Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
INFINITE INTRUDER
BY ALAN E. NOURSE
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
When Roger Strang found that someone was killing hisson—killing him horribly and often—he startedinvestigating. He wasn't prepared to find the results ofanother investigation—this time about his own life.
It was the second time they tried that Roger Strang realized someonewas trying to kill his son.
The first time there had been no particular question. Accidentshappen. Even in those days, with all the Base safety regulations andstrict speed-way lane laws, young boys would occasionally try to guntheir monowheels out of the slow lanes into the terribly swifttraffic; when they did, accidents did occur. The first time, when theybrought David home in the Base ambulance, shaken but unhurt, with thetwisted smashed remains of his monowheel, Roger and Ann Strang hadbreathed weakly, and decided between themselves that the boy should bescolded within an inch of his young life. And the fact that Davidmaintained tenaciously that he had never swerved from the slowmonowheel lane didn't bother his parents a bit. They were acquaintedwith another small-boy frailty. Small boys, on occasion, are inclinedto fib.
But the second time, David was not fibbing. Roger Strang saw theaccident the second time. He saw all the circumstances involved. Andhe realized, with horrible clarity, that someone, somehow, was tryingto kill his son.
It had been late on a Saturday afternoon. The free week-ends that theBarrier Base engineers had once enjoyed to take their families forpicnics "outside," or to rest and relax, were things of the past, forthe work on the Barrier was reaching a critical stage, demanding moreand more of the technicians, scientists and engineers engaged in itsdevelopment. Already diplomatic relations with the Eurasian Combinewere becoming more and more impossible; the Barrier had to be built,and quickly, or another more terrible New York City would be theresult. Roger had never cleared from his mind the flaming picture ofthat night of horror, just five years before, when the mightymetropolis had burst into radioactive flame, to announce the beginningof the first Atomic War. The year 2078 was engraved in millions ofminds as the year of the most horrible—and the shortest—war in allhistory, for an armistice had been signed not four days after thefirst bomb had been dropped. An armistice, but an uneasy peace, forneither of the great nations had really known what atomic war would belike until it had happened. And once upon them, they found that atomicwar was not practical, for both mighty opponents would have beengutted in a matter of weeks. The armistice had stopped the bombs, buthostilities continued, until the combined scientific forces of onenation could succeed in preparing a defense.
That particular Saturday afternoon had been busy in the Main Labs onthe Barrier Base. The problem of erecting a continent-long electronicBarrier to cover the coast of North America was a staggeringproposition. Roger Strang was nearly finished and ready for home asdusk was falling. Leaving his work at the desk, he was slipping on hisjacket when David came into the lab. He was small for twelve years,with tousled sand-brown hair standing up at odd angles about a sharp,in