Those Who Watch

Nine

The distress signal sent out by the doomed Dirnan ship in the moments before its destruction had been received in a thousand places at once. Every Dirnan ship on watcher duty over Earth had picked the signal up, for the broad-band Dirnan communication system was not hampered by line-of-sight problems or in need of an ionospheric bounce, and it pervaded that entire region of space at the speed of light. The twenty watchers over China learned of the ship’s fate. So did the eighteen watcher ships currently patrolling the skies over the Soviet Union, the other nineteen in various orbits over North America, and the isolated groups of watchers keeping tabs on India, Brazil, the African Federation, Antarctica, Japan, and other high-technology nodes throughout the world. All in all, close to four hundred Dirnan watcher ships were on duty in atmospheric levels, and all of them learned about the catastrophe within the first few moments.

As the signal spread, it came to the attention of the four ships stationed permanently around Earth’s moon. It reached the roving ships that regularly checked the artificial space satellites of the Earth nations to make sure that no lethal weapons had been placed in orbit. It impinged on the detectors of the Dirnan ships posted in the vicinities of Mars and Venus. It aroused attention at the Dirnan ground base on Ganymede, Jupiter’s plant-sized moon, where some ninety watcher ships were parked while their crews enjoyed their allotted holidays. It was noticed by the fifty-odd Dirnan relief ships on their way from Ganymede to other posts in the systems now occupied by crews awaiting vacation. The wave spread, minute by minute, to the ships currently located out by Neptune’s orbit, and as far out as Pluto. In time — a great deal of time — that imperishable signal would reach as far as the home world itself.

Others who learned of the fate of the Mirtin-Vorneen’ Glair ship were certain representatives of the opposing race, the Kranazoi, who were able covertly to tune in on the wavelength of a Dirnan distress signal. But in this instance the Kranazoi headquarters had no need to pick up the signal, since they were receiving a full report on the explosion from one of their ships that had happened to be in the vicinity.

Then, too, the distress signal activated the receptors at the Dirnan headquarters on Earth.

There wasn’t supposed to be any Dirnan headquarters on Earth. Dirha and Kranaz had signed covenants governing the permissible contacts between the two galactic races and the people of Earth, and one of the things that was forbidden was any sort of physical landing on the planet by Dirnan or Kranazoi personnel — let alone a permanent presence down there. But covenants sometimes prove to work against global security; and the Dirnans had found it necessary, for their own protection, to station a pocket of agents on the surface of Earth. The station was well hidden, more to keep it from the attention of the Kranazoi than to keep it from the attention of the Earthmen. Earthmen would merely be skeptical if they found out that aliens were living among them; the Kranazoi, though, would be furious, perhaps to the point of war.

At the hidden Dirnan station, an infinity of messages came flooding in, moments after the distress signal had been received. Every ship in the system was on the air at once, commenting, asking, informing. For several minutes the entire communication link was crippled by a general tie-up of all wavelengths. Then the command station on Earth managed to cut in, silencing the hubbub and letting everybody know it was aware of the situation and meant to do something about it. The ships in their orbits continued to discuss the crash, but they ceased to bother the base on Earth about it.

In the command station, master computers were plotting possible landing vectors for the crew.

“There were survivors,” one agent reported. “We’ve picked up tracks of the bailout.”

“Did all three get away?”

“Yes. At least, they left the ship.”

“I knew Glair at Ganymede. She’s a remarkable girl.”

“All three of them are remarkable. Or were.”

They’re alive. We’ll find them.”

“Any news from the trackers yet?”

“The three of them came down in New Mexico. But they’ve damaged their communicators.”

“How could that have happened?”

They dropped from an unusually high altitude to avoid trouble when the generator blew. They must have hit hard. We’re getting fuzzy signals from one of them, but we can’t plot a fix at all. The other two aren’t even coming in.”

They’re dead.”

“Don’t be so sure. Injured maybe. But not dead. These bodies of ours are pretty sturdy.”

“Sturdy enough to survive a crash that can break a communicator?”

“Communicators don’t have much give. Flesh and bone do. I say they’re alive.”

“Well, alive or dead, we’ve got to locate them.”

“Right. If one of them gets autopsied-”

“You arrogant dogmatic bastard, they aren’t dead! Will you get off that notion?”

“All right, injured then. If it makes you feel any better. Injured and taken to a hospital and ex-rayed. That’ll cause as much trouble as if they’re autopsied. What’s the matter? You in love with Glair? Why can’t you accept the fact that they may have been killed?”

“As a matter of fact he’s hung up on Vorneen.”

“Well, who isn’t? Look, how many agents can we move into New Mexico this week?”

“A dozen if we have to.”

“Get them moving, then. The cover story is that they’re investigating the so-called giant meteor. Some of them can be scientists who claim to be hunting the debris. And reporters who interview people who saw the fireball. Cover the state. We’ll continue to prod the computer here, refining the landing vectors as we get a clearer notion of the actual trajectory of the ship before it exploded.”

“You know where we can get the best trajectory figures?”

“Where?”

“U.S. Air Force. I bet AOS taped everything.”

“Good thought. Call our man in AOS right away and have him checking the data banks.”

“AOS is probably looking for the ship’s wreckage now too.”

“But they don’t know about the crew. We’ll find them first.”

“It’s going to be tough. What’s that Earthman proverb? Needle in a smokestack?”

“Haystack.”

“Yeah. Haystack. Where are the new vectors? Get that man moving!”

“You’re sure they’re alive?”

“I know they are.”