Morgan: We had no way to identify ourselves.
War: Do you have any way to identify yourself now? Some of our people have been willing to turn traitor for the sake of their future safely.
Morgan: Don’t you think I could have picked an easier way?
President: Gentlemen, please! Joseph Morgan has been thoroughly interrogated by our experts and they are satisfied. Mr. Morgan has been in conference at his base with a Dr. Montclair, an endocrinologist of international reputation. He brings us a proposal which I, at first, refused to countenance. Its cost is enormous. But it may end this stalemate. I ask you to listen to him. I could not make this decision by myself. I have not the courage.
Finance: This is not a stalemate. This is slow defeat. I will favor any plan, no matter how costly, which will give us a shred of hope.
Morgan: I’ll outline the plan and then give you Montclair’s reasoning.
Winter war. December has blanketed the cast with a thin wet curtain of snow. Winter is hard on the irregulars, but works no hardship on the troops of the Invader. The vast food stocks of the nation are his, as are the warm barracks, the heated vehicles, the splendid medical care.
A guerrilla with a shattered ankle dies miserably in the cold brush, near the blasted fragments of the house in which he took shelter.
The cities are thinned of people. For the first time it is noticeable. The last emotional debauch took five millions. Now there are thirty millions left. They have a breathing spell.
Invader troops are given leave in the cities. They go armed. They sample the wines, flirt with the women and sing their barbaric songs and gawp at the huge trenches which were dug to bury the dead of the cities.
Once again there is light arid heat in the cities. The winter is cruel, but there is heat. And there is foodstuffs in the markets, though not enough. Not nearly enough.
Were it warm summer, possibly the adjusted would leave their cities, would go into the countryside to be away from the places of horror. In the south and in California they try to leave, are roughly herded back by the Invader who seems to say, “Stay in the traps I have prepared for you and die there.”
This is a policy decreed by a man named Lewsto who, high in the councils of the Invader, walks with pigeon tread and squared shoulders, the new and highest medal of his country shining on the left breast of the drab uniform.
Cyclical nightmare. The slow upward climb toward crescendo has begun once again, and no man looks squarely into the face of his neighbor, knowing that he will see there some of the fear and horror that has coldly touched his heart. And yet, each man and woman has a secret place which revels in the thought of the nightmare to come. It is like an addiction to a strange drug. Nightmare there must be, and death there must be, but with guttural shouts of animal joy, with a wild, unheeding passion of insane laughter, when consequences are not considered, nor are the customary mores and folkways.
Each adjusted person in the city feels shame in his heart because, though he knows that pure nightmare lies ahead, nightmare which he may not survive, he yet anticipates it with a certain warm and soiled sense of expectancy.
This, then, is the conquered country, the proud race, the men who know defeat, and yet cling to the manner of their defeat, an overripe fruit, plucked once each month.
In a silent cabin Alice sits at the rude table and the glow of the lantern highlights the strong cheekbones, the limpid mouth, and she is beautiful indeed.
Dr. Montclair sits opposite her. Quickly he touches her hand. “He will make it, Alice. I know he made it.”
“He’s gone. That’s all I know. Somebody else could have gone. But he had to go?”
In the brush there is the quick and angry spat of a rifle, the answering sound of an automatic weapon, like some vast fabric being torn, the fabric of the night.
As Montclair takes the weapon propped against his chair, she quickly blows out the lantern and, together in the darkness, they listen.
Hoarse shouts from the brush, the authoritative crump of a mortar, alarmingly close, a scarlet blossom against which each bare twig stands out with the bland clarity of death.
“They’re coming in from both sides,” she whispers.
The rifle fire fades and slugs grind against the cabin walls, throwing splinters that whine.
Montclair is on his belly on the porch, Alice behind him in the doorway. As they come running across the slope toward the porch, running with the heavy thump of men in full equipment, Montclair sprays a line of fire across them. Many fall, but the others rush the porch. She fires again and again, seeing Montclair die suddenly, firing until the hand slaps the rifle away.
She is thrust into a corner and there are six of them in the room, seeming to fill the cabin. The lantern is lit and they look at her and talk among themselves and she knows that she should have saved one of the rifle bullets.
Two of them advance toward her slowly. They spin and snap to attention as the officer enters. He looks at her, snaps something at the men. Then, with surprising gentleness be lifts her to her feet. He leads her up through the brush to the waiting vehicle. She turns and whimpers in her throat as she sees through the black lace work of trees, the flower of flame that grows from the cabin.
Every remaining plane is committed to the venture. Every last one.
Brave men have managed, somehow, to set up the short wave radios behind the Invader lines.
The teams are carefully instructed. And there are several teams for each portion of the venture, as losses will be high.
At last the word conies. The great emotional springs are once again winding taut. The word comes. “Today the Invader moved all personnel out of the cities.”
Joe Morgan, burdened with sixty pounds of equipment, climbed laboriously into the belly of the transport. The interior of the aircraft was dark. Cigarette ends glowed and the men laughed with the calculated steadiness of men who are gambling life itself.
The officer stood in the doorway and said: “Team Eighty-two?”
Joe answered, “Eighty-two, Morgan commanding. All present and accounted for.”
The officer jumped down and the big door slammed. The huge cavern in the side of the mountain reverberated to the roar of many motors. The very air shook and quivered with the vibration. Outside the dozers were dragging the rocks off the runway.
At last the cave doors were rolled back. The first transports rumbled awkwardly to the doorway, gaining speed, gaining agility, moving out, roaring along the runway, lifting off into the night.
Team Eighty-two was airborne and Joe, squinting through the side window saw the streaked jets of the fighter cover.
The scene was duplicated at other hidden fields.
Ten minutes before interception on the basis of radar watch over the mountains.
Interception came. Invader pursuit ships were dark lances in the night. Distant flames, like weak candles, blossomed briefly and were gone in a red line of fire toward the sleeping earth.
The lumbering transport weaved heavily through the night, and Joe Morgan sat in a cold agony of fear.
From time to time he glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch. At last he said loudly, over the motor roar: “Fasten static lines.”
He reached up and snapped his own, tugged on it to test it.
Ten minutes, twelve, fifteen. The wing lifted and the transport slipped down, down, to where the city lights glimmered through the overcast. Spiraling down.
The plane seemed to brake in the air as the flaps caught hold, seemed to waver on the very edge of instability.
The wind was a shrill blast through the open door. “What are you doing here, Morgan?” Joe asked himself softly.