The Invaders Read online

  The Invaders

  Keith Laumer

  Contents

  PART ONE―THE DISCOVERY.

  Chapter One

  2

  Chapter Two

  2

  3

  Chapter Three

  2

  3

  Chapter Four

  2

  3

  4

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  2

  3

  4

  Chapter Seven

  3

  4

  PART TWO―THE MANIAC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  2

  Chapter Four

  2

  Chapter Five

  PART THREE―THE COUNTERATTACK

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  2

  3

  Chapter Three

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Chapter Four

  2

  3

  Chapter Five

  2

  3

  4

  5

  PART ONE―THE DISCOVERY.

  Chapter One

  The XKE Jaguar pulled to a stop at the high gate bearing the sign lettered POTOMAC MANUFACTURING COMPANY. A smartly uniformed plant guard stepped from the gatehouse, looked over the sleek convertible, and its broad-shouldered, sun-tanned driver.

  “I’m David Vincent,” the driver said. “Consulting engineer. Mr. Nagler’s expecting me.” He glanced at the watch on his left wrist. “I’m a few minutes early. Light traffic coming up from Washington.”

  “Sure, Mr. Vincent. Just a routine check . . . “ The guard lifted the telephone and spoke into it. He hung up the receiver and nodded, touched the switch which cycled the barred gate open.

  “Straight ahead to the main building. Mr. Nagler’s office is just off the entrance lobby.”

  “Thanks.” Vincent wheeled the powerful little car past the large brick gatehouse, pulled into a visitor’s slot near the flagpole. Inside, a shapely receptionist with platinum tinted hair rose to lead him across to the door marked M. G. NAGLER-GENERAL MANAGER-PRIVATE.

  “If you’re here to sell him anything, you picked a bad day, Mr. Vincent,” she murmured. “Late party at the country club last night” She adjusted her horn-rim spectacles, which seemed to be of plain glass. If they were intended to add seriousness to her mischievous face, David thought, they were a failure.

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said. “I’ll try not to make any loud noises.” He gave her a half wink and went in.

  Nagler was a tall, lanky man, with thinning hair and large, features, now wearing an expression of patient suffering.

  “Mr. Vincent,” he greeted his visitor, waving him to a chair. “Nice to see you. I hope you’ll be able to help us here at Potomac. It’s a case of changing markets, competition. An old story to you, I suppose. But we’ve got to diversify or go under. That means expansion. And capital’s a big problem.”

  “I’ve studied the data you supplied the home office,” Vincent said. “I think I have a few ideas. Suppose we take a look at the plant before I go into them any further.”

  “Fine.” Nagler spoke to his secretary on the intercom, then led Vincent out along a flower-bordered walk across a neatly tended lawn, into a cavernous, noisy building, murkily lit by sunlight angling in through high windows. There were long rows of turret lathes manned by serious machinists, banks of massive milling machines, a row of power saws, each adding its note to the overall noise. Farther on, giant plastics moulding machines radiated heat and harsh chemical odors. With Nagler at his side, Vincent moved slowly along the aisles, carefully studying the details of the factory’s operation.

  “ . . . we’re bursting our seams as it is,” Nagler was saying; but Vincent had stopped, was watching a left-fingered woman at an assembly table. She was tucking copper wires inside a small metal and plastic assembly, an endless supply of which were moving past her on a conveyor belt.

  “May I?” David said, and plucked one of the finished assemblies from the line. It was about the size of a goose egg―an egg with one end lopped off, flattened sides, holes of various sizes bored in its smooth curves. The material was smooth, dark blue plastic with a slick, tingly feel. At one end was a metal rim with recessed mounting lugs. Inside the open end was a maze of printed circuitry, the glint of transistors, the bright colors of tiny condensers.

  “A special-order item,” Nagler said. “A nuisance-even at the price. They require a whole new manufacturing setup, their own assembly line, special training. All for what may turn out to be a one-time order. But we can’t afford to turn away the business . . . “

  “What’s it for?” David asked. His tone was intent, serious.

  Nagler shrugged. “A sub-assembly. A firm called Electronic Components placed the order, then thousand units, very complex specifications, too; immediate delivery. We quoted them―”

  “Just this one item? Not the entire apparatus?” David cut into the stream of talk.

  “That’s right. It’s a common occurrence in our line of business, of course. But the expense―”

  “Where is this Electronic Components company located?”

  “Eh? Why, I’d have to check that. West Coast, I believe.” Nagler looked at Vincent. “Why do you ask? As I said, this is just a one-time special order.”

  “You never can tell what might be important, Mr. Nagler.” David smiled disarmingly. “When we get back to the office, I’d like to have that address, if you don’t mind.”

  But, half an hour later in Nagler’s office, the file clerk shook her head.

  “It’s very strange, sir,” she said. “All we have is the post office address―Box 1009, Wheaton. No mention in the correspondence of where the plant is located.”

  “I wonder if I might keep this?” David held up the device he had plucked from the assembly line.

  “Certainly, if it’s of any use to you.” Nagler frowned. “But frankly, I don’t see what bearing it has on our main problem here . . . “

  “As to that, I think I have good news for you, Mr. Nagler,” Vincent said, pocketing the apparatus. “I think we can solve your problem with no more than the addition of a new production control center and a new wing on building five . . . .”

  2

  Two hours later, Vincent parked his car in the hotel lot, paused at the cigaret counter for a pack of the cigarillos. He often smoked them when on long road trips which kept him from the comfort of his bachelor apartment in the new Columbia Towers in Alexandria. The sales girl, a slim red-head, returned his change with a lingering glance. It expressed unqualified approval of his lean, well-chiselled face, his short-cut blond hair, the rugged physique apparent under his well-tailored suit. He gave her a smile that was no more than friendly as he turned to the elevators. There was no time now to strike up new acquaintances, he reflected with wry regret as the swift car bore him upwards. Or was there? Was the whole idea that had been growing in his mind these past weeks no more than an over-active imagination?

  Maybe he ought to invite the red-head to dinner, relax, forget the whole thing . . . .

  But the bulge in his pocket was real. And until he had satisfied his engineers curiosity, he would have to hold back the urge to sociability.

  In his room, Vincent switched on the lamp over the desk, placed the egg-shaped object in the center of the blotter. From his suitcase, he took three other objects, placed them beside the one he had acquired at the Potomac Company. They were completely unlike―yet strangely similar in an indefinable way. As if, David told himself, they were parts of the same finished apparatus . . . .
/>   One was a pale yellow rod of the same semigloss finish plastic as the blue egg-shape, about five inches long, as thick as a fountain pen. Another was cherry red, rectangular, two inches long by an inch wide, wafer thin, with metal contacts visible at one end. The third was an irregularly formed casting, pale green, fitted with a button which slid, with faint clicks, along a graduated scale. Each bore either holes or small protrusions, presumably designed to allow attachment to some other part. The trick was, David reflected, to discover exactly how they fitted together―if indeed his hunch was correct. So far, he had had no luck; but with the new part―perhaps he’d find the answer. There was a hole in the latter which appeared to be about the size of the yellow rod. He tried it―and felt a surge of excitement as it slid smoothly in, locked in place with a soft click. Tugging failed to remove it; it was in to stay.

  “Lesson number one,” David murmured to himself. “Once in, it stays in . . . “ He studied the other parts, comparing their contours. The hollow in one end of the green casting looked about right to receive the blue egg-shape; and the studs on the red wafer matched the perforations on the opposite side of the egg. He was right, his new acquisition was the key part to which all the others fitted.

  He leaned back in the chair, lit a cigaret and considered the array of cryptic items before him. The first to catch his eye had been the yellow rod. It had been the material, more than any curiosity as to its function, which had attracted his notice: tough, conductive, machinable under specific conditions, taking a temper like metal. The material had been supplied, along with the plans and specifications for the rods. Marvelous stuff, the plant manager had said sadly; but unobtainable in bulk, according to the supplier. Probably one of those German imports, he had guessed.

  David had taken along one of the rods, run tests on the plastic―and discovered just how fantastic the material was. Once tempered, no temperature he had been able to obtain with a late model electronic crucible had touched it. No blade would mark it, no solvent etch it.

  And then, a week later, hundreds of miles distant, he had seen the same, unmistakable plastic being formed into the red wafers. Then the green objects had shown up, at a small factory near Chicago. In each case, the only address given had been a smalltown post office box. And now, after a month of discreet search, the blue ovoid had turned up. His boss, peppery old General Moore, USA Ret, founder and head of Modern Industrial Designs―20th Century―MID-20th to its familiars―would have hit the ceiling, David reflected, if he had any inkling as to why his star plant consultant had suddenly developed a fondness for personally carrying out preliminary surveys of minor remodelling jobs spread across half the country.

  And it was still a good question; why should he have taken such a consuming interest in the fact that small factories, unknown to each other, were turning out uniform orders of ten thousand each of small, different, but related items? It was a question David could not have answered, he admitted to himself. But it was part and parcel of the fact that his own peculiar talent―the talent that had led him to the top of his field in the few short years since his graduation cum laude from MIT―was the ability to spot relationships among things that looked different whether they were factory flow lines, or, as now, various parts of a single assembly.

  David took paper and pen from the desk drawer, arranged the objects in the various positions with quick, practiced strokes, he sketched the results. He tried and rejected half a dozen possibilities before he arrived at what seemed the most likely solution: The wafer atop the egg shape, opposite the green item he had come to think of as the grip, with the yellow rod projecting in front. The pegs and holes matched, each part would nestle snugly against the other―not that he had tried them. The result, he saw, with a grin, looked remarkably like a Buck Rogers Space Gun. But it was obvious that something was missing. There was a circle of small holes around the base of the yellow rod, and the leads from the wafer dangled, making contact with nothing. Using a micrometer, David checked clearances and spacings, began carefully sketching the probable form of the missing part.

  Slowly, it took shape: a cluster of rods, with a ring at one end, heavy leads passing back on each side to fit the holes beneath the egg shape, other leads which snapped into the wafer above. The result was more ray-gunlike than ever. He shook his head and smiled at his over-active imagination. The thing was probably a new heatless soldering iron, or light-duty welder; or a signalling apparatus, or even some sort of hand-drill. Since he couldn’t see inside the plastic casings, he still had no idea of the thing’s function . . . .

  But something could be done about that. Mid-20th’s labs were the most modern and complete in the United States―probably in the world. There were tests he could run, and analyses, using the electron scope and X-ray and even gamma-ray scanning techniques. There were two more plants to visit on this swing through the district. By day after tomorrow he’d be back at home base. He could run his tests then, settle his curiosity once and for all, and forget the matter.

  With that decided, he felt a sense of relief, as if a deep problem had been solved―or at least deferred. He placed the parts in his suitcase, showered and dressed and went down to dinner.

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, as he was completing the final inspection of the trip at the Ultimate Tool and Die Works, a medium-sized manufacturing plant near Fort Wayne, David Vincent paused, took a folded paper from his pocket.

  “Just as a matter of curiosity, Mr. Winthrop,” he said to the company president escorting him, have you ever seen an item resembling this?” He showed the man the sketch he had made of the missing component. The latter blinked at it, turned it upside down.

  “Why, as a matter of―” Winthrop broke off as the tall man who had been following silently a few feet behind stepped forward and unceremoniously plucked the paper from his hand.

  “As to your security chief, sir, I advise against answering Mr. Vincent’s questions,” the man said in a harsh-clipped voice. He had a narrow, curiously un-lined face, pale, almost ochre eyes, a thin mouth. His black hair, combed back in a patent-leather wing, looked like a badly made wig. His eyes flicked to the paper; he folded it deliberately, tucked it into a pocket. “We handle a number of Defense Department contracts here,” he said curtly to Vincent.

  The company officer’s face flushed. “Mr. Vincent is here―at a cost of one hundred dollars per day, I might remind you Dorn―to study our operation! I intend to answer his questions to the best of my ability―”

  “Not when the national security is involved,” Dorn said flatly.

  “National security? What’s the national security got to do with an order from Technical Associates, Incorporated?”

  “A company which specifically ordered you to divulge no information to anyone!” Dorn rapped.

  “Ordered! I’ll do the ordering here!” Winthrop snapped. “And I’ll observe their request insofar as it doesn’t interfere with our own operations!”

  “Axe you certain the firm you mentioned has no connection with secret government work?” Dorn’s face was taut with what looked like barely suppressed fury.

  “Well―no, I’m not―but―inasmuch as I have no official directive―”

  “It is not necessary to tell Mr. Vincent any more than he already knows in the matter,” Dorn rasped.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the executive snapped.

  “I advise you to consider carefully before you say more,” Dorn said, in a curiously flat tone. His eyes held those of his employer. His skin, Vincent noted, seemed dry and lifeless. Something about the man was repellent. Under that fierce gaze, the older man’s eyes quailed.

  ‘Well―since you feel so strongly about it . . . “ Avoiding David’s look, Winthrop brushed past and through the door. Dorn turned to David with an impatient gesture.

  “We will go now, Mr. Vincent.”

  “I’ll have my sketch back first,” David said.

  “That’s not possible,” Dorn rapped.
r />   “It’s my property, Dorn,” David said quietly. “I want it.”

  “It’s nothing―merely that we resent prying.” Dorn took the paper from his pocket―and ripped it across, again, turned and tossed the scraps into a waste disposal conveyor where they were instantly whirled away. David reached out, caught the security chiefs arm. Instantly, violently, the man tore free. David fought to keep his expression calm, after the shock of that momentary contact. Under his hand, the other’s arm had been as hard as oak―and hot! Scaldingly, impossibly hot! And even now, standing three feet from that mask-like face, he could feel the heat radiating from his features, as from an open furnace door.

  “Never touch me!” Dorn hissed.

  “Thanks,” David said. “That tells me what I wanted to know.” He turned and went through the door, feeling Dorn’s eyes following him like aimed guns.

  2

  David stayed at the factory for another two horn’s, finishing the compilation of data needed for his engineering study of the plant’s operation. The company president made no mention of his security chiefs strange behavior, nor did David refer to the matter.

  It was late afternoon when he left the plant, with a two-hour drive via freeway ahead. Usually, he enjoyed an opportunity to let the swift Jag out, but this time the prospect of the high-pressure trip, weaving in and out of speeding traffic, was distasteful. He had too much to think about. Or was it all his imagination? Perhaps Dorn was just overeager, wanting to impress his boss with his zeal.

  Ahead, a highway marker indicated State Road 27, branching off from the freeway approach. On sudden impulse, David cut the wheel, a moment later was skimming along a winding, two lane road, smooth-surfaced, empty of traffic. This was better; now he could think without pressure.

  What was there, really, to give him this queasy, restless feeling under the ribs? A series of strange subassemblies, ordered by mysterious firms, all previously unknown to him in spite of his wide experience in the small manufacturing field, all with oddly anonymous mailing addresses; the curiously gun-like form of the finished product; and the swift, hostile reaction of the man Dorn. As for the latter’s apparent abnormal body heat―it had probably been an illusion; a combination of the sense of warmth generated by hot tempers, and an accidental blast of air from some open furnace door behind him. Not that there had been any such furnace in sight . . . .