Robert Heinlein - The Puppet Masters

When I switched off I realized that I was being watched-by a male urchin about nine years old. He was wearing nothing but shorts, but the brown of his shoulders showed that such was his custom. I threw back the windscreen. "Hey, bub, where's the highway?"

He continued to stare before replying, "Road to Macon's up there yonder. Say, mister, that's a Cadillac Zipper, ain't it?"

"Sure thing. Where yonder?"

"Give me a ride, huh, will you?"

"Haven't got time. Where's the road?"

He sized me up before answering, "Take me along and I'll show you."

I gave in. While he climbed in and looked around, I opened my kit, got out shirt, trousers, and jacket, and put them on. I said conversationally, "Maybe I shouldn't put on this shirt. Do people around here wear shirts?"

He scowled. "I've got shirts!"

"I didn't say you didn't; I just asked if people around here wore shirts."

"Of course they do. Where do you think you are, mister; Arkansas?"

I gave up and asked again about the road. He said, "Can I punch the button when we take off, huh?"

I explained that we were going to stay on the ground. He was frankly annoyed but condescended to point out a direction. I drove cautiously as the car was heavy for unpaved countryside. Presently he told me to turn. Quite a bit later I stopped the car and said, "Are you going to show me where that road is, or am I going to wallop your backsides?"

He opened the door and slid out. "Hey!" I yelled.

He looked back. "Over that way," he admitted. I turned the car, not really expecting to find a highway, but finding one, nevertheless, only fifty yards away. The brat had caused me to drive around three sides of a large square.

If you could call it a highway-there was not an ounce of rubber in the paving. Still, it was a road; I followed it to the west. All in all, I had wasted more than an hour.

Macon, Missouri seemed normal-much too normal to be reassuring, as Schedule Bare Back obviously had not been heard of here. There were a number of bare backs, but it was a hot day. There were more backs that were covered and any of them might have concealed a slug. I gave serious thought to checking this town, rather than Kansas City, then beating back the way I had come, while I could. Pushing further into country which I knew to be controlled by the masters made me as nervous as a preacher at a stag party; I wanted to run.

But the Old Man had said "Kansas City"; he would take a dim view of a substitute. Finally I drove the belt around Macon and pulled into a landing flat on the far side. There I queued up for local traffic launching and headed for Kansas City in a mess of farmers' copters and suchlike local craft. I would have to hold local speeds all across the state, but that was safer than getting into the hot pattern with my transponder identifying my car to every block control station.

The field was automatically serviced, no attendants, not even at the fuelling line. It seemed probable that I had managed to enter the Missouri traffic pattern without arousing suspicion. True, there was a block control station back in Illinois which might be wondering where I had gone, but that did not matter.

Kansas City is an old-fashioned city; it was not hurt in the bombings; except on the East Side where Independence used to be. Consequently, it was never rebuilt. From the southeast you can drive almost downtown, as far as Swope Park, without having to choose between parking or paying toll to enter the city proper.

One can fly in and make another choice: land in the landing flats north of the Missouri River and take the tunnels into the city, or land on the downtown platforms south of Memorial Hill.

I decided against both of these; I wanted the car near me but I did not want to have to pick it up through a checking system. If it came to a pinch, I could not shoot my way out while offering my combo to a parking attendant. I did not like tunnels in a pinch, either-nor launching platform elevators. A man can be trapped in such.

Frankly I did not want to go into the city at all.

I roaded the car on Route 40 and drove into the Meyer Boulevard toll gate. The line waiting to pay toll for the doubtful privilege of driving on a city street was quite long; I began to feel hemmed in as soon as another car filled in behind me and wished mightily that I had decided to park and go in by the public passenger ways. But the gatekeeper took my toll without glancing at me. I glanced at him, all right, but could not tell whether or not he was being ridden.

I drove through the gate with a sigh of relief-only to be stopped just beyond the gate. A barrier dropped in front of me and I just managed to stop the car, whereupon a cop stuck his head in the side I had open. "Safety check," he said. "Climb out."

I protested that my car had just been inspected. "No doubt," he agreed, "but the city is having a safety drive. Here's your car check. Pick it up just beyond the barrier. Now get out and go in that door." He pointed to a low building a few steps from the curb.

"What for?"

"Eyesight and reflexes," he explained. "Come on. You're holding up the line."

In my mind's eye, I saw the map, with Kansas City glowing red. That the city was "secured" I was sure; therefore this mild-mannered policeman was almost surely hag-ridden. I did not need to look at his shoulders.

But, short of shooting him and making an emergency take-off from that spot, there was nothing I could do but comply. With a normal, everyday cop I would have tried the bribe direct, slipping him money as he handed me my car check. But titans don't use money.

Or do they?

I got out, grumbling, and walked slowly toward the building. The door near me was marked "IN"; there was one at the far end marked "OUT"; a man came out from it as I approached. I wanted very badly to ask him what he had found.

It was a temporary building with an old-style unpowered door. I pushed it open with a toe and glanced both sides and up before I entered. It seemed safe. Inside was an empty anteroom with open door beyond.

Someone inside called out, "Come in." Still as cautious as the setup permitted, I went in.

There were two men, both in white coats, one with a doctor's speculum strapped to his head. He looked up and said briskly, "This won't take a minute. Step over here." He closed the door I had entered; I heard the latch click.

It was a sweeter setup than we had worked out for the Constitution Club; had I had time I would have admired it. Spread out on a long table were transit cells for masters, already opened and warmed. The second man had one ready-for me, I knew-and was holding it tilted toward him, so that I could not see the slug inside. The transit cells would not arouse alarm in the minds of victims; medical men always have things at hand which are odd to the layman.

As for the rest, I was being invited to place my eyes against the goggles of a quite ordinary visual acuity tester. The "doctor" would keep me there, blindfolded without knowing it and reading test figures, while his "assistant" fitted me with a master. No violence, no slips, no protests.

It was not even necessary, as I had learned during my own "service", to bare the victim's back. Just touch the master to the bare neck, then let the new recruit himself adjust his clothing to cover his master before he left.

"Right over here," the "doctor" repeated. "Place your eyes against the eyepieces."

Moving very quickly I went to the bench on which was mounted the acuity tester and started to comply. Then I turned suddenly around.

The assistant had moved in closer: the cell was ready in his hands. As I turned he tilted it away from me. "Doctor," I said, "I wear contact lenses. Should I take them off?"

"No, no," he snapped. "Let's not waste time."