Robert Silverberg: Invaders From Earth

Kennedy’s desk was neatly arranged, as he had left it yesterday afternoon. The memo from Mr. Dinoli lay pigeon-holed in the catchall to his right; he unspindled it and read through it again.

Floor Nine 2:12 P.M.

Dear Theodore: Would you be good enough to come downstairs to my office tomorrow morning, at 9 o’clock or thereabouts? A matter of some urgency is on the docket, and I think you’re one of the men who can help.

Thanks — and best to your wife. We ought to get together more often socially.

Lou

LD:lk

Kennedy smiled and dropped the note into his ready file. He was hardly fooled by the cheery tone or by the affable “Lou”; Dinoli amused himself by keeping up a first-name relationship with the second- and third-level men, but Kennedy knew he had as much chance of ever seeing the agency head socially as he did of becoming a star center-fielder for a big-league baseball team. There was a certain gulf, and that gulf was never bridged.

The casual “or thereabouts” in the note was to be ignored, Kennedy knew: he arrived at Floor Nine at 9 A.M. sharp, or else he bounced back to fifth-level in a hurry. You learned punctuality around Dinoli.

The morning passed slowly; Kennedy was expecting a telestat report on the situation in Nebraska from one of the agency’s field operatives, but this wasn’t due to arrive until one. To kill time, he doodled up a few possible opening gambits for the campaign there, centering them around a standard point of reference: What’s Good For Big Corporations (in this case, Federated Bauxite) Is Very Good For You.

His mind wasn’t fully on his work, though. By 8:15 he realized be wasn’t going to get anything done on the current project until he’d had that meeting with Dinoli, and he shut up his folders and filed them away. There was no sense working on a project with his mind clogged by anxiety. Public relations was a difficult job and Kennedy took it seriously, as he took most other things.

At five to nine he shoved back his rollchair, locked his desk, and crossed the floor to Alf Haugen’s desk. Haugen had already shut up shop; there was a look of keen expectancy on his heavy-jowled face.

“Going down to see Dinoli?” Haugen asked casually.

Kennedy nodded. “It’s pushing 9 A.M. The old man wouldn’t want us to be late.”

Together they walked down the brightly lit office, past the empty desks of Cameron and Presslie, who apparently had already gone downstairs. They emerged in the less attractive outer office where the fourth-level men worked, and there Spalding joined them.

“I guess I’m the only one on my level going,” he whispered confidentially. “None of the others are budging from their desks, and it’s two minutes to nine.”

They crossed the hall to the elevator bank and snared a downgoing car. Kennedy saw that the four private offices in which the agency’s second-level men worked were dim and unlit; that probably meant they had spent the entire morning with Dinoli.

Steward and Dinoli occupied four floors of the building. Dinoli’s office (Steward had long since been eased out of control, and indeed out of any connection whatsoever with the firm) was at the bottom of the heap, taking up all of Floor Nine. Floor Ten was the agency’s library and storage vault; Kennedy worked on Eleven, and the fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-level underlings labored in the crowded little cubicles on Floor Twelve.

The elevator opened into a luxurious oak-paneled foyer on Floor Nine. A smiling secretary, one of Dinoli’s flock of bosomy young females, met them there. “You have an appointment with the chief,” she said, not asking but telling. “Won’t you come this way?”

She led them, Kennedy first, followed by Haugen and Spalding, through the vast salon which served Dinoli by way of a vestibule and waiting room, then into the narrower corridor where tiny television cameras studied them as they approached. Kennedy heard relays click shut as he went past; the spy-system had passed on him, it seemed.

Dinoli’s office door was a thick plank of rich-grained oak, in which a tiny gold plaque reading L. D. Dinoli was deeply inset. The door swung open as they drew near.

The vista thus revealed had always seemed breathtaking to Kennedy. Dinoli’s private office was a room five times as long as it was broad, which seemed to swing away into the reaches of infinity. A giant picture window, always immaculate, gave access to a panoramic view of Manhattan’s bustling streets.

Dinoli himself sat at the head of a long, burnished table. He was a small, piercing-eyed man of sixty-six, his face lean and fleshless and surmounted by a massive hook of a nose. Wrinkles spread almost concentrically from that mighty nose, like elevation-lines on a geological contour map. Dinoli radiated energy.

“Ah, gentlemen. Won’t you come in and be seated.” Again, statements, not questions. His voice was a deep black-sounding one, half croak and half boom.

Immediately at Dinoli’s right and left hands sat the agency’s four second-level men. Dinoli, of course, occupied the lofty eminence of the first level alone. After the second-level boys came those of the third: Presslie, Cameron, and four others. Kennedy took a seat near Cameron, and Haugen slipped in across the table facing him. Spalding sat to Kennedy’s right. He was the only jarring figure in the otherwise neat pyramid, which began with Dinoli, sloped to the four second-level men, and was based on the eight third-level executives.

“We’re all here, then,” Dinoli said calmly. The clock over his head, just above the upper rim of the picture window, read 9:00:00. It was the only clock Kennedy had ever seen that gave the time in seconds elapsed, as well as minutes and hours. “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet our new clients, if you will.” His clawlike forefinger nudged a button on the elaborate control panel near his hand.

A rear door opened. Three elegant men in crisp green full-dress executive uniforms entered, stiffly erect, conscious of their rank and bearing. They were cold-eyed, hard-looking men. Poised, mildly contemptuous of their hosts, they stood by the door.

“Our newest clients,” Dinoli announced. “These gentlemen are from the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation, Ganymede Division.”

Despite himself, Kennedy shuddered faintly. The image of crashing cities flickered once again before his eyes, and he wondered if perhaps his premonition had held some truth.

Dinoli looked marvelously proud of himself. His beady eyes darted here and there through the room, fixing on each man at least once, as he prepared to deliver himself of the details of his latest coup.

Kennedy had to feel a sharp twinge of admiration for the savage old battler. Dinoli had clawed himself to first rank in public relations by sheer vigorous exertion, coupled with some judicious backstabbing; to be affiliated at all with him, whether on third-level or sixth, was a measure of distinction in the field.

“Executive Second-Level Hubbel of Public Liaison. Executive Second-Level Partridge of Public Liaison. Executive Second-Level Brewster of the Corporation’s Space Expeditionary Command.” Dinoli indicated each of the men with a quick birdlike hand gesture.

Kennedy studied them. Hubbel and Partridge were obviously desk men, fiftyish, well built and on the stout side, both of them deeply, and probably artificially, tanned. They looked formidably competent.

Brewster was a different item, though. Short and compact, he was a dark-faced little man who stood ramrod straight, hard, cold eyes peering at the group out of a lean, angular face. He looked tough, and the heavy tan on his cheeks was convincing.