Robert Silverberg - The Silent Invaders

Just before he reached them, a figure detached itself from the shadows and called his name.

“Harris!”

It was Reynolds, the pudgy surgeon. His pale face was shiny with sweat. Harris scanned him for weapons, saw nothing in his hands.

“Hello, Reynolds.” He eyed the pudgy man uncertainly. “What are you doing in the hall?”

“I came out for a drink. I hear your mission was a success.”

“Five of them dead. A pity you and the others couldn’t wait around.”

“A pity,” Reynolds said. “Well, if you’ll step inside with me, we’ll get that subsonic out of your leg—”

“Oh, you’re going to remove it?”

“Of course. You don’t want to walk around with a thing like that in you, do you?”

“Why not?”

“It’s dangerous. It can get activated so easily. Someone jostles against you…”

“I’m shielded,” Harris said. “If it’s all right, I think I’ll keep it. It’s a handy little gadget. I don’t understand why all agents aren’t equipped with them right from the start.”

Reynolds looked at him perplexedly. “You won’t let me remove it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The fat man’s soft lips moved soundlessly for an instant. Then, panicking, Reynolds turned and dashed through the doorway, slamming it behind him.

Harris hesitated, not caring to follow on into a possible cul-de-sac. He smiled at Reynolds’ fear. The ruse hadn’t worked, and Reynolds had been smitten with sudden terror.

A Servant of the Spirit , Harris thought derisively. The noblest creature of the universe .

“Harris?”

It was Carver’s voice, sounding hollow and indistinct from behind the closed door.

“Harris, do you hear me?”

“I hear you. What is it? Why don’t you let me in, Carver?”

“Reynolds says you refuse to let him remove the subsonic.”

“That’s right.”

“Subsonics are not part of an agent’s standard equipment. It was installed on you for a specific purpose that has now been fulfilled. It must be removed at once, do you understand?”

“The Medlins aren’t all dead yet,” Harris said. “Five out of a hundred…”

“The subsonic must be removed. That’s an order, Harris… Aar Khülom! If you defy that order you are defying the Spirit Itself.”

“All right,” Harris said in a light, mocking voice. “Send Reynolds out here with his tools and he can remove the subsonic.”

There was a long pause. Harris fancied he could hear whispering behind the door. No doubt the five of them were barricaded beyond the forty-foot range of the subsonic, and Reynolds was now refusing to go within its reach. The argument continued for a moment more, and at one point Harris heard Carver’s voice spitting angry curses.

Then Carver called out, “Remove the subsonic yourself. We can’t risk a man.”

“I’m no surgeon.”

“All you have to do is open the thigh-plate and detach the subsonic. Reynolds can finish the job once you’ve done that much.”

“Sorry, but the answer is no, Carver.”

“You will not defy the Spirit!”

“I will not commit suicide,” Harris retorted. He knew what would happen once he had the subsonic detached. They’d fry his brains with their disruptors ten seconds later.

“I order you!” Carver thundred.

“I can’t obey that order,” Harris replied. “And now I’m coming in. We can finish this conversation face to face.”

“Stay out. We are armed!”

“I imagine you are,” Harris said.

He started for the door. They had disruptors, he knew, but the range of a disruptor was only twenty to twenty-five feet. He could reach them and stun them before they could get to him. Probably they had stunguns as well, but those lost most of their impact after a dozen yards.

He threw open the door.

He caught sight of the five of them, madly scrambling backward into one of the inner offices. He started for them, but a moment later there was a burst of flame and a splash of molten metal against the doorframe inches from his head.

Projectile guns!

Bullets!

It seemed laughable, in a way. To fall back on crude projectiles in a crisis was a pathetic way of doing business. But yet he had to admit that bullets had their advantage. They could travel great distances without losing force. They could do great damage, too.

He dropped to the floor as a second bullet thudded into the wall above him. Sighting along the floor, he measured the distance. This room was a good thirty feet long. They were in the room beyond it, which was even bigger. They had plenty of room to move around in before he would be in range. And, if they had bullet guns, they could pick him off before he could succeed in stunning them with the subsonic.

He edged forward, slithering along the floor. Another explosion sounded, another bullet slashed through the air and buried itself in the floor near him, tunnelling deep and picking up a cloud of splinters.

“This is blasphemy, Harris!” Carver called. “I order you to stop.”

Harris bit down on his lip. One wild charge, he thought. That would do the trick. If he could avoid getting shot as he raced toward them…

“I order you in the name of the Spirit, Harris! By all you hold holy! Get away from us! Remove that subsonic! Aar Khülom, you are destroying your own soul! You are withering the roots of your birth-tree! Do you hear me, Aar Khülom!”

“I hear you,” Harris answered.

“Obey us!”

“I can’t,” he replied evenly. He paused a moment, gathering strength.

Then he scrambled to his feet and rushed forward in a blind, mad dash.

He expected to get a bullet in the face at every step. Two more shots crashed out, both of them going wild, as he raced toward the other room. He could see the five of them, now, huddled behind desks as though that could shield them from the subsonic. Patterson was the man with the gun. As Harris reached the threshold of the room, Patterson stood up and squeezed off a shot. And scored a hit.

The bullet ripped into Harris’ shoulder an inch from the cradle of bone that supported his head. He felt a shattering pain, felt bone splitting, and his head lurched wildly to the side. His left arm dangled limply, and pulsing waves of pain radiated through him. He stumbled, nearly fell.

Patterson was taking aim again.

Harris dropped to his knees. He scrabbled forward across the floor.

Reaching across his body in an awkward way, he jabbed down on the neural nexus at his hip, and activated the subsonic. In the same moment, Patterson fired, but he was falling and losing consciousness as he fell, and the shot went completely wild, flying off to the left and embedding itself in the walls.

Harris jammed hard and tingled with the kickback of the subsonic waves, and watched them fall.

Patterson, Reynolds, Tompkins, McDermott, Carver. They slipped to the floor and lay there in huddled heaps. Harris got to his feet, slowly and in great pain. He looked down at himself, saw the blood seeping its way through his torn tunic, saw the gobbets of flesh and the lances of shattered bone. If the bullet had been three inches further to the right, it would have split his chest open and ripped his heart apart.

He looked at the five unconscious men. Five Darruui wearing the skins of Earthmen. Five Servants of the Spirit.

He drew the disruptor.

It lay in his hand for a moment. Once before this evening, he had held the power of life and death over a fellow Darruui. Then it had been Carver alone, and he had been unable to fire the fatal blast. Now he had a second chance, and not only Carver but the other four as well.

He waited. He wanted a word of encouragement from the unseen, unborn mutant whom he knew was monitoring his actions. But no word came.