Earth Has Been Found (6 page)

It was the Ilyushin story all over again: in a word, inexplicable. Finally, the chief of the investigation team phoned. The examination of
Papa
Kilo
was not yet completed, but nothing had been found so far.

Malin and Arcasso were left alone in the smoke-filled room. Empty glasses littered the long coffee table, ashtrays overflowed, reports littered the floor. Arcasso sprawled on a couch, dipping now and then into the papers, reading, making notes. Malin was exhausted and sat quietly in a lounge chair, trying to unwind with a cigarette.

With a sudden gesture of disgust, Arcasso threw a report onto the carpet Malin broke the silence.

“There’s not the faintest chance we’ll stop this story, Frank. We have to let those people go. All we’ve gained is a few hours.”

“D’you think I don’t know that? Why d’you think I pulled Joe’s time warp gag?”

Malin rocked gently back and forth, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “A statement has to be released by the Defense Department.”

“Not before we get the passengers home,” warned Arcasso. “If the TV boys get wind of this … ”

“Yeah.” Malin got up. “The big boss isn’t gonna care for this.”

“Who is?” Arcasso mashed a cigar butt savagely. “But he’s had long enough to argue about Joe’s time warp story. D’you have a better idea?”

“We could tell the truth.”

Arcasso regarded him thoughtfully. “You don’t mean that — you know we can’t! Imagine the President getting up and saying ‘Sorry, folks, we don’t know who or what causes ICARUS — but it ain’t us, or the Russians, or any human agency’!”

“The President can stay out of this,” Malin retorted, “the Pentagon takes the rap — we might need the Big Man if there’s another Event. Christ — that would be a
real
jam!”

“Alvin, we’re in the biggest jam in history, right now! Stop playing devil’s advocate; you know we have to stick to the story, no matter what.” He broke out a fresh cigar. “So the Treasury is out a few million bucks, and we get a little more egg on our face — what’s that compared with the effect the truth would have? Christ! — then the shit would really hit the fan!”

Malin shied away from the possibility. Arcasso was right; the immediate future looked grim enough without unleashing further hysteria. “I’m off to the local office; anything you want passed to Washington?”

“No. I have to stay here — fix the oldsters’ transportation, talk with the airline, and have a read close look at that plane.”

“Okay. I’d better get over to Abdera and fix a little discreet surveillance. Having these poor souls in one place is just about our only lucky break. Abdera Hollow — sounds like a real dump.”

“Huh! By tomorrow night it’ll be the most famous place on earth!”

*

Arcasso did not get to look at
Papa
Kilo
until later that afternoon. By then his team had found what he had dreaded.

Eleven small holes, each two millimeters in diameter, their distribution random. None in the wings, engines, or freight holds. Otherwise, the search had produced nothing.

Eleven holes, the only clue …

But clue to what? He’d have expected eleven holes of that size to have reduced cabin pressure to the point where safety circuits would have been activated and the oxygen masks would have dropped — yet they hadn’t. Why? Was the pressure reduction not enough — or had the transition been too fast? Speed. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe not …

XI.

Few citizens saw Malin come or go, but those that met him remembered his visit. He began by shaking the sheriff out of his backwoods lethargy — a real live FBI man in
Abdera
?

Malin was much less impressed. He put the fear of God into the lawman about security and warned him not to trip over any FBI boys. Armed with Mark Freedman’s address, he set out for the doctor’s office.

As he apologized to Freedman for his unheralded visit, Malin produced his ID card, which modestly described him as a “senior official.” Telling the doctor his fantastic story, he began with the part he liked least, CIA Joe’s time warp; thereafter he stuck to the facts about the Jumbo. He explained selectively, ending with the assurance that the bureau, acting for a research agency — too secret to be named — was mainly motivated by a desire for the well-being of
Papa
Kilo’s
passengers.

After a careful check of the ID card, Freedman had sat back and listened, nodding his head from time to time in sharp, birdlike movements, his eyes roving over his visitor’s face, missing nothing.

“Incredible!” said Freedman when Malin had finished, “quite incredible … You have a flight list?”

While Freedman scanned the list, Malin studied him, evaluating the sensitive mouth, the high-bridged nose, the dark eyes behind heavy spectacles: a man of intellect, decisive, firm. If his professional abilities matched his attitude and appearance, what was he doing in a hole like Abdera?

Freedman looked up quickly, interrupting Malin’s reverie. He tapped the flight list, and Malin noted the strong, slender hands, as sensitive as the face. Freedman slid the paper back across the desk.

“Yes, they’re all mine — except this last one. Not local.” He spoke with complete certainty.

Malin checked. The last name was that of the dead man. “You’re right, doctor. My error.” He crossed the name out and returned the list. “What we want is for you to keep an eye on them. If you see anything unusual, we’d like to know. A retainer will be paid, plus expenses.”

“You say ‘unusual.’ That’s not very specific.”

“Because we can’t be specific. We’ve got no idea what to expect — this has never happened before.” The penetrating look he got left Malin with the uncomfortable feeling that Freedman recognized the lie. “You have to judge.”

“Surely the medical advisors of the agency you represent have reached some conclusion?”

“For obvious reasons, we can’t include anyone in Abdera Hollow,” said Malin evasively; a fraction late he saw the trap and countermoved swiftly. “But don’t think they could give you any more background than I can. The evidence suggests the subjects went into a state of nonbeing, all their physical and mental functions suspended. None of the men, for instance, needed to shave; no subject complained of thirst or hunger. But the plain fact remains they existed out of time for three months.”

“Yes … ” Freedman sat quite still, his expression revealing nothing. “Okay,” he said at last, speaking quickly, “I’ll act for you — with one proviso; my patients’ interests come first. If, in my opinion, there is a clash of interests, they take precedence.”

“The Hippocratic oath, eh?” Malin smiled. “We wouldn’t want it any other way.” He looked at his watch. “Naturally we will count on your discretion, professionally and otherwise. Here’s my card. If you’ve got anything to say, call one of these numbers. If it’s urgent, call the number I’ve underlined. Ask for me and give your name — that’ll get you through the barricades. Failing that, ask for the Special Operations Room — they’ll know about you.”

He got up and they shook hands. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, doctor. Don’t get me wrong, but I hope we don’t have to meet again.”

*

If the travelers had hailed from New York City, their return from the dead would have had a considerable impact, even on what is the loneliest city in the world. The Event paralyzed Abdera Hollow.

With all preparations made that they could think of, the FBI lifted the Denver telephone ban at 10 A.M. the next day and chaos began. Within minutes of the first call to Abdera, a stringer rang the local paper in Binghamton. Other calls convinced the editor that something mighty strange was afoot in Abdera, something worth checking out. Two hours later, his excited reporter called and the whole press and TV bandwagon started to roll, avid for the news break of the century. A TV team flew in by helicopter from New York, arriving at Albany County Airport just as the travelers were moving from plane to bus. Every news agency cluttered the lines to Washington. All government PR men had been warned to expect this. They stonewalled: A statement would be “issued shortly” by the Pentagon.

It was difficult to believe that all the commotion centered on a single busload of elderly folk, winding its way up the old road from Interstate 87. They sat amazed at the familiar yet fantastic sight of snow, dramatic evidence that they had indeed lost three months of their lifespan.

Bewildered and apprehensive, they were unaware of the inquisition which awaited them, the accidental fame which would briefly be theirs.

But for the unthinking — the bulk of humanity — the news did surprisingly little, particularly abroad, where many equated the matter with flying saucers. In any case it had occurred in America, where weird things happened all the time. No, the time travelers were less than a nine days’ wonder. Men on the moon, UFO’s, life on Mars — what would they think of next?

For many U.S. citizens, the Pentagon’s announcement of the “accidental entrapment of a civilian plane in a classified experiment in chrono-spatial relationships” put the affair in a vaguely understandable context: The Defense Department was fooling around again. Once it had been the Manhattan Project — which, admittedly, hastened the end of a war a long way back, but went on to produce the most expensive, deadly, and unusable firecracker in history. Then there was Fort Detrick with its equally deadly biological weapons, also rated unusable. And what good came of the space program, nonstick frying pans excepted?

So thought most people over thirty-five, and the older they were the more they thought that way. Twentieth century man, raised on crises and horrors, miracles and marvels, has been practically immunized against anything that fails to touch him personally.

Among the young, whose brains tend to be less ossified, there was intense interest. Campus protests erupted across the country, demanding that “the security wraps be taken off research of such fundamental importance and fantastic implications” — but for once the media were not deaf to presidential pleas, and the young people received minimal coverage.

Scientific and science fiction circles were amazed and totally baffled. Among scientists, the burning question was how it was done — and, that answered, who was doing it. Did no one have the faintest idea where the Research and Development had gone on, or who had been involved in it? Without the solid evidence of the Jumbo, most men of learning would have dismissed the whole affair out of hand.

*

It was elsewhere, chiefly in the Third World, that political reaction was strongest. Several heads of state, never famous for benevolence to their own people, raised holy hell at this latest example of capitalistic infringement on human rights. The imperialistic hawks, they screamed, admitted the Jumbo incident had been a mistake; a non-American airplane could as easily have been the victim of their irresponsible activities. A powerful lobby demanded and got an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly.

Hardly anything kills popular interest in a topic as quickly as discussion in the UN. A football score gets more attention than a whole month of the General Assembly’s deliberations. The man in the street hardly knew of the Jumbo debate, and if he knew he didn’t care.

But there was one curious feature in the so-called debate. The Soviet bloc took no part in lambasting the U.S., and, along with most of the Western world, abstained from voting. The resolution was passed, but the massive abstentions rendered it, even by UN standards, a waste of time.

The Soviet attitude puzzled Washington and the ICARUS Ten. They had told the Soviet Seven in advance of the time warp cover plan, and expected the Russians to make what capital they could in debate. Yet …

The reason became obvious a few days later. A second-lead article in
Pravda
casually referred to the ideological aspect of Soviet space-time thought. There followed a great deal of indigestible prose; but for those that sifted through the dross, a few nuggets of gold emerged, notably a reference to “the need for Soviet pioneers in this new field to found their labors on sound Marxist-Leninist principles.”

Whatever it conveyed to
Pravda’s
native readers, its significance was not lost on Western intelligence: rather coyly, the USSR had let it be known they too were in the time warp business. To the ICARUS Ten it meant something else. Either the Soviets were giving them discreet backing, or they were taking care not to be upstaged by the U.S. in the possession of this entirely contrived power.

Either way the ICARUS Committee was satisfied. The prime, fearful question remained unanswered, but at least the Jumbo incident, if not closed, was under control. The President, who had some private pull with the Fourth Estate, got the cooperation of the media.

Neither he nor anyone else could stop enterprising free-lance investigators from probing for the secret of the fantastic time warp machine, but the committee lost no sleep over the efforts of these diligent reporters. The real secret was that the machine didn’t exist.

A few of the time travelers wrote pieces for the press — “My Lost Three Months” was one of the better titles — but few were published or featured on TV. None of them had anything sensational to say. Government lawyers were in the process of negotiating out-of-court settlements of claims, but small cash advances had been made. That helped to keep everybody happy — and quiet.

The committee remained watchful and apprehensive, hoping against hope that there would be no more Events, comforted by the fact that no other planes had vanished in ICARUS conditions. They were also pleased that no word had come from Mark Freedman. The Soviet silence regarding the Ilyushin’s crew cast a small shadow, but with so much else to sweat about the subject was not pursued.

If anyone had asked Frank Arcasso, Alvin Malin, or CIA Joe how he felt about ICARUS, the answers could have been summed up in two words: worried and frightened.

They had no way of knowing how much worse things were about to become.