A Jungle of Stars Read online

  "This shaft goes down about four hundred feet. It's honeycombed down there--rooms of all shapes and sizes, mostly filled with computers and other electronic gear, including much that this world hasn't invented yet. And may never invent." He punched out a five-digit combination. "Can't be too careful," Wade explained. "Each story below the house is reached only by one of the two elevators like this one--and to make the elevators work you have to know the codes for each floor. Punch anything wrong and you're trapped in the elevator, which takes you down to a very nice jail and security headquarters and locks. The codes are changed daily, of course. Not unbreakable, but good enough."

  The elevator was moving as he spoke, dropping down into the depths beneath the Georgian-style house. Finally, the door opened and they walked out.

  It was a huge room with busy men and women scurrying about and machines clacking. The center of attraction, however, was a huge representation, perhaps thirty meters square, that covered an entire wall. In front of it was a long, curved table with banks of phones, television units, and computer consoles.

  To Savage, it was a movie version of the Pentagon's Situation Room, but the display was not of the United States or even of the world. It was something out of an astronomy textbook.

  Pictured in millions of tiny lights was a spiral galaxy.

  Although basically white-lit, large areas toward the galactic center were red-lit--and the red zones seemed to be growing. A small area off to the "south" of the red was now blinking. Savage realized that the blinking sector was probably several light-years in diameter.

  "This is the Washington War Room," Wade explained. "Similar ones exist in perhaps half a million or more spots in the galaxy--and I have four more here on Earth, including the really big one at Headquarters, which is about thirty times this size. You walk on that one."

  "What do the colors represent?" Savage asked, fascinated.

  "The red represents the area now under The Bromgrev's direct control. The blinking area is the one the computers predict will be the next to go--the old Fraskan Sector. It took him almost a century to conquer his first territory. Another fifty years or so to reach its present size. But he's got allies now, and a hell of an organization. He could probably take half the key planetary systems in the next six or eight years. That's why things are getting so critical."

  "Where are we on the map?" Savage asked him.

  Wade chuckled. "See that spiral arm on the top left there? We're about two-thirds of the way out on it. Don't worry. We're so far away from The Bromgrev that we're in no immediate danger--and this is too young an area to be any kind of a threat to him, anyway. That's one reason we're here."

  As they went back up to the conference room, Savage was silent, digesting what he had heard, organizing his questions. He had many left.

  Seated once more, another cigar in Wade's mouth, Savage rekindled the dialogue--he was certain he would not have this chance again. Finally, he asked the one question that was at the heart of the matter.

  "I'm overwhelmed," he began, "with the operation and the organization. I'm not too sure I understand the scale of, or even the reasons for, the war. But, then, that's nothing new. I didn't understand the last one, either. Which boils it down to the same question I had in Vietnam: What has all this to do with me?"

  Wade grinned and blew thick smoke into the air. It hung there, almost heavier than the air, a blue-white haze.

  "Since it's unlikely that you'll have to risk your neck in this war, it is not really very important to understand it. What your job is is a simple and somewhat screwy one--but not boring, I don't think." His face grew serious.

  "You see," he continued, "while Earth isn't really in any danger of a massed attack, my headquarters is here--and The Bromgrev knows that. Even if he took Earth--which is unlikely, since our big guns are deployed and our defenses are too good to make the effort profitable--he couldn't get the Headquarters, anyway. It is, well, not quite on Earth...

  "There exist other planes than ours, with different laws and frames of reference--yet coexisting in the same time and space as we. They are pretty much barren, lifeless nothings; and we could not normally exist there. But there are some weak points between our plane and the one next door; and sometimes things, well, break through. Over the millennia, enough atmosphere, and other components of our plane have seeped through in sufficient quantities, creating tiny bubbles in theirs. If conditions are just right, you can enter them."

  He leaned back and continued puffing on the fat cigar. "My headquarters," he said, "which I call Haven, is a place like that. Except that by technological means I have sustained it and made it habitable. It is untouchable except through the opening that nature made and I perpetuate. As no one enters or leaves except through me, The Bromgrev cannot get his agents in. Since only I can key the way in or out, they can't sneak past, either. But The Bromgrev keeps trying! Sooner or later, it will sink into my brother's coarse mind that the only member of his staff capable of penetrating Haven is The Bromgrev himself." A spark lit up Wade's eyes as he spoke, and his voice raised in pitch. "He'll come like a thief in the night--and in heavy disguise. He could be anybody--or anything--at all, any sentient beastie in the galaxy.

  "You--and my other agents here--are my Early Warning System. All of you are former detectives, trained observers with particularly analytical minds. When he comes, it's your job to spot him, identify him, and then we will win this struggle."

  "Terrific," Savage grunted sarcastically. "All I do is identify Superman, put him under arrest, and bring him to you, right? And all he does while I'm doing all this is come docilely along. No thanks! I've had a taste of one of you already!"

  "He won't know that you know him," Wade said quietly. "He won't be able to take your body or your mind. I guarantee that. Making you a closed-loop organism, a self-repairing individual, was simple. But during those days in the hospital, while you were unconscious, I did far more. I created mental blockages in your mind so impenetrable that nothing, no organism past or present except the whole of a God-race, could break through them. The Bromgrev uses telepathy skillfully--far better than I, from an operational standpoint. But my mind and powers are equal to his own--and your blocks are so strong that even I cannot penetrate them. I have been trying during this entire interview; and they are so firm that I can't undo them. To a telepath, you don't exist. The 'paths call you boys 'zombies'--you exist when the sense they depend on the most tells them you do not. They can get only the surface thoughts that you verbalize."

  Savage sat still for a while, letting the implications sink in. A zombie, huh? Well, that's what he was: the walking dead. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be able to see anyone's innermost thoughts, to probe the depths of memory.

  Except for a very few.

  He suddenly felt confident again, private, secure. No more funny business. He was himself, a closed book to others, as always.

  The germ of a plan was in Savage's mind even then, but it had not yet surfaced. He did not have enough facts, not enough to go on. Two problems surfaced immediately: How do you tell which of an infinite variety of organisms is the quarry? And how do you kill an invincible immortal?

  "When do I start?" he asked.

  "I'll show you your office now, if you like. Then get a hotel room downtown and take two or three days to find a place and get settled. I'll instruct Accounting to get you whatever you need in the way of funds. This will be your district: the southeastern United States. You'll work out of here. And you'll meet your share of characters before you're done."

  CHAPTER SIX

  The job did prove to be interesting at that. He worked, he found, for a nonprofit group called the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained--a group that had some very real and quite ignorant members as well as some of Hunter's own people. As with many things, The Hunter had not created the group, but had merely joined it, endowed it, and then let it serve his purposes.

  The society was concerned with the inve
stigation of unnatural or apparently unnatural phenomena, from flying saucers to ghosts, poltergeists, rains of frogs, and anything else that science could not explain. It had performed some valuable services, and some interesting tasks were undertaken by reputable scientists on its behalf: a scientific expedition to Loch Ness, another to find Bigfoot, others hunting spectral shapes in the southern swamps. In most cases they came up empty-handed; but, in others, sound scientific and quite rational explanations--and some extremely nasty and clever hoaxes--were uncovered and released to the public. A lot of extremely talented and intelligent people worked, on and off, for the society.

  The society also had, needless to say, a full compliment of nuts.

  From Savage's point of view, his job was a simple and interesting one: to pick out of the reports, clippings, and news items any events that might be related to enemy activity--the landing of agents and supplies for Bromgrev's men, for example. (That meant chasing a lot of flying saucer reports.) He also kept up with tales of demonic possession and zombie-like activities. Particularly with the latter two, it had been explained to him, since The Bromgrev had a highly effective and unique way of gaining converts.

  In his wanderings through the galaxy, through many lives and in many bodies, The Bromgrev had discovered a large planet organized somewhat like a society of bees. Every organism--and there were billions of them--served a specific purpose, each acting like a single component of an organism. Through the years, on this world that apparently had been incredibly harsh, one group of beings had evolved with totally unshielded telepathy.

  They developed a single mass mind which dominated the planet. When The Bromgrev discovered the place, the Mind tried to absorb him as well, but this time it met its match. The Bromgrev's mind was stronger, and instead of his becoming one with them, they became him. The Bromgrev was so powerful a telepath that, even after leaving, he continued to be with the Mind.

  Should The Bromgrev come near you he could, at will, incorporate you into the Mind as well. This was a great discovery. It had given him an army that was always loyal, always obedient. But only The Bromgrev himself could incorporate you--the race of creatures he dominated were now too dispersed to be able to do it alone.

  If such zombies showed up here, then The Bromgrev was here, too.

  ***

  Years passed as Savage threw himself into the job. Far removed from the galactic conflict, he never even revisited the War Room, only a few hundred meters below his office. He did make it to Haven once, and had some obligatory training in spaceship guidance and control, as well as his first space flight, but that, too, was now long ago. He had not seen Wade since the first day--and that was fine with him: the creature that was Wade made him very uneasy.

  During this period he had handled several hundred cases. In most, he'd struck out, or come up with convincing explanations. At least three had been clever crimes that he was well satisfied to have solved, or helped to solve. He also became certain after his twentieth such case that some ghosts did indeed exist--for some reason these people had not joined the great synthesis. They remained, almost inevitably, quite insane and occasionally dangerous. His countermeasures, drawn from the computer banks and experts of the society, were sometimes effective, sometimes not.

  But always Savage, and his counterparts worldwide, remained mindful that the enemy was in fact about. Twice now, he and several other agents had uncovered small cells of Bromgrev agents, and blocked some of their operations.

  But The Bromgrev himself did not come. He was busy elsewhere.

  So Savage remained busy, building a casebook of weird and fantastic cases--and he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

  Until the matter of the lost day.

  ***

  Malloy, South Carolina, had little to distinguish itself from the thousands of other small southern agricultural towns spread throughout the southeastern United States. It was, indeed, the sleepy, two-block village with diagonal parking on Main Street and the speed trap at the beginning of town, right behind the tree-obscured END 55, BEGIN 15 MPH sign. Its population of about 350 was about 70 percent black and mostly in the peanut and cotton business, on one end or the other. But on the night of August 16, when everyone went to bed, things became unique in Malloy.

  They awoke at their usual times the next day and set about their appointed tasks. It was, in fact, some time before the discrepancy was noted--for the lone cop on night duty and the two or three other night people were unwilling to admit that they, too, had dozed. It was almost 2 P.M. before everyone in the town discovered one minor fact.

  It wasn't Wednesday, August 17. It was Thursday, August 18.

  The story got good play in the newspapers, but since there seemed to be no harm, no ill effects--and, therefore, no follow-up--it died, after a day, to the news of a more dramatic outside world. Those who heard of it generally dismissed it as a hoax, particularly since Malloy had been fighting unsuccessfully for charter government and needed to get noticed, at least by Columbia.

  A quick plane flight and rental car put Savage in Malloy in about four hours. He had had a slow month, and had been going crazy with the boredom of the rather commonplace muggings, rapes, murders, terrorism, and petty wars of the evening news.

  Malloy was exactly what he expected it to be: a musky smell, extremely hot and humid at that time of year, with flies and mosquitoes buzzing all around and a few cars parked in front of the post office and general store. There was even a sleeping bloodhound on the store's wooden porch.

  The little bell over the door jingled as Savage entered. A couple of people were looking at some dry goods in one corner, and he noted with amusement their attempts not to stare at him. The proprietor, an elderly, balding man with a thin white mustache, appeared from a rear storeroom.

  "Yessuh?" The storekeeper drawled, "What can we do fo' you?"

  "Just directions, really," Savage replied. "I'm going to be here a day or two, and need some place to stay."

  "That's the Calhoun, suh. Little hotel down the street on this side. It's the only place in town. Heah to buy crops?"

  Savage shook his head. "No. I'm in a different line of work."

  He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out his wallet. His private detective's license showed clearly, and the storekeeper's eyebrows shot up.

  "Detective, huh? All the way from Washington, too! What's the matta, got a runaway husband luhkin' 'round heah?"

  "No," Savage chuckled. "I work for an agency that's very concerned when strange things happen. We like to be sure that these strange things aren't caused by familiar enemies."

  The old man's face grew serious, and the duo over in dry goods tried ten times harder to pretend they weren't hanging on to every word. "The missin' day, huh? Somebody took it serious, aftah all."

  "You mean it wasn't?" Savage shot back quickly.

  "Oh, shuah as hell was. But the newspapahs--"

  "Print what sells newspapers," Savage completed. "My employers don't have to sell newspapers."

  The other nodded gravely, and it was clear that Savage had gotten the correct impression across. Soon the whole town would be talking about the "government" agent who took them seriously; and that would make things much easier in patriotic, rural South Carolina.

  Savage decided he must press his advantage. "What about you, Mr.--uh?"

  "Bakkus, Tom Bakkus," the storekeeper responded, automatically extending his hand.

  "Paul Savage," the big man replied, and they shook.

  "Well, Mr. Bakkus, I suppose you have some thoughts on the subject," Savage prompted.

  Bakkus scratched his head. "I dunno," he replied thoughtfully. "Damned strange is all. Went tuh sleep 'bout eleven-thutty, as usual, right aftah the evenin' news on the TV. No dreams, no funny stuff. Woke up at six as usual, no problems, 'ceptin' it was Thuhsday, dammit!"

  "Did your alarm clock wake you up?"

  "Naw. It'd gone off as usual on Wednesday, I suppose. Nevah thought 'bout that. Nevah wakes me up,
anyways--been gettin' up at six foah fifty yeahs. Dunno why I keep that ol' clock atall."

  "What about the other people? Lots of people need alarm clocks--I know I do."

  Bakkus frowned. "Nope. Oh, pro'bly the usual numbah of folks use 'em, but most just thought they ovahslept. Would you notice?"

  "Probably not," Savage agreed. "But I'll check the people myself--particularly the job records--to see how many more people than usual were late on Thursday. Say, that's a thought. Does every kid in Malloy go to school in town?"

  "No help theah," the older man replied. "It's August--vacation."

  "And no visitors through town during the whole missing day?"

  "Not a one they could find. Not really unusual--we'ah a bit off the beaten track heah, and it might be days and days befoah a strangah comes through."

  Savage digested the information, turning it over and over in his mind. If the interviews proved out, it made a sinister picture.

  Pick a town nobody's likely to disturb for a day. Pick a day even slower than normal. Then black everyone out for that period. Why? To keep them from seeing something? Possibly. But, if so, what would be worth the risk of national notoriety? To get something through town, perhaps? But it was a small area blacked out, and chances are you couldn't get something that mysterious both in and out of the place without somebody noticing.

  It didn't make sense.

  Savage spent the next three days canvassing the town and the nearby farms and got pretty much the same story. Yes, people had slept through their alarms; no, nobody thought it was unusual until they found out everybody had. By the end of three days, Savage was certain of only one thing: from the intensity of the witnesses, the blackout had occurred without a doubt.

  Sinister enough. Particularly when he had talked to that out-of-town salesman who normally did come through Malloy on Wednesdays. When asked why he had missed that particular day, he'd explained, "I got tied up in a sales meeting all morning, then found my car wouldn't start. By the time I got AAA to tow me and fix the thing, it was seven in the evening. Since there was nothing critical, I skipped it."