Overhead, the scout plane rotated its jets and secured itself directly above the quarry. The quarry had come to rest on the roof of a long-abandoned warehouse. It was virtually invisible; nobody knew how long it had lain there, drying and cracking in the hot sunlight, sweating cold drops of mist during the long nights. It had just now been detected by one of the periodic aerial flights over the town.
It was a big one.
"God," the field telephone gasped, as the scout plane gingerly lowered itself. "It's a granddaddy. It's big as a barn. Must be old as hell."
The red-headed leader didn't answer; he was cautiously scanning the side of the warehouse, looking for a ladder to the roof. Finally he made it out: a fire-escape ladder that ended ten feet from the pavement.
"Get those boxes," he ordered one of his men. "Those trash boxes over in that alley."
Two men broke away from the line; handing their flashlights to others behind them, they trotted across the silent street. It was late, well past midnight. The factory district of Omaha Falls was forbidding and deserted. Far off, a car motor sounded. Now and then somebody in the tautly-watching crowd coughed or sneezed or murmured. None of them spoke out loud; rapt, fascinated, with an almost religious awe, they watched the men drag the trash boxes over and stack them under the ladder.
A moment later the red-headed man leaped up, caught the last rung, and dragged the ladder down.
"There you go," the field telephone said, in the hands of one of his men. "Be careful when you get up on the roof... it's right at the edge."
"Is it alive?" the red-headed man demanded, momentarily taking back the field telephone.
"Think so. It stirred a little, but it's weak."
Satisfied, the red-headed man snatched up the ten-gallon drum of gasoline and climbed the ladder. Under his strong fingers the metal was sweaty. Grunting, he continued on, past the second floor of the warehouse, past the gaping, broken holes that had been windows. A few indistinct shapes filled the building; obsolete war machinery rusting and discarded. Now he was almost at the roof. Halting, he held on for a moment, getting his wind and examining the situation.
The lip of the roof was visible. To his nostrils came the faint pungent scent of the drifter; the odor of drying flesh that he had come to know so well. He could almost see it. With great caution he climbed one more rung; now it was clearly visible.
The drifter was the largest he had seen. It lay across the roof of the warehouse, folded and wadded in thick layers. One edge dripped loosely over the side; if he wished, he could reach out his hand and touch it. But he didn't wish. Frightened, he involuntarily pulled back. He hated even to look at them, but he had to. Sometimes, he had to touch them; and once, one dreadful time, he had slipped and fallen into one, found himself half-buried in the quivering mass of protoplasm.
"How's it look?" a man below shouted up.
"Fine."
"Is it big?"
"Very." The red-headed man poised himself expertly and craned his neck. The drifter looked old and noticeably yellow: its fluid had turned an aged opaque, discoloring the asphalt roof beneath. It was quite thin, of course; each layer was only a fraction of an inch thick. And it was alien. A foreign, unfamiliar life form, dropped from the sky onto the roof of this warehouse. His gorge rose up in his throat and almost choked him. Turning away, he bent down and fumbled with the lid of the gasoline drum.
The gasoline had been strewn over the roof and the match applied, when the first police ship came screaming down, past the slow scout plane, directly at the roof.
The crowd scattered; the scout plane scuttled off. Standing in the safety of the shadows, the red-headed man perceived that the fire could not be put out. A police fire-ship squirted futile foam for awhile and then retired. The fire-ship hesitated, then dropped below roof-level, to halt the blaze from spreading downward. The drifter itself had already perished. Once, the drying cadaver shivered and sent flaming bits of itself showering down on the pavement. Rapidly, it curled, shriveled, oozed out its life-fluids, and degenerated. A shrill high-pitched squeal echoed up and down the street; its living sap was protesting mindlessly against the fire. Then the remaining tissue charred and disintegrated into smoking fragments. The fire-ship hoisted itself, squirted a few perfunctory times, and then retreated.
"That's it," the red-headed man said into his field telephone. He felt and deep and lasting satisfaction, knowing that he personally had killed the alien life form. "Now we can get going."
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON THE brightly-lit stage colorful shapes danced and gestured. The costumed figures sang lustily, bustily; scenery glimmered with a high sparkle: a small square of brilliance cut in the far end of the hall. The third act was coming to an end. All the characters were on stage; with infinite precision they gave forth their melodic lines. In the pit, the orchestra—classical and exact—labored furiously.
Dominating the opera loomed the aged, wallowing figure of Gaetano Tabelli, long past his prime but still a splendid singer and actor. Purple-faced, near-sighted, the fabulous Tabelli waddled about the stage, an expression of dumbfounded bewilderment on his huge wrinkled features, struggling grotesquely to find his way through the maze of shadows that made up the world of Beaumarchais. Peering through his eye-glass, Tabelli grossly scrutinized his fellows, bellowing all the while in his vast, familiar, booming bass-baritone. A greater Don Bartolo there never was. And never would be. This performance, this zenith of consummate operatic staging, dramatic force, and perfected vocal artistry, had been frozen for ail time. Tabelli was dead, now, ten years. The bright figures on the stage were scrupulous robot imitations.
But even so, the performance was wholly convincing. Relaxed and comfortable in his deep chair, Cussick watched with passive appreciation. He enjoyed Le Nozze Di Figaro. He had seen Tabelli many times; he had never become tired of the great performer's finest role. And he enjoyed the gay costumes, the uninterrupted flow of lyrical melody, the pink-cheeked chorus singing peasant interludes for all they were worth. The music and phantasmagoria of colors had gradually put him in a soporific state. Dreaming, half-asleep, he leaned back in his seat and happily absorbed it all.
But something was wrong.
Awakened, he pulled himself upright. Beside him, Nina sat slumped in rapt satisfaction; her mood was unbroken. Before he realized what he was doing, he had slid to his feet.
Blinking, Nina broke out of her trance. "What?" she whispered, astonished. He made a silencing motion and pushed his way down the row to the aisle. A moment later he was plodding stonily past rows of attentive faces to the carpeted steps in the rear, and the packed standing room. There he paused to take one final look at the stage.
The feeling remained, even at this distance. He stepped past the calcified ushers and reached the lobby. There, in the now empty, carpeted vault that still smelled of cigar smoke and women's perfume, he halted and lit a fresh cigarette.
He was the only person in the whole deserted lobby. Behind him, through the half-open doors, rang the sounds and voices and the sweet fluttering whirr of a Viennese symphony orchestra. Vaguely irritated, he prowled around. His restlessness remained; and it hadn't been helped by the quick glare of disapproval that had hardened on Nina's face. He had seen it before; he knew what it meant. Explanations were going to be needed. He winced at the thought.
How could he explain?
Beyond the lobby of the opera house stretched the night street, sunk in desolate stillness. On the far side were deserted office buildings, black and empty, locked up for the week-end. The entrance of one glowed; a night-light flickered dully. In the concrete well lay heaps of rubbish blown there by the night wind. Posters, scraps of paper, urban trash of various lands. Even from where he stood, insulated by thick plate glass doors, by the descending flight of concrete steps, by the wide sidewalk and street itself, Cussick could make out the letters on a crumpled poster.