Title: Homecoming Horde
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Homecoming Horde" ***


              Haverford knew from his radio contracts he
            was the last man alive on Earth. His death was
            certain--for the enemy numbered trillions, a--

                           Homecoming Horde

                         By Robert Silverberg

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                              August 1958
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The room was sealed as tightly as possible. Haverford had checked it
for cracks, made sure the windows were caulked, and now kept constant
guard. He was alone. He could never tell when the alien invaders would
break through.

_I must be nearly the last_, he thought. It was strange, this feeling
of being alone on Earth. But it was probably true.

The aliens had come six days before. Haverford remembered picking up
their ultimatum on his ham set:--

              EARTHMEN, THE LANTHAII ARE COMING. BEWARE!

That was all it had been--an ominous warning, rather than a threat or
an order. The way the message had been worded left little doubt that
they were conquerors--conquerors from space.

Haverford had been amused, at first. A solitary recluse, he had little
dealings with his fellow men, at least not in person. The costly ham
set that occupied nearly a third of his one-room flat was his sole
contact. Through radio he kept in regular touch with "friends" in
Yokohama and Buenos Aires, Texas and Oregon, while actually leaving the
confines of his own room at increasingly rare intervals.

He had, naturally, picked up the Lanthaii messages on his set. There
wasn't an amateur operator in the world that hadn't detected them. That
was when he began to feel it wasn't a joke.

Reports came in. Dazo Osaki, the Japanese contact, reported hearing the
strange message; Lionel Bentham in Sussex picked it up also, as did
Miguel Bartirone in Buenos Aires. EARTHMEN, THE LANTHAII ARE COMING.
BEWARE! Someone--there was no doubt of it--was beaming the message at
the entire Earth from _outside_.

And then the Lanthaii had come.

Haverford, pacing his room nervously, remembered the day of
their landing. He had been talking to Bentham, the Englishman, a
slow-speaking, phlegmatic sort.

"--so I mean to write to my man in Parliament, y'know, and ask him to
plump for the legislation. It'll be a great boon for ham operators
if--Lord! What's that! _What's that?_"

Haverford had stared at the transmitter in shocked surprise as
Bentham's voice was replaced with the screeching of static, then
some other sounds he did not understand, followed by a quick, sharp,
repulsive clicking, and--

Silence.

"Bentham! Bentham!"

Silence.

       *       *       *       *       *

That had been the beginning. The Lanthaii had landed, all right. The
alien invaders were sweeping the world.

Haverford got the details from a news broadcast. They had come in
silvery ships, hundreds of them. Thousands.

"You should have seen it," Bartirone told him, speaking in his accented
English. "All over Buenos Aires, in midday--suddenly, the sky was
blotted out. Ships. Silvery ships. They seemed small. They started to
land."

"Have you seen the invaders yourself?"

"No. Not yet. They haven't come this far west in the city yet. But--"

The Argentinan's voice stopped. Haverford listened numbly, knowing
despite himself exactly what had happened. The invaders had come.

He rose, looked around his room. He had enough food in the freezer
and on the shelves to last for months. Haverford was a frugal man; by
buying in quantity, he saved precious cash that was used for augmenting
the radio set.

He decided to hide in his home--to seal it from the outside world, to
wait. Perhaps the invaders would be driven back; perhaps Earth would
fall. But he would be safe. He would not be killed in the war of
conquest.

He made sure there was no way his room could be entered. Just as he was
about to nail fast the bolt that held the door shut, he heard knocking.

Three sharp knocks. Haverford leaped for the bolt, drove it home, hung
tensely against the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Mrs. Kelley," came the reply.

He almost fainted from relief. He had expected the aliens--and it was
only the landlady. Cautiously, he threw open the door.

"Yes?"

"Have you heard, Mr. Haverford? About the invasion, I mean?"

"Yes, I've heard. What of it?"

"I just thought I'd tell you," she said, shrugging. "I know you don't
go out much or read the papers, and I thought maybe--"

"I've heard over the radio," he told her stiffly. "Is there anything
else I can do for you?"

"No--not at all."

"Very well, then. If anyone comes to see me, you can tell them I'm not
looking for visitors."

"Yes, Mr. Haverford."

She disappeared into the darkness of the corridor. Haverford slammed
the door, shot the bolt home, nailed it fast. So far as the outside
world was concerned, he was as good as dead.

He set to work sealing himself in.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two days passed--two days in which gradually, one by one, his contacts
here and there over the globe were silenced. Bentham had gone first,
then Bartirone. His two Japanese friends were gone now too; the Orient
was overrun by the invaders. South America as well.

Word was coming from the States of alien advances. New York was
in Lanthaii hands, and no broadcasts were being made from there.
The United Nations delegates had fled to an unnamed city and were
continuing to talk--to discuss the situation, no doubt, Haverford
thought bitterly.

But talk would do no good. Soon the entire world would be in alien
hands, and there would be no stopping them. None at all.

Texas went. Oregon. The aliens were obviously working their way toward
the center of North America: so far Chicago had reported no alien
attacks, but United States forces in the seacoast states had been
driven back.

Haverford ate his frozen foods sparingly, and spent long hours at the
radio.

One by one his contacts were snuffed out. He ran down the lists in his
code book, calling people he hadn't buzzed in years, just trying to
hear human voices again.

"Come in, W3XFA. Come in, W3XFA."

No answer. None at all.

The aliens held all of Asia, most of Europe; he got a brief response
from Belgium on the third day, but was unable to pick up the signal an
hour later. An underground worker in an Iron Curtain country called him
that afternoon--and then he went. The marauders from space covered the
globe.

Haverford looked at his map. They were working in an ever-tightening
ring. Soon they would be in Chicago. Then the strength of his
improvised fortress would be sorely tested.

By the fourth day, he was down to just one contact--a man in upper
Illinois, a ham operator out of a Chicago suburb.

"You there, Haverford?"

"I'm here. What do you hear?"

"Nothing. The aliens are everywhere. I can see them from my window,
swarming in the streets. They've won, all right. Mankind is defeated."

"You can see them, eh? Must be a ghastly sight." Haverford's own window
faced the back.

"It is. There must be millions of the ugly beasts, and not a human
being in sight. Haverford, who ever expected it would come like this?"

"No one did. No one ever dreamed of it."

"They must breed fantastically rapidly if they can send an invasion
force of this size. Imagine it, Haverford--a living tide of Lanthaii
spilling out from their home world, covering all of the universe and--"

"Yes? I hear you," Haverford said.

"Something outside my door. It's _them_, Haverford! It's them!"

The set went dead. Haverford stared dully at it for a moment, then
turned it off. There was no one else to talk to. He was alone.

He was the last survivor. Unless there was someone else, cowering in a
skyscraper basement somewhere, hiding in a thick field of corn--

But the Lanthaii were methodical killers. They had set out to
exterminate the human race, and--

Haverford stiffened. What was that scrabbling, scratching noise in the
hall? It sounded like--

He knew what it was. The Lanthaii were coming. They were wiping out the
stragglers now, the few like Haverford who had remained alive. They
were wiping the Earth clean of life, leaving it bare and ready for them.

The scraping at the door grew louder. The bolt strained; the hinges
started to give. Haverford watched coldly, knowing that he hadn't done
the job well enough. They were going to be able to get through.

A dark line appeared down the center of his door. It began to crack. It
yielded.

Haverford turned frantically to his radio set, desperately sending out
a call for help. But of course nobody heard him, nobody answered. He
was alone and he knew it. Except for _them_.

He wheeled to face them, to go down fighting. He looked in horror at
them--insects--huge, ugly, and alien. They came on. He backed to the
wall. And in the last moment as time seemed to stand still he became
aware of an insignificant detail, laughable, yet tragically ironic.
A fly buzzed around his head. An earth fly. A pitiful creature, a
nothing--an insect.

The fly lighted on the floor a few feet ahead of him, crawling slowly
toward the alien horde pouring through the door. And the aliens broke
their ranks, passing around the fly, almost respectfully, he thought.
Or was it paternally?...

Then they reached him.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Homecoming Horde" ***

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