“How bad was it?” asked Mary.
“Pretty bad. I don’t know how many we killed, maybe six, maybe a dozen. There was no time to be careful. We weren’t shooting people, not intentionally; we were shooting parasites.” I turned to Davidson. “Don’t you see that?”
He seemed to take a brace. “That’s just it. They weren’t human.” He went on, “I think I could shoot my own brother, if the job required it. But these things aren’t human. You shoot and they keep coming toward you. They don’t—” He broke off.
All I felt was pity. After a bit he got up to go to the dispensary to get a shot for what ailed him. Mary and I talked a while longer, trying to figure out answers and getting nowhere. Then she announced that she was sleepy and headed for the women’s dormitory. The Old Man had ordered all hands to sleep in that night, so, after a nightcap, I went to the boys’ wing and crawled in a sack.
I did not get to sleep at once. I could hear the rumble of the city above us and I kept imagining it in the state Des Moines was already in.
The air-raid alarm woke me. I stumbled into my clothes as the blowers sighed off, then the intercom bawled in the Old Man’s voice, “Anti-gas and anti-radiation procedures! Seal everything—all hands gather in the conference hall. Move!”
Being a field agent I was a supernumerary with no local duties. I shuffled down the tunnel from the living quarters to the Offices. The Old Man was in the big hall, looking grim. I wanted to ask him what was up, but there was a mixed dozen of clerks, agents, stenos, and such there before me and I decided not to. After a bit the Old Man sent me out to get the door tally from the guard on watch. The Old Man called the roll himself and presently it was clear that every living person listed on the door tally was now inside the hall, from old Miss Haines, the Old Man’s private secretary, down to the steward of the staff lounge—except the door guard on watch and Jarvis. The tally had to be right; we keep track of who goes in and out a good bit more carefully than a bank keeps track of money.
I was sent out again for the door guard. It took a call back to the Old Man to persuade him it was all right for him to leave his post; he then threw the bolt switch and followed me. When we got back Jarvis was there, being attended by Graves and one of his lab men. He was on his feet and wrapped in a hospital robe, conscious apparently, but he seemed dopey.
When I saw him I began to have some notion of what it was all about. The Old Man did not leave us in doubt. He was facing the assembled staff and keeping his distance; now he drew his gun. “One of the invading parasites is loose among us,” he said. “To some of you that means something—too much. To the rest of you I will have to explain, as the safety of all of us—and of our whole race—depends this moment on complete cooperation and utter obedience.” He went on to explain briefly but with ugly exactness what a parasite was, what the situation was. “In other words,” he concluded, “the parasite is almost certainly here in this room. One of us looks human but is actually an automaton, moving at the will of our deadliest and most dangerous enemy.”
There was a murmur from the staff. People stole glances at each other. Some tried to draw away. A moment before we had been a team, picked for temperament compatibility; we were now a mob, each suspicious of the other. I felt it myself and found myself edging away from the man closest to me—Ronald the lounge steward, it was; I had known him for years.
Graves cleared his throat. “Chief,” he started in, “I want you to understand that I took every reasonable—”
“Stow it. I don’t want excuses. Bring Jarvis out in front. Take his robe off.”