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see, gentlemen,” Radcliff continued soberly, “the Valorians are more than merely persuasive. They are spinners of hallucinations, experts at hypnotic illusion. To learn that much cost us one Valorian prisoner who escaped from our stockade.”
    Astonished, Wellford straightened in his chair and exclaimed, “Aliens with a whammy!”
    Dabbing perspiration on his forehead, Radcliff drank a full glass of water.
    “As to why the Valorians are here,” he said more softly, “… if we didn’t know, we could readily guess. They are planning, of course, to take over, with a minimum expenditure of effort, materiel and personnel. We suspect that they were somehow responsible for our Nuclear Exchange. We have every reason to believe that they, themselves, brought the Screamies to Earth to facilitate conquest without direct aggression.”
    Oregson stiffened. Had Helen actually become involved with something like that? Now, more so than ever, he wanted to return to Pennsylvania.
    Radcliff brought his fist down on the lectern. “But now we know how to fight them! Our main strategy shall be to deprive them wholly of the secrecy which allows them to circulate in the rural areas and recruit unsuspecting persons for the human-Valorian cells that will be used to destroy us.”
    He stared profoundly out over his audience. “Tomorrow, gentlemen, the entire world shall know all of the details that you are learning now. Hereafter, we will not be alone in the fight.”
    Again, his voice moderated. “I said one of our Valorians escaped from the compound. That left us with two. One is here with us today—properly sedated so as to be no threat.”
    He signaled into the wings and the curtains parted abruptly on a Valorian trussed in a chair, chin lolling on his chest.
    Radcliff tugged the alien’s head erect “Where are you from?”
    “The Valorian System,” came the delayed, sluggish response.
    “How can you pose as a human?”
    “Remote observation. Intensive training. Surgery.”
    “What are the Screamies?”
    “A plague found in another system.”
    “Did you bring it here?”
    After much hesitation: “Yes.”
    “Can you cure it?”
    “There is no cure. It will run its course and wear itself out”
    “Are the Valorians immune?”
    “Yes.”
    “How can they persuade humans to help them?”
    “Through hypnotic compulsion.”
    “Why are the Valorians here?”
    “Earth’s system and order will collapse under the plague. Then we will strip your world of its resources.”
    Radcliff walked around behind the chair. And Gregson, alarmed, watched him draw a laser pistol from inside bis coat.
    The single zip sounded harshly in the hall as the beam burned into the Valorian’s head and he slumped forward.
    Radcliff grimly faced the assembly. “This was meant to be a grisly demonstration. The point I’ve tried to get across is that there is no latitude for human sentiment in dealing with the aliens. Only a dead one is harmless.”
    Gregson’s arm was seized in a frantic grip and he turned to see Wellford shuddering beside him. The Englishman’s eyes were glazed with terror and his lips were working frenziedly but soundlessly.
    Finally the first serrate scream erupted from his throat as he clamped his hands over his eyes.
    Then he filled the auditorium with anguished cries.
    Gregson administered the injection and the hypodermic siren’s strident tones lamented Wellford’s purchase of the Screamie package.

CHAPTER VI
    Spawned by the Nina’s aborted expedition, the aliens-among-us fixation had gained the force of a nearly paralyzing obsession following 1995’s Nuclear Exchange. For months, a dazed world had been resigned to the expectation that what had been only rumored and suppressed would inevitably be acknowledged as true.
    Yet, no one was quite prepared for the impact of the press conference that Tuesday in the old U.N. General Assembly Chamber.
    Before the battery of trivision cameras were arrayed the Security Bureau