In the Beginning (44 page)

“We’ll have to keep this quiet,” Harriman said. “If the people find out—”

“They have. There’s already been a vampire-hunt in Warsaw. Two Nirotans were flushed by the mob and just barely escaped with their lives. Londoners are talking vampire too. It looks damned bad for the Nirotans, Harriman. Especially with this eye-witness thing in San Francisco. Everyone called the Nirotans vampires all along—and now there’s something concrete to pin suspicions to.”

“But they’ve been here for almost a year,” Harriman protested. “Why should they suddenly break out in a wave of blood-drinking the same night?”

“Are you defending them?” Russell asked.

“I’m just speculating. We have no definite proof that they’re guilty.”

“Maybe,” Russell said, “they just couldn’t hold out any longer with all that nice fresh blood tempting them.”

Harriman eyed his chief strangely. He knew Russell did not have much liking for the alien beings on Earth. The Director was, in many respects, an old-fashioned man.

“You aren’t pre-judging the Nirotans, are you?” Harriman asked.

“Of course not. But it certainly looks bad for them. I’ve ordered all Nirotans taken into protective custody until things cool down a little.”

“Good idea,” Harriman agreed. “If some of them got lynched by the mobs we might find ourselves at war with Nirota tomorrow.”

“I’m aware of that,” Russell said. “Also, I’m having the three bodies flown here for examination. And I want to get a live Nirotan to examine, too.”

“That won’t be so easy,” Harriman said. “They don’t like Earthmen peering at them up close.”

“They’d
better
like it,” Russell said. “Take a trip over to the Nirotan consulate downtown and talk to the head man.”

Harriman nodded. “Right. But I don’t think they’re going to cooperate.”

***

The news sheets picked up the story with almost supernatural speed. THREE VAMPIRE VICTIMS, screamed the headlines of the afternoon editions. BLOODLESS BODIES FOUND IN FRISCO, LONDON, WARSAW. NIROTANS SUSPECTED.

Harriman made an appointment to see the ranking member of the Nirotan Consulate at half past two that afternoon. Until that time, he busied himself with keeping up on news reports.

Angry mobs were beginning to form. A country-wide pogrom was under way in Poland, the object to hunt down any Nirotans that could be found and destroy them. Ancient superstitious legends had been reawakened in Central Europe. There was talk of silver bullets, of wooden stakes through the heart.

“Dracula-men from the stars,” shouted a West Coast newspaper. In Los Angeles, crowds surrounded the Nirotan headquarters, climbing towering palms to hurl bricks at the windows. A major incident was brewing as news of the triple killings swept the world. Fear and hatred were turned against alien beings of all sorts. Harriman sent out a world-wide order instructing authorities everywhere to give sanctuary to aliens of any kind, in case the mob generalized its hate and struck out against all non-humans.

At two that afternoon the first body arrived—from London, flown over by transatlantic rocket. Harriman had a moment to view the corpse before heading downtown to the Nirotan consulate.

The victim was a girl of about seventeen, with plain but pleasant features. The sheet was lifted from her body and Harriman saw its paper-whiteness, and the two dark little holes at her throat. Horror crept down his back. It was a ghastly sight, this bloodless body. The girl’s mouth was locked in the configurations of a terrified scream. She looked like a waxen image, not like a creature of flesh and blood.

Harriman’s special car was waiting for him outside the Agency building. He rode downtown in deep silence, his mind still gripped by the sight of those chalky young breasts, those dead white thighs. Despite himself he could picture the huge revolting form of the Nirotan huddling around her, its wings half unfolding as the gleaming teeth plunged through the soft flesh of the protesting girl’s throat—

Harriman shook his head. He was an officer of the law, he reminded himself. An impartial investigator dedicated to justice. He had to keep from letting his emotions enter into the case. Maybe the Nirotans
were
hideous; maybe they
did
look like the Devil’s own nightmares. It made no difference. His job was simply to determine guilt or innocence.

If the Nirotans were guilty, if three of their number had committed the crimes, then there would be grave interstellar repercussions. Probably the Nirotans would be asked to leave Earth permanently.

But if they were innocent—somehow—then it was his job to protect them from the wrath of the mobs, and find the real culprits.

The Nirotan consulate was a sturdy four-story building on Fifth Avenue—an old building, dating back nearly two centuries. Just now it was surrounded by a boiling, screaming mob. Eight armed men in the gray uniforms of the Security Corps held the rioters back.. The door, Harriman saw, was barred. One of the Security men had a cut over his left eye; the result, probably, of a thrown missile.

The crowd melted to one side as Harriman’s official Security Corps car came to a halt outside the building. Escorted by three armed Corpsmen, Harriman made his way up the steps of the building. He waited outside the door while a scanner beam examined him. There was the sound of relays groaning as the heavy protective bars were electronically drawn back.

The door opened. A Nirotan stood in the shadows within, looming high above Harriman.

“Enter,” the alien said in its strange, hoarse, dry-sounding voice.

Harriman stepped inside and the great door clanged shut behind him, obliterating the raucous screams of the mob outside. Three Nirotans faced Harriman, the smallest of them better than half a foot taller than he. They conducted him silently through the building to the office of the Nirotan consul.

There was a faintly musty odor about the place. Despite himself, Harriman felt a twinge of revulsion as he was ushered into the presence of Trinnin Nirot, ranking Nirotan diplomat in North America.

The Nirotan was standing in one corner of the office—Nirotans never sat. His small, muscular arms were folded in a surprisingly human posture. The great sleek wings sat huddled on his shoulders. On Earth the atmosphere was too thin, the gravitational pull too strong, to make it possible for the Nirotans to fly: Their home world had a thicker atmosphere and lighter gravity, and there they soared on wings that measured fifteen feet from tip to tip.

Harriman tried to hide the irrational fear he experienced at the sight of the huge bat-like creature. He stared at the face, covered, like the rest of the Nirotan’s body, with fine, purplish fur. He could see the dog-like snout, the tiny yellow eyes, the enormous fan-like ears, and, gleaming behind the Nirotan’s thin lips, the teeth. Teeth that might, perhaps, be able to drain blood from an Earthman’s throat.

Harriman said, “You understand why I am here, of course.”

“I understand that there are rioters outside this building, and that my people on this planet must take cover for fear of their lives,” said the Nirotan crisply. Like most aliens on Earth, his command of the language was flawless. “More than that I do not understand. I am waiting for an explanation.”

Harriman’s jaws tightened. He felt awkward standing halfway across the room from the Nirotan; but there was no place to sit down, and the alien did not offer any sort of hospitality. Harriman fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his arms. After a brief pause he said—quietly, since the Nirotans were extraordinarily sensitive to sound—“Last night and this morning three Earthmen were found dead in widely separated places, their bodies drained of blood. Many people believe that they were killed by members of your race.”

The alien’s facial expression was unreadable. “Why should they believe this? Why choose us as the killers, and not the Qafliks or the Zadoorans or some other race? There are many alien beings on this planet.”

“There are two reasons for suspecting Nirotans,” Harriman said. “The first is an ancient superstitious belief in vampires. Bats who drink human blood. The people of Nirotans are closest in physical appearance to the popular image of the vampire.”

“And the other reason?”

“The other reason,” said Harriman, “is more pertinent. Two eye-witnesses in San Francisco said they saw a Nirotan in the process of attacking one of the victims.”

The alien was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “Tell me, Mr. Harriman: if you could, would you kill and eat me?”

Harriman was stunned. “Would I—kill and
eat
you?” he repeated slowly:

“Yes. Do you feel any inclination to feast on a roasted Nirotan?”

“Why—of course not. The idea’s monstrous!”

“Exactly so,” the Nirotan said calmly. “Let me assure you that a member of my race would no sooner drink the blood of an Earthman than an Earthman would dine on Nirotan flesh. Pardon me when I say that we find your physical appearance as repugnant as you seem to find ours. The whole concept of this crime is beyond our belief. We are not vampires. We do not feed on animal matter off any sort. The crime we are accused of could not possibly have been committed by a Nirotan.”

Harriman silently regarded the alien, staring at the flashing teeth, needle-sharp, at the vicious little claws, at the folded, leathery, infinitely terrifying wings. Appearance seemed to belie the calm denial of guilt that Harriman had just heard.

The Earthman said, “It might be possible to determine guilt or innocence quickly. If you would lend us a member of your staff for examination—”

“No,” came the curt, immediate response.

“But our physicians might be able to establish beyond doubt the impossibility of any—ah—vampirism. I can assure you that no harm would come—”

“No.”

“But—”

“We do not tolerate any handling of our bodies by alien beings,” said the Nirotan haughtily. “If you persist in accusing us of this incredible crime, we will be forced to withdraw from your planet. But we cannot and will not submit to any sort of examination of the sort you suggest, Mr. Harriman.”

“Don’t you see, though, it might clear your people at once, and—”

“You have heard my reply,” the Nirotan said. He rustled his wings in an unfriendly gesture. “We have stated our innocence. I must take your refusal to believe my statement as a deeply wounding insult.”

There was crackling silence in the room. This was an alien, Harriman reflected. On Nirota, perhaps, the idea of lying was not known. Or perhaps the Nirotan was a very subtle devil indeed. In any event, the interview was rapidly getting nowhere.

“Very well,” Harriman said. “If your refusal is final—”

“It is.”

“We’ll have to proceed with your investigation as best we can. For your own sake, I must ask you not to let any of your people venture out unprotected. We can’t be responsible for the actions of hysterical mobs. And, naturally, we’ll do everything in our power to discover the guilty parties. Your cooperation might have made things a little easier all around, of course.”

“Good day, Mr. Harriman.”

Harriman scowled. “For the sake of good relations between Earth and Nirota, I hope none of your people is responsible for this crime. But you can be sure that when we do find the murderers, they’ll be fully punished under the laws of Earth. Good day, Trinnin Nirot.”

***

Harriman was shaking with repressed disgust as he made his way down the consulate steps, through the path between the gesticulating rioters, and into his car. The Nirotan stench seemed to cling to him, to hover in a cloud about him. And he knew the Nirotan’s hideous face would plague his dreams for weeks to come.

He rode uptown, back to the skyscraper that housed the headquarters of the Terran Security Agency, in a bleak and bitter mood. For the ten years that he had held his job, he had devoted himself to protecting the alien beings on Earth, guarding them from the outcroppings of superstitious hatred that sometimes rose up to threaten them. And now, he could no longer defend the extra-terrestrials. Three vicious crimes had been committed. And Trinnin Nirot’s cold refusal to permit investigation made it that much harder to believe in the innocence of the Nirotans. The vampire image was ingrained too deeply.

When he returned to his office, Harriman found a message in-structing him to report to Director Russell at once. He found Russell in conference. In the Director’s office were four men—George Zachary, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Henri Lamartine, Commissioner of Extraterrestrial Relationships; Dr. David van Dyne, chief medical examiner of the Security Agency; and Paul Hennessey, Commissioner of Justice and Russell’s immediate superior.

Director Russell said, “Well, Harriman? Did you see the Nirotans?”

“I saw Trinnin Nirot himself,” Harriman said. “And I got nowhere.”

“What do you mean, nowhere?”

“Trinnin Nirot categorically denies the possibility that any Nirotan might have committed the crimes. He says that Nirotans are vegetarians, and that the whole idea of their being vampires is beyond belief. But he won’t let us have a look at any of his men to confirm it.”

“We expected the denial,” muttered Commissioner Hennessey. “But where do we go from here?”

“Isn’t there any evidence on the bodies?” Harriman asked.

Dr. van Dyne said, “All three bodies are here, and I’ve examined them. All that can be definitely determined was that two needle-like instruments penetrated the jugular veins of the victims and rapidly withdrew their blood. The withdrawal might have been done with teeth, or it could have been done mechanically. Of course, if we could get hold of a Nirotan and examine his teeth, we could probably find out readily enough whether one of them actually committed the crime or not. If they’re really vegetarians, they probably don’t have the equipment for doing it.”

“Are we trying to decide whether a Nirotan actually did it?” Director Russell asked in some surprise. “I thought that was all settled. There were witnesses, after all, for the San Francisco murder.”

Commissioner Lamartine said, “Before we can start to take legal action against the Nirotans, we’ll have to rule out all possibility that any other race might have done it—or that the crimes were committed by Earthmen.”