Robert Silverberg: The Silent Invaders

It was a nice fairy-tale, Harris thought, idly. He made no comment, but listened with apparent interest.

Beth went on, “Despite all the handicaps, these mutants continued to crop up. It was a persistent genetic constellation, but we realized that unless enough members of the new species could be allowed to live to maturity, to meet others and marry, the mutation would wither and drop back into the pool of genes that didn’t make it.

“We discovered isolated members of this new race here and there on Earth, scattered in every continent. We decided to help them—knowing they would help us, some day in the future, when we would need them to stand by us. So we sought them out. We found the super-children, and we protected them. It had to be done subtly, because we ourselves were interlopers on Earth and couldn’t bear the risk of exposure. But it worked. We got the children away from their parents, we brought them together, we raised them in safety.”

Beth pointed at the giant. “David Wrynn here is one of our first discoveries.”

Harris glanced at the big Earthman. “So you’re a superman?” he asked bluntly.

Wrynn smiled. With a diffident shrug he said, “I’m somewhat better equipped for life than most other Earthmen, let’s say. I can’t fly by flapping my arms, I can’t hold my breath for two hours under water, but I’m an improvement in the breed all the same. My children will be as far beyond me as I am beyond my parents.”

Beth said earnestly, passionately, “Do you see, Harris? Can you get the Darruui blinkers off your eyes and understand? Our purpose here on Earth is to aid this evolving race until it’s capable of taking care of itself—which won’t be too long, now. The species is reaching the self-generating stage. There are more than a hundred of them, of which thirty are adults. But now, in the middle of our work, Darruui agents have started to arrive on Earth. They’ve carried the long rivalry between our worlds to this planet, which doesn’t want any part of our struggle. And the Darruui purpose is to obstruct us, to interfere with our actions, and to win Earth over to what they think is their ‘cause.’ They aren’t smart enough to understand that they’re backing a dead horse.”

Harris stared at her levelly, wondering how much of a fool she really thought he was. Finally he said, “Tell me something honestly.”

“Everything I’ve said has been honest. What do you want to know?”

“What’s your motive in bringing this super-race into being?”

Beth shook her head. “Motive?” she said. “You Darruui always think in terms of motives, don’t you? Profit and reward, quid pro quo . Major, can you understand what I’m talking about when I tell you that there’s nothing in this for us at all?”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing but the satisfaction of knowing we’re helping to bring something wonderful into being in the universe, something that wouldn’t exist without our help and encouragement.”

Harris swallowed that with a goodly ration of salt. The concept of pure altruism was not unknown on Darruu, certainly, but altruism had its limits. It seemed highly improbable that a planet would go to all the trouble and expense of sending emissaries across space for the sole purpose of serving as midwives to an emerging race of Terran super beings.

No, he thought.

It didn’t hold up to close scrutiny.

This whole fantastic story of hers was simply part of an elaborately conceived propaganda maneuver whose motives did not lie close to the surface.

There were no supermen, Harris thought. Wrynn was tall and handsome, but there was nothing about him that could not be accounted for in the normal distribution curve of Terran physiques. For that matter, he might not be an Earthman at all, Harris reflected—in all probability Wrynn was a Medlin himself, on whom the surgeons had done an especially good job.

Harris could not fathom the scheme’s depths. But whatever the Medlins’ motives, he made up his mind to play along with them and go where it led him. By this time, Carver had almost certainly picked up his distress signal and most likely had calculated the location of the place where he was being held.

Harris said cautiously, “All right. So you’re busily raising a breed of super-Earthmen, and you want me to help.”

“Yes”

“How?”

“We told you,” Beth said. “By disposing of your nine Darruui comrades. Getting them out of the way before they make things more complicated for us than they already have become.”

Harris said levelly, “You’re asking me with straight faces to commit high treason against my people, in other words.”

“We know what sort of a man you are,” Beth said. “We have—techniques. We know you, Aar Khülom. We know that you aren’t in sympathy with the imperialistic ideals of the Darruui ruling council. You may think you are, you may have brainwashed yourself into thinking so, for your own safety on Darruu, but you really aren’t. You’ve got the stuff of a traitor in you. And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean it as the highest compliment I know how to give a member of your race.”

I’ll play along , Harris thought.

He said, “You know, you people are so perceptive it frightens me.”

“How so?”

“You see with clear eyes. I don’t even understand my own motivations, but you do. When they sent me here I was unsure of what I was doing. I didn’t know what advantage it was to Darruu to gain Earth’s sympathies. All I knew was I had to block the Medlin thrust. A blind, negative reason for journeying here. And now—now I’m not so sure about the values I’ve put so much blind faith in…”

“Will you join us?” Beth asked.

Harris paused. “I might as well admit it. You’re right. I didn’t want to take the Earth assignment in the first place, but I had no choice. I begin to see that I’m on the wrong side. What can I do to help?”

Coburn and Beth exchanged glances. The “Earthman” Wrynn merely smiled.

Have I overplayed my hand? he wondered. Did it seem too obvious, too plainly phony? Maybe I should have held out a while longer before seeming to jump sides .

But Beth said, “I knew you’d co-operate, Major.”

“What’s my first assignment?”

“Target number one is the man who calls himself John Carver. Once you get rid of him, the other Darruui agents are without a nerve-center. After him, the other eight will be easy to nip.”

“How do you know I won’t trick you once you’ve released me?” Harris asked.

Coburn said, “We have ways of keeping watch over you, Major.”

He didn’t elaborate. Harris simply nodded and said, “All right. I’ll go after Carver first. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as he’s out of the way.”

They marched him out of the room and led him into a gravshaft that rose, rather than fell. Up, up, out of who knew what subterranean depths under the city. He pondered the “sunlight” he had thought he saw coming through the barred window, and realized that he had deceived himself. The gravshaft shot upward endlessly, until he came to a halt with an abrupt jiggle and slid open to discharge him onto the main level of an enormous office building.

He stood for a moment in the crowded lobby. Earthers and aliens of all descriptions were busily going through the grand concourse. Slowly, Harris walked toward the nearest exit, and out into the noisy, bustling street. It was still fairly early in the morning, and the day was mild and sunny.

There was a streetguide mounted against a wall half a block from where he had emerged. He walked to it and peered at the crosshatched lines of the city map. At first he had difficulty getting his bearings. A red circle marked his present location, but none of the streets rang in his memory. Only when he glanced completely across the map did he discover the section of the city where his hotel was located.