The Shadow Men Read online

  Cargill considered his first move. More quickly now he began to realize his new situation. He need only creep out of this camp and then go where he pleased. At least it seemed for a moment as if that was all he had to do. He felt reluctant actually to do it.

  In the darkness progress would be difficult and morning might find him still dangerously close to the Planiacs. He imagined himself being seen from the air. He pictured a search party with an air support, finding him within a few hours after dawn. The possibilities chilled him and brought the first change in his purpose.

  “If I could steal one of these ships,” he thought indecisively.

  There was a faint sound beside him and then the whispered voice of Lela Bouvy said, “I want you to take her ship. That’s the only way I’ll let you go.”

  Cargill turned in the darkness. Her words implied that she had a weapon to force him to do what she wanted. But the darkness under the trees was too intense for him to see if she were armed. He didn’t have to be told that “her ship” referred to Carmean’s. His response must have been too slow. Once more Lela spoke.

  “Get going."

  Carmean’s ship was as good as any, Cargill decided. He whispered, “Which it. hers?”

  “The one that's got a light.”

  “Oh !"

  Some of his gathering determination faded. Carmean asleep and Car-mean awake were two different proportions. In spite of his qualms he began to move forward. There was such a thing as investigating the situation before making up his mind. A few minutes later he paused behind a tree about a dozen feet from Carmean’s ship.

  The dim light that streamed from the partly open doorway made a vague patch of brightness on the grass. Near the edge of that dully lighted area Car-mean herself sat on the grass.

  Cargill, who had been about to start forward again, saw her just in time. He stopped with a gulp and it was only slowly that the tension of that narrow escape left him. He glanced back finally and saw Lela in the act of moving toward him. Hastily Cargill headed her off.

  He drew her into the shelter of a leafy plant, explained the situation, and asked, “Is there anybody else in the ship?”

  “No. Her last husband fell off the ship three months ago. At least that was what Carmean said happened. She’s been looking for another one ever since but none of the men’ll have her. That’s why she wanted you.”

  It was a new idea to Cargill. He had a momentary mental picture of himself in the role of a chained husband. It shocked him. He could feel himself stiffening to the necessities of this situation.

  The sooner he got away from these people, the better off he’d be. And in view of their casually ruthless plans for him he need feel no sense of restraint.

  He whispered to Lela, “I’ll jump on her and bang her over the head. Have you got anything I can hit her with?” He felt savage and merciless. He hoped the girl would give him her gun. Just for an instant then, as she slipped something metallic into his hand, he thought she had done so.

  She whispered fiercely, “That’s from the edge of your cot. It’ll look as if you got free and took it along as a weapon.”

  The logic of that was not entirely convincing to Cargill but he saw that she was trying to convince herself. And it was important that there be some kind of explanation for his escape. Bouvy would undoubtedly be furious with her.

  Cautiously Cargill stole forward. As he reached the shelter of the tree near Carmean the big woman climbed heavily to her feet.

  “So you finally got here, Grannis,” she said to somebody Cargill couldn’t see.

  “Yes,” said a voice from the other side of the tree behind which Cargill crouched, rigid now. The man’s voice went on, “I couldn’t make it any sooner.”

  “So long as you could make it at all,” said Carmean indifferently. “Let’s go inside.”

  Just what he expected then, Cargill had no idea. He had a brief, bitter conviction that he ought to attack both the stranger and Carmean and then—

  A Shadow walked into the lighted area.

  Morton Cargill stayed where he was, behind the tree. His first feeling of intense disappointment yielded to the realization that there was still hope. This was a secret midnight meeting. The Shadow who had come to talk to Carmean would leave presently and there’d be another opportunity to seize the ship.

  He started cautiously to back away and then he stopped. It seemed to him suddenly that perhaps he ought to overhear what was being said. He was planning how he would do it when Lela slipped up behind him.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered angrily. “Why are you standing there?”

  “Sh-h-hh!” said Cargill. That was almost automatic. He was intent on his own purposes, acutely conscious now that anything that concerned the Shadows could concern him.

  “I’ve got to remember,” he told himself, “that I was brought here by someone who intended to use me.”

  His capture by Lela was an unfortunate incident not on the schedule of the original planners. He paid no attention to the girl but slipped from behind the tree and headed for Carmean’s floater. He reached the door safely and flattened himself against the metal wall beside it.

  Almost immediately, he had his first disappointment. The voices inside were too far away for him to hear. As had happened when Carmean talked to Pa Bouvy earlier, only occasional words came through.

  Once, a man’s voice said, “The attack must be carefully timed.”

  A little later, Carmean’s voice lifted to audible pitch on a triumphant note. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll blast them out of their—”

  Cargill thought she said “cities,” but he couldn’t be sure. Abruptly the voices came closer.

  “All right now,” the Shadow was saying, “let’s go and get this man Cargill. I won’t feel right until he’s safely in our hands again and—”

  Cargill waited for no more. Swiftly, but cautiously, he backed away along the side of the ship. In the darkness under the curving nose of the machine he crouched tensely. The light on the grass in front of the door brightened as the door was opened wider. The Shadow stepped out.

  Beyond and through him, a tree was visible. He had a head and body shaped like a man and as he paused, half turning, waiting for Carmean, his eyes were clearly visible. They were shadow eyes for they did not glitter in the light. But dull though they were they were unmistakably eyes.

  Carmean came out. She said, “I want to get this straight. I keep this guy Cargill in my ship until I hear from you?” There was satisfaction in her tone.

  “Exactly,” was the grim reply. “And if I send word bring him without delay. You’ll get all the men you want when the time comes.” He broke off. “Which ship?”

  Cargill didn’t catch what Carmean said but she must have indicated the direction. They moved off, out of the spread of light into the greater darkness.

  A minute passed and then Lela came hurrying from her hiding place. She paused breathless in the darkness beside him.

  “Quick,” she whispered. “We’ll have to get aboard and leave.”

  “We?” said Cargill. There was no time to talk about the implication of the plural. Clear and loud on the night air came the sound of a knock on metal and then Carmean’s voice.

  “Bouvy, open up! It’s me.”

  The discovery of his escape was seconds away. Cargill reached the doorway of Carmean’s ship, paused only long enough to let Lela get in ahead of him and then he was inside.

  “You get the ship into the air,” he whispered. “I’ll hold them off here.” He wasn’t sure just what he would do against guns but he had a vague notion that it was important to keep the door open until the ship was actually rising into the air.

  There was a prolonged pause and then—the ship tugged slightly under him.

  Cargill held his breath, counting the seconds as the floater drifted upward.

  Presently, with shaking fingers, he closed the door and called to Lela, “Can you turn off the lights?"

&n
bsp; There was silence, then darkness. Cautiously Cargill opened the door again and cautiously he peered out. The top of a tree glided by, only inches below. The slow way in which it moved past emphasized that the speed of these light-powered ships at night was negligible.

  Lela's voice came faintly from forward.

  “I'm trying to get her out over the river. There’ll be more light there. Anybody following?”

  Cargill couldn’t be sure. He was looking down slantingly at a camp that was slowly coming to life. Even that minimum activity was hidden behind dense foliage. He saw splashes of light and there was the sound of excited voices. But if any ship rose up to follow them during those first minutes Cargill did not see it.

  Under him the machine seemed to quicken its pace. He looked down and saw that they were over the river. And now he could understand Lela’s purpose. The water was alive with light reflections.

  He estimated that they were traveling at least ten miles an hour.

  Less than a minute later the camp vanished behind a bend in the river and he saw it no more. He stayed where he was nevertheless for another five minutes.

  At the end of that time he closed the door and headed for the all-room. It was somewhat larger than the similar room in the Bouvy’s ship but it was functionally the same room. He glanced into the control room.

  Lela was in the control chair. She did not look at him.

  Cargill hesitated, then went back to the door that opened outside. He opened it, and spent the next hour gazing into the night.

  The moon came up while he sat there and the ship accelerated perceptibly. They were still only a few feet above the forest.

  CHAPTER VIII Hope’s End

  CARGILL consciously thought that control of the sky floater would enable him to do what he wanted. The trouble was, what did he want. The weeks passed and he could not make up his mind.

  For some reason he had become involved in a plot. If he made a move that would bring him out into the open the plotters would once more close in upon him, would try to force him to do their will.

  After lunch one day Cargill found the restless feeling growing on him. There was an idea in the back of his mind, the beginning of purpose. The nature of that purpose made him uneasy but the idea, once it came, would not go away.

  Unhappily, he went into the control room and sat down in front of the video plate. It was not the first time he had examined the machine or listened in to it. But now there was a plan in his mind.

  As with the floater engine and other machinery, the TV and radio mechanism was completely inclosed—and so it was not possible to make an examination of the inner workings of the instrument. For a while Cargill simply tuned into conversations and into the one program that was on.

  A Shadow station broadcast the program, which consisted of popular music of the jive variety. After each selection, a persuasive voice urged the listener to come to Shadow City and receive Shadow training.

  To Cargill, who did not care for jazz, the “commercials" had been fascinating —in the beginning. Now he listened for a few moments to the repetitious music and then absently turned the dial. Occasionally, he adjusted to see if any pictures were being broadcast. He found several.

  First, there was a man’s coarse face and the man was saying, “Now look* we’ve got to work this deal without any fooling.”

  Cargill listened long enough to the "deal” to find out that it had to do with a boss bargaining as to how much he would receive for a new floater, which had been turned over to him by the Shadows. Cargill noted down the man’s name, the details of the transaction and made another adjustment.

  The next picture showed the interior of a ship. Apparently, a broadcaster had been left on carelessly. Since only the bosses had TV broadcasting units Cargill presumed that he was gazing into a boss’ control room. He saw no one, though he watched for several minutes.

  A third picture featured a youth talking to a girl. He was saying, "Aw, c’mon, Jenny, you get your ma to put your floater down near ours tonight. Don’t be one of these hard-to-get women.”

  There were other personal conversations. Cargill identified their nature and passed on. It was too early for the only television show broadcast by the Shadows. Not that he was any longer terrifically interested in it. It always featured the arrival of Tweeners and Planiacs at the terminal center just outside Shadow City, with emphasis on the Planiacs.

  It was a man-in-the-street type of show in which a Shadow interrogator questioned Planiacs who had come to take Shadow training in response to the propaganda. When he had first heard the show Cargill had hoped the Shadows would actually picturize a part of their training program. So far they had not done so.

  He was still not over his disappointment that these receivers were unable to tune in on programs broadcast from Tweener cities. It was very significant, of course. The Shadows were evidently making sure that no one else had the opportunity to control the floater folk.

  Abruptly, Cargill shut off the instrument, and sat frowning. His purpose was like a fire, threatening to consume him. And yet, once he took the plunge, he’d be even more of a marked man than he was now.

  From the nearby control chair, Lela said anxiously, “What’s the matter, honey?”

  Cargill said slowly, “We can’t go on like this forever—with everybody against us. We’ve got to have somebody around who will help us in an emergency or if something goes wrong.”

  Lela nodded uneasily, said reluctantly, "I’ve been thinking about that once in a while.”

  "We’ve got to do more than think about it,” said Cargill. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “What, for instance?”

  Cargill leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. “Lela,” he asked finally, "what do people think of Carmean? Do they like her?”

  It was a question which she would not actually be able to answer, since she couldn’t know what millions of people thought. Still, he could take that into account.

  Lela said savagely, “Nobody likes Car-mean. She’s a skunk.”

  Cargill sighed but pressed on, “What about the other bosses? What do people think of them?”

  "Why, you just put up with them,” said Lela in a surprised tone. “There they are. They’re part of life.”

  “I see,” said Cargill with satisfaction.

  She might not know it but that was a far more significant answer. It decided him.

  He opened his eyes, and asked another question.

  “Lela, have you ever heard of a revolution?”

  She hesitated, frowning.

  “You mean, where somebody starts a fight?"

  Cargill smiled. “Something like that but it starts off with a barrage of propaganda. Then your supporters use infiltration tactics to get to key centers of control. Finally”—he smiled again— “the fight”

  He turned back to the TV set. “Okay,” he said. “We take the first step.”

  By the fifth day of his broadcasts, Cargill began to have a queer feeling of unreality. He seemed to be talking into emptiness. For the first time in his life he understood how people must have felt in the early days of radio with only a microphone to stare at.

  What he lacked was a Hooper rating. There was no mail to bring a picture of audience response, no surveys of any kind to encourage him. But in spite of his doubts he kept on.

  Thirty days drifted by. On the morning of the thirty-first day, just as Cargill finished his propaganda talk, a man’s face appeared on his TV plate. He was a cunning-looking individual about forty-five years old.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  A trap ? Cargill’s fingers hovered over the dial that would cut him off the air.

  He hesitated and the stranger had time to say, “My name is Guthrie. I want to talk to you about this rabble-rousing you’ve been doing.”

  He looked and sounded like a boss. He was a typical rough older Planiac and his words were sweet music to Cargill. But it was not yet time to talk. “I'm
not interested,” said Cargill.

  He broke the connection.

  From that moment he began to name places where his supporters should meet and get together. It was dangerous but then so was being alive. What would save the great majority from counteraction was that each floater was armed with a mounted spit gun.

  The days passed. Late one afternoon, Lela came briefly out of the control room. “It's going to be dark by the time we get to the lake,” she said.

  Cargill smiled. “Which lake do you mean?" He added quickly. “Never mind. I’m just amazed constantly at the way you pick out these places.”

  “It isn't anything,” said the girl. And she meant it. “I’ve been watching this country since I was a baby. I know it like the palm of my hand.”

  “Better, I’ll wager,” said Cargill.

  They came in low over the trees and landed in a clearing with the aid of their searchlight. As Cargill started to open the door a spit gun flared in the darkness. What saved him was that he was behind the door. The energy spat past him and made a thunderous sound as it struck the metal corridor wall. The door smoked from the terrific heat. He had a sense of suffocation.

  Under him the ship began to lift. And then, once more, there was a sunlike glare—only this time the blow was delivered farther back, near the rear of the machine. The floater faltered and, as Cargill got the door shut at last, sagged back to the ground. It struck with a jar unlike anything that Cargill had experienced during his life aboard. He hurried to the control room and found Lela manning their spit gun.

  She was very pale. “Those blasted scum,” she said, “have wrecked us.” The dawnlight filtered through the turgid glass. It was dull at first, little more than a lighter shade of darkness, but it grew bright. From the control room Cargill could see the dark areas outside lightening. To his right was the gray horizon of the lake with the far shore hazed in mist.