“You take necessary action, the Vice President succeeds to the chair, and you get shot for treason. Simple. Now about this mission. We’ll send Jarvis with the scanner and I think I’ll include Davidson as an extra hatchet man. While Jarvis keeps the pick-up on you, Davidson can keep his eyes on Jarvis—and you can try to keep one eye on him. Ring-around the-rosy.”
“You think it will work, then?”
“No—but any plan of action is better than no plan. Maybe it will stir up something.”
While we headed for Iowa—Jarvis, Davidson, and I—the Old Man went back to Washington. He took Mary along. She cornered me as we were about to leave, grabbed me by the ears, kissed me firmly and said, “Sam—try to come back.”
I got all tingly and felt like a fifteen-year-old. Second childhood, I guess.
Davidson roaded the car beyond the place where I had found a bridge out. I was navigating, using a large-scale ordnance map on which had been pinpointed the exact landing site of the real space ship. The bridge, which was still out, gave a close-by and precise reference point. We turned off the road two tenths of a mile due east of the site and jeeped through the scrub to the spot. Nobody tried to stop us.
Almost to the spot, I should say. We ran into freshly burned-over ground and decided to walk. The site as shown by the space station photograph was included in the brush fire area—and there was no “flying saucer”. It would have taken a better detective than I will ever be to show that one had ever landed there. The fire had destroyed the traces, if any.
Jarvis scanned everything, anyhow, but I knew that the slugs had won another round. As we came out we ran into an elderly farmer; following doctrine we kept a wary distance, although he looked harmless.
“Quite a fire,” I remarked, sidling away.
“Sure was,” he said dolefully. “Killed two of my best milk cows, the poor dumb brutes. You fellows reporters?”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but we’ve been sent out on a wild-goose chase.” I wished Mary were along. Probably this character was naturally round-shouldered. On the other hand, assuming that the Old Man was right about the space ship—and he had to be right—then this all-too-innocent bumpkin must know about it and was covering it up. Ergo, he was hag-ridden.
I decided that I had to do it. The chances of capturing a live parasite and getting its picture on the channels back to the White House were better here than they would be in a crowd. I threw a glance at my teammates; they were both alert and Jarvis was scanning.
As the farmer turned to go I tripped him. He went face down and I was on his back like a monkey, clawing at his shirt. Jarvis moved in and got a close up; Davidson moved over to cover point. I had his back bare before he got his wind.
And it was bare. It was as clean as mine, no parasite, no sign of one. Nor any place on his body, which I made sure of before I let him up.
I helped him up and brushed him off; his clothes were filthy with ashes and so were mine. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said. “I’ve made a bad mistake.”
He was trembling with anger. “You young—” He couldn’t seem to find a word bad enough for me. He looked at all of us and his mouth quivered. “I’ll have the law on you. If I were twenty years younger I’d lick all three of you.”
“Believe me, old timer, it was a mistake.”
“Mistake!” His face broke and I thought he was going to cry. “I come back from Omaha and find my place burned, half my stock gone, and my son-in-law no place around. I come out to find out why strangers are snooping around my land and I like to get torn to pieces. Mistake! What’s the world coming to?”
I thought I could answer that last one, but I did not try to. I did try to pay him for the indignity but he slapped my money to the ground. We tucked in our tails and got out.