Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer by The invaders are Coming Read Free Book Online Page A

is working in nuclear physics. They don't even dare talk
about things like that any more for fear DEPCO will
be down their throats."
    "What
you are saying," Bahr said quietly, "is that there is nothing known
to Earth science that could be used as a shield like that."
    "Of course not. Nobody—" McEwen broke off, staring at him. Across the room the
teletype had stopped, leaving a sudden void of silence in the room. Early
morning traffic sounds came up from the street, muffled, a world away.
"What do you mean?" McEwen said hoarsely after a long moment.
"What are you saying?"
    "I'm
saying that we've been trying so hard to pin all these occurrences down to the
Eastern Bloc that we've ignored what was staring us in the face," Bahr
said. "Nothing has fit together in any way we could see, but these things
have been purposeful, just the same. Those thermite fires: all six burned in front of searchlight reflectors and beamed straight up. The high-frequency signals we've been trying
to pin down—not messages, not traffic or Morse characters, just signals."
    Bahr
stood up, his huge body filling the room. "What have we been looking for,
Mac? A Chinese guerilla unit? A Russki intelligence team? Maybe even a BRINT unit
checking our reaction speed? We've been looking for something we could
recognize and classify, something we know. And we haven't found it. But nothing that we know could have gotten
those slugs out of the Wildwood Plant."
    For
a long moment there was silence. McEwen's face was grey. "Julian, if there
were a remote possibility . . ."
    "I
saw that explosion last night, Mac. I saw the thing before it exploded. And I
know the panic it would start off if even a hint of it ever got out. That's why
we have to sit on this so tight that nobody even hears about the Wildwood raid
until we know for sure what we're dealing with. That U-metal would be worthless
to any human agent, but to an Alien intelligence team, it might be a different
story. We can't guess what they might have wanted it for. Their idea of
intelligence might be as different from ours as ... as DIA from BRINT."
    Slowly,
almost feebly, McEwen fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a white box and took
out a capsule. Bahr filled a paper cup at the cooler as McEwen, with hands
visibly shaking, stuck the capsule in his mouth. He swallowed it after a couple
of tries, and coughed weakly. "What do you think we should do,
Julian?"
    "First, sew up last night's incident tieht . That means

blackout of
all news stories, and indoctrination of the cities and towns where the power
failed. Make up a cover story to give them, and make it good. BURINF can take
care of that . . ."
    With
an obvious effort of will John McEwen straightened up. "If there's a leak ... if even a hint gets into circulation ... it could be worse than the crash."
    "There
won't be a leak," Bahr said confidently. He turned to Carmine. " Well keep everything to do with this incident and any new
ones under top security. . . . But most important of all, don't use the word aliens in any communications. Don't hint at it, don't joke about it, don't say
it, or write it, or think it. Because if there are aliens . . ."
    Carmine
nodded and left the room, pad and pencil in hand. McEwen watched him go, and
then looked at Julian Bahr, shaking his head with the slow, baffled uncertainty
of an ineffectual parent.
    With all the speed, force and precision of a
guillotine blade, the blackout fell on the incident of the Wildwood Power Plant
raid.
    The coverup was fast, and skillful. Frank Carmine talked to
BURINF, at Bahr's orders and over McEwen's signature and political support, and
the greatest communications network in the world jerked as if it had been hit
by a whip.
    From
somewhere in BURINF emerged a newscast story of a power-line failure between
Wildwood and St. Louis, causing a power blackout the previous night. It was a
clear, simple, convincing story, broadcast over a tightly controlled net to
reach only St. Louis and its