Robert Silverberg: The Silent Invaders

Her hand tightened on his arm. “Are you all right? You look so pale!”

In a tense voice he said, “Maybe we’d better postpone our little party a few minutes, Beth. I’m—not quite well.”

“Oh! Is there any way I can help?”

He shook his head. “It’s something I picked up on Alpheratz,” he said huskily. Turning, he handed her the packaged liquor bottle and said, “It’ll just take me a few minutes to get myself settled down. Suppose you go to your room and wait for me there.”

“But if you’re sick I ought to…”

“No. Beth, I have to take care of this myself, without anyone else watching. Is that okay with you?”

“Okay,” she said doubtfully.

“Thanks. Be with you just as soon as I can.”

They rode the gravshaft together to the 58th floor of the hotel and went their separate ways, she to her room, he to his. The signal in his abdomen was repeating itself steadily now with quiet urgency: rasp rasp rasp. Rasp rasp rasp. Rasp rasp rasp .

He neutralized the force-field on the door with a quick energy impulse and opened the door. Stepping inside quickly, he activated the spybeam jammer again. Beads of cold sweat were starting to form on his skin.

Rasp rasp rasp. Rasp rasp rasp .

He opened the closet, took out the tiny narrow-beam amplifier that he had hidden there, and tuned it to the frequency of the emergency signal. Immediately the rasping within him ceased as the narrow-beam amplifier covered the wavelength.

Long moments passed. The amplifier picked up a voice speaking in the code devised for use among Darruui agents alone.

“Identify yourself.”

Harris identified himself according to the regular procedure. He went on to say, “I arrived on Earth today. My instructions were not to report to you for about two weeks.”

“I know all that,” was the impatient reply. “There’s an emergency situation.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“We’ve discovered there are Medlin agents on Earth. Normal procedures will have to be altered. I want you to meet me at once.”

He gave an address. Harris memorized it and repeated it. The contact was broken.

Meet me at once . The orders had to be interpreted literally. At once meant right now, not tomorrow afternoon at Harris’ convenience. His tryst with the yellow-haired Earthgirl would just have to wait.

He picked up the housephone and asked for her room. A moment later he heard her voice.

“Hello?”

“Beth, this is Abner Harris.”

“Are you all right? Is everything under control? I’m waiting for you.”

Hesitantly he said, “I’m fine now. But… Beth, I don’t know how to say this—will you believe me when I tell you that a friend of mine just phoned, and wants me to meet him right away, downtown?”

“Now? But it’s after eleven!”

“I know. He’s a strange sort. Keeps odd hours. I’ve got to go.”

“I thought you didn’t have any friends on Earth, Major Harris. You said you were lonely.” Her voice was sharp with the edgy sarcasm of disappointment.

“He’s not really a friend ,” Harris said uncomfortably. “He’s a business associate. From IDC.”

“Well, I’m not accustomed to having men stand me up. But I guess I don’t have any choice, do I?”

“Good girl. Make it a date for breakfast in the morning instead?”

“It’s a lousy substitute, but it’ll have to do. What time?”

“Oh, nine.”

“All right,” she said. “See you at nine, Major Harris.”

He stopped in the hotel lobby and poked his nose into the concierge’s booth. The concierge, a bony-faced, hawk-nosed man whose veiled eyes glittered with the knowledge accumulated in a hundred years of hoteliering, smiled subserviently at him.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to know how to get to 11543 Narvon Boulevard, the quickest way.”

A grin creased the leathery face. “The Major is interested in the night-life, is he? Have you made a reservation? The Naron Boulevard clubs usually have few empty seats.”

“I’m meeting a friend there,” Harris said. “I assume he’s taken care of the arrangements. Is it possible to walk there?”

“To walk? Oh, no, no, not advisable at all. It is a very long walk. And not at all safe. I will get a helitaxi for you. It is a very quick trip by helitaxi.”

Harris nodded and slipped a bill into the cubicle. The concierge picked up a phone and spoke briefly into it. “The helitaxi will be here in a moment, Major. If you will be so kind as to wait by the north entrance of the hotel…”

Harris stepped outside. Another uniformed flunkey pointed to the helitaxi ramp curving upward at the right. Harris mounted it, and moments later a gleaming helitaxi settled down, its generators purring, and a door irised open in its flank.

Harris got in.

“Narvon Boulevard, Major?” the cabbie said.

“That’s right.”

Harris leaned back against the plush upholstery. The sound of sinuous music filtered down from the small speaker in the cab’s roof. There was the sudden throb of powerful rotors, and then they were aloft, rising vertically to the thousand-foot level.

The ride was a short one, eastward out of the heart of the city. They passed from the region of bright lights to one of dimness, and then to another area of brightness, this time gaudy and flamboyant rather than merely warm and brilliant.

The helitaxi spiralled downward onto apublic landing ramp.

“Three units fifty ” the cabbie said.

Harris peeled off four units and got out. The cab whirred off into the mild night, leaving him alone.

The other operative had named aspecific street-corner as their rendezvous point. Harris walked up to the corner, where a coolfire streetsign glowed a lambent green against the side of a building, and discovered that he was on the 105 block of Narvon Boulevard. He had to go to the 115 block. Somebody had given the cabbie the wrong instructions, he thought in annoyance. Walking ten blocks in the dark didn’t overly much appeal to him.

He started to walk. It was a nightclub district, all bright lights and brassy music. From time to time he spied stealthy figures moving off down dark alleyways between the clubs, but he kept moving, secure in the knowledge that he was armed and could handle himself in all butthe most unexpected of attacks.

The blocks peeled away. 106 block, 109, 113. Each was like its predecessor—an unending strip of amusement palaces and honky-tonks. Judging from the radiant signs outside, each had its own specialty—nude dancing girls in one, gambling in the next, exotic liqueurs in the next, darker things perhaps in some.

He reached the 115 block.

A figure leaned casually against the lamppost on the southeast corner of the street. Quickly Harris crossed to him. In the brightness of the streetlamp he was able to make out the other’s face: lean, lantern-jawed, solemn, with a grave dignity to it.

Harris walked up. The other man regarded him with blank lack of interest.

Harris said softly, “Pardon me, friend. Do you know where I might be able to purchase a mask for the carnival, by any chance?”

It was the agreed-upon recognition-query. The other answered, in a deep, harsh voice, “Masks are expensive. You would be wiser to stay home.”

He thrust out his hand.

Harris took it, gripping the wrist in the Darruui manner, and rejoicing in the contact, in the firm grasp of the other man. Eleven hundred light-years from home and he beheld a fellow Servant of the Spirit! His depressing load of lonely homesickness dropped away.

“I’m Major Abner Harris,” he said.