"Well, that night we sent up a rocket. Nothing big enough to show on radar had approached the station, or left it, so the only other solution was sabotage. One or more of the men we sent up had to be enemy agents, and they were obviously in control of the station. We had to make damn sure we got them out real quick. If necessary, we were set to blow up the station. And then it got worse."
Dundon stopped, came over and sat down on the desk in front of Web, looking straight at him, watching his reaction. Web was frozen in his chair.
"The rocket," said Dundon slowly, "never came back. It's still up there, floating along a few yards from the station. We can see it clearly. Too clearly, damn it. And the interesting part is this: nobody got out of the rocket. Nobody went into the satellite. The rocket went up and maneuvered itself into orbit alongside the satellite, and there it sits. We haven't been able to contact it by radio either."
II
There was an icy sting lancing her arm, and then a million furry brushes began rubbing in her body. In a moment Ivy was totally paralyzed.
Black shapes, dripping and lean, picked her up gently, conducted her through the low hanging trees toward another place where a black square loomed. The hands were impersonal, but never in her life had she been touched like this. She was absolutely terrified. A door was opened. She was laid upon a dark hard floor. In a moment the floor began to move and she realized through her terror that she was in a truck. But they left her alone. She lay for a long while upon the floor unable to think. She could not possibly understand this, the who or the why, because she had not dreamed about it, or ever even considered it.
She was a girl of great natural sweetness, born of strict, respected parents and a strict, respectable life. What was happening now was so far from reality that she could not believe it. She lay on the floor of the truck trying to close her eyes, but the paralysis was too great and she couldn't. The truck drove on through the raining night, bumping, grinding, carrying her inevitably toward the worst day of terror she had ever known.
There was no question of sabotage. The men who went up, swore Security, were as clean as the driven snow. And in his own mind Dundon agreed. It was remotely conceivable that one man might just possibly slip through the incredibly complex Security check, but this was much too thorough a job. It would require too many men in too many places.