CHAPTER ONE

Were they truly intelligent? I don't know and I don't know how we can ever find out. I'm not a lab man; I'm an operator. If they were not truly intelligent, I hope I never live to see us tangle with anything at all like them, which is intelligent. I know who will lose. Me. You. The so-called human race. For me it started much too early on July 12, '07, with my phone shrilling in a frequency guaranteed to peel off the skull. The sort of phone my section uses is not standard; the audio relay was buried surgically under the skin back of my left ear-bone conduction. I felt around my person, trying to find the thing to shut it off, then recalled that I had left it in my jacket across the room. "All right," I growled. "I hear you. Shut off that damned noise." "Emergency," a voice said in my ear. I told him what to do with his emergency. "I'm on a seventy-two hour pass."

"Report to the Old Man," the voice persisted, "at once." That was different. "Moving," I acknowledged. Soon I entered our section offices through a washroom booth in MacArthur Station. You won't find our section in the phone lists. In fact, it does not exist. Probably I don't exist either. All is illusion. United Nations had never heard of us, nor had Central Intelligence - I think. All I really knew about was the training I had received and the jobs the Old Man sent me on. Interesting jobs, some of them - if you don't care where you sleep, what you eat, nor how long you live. The Old Man got up and limped toward me as I came in. He smiled. With his big hairless skull and his strong Roman nose he looked a bit like Satan. "Welcome, Sam," he said. "Sorry to get you out of bed." "I was on leave," I answered shortly. He was the Old Man, but leave is leave - and damned seldom! "Ah, but you still are. We're going on a vacation."

I didn't trust his "vacations" so I did not rise to the bait. "So my name is 'Sam'," I answered. "What's my last name?" "Cavanaugh. And I'm your Uncle Charlie - Charles M. Cavanaugh, retired. Meet your sister Mary."

I had noticed that there was another person in the room, but when the Old Man is present he gets full attention as long as he wants it. Now I looked over my "sister" more carefully and then looked her over again. It was worth it. A long, slim body. Good legs. Broad shoulders for a woman. Wavy red hair. Her teeth were sharp and clean. The Old Man said gently, "Sammy, there's no incest in the Cavanaugh family. You were both carefully brought up, by my favorite sister-in-law. Your sister dotes on you and you are extremely fond of your sister, but in a healthy, chivalrous, All- American-Boy sort of way." "As bad as that?" I asked, still looking at my "sister". "Worse." "Well, Sis. Glad to know you." She stuck out a hand. It was firm and seemed as strong as mine. "Hi, Bud." Her voice was deep contralto, which was all I needed. Damn the Old Man! "I might add," the Old Man went on in the same gentle tones, "that you are so devoted to your sister that you would gladly die to protect her. I dislike to tell you so, Sammy, but your sister is a little more valuable, for the present at least, to the organization than you are." "Got it," I acknowledged. "Thanks for the polite qualification." "Now, Sammy -" "She's my favorite sister; I protect her from dogs and strange men. Okay, when do we start?" "Better stop over in Cosmetics; I think they have a new face for you." "Make it a whole new head.

See you. Goodbye, Sis." They did not quite do that, but they fitted my personal phone in the back of my head and then cemented hair over it. They dyed my hair to the same shade as that of my newly acquired sister, bleached my skin, and did things to my cheekbones and chin.

The mirror showed me to be as good an authentic redhead as Sis. I put on the kit they gave me and somebody handed me a bag, already packed. The Old Man had evidently been in Cosmetics, too; his skull was now covered by curls of a shade just between pink and white. They had done something to his face, and we were all three clearly related by blood. "Come, Sammy," he said. "Time is short. I'll brief you in the car." I drove while the Old Man talked. Once we were out of local control he told me to set it automatic on Des Moines, Iowa. I then joined Mary and "Uncle Charlie". He gave us our personal histories briefly. "So here we are," he concluded, "a merry little family party-tourists. And if we run into unusual events, that is how we will behave, as nosy and irresponsible tourists might." "But what is the problem?" I asked. "Sam, you've heard of 'flying saucers'," the Old Man said. "Huh? Can't say that I have." "You've studied history. Come, now!"