Warning from the Stars | Page 6

of the pressure suit, watching the box all the time. It seemed to gleam up at him, as though it had eyes, full of silent menace.
He realized vaguely that Summerford was standing in front of him again, looking anxious.
"Are you quite sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," Forster said, hardly recognizing his own voice.
He picked up the box and stumbled out, heading for his office.
When he walked in, his secretary was answering the line fitted with a scrambler, which connected directly with the Pentagon.
"General Morganson," she said, handing him the receiver.
Forster took the receiver, sat down at his desk and took a deep breath, fighting hard to regain his self control.
"Forster," he said into the mouthpiece when the office door closed behind the girl.
"Forster! What the dickens has happened to Preston? My driver met the train here this morning, but there was no sign of him. But the Pullman porter checked him in last night, and we found all his gear and papers in his compartment!"
"He left here in plenty of time to catch the train, General," Forster heard himself say. "He took the train to get a night's rest." He realized how irrelevant the last statement was only after he had made it.
The General was talking again ... important meeting with the Joint Chiefs ... whole briefing team was being held up ... he'd reported it to the C.I.A. as a precautionary measure....
* * * * *
Forster could see the words on the roll, the roll that wasn't, as though they were engraved on his eye-retinas: As a beginning, and to prove this isn't just a bit of hocus-pocus, one of the people at your Center is due to leave for here any time now.
"General," Forster broke in hoarsely. "I've got some very important information which you must have. I'll leave by heliplane right away."
He replaced the phone receiver in its cradle, wondering how convincing he would be able to make his story. At least, even if he didn't have Bentley's letter, he had the container. That should help.
But when he looked across the desk, he saw that it too had disappeared, without a trace.
* * * * *
General Morganson was the newest product of the Atomic Age, half soldier, half scientist--shrewd and perceptive, an intellectual giant.
He listened carefully, without comment or change of expression, as Forster doggedly went through his story in chronological order.
Half way through, he held up his hand and started pushing buttons on the console built into his desk. Within a few moments men began filing into the room, and sat down around Forster.
Then the general motioned to the clerk seated in the corner by a tape recorder.
"Gentlemen, listen to this playback and then I'll have Dr. Forster here go on from there."
What was left of Forster's confidence leaked away as he heard his own diffident voice filling the room again. It was like being awake in the middle of a weird dream.
But when the tape recorder hissed into silence, he went on, staring straight ahead of him in quiet desperation.
When he ended his story, there was silence for a moment. Everyone sat motionless.
Then Morganson looked up and around.
"Well gentlemen? Mr. Bates, C.I.A. first."
This was no longer a story told by one man; it had become a problem, a situation to be evaluated objectively.
"Well, sir ... the only part of the thing I can comment on at this point is the stuff about O'Connor and Walters. That checks. They both disappeared without a trace. It was treated as a maximum security situation, and we did give out the story they had been assigned to special duty." He glanced briefly at Forster. "Up until now, we assumed that only the directors at Aiken and Oak Ridge knew the real situation--outside of the Atomic Energy Commission and C.I.A., of course. This represents a very serious leak--or...." His voice trailed away.
"Colonel Barfield, Intelligence?"
The young colonel tried to sound flippant, unsuccessfully.
"General, acting on the assumption the story is true, it would answer about two hundred question marks in our files. Maybe more, with further study."
The C.I.A. man cleared his throat and raised a finger.
"For everybody's information," he said, "a preliminary field check shows that Dr. Preston's train was stopped for ten minutes by fog last night. The train's radar installation failed simultaneously. There wouldn't be anything odd about that except the temperature at the time was about 65 degrees, and the humidity was only 55 per cent. Consider that, gentlemen.
"Theoretically, fog can't form under such conditions. Similar local fog occurred on the occasions when O'Connor and Walters were reported missing. The Met. people couldn't explain that, either. That's all."
Morganson sat up straight, as though he had suddenly made a decision.
"I don't think there's any value in further discussion at this point. You will all have transcripts of Dr. Forster's statement within