TEST CASE

The following events took place in Waconia, Minnesota, population 2445, on Highway 5 in northwestern Carver County. The two men involved were Edward Edmunds, who farmed 180 acres in the vicinity, and Dr. Joseph Cleary, his nearest neighbor, who didn’t do much of anything at all.

Dr. Cleary lived in Carver House, a fourteen-room structure which had come to him as part of an estate. He was a sharp but controversial individual. He had earned his doctorate in parapsychology at Duke University but he had been dismissed from his post at nearby Carleton College because of his questionable activities off campus.

Edmunds, on the other hand, was an inarticulate, uninteresting man who blundered into the affair only because his farm happened to lie athwart the course of events.

On Tuesday, July 9th, a work truck of somewhat unusual design pulled into Edmunds’ front yard. There were four men in it and the back was loaded with equipment.

“Do you own the property fronting the highway?” one of the men asked.

Edmunds said that he did.

“We’d like permission to put up a telephone booth there. We’re putting up similar booths along the highway for emergency purposes. We’ll pay you three hundred dollars yearly rent in advance.”

Edmunds regarded the offer as any man in similar circumstances would. He could use the three hundred dollars. He agreed.

The truck turned about and returned to the highway. There the workmen proceeded to erect a booth with a folding door. The construction didn’t take long, and when it was completed, Edmunds strolled down to look it over.

“Things are gettin’ too damned technical,” he said to himself. “What do they need a telephone way out here for?”

But he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. What struck him as odd, however, was that the booth appeared unstable. He got the impression that it wavered there in the morning sunlight.

A similar booth was erected on Highway 5 between Waconia and Victoria. When news of them reached the local phone office, the district manager was upset. He hadn’t been briefed about any new developments or changes in the lines in the area, and he dispatched a testy letter, asking why, to the Northwestern Bell central office in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, a work crew of “gandy dancers” began to renovate the old spur of the M.N. and S. railroad two miles north of town. This spur hadn’t been used in ten years. It bypassed Waconia, leading trains around to Cologne and Norwood.

At four o’clock that afternoon, all approaches to Waconia on both Number 5 and 4 as well as County Road 10 were torn up by construction crews and detour signs erected. This left only 284 open as passage into town, and work was begun on this road too. A notice was posted on the Waconia bus depot that temporarily all bus activity was suspended.

* * * *

It had always seemed strange to Edward Edmunds that his neighbor would want to live alone in a house as large as Carver House. But then, Joseph Cleary was an odd man. When Edmunds drove into the long winding driveway that fronted the estate that afternoon, he found Cleary doing all he ever seemed to do, sitting on his spacious veranda, reading.

Edmunds did not come to the subject at once. As a frequent visitor, he idly discussed weather and crops. Eventually, however, he told of the phone booth which had been erected on his property. Cleary was only politely interested. Likewise, news that the railroad was reconditioning its spur failed to arouse the ex-professor from his lethargy.

But when Edmunds added that the roads into Waconia had been closed and when he casually mentioned trouble with the radio and TV reception in the area, a gleam entered Cleary’s eyes.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Edmunds replied that he had seen and heard of these incidents first hand.

“Well, well…” said Cleary.

Anxious for a diversion, Edmunds suggested they drive the three miles back to his farm and see the booth, to which Cleary, after a moment’s thought, consented. Arriving at the place off the highway shoulder next to the driveway, the professor approached the booth as a man who had never seen such an object before. He opened the door and picked up the phone.

“You have to put in a dime,” Edmunds said unnecessarily.

Cleary made no move to insert a coin. Instead, he examined the walls and even looked at the baseboard near the floor. When he finally placed the phone to his ear, he did something to a small elliptical stud that was all but concealed in a far corner. He stood there a long time, apparently listening. Then he replaced the phone and the gleam in his eyes grew to a perceptible glitter.

“Do me a favor, will you, Edmunds?” he said. “Don’t talk about this for a few days.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say that if you do, someone may want to charge you a tax or something and you may be out some of the money they paid you.”

“Can they do that?”

“They can do anything,” Cleary said. But he wasn’t referring to the phone company.

As has been said, Dr. Cleary was a scholarly man. But he also had a background which might be described as “on this side of the law.” That is to say, he had, on numerous occasions in the past, engaged in activities which, if not illegal, were very close to being so. He had among his acquaintances a number of persons whose dossiers were familiar to the police. And he was known to have little compunction about lending his intellectual abilities to any enterprise at all where financial returns were assured.

He walked down the road that night to Coleman’s Corners where he managed to flag down a Gaylord bus and rode it the thirty-odd miles to Minneapolis. In the city, in the Nicollet-Grand area, he entered a disreputable apartment building and a little while later sat at a table around which were six other men. The one in authority was called Grafton.

For a long time, conversation passed back and forth across the table. But at length, Cleary said, “It is agreed then. You are to be ready in case I call you. But remember my information is vague and indefinite. I shall need time for substantiation.”

That was Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon the town of Waconia was considerably annoyed that it could receive no television or radio broadcasts at all, and complaints were made to the Minneapolis stations.

Thursday morning a strange car entered Waconia from the west. How it bypassed the detour was not known. The car looked, as one citizen put it, like a 1995 model. It was apparently constructed of a new kind of metal, for when it turned a corner, the entire vehicle seemed to bend as if made of elastic.

This car went down Main Street and drew up before Selim’s Department Store. From it stepped four men, garbed in a kind of blue coveralls, who took from the car a large dolly and set upon it three rectangular boxes-on-stilts. The Selim manager’s comment: “like they’re setting up television cameras of the year 2000 to relay everything that goes on here.”

But let us return to Dr. Cleary. As a student of parapsychology, he had done considerable work in telepathy, or more accurately, the transmission, reception and interpretation of separated thought. He had conducted numerous experiments in which operatives of different linguistic backgrounds had received and understood ratiocination over a wide distance. And he had perfected in his own right the Lewellyn trials of inverted telesthesia.

Back in Waconia, he hired a taxi and had himself driven out again to the phone booth on Edmunds’ property. While a puzzled cab driver waited, he entered the booth a second time, found the concealed stud, touched it and “listened.”

Immediately he found himself arranging his mental processes to accommodate a series of thoughts that entered his mind—alien thoughts which in some singular way he was able to understand:

ON-LOCATION PLATOON FIVE. CONDITIONS AS PREDICTED. ANTICIPATE NO DIFFICULTY. RESULTS FORTHCOMING. THIS IS A REPEAT OF AN EARLIER REPORT.

The thought stopped. Dr. Cleary remained there a long time, face wreathed in awe. His first guess had been correct then. The enormity of it staggered him.

“Why here?” he found himself saying. “In heaven’s name, why here?”

Back in his home, Cleary used his house phone to call Grafton back in Minneapolis. He had some difficulty getting through. When the connection was finally made, his message was short:

“Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Don’t let the construction on the roads stop you.”

Then, not wishing to call a taxi again, he walked the four miles back to Waconia. He went directly to the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank at the corner of Main and Water Streets and pushed through the glass doors. He said to the woman behind the grille, “I’d like to open a savings account, please.”

While he waited for his passbook, he placed what looked like a cigarette lighter on the counter next to the grille. It was not a cigarette lighter, however, but a miniature camera with an elatoral lens. He took pictures of the massive vault door which yawned open. It was, he saw, a Simpson, Model XIV double tumbler, 14 or 15 pinion key, semi-time lock, Circa 1950. He also noted the only visible preventative, an electric eye, low down near the floor opposite the teller’s cage.

Going out, he took pictures of the space between the counter and the entrance. Outside, he paced the distance to the curb, counting, and looked up the street, measuring the distance to the corner with his eye. He noted with satisfaction that a store directly opposite was vacant and boarded up.

He walked to the opposite corner. The street here led directly to the highway, where it converged on the town. Careful to be unobserved, he stooped and fastened to the curb with a small suction cup a small cone in such a way that its lens angled up over the street. This was a stroblul and would effectually cripple the ignition system of any car passing through its field. He set the timer for 9:25.

Still he was not satisfied. He followed the street to where it met with the pavement and placed a second stroblul on the trunk of a tree.

* * * *

An hour later, when he returned to Carver House, he was visibly annoyed to find Edward Edmunds waiting for him on the veranda. The farmer had helped himself to a cigar from the table humidor.

“Did you want something?” Cleary asked.

Edmunds nodded. “There’s been something wrong over at my place,” he said. “Been noticin’ it all day. And this afternoon it’s gettin’ worse.”

“What do you mean, something wrong?”

Edmunds searched for words. “Well, it’s hard to describe. There seems to be a shadow going back and forth.”

“You mean like something between you and the light?”

“No,” Edmunds replied, “it isn’t that kind of a shadow. But you can feel it. It’s as though something were blocking your thoughts, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Cleary said. “Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.”

“I don’t need a psychiatrist,” Edmunds said. “I tell you, it’s a shadow. When I’m in the house, it passes over me, just as if something moved across the roof.”

Cleary did not offer any other suggestions, and after helping himself to another cigar, Edmunds left.

* * * *

At three o’clock that afternoon, the citizens of Waconia came to the dismaying realization that they were as isolated from the rest of the world as if surrounded by a midwestern Gobi. There was no radio, no telephone, no bus or railroad, no incoming or outgoing cars. The town was an island completely cut off.

In previous years, other Minnesota towns, as a result of flood waters, had found themselves similarly detached. Then the forces of relief had been swiftly marshaled. But the isolation of Waconia was different. It had been effected gradually, slowly, with subtle care and the outside world this time was curiously indifferent.

Sheriff Ben Isaacs, visiting Waconia from his office in Chaska, was one of those the road construction had left stranded. He was fuming at the complete lack of foresight.

“The highway department is going to hear about this,” he stormed. “I never heard of such idiotic planning in my life.”

The sheriff was also concerned about a large 10-by-12-foot screen of polished metal which was being erected at the corner of Main and Oak.

“Who gave you permission to put that thing on a town street?” he demanded. “What the devil is it?”

“It’s a magnetic dust screen,” one of the blue-coveralled workmen said. “We’re going to test the pollution in this area.”

Isaacs was all for pollution control. He couldn’t help noticing, however, that the workmen had strangely elongated ears.

“Looks like a damned wolf,” the sheriff muttered. “This country should enforce its immigration laws. There’s too many foreigners here.”

* * * *

That evening Dr. Cleary walked out on County Road 10 to where the construction work had ended and the detour sign was posted. A little before seven a black sedan drove up. From it stepped a woman.

She was a tall, well-stacked blond with wavy hair and a very short skirt. She said:

“My name is Arlotta. Arlotta Dale. Your man, Grafton, won’t be able to come. He asked me to take his place.” Cleary looked at her suspiciously. The idea that Grafton had delegated his leadership to a woman was hard to swallow.

“Oh, I can prove my identity,” the woman said with a smile. “Here’s a letter Graf gave me. He said you’d know his signature.” She handed him an envelope.

Even as Cleary read the note, a second car drove up. The five Minneapolis men were in it. Cleary approached the driver’s window.

“See if you can pull around that trench. If you can, I’ll direct you to my place.”

The driver scowled. “Who is this dame? Graf didn’t say nothing about no broad.”

“She’s to take his place. If we need verification, we can get it later.”

With much difficulty, the car skirted the trench and maneuvered around parked bulldozers and trucks. At Carver House, Dr. Cleary led the way into his library, motioned the five men to chairs and turned again to the girl.

“What happened to Graf?”

“He had an accident.”

“And he told you everything about us?”

“He didn’t have much to tell. Only that you had some caper planned, that there weren’t any risks, and that we split down the line.”

Cleary nodded, satisfied. He turned to the five men. “Now you may find it hard to believe what I am going to tell you. You may think I’m crazy. But I assure you I am quite sane, and every detail is fact. I want you to listen closely while I explain…”

Cleary talked thirty minutes. He was right. His narrative was not only hard to believe, it was preposterous. Not only preposterous, but it would have strained the credulity of persons science-oriented, or whose thinking was avant-garde.

He spoke of a psychological survey now under way by representatives from a planet of a sixth-magnitude star, sixteen light-years away. He said that a very small cross section of Earth had been selected for this survey, and its purpose was to analyze and test how life here would react if isolated from all social mores. He told of the desire of these representatives of this alien planet to verify the tendency of Earth life to panic when faced with the realization that all associations with others and all its background were suddenly severed. He stated that conditions leading to such severance were about to be produced.

When he finished, only Arlotta Dale seemed to have understood his words.

“As for the meaning behind this survey,” Cleary continues, “that’s too big a concept for me. It may presage alien visitation. It may mean anything. Frankly, I don’t give a damn. My only concern is that Waconia has been selected and prepared for it. It is that preparation we are going to take advantage of.”

He moved to the table and spread upon it blow-ups of the photographs he had taken that afternoon. He also unrolled a large chart with the towns’s streets, clearly marked with relation to the bank. “Now,” he said, “we will proceed thus…”

* * * *

Dr. Cleary had no way of knowing it, of course, but even as he spoke, Edward Edmunds was likewise planning a course of action.

Edmunds was no reader, but as a man who farmed for a living, he was acquainted with Janson’s system of sarcastic obliminal clouds. He knew that such clouds, unaffected by air currents, frequently lingered over one area and were considered dangerous to crops and man. He was convinced that his “shadow” was the result of such clouds. And he remembered that, according to Janson, they could be dispersed by an electric charge bombarded through a simple antical matrix. Thirty years before, Edmunds had served a brief hitch as a linesman. The presence of the Northern States Power lines which crossed his property decided him. He went into the house, put on rubber gloves and boots. He made his way to the nearest tower and with the agility of a younger man, climbed up and proceeded to tap the lines. He had no compunction about what he was doing. He had been paying what he regarded as exorbitant rates, and the loss of a little power wasn’t going to hurt the electric company.

And so Edmunds, proceeding blindly, stood in his yard and, when he felt that shadow over him, sent his charge into the heavens.

Results were startling. A flash of white light shot through the driven cloud. There was a roar of rending metal. And then a ragged sheet of something black catapulted out of the sky and buried itself with a cloud of dust into Edmunds’ back forty.

Now in Waconia, the impact of the town’s detachment made itself felt. In the Paradise Tavern on Water Street, in Handel’s garage, in stores and homes the rumors began.

Some catastrophe had taken place in nearby Minneapolis. A conspiracy like Watergate was keeping the country from being informed.

Groups gathered on street corners, in front of the First Methodist Church. What was nerve wracking was that the town’s isolation was not partial, it was complete. The radio and TV silence interrupted a pattern of life, the failure of the telephones left a gap impossible to bridge. True, the Duncan brothers rode their motorcycles as far as Excelsior, the blocked roads not stopping their two-wheeled vehicles, and had found everything the same as usual. But they were not believed. Car after car left town but unable to pass the construction barriers, returned with its passengers stunned with frustration.

The rumors grew. An atomic storage dump had blown up near Chicago. The government had closed down all communication to prevent panic.

Townspeople, faced with no available hospitalization, developed sudden symptoms and besieged Doc Bentle’s office on Main Street, demanding medical attention. The Widow Lamont packed a haversack and departed with her three children for “somewhere where the wrath of the Lord will not be upon us.”

The rumors multiplied. The country had been invaded and the foreign army was already in Illinois and advancing westward.

A delegation of citizens marched on the depot. But station agent Watson could only repeat what he had said before. The 6:37 had bypassed Waconia and gone instead to Norwood via Cologne. All his efforts to get an explanation for this had failed. The train wire to the dispatcher was dead. Only the station wire to Victoria remained open.

The rumors continued. A Tidal wave had struck the East Coast, submerging Washington. Bacteriological warfare plague had been introduced and was sweeping the country.

Darkness closed in on the town in a tense, sleepless night.

* * * *

But at nine A.M., five men and a girl drove into Waconia and parked their car on Water Street directly in front of the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank. Arlotta Dale got out and moved to the corner where she took up a position by the metallic screen. Dr. James Cleary, who for obvious reasons had entered the town on foot, also approached the bank but moved unobtrusively into the vacant store front on the opposite side of the street.

The courthouse clock pointed to nine-five when the metallic screen began to glow with a soft radiance. The five men got out of their car and walked leisurely up the bank steps. A cone of white light began to form before the screen.

At twelve minutes past nine, Cleary looked both ways up and down the thoroughfare. The sidewalks were filled with restless, alarmed citizens. But as he had predicted, their concern was for other matters and no one paid attention to him or his companions.

Cleary raised his hand in a signal.

The five men entered the bank.

Exactly what happened after that is not certain. A medley of conflicting reports have come down to us, and since there were apparently no certain observers whose viewpoints can be recorded, we must rely on hearsay. Several facts, however, are known. The men were in the bank approximately twelve minutes. They reappeared in the bank entrance, carrying heavy sacks, and sprinted for their car at the curb.

It is here that the narrative becomes confusing. It is said the men suddenly froze and made no move to enter the car. Instead, they turned slowly and with measured steps, like automatons, began to pace toward the corner and the metallic screen. They entered the cone of light before the screen and vanished from sight.

Arlotta Dale stood there and smiled.

Simultaneously a group of coveralled strangers—there were nineteen of them—separated from other Waconia citizens and came up Water Street, single file, at a fast trot.

They too entered the cone of light about the screen and disappeared.

Dr. Cleary was standing thunderstruck across from the bank. But even as he turned, Arlotta Dale crossed to his side, linked her arm in his and guided him into the light of the screen.

“All accounted for,” she said. “Take it away.”

* * * *

For the epilogue of this story, we must turn again to Edward Edmunds, since he is the only one left who had any connection with the preceding events. Edmunds stated that he entered the phone booth on his property, found and pressed the stud which Dr. Joseph Cleary activated and “heard” the following message:

DAMAGE TO HOVER CUTTER NECESSITATES DEPARTURE. LIMITED SURVEY INDICATED THIS PLANET UNREADY TO JOIN COALITION. WILL RECOMMEND BYPASSING.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS OPERATIVE DALE: ARRANGE TRANSFER OF RECALCITRANT ALIENS TO OUR SHIP FOR HOMEWARD VOYAGE AND FURTHER PSYCHIC STUDY.

Edmunds said that after receiving this message, he left the phone booth, which thereupon simply faded away.