V 08 - The Crivit Experiment Read online

  It seemed to take an agonizingly long time.

  In another part of the building, on the second floor, the lights were much brighter, and there were plenty of people moving about without fear of discovery. But, then, these were aliens, the Visitors who now owned this building, from which they monitored, directed, and administered the entire Research Triangle Park area of central North Carolina.

  In an office once intended for the GE research administrator, three Visitors sat in front of a huge desk, behind which sat Chang, a tall woman who was the current Triangle Area administrator. Her Chinese features were handsome and strong, but there was a trace of tired frustration in her expression. She had hoped to serve in a more exalted capacity than here in this backwater, no matter how potentially valuable Diana and the planetary coordinators thought it might be.

  “I hope your flight was uneventful,” she said to the simulated black man who sat directly across from her.

  “A little traffic near the airport,” Leon answered, “but we expected that.” The Raleigh-Durham airport just east of the Research Triangle Park was an exceptionally busy one, being the main link between the South and points west, and Washington, D.C., New York, and other places farther up the East Coast—not to mention the traffic to and from the Park itself. “Diana sends her regards,” Leon went on, glancing at the two other Visitors seated on either side of him.

  “I’m sure she does,” Chang said dryly. “I gather that you and I share the same degree of favor.”

  “More or less,” Leon admitted. Chang’s subtle sarcasm was not lost on him. Too valuable a zoologist to dismiss, he was sent here by Diana to get him out of her way. “Diana’s affections are not noted for their extended duration,” he went on. “I was guilty, I guess, of assuming otherwise.” “Neither is she noted for the clarity of her instructions,” Freda, the Nordic-looking woman to his right, complained. “We were told only that you were to have breeding facilities and complete control within your own department. But what kind of facilities, Leon?” Freda, one of Chang’s trusted aides, would be Leon’s chief of staff.

  “Sand,” Leon said. “I was told that there are sand barrens in this part of the country.”

  “Farther toward the coast,” Freda said, “but not right here in the Piedmont.”

  “Plenty of sand at Camp T-3,” Chang said, “but if that’s what you need, why weren’t you assigned there?”

  “I think Diana wants to keep this more or less secret,” Leon said, “at least for a while. Even though Camp T-3 is not recognized for what it is by the humans, there’s far too high a population near there, and the camp administrator has little patience for experimental work. He will be supplying me with breeding stock, however if I can find a place to put it.”

  “The camp isn’t really suitable,” Darin put in. He was a handsome man, apparently of Mediterranean descent. “Here we can make use of the facilities in the Research Triangle, both private industry and university. The scientists, faculty, and students don’t need to know what they’re working on in order for them to help us. Anything sensitive will stay with Leon and Freda.”

  “But if there’s no sand,” Leon complained, “there won’t be anything for anybody to work on.”

  Chang looked at him speculatively. “Diana wouldn’t be putting you into an impossible situation on purpose, would she?” she asked with only a slight archness to her voice.

  “She might,” Freda said, “but why? If she wanted Leon discredited, she could do that without tricks. And that’s not her way, you know that as well as I do.”

  “Just a minute,” Darin said, getting to his feet. He picked up the phone on Chang’s desk and dialed an in-house number. “Send up that survey we made when we moved in,” he told the person on the other end. “Should have remembered it before,” he said to the others in the office, hanging up and resuming his seat. “There’s a place not far from here that should suit Leon just fine.”

  A moment later the office door opened and a clerk stepped in. Darin took the proffered folder and opened it on Chang’s desk. Freda and Leon came to look at the map he displayed.

  “Right here,” Darin said, pointing. “An anomalous geological feature, twenty acres of sand surrounded by quartz rock formations on the north and east, and dense clay on the west and south. Totally worthless for farming, housing, or anything else. But perfect for Leon’s project.” “Looks good,” Leon said. He pointed at some black dots near the indicated area. “Houses?”

  “A large farmhouse, two bams, and several other buildings. They’ve been empty for quite awhile, but we can fix them up easily. I’ll get hold of the county records tomorrow and have them deed the property over to us. We can start moving you in in the afternoon.”

  “Excellent,” Leon said. He went back to his chair. “I needn’t remind you,” he went on, “that this project should not be discussed in front of those not actually involved.”

  “We understand that,” Chang said softly. “Aside from your own staff, only the four of us will know anything about it.”

  “Good,” Leon said. “I may not be in Diana’s favor right now, but this could make a big difference in our control over this planet.”

  “If Lydia would just give me a little more leeway,” Chang said, “I could control this part of the state without any trouble at all.”

  “That’s as may be,” Leon said, “but this is what we have to work with. If we’re done here, maybe you can show me to a room, and I can let you get some rest.”

  “We get too much rest as it is,” Chang complained. “Aside from a little student rebellion, nothing much happens here in this backwater.”

  “That’s the last of them,” Steve said, closing a panel he almost had to stand on tiptoe to reach.

  “But we don’t know what we’re connected to,” Mark complained.

  “Well,” Lester said, “we have some idea, and I’ve patched into all twelve outgoing phone lines, so we should be able to sort things out back at the lab.”

  “I sure hope so,” Mark muttered. They packed up their tools and turned to the door where Anne was still waiting.

  “All clear as far as I can tell,” she said. She switched off the lights.

  And they waited. Anne counted for them, and after five minutes their eyes were as adapted to the dark as they would ever be. Only then did she open the door to let them out into the dimly lit hall.

  But as they worked their way back toward the stairs, they could hear voices, shouts, and thuds coming from one of the recreation rooms through which they had passed just an hour ago. Cautiously, Mark moved toward the noise and peered through a crack in a door.

  “Looks like a goddamned judo lesson,” he said when he came back. “That handball court—they’ve got mats out all over the floor.”

  “Can we use the stairs we were supposed to have come down by?” Anne asked Steve.

  “Sure, but who knows where we’ll wind up with the partitions all changed up there.” He took out his plans again. “There’s another stair at the far side,” he said. “That’s the east side of the building, where the kitchens are.”

  “Not likely to find any Visitors there,” Mark said. “Okay, you lead the way.”

  They found the stairs with no difficulty, but the kitchen area was far from abandoned. Though the Visitors did not cook their food, they needed cage space for all the small animals they kept, and a butchery for the larger ones they fed on raw. And though it was now past three-thirty in the morning, there were still red-uniformed people about, apparently looking for snacks. Twice the four humans tried to pass through the area, and twice they were nearly discovered by one or more Visitors. Steve checked his plans over and over, but it looked as if that was the only way out.

  “Let’s try the front door;” Anne suggested. “We’ll have to circle the building, but if we don’t get out soon, they’ll find us in here, and then the whole game will be blown.” “Might as well try it,” Mark agreed. “At least then we’ll have a chance of esca
ping, even if we’re discovered.” “Only one problem,” Lester said. “Anne left tape on that door we came in by.”

  “Damn,” Mark and Anne said together. “Okay,” Mark said to Steve, “how can we get back there?”

  “Just follow me,” Steve said, folding up his map and putting it away.

  * * *

  After the tension of the tapping, and the anxiety of nearly being caught in the kitchen area, the ease with which they got back to the shipping department was anticlimactic.

  But that, Mark knew, made the situation more dangerous than ever High adrenaline had had no outlet, and overconfidence could make them careless. Indeed, as they left the building, Anne almost forgot to remove the tape which would have revealed their presence when the Visitors used the door the next day. And Mark himself forgot to wait until the guards had passed so that they were nearly caught as they crossed the parking area to the shelter of the ground vehicles.

  “It all goes for nothing,” he grated angrily to the others, “if we don’t get away clean.” Overhead, the sky was beginning to pale with the first light of morning.

  After a forced pause to calm themselves, they started back north toward the woods. Moving from vehicle to vehicle, then from flyer to flyer, they got as far as the north end of the parking area when they had to wait once more for the guards to pass again.

  “How many flyers were there before?” Lester asked.

  “Four,” Mark said. “Why?”

  “There are five now,” Lester said. “This one wasn’t here when we went in.”

  “Damn.” Mark looked back the way they had come and counted. “You’re right,” he said. “But they never keep more than four here, so that means—”

  “That somebody could be coming out right now,” Anne said, “to take this one away again.”

  “So let’s move out,” Mark said. “And if we’re discovered, fight as though we’re here on a raid and trying to get in instead of out.”

  “Good way to get ourselves killed,” Steve said.

  “That bug is more important than any of us,” Mark reminded him. “Now go, but remembei; don’t dig up the lawn.”

  They crawled quickly, quietly, and carefully, across the gently sloping grounds back toward the fence. From here, a low crest concealed the gap they had made with the light pipes. When they got to the fence, they found themselves far to one side, and rather than crawl ran in a low crouch to the gap. Even as they did so they could hear the quiet rush and whine of the fifth flyer getting ready to lift.

  “Down!” Anne called from behind, her voice just loud enough to be heard. They fell flat, dangerously near the bottom beam of the energy fence. Back at the parking area, the flyer lifted, straight up at first and then moving directly overhead. They froze in the dew-covered grass as the vehicle swung toward the west and away.

  “Now move,” Mark called over his shoulder, and again they scurried to the gap. “Easy through the fence,” he admonished, “don’t knock the light pipes away.” Steve went through, bent nearly double. Lester followed him, and in his anxiety got his foot caught in one of the flexible hoses. He jerked, and the lens moved an inch, but did not fall out of the beam of the fence. Anne followed more carefully, and then they all crouched while Mark removed the three light pipes, one by one. He stowed one on each of their backs, and then they went on toward the trees, still low and not moving as fast as they wanted to. The sky overhead was growing brighter, and they were totally exposed instead of being cloaked in darkness.

  Lester was the first one into the trees, with Steve and Anne close behind. Just as Mark made the shelter of the carefully tended forest they heard a sharp whistling siren screaming from the Visitor headquarters behind them.

  There was no time for stealth. They ran. The upcoming dawn didn’t help them under the trees, but they were able to keep together until they reached the uptended area. But by that time the sounds of pursuit were growing louder behind them.

  But at least the trees made it impossible for any flyers to see them. They ran an oblique course, not the way they had come but angling toward the east. As they ran, Mark pulled out a communicator and spoke into it between gasping breaths.

  “We’re hot,” he said. “Make it point seven.”

  They crossed the shallow bed of the summer stream and paused to get their bearings on the other side.

  “Did you get to Paul?” Anne asked as she drew her pistol and made sure the safety was off.

  “I think so,” Mark said. Steve and Lester, both panting heavily, were also making their weapons ready. They could hear the Visitors moving through the undergrowth on the other side of the shallow valley.

  “Quietly but quickly,” Mark said, his own gun out now. “Don’t shoot unless you have to, but if you have to, make it clean.”

  They went up the gentle slope while behind them the Visitor guards got nearer Dressed in dark green and black, the humans were all but invisible in the nightlike forest, while the Visitors, in their red uniforms, stood out as clearly as the British against the Minutemen. At last the humans came to the top of a rise and could hear, still half a mile away, the sounds of traffic on the north-south highway.

  “Where’s Paul taking the truck?” Steve asked, panting.

  “The old furniture-stripping place,” Mark said, pointing. “That way.”

  Just then a bolt of laser energy seared out from the trees off in the other direction, and Steve fell. Mark, Anne, and Lester dropped to their knees and opened fire. The scream that answered their shots was welcome, but now their position was known.

  Mark and Anne grabbed Steve under the arms and started dragging him down the slope toward the highway and point seven, an agonizing half mile away. Lestei; moving backward, kept low and covered their retreat. Small and pudgy, he was nobody’s idea of a heroic soldier, but his shots were aimed with a frigid caution, and each one struck home. By the time Mark and Anne had Steve halfway to the highway, the pursuit had stopped to regroup. Only then did Lester turn to run after them.

  More laser beams penetrated the dark morning air, but none found their mark. Again Lester took a post behind a large tree, and kept the pursuers at bay while Mark and Anne struggled with their burden. When he heard Anne call to him, he wove a zigzag course through the trees, dodging the aliens’ fire. Twice shots came so close that he could feel the static heat of their passage, and once he stepped into soft ground that threw him headlong. He hit with a roll and was on his feet, changing direction even as he did so.

  Just a little way ahead he could see the truck, with only Mark visible beside it. Paul, at the wheel, was starting to move it southward—not north toward the rest of the Park and Data Tronix—with Mark walking beside, in a half crouch. Lester put on a burst, saw Mark take aim and fire, and then he came out from the trees, running toward the back of the truck. Inside, Anne reached out and took his hand, boosting him inside while Mark piled into the passenger’s seat. Then with a squeal that shot gravel from the shoulder high into the air and left black tire marks for a hundred feet, the truck accelerated, cars behind it swerving to avoid it, and they were away, leaving the red-uniformed Visitors waving their weapons helplessly.

  Chapter 2

  Though it was June, there were still plenty of students on the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill campus for the summer session. Indeed, there were more students on the main quad now than at cooler times of the year. Here were three young men throwing two Frisbees, with a dog trying to make a fourth. There a couple lay on the grass under a huge water oak, oblivious to passersby. A group of sorority coeds ambled up one of the diagonal walks, planning their next party. Football players put in extra time so their course loads would be easier during the fall season.

  To a casual observer, university life was unchanged from the days before the arrival of the Visitors. And that was just what made Peter Frye and his four companions less than pleased with the situation. They walked down the middle of the quad from Franklin Street toward the Old Well, watc
hing their fellow students enjoying the fine summer weather.

  “It’s just too damn bad,” Peter said. Though built like a football tackle, he was too short to play and had never cared much for the sport in the first place.

  “My dad talks about the good old days in Berkeley,” Benny Mounds agreed, walking beside him. As heavily built as Peter, Benny’s weight was mostly fat. His agility was in his black fingers, not in his heavy arms and legs. As he walked, four half-dollars sparkled in the sun, weaving impossible figures in the air above his hand.

  “You’d think nobody cared anymore,” Greta Saroyan complained, on Peter’s other side. She was tall and thin, and would have been pretty if she hadn’t adopted a carefully grungy pseudo-farmer appearance.

  “I don’t think they do,” Peter said. His other two friends, Dave Androvich and Edna Knight, followed behind within easy hearing distance. Peter looked over his shoulder at Dave. “Anybody in your dorm show any signs of life?” “None-r” Dave said. He was so blond as to look almost like an albino, but his eyes were a deep brown. “All they care about is whether there’s enough beer in the place.” “If we’re going to shake these Visitors up,” Edna said, “we’ll have to do it ourselves.” She was short, well-built, and obviously cared about her clothes, though she avoided anything that looked like a sorority style.

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Peter agreed.

  They continued their discussion as they walked south between the brick and stone buildings, the old trees, the thick bushes. Occasionally they would see someone they knew and shout a friendly hello. Several other dogs wandered the quad as if they owned the place, and bicyclists whizzing past on the pavement made pedestrian life hazardous. That was why the five friends stuck to the grassy middle of the quad.