Chapter 9

Julia saw the bright lights behind her. They blinded her in the rear-view mirror until she knocked the mirror out of focus. She glanced at the speedometer. She was going as fast as the engine would permit.

She was weary from the beat of the motor and the ache of steady driving. Her body was drained of energy. The “Wide-awakes” seemed to be losing their effect. In spite of herself, she nodded. Too tired to think of anything else, she was thinking--almost dreaming, almost in half-slumber--of a steamy bath; of perfumed heat caressing her body; of soft, restful water lapping at her thighs.

Even the prospect of invasion had receded into some dim, dumb corner of her mind; it no longer concerned her. The demands of personal survival had pushed it aside; personal survival and the knowledge of her own incapacity to prevent, forestall, or counter it. And at last exhaustion had overcome even the demands of survival.

The brilliant lights behind began to pain upon her fatigue-soaked eyeballs. They shimmered in the windshield; they--

She realized they were gaining on her.

A car without a governor.

A crazy, reckless driver.

Walt!

Suddenly the fatigue vanished. Fear alerted her. She stiffened. Her heart pounded. She glanced behind her, squinting.

There was a sickening wrench at her body; she felt herself twisting, being sucked out of space.

Teleportation!

She grabbed the wheel. She was almost too weak to resist. She fought off the terrible, insistent fingers, she shrank away from them; she moaned.

Walt ceased the effort.

She was limp. She struggled to marshal her resources. Her will was not yet depleted so much that she could not fight back.

She concentrated on being where she was, in the car, on the highway. She felt a futile but exhilarating surge of victory.

Her hand trembled when she switched off the automatic-drive. The wheel under her hands began to vibrate. The car was sensitive to her control. It was alive and deadly and hurtling like a rocket.

I can’t outrun him now! she thought. He has too much speed!

... I’ve got to get off the highway. I’ve got to take a side road toward the mountain. There’ll be curves and twists and turns. They will cut his speed down. Maybe I can out drive him.

Side roads slipped by to her right and left.

She prepared to brake the car for the next cut-off slot.

It appeared far ahead; a dark slit on the left outlined by her rushing headlights.

She depressed the brake; the tires screamed.

The car skittered and fishtailed. She clung desperately to the wheel, battling the great chunk of metal with every ounce of her tiny body.

And somehow the car hurtled through the slot, across the other half of the highway, onto the hard topped, farm-to-market road that climbed toward the distant crest.

Walt’s car, braking shrilly, hurtled past her and was lost in the night.

Julia stamped the accelerator viciously. Her car plunged forward.

Lonely trees and brush stood like decaying phantoms in the splatter of her headlights. Far ahead, winking down the mountain, she saw the headlights of another car--crawling toward her slowly, like twin fire flies, indolent after a night of pleasure. The road was pitted, and the car beneath her jolted.

It was then in the loneliness of the seldom traveled farm road that she noticed the gasoline gauge.

The gas remaining in the tank could not be sufficient to take her another ten miles. The peg rested solidly on the empty mark to the left.

She began to cry.

The tears almost blinded her; she jerked the car back, just in time, from a ditch. She held it toward the fearful darkness ahead. Dawn that purpled the east seemed lost forever from this road and this life.

The road climbed slowly; then steeply.

Behind her now the bright lights like great flames crept closer, burning everything. The lights had pursued her for only half an hour; it seemed an eternity. The road began a great bend around the first sharp thrust of mountain. She slowed.

The headlights were gaining.

She wanted to give up.

The motor coughed.

Walt was almost upon her; elation throbbed in his being. He had been driving on manual; he dared not risk automatic-drive, not since his wreck. He was not quite as alert as he might have been. The strain was beginning to slow his reactions.

The curve was sharper; ahead, a hair-pin turn. Walt swung out to pass her and force her to stop or plunge over the side into the deepening valley. It was the maneuver he had seen the policemen perform.

The headlights of the early farmer with a heavy load of milk suddenly exploded at the curve.

Julia gasped and slammed on her brakes.

Walt jerked his eyes from Julia’s car an instant before the crash.

“Crazy God damned fool,” the farmer said as he crawled painfully from the wreckage of his pick-up truck. “Crazy God damned fool!” He clutched at his arm; it was broken and bleeding. “Passing on a curve! God damned fool, passing on a curve!”

Julia had stopped her car. She ran toward the two wrecks.

“Any kid knows better, any two year old kid,” the farmer said; he stared, unbelieving, at his arm. He sat down and was sick.

It was growing lighter. Mist lay over the valley. The air was damp with fading night.

Julia’s feet made harsh clicks on the road.

At Walt’s car she stopped. The farmer watched her with mute pain behind his eyes.

Reaction set in. She thought she was going to be sick, herself. She leaned against the wrecked car.

“We better get him out,” the farmer said dully.

Julia nodded.

Between the two of them, they forced the door open and lifted Walt out to the pavement.

“Easy,” the farmer said.

Julia stood over Walt’s limp body. His jaw was broken and twisted to one side. His chest was bloody; blood trickled from his nose; his hair was matted with blood.

“He’s still breathing,” the farmer said hoarsely.

He looks so boyish, she thought. I can’t believe ... he doesn’t seem a killer. I hate whoever made a killer out of him.

Walt’s chest rose and fell; his breath entered his body in tremulous gasps.

She wanted to bathe his face with cool water and rest his head on her lap. She wanted to ease his pain.

She turned away.

In the tool compartment of the wreck she located a tire iron. She brought it back.

Her hand was slippery around the icy metal.

He’s dying anyway, she thought. It doesn’t have to be my hand that kills him. Tears formed in her eyes.

Walt moaned.

Julia’s hand tightened on the tire iron.

But the risk ... she thought: if he should wake up and heal himself ... he’ll kill me. The world will never be warned of the invasion, then. It’s his life against the world; his life against a billion lives.

She lifted the tire iron. She averted her eyes as she got ready to swing it savagely at his unprotected skull.

Cursing, the farmer reached out with his good hand and grabbed her upraised wrist. “My God, what are you trying to do?”

“I’ve ... I’ve got to kill him.”

The farmer stepped between her and Walt.

“I’ve got to.”

“Not while I’m here, Miss, you don’t.”

“Listen--!” she began. Then hopelessly, she let the arm holding the tire iron fall limply to her side. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him, she thought.

Nobody will believe me; not a person on the planet. It’s too fantastic: an invasion of earth. I’ve got to have some sort of proof to make them believe me.

No proof.

I can’t let Walt die! she thought. He’s the only proof I have. He’s the only one who can convince anyone of the invasion.

He’s got to live! she thought. I’ve got to get him to a hospital.

Walt’s face was bloodless.

“ ... he’s dying,” the farmer said.

“But he can’t die!” Julia cried desperately. “He can’t die!”

“You’re crazy,” the farmer said evenly. “First you get ready to brain him with a tire iron and then you say he’s got to live. Lady, if I hadn’t stopped you when I did, he’d be dead as hell right now.”

“I wasn’t thinking; I didn’t realize...”

Breath rattled in Walt’s throat.

“Gas ... I’m out of gas,” Julia said.

She ran to the wrecked truck. She jerked a milk can upright. She unscrewed the cap and emptied milk on the pavement.

With the tire iron she split the gas tank and caught as much of the sharp-smelling fluid as she could in the emptied can.

It sloshed loudly as she raced to her car with it. She fumbled the gas tank cap off. She was trembling so badly that she spilled almost as much as she poured into the opening. When the gas was all gone, she threw the milk can from her.

“I’ll back up!” she cried to the farmer. “You’ll have to help me get him into the back seat.”

He’s got to live, Julia thought. If the doctors can just bring him to consciousness, he can heal himself. When he realizes I’ve saved his life, maybe he’ll listen to me. He’s got to listen. I’ll convince him, I’ll reason with him. He’ll be able to prove to everybody that there will be an invasion. When they see all the things he can do, they’ll have to believe him...

They put Walt in the car. They handled him as gently as they could.

“He’s almost gone,” the farmer said.

“Get in front with me. You need a hospital, too.”

The farmer slipped in beside her.

Julia spun the car around and plunged down the road toward the super-highway.

“Where’s the nearest doctor?”

“Town eight miles down the road,” the farmer said. He grimaced in pain. He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. He wiped off the blood and stared at it drying across the back of his hand. “I ... think I’m hurt inside.” There was barely controlled hysteria in his voice. He coughed again and shuddered. “My wife, she wanted me ... to stay home this morning...” He shut his eyes tightly. “I’ve got to patch the roof.” He opened his eyes and looked pleadingly at Julia. “I’ve got to patch the roof, don’t you understand!“

“I’m driving as fast as I can. Which way do I turn down there?”

“ ... turn right.”

“We’ll be to a doctor just as soon as I can get there.”

She slowed down and turned onto the concrete slab of the super-highway.

Then she slammed the car to a full stop; she backed up out of the line of traffic, back onto the cross road. She cut the motor.

Julia had felt the bridge in her mind snap shut. Instantly even the most obscure brain compartment was open to her. Fatigue vanished. She was alert; she was able to think with great clarity.

The lightning recovery of herself forced a series of ever widening implications to her attention; in a blinding flash of insight she was (perhaps actually for the first time) aware of the degree to which she could transform society.

Given time, she--she alone--like the magician Prospero in The Tempest could create some paradise of cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces and solemn temples and winding brooks and crisp channels and green lands that need never (the Calibans being transmuted by power beyond the lust for power) dissolve into air, thin air, leaving not a cloud behind.

If all the people were as she, the great globe of the world could become an enchanted island: with wars and bloodshed and prejudice and inhumanity forgotten.

Some such was her thought. It washed over her, the vision, and vanished in the acute reality of the moment. Such a dream was athwart the invasion plan of the aliens.

She was out of the car. She was opening the rear door. She stood at Walt’s head. He’ll have to help me, she thought, he has information I want.

She felt for the pattern of his body. She experienced it. Concentrating with the full force of the human brain, she began to mend the breaks and ruptures and wounds.

It took time.

Don’t reheal his mutant bridge, she thought. Leave him defanged.

His jaw returned to its socket. The dried blood on his skin no longer led from vicious gashes: they had closed and were knitting.

She was finished. He was still unconscious.

Even as she turned to heal the farmer, a section of her brain drew conclusions from the fact she could be relieved of her powers. Some outside force was responsible for holding the bridge closed in her mind. It could be turned on and off.

But why, when the force controlling her bridge had vanished, had Walt’s bridge remained intact? She reviewed all the information she had.

There are two compartments of mutants on the alien ship.

Then each compartment must have its own ... frequency. The aliens selected Walt, she thought, to kill me because his bridge operated on a different frequency than mine.

Speechless the farmer had watched her heal Walt; now he relaxed under the soothing fingers of her thought. He felt the bone in his arm being made whole again.

He no longer needed to cough.

She tried to create a bridge in his brain; but she could not; it was outside the pattern. If she were to give him one, it would require surgery.

She was once again in the seat beside him.

“You’re a, you’re an angel,” he said. Awe made his voice hollow. “I’ll be God damned if you’re not an honest to Jesus, real live angel.”

“I’m human.”

“ ... you couldn’t be.”

“Well, I am.”

He frowned, “ ... lady, after what I just seen you do, I’ll believe it if you say so. You just tell me, I’ll believe it.”

“I’ve got to get into San Francisco. I’ll have to leave you. You can catch a ride or something.”

He scrambled out of the car.

Impulsively Julia reached in her handbag for a bill. She found one. “Here,” she said, thrusting it on him, “this is for your milk.”

The farmer took it automatically. He put it in his wallet and put the wallet back in his overalls without bothering to watch what he was doing. He was watching her.

If they’re all as easy to convert as he is ... she thought.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?” she said.

“If you’re human, what am I?”

“We’re not quite the same,” Julia said. “Maybe some day we will be...”

She wheeled onto the super-highway and headed toward San Francisco.

She switched on the automatic-drive and turned her attention to Walt.

She was unable to awaken him. After such a severe shock as he had experienced, his nervous system demanded rest; he no longer had the recuperative powers of a mutant.

Even if I alert Earth, she thought what can we do? How can we prepare? I could ... but I’m only one. They’d gang up on me and kill me in a minute ... Earth will fight; at least we won’t give up. I’ll have to get us as ready as I can, and we’ll fight.

I need Walt. What kind of weapons will we be up against? Where will the invasion strike first? When? He’ll have scraps of information that I can put together to tell me more than he thinks he knows.

How can I convince him to help me?

... if I’ve figured it out right, there’s got to be records somewhere. Birth certificates, things like that. If I’m right about babies being missing the year of the last big saucer scare, there’s got to be birth certificates. I’ll check newspaper files in San Francisco.

If I can just find Walt’s birth certificate! That will convince him!

She thought about the space station floating somewhere in the sky; she tried to picture the aliens who manned it.

God knows how, she thought, but we’ll fight!

In the space station, the aliens were in conference.

There can’t be any doubt but that she’s dead, Forential projected.

Your Walt is a good one, Lycan thought. Best mutant on the ship.