Normally the young fawn would have taken flight at sight of a human, but this one was different. The man who was yet not a man spoke to it in the language of the wild, stern and powerful in antlered symbology of stag dominion yet offering unquestioned protection. Here was haven and a scent of friend. It went to Duqayne and he petted it.

Stanger paused to watch the Messianic figure seated on the log. He knew the fawn would have bolted at his own presence here if it had not been hypnotized, gripped in a mind that towered above the massive trees. David Alexander Duqayne, unheralded mutant, an unknown instrument of walking death, yet laying aside his destroying mace to reach out tenderly to innocence. Intuitively, Stanger understood, but there were no words.

"I know what's in the message," Duqayne told him without looking up from the fawn.

Why not? thought Stanger. With that freak brain of his he probably knew more about the jelling situation than all the satellite-relayed data links of Omega could dump into the Bug. Like many of the hand-picked men of Project Omega, he often sensed the helpless frustration of confronting Duqayne on any level. It was a blow to the pride and ego to stand there in all your hard-won prowess and technical know-how and have him read the "What now, Jesus?" that burned resentfully in your mind. But that was one's own bag--it wasn't Duqayne's fault. He was what he was, irrevocably, and he hadn't asked for it. The unseen opposition had done it to him--surgically wired his mind to what they had called "synaptic totality," and daily it grew, burning his tendrils with a fever that could turn into conflagration. Mentally, Dave Duqayne was a slow-burn nuclear pile, gradually building to the critical point of a chain reaction. Dangerous though he was, they had to have his support--now more than ever.

Duqayne finally turned his dark-smouldering gaze to Stanger. He picked up a hefty straight branch and weighed it in his hand, then grinned humorlessly. He tossed it to Stanger, who caught it deftly.

"Want to go a round?"

The fawn bolted away, released from its entrancement.

Stanger raised the staff in anger. "You bastard, don't you give me the edge!" He lunged, but Duqayne was away to one side, already swinging a second staff. Stanger barely blocked it.

They fought--two perfectly muscled male animals silhouetted in forest gloom against cathedral shafts of light, the master combat trainer and his unmeasured pupil, the one utilizing all his science yet knowing its futility against the other's ability to read each move in millisecond response, countering every thrust with ease, seemingly taunting him, laughing in godly derision, simultaneously firing his rage to revolt. Stanger finally caught Duqayne's tree branch and held it firmly. The two men glared at each other. Now, Tin Jesus, here is your match! Iron bends, steel breaks. Physically, Duqayne couldn't meet him on this ground and he knew it. He yielded slowly before Stanger's awesome strength, yet he wore a cynical smile all the while. He fell back suddenly and Stanger rolled with him, flipping him bodily over the log and following expertly, wrapping the wiry mutant in a wrestling grip that was inescapable. It was an empty victory since a mental bolt from Duqayne could have stopped him by the merest whim.

"You crazy bastard!" he yelled. "I might have knocked your brains out! Even Omega's billions couldn't buy a head-pan like yours!"

"You should have knocked it off," grunted Duqayne beneath him. "Then I'd be through with this drivel. I'm tired of it--I want out, Stanger, do you hear? But Christ, I can't escape! I'm in a box!"

They held there, catching their breaths until the primordial in them was spent. Stanger let him loose and they both got up, brushing off the pine needles and bark chips.

"Sorry," Stanger apologized, "I had to lay it on you." He touched Duqayne's left forearm, which showed a reddish welt. "How bad is it?"

"This?" Duqayne scratched the spot negligently. "I've had that since yesterday--some kind of a rash."

"Could be poison oak. You'd better see Brock about it."

On the ground at their feet was the dispatch from the Bug. Duqayne slowly picked it up and crumpled it without reading a word of the computer output. He stared gloomily at the Lodge.

"So Mike couldn't hack it in Washington. They're coming out."

"It wasn't only Cain's murder, or whatever you'd call it," said Stanger. "The Pentagon's uptight about those SAC alerts with only the Joint Chiefs in the scene. They don't know the Bug's program, so a bunch of hawks in Congress--"

"Hawks? They're maggots!"

"Take it easy, Dave. They think they have a job to do."

"I have the job to do--and they'll damn well stay out or I'll feed them to Hell!"

Stanger sighed gravely. "In the old book, baby--they'd call that anarchy."

The mystic eyes bored into his. The Indian face turned slowly into a wooden mask. "There isn't a book any more--no rules at all, except one. You boys take your pick. It's me or Washington--you can't have both."

The instrument plan for this Omega flight had been filed as Hart International NX852, Flight 219, on September 11, leave Washington International Airport at 900 EST, arrive Omega (private airport), California, at 1400 PST. In the computer cross-files of CAB and NORAD's Semi-Automatic Ground Environment system (SAGE), Omega was camouflaged as "Overseas Mercantile Export General Associates." The crew and passenger list was classified information. To civilian air traffic centers across the continent, the big experimental passenger jet was just another small green target to weave into the airway patterns as it slowly traversed its assigned corridors through the stratosphere.

To the Air Force and civilian operators of SAGE, NX825 was unique. It was equipped with the latest AF and Navy IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) transponder equipment. It was coded-for-the-day in their symbol generators as friend, but with an extra binary blip in its response data-link format that called for voice-link interrogation of NORAD. The gist of this was that the plane was a "Washington Special." To the PPI-scan operators, this meant the possible presence on board of CIA or Pentagon brass or maybe higher echelon VIPs. You handed it over to following sectors with silent respect and a sense of relief. Out of sight, out of mind. Period.

NORAD headquarters thought somewhat the same but with even more respect because they had the passenger list. In addition to a heavy-seeming squad of security men, it included three Pentagon officers and five U.S. congressmen, among others referred to cryptically as Omega "representatives." Certain top officers under the Hill at Colorado Springs, including their Canadian counterparts, watched this blip with a glint of personal satisfaction. A few of them knew that a political rumble was on. It was Pentagon pressure of some kind against the mysterious Omega, an entity that could override their own scenarios by U.S. Presidential order, yet it was so secret that no one in SAC or NORAD could define just what in hell was behind the bogus name, Omega, or who was running it. That it was big, perhaps even bigger than the CIA's so-called Invisible Empire, was indicated by the fact that it operated its own stationary communication satellite. Beyond that they could only grunt and harumph that it was about time the Military took a look-see. Apparently, they consoled themselves, something of the sort was taking place.

There was also something very weird about the Omega computer tie-in to SAGE. While the NORAD officials kept a critical eye on the North American DEW simulator map and followed the mysterious target, and while they hovered instinctively or suspiciously or fondly close to their console boards capable of alerting all GCIs (Ground Control Interceptors) they found themselves hating that unseen monstrosity because of late it had seemed to act with an amazing trace of personality. Peremptory was the word looking down its nose. Well, maybe now somebody was going to cut that transistorized s.o.b. down to proper size!

Mike Havelin sat down in the blue leather arm chair of the sound-proofed executive lounge and blew a heated sigh through tightly pursed lips. The ventilators whispered coldly. He stared through the porthole at a storybook cloudland of marshmallow towers. There was weather over Indiana--fantastically beautiful on top with its cumulus weather front, but dismal and threatening on the under side. An appropriate symbology for what was facing Project Omega.

"Did they open their goodie bags?" queried Ascot, beside him.

Mike took in his two companions, grateful for comradeship in the midst of a FUBAR situation. Jerry Macklin's thin middle-thirties pallor and apparent office-chair stoop belied the special capabilities of an ex-CIA turned O-Man. His legal name had been superseded by Mike's nickname for him, "Ascot" pertaining to his flamboyant ties, which were Hollywoodish or psychedelic or sometimes more conservatively Western, like the checkered kerchief he wore now over a tan suede sport jacket, Beyond him, Jan Tromp blinked in placid square-faced expectancy through ponderous rimless glasses--a blockish, unprepossessing little man in a worn black suit.

"They broke the seals just now," Mike told them wearily. "I said they'd better read it all before climbing the bulkheads." On his lap was one of the packages, a magazine-sized pale blue envelope which bore a sedate small Omega seal, a simple Greek capital letter pressed into red wax. He opened it and tossed the neatly printed document to Ascot. On the upper and lower borders of all pages, sombre block letters advertised that it was TOP SECRET. "You helped us write it, you might as well have a copy for your briefcase, when you and Tromp are through."

"Why should they climb the bulkheads?" Ascot leaned back in his own individual chair and flipped the pages leisurely. "They've been pounding war drums demanding to see this. Now they have it."

"Well, it's that s.o.b. bird colonel from the Joint Chiefs. He was squelched in our Tank meeting at the Ranch, and now he's out for bear. The hawks gave him back his teeth."

"Not to mention that feisty Republican from West Virginia."

"Who, Dryssen? God! If he ever gets up on his Old Guard soap-box in front of Dave, we'll have a war on our hands! I'm sorry this may be a Congressional Committee out for blood, the voice of the People and all that, but let's face it. They don't know ass-up on a thing like this. They can only blow us all to Hell. It's a mess!"

"Relax, Mike." Ascot grinned at him. "You tried. The President and the Secretary of State get the picture, but they're up the same creek. Omega can't rule the world."

"You mean mustn't ... but, if this thing keeps developing at the rate it's going--"

"Iss ter-rible!" agreed Tromp, thickly rolling his rs. "I feel--heavy talk. Got tam! Dey got bad plans!"

Both Americans shushed the Dutchman who had a voice like a gravel mixer. A recent immigrant from Holland, Jan Tromp had been a paragnostic phenomenon in the Parapsychology Department of the University of Utrecht. Owing to his unique paranormal sensitivities, he was now a member of the Omega Psi Corps.

"You keep your tendrils waving, Tromp," Mike told him. "If you pick up anything specific--"

"I do!" rasped the Dutchman anxiously. "The Gener-ral vas in dere mit captain talking..."

"General Gettler? When?"

"Before you hand out secret paper." Tromp indicated Ascot's document. "He make captain to let him talk mit Pentagon."

Ascot and Mike caught each other's eye in tacit agreement. Things were getting rough.

"You pick up the conversation?"

"No--not vords, but feeling. Anger ... threats ... Dey talk of fight mit Omega, got tam!"

"Is your beeper working?"

"Hal, it better be!"

Tromp's voice was up several decibels. In spite of sound-proofing, the other two shushed him again.

"It's all we can do for now," said Mike. "I just hope J.A. is turning on Plan B to get ready for this invasion."

"Hey now," Ascot responded. "Do you mean that plan is for real? From what I heard of it, it's an overkill--diplomatically speaking."

"Hart's been building it for months, with classified inside help from the White House--just in case this should happen. Talk about backup, there's a whole battallion of support units bivouacked from Fresno to Frisco--waiting for instant deployment."

"Still sounds like an overkill."

"For this hatchet committee, Omega's going to have to pull out all the stops. Especially when the Government brass reads what they've got in their hands now. Anyway, look that document over and brace yourself. The reaction outside will be setting in shortly."

"Speaking of reactions," remarked Ascot, "what about the Press? How did Omega ever dodge the media? I mean after Dave came out with his original story about the Stone being some kind of gateway to another dimension, and how mind-controlling aliens had long ago invaded the Earth--even in Biblical times--and had become the demons we came to regard as the pantheon of Hell. Ye gods! That made more headlines than the Roswell crash! How did all that get blacked out?"

"Just like the Roswell crash and the whole UFO cult--it joined the archives of things that made popular conversation, but subjects that professional people would never tie their reputations to."

"But now that it's all for real-?"

Mike pointed to their document. "It goes Top Secret, and it calls for a multinational coalition to form a 6th estate--a secret government that the general public knows nothing about. But in representative governments that isn't easy to do. So that's why we have another hatchet committee on our hands."

While Ascot and Tromp put their heads together over the secret documents, Mike went back to his marshallow towers, miles below. He thought of the Bumpy Man of Oz and Sindbad the Sailor, of flying carpets and Pegassus--everything from Baron Munchausen and the Scheherazade to H.P. Lovecraft and Poe. The cloudland below was a surrealistic enactment of all the fantasy ever created, yet what those congressmen and the Pentagon brass were reading, up in the passenger lounge, outclassed it all for shock to the imagination. Fiction was one thing, but when stuff like that came on for real there was usually only one defense against running amuck. You scoffed or you snickered wisecracks like "Who's your sponsor?" It was too much for the garden variety of politicians and cannon jockies to swallow. Mike and Ascot knew it. Omega and the Council knew it, as did the White House itself. But there was no other route to go. Another committee. Then still more committees who wouldn't take their word for it--and more and more--until the Press got hold of it or, say, J.A. Hart was called upon to brief the entire U.S. Congress. Then panic--mayhem--the end of reason.

Unless David Duqayne simply took over. That, assuredly, they were asking for. Mike lay back and closed his eyes, thinking of the Supplement sheets at the end of the Omega paper. Those addenda should really bring them out of their seats. He had memorized them:

TOP SECRET Project: Omega

TS-OMEGA: 1-S2

White House File: SUPPLEMENTARY

XS-72951

Dist: TS-1A

A. Parameters programmed into OMEGA automatic data analysis and security alert system (code-named BUG):

STANDBY--OMEGA THREE:

1. SECURITY LEAK CONCERNING STONE

2. PSI PHENOMENA ESPIONAGE

3. EVIDENCE: PSI PHENOMENA ESPIONAGE OR AGGRESSION

NOTE 1

This alert called once, on April 15 last, as a result of kidnaping of David Duqayne from Hart International Medical Foundation,, (See Omega File Item 312.67: Dr. Jules Borg--ALPHA implications.) Alert lifted by Omega Council and U.S. Presidential authority, in interest of subsequent black-out strategy involving O-Man operation to rescue Duqayne.

(Omega File Item 314.01: Mafia-Castiglia Raid.)

ALERT--OMEGA TWO:

4. VERIFICATlON: ALPHA DIRECTED AGGRESSION

5. VERIFICATION: PLANS ENDANGERING STONE

6. ANY CONNECTED EVENT WHICH MUST BE CONSIDERED AS

EITHER EARTH ALIEN OR MIRACULOUS

NOTE 2

This alert called once, on May 1 last, as a direct result of Castiglia raid, Paramaters 4, 5, 6 and 7 read TRUE at this time--subsequently connected with disappearance of Senator Cain. Duration, three days. Alert lifted by Presidential order after Omega conference, May 3, at US-FIMR camouflaged location, code-named RANCH.

ALERT--OMEGA ONE:

7. EVIDENCE: OPPOSITION SUPERIOR BY FACTOR 1

8. PROOF OF A THREAT OF TAKEOVER

9. OPPOSITION DEFINED AND LOCATED

NOTE 3

Parameter 7 clarification: definition of Factor 1:

Per Omega Ref: TS--OMEGA 3-216.07: Paranormal I.Q. and

Psi Phenomena Extrapolations: superhuman, or supernatural.

ALARM--OMEGA ZERO. (Equals NORAD RED)

10. EITHER: ATTACK BY OPPOSITION; OR THEFT OF STONE; OR BOTH

B. Facsimile of BUG read-out, unrestricted summary dated May 3.

Location US-FIMR camouflaged location, code-named RANCH:

PROJECT OMEGA SUMMARY

UNRESTRICTED WITH TERM hqx ON COUNTER-INVERSION.

GIVEN:

1. PSI PHENOMENA ESPIONAGE AS RECORDED

2. FACTOR 1 SUPERIORITY OF AGGRESSION AND/OR RELATED EVENTS AS RECORDED

3. INCREASING FREQUENCY OF ITEM 2 AS RECORDED

CONCLUSION:

HUMAN CIVILIZATION CONFRONTED BY POINT-NINE-SIX PERCENTILE PROBABILITY OF SUBJUGATION OR REPLACEMENT BY SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE OR SPECIES

PROJECT OMEGA SUMMARY--UNRESTRICTED

SUPPLEMENTAL:

DEFINITION SUPERIOR ORGANIZATION NOT QUALIFID IN THIS SUMMARY/ RE HUMAN PHILOSOPHIC CONCEPTS OF GOOD OR EVIL

PROJECT OMEGA SUMMARY--UNRESTRICTED

SUPPLEMENTAL:

PERCENTILE PROBABILITY SUBJUGATION OR REPLACEMENT OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION: REDUCED TO POINT-FIVE-ZERO

NOTE 1

Programmer inserted question: TRACE LOGIC BASIS FOR PERCENTILE CHANGE AT OUTPUT DGA

PROJECT OMEGA SUMMARY--UNRESTRICTED

SUPPLEMENTAL:

PRIORITY OF STONE NOW SUPERSEDED

STONE IS NEUTRAL FACTOR

NEW FACTOR DYNAMIC WITH NON-LINEAR INCREASE

ADDITIONAL: IF CAN BE VERIFIED

NOTE 2

Programmer inserted question: DEFINE NEW FACTOR CHANGING

PERCENTILE AT OUTPUT DGA

PROJECT OMEGA SUMMARY--UNRESTRICTED

SUPPLEMENTAL:

DEFINITION NEW FACTOR CHANGING PERCENTILE AT

OUTPUT DGA:

THE MUTANT, DAVID DUQAYNE/ REPEAT: DAVID DUQAYNE

The mysterious Stone could be the biggest thing since the wheel or the discovery of fire in terms of potential impact on human society--and also possibly a global threat if tampered with. It was too earth-shaking a find for normal governments to handle without being at each other's throats for control of it. Yet here was the cold, dispassionate Bug telling them that David Duqayne superseded even the Stone, that the destiny of the world lay in his hands.

For Mike who had grown up with Dave it was still too much to grasp, even though he knew all the inside facts--the alien science that had changed him into a surgical mutant, his miraculous wild talents, his actual battle with so-called supernatural forces. The men in the passenger lounge simply weren't equipped to conceive of it.

Telepathic espionage, perhaps--maybe even astral projections. After all, even the University of Leningrad had a frantic program of parapsychological research going along, ever since they learned that the U.S. Navy was seriously dabbling in it. But that the Omega Psi Corps was actually using witchcraft--that would start to dim the scene for sure. Not to mention the asserted advent of demons. Well, hell! It was a case of whom did you have to see to get out of this crazy picture!

Mike knew he was committed to the nightmare with no way out, even discounting the irrevocable nature of his O-Manship in Omega. Sink, swim, die or go nuts, he was an integral part of a lifelong personal triangle involving Dave and Lillian. As Lil had once expressed it, their puppy love had been as three-cornered as a didey. Then after their baby-fat years he and Dave had returned from military service to find her a miracle of sudden woman. But Dave and Lil never made it to the church. The Kettleridge case intervened, and then Hell, very non-figuratively, broke loose. Dave became a target of forces that said the world had run out of time.

The unseen opposition had turned him into a mental monstrosity. To reach him, Lil had gone to the occult. And here he was, loving them both, caught in the middle, not knowing what pieces to pick up or where.

Jan Tromp rasped a warning. The door flew open, and the next chapter of the nightmare began. General Gettler flanked by his bird colonel and a beef-trust security agent, with Dryssen of West Virginia irately crowding behind them--at first just glaring, then suddenly red-faced and cursing, waving the document at him.

Just who the hell was spiking the drinks around here? They wanted to talk to him out in the passenger section, He took Ascot with him. Ascot could be the diplomatic type--long years in the political cloak and dagger scene. As for himself, he was Omega's Man Friday of the war department. Cold facts, mam, and if you didn't like it you could--

Ascot spoke in time. Phase one consisted of the Document--mission accomplished, gentlemen. As for the rest of it, the Omega Council would be at their disposal. In spite of this, the questions flew. Rather, there were accusations and demands.

What did Omega think it was, a private country? What was the Stone? Who was paying for all this? And what about this Mafia tie-in to ALPHA? Allied Philanthropists Anonymous, hooey. A United States senator had been murdered. As for Duqayne, the one reality of Project Omega was a mental phenomenon, all right. A hypnotist--a super Svengali who had suckered them all. Witchcraft, demons from Hell, K-chromosome monsters out of antiquity masquerading as men.

"Dammit, Havelin!" shouted the General. "Do you know this is strong enough for a Presidential impeachment?"

"Or maybe a medal," retorted Mike.

Ascot knew what those hard ripples meant along Havelin's lantern jaw. He made a quick last try. "Gents, you're going to have all the time you want to see this whole thing. Tapes, video, films--the evidence. Now what we would suggest--"

"Is that you have another drink and keep your pants on." Mike inserted. He realized that John Hart had this bunch well tagged--a hatchet crew on a political witch hunt.

"We'll ignore your insolence for the moment," retorted congressman Dryssen. His famous halo of white hair bristled above his ominous black horn-rims. "But you are instructed to remember that you're addressing the United States Government. We will ask, sir, and we will determine. Now if that isn't clear enough for you, Mr. Havelin, I'm sure the representatives of the Joint Chiefs can explain it to you in your own language."

Mike turned a tight-lipped glare toward the General, then at his young bird colonel who had been watching him, he knew, with predatory intent.

"What he means," said this one frigidly, "is that in the end analysis we hold the club."

Mike and Ascot silently exchanged glances. They turned about and retired to the executive lounge. The heat was on. Now it was up to J.A. Hart and his Council...

The grim complacency of NORAD would have been deeply disturbed, perhaps to the point of patriotic alarm, had they been aware of the subtle extensions of the Omega computer. On board the plane, for example, there was Tromp, a famed sensitive who was capable of detecting any atmosphere of danger or belligerence. Under his skin in a mastoid pocket behind the left ear, a tiny instrument transmitted micromilliamp beeps to more powerful data-link equipment nearby. So it was that the Bug even had human clairvoyant faculties in its widespread sensor system. It had already passed the alarm to the Lodge before the plane cleared Washington. The amber light on all Omega control consoles signified a secondary alert only, meaning that the signal was not yet related to the Prime Alarm system. However, any Omega operator could punch his read-out board and receive a verbal translation from the Bug. In this case the message was: OMEGA SECONDARY: BE PREPARED FOR TROUBLE. STAND BY FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. In fact, while NX852 was over those marshmallow towers of Indiana the Bug suddenly added: RE NX852 FLIGHT 219: U.S. MILITARY MOOD IS DANGEROUS/ REPEAT: DANGEROUS.

Far above the California coastline a five-ton stationary satellite hung poised in its locked orbit. Semi-buried within its maze of sun-powered communications and surveillance gear was a big compartment containing an object which was the core of secret contention. License to use the exotic invention had come from the Presidential and Cabinet level. The White House was still sweating this politically dangerous decision, but they had been forced by unprecedantod circumstances not to consult the CIA. Meanwhile, the Bug possessed it now and as J.A. had once laconically remarked, the Bug was "a growing boy."

(1) 19th century Austrian poet, Franz Grillparzer. (quoted lines translated by the author, from Jugenderrinnerugen im Grünen)