General Brasno folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t scramble friendly communications either. That is a pathfinder. Either a pathfinder or a Von Neumann-type machine, capable of replication. Which means one machine is all you need for a geometric progression of invaders. If that thing shows any sign of replication we need to have adequate personnel to deal with it.”
Harkness shook his head stubbornly. “You do not have authorization at the moment to do anything more than send in those two companies from the 101st.” The NSC man glanced at his watch. “And now I’ve got to catch a plane, in order to get a first hand look at this so-called ‘UFO.’ ”
As soon as he was gone, General Brasno was on the phone to the commander of the 82nd Airborne. “George? It’s me again. They won’t agree to sending you in yet. But I want you ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
He hung up the phone and scowled at one of his aides. “Pity those poor bastards in the 101st, if anything goes wrong. Two companies!”
PART I
—as the blasts
of loosened tempest, such the tumult seemed!
—The Bhagavadgita
1
No borrower may remove
more than three books.
The silence was all a fussy librarian could have wished for. It was 2:29 a.m. and the second floor of the Regenstein Library was deserted and dark . . . except for the prowling flashlight.
They had said that the noise came from here. . . .
The security guard thought it was probably nothing. There’d been no external alarms—just some “weird noise” the two cleaning women claimed to have heard coming from somewhere in the general bookstacks in the west wing.
The guard rounded the corner, and halted in his tracks. Shredded books lay scattered around the bizarre-looking object. The surrounding shelves hadn’t just been knocked down. The force of the thing’s arrival had crumpled the metal shelving as if they had been made of aluminum foil. He started to turn away . . .
From the apex of the five-sided black pyramid, a beam of violet light engulfed him. Briefly. Then there was no one there to engulf.
* * *
The Krim device expanded, covering some of the debris generated by its arrival. It was nearly sixty yards off target, but the probe was not concerned. That was a perfectly acceptable margin of error for a journey through a wormhole, across 2740 light-years.
* * *
The apex of the pyramid was now almost against the ceiling. Yet the object couldn’t have been very heavy. The crumpled paper it rested on was scarcely dented.
* * *
“There’s no sign of the entry control officer,” came the voice of the University of Chicago policeman, crackling over the radio. “Except a plate of gyros on his desk. The cleaning women say he went up to the second floor quite a while ago. Probably nothing to get excited about.”
Lieutenant Solms scowled and exchanged glances with the dispatcher. Then spoke into the radio: “Stavros, you always think it’s ‘nothing to get excited about.’ Do your job, dammit. You’ve got Hawkins for backup.”
The dispatcher rolled her eyes. Backup, her lips mouthed, exuding silent sarcasm. Solms’ own lips quirked appreciatively. The University of Chicago police lieutenant was the watch commander. Of all the officers under his command, those were the two he often found himself wishing fervently would take an early retirement. A very early retirement.
“Go see what’s up,” Solms ordered into the phone. “And report back as soon as you can.”
Solms straightened and sighed. “I’d better go down there myself. What the hell, the Regenstein Library’s only a block away. I’ll just walk it.”
He headed for the door. “Stavros is probably right, but—”
The dispatcher snorted. “Those two clowns could screw up buttering bread.”
* * *
The U of C police cruiser was parked in front of the Regenstein. Neither Stavros nor Hawkins was in it. Solms marched through the front entrance and looked around. The wide and open ground level was well lit. Everything seemed perfectly normal, except for the abandoned entry control desk. The two cleaning women had apparently left.
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