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Chapter 1

NO OTHER MEMORY

"Is this David Vincent?" Her voice stabbed through the earpiece, tense, slightly husky, pitched low, as if fearful of being overheard.

Vincent switched on the tape. It sounded like one of those. He never knew for certain when they'd come, these semihysterical calls from—well, most anyplace.

"Say again," he said, calmly soft-toned.

"Is this David Vincent?" she repeated with emphasis.

"It is. Can I help you?" So much better than "Who's that? What d'you want?" He used to speak that way when the pressure was new and it seemed that every nut and crank in the universe was parked on the end of his phone.

It worked this time. Her voice warmed, eased to a pleading note. "Oh, yes—yes please! I'm not unhinged."

He laughed softly. "Of course not. You're not a door, are you?"

The feeble crack made the silence he wanted her to use. Those voices—disembodied, throbbing with all life's fears, their owners wound tight after maybe a long time screwing up courage to phone him, then finding infuriating delays in getting through. So then they babbled and cracked in a rising flood of undammed thoughts.

"Different," she said after the little pause. "You're so different from what I expected. Are you clever, or was that an accident? It made me stop. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to pour out my story to you—so urgently, so desperately. They say I am, you know. Unhinged, I mean."

"They say that about me, too. Nice to meet a fellow feeler. Why urgent?"

"So that you'll believe me. It won't sound urgent unless I make it sound that way. That's what I thought."

"Not so. Not always. Do I know you?"

"No—no, you don't, and you won't—I mean, I can't. You see—I'm afraid. So very afraid. Perhaps you're not him after all? And if you're not, then I'm in terrible danger."

"I'll not press you. Who am I then?"

"David Vincent. You were an architect, but you became involved in that ghastly aliens business—I saw you on television. I laughed then. You and your UFOs and your story of invisible invaders—big joke, huh? But not now. Oh, my God, not now! So it would be fair if you laughed at me. Oh, dear! This isn't going the way I expected. Help me, Mr. Vincent, help me. I may be upset—perhaps a little neurotic—but I'm not crazy."

"You have seen an unidentified flying object?"

"My husband claimed he did. He told me, but I laughed. He wouldn't tell anyone else. He was convinced—so convinced that he was going to phone you. Then he—he died."

"I'm so sorry. An accident?"

"So they said, but no one has found the cause. He drove cars, fast cars. He died in one of them." Words became strangled. "I'd rather not say more about him. Not now." After a pause, her voice was more clear. "The authorities still don't believe you, do they?"

"No. Do you?"

"I believe you enough to be afraid of almost everyone except my daughter and her fiance. You said they could be anywhere—these aliens—that they might have mutations, but I'm not sure what that means. Are they crippled?"

"No, not crippled. Just little things, like a crooked finger, a strangely dead-looking face. Their hair may have the appearance of being a cleverly made wig or toupee. There are other signs, but too difficult to explain, and many quite ordinary people have similar peculiarities so it's better not to disclose them yet. You say you are afraid of everyone except these two people. Why?"

"I don't know, Mr. Vincent. But that doesn't make me less afraid."

"I have never said we should be afraid of everyone," he spoke sharply. "I have said only that we all must be forever watchful. In fact, I have emphasized that fear is a means of communication for the aliens because it releases power from the human body—a power the aliens need for themselves. A person filled with fear is, for the period in which the fear lasts, denying the power of the human spirit that is the force of life."

"I do not refer to it in any religious sense at all. This human spirit is a functional and scientific fact. Fear is its only neutralizer. It cannot be destroyed. But it can be transferred. It is your strength. Surrender it and accept only fear, and the aliens can absorb it—much as a bully can physically dominate you by instilling fear into you. Cast out your fear, and you resist and possibly defeat him. Dictators draw power from the mass fear of the people. You understand? So I cannot sympathize with your fear. I tell you to fight it, deny it, and in doing that you will reassert your own spirit. In that reasserting you will automatically deny power to the aliens if—I repeat if—you imagine they are anywhere near you."

He waited, hearing only the sounds of an open circuit.

"Are you still there, Mrs. Mystery Lady?"

"Yes," she said, strong-voiced. "Yes, I'm still here. And a different person from the one who first picked up this phone. Oh, why can't the authorities—the officials, the upper-echelon servicemen—talk as strong, straight sense as that? They make you feel so helpless—faced with an utterly incomprehensible situation like 'things' landing from UFOs and not being even visible! But you've shown how they can be fought! And as you spoke, I could feel my own spirits rise." She laughed. "By golly, I said it, didn't I? Felt my own spirits rise."

"Sure." He chuckled. "Happens all the time if you let it. Are you still too afraid to tell me your name?"

"Yes, but for a different reason. I wanted desperately to phone you. To unburden myself of these beliefs, these fears that are becoming intolerable for me to bear alone. I thought if I told you, urgently, hysterically, that you'd come rushing to investigate." She giggled. "I think I had a mental picture of you just sitting waiting for someone like me to supply you with more evidence to investigate. But it's not like that, is it?"

"No, not like that. Sometimes the utmost speed is necessary, but there must be assessment—calm and cool. Because, you see, Mrs. X, I believe also that part of the aliens' plan is to cause hysteria and senseless rushing from place to place. So now, you tell me, huh? Tell me calmly and quietly and we'll decide what can be done."

"Okay, Mr. Vincent. But I'll not disclose my name because I don't want you to be biased. You'll understand that later—much later, perhaps. I'm not speaking from my home town. I covered my tracks: I'm using a different name, so if this phone is bugged, they won't be able to check back on me."

"You are in a pay booth?"

"No, a room in a motel."

"The call is through the motel switchboard?"

"Yes, and that is manned by a young girl who's more interested in her boy friend. I can see them through my window. She isn't even near the switchboard."

"The motel is on a highway?"

"Quite a distance off a highway. It serves a mountain road."

"It sounds an excellent choice. I doubt if it's bugged and I cannot detect any sounds that the circuit is being listened in to."

"I'll mention the name of my town last—just before we ring off." She drew breath, then continued: "The town is an industrial one, relying on one main industry. My husband believed the UFO landing was connected with that industry."

"Did he tell you why?"

"He was basing his belief upon your own theories, Mr. Vincent, and his ideas were so fantastic that he dared not mention them to anyone but me. The industry in my town has its own security force. It is, in fact, more powerful than the police."

"That sometimes happens in company towns. But your police still operate?"

"Oh, yes. And we have a strong district attorney and a very good police chief, but the most powerful man is Thias Rumbold, chief of security. His son, Gineas Rumbold, is also a security official."

"Nepotism or talent?"

She laughed softly. "A little of both, I think. Gin wouldn't have risen in rank so fast, but he'd still have been a good man for the job, even if his father weren't the chief. The point is that my husband believed Gineas Rumbold died in a car crash, and that it happened at the exact time he saw the UFO landing. He reported the landing—gave the fullest details of what he saw. The UFO sighting took only a few moments. My husband was an ex-paratrooper who finished his service in special intelligence work. I don't even know what he did, but I'm mentioning it so you'll know he was a highly stable and intelligent man. Also very experienced in dealing with the effects of violent death."

"In other words—he would have remained cool and objective under stress."

"Definitely. There is no doubt about it. He was like—like tempered steel, supple and strong. A wonderful person in an emergency. He said he made absolutely certain Gin Rumbold was dead—his neck was broken, although he wasn't marked except for a lump on his forehead. My husband left the crash and tried to flag down a car and ask the driver to call the police. The first two cars wouldn't stop. The third was the patrol car. As they stopped, my husband went back to the wreck." She paused. "Gin Rumbold was climbing out of his car. In fact he met my husband halfway. He complained of a stiff neck, but otherwise was unhurt."

"And you are convinced your husband could not have mistaken unconsciousness for death?"

"Absolutely. And there was something else. As Gineas Rumbold climbed out of the wrecked car, my husband saw a sort of halo of light around his body."

"Ah!" David Vincent expelled breath sharply. "Go on."

"He said that later he wondered if it was a trick of the light, or even static electricity from the car, but he swore it wasn't either of these. It was a definite cloudy-white light, growing less even as he looked, and by the time Gin was clear of his wrecked car the light had disappeared."

"Did your husband say how it disappeared?"

"Into Gin Rumbold. He said it didn't fade. It merged into Gin's body. From that moment everything around us seemed to change. Gin Rumbold—who also must have seen the UFO landing at the same time as my husband—was emphatic that there was no such thing. He belittled my husband's story, poured scorn on it. Yet before the crash they were the best of friends who'd known each other since school, seen service together. Then suddenly Gin became like an enemy. From around this time we began to have a number of terrible accidents on the highway outside of town."

"Does it normally have a high accident rate?"

"No, it's one of the safest highways. And the areas where our industry's products are tested also started having bad accidents. Then came a great deal of unrest in certain factories. Labor relations are usually very good; now they're almost chaotic. Now, Mr. Vincent, all these troubles—the terrible death toll on the highway, the test accidents, the works, and some violent disagreements between security, police and the district attorney's office—none of them are mentioned in our local press, or on the air."

"That is very unusual."

"My husband, and several others, tried to find out why. He died. So did two of the others. My city is now a city of fear. I think my husband knew why all this was happening. He tried to tell me, but it was all so nebulous, so hard to prove, and there were many technical details I didn't understand."

"And this situation is continuing in your city?"

"Yes, but I don't have much direct contact with Gin Rumbold since my husband died. I loved my husband, Mr. Vincent, but until he can be proved right I have no other memory to support my future than those last hellish days before"—she paused—"before he was murdered. Come to my city—quietly. Tell no one who you are. Can you fix yourself so you cannot be recognized?"

"I'm becoming quite an expert at doing that very thing. Tell me, have you personally been threatened?"

"Once. After the funeral. The phone rang. A voice said, 'Now it is over. All is over. Be sure you do not lose anyone else.'"

"You didn't recognize the voice?"

"Yes, it was Gineas Rumbold's voice. Later, I discovered that at that very moment he was riding in a taxi with the district attorney. There was no radiophone in the cab. Well, Mr. Vincent—am I just a neurotic, unhinged woman?"

"No, my dear, you are a brave and lonely one."

"So you will come?"

"I will come. Unheralded and unsung. We will fight your fear together. Where is your city of fear?"

"Auto City."

He whistled, flutingly soft.

"Yes," she said. "It's hard to believe, isn't it? Goodbye, David Vincent."

Chapter 2

HITCH ME A STAR, BROTHER!

So you learn your lessons hard. You see and feel a thing—clear, strong, real. So you believe and, believing, tell—and in the telling, learn. You learn how complete strangers can hate your guts because you tell what you believe. They have many reasons for not believing what you tell, but they don't tell you. No, sir, they do not. They stick you up there and crucify you for what you have told them.

So first you learn not to tell. Not anyone. That's how you know how the woman on the phone felt. That's how you know what had happened to her. She scarcely needed to tell you, but what if you'd told her that, said, "Look, lady, it's all happened to me. I know every goddam twist of it, so skip the build-up and give me the facts." What then? You learn not to do that. When it happens to them—well, they just have to tell someone, see? Just as you did. Until they learn the hard, cruel way. Learn that a whole lot of people, far more than you'd ever imagine, need to be hit over the head with a hammer before they believe in the existence of a hammer. You learn that many of them just don't like hammers, or make out they don't exist. Crazy? You bet! But that's people—just people.

He hired a German car. This wasn't exactly tactful considering he was aiming for Auto City, which didn't like many things not of itself. Especially German cars. He came from the north onto the great cloverleaf of overpasses and underpasses linking the complex of highways.

At the start of Highway 640 he pulled in to fill the tank and himself. He'd been driving since dawn on coffee and vitamin tablets. He sat near a young man with crew-cut hair, blue eyes and a pug-dog face—all squashed up, button nosed.

"Hi!" said the young fellow, obviously bursting to talk. "Come far?"

"Upstate. You?" He ordered his breakfast in between question and answer.

"Sixty miles down the highway. Been up all night." He said it proudly. Big deal. "Around the nightspots. Man, such crazy places!"

David Vincent smiled. "Guess they are. Not much of a nightspot man, myself. Getting old, maybe." He surveyed his companion's bronzed face, clear skin. "You don't live that way? If so, you thrive on it. More than I would."

"Once in a while. Special occasions."

"Like now?"

"Sure. Like now. Twenty-one at midnight. Tom's the name. Tom Claus."

"David," he hesitated. "David Trome."

"I've seen you someplace. No, that's not a feed line. I really have. That possible?"

David shrugged. "Could be. I get around. Congratulations. Happy birthday."

"Thanks. Know why I stayed around the city all night?"

"Celebration?"

"Yeah, but not all." He pointed through the window. "That's my baby! Waited all night to pick her up the minute they opened."

David swung on the stool to sight the sleek, white convertible parked outside. He glanced back. "Yours?"

"Yup. The very first on the road."

"Some car! I've never seen one like it before. What is it?"

"The pride of Auto City, Mister, that's what that baby is. Carasel Motors' latest genius product—the Carasel Windflight. And, brother, she has everything! She's in standard form now. But an hour's easy work and she's stripped down to stock-car trim. She is the ultimate dual-purpose car. You know somep'n? I bet Carasel will scoop the world with this one."

"Too rich for my blood." David laughed. "But I know just how you feel. You're a lucky guy."

"Lucky to have a first model, but I sure enough worked hard for it."

Breakfasts arrived, they began eating.

"You work in the city?" David asked casually.

"Not now. I'm a programmer. I specialize. Big brain stuff. Got a small place way out on the mountain. Do all my work at home. I need the quiet and no interruptions, see?"

David nodded. "The new aristocracy—that's you. The specialist programmer in a computer world. It sure scares an oldie like me. Pardon me, but you're kind of young to be so expert, at anything."

Tom laughed, seeming more pleased than offended.

"Start to train young and learn it right—that's what Dad used to say. Gosh, he was a wonderful guy! Maybe I had the I.Q. built in, but he sure trained it. Y'know, I was playing chess when I was four? When I was eight they had to skip me in school so I could take advanced math and a couple of other subjects. Dad lived to see me lick 'em all, then he died."

"Sorry—that sounds tough. Your mother…?"

"She ran off while I was little. Took all of Dad's money. He always wanted to live on the mountain. We never made it, though. He spent his earnings on getting me trained. Two years after I'd got every goddam degree they could offer, I'd made enough to buy the land. Then I built the house. Not big, but I'll be adding to it."

David finished his meal, called for more coffee, lit a cigarette and surveyed the young man. On a hunch he'd aimed first for Highway 640, before checking into Auto City. In many of his investigations he began by following a hunch. Easy enough to follow the obvious. The trick was to follow both. Letting each lead him to what he called his "breakaway point." This point came when hunches and facts formed a viable pattern. Facts were things to see, to check up on. Hunches were played out through people.

Sometimes the earlier contacts offered him nothing more than aimless gossiping conversation, but usually, and generally unknowingly, they gave him background evidence. That was why he talked to as many strangers as possible. Talked some, but listened more. He'd always possessed this knack of making people at ease in his company, but since he had given up all other work to concentrate upon this fearsome and fiercely contested belief, he'd cultivated an even easier and more receptive approach. Obviously, young Tom Claus was bursting to talk about his big day, but even so, he wouldn't have done it with just any chance-met stranger. And a weird warning sensation was feathering itself into David's mind right now. He recognized the signs. They'd happened too many times before to be coincidence, or a chance disturbance. He wanted, strongly, to warn this young man—yet how, and about what?

He said, "So the gorgeous Windflight was your father's second ambition?"

Tom Claus halted, fork midway to mouth. "Is that a good guess, Mr. Trome, or ESP?"

"Call me David. What do you think it is?"

Tom chewed slowly. "You couldn't have known Dad. You've been quiet for a few minutes. Could be logical deduction. I'll settle for that. Yup. Dad always said, 'Come your twenty-first, son, I'll get you the best car in town.' Well, all I am and all I've got is due to him—so I just naturally got myself the best car in town."

"No wife? No friends? Nice young fellow like you?"

Tom grinned. "Big brain, big money, big secrets. Right now they don't go with a wife, or a steady. Not around here. Once in a while I whoop it up plenty and disappear to the coast. Plenty friends there. Whoop it up plenty. You married?"

David shrugged. "I've got similar problems. But I don't hole up in a mountain and there's not much time to whoop it up."

"Gotta make time, fella. Once in a while I hitch me a star, brother, and I go orbiting way, way out! Dad taught me that too. Folks get tangled up, he said. Real tangled. They whoop it up in the wrong places. Get all snarled up with wives and bosses and what-have-you."

"Can't you whoop it up with a family?" David smiled.

"Sure, sure you can, but the lone worker needs something different. You're a loner, aren't you? I can tell. See it in your eyes. Feel it all around you. That's why I talk. You got troubles, friend?"

David nodded. "I've got troubles, friend. Not of my making, though."

"But you aim to solve them?"

"Could be."

"You passing through?"

"I'll stay awhile. There's people to see, back in the city."

"Tough," said Tom. "Very tough talk there. Like no place you've ever been. Come and see my car. The check's on me."

"No, on me. My pleasure."

"Flip for it."

They tossed a coin. David paid.

"Happy birthday!" he said again.

They walked around the car, climbed in and all over it, checked motor and transmission.

"And now you're off to the coast to whoop it up, new car and all?" said David. "She's a beauty."

Tom chuckled. "Soon, very soon. Got a pile of work to see to first."

David waved a casual hand in the direction of High-way 640. "They tell me you have pileups along there. Watch your paintwork," he joked.

The change was startling.

"Who told you that?" Tom snapped. "Lies! Safest highway in the country. Goddam rumormongering!"

"Hey! Hold it. I just heard, that's all. So it's safe. So aren't they all? It's not the roads. It's only drivers who are bad."

The tension eased. "Just go careful, that's all. Folks are touchy around here. We made the highway. We make most of the cars that use it."

"Ah!" David spoke softly. "Automated plants using some of your programming. Gives you a feeling of being part of it too. Sorry. I didn't understand."

"You do now," said Tom briskly. "So long."

David went to his car. Watched the immaculate white convertible glide out toward the highway, then followed at a discreet distance.

Tom Claus kept to the sixty lane. The little German car purred along about a quarter of a mile in the rear. Highway 640 was sculpted in graceful curves and undulations. A broad, fast, safe highway slicing through the foothills and pinewoods. One of the few highways he'd ever traveled where billboards were banned. He admired the landscaping, noting how cars kept more than the normal distance apart, thus minimizing the risk of multiple crashes, and wondered how much truth there was in his mystery caller's statements.

There came a lull in the traffic in the passing lane, and no slower vehicles ahead of him in the slow lanes. The big white car was clearly visible as it breasted a rise. David's car had closed up slightly. Perhaps Tom had slowed the Windflight? David mused idly on this when suddenly the Windflight's tail end swung violently.

The car zigzagged with a wild bucking slide. Its nose hit the safety fence. The whole car lifted, swung, plummeted across the lanes, bounced off the safety fence, then caromed, broadside on, back across the track and slammed against a pylon set a hundred yards inside a field. The Carasel had mowed down the strip-fencing as if it were matchsticks.

The little German car, which had been hitting seventy, came up close as the white car left the road. David's car sped by, but using gears and brake he tooled it around and over the soft shoulder, stopping a few yards short of the splintered fence. He climbed out, rushed into the field, wrenched open the buckled door of the convertible.

Young Tom Claus lay hunched over the steering wheel, his head at a strangely awkward angle, close to the metal window support strut against which it had slammed. Gently, David eased the boy back from the wheel and in those seconds knew, from the sightless eyes and lolling head, that death had come—swift and probably painlessly. The welt on the temple was evidence of the force that would have stunned, even killed, if the whiplash of body against wheel had not broken the boy's neck. But David very carefully checked the pulse, then the heartbeat before whispering, "Poor Tom! Poor brilliant, lonely Tom in your joyous coffin!"

He rested the body gently against the cushions and walked back toward the highway. The sight amazed and sickened him. He knew the wrecked car must be clearly visible from the road, yet not one vehicle had stopped, not even slowed. They all were speeding faster than when he and Tom had been driving along the highway.

He felt he was living a nightmare. The sort of dream where you call out or wave like mad at streams of people, yet none of them see or hear you. He realized then he was indeed waving as he ran. Waving both arms like crazy. He halted, lowered his arms, half ashamed at this futile display of sudden panic. What's the hurry? The boy is dead.

David wiped sweat from his forehead and neck, turning to look back. The sun was high to his left, the skyline shredded with woolly white clouds. Beyond the pylon, a green field ran to pine trees, giving a dark backdrop to the white car. It wasn't dazzle. It couldn't be dazzle. Sun reflection flared from the offside rear of the car, but it was distinctly different from the opaque yet glistening, flickering light that flowed around the steering wheel and exposed upper part of Tom Claus's body.

"Like a halo!" David whispered. "Dear heaven—just like a halo!" Then anger snapped the awe from his mind and he cried aloud, "Damn and blast you! Murderers!"

Swiftly he controlled this outburst and started back toward the Windflight.

It was almost anticlimax. Almost as if he knew exactly what would happen. He heard voices behind him, but did not turn.

Tom Claus was moving slowly from the driving seat, the opaquely silver light slowly being absorbed into his body.

Chapter 3

DON'T BE SORRY, MISTER

Suddenly nothing was right. The voices belonged to policemen. Not highway patrols either.

"Hey, you! Hold it!"

David Vincent halted. Tom Claus was walking slowly around the wrecked car, saw the police, came toward them as they closed on David.

"Okay, Mister. We'll take it from here." He was big, chunky, hard-eyed.

The other policeman was almost effeminate-looking in comparison, dark hair, olive complexion, brown-flecked spaniel eyes, slim. He said, "It's young Tom Claus."

"Well, whaddya know!" said the big man.

Coming close, walking kind of stiff and slow, Tom said to the big man, "Dan Hicks, isn't it?"

"Hi, there! You know Meria Deltora?"

"Sure. We've met. You guys found Dad. Helped me a lot."

Unreal, it was. Unnatural. Nothing right. David knew it. Couldn't, or dare not, say it.

"Glad you're not hurt, Tom." He hoped his voice was natural. "Sorry about your new car." Then he made a mistake as he asked, "Was your father killed on this highway?"

Tom stared at him, blue eyes coldly appraising.

"Who is this guy?" he rasped, flat-toned.

"What's it to you?" said Hicks, glaring at David. "You saying you know Tom?"

"We've met."

"He doesn't seem to know that," said Deltora softly. "How long have you known him?"

David threw it away. Grinned, shrugged.

"We talked awhile back there—over breakfast. That's all. He told me about himself. Mentioned his father. I guess the accident has shocked him so he doesn't remember me."

"You a doctor?" Hicks snapped.

"No."

"A psychiatrist, maybe?"

"No."

"I got a handle." Hicks patted his uniform. "Like officer, see?"

David played along. "Yes, officer."

Deltora smiled warmly. "So you saw the crashed car and were hurrying to find pickings."

"Pickings?"

"Sure, happens all the time. Driver knocked out Helping stranger lifts wallet, watch, bags, anything loose. Guess we saved you from trouble, Mister."

Tom said, "One of those, is he?"

"Not proved," said Deltora. "Eh, Danny?"

Hicks swung a massive fist into the palm of the other hand, staring unwinkingly at David.

"Son of a bitch! I should rattle your brains for you."

David kept quietly calm, watchful.

Deltora smiled at him. "But, like I say—not proved."

"Like we didn't see you," said Hicks. "If we had…" He slammed the fist again. "The good Samaritan racket, huh? You a good Samaritan?"

David shrugged. "Not particularly."

"So you ain't a good Samaritan? So you pass by when you see a guy in trouble?"

"No. Not always."

"Why stop now?"

"That's natural, isn't it? I saw his car go off the road so I pulled over and ran to help."

Hicks flickered a glance at Tom.

"Says he saw you go off the road, Tom."

"We didn't," said Deltora. "We were parked back aways. We didn't see you go off the road."

David paused, knowing he was trapped. Knowing jvhat they had to do, knowing he was the only man in the whole country who would know what these men had to do at this moment. Yet he dare not play up to them too much. That would mean he wasn't being natural while to themselves they believed they were being natural. This weird, nebulous atmosphere of knowing they were one thing yet acting another. He waited.

"I was off the road," said Tom. "I heard the rear axle give out so I pulled over. And I guess the master brake cylinder failed as well. I had no brakes after I was off the highway."

"Could have killed yourself," said Hicks.

"These new models," said Deltora sadly. "Not enough testing. Sure are dangerous."

Hicks stabbed a finger into David's chest. Hard, hurtful stabs. But he stood his ground.

"You heard the man," Hicks snarled. "So why say you saw something you didn't see? Where're you from?"

"Chicago."

"It's a good place to go back to."

"Better than around here," said Deltora. "We don't like liars around here. Or troublemakers."

"Or German cars," said Tom.

"So don't be sorry, Mister," said Hicks, giving one final stab.

"Like you will be if you stay," said Deltora. "We're being nice—you know that?"

"I thank you for your courtesy, officers," said David. "Pardon me for my mistake." He, looked squarely at Tom Claus. "I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"Why should I be?" Tom spoke arrogantly, aggres-sively. "I expected that punk car to crack up on me. If you see a friend in one, you can warn him. Okay?"

"Yes." David nodded. "I sure will."

Hicks's big hands gripped David's shoulders, spun him round to face the road.

"That lets you out, Mister."

"So long," said Deltora, warmly, like saying goodbye to his mother. "Don't come back." His gun slid lightning-blur into his hand. Two bullets spanged inches away from David's feet. Deltora laughed. "In your guts next time I see you. Remember."

David kept moving, but glanced back over his shoulder. They were watching him zombielike, without feeling. Sweat bubbled on his forehead. Damp skin pulled against his shirt collar. The sun was high and hot. Yet he shivered from the icy cold deep within him. He didn't look back again as he climbed into the car and drove off.

He checked in at the Ancaster Arms on Auto City's Seventh Street. Here he had established the identity of David Trome by paying three months in advance for the fourteenth floor apartment and sending forged letters of reference from Chicago. He had also mailed himself necessary identity and credit cards in that name.

Following a hunch to check Highway 640 had been almost disastrous. Hunches could be like that. But he knew, from experience by now, that hunches were his strongest ally. The aliens had a power of their own. An unseen power, capable of amazing and frightening performances. It would not have been natural if, in fighting the fight of David Vincent from all the great strength of his own beliefs, he hadn't also discovered a power within himself.

But he had come to Auto City with, as usual at the start of any of his investigations, a mind unhampered by set thoughts and procedures. This was where all the established authorities failed in their attempts to understand the invading force that might one day engulf them. At present the incidents were widely scattered. Linked to hysterical reporting, to improvable facts seen by panic-stricken people, and discounted because their own fear failed to make their truth appear real. The authorities and the men who functioned in the upper echelons of the police and other investigating forces had, of necessity, a set of rules and laws and substances of fact by which and through which they had to operate. So their very existence and purpose were factors against them in any investigation into this alien menace.

He had not before witnessed an identical transmutation. If seeing one actually take place had been the result of a hunch, then he was satisfied that hunches—-those nebulous and often inspired begetters of human physical action—were a weapon in his defense. Once again he was proving that cold logic was not the effective weapon the authorities so dearly loved to claim it to be.

You can perhaps fight logic with logic, but you cannot apply coldly logical reasoning to something that the limitations of the logical mind will not accept as real. He had seen a young man die. Had checked that there were no signs of life. Yet a few moments later that body walked away from the wrecked car. The body of Tom Claus—but not the personality of Tom Claus in that body.

His investigations had proved this to be a common factor, this personality change. Friends, family, business acquaintances, all vouched for the change in many cases he had investigated. But no one had ever been present when that change occurred. No one knew for certain if that person had died and, at the moment of dying, been "occupied" by an alien. They knew only that the person had changed and become cruelly aggressive, intolerant and unreliable, whereas before he had been friendly, cheerful, tolerant and dependable.

So you have to have someone to stand by you. And when official Washington won't listen, won't really give you any backing, then you have to turn to a friend. You don't like to con a friend, just because he has State con-nections, into thinking you're doing a top security job, so hush-hush you can only hint at it. But Stern believes in you, and he could get action if Federal help became essential in an emergency. David picked up the phone, called a Washington number.

"Star Two," he said, "this is Star One." He waited while Star Two spoke the code reply. Then gave his phone number. "I see signs of a possibly massive infiltration. I need information." He gave details.

"I'll call you, Star One. Stand by."

Chapter 4

LINKAGE

Star Two came through in about an hour. This had given David time to fit the scrambling device in the phone circuit of his apartment, also to fix up certain gadgets in well-chosen places. His normal protective procedure against phone tapping, bugging, or occasional uninvited callers who were foolish enough to make their own phone calls from his premises. All these things he had suffered in the past. At last the phone rang.

"Star Two calling," said the voice. "Are you clear to receive?"

David chuckled. "What kept you? I've shaved, showered, changed, got settled in and rigged all necessary devices."

Star Two laughed grimly. "You'll find out why. Here are some answers, but a gag is operating between police and the industrial security forces in Auto City. The security forces are very powerful. I could not obtain all the details needed unless we claimed rights under Federal law."

"Save the alibi," said David, "give me what you have."

"Here it is. The person who fits your background details is Mrs. Carmen Verrel, widow of Chick Verrel, a racing driver killed in strange circumstances, though the verdict was accidental death. Chick Verrel claimed a UFO sighting and subsequent malformation in persons he knew and worked with in the auto industry. The Verrels had one daughter, Liane, who is engaged to Wayne Draycott, a Grand Prix and sports-car driver. Mrs. Verrel lives at 1197 Holly Mount, on the south side of Auto City. There are several other cases of widows with similar backgrounds, but none who fit the Verrel one in connection with UFO sightings, and most of those are in very scattered parts of the country."

"Deductions from official files is your job," said David. "I'll follow that lead. What else have you?"

"Very patchy stuff. Our contact in Auto City is Willard Knight, chief of police. He co-operated fully. When he passed us to Records we found the local Sergeant Banner quite cagey. Willard is an old friend of ours and Banner dared not refuse information after being ordered to release it by the chief, but he made us dig for each item. You have ideas on this?"

"I could have, if the police patrol officers named Hicks and Deltora were ever involved in a car crash."

"You're quick," said Star Two. "Smack on the button. Three months ago they were on highway patrol. They were involved in a multiple crash. Three killed. Two of the Carasel Company's testers also were involved. Named Lester Shalk and Grif Mason."

"Why mention them?"

"Because Lester Shalk is Hicks's brother-in-law, and Grif Mason used to be a racing driver and an old buddy of Chick Verrel. After the crash, which occurred within the city limits on Highway 640, both Hicks and Deltora were transferred to city patrol cars."

"So why were they on Highway 640 this morning?"

"That's for you to find out. I dare not dig that far."

"Who were the three killed?"

"Three women passengers. Their husbands were driving and all were injured, but not seriously. They were strangers to the state, merely passing through."

"Did you discover the cause of the collision?"

"Apparently one of the test cars threw a wheel and slewed across the fast lane. The others piled into it."

"A new car?"

Star Two paused. "That took some pressing to find out. Yes—a Carasel Windflight, but in test trim and not carrying the production bodywork so it wasn't recognized as a new model."

"How about the accident reports?"

"None available. Auto City Vehicle Accidents Bureau had a fire. All Highway 640's accidents records are destroyed."

"Convenient," said David. "So who remembered?"

"Sergeant Banner did, after some pressure."

"So they've no record of witnesses' names, or drivers' insurance companies?"

"None at all."

"Any luck with Tom Claus?"

"Not yet. This will take time. Tom Claus worked on classified data. He has immunity from Federal checks unless he is arrested for espionage activities, which he hasn't been as of right now."

"Since when has automobile design been classified data?"

Star Two said: "Since the automobile industry began the manufacture of certain types of rocket motors and spacecraft instruments. There is scarcely any difference now between their security and that of a space program manufacturer's plant. The whole thing is interlocked."

"I didn't realize that. My God! This could be the really big infiltration!"

"You've always said that the other incidents were try-outs. These two policemen, Hicks and Deltora—are they malformed?"

"Not physically obvious, but there's no doubt in my mind that they are aliens. I'm also certain that they knew Tom Claus would crash and were there to meet him. Six forty is an eight-lane highway with permanent and frequent highway patrols, as is usual with such highways, yet a city patrol car shows up."

"That's a strange point, but can you prove they knew?"

"I will," said David grimly. "I already have the linkage I need to start tracing this new menace to its source."

"Linkage is not enough."

"You don't have to tell me that. But linkage is also the aliens' aim. I might have to kill to find how far the linkage has been forged."

"But won't you be on your own if that happens?" Star Two questioned. "The government won't back you officially, I'm sure. You can trust Willard Knight—unless he, too, has an accident in the near future," Star Two added grimly. "But I doubt if even Willard will stand for that mercury popgun of yours if you fire at someone who isn't an alien."

"They'd have only a mild poisoning from the acid and mercury combination," said David. "I have to use mercury when an alien has possessed a dead body. I've found in the past that a bullet won't kill them, and I can't get at them with poison or a knife. Can't get close enough because of their ray guns. And they may well become immune to these mercurized slugs of mine if they make their linkage strong enough."

"Meaning that the longer they can remain in a human identity, the less risk of incandescent destruction?"

"Meaning just that." David glanced at his watch. "I have a call to make. You'll keep your line open for my contact, day and night?"

"I surely will. How much leeway do you want?"

"Say, eight hours."

"So every report will be at least up to the preceding eight hours."

"That will be the maximum."

"After eight hours' silence I'll get things moving."

"Right. Check this apartment first. I'll try to leave a message in the usual way. Stand by, Star Two. Stand by, Star Two. This may escalate mighty fast."

"You're a brave man, Star One. Good-bye. Good luck!"

He found her number in the phone book. He recognized her voice immediately, but didn't say her name at first.

"I believe you have been referred to as a door without hinges," said David. "Which is a silly way of introducing myself as representing the makers of hingeless doors. I specialize in opening doors which everybody else says cannot or should not be opened. I know it's very difficult to speak on the telephone. Perhaps I could meet you and discuss this matter of doors, about which you were so kind as to make inquiry?" She rose to it, calmly and swiftly. "Why, yes, indeed. How good of you to call! Are you in town?"

"I am here for my usual coverage of the district."

"I suppose I needn't ask you how you obtained my phone number, because I forgot to give it to you."

"We have mutual friends, although you may not think so. And, of course, I much admired your late husband, Chick Verrel."

"I see. I was a little foolish not to give you more information. Would you care to visit me?"

"I really am rather busy and have many calls to make. Perhaps we could meet this evening?"

"I start my work in the evening," she said. "I run the Racing Wheel Club on Sixth Street. Why don't you come along there this evening? We serve very good food, and you can stay for the floor show if you're not too busy."

"I shall look forward to that. You remember my name, of course? It is Trome-—David Trome."

"Ah—yes, Mr. Trome. Well, you come along to the club this evening and bring the details of your—er—hingeless doors."

"Thank you very much. I'll see you then."

He called in at the vast new police block a little farther down the street from his apartment house. Auto City did itself proud. In this new center all departments were under one roof. But it was a very high roof and some forty floors, so that finding the right department was even worse than the old method of chasing through different streets to find the subsections of a city's police force. At last he tracked it down to an end half-a-dozen cubbyholes on the twenty-second floor.

Sergeant Banner was a short, bull-necked, bald-headed man. David noticed he had a deformed left hand. The two smallest fingers were twisted and stiff, although not enough to prevent him from carrying out clerical duties.

"You the guy inquiring about an accident?" Sergeant Banner asked.

"That's right."

"Name of Trome?"

"They must have phoned through the details from downstairs," said David.

"I'm doing the asking. Are you David Trome?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Address?"

David gave him a Chicago address. "What's your interest in the alleged accident?"

"Witness."

"Whaddya know!" Banner sneered. "A guy with a social conscience! Witnesses we usually have to bring in at the point of a gun, but you walk right in. Where was this accident?"

"On Highway 640, this morning. A Windflight car went off the road. Nothing hit it, no vehicle passing or being passed. I thought the driver might need a witness."

The desk phone burred. The sergeant's deformed hand grabbed it.

"Sergeant Banner, Accident Records." He listened, heavy face impassive, then: "Yeah. Could be that way. You saw him. Who? Gin or the old man?" He listened some more. "Okay, you do that." He glanced at the wall clock. "Then check with me. Right." He put down the phone. "Wait," he said to David, and disappeared behind an opaque screen partition.

David could see Banner's bulky outline bending over a desk, turning pages of a large-sized book or ledger. After about five minutes he reappeared.

"You saw this accident—you personally saw it?"

"That's right."

"Anyone hurt?"

"I thought the driver was dead, but he got out of the wreck and walked away." Nothing about seeing Hicks or Deltora. Nothing about speaking with them, nor of meeting Tom Claus. Object of this exercise was to put himself on the target. Two ways to draw the fire of a completely unknown adversary. If the police were a regular force with not one break in their line of honest duty, then those two policemen should have reported the incident even though they were not on highway patrol. If they had reported it, the authorities, meaning the police whose department it would be, would appreciate a witness calling in. An honest police department would be concerned that the witness did not report in, or give a statement and his full address to any police officers present at the time.

Star Two in Washington had spoken of a gag, which meant a blockage between security forces of the city and the police department where one pressured the other, making it difficult for even the Federal authority to obtain clear information. So, if the Auto City police department, as represented through their accident division, reacted in the wrong way to this visit, then David Trome had his clear, strong link into the heart of local authority.

Banner was surveying him coldly.

"You a nut?" said Banner, casual. "I got no record of a Windflight crashing. How do you know about Wind-flights, huh?"

"A dream car, I guess," said David. "I'd heard that Carasel were bringing out this supermodel sports job, but I'd not seen one until this morning."

"Dream is right," said Banner. "You got the wrong department, Mac. Go out this door, turn right. At the passage end there's a small elevator. Take it down to the tenth. Partway along the corridor you'll see a door marked 'Auto Queries.' Go in there. I'll phone down and tell 'em you're coming."

"If you say so." David shrugged.

"I do say so," said Sergeant Banner harshly. "And listen, Mac—when I say go in that elevator, I mean you do just that. We don't like strangers wandering around here, so…" He left the sentence unfinished.

David nodded, walked out of the door, turned right down the corridor, came to the small elevator and pressed the button. Play it by ear, that's the way when you don't know what's coming. That way you pretty soon find out, and that's what he was here for.

The elevator door slid open. The elevator was small compared with the vast express and others in this large building. Small and cozy, paneled in green leather. Not big enough for more than four people and partly filled now with the large form of Danny Hicks, the policeman. He looked even bigger out of uniform, wearing a broad-check tweed jacket.

David had taken a natural step forward as the door slid open so he scarcely needed the helping hand which Hicks gave him by pulling him farther into the elevator. The action slammed him against the far side. By the time he had recovered, the door had closed and the elevator was shooting downward.

He turned from the huddled position into which he'd fallen by the force of hitting the wall, but wasn't in time to duck the slashing backhand blow Hicks aimed across the side of his head. His eardrum felt as if it had split. A bunched fist slammed into his guts.

Gasping and crouched down on one knee he looked up at the huge man. Fortunately he had seen the second blow coming and tensed his muscles in the way that a well-trained judo expert can. But no amount of training can do anything but minimize a full-powered blow from a fist belonging to a man of Hicks's stature.

Hicks was staring down at him with no expression on his face or in his eyes. David had the impression that here was a man doing what he had to do, or what he'd been told to do. The impression clicked into David's mind, linking with other times when physical contact with aliens had shown him this same zombielike expression, even under stress.

He reached into his pocket, gasping more noisily than he actually needed to do. Giving Hicks the idea that he was in a partially collapsed state.

"Can I have a cigarette before you kill me?"

Hicks shrugged. "Kill?" he said. "You ain't getting killed, Mister. You're going to wish you were, but you ain't. You wouldn't take no warning from my friend Deltora, would you? 'Don't be sorry,' he told you. Now you're gonna be sorry."

The elevator stopped as the long, thick cigarette case came into David's hand. The larger part of the case held cigarettes. The other section appeared to be a lighter. He put a cigarette in his mouth.

As the door slid open, Hicks gripped him with one massive hand and levered him out of the elevator. They marched along between fat, round concrete pillars. The air was dank and around them the pulsing beat of the air-conditioning plant could be heard through huge steel vents along one wall.

They were deep in the bowels of the great building and obviously Hicks knew exactly where he was going. He hurried David along to where a door was set into a corner. Hicks unlocked this door, threw it open and thrust David through into a long rectangular room, with racks bearing plastic-covered objects.

Hicks slowly took off his coat, draped it over a rack.

"Not kill," he said. "But you don't ever come back to Auto City."

"A smoke?" said David. "I'm a coward. I can't stand punishment."

"I'd kill," said Hicks. "I don't see why not. Trouble, you are." He advanced toward David.

David waited, raising the cigarette case slowly as if to light the cigarette, almost level with his eyes, sighting along it, when he pressed the small release button.

The compressed-air charge hissed as the tiny mercury and acid bullet sped on its way into Hicks's chest.

At that second David moved swiftly, becoming not the cowed, frightened man but a lithe, active opponent whose legs were like coiled springs as he leaped and whirled around the big man. He wasn't sure how long this would take. He wasn't sure about anything, except that this had to be done.

He avoided Hicks's grasping hands, clawing at him, but could not detect any expression yet on the big man's face, or in his eyes. The zombie look was still there.

Then suddenly it happened. The big chest began to glow—faintly pink at first, then brighter and brighter. Hicks halted, suddenly swaying.

David rushed to the far corner of the room, shielding his eyes in the crook of his arm.

The body of Hicks began to glow brighter and brighter, spreading out from his chest over the great torso, down to the abdomen and legs, finally around the shoulders and arms. The last part David could not watch. Even from behind his tight-closed eyes the terrific, flaring, incandescent burning was a fearsome thing.

When at last he looked up there was only vapor where Danny Hicks once had lived.

Chapter 5

COME—RACE WITH ME!

David emerged from a long passage winding up to the subbasement parking floor. It seemed that the small elevator and this passage were the only way in and out of that eerie place, with its huge concrete piles upon which the whole structure was balanced. He learned later that its emptiness was due to dampness; the building site had originally been marshy ground and the piles went forty feet down. A drying plant was being installed, but until then, this place remained ghostly but conveniently empty.

He came on to the parking floor behind some police trucks, clutching two of the plastic-covered packages, walked nonchalantly to his cat. Numerous drivers, patrol-car cops, men in civilian clothes and service mechanics in blue work clothes moved around, or stood talking. Several glanced at him, but no one challenged his presence. David drove out into the rush-hour traffic.

In his apartment he unwrapped one package, made a detailed inspection of the contents before dialing Star Two's Washington number. Star Two's recorded voice gave the code sign, then:

"Shall return at twenty-one hours. Wait for the signal, then record your message."

When the signal came, David said, "Star One has just used the mercury gun to save himself from severe injury. The man Hicks was occupied by a member of the alien force from the galaxy we already know about. This man, while obviously under domination, possessed an advanced human-reaction control. A very frightening thing to observe, and proof that the aliens have made considerable progress from their earlier and somewhat clumsy attempts to occupy the human form. They appear now to have mastered the technique of infiltrating the body at the precise moment that physical life, as we know and understand it, ceases to exist but before brain, nerve or tissue deterioration occurs. This means they have to be in complete control of the circumstances of apparent death and avoid any mutilation."

"If we cannot destroy their linkage fairly quickly, it's my opinion they will learn even more and make each alien-occupied body function so perfectly it will be impossible for us to recognize them. Even now, it's not possible for the ordinary person to do so unless that person accepts and believes in the danger of alien presences in our society. But this very disbelief prevents them from accepting the facts as we know them. Therefore, they see only certain types of personality change."

"In their work, these characters are probably more efficient than before because their bodies cannot feel pain, nor do they suffer physical tiredness. Although unable to project a natural human emotion, they do at times appear to react emotionally, but this is only in keeping with what the aliens have assumed and learned. We know so little about their own functional persons that we have to assume a number of things, some of which have already been proved and others we can reasonably accept as accurate. There are many things we have yet to discover, but time is not on our side, so we have to accept more and not keep stopping to make detailed analyses."

"The man Hicks will be missed by colleagues in the force, but the aliens will know he's been destroyed. The aliens' extrasensory power can be applied to any situation in which they know the movements of their members. This is a constant-flow power, passing back and forth from and between members and to and from their control. But destruction of one unit prevents the information from that unit flowing back. So they won't know that I'm responsible for the destruction of Hicks."

"If anything happens to me, there must not be any attempts to destroy any individual members, except to save human life. Remember that if one alien is destroyed, the power that supports him returns to its source. If numbers of lesser members are destroyed, then the power of the leading and most important controlling member grows stronger."

"Our only chance is to devise some way of gathering a majority of lesser members in one place and destroying them swiftly, without mercy. The sensory power thus released will be of such force that the leading or control members will be isolated, possibly destroyed, too, much as a build-up of static electricity can, in certain circumstances, destroy the very thing that produces it."

"I have taken two articles from an underground store used by aliens who have infiltrated the police force of this city. I shall mail one of these to you within the hour, for your study, but fear it won't avail much. These are a form of ray gun, and in the hands of an alien are completely effective, but they are operated by the aliens' own power, which activates the ray. Without that, these weapons are useless toys—although it might be possible to bluff with them in an emergency."

"I conclude this report with the information that in my opinion, Sergeant Banner of the accidents records department in Auto City police is an alien. By human reasoning he should know I destroyed Hicks, because Banner himself fixed it so that I was met by Hicks, who had orders to beat me up and scare me away from Auto City."

"Why not kill me? Because just as we humans can only reason as humans, so the aliens can only react as aliens until they have completely conquered our human environment and processes which, thank God, they've not yet achieved. They must be careful whom they kill because, in their terms, the power of the person killed will return to its source. They cannot yet understand this doesn't happen to us." David laughed softly. "Or does it? Even we humans don't know that, do we? The aliens will kill in order to occupy that body, and I'm sure they believe this prevents any escape of power as they know and use it."

"This report now ends. I am proceeding to the Racing Wheel Club on Sixth Street, to see Mrs. Carmen Verrel."

She was taller and younger than he imagined she would be. This was a trap he tried to avoid falling into, but it's natural to visualize a person's looks from hearing their voice.

The outer bar was ingeniously arranged to include a number of small booths fitted in the manner of auto-racing pits. Each bore the insignia of a famous auto-racer or car-manufacturer. The room was circular, the booths around its perimeter. In the center, a grass-green floor and spaced tables, whose tops were shaped in the profile of various racing cars, gave a colorful and strangely lifelike auto-racing-scene impression.

A young man of medium height, lean, sunburned, with the clearest blue eyes David had ever seen, brushed against him as he took the drink he had ordered.

"So sorry," said the young man. "That was clumsy of me. Let me buy you another drink."

"That's all right," said David. "Only a drop was spilled, no harm done."

"I haven't seen you here before. Stranger in town?"

"You know I am." David smiled.

The young man laughed. "Only that you are a stranger here. I wouldn't know about your being a stranger in town, taking the city as a whole—that is, if you'd like to take the city as a whole."

"Very attractive." David glanced around. "Are you connected with the club?"

"Founder member, among other things. The name is Wayne Draycott. You wouldn't be the man who sells doors without hinges, would you?"

"I've been known to study the subject," said David. "And I'm rather partial to ladies who have that particular problem."

"So I understand." Wayne Draycott pointed to a section between the booths. "There's a house phone in there. If you went across and pressed the number seven button, you might find it interesting. Finish your drink first, by all means."

David sipped his drink, meeting the gaze from the brilliant eyes so full of humor that it made him feel good to see them. He admired the way Carmen Verrel had used this young man to intercept and assess him. David finished his drink, nodded to Wayne Draycott and walked between the tables to the house phone.

He recognized the voice at once. "I'm the man who is nuts about unhinged doors," he said. "And I'm on the town for this evening. They tell me this is one of the best places to be."

"I'm sure it is," she answered. "Forgive me for putting you through a small amount of testing."

"I'm very glad you did."

"Wayne will show you where to come." The phone clicked. David sauntered back to the table.

Wayne Draycott said, "I've ordered you another drink. Excuse me." He left David alone.

He surveyed the scene around him, noting the types who frequented each booth. There was no mistaking the air of cars because, apart from the decor, the customers fairly reeked of cars themselves. A perfectly natural thing in a place called Auto City. But these were not essentially automobile salesmen, or necessarily executives or production-line workers. Most were a breed of men who live lonely lives at their work, which is usually behind the wheel of a powerful car, yet who cannot bear to be alone when outside a car.

On one or two trips to Europe, David had followed the Grand Prix racing circuits and was a great enthusiast of the sport which had spread more and more across the States in the past few years. It had been in Europe that he found this attitude among most of the younger racing drivers. Few of them drank more than beer, and most preferred casual dress. Some were boisterously high-spirited, but the true track and circuit racing driver was very different from the death-and-glory boys of a decade or so ago. Car racing was a world sport. Competition for the cockpit seat left no room for heroics or exhibitionism. Millions in money poured into the building of the prototype cars to win championships. Manufacturers used these as test beds as well as samples of their wares, and, by the success on the circuits, created vast sales throughout the world for the production cars that followed the racing models.

Knowing much of this background, David assessed these groups of young men. He judged Wayne Draycott to be a fine example of the breed, and noticed a number of others with the same mark of dynamic but well-disciplined character.

In one of the farthest booths he recognized Mike Lasser, the Australian ace driver, talking with Ken Holt, the British winner of last year's Indianapolis Five Hundred. In another booth he saw Rod Baker, American sports-car champion, talking with Pietro Donelli of Italy. Ace Blumen, another top American driver, was with two men David didn't recognize.

After this first survey of the groups, David concentrated his gaze on Rod Baker and Ace Blumen. He was so engrossed in this study he didn't see Wayne Draycott return.

"Studying our celebrities?" Draycott smiled.

David nodded. "I've seen most of them driving in Europe or in this country. You have quite a selection of talent here tonight."

"Oh yes. We get the tops in the Racing Wheel Club. It's a pretty exclusive club, you know. Well—exclusive to the auto-racing fraternity. And of course we have a large membership among the executives and others in our local auto industry. It's a little early for them to show up yet, but most of the drivers don't stay late. They're generally out on the test tracks by dawn."

"As a matter of interest"—David spoke casually—"have Ace Blumen and Rod Baker been involved in crashes recently?"

"Strange you should ask that." Draycott's gaze was keen as he added, "Why do you?"

David shrugged. "As I say—a matter of interest. You don't have to tell me."

"My future and glamorous Mama-in-law seems to believe you are the answer to some sort of prayer and a savior of current mankind. She instructs me to be forthcoming, or to use her own sweet words, 'Wayne, when you meet David I want no applesauce from you and no goddam guff, huff and bluff.' By this, you will see she knows me more than somewhat. I do have a terribly hoity-toity manner, but underneath it all I'm just—a most irritating hoity-toity bastard, I guess. So the answer to your pertinent question is—yes. But it's not generally known, and I can't guess how you would know it. Yes, they crashed. All very hush-hush testing stuff, so no publicity."

"Did they die?" said David quietly.

"Kid me not—for if they did, they're the only ghosts I know who can sink beer by the gallon. Come to think of it, they really would be the only ghosts I know." Wayne Draycott eyed David shrewdly. "Very few people know about those crashes, so I suggest you forget it was ever mentioned. Auto City is jealous of its security."

"Why hush it up? They're both famous drivers. To crash is a natural hazard of their profession."

"Do you think Carasel, or any other mammoth car production outfit, wants to publicize its design faults? These drivers are paid to test a car to its limit, as I well know. If that limit comes before, the computers say it should, then we crash."

"So you do testing as well?"

Draycott stood up. "Let us go to meet Carmen before you say something I might be sorry for."

They walked through the restaurant—a long, curving room with tables tiered to simulate a race track stand. The yellow floor had black tire-tread skid marks patterned on it. A marshal's box on a dais held a jazz group, desultorily rehearsing. Track signal flags formed a backdrop to the small stage.

Wayne Draycott led the way to the last aisle between the tiers of tables, climbed it and pressed a molded panel. A partition slid open. He ushered David through into a lushly fitted gaming room. In the far corner he opened a mirror door. They stepped into an office, mellow under light from concealed fittings. The decor in grays and greens suited her coloring, as did the emerald-green dress.

"Why, hello!" All bright and airy, waving a square of white card. She chattered on while holding the card in front of David. "How nice of you to come so early. You will see that we have a door problem."

David read the card. "We have just discovered this office is bugged. Have found one device. Suspect others."

He said, smiling, "Thank you, Mrs. Verrel. Your problem is something of a challenge. I've made some drawings—if I may use your desk?" He wrote on a scratch-pad: "I've the most up-to-date detector in my pocket. Keep talking while I check the room."

Wayne Draycott read this over David's shoulder, and said, "Ah, yes, this is a more modern approach. We discovered the—er—snags just by luck."

"Yes, indeed." She spoke gaily, but her eyes were shadowed with worry. "We thought perhaps a sliding door over there. Would that be possible?"

"I'll measure and test the structures," said David, following the clue line. "If you'd ignore me for a time—just carry on as if I wasn't here."

Mrs. Verrel said, "Wayne, I've had a word with Liane about her driving your Carasel Mark Five. Really, I think it's much too powerful for her." They carried on a lively argument about the car and her daughter's ability to drive it, while David moved as rapidly as he could around the room.

The detector device needle registered zero until he came to a cabinet filled with racing trophies, when it swung wildly. He reached under the cabinet and detached a magnetic mike, broke its relay circuit and carried on with his search. He found another mike behind a picture above the safe, a pulse-relay in a radio, and a tape-impulse-sender in the telephone.

"I'll check the details once more." David smiled encouragingly at Carmen Verrel, who was showing signs of strain in having to keep up this idle conversation while the collection of bugging devices grew on the desk in front of her. At last David said in a normal voice, "I guarantee there are no more in this office."

She sank into a chair. "Wayne, for God's sake get me a drink! I'm sure David needs one as well."

"He is not alone," said Wayne, moving a panel to disclose a bar.

David said, "This doesn't affect me as much as it does you, Mrs. Verrel. It's something I'm very familiar with, and the reason why I always carry certain protective devices with me."

She shivered gently. "I think it's horrible. It's like having burglars who foul your house."

"Don't think me unsympathetic, but let's not get emotional. Bugging is a natural device used by people who would be very offended if you called them crooks, or snoopers, or would-be blackmailers," said David. "Whatever the law may say, this has become a part of the lives of anyone who deals with secrets and confidential information of any kind. Accept it, be prepared for it, take steps to protect yourself against it, and you defeat it."

"Sure, darling." Wayne came across with the drinks. "What every well-dressed man and woman should wear today—an antibugging device, a miniature tape-recorder, a wrist watch microphone, and no conscience. This is the land of the free." He grinned at David. "I forgot to ask you if the whiskey was okay."

They drank, lighted cigarettes as suddenly a hiatus came between them. Mrs. Verrel's pose had left her fumbling a little to find the right attitude to adopt. She glanced at Wayne who, with surprising quickness of mind, seemed to understand.

"I think it's time you two were alone. You will notic§ I make corny remarks with the greatest of ease." He smiled at her. "Is your daughter going to be late again I think I'll go and look for her, if you'll excuse me."

The mirror door closed behind him.

David said quickly, "Let's not waste time, Mrs. Verrel. Do you suspect Wayne Draycott of planting those bugs?"

"Oh no! No, I do not!"

"But the thought had occurred to you?"

She gave a grimace of disgust. "Such terrible thoughts occur to me these days, but I would stake my life on his absolute honesty with me and my daughter. He's a wonderful boy."

"Who else has access to your office? Apart from cleaners and occasional staff who might visit you?"

"None of the staff come in here unless I or my daughter or Wayne is here. Oh—and of course Thias."

"Thias?"

"Thias Rumbold. He's a director of the Racing Wheel Club and has a considerable investment in it. He's also the chief of security with Carasel Motors. Which means, if you know the setup of this town, he is virtually as powerful, if not more powerful, than the chief of police or the district attorney."

"Would he bug an office he uses himself?"

She shrugged. "I can't see Thias doing it. He's tough and shrewd, but again I'd stake my life on his personal integrity with us."

"It's not difficult to pay someone to come into an office like this. The bugs are installed very quickly, except the telephone one which was quite intricate. But it means what whoever is monitoring this room also has a tape recorder set up to take down everything, including phone conversations. When not listening themselves, they have an ever-ready tape ear to do it for them. Who else might have that sort of knowledge, and the money to supply them? Because at least two of those bugs are very expensive."

She frowned. "Well, there's Gin, of course."

Memory clicked a warning buzz into David's mind. He heard again Sergeant Banner's voice on the phone, saying, "Gin or the old man."

"Gin?"

"Gineas Rumbold. Thias Rumbold's son. He often uses this office to interview new drivers for the company's test track."

"Ah!" said David softly. "Come race with me. I can feel the gear wheels clicking. And Gin had a car crash recently."

"Yes, rather a bad one. About six months ago, but he walked away from it. I told you."

Chapter 6

A DOUBLE TWIST?

A LONG EVENING AFTER A FULL DAY. David Was weary when he returned to his apartment about two in the morning. But not too weary to make up his case notes. He'd no illusions about this self-dedicated mission—knew his life was always at risk. He worked each day on the assumption that he'd be dead by the next.

Although employing many techniques and devices used by police and private detectives, he had no book of rules, no pattern of procedure based on legal rights, no authority to whom he could refer. In all the country, he was the authority on this subject. And although he had the backing of Star Two and the help he could get in Washington, they would be the first to deny his status if he tried to make the connection public to protect himself. Tom Claus had called him a loner. No loner ever worked so truly on his own.

Yet, thanks to Star Two, those in the upper echelons of State security had assigned their top men to aid him in the background work whenever he required such aid, and in return asked that he should record every step he took in his investigations. But State Department security, public opinion, an awareness of pressure groups from many sectors of social and commercial life—all combined to provide valid reasons why David Vincent must not be given any official standing.

Prove you are right and win your battle against those you call aliens, or invaders—those impossibly nebulous, unformed persons, in whom we cannot, dare not, officially believe—then we will take the credit for saving the country from them. But fail to prove their existence, then you are public nut number one, and we just don't want to know you. If you win and don't die in the attempt, we will quietly honor you. But in the interests of this country, and as a loyal citizen, we expect you to leave us adequate records of your various investigations.

David accepted all this, just as he accepted having to work partly as detective, partly as undercover. agent, partly as psychic hunch-player, partly as a clay pigeon and partly as an apparent nut case. The clay pigeon role was hardest. But at times he had to make himself obvious because the invaders worked beyond the pale of human reasoning. They did not observe legal or moral laws. How could they? Earth laws meant nothing to them, any more than their own laws meant anything to earth people.

In some ways they were a higher power—if by higher you meant a lack of materialism and an abundance of some force greater than mental power as known to humans. That they had mastered transmutation to such a degree proved the presence of such higher power. Yet their greatest power was also their greatest weakness. The power of infiltration by transmutation was virtually unassailable unless the people of Auto City—even more vital, the entire country—believed it to be possible.

David Vincent believed. A few wise men in the corridors of State power believed. And this belief gave knowledge of many things—things that couldn't be proved by cold, human logic. But if the people didn't believe, and they certainly did not, they couldn't fight it, because you cannot fight something or somebody you don't believe is there. The whole thing was a paradox, a UFO fantasy, a gimmick sponsored by a political opposition party—anything but what it really was.

It gave David a quirkily humorous feeling to think of himself as a clay pigeon—to set himself up as something the invaders wanted to shoot down. It baffled them, made them move into the open. Or rather it made their transmutes move. As Sergeant Banner and Hicks were moved by the controlling power.

David sat quietly assessing the day's events, particularly his evening at the Racing Wheel Club, before he began to make up his case notes. Then, the facts and assessments marshaled, he started recording:

"Conclusion of first day Auto City Case. Events up to evening period already recorded. Visited Racing Wheel Club, social and business venue of all racing drivers, test drivers and executives of auto industry, whether visiting or working in Auto City. Facts emerging:

"Two racing drivers, Rod Baker and Ace Blumen, a test driver for Carasel—ex-racing driver Grif Mason—and top security executive Gineas Rumbold have all been involved in car crashes within the past year. In my opinion, these are all transmutations.

"Chick Verrel, killed on the mountain circuit, sighted a UFO landing about six months before. Two witnesses—Mrs. Carmen Verrel and Wayne Draycott—saw Gineas Rumbold holding an instrument aimed at the mountain track. Verrel's body burst into flames. The car crashed but, although badly damaged, no trace of fire could be found in the wreckage other than burns on the driver and part of the driving seat. From description of instrument, which Gineas Rumbold later claimed to be a new type of high-speed camera, I'm convinced it was an invader's ray gun. Rumbold was at this time a transmute, having crashed two weeks previously.

"Chick Verrel had told his wife about his theory that supernatural forces were infiltrating key sectors of the automobile industry. He didn't know how or why, but was accumulating evidence and proposed to contact me. He told only one other person—his lifelong friend, Gineas Rumbold—whose attitude both Mrs. Verrel and Draycott claim had changed considerably since his crash, though apparently he wasn't injured. Rumbold furiously denied Verrel's claims and threatened Chick with security penalties if he persisted in his theory. I believe Rumbold murdered him.

"Individual murders by invaders are carried out only under direction from their control, and for specific purpose. For example: Once I declare to a transmute—that is, a person apparently normal but who has died and been 'occupied' at the moment of death—that I believe in UFO landings and the infiltration of a certain sector of our society, then I must be killed, and my body 'occupied' by an alien. But if I merely make myself a nuisance by querying something, or being present at some alien incident, I shall be pressured to keep quiet by one or more of the aliens' transmutation forms, such as police or security.

"This is not because they don't like killing but because they do not want to release the power they believe we possess. The atmosphere of pressure created around Mrs. Verrel is easing slightly now that she has made it obvious she will not discuss her late husband's theories, nor does she claim to believe in them. This is a blind spot in the aliens' procedure because while they've achieved transmutation—which is complete occupation of a human—they cannot yet enter and control any living mind at will and influence its thoughts.

"In this respect they are quite amazingly honest in their own sphere of life. They have no speech as we know it, but can transmit waves or thought influences far faster than speech, and over incredible distances. In their studies of earth humans they've learned to understand our speech, but cannot understand a lie. In their own methods of communication it's not possible to tell a lie. Therefore, they believe everything they hear us say. The transmutations do not, because they are using human processes, but they don't think for themselves. They are always under control. And when Mrs. Verrel, her daughter or Wayne Draycott says, laughingly, 'Aliens? Invaders? I don't believe it!', this is accepted by the control. And while it is accepted, Mrs. Verrel and her family are safe. That's why the pressure on her is being eased. I've impressed upon these three people that they must not discuss Chick Verrel's theories, and if Gineas Rumbold seeks to trap them, they are to pour scorn on the whole idea.

"There is no doubt that the aliens are selecting those people they need to occupy and thus control, through key positions, in the auto industry here. In the Monarch Auto Plant's transmission division during the past three months there have been two mystery explosions, and workmates believed four of their friends had been killed. The 'dead' men got up, scrambled through the debris and later resumed work. The Carasel Company's axle assembly line had a major accident when overhead carriers collapsed. Two inspectors—Sam Kyatt and Ben Bow—should, by all accounts, have been dead. I met Kyatt tonight. He and Ben Bow, a colored man, are inveterate gamblers. Both are definitely transmutes.

"A bigger, equally mysterious accident on the main assembly line at Carasel Motors should have killed at least six men. Again, workmates thought they were dead, but these men emerged alive from the wreckage of heavy machinery. I met two of them at a crap table in the gaming room. They are Saul Conifer and Mitch Forrester. Both definitely transmutes.

"So already the infiltration into major sectors of Auto City society has taken place. Undoubtedly it is more widespread than these few firsthand examples I've met and noted. How far has it gone? I suspect it will be found at executive levels in local TV, radio and press. It is present in police and security forces, and among key drivers, testers and production staff in the plants. At present it doesn't seem large enough to do any lasting damage to the auto industry here, but it's causing labor troubles within the plants, and no doubt we shall find transmutations among union leaders, as well as rank and file members, in sufficient numbers to create severe disruption in several plants.

"In my earlier report I dealt with an incident on Highway 640. From talks with drivers and others at the club—not transmutes—I learned that many of them avoid driving on Highway 640. The racing drivers claim it has a jinx on it. They refer to it as 'The Halo Highway.' It appears that most of these drivers are convinced the accidents are not natural—though what a 'natural' accident is seems hard to explain. But it does seem that many accidents have been caused by new cars which suffer sudden brake failures, axle seizures, or transmission breakups.

"Wayne Draycott tells me it's generally agreed that suppression of reports of these accidents is necessary to safeguard the auto industry, and therefore the living of most people in Auto City. In one way or another, all citizens in this town rely on the auto industry for their livelihood, as do thousands of people in other towns and industries. Reports of repeated failure of new cars would cause alarm and despondency throughout the country—possibly panic.

"No doubt this is true. But is it the work of the aliens through their key positions in the new services and police? Or is it a natural ganging together of interested parties and therefore a perfectly human reaction? I should have thought the aliens would try to make those accidents as public as possible, if their aim is to destroy and take over one of the largest sections of our industries.

"There could be a double twist to this aspect, and our own people could be playing into the aliens' hands by suppressing the facts—because it must break sooner or later, and when it does, the impact will be even more severe once the public learns it's been hushed up."

"This concludes the main assessment of my report to date. I now have to inform you of my plans for the immediate future. Through the influence of Wayne Draycott and Mrs. Verrel, and their connection with Thias Rumbold, I'm to be given a trial drive with a view to becoming a temporary test driver at Carasel Motors. I've driven on the circuits in Europe and here, so I'm not a complete fool in speed cars. And tomorrow I shall be visiting Clawgut Mountain to undergo a strict test over the mountain circuit, before returning to the works for my official test. So I request most urgently your attention to provide me with an international driving license in this name. This is one document I foolishly overlooked, because it should have been obvious I would need a form of introduction." David paused, laughed softly.

"If I crash, it may well be by design of the aliens and, if so, they will 'occupy' me. I shall then become a transmutation, and I'd hate to be in your shoes when you try to decide whether or not I am one. This report now ends."

He stretched the tiredness from his limbs.

"Well, I don't see why you shouldn't sweat it out a bit as well." Then he sat up suddenly and exclaimed: "Oh hell! David, your damn fool sense of humor!" Then he shrugged. "Ah, the hell with it," and went to bed.

Chapter 7

BREAKAWAY

District Attorney Clive Shelden and Police Chief Willard Knight sat in the sun loggia of the District Attorney's house facing David. They were not very happy men, being prickly with what appeared to be hurt pride more than anything else.

"You have been in Auto City for three days now," said Shelden. "I should have thought you would have contacted either or both of us immediately you arrived. I tell you now, Mr. Vincent—"

"Trome, if you don't mind," said David with a smile.

Clive Shelden napped a hand in an irritated manner.

"All this cloak and dagger stuff! I don't go for it—not at anything less than government level."

"But this must be considered government level, Clive," said Willard Knight quietly. "We both have been tipped off to help Mr. Trome, and know the reasons must not be made public. I agree that this business irritates me."

"Irritates!" said David. "Do you not feel there is a better word for the possible destruction of your major industry?"

Willard Knight rubbed a hand across his forehead and frowned. "This is too big for me to accept. Being chief of police in a town like Auto City is not the same as in other places. I think that goes for our district attorney as well. We have a very powerful security force employed by the industry, which has its own legal department and security enforcement officers."

"This is what bothers me," said Clive Shelden. "I feel that we're putting ourselves out on a limb in cooperating with you, while our colleagues in the security forces are not made officially aware of your presence."

"You're not officially aware of my presence," said David sharply. "I don't exist officially." He stared at them hard. "Gentlemen," he said quietly, "I am not going to mince words. A fool is not necessarily a dishonest man, but a dishonest man is always a fool. I think it is time for us to be perfectly honest with each other and for you to declare your honesty of purpose, as I have. You have sought proof in order to test my integrity, but offer me none that I may test yours. I think that your normal high intelligence is now being blocked by a natural but unnecessary and entirely provincial pettiness of pride in your respective positions. Let us get that out of the way. I'm sorry you are not able to sit behind your official desks in your official offices, in which surroundings you would feel greatly my superiors, but this is not a time for any of us to feel superior about anything. I most certainly do not."

Clive Shelden began to bristle like a terrier at a strange cat, but Willard Knight, a big man with a craggy face and handsome mane of hair, took it very well.

"Simmer down, Clive." He grinned at the district attorney. "None of this is in your book or mine. Neither of us has officially been informed, but that doesn't stop us remembering what we've read and seen on television about a certain David Vincent. Nor should we forget that, like millions of others in this country, we have been concerned lest there was some truth in his beliefs. But like most of those millions we laughed at it, we shrugged it off, we said to ourselves—so what? Some nut has some crazy idea. Could be he's right. If he is, let him prove it. If he isn't—lock him up, or shut him up. But, we said to ourselves, in any case it won't happen to us. These miracle vehicles, or whatever you call them, from some galaxy in outer space won't come anywhere near our right little, tight little city. So none of us even thought—much less planned—what we should do if they did come."

"This is against all the rules of evidence," said Clive Shelden. "I couldn't take this case into a court of law."

"You wouldn't need to," said David. "Unless you stop these aliens you won't have any courts of law. You won't have anything as you know it now."

"Oh, come now, Mr. Trome! Whatever the powers of these so-called aliens, they can't wipe out 160 million people, so don't try and kid me that they can."

"I have never suggested they would wipe out vast numbers of people in one all-out attack. That is not their aim. They are not equipped to do it. Their aim is to infiltrate. They are growing stronger and more knowledgeable all the time while you and, as you say, millions of others are shutting your eyes and ears to the possibility of the aliens. I beg you to forget your rules of evidence and your courts of law and accept, even without understanding, that there are in your midst a number of zombielike people who are known to you and to others in your town as respectable citizens. Their change in personality and character has, in all cases, been put down to the fact that they were involved in an accident, or a car crash."

David looked at Willard Knight. "Did you investigate the room in the bowels of your police department building?"

"I did it myself. I had to use a special tool to get the door open because there's no key available. There were no items on the racks and the room was bare. But in the place you described there was a jagged circle of whitish powder over the floor, as if the concrete had been subjected to fierce heat which had bleached it and left a powdery deposit."

"That was what remained of Dan Hicks," said David.

"You see!" Clive Shelden exclaimed. "The one rather doubtful piece of evidence you give us of your own activities is some form of evidence of murder by you."

"Nonsense," said David. "You cannot murder somebody who is already dead. Not according to the law—your law. Oh, for Pete's sake, man, shut your mind to the endless materialism of your daily routine of law and order and enforcement. These things no longer apply when you're dealing with this alien force. Accept that it can be done because it is being done—the entering of the bodies of numerous citizens of your town so that they continue to live a fairly normal life but are, in fact, under control of a power whose true force we have yet to discover but that we know must be stopped."

Clive Shelden sat smoking steadily for a few minutes. Long minutes they were because Willard Knight also had caught this mood of reflection and sat puffing at his cigar and staring unseeingly through the loggia window at distant Clawgut Mountain. David let them stay quiet. He had experienced this sort of reaction before on a number of occasions and could almost repeat from memory the reactions of any worthy and important citizen of any community when faced with this problem. Irritation, disbelief, fear, resentment, anger—all took their turn until finally, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, this silence came. It had to come if the men he faced were honest and intelligent, thinking men.

"All right," said Clive Shelden at last, "I'll go along with you. I accept. It's absurd, fantastic, impossible—but I accept."

"I'm with you," said Willard Knight. He chuckled. "Although I don't know what good it will do you if we follow your Washington friend's advice and not know you. This means we can't come out in the open and support you in anything you do."

"I don't want you to," said David. "That causes too much interference, too much explanation to others. What I need from you right now is an intensive check through every car accident on your Highway 640 and anywhere else in the city limits during the past six months. You will then check as far as possible the people who survived those crashes, note where they are working and with whom they are working, and check also for changes in personality and character status. I've already given you a clear picture of what an occupied person looks like, but I admit that they're very hard to detect, so we'll assume that all those who survived a car crash, especially on Highway 640, will have been occupied. This will give you a list of the army that is growing within your midst. I cannot operate the sample ray gun, and Washington agrees that it cannot be activated by any known means—that is, human means. But I've every reason to believe that those guns need not always kill. They are peculiar-looking objects and could, in some circumstances, be mistaken for a camera with a telescopic lens. They have a large viewfinder—large in relation to the size of the article—but will close up to fit into a pocket without too much of a bulge. I suggest that you make a thorough check along each side of Highway 640, having obtained a graph of all the accidents occurring to that highway. I think you will find adequate places, say, up to two hundred yards from the scene of the accident, where a man with one of these weapons could have hidden himself. We will then begin to understand the pattern of these accidents. How they are caused, and why."

"And in the meantime you will be doing your best to kill yourself?" said the police chief.

David grinned. "Thanks to Wayne Draycott and a little help from Washington, I'm assured of a temporary post as a test driver."

"Who passed you?" Clive Shelden asked.

"Gineas Rumbold screened me for security. But as Wayne Draycott is director of competitions for Carasel Motors, I didn't need to go through personnel. A man named Ollie Temper—the chief production-car tester—is taking me over the mountain circuit. It's company policy for all sports-car testers to be vetted by another department, no matter what their reputation may be in the motor-racing world."

Clive Shelden said, "It's one thing to be supplied with documents and vouched for by a company executive, but driving one of those speed wagons over the Clawgut test circuit is twenty other things. I know—I've tried to pass Ollie Temper's test. Thought I could drive a car, but, brother!"

"Clive's right," said Willard Knight. Twenty other things means twenty of the fiercest curves on a shale surface, and no dawdling on the way. Are you really up to that standard?"

"I've been over the circuit twice in Wayne's car. It's fairly simple. Don't forget that my documents are faked only as regards my name and background. I really have raced in the Le Mans twenty-four hours, and twice driven in the Monte Carlo Rally as well as over a number of race circuits. I'm not a world-class racing driver but I'm not a novice either. Don't worry about me."

"Why not get a job on the production lines? Surely you'd learn more inside the plant?" Shelden asked.

"Well, this job gives me entry into the plants without tying me to one place all the time. Also, there are a higher proportion of alien-controlled persons in the executive and testing grades."

Willard Knight said, "When we first met, you mentioned something you called your breakaway point. Can this be compared with what is called breakthrough level in our routine police work—the point at which we have all the evidence necessary to make an arrest?"

David smiled. "There won't be any arrests, Mr. Knight. It's very hard for officials such as yourselves to understand that proof, for me, is that which I accept as alien manifestations—such as transmutations, and the outworkings of the transmutes, as in the case of Hicks, and of the pressures upon Mrs Verrel. In your police terms, I have already broken through. My breakaway point is when I see myself in the position where I can work to use the aliens' powers against themselves."

"Why breakaway?" said Shelden. "Because I break away from the usual logical reasoning. It's the point from which I begin moving toward destruction of the alien infiltration."

"Can't you give us anything more tangible?" said Willard Knight.

"Yes," said Shelden. "Some proof example from previous cases you are known to have investigated?"

"You have just stated the proof you need," said David. "Your admission that I have investigated previous cases. Washington—and possibly the publicity given me at the time—has convinced you there were cases investigated by me. Now you want proof of arrests and convictions. Your minds cannot truly accept anything not of material or human form when, already, you have accepted that the aliens themselves are not of material or human form." David paused as he stood up. "My breakaway is to a path leading to unknown processes and has only one end—complete destruction of this particular cell or section of the invaders. Or their destruction of me. Meanwhile, there are material and physical ways in which you can help. Not to obtain proof or evidence, but to discover what pattern the aliens are following in Auto City. It's easy to assess why they have chosen the heart of one of our greatest industries."

Both men stared at him.

"Dammit!" Willard Knight exploded. "Why don't we just stage a mass arrest of all suspected transmutes—as you call them? Simple as that, eh, Shelden?"

"I don't know," Shelden spoke slowly. "It sounds too easy."

David nodded. "Too easy for nothing. Because that is what they are, gentlemen—nothing. They are dead men occupied by an alien force. You can arrest and lock them up, thus removing them from your physical and material scene. What then? I'll tell you. The alien control will destroy them by withdrawing their power to itself, so making itself even stronger. With this extra power it will cause more transmutations overnight. And all you will have will be circles of whitish powder on the floor of your prison or detention centers. You will not be able to keep it quiet. You will do exactly what the invaders want to achieve—a destruction of the nation's will by panic and fear."

"But didn't Washington say that you have learned how to destroy transmutes so that the power in them destroys their control?" said Shelden. "What is the difference? If we arrest all these terrible subhuman people and their power is withdrawn, it comes to the same thing, doesn't it? Destruction of their control."

"I'll make it simple," said David briskly. "Imagine that here in your home you have only one main fuse. From that fuse you feed numerous smaller fuses. Now—you know that if you switch on all the smaller fuses you make your main fuse carry its maximum load, so you control the number you switch on at any given time. As you increase the number of smaller fuses, you make the main fuse larger and larger, and you always know just how many fuses you can switch on in safety. But supposing I come along and, in one swift action, switch on every small fuse—all at once—what happens?"

"You overload the circuit."

"And the main fuse blows," said Willard Knight.

"Right," said David. "And your whole power system is wrecked. But if you know I'm the crazy coot who is likely to do that switching on of all the small fuses—you'll take avoiding action, but fast. You'll either stop me dead, or you'll stop me touching more than a few of the smaller fuses. Or—if you've time—you'll use a more powerful main fuse so it will take all the feedback of power."

"My God!" Shelden exclaimed. "This means that the aliens' control will know we are gathering in their transmutes and make itself stronger in readiness?"

"Now you're beginning to grasp the essential truth." said David. He glanced at his watch and sighed. "The trouble is that when I do at last receive local co-operation, and an attempt at understanding, I need about six weeks to explain what we're up against. So for now, gentlemen, we must leave it. I'm already late for my Clawgut Mountain test."

Chapter 8

THE COMPANY MEN

Ollie Temper, tall and gangling, whose boyish face belied both years and a vast experience on the race circuits of the world, was waiting at Carasel Motors' motel on the south side of Clawgut Mountain. Not many tourists stayed here, although casual bookings were accepted. The motel was used by visitors to the Auto City plants, particularly those who were especially interested in the sports car division. Test tracks in the city plants also were used for demonstration drives by foreign buyers.

These proved a car's performance on a prepared track, but sports cars in racing trim also had to cope with mountain roads in all parts of the world. So buyers and their drivers based themselves at the motel, from where they could reach all sections of the mountain circuit. There were many huts and vantage points spaced around the mountain from which a car's progress and performance could be checked for almost the entire length of the circuit. These huts and spectator stands were referred to as V.P.s, given a number and marked on a specially prepared map.

The car was a massive, ugly brute with a much-dented body, although the motor, transmission and chassis were the latest design. Carasel didn't waste new and highly polished body shells on testers or test cars unless they needed to check the body aerodynamics, but this work was done mainly by computers in wind tunnels and other factory-simulated tests.

"Wayne tells me you've been over the circuit," said Ollie Temper. "So you don't need me to give you any details, You have the map?"

"Yes. I've studied the gradients, curve angles and recommended gears and revs." David saw a flicker of disgust come into Ollie Temper's expressive face. He smiled and added quickly: "What damn idiot printed those on a map? No offense to you, Mr. Temper, but it's a waste of time, isn't it? I'd say that most of the engine speed figures wouldn't apply to this car. Or the gear speeds."

"Call me Ollie." He grinned broadly. "You had me worried for a minute. Thought you were one of these fancy theory drivers. That's the sort of mistake they make. No, Mr. Trome, that map is the first test. No driver worth a nickel will take any notice of the figures. What did you think of the gradients and curves as guides?"

"Call me Dave—it's quicker. Sorry, Ollie, if this is the wrong answer, but I wouldn't rely on those either." He paused. "Well, gradient markings maybe, but I make my own cornering line. The angle of a curve on a map—even a special one like this—doesn't take into consideration the type and power of the car, the experience of the driver, the speed through the gears, the braking power, the road surface condition at each curve, or the weather." He smiled again. "But otherwise, the V.P. markings are excellent."

"You'll do." Ollie chuckled. "It's a trick map, as any really experienced sports-car man knows. But you'd be surprised how many so-called expert drivers we get up here who spend all night memorizing that damn fool map." He patted the car's hood. "This baby is virtually a Windflight, but with a test body and no pretty goodies inside-—just the vital instruments, racing-trim seats and safety belts. Anything you want to know?"

"Yes, a lot, but I'd prefer the car to tell me."

"Good man! Let's go." Ollie waved a signal to the control tower sited at the start of the mountain road outside the motel boundary. A large neon-lit sign came to life, reading in green letters:

CIRCUIT CLEAR. PROCEED.

As David drove between two posts, a beam-operated device switched the sign to brilliant red lettering, reading:

RACING CAR ON CIRCUIT. STOP HERE.

Despite the pressures an investigation always placed on his mind, making him feel a sense of oppression and tension, David reacted within minutes to the car's great power and swift response to his actions. As with most true drivers of fast cars, complete concentration on and absorption in the task of controlling the hurtling machinery, sensing every need for swift judgment, and constantly adapting and synchronizing hands, feet and brain with the car, excluded all other thoughts.

With this came that never-failing surging exhilaration as he felt the car answer his control of its power and speed. That feeling of being one with the intricately balanced machinery under and around his body. He laughed as he misjudged the first curve and the car rocked in a skidding slide when he had to correct speed and angle very sharply in order to come out of the curve on the correct line to take the next.

He wasn't able to see Ollie's approving nod—didn't need that sort of encouragement. Experience—perhaps more than his own skill—showed him how and why he'd gone wrong, and he quickly changed gear, engine speed and position on the road to put him right for the next curve. A novice would have been unable to do this, might have survived the next curve, but been out of control soon afterwards. Thoroughbred cars, like horses, are quick to unseat the fool or the learner.

By the V.P.6 corner, David had the measure of this particular car's handling characteristics and settled down to really drive up the tortuous, loose-surfaced hairpin turns of Clawgut Mountain. It was a dream of a car-—a novice's nightmare, a killer in the wrong hands, but a world-beater under expert guidance. David realized that although he was driving fast, he knew at least four European drivers who would take it up here at maybe twice his speed. He had no time to watch Ollie for more than a flickering glance as Ollie's hands punched buttons on a test-control computer locked on to the dashboard in front of Ollie's seat. This was the "brain box" that registered every action of the driver and what effect it had on the car and its progress. Ollie also had his own row of buttons that recorded his personal reactions to the driver's skill—or lack of it.

This was not an automatic model, but had an Italian gearbox, a six-speed Cariotti which was a joy to use. Like many experienced drivers, David preferred the gearshift that gave split-second control. By the time they were halfway up the mountain, the car was thoroughly warmed up and David began to feel as if he'd been driving it all his life. His speed crept up as he took each curve on a tighter line, coming in and going out faster than ever with the car's rear end sliding just to that fraction before an "overcooked" skid, which might send them hurtling off the road.

The car breasted the last one-in-three gradient on to a small plateau where a large neon sign read: DESCENT ROAD CLEAR. He spun the car across the plateau, feeling low cloud dampen his face. He switched on the windshield wipers, nursed the engine as the thinner air at this height caused a temporary carburetion fault. Ollie smiled appreciatively as he thought: "This boy knows all about mountain circuits!"

The road down was better surfaced and had been cut in sections of long, steep-sloping straightaways with a diabolically hooked hairpin turn at each end. In such a car as this, the road speed on the straightaways could be over two hundred, but the camber was tricky, and on this side of the mountain, at its higher part, a strong wind gusted across the road. Too much speed and the car would "belly the wind," causing its tires to lose adhesion and change its center of gravity. In seconds it could be out of control, swinging wildly from side to side. If not that, then braking hard to take the hairpin curve might produce the same effect.

Ollie wasn't to know that David, when driving in a rally over the Alps, had once fallen into the trap of believing that going down was easier than going up a mountain. He'd oversped on a straightaway, failed to steady the car for the next curve and shot clean off the road—failing three hundred feet down through fir trees that broke the car's fall to rocks below. He'd spent three hours jammed in the trees before rescuers reached him. No driver does that twice and lives. So David's descent was a masterpiece of control. Slower perhaps than a top-class driver, but extremely creditable.

Ollie was beaming as David tooled the big car off the mountain descent road into a large compound and halted on a ramp under a canopy. A massive billboard proclaimed:

CARASEL MOTORS MARSHALING AND CHECKING STATION

ALL CARS ON RAMP, PLEASE SCRUTINEERS' DECISION IS FINAL

They unclipped their safety belts and climbed out. Ollie clapped an arm around David's shoulders.

"Smooth," he said. "You're real smooth, boy! Know somep'n? After the first trip I'm usually all of a shake when we reach here. The novices scare the pants off me, and the world-class drivers are so damn good I get the shakes just from sheer excitement at the way they gobble up that mountain. But you, Davey-boy—you were just right for this man's nerves."

"Thanks." David grinned. "And that's one man-sized car!"

"Isn't she?" said Ollie proudly. He beckoned to a man in a white smock with the Carasel motif on the breast pocket and the words Chief Scrutineer beneath it. "Clem, meet David Trome. This is Clem Makim."

"Hi!" said Clem, a keen-eyed, leathery-faced man. "I watched you on the closed-circuit screens. Nice and smooth. Tell you've done a mountain circuit before. Any grief?"

"A slight binding on the offside front brake," said David. "Made her swing a bit as I came down the last section."

Clem nodded. "My boys will check it out. No overheating?"

"No."

"Not with this fella," said Ollie. "He doesn't overac-celerate. We'll have ourselves some coffee and a smoke. Okay, Clem?"

"Sure. I'll call you when she's ready."

"Change of tires for this next run," said Ollie, over coffee. "Sometimes we change the axle ratio, but Clem's boys will check to see if it's necessary."

"Tires?" David questioned. "After only one circuit?"

Ollie smiled. "We don't only test a new driver on these occasions. We test various components—like tires—many things we don't actually make in our own plants. Part of our scrutineers' job is to report on viability of certain products. We don't usually tell the drivers. I often don't know myself."

"That's not very fair, is it?"

Ollie shrugged. "Fair enough, I guess. A tester's job is to test. Sometimes he is told to test certain parts of a car to the limit. It may be the tires or the suspension. To do this he has to mistreat the car in certain ways so that those items will be subjected to maximum strain. As an experienced driver, you know as well as I do that most parts of a car are interconnected in their degrees of strain and stress. Faulty suspension will affect tire wear. A bad tire will affect steering and braking. A combination of all those can turn a car into a killer. If one fault sets up the others, then you have to cure that fault before the others can be proved correct. We're always told if we're testing a part of the car that might be unreliable under certain road conditions. Then we're prepared for the risk, but otherwise this constant checking during test runs is just routine."

David nodded his understanding and decided that Ollie Temper was friendly enough and had accepted him as an experienced circuit driver to be tested in other ways.

"This Windflight is a very fast and stable car," he said casually and sincerely. "The production model has only just been released, hasn't it?"

"Yep—and the order books are bulging. This baby is going to beat 'em all!"

"How about the rear-axle fault and the brake master-cylinder weakness—you reckon they're cured?"

Ollie looked startled.

"What the hell d'you mean—cured? Who's been filling you up with that guff—some of our European competitors? Those things just don't happen in our Windflight, no siree!"

"They do, y'know," said David quietly. "I personally saw one crash as a result of them."

Ollie glanced around the sparsely filled motel snack bar. He seemed relieved to see there were no people near them.

"Look, fella," he spoke low-voiced, urgently. "You're a nice guy, a fine driver, been cleared by security and personally recommended by Draycott—that makes you okay in my book. But for St. Christopher's sake, remember where you are! This is Carasel property. Every goddam person working here is a company man. No one—but no one—talks out loud against the company, or its products. It not only isn't healthy, it's downright suicidal. And likewise it is for me, if I'm seen listening." David grinned. "Is this table area bugged?"

"Sweet Jesus, I hope not! I always sit at this table between runs." He paused. "Nah—of course it isn't, you damn joker. What's got into you, making with funnies like that? Besides, only three production model Windflights have been released in this territory. The rest have all been shipped East to match up with a mammoth ad campaign."

"Who had the three?"

"Adrian Felstead, our President, Thias Rumbold, our security chief, and one of the top computer-program guys—but that was a special release, just for him." Ollie paused, glanced around anxiously, licked his lips, then whispered: "Holy cow! Young Tom Claus!" His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Just who the hell are you? That boy had a car too powerful for his experience. He crashed it first time out. We picked up the wreck in a covered wagon—no name, out-of-town license plates. How come you know?"

"I saw it happen. I spoke to him afterwards. It was he who told me the axle and brakes went wrong."

Ollie scrubbed a hand over his face.

"And I thought this was going to be one of those perfect days! You told anyone else?"

David lied, but felt justified as much for Ollie's sake as his own.

"No."

"Then for God's sake, don't!"

"Why? Was it sabotage?"

Ollie groaned. "Don't keep popping out stuff like that—don't even whisper it in fun. There's things I don't want to know about. I'm a top man in my division. I'm working toward a mighty generous pension. I'm a company man."

"And they own everything except your soul, and you've put that in hock to them."

"Go on then, sneer! So what do you do when you've a wife, five daughters and a huge mortgage and installment load to carry? Cut your throat with your tongue and bleed to death? Grow up, fella! I shot my white horse way back, and the armor's gone rusty long since. We've got executives and top echelon men to probe what they think needs probing. Me—I test cars, not rumors." He glared at David. "I don't wanna know—get it?"

"Sure," said David calmly. "Sorry I shot my mouth off." Loudly he added, "Well, I'm telling you—this Windflight is the sweetest job I've ever handled."

A voice behind him said, "Handled is right. You must be a wizard."

David turned as Clem Makim came up with a clipboard under his arm. He placed the board on the table as he signaled for coffee.

"Flattery I can take." David smiled.

"Pulling to the off, you said? Any other little thing you didn't mention?"

"I don't think so."

"Not a stiffness in third when you were coming down the mountain?"

Ollie said, "This guy played tunes on the gearbox coming down. He missed third most times and went to fourth. Very neat. More control that way. What's with these questions, Clem?"

Clem tapped the board's papers. "This axle assembly is special to Windflights, see?" He went into a technical description, finishing: "The third gear ratio was reckoned to be the gear most likely to take a hammering on the production models—likewise the alternating gear on the automatics. So we fitted a variable shaft operating through an electric circuit." He spun the wad of papers over to show a drawing of the axle assembly. "See this small plunger fitted above the housing? That's the connector. It transmits axle stress above a certain ratio. When the stress reaches a certain pitch, the connector operates the variable shaft. The result, without getting too technical, is to decrease the gear load."

"Neat and clever," said David. "Many a good production design has been made to look wrong by bad driving. That should cure any results from customer abuse."

"Yeah," said Clem drily. "Unless some joker stuck a thin silicone strip between the connector contacts. The strip would get warmer each time that gear was used, the silicone would burn off and fuse the contacts so the variable shaft wouldn't work, and overloading would occur along with intense overheating. The axle would jam. At the gear's maximum speed, this would put the car into a skid without the driver having any prior warning—which would have happened to you as you came down the mountain."

"Sweet Christopher!" Ollie exclaimed. "He was taking fourth at ninety! A jammed transmission would have set us weaving—"

"And then into a whiplash and a turnover, or a spin straight over the edge," David continued when Ollie paused. "I might just have held it by the brakes if a tire didn't blow out."

"I doubt it," said Clem, grim faced. "Any further strain, such as extreme braking, would force the transmission coupling outward, and that would split the brake master cylinder. You wouldn't have a chance to control her." Clem slammed the table with his fist and roared: "Where's my goddam coffee?"

"Now, now, Mr. Makim!" said the waitress as she brought the coffee. "We do have other customers, y'know."

He stared at her. "Daphne," he said softly. "Sweet Daphne darling, why don't you marry a psycho and get yourself shot or something?"

"Charming," said Daphne. "I pity your wife."

"Two more specials," said Ollie. "Hot and strong. And pity all our wives while you're in the mood."

"Funny men!" said Daphne. "How I hate these goddam company dumps!" She flounced away.

"So, now what?" said David.

"I'm withdrawing your car," said Clem. "You can continue your test on number eight. She's on the checking ramp now."

"Am I in this?" said Ollie.

Clem stirred his coffee and shrugged.

"Guess we're all in it, Ollie. I've been on to Thias Rumbold."

"Right to the top, huh?"

"This isn't any time to fool around with the small fry."

"Thias Rumbold," said David. "He's a hard man to meet. I think I've met every other top executive at the plant but him."

"Gineas would see to that," said Clem. "Likes to spare his father a lot of routine work, Gin does."

"Clem!" Ollie spoke sharply.

Clem smiled thinly. "Won't hurt our friend here to know—or us to tell him. It isn't any company secret that Gineas sees himself as top man. But not for this one—not if costs me my pension. Old man Thias is still the top lap in this outfit, and that's where this baby has to be dumped. It's too hot for you and me to handle."

"Yeah, yeah, perhaps you're right. Is he coming over?"

"By helicopter, in an hour. You'd better be up the mountain in number eight in about twenty minutes, else you'll not get up there again before we have to open the road to the public."

"We have limited rights," said Ollie to David. "Even though the company owns the mountain. But we always patrol the road before we let our cars loose on it—just in case some nutty family decides to picnic right on a curve."

"It has been known," said Clem, regaining some of his cheerfulness. "We lose more families that-away!"

But it wasn't a family picnic that caused David trouble on his second and much faster drive up the mountain. They were nearing V.P.15, close to the top, and a layer of heavy cloud.

By a freak of cloud formation, the gray coils suddenly split and sunshine poured through in a golden lance across the curve and the vantage point stand. David had the car set right for the curve, came around fast, well under control, when the glinting light caused his gaze to flick upward.

What he saw registered with lightning speed. He yelled to Ollie, "Duck!" as he whipped the gears down, then poured in power. The car whipped, slid, lurched, then answered his desperate efforts to spin it into the escape road below the vantage point. A bluish flare of light hit the road where the car had been.

Chapter 9

THE RUMBOLD SHOWDOWN

David whipped the big car out of its tire-squealing skid as it nosed into the parking area below the vantage point.

"What the hell!" Ollie Temper shouted as David cut the engine and unhitched his safety belt. "You gone crazy?"

"Stay here." David leapt from the car, hand groping into his inside pocket through the zip of his racing coveralls.

Ollie ignored this request and pounded after David, who'd now reached the higher section, leapt the guardrails and was racing after a figure just disappearing around the hut, heading for a car parked out of sight from the road.

"Hold it!" David raised his cigarette case.

Ollie, panting up behind, gasped, "Lester Shalk! What in hell are you doing here?"

The man whirled, staggered a little under his own impetus, then stood with feet widespaced, elbows tight to his sides, hands holding an object which looked like a camera with a gray, stubby, telescopic lens.

"Stay!" he called. "Just stay there." He moved the object from side to side to cover them both. "No, Ollie—don't move!"

"What is all this?" Ollie was bewildered by this sudden incident.

"Just don't move," said David quietly. "Do as the man says." He was staring steadily into the eyes of the man facing them.

A man of medium height, an ordinary-looking man, wearing racing coveralls with the Carasel Motors' emblem on its breast pocket. He was sallow faced with high cheekbones, and thick black eyebrows formed a lowering line shadowing light-gray eyes. The eyes stared, as if they didn't see. It gave Ollie a peculiar feeling, but he couldn't know that David understood the meaning of this man's appearance.

"Just do as Lester tells us," said David, calmly and almost soothingly. "Lester knows just what he's doing. Don't you, old man?"

"Sure," said Lester. "Sure I know what I'm doing. You just stay where you are and I drive away in my car."

"Don't be silly!" said Ollie. "D'you think you can threaten me, and be up here on a vantage point when you're supposed to be back at the test track, and get away with it?"

"Oh, I don't think Lester wants to get away with anything," said David. "Lester is doing what he knows is best."

"That's right," said Lester. He moved his head slowly from side to side. "You shouldn't have done that, Mister," he said. "Why did you do that?"

"I knew you didn't mean it," said David. "And I didn't want you to make a mistake."

"Will you quit talking to him like he was some kid out of its mind?" said Ollie.

"Will you shut up," said David, not removing his gaze from Lester Shalk's eyes. "Lester and I understand each other, don't we, Lester?"

"You shouldn't have done it," said Lester, "You weren't supposed to do it."

"Ah! But I was," said David. He moved a couple of paces closer, opened his cigarette case. "Would you like a smoke, Lester?"

"I don't smoke."

"D'you mind if I have one?" David put the cigarette in his mouth, then shut the case and held it edge-on toward Lester Shalk. "I'll light it in a minute. But hadn't you better give me the atomizer?"

Ollie suddenly moved, stepped across the space between the other two men as he went and looked at the car.

"Hey! Who told you to bring a Breeze-along up here?"

"Damn you, Ollie!" David snapped. Then added urgently, "Don't do it, Lester—don't do it!"

But Lester Shalk already was raising the atomizer, which he had lowered under the influence of David's steady gaze and quiet voice. David had no other course but to fire the mercury gun. As he fired, he fell sideways, knocking into Ollie, who stumbled, and they both fell to the ground near the car.

The ray burner—or atomizer as David had called it—hissed once as Lester Shalk staggered back. It cut a swathe of burning light across the ground in front of him where David had, a second or two before, stood facing him.

Then the object dropped from Lester Shalk's hand as a glowing light appeared in his chest.

David gripped Ollie's arm to prevent him from rising. But after the first few seconds Ollie didn't need any holding. He couldn't move. He stared with wide eyes and open mouth at the unbelievable sight.

"Cover your eyes, quickly—quickly!" David warned him, thrusting Ollie's head on one side.

David flung himself on top of Ollie, head cradled in his arm. The incandescent brilliance seared the air behind them. Then it was all over.

Slowly David helped Ollie to his feet. A very shaken, white-faced Ollie.

"Oh, my God!" Ollie gasped. "I'm going to be sick." He turned away, heaving.

David gave him time. He needed time himself. This was something he hadn't reckoned on, although he blamed himself for not counting on it. This was the crux, the whole meaning of his fight with the aliens. He had to realize that every second of every minute would contain danger from attack such as this. It was the object of the exercise in putting himself up as a target. To follow the pattern he had learned was the best one in dealing with an investigation. Yet, being human, he had not anticipated this action under these circumstances.

When Ollie recovered he stood staring at the whitish, powdery-looking area where Lester Shalk had stood.

"Dreaming," said Ollie huskily. "I must be damn well dreaming. It's a nightmare! It didn't happen!" He turned and fiercely grabbed David by the shoulders. "Who are you? Come on, fella, who are you?"

In the heat of the exertion, the perspiration caused through natural effort and the burying of his face in his arms, David's false mustache and sideburns, which he wore to change his facial outline, had moved.

Ollie reached up and ripped them off. It was a painful process, but David, although wincing, held steady.

"I know you," said Ollie. "Yes, by God, I know you. Vincent—David Vincent." He lowered his hands and looked again at the whitish area, then followed the line of the scorch mark on the ground. "So it really did happen," he said quietly. "I've known something was wrong…" He clenched one fist and hammered it against his thigh. "Knew it. Knew it. Knew it!" He turned again to face David, calmer now, his eyes back to normal, the color returning to his face. "So, we've got them among us, have we?"

David nodded slowly. "I'm afraid so, Ollie."

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me who you were, and why you were here?" When David didn't answer him immediately he nodded slowly. "Ah! now I understand. You can't really tell anybody, can you?

You don't know where they might be, or who they might be." He laughed softly. "I believe in them, you see. I always have. I followed every case they reported about you. I've been in fights through talking about it. I've been beaten up because I dared to say it was possible." He shrugged. "So now I don't say anything. I don't talk to anyone about it. I tried to, but things began to happen to me so I said the hell with it. If these bastards are going to take us over, then they'll take the lot and I'm not sacrificing myself and my family while my own people beat me up because I hold the views that men like you do. There aren't many of you, though, are there, David?"

"No, Ollie—not many. And I wish I could have told you. After a while I think I would, because I might have had to."

"Well, you have to now," said Ollie. "This isn't going to be easy to explain away."

"You don't explain it, Ollie. You just don't explain anything. You just accept it." He pointed to the white patch. "There it is and there it was, and now it is no more. So what are you going to talk about? What proof are you going to give? And to whom are you going to give it? Because if you give it to the wrong person, you'll die before you give it to anybody else. Or, rather, you'll die that you may live again as he did. Tell me, Ollie—when did Lester Shalk crash?"

Ollie didn't seem surprised at the question.

"He was in one of those multiple crackups on Highway 640 about four months ago. But he came out of it okay. At least, he appeared to. And didn't have any injury, but…"

"But he's been a little strange ever since?" David suggested.

"Damned right he has!" Ollie declared. "Never was an easy guy to work with. Kind of moody. Got wife trouble. Money trouble, too, I guess. Then after the accident he didn't seem to be worried about his wife, or about money. Just up and left her, which made her come running after him. You know what some women are—always hammering at a guy, saying what would he do without 'em. Lester's wife was like that. After his accident he showed her. No fuss, no rows. Lester just wouldn't rise to the bait any more. I guess that upset her because she couldn't get to him."

"And this change affected his work. He was one of your testers, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but not on the big stuff. Sure he changed. Before the crash he was a worrier, everything had to be just right. Used to sit up nights rewriting reports because he'd got a comma in the wrong place. Silly as that After the crash he did the job perhaps even better, but his whole attitude changed. Only last week I told him his reports weren't as detailed as they used to be. He just shrugged and said, 'I've written it, you've got it. What d'you want, Ollie, a best-selling novel?' All out of character, see what I mean?"

David used the car mirror to reset his face fungus.

"So you're with me, Ollie?"

"Am I? I dunno, fella. This day is turning into a crisis point with me. Like it's big—way, way bigger than anything I've ever known. So what do I do? Keep my trap shut and just go along with the job? What happens if I don't?"

"I can't give you a straight answer," said David. "I wish I could. I can't ask anything of you; it's not my job to do that."

"Just what is your job?"

David shrugged. "In the big way, to prevent the complete domination by the aliens of your main industry in Auto City. Ask me how I do it. I don't know. Ask me when. I don't know. Perhaps I have already done it? Perhaps I haven't even begun. All I know is that I work through the very few people who believe and trust me, and whom I can trust, and they are pitifully few, believe me. Some of them are at the moment forging my link into the aliens' chain of power by following the jobs they are especially equipped to do."

"Such as who?"

"Willard Knight, the chief of police. District Attorney Shelden. Wayne Draycott, and some of your own security staff."

"The Rumbolds?"

"No, not the Rumbolds. I believe Gineas Rumbold is an alien."

"I'm not surprised to learn that," said Ollie calmly. "Gin was always ambitious." He stared at David. "Holy cow! Gin had a car crash too, and he's changed since it happened. Not like Lester. More ruthless, and a bigger power seeker than ever before."

David nodded. "He'd be a key man for the aliens."

"This crash business," said Ollie. "Significant, huh?"

"Part of the pattern, Ollie. In each investigation I've made, the aliens form a certain pattern. At first they couldn't master the transmutations. They used then-very considerable and highly intelligent power to influence human minds. But strong minds cannot be influenced unless the pressure is kept up for a long time. The aliens don't have time on their side. Nor, as yet, do they have a great deal of experience of our materialistic civilization, but they're learning fast. Transmutation—the actual entering of a human mind and body by the alien force—is a shortcut. But they have to enter them at precisely the right second, and the human body must not be badly damaged because, although the aliens are a life force, just as our spirit is a life force, they do not possess powers of healing—only powers of maintaining bodily functions."

"Jee-ho-sha-phat," Ollie breathed. "So they stage accidents and take over selected people! And we believe these people survived a crash when in fact they're dead?"

"That's about it."

Ollie flipped a hand toward the white patch.

"So they must all die like that—just burn up? What was that thing you fired?"

David told him.

"So they are really a mass of some sort of chemical energy?" He shuddered.

David smiled. "Well, so are we, Ollie. When the spirit leaves us, our body becomes a mass of dissolving chemicals."

"Oh, brother! What in hell have I got myself into?" said Ollie plaintively.

"Don't let 'em scare you," said David. "Fear gives them power over you. It's a mixture of animal sense and highly developed mental telepathy. But the aliens are groping with the problem of how to use their power to the full. And each time we destroy what they build up, they have to start all over again. You heard how I spoke to Lester Shalk?"

"Yeah, until I fouled it up."

"You came between us," said David. "In another few minutes I would have hypnotized him. Then perhaps I could have obtained a link to his control."

"You seem doubtful."

"I've no doubt that I had his control force dropping," said David. "He had lowered the atomizer and was becoming slightly lethargic." He shrugged again. "Forget it, if you can. In this work you have to pass on quickly, as the aliens do. They have no knowledge of or use for emotion. That's why Lester wasn't troubled anymore by his wife. The whole body functions normally, except for emotion." David changed the subject. "What is this car? You called it a Breeze-along."

"That's our code name. It's really a baby Windflight. We did all our experimental work on it, then marketed it in the Carasel Compact Car range."

"And Lester Shalk had no right to be up here in it?"

"No. Those cars musn't be used off the test track back at the plant. We've withdrawn it…" Ollie suddenly yelped, "Hey!" Then: "It doesn't matter."

David eyed him shrewdly. "Have you just remembered that Breeze-along cars have been in most of the Highway 640 crashes?"

"Okay," said Ollie. "So now you know." He glanced up as an engine roar sounded over the mountain. "That's torn it! Old man Rumbold in his helicopter has spotted us. He's coming down. He'll want to know a whole lot more than we dare tell."

"Thias Rumbold, eh?" said David, gazing up at the chopper as it descended to the V.P. area. "This could well be the Rumbold showdown." He looked at Ollie. "Make up your mind, Ollie. Are you with me or not? Because if old man Rumbold is an alien I'm going to destroy him. He might well be the invaders' control."

"And if he isn't?"

"Then he's got to be on our side—but fast."

Ollie watched the helicopter, turned and looked at the white patch, then at David. "I've got one helluva choice, haven't I, fella? Okay, I'm with you."

They walked to meet the big man climbing out of the landed helicopter. Big, authoritative, craggy—heavy muscles and barrel torso rippling under his lightweight suit. Powerful man, powerful personality, and all minimized by the look in his eyes.

Ollie stepped forward to greet him. David hung back, watching intently, seeking the signs. The eyes puzzled him. They were not the eyes of an alien-controlled body. Yet this, as he well knew, was not always a true guide. The policeman on Highway 640, Meria Deltora, and to a lesser extent Sergeant Banner, were examples of the difference. Deltora's eyes were warm, full of life. Banner's eyes were less zombielike than Hicks's had been. The transmutation was not always effected in the same way. Perhaps age had something to do with it. Perhaps the aliens had mastered a degree of personality transference. The subject was deep, intricate, and altogether beyond solution at this moment.

David could only assess from his own experience, for, like the aliens, he too was learning. Then Thias Rumbold's eyes looked straight into David's as Ollie explained who David was and what he was doing there. At this moment David saw the flickering of keen and highly controlled intelligence. Thias Rumbold strode forward, gripped David's hand in a massive bear-paw grasp.

"I've just left Willard Knight and Clive Shelden," he said. "You and I have things to say to each other." He turned to Ollie. "You can get the hell out of here," he said. "Take your time getting back to the base, then disappear for the rest of the day. I don't want you back at the plant yet. Understand?"

"May I suggest that Ollie Temper remain with us?" said David.

"You can suggest, but he's not going to," said Thias Rumbold. "I didn't exactly choose this spot to meet you, but there's not a better one for us to be alone."

"You are not an alien," said David. "But your son is. Ollie Temper has witnessed my destruction of an alien back there. You've avoided meeting me ever since I've been in your city and through your plant. This is the showdown, Mr. Rumbold. Either you are with us, or one of us will not be leaving this mountain."

Ollie looked in surprise at the big security chief, noting the smile playing around the heavy jaw and mouth line. Everybody at Carasel knew old man Rumbold. True, they didn't see as much of him as they used to—not since his son Gin had assumed so much power—but Thias Rumbold was a legend in Auto City. He had come through from way back in the early days of the unions, the guns and the blackjacks, the tear gas and the mounted police. Thias Rumbold didn't scare. Thias Rumbold had one god, and that was Carasel Motors. No one told Thias Rumbold unless it was the President of the Company, and no one had ever heard that happen. Until now.

"Let's not waste any time in falling out, Mr. Vincent," said Rumbold. "If you say Ollie stays, then he stays."

"You are not surprised to learn that your son Gineas is an alien?"

"My son died two years ago, as far as I am concerned," said Rumbold. "He's a stranger and an enemy. He has tried to destroy me. But better men than he have tried. Now you say he's an alien. I know only that he is no longer my son. Today is the day I have been waiting for. For me, Mr. Vincent—the time is now."

They moved into the V.P. hut.

Chapter 10

THERE IS THE CLUE

David had assessed the Rumbold meeting as a showdown. The previous difficulty he'd found in meeting the big boss of Carasel Security—virtually the security boss of the whole city—convinced him that the aliens had infiltrated right to the top. The attempt on his life by Lester Shalk made him even more certain in this assumption. Who else would order his death on the mountain? Who else knew he was on the mountain?

For all their power, the aliens had a peculiarly fixed pattern of behavior, but that pattern had been decided upon by their control. They didn't seem able to switch plans quickly. This was understandable—considering that only a handful of men in the whole county could even understand and accept the presence of the aliens—because they were nonearth forces that had to operate through earth forces. They killed only to make a new entity for themselves.

Thias Rumbold also viewed their meeting as a showdown because he had been waiting for this opportunity. He'd wasted no time in explaining this.

"I've got friends in high places, too," he'd growled as they sat in the V.P. hut. "And I've got power—big power. The trick in having power is in knowing exactly when to use it. I've been waiting over six months to use mine. You don't start up a nuclear reactor to obtain heat to fry one egg. I've given my life to the auto industry and this city. In fact, I'm one of the small group of men who built it, made it great and kept it great. I've known something was wrong for just about the length of time it's been wrong, but it was caused by nothing that I, or any other top man, had ever experienced before. In my time I've fought and licked 'em all—saboteurs, commies, industrial espionage, foreign infiltration, union wreckers, slumps, booms and wars. You name it, I've licked it."

"My own son… I groomed him to follow me. But two years ago I knew he hadn't got the stuff it takes for a man to fill my shoes. Big-headed? Sure I am. Because I am big, and I am big with the power that keeps a man big. Okay, so that's Thias Rumbold. You take him or leave him, but right now in this hut on a mountain he meets the one man he has ever admitted to be bigger than himself. Because this is one thing I can't lick by giving orders, by controlling strategy and action. I'm one who sneered at you, David Vincent. Now I look you in the eye and say: Tell me what I can do to save my world? You know it's under attack. You know by whom, and why. If you want a private army with guns, I'll get 'em for you. If you want suicide squads, I'll lead 'em for you."

"Who else have you told this to?" David asked.

"Just one man in Washington—the man himself. He said there might come a time for the sort of action I wanted, but right now wasn't it. I blew up. He said, 'Fine, fine—blow your top all you want, but tell me who you want fought. Just tell me that, Thias Rumbold, and you can have anything you ask for.' " The big man had glared at them both. "I couldn't tell him. There's an army in my plants, in my city, in my own force, in the police and fire forces. I know it. An army working and waiting to take over. Not like anything else that's ever happened before—only the signs. Star Two told me to tell you. He said you wouldn't laugh."

"Why should I know what or whom you mean by Star Two?"

"Don't ride me, Vincent How the hell d'you think I know? Because the man told me. He gave me that classified phone and code-call. When I received Clem's message about your car, I thought they'd got you because Star Two said you'd put yourself up as a target."

"Sheer luck," said David. "I don't drive downhill in the way they expected. One more circuit of the mountain and I'd have crashed. The same way every single Wind-flight will crash." He stared hard at Thias Rumbold. "You weren't surprised when we told you Lester Shalk was up here. Why?"

"Because I know my son sent him. Shalk came up the back road over the mountain."

"Again—why?"

"Because my son ordered him to get you."

"You heard him?"

"I hear every goddam thing he says. Ever heard of the weaver relay system?"

"No."

"Top classified." Rumbold had glared at the silent Ollie. "You're not hearing or seeing anything. Get it? No remembering. Because if you do and you talk—you won't ever talk again."

"You think I will?" said Ollie. "I'm not one of that goddam army."

Rumbold nodded curtly. "The weaver relay is woven into any garment. It's indestructible by normal wear, washing or dry cleaning. I can monitor every word my son says, no matter where he is." He smiled but without humor. "It's illegal to use it as a private individual. The punishment is death, or life imprisonment. I've got three hundred of 'em and it's taken me nearly six months to plant fifty. That's their big fault. They're meant for weaving into uniforms, or any other special government gear."

"You bugged the Racing Wheel Club," said David, suddenly aware of facts which had eluded him before.

Thias Rumbold didn't show any surprise at the accusation.

"Sure." he said. "It's plastered with bugs. So are all the toilets in the plants, and a few other places. I let everyone think I was getting past it. 'Poor old Thias,' they said. 'He doesn't do so much these days! Taking it easy. Young Gin will step up most anytime now.' Sure I was taking it easy. In a hideout filled with monitoring and recording gear."

"Anyone else know this?"

"Two people. Wayne Draycott and Liane Verrel."

"Liane!" David was shocked.

"She's an expert on electronics, didn't you know? Nope, I guess you didn't. And Draycott had to know because he wondered where the heck she was spending all her spare time."

"So he knew the club was bugged?"

"He had to know."

"And you all kidded Carmen—even her daughter helped?"

"We all wanted to save Carmen from any further pressure. I understand you know the circumstances of how her husband died. These bugs were as much for her protection as anything else. But we monitored only my son or any other executives—never private family stuff between those three. We couldn't risk letting Carmen Verrel know that I believed there was something in what her husband had said before he died. It would only have put more pressure on her and not done her any good." Thias Rumbold chuckled as he added, "You and your doors without hinges! Sure fooled me. I thought that you really were a salesman of some kind of trick door. I wish it hadn't fooled me because I could have got to you sooner."

"Ruthless, aren't you? All this bugging of folks' private talk," said Ollie. "You got me bugged too?"

"'Fraid so, son. But you live a nice clean life. Lovely family, you've got."

"You bastard!" said Ollie with much feeling.

"Yeah," said Thias. "I lose more friends that way."

"I hope you get more than life for this," Ollie fumed.

"I should live that long! Simmer down, Ollie, What's a little private monitoring compared with the death of an industry? It'd kill you too, son. Kill all of us."

"So you learned what?" David asked.

"A lot of things that didn't make much sense. A whole dossier of things that don't seem to make much sense. Yet as the dossier grew bigger I realized they were all connected, yet there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. The worst thing I learned was that my son was head of a growing army. And I learned that he killed our best driver, Chick Verrel, in broad daylight on this very mountain circuit."

"That was hard for you to take," said David.

"Yes. But for different reasons. It took me apart to learn it. Yet I couldn't come out in the open and prove it. My own son and the man who was like a son to me. I sponsored Chick Verrel. Looking back, I'd say that it was his death that set me probing. And, like I say, I've not really achieved anything more than proof for myself that some force is growing through all the plants. Then I remembered something Chick told me. A whole lot of gibberish about UFOs and ghostly figures. Once I remembered this, a number of things started clicking. And I began to link up a lot of them, but I still couldn't get enough evidence to move."

"You wouldn't," said David. "They don't communicate plans by word. They use mental telepathy. You'd pick up only unguarded words of the physical outworkings. Tell us what your son said to Lester Shalk, and you'll see what I mean."

"He said sort of jerkily, 'Mountain, atomize.'"

David nodded. "The minimum of physical direction. All the rest would be understood, but the important physical action had to be emphasized in words. Lester would know who I was, what car I was in."

"How could he?" said Ollie. "We changed cars, remember?"

"We relay this TV circuit to certain offices," said Thias. "My son would see it."

"And relay the picture by telepathy," said David. "A different numbered car wouldn't fool him. Now you know why massed force is no use." He slammed a straight question at Rumbold. "Did you close up the press on the Highway 640 accidents?"

"Yes. D'you think I was going to let the world know our new cars were crashing one after the other? They weren't crashing anywhere else."

"They will," said David grimly. "Any time now. You've got to pull them all in. All the Windilights, all the Breeze-alongs. You've got to hit this so hard that Auto City will be under siege."

"Announce to the world that our whole production is unserviceable?" Rumbold glared.

"Just that."

"And if I don't?"

"They will be, anyway. The aliens are gearing for that, but thy're not ready yet. You played into their hands by suppressing the accident reports. They wanted you to do that. We just haven't the time to go through every one of thousands of production-line workers in every plant and every section of your component suppliers. We've found the gear-seizure device on the Wind-flights, but there'll be others in different models. All these will pass your inspection tests in the plants because the aliens have infiltrated those sections too. They'll pass the dealers' predelivery checks because they won't show up until the cars are actually in service."

"God a'mighty! Can you prove this?"

"No more than I can prove how many aliens are in your works. No more than you can prove what you have already accepted. My acceptance is my proof. The death of Shalk is Ollie's proof. The silicone strip was Clem's proof. But all these are after the event. We now have to act before the main event. You asked Washington. They passed you to me. What proof did you have? You accepted, and you came."

"But we'll start a nationwide panic!"

"Panic generates fear. Fear is a power, but we shall be in control of it." David smiled. "Well, at least the aliens won't be! There are things to be done before you release the information. Some I can't tell you because I don't know myself exactly what they are. I know only that I have now to follow a certain course. They failed to kill me today. Before they try again I must find an answer to one vital question." He drummed his fingers gently on the table top, staring out through the window at the rain clouds sweeping over the breast of the mountain.

So intense was his concentration that David appeared to forget that Thias Rumbold and Ollie Temper were present. He began speaking in the manner of a man probing deep into a problem and searching for its solution.

"The aliens' projecting power has increased since last time. So has their physical control. But Shalk's power was shallow and not well co-ordinated. Nor was Hicks's. Does this mean that human mechanisms are still functioning in some of the lesser aliens and therefore blocking the leaders' power control? Shalk was sent by Gineas Rumbold, but Gineas cannot be anything but a main feed because Shalk's power was so shallow.

"If Gineas Rumbold is occupied by a leader, he'd have more than enough power. Could be that they are overextended. Could be that they are finding they require more power for widespread physical control than they expected. I don't see that. It can't be right. So it means they are using power in great quantity to sustain some physical activity beyond what we can assess." David broke off to look at Thias Rumbold as he asked, "Are your plants quiet? No organized strikes or mass demonstrations?"

"None. Just an undercurrent of general discontent. More products are being turned back as faulty. Morale is low, but even our experienced personnel officers cannot find the cause."

"These faulty products," David asked. "Are they the complete cars, or various parts from different assembly lines?"

"From different assembly lines. The result of slipshod work. It ties in with apathy toward the job, which stems from low morale."

"Resulting in a general slowing down of production?"

"That will be its effect unless we can get to the cause of the trouble. Most plants are pretty well automated. The computers make the machines reject their own faulty work, but some sections in assembly rely on human effort."

"Have you had any computer trouble?"

"Funny you should ask that. We had some yesterday for the first time. The programing was wrong. Six thousand engine blocks were bored out to the wrong dimensions. It's never happened before."

David nodded slowly. "And the programmer's name was Tern Claus?"

"How the hell did you know that?"

David shrugged. "Is it so secret?"

"Are you kidding? Of course it's secret. I know it because the report came through my office as a matter of routine. But it was seen only by the top executives."

"You haven't been asked officially to investigate?"

"There's nothing to investigate. Programmers are the aristocrats among the top echelon. Mistakes by them are a matter for the Computer Control Committee and not for security."

"But their work is double-checked?"

"It's intricate stuff. I wouldn't declare that I understand it but, yes, their work is very carefully checked."

"Yet someone fed a bum tape into the engine block computer. You'd better check your Control Committee, Rumbold. Find out which of them has had an accident recently. Those who havrare aliens."

Thias Rumbold nodded, frowning. "There's no end, is there? I couldn't even trust Adrian Felstead, our President, could I? Yet I've known him since we were at school together."

David smiled grimly. "Not if he's had any sort of accident within the past few months, and he won't be able to tell you that himself. It needn't have been in a car."

Thias Rumbold scrubbed a hand over his face.

"I don't scare. Ask anyone. They'll tell you old Thias don't scare. But what can a man do against this? Who can he trust?"

"I'll give you one tip, Rumbold. Anyone who will discuss the aliens with you and admit they are a menace to the whole country—those people can be trusted. An alien cannot discuss himself. Don't ask me why, but it's a fact." He laughed softly. "They are terribly honest and highly moral. They appear not to have much time for women. I suppose they'll get around to it, but right now they don't seem to understand them."

"Goddam it!" said Ollie. "You don't have to be an alien for that!"

"Skip the cracks, Ollie," Rumbold growled. "This trust business, David—it makes sense. But how in hell can we talk to nearly a hundred thousand workers about the aliens just to find those who won't talk? And anyway, I'd be locked up as a nut case if I tried. People just don't believe in this alien talk."

David smiled. "Now you know how I feel and what I'm up against. Even I have to keep it as simple- as I can. People just can't take it in. I'm surprised you and Ollie have accepted it so well."

"I had no choice," said Ollie. "But I know I daren't tell even my wife about what I've seen and heard today." He spread his hands questioningly. "Tell her I saw a man I've known for years try to kill one of my drivers—maybe me as well—with a gadget like an elongated camera that burned the ground when he fired it. Tell her I saw him just burn up and disappear. Then tell her not to worry, he was dead anyway. Oh, brother! Just how many people can I tell that to?"

"I'm glad you raised these points," said David. "In a discussion like this I listen in the hope that I'll find one clue to lead me further. A great deal that is unbelievable to you has become completely acceptable to me. You have asked how you can possibly check through this vast number of people. There is the clue. How can the aliens? How do they know which people to occupy? Don't imagine that they are omnipotent, all-seeing spirits. They have their limitations. In my previous investigations the aliens have invaded a small sector of society and have been destroyed, largely, I'll admit, through my efforts. The power, the ruling authority of their galaxy—call it what you will—has learned a great deal from those incidents.

"How many UFOs have landed in this territory? How many aliens have been landed all over the country and been given control guidance like a homing device to concentrate here? We know that aliens must have taken a number of months to build up their forces in and around Auto City. Yet we have received only two reports of UFO sightings—both unconfirmed incidentally—from this area."

"These UFOs," said Ollie speaking hesitantly, "do they give off a ligjht or make a noise?"

"Very often a light, and in varying degrees of brilliance and color. Sometimes accompanied by a sibilant, throbbing sound."

"How many of these—er—things, these aliens would they carry? I mean, do they have a shape?"

"They assume a shape," said David. "I've seen landings. I've seen them leave the ship or craft, whatever it is, because that too is hard to define in our terms. They had shape, but I believe that so great is their power they can assume any shape they need. But it is a nebulous thing and couldn't be used physically in our civilization. They're searching for a new world to inhabit when their own galaxy becomes extinct. Therefore they must assume the shape of the things—which are us—that they find. I'll give you a brief example. Two of these shapes passed near a herd of cattle. In a few moments they took the shape of two bullocks. Absurd, isn't it?"

"Good grief! Then they might be all around us?"

"Not as themselves," said David. "They've progressed since those early attempts, and so has our knowledge of them. I was really flattened by certain people in Washington when I begged that all minor wars be halted and troops withdrawn. I said I believed the aliens had to be inside a human before they could become a force in this country. I thought they would occupy wounded soldiers when the men's resistance was low. I was wrong. But I was right in my belief that they had to do that very thing, because it now is happening."

"How did you know?" said Rumbold. "How could you arrive at that belief?"

"Because of the incident with the cattle and a number of later incidents. They once occupied a child and a woman, but both were mentally backward. Those are physical manifestations, but I draw my belief from the aliens themselves. They have tremendous telepathic power, far greater than we can imagine. The basis of telepathy is belief. The belief that you can accept the thoughts of another person, or that you can will that person to accept yours, providing they believe you can. You see where this brings us?"

"To the nut house," said Rumbold gloomily.

"Forget that sort of talk," said David sharply. "Forget even the thought that prompted it. I began to accept the fact that the aliens could communicate by telepathy as easily as we can with words. In accepting it I believed it. In believing it I made it real. From that moment I began to pick up their impulses. I could intercept their thought waves. These are translated in my mind as a sort of sensing because, as a telepathic subject, my power compared to theirs is like a car battery compared with a giant generator. They do not reason as we reason. They are not physical as we are physical. So in our physical world it is they who are groping and learning."

"As you are in theirs?"

"Yes, but with this difference. I am complete in my own world while they are incomplete. They bring a power of which I know very little, but they are trying to apply it physically in a world of which they know little. But because of this power they learn faster.

"They discovered they could not easily occupy and therefore control the minds of intelligent people in key positions. They could occupy and control people of low mentality, sick people, highly neurotic and weak people. But few, if any, are in positions of importance in our society. Therefore they are useless to the aliens. So they had to find a means of occupying people through whom they could gradually obtain physical control. They chose death, or that poised and infinite second of time between life and death. In what part of our civilization, apart from sickness and mutilation in war, does death most frequently occur in otherwise healthy and successful people? In an automobile. What is so frequently reported that the public have become hardened to reading the reports of death and myopically believe it can never happen to them? Automobile accidents.

"What better place to infiltrate via that sector of our society than the greatest automobile center in the world? Which brings me to the clue. How have the aliens done it? They knew nothing about cars, or the making of them. But they had built spacecraft more advanced than we've yet dreamed could be made and traveled in them from their galaxy through the thousand million miles of outer space. So they wouldn't take long to master the technical and physical details of that rather ordinary piece of machinery we call a car. So why did they need to occupy so many of our people in the industry?"

"That's obvious," said Rumbold. "To take control. You've already said so. Why repeat yourself?"

"I have not said this before. Not in the same context. You must be more tolerant of me, Rumbold. I have been concentrating in order to sense what they intend to do. And I sense a great massing of aliens." He stared hard out of the window. "Now where—where? And why? Like an army? No, not an army—a collection of units. Cells of aliens just as there are cells of them occupying humans throughout this area? How can they be used? To destroy the plants? No, it is not that sort of destruction."

They kept silent, watching him, seeing his face grow taut under the power of his concentration. Sweat glistened on his forehead, ran in tiny slithers down from his temples. He began talking again.

"A road? No—many roads. Through a valley? No. From a valley? Yes—yes. From or in a valley, spreading out." David suddenly jerked back to life, whipped out the cigarette case, leveled it at Ollie. "You've been there." He eased back to cover them both. "Or you, Rumbold. Maybe both of you. There's a valley somewhere around here—a big valley. Tell me, come on, tell me."

"Put that damn thing away," said Ollie. "This is me, Ollie Temper. Valley? There's no valley around here like that."

"Serenda Valley," said Thias Rumbold. "Could he mean that?"

"It is linked to crashes," said David, holding the case steady. "You crashed there. Damn you, Ollie, you crashed! I'd swear you are not an alien."

"Only to myself right now," said Ollie. "I can't believe this is happening to me. What the hell are you talking about, fella?"

"Crashes," said David. "I sensed crashes. You're connected with them. The valley is connected with the aliens. They've concentrated in a valley. What and where is this Serenda Valley?"

"Miles away," said Ollie. "Damn great dust bowl of a place." He flickered a startled look at Rum-bold.

Rumbold said, "We've not used it in years. He couldn't sense that, surely!" He stared at David. "We used the valley one time to crash vehicles. Destruction tests they were called. Don't need those methods now. Too wasteful."

"Ah!" David released a long-drawn-out sigh, relaxed, slowly replaced the case in his pocket "No, I couldn't have sensed something you did a long time ago. That caught me out. But I'm not wrong. The valley is being used. The power is there. It's linked with Auto City."

"Okay," said Rumbold. "So climb in my chopper and we'll take a look-see."

"No," said David sharply. "I'll go in my own way at the right time. We'll make no physical contact with the place. There are other things you can do. Here they are. Can you stop the cameras from relaying this circuit on the mountain?"

"Yes," said Rumbold. He moved to the wall phone, gave orders, came back. "Next?"

"Do this through your office and through the executives who normally would give such orders. Say that the company is intending to re-open Serenda Valley as a test circuit." David checked some notes. "Name the following drivers who are to be invited."

"Invited?" Rumbold growled. "The money we pay those boys they'll damn well go where they're told."

"This time you invite them. Because I want to know who refuses. Offer a double bonus, anything you like to make it sound good."

Rumbold drew out his notebook. "The names?"

David said, "Mike Lasser, Wayne Draycott, Ken Holt, Rod Baker, Pietro Donelli, Ace Blumen, Grif Mason, Drew Markham, Ollie Temper."

"I accept," said Ollie. "And stuff you, too! How much is the bonus?"

"I need your name with the others," said David.

"It will cause comment if we leave you out. Where do you draw your pit crews and mechanics from?"

"From the plant," said Rumbold. "We choose men for their ability, give them special courses and assign them to the racing-car teams. Others are assigned to the test track back at the plants, and to Clem Makim here at the mountain scrutineering point."

"Right. Then we'll ask for volunteers to go to Serenda Valley as mechanics, and invite certain names I've already checked. These are: Sam Kyatt, Ben Bow, Saul Conifer, Mitch Forrester and, of course, Clem Makim. I'll let you know if there are any other names."

"This will need careful handling," said Rumbold. "It cuts across current company policy. But I'll swing it through Adrian Felstead."

"Yes," David nodded. "Do it at the highest level."

"Do we ask what you're trying to achieve?" Ollie asked.

"I'm trying to build a team that can be moved into action fast. A team we can rely on one hundred per cent. All those who refuse will be transmutes. The aliens will not allow them to go to Serenda Valley. I'm convinced of this, but don't ask me to prove it right now."

"It could make sense," said Rumbold. "Anything else?"

"I suggest you work closely with District Attorney Shelden and Willard Knight. Check the reports they should be getting now on the Halo Highway accidents. I believe they will have found evidence of firing points from trees around the highway or some other nearby area. By careful cross-checking they'll have discovered that none of these points was more than two hundred yards from any accident or multiple crash. You'll be on the way to clearing up the mystery of your Halo Highway. There might be one or two ordinary crashes among them, but as it is such a safe highway those accidents will have a different character."

"Okay. I'll work in with them. What else?"

David paused for a moment, thinking.

"Going back to that withdrawal order for the production models—I think you'd better make it confidential to dealers. Top secret. Rush it through."

"Not leave it to the press, as you suggested?"

David grinned. "Test how your dealer security works. We may need a few days before you can come out in the open. Bluff it through your public relations boys if the press come asking."

"Okay. There's one helluva lot of organizing to do. Anything else?"

"Not from your end. I'll be in touch."

David stood up. Thias Rumbold shook hands as he said, "It's been good to be doing something constructive at last." He went out to his helicopter.

Ollie said, "Now he's gone I can tell you something about Serenda Valley."

"You could have told me while Thias was here. We have to trust each other."

Ollie grinned. "Okay, I trust him in the aliens' business. But when it's all over he might have a long memory for other things."

"Such as?"

"Such as me doing some crafty off-the-record testing over this circuit using company cars out of company hours."

David smiled. "I guess every company suffers from it."

"Don't get me wrong," said Ollie. "I don't steal anything. I pay for the gas and any extra labor costs for servicing. It's just that I coach a few up-and-coming racing drivers in my spare time. Well, okay, so I've got a lot of expenses and I charge high fees. But I haven't the capital to buy a trainer car like the Wind-flight."

"Skip the sob stuff. So you use the circuit and a company car for selected clients. It's not my business, Ollie, unless you've found a new type of alien among them."

"Not that. But I've seen things over in the direction of Serenda Valley. I do night tests. Sometimes if they're using their own cars I wait at the top clocking them around the circuit. That's when I saw these"—he hesitated—"sort of lights. I can't swear they are directly above the Valley, but they're sure enough in that direction."

David's eyes gleamed. "Ollie, I love you! Come on, give—give! Explain the lights. Are they like subdued neon with occasional flare-ups of orange and blue? Are they sometimes misty, a kind of opalescent, grayish blue with something that appears like a tail of reddish light?"

Ollie stared, wide-eyed. "You're dead right, fella! It's almost desert land over there. I thought those lights were a trick of the sunset, but it's dark here at the time I see them."

"So the timing is just after sunset. Have you ever been up here just before dawn?"

"Yes, on official night tests, but I've never had time to go staring out over the valley."

"Can you let me have Shalk's car to use?"

"Sure."

"Are there phones in all the huts? Phones with outside lines?"

"Yes, they all have phones, and the hut on the top of the mountain is pretty well stocked with emergency rations. Sometimes we get shut in by thick cloud and fog up here. Might be marooned for all of a day and a night."

"Take the big car back and get on with your routine work," said David. "Don't tell anybody I'm up here. In fact, you don't know where I am."

"Okay," said Ollie. "You're the boss."

"I'm beginning to feel like it," said David.

Chapter 11

BEAUTY IN THE NIGHT

David ran the car out of sight between shrub-covered rocks below the plateau. It was bright up here, but dusk had come to the plain below Clawgut Mountain. The lights of Auto City glowed in the distance. The mountain road signs were at green, showing that the road was clear for normal traffic.

He'd enjoyed his few hours alone. Cooked himself a tasty supper with fragrant coffee. It all tasted much better up here in the clean air. Stimulating, too, this utter loneliness. He'd established contact with Star Two, clarified his own mind and left Star Two bubbling with eagerness to know more of David's plan. He sensed that David had passed the breakaway point and was heading to a complete link-up.

"If I die there'll be others you can reach in Auto City," David had said. "You'll make that phone call right on time?"

"I will," Star Two had promised. "Does it matter if Gineas Rumbold doesn't recognize the voice?"

"We'll have to take the gamble. I believe that transmutes do not react emotionally. Therefore when you say you are Chick Verrel, he will react only to your message. He won't understand it so he'll need guidance."

"And you think that guidance will come from Seren-da Valley?"

"From there, or from the aliens' main link in Auto City. Anyway, do it and leave the rest to me."

Now he waited and, with a pair of night binoculars he'd found in the hut, scanned the darkness in the direction of Serenda Valley. His arms ached from holding the heavy glasses but he dared not relax his gaze. He sidled to a rock, rested his elbows on it and obtained relief for his overtensed muscles. Night crept up from the plain and down from the sky. The air grew sharply chilly.

David cursed himself for not remembering to ask the distance to Serenda Valley. It wouldn't be the same by road as from the top of Clawgut Mountain. It could well be four times the distance. Suddenly he noticed a flash of light. A shooting star across the backdrop of distant sky? A brief flash of headlights flickering their beam momentarily? No—too high for that, and faintly streaked with red. Too fast for any land-based light.

He lost sight of it, but didn't veer the glasses wildly in an attempt to pick up the light in another area. He exclaimed an excited "Ah! Got you!" as it came again. Moving now in a smaller elliptical zone of flight. He thought of the word "flight" because he was convinced the light came from a flying object. But not exhaust flames from any earth-made craft. That sort of craft would be on fire if it was belching reddish-orange and blue flames of this size.

Then the light grew less bright. Dulled to a faint glow as to the left of it a spinning circle opalesced. The shimmering of colors seen through the night glasses against the sky's velvet backdrop was weirdly beautiful. Slowly the light form lowered, until suddenly it was shut off from David's view. Not extinguished, because a faint glow still remained in the sky as a reflection.

"In the valley!" he exclaimed. "It's landed!" He kept the glasses focused, but in less than a minute the reflection of light also was shut off. David lowered the glasses and massaged his eyes, which had sweated under the prolonged pressure of the eyepieces.

Starlight glowed over the plateau as he walked back to the hut. He paused in the doorway, gazing around, breathing in the crisp air, feeling the beauty of the mountain night around him. And in these moments wishing he were here for a more normal purpose, sharing it, perhaps, with a girl instead of the menace of the invaders.

His mood changed swiftly and he cursed the aliens and the apathy of his own people. He cried aloud, "Dear God! For whom and why do I stand alone—supported by the few, ridiculed by the many? Why me? Why? Why? Why?"

Then quickly the self-pitying mood was cast out as he saw the headlights of a car, like tiny flashlight beams, swinging up into the mountain road. Their size impressed him. He hadn't realized Clawgut was so high. He raised the glasses again, focusing on those little beams of man-made light.

Was it some young driver trying his hand at tackling the mountain road at night? Or an experienced driver out for practice? Or a couple seeking a quiet parking spot? Not many of those, Ollie had told him. The local girls didn't like the mountain. Or most important of all—was it a messenger of death? Death for David Vincent.

One man in Washington knew he was up here. Ollie knew, but would not talk. Only one other person knew. Washington would have been in direct contact with that person. Was it that person in the car, or someone sent by that person? If it wasn't an ordinary member of the public then it had to be one of those two—perhaps both of them!

David waited calmly. Even admired the way the car's driver was handling it around the tight curves of the mountain circuit. Whoever was doing the driving was no slouch. The headlights canted a fan of glowing white across the mountainside as the car angled its way up the road, headlight beams flaring straight ahead for only the short stretches between the turns. As the car neared the last steep gradients before the plateau, David left the glasses in the hut, partially closed the door and ran to a natural hiding place near his car, from where he could see the approach to the plateau and the area between himself and the hut.

The car was a Windflight. David recognized its distinctive engine note before it shot up the final ascent and sped onto the plateau, where it stopped. The driver climbed out, leaving the headlights full on. David almost yelped aloud in surprise. She was tall, exquisitely contoured against the lights, wearing a white sheath dress ornamented with sequins which glistened and twinkled as she moved. Her hair was golden—glinting fiberglass, shimmering in coils around her neck. There was beauty in her face as she turned into the light's reflection, which heightened the features without showing coloring of eyes and lips. In fact, it gave her face a somewhat zombielike appearance. David gasped again as he recognized Liane Verrel. He'd seen her photograph at the club, and in conversations with drivers at the plant learned that she was considered one of the unchallenged beauties in Auto City.

A dreadful fear clutched at him. He'd said—and was convinced of the truth of it—that the aliens did not occupy women. If they did, then this young and beautiful creature was a moving corpse. The impact of what this now could mean made him shiver with a cold far greater than the cool mountain air made him feel.

When she climbed from the car she had taken off her short motor coat and thrown it on the seat. David studied her movements, noting the slowness, the poised deliberate motions—not quick and flowing. She had almost a sleepwalking appearance and certainly wasn't concerned about being seen. She leaned back into the car, groping for something in the coat pocket. Her dress rode up to show the graceful line of nylon leg and bare thigh. As she straightened and turned, so the light reflected on the gun she'd taken from the coat pocket. She looked toward the hut, took a few paces, slow and measured, then turned, came back, switched off the headlights. Then she stood still, obviously focusing her eyes in the sudden darkness, before moving again toward the hut.

David poured concentrated thought into these next few moments. Strangely he'd been relieved to see her with an ordinary but very efficient-looking six-gun. He was no expert on guns, didn't recognize a make, but it was a short-barreled model and not the usual weapon of the aliens. It might not decrease the danger to himself, but it certainly was a more human threat.

He'd found a flashlight in his car, a small pencil-beam gadget, giving a short but powerful beam for such work as checking a car's motor in darkness. He took this from his pocket, holding it ready to switch on, then moved in long tiptoeing strides toward the hut. Liane Verrel had disappeared around the far side. David almost fell over some objects leaning against the hut side, realized what they were and grabbed one. It was a pole about four feet long with a board screwed to the top. The board had an open end in its beading frame. A white card with a black figure 8 under the word lap was fixed in the grooved beading. A squat figure 8 designed for easy reading by a driver speeding past as it was held aloft. In the starlight it looked like a dumpy face outline. It was this appearance that prompted David's hunch to use it.

He tiptoed to the door. Liane was inside. He couldn't actually hear her walking, but heard the rustle of her dress. He stayed still, pondering on this bizarre situation—convinced she was under control of some sort. Her movements were not consistent with those of a young woman, especially one who had just driven a powerful sports car at speed up a twisting mountain circuit. So what form of control was it?

Liane had not shown any hesitancy, or any caution either. She had driven up at full power, left the lights blazing for quite a few minutes, taken off a coat despite the cool air,, and in her glistening white dress was very noticeable. This didn't make sense, not by any human reasoning. Why does a beautiful young woman take off a not very elegant coat? Because she wants to look her best. With a gun in her hand! Isn't that carrying vanity a little far? Yet that was the one human action—an assertion of the female desire to look her best. No transmute could react in that way. Vanity was akin to emotion. They wouldn't be concerned with it. So David paused and pondered instead of rushing into the hut.

She was in there, waiting. And very silently and calmly, too. It must be for him, because the message Washington had given was: "David Trome is sleeping tonight in the plateau hut on Clawgut Mountain. Will you see he receives this information by personal messenger at once?" Then followed a small amount of gibberish that sounded like a code message. David looked back as the distant neon sign changed from green to red. Someone had closed the mountain road. Perhaps it was the security guards based at the motel at the foot of the mountain. They would have seen or heard the sports car coming up and, as a precaution, closed the road until the car came down again. It wasn't really an important point, except that it meant no stray cars could come up.

At last he decided on a plan. He crept low to within a few inches of the slightly open door, gripping the base of the pole. Raising the board to about head height he thrust the door open wide. It crashed back on its hinges. The white-faced board waved eerily in the entrance. David lay as flat as he could below the step. Bullets spanged against the board, twisting it in his grip. Other bullets sped wide of their mark and sang whining into the darkness. He counted six shots before he slung the board away and leapt inside the hut, his flashlight beam probing for her face.

She stood, her dark, lovely eyes wide, her face expressionless, the hand holding the gun slowly lowering to her side.

"Good!" said David as quietly and confidently as he could, allowing for his thumping heart and shortness of breath. "You have done very well, Liane. Very well." He held the stubby white beam directed on her eyes, then began to move gently from side to side, repeating: "Good—-very good" in a slow soothing voice. "Now you can sleep, Liane—lovely soft, warm sleep. Sit on the chair, Liane. You're quite safe now, quite safe and very tired, so sit on the chair." His voice was now more under control. He continued talking. "The light is hurting your eyes. Close your eyes, Liane. Close your eyes and sleep, sleep, sleep. Your eyelids are becoming heavy, so heavy. Let them close. Yes, close your eyes. You're safe and warm and going into a deep, deep, sleep. But you can hear me speaking. Tell me you can hear me speaking, Liane."

"I can hear you." The voice was calm, very quiet.

"You do not hear any other sound, no other voice, nothing but my voice speaking to you. You have cast out from your mind all other sounds and voices. You can hear nothing but mine. Tell me what you hear, Liane."

"I hear your voice. I can hear only your voice."

"That is good, very good. D'you know my name?"

"David. It is David Vincent."

"Who told you my name?"

"Mummy told me."

He hadn't expected this. "Mummy told you first. Who else told you? When did they tell you?"

"Gin told me." She began to moan and sway back and forth in the chair. "Just now—he told me."

"Why does it upset you, Liane? What else did he tell you?"

"He said you killed Daddy. He gave me the gun when I said I wanted to kill you for that. He said you'd be waiting for me. No one else knew you were here."

"And you believed Gin when he said I killed Chick? You believe everything Gin tells you, don't you?"

"I have to. Don't you see—I have to. Daddy wants me to."

Suddenly he saw the terrible tragedy as clearly as if he had been aware of it from the start. Saw how the aliens had found another way to infiltrate human beings. Perhaps it was possible only in women—especially young, emotional women at the peak of an emotional shock. He had to probe deeper, despite her distress.

"You couldn't believe he would crash. Not your father, your hero. Not crash and die. It couldn't happen, could it, Liane? He was ageless and indestructible, wasn't he? You were his little girl. He told you everything, shared everything with you. Gineas was his friend so Gineas was your friend too. When your father died on this mountain you felt something died in you, too. Then Gin came to you and you felt a power flowing into you, warm and strong, and everything Gin said from that moment was right. And each day after that, your world became dominated by Gineas Rumbold, just as it had been dominated by your father. Everything he told you to do was right. Answer me, Liane."

"Yes. Yes. Everything. Everything was for Daddy, you see."

"I see," he said gently. "I understand. Now I tell you that Gineas Rumbold is a liar. Gineas Rumbold is plotting against his own father, his own company, his own country. And he is using you to help him. Using your skill with electronics to sabotage and destroy by making you the messenger of an order he receives but cannot understand. You are his power and his translator." David's voice became harsh and authoritative.

"This I tell you because I am your Mend. I, David Vincent, am your friend. I am the friend of your mother and of Wayne Draycott. I am absolutely to be trusted. I am your friend. You trust me because I am your friend. Because I did not kill your father. Because I tell you that I have proved that Gineas Rumbold killed your father on this mountain. What am I, Liane?"

"My friend. You're my friend and I trust you."

"Good. That is good. You will remember that. You will never forget it. In a little while you will wake up, refreshed and clear, and free forever from the domination of Gineas Rumbold. You will never again trust him, nor accept his orders. Now sleep deeper, deeper-very, very deep, deep sleep."

Her breathing grew long and deeply sighing. David switched off the flashlight and sat quietly watching her for five minutes. Then softly he said: "Can you hear me, Liane?"

"Yes. I hear you."

"Who am I?"

"David Vincent, my friend."

"You know you can trust me absolutely?"

"Oh, yes—yes I do."

"Good, good. I trust you too. You're a wonderful person and you're going to marry a wonderful man. I am very happy for you, very happy." He paused. "Liane—there is a deep secret you must release from inside you before you can marry Wayne. You cannot marry with this secret inside you. You must cast it out. The secret of the power of Serenda Valley. Tell me the secret, Liane." He saw her tremble and her hands stiffen, and feared he had probed too far, but persisted. "Tell me," he said sharply.

"Each day they charge me," she said. "I am the chosen one. I am the giver of life."

"How?" he spoke urgently. "How do they charge you?"

"Through the aerial circuit of Gineas Rumbold's special radio. It's a wonderful feeling, but it does not last long. That is why it has to be every day."

"Why don't they charge Gineas? Why you?" She gave a hysterical giggle. "Because he'd blow up. He cannot hold a charge stronger than himself." David felt a surge of excited satisfaction. "And because he cannot love," he said. "But you are a living woman and can receive and give out unlimited love, so you can receive and give out unlimited power. They have at last harnessed the emotional power of a human for their own ends. Through you is transmitted enough power to give birth and life, in their form, to a chosen number and to sustain those already formed."

"I don't understand how, but it seems natural. It is a great power. They have only to tune in to Gineas Rumbold's marvelous radio to receive it."

"The power comes from the Valley," said David. "What else is in the Valley?"

"I don't know. I. haven't been there. Gineas says there is a big mast to help the power—but I don't know." Her voice sounded weak. "I don't know. I don't know."

"Sleep," he said. "Deep, deep sleep. Quiet now. Just sleep. I will tell you when to wake."

He took the gun from her lap, moved softly to the door, stood inhaling the cool air and mopping perspiration from his face, neck and hands. The session had left him almost exhausted, so great had been the concentrated effort. He threw the gun into a clump of bushes.

He had not dared to probe deeper lest he cause lasting damage to Liane's mind. She could not explain what was virtually unexplainable in human terms, so why keep probing? He'd found what he wanted and knew he could save her. The intricate, almost incomprehensible method the aliens used to transmit their power—the power that kept the transmutes going, the power that entered new transmutes, the power that carried telepathic communications—was the invaders' life force. They were learning to use earth means of transmitting it. That they had achieved such physical manifestations was frightening until—as David now realized—they destroyed their own protection by using these material and physical means. Clever, maybe even brilliant, but it brought them back from the realms of nebulous invincibility down to the man-made levels which were vulnerable to man-made attack.

He returned to face the deeply sleeping Liane. "Do you hear me, Liane?" Sleepily, she said, "I hear you."

"Listen carefully." He spoke clearly and firmly. "When I have counted from ten to one, you will wake up. You will feel refreshed and happy. You will recognize me as your friend. You will not remember anything connected with Gineas Rumbold. You will not remember anything he has told you. You will be free. Completely free. You have come to the mountain to meet me and drive me back to the Racing Wheel Club. You understand?"

"I understand."

"Good. Very good. You are a wonderful, good and kind person. You know nothing about power, or how it is transmitted. You are coming out of a deep sleep. The sleep is growing lighter, lighter, lighter."

He watched as the long sighing breathing gave way to light inhalations, and her body straightened a little in the chair.

"I am going to count from ten to one," he said again. "When I reach three, you will begin to wake up. At the count of one you will be fully awake and laugh because you discover you've had a little nap."

He began to count slowly from ten. As he reached there she moved, stretched her arms, raised her head. At the count of one she opened her eyes. He had turned the flashlight beam away from her face.

She laughed gaily. "Hallo, David! Oh, what must you think of me—dropping off like that!"

"Mountain air does that to me, too." He laughed with her.

She jumped up, looked around. "Gosh! Where did I put my coat?"

"It's in the car. You were showing off your new dress."

She whirled in the light beam.

"You like?"

"M'm. Beautiful. Shall we go?"

"We'd better." She took his hand. "Don't tell Wayne or Mummy I drove up the mountain, will you? They'd have kittens. Honestly, they fuss so!"

She drove like an angel, so David thought. Damned if she hadn't looked like one, too. He closed his eyes and didn't wake up until they reached Sixth Street.

Chapter 12

GIVE ME A NUMBER!

The Racing Wheel bars were nearly empty. Carmen Verrel first questioned David very sharply, after Liane had burst into the office, leaving him to tag along at a quieter pace behind her. He was still hungover from his session on the mountain—learning the skills of a hypnotist was a task he'd accomplished only in the past two years. He did not use them in his normal life, though he'd almost forgotten what it meant to live a normal life since having become involved in "Project I.R." meaning "Invader Research."

The word "research" can cover everything. Put research under a security blanket and anything goes, because no one dares to ask questions. But such procedure does at times prove helpful. It had helped David in providing the world's finest teachers to school him in a crash course in how to be a hypnotist without even your best friends knowing.

The course confirmed that he had latent powers. It also helped him greatly to understand more of the outward aspects of the aliens' power, to jealize its fearsome potential and yet to be reassured by recognizing its limitations. His acceptance and partial understanding of how transmutation was achieved was possible only because such an intensive course gave him greater knowledge of man's inner powers. But though he, himself, now possessed greatly increased powers, the using of them in hypnosis still drained him more than any prolonged or even violent physical effort. His ability to sense the aliens' telepathic transference also was due to this specialist teaching in the use of his own mind.

But you cannot tell the somewhat accusing mother of a very beautiful young woman, "It's okay—she's only been hypnotized by me in a hut at the top of a mountain. Don't worry." What mother wouldn't? So he let Carmen Verrel's motherly tirade wash over him, glad that it didn't upset the now radiant Liane.

"Yes, darling. No, darling." Liane replied meekly to her mother's "Where have you been? I've been nearly frantic… The mountain? You've been up the mountain in that car at night! Now listen to me, Liane…" Which was when Liane's yes-no patter began, her shining eyes beaming at David when her mother wasn't looking.

"All right," said her mother at last. "One day you'll learn some sense and be more considerate of other people. It's for your own good, you know."

"Yes, Mother."

Her mother smiled. "Oh! Go on with you! Go and get changed. It's a lovely dress, darling, but I'm sure it's not—well—quite decent."

"I'm sure it isn't," Liane agreed. "That's the whole point of it." She kissed her mother, blew a kiss to David and left the office.

"You didn't say much, David."

He smiled. "I thought you were doing all right without my two cents' worth."

She frowned. "There's something wrong. I sense it. Liane is her old, bubbling self."

"And that's wrong?"

"No. It's wonderful to see her like that. Since her father died, she's changed. Quite natural, I suppose. They were very close. She adored him and he worshipped her. Oh, David—it was such a tragedy!"

"For you, too."

"For me? Yes, but not in the same way. I wasn't so vulnerable as Liane. She's quite brainy, you know, got terribly high marks in electronics and stuff too complicated for me to understand. Old Thias thinks the world of her. She's been working with him for several months on hush-hush work, and for very long hours. She looks so tired some days and—so much older. I didn't interfere. I thought it was best she should keep busy. It took her mind off the tragedy."

She laughed softly, "Poor Wayne hasn't seen much of her either, but he's been away racing so he wasn't here to see her anyway."

"Does Wayne understand how Liane felt about her father?"

"Oh, yes, indeed he does. For a young man and a racing driver at that-7-well, I mean, they're usually pretty harum-scarum—he's most understanding."

"Are you?" David asked quietly.

"Me? Well, I hope so. Why do you ask?"

"May I have a brandy with some hot coffee? I see you have a percolator bubbling over there."

"Why, surely! I was going to have some when you came in. Forgive me for being a bad hostess."

"You were too busy being a good mother. I had to ask because I need a hot stimulant."

She gazed at him shrewdly as she went to the hot plate. "You look a bit peaked. I'm sorry, David, but I almost forgot the real reason you're here. My motherly instincts overrode my fear of outside forces." She poured coffee, then placed bottle and glass on the table at his side.

"The two are connected," said David. "Sit down, Carmen. Although your husband and others were on the point of contacting me, it was you who actually took that step. So you're responsible for my presence here. It is right that you should know as much as I can tell you. It is right that you should know why Liane has changed. It is right that you should be prepared for what is about to happen. I do not ask you to understand everything I say, but I beg you to accept it without question."

She said quietly, "I think I'll have some brandy, too." She poured it, then settled back in her chair. "I know something is going to happen, that's one reason why I was so on edge when Liane came in. The bars are nearly empty. There's been—what shall I call it?—an electric atmosphere in the whole town since this afternoon. Corny, but that's how it felt. Arid all the top men at the plants seem to be locked in conferences, the police have been rushing around, and—oh well, perhaps it ties in with what you have to say. Tell me, David."

He told her the full story, and in the telling made a constructive summary for himself. When he finished she was crying—not hysterically but quietly, deeply, as if all the misery and fear of the past months were being dissolved and flowing out from her.

"Those poor people!" she sobbed. "Those poor, poor people! Their wives and families—all believing they're still alive." She shuddered violently. "It's horrible—horrible!"

"It could be even more horrible," he said gently, "if you hadn't had the courage to speak when you did. I don't know how long it would take before this town became a city of walking dead, but be sure it would happen."

"Oh, I'm so grateful no alien occupied Chick. I couldn't have borne it. I'm glad he really died. And my Liane, my beautiful Liane, you're sure she's not harmed?"

"Quite sure. The only harm that could come to her is through your trying to make her remember. Trying to make her tell you things that I have buried in her mind forever, I hope. She will not do so, but you may stir something in her mind."

Carmen Verrel dabbed her eyes, sat up straight.

"So that's the pattern of this alien power? They occupy men completely, and enter women's minds at the moment of great emotional shock and dominate them."

"That is the pattern I believe the aliens are trying to perfect," David agreed. "I don't know what purpose they can use women for, other than as power containers and transmitters."

"Sexual? There seems a horrible possibility—"

"No," David interrupted. "This is a human reaction, a physical one, born of our physical experience—the great myth of sex! We are so preoccupied with it that we fail to see there can be any greater force. But there is, and the aliens possess it. And in possessing it they destroy the only real power women have to achieve their ends—the power of sex. The aliens are using women in nature's sense of being receptacles, miniature storehouses that receive and pass on life."

"Like supercharged dummies?"

He spread his hands and shrugged. "More like living receptacles with automatic release mechanisms when they are fully charged. A natural biological pattern, but resolved in terms of power instead of flesh."

"Stop them!" she cried. "For God's sake, stop them, David!"

He moved to the desk and phone. "We are going to do just that. Go downstairs. Close the bars and the club. Make any excuse you like. There won't be many people in—not from the racing or testing jobs. If you have any trouble, phone Willard Knight. Tell him I requested the closing and to send you assistance."

He waited while she dabbed make-up on her eyes and face, then left the office. He called Thias Rumbold. He wasn't shocked at what Thias had to say. Eight out of fourteen top drivers had refused the Serenda Valley invitation. All the pit staff except Clem Makim also had refused. Fifteen out of forty top security men throughout the plants had been involved in car or other accidents. At least one hundred and twenty production-line inspectors were suspected transmutes, but the figure might really be four times as great. The list grew longer and longer. David did not mention Liane, therefore could not explain why he knew how the aliens transmitted power into their transmutes, who required daily recharging.

"That part may one day be told," said David, "but at present it's not conclusive. It is the source of transmission of power to certain top transmutes. There could well be others among the lower ranks of plant employees, such as secretaries or sales staff. Anyone who comes into contact with a number of people in the course of their work would be an ideal transmitter. We have more urgent action to take. This is what I need from you." He detailed his requirements.

"Okay," said Thias. "That won't take long. I'll see you at the club. You'll contact Shelden and Knight?"

"Will do," said David. Then added, casually, "Oh, by the way, Thias—where will Gineas be right now?"

"I'm keeping tabs on him. He's in his private office in his executive's suite, top of the Carasel main office block."

"Call him. Tell him you have a message from Liane. That she will be there in"—David checked his watch—"in half an hour, and to wait for her. Don't worry, she won't be there—but I will."

He next called Knight, spoke briefly, then Shelden. The Halo Highway reports checked out. A strange fact emerged. Experts declared that many of the crashes, from a checkback on witnesses' and passengers' evidence, could not have been killers. David skipped the lengthy cross-checked reference reports and detailed the co-operation he required from the police and the district attorney's office.

The club was almost clear when he went through. Four policemen were ushering out the last argumentative guests.

Carmen Verrel listened to David quietly. Then she nodded as she repeated:

"Code word is Starspace. No one to come in but those who give it. Okay. You'll be back?"

"Sure." He spoke to one of the cops. "Willard Knight asked me to tell you to phone him straight away on the H.Q. private line."

"Okay, Mac. What goes on here? This joint contaminated, or somep'n?"

"Or somep'n." David smiled, left the club, ran to the taxi stand, gave the driver an address.

Auto City's streets were strangely deserted.

"Quiet tonight," said David casually.

"You ain't kidding," said the driver. "Started late afternoon. People just began staying off the streets. They tell me the plants have a lock-in. Some sort of production crisis. Thousands of day workers still in there, plus the night shifts. Sure is queer. You one of the top brass—seeing you're going to the front office block?"

"Sort of," said David.

Thias Rumbold had moved fast and thoroughly, with all the ruthlessness of a man used to a major crisis. He obviously hadn't time—no one could have—for a detailed check, but wherever a group of transmutes were found in any section, then all of that shift had been asked to stand by. Large bonuses were hinted at. Union leaders appeared to be passive. Half of them were transmutes anyway. The aliens' linkage was being encircled.

A private elevator ran direct to the deputy security chief's executive suite. Its door opened on to a gracefully designed entrance lounge. David walked silently over the thick pile carpet, his cigarette case held carefully at an edge-on angle.

A man's voice called, "That you, Liane? Conie in. I'm on the phone. I can't seem to raise one damn driver!"

His back was to David, but he faced a mirror and their gazes met over his shoulder. A young edition of old Thias, but slick-smooth and steel-hard around eyes and mouth.

"What the hell are you doing here, Trome? Staff are not allowed up here."

"I bet they're not," said David, glancing across at the massive console radio which stood against the opposite wall. "Turn around, Rumbold. And you might as well put down the phone. You won't reach any of your drivers tonight. Not your drivers."

Gineas Rumbold crashed the phone on its cradle and whirled.

"God help me!" said David, and fired the mercury pellet at point-blank range.

Rumbold clutched at his chest. David leapt to the far side of the large room. Rumbold looked disbeliev-ingly at his hand. The blood on his shirt front had been splodged by its pressure and red smears covered his fingers.

"You shot me!" he said, with an incredulous expression on his face. "You shot me, you damn fool! With that trick case!" He turned, strode to the desk, yanked open a drawer. His hand came out holding a gun. It was David's turn to be incredulous.

"Okay," Rumbold snapped. "Get your hands up."

David obeyed.

"Now then…" Gineas Rumbold began, but his voice faltered as his body began to shake violently. He retched, staggered, making horrible noises in his throat The gun dropped from his hand.

Then like a slow-motion puppet his hands moved up as if gripping a steering wheel, his body swayed from side to side before jerking backward, twisting,. head dropped to the left. He crumpled, still slow motion, falling half across a six-seat divan and lay still. David jerked out of his stunned and statuelike posture and raced across the room. Gineas Rumbold was breathing heavily, his face moist with sweat, a bluish lump swelling on his right temple. David ripped open the shirt collar, then the shirt. The tiny pellet had entered Rumbold's chest to the right of the sternum. A very tiny puncture, not even bleeding much now.

Rumbold's eyes flickered open.

"Your fault," he said thickly. "You've no right to stop suddenly in the fast lane, I never had a chance. And you a top driver. Rod Baker—the greatest! You know what? You're a goddam menace on a highway!"

David pressured his scattered wits to react swiftly.

"I couldn't help it. The rear axle jammed on me. I couldn't warn you."

"Jammed?" said Rumbold. "How could it jam? It's a new car, you crazy…" Then suddenly his eyes went blank, his voice lost its power. "My head—oh, my head!"

The big body went limp as his last breath gushed stutteringly from his throat. For a brief, almost imperceptible moment the body seemed to glow from chest to head. Then the pallor of death etched across the clammy skin.

David gave a long shuddering sigh, straightened up, went to the phone, dialed a number.

Willard Knight's voice said, "Yes?"

David said, "Starspace. David. Is your highway check list close to hand?"

"Just a moment, the file is here… Yes?"

"The day Rod Baker's crash was reported—who else crashed at the same time? Was it a multiple collision?"

"Yes. Gineas Rumbold crashed into Baker, and Ace Blumen into Gin."

"Damn!" said David. "Why didn't I see this might happen?"

"What's wrong?"

"Gineas Rumbold has just died—apparently from a severe blow on the head received in a car smash. He re-enacted the last moments before the crash. But he died in his own office. He wasn't dead when the transmutation took place. You know what this means?"

There was a silence. At last Knight said:

"A lot of people are going to die in this city tonight. All of them, David? Will they all die like that?"

"God help me. I wish I knew," said David. "Wait…" He thought intently. "Have you a large civil defense volunteer force in this city?"

"Yes, we're proud of their numbers and their efficiency." Willard coughed apologetically. "I'm head of it. My wife is head of the Red Cross here, and my daughter is head of the nursing auxiliaries. Our family has a pronounced civic conscience."

"Good for you," said David. "There couldn't be a better man to organize coverage of the transmutes. I doubt if you'll find them all, but among Thias Rumbold, Shelden and yourself you have enough check lists to place your lifesaving forces somewhere near most of them."

"Presuming you reach your objective," said Willard Knight, "you and your band of volunteers."

"We'll reach it—or die in the attempt," said David grimly. "And that's no cliche, man!"

"I know it, my friend. This means I cannot go with you. I have to put our defense organizations into action. They'll not fail us, but what I'll tell them to look for I'm damned if I know."

"Delayed results of accidents," said David. "Mostly head or spinal injuries. Tell them that a full explanation will be given later. You'll need blood plasma by the gallon—at least that's my guess. Plus morphia and sedatives. All transmutes who recover will be in severe shock at the time. Actually, they should be hypnotized to save them from traumatic involvements."

"Now look, David," Knight sounded harassed, "we haven't all got your knowledge and objective outlook. We've come into this too late. It's like a nightmare. We must keep it simple."

"Yes, you're right," David agreed. "Sorry. Do the best you can, and we'll explain later. Can you send someone trustworthy to collect Gineas Rumbold? All these cases will have to be post-mortemed."

"I'll see to it. Are you going to the club now?"

"On my way in a few minutes. Good-bye, Willard."

"Don't say that, friend. It's not lucky! So long, be seeing you!"

David covered Gineas Rumbold's body with a rug, crossed to the radio console, checked carefully through its dials and circuits, then he phoned the club.

"Carmen? Let me speak to Liane. It's urgent."

"She here with me. David, the club is filling with you-know-who. The street is jammed with cars. Will you be long?"

"Not long." He waited. "Liane? Will you do something for me, please—it's a little game." He felt the perspiration start on his forehead. Tricky—very tricky this could be, but he had to know. She was the only one who could tell him.

"Of course I will, David. What is it?"

"Just a moment" He took the phone across the room, placed it on the radio, then pressed his free hand over a row of switches and dials before he said, "Liane, you and I are very good friends and our minds are so in tune I want you to help me choose a number. I have my hand over a row of numbers and I want you quickly to tell me any number that comes into your head. Will you do that—now?"

"Three-seven-four," she said promptly.

"Good girl!" he said. "Thanks."

"What a funny game!"

"I'm a funny man, darling. 'Bye now." He hung up quickly, removed his hand from the instrument. In the dial face above a red switch was the number 374. The switch was at "off." He clicked it on. Below the switch a rheostat knob, with the words "Feed-in" underneath it, was set to zero. He turned it fully clockwise until its pointer was at maximum. He checked the time before going to the end of the console, where he moved the main switch to "On." Colored lights flickered as he heard the elevator door open.

Two hefty cops came in.

"We have the meat basket," said one. "You got a customer?"

"Hold it," said his companion, looking hard at David. "What's the word, Mister?"

"Starspace," said David. "It's over there."

"Okay, let's go." They made quick work of the removal. David rode down with them.

"Cripes!" said his taxi driver. "You've got one helluva bill, Mac. I hope she was worth it. Where to now?"

"Back to the club—fast." David eased into the seat. "Worth it? Sometimes it is—sometimes it isn't. Tonight could pay for all."

"That good, huh?" said the taxi driver. "Some guys get all the breaks!"

"My God," David thought to himself as he rode along, "Carmen's shock was used, too, in a way. She never told me that Gineas Rumbold was in a multiple crash. She thought only of Gin's lack of loyalty to Chick. Were Rod and Ace already 'occupied' at the time of the accident? I might have seen some things sooner if I had only known the full story… but after tonight I hope it won't matter."

Chapter 13

THE FINAL FORCE

As the motorcade cleared the city limits, police blocks went up and the last road into and out of the town was sealed off. Auto City became isolated.

County police and sheriffs all the way to Serenda County had cleared the highways, closing all intersections to crossing traffic. By the time the motorcade had traveled fifty miles, the wires were humming.

Newspapermen, TV and radio reporters found their way barred. Programs were interrupted.

"News flash! Carasel Motors and their subsidiary Monarch Motors have just announced a complete freeze on distribution of all their new cars. No dealer may sell any model. Reports of suspected sabotage are denied. Stand by for further announcements."

The motorcade had gone only another forty miles when the second news flash came.

"We have just received a report that all roads into Auto City are blocked by police. No phone or radio contact can be made. The whole city is incommunicado. Stand by."

Considering that the motorcade was moving at over a hundred miles an hour, this stop-press news traveled fast. In seconds it was linked to a nationwide hookup.

In minutes the whole country was saying, "What the hell!"

David knew it would be this way. His companions knew it would be this way. They were men of speed, but even they couldn't move as fast as the lightning flash of rumor and counterrumor.

"It has to be this way," he'd warned them. "Your city," he'd said, "your way of life. Your skills, your talents have been infiltrated so that they can be turned against you. This will be the most desperate race of your lives for the biggest prize—your country."

Two hundred and forty miles of slashing speed as the racing cars pounded through the night. Helicopters and planes would have been quicker, but David had refused them. Not as a vainglorious gesture but because he considered them illogical weapons against an invader who was using the car in his transmutation into their world of cars. Not even David knew the power of the aliens in the air. But they obviously had progressed beyond the groping moonshots and mammoth rocket launchings by earth scientists. The aliens had conquered space, perhaps even conquered time.

"We call them UFOs," he'd said. "But the fact that they can reach earth is proof that they have surpassed us in the air. We dare not do battle with their own weapons. Out in that desert valley I believe there are numbers of aliens being taught to take over our roads by learning how the car works. When they are proficient, they will be sent to our highways to enter the bodies of victims in crashes caused by other aliens, who have been trained for that purpose. This is their first phase. The phase of infiltration into our world of wheels, and the site of the source of those wheels—Auto City.

"In a few weeks every new car in the country will crash and aliens will be waiting to occupy the bodies. Others will occupy the minds of those emotionally unhinged by the shock. We have witnessed the first phase. We cannot afford to let it be completed."

"How do you know?" they'd asked. "How do you know? How about the authorities?"

He'd laughed. "What do you expect them to do—prosecute every alien for driving with a false license? We are the authorities because we are the people. That's all the authorities are when it comes to the showdown—you and me."

The drivers hadn't really taken much persuading. They were natural intuitives, anyway. All top racing drivers are, because their reflexes have to be so fast that without realizing it they operate a telepathic sixth sense that warns them of danger outside the norm. When men like Thias Rumbold and Clive Shelden added their measure of belief to David's assessments, his plan was completely accepted.

He rode in the lead car with Ollie Temper. Wayne Draycott followed with Clem Makim. Then came the solo drivers, Mike Lasser, Ken Holt and Pietro Donelli. Sergeant Bert Dace, one of Thias's key men and an electronics expert, rode with Orvel Pitt, an amateur race driver and one of Rumbold's security intelligence squad, also a specialist in computer technology.

Halfway through Serenda County they turned off the highway onto a blacktop road, which fizzled out after passing a farm and became a track across scrubland. The moon rode high over their shoulders. They cut their lights, eased the speed to around sixty, keeping in top gear so the exhaust notes were muffled.

After some thirty miles the track was scarcely visible, but Ollie knew the route into the valley so there was no need to check. They drove between sandhills and rocky outcroppings until, after much twisting, the lead car halted under a rock face. The other cars pulled in behind it. The valley lay below them—silver and black in the moonlight. A tall mast, its upper section retractable, reared against the sky to their right. David beckoned to Sergeant Dace and Orvel Pitt.

"That's your target, men." He pointed to the mast. "As soon as you see the flaring glow starting—do your stuff. Watch out for burns as the mast heats up. The reading is 374 on the microwave band."

Sergeant Dace patted the small computer he carried.

"This baby will line up our sending signal."

Orvel Pitt said, "And mine will neutralize all other signals." He grinned. "I didn't really believe we'd find a mast here. But now that I can see it—well, I guess everything else clicks for me."

"That goes for me, too," said Dace. "Directional telepathy isn't new, you know—the ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about it. You figure these invisible hombres are Greeks?"

"Who cares?" said Wayne Draycott. "Let's go get 'em!"

Sergeant Dace and Orvel Pitt moved off to their positions. David and the others circled the rim until they could see all of the valley floor. A weird sight it was. Row upon row of care—some very old, some shiny new—were speeding up and down the valley, spaced as if they were on clearly defined traffic lanes. Every few minutes one of the lanes of cars would stop dead, apparently without damage.

"Master control," said David. "The transmutes have fed back the physical pattern. The master control assimilates everything, then releases energy containing any particular pattern required at the time."

"A computer process?" asked Ken Holt. "Providing the aliens are fed the correct information they will perform the correct task?"

"Oversimplified," said David, "but it comes near."

Mike Lasser said, "I suppose the transmutes get the cars—or are they an optical illusion?"

"They're real enough, but I've an idea that the aliens' control has mastered the fuel problem. Those cars aren't making any engine noise. Listen!"

They could hear only a distant swishing of many tires over hard-packed earth.

Pietro Donelli shivered. "My friends, I am one scared bambino! Why did I ever leave Italy? Such things are not real, yes?"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," said Clem Makim.

"Horatio?" said Donelli. "He is one of us, no?"

"Skip it," said Clem. "Boy, I wish I could patent that alien power control of a car! I'd be a millionaire overnight!"

"If you were, you couldn't spend it," said Wayne Draycott, "because you'd have to join them, and they have no use for money."

"There ain't no justice," said Clem. "Why in hell's name do they want to take us over? They've no time for sex, and they don't use money. What do they aim to do here all day and night—especially night?"

"Think beautiful thoughts," said Mike Lasser.

"What! In our company?" said Clem. "You're joking, of course."

David said, "At the risk of sounding pompous, I must remind you gentlemen that there would be no company, nor life as we know it, if the invading aliens succeeded in obtaining control. They have come a long way since their first crude attempts. We must smash them. Annihilate them through their own power." He raised night glasses, stared through them for a long time, then passed them around.

"There are no drivers," he said. "And you can see the steering wheels turning. If we were closer, I expect we'd see the gearshifts moving." He pointed to a shaded patch in the valley. "Over there they have simulated a street with parked vehicles. Notice how they keep shunting the cars in and out. We're witnessing a most amazing feat. It's the next step after making transmutes do the physical work. Imagine a highway with driver-less cars threading in and out among the lanes, or halting suddenly in the fast lanes. They tested their plans out on your Halo Highway. Now they're preparing to control vehicles through their direct power. A much less cumbersome method. But they must acquire knowledge of the physical control. This valley is filled with power." He pointed to a spot immediately below them where the valley floor was etched by a great smooth ring. "Their power ship lands there. I've seen it come down."

Wayne Draycott said, "Then they must know we are here?"

David nodded. "They know." He pointed to the mast "And right now they're sending power calls to Auto City." He paused. "And receiving back the telepathic pictures of a confused scene. They don't yet know they've lost their transmitting control, and that the feed control and general diffuser is dead. Really dead. He was Gineas Rumbold."

"Then they must be in a panic," said Ollie.

"They don't panic," said David. "They just go on remorselessly regrouping their energy cells and learning all over again." He looked around at the men. "Relax," he said. "You're too tense. Have a smoke. The aliens don't understand humor or general conversation unless there's a transmute to send telepathic impulses. But they can use fear because it emanates as a power. So let yourselves go, relax and listen. Here's what we do…"

They squatted around him, smoking and listening. After a time each put questions until at last all understood their parts in the plan.

"That's clear to all of us," said Wayne Draycott. "But I don't care much for leaving you alone down there after we've done our stuff."

"You have to," said David. "And no arguments. The master control will come for me. It has to. I shall be the telepathic focal point drawing it to me. You can't help."

"My God, it's a gamble! Suppose you don't see this—this thing?"

"I'll see it," said David. "You're letting fear creep in again. Cut it out You do your stuff—I'll do mine."

Clem Makim rubbed his hands gleefully. "Y'know something? Those lines of cars down there remind me of our highways on a weekend. Full of Sunday drivers getting in every good driver's way and thinking they're goddam experts because they're behind a wheel! That's what those goddam spooks are to me, and I'm going to have myself a whale of a time!" He ran toward his car.

The others followed. In minutes the air was crashing with the full-blooded roar of exhausts as this handful of the world's finest drivers sent their cars hurtling down into the valley—lights blazing, horns blaring.

Driving according to the agreed-on plan, each took his own section. They spread out, small among the massed rows of moving cars that went up and down to a traffic circle at each end of the area.

The racing cars came among them, weaving in and out, sliding in controlled skids, bucketing alongside, cutting in, roaring ahead, then slamming on brakes. Every driving trick in the book, and a dozen more not in any book, until they had the orderly lines snarled up at all angles. They almost got caught themselves, but the aliens' control could not cope with something they hadn't yet received in their own power form, so their vehicles' formations disintegrated. The simulated street became chaos when Pietro Donelli went waltzing through it, causing car after car to crash.

The racing drivers all escaped safely and sped clear, horns tooting derisively, leaving behind them a swirling mass of crashing cars.

David had driven back and forth between the mast and the traffic circle while the drivers carved up the lanes of cars. He now pulled over into the shadow, climbed out and walked to where an oblong jutted out from the landing ring.

Had anyone asked him to explain his actions in these minutes, he would have replied:

"Hunches, that's all I can go on—just hunches." But he knew this wasn't so. At least, not in the accepted meaning of a hunch. Nor did he "hear voices" nor "see visions." Yet he moved and positioned himself with all the calm assurance of a man receiving clear and precise instructions.

Slowly he became aware of the presence. Felt it by the growing power of resistance in his own mind—an overpowering mental urge to defend himself, to resist with all his power, but without desire to express this in physical force. He had no fear. Merely a stony, unemotional calmness.

He saw it materializing. Felt it gathering power into itself. Not a shape. Not really a form. He knew he could endow it with any shape he wished from the creative power of his own physical mind. This was the zenith of telepathic transference. The force of the physically formless against a resistance power enclosed in a physical form.

No staring eyes, no screaming voice, no weapon-clutching hands, no intimidation by massive-muscled flesh. Yet its presence contained all of these, for this was a power that could be fed into all of them.

David fought silently, calmly. The power of his mind allied to human intelligence thrust out against this discarnate form, denying it entry into himself.

For one wavering second he felt its agonizing desire to belong, to be a part of his own life force. It reached him as the power of a thousand screaming pleas from a thousand lonely women desiring not to love but to possess. Not to give but to take, yet layering the hysterical cries with sobbing protestations of undying love. This thing had no more valid cause than that, but, lacking physical form, could concentrate its whole possessive desires into the breaking of human resistance through creating a chaos of emotion within him—pity for its need, guilt at denying it, fear that it would destroy itself because of his resistance. In the final milliseconds of that wavering second, the light of sudden understanding blazed into David's mind. He knew now why this alien force did not attempt to kill women and occupy them, but only fill an emotional vacuum. Because this was a female force. This was the controlling power of the invaders.

He raised his gloved hands. One held three of the mercury and acid pellets. He crushed them between his fingers and flung them at the shape, then turned and raced back to his car.

The engine was running. David jumped in the car as he pulled down his dark-glass goggles. Then he fitted a green vizor above them before he looked toward the shape. He saw three small areas of bluish-white light spreading out to join with each other.

He put the car in gear and sent it roaring away. For a few moments he could scarcely see, his eye protection being so dark, then from behind him a great white light grew and grew in intensity. He glanced back, saw it seeping in thin tracks toward the mass of tangled cars, and knew this was the umbilical cord of the controlling power that carried the alien power to each segment contained in each vehicle.

He set his car at the steep-sloping road, hitting over a hundred as it began the climb, snaking and slithering under its power. Then it shot over the top edge, front wheels airborne, landed side-on, bucketed in a mild skid. He fought the wheel, brought the car around, straightened and slammed to a halt close to the other cars. He leapt out, joined the men grouped on a rock. Sergeant Dace and Orvel Pitt were running back to join them.

The valley floor was a maze of bluish-white light—a vast capillary-cell map, with veins of light Unking with bloblike cells of light. Each cell was growing larger in area until it joined the next, and the next and the next—until the whole area became incandescent. Real flames began to merge into and discolor the light as the massed vehicles melted into flame.

Now veins of light were speeding around the perimeter of the mass, like white blood racing in pulsing surges toward a heart. The veins spread out from the thing David had fought, and back to it These others now reached it and were consumed, but another, thicker vein of light began to travel toward the mast. It sped up and up to burst in a billion tiny beams—making a giant spray of light atop the mast, angled in the direction of Auto City.

All this took only seconds before the incandescent flaring lights were shut off, as if an invisible hand had turned a master switch. Only the glowing metal of the tower, as it slowly crumpled, and the blazing red-eyed fires of the cars now lighted Serenda Valley.

David pulled off vizor and goggles. The others removed theirs. They looked silently at each other. Two turned away and were sick. Two lit cigarettes, coughed, then flung the cigarettes away. Clem Makim was walking round and round, shaking his head. Wayne Draycott squatted, head in his hands. Ken Holt and Mike Lasser stood, statuelike, arms around each other's shoulders. Pietro Donelli was crying and praying softly at the same time. Sergeant Dace and Orvel Pitt helped each other rub out scorch marks on their clothing.

David walked to the security man's car where the master radio was fitted. He opened the circuit, lifted the hand mike.

"Starspace Valley calling Starspace City." He repeated it, waited.

Thias Rumbold's voice said: "Starspace City to Starspace Valley. Check."

"It is done," said David wearily. "It is done."

He heard Rumbold's rasping sigh of relief.

"Casualties?" said Thias.

"Not physically. Shock has quieted the men for a time. It should pass. Has it begun in the city?"

"Too early for any but my own firsthand knowledge. Gineas's executive suite is in flames. Firemen think the radio gear blew up."

"It would," said David. "Sorry—I forgot to warn you I left it switched to full feed-in. It probably blew within a few seconds of this tower's final transmission. Well, that's it, Thias. I can do no more. The cleaning-up is your job."

"We'll handle it. Other cities are sending more ambulances, doctors and mobile operating rooms. Washington has clamped a classified top secret on all communications. I guess even this call is illegal."

"Oh yes." David smiled sadly. "They'll be very busy—now it doesn't really matter. Good-bye, Thias. Good luck!"

TV and radio blathered and chattered and the guessing boys—"our experts on this and that"—let themselves go with joyous abandon. There was a security clamp on facts but none on guessing. The pay was high and all networks greedy for anything, but anything, to feed the news-hungry multitude.

Carson Roller's broadcast summed up the general yakking of his numerous colleagues.

"There is no doubt that a major crisis has developed in Auto City, but the recent announcement concerning withdrawal from sale of all new models is merely evidence of the sense of responsibility which always has existed in the auto industry and in Auto City. It does not mean that these thousands of cars are not safe."

Then using the technique of flattening all opposition rumors by starting one of your own, he went on:

"Although the situation is confused, it is possible there might be some automation breakdown at the Carasel and Monarch plants. The government is wise not to allow release of facts until the complete details are known and relatives informed of any casualties."

"But we'd be lacking in conscience if we did not categorically deny the rumors that Auto City has been under attack by those mythical 'invaders.' We haven't personally heard from that well-known scaremonger, David Vincent, but no doubt he is busy scattering his poisonous theories of little green men from outer space who are dedicated to spreading alarm and despondency around our great nation. No, folks—that is one rumor we can pin right now. Whatever the cause of Auto City's current troubles, it certainly isn't David Vincent's little green men! Stay tuned, folks—we'll be back with the latest and greatest."

David and his friends were grouped around the TV set in a motel on Serenda Highway. They had eaten well and were slowly returning to normality.

Wayne Draycott looked at David.

"I once said things like that about you. My God! Will they never listen?"

"Not until they listen with their minds," said David. "Because the little green men don't have voices."

A few days later David and Thias Rumbold sat in the plateau hut, looking out at the racing circuit.

"It's incredible," Thias said. "Even the men who went with you to Serenda Valley seem nearly unconscious of what they saw and what they did."

"I think I would call it partial amnesia," David replied. "People like Ollie Temper and Wayne who really believed in the aliens before the power destruction have much more memory of what went on that night than the others. Their sanity is being protected by psychic Shockwaves that have erased something unbearable from their memories."

"I won't forget, David. Men like Ace Blumen and Rod Baker are themselves again. Auto City is safe and so will a million drivers be, thanks to you. You can call on me if the invaders ever strike again."