largely with a Congressional investigation committee hearing, Los Angeles would have a new and gory murder to exploit, San Francisco news would be of a waterfront strike, Tokyo would talk of cherry blossoms, Delhi of Pakistan, and the French press would discuss the political crisis. But no newspaper, anywhere, would talk about Invaders.
In the United States, radar technicians had been routed out of bed and informed that night fighters had had a fight with an alien ship manned by non-humans and had destroyed it, but their radars detected nothing at all. An hour after sunrise in Naples they had come up with a combination of radar frequencies which were built to detect everything. Instructions were going out in code to all radar establishments on how to set it up on existing equipment. Long before that time, business machines had begun intricate operations with punched cards containing all known facts about the people known to have dropped out of sight. Other machines began to integrate crackpot reports of things sighted in divers places. The stores of Hunter and Nereid rockets—especially the remote-control jobs—were broken out. Great Air Transport planes began to haul them to where they might be needed.
In England, certain establishments that had never been mentioned even in Parliament were put on war alert. There was frantic scurrying-about in France. In Sweden, a formerly ignored scientist was called to a twice- scrambled telephone connection and consulted at length about objects reported over Sweden’s skies. The Canadian Air Force tumbled out in darkness and was briefed. In Chile there was agitation, and in Peru.
There was earnest effort to secure cooperation from behind the Iron Curtain, but that did not work. The Iron Curtain stood pat, demanding the most detailed of information and the privilege of inspecting all weapons intended for use against anybody so far unnamed, but refusing all information of its own. In fact, there was a very normal reaction everywhere, except that the newspapers didn’t know anything to print.
These secret hassles were continuing as the dawnlight moved over Italy and made Naples and its harbor quite the most beautiful place in the world. When daylight rolled over France, matters were beginning to fall into pattern. As daybreak moved across the Atlantic, at least the measures to be taken began to be visualized and orders given for their accomplishment.
And then, with sunrise in America, real preparations got under way.
But hours earlier there was consultation on the carrier in the Bay of Naples. Coburn sat in a wardroom in a cold fury which was in part despair. He had been kept in complete ignorance of all measures taken, and he felt the raging indignation of a man accused of treason. He was being questioned again. He was treated with an icy courtesy that was worse than accusation. The carrier skipper mentioned with detachment that, of course, Coburn had never been in any danger. Obviously. The event in the airport at Salonika and the attack on the convoy were window-dressing. They were not attempts to withdraw him from circulation, but to draw attention to him. Which, of course, implied that the Invaders—whoever or whatever they might be—considered Coburn a useful tool for whatever purpose they intended.
This was before the conference officially began. It took time to arrange. There were radio technicians with microphones. The consultation—duly scrambled and re-scrambled—would be relayed to Washington while it was on. It was a top level conference. Hallen was included, but he did not seem happy.
Then things were ready. The skipper of the carrier took over, with full awareness that the very highest brass in Washington was listening to every word.
“We can skip your technical information, Mr. Coburn,” he said with ironic courtesy, “unless you’ve something new to offer.”
Coburn shook his head. He seethed.
“For the record,” said the skipper, “I repeat that it is obvious that your presence at the scene when those Bulgarians were knocked out, that you were attacked in Salonika, that the ship carrying you was also attacked, and that there was an incident on your landing here:—it’s obvious that all these things were stage-managed to call attention to you, for the purposes of… whoever staged them. Have you anything more to offer?”
“No,” growled Coburn. “I’ve told all I know.” He was furiously angry and felt completely helpless.
“Your information,” purred the Skipper, “and the stage-managed incidents, make you look like a very patriotic citizen who is feared by the supposedly extra-terrestrial creatures. But we don’t have to play any longer, Mr. Coburn. What were you told to tell your government? What do these… extra-terrestrials want?”
“My guess,” snapped Coburn, “is that they want Earth.”
The skipper raised his eyebrows. “Are you threatening us in their name?” he asked, purring.
“I’m telling you my guess,” said Coburn hotly. “It’s just as good as yours and no better! I have no instructions from them. I have no message from them. I’ve only my own opinion, which is that we humans had better get ready to fight. I believe we ought to join together—all of Earth—and get set to defend ourselves.”
There was silence. Coburn found himself regarding the faces around him with an unexpected truculence. Janice pressed his hand warningly.
“All of Earth,” said the skipper softly. “Hmmmm. You advise an arrangement with all the Earth…. What are your politics, Mr. Coburn?—No, let us say, what are the political views of the extra-terrestrial creatures you tell us about? We have to know.”
Coburn seethed. “If you’re suggesting that this is a cold war trick,” he said furiously, “—if they were faking it, they wouldn’t try tricks! They’d make war! They’d try conquest!”
Coburn saw the stout Greek general nodding to himself. But the Skipper said suavely: “You were with one of the creatures, you say, up in the village of Naousa. Would you say he seemed unfriendly to the Bulgarians?”
“He was playing the part of an Englishman,” snapped Coburn, “trying to stop a raid, and murders, and possibly a war—all of them unnecessary!”
“You don’t paint a frightening picture,” complained the skipper ironically. “First you say we have to fight him and his kind, and then you imply that he was highly altruistic. What is the fact?”
“Dammit!” said Coburn. “I hated him because he wasn’t human. It made my flesh crawl to see him act so much like a man when he wasn’t. But he made me feel ashamed when I held a gun on him and he proved he wasn’t human just so Janice—so Miss Ames wouldn’t be afraid to drive down to Salonika with me!”
“So you have some… friendly feelings toward him, eh?” the skipper said negligently. “How will you get in touch with his kind, by the way? If we should ask you to? Of course you’ve got it all arranged? Just in case.”
Coburn knew that absolutely nothing could be done with a man who was trying to show off his shrewdness to his listening superiors. He said disgustedly: “That’s the last straw. Go to hell!”
A loud-speaker spoke suddenly. Its tone was authoritative, and there were little cracklings of static in it from its passage across the Atlantic.
“That line of questioning can be dropped, Captain. Mr. Coburn, did these aliens have any other chances to kill you?”
“Plenty!” snapped Coburn. “And easy ones. One of them came into my office as my secretary. She could have killed me. The man who passed for Major Pangalos could have shot us all while we were unconscious. I don’t know why they didn’t get the transport plane, and I don’t know what their scheme is. I’m telling the facts. They’re contradictory. I can’t help that. All I have are the facts.”
The loud-speaker said crisply: “The attack on the transport plane—any pilots present who were in that fight?”
Someone at the back said: “Yes, sir. Here.”
“How good was their ship? Could it have been a guided missile?”
“No, sir. No guided missile. Whoever drove that ship was right on board. And that ship was good. It could climb as fast as we could dive, and no human could have taken the accelerations and the turns it made. Whoever drove it learned fast, too. He was clumsy at the beginning, but he learned. If we hadn’t gotten in a lucky hit, he’d’ve had us where he wanted us in a little while more. Our fifty-calibres just bounced off that hull!”
The loud-speaker said curtly: “If that impression is justified, that’s the first business to be taken up. All but flying officers are excused. Mr. Coburn can go, too.”
There was a stirring everywhere in the room. Officers got up and walked out. Coburn stood. The Greek general came over to him and patted him on the shoulder, beaming. Janice went out with him. They arrived on the carrier’s deck. This was the very earliest hour of dawn, and the conference had turned abruptly to a discussion of arms and tactics as soon as Washington realized that its planes were inadequate for fighting. Which was logical enough, but Coburn was pretty sure it was useless.
