werent any good because the Invaders were broadcasting static from space. But even without communications a troop of armored cavalry was nothing to laugh at.
"Sounds all right to me," Lewis said. "At least well be doing something."
"Id rather wait for orders," George Mason said. "But what the hell, Im ready if you are."
Joe Halverson stood. "Right. Lets go."
"Im Jimmy Lewis," the corporal said. He climbed through the attic window to join Harry on the roof of the big frame house.
Harry nodded greeting. "Hi. They tell me you invented this." He hefted the hand-talkie radio whose antenna was wrapped in a tinfoil cone stiffened with coat-hanger wire.
"Yeah," Jimmy Lewis said. His tone was serious. "Its the only way Ive figured to keep communications. You have to point it pretty tight, though, or youll lose the signal
Harry regarded the device, then the similar but larger tinfoil monstrosity on one of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the yard down below. "Yeah. So I point this at the Bradley, and maybe I can hear. What then?"
"Use this," Jimmy Lewis said. He handed Harry a Sony tape recorder. "Theres three hours of tape on there. More than enough. Just plug it into the radio, here, like that, and turn it on when we move out. Listen in the earphones, and youll hear a tone if youre pointed close to the tank, and nothing at all when youre dead on, except when theyre talking; then youll hear them talk, of course. It sounds hard, but its pretty easy, really."
"Sure."
Major Morgan was in the front yard. Harry couldnt hear what he was saying, but Juana Morgan didnt like it. Their housekeeper sat in the front seat of the four-wheel-drive Jimmy, but Juana Morgan didnt want to drive it.
Finally, though, she got in, and the blue Jimmy drove off. And now its just Carlotta and me. David Morgan stood very straight as he went to his tank and climbed in.
Colonel Halverson came over to stand below them. "Bout time, Jimmy," he shouted up at them.
"Yes, sir." Corporal Lewis waved to Harry and crawled back inside through the window.
"Thanks, Mr. Reddington," Halverson shouted. "I need all my troopers. Good of you to fill in. I doubt youll be needed, but"
"Yeah. No problem, Colonel." Of course Carlottas goin nuts, wanting to go get that elephant. Maybe its safer up here!
"Thanks, then," Halverson said. He walked briskly up the line to the lead tank and climbed in. He stood in the turret for a moment, then waved dramatically. "Wagonshoooo!" he shouted.
The helicopters rose in a cloud of dust and swept forward and off to each side in groups of three The tanks fanned out and moved ahead, leaving the Bradleys behind.
"Watcher, this is Jayhawk One. Do you read?"
Harry keyed the mike. "Roger, Jayhawk One, this is Watcher."
"Course is 100 degrees, moving forward at 1220 hours," the tankers voice said in Harrys ear. Harry started guiltily and switched on the tape recorder.
When the Bradley began to move eastward, it was much harder to keep the radio aimed properly. Harry braced it against the chimney. The rooftop was steep and it wasnt easy to keep his footing.
The helicopters wove in complex patterns ahead of the tanks. "Moving, ahead at twenty klicks," the voice said.
About ten miles an hour, Harry thought. He could still remember kilometer signs on highways, although he hadnt seen one in years.
A half-hour went by. The helicopters and lead tanks were nearly invisible. The others were strung out behind them. Harrys radio contact was a good five miles ahead, and it took all his attention to keep the antenna aimed properly. He was about to key the mike to tell them that.
"Light overhead," the tankers voice shouted.
Harry could see it. A bright green flash, more visible high up than near the ground.
"Its moving in a circleNumber Three Helicopter reports the beam is moving around them in a circle, its tightening in on them" There was a pause. "No contact with the choppers. Colonel Halverson reports theyve all been attacked by some kind of beam"
Jesus.
"So far nothings shot at us"
There was a roar and the sharp snap of multiple sonic booms. Harry looked up. Dozens of parallel white lines crossed the sky from the southwest; they dropped like the lines in Missile Command, downward toward where Colonel Halversons force was centered. There were bright flashes at the horizon and along the line where the connecting vehicles had been strung out. After a long pause, there was the sound of thunder.
"Jayhawks, this is Watcher," Harry said. "Any Jayhawk, this is Watcher. Come in"
Harry poured the last of the gas into the motorcycle.
"What was it?" Carlotta asked.
"I dont know. It looked like a video game. It was unreal." Harry went on checking the motorcycle. Making a motorcycle work was a good test of sanity, and one he could win. Death from the skywe owned the sky once. Then the Soviets took it away. Now weve got to take it back from baby elephants.
"Motors in good shape. Well make it fine. Youll have to hold the rifle." He handed Carlotta the 30-06 Winchester that David Morgan had loaned him.
"Not an elephant gun, but itll give them pause to think," Morgan had said.
Not a loan anymore. They were dead, all of them. Hed waited an hour. "Maybe I ought to go look?"
"No." Carlotta was positive. "Youll get yourself killed. Its more important that we capture that stray"
"Mrs. Dawson, you dont know thats a stray."
"What else could it be?"
Harry shruigged. All I know is Im gettin damned tired of ridin this motorcycle, and I wish I had another tube of Preparation H. But my back isnt as bad as it was. "All aboard."
He patted his pocket to be sure the tape was in it. Somebody would want that tape.
"I will never go metric" Harry sang.
A clump of cars and people was clustered around a big semi ahead. "Were just about to Collinston," Harry shouted. "That looks like trouble."
He slowed, and drove the motorcycle up to the semi. A highway patrol cruiser was parked nearby, and a lieutenant of the highway patrol stood facing a knot of angry farmers and truckers. Most of them held rifles or shotguns.
"Oh, shit," Harry muttered.
The lieutenant eyed Harry and Carlotta. Red beard, dirty clothes; middle-aged woman in designer jeans. He watched Carlotta dismount. "Yes, madam?"
"I am Carlotta Dawson. Yes, Dawson. My husband was aboard the Soviet Kosmograd. Lieutenant, I gather there is an alien here?"
"Damn straight," one of the truck drivers shouted. "Goddam snout blew George Mathers in half!" He brandished a military rifle. "Now its our turn!"
"We have to take it alive," Carlotta stated.
"Bullshit! This one was a farmer. "I come out of Logan, lady. The goddam snouts killed my sister! Theyre all over the fucking place."
"Howd you get out? Foot on your chest?" Harry asked.
The driver looked sheepish.
"Thought so," Harry said. "Look, give us a chance. The military wants to question that thing. Well go in after it." He pointed to the willow trees a hundred yards from the highway. "Over there, right?"
"Over there and go to hell," someone yelled.
"Lets go," Harry said. He gestured to Carlotta. She climbed on behind. "In there."
"There" was a dirt path leading to the clump of willow trees. As Harry started the motorcycle, he heard one of the truck drivers. "We can blow it away when he gets out."
There were mutters of approval.
When he stopped at the swamps edge, he could hear something big in the creek.
For Harpanet, things had become very odd. He had gone through terror and out the other side. He was bemused. Perhaps he was mad. Without his herd about him for comparison, how was a fi to tell?
Try to surrender: fling the gun to the dirt, roll over, belly in the air. The man gapes, turns and lurches away. Chase him down: he screams and gathers speed, falls and runs again, toward lights.
Harpanet will seem to be attacking. Cease! Hide and wait.
A human climbs from the cab of a vehicle. Try again? The man scampers into the cab, emerges with something that flames and roars. Harpanet rolls in time to take the cloud of tiny projectiles in his flank instead of his belly. The man fires again.
He has refused surrender. Harpanet trumpets: rage, woe, betrayal. He sweeps up his own weapon and fires back. The enemys forelimbs and head explode outward from a mist of blood.
In Harpanets mind his past fades, his future is unreal. His digits stroke his side, feeling for the death wound.
No death wound; no hole big enough for a digit to find. What did the human intend? Torture? Harpanets whole right side is a burning itch covered with a sheen of blood. An eight to the eighth of black dots form a buzzing storm around him. He lurches through the infinite land, away from roads, downhill where he can, within the buzzing storm and the maddening itch The jaws of his mind close fast on a memory, vivid in all his senses, more real than his surroundings, He moves through an infinite fantasy of planet, seeking the mudroom aboard Message Bearer.
Green . . . tall green plants with leaves like knife blades, but they brush away the hungry swarming dots . . . water? Mud!
He rolls through mud and greenery, over and over, freezing from time to time to look, smell, listen.
Harpanets past fades against the strange and terrible reality. If he has a future, it is beyond imagining, a mist-gray wall. There is only now, a moment of alien plants and fiery itch and cool mud, and here, mudroom and garden mushed together, nightmarishly changed. He rolls to wash the wounds; he plucks gobs of mud to spread across his tattered flank.
Afraid to leave, afraid to stay. What might taste his blood in the water, and seek its source? The predators of the Homeworld were pictures on a thuktun, ghosts on an old recording tape, but fearsome enough for, all their distance. What lurks in these alien waters? But he hears the distant sound of machines passing, and knows that they are not fithp machines.
A machine comes near, louder, louder. Harpanets ears and eyes project above the water.
The machine balances crazily on two wheels, like men. It slows, wobbles, stops.
Humans approach on foot.
Harpanets muscles know what to do when he is hurt, exhausted, friendless, desperate, alone. Harpanets mind finds no other answer. But he sees no future
He lurches from the water. Alien weapons come to bear. He casts his gun into the weeds. He rolls on his back and splays his limbs and waits.
The man comes at a toppling run. No adult fi would try to balance so. The man sets a hind foot on Harpanets chest, with such force that Harpanet can feel it. He swallows the urge to laugh, but such a weight could hardly bend a rib. Nonetheless he lies with limbs splayed, giving his surrender. The man looks down at his, captive, breathing as if he has won a race . . .
"We got him!" Harry shouted, "Now what?" He waved uphill, where a score of armed men, hidden, waited with weapons ready.
"I can talk to them" Carlotta sounded doubtful.
"They wont listen." And dammit, this is my snout, they cant kill it now. Harry thought furiously. A guilty grin came, and he lifted the seat of the motorcycle, where he kept his essential tools.
"Youve thought of something?"
"Maybe." He dug into the tool roll and found a hank of parachute cord. It was thin, strong enough to hold a man but not much use against one of those. He gestured to the captive, using both hands to make "get up" motions.
The alien stood. It looked at them passively.
"Gives me the creeps," Harry said. He clutched his rifle. One 30-06 in the eye, and we dont have a problem. "See if itll carry you," Harry said.
"Carry me?"
"Sheena. Queen of the Jungle. I know theyre strong enough."
A dozen truckers and farmers stood with ready weapons.
Harry walked ahead of the invader, leading it on a length of cord. Carlotta rode its back, sidesaddle, She beamed at them. "Hi!" she called.
None of the watchers spoke. Perhaps they were afraid of saying something foolish.
"It surrendered," Carlotta shouted. "Well take it to the government."
There was a loud click as a safety was taken off.
Harry whistled: Wheep. wheep, wheep! "Here, Shep! Hey, its all right, guys. Shep big gray peanut-loving doggie!"
There were sounds of disgust.