Part 21 (2/2)

There was an immediate thud, followed by a drumming against the wooden floor and shouts of dismay from Darlene. Kyle turned off the razor. The drumming quickly faded. He clicked the razor on; the spastic beat resumed. He switched off the shaver a second time, this time unplugging it.

When Kyle entered the dining room, Darlene was hovering anxiously over the still-p.r.o.ne Swelk. He

shrugged apologetically to them both.

Blake's glower had been replaced by shrewd calculation. ”Shall we continue our hike?” asked Kyle. An agent handed him a backpack as they left the safehouse.

”What you just witnessed, Colonel, was the aliens' biggest weakness. Swelk was instantly disabled by the electric motor in my razor.”

”Explain.”

”Members of her species orient themselves by reference to the planetary magnetic field. Any electric motor, not just the one in a razor, converts an alternating current into an alternating magnetic field. The electromagnetic part, called the rotor, pushes magnetically against a stationary permanent magnet, the stator. As you know, wall current alternates at sixty cycles per second. I just inflicted on my friend a sixty-times-per-second reversal of her sense of direction.”

”So she had extreme vertigo.”

”Right,” agreed Kyle. ”But more than that. You saw her twitching uncontrollably. If you listened closely, you might also have heard that her computer immediately stopped translating her words. Swelk was shouting something, but while the motor ran that speech was unintelligible.” The computer itself

was unaffected, continuing to translate, or at least to make alien-sounding noises, in response to Darlene's English.”Couldn't your ugly little friend be play acting?””She had no warning of what I did, and her response surely seems involuntary. That aside, it turns out the house surveillance system recorded prior incidents.” Once Kyle had been told of Swelk's previous

episodes, he had known to look. Darlene, who had been unaware of the hidden cameras, no longer

showered there. He dug in the backpack. ”Hence this videocam.”

They stopped beneath a towering hemlock. Blake accepted the videocam and pushed the Play b.u.t.ton. In the preview screen, Swelk stood in the dining room, a date and time appearing in tiny digits in the display's corner. Moments later, Swelk collapsed. Kyle handed over a second videotape. The new image showed Darlene in the kitchen, overseeing an air popper. The date and time matched Swelk's collapse on the first tape.

”Check these.” Kyle offered two more tapes. Once more Swelk was stricken, now concurrent with Darlene's use of an electric hair dryer.

”Maybe it's the noise, not the motors.” Probing curiosity had replaced hostility.

”Nope. A razor heard across the house is quieter than Swelk's own translator. I made an audio tape of a popcorn popper and played it back on a ca.s.sette recorder. That made her ill at ease, because the recorder itself has a small motor, but how loudly I played the tape made no difference.” They resumed their walk.

”When I converted that same tape of popper noise to MP3 format and ran the file through an electronic player, Swelk didn't react at all.”

”You're saying we can disable the ETs with a big electric motor near the stars.h.i.+p.”

The safehouse was no longer visible through the trees, but a clearing had come into view. A windswept field in Minnesota rushed to mind, the meadow from which Andrew Wheaton's family had been

abducted. ”No, the s.h.i.+p's hull would surely s.h.i.+eld them. But if we can get an airlock open, penetrate that s.h.i.+eld . . .”

”My guys know all about penetrating things, and we're not restricted to kicking down doors.” Blake's

smile was frankly predatory.

”There's a fusion reactor in that s.h.i.+p, which will be in the heart of metropolitan Was.h.i.+ngton. The last thing we want to do is to make it go boom.”

”I don't think they're going to respond to the Delta Force ringing the bell, even if all we're carrying is

razors.”

”Swelk knows how to get us in.” Kyle ignored an outburst of protest. ”She deduced from her questioning that an attack must be imminent.”Blake swallowed an oath. ”You trust the little monster?””That's exactly what I propose to do: trust her. If we bring her, she promises to share the airlock keypad code that will let us into the s.h.i.+p.””Bring an enemy to the raid.” Blake was incredulous.”Bring a defector. An ally. That's what I sincerely think she is. Every fact in our possession confirms that she is. If I'm right, her help will be invaluable, in operating the onboard systems after we take over the s.h.i.+p, in interpreting anything the crew says.”

”And if you're wrong?”

Kyle swallowed hard. ”I'll be very sorry. You see, I'm going to be in the lead truck.”

CHAPTER 28.

Rualf sat amid a ring of displays, a.n.a.lyzing camera angles. The s.h.i.+p's hull was studded with sensors.

The President was in the Oval Office, ready to watch a closed-circuit television view of the ceremony while, unbeknownst to him, an orb observed him. Rualf shouted final directions to the troupe as to where their F'thk cameras should stand. They wriggled into the robots' control suits.

Show time.

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