Robert Silverberg - The Silent Invaders

He followed Moulton inside.

He thought coldly, The subsonic has a range of forty feet in any direction. It stuns but does not kill. No one should be closer to you than three feet. Your shielding protects you .

He was shown into an inner room well furnished with colorful drapes and hangings. A warm light glowed from indirect sources.

Beth stood in the middle of the room, smiling at him. Today she wore thick, shapeless clothes, quite unlike the seductive garb she had had on when Harris first collided with her in that carefully prearranged and premeditated “accident” in the hotel corridor.

There were others in the room. Harris felt a coldness at the presence of so many of the enemy. He recognized the other Medlin, the plump pseudo-Earther Coburn, and the giant named Wrynn who claimed to be an Earthman of some new and superior species. There was another woman of Wrynn’s size in the room, a great golden creature nearly a foot taller than Harris, of breathtaking beauty and elegance. And there were two people of normal size who were probably Medlins in disguise.

“Well?” Beth asked.

In a tight voice Harris said, “He’s dead. I’ve just come from there.”

“How did you carry it out?” Beth asked.

“Disruptor,” Harris said, keeping his voice in check. He saw several of the Medlins exchange glances. The two huge Earthers were regarding him with open, neutral expressions on their faces. Harris said, “It was… unpleasant. For me as well as for him.”

“I imagine it would have been,” Beth said.

He looked at her, wondering if he had succeeded in getting away with it. He was quivering with tension. He made no attempt to conceal it, since a man who had just killed his direct superior, and thus had committed high treason against his world, might be expected to show some signs of extreme tension.

“Eight Darruui to go,” Coburn said. “And four are in another hemisphere.”

“We know their location,” Beth said. “We’ll get them all in time. But first we’ll concentrate on the others in this area. The ones who call themselves Tompkins, Patterson, McDermott, Reynolds.”

Harris felt a chill. They knew every name! How did they know so much? Who was the traitor?

He looked around.

“Who are these people?” he asked, to break the tension. “You haven’t told me their names.”

Beth smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I was eager to find out how you had done.” She pointed to the two normal-sized ones, and introduced them as disguised Medlin agents named Kranz and Marichal. The giant girl, Beth told him, was Wrynn’s wife, a supergirl.

Harris frowned thoughtfully. There were a hundred Medlin agents on Earth, he knew. Four of them were right in this room, and it was reasonable to expect that two or three more might be at headquarters, within the forty-foot range of the concealed subsonic in his thigh. With luck, he might succeed in stunning and then killing as many as nine or ten of the Medlins on Earth.

Not a bad haul at all, he thought. Nearly ten percent of the whole Medlin complement in one swoop. And, two of these oversize Earthers. Reynolds and his scalpel would have to get to work on Wrynn and his wife once they were safely dead, Harris thought. Dissect them and see if Medlin gristle or Earther bone lay beneath their skins.

Suddenly Harris began to tremble.

Beth said, “I suppose you don’t even know who and where the other Darruui are yourself, do you?”

“I’ve only been on Earth a couple of days, you know,” Harris said, shaking his head. “There wasn’t time to make contact with anyone but Carver. I don’t even know the names of the other agents.”

He stared levelly at her as he uttered the lie. The expression on her face was unreadable. It was impossible to tell whether she believed he had actually killed Carver, actually did not know the identities of his Darruui comrades on Earth.

“Things have happened fast to you, haven’t they?” Beth said. She drew a tridim photo from a case and handed it to Harris. “This is your next victim,” she said. “He goes under the name of Reynolds here. You’ll find him right here in this city, I think. You should know how to make contact with him. He’s the second-in-command in your group. First-in-command now, I suppose, since Carver’s dead.”

Harris studied the photo. The face of the fleshy, balding man who had inserted the subsonic beneath the skin of his thigh peered up at him. Reynolds, who was so close now.

Tension mounted in him.

He felt the faint rasp rasp rasp in his stomach. It was the agreed-upon code. Carver, waiting nearby, was buzzing to find out if he were having any trouble, needed any help.

Casually, Harris put his hand to his side, and kneaded the flesh with the heel of his palm, as though trying to ease the pain of an attack of indigestion. The signal he sent out told Carver that nothing had happened yet, that everything was all right. An acknowledging double buzz came from within.

Harris handed the photo back to Beth.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of him.”

“You should be able to find him in a day or so,” she said. “Make contact quickly and get him out of the way. There are still seven more after him, and we don’t have much time to waste.”

“I’ll get him tomorrow,” Harris vowed.

I press the neural nexus in the left hip and render them unconscious. Then I kill them all with the disruptor and leave .

Very simple.

In such easy ways do we win the Grace of the Spirit , he thought.

He looked at Beth, still radiantly lovely despite the deliberate glamorlessness of her clothing, and thought that in a few minutes she would lie here dead on the floor, as dead as those pitiful little glossy-eyed Terran animals in their cages. She would die, and Coburn, and the other two Medlins, and these giants who claimed to be Earthmen of some new super-species.

He tensed.

His hand stole toward his hip.

Then Beth broke the tension momentarily by saying, “Would you like to have a drink with us. Major? To celebrate your conversion to the forces of light?”

“No,” he said. “I… I don’t like liquor much…”

“Oh, really!” Beth laughed. “That isn’t the impression I got the other night.”

He frowned. Somehow it seemed even more blasphemous to take refreshment from these people and then to kill them. But they were putting him in an awkward position. Already, Coburn was producing a bottle and seven glasses. He began to pour a cloudy amber fluid. Gravely, he handed the glasses around until everyone in the room held one.

“What are we drinking?” Harris asked.

“Vriyl,” Beth said. “It’s a liqueur.”

“An Earther liqueur?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a pleasant smile. “A Medlin liqueur. We brought some with us.”

Harris’ hand shook so badly that he nearly spilled his drink. His stomach churned at the idea of drinking a Medlin beverage, of toasting with the enemy.

Beth saw the tremor and said, “It must have been a terrible nervous strain, killing him. You look extremely disturbed.”

“You’ve overturned all the values of my life,” Harris said glibly. “That can shake a man up.”

Beth turned triumphantly to Coburn and said, “You didn’t think I’d succeed!” To Harris she explained, “Coburn didn’t think you could be trusted.”

Coburn smiled uncomfortably. “Well, all that’s past, now. Cheers, everyone.”

Glasses went to lips. All but Harris’. He lifted his glass halfway, then gagged at the smell of the nauseous stuff and hurled liqueur and glass together to the floor. As the others looked at him in surprise, he said, “Coburn was right. I can’t be trusted.”