intricate operations with punched cards containing
all known facts about the people known to have dropped out of sight.
Other machines began to integrate crackpot reports of things sighted in
divers places. The stores of Hunter and Nereid rockets--especially the
remote-control jobs--were broken out. Great Air Transport planes began
to haul them to where they might be needed.

In England, certain establishments that had never been mentioned even in
Parliament were put on war alert. There was frantic scurrying-about in
France. In Sweden, a formerly ignored scientist was called to a
twice-scrambled telephone connection and consulted at length about
objects reported over Sweden's skies. The Canadian Air Force tumbled out
in darkness and was briefed. In Chile there was agitation, and in Peru.

There was earnest effort to secure cooeperation from behind the Iron
Curtain, but that did not work. The Iron Curtain stood pat, demanding
the most detailed of information and the privilege of inspecting all
weapons intended for use against anybody so far unnamed, but refusing
all information of its own. In fact, there was a very normal reaction
everywhere, except that the newspapers didn't know anything to print.

These secret hassles were continuing as the dawnlight moved over Italy
and made Naples and its harbor quite the most beautiful place in the
world. When daylight rolled over France, matters were beginning to fall
into pattern. As daybreak moved across the Atlantic, at least the
measures to be taken began to be visualized and orders given for their
accomplishment.

And then, with sunrise in America, real preparations got under way.

But hours earlier there was consultation on the carrier in the Bay of
Naples. Coburn sat in a wardroom in a cold fury which was in part
despair. He had been kept in complete ignorance of all measures taken,
and he felt the raging indignation of a man accused of treason. He was
being questioned again. He was treated with an icy courtesy that was
worse than accusation. The carrier skipper mentioned with detachment
that, of course, Coburn had never been in any danger. Obviously. The
event in the airport at Salonika and the attack on the convoy were
window-dressing. They were not attempts to withdraw him from
circulation, but to draw attention to him. Which, of course, implied
that the Invaders--whoever or whatever they might be--considered Coburn
a useful tool for whatever purpose they intended.