Part 12

He had always been a doubter. The Air Force had insisted, as it had every right to do on the basis of available evidence, that flying saucers could be given no support at all in official quarters. It had never stated categorically that the numerous reported sightings could be all explained away in easy and facile fashion, but it had maintained a sound, sane and entirely justifiable attitude in regard to them. That attitude was everlastingly to the Air Force's credit. Even now Clegman could find no fault with it. It was just that--here at last was the evidence!

They were coming in over the southern tip of the missile area, still a half mile or more from the base and flying at a very low altitude. Five immense silvery disks, their edges glinting in the dawn light, their summits slightly turreted.

Later, Clegman was never quite able to decide just what convinced him that the five U F O's had no intention of passing over the base without launching an attack upon it. But something did--a warning signal deep in his mind, a premonition that he had no right to delay a counter-decision for another half minute. In the absence of the General--just where the General might be he did not even stop to ask himself--it was up to him.

The invading U F O's were committing an act of armed aggression by flying over an I B M base whether they knew it or not. And both consciously and unconsciously--deep in his mind--Clegman was overwhelmingly convinced that they did know it. It was a very big country. An I B M base was a mere pinpoint on the map and the presence of Unidentified Flying Objects in the sky above it could not possibly have been coincidental.

The long arm of coincidence could never stretch that far--not in a million years or anywhere in space or time.

It was up to Colonel Richard Clegman, who had earned his insignia the hard way on a smoke-blackened Flat Top. Being a man of strength and a man of decision, Clegman acted without hesitation and with no feeling of guilt. He gave the signal for the launching of an all-out guided missile and jet bomber attack.

Corporal Thomas Walton would always think of it as a day to remember. But if anyone had told him that he would occupy a full page in the elementary-school history books of the late twentieth century he would have refused to believe it, for he was an extraordinarily modest young man.

There can be no doubt, however, that a full page was no more than his due. Circumstances alone can create a legend, a hero-image, and when a man risks his life in a hazardous undertaking it is not too important that he is merely carrying out orders and performing a duty which he might, with complete freedom of choice, prefer to avoid.

Corporal Thomas Walton was the first United States soldier to see a Martian face to face.

The Martian ship was a smoking, half-telescoped mass of wreckage and how a living Martian could have survived deep in the hull, in the midst of what must have been a raging inferno, was not an easy enigma for the scientists to unravel or the newspaper-reading public to grasp. The TV-viewing public would have liked very much to see that particular Martian but he died soon afterwards and was never televised. There were eight hundred Martian captives to question, and TV coverage remained so over-burdened for days that viewers did not feel any pronounced sense of outrage until it was too late to rectify an official blunder that was tragic from a documentary point of view.

Fortunately Corporal Walton did see that first remarkable survivor--saw him close and saw him plain. He had been advancing cautiously toward the wreckage with a Geiger counter which was not clicking and a protective helmet which he had just started to take off. Neither the Geiger counter nor the helmet were of any particular value to him, for the wreckage was not radio-active and never had been.

The Martian ships had been attacked by both guided missiles and swooping jets. Three successive bombing attacks had been launched against them. But the small, intermediate-range ballistic missiles had not carried atomic warheads and neither had the jets. The towering, silver-finned I B M's had remained on their launching pads, their destructive potential quiescent and unchallenged. It had been a World War II-type bombing attack, but so sudden, fierce and unrelenting that two of the Martian ships had gone down in flames and another had been forced to land and disgorge its entire crew. The two remaining ships had flown lopsidedly westward, trailing clouds of smoke, too crippled to retaliate with more than a single blast of searing fire. The blast had struck far west of the missile base, blackening two acres of woodland, but missing the base completely.

A slender jet had gone in pursuit of the fleeing disks, and that one jet had been armed in a more formidable way--with a small, gray-nosed atomic projectile. The fleeing disks had not returned.

Corporal Walton was remembering all this as he drew near to the wreckage of the only ship which was still smouldering after five hours of exposure to fire-extinguishing vapor showers from two circling planes.

Precaution demanded that he follow decontamination unit procedures even if the Geiger failed to click, for there was always the danger that there might be unknown and hitherto unsuspected forms of radiant energy in proximity to an U F O which would not register on a G-Muller counter.

But Corporal Walton liked to think that he could determine such things for himself and had suddenly decided to lift his helmet to get a better view of the smoke-enveloped ship.

He did so, standing very still, letting the immense weight of Army discipline and tradition wash over him for an instant like a tidal wave, appalled by his own audacity in defying it and more than a little frightened.

He was taking a dreadful risk and he knew it. There _could_ be unknown forms of radiant energy that might seep into his bones and remain undetected for years, a slow but deadly radio-active blight which would kill him before he was forty. He wanted to live to be ninety, but he wouldn't have a chance if he went on taking risks like this.

He saw the Martian before the Martian saw him. He saw the hideous, masklike face, smoke-blackened, and the talons that were creeping toward him in a blind fumbling that might have moved him to pity if he had not been too terrified to do anything but recoil backwards with a scream.

The Martian shuddered convulsively, as if a human scream at such a moment was more than he could endure. Perhaps he had heard too many human screams. Perhaps he did not want to hear any more or perhaps it was just pain which caused him to shut his eyes quickly and just as quickly open them again and fasten them on the youth standing white-lipped and trembling before him.

"I did not want to come to Earth," the Martian said. "I am too young to die. I knew this would happen. We are cruel--and we are merciless. But I was never quite like that. There are a few of us who are not like that."

The Martian was silent for an instant and then he whispered: "It is your world again. We took some of it from you, and we would have taken it all. But the Plan is shattered forever now. We give back what we have taken. It is completely your world again."

EPILOGUE

Sull, wearing the resplendent garments which only a Chief Coordinator new to his high station and completely sure of himself would have dared to flaunt in the face of envious subordinates, stepped into the compartment where Loring and Janice stood waiting and slightly inclined his head.

"We are taking you both back to Earth," he said. "You have convinced me that you have a strong bargaining point. Five of our ships made the very stupid mistake of flying in mass formation within range of an air-alerted missile and bombing plane base in the Eastern United States. Three of the ships have been destroyed and eight hundred Martians have been taken captive. Our only desire now is to depart from Earth as quickly as possible and never return.

"But, as I have said, eight hundred Martians have been taken captive. We should like to see them released and returned to us. We should also like to have a man like yourself plead our cause with the men and women who are in a position to make decisions on Earth, and institute measures which will give us at least a reasonable assurance that those decisions will be carried out and remain binding."

Loring nodded and looked Sull straight in the eye. "We would be fools to trust you to keep any pledge," he said. "But if you withdraw your ships we will have won at least a temporary victory. When you return--and you will, with another dangerous plan--you may find that our resistance may still be more than you had bargained for.

"There is one supreme glory in life which men do not hold lightly. That glory is unknown to you. You will never understand it. It turns night into day for us and transforms every aspect of reality. If men and women could not love, they would be as crippled as Martians in body and mind, for what you call love is a hollow mockery. A surrender to passion is only the beginning. It must grow and brighten until it fills the world with its creative splendor."

END

COULD HE CONQUER HIS DESIRE FOR THIS WOMAN FROM ANOTHER PLANET

The story of David Loring, artist, and his fiancee Janice Reece--two people who become involved in an emotional and physical conflict that breaks through the barriers of space.... An unbelievable but possible story of passions aflame when the sex of two worlds collided.

FRANK BELKNAP LONG ... at his greatest

A CHARIOT BOOK