Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack. Edmond Hamilton
path. The mass-speed must be sufficient to create a greater diversion period than exists between the time of detection and the time of impact.”
“You would say that the rocket could get through?”
“If the same rule holds for the aliens as for us, I don’t think they would have time to teleport it away.”
“That’s what I wanted.”
“Just a minute, though. How long will it take you to complete it?”
“Give us another week,” the general said. “That’s one of the things I wanted to see you about. It will take Doctor Norvel longer than that to plot the orbit of the station. I want you to plot that orbit for us—”
“I’m sorry, General. This is in your reports somewhere, too. I can’t. Not until Doctor Norvel can locate it. It’s too far out for me to locate. I’d have to have an, an anchor on that end—something I could contact—before I could center on it. And I don’t have. I can’t even feel it, if you see what I mean. There’s, nothing to get ahold of. If I could . . . I could just teleport an atom bomb there, and we wouldn’t need to worry with the rocket at all.” She snubbed out her cigarette.
“Couldn’t you get a fix on this frequency that controls your mutant powers and locate the space station that way?”
“Neither Dr. Norvel nor I could detect it with the available equipment: we tried. There’s no way of knowing what equipment’s required. It’s probable the frequency is displaced from normal space; if it is, we can’t even tell the increment of displacement. It’s just a hopeless task.”
“Well, it will take us two weeks or more, then . . . .” He crossed out something on the paper before him.
“Suppose they attack before that?”
“I’m coming to that possibility . . . . I see you say here that mutants can be destroyed by bomb concussions because they can’t displace sufficiently far without teleporting. What do you mean there?”
“It’s complicated. If the bomb has too much inertia to be teleported off target, they have to remove themselves from the blast area. And they can’t remove themselves far enough—not in space, but in relation to space; so they’d have to teleport, and that would be fatal.”
“Ummm. Bullets?”
“They could displace themselves far enough to avoid a bullet.”
The general wrote something down. “How large an explosion would suffice?”
“I believe Dr. Norvel has those figures. I didn’t stay long enough to see the results of her computations. She figured it out. They rushed me off somewhere else.”
“I’ll have to ask her . . . . Now. I’m counting on there being five hundred saucer ships in the first wave. With luck, our Air Force will get a few of them. You say—ah, yes, right here: ‘If hit in the air, the pilots cannot displace out of the ship because they would be killed by the fall to Earth.’ That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Julia nodded. “Yes.”
“But I expect we’ll have to destroy the majority of them after they land; luck only goes so far.”
“If they scatter all over the planet?” Julia asked.
“We have bombers alerted.”
“Suppose they land in a city? You’d have to bomb immediately. You’d have to destroy the whole area before they could escape. You wouldn’t have any time to evacuate the population. But even so, they could destroy the bomber crews with their focus rods before the planes were over the target—”
“Automatic bombers,” the general said. “I hope we’ve got enough of them. As for the populations, I hope they don’t land in our cities.” He puckered his lips. “I’ve alerted all our ground forces. We’ll have our whole supply of atomic artillery available. Whenever we discover a focus rod in operation, we intend to hit the center of the area of destruction with everything we’ve got.”
“What do you honestly think?” Julia asked.
He shuffled papers, thinking. He looked up from the report. “ . . . it will take us over a week to get even partially ready. If they strike before that, we’ll be able to kill some of them. If they give us a week, we might even hope to kill half of them—half of the first wave—before we’re destroyed . . . . I was hoping you might offer us an alternative, or a supplement; or something.”
Julia took another cigarette. She fumbled in her handbag for a match. She lit the cigarette. “No,” she said.
“I rather thought not,” he said. “I expected you’d have already told us.”
“I’ve thought about it every way I know how . . . . I thought about displacing all of them when they land; keeping them displaced, where they couldn’t reach us . . . . But there’ll be too many of them. I might be able to hold one mutant in displacement, even if he resisted me. I know more than he does. But five hundred?” She shook her head.
“Could we build a machine to do that job?”
“You’d have the rocket done much sooner.”
“ . . . I expect that’s right. I hope they just give us time.”
“If I think of anything else—”
“Oh, I wanted to mention that,” the general said. “I want to give you a phone number. You can reach me any time, day or night, through it.” He wrote it on a piece of paper.
Julia memorized it at a glance.
The general made a few more notes. He glanced at his watch again. “I guess that’s the size of it, Julia.”
*
In the space station, the aliens were readying for the invasion.
Lycan had just finished issuing clothing to the mutants in the larger compartment. Once dressed, they were indistinguishable from earthlings. And more important, when the larger transmitter was eventually cut off, Forential’s mutants would easily mistake them for earthlings.
Forential had finished assigning sectors of Earth to his own charges. Each was to cover a given area. They were told that the war on the planet was nearing its conclusion; destruction was everywhere. There would be no opposition to bother them. (In reality, Lycan’s mutants, the first wave, having taken care of that.) They could clean up their assigned sectors slowly, thoroughly, methodically. Forential instructed them in all the details of detecting and tracking down earthlings. A month after their arrival, they would be, Forential said, the only survivors.
**It is,** the Elder commented covetously, **one of the prettiest little planets I’ve ever seen. We will be well rewarded for our work.**
Chapter XI
Julia awakened with a start very early Saturday morning. It was not yet three o’clock. Washington lay silent beyond her window. The dark, chill air of the room was motionless.
I forgot to seal Walt’s mind off from Calvin’s! she thought in blind terror.
She fumbled her bed clothes off and swung her feet to the carpet.
But once she was standing, the effects of the nightmare began to dissipate. She was surprised to find herself trembling. She laughed nervously. She had dreamed that Walt was crossing the carpet toward her bed, walking in silent invisibility. He had raised a knife to plunge it into her heart—had raised a great rock to smash her skull—had aimed a pistol at her brain—while she lay in chill terror, waiting, helpless.
The cold made goose pimples on her naked skin. But her own laugh reassured her.
A second of concentration and blood flowed skin-ward, warming