"I tried to call you," I said, "where were you?"
"Yes-I felt the damned thing buzzing in my pocket; as it happened, it wasn't practical for me to speak just then. When I tried you, I got no reply."
"I've been busy; guess I missed your buzz."
There was a moment's silence. "So you were mixed up in whatever it is that's got them running about like ants in a stirred hill?"
"Maybe. I want to see you. Meet me in town-at the Club."
"Is that safe, John?"
"Never mind. Get started; half an hour." I broke off. Down below, the house was a silent block of moonwhitened masonry; a low-slung sports car squatted by the front door. Foreshortened trees cast ink-black shadows on the gravel drive.
The front door opened, closed quickly. Felix's tall, lean figure came down the steps, reached the car in three strides. He slid into the seat, started up, backed quickly, headed off along the curving way. His lights came on, dimmed.
"All right, that's far enough," I said. "I just wanted to be sure you were there, and alone." Below, the car slowed, pulled to the side of the road. I saw Felix craning his neck, his face a white blob in the pale light.
"It's that serious, eh, John? Right. Shall I go back to the house?"
"Put the car in the drive and get out."
I dropped lower, watching him comply. I gained fifty feet upwind, curved in so that the wind would bring me across the drive. Felix stopped the car by the front door, stepped out, stood, hands in pockets, looking around as though deciding whether it was a nice enough night for a stroll.
I corrected my course, dropped lower; I was ten feet above the dry lawn now, sweeping toward him silently at fifteen miles an hour. His back was toward me. At the last instant, he started to turn-just as my toe caught him behind the ear in a neatly placed kick. He leaped forward, fell headlong, and lay face down, arms outflung. I dropped to the drive, shut down the field, stood with the gun ready in my hand, watching him.
The impact had been about right-not the massive shock of slamming against whatever it was that had masqueraded as General Julius-or the metal-shearing wrench that had torn the door handle from the car.
I walked toward him, knelt cautiously, rolled him over. His mouth was half open, his eyes shut. I took the sheath knife from my knee pouch, jabbed him lightly in the side; the flesh seemed reassuringly tender. I took his limp hand and pricked it. The skin broke; a bead of blood appeared, black in the dim light.
I sheathed the knife with a hand that shook. "Sorry, Felix," I muttered. "I had to be sure you weren't machined out of spring steel, like a couple of other people I've met this evening."
Inside, I laid Felix out on a low divan in the dark room, put a cold damp cloth on his forehead, and waved a glass of plum brandy under his nose. There was a bluish swelling behind his ear, but his pulse and respiration were all right. Within a minute he was stirring, making vague, swimming motions, and then suddenly sitting up, eyes open, his hand groping toward his underarm holster.
"It's all right, Felix," I said. "You had a bump on the head, but you're among friends."
"Some friends." He put a hand up, touched the bruise, pronounced a couple of Arabic curses in a soft voice. "What the devil's up, John? I let you out of my sight for an hour or two, and the whole damned official apparatus goes into a Condition Red flap."
"I used the gear. I tracked a Bolo down a side trail, about three miles off the battle map. I saw things-things I'm going to have trouble telling you about."
Felix was looking at me keenly. "Take it easy, old man. You look as though you'd had a bit of a shaking." He got to his feet, wavered for a moment, went across to the bar.
"No lights," I said.
"Who're we hiding out from?" He got out glasses and a bottle, poured, came back and sat down. He raised his glass.
"Confusion to the enemy," he said. I took a sip, then a gulp. The Scotch felt as smooth as cup grease.
"I'll try to take it in order," I said. "I watched the tank stop; the driver got out-and fell on his face."
"No shots, signs of gas, anything of that sort?"
"Nothing. I was fifty feet away, and felt nothing, smelled nothing, saw nothing. Of course the field-"
"Wouldn't stop a gas, or a vibratory effect. Was there any fluorescing of the field interface?"
I shook my head, went on with my story. Felix listened quietly until I mentioned the poisoned dart I had fired.
His face fell like a bride's cake. "You must have missed."
"After about two minutes, it got the message; yelped a few times, chased its tail, had a modest fit, and died."
"My God! The thing must have the metabolism of a rock crusher. Two minutes, you say?"
"Yep." I went on with the story. When I finished, he frowned thoughtfully.
"John, are you sure-"
"Hell, I'm not sure of anything. The easiest hypothesis is that I'm out of my mind. In a way, I'd prefer that." I fumbled, brought out the ear I had cut from the dead alien.
"Here, take a look at this and then tell me I sawed it off poor Bowser, who just wanted me to play with his rubber rat."
Felix took the two-inch triangle of coarse-haired gristle, peered at it in the near-dark. "This is from the thing in the canyon?"
"That's right." I tried another pocket, found the printed hieroglyphics I had taken from the creature's pouch. "And this. Maybe it's a simple Chinese laundry list-or a Turkish recipe for goulash. Maybe I'm having delusions on a grand scale."
Felix stood. "John…" He eyed me sharply. "What you've turned up calls for special measures. We can't take chances now-not until we know what it is we're up against. I'm going to let you in on a secret I've sworn to protect with my life."
He led me to a back room, moved a picture, pressed unmarked spots on the wall. A trap slid back in the floor.
"This is the Hole," he said. "Even the CBI doesn't know about it. We'll be sure of avoiding interruption there."
"Felix-who do you work for?"
He held up the severed ear. "Suffice it to say-I'm against the owner of this."
I nodded. "I'll settle for that."
Three hours later, Felix switched off the light in the laboratory and led me into a comfortable lounge room with teak paneling, deep chairs, a businesslike bar, and wide pseudowindows with a view of a moonlit garden, which helped to dispel the oppressive feeling of being two hundred feet down. I sat in one of the chairs and looked around me.
"Felix, who built this place? Somehow, this doesn't look like a government-furnished installation to me. You've got equipment in that lab that's ahead of anything I've seen. And you're not as surprised at what I've told you as you ought to be."
He leaned over and slapped me on the knee, grinning his Mephistophelean grin. "Buck up, Johnny. I sent you out to find an explanation of something. You've found it-with bells on. If it takes a few devil-dogs from Mars to tie it all together, that's not your fault."
"What the hell did I stumble into last night?"
He finished mixing drinks, sat down across from me, rubbing the side of his jaw. The air-conditioners made a faint hum in the background.
"It's the damnedest tissue I've ever examined. Almost a crystalline structure. And the hairs! There are metallic fibers in them; incredibly tough. The fluid was a regular witches' brew; plenty of cyanoglobin present." He paused. "Something out of this world, to coin a phrase."
"In other words, we've been invaded?"
"That's one way to put it-unless someone's invited them." He put his glass on the table at his elbow, leaned forward.
"We know now that whatever it was that was attached to the ear is responsible for the disappearance of men from battlefields-and other places. From the number of such incidents, we can surmise that there are hundreds-perhaps thousands-of these creatures among us."
"Why hasn't anybody seen them?"