In the Beginning (45 page)

Russell blinked. “Earthmen? Are you suggesting—”

The bearded little commissioner shook his head stubbornly. “We’re dealing with a proud and stubborn race here, as Mr. Harriman can confirm. We can’t simply accuse them of a crime like this without proof.”

“Eyewitnesses constitute some beginning of proof,” Russell snapped.

Commissioner Hennessy held up a hand to cut short the dispute. “Please, gentlemen. I think Trinnin Nirot’s refusal to permit examination of any Nirotans speaks for itself in the matter of guilt or innocence.”

“I’m not so sure,” Harriman put in. “They seem to have some kind of taboo against letting other species get too close to them.”

“But certainly they’d be willing to let the taboo go by the boards for the sake of clearing themselves,” Russell objected.

“Not necessarily,” said Lamartine. “We’re dealing with alien beings, remember. They don’t see things the way we do.”

“In any event,” said Secretary-General Zachary, “we’ll have to reach some solution in a hurry. There’s rioting going on in every city where Nirotans are located. And the bitterness is starting to spread to take in other aliens, too. If we don’t restore order in a hurry, we’re going to find all the extraterrestrials pulling out—and turning Earth into a backwater world considered not fit for civilized beings to visit.”

Harriman stared at the five grim faces. These men, like himself, were shaken to the core by the notion that the beings from the stars might be blood-drinkers in fact as well as in appearance. And it was hard to believe in the innocence of the Nirotans.

The phone rang. Director Russell reached out with. a plump hand and snatched the telephone nervously from its cradle. He listened for a moment, snapped some sort of reply, and slammed the instrument down again.

“Bad news,” he said, his face becoming grimmer. “A mob broke into the building where the Nirotans were taking sanctuary in Budapest. Dragged three Nirotans out and killed them. Drove wooden stakes through their hearts.”

Harriman felt chilled. Legends weighted with medieval dust were erupting into the neat, ordered world of the twenty-second century. Wooden stakes in Budapest! Ominous mutterings against the winged people—and three bloodless bodies lying in the morgue ten floors below.

“Heaven help us if the Nirotans are innocent,” Secretary-General Zachary said tonelessly. “They’ll never forgive us for today.”

“I’ll order triple protection,” Russell said. “We don’t want a massacre.”

***

Hysteria was the order of the day on Earth in the next six hours. Three murders in themselves were not of any great importance; round the world each day, hundreds of human beings met violent deaths without causing a stir. But it was the manner of the deaths that dug deep into humanity. The killings struck subconscious fears, and brought to the surface the old myths. It was dread of the unknown, dread of the people from the stars, that touched off the rioting round the world. The relative handful of Nirotans waited behind the walls of their shelters, waiting for the mobs to come bursting in.

The United Nations General Assembly, which had become the world government in fact as well as in name during the past seventy-five years, met in an extraordinary session that evening at U.N. headquarters. The purpose of the meeting was simply to vote additional appropriations for the protection of extraterrestrial beings against mob violence—but during the session a delegate from the United States rose in wrath to demand the immediate withdrawal of what he termed the “Nirotan vampires” from Earth.

The resolution was declared out of order, and did not come to a vote. But it represented the sentiments of a great majority of Earth’s nine billion people on that evening.

Harriman flew to San Francisco that evening aboard a midnight jetliner that made the journey in four hours . A waiting taxi took him to the downtown San Francisco offices of the Nirotan Trade Delegation, in the heart of the city on Market Street. The summer fog shrouded everything in gloom.

Special Agent Michaels was waiting for him outside the heavily protected building. The agent’s face was set tightly. Fifty or sixty people were parading wearily around the building, despite the lateness of the hour. They no longer seemed violent, but they carried hastily constructed placards which bore slogans like VAMPIRES MUST DIE! and NIROTANS GO HOME!

“Been any trouble with the pickets?” Harriman asked, indicating the mob.

“Not as much as earlier,” Michaels said. “There were about five hundred people out here around nine o’clock, but they’ve all gone home, except the diehards. They were parading the mother of the murdered man around the building and screaming for justice, but they didn’t try to do any damage, at least.”

Harriman nodded. “Good. Let’s go in.”

There were fifteen Nirotans standing inside. Michaels assured Harriman that the group included every Nirotan who had been in the San Francisco area in the past three days. If a Nirotan had been the murderer of Sam Barrett, then the murderer was in this room.

Harriman stared at the group. As always, the facial expressions of the aliens defied interpretation. They seemed to be waiting for the disturbance to die down, so they could resume their normal way of life.

Conscious of their dread appearance, of his own insignificance, of the nauseous odor of fifteen Nirotans in one room, Harriman moistened his lips. A mental image came to him unexpectedly—the fifteen bat-like creatures surrounding him, throwing themselves on him with once accord, fastening their fangs in his throat and sucking away his lifeblood. He winced involuntarily at the vividness of the picture.

Then he remembered that he was an officer of the law, and that these beings facing him were simply suspects in a murder case.

He said, “Early yesterday morning a man was killed in this city. I’m sure you all know
how
he was killed. I’ve come here from New York to talk to you about the murder of Sam Barrett.”

None of the aliens spoke. In the solemn silence, Harriman continued. “Two witnesses claim they saw a Nirotan struggling with the murdered man in the street. If the witnesses are telling the truth, one of you in this room committed that crime.”

“The witnesses are saying that which is not so,” declared an immense Nirotan boomingly. “We have committed no crimes. The offense you charge us with is unthinkable in Nirotan eyes.”

“I haven’t charged you with anything,” Harriman said. “The evidence implies that a Nirotan was responsible. For your sake and the sake of interstellar relations, I hope it isn’t so. But my job is to find out who
is
responsible for the killings.”

Harriman shook his head. “My first step has to be to establish guilt or innocence in this room. As a beginning, suppose I ask each of you to account for your whereabouts at the time of the murder?”

“We will give no information,” rumbled the Nirotan who seemed to be the spokesman.

A stone wall again, Harriman thought gloomily. He said, “Don’t you see that by refusing to answer questions or permit us an examination, you naturally make yourselves look suspicious in humanity’s eyes?”

“We have no concern with appearances. We did not commit the crime.”

“On Earth we need proof of that. Your word isn’t enough here.”

“We will not submit to interrogation. We demand the right to leave this planet at once, in order to return to Nirota.”

Harriman’s eyes narrowed. “The Interstellar Trade Agreements prevent any suspected criminals from leaving Earth for their home world. You’ll have to stay here until something definite is settled, one way or the other, on the murder.”

“We will answer no questions,” came the flat, positive, unshakeable reply.

Anger glimmered in Harriman’s eyes. “All right, then. But you’ll rot here until we decide to let you go! See how you like that!”

He turned and spun out of the room.

***

He slept fitfully and uneasily on the return journey to New York. It was mid-morning when the jetliner touched down at New York Jet Skyport, and it was noon by the time Harriman returned to his office at the Terran Security Agency. He felt deep frustration. There was no way for the investigation to proceed—not when the only suspects refused to defend themselves. Earth couldn’t accuse members of an alien species of murder on the basis of two early-morning eyewitnesses and a lot of circumstantial evidence rising out of old hysterical legends. It was always a risky business when one planet tried people of another world for crime—and in this case, the evidence was simply too thin for a solid indictment.

On the other hand, Earth clamored for a trial. The overwhelming mass of the people, utterly convinced that the Nirotans were vampires, stood ready to enforce justice themselves if the authorities lingered. Already, three Nirotans had died at the hands of the jeering mobs—an incident which would have serious consequences once the hysteria died down.

Director Russell growled a greeting at Harriman as the Agency subchief entered the office. It was obvious from Russell’s harried expression and from the overflowing ashtrays that the Director had been up all night, keeping in touch with the crisis as it unfolded and as new complications developed.

“Well?” Russell demanded. “What’s the word from San Francisco?”

“The word is nothing, chief,” Harriman said tiredly. “The Nirotans clammed up completely. They insist that they’re innocent, but beyond that they refuse to say anything. And they’re demanding to be allowed to return to their home world now.”

“I know. Trinnin Nirot petitioned Secretary-General Zachary late last night to permit all Nirotans on Earth to withdraw.”

“What did Zachary say?”

“He didn’t—not yet. But he doesn’t want to let the Nirotans go until we get to the bottom of this vampire business.”

“Any word from anyplace else?”

“Not much that’s hopeful,” Russell said wearily with a tired shrug. “There are thirty Nirotans under surveillance in London, but they’re not talking. And we have twenty cooped up in Warsaw. Zero there too. Right now we’re busy protecting a couple of thousand of the bats. But how long can this keep up?”

“Couldn’t we seize a Nirotan forcibly and examine him?” Harriman asked.

“I’ve thought of that. But the high brass says no. If`we happen to be wrong, we’ll have committed what the Nirotans are perfectly free to consider as an open act of war. And if we’re right—if the Nirotans were lying—then we still have the problem of finding out
which
Nirotans did the actual killing.”

“Maybe,” Harriman said, “we ought to just let the bats clear off Earth, as they want to do. That’ll solve all our problems.”

“And bring up a million new ones. It would mean that any alien could come down here and commit crimes, and go away untouched if he simply denied his guilt. I wouldn’t like to see a precedent like that get set. Uh-uh, Harriman. We have to find the killers, and we have to do it legally. Only I’m damned if I know how we’re going to go about doing it.”

***

We have to find the killers,
Harriman thought half an hour later, in the solitude of his own office.
And we have to do it legally.
Well, the first part of that was reasonable enough.

But how about the second, Harriman thought?

Legally they were powerless to continue the investigation. The forces of law and order were hopelessly stalled, while fear-crazy rioters demanded Nirotan blood in exchange for Terran.

The main problem, he thought, was whether or not a Nirotan—any Nirotan—had actually committed the atrocities. According to the Nirotans, such crimes were beyond their capacities even to imagine. Yet the heavy weight of popular belief—as well as the damning fact of the two San Francisco witnesses—lent validity to the notion of the Nirotans as blood-sucking vampires.

Medical examination of a Nirotan might settle the thing in one direction or another. If it could be proven that the Nirotans might possibly have committed such a crime, it would be reasonable to assume that they had. But, on the other hand, if the Nirotans had definitely not done it, Harriman would have to begin looking elsewhere for the authors of the atrocities.

If only the Nirotans would cooperate, he thought!

But some alien quirk, some incomprehensible pride of theirs, kept them from lowering themselves to take part in anything so humiliating to them as an official inquest. The Security Agency was stymied—officially. They were at an impasse which could not be surmounted.

How about unofficially, though?

Harriman moistened his lips. He had an idea. It was a gamble, a gamble that would be worth his job and his career if he lost. But it was worth taking, he decided firmly. Someone had to risk it.

Picking up the phone, he ordered his special car to be ready for him outside the building. Then, without leaving word with anyone of his intended destination or purpose, he quietly departed.

There were several dozen Nirotans cooped up at the consulate on Fifth Avenue. Any one of those Nirotans would do, for his purposes. The thing he had to remember was that he was in this on his own. He did not dare risk taking on an accomplice. His plan was too risky to share with another person.

The consulate was guarded by armed Security Corpsmen. And, unless there had been a slackening of public animosity, the building was probably still surrounded by a howling mob.

It was. More than a thousand shouting New Yorkers clustered around the building, pressing close to the steps but not daring to approach for fear of the guns of the Security men. The mob, frustrated, kept up a low animal-like murmur beneath the hysteria of the shouts and curses it hurled forth.

Harriman ordered his driver to park his car several blocks north of the scene of the disturbance. The Agency subchief proceeded cautiously, on foot, making his way between the packed rows of angry demonstrators toward the consulate. He felt a dryness in his throat. He was gambling everything, now.

He needed a Nirotan—dead or alive, preferably alive. And there was only one way for him to get one, he knew.

He made his way up the steps of the consulate. The guards, recognizing him, gave way. Harriman called them together.