Invaders From Earth Read online

  Invaders From Earth

  Robert Silverberg

  This is a novel of sophisticated government deception in the near future, an exploration of political corruption. Written in 1957 when Silverberg was 22, the novel is cynical and highly suspenseful.

  Invaders From Earth

  by Robert Silverberg

  For Boggs and Grennell—

  The Deans of Science Fiction

  1

  Ted Kennedy had a premonition the night before. It came, as so many premonitions do, in the form of a dream. Guns blazed, innocent people died, fire spread over the land. Looming thermonuclear mushrooms hung in the skies. He stirred fitfully, sighed, nearly awoke, and sank back into sleep. But when morning came he felt pale and weary; he ended the insistent buzz of the alarm with an impatient wrist-snap and dangled his legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes. The sound of splashing water told him that his wife was already awake and in the shower.

  He had never awakened easily. Still groggy, he shambled across the bedroom to the cedar chest, groped for his robe, and headed for the kitchen. He punched buttons on the autocook, setting up breakfast. One of these mornings, he thought wryly, he’d be so sleepy he’d order steak sandwiches on toast instead of the usual bacon.

  Marge was out of the shower and drying herself with all her awesome early-morning vigor when he returned to the bedroom to dress. “Breakfast up?” she asked.

  Kennedy nodded and fumbled in the closet for his best suit, the dark green one with red lace trim. He would need to look good today; whatever the conference on Floor Nine was, it was bound to be important, and it wasn’t every day a third-level public relations man got summoned to Floor Nine.

  “You must have had a bad dream last night,” Marge said suddenly. “I can tell. You’re still brooding over it.”

  “I know. Did I wake you up?”

  She smiled, the bright sudden smile that so astonished him at 5 A.M. They had always been different that way— he the late riser who was still fresh long past midnight; she buoyant and lively from the earliest morning hours till the middle of the evening. “You didn’t wake me up, no. But I can see the dream’s still with you. Tell me about it—and hurry up. You don’t want to miss the car pool.”

  “I dreamed we were at war,” he said.

  “War? With whom?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t remember any of the motivation. But it was a terrible war . . . and I have the nagging feeling we started it.”

  “How could there possibly be a war? Everyone’s at peace, darling! It’s been that way for years. There aren’t going to be any more wars on Earth, Ted.”

  “Maybe not on Earth,” he said darkly.

  He tried to laugh it off, and by the time he had finished breakfast some of the irrational fear-tide had begun to recede. They ate quietly. Kennedy was never much of a breakfast-table conversationalist. It was nearly 6 A.M. by the time they finished and Marge had dumped the dishes into the washer; the sun was rising now over the low Connecticut hills. He finished dressing, tugging at his collar to keep his braided throat-cord from throttling him, and gave his epaulets a light dusting of powdered gold. Marge remained in her gown; she worked at home, designing house furnishings and draperies.

  At 6:18 sharp he was on the porch of his home, and at 6:20 the shiny yellow ’44 Chevrolet-Cadillac drew up outside, Alf Haugen at the wheel. Haugen, a stocky, meaty-faced man with bright sharp eyes, worked at the desk behind Kennedy’s in the Steward and Dinoli office, and this was his week to drive the car-pool auto. Of the six of them, Haugen had by far the best car, and he enjoyed flaunting it.

  Kennedy half-trotted down the walk to Haugen’s car. He glanced back and waved at Marge, noting with some annoyance that she had gone out on the porch wearing only her filmy morning gown. Some of the men in the car were bachelors, and, unlike Haugen, Kennedy didn’t believe in flaunting his treasures openly. Marge was a handsome woman, but he felt no urge to demonstrate that fact to Lloyd Presslie or Dave Spalding, or to any of them for that matter.

  He slid into the back of the car; Presslie and Mike Cameron moved over to make room for him. Haugen nudged the start-button, the turboelectrics thrummed, and the car headed smoothly off toward the city.

  Apparently, Spalding had been in the middle of some joke when they stopped to pick up Kennedy. Now he reached the punch-line and the five of them, everyone in the car but Kennedy, laughed.

  Kennedy disliked Spalding. The slim young fourth-level man lived in the apartment development three miles further along the road; he was unmarried, deeply intense about most subjects, and almost never let anyone know what he might actually be thinking. It was not a trait that endeared him to people, which was probably why he was still only a fourth-level man after three years at Steward and Dinoli. It was no secret that old Dinoli preferred outgoing types, married, in his higher levels.

  “Any of you know anything about the big deal brewing today?” Mike Cameron asked suddenly.

  Kennedy jerked his head to the left “What big deal? Did you get invited to Floor Nine, too?”

  Cameron nodded. “We all were. Even Spalding. I guess Dinoli sent that memo to the whole third and fourth level yesterday afternoon. Something big’s brewing, mark my words, friends!”

  “Maybe the agency’s dissolving,” Lloyd Presslie suggested sourly. “Or maybe Dinoli hired a bunch of top-level men away from Crawford and Burstein and we’re all being bounced down three notches.”

  Haugen shook his head. “It’s some big new account the old man landed. I heard Lucille talking about it near closing time. Whenever you’re in doubt, ask Dinoli’s secretary.” He laughed coarsely. “And if she’s reluctant to spout, pinch her a little.”

  The car swung into the main artery of the Thruway. Kennedy peered pensively out the window at the towns flashing by, a hundred feet below the gleaming white ribbon of the main road. He said little. The thunderburst of H-bombs echoed in his ears, souvenir of the past night’s dreaming, and in any event he still felt drugged by sleep.

  Some big new account Well, even so, that shouldn’t affect him. He had started handling public relations for Federated Bauxite Mines only last week—a long-range project whose ultimate aim was to convince the people of a large Nebraska district that their economy wouldn’t be upset and their water supply polluted by the local aluminum-seekers who had newly invaded their district. He had just scarcely begun preliminary research; they wouldn’t yank him off the account so soon.

  Or would they?

  There was no predicting what Dinoli might do. Public relations was a tricky, fast-moving field, and its province of operations was expanding all the time.

  Kennedy felt strangely tense, and for once the smooth purr of the throbbing generators beneath him failed to ease his nerves.

  It was 6:52 A.M. when Haugen’s car rolled off the Thruway and rode down the long slanting ramp that led into upper Manhattan. At 6:54 the car had reached the corner of 123rd and Lenox, in the heart of the business district The gleaming white tower that housed Steward and Dinoli was before them. They left the car, Haugen turning it over to attendants who would park it on the second floor of the building.

  At 6:57 they were in the elevator; by 6:59, they had reached the front door of Steward and Dinoli, and precisely at 7 A.M. Kennedy and his five car-pool companions were at their desks.

  Kennedy’s working day lasted from 7:00 to 2:30. This year, by city ordinance, public relations and advertising men worked early shift; come January 1, 2045, they would move up an hour to the 8 A.M. group. Only a stagger-system such as this prevented frightful congestion in the enormous city. To have every worker in the city report to his office and leave at the same hour was unthinkable.<
br />
  Kennedy’s desk was neatly arranged, as he had left it yesterday afternoon. The memo from Mr. Dinoli lay pigeon-holed in the catchall to his right; he unspindled it and read through it again.

  Floor Nine 2:12 P.M.

  Dear Theodore: Would you be good enough to come downstairs to my office tomorrow morning, at 9 o’clock or thereabouts? A matter of some urgency is on the docket, and I think you’re one of the men who can help.

  Thanks—and best to your wife. We ought to get together more often socially.

  Lou

  LD:lk

  Kennedy smiled and dropped the note into his ready file. He was hardly fooled by the cheery tone or by the affable “Lou”; Dinoli amused himself by keeping up a first-name relationship with the second- and third-level men, but Kennedy knew he had as much chance of ever seeing the agency head socially as he did of becoming a star center-fielder for a big-league baseball team. There was a certain gulf, and that gulf was never bridged.

  The casual “or thereabouts” in the note was to be ignored, Kennedy knew: he arrived at Floor Nine at 9 A.M. sharp, or else he bounced back to fifth-level in a hurry. You learned punctuality around Dinoli.

  The morning passed slowly; Kennedy was expecting a telestat report on the situation in Nebraska from one of the agency’s field operatives, but this wasn’t due to arrive until one. To kill time, he doodled up a few possible opening gambits for the campaign there, centering them around a standard point of reference: What’s Good For Big Corporations (in this case, Federated Bauxite) Is Very Good For You.

  His mind wasn’t fully on his work, though. By 8:15 he realized be wasn’t going to get anything done on the current project until he’d had that meeting with Dinoli, and he shut up his folders and filed them away. There was no sense working on a project with his mind clogged by anxiety. Public relations was a difficult job and Kennedy took it seriously, as he took most other things.

  At five to nine he shoved back his rollchair, locked his desk, and crossed the floor to Alf Haugen’s desk. Haugen had already shut up shop; there was a look of keen expectancy on his heavy-jowled face.

  “Going down to see Dinoli?” Haugen asked casually.

  Kennedy nodded. “It’s pushing 9 A.M. The old man wouldn’t want us to be late.”

  Together they walked down the brightly lit office, past the empty desks of Cameron and Presslie, who apparently had already gone downstairs. They emerged in the less attractive outer office where the fourth-level men worked, and there Spalding joined them.

  “I guess I’m the only one on my level going,” he whispered confidentially. “None of the others are budging from their desks, and it’s two minutes to nine.”

  They crossed the hall to the elevator bank and snared a downgoing car. Kennedy saw that the four private offices in which the agency’s second-level men worked were dim and unlit; that probably meant they had spent the entire morning with Dinoli.

  Steward and Dinoli occupied four floors of the building. Dinoli’s office (Steward had long since been eased out of control, and indeed out of any connection whatsoever with the firm) was at the bottom of the heap, taking up all of Floor Nine. Floor Ten was the agency’s library and storage vault; Kennedy worked on Eleven, and the fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-level underlings labored in the crowded little cubicles on Floor Twelve.

  The elevator opened into a luxurious oak-paneled foyer on Floor Nine. A smiling secretary, one of Dinoli’s flock of bosomy young females, met them there. “You have an appointment with the chief,” she said, not asking but telling. “Won’t you come this way?”

  She led them, Kennedy first, followed by Haugen and Spalding, through the vast salon which served Dinoli by way of a vestibule and waiting room, then into the narrower corridor where tiny television cameras studied them as they approached. Kennedy heard relays click shut as he went past; the spy-system had passed on him, it seemed.

  Dinoli’s office door was a thick plank of rich-grained oak, in which a tiny gold plaque reading L. D. Dinoli was deeply inset. The door swung open as they drew near.

  The vista thus revealed had always seemed breathtaking to Kennedy. Dinoli’s private office was a room five times as long as it was broad, which seemed to swing away into the reaches of infinity. A giant picture window, always immaculate, gave access to a panoramic view of Manhattan’s bustling streets.

  Dinoli himself sat at the head of a long, burnished table. He was a small, piercing-eyed man of sixty-six, his face lean and fleshless and surmounted by a massive hook of a nose. Wrinkles spread almost concentrically from that mighty nose, like elevation-lines on a geological contour map. Dinoli radiated energy.

  “Ah, gentlemen. Won’t you come in and be seated.” Again, statements, not questions. His voice was a deep black-sounding one, half croak and half boom.

  Immediately at Dinoli’s right and left hands sat the agency’s four second-level men. Dinoli, of course, occupied the lofty eminence of the first level alone. After the second-level boys came those of the third: Presslie, Cameron, and four others. Kennedy took a seat near Cameron, and Haugen slipped in across the table facing him. Spalding sat to Kennedy’s right. He was the only jarring figure in the otherwise neat pyramid, which began with Dinoli, sloped to the four second-level men, and was based on the eight third-level executives.

  “We’re all here, then,” Dinoli said calmly. The clock over his head, just above the upper rim of the picture window, read 9:00:00. It was the only clock Kennedy had ever seen that gave the time in seconds elapsed, as well as minutes and hours. “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet our new clients, if you will.” His clawlike forefinger nudged a button on the elaborate control panel near his hand.

  A rear door opened. Three elegant men in crisp green full-dress executive uniforms entered, stiffly erect, conscious of their rank and bearing. They were cold-eyed, hard-looking men. Poised, mildly contemptuous of their hosts, they stood by the door.

  “Our newest clients,” Dinoli announced. “These gentlemen are from the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation, Ganymede Division.”

  Despite himself, Kennedy shuddered faintly. The image of crashing cities flickered once again before his eyes, and he wondered if perhaps his premonition had held some truth.

  2

  Dinoli looked marvelously proud of himself. His beady eyes darted here and there through the room, fixing on each man at least once, as he prepared to deliver himself of the details of his latest coup.

  Kennedy had to feel a sharp twinge of admiration for the savage old battler. Dinoli had clawed himself to first rank in public relations by sheer vigorous exertion, coupled with some judicious backstabbing; to be affiliated at all with him, whether on third-level or sixth, was a measure of distinction in the field.

  “Executive Second-Level Hubbel of Public Liaison. Executive Second-Level Partridge of Public Liaison. Executive Second-Level Brewster of the Corporation’s Space Expeditionary Command.” Dinoli indicated each of the men with a quick birdlike hand gesture.

  Kennedy studied them. Hubbel and Partridge were obviously desk men, fiftyish, well built and on the stout side, both of them deeply, and probably artificially, tanned. They looked formidably competent.

  Brewster was a different item, though. Short and compact, he was a dark-faced little man who stood ramrod straight, hard, cold eyes peering at the group out of a lean, angular face. He looked tough, and the heavy tan on his cheeks was convincing.

  Of course! Kennedy thought, with a sudden shock of wonder. The space explorer!

  “As members of my staff,” Dinoli said, “you all know well that anything you may be told in the confines of this room is absolutely confidential. I trust that’s understood, gentlemen. Otherwise get out.”

  Thirteen heads went up-down affirmatively.

  “Good. May I say by way of preface that this is perhaps the biggest and most important job Steward and Dinoli has ever handled—perhaps the biggest S and D will ever handle. Every PR firm in the nation was
canvassed for this job before we landed the contract. I needn’t add that successful handling of this new account will result in substantial upward alterations in the individual status increments of those men working on it.”

  Dinoli paused a long moment. The old man was a master of the dramatic approach. He said at length, “To fill you in on the background, first: Executive Brewster has recently returned from a space journey sponsored by his Corporation. The Major was connected with the Mars expedition, of course, and with the less successful Venus mission that preceded it—and I might add that his heroism was a major factor in minimizing losses on the unfortunate Venus encounter. Executive Brewster’s third and most recent Corporation-sponsored mission was to Ganymede—which is, of course, the largest of the moons of our great planetary neighbor Jupiter.”

  Kennedy wrinkled his brows in surprise; Dinoli seemed to catch the expression, and shot a terrifying glance at him. The old man said smoothly, “The existence of this third interplanetary mission is still secret. The poor publicity aroused by the Venus mission was a factor influencing the Corporation to suppress information to the Ganymede trip until its successful conclusion.”

  Dinoli made an almost imperceptible gesture and a motion-picture screen unreeled itself in the back of the great room. “Executive Brewster has brought us a film of his activities on Ganymede. I’d like all of us to see this film before we go any further in this meeting.”

  Two of Dinoli’s young undersecretaries appeared, pushing a sliding table on which was mounted a movie projector. One girl deftly set up the projector while another pressed the control that would opaque the picture window. The room grew dim; Dinoli signaled and the remaining lights were extinguished: Kennedy turned in his seat to see the screen.

  The projector hummed.

  A PRODUCTION OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND EXPLORATION CORPORATION, GANYMEDE DIVISION