THE WATCHERS
By ROGER DEE
It had taken him ten years to find them—to even convince
himself that they existed. Now Manson was ready to kill!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories September 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He left his gyro on the dark lawn and circled the villa, carefullyavoiding the wash of light from open windows. The blast gun lay snugand cold in his hand, and his thought ran bleakly: Here am I, PeterManson, pacifist, idealist, reformer, preacher in print of toleranceand amity—about to kidnap a man whom I shall almost certainly killbefore morning.
Tomorrow the telecast would list his madness with other insanities:sex murders, suicides, political drumbeatings for the coming holocaustof the inevitable Fourth War....
War.
"They're going too far," he said, half aloud. "Their routine meddlingswere bad enough, but another war now might mean the end of everything."
He found the alien who called himself Leonard Havlik in a bright,book-lined study, packing a miscellany of papers into a brief casethat bore his name in gold lettering. A secretary was helping, a slimgirl with crisp, copper-colored hair and clear green eyes.
Manson waited, tense with unaccustomed strain. Somewhere a bird trilledsleepily, and the night-wind, fragrant with the smell of trampledclover, blew cool against his damp face.
Irrelevantly, the scene inside reminded him of his own quiet studywhere he had labored for ten years over the scant gleanings ofhis search. In that time he had written four books, fighting witha reformer's apostolic zeal to open the eyes of men to their ownpossibilities, and he had failed.
He had not awakened his kind, but he had found the Watchers. Thefailure was not his fault. It was Theirs....
The girl left the room. Manson straightened at his window, bringing upthe blast gun.
"Come out, Havlik," he ordered. "Quickly, or I'll blow you to dustwhere you stand—Watcher!"
His quarry looked up, startled—a small, dark man with a thin, tiredface and sparse gray hair, a perfect replica of the million ordinarybusinessmen his camouflage of humanity aped.
Manson snicked off the safety catch of his weapon, and Havlik camethrough the window quickly, without protest. Manson prodded him intothe gyro and manacled his wrists together.
"We Earthmen have a time-tested proverb," Manson said, "to the effectthat you can't fool all the people all the time. I've spent ten yearssearching for you, Havlik—and here I am."
He set the autopilot for his cabin on Green River, holding his blastgun warily, and sent the gyro slanting upward into the night. Havliksmiled faintly, dark eyes gleaming in the light of the instrument panel.
"Laugh while you can," Manson said grimly. "I've learned something ofyou Watchers already. I'll know more by morning."
"Force was unnecessary," Havlik said unexpectedly. "I would have givenyou information willingly, since our mission here is ended. The KhaNiish, who are our masters, have ordered us to leave Earth. Tonight."
Manson stared, the alien's assurance fanning his anger.
"You're lying—you Watchers have mingled with us for centuries, usingour own ignorance to set us against each other. You've kept us inperpetual confusion, deafening us with our own bickering while youtightened your hold on us. Now you're fomenting a Fourth War that maywipe us out completely, to save yourselves the trouble of liquidatingus directly. You'd never go now, with success almost in your hands."
"Perhaps you mistake our intention," Havlik sa