When he returned to his office, Harriman found a message in-structing him to report to Director Russell at once. He found Russell in conference. In the Director’s office were four men—George Zachary, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Henri Lamartine, Commissioner of Extraterrestrial Relationships; Dr. David van Dyne, chief medical examiner of the Security Agency; and Paul Hennessey, Commissioner of Justice and Russell’s immediate superior.
Director Russell said, “Well, Harriman? Did you see the Nirotans?”
“I saw Trinnin Nirot himself,” Harriman said. “And I got nowhere.”
“What do you mean, nowhere?”
“Trinnin Nirot categorically denies the possibility that any Nirotan might have committed the crimes. He says that Nirotans are vegetarians, and that the whole idea of their being vampires is beyond belief. But he won’t let us have a look at any of his men to confirm it.”
“We expected the denial,” muttered Commissioner Hennessey. “But where do we go from here?”
“Isn’t there any evidence on the bodies?” Harriman asked.
Dr. van Dyne said, “All three bodies are here, and I’ve examined them. All that can be definitely determined was that two needle-like instruments penetrated the jugular veins of the victims and rapidly withdrew their blood. The withdrawal might have been done with teeth, or it could have been done mechanically. Of course, if we could get hold of a Nirotan and examine his teeth, we could probably find out readily enough whether one of them actually committed the crime or not. If they’re really vegetarians, they probably don’t have the equipment for doing it.”
“Are we trying to decide whether a Nirotan actually did it?” Director Russell asked in some surprise. “I thought that was all settled. There were witnesses, after all, for the San Francisco murder.”
Commissioner Lamartine said, “Before we can start to take legal action against the Nirotans, we’ll have to rule out all possibility that any other race might have done it—or that the crimes were committed by Earthmen.”
Russell blinked. “Earthmen? Are you suggesting—”
The bearded little commissioner shook his head stubbornly. “We’re dealing with a proud and stubborn race here, as Mr. Harriman can confirm. We can’t simply accuse them of a crime like this without proof.”
“Eyewitnesses constitute some beginning of proof,” Russell snapped.
Commissioner Hennessy held up a hand to cut short the dispute. “Please, gentlemen. I think Trinnin Nirot’s refusal to permit examination of any Nirotans speaks for itself in the matter of guilt or innocence.”
“I’m not so sure,” Harriman put in. “They seem to have some kind of taboo against letting other species get too close to them.”
“But certainly they’d be willing to let the taboo go by the boards for the sake of clearing themselves,” Russell objected.
“Not necessarily,” said Lamartine. “We’re dealing with alien beings, remember. They don’t see things the way we do.”
“In any event,” said Secretary-General Zachary, “we’ll have to reach some solution in a hurry. There’s rioting going on in every city where Nirotans are located. And the bitterness is starting to spread to take in other aliens, too. If we don’t restore order in a hurry, we’re going to find all the extraterrestrials pulling out—and turning Earth into a backwater world considered not fit for civilized beings to visit.”
Harriman stared at the five grim faces. These men, like himself, were shaken to the core by the notion that the beings from the stars might be blood-drinkers in fact as well as in appearance. And it was hard to believe in the innocence of the Nirotans.
The phone rang. Director Russell reached out with. a plump hand and snatched the telephone nervously from its cradle. He listened for a moment, snapped some sort of reply, and slammed the instrument down again.
“Bad news,” he said, his face becoming grimmer. “A mob broke into the building where the Nirotans were taking sanctuary in Budapest. Dragged three Nirotans out and killed them. Drove wooden stakes through their hearts.”
Harriman felt chilled. Legends weighted with medieval dust were erupting into the neat, ordered world of the twenty-second century. Wooden stakes in Budapest! Ominous mutterings against the winged people—and three bloodless bodies lying in the morgue ten floors below.
“Heaven help us if the Nirotans are innocent,” Secretary-General Zachary said tonelessly. “They’ll never forgive us for today.”
“I’ll order triple protection,” Russell said. “We don’t want a massacre.”
Hysteria was the order of the day on Earth in the next six hours. Three murders in themselves were not of any great importance; round the world each day, hundreds of human beings met violent deaths without causing a stir. But it was the manner of the deaths that dug deep into humanity. The killings struck subconscious fears, and brought to the surface the old myths. It was dread of the unknown, dread of the people from the stars, that touched off the rioting round the world. The relative handful of Nirotans waited behind the walls of their shelters, waiting for the mobs to come bursting in.
The United Nations General Assembly, which had become the world government in fact as well as in name during the past seventy-five years, met in an extraordinary session that evening at U.N. headquarters. The purpose of the meeting was simply to vote additional appropriations for the protection of extraterrestrial beings against mob violence—but during the session a delegate from the United States rose in wrath to demand the immediate withdrawal of what he termed the “Nirotan vampires” from Earth.
The resolution was declared out of order, and did not come to a vote. But it represented the sentiments of a great majority of Earth’s nine billion people on that evening.
Harriman flew to San Francisco that evening aboard a midnight jetliner that made the journey in four hours . A waiting taxi took him to the downtown San Francisco offices of the Nirotan Trade Delegation, in the heart of the city on Market Street. The summer fog shrouded everything in gloom.
Special Agent Michaels was waiting for him outside the heavily protected building. The agent’s face was set tightly. Fifty or sixty people were parading wearily around the building, despite the lateness of the hour. They no longer seemed violent, but they carried hastily constructed placards which bore slogans like VAMPIRES MUST DIE! and NIROTANS GO HOME!
“Been any trouble with the pickets?” Harriman asked, indicating the mob.
“Not as much as earlier,” Michaels said. “There were about five hundred people out here around nine o’clock, but they’ve all gone home, except the diehards. They were parading the mother of the murdered man around the building and screaming for justice, but they didn’t try to do any damage, at least.”
Harriman nodded. “Good. Let’s go in.”
There were fifteen Nirotans standing inside. Michaels assured Harriman that the group included every Nirotan who had been in the San Francisco area in the past three days. If a Nirotan had been the murderer of Sam Barrett, then the murderer was in this room.
Harriman stared at the group. As always, the facial expressions of the aliens defied interpretation. They seemed to be waiting for the disturbance to die down, so they could resume their normal way of life.
Conscious of their dread appearance, of his own insignificance, of the nauseous odor of fifteen Nirotans in one room, Harriman moistened his lips. A mental image came to him unexpectedly—the fifteen bat-like creatures surrounding him, throwing themselves on him with once accord, fastening their fangs in his throat and sucking away his lifeblood. He winced involuntarily at the vividness of the picture.