"Anything for me?" he asked.
"No. Just continue with your investigators. You can make the arrangements about having this thing hauled down to Everett, but check with me before you do. Okay?"
Dickson nodded.
"C'mon, Brice," Cartwell said. "Let's get Morgan and find out what the college professors can tell us about this screwy thing."
They wrapped the piece of metal in Cartwell's jacket and the three of them headed through the forest toward the road in the valley.
* * * * *
Professor Nichols was a wisp of a man who peered at them through small, bright eyes nearly hidden in fleshy folds. Although his body was about the shortest Brice had ever seen on a man, the brain beneath his crop of white hair had made him a giant. A linguist all his life, Professor Nichols spoke a dozen languages fluently, in addition to reading and writing them. Brice knew him by reputation and grinned at him as he came into the empty Dean's office.
"Gentlemen?" He favored them with a smile. "I'm Nichols. Doctor Bendtolz said you wanted to speak with me."
Brice introduced himself and the Federal men and, after a round of handshaking, Cartwell handed the chunk of metal to the professor.
"We'd like to know about the writing, Professor," Sam put in.
Nichols examined the etching on the metal for some time before he looked up. His small eyes searched their faces in turn, then he smiled thinly as though witnessing a very bad gag.
"Are you gentlemen playing some sort of joke?" he asked.
"The Government doesn't pay us to play jokes," Cartwell informed him cryptically. "Do you know the language?"
Professor Nichols shook his head. "I know every spoken language in the world, and I know many of the dead languages at least by sight. I don't know this one."
"You're serious?"
The old man nodded. "This must be some sort of jest on me. There is no language on Earth, dead or alive, that matches this."
"We aren't joking, Professor," Nolan said seriously.
"Then, my friend, someone must be playing a joke on you. No linguist can identify this language. I'll stake my reputation on that. Where did you get this?"
Cartwell smiled. "I'm sorry, professor, but we cannot disclose that information. We'll also have to ask you to forget about it. Government business, you know."
"Yes, of course. Is there anything else? I have a class in three minutes..."
"No, that's all. Thank you, Professor Nichols."
"You're welcome. Good day, gentlemen."
As the door closed behind him, a thick silence fell over the three men. Cartwell looked out the window and pulled at his lower lip with a blunt thumb and forefinger; Nolan sat on the edge of a desk, looking at the strange writing as an ethnologist might stare at the bones of the missing link.
"What now?" Sam asked, softly. "Call in a Martian to get his opinion?"
"It's not funny, Sam."
"Don't I know it," Sam shot back. "We've got some kind of tiger by the tail in this case ... a tiger bigger than the Kremlin, and I'm wondering how this will all sound in a report to the capital."
Cartwell snorted and ran a hand through his blond hair. "I'll let you write the report, Sam."
"You go to hell. I like my job and I don't want to get booted out because of a science fiction twist on an otherwise normal investigation."
"What's the next move?" Nolan asked, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.
Cartwell shrugged. "Go back to the wreck, I guess and try to figure out something."
Sam suddenly slammed his fist on the table and several textbooks danced. "John," he exploded. "You _know_ what this means, don't you? If the professor's right, and this gibberish on this chunk of metal _isn't_ an Earth language, then we got problems! You know what we got up there? We got a Flying Saucer! A space ship!"
"Oh, my God, Sam cut it out! I don't believe in the damned things, I refuse to."
Sam snickered. "It looks to me as though you haven't any choice in the matter. It's like refusing to believe in a Ford V-8; it don't make any difference whether you believe it or not, it's there."
"Jesus," Cartwell said softly.
"And that isn't the payoff. We didn't find a body in the wreckage. Unless that ship traveled by remote control, it had a pilot who is wandering around the country right now. I can see it now. A wounded little green man running around trying to hitch a ride back to Mars. It'd be funny if it wasn't so damned serious."
Cartwell nodded at his partner. "We'd better get back up there to the site. Maybe the air search or the rescue squads picked something up. Coming, Brice?"
Nolan forced a grin. "With little green men running around?" Then he became serious. "I'll be up a little later. I have something to do down here."
Morgan snorted as they headed for the door. "See if you can locate a Buck Rogers ray gun. We might need it."
They went back to their cars and Nolan Brice wedged himself behind the wheel but he didn't start the engine. He sat there, instead, watching the Government men drive off down the street, his mind whirling with a million jangling thoughts that tore through him viciously. Flying saucers, Martians, little green men! The whole damned thing was impossible, ridiculous...
But true. A man just couldn't sit down and say "I refuse to believe in lightning." It didn't make sense. You had to believe what your mind told you ... and his mind was telling him wild things.
It all fit. Hell, it fit with a perfection that was absolutely fantastic, but crazy enough to be the truth. Nick Danson, commercial artist, disappeared thirteen months ago and every police agency in the country can't locate him. It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed him; but it hadn't been the earth, it had been the sky. _They_ had done it ... the Martians, or whatever the hell they were.
Why? Why steal a Terran?
To replace him? To send an alien being down to take the place of the Terran they had stolen. That took care of the confusion the watch had represented. For awhile it had looked as though Nick had piloted that space ship, but now Nolan knew better. It wasn't Nick. It was an alien!
Beth!
Had an alien, posing as Nick, located Beth and was now engaged in using her to help in whatever they had come here to do? How many other Missing Persons cases were wrapped up in this thing? How many aliens were walking the streets of earth right now? To hell with that, Nolan, he roared at himself. The important thing is Beth. You've got to find out about this thing and stop it, before something happens to her.
He started the car, slammed it into gear and gunned it out onto the street, the tires screaming a protest...
CHAPTER TEN
Janet was more than a beautiful woman and a good model. She was white heat and surging womanhood all dolled up in a body like that of a French movie star. She was as wanton as a Polynesian dancer and as demanding as a nympho. Lying there beside her relaxed nakedness, Nick Danson felt like another man - a tired one.
He laid his hand over the swelling rise of her breast and slid it down the flat velvet of her stomach. She made a small sound in her throat and kissed him on the cheek with lips like branding irons.
"I'm glad you have amnesia," she cooed against his ear.
"Why, for God's sake?"
She snuggled the curling warmth of her body against him and chuckled. "Because of this. You used to kiss me, but that was all. I wanted more, but not you."
He blinked at the ceiling at her words. She'd tricked him! It was a nice trick, but still she'd cheated. All the time he'd figured that she was some sort of mistress, or something - obviously that's what _she_ had wanted, but in his other life he'd never given her a tumble. It was funny, in a way.
"You mean ... we never..."
"Nope." She chuckled again. "Aren't I a rat?"
"Vixen, is more like it."
"That's a good word. I like it. Janet Vixen. How would you like to kiss Janet Vixen, Nick Danson?"
"Suppose I get another knock on the head," he suggested, "and I lose the memory of all this, too? Then what?"
"I won't embarrass you in front of company. C'mon, kiss me again, stranger!"
He rolled over and kissed her again and, tired or not, he could feel the desire surging through him again. Her small hands moved over the muscles of his shoulders, digging into his flesh, her teeth nibbling at his neck. Janet was one of those odd women who can't seem to take a darned thing serious. No matter what the risks were involved, to her making wild love was a hell of a lot of fun and that was that. He had the hunch that if he tried to get serious with her - marriage serious - she'd bounce him fast. But hell, it was impossible to think of things like that with her, besides he was having too much fun. If, he thought later, you can call it fun when you're so weak you can't move.
"I have to go, lover," she said finally. "Beth might come up, and I think she would be apt to get a little put out if she caught us in bed."
"That's putting it mildly," he grinned. "Besides, I have to start trying to find out about myself."
"Do me a favor and don't." She pecked him lightly on the lips. "I like the new Nick Danson a hell of a lot better. C'mon. Snap my bra."