Robert Silverberg - Those Who Watch

Bridger’s next step had been to find out the names of the AOS officers in that search party. That had been hard, but not impossible. In the course of some days of investigation he discovered that the mission had been headed by the local AOS commander, Falkner, and by a Captain Bronstein. They were the logical men to check on. He found their addresses without great trouble; it was amazing how much detective work could be done at the public library, with a telephone book, a city directory, and a file of newspapers. Then he rented a car and settled down to watch their behavior.

Repeated surveillance periods convinced him that Bronstein could not be his man; The captain was hiding nothing in his home except a harried-looking wife and four children.

But this Falkner—

He lived by himself in a large house. Suspicious. No wife; she had divorced him last year, a neighbor said. He kept his windows opaqued all the time. Suspicious, too. He rarely came out, and then only to make what appeared to be brief shopping expeditions. A phone call to Falkner’s office produced the information that he was sick and would be out indefinitely. Because he had a special guest in his home, perhaps?

Bridger watched for five days. He had no clue about what was going on in there, but he was positive that Falkner was harboring one of the missing Dirnans. At last the windows cleared for a moment, and Bridger saw a woman’s face. He had no way of telling that she was Dirnan, of course, but it confirmed some of his suspicions. Now what he had to do was wait until Falkner left the house again, and get inside. He didn’t expect that the Dirnan would answer the doorbell to anyone, but he carried equipment that would cope with any sort of sealing system. Once inside, he could confront the Dirnan, throw a few triggering words at her point blank, and watch her reactions. Unless he was very wrong about all this, she’d be caught off guard and give herself away, and he could take her into custody on a charge of covenant violation. And then— The door was opening. Colonel Falkner was leaving the house. This time he didn’t seem merely to be going shopping, either. Instead of civilian clothes, he wore his uniform, as if he had ended his sick leave and was going to his office. Fine. That gives me all the time I’ll need, Bridger thought. He watched the colonel drive away. Then, pocketing his necessary equipment, Bridger eased his bulky body out of his own car and started across the street to the Falkner house. “David!” a high female voice called. “David Bridger!” The Kranazoi pivoted about, startled. An uncontrollable spasm rocked his nervous system at the interruption of his concentration. A girl was running toward him — Leonore, that was her name, the foolish child who had picked him up at the motel. He had not been looking for any such involvement, but she was there and eager, and he had just come back from his wasted trip to the nonsensical Contact Cult, and at the moment it had amused him to see what it was like to make love with a girl from Earth. He had had her and forgotten her. What was she doing now, turning up at precisely the wrong moment?

Panting, her breasts bobbling under her jacket, she came up beside him, all smiles. “Hello, David! You don’t look pleased to see me!”

“Leonore? How come — what—?”

“I live right near here. I saw you getting out of the car, and I recognized you right away. Did you come here to visit me? How nice of you!”

“As a matter of fact, I — I—”

“Yes, David?”

“Look, I’m here to see somebody else now, Leonore. I didn’t know you lived here. I — I’ll see you some other time.”

She pouted. “All right. Who are you visiting?”

“Does it matter?”

“I was just wondering. Maybe it’s someone I know.”

“It isn’t, I assure you. I—”

Bridger’s words died away. Something small and cold was pressing against the meat of his back. A low male voice said, “Get into the car, Kranazoi, and don’t make trouble. This is an antipersonnel grenade, and I’ll use it on you right out here if you resist.”

David Bridger — Bar-48-Codon-adf — felt the sidewalk turn into a yawning gulf beneath his feet.

“No,” he said. “You’re making a mistake. I’m not Krana — whoever you said. I’m David Bridger of San Francisco, and-”

The low voice cut in. “We can smell your miserable Kranazoi stink a block away, so save your breath. You’ve been caught, and get used to it. Into the car, now.”

“This is an outrage,” Bar-48-Codon-adf said thickly. “I’m merely checking on a covenant violation. Three Dirnans unlawfully descended to Earth, and obviously there were more than that. You’ll all be brainburned for this! You—”

“Into the car. Ten seconds, then you get the grenade. One? Two? Three? Four?”

Bar-48-Codon-adf got into the car. Not his own, but one he had not even noticed, that had come quietly up the street while he was eyeing the Falkner house. For the first time he saw his captor: a big, blocky Earthman who clearly was no Earthman at all. He sat beside Bar-48-Codon-adf, holding the grenade lightly but alertly. The girl he had known as Leonore was in the front seat. She still looked youthful and innocent, but Bar-48-Codon-adf realized that she must be a Dirnan agent too, and had deliberately picked him up so that she could check on his identity. This planet must be crawling with them! If he ever had a chance to file a report, he’d have to let the Kranazoi authorities know that the Dirnans were flagrantly breaking the covenants. But he suspected uncom-fortly that he never was going to get a chance to file that report.

There was a third person in the car — an older woman. Bar-48-Codon-adf watched dismally as she got out, walked across the street, and rang the bell of the Falkner house. He had tracked down one of the lost Dirnans, all right. But he had found her only to lose her to her own devilish kind.

Glair listened apprehensively to the melodious chime of the doorbell. Who could that be? Not Tom coming back; Tom would use his thumb-print to open the door. A salesman? A poll-taker? A policeman? She froze. She was in the bedroom, practicing her walking. Tom had warned her not to open the door to anyone. The chime sounded again, and Glair walked warily over to the scanner and switched it on.

An Earthwoman in middle years stood in front of the house. Glair’s first reaction was to shut the scanner off and wait for the woman to go away. Then the plump, pleasant outlines of the visitor’s face registered on Glair’s memory hanks.

Thuw? Was that Thuw standing there?

Thuw belonged to the Sartak-Thuw-Leenor sexual group. Glair had known them some years now. They had all been on Ganymede together during their last rest period. In fact, she and Sartak had—

But the tiny gray viewing field of the door-scanner, no more than three inches in diameter, might be misleading her. Glair peered intently at the uncertain image. If she were mistaken, there would be trouble.

“Who is it?’she said.

“Glair?” came a warm voice. “You can open up. We’ve found you, Glair.”

The voice was speaking in Dirnan.

“I’m coming, Thuw! I’ll be right there!”

Glair hobbled to the front door, unsealed it, waited in joyous suspense as it all too slowly rolled back. An instant later she was in Thuw’s arms, and the sweet scent of her own people flooded her nostrils, and she trembled with delight and relief, and also with sadness.

Thuw stepped inside. Glair closed the door and sealed it again.

“We have a car outside,” Thuw said. “Sartak and Leenor are waiting in it.”

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Thuw laughed. “Actually, what we did was put a fat Kranazoi spy on your trail, and then followed him. It was Leenor’s idea. Wasn’t it clever?”