Robert Heinlein - The Puppet Masters

One tends to think of communications as meaning the line-of-sight channels and nothing else. But "communications" means all traffic of every sort, even dear old Aunt Mamie, headed for California with her head stuffed with gossip. The slugs had seized the channels and the President's proclamation had not gotten through, or so we assumed-but news can't be stopped that easily; such measures merely slow it down. Behind the Soviet Curtain Aunt Sonya does not go on long trips; it ain't healthy. Ergo, if the slugs expected to retain control where they were, seizing the channels would be just their first step.

It stood to reason that they were not numerous enough to interfere with all traffic, but what would they do?

I reached only the unhelpful conclusion that they would do something and that I, being a part of "communications" by definition, had better be prepared for evasive action if I wanted to save my pretty pink skin.

In the meantime the Mississippi River and Zone Red were sliding closer by the minute. I wondered what would happen the first time my recognition signal was picked up by a station controlled by masters. I tried to think like a titan-impossible, I found, even though I had been a slave to one. The idea revolted me.

Well, then, what would a security commissar do if an unfriendly craft flew past the Curtain? Have it shot down, of course. No, that was not the answer; I was probably safe in the air.

But I had better not let them spot me landing. Elementary.

"Elementary" in the face of a traffic control net which was described proudly as the No-Sparrow-Shall-Fall plan. They boasted that a butterfly could not make a forced landing anywhere in the United States without alerting the search & rescue system. Not quite true-but I was no butterfly.

What I wanted was to land short of the infested area and go in on the ground. On foot I will make a stab at penetrating any security screen, mechanical, electronic, manned, or mixed. But how can you use misdirection in a car making westing a full degree every seven minutes? Or hang a stupid, innocent look on the nose of a duo?

If I went in on foot the Old Man would get his report come next Michaelmas; he wanted it before midnight.

Once, in a rare mellow mood, the Old Man told me that he did not bother his agents with detailed instructions-give a man a mission; let him sink or swim. I suggested that his method must use up a lot of agents.

"Some," he had admitted, "but not as many as the other way. I believe in the individual and I try to pick individuals who are survivor types."

"And how in the hell," I had asked him, "do you know when you've got a 'survivor type'."

He had grinned at me wickedly. "A survivor type is an agent who comes back. Then I know."

I had to reach a decision in the next few minutes. Elihu, I said to myself, you are about to find out which type you are-and damn his icy heart!

My course would take me in toward St. Louis, swing me in the city loop around St. Louis, and on to Kansas City. But St. Louis was in Zone Red. The military-situation map had showed Chicago as still green; as I remembered it the amber line had zigzagged west somewhere above Hannibal, Missouri-and I wanted very badly to cross the Mississippi while still in Zone Green. A car crossing that mile-wide river would make a radar blip as sharp as a desert star.

I signaled block control for permission to descend to local-traffic level, then did so without waiting, resuming manual control and cutting my speed. I headed north.

Short of the Springfield loop I headed west again, staying low. When I reached the river I crossed slowly, close to the water, with my transponder shut down. Sure, you can't shut off your radar recognition signal in the air, not in a standard rig-but the Section's cars were not standard. The Old Man was not above using gangster tricks.

I had hopes, if local traffic were being monitored while I crossed, that my blip would be mistaken for a boat on the river. I did not know certainly whether the next block station across the river was Zone Red or Zone Green, but, if my memory was correct, it should be green.

I was about to cut in the transponder again on the assumption that it would be safer, or at least less conspicuous, to get back into the traffic system when I noticed the shoreline opening up ahead of me. The map did not show a tributary there; I judged it to be an inlet, or possibly a new channel cut in the spring floods and not yet mapped. I dropped almost to water level and headed into it. The stream was narrow, meandering, and almost overhung by trees and I had no more business taking a sky car into it than a bee has of flying down a trombone-but it afforded perfect radar "shadow"; I could get lost in it.

In a few minutes I was lost, not only from any monitoring technician, but lost myself, right off the map. The channel switched and turned and cut back and I was so busy bucking the car by hand, trying to keep from crashing that I lost all track of navigation. I swore and wished that the car were a triphib so that I could land on water.

The trees suddenly broke on the left bank; I saw a stretch of level land, kicked her over and squatted her in with a deceleration that nearly cut me in two against my safety belt. But I was down and no longer trying to play catfish in a muddy stream.

I wondered what to do. There seemed to be nobody around; I judged that I was on the back end of someone's farm. No doubt there was a highway close by. I had better find it and stay on the ground.

But I knew that was silly even as I thought it. Three hours from Washington to Kansas City by air-I had completed almost all the trip and now I was how far away from Kansas City? By land, about three hours. At that rate, all I needed to make the trip complete was to park the car ten or twelve miles outside Kansas City and walk; then I would still have three hours to go.

I felt like the frog who jumped halfway to the end of the log with each hop, but never got there. I must get back into the air.

But I did not dare do so until I knew positively whether traffic here was being controlled by free men, or by slugs.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had not turned on the stereo since leaving Washington. I am not much for stereo; between the commercials and the junk they sandwich between them I sometimes wonder about "progress". But a newscast may have uses.

I could not find a newscast. I got (a) a lecture by Myrtle Doolightly, Ph.D., on Why Husbands Grow Bored, sponsored by the Uth-a-gen Hormone Company-I decided that she probably had plenty of experience in her subject; (b) a trio of girl hepsters singing 'If You Mean What I think You Mean, What are We Waiting For?' (c) an episode in 'Lucretia Learns About Life'.

Dear Doctor Myrtle was fully dressed and could have hidden half a dozen titans around her frame. The trio were dressed about the way one would expect them to be, but they did not turn their backs to the camera. Lucretia appeared to alternate having her clothes torn off with taking them off willingly, but the camera always cut or the lights always went out just before I could check on whether or not her back was bare-of slugs, that is.

And none of it meant anything. Those programs could have been taped weeks or months before the President announced Schedule Bare Back. I was still switching channels, trying to find a newscast-or any live program-when I found myself staring into the professionally unctuous smile of an announcer. He was fully dressed.

Shortly I realized it was one of those silly give-away shows. He was saying: "-and some lucky little woman sitting by her screen right this minute is about to receive, absolutely free, a General Atomics Six-in-One Automatic Home Butler. Who will it be? You? You? Or lucky you! He turned away from scan; I could see his shoulders. They were covered by shirt and jacket and distinctly rounded, almost humped. I was inside Zone Red.