were hardly amiable. But one can’t let them be murdered!”
Coburn had his hand on his revolver in his pocket. His finger was on the trigger. But if Dillon needed him to run an errand, then there obviously were no others of his own kind about.
Dillon turned his back. He gave orders in the barbarous dialect of the mountains. His voice was authoritative. Men obeyed him and dragged uniformed figures out of a light half-track that was plainly a staff car. Dillon beckoned, and Coburn moved toward him. The important thing as far as Coburn was concerned was to get Janice to safety. Then to report the full event.
“I… I’m not sure…” began Janice, her voice shaking.
“I’ll prove what I said,” raged Coburn in a low tone. “I’m not crazy, though I feel like it!”
Dillon beckoned again. Janice slipped off the donkey’s back. She looked pitifully frightened and irresolute.
“I’ve located the chap who’s the mayor of this village, or something like that. Take him along. They might not believe you, but they’ll have to investigate when he turns up.”
A white-bearded villager reluctantly climbed into the back of the car. Dillon pleasantly offered to assist Janice into the front seat. She climbed in, deathly white, frightened of Coburn and almost ashamed to admit that his vehement outburst had made her afraid of Dillon, too.
Dillon came around to Coburn’s side of the vehicle. “Privately,” he said with a confidential air, “I’d advise you to dump this mayor person where he can reach authority, and then go away quietly and say nothing of what happened up here. If the Greeks are using some contrivance that handles an affair like this, it will be top secret. They won’t like civilians knowing about it.”
Coburn’s grip on his revolver was savage. It seemed likely, now, that Dillon was the only one of his extraordinary kind about.
“I think I know why you say that,” he said harshly.
Dillon smiled. “Oh, come now!” he protested. “I’m quite unofficial!”
He was incredibly convincing at that moment. There was a wry half-smile on his face. He looked absolutely human; absolutely like the British correspondent Coburn had met in Salonika. He was too convincing. Coburn knew he would suspect his own sanity unless he made sure.
“You’re not only unofficial,” said Coburn grimly. His hand came up over the edge of the staff-car door. It had his revolver in it. It bore inexorably upon the very middle of Dillon’s body. “You’re not human, either! You’re not a man! Your name isn’t Dillon! You’re—something I haven’t a word for! But if you try anything fancy I’ll see if a bullet through your middle will stop you!”
Dillon did not move. He said easily: “You’re being absurd, my dear fellow. Put away that pistol.”
“You slipped!” said Coburn thickly. “You said the Greeks played a trick on this raiding party. But you played it. At Ardea, when you climbed that cliff—no man could climb so fast. No man could run as you ran down into this village. And I saw that body you’re wearing when you weren’t in it! I followed you up the cliff when—” Coburn’s voice was ragingly sarcastic—“when you were taking pictures!”
Dillon’s face went impassive. Then he said: “Well?”
“Will you let me scratch your finger?” demanded Coburn almost hysterically. “If it bleeds, I’ll apologize and freely admit I’m crazy! But if it doesn’t…”
The thing-that-was-not-Dillon raised its eyebrows. “It wouldn’t,” it said coolly. “You do know. What follows?”
“You’re something from space,” accused Coburn, “sneaking around Earth trying to find out how to conquer us! You’re an Invader! You’re trying out weapons. And you want me to keep my mouth shut so we Earth people won’t patch up our own quarrels and join forces to hunt you down! But we’ll do it! We’ll do it!”
The thing-that-was-not-Dillon said gently: “No. My dear chap, no one will believe you.”
“We’ll see about that!” snapped Coburn. “Put those cameras in the car!”
The figure that looked so human hesitated a long instant, then obeyed. It lowered the two seeming cameras into the back part of the staff car.
Janice started to say, “I… I…”
The pseudo-Dillon smiled at her. “You think he’s insane, and naturally you’re scared,” it said reassuringly. “But he’s sane. He’s quite right. I am from outer space. And I’m not humoring him either. Look!”
He took a knife from his pocket and snapped it open. He deliberately ran the point down the side of one of his fingers.
The skin parted. Something that looked exactly like foam-rubber was revealed. There were even bubbles in it.
The pseudo-Dillon said, “You see, you don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s sane, and quite human. You’ll feel much better traveling with him.” Then the figure turned to Coburn. “You won’t believe it, but I really like you, Coburn. I like the way you’ve reacted. It’s very… human.”
Coburn said to him: “It’ll be human, too, when we start to hunt you down!” He let the staff car in gear. Dillon smiled at him. He let in the clutch, and the car leaped ahead.
In the two camera-cases Coburn was sure that he had the cryptic device that was responsible for the failure of a cold-war raid. He wouldn’t have dared drive away from Dillon leaving these devices behind. If they were what he thought, they’d be absolute proof of the truth of his story, and they should furnish clues to the sort of science the Invaders possessed. Show the world that Invaders were upon it, and all the world would combine to defend Earth. The cold war would end.
But a bitter doubt came to him. Would they? Or would they offer zestfully to be viceroys and overseers for the Invaders, betraying the rest of mankind for the privilege of ruling them even under unhuman masters?
Janice swayed against his shoulder. He cast a swift glance at her. Her face was like marble.
“What’s the matter?”
She shook her head. “I’m trying not to faint,” she said unsteadily. “When you told me he was from another world I… thought you were crazy. But when he admitted it… when he proved it…”
Coburn growled. The trail twisted and dived down a steep slope. It twisted again and ran across a rushing, frothing stream. Coburn drove into the rivulet. Water reared up in wing-like sheets on either side. The staff car climbed out, rocking, on the farther side. Coburn put it to the ascent beyond. The trail turned and climbed and descended as the stony masses of the hills required.
“He’s—from another world!” repeated Janice. Her teeth chattered. “What do they want—creatures like him? How—how many of them are there? Anybody could be one of them! What do they want?”
“This is a pretty good world,” said Coburn fiercely. “And his kind will want it. We’re merely the natives, the aborigines, to them. Maybe they plan to wipe us out, or enslave us. But they won’t! We can spot them now! They don’t bleed. Scratch one and you find—foam-rubber. X-rays will spot them. We’ll learn to pick them out—and when some specialists look over those things that look like cameras we’ll know more still! Enough to do something!”
“Then you think it’s an invasion from space?”
“What else?” snapped Coburn.
His stomach was a tight cramped knot now. He drove the car hard!
In air miles the distance to be covered was relatively short. In road miles it seemed interminable. The road was bad and curving beyond belief. It went many miles east and many miles west for every mile of southward gain. The hour grew late. Coburn had fled Ardea at sunrise, but they’d reached Naousa after midday and he drove frantically over incredible mountain roads until dusk. Despite sheer recklessness, however, he could not average thirty miles an hour. There were times when even the half-track had to crawl or it would overturn. The sun set, and he went on up steep grades and down steeper ones in the twilight. Night fell and the headlights glared ahead, and the staff car clanked and clanked and grumbled and roared on through the darkness.
They probably passed through villages—the headlights showed stone hovels once or twice—but no lights appeared. It was midnight before they saw a moving yellow spot of brightness with a glare as of fire upon steam above it. There were other small lights in a row behind it, and they saw that all the lights moved.
“A railroad!” said Coburn. “We’re getting somewhere!”
