The Flying Eyes (6 page)

“I've been working that over in my mind for two days. The answer is obvious: hypnosis.”

“Oh, now!” Iverson was shaking his head.

“Don't slough it off before you've given it a chance. I was out on that field with them and downtown with them. I felt their pull. It's so strong it's like a physical tug. I resisted it—I was angry and I resisted, but I felt it drawing me.”

“Yet you resisted it.”

“That's the proof of my point. I've got a strong will, Doc. I impose it on everybody, so you should know. And that will save me. It saved the others who returned. The boys—the unformed, groping, boys—didn't have a chance. The Eyes hypnotized them before they knew what to resist.”

Iverson was quiet, staring at his hands. “If you're right, how can they be stopped? How can we fight such a thing? It's beyond our power.”

“You've overlooked the main point, Doc. If the Eyes can hypnotize, then there must be a mentality behind them. Right?”

“I suppose I knew that, anyway. They act intelligently.”

“Then what we should do is try to reach that mentality and study it. Maybe in that way we can discover how to destroy them.”

“You're leading up to something.”

“The only thing I can think of as our next action. I want to capture an Eye, Dr. Iverson. I want to capture one and study it—inside and out.”

Iverson showed no enthusiasm. He didn't show much of anything.

“Should I take your silence to be disapproval?” Linc asked.

“No. You make sense, as usual, but the idea is so tenuous—it depends on so many ‘ifs.' How will you capture one? How will you study it? Even if you do, will it work? I can't help but feel the Guard has the right idea. Blow them apart and rid our skies of them.”

Linc sat back. He had expected more appreciation of his suggestion. “At least give me your permission to try.”

“Well—” Iverson's answer was cut short by the clang of bells and a siren wail. He sat bolt upright in his chair. Linc was already on his feet. The bells were the external alarm on the reactor. Something was wrong in the atomic pile.

Iverson grabbed up his direct line to the reactor and spat questions into the phone, “Where? Why aren't they inside? Who?”

When he hung up, he hissed at Linc, “Somebody's in the reactor. He hit the guard over the head and broke in. He's sending the pile crazy. It's going to go sky-high!”

CHAPTER SIX

Linc raced out of the administration building and across the grass toward the reactor. A man was waving frantically at the entrance. Blood seeped down his neck from a cut on his head.

“Who's inside?” Linc fired the question.

“I don't know! Everybody left for coffee, and this guy must have sneaked up behind me. I felt the blow—then nothing. When I woke up, the alarms were sounding. Is she going to blow?”

“Pray!” Linc ran inside, making for the locker room and the radiation suits. The bells were continuous explosions against his eardrums, and lights flashed in the corridors, yellow lights, danger lights. He pulled open the first locker he reached, yanked out the suit, and struggled to get it on. But the light over the door changed from yellow to red, and there was no time. It was now or never. If he had a chance of saving the pile at all, he had to move now.

He grabbed up a lapel radiation indicator and stuck it in his pocket. It was already turning color, warning of danger. He took off down the hall again, heading through the maze of corridors toward the building center and the pile itself. Fear trembled inside him as the lights flashed and the bells clanged.

He rounded the last corner leading to the main room, and stopped. Ahead of him, lit by the flashing red of the warning lights, moved the slim figure of a man. It halted, too, and they faced each other for a brief second. Then the man darted sideways into another hallway. Linc took out after him. He didn't know how to operate the reactor, but the man, the cause of the danger, could be removed.

He turned the corner and saw the fleeing figure ahead of him. He pushed himself into a sprint. The hall was dark, bursting with red flashes, and they two were alone, hunter and hunted, both running through the tangible tension of impending atomic disaster.

With a great leap, Linc was on the man, pulling him down from behind. He fell on top of him, but the man rolled free and regained his feet. Linc was up, and before he even identified the face in front of him, his fist was crashing into it. The man fought back, and a fistful of knuckles caught Linc's jaw. The wall close to his back kept him from falling, and he thrust himself forward, hitting and slashing wildly, overpowering his target with the sheer fury of his attack. Finally, the man went limp before him, and sank down the wall to collapse on the floor.

Linc forced air into his lungs and ran back down the hall. Whether he knew how to stop the reaction or not, he had to try. He threw open the door to the main room, and stopped. The room was full of radiation-suited technicians, already working to deaden the build-up, lowering the leads into place to stem the frantic circular dash of destruction.

“Get out of here!” somebody yelled at him. “You need a suit!”

Linc suddenly realized his vulnerability and panic washed over him, a great hot wave from his solar plexus, taking his breath and hazing his vision. He caught hold of himself and hurried out. He stopped for the unconscious body of the man he had caught and beaten, and lugged him up over his shoulders. He carried him to the nearest exit, out into the clean air, and dropped him onto the grass.

He stood there, trembling. Had he gotten too much radiation? Had it already started to eat at him? He thrust a shaky hand into his pocket and pulled out the lapel indicator. Already, over the door, the lights had changed back to flashing yellow. He held the indicator up, afraid to acknowledge what he was sure he would see.

But it was all right. It hadn't reached the critical point. He had gotten out in time. The sigh that roared out of him came from deep in his soul.

The man at his feet stirred, and Linc looked at him closely, peering beneath the smeared dirt that darkened the face. It was a familiar face that stared up into his. Hendricks.

“Hendricks!” Linc knelt, but Hendricks didn't hear. He was conscious, but his eyes were dull, glazed over. Linc recalled the last time he had seen the man—the morning of the fight, walking away with the Eyes. From the look of him, Hendricks still belonged to the Eyes. He was still hypnotized, still under their power.

Linc faced the impact of what that meant. Hendricks had been sent to blow the reactor, sent to destroy the lab. Why?

That why? was the most important thing in the world.

Someone ran up beside him, the technician, Bennet. “We got it under control,” he panted. “It's going to be all right.” Bennet knelt quickly beside Hendricks and peered into his face, rubbed his head and hair. “There's something wrong with him.”

“He's still a zombie.”

“I don't mean that. He's sick. Sick to death, by the look of him.”

Linc searched vainly for the symptoms Bennet had seen. “A disease?”

“Radiation sickness. That's how it appears to me.”

“From his stay in the reactor?” Linc was doubtful.

“Must be.”

“But I got out all right.”

“He was inside longer, and closer to the pile than you were.”

Linc rose. “I'll get a doctor. Iverson will probably want him treated here. A case of radiation sickness would only add to the panic downtown.”

He strode away. Hendricks' illness would be turned over to men who were competent in that area. For himself, he had to move ahead with his own plans. And he had to make certain that no more reactor technicians were lost to the Eyes. Their diabolical use of Hendricks, and Hendricks' special knowledge, was sure warning of what they would do with any more they managed to hire away.

* * * *

Hendricks was dead. Linc's brief nap was broken by that news. Hendricks was dead. In addition, a certain Colonel Stanley had arrived from Washington, and the National Guard had gone out to battle the Eyes.

It was Wes who stood over him and pelted off the sentences. “This colonel wants both of us in on the briefings.”

“So now we're going to have briefings and be military,” Linc sighed. “I take it then that Iverson hasn't given permission for my plan.”

“No. He told me about it, but he hasn't decided. I imagine his decision depends on what the Guard accomplishes.”

“Which will be nothing.” He ran his hand across his blond hair to put it back in place. “Did Hendricks come out of his trance long enough to talk?”

“No. He just died. That's a mystery, too. He shouldn't have died so fast—not from the effects of the reactor. But it was radiation that killed him, all right.”

Linc shook his head. “If we try to solve them all, we'll bury ourselves. First things first. Let's go meet the brass.”

Colonel Stanley was waiting with Iverson and Collins. He was a short man, muscular and tense. He strode about like a cock rooster and demanded attention. It was clear that he intended to add discipline to the fight, and win it through sheer routine.

“Glad to meet you,” he said when Linc and Wes were introduced. “If you'll please sit down, I'll fill you in on what Washington has discovered.

“First off—” Stanley's clipped words dominated the quiet—“this is a local phenomenon you're experiencing. Whether or not it will spread, is something we're concerned with, since there is every indication that it will. Following down the line of facts, we know that your phenomenon started with a roaring light that passed over your city, followed by an explosion in the woods.

“Investigation has shown that your roaring light wasn't the only one of its kind. Two weeks previous, a similar phenomenon was seen over our Western testing grounds. A week previous to that, the Russian bomb-test sites reported the same occurrence. Consequently, we can expect what has happened here to be duplicated at either of these two places, or almost anywhere else.

“Confidentially, I may tell you that Washington is frantic, and requires that something be done to stop it immediately. Something is being done right now. Our National Guard is at this moment engaging the Eyes, and this afternoon will see the end of them.”

“And if it doesn't?” Linc asked.

Stanley clearly didn't like the remark. “I see no reason to doubt that it will, and no reason to jump ahead of ourselves. One thing at a time, please. One tactic at a time.”

“Has Dr. Iverson explained my idea to you?” Linc asked.

“Yes,” Stanley said, “and it has merit. But it won't be necessary.”

“Merit?” Collins cut in. “It's preposterous. The Eyes can't be captured and contained. Such an idea assumes that the Eyes are complete, live beings that can be pounced upon and taken captive. And that is ridiculous.”

“Then what are they?” Linc demanded.

Collins shrugged. “Two possibilities enter my mind. One, they are some kind of machines—remotely controlled machines. Two, they are merely manifestations, created by a power operating somewhere else entirely. If they have the mental power to hypnotize masses of people, then why couldn't they also cause hallucinations?”

“Well?” Colonel Stanley turned quickly on Linc, jarring him out of his intended retort. “What do you have to say to that?”

“Nothing much. Collins may be right. I've had the same thoughts myself. However, I do know that the Eyes are solid matter. I saw them shot, I saw them break open, I saw them bleed. I'm not prepared to go any further than that. But I'd like to attempt to capture one, and then we'd know, wouldn't we?”

“Quite so. I like the way your mind works, Hosier,” Stanley said. “You go after concrete proof of your contentions—none of this scientific jabberwocky. However, I still stay that you're premature and too pessimistic. This afternoon is going to tell the story. Our fighting men will be the answer, mark my words.”

A hesitant rap on the door swung him round. He always seemed to be pivoting. “Come in,” he called.

A young lieutenant entered, a National Guardsman, and he was dirty, disheveled and haunted-looking. He didn't salute the rank of the man before him, and even Stanley didn't object.

Linc gave the soldier his chair and waited for the words he knew were coming. The Lieutenant's voice was low as though he were afraid to speak above a whisper.

“We went out as ordered, sir. Out into the country, into an open field. We had high-powered rifles and two field pieces. We waited. And they came.” A shiver passed through him with the remembering. “It was a rout, sir. We tried. We shot them to pieces; we shot holes right through them—the big guns blew them into jagged bits—but the bits came back together again! They came back together and they healed up and they—”

“Take it easy.” Linc placed his hands on the boy's shoulders. “Somebody get him a drink.”

The soldier swallowed the water convulsively.

“How many did you lose?” Colonel Stanley asked. “Over half,” the boy answered. “Over half.”

“There's your answer,” Linc said to the colonel. “There's your end to the phenomenon. Now do I get my chance?” Stanley was too stunned to answer. But Iverson said, “It may be all we have. At least it would be something to do while we're looking for a new idea.”

Slowly Stanley nodded his head. “All right, we'll try it. But no one from this lab must be in on it. It's too dangerous, after what happened with that man Hendricks.”

“That's impossible,” Iverson protested. “Any such study of an Eye is scientific work. And aside from our men here there is no one else. Any possible civilian scientists in the area are hiding. People won't come out of their houses any more. They caught on quickly that the Eyes only attack groups of people and leave individuals alone, so they refuse to come out where there are others to make a group. No one will volunteer, and this has to be a voluntary effort.”

“It's my idea,” Linc said, “and if it's tried at all, I intend to try it I Collins can come along with me.”

“No,” Collins was fast with his refusal. “I'm not going out in the open and dare one of those things to climb into a cage. That's suicide, zombie-style. Count me out.”

Linc suddenly felt alone. He couldn't manage it alone—not this. He needed someone, and he had to admit it.

“You've forgotten me, all of a sudden,” Wes stood up. “That's no way to keep a friend—by overlooking him.”

Wes was offering to help and to mend their quarrel all in one. Linc was almost too ashamed to answer, but he had to answer, and to express his deep-felt thanks in that answer. He glanced at the floor. “There's no one I'd rather have with me.”

“Then it's settled.” Stanley ignored the emotions in the room. “You two have a try at this while Iverson and Collins put their heads together with me and try to come up with something else.”

Even as the colonel was talking, Linc was aware that he had made an important discovery. He needed Wes and Wes' friendship. But he wouldn't have had it if Wes hadn't been a big enough man to make the first move—time and again to make the first move. He had a lot to learn from the quiet, bookish man. He hoped he was given the time and the chance to learn it.