The Puppet Masters (18 page)

The combo was to the car we had come down in; I picked it up at Rock Creek Park platform. Traffic was light and I commented on it to the dispatcher as I handed in the combo. “Freight and commercial carriers are grounded,” he answered. “The emergency—you got a military clearance?”

I knew I could get one by phoning the Old Man, but bothering him about minutiae does not endear one to him. I said, “Check the number.”

He shrugged and slipped the combo in his machine. My hunch had been right; his eyebrows shot up and he handed it back. “How you rate!” he commented. “You must be the President’s fair-haired boy.”

He did not ask for my destination and I did not offer it. His machine probably broke into “Hail, Columbia!” when the Old Man’s number hit it.

Once launched, I set the controls for Kansas City at legal max and tried to think. The transponder beeped as radar beams hit it each time I slid from one control block into the next, but no faces appeared on the screen. Apparently the Old Man’s combo was good for the route, emergency or not.

I began to wonder what would happen when I slipped over into the red areas—and then realized what he had been driving at when he talked about “the next logical development”. Would the control net pass me on through into areas we knew darn well were infested by titans?

One tends to think of communications as meaning the line-of-sight channels and nothing else. But “communications” means all traffic of every sort, even dear old Aunt Mamie, headed for California with her head stuffed with gossip. The slugs had seized the channels and the President’s proclamation had not gotten through, or so we assumed—but news can’t be stopped that easily; such measures merely slow it down. Behind the Soviet Curtain Aunt Sonya does not go on long trips; it ain’t healthy. Ergo, if the slugs expected to retain control where they were, seizing the channels would be just their first step.

It stood to reason that they were not numerous enough to interfere with
all
traffic, but what would they do?

I reached only the unhelpful conclusion that they would do something and that I, being a part of “communications” by definition, had better be prepared for evasive action if I wanted to save my pretty pink skin.

In the meantime the Mississippi River and Zone Red were sliding closer by the minute. I wondered what would happen the first time my recognition signal was picked up by a station controlled by masters. I tried to think like a titan—impossible, I found, even though I had been a slave to one. The idea revolted me.

Well, then, what would a security commissar do if an unfriendly craft flew past the Curtain? Have it shot down, of course. No, that was not the answer; I was probably safe in the air.

But I had better not let them spot me landing. Elementary.

“Elementary” in the face of a traffic control net which was described proudly as the No-Sparrow-Shall-Fall plan. They boasted that a butterfly could not make a forced landing anywhere in the United States without alerting the search & rescue system. Not quite true—but I was no butterfly.

What I wanted was to land short of the infested area and go in on the ground. On foot I will make a stab at penetrating any security screen, mechanical, electronic, manned, or mixed. But how can you use misdirection in a car making westing a full degree every seven minutes? Or hang a stupid, innocent look on the nose of a duo?

If I went in on foot the Old Man would get his report come next Michaelmas; he wanted it before midnight.

Once, in a rare mellow mood, the Old Man told me that he did not bother his agents with detailed instructions—give a man a mission; let him sink or swim. I suggested that his method must use up a lot of agents.

“Some,” he had admitted, “but not as many as the other way. I believe in the individual and I try to pick individuals who are survivor types.”

“And how in the hell,” I had asked him, “do you know when you’ve got a ‘survivor type’.”

He had grinned at me wickedly. “A survivor type is an agent who comes back. Then I know.”

I had to reach a decision in the next few minutes. Elihu, I said to myself, you are about to find out which type you are—and damn his icy heart!

My course would take me in toward St. Louis, swing me in the city loop around St. Louis, and on to Kansas City. But St. Louis was in Zone Red. The military-situation map had showed Chicago as still green; as I remembered it the amber line had zigzagged west somewhere above Hannibal, Missouri—and I wanted very badly to cross the Mississippi while still in Zone Green. A car crossing that mile-wide river would make a radar blip as sharp as a desert star.

I signaled block control for permission to descend to local-traffic level, then did so without waiting, resuming manual control and cutting my speed. I headed north.

Short of the Springfield loop I headed west again, staying low. When I reached the river I crossed slowly, close to the water, with my transponder shut down. Sure, you can’t shut off your radar recognition signal in the air, not in a standard rig—but the Section’s cars were not standard. The Old Man was not above using gangster tricks.

I had hopes, if local traffic were being monitored while I crossed, that my blip would be mistaken for a boat on the river. I did not know certainly whether the next block station across the river was Zone Red or Zone Green, but, if my memory was correct, it should be green.

I was about to cut in the transponder again on the assumption that it would be safer, or at least less conspicuous, to get back into the traffic system when I noticed the shoreline opening up ahead of me. The map did not show a tributary there; I judged it to be an inlet, or possibly a new channel cut in the spring floods and not yet mapped. I dropped almost to water level and headed into it. The stream was narrow, meandering, and almost overhung by trees and I had no more business taking a sky car into it than a bee has of flying down a trombone—but it afforded perfect radar “shadow”; I could get lost in it.

In a few minutes I
was
lost, not only from any monitoring technician, but lost myself, right off the map. The channel switched and turned and cut back and I was so busy bucking the car by hand, trying to keep from crashing that I lost all track of navigation. I swore and wished that the car were a triphib so that I could land on water.

The trees suddenly broke on the left bank; I saw a stretch of level land, kicked her over and squatted her in with a deceleration that nearly cut me in two against my safety belt. But I was down and no longer trying to play catfish in a muddy stream.

I wondered what to do. There seemed to be nobody around; I judged that I was on the back end of someone’s farm. No doubt there was a highway close by. I had better find it and stay on the ground.

But I knew that was silly even as I thought it. Three hours from Washington to Kansas City by air—I had completed almost all the trip and now I was how far away from Kansas City? By land, about
three hours
. At that rate, all I needed to make the trip complete was to park the car ten or twelve miles outside Kansas City and walk; then I would
still
have three hours to go.

I felt like the frog who jumped halfway to the end of the log with each hop, but never got there. I
must
get back into the air.

But I did not dare do so until I knew positively whether traffic here was being controlled by free men, or by slugs.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had not turned on the stereo since leaving Washington. I am not much for stereo; between the commercials and the junk they sandwich between them I sometimes wonder about “progress”. But a newscast may have uses.

I could not find a newscast. I got (a) a lecture by Myrtle Doolightly, Ph.D., on
Why Husbands Grow Bored
, sponsored by the Uth-a-gen Hormone Company—I decided that she probably had plenty of experience in her subject; (b) a trio of girl hepsters singing
If You Mean What I think You Mean, What are We Waiting For?
(c) an episode in
Lucretia Learns About Life
.

Dear Doctor Myrtle was fully dressed and could have hidden half a dozen titans around her frame. The trio were dressed about the way one would expect them to be, but they did not turn their backs to the camera. Lucretia appeared to alternate having her clothes torn off with taking them off willingly, but the camera always cut or the lights always went out just before I could check on whether or not her back was bare—of slugs, that is.

And none of it meant anything. Those programs could have been taped weeks or months before the President announced Schedule Bare Back. I was still switching channels, trying to find a newscast—or any live program—when I found myself staring into the professionally unctuous smile of an announcer. He was fully dressed.

Shortly I realized it was one of those silly give-away shows. He was saying: “—and some lucky little woman sitting by her screen right this minute is about to receive, absolutely free, a General Atomics Six-in-One Automatic Home Butler. Who will it be? You? You? Or lucky
you
?” He turned away from scan; I could see his shoulders. They were covered by shirt and jacket and distinctly rounded, almost humped. I was inside Zone Red.

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.

K
ansas 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.