Keith Laumer: Zone Yellow

“Half a block,” she grumped. “Human as I am. Wearing an overcoat and everything!”

“If you’d seen one as close as I have, you’d know they’re not human,” I assured her. “In any case, we are certainly not going to stand idly by while they take over our country.”

A burly young fellow stood up. “I saw two of em break down the door to the grocery,” he said. “Knocked a man down; heard screams from inside, and an explosion, sounded like. Human or not, we can’t put up with that stuff right here in our own town! I’m volunteering, Colonel, for whatever I can do to help throw em out.”

Others spoke up, pro and con. A few who had gotten a better look at the rat-men tried to tell the others about them, but were met with surprisingly vigorous resistance, based on the theory that the Government was persecuting poor immigrants. Finally, I put an end to the debate by using a chair on two hard-looking fellows who had eased up to me and tried to hustle me. The chair was a light steel folding one, but it sent both of them back to regroup. Then I had to draw my issue pistol and put a round through the ceiling to get everybody’s attention. The room was in a near-riot condition, but they got quiet in a hurry when a shot was fired. A meaty fellow with a bloody nose pushed through to confront me.

“Go ahead, shoot me!” he challenged. “Your fascist tricks won’t work here!”

“Go tend to that nose,” I told him. “I don’t intend to shoot anybody but the enemy. I never met a Fascist. Mussolini’s been dead a long time.”

He snorted and turned to face the roomful of excited citizens, and started to make a speech. I spun him around by the coat collar.

“I don’t know who you are, Fats,” I told him, “and I don’t give a damn. Sit down and shut up.” I gave him a hearty shove to help him on his way. He tripped and fell on his back, and looked up, squalling. A fellow with a bleeding scalp jumped forward to help him up. “Here, Mr. Borg, let me just give you a hand here,” he gobbled, and gave me a dirty look. Borg got up with no difficulty, and ran along the wall to the door and out. The thin woman who had insisted the Ylokk were just harmless strangers darted after him. The noise level abated a little.

“Listen to me!” I had to yell to be heard. “This is war! We’re going to win it. If anyone here is in doubt as to which side he’s on, he’d better make up his mind right now. All in favor of lying down and letting these rats take over, move over to this side, please!”

Feet shuffled, but nobody moved.

“Fine,” I said. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get to work.

I gave them a resume of our resources: a hundred and fifty more-or-less trained troops, two hundred and ten townspeople, and another eighty-five refugees from Stockholm and other places, including too many women, kids, and elderly men. We had our six buses and five heavy trucks (one had broken an axle), and few local cars, and four light trucks; one field piece with fifty rounds, twenty-six hunting rifles, six revolvers, with a few rounds each, plus ten of the new anti-disruptor gadgets. Plenty of water from the town’s system; a warehouse half full of food, mostly canned goods; assorted blankets; extra clothing and so on. The Swedish weather is inclined to be cold all of a sudden.

“We’re in pretty good shape to hold our own,” I told them. “We can’t stand a long siege. The garden vegetables will have to be rationed, starting now.”

“Say,” a lean, hayseed type yelled. “Them’s my vegetables yer talking about.”

I told him he’d be compensated and he calmed down. Funny how people can keep their minds on money when their entire way of life, and life itself, are at hazard.

Lars Burman came in about then; I’d sent him out to reconnoiter to give us an idea of how many of the enemy were in the area.

“We’re bottled up,” he blurted before I could shush him. “They’ve encircled the town, occupied the close farmhouses, and set up roadblocks all around. There’s hundreds of them, maybe thousands! We won’t be getting any reinforcements, it appears.” By now my little meeting was in near-riot condition again.

I soothed them, told them I’d have jobs for all of them, and questioned Lars more closely about troop dispositions. They had set up a thin line all the way around town; easy to punch through, if we’d had anywhere to go. They didn’t seem to care about the field HQ in the tent.

“For the present,” I told my audience, over their muttering, “we’ll sit tight and leave the next move to them.”

A fat old fellow who d been an army officer bustled forward. “We can assume they’ll close in after they think we’ve been sufficiently weakened by hunger and nervous stress,” he told me. “They’ll advance along the main streets into town, and that’s where we have to be waiting for them. I suggest we place our eighty-eight-millimeter in the square, where it can be swiveled to command whatever street they come on.”

I agreed with him, and picked ten able-bodied fellows in the crowd as squad leaders, telling them to recruit up to fifty volunteers each, arm them as well as possible, position them in the side streets, and be ready to flank any advancing column that appeared.

Lars came back from looking out the window. “Farmhouse or barn on fire to the east,” he reported. “Lots of the rats swarming over that way, too.”

A little man who’d been making a lot of noise uttered a wail. “That’s my house!” he yelled at us as if I’d ordered it burned. He started for the door. I asked him where he was going.

He turned and gave me a hurt look. “I’m not going to stand here while those animals destroy my place!” he yelled. There were a few faint cheers.

“What do you intend to do about it?” I wanted to know.

“I’ve got a weapon,’ he told me, and patted his coat pocket. “I’ll take a few of the vermin with me . . . and maybe…” He trailed off. He hadn’t quite realized he was committing suicide.

“Stick around,” I suggested, “and you can help do something effective.”

“Guess I’d better,” he conceded. He went to the window and turned and yelled that now the barn was gone, and it was too late to save the house, so what was it I had in mind. He whirled back to the window, which was open. “Listen!” he yelled. I did so. There were sounds of farmcarts on brick pavement, and shouts. I went over. Ex-captain Aspman was down there in the courtyard apparently organizing some sort of convoy of wagons hitched to shaggy northern ponies, loaded with our most strategically important supplies. I wondered where he thought he was going.

I called down to him, “Hold everything right there, Aspman!”

“Like hell I will, damn you!” he shouted back. “I’m going to save the people of Sigtuna, even though tjou intend to betray them!”

That was all it took: the roomful of civic leaders behind me all tried at once to climb on top of me. I had to hold them off without hurting anybody. Then they formed up in a semicircle with its end against the wall on either side of me and just out of reach. The shrill little woman who, I’d realized, ran the local social scene was front and center.

“You all heard what the captain said,” she yelled. “That’s him,”―she pointed at me―”right there―the stranger who came bursting into our city and is trying to take over, so he can sell us out to the strangers―strangers, like him!” With that off her flat chest, she subsided to muttering.

I took the opportunity to try to say something. “I’m Colonel Bayard of the Net Surveillance Service. I’ve been appointed by General Baron von Richtofen to assume command of this Field Headquarters, and this is it! Aspman is a fool and I had to relieve him, so just calm down and start doing what needs to be done.”