Ten From Infinity
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Paul W. Fairman >> Ten From Infinity
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10 SOMETHING WAS WRONG
It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab in New York City. No doubt
it was the only motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out
among the stars--for far out in space a signal was registered:
_Something has gone wrong...._
And something had gone wrong, for the doctors discovered their accident
patient had _two_ hearts. It was the beginning of the discovery that the
Earth had been invaded by 10 such creatures from Outer Space.
Every effort was made to learn their purpose. An orbital flight was
launched to spot alien bodies--only to be destroyed in space. One of the
alien men was captured--but no threat of pain or death could unlock the
secret in his brain.
Something had gone wrong. And somehow, some way had to be found to make
it right--before the threat of danger overwhelmed all mankind.
AUTHOR'S PROFILE
Ivar Jorgensen is the pen name of a former topflight magazine editor who
is now devoting his full time to free-lance writing.
He was born in St. Louis and spent most of his early years in the
Midwest. Before getting into the publishing field he held a number of
jobs, including those of elevator operator and theater usher.
Mr. Jorgensen has written numerous science-fiction short stories as well
as several contemporary and suspense novels. TEN FROM INFINITY is his
first full-length science-fiction novel.
* * * * *
_A Science-Fiction Novel_
TEN FROM INFINITY
Ivar Jorgensen
Cover Painting by Ralph Brillhart
A Monarch Books Science-Fiction Novel
Published in January, 1963
Copyright (C) 1963 by Ivar Jorgensen
Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC., Capital Building,
Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works of outstanding novelists and
writers of non-fiction especially chosen for their literary merit and
reading entertainment.
Printed in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
* * * * *
1
It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab at the corner of 59th Street
and Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.A. No doubt it was the
first motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the
stars.
The pedestrian was walking south on Park Avenue, toward Grand Central
Station. He was looking at the upper skeleton of the vast new Pan Am
Building which blocked out the sky in that direction. But he should have
been watching traffic because a yellow cab tagged him neatly and knocked
him across the walk into a clump of pigeons that scattered upward in all
directions.
The cab driver swore. Citizenry gathered. An alert free-lance news
photographer who happened to be passing took the most important shot of
his career. After a while, the ambulance came and the dazed pedestrian
was pointed toward the nearest emergency ward, which happened to be in
the Park Hill Hospital.
The pigeons settled back. The curious went their different ways.
And far out in space, among the yellow pinpoints we call stars, a signal
was registered. The signal was of grave import to those who received it.
The signal said, _Something has gone wrong._
* * * * *
From the springboard of this incident, there emerged several occurrences
of note. The first in sequence took place in the Park Hill Hospital. The
time of that particular ambulance's arrival was 11:15 P.M. At
that hour the harvest of violence in Manhattan was being delivered to
its logical granaries in the form of broken heads, slashed bodies, and
dazed, shock-strained eyes. The examining rooms at Park Hill were full,
and some cases of lesser import were waiting on stretchers and benches
in the corridors.
That was where the pedestrian waited. Unlike others, he was very
patient. He seemed to understand that this sort of thing took time; or
perhaps he didn't. At any rate, he lay staring up at the ceiling,
unmoving, seemingly uncaring, until an intern named Frank Corson stopped
beside his stretcher and looked down at him in moody-eyed weariness.
Then Corson managed a smile.
"Sorry about the service, mister. Full house tonight."
"That's quite all--right."
Corson touched the broken leg. "I can give you a shot if the pain's
hitting too hard."
"It does not--pain."
"Stout fellow." Frank Corson probed with fingers that were growing more
expert day by day. "Good clean break. Not swelling, either." He touched
the patient's wrist, then put a stethoscope to his chest.
Actually, he was thinking of a different chest and different legs at the
time--the ones belonging to a copper-haired girl named Rhoda Kane.
Rhoda's legs were far more alluring. Her chest had added equipment that
was a haven of rest under trying circumstances, and Corson yearned for
midnight when he would quit this charnel house and climb into Rhoda's
convertible and--perhaps later--do a little chest analysis without
benefit of stethoscope.
Now he sighed, commandeered a passing orderly, and went to work.
Twenty minutes later he saw his patient deposited in a ten-bed ward. He
transcribed his data onto the clipboard at the foot of the bed, and
looked guiltily into the hall to see how things were going. He felt
guilty because he was tempted to dog it. And he did. He headed for the
locker room where he punched a cup of coffee out of the machine and
thought some more about Rhoda's legs.
Fifteen minutes later, Corson climbed into the convertible and leaned
over and kissed Rhoda Kane. "Hi, baby. You smell wonderful."
"You smell of disinfectant, darling." She wore a yellow print dress that
exposed a lot of healthily tanned skin. "Did you have a rough day?"
He leaned back against the seat and pushed his legs as far under the
dashboard as possible. He sighed and closed his eyes. But then he opened
them again and his face went blank.
She waited a few more moments and then said, "Honey--I'm here. Little
Rhoda. Remember me?"
The vague, thoughtful look vanished as he jerked his head around. "Oh,
sure--sure, baby." He grinned. "A rough one. If I'd known doctoring was
like this I'd have been a nice prosperous butcher."
"Do you want to drive?"
"No, you drive. I'll sit here and look at your beautiful profile."
They drove to Rhoda's apartment--Frank couldn't afford one--and he put
Rhoda at one end of the sofa and stretched out with his head in her lap.
He unbuttoned her blouse, put a hand over her breast, and teased the
nipple.
"Mr. Corson, you're a wolf."
"Kiss me."
"Well, I don't know," she teased.
He pulled her head down and she murmured, "Oh, darling...."
But he let go of her in the middle of the kiss and, when she
straightened, the blank, thoughtful look was back on his face.
"Frank--what is it?"
The look stayed. "I don't know."
"Something's bothering you."
"It seems to be. But I don't know what it is."
"Did it happen at the hospital?"
He frowned. "I guess it must have. It's been bugging me since--"
Rhoda showed concern. "Did it have to do with a patient?"
"Patients are all I work with. Let's see--" He stopped and his frown
deepened. "It was that damned accident case. Broken leg. I set it and
put him in ward five. I--"
His frown deepened as he sat up. "Uh-huh. It was that damned pulse.
That's it. There was something wrong. That pulse was even and steady
but, Goddamn it, something was wrong!" He got to his feet. "Baby--I've
got to go back to Park Hill."
"Do you want to take the car or shall I drive you?"
"You drive," he said absently as he got up from the sofa and reached for
his necktie.
* * * * *
Frank hurried in through the emergency entrance and went to the
admissions desk. A kindly, gray-haired nurse was working with papers and
she dug deep into the pile in response to Frank's query.
"We didn't find much on him. An identification card with the name
William Matson. Nothing else except a wallet initialed W. M. containing
thirty-six dollars in cash."
"_Nothing_ else?"
The gray-haired nurse shook her head. "No social security number, no
driver's license, no home or business address."
"Damned odd, don't you think?"
"Not at Park Hill. We get them in here without a blessed thing but their
clothing. In fact, two weeks ago the boys picked up a stark-naked blonde
out of a car crash on East River Drive."
Frank grinned automatically, but the grin fell from his face like a mask
the moment he turned from the desk. He went through the locker room and
got his stethoscope on the way to Ward Five.
The patient known to the hospital as William Matson lay quietly on his
back, staring at the ceiling. Frank checked the clipboard. There were no
notations but his own. He went around the bed and stood looking down at
the patient.
"Feeling better?"
"I feel all--right."
_There's some sort of a speech block here_, Frank thought as he bent
over and lowered the sheet. "I'm just doing a little checking," he said
casually. "No cause for alarm."
"I am not--alarmed."
Corson frowned slightly as he concentrated on his work. He went over the
patient's torso, up and down, back and forth. At times he straightened
to rest his back and stared down into the calm, expressionless face on
the pillow.
Twenty minutes passed, during which time Frank Corson checked and
rechecked every inch of the man's torso. When he finished, he slowly
folded his stethoscope and pulled the sheet back into place. He stared
at the patient for a full minute without bringing the slightest change
in the empty expression.
"Sleep well," he said, and walked slowly away.
Back in the street, five minutes later, he dropped into the seat beside
Rhoda. She eyed him questioningly and when he did not respond, she
asked, "Everything all right?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"What do you mean--guess so? It is or it isn't."
"There was something about a patient's heartbeat. I passed it over on
the first examination, but it stuck in my mind. That's why I had to go
back."
"And ...?"
"He's got two hearts."
"He's _what_?"
"He's got two hearts, my beautiful love. One in his chest, where it
ought to be, and one in the center of his lower abdomen."
"You're--you're kidding."
"No, darling," Frank Corson said dreamily. "On this night of nights I
found a man who is pretty rare indeed. A man with two healthy,
functioning hearts."
"All right," Rhoda asked wonderingly. "What do we do about it?"
"We go home for the time being, baby--to your nice, private, wonderful
apartment."
"And ...?"
"We make love," he said absently.
* * * * *
Les King, the free-lance news photographer, surveyed his night's work
and was not happy. It had been singularly unproductive. A couple of
sneak necking shots he'd snapped during a stroll through Central Park
had come through a little too pornographic to be of value. Les threw
them into the wastebasket. A shot of a man leaning out of a
thirtieth-floor window came to nothing because the man had pulled his
head in and closed the window. He hadn't jumped. There was a picture of
a girl dodging a taxi. He'd caught her with both feet off the ground and
a look of surprise on her face, but with her body arced backward and
both hands on her rump as though she'd just been thoroughly and expertly
goosed. Too vulgar. He put the pic aside.
And the Park Avenue hit? Here it was, a shot of a guy lying where he'd
dropped, with the pigeon's rocketing away. Not bad, but it lacked an
angle. All that intern had found on him was a name. William Matson. No
address. The hell with it.
Les sighed and dropped the pic into his file case. Then he stopped. His
face went blank. He pulled the pic out and looked at it again. He felt
as if some nagging thought were trying to come to the surface, but
nothing clicked, so he dropped the pic back into the file and went to
the cooler where he opened an early-morning can of beer before sacking
out. A hell of a life, he thought, wandering through nighttime Manhattan
watching for people to take their mental pants down so he could get
shots of their naked inner backsides.
He finished the beer and went in to take a shower.
Funny about that hit case. The guy had the damnedest expression on his
face. Kind of like he was thinking, _Okay, so what do I do now?_
Fifteen minutes later, Les was asleep.
* * * * *
There was always a certain tension involved in Frank Corson's visits to
Rhoda Kane's apartment, with Rhoda usually slightly on edge, waiting for
one of Frank's outbursts.
An outburst consisted of his suddenly springing to his feet with a
scowl and announcing: "Goddamn it, I don't belong here!"
Rhoda always followed the same script at the beginning of these traumas
by inevitably asking, "Why, darling? Why must you say that?"
"Oh, hell, Rhoda! I don't want to hurt you but--"
"Darling, you know I'll go to your room with you if you'd be more
comfortable there."
He strode to the window angrily and, for Rhoda, there was that
indescribably sweet and exciting reaction she always got from his
nakedness. _Like a Greek god standing there, she thought_, and it
thrilled her even though she knew she was being a little subjective
about it.
She smiled with tender, understanding amusement as she realized Frank's
pattern never varied. His outbursts never came until the first fierce
need of her had been assuaged; this was to her liking because her need
was as great.
Reacting according to current, "broad-minded" thinking and Manhattan
sophistication, she regarded herself and Frank as having a "good
physical relationship." Which individual need was the greatest, she had
never been able to say. But there certainly was something extraordinary
about it. In analyzing it, she'd arrived at the conclusion that they'd
been able, on the basis of personal rapport, to function in a completely
uninhibited manner; thus, some of their love-making, when lifted out of
context and surveyed objectively, might have been called abnormal. Rhoda
did not think so, however; or, if she did, she blocked the idea
successfully by telling herself that whatever she and Frank did together
was all right because _they_ did it. She told herself it was good for
them because they looked at it with a healthy attitude.
She could, of course, have gotten this opinion, or one in complete
opposition to it, from two different psychologists, but she preferred to
play it as she saw it.
She had wondered at times just how important the sex relation was in her
attachment to Frank. It was of major importance, of that she was sure,
but was it the key? If they drifted apart physically, would the other
aspects of the relationship vanish? She thought not, but she certainly
would not have been willing to put it to the test.
Frank Corson was through looking out the window now and he began pacing
nervously. "Sure--so it's fine to be a doctor. It's the sure-fire answer
for later in life. But what about now? What about this crawling up the
ladder inch by inch?" He turned on her defiantly.
"Living on your money!"
"You aren't!"
"All right. Maybe not technically." He looked around the room
resentfully. "Using your apartment for--"
"Frank! When I have guests, do they hesitate because my apartment is
nicer than--?"
She knew she'd hurt him even before his head came around and his eyes
narrowed. "So that's what it really is to you!"
She'd said the wrong thing, but even as she sprang up from the bed she
felt that it made no difference because he would have found something
else. "I didn't mean it that way. You know I didn't."
She ran to him and laid her hands on his chest; his eyes traveled down
her naked body and his mind struggled. His expression said it was a
little unfair of her to come so close and stand that way, nude and
beautiful and eager, in front of him, especially when he had a point to
make.
"I'm a pauper trying to keep up with the rich."
She knew how to break his mood now. She smiled and pressed against him
lightly and said, "Uh-huh, but what a pauper. And darling, money
wouldn't change that part of it a bit."
He drew her to him violently. The impact of their bodies hurt her ribs
but she gloried in the pain. She let her knees weaken and sank to the
thickly carpeted floor, bringing him down with her.
She knew Frank's outburst was over--at least for that day.
Later, on the bed, he opened his eyes sleepily. "What time is it?"
"A little after ten."
"That gives us almost two more hours." He looked out over the East
River. "It's beautiful."
"_Isn't_ it?"
"If I went right into research--took a job somewhere--I could afford to
give this to you."
She thought of saying, _But, darling, I've got it already_, and decided
a change of subject would be more judicious and said, "You _were_
kidding last night, weren't you?"
"Kidding?"
"About the man with two hearts."
Frank grinned a little sheepishly. He was extremely handsome and totally
unconscious of it, and when he grinned that way it made him look like a
little boy caught stealing jam, and Rhoda always wanted to hug him. But
she forebore as he said, "It does seem a little silly, doesn't it?"
"You'd know more about that than I do. Is it silly?"
"Let's say the chances of such a thing happening are rather remote."
"You only used your stethoscope last night?"
"That was all. I went by what I heard."
"What will you do now? X-ray?"
"I'm not sure I'll do anything. The idea is so preposterous."
She regarded him thoughtfully. "It's not like you to lose interest in
anything until you know the answer."
He snubbed out his cigarette. "Let's forget Park Hill and funny
anatomies, baby. Let's sit on the terrace and bathe ourselves in luxury
the way the TV ad says."
And that was the way things stayed for two hours. The time passed
swiftly, and when Frank was finally dressed and ready for the street, he
refused Rhoda's offer to drive him to the hospital because she was very
late, too. He kissed her good-bye, went down the twelve floors in the
elevator, and hurried out of the building.
There was no cab in sight and he began to walk. Half a block later he
turned a corner and stopped dead. He was facing a man who was coming in
the other direction. He stared. The man stared back. Frank automatically
stepped aside, but the man did exactly the same thing, at the same time,
and they did a little dance there on the sidewalk. Then the man veered
around him and moved on up the street. Frank turned and stared after
him, then walked slowly in his own direction.
It was the same man. It was the Park Avenue hit. It was the man he'd
left in Ward Five with a broken leg. It wasn't a brother or a cousin or
a chance resemblance. It was the man himself or an exact double. And
what were the percentages against attending a patient one night and
meeting his exact double on the street the next morning?
They were fantastic. Like hitting the Irish sweeps.
It was the man. It had to be.
Except that he wasn't broken-legged now. He was walking across the Upper
East Side, wearing that same look that was as good as anyone else's,
except that you got the impression of an emptiness behind his eyes.
2
Those in the know in Washington, D.C., upon seeing Brent Taber rush to a
taxi or dodge a pedestrian on Pennsylvania Avenue, could well say,
"There walks power." But there were few indeed who possessed enough
knowledge of the Washington inner structure to be able to make this
observation.
Brent looked more like a coal heaver than a public servant with a
well-oiled escalator into the White House. He appeared more able to
direct a gang of dock workers than to jockey a delicate issue through
the bloody jungle of national politics. Many of the people who accepted
this deception did so at their peril and were not around any more. To
others not so foolish, Brent Taber symbolized a completely necessary
facet of a working democracy--secret government. This necessity sprang
from the realization that even an open society must maintain areas of
privacy or it is doomed.
Such was the man, and such was his mission of the moment--an issue of
the utmost secrecy. So hush-hush, in fact, was this mission that when
Brent Taber arrived at his office that morning and found Senator Crane
pacing his reception-room carpet, his heavy eyebrows gathered and he
began mentally checking his "tight ship" for a leak.
Senator Crane was the exact opposite of Brent, in that he looked to be
exactly what he was; a figure rigidly type-cast to the role of a
blustering, tactless servant of the people. Which, in Crane's case,
meant that he was a servant of Crane's career and any faction of his
supporters that could further it. Still, the Senator could not be called
dishonest. He was merely a flexible rationalizer. He sincerely believed
that what was good for Crane was good for the "folks back home."
And just now, he felt that a knowledge of what the hell was going on in
Brent Taber's orbit was probably not good for anybody and had better be
aired.
As Brent entered, Crane came right to the point. "Goddamn it, Taber,
just what in blazes is going on around here?"
Brent's thick lips hardly moved, a characteristic that Crane found
infuriating because that was the way shady characters talked into
Senatorial investigation microphones and it looked pretty bad. But
Brent's words came quite clear: "Routine business, Senator--an honest
effort to get a day's work done."
"You mean to tell me the meeting that's been set up here is routine?"
Brent shrugged. "Meetings are meetings, Senator."
Crane ticked it off on his fat fingers. "Pender of the Army, Bright of
the Navy, Jones of the Air Force, Hagen of the FBI, Wilson from
Treasury--they all trooped through here into your private conference
room." He pointed pompously at his own chest. "But Crane of the
Senate--"
"You forgot Birch of the State Department," Brent cut in. "Or hasn't he
arrived yet?"
"--Crane of the Senate is barred! Now just what in the hell--?"
There are times for tact and times for bluntness, and this was a time,
Brent decided, for the latter. "What goes on here, Senator," he said,
"is none of your business. Otherwise, you would have been invited."
Crane's face darkened and Brent thought pleasantly of a brain hemorrhage
blowing the top of his fat head off. But this was too much to hope for.
"Brent," Crane exploded, "I'll get you! So help me, I'll get you! Just
who the hell do you think you are--demeaning the dignity of the United
States Senate? Just who are you to say what the people should or should
not know?"
"Decisions of that nature are made upstairs, Senator. I don't presume to
possess the judgment needed in such matters."
"You're an arrogant bureaucrat! Your kind comes and goes because when
you get too goddamned arrogant the people rise up in their wrath and
knock you off."
Marcia Holly, Brent's secretary, was studiously transcribing some notes
and Brent turned his scowl on her because, damn it, she was laughing
like hell at the whole thing. And, by God, a secretary didn't have the
right to laugh at a United States Senator, even with her eyes, no matter
how much a congenital idiot he was.
"I'm sorry, Senator," Brent said. "If you have a complaint, please take
it up with my superiors. Just now I--"
"Your superiors? And who the devil are they? Who can find them? Where do
they have offices? Go around trying to find your superiors and nobody
ever heard of you."
Brent half smiled as he felt a sneaking admiration for Crane. The
son-of-a-bitch had a disarming quality of honesty. If he planned to
knife you, he drove straight in, the knife held high.
"One of the disadvantages of being a negative personality, Senator,"
Brent murmured.
"Sure! You're about as negative as a charging grizzly," Crane snorted
and headed for the door as though his air had been cut off.
After his bulk had vanished into the corridor, Brent turned a scowl on
Marcia Holly. "And what are you snickering about."
She raised large blue, innocent eyes. "Me? I? Oh, golly. I just found a
cute little Freudian slip in these notes and--"
"Shut up. Are they all here?"
"Birch of the State Department sent regrets. A duty call on the
Tasmanian Embassy or something."
"Okay--and next week he'll be screaming to high heaven about being left
out."
Marcia's laughing eyes agreed. "Ain't it the truth?" she marveled.
Brent strode past her and expertly mussed her sleek hairdo in a quick
gesture. As he entered his private conference room, he turned and
grinned at her silent fury.
Inside, they were all waiting for him, seated around a teakwood table.
The wall-to-wall carpeting was wine-red. The chairs were deep and
upholstered. And the men who sat in them were distinguished only by
their surroundings and their uniforms. Their metal and their worth were
hidden inside.
Brent moved to the end of the table and scanned them moodily. "Okay,
gentlemen. I'll talk. Then if you have any questions--shoot them." He
took a deep breath and began:
"We are faced with a situation that must be kept top secret for two
reasons: First, it may be the first move in an attempt to subjugate or
destroy our planet; two, it is so utterly ridiculous on its face that a
public announcement would be greeted by hoots of laughter from pole to
pole." Brent's ugly scowl deepened at what he seemed to feel was an
injustice. "Even the Eskimos would get a yack out of it."
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