The Invaders Part 3

"What's the matter?"

She shook her head. "I'm trying not to faint," she said unsteadily.

"When you told me he was from another world I ... thought you were crazy. But when he admitted it ... when he proved it ..."

Coburn growled. The trail twisted and dived down a steep slope. It twisted again and ran across a rushing, frothing stream. Coburn drove into the rivulet. Water reared up in wing-like sheets on either side.

The staff car climbed out, rocking, on the farther side. Coburn put it to the ascent beyond. The trail turned and climbed and descended as the stony ma.s.ses of the hills required.

"He's--from another world!" repeated Janice. Her teeth chattered. "What do they want--creatures like him? How--how many of them are there?

Anybody could be one of them! What do they want?"

"This is a pretty good world," said Coburn fiercely. "And his kind will want it. We're merely the natives, the aborigines, to them. Maybe they plan to wipe us out, or enslave us. But they won't! We can spot them now! They don't bleed. Scratch one and you find--foam-rubber. X-rays will spot them. We'll learn to pick them out--and when some specialists look over those things that look like cameras we'll know more still!

Enough to do something!"

"Then you think it's an invasion from s.p.a.ce?"

"What else?" snapped Coburn.

His stomach was a tight cramped knot now. He drove the car hard!

In air miles the distance to be covered was relatively short. In road miles it seemed interminable. The road was bad and curving beyond belief. It went many miles east and many miles west for every mile of southward gain. The hour grew late. Coburn had fled Ardea at sunrise, but they'd reached Naousa after midday and he drove frantically over incredible mountain roads until dusk. Despite sheer recklessness, however, he could not average thirty miles an hour. There were times when even the half-track had to crawl or it would overturn. The sun set, and he went on up steep grades and down steeper ones in the twilight.

Night fell and the headlights glared ahead, and the staff car clanked and clanked and grumbled and roared on through the darkness.

They probably pa.s.sed through villages--the headlights showed stone hovels once or twice--but no lights appeared. It was midnight before they saw a moving yellow spot of brightness with a glare as of fire upon steam above it. There were other small lights in a row behind it, and they saw that all the lights moved.

"A railroad!" said Coburn. "We're getting somewhere!"

It was a railroad train on the other side of a valley, but they did not reach the track. The highway curved away from it.

At two o'clock in the morning they saw electric lights. The highway became suddenly pa.s.sable. Presently they ran into the still, silent streets of a slumbering town--Serrai--an administrative center for this part of Greece. They threaded its ways while Coburn watched for a proper place to stop. Once a curiously-hatted policeman stared blankly at them under an arc lamp as the staff car clanked and rumbled past him. They saw a great pile of stone which was a church. They saw a railroad station.

Not far away there was a building in which there were lights. A man in uniform came out of its door.

Coburn stopped a block away. There were uneasy stirrings, and the white-bearded pa.s.senger from the village said incomprehensible things in a feeble voice. Coburn got Janice out of the car first. She was stiff and dizzy when she tried to walk. The Greek was in worse condition still. He clung to the side of the staff car.

"We tell the truth," said Coburn curtly, "when we talk to the police. We tell the whole truth--except about Dillon. That sounds too crazy. We tell it to top-level officials only, after they realize that something they don't know anything about has really taken place. Talk of Invaders from s.p.a.ce would either get us locked up as lunatics or would create a panic. This man will tell what happened up there, and they'll investigate. But we take these so-called cameras to Salonika, and get to an American battleship."

He lifted Dillon's two cameras by the carrying-straps. And the straps pulled free. They'd held the cases safely enough during a long journey on foot across the mountains. But they pulled clear now.

Coburn had a bitter thought. He struck a match. He saw the leather cases on the floor of the staff car. He picked up one of them. He took it to the light of the headlights, standing there in the resonant darkness of a street in a city of stone houses.

The leather was brittle. It was friable, as if it had been in a fire.

Coburn plucked it open, and it came apart in his hands. Inside there was the smell of scorched things. There was a gritty metallic powder.

Nothing else. The other carrying-case was in exactly the same condition.

Coburn muttered bitterly: "They were set to destroy themselves if they got into other hands than Dillon's. We haven't a bit of proof that he wasn't a human being. Not a shred of proof!"

He suddenly felt a sick rage, as if he had been played with and mocked.

The raid from Bulgaria was serious enough, of course. It would have killed hundreds of people and possibly hundreds of others would have been enslaved. But even that was secondary in Coburn's mind. The important thing was that there were Invaders upon Earth. Non-human monsters, who pa.s.sed for humans through disguise. They had been able to travel through s.p.a.ce to land secretly upon Earth. They moved unknown among men, learning the secrets of mankind, preparing for--what?

III

They got into Salonika early afternoon of the next day, after many hours upon an antique railroad train that puffed and grunted and groaned among interminable mountains. Coburn got a taxi to take Janice to the office of the Breen Foundation which had sent her up to the north of Greece to establish its philanthropic instruction courses. He hadn't much to say to Janice as they rode. He was too disheartened.

In the cab, though, he saw great placards on which newspaper headlines appeared in Greek. He could make out the gist of them. Essentially, they shrieked that Bulgarians had invaded Greece and had been wiped out. He made out the phrase for valiant Greek army. And the Greek army was valiant enough, but it hadn't had anything to do with this.

From the police station in Serrai--he had been interviewed there until dawn--he knew what action had been taken. Army planes had flown northward in the darkness, moved by the Mayor's, and Coburn's, and Janice's tale of Bulgarian soldiers on Greek soil, sleeping soundly.

They had released parachute flares and located the village of Naousa.

Parachutists with field radios had jumped, while other flares burned to light them to the ground. That was that. Judging by the placards, their reports had borne out the story Coburn had brought down. There would be a motorized Greek division on the way to take charge of the four-thousand-odd unconscious raiders. There was probably an advance guard there now.

But there was no official news. Even the Greek newspapers called it rumors. Actually, it was leaked information. It would be reasonable for the Greek government to let it leak, look smug, and blandly say "No comment" to all inquiries, including those from Bulgaria.

But behind that appearance of complacency, the Greek government would be going quietly mad trying to understand what so fortunately had happened.

And Coburn could tell them. But he knew better than to try without some sort of proof. Yet, he had to tell. The facts were more important than what people thought of him.

The cab stopped before his own office. He paid the driver. The driver beamed and said happily: "_Tys nikisame, e?_"

Coburn said, "_Poly kala. Orea._"

His office was empty. It was dustier than usual. His secretary was probably taking a holiday since he was supposed to be out of town. He grunted and sat down at the telephone. He called a man he knew.

Hallen--another American--was attached to a non-profit corporation which was attached to an agency which was supposed to cooperate with a committee which had something to do with NATO. Hallen answered the phone in person.

Coburn identified himself. "Have you heard any rumors about a Bulgarian raid up-country?" he asked.

"I haven't heard anything else since I got up," Hallen told him.

"I was there," said Coburn. "I brought the news down. Can you come over?"

"I'm halfway there now!" said Hallen as he slammed down the phone.

Coburn paced up and down his office. It was very dusty. Even the seat of the chair at his secretary's desk was dusty. The odds were that she was coming in only to sort the mail, and not even sitting down for that. He shrugged.

He heard footsteps. The door opened. His secretary, Helena, came in. She looked surprised.

"I was at lunch," she explained. She had a very slight accent. She hung up her coat. "I am sorry. I stopped at a store."

He had paused in his pacing to nod at her. Now he stared, but her back was turned toward him. He blinked. She had just told a very transparent lie. And Helena was normally very truthful.

"You had a good trip?" she asked politely.

"Fair," said Coburn. "Any phone calls this morning?" he asked.