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ADDED BY ISLANDGIRL 5 FOR GALEN, AS ALL PARTS WERE POSTED IN SEPARATE THREADS
Series: ...And I Can’t Hide
Episode 1.2ØX: A Darker Sun
Rating: Teen
Summary: Max questions his identity.
Disclaimer: The rights to the characters and situations of Roswell are the property of Warner Brothers, Jason Katims Productions, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox, Regency Television, and Melinda Metz.
Leaving the female to her nap, as Doug had suggested, the three trekked out to the dig site. But it offered little to view, either from the original period of use or from the date of its study; if there were any artifacts remaining, they still lay buried. “Yes, I know this place,” said Doug. “Quemaduras—and the pit.” He pointed toward the gaping excavation in the middle. It had shelves jutting out at different depths, the lowest thirty feet below ground level. Evidently the project had been discontinued before completion and left as it was. “The circle of truth was situated in the center, about nine feet down.”
“Circle of truth?”
“This was a holy place of the Mesaliko. A kind of shrine where they opened themselves to receive knowledge from the spirits of their ancestors—or their own imaginations, if you prefer. Nothing extraterrestrial about it.” He sounded disappointed again.
Max was not. Anticipation was swelling in him, and had been ever since they had arrived. Doug was right, no alien artifacts were to be found there, but it did not matter: this was the place he was meant to come. The proof was that everything that had happened—the quarrel with Liz, her sprained ankle, Shellow’s rescue of her, the sergeant’s knowledge of this place—had conspired to bring him there in spite of himself; to bring him where he had to be to receive the revelation, which was now at hand; this he knew, without knowing how. Aware, yet unaware, of what he was doing, he started toward the pit.
The Lodestone began to beep, faintly; this recalled him, and he stepped back. The sound ceased. Evidently, though the site was not one of those on the map, it contained a little of the same energy, the Vallosan energy; if he concentrated for a moment, he could feel its pull, but it was as weak as the signal the Stone had emitted. Perhaps there were many small repositories like this, scattered over the Earth; they might be almost anywhere, and might be responsible for powering all kinds of minor phenomena without anyone ever guessing.
“Did you hear a noise?” Doug asked.
Max feigned innocence. “Noise?”
“Step forward again,” Doug instructed him, with what sounded like true scientist’s curiosity. Max could not do that, could not reveal the presence of the Stone to the others. But what excuse could he make? At that moment, by luck—or some other agent—a welter of dust flew up around them. “Sandstorm!” Doug shouted. “Let’s go back.” He and Swift started off; Max lingered where he was. His time was almost upon him. Doug called to him. “We have to leave!”
“I’m staying.”
“You can’t! It’s not safe!”
“I’ll risk it.”
Doug stared strangely at him, as if he were almost ready to stay too. But Swift drew him on. “Let him git blowed away, if he’s that set on it. All this goo’s prob’ly his doin’ anyhow.” After they had gone several yards, they looked back to see him standing in the eye of the whirlwind untouched, with a circle of calm around him. “See?” said Swift. “What’d I tell you?”
Before they had reached the store, the sky began to dim. “Is it my imagination,” Doug began, “or is it getting—”
“The eclipse!” He had forgotten all about it. “Almanac said one was due.”
For miles around—downtown, at the high school, at the reservation—people stood like store window mannequins as untimely night fell. Liz, the only person of Max’s acquaintance who could have told him precisely when it would happen, was almost the only one sleeping through it.
At the edge of the pit, he turned to the black sun. What was the hour of darkness for others was for him the hour of seeing. He removed his jacket, shirt, and shoes. Barefooted, bare-chested, he climbed down into the excavation, to the heart of it, directly below the space where the holy circle had stood. There he sat cross-legged. Shut his eyes. And saw—
The same thing he had seen with his eyes open: darkness. But a lesser darkness: the blue night sky spread out above him, the desert around him. A girl child was standing with him—naked, as he was; this was the first scene in the sequence of his life on Earth. It was succeeded by a later one, and that by a later; scene upon scene, each supplanting the last more rapidly than the one before; dozens, scores, hundreds of them, catapulting him finally into today. And over them all hung the dark sun, in which he saw Feddin’s face—that is, the face he knew.
Then another face eclipsed it: Coach Clay’s. The mouth opened, the tongue emerged, and a pill was resting on it. For some reason this troubled him; it reminded him of someone else. Who? The face changed—to Doug Shellow’s. That was who it had been; Klima had taken his shape; and he would be with Liz now. But Max could not stop on that account, or on any account; the hour of seeing had arrived.
Liz opened her eyes, and for a few seconds was not sure they were really open. The back room had been dark before, but was darker now. “Why is everything so—” Then she remembered. “The eclipse! And I’m missing it!” She sat up. “Doug? Max?” She got no answer. “They must all be out watching it.” Then she stood. Her ankle pained her, but less than before. She limped to the curtain and peered out.
The shop was dark, as well as empty, except for a light from the museum, showing through the half-open door. She hobbled down to it and pushed it open the rest of the way. And the light— “Oh, my God!” It was the light of a handprint, inches from the floor, and showed up the face it was tattooed on: Sergeant Swift’s. Doug was gone. She knew now who he was. But where was he? Out watching the eclipse with Max. Fear raced through her.
Just then, Max himself was remote from present cares. His vision—the light at the heart of the darkness—had begun. He saw himself, and all his selves—the Vallosans; saw them in all their dimensions, ranging over time and space. In their true form, they looked human-like, but not human—greyer and more leathery. And their home world looked Earth-like, but not like Earth—its sunlight darker, its landscapes narrower. He remembered it from a life or lives past, but someone else’s, not his. Its natives, however, he knew; knew them in himself. If his knowledge of them had needed, sought, and found words, they might have been these:
Isolated. Alone. That’s what I am; what we all are. We Vallosans. Alone all our lives. We have communities, but no community. We have feelings, but they’re never shared; we believe they’re purer in isolation. There are myths of love and friendship, but they’re like the Earth myths of men flying: only children and dreamers believe them.
The one thing we have—almost the only thing—is war. War, always and forever. It’s our occupation, our avocation—our life. Not war between races or countries, because there is only one race and only one country; and not for a flag or a creed, because we don’t have those. It’s for ourselves; for individual gain and glory. In that sense, we’re all mercenaries. Life is a battle because we’ve made it so. War doesn’t scare us; why should it? If we’re wounded, we heal ourselves. If we feel pain, we anesthetize ourselves. If we die, it’s over. We fight for the necessities—space to live, bread to eat—but no more. We believe it’s wrong to want more.
We’re not barbarians. We have art and literature, but not as things apart: everybody paints, everybody writes. Why did I never write a poem for Liz, I wonder? Was it my human side that held me back? We create—but we don’t save what we create. We attach no importance to beauty for its own sake, only for the power it holds.
We have no religion—that is, most of us don’t. But we wonder about things. When we’re not fighting, we’re experimenting: figuring out how things work, and how to make them work better. That’s a different kind of war, I guess. There are a few holy ones—mystics and their disciples—who reject the Vallosan way and live on their own, in the desolate places. They’re left to themselves, and no one mourns them when they die. In fact, no one mourns any death, or celebrates any birth. Families are strictly biological. Children are assigned by lot. And raised to be—
Isolated. Alone.
So he ended where he had begun. And in fact his perceptions were not consecutive but concurrent, each one coexistent with all the others. “This is the other half of me,” he said aloud. “Why I can’t give myself to Liz the way she gives herself to me. Half of me wants it, the other can’t comprehend it. And I have both halves inside me. That will never change. I’ll always be divided—never whole.”
“Never,” a voice echoed.
Max opened his eyes. A dark figure was standing above him in the blackness, at the brink of the pit. “Klima!” said Max. “It was you who communicated that image to me at Swift’s place. So I’d suspect him instead of you.”
“One of the many stratagems I’ve learned in my time here to confound the humans.”
“You’ve done more than that. You murdered Hubble’s wife, Maria’s father—”
“Not murder—war. That’s why we’re here. Join the fight. Become who were you meant to be.”
“Then I’d become you. One is enough.”
“In that case, give me the Stone.”
“I need it. To take me where I’m going.”
Shellow—that is, Klima—smiled. “It will do more than that.” He searched mentally for it on and near Max, and realized at once it must be elsewhere. Max could not hide his first thought fast enough: Klima turned to the pile of clothes on the ground near him. A beeping arose from the jacket. At the same time, the dirt under his feet changed to ice. He slid toward the edge of the pit. Laughing to have been caught by such a basic trick, he spun around and propelled himself back toward the jacket. He reached out for it.
—but another hand grabbed it first. Liz was there. She had hurried to Max’s aid—hurried as much as her ankle would allow it—no matter whether he wanted it or not; no matter whether he deserved it or not. Klima turned on her. At once a tower of earth rose between them and toppled onto him. He dissolved it to a thick fog. From it bounded Max, helped along by the ground, which changed to springy rubber wherever he stepped. When he reached Liz’s side, he took up the jacket and unsheathed the Lodestone. The spiral bathed them both in its blue light. Max felt the power flowing into him.
“Hurt her,” he told Klima, “and I’ll kill you where you stand.” Hearing this, Liz was not as mad at him as she had been earlier.
Klima seemed to be debating whether to try him. “Coward,” he said. “Human. You’re not even part Vallosan.” But he let this be his parting shot. He plunged himself into a darkness greater than even the eclipse could account for.
Then day returned, and it was as if the night had never been. Max knelt by Liz. “Will you let me heal you now?” She extended her ankle. He passed his hand over it. She flexed it and felt no pain. Without another word, he rose and started away. She jumped up and ran after him, with no difficulty at all now. “Go home, Liz,” he said. But he was not angry this time.
“I saved your life.” Her voice was shaking, but she pressed on. “We saved each other. We’re—comrades in arms.”
His face relaxed, and he smiled at the double meaning. “All right. You’ve earned a place on the journey. We have little enough time left anyway.” And together they headed out across the plain.
In Roswell that night, two hours after having gone to bed, Diane rose, still asleep, and walked through the house to the laundry room, where Isabel was waiting for her. “Sit,” she commanded in a whisper, and Diane lowered herself into one of the pair of folding chairs Isabel had set up. She sat with her back straight and her eyes still shut. Then her daughter spoke to her, but not to her waking mind:
“I have to go somewhere. But before I leave, I wanted us to have a dreamwalk together. So I could tell you—what we should have told you before. You won’t remember most of it—sorry, that’s how things have to be for now—but I wanted to tell you anyway. There’s not much to tell. We don’t know much. Max has gone to find out more, and he’s summoned me to find out with him. I don’t know how long it’ll take, or when we’ll be back. But you don’t have to worry about us. Remember that. And maybe you can get Dad not to worry too. Tell him we’ve gone camping with Michael.”
She gazed at her mother affectionately. “You’ve been wondering lately who I am—what I am. So have I, and so has Max. All I know right now is, we came here from a place a long way off, where they can do things the people here can’t. Change things. Change ourselves—well, some of us can. See into other people. See into their dreams. I know it’s scary to think there are people who can do those things. But it’s scarier if you’re the one doing them. The thing you have to keep telling yourself”—and she meant herself as much as her mother—“is that it’s natural. As natural as it is for a bird to fly or a fish to swim.” She smiled at the song that began playing, unbidden, inside her mother’s head. “That’s right. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. See it as just a part of the universe. Then you won’t be scared. Remember that too. And always remember—I love you.”
It was inadequate to her feelings. But words always were. Maybe when she knew more, she would be able to say more, or say it better. “Okay, you can go back to bed now.” Diane rose and walked off as if hypnotized. Returning to the hall, she did not see her husband, who, having woken to find her missing, had come hunting for her. He watched her curiously as she passed: he had never known her to sleepwalk before.
Glancing into the room she had come from, he saw Isabel; she was busy folding the chairs and did not see him. A look of suspicion crept over his face—but he was not sure just what he suspected. Still revolving it in his mind, he went back to bed. That was fortunate for Isabel because if he had kept watching he would have seen her leave by the back door. Michael was waiting outside. She could not take the Jeep, and he did not have a car. So the two of them left on foot, following the summons they had received from Max to join him in the desert.
Out there, before night had fallen—and it would be true night, this time—he had sighted, amidst a line of rocky hills, their birthplace, or the equivalent; the place from which they had wandered ten years before; the rocks pictured on the map. “That’s where I’m going,” he said to Liz.
“Then this will be our last night together.” He nodded. “Can we make it—something special?” Her look was openly inviting. He extended a hand. The earth ahead of him rose up to encurtain them on three sides, and to enroof them, and it became a canopied tent of red velvet. From the same earth he fashioned two golden goblets and a fountain of Bordeaux, filled the goblets until they overflowed, and gave one to her. Holding it in both hands, she sipped long and deep. Her head, not accustomed to wine, began dancing. “This is so, so great,” she said. Then she wagged a finger at him. “But it’s not ’xactly what I—”
“I know. But it’s all I can give.”
After two gobletfuls, she was feeling not only airy, but sleepy; she slid over to where he was sitting and leaned her head on his shoulder. He placed a comforting arm around her, and together they sat staring out the front of the tent toward his destination. Neither spoke for a while. At last Liz said, “You’re not with me, are you?—I mean, really with me.”
“No, but you’re with me. For tonight at least.” He added, “I sent for the others. The gate isn’t for me alone. The three of us must pass through it together.”
“How do you know that?”
He smiled. “Intuition.”
Another silence followed. “Max, what will happen to us? After tonight?”
“I told you, it will be different.”
“But we still might—we might—might—” Her voice trailed off with her thought.
He hushed her. “No sense trying to make out things when it’s pitch black. You humans spend too much time doing that.”
“Of course. What else is there to do?”
“What I’m doing. Wait.”
“Then I’ll wait with you. Wait long as you want.” She was still feeling the glow of the wine, and she snuggled closer.
“There’s that about humans. They’re loyal.”
“And you’re not?”
He pointed. “See that stone?”
“What about it?”
“It will be there tomorrow, and next year, and a century from now, unless someone moves it. But you can’t say it’s loyal. It’s just—fixed.”
For some reason Liz began to cry. She tried to stop herself, but could not. Pretending not to hear, he continued staring out toward the hills until the crying had stopped, to be replaced by an audible steady breathing. Then he began to speak, in a voice low enough not to wake her:
“Elizabeth Valerie Parker
child of this Earth
the day I found you
I also found myself
or thought I had.
Before that day
I never understood
what happiness was
in life on this Earth.
Then I understood
or thought I had
because we were happy
and I thought it was
the same kind of happiness
for you as for me.
But yours is face to face
and mine is behind a veil
as if I could not absorb it
could not endure it
could not understand it
unless it was filtered
filtered of impurities
the matter of this Earth.
So it seems in the end
I am not like you.
I thought I was
or felt I was
or felt I could be.
But the harder I tried
to be like you
to be of this Earth
to live on this Earth
the more my other side
rose up against it
my alienness
that is, me.
So I came here to find
that side of me
that alien side.
Maybe there never was
another side.
Maybe all the rest
was only you.
Soon I will know
soon I will go
and gaze into the mirror
waiting for me here
mirror of that self
mirror of Vallosa.
Then I will become
the thing I see
with no more pretending
no more Max Evans.
Dream of him softly
child of this Earth
after he is gone
into that mirror.
Dream of who he was
or was in you
once upon a time.”
And so he had written the poem he had never gotten around to before. But, being Vallosan, he did not trouble to save it, and forgot it as soon as it was spoken.
In the morning, Liz woke to find herself alone. And the canopy had disappeared. “Max!” she called. The only answer was her own echo. She began running toward the hills, and when she could run no longer, she walked. Eventually she saw him, but as a tiny figure far ahead. She called again, but there was no way he could have heard. At the foot of the hills, she saw two other figures waiting, and knew who they must be. The three of them joined hands and climbed up out of sight.
Against her expectations, she saw Max once more. Climbing the same slope they had taken, but an hour later, she attained to a view of a taller slope above and a valley below, where much of the ship’s core stood exposed. It had a hull of its own, the same color as the surrounding dirt—if it were not the dirt itself she was looking at. From where she was standing, she could see no way down. Yet there were Max and the others standing in front of the core. She did not know they had spent most of the time before her arrival evaporating the dirt it had been buried in.
Now Max pointed the Lodestone at it. A hatch appeared and slid upwards with a hum. The three entered, Max last of all. “Max!” she called. As the hatch slid shut, he looked back from inside—but with the same alien eyes as before; a stranger’s eyes. Then the hatch fell, shutting her off from him, maybe forever.
Inside, the three looked around them. The core was bigger than it had appeared from the outside. The walls were inscribed with the symbols from the cave. In making a reconnaissance, they discovered the large central chamber opened in one direction onto another, smaller chamber containing two sets of pod-like berths, four to each set, that were connected with tubes. The configuration was like that other symbol on the map, the one located near the symbol for the rocks: it was a picture of this. Into the wall behind them were set eight transparent cylinders, with more tubes running between them and the pods. That was all the apparatus they saw. “There are no controls,” said Michael. “How’d they work this thing?”
“The way we opened the hatch,” said Max. “By force of will. Or does that sound too crazy?”
Her sister gave him a look. “Max, we’re beings from another planet standing inside the ship that brought us. The normal rules about what’s crazy don’t apply.”
Outside, Liz was tracing the rim of the valley, searching for the path down. At last she found it. On reaching bottom, she pounded at the hatch, tried to pry it open—and even kicked it a few times—but soon realized her efforts were useless. She slumped down and began to cry; Max had said it was no place for her. She continued crying until she had cried herself dry. Then she continued sitting, having no reason to stay, but no desire to go.
Presently she felt the ground under her tremble, and heard the growl of engines. She climbed back up to the rim and looked over. On the plain below, a contingent of Army Jeeps was moving in, and a pair of earth movers with them. The Jeeps might have been the same ones she had seen at the Pohlman ranch, because Seaver was there too; she got out and strode among the soldiers, pointing here and there, shouting orders. She pointed to the hill Liz was standing on, but with some unrelated purpose; she was not really looking at it, and had not seen her. Liz ducked down anyway. It took a minute before the significance of the earth movers hit her. Then her fear—for Max, not herself—got the better of her common sense, and she started down the hill at a rush.
The three inside had no inkling of what was going on outside: the core was soundproof. Having finished their reconnaissance, they looked at one another uncertainly. “So, we’re here to find out stuff,” said Michael. “How?”
“Simple,” said Isabel. “By opening ourselves to it.”
The other two knew she was right. “Well?” said Max. “Are we ready?”
Isabel looked at Michael; he nodded. “We are now,” she said. They all took a deep breath and joined hands. Isabel shut her eyes, and the others followed her example.
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then a wild jumble of images, noises, and other sensations broke loose inside their heads. It was like playing a thousand VR games at once. They opened their eyes, but it made no difference: their true surroundings had vanished, lost in the chaos. They had to struggle to keep it from sweeping them away with it, away into madness. “It’s too much!” Michael shouted.
Isabel was resisting best: she was used to psychic spaces that made no sense. “Focus!” she cried. “Pick out one thing and use it as a lens.”
“The Lodestone!” Max felt blindly for it and held it out in front of them. “We can focus on this.” They did so, with much effort, and saw it as solid and immobile, a fixed center in the whirling disorder; they channeled their perceptions through it, and little by little, the disorder sorted itself out. Presently they became able to understand some things, first one and then another. And they did so in communion: the understanding of one was the understanding of all. “I see,” said Michael, in a tone of awe. “I mean, I’m starting to.”
The soldiers outside did not notice Liz until she reached bottom. The nearest one, whose dog tag identified him as R. Aguilar, Corporal, moved to apprehend her—without need, since she was coming to him. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“That would be my question.” He nodded toward a no-trespassing sign like the one she had seen at the ranch.
She thought fast. “Rock collecting. For a geology project.”
“Where are your rocks?”
Maybe she had not thought fast enough. “I didn’t find any. Of the right varieties, that is.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Don’t drive.”
“You hiked from Roswell?”
“I’m a wizard hiker.”
Seaver stepped up to them. “What’s this girl doing here?”
“That would be his question,” said Liz, rather tartly.
“Says she walked from Roswell.”
“Which is true, oddly enough.”
“Take her to the motor area,” ordered Seaver. As began started to lead her off, Seaver made a chopping gesture in the direction of the earth movers, and they roared to life.
Liz started back, but Aguilar held her fast. “No! You can’t do that!”
Seaver turned. “Why? Are there others with you?”
Liz could only say “No.” She searched for some other reason. “You’ll destroy the ecosystem.”
“A system that’s no use to humans should be destroyed.” Liz was prepared to debate the point, but never got the chance. “Get her out of here,” said Seaver. Liz watched helplessly as the big machines lumbered into position and gouged out their first load. The attack had an immediate and unexpected result. The entire hill began to vibrate, the vibration spread, and earth came pouring down in an avalanche, raising a fog of dust. The operators of the machines scrambled out of the way. When the dust cleared, the hill was only half as high as it had been, and flat at the top, though the whip-like rocks above remained untouched. The core could not be seen. Liz would have been happy for that, but she realized it was now completely buried, and those inside were buried with it.
They themselves were still unaware of what passed outside, absorbed in the vision they were undergoing. Now that they had learned how to read it, they discovered they had determined its form through their unspoken questions; it was a compilation of all the data required to provide the answers.
...They saw Vallosa as it had been, and one of its many battlefields—probably a permanent one. But the combatants were fewer than they had been a decade before. Constant warfare dwindled a population, even allowing for the ability to heal and to resurrect. Too busy fighting, the Vallosans had not been tending their planet as they should have, and so its resources had dwindled too....
On an airfield, a fleet of ships sat waiting—ships to carry the seed of Vallosa to a planet that was not dying yet. One of them was the ship whose core they were standing in now. In the enclosing section—the part that would later be jettisoned—sat a cot, of a sort, but no other amenities, and no controls. Feddin entered, in uniform. He shut the hatch, reclined on the cot, and strapped himself in. A holster on the wall beside him held the Lodestone. He laid a hand on it and willed the ship to take off....
In mid-voyage, while he was sleeping or in some form of suspended animation, the ship was jolted by some outside force (the envisioners were not told what, because the core itself did not know). Five of the wall cylinders were dislodged, their seals broke, and the contents trickled out. That was what had become of their shipmates....
The ship landed in a field. A fiery projectile shot out of its side into the earth and sped underground, its glow visible on the surface as a circle of blue, light gliding across woodland and desert. From the hull it had abandoned staggered its pilot, injured and shaken, but alive. Far away, under a range of rocky hills, the core came to rest, and there went dark....
Back in Roswell, in the present, an olive-drab Jeep pulled up outside the Crashdown, and Liz climbed out. She surveyed the facade, tinted purple by the dusk. Not long since, she had expected never to see it again, and she still felt divorced from the place, as if it were one she had known in her childhood and was now returning to for the first time.
When she entered, her father dropped what he was doing (which he had had no very clear idea of to start with) and ran to her. “Lizzie!” She had not given him a thought until now. He and the customers stared at her soiled jeans and weary stance. “Are you all right? Where in Pete’s sake have you been?”
“I ran away. With Max.” She felt as if the voice were issuing from someone else.
“I knew that kid couldn’t be trusted! Glad you came to your senses.”
“I didn’t. He sent me away. Turns out we’re—from different worlds.” Her father did not know what to make of this. Liz saw past him to the girl working the tables, and realized her face was familiar. “Maria?” She was not supposed to be there, was she? Or had that all been settled? Liz could not quite remember. “Maria’s back?”
“Girl I hired quit. So I re-hired your friend.” Maria was looking at her with what might have been concern or mere curiosity, but when Liz volunteered a smile, she returned to her customers. “I want to know exactly where you’ve been,” Jeff was saying, “and what that boy did to you.”
“Dad, he didn’t do anything—at least none of the things you’re thinking. I would have been back sooner, only I sprained my ankle.” He looked toward it. “It’s fine now.”
“Quick recovery,” he observed.
“Has Mom gone?”
“No, she insisted on sticking around until we knew you were safe.”
Liz remembered it all now. She had slipped back into her old place as if she had never left it. “I messed up your plans again, didn’t I?”
“Lizzie—”
“It doesn’t matter. Honestly, it doesn’t. Right now I just want to get some sleep, okay?”
Jeff had no choice. “Okay. But tomorrow we talk.”
“Yeah, tomorrow. ’night.” She started toward the back.
“’night, Pretty Pumpkin Peachy-Pie.” This surprised them both. Liz turned all the way around. “Wow,” Jeff said sheepishly. “Haven’t called you that in a long time.”
She stared at him in reproach. “You’re right, Dad. We really do need to talk.”
Back in her room, which was also as if she had never left it, she resisted the temptation to fall onto the Laura Ashley covers and instead went to the window, as if she could see the desert from there, and she prayed to the machine that had swallowed him and the others. “When you’re done with him, please send him back.” She could scarcely finish the prayer. “As Max, not a stranger.” She clung to that hope, even as she gave herself up to the inducements of Laura Ashley, while far away, beneath the New Mexico desert, the vision of the ship-borns continued into the night.
...Forty years passed. The core remained buried, and asleep....
Then one day it woke. A crowd was gathered above to celebrate the night of its coming; their accumulated energy penetrated to it, filled it, and brought it to humming life. It knew what it needed; it was programmed to know. Its energy called to one of those from above—a fifteen-year-old named Kathleen.
She probably did not know, probably thought she was going off exploring on her own. At the time, she had a curiosity about everything in the universe, very like Liz Parker’s now (and later, as a teacher, she would recognize the kinship). The thing drew her up into the rocks and then down to itself, eking out a passage in the earth for her. She ventured in, ventured deeper, and yet deeper. Too late, she realized she had gone too far; the tunnel had closed behind her. The thing drew her inside it, through its open mouth. And then....
What followed was missing. The next thing they saw was Kathleen lying in a faint under the rocks. When she recovered consciousness, they were the first thing she saw. But what she had been subjected to within the core remained a mystery. Maybe when it blocked her memory of the experience, it blocked its own. Or maybe it was programmed to keep the technical details confidential. But they knew what had happened to her, and why, even if they did not know how. Blood, or some other source of genetic material, had been transferred from her to the cylinders, to mingle with the Vallosan material already contained there. The synthesis would create hybrid beings—themselves....
And now they saw their own genesis. The material from the cylinders ran into the pods. Bodies formed there, and grew, their physiological processes slowed almost to stasis....
So they lay for twenty-six months. Then the boy who was not yet named Max had a dream, his consciousness propelled forth by the same energy that had conveyed him to this new, unknown world. He dreamed of a girl his age with long black hair. She had a name, but he did not yet know it. In her bedroom, miles away, she shared the dream with him. The two of them floated together in a cosmos of stars and shooting stars and rainbow clouds of gas. They regarded each other with the fascination of two different species, unlike but friendly.
“My name is Liz,” the girl said. “What’s yours?” The boy stared at her without understanding. “I live back there, in Roswell.” She began to float toward him. He floated an equal distance away. “What’s the matter? Can’t you get close to anybody?” Then she knew. “You’re from up there! Mommy says nobody lives up there. I knew she was wrong.” He floated away farther. “Come back!” He faded to nothing. “Come back,” she said wistfully. “some day—please?”
The boy sat up in his pod. The force of the dream had woken him. Its mental energy also woke the other two. Innocent of this world, of any world, they opened their eyes to life....
Max—present-day Max—broke out of his vision with the same force he had all those years earlier. And once more he brought the others out with him. Neither complained. They knew what they had sought to know, and would not have then been capable of absorbing more. They took long, deep breaths as they recovered from their exertion. “Visions kinda take a lot out of you,” Max observed.
In Isabel’s mind, one thought stood out. “We are human.”
“Half human,” said Max. “Vallosans made human. Destined to be at odds with ourselves, and everyone else.”
“And Topolsky’s our....” Michael for some reason found himself unable to finish.
“As far as anyone is,” Isabel said cautiously.
“So that’s what it was. We kinda messed up her life, you know?”
“I didn’t know,” said Max. “How do you?”
“Things she told me. She’s still not sure what’s real and what isn’t.” He shook his head. “We’ve messed up a lot of people, just being here.”
“Now we’ve seen the omega factor,” said Isabel. “Our planet’s ending.”
“And the alpha,” said Max. “Our own beginning.”
“And we know a lot more than we saw.” It was Michael who put this into words, but they were all equally aware of it; the vision had penetrated to more than their senses. “We know what they were thinking, and feeling. What they had in mind when they sent us here.”
“We were sent to take over,” said Max. “Not by waging war, like Klima wants. By invading the human bloodline, like Grunewald feared. But not to kill humans—to mutate them.”
“Turn them into Vallosans,” said Michael.
“Exactly. Except it won’t work. Maybe because we’re part human already. Liz’s blood is the proof of that.”
“Good,” said Isabel. “It was a stupid idea anyway.”
Michael was walking along the wall, running his eyes over the symbols. “I can read these now. Can you?” He laughed. “Yeah, of course you can.” He stopped at the spiral. “But not this one. And it’s the most important.” He tried, but gave up. “No information on it at all.”
“I think you have to—” But Isabel never got to finish, for just then, the light that radiated from within the walls began flickering. “Bet this thing used up all its juice on us,” said Michael.
“Sooner or later, the ambient energy will regenerate it,” said Max. “Until then....” He pointed the Stone at the hatch. “No use.”
“Leave it to me.” Michael melted the hatch through. The earth on top of them began to pour in through the gap.
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” said Isabel. “This is another fine—”
“We’ll turn it into rock,” Max said, more practically, “and bore a tunnel through it.” They turned toward it as one.
A few minutes later, they climbed out into a new day, not having realized the old one was gone. Also, the hill had changed shape. “What the hell happened here?” asked Michael.
As if in answer, a pair of heavy-duty engines started up below, and the ground under them shook. They looked over the rim—which was lower than it had been before—and saw the earth movers in motion: the onslaught had resumed. Even as they saw, they were seen; one of the operators pointed up at them, shouting, and they dropped down again. “We have to destroy the ship,” said Max.
Michael protested this. “There’s more information in it. A lot of things we don’t know.”
“That’s why we have to destroy it. If the Army get their hands on it—”
“Michael!” Isabel was looking down again. “Klima has to take pills, you said.” She pointed to Corporal Aguilar, alone at the foot of the hill, who was doing just that.
“Lot of people take pills,” Max noted.
“I got business with this one,” said Michael. He plunged his hands into the earth, worked it like clay, and lifted out a basketball.
Isabel clutched at his sleeve. “How do you know it’s him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t.” It appeared the knowledge he had gained at Feddin’s feet had not reformed him entirely. He rose to standing and hurled the ball down at Aguilar, or whoever it was, with superhuman force: more than his arm, by itself, was capable of. But perhaps he had known more than he had pretended to, perhaps some instinct had told him, for no sooner had the corporal spotted the approaching missile than it exploded. “It’s him. He’s with them!”
“I don’t think they know it, though,” said Max.
“That’s his advantage,” said Isabel. “He can become anyone he likes, any time he likes. If he’s out to make war, he can make himself the head of the army—of both armies. And if he gets hold of this thing—”
Michael turned to Max. “You’re right, it has to go. But are we powerful enough to do it?”
“Together—and with the energy here at our disposal—maybe. We’ll try melting it down.” They joined hands and concentrated. At first the core resisted. Then it changed into a tangle of energy that throbbed and whirled and sparkled.
“Are we doing that?” asked Michael.
“It’s doing it.” In response to their desire, and refueled by the same energy they had invoked, it was finishing the job for them.
“God, Max,” said Isabel.
Then, unexpectedly, the tangle leapt out at them, throwing them to the ground, before it dispersed into the air. As Max fell, the Stone slipped, or was pulled, out of his pocket and into the hole the core had left. Earth cascaded down on top of it. He grabbed after it, but too late.
Michael glanced below. Some of the men were starting up the hill. “Time we were out of here.”
“The Stone!” Max cried. “We have to get it back!”
“It’s gone, Max,” said Isabel. “Accept it.” After a moment, which seemed to her endless, he did, and they fled over the hill, just ahead of the soldiers’ arrival.
Late that night, as Liz lay in bed, he came in and woke her. Yet he was still out in the desert; it was his mind that burst into hers, causing her to clutch at her breast and gasp—and not out of fear: it was bliss having him inside her. Miles away, he gasped too, and sat up with a lunge, waking his sister, who was lying close to him in the tiny camp the three of them had made. “What is it, Max? What’s wrong?”
“I made contact with Liz. Didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
“And she broke it off?”
“No.” He sounded regretful but firm. “I did.”
And Liz, after his precipitate withdrawal, was left still tingling, still steeped in the sense of him, and wanting it never to go away. “I won’t sleep,” she promised, regardless of whether he could hear her or not, “until you’re resting here—back home—with me.”
I once heard that dust is made up of human skin cells. If that's true, I think there's a naked man under my bed!
ADDED BY ISLANDGIRL 5 FOR GALEN, AS ALL PARTS WERE POSTED IN SEPARATE THREADS
Series: ...And I Can’t Hide
Episode 1.21X: Homecoming Day
Rating: Teen
Summary: Alex comes up with a promising business scheme.
Disclaimer: The rights to the characters and situations of Roswell are the property of Warner Brothers, Jason Katims Productions, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox, Regency Television, and Melinda Metz.
“We don’t have to be at odds with anybody,” said Isabel.
The three who were from Vallosa, but of Earth, had just walked in from the desert, basking in the vivid oranges and violets of a New Mexico sunset, and now, near its finish, paused at the border of the town they had set out from, which lay placidly awaiting their return; it had not changed, as far as they could see, but they had. Max did not recognize at first the statement his sister was contradicting: the words he himself had uttered while they were inside the core. “Sorry, what?”
“You said we were destined to be at odds with everybody, including ourselves. Because we’re half and half—half human, half Vallosan. Why is that a given? Why can’t we have the best of both worlds? When we became human we lost the power to change shape, and probably other powers too. But we gained something more precious—the power to choose.”
Michael looked ahead of them. “And we’re choosing Roswell?” he asked in disbelief.
“Looking that way,” said Max.
“But it’s such a crappy little town!”
“But it’s our home,” said Isabel.
“Home,” Max echoed ruefully. “God help us.”
That night Alex Whitman found himself wandering through what appeared to be the same desert they had just come from. The replica was beyond the capacity of his dreaming mind to create unaided, and when he turned around, he knew who he would see. “I’m back,” she announced brightly.
“Back, are you? Well, well. What do you know? That—that’s good.”
The response was not all she had hoped for. “I stopped by earlier, but you were busy. You didn’t even look up.”
“Yeah, I’ve had a lot to do.” He paused. “In my dreams.” He looked around for something to busy himself with now.
Isabel strove to keep the conversation alight. “Liz is fine. Did you know that?” He had not. “She’s not poisoned, after all. So it’s okay. For us, I mean. To be together.” Feeling more awkward than she was accustomed to, she assumed the queenly form that had so awed him last time, hoping it would work again. “Come and worship at my altar, puny human.” She meant it humorously—for the most part—but if he chose to take it seriously, that was all right with her too.
He was tempted, despite himself. “Yeah, you know, that’s fine, and I’d like to stick around. But I just remembered something important I gotta check on.” He made a grimace, in simulation of a smile. “Waking up now.” He opened his eyes. Sure enough, he was back in bed. “Damn,” he said.
In the quiet town outside his windows, a black Cadillac convertible was cruising slowly up Main Street, pulling a Winnebago trailer behind it. The car’s front seat was occupied by a man and a woman in black suits.
The man’s eye fell on a building emblazoned with the letters “UFO,” shining forth in green and yellow. The building was closed. He pulled to the curb and went to peer in, but could make out nothing through the glass doors. The windows were no help, since they had been painted over. The woman got out after him, lifted a black satchel out of the back seat, and unlatched it to reveal a sealing tape dispenser and a stack of handbills. The man took one and taped it to the nearest lamppost. Then the two of them returned to the car and continued up the street, stopping once or twice in every block to repeat the procedure.
On Saturday, Liz, who was working the early shift, happened to spy the notice from across the street and sneaked away from her post long enough to check it out. “Beware!” it warned. “Aliens Among Us! Learn the Truth!” The time it gave was 8:00, that evening and the next; the location was the Roswell fairground. While she was still reading, Kyle happened along. “What’s this?”
“Another alien scam.”
He looked it over. “Says it’s free.”
“Trust me, Kyle, they’re selling something.”
Something on the notice arrested his attention. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, no,” he repeated. “No, no, no.” He stepped up to the lamppost, pulled the paper down, and hurried off. His father was not at the station, or on patrol duty; the desk sergeant had no idea where he was. But Kyle did. His grandfather was confined to bed now, and the nurse at the rest home said he had not long left; Junior’s visits were growing shorter all the time—today’s had only lasted ten minutes—but he kept them up faithfully, more or less. “Guess I’ll be taking off now, Pop,” he said as he stood up. Senior did not reply, and had never acknowledged his presence. “Okay, then, see you tomorrow—day after, maybe.”
Kyle was waiting in the lot with the Mustang, on which he would soon be able to claim squatter’s rights. “Yeah, I figured you’d be here.”
“Don’t suppose you’d care to go in and pay your respects to your granddad?”
“What difference would it make? He’s off in the twilight zone. Not to sound cold.”
“No, perish the thought.” Jim realized he was holding onto his hat, which he had removed inside; he now returned it to his head.
“Came to show you this. In case you haven’t seen it.” He thrust the notice at him. “Mom’s back.”
“Back here? Since when?” He read unhappily, and dropped a word he called his son on whenever he used it.
“Ain’t life a kick in the ass?” Kyle observed.
The fairground was vacant at this time of year, yet with all its acreage to choose from, the couple had parked their convertible and trailer by the gates at the north end. The sheriff arrived to find them putting up a large tent, of the type used for revival meetings. He sat in his vehicle watching the pair of them. He could not make much of the man, except to note, with a certain satisfaction, that he was a half foot shorter than himself, and balding.
The woman, at first glimpse, he saw with fresh eyes, and started to think he must have been crazy to let her go; here was someone who was clearly her own woman, but also a man’s woman—whereon he realized this new impression was the same as his first impression, all those years before, and that had lasted only as long as it had taken him to get to know her. Which, he had to admit, had been a while—about Kyle’s age at the time.
She noticed him watching her, and her eye lingered on him for a few seconds, with a look he remembered all too well. Seeing it again, he was not sure he wanted to talk to her at all, but anything else would have looked cowardly. He stepped out of the Rover, approached to within a few yards, and stopped. “Michele.” He spoke, and he looked, like a man discharging an unpleasant but necessary duty.
“Jim.” The man with her was pounding in a tent peg a few yards from them. When he finished, she summoned him by a glance, and he walked over, still carrying the mallet. “This is my husband, Len Trivett. Len, my ex-husband.”
“County sheriff. Yes, I’ve heard about you.” He made it sound as if what he had heard was not entirely creditable.
“Have you? I hadn’t heard about you. What are you doing in Roswell?”
“As you see.” He pointed to the notice in Valenti’s hand.
Valenti crumpled it. “I saw. What are you doing in Roswell?”
“Our permit’s in order. I can show it to you if necessary.”
“Believe a copy crossed my desk. Didn’t pay it much attention, to tell you the truth.”
“You should. Pay attention. It’s the duty of every citizen, especially those in law enforcement, to safeguard their homeland against—” He appeared to be seeking the proper word. “—outsiders.”
“Ah. A patriot.” Valenti was more patriotic than most, but he had a feeling this one was not, except in the service of some other and lesser cause.
“Come tonight. It’ll open your eyes.”
“My vision’s working fine, thanks all the same.” Len glared sourly at him and returned to his setting up.
Valenti continued watching Michele. “What?” she asked finally.
“Nothing you’d care to ask me?”
“I could ask how you’ve been, but what would be the point?”
“Thought you might ask how Kyle’s been. Most moms would. But there you go.” This took her a little aback, and she offered no reply. “One thing’s settled anyhow. Kyle thought you left us because you were sick of me harping on aliens all the time. He would think that, of course, because that’s what you told him. He knows better now. We both do.” He held up the crumpled notice. “It wasn’t the aliens. So tell me, Mich, what the hell was it?”
“You,” she said flatly. “Since you insist on knowing. Just you.” He felt the sting of it, as she had intended; she watched long enough to make sure, and then went to assist her husband. Valenti returned slowly to the Rover. As he drove out the gates, she glanced after him; it would have given him a little of his own back to see she looked almost as unhappy as he did.
Alex too was up early that morning, and getting ready to leave for town. He had stopped at the hall mirror to adjust his bow tie when his father staggered past in his nightshirt, heading for the kitchen. “Why you all dressed up on a Saturday?” he asked.
Alex followed him, picking up his portfolio on the way, and watched from the door as Don took down the Cheerios box and began searching the cupboards for the right-sized bowl. “My meeting. I told you.”
“Ye-es. Now I remember.”
“You were going to stop by later. Like we discussed.”
“As we discussed.”
“Dad, this could be a big deal for me—if I can swing it. Maybe I don’t have a band any more, but I can hire bands.”
“Yeah, that’s great, Alex.” He was pouring out the little os a few at a time, to insure they did not stack up higher than the rim of the bowl. “Congratulations.”
“I haven’t done it yet!” He watched as his father rolled the cereal bag shut—five turns exactly—and returned the tab on the box into its slot. “Then I can expect you around 10:30?” Now Don was thinking he might also want a banana. “Dad?”
“Huh? Sure, Alex, sure.” No, no banana, he decided. He turned away to open the refrigerator.
“To inspect the premises.” Alex took a step closer to him. “Dad, 10:30, okay?”
Don turned with a look of exasperation on his face and a milk carton in his hand. “I’m not simple-minded, Alex! If I said I’d be there, I’ll be there.”
“If. Fine.” He was still far from confident. But he had to get going. “See you then.” His father did not hear him. He was calculating the proper level for the milk.
Leaving him the car, Alex set out on his red bike for the building he had had his eye on, which was situated two blocks from the cafe; it had two floors of offices, but the only part he cared about was in the basement. He entered by the glass door that fronted the sidewalk and took the stairs down two at a time. On reaching the bottom, he nearly collided with the man he had come to see. “Mr. Fulweider? So sorry. Alex Whitman.” He stuck out his hand—a little too brashly, he feared.
Fulweider seized it even more brashly, and pumped it as if it were labeled “Shake well before use.” “Call me Cy, kid. You’re on time. That’s good. I like a kid that’s on time. Shows he’s on the ball. Basement room’s back here. That was what you wanted to see, wasn’t it?” He beckoned him down the narrow hall to a barn-like storeroom which looked pretty much the way Alex had remembered it. “So, kid, what’s the concept? In words an old fart like me can understand.”
“A club. For teens mostly. Music, dancing, drinks.” He quickly clarified the last. “Non-alcoholic.”
“Good, good. One less license to worry about. And easier on the insurance. Believe me, the insurance can kill you.”
“I visualize it as a showcase for emerging bands. Music of the future. Which of course ties in with our theme.”
“Which is?” Alex looked blank. “The theme, kid, the theme. Lay it on me.”
“Oh, right. Here.” Alex unzipped his portfolio and took out a drawing. The room it pictured resembled a snack bar in Tomorrowland circa 1955. “I call it the Orbit Lounge. We’d have ambient space music between the acts. Dance floor here, stage there, bar over there. What do you think?”
Cy looked out over the room, squinting. “Nah, nah. Never work.”
“Huh? Oh. Okay.” Alex could not hide his disappointment. “Thanks for your time.” He returned the drawing to the portfolio. “I’ll just—”
Cy was moving around the floor, paying him no attention. “Stage goes here, by the heavy-duty outlets. Bar on this side next to the pipes. You got yourself a plan there, kid.”
Alex brightened. “You really think so?”
This made Cy doubtful. “Why, don’t you?”
“Sure!” he was quick to affirm. “Absolutely! I just thought.... And you’d be willing to put up the capital for this?”
“Show me the numbers, and we’ll talk.”
“Got ‘em right here with me.” He opened the portfolio again.
Cy clapped him on the back. “I like doing business with you, kid. You come prepared.”
A voice called down from the entrance. “Alex?”
Will wonders never cease? he thought. His father had actually shown up—and early too. “Down here!” he called back. “It’s my dad,” he told Cy. “He’s a building inspector with the city. I asked him to stop by and give the place the once-over, just informally, to see if there are any issues we should be aware of. Hope you don’t mind me jumping the gun. I figured it’d save time. If we did reach an agreement.”
“That’s the way, kid. Think positive. And always stay two jumps ahead of the game.”
Don appeared at the doors. “Ha, found you. Like a maze down here.”
“Dad, this is Cy Fulweider. Cy, my dad.”
“Don Whitman.”
The two shook. “Don, you got yourself one sharp kid here.”
Alex felt embarrassed but pleased. “Do I?” said Don, diluting the pleasure a little. Without further preliminaries, he began nosing around, peering into doors and corners. “What was the plan again? Some kind of rec center, was it?”
“A club, Dad. With live music.”
“Ha, neighbors’ll love that.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t present any major problems. It was a dance club, years back.” He looked at Cy. “Maybe you remember it?”
“Before my time, Don.” He must mean his time in Roswell, thought Alex. He’s sixty if he’s a day.
“So, Alex,” said his father, “what’s the gag? You planning to turn this into a mod hipsters’ pad?”
Whenever he tried to speak the lingo—which, happily, was not often—Alex could barely understand him. “Don’t know about the hipsters. But here’s the plan.” He took out the drawing again.
“Didn’t know you could draw.” He lifted his glasses to examine it more closely.
Alex looked sheepish. “I can’t. I sketched out what I wanted, and Markos....” He saw his father’s face had turned pale. “Dad?”
He handed the drawing back. “I don’t think this is such a good idea, Alex.”
“Why not?”
“Looks like you’re treating the whole alien business as a joke. Some people might not appreciate that.”
“What people?”
Cy barged in before he could answer. “Now, Don, we can modify the concept. Always room for improvement. The key thing—” He laid a hand on his back and started to guide him out; glancing at Alex, he mouthed the words “Wait here.” “The key thing is to piggyback on the town’s existing image. Roswell—flying saucers. Snare ourselves some free publicity—which, as an intelligent individual, I’m sure you’ll appreciate. And besides, Don, an orbit lounge isn’t the same as an invasion of saucer men, hah? A lounge is a place to relax.” They exited to the hall.
“‘Way to go, Alex,’” Alex muttered. “‘Gee, thanks, Dad.’ That’ll be the day.” Then he brightened again. “But I got the deal!” He felt like telling someone, anyone—that is, anyone besides his father.
Two blocks down, Kyle was sitting by himself, nibbling his doughnut thoughtfully, for him. “Always wanted a sister,” he said.
Maria was behind the counter, refilling a napkin dispenser. “Why, so you could steal her toys?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t steal Michael.”
“Funny. Not.”
“Could be worse, you know.”
“We could be in jail?”
“We could be living with my mom.” That reminded him. “And your mom better not d the same number on my dad she did.”
“Hey, if anyone’s gonna step on anyone in this relationship, it’s Mr. Law and Order.”
“He’s not like that.” Then he thought about it. “Okay, he is. But sounds like your mom could use some stepping on. I hear she’s a loose cannon.”
“Your dad said that?”
“I heard it around.”
“From who? Who’s been insulting my mother?” She held up the coffeepot menacingly.
“Whoa!” He sprang from his seat. “Not wise to assault the son of Mr. Law and Order. Not to mention your new stepbrother. I’m outa here.” He made for the doors.
“You didn’t pay for your doughnut!”
He waved airily. “Put it on my dad’s tab.”
“He doesn’t have a tab.” But he was out of hearing, or pretending to be. “And weasels out of paying,” she concluded, speaking to herself now, “just like his spoor.”
In going out, he almost bumped into Alex coming in. “You’re dressed up,” he remarked.
“Yes, I am, Kyle. Astute of you to notice. And you want to know why?”
Kyle thought. “Nah, I don’t really care.” He went on.
Alex continued to the counter. “Hey, Maria.”
“You’re dressed up.”
“Again, yes. And you want to—?” A customer called her away before he could finish. Liz passed by on her way to the kitchen. “Liz! Sweetheart!” A little of Cy must have rubbed off without his knowing it. She nodded at him coolly, remembering their last conversation. “Ask me why I’m dressed up. Go ahead, ask.”
“Can’t now. I have orders waiting.” It was his third strike, and Whitman left the field. Outside, he found the Trivetts putting up more copies of their self-advertisement, in spots they had missed earlier. He came up behind Michele and perused it over her shoulder. “Nice layout you got there. With the spacecraft hovering and everything.”
“The woman who does them for us is very good.” She vouchsafed him a knowing smile. “I’m Michele Trivett.” Just then Len came up and took more copies out of the satchel she had slung over her shoulder. “This is my husband Len.”
“Alex Whitman.” He thrust his hand forward. “Manager of the Orbit Lounge. You may not have heard of it yet. Interestingly, it too has an alien theme.”
Len pointed to the UFO above the cafe. “Like that?” Then to the “UFO” sign on the other side. “Or that?”
“No, everyone’s been there, done those. I like to see us as putting a twenty-first-century spin on the conventional alien motif while optimizing the potential of its subliminal retro associations.” What the hell am I saying? he asked himself.
“And you believe these efforts will save you?”
“Uh, sorry?”
“Once they take over, you think they’ll cherish a soft spot for the quislings who paved their way?”
“Still not with you there. Could be your use of the term ‘quisling’—”
“Then you’re one of the innocents. Lambs to the slaughter. Never suspecting that your Crashdown, your UFO Center, your Planet Club—”
“Orbit Lounge, actually.”
“—are so much propaganda, designed to embed a false conception of extra-terrestrials as cute and harmless—‘Phone home, phone home’—when all the while they’re moving into position to strike.” Alex laughed. “You laugh.” He pressed a notice into his hand. “Come tonight and learn the truth. We’ll see if you’re laughing then.” Then he moved to the next block to continue spreading the word.
“Commitment,” Alex said, watching him. “He’s got commitment. That’s a good thing.” He pondered some more. “Focus a little narrow, though.”
Michele had moved off too. Having seen that the notice they had posted outside the UFO Center was now missing, she had gone across to replace it. Farther up the block she spied Valenti’s vehicle again; Amy was stepping out of it. As he swung around to head the other way, she started in. Her way lay past Michele, who stepped out to her. “Excuse me, you must be Jim’s new friend. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Amy caught the patronizing air; she had heard it often enough before. “Fiancé, in point of fact. And you are?”
“The ex-wife.”
“Oh!” This unsettled her a little. “He didn’t mention you were in town.”
Michele let this pass. “We’re speaking at the fairground tonight. You should come.” She handed her a notice. “You work here?”
“Just scouting out ideas. I’m self-employed.” She laid the emphasis on the “self.” Then she pulled out a key ring linked to a figurine of the Roswell alien (the one Isabel liked to say was Max) and dangled it in front of Michele’s nose. “This is what I do.”
The other woman levied a pitying look on her. “So he’s sucked you in too.”
“Has he?”
“Into his alien obsession. Don’t kid yourself. Wife or no, you’ll always play second fiddle to that.” She indicated the figurine.
“I see.” She indicated the notice. “And what chair are you occupying now?”
Point for her side, Michele had to grant. “I know, looks like I bounced from one UFO nut to another. But this is different. It’s an assignment.”
“Is it?” Beneath Amy’s pursuit of fugitive ideas, a native shrewdness had always thrived, and it asserted itself now. “Who’s doing the assigning?”
Michele’s guard went up again. “Come listen. You may be motivated to change lifestyles yourself.”
Amy did not show up that evening (fat chance, as her daughter might have said), but plenty of other people did: the tent had a full house, and then some. Don Whitman’s UFO group occupied the entire front row. Liz, who was there checking out the event on Max’s behalf, ran into Pam Troy, who was also alone, to Liz’s surprise. “Kyle’s not with you?”
“He wouldn’t come. The jerk! He knew I wanted to see this.”
“Well, she is his mom. It’s tough for him.”
“Like I don’t have problems? The two of us are so over. We didn’t have much in common anyway. Except the—” She stopped, and her eyes brimmed with sympathy. “Oh, I’m sorry. You haven’t yet, have you?” She squeezed Liz’s hand. “You’ll understand, dear. One day.” The lights that were strung along the tent frame blinked off and on. She went to choose a seat. Now I remember why I hate her, thought Liz, as she did the same. When all the spectators had found chairs seats, or resigned themselves to standing, Michele stepped to the mike.
“Good evening to you all,” she said. “I’m Michele Trivett.” Outside, huge loudspeakers broadcast her voice throughout town. Her ex-husband heard it from his office window and paused in his work to listen. “Some of you knew me as Michele Valenti,” she went on. “To you, as well as those of you I haven’t met yet, welcome. And thanks for coming. I recognize there are other places you could have elected to spend your Saturday night—and none of them are in Roswell.” The crowd laughed. “I guarantee you won’t regret you elected to spend it here.”
At that point the ship-borns entered at the rear, where there was standing room only. Liz had been watching hopefully for them. When she saw Max, her heart jumped. She wanted to go to him immediately, but would have had to force a path through the crowd and call too much attention to herself and him. Behind him she saw Ms. Topolsky, looking fairly lost; she worried Liz a little.
“Though most of you will be unaware of it,” the speaker continued, drawing Liz’s focus to the front again, “a threat hangs over our nation—over our world. You won’t see it reported in the newspapers, in magazines, or on tv, but it grows more imminent every day. It’s impossible to predict when the blow will fall—maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year. But it will fall, unless the necessary measures are taken immediately. Len will spell out for you what those will entail. He’s been a long time uncovering the facts, he’s visited a lot of places, and spoken to a lot of people. You’re here want to know the truth, and he’s here to tell you. Ladies and gentlemen, my husband, Len Trivett.”
He took over the mike amid scattered applause. “Do you know who you are? Do you?” His listeners were puzzled. “I do. I hope you do. You know when you were born, where you were grew up, where you went to school, who you dated, and married”—he smiled at Michele—“where you work, what you work at—all this you know.” He paused for effect. “But what about the man next to you? How much do you know about him? If you grew up with him, or you work with him, you know who he is, right? Am I right?” He paused again. “Wrong. He may be just who you think he is—or he may not be. He may look the same, act the same—but inside he’s not the same. He’s a fake—a replacement, put here to fool you. And there are a lot of them, these fakes. You can’t tell them from the real thing. The woman in front of you at the checkstand. The couple next door. The teenager next to you on the road. Me.”
The audience made uneasy shuffling noises. “Sounds crazy, right? Am I right?” No one answered. “Let me tell you something. The government has a list, with hundreds of names on it—that’s only those that are known. Why are they here? Who put them here? What’s their game? Ultimately, to destroy us.” He waved his hands. “I know, you don’t want to believe it. I didn’t either. But tonight you’ll see the evidence, which was classified until recently. Memos, photos, scientific reports that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt there are enemies among us. Not just the fakes—the people you think you know. But the ones you don’t know. The strangers—the wrong ones.”
The ship-borns had begun to look worried, and they were not alone. “Look around. Anyone here you don’t recognize?” People began searching for unfamiliar faces. “That new neighbor. New man on the job. New teacher at your child’s school. New kid in class. And all the visitors—the tourists—the bus passengers. Who knows where they came from? And the misfits—the loners—the oddballs. The ones who don’t make friends. You know who they are, right? Am I right?” Some in the crowd stared hard at some others. “Just imagine how many more are out there! In Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Nevada and Colorado. All over the country. All over the world. All those strangers. Who are they? What are they hiding? Where did they come from?”
Michele, who had moved to the rear as he was talking, flipped a breaker, and the tent fell dark; some of the spectators gasped. She switched on a slide projector next to her, and an image flashed onto a screen behind Len: a photo of Earth as seen from space. “They came from there.” Next appeared a photo of a UFO. “And they landed here.” And next—startling the ship-borns—a photo of the rocks where they had just been. “There’ve been incidents—fifty years of incidents. You’ve read about them—maybe you’ve experienced some of them yourself. Sightings, animal mutilations—even murders.” The catalogue was accompanied by more photos, including one of the silver handprint, and last of all, a shot of a turquoise dress, stained with blood.
Liz gave a small cry, and immediately covered her mouth. That was her dress, from the day she had died. Glancing back, she saw the ship-borns slipping out, together with a few others trying to beat the rush to the parking lot. Isabel spotted Alex eyeing her furtively from a side seat, but when she returned his look, he looked away. Subduing her disappointment, she joined the others outside, a few yards from the tent, where they paused to confer.
“This is the worst,” said Max.
“Like a nightmare come true,” Isabel agreed.
“What do we do?” asked Michael.
Just then, the tent lights came up. “Be sure to come back tomorrow night,” they heard inside, and over the loudspeakers. “You won’t be sorry.” This was followed by applause. People began standing.
“We get out of here,” Max said, in answer to Michael’s question. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
By the time Liz made her way outside, only Michael remained. “Is Max gone?” she asked him. “I was wanting to talk to him.”
“Yeah, well, we all want stuff.” He did not know anything to say that would be useful.
“Is he okay? I mean, all of you?”
“We got through it. And returned to find—this. Maybe Klima was right.” But this time he said it with unmixed regret. “Maybe it’s war, after all.”
“It will be if people listen to those two. Sounds like that’s what they want. And want us to want. But why?” Michael shook his head.
Inside, Alex had intended to wait for his father, but decided there was no point: his group was gathered around the speakers, besieging them with questions, and crowding out all other comers; clearly, they would not leave until they were thrown out. So Alex left. On the way out, Alex passed Topolsky, who was still standing at the rear—the only one now—and he greeted her by name, but she gave no sign of hearing him. She worried him a little too.
Michael noticed her as she left the tent. He had been hanging around with the intention of doing the Trivetts some mischief—like erasing their slides—but had realized it would be pointless, since they could replace anything he zapped, and the information was now public knowledge anyway. So instead he kept a watch on Topolsky, who looked as if she might bear watching.
She turned in at the first alley, where she stepped into the circle of a street lamp, raised a standard-issue S & W .40 (which he had not seen she had), and aimed it into her open mouth. It would not fire. She stared down the barrel: it was welded solid. A hand took it from her. “You don’t want to do that, teacher,” said a voice she knew from somewhere. Her eyes rolled back into her head. He grabbed her just before she fell.
She woke on a brown sofa in a small apartment. The first thing that met her eyes was a “Danger” sign on the kitchen wall. Appropriate, she thought. She had not yet recognized where she was. It came to her when she saw him at the sink. He brought in a cup of juice he had squeezed with Isabel’s housewarming gift, and knelt to give it to her. “Tomato-guava,” he said. “Maria turned me onto it.”
She took a sip but hardly tasted it. “Never thought you’d be saving me.”
He shrugged. “Life is strange.”
“That’s an affirm. You have no idea how strange mine has been.”
“I might.” She looked at him uncertainly. “I know about what happened to you the day of the big UFO bash. At the rocks.”
“No, that was—”
“A dream? That’s what everybody said, wasn’t it? When you tried to tell them. Until you got so you weren’t sure yourself. So you joined the FBI to find out. But it didn’t help, because even when you found out the crash was the real deal, you still couldn’t be sure about what happened that day. It was. Trust me on this one.”
“How could you know?”
“I saw a—kind of movie of it.”
“Where?”
He debated whether to tell her. “The ship.” She struggled to make sense of that. “We found it—out there, in the rocks. We were inside it.”
“Take me there!”
“I can’t. I mean, it’s gone now.”
She was disappointed, as she had been so often before. “What did it do to me? I know it did something, but I can’t remember what.”
“They cut out that part,” Michael said truthfully.
“It was the ship that brought you, wasn’t it?” He nodded; she knew already, so there was no point in pretending. “Maybe that’s why I feel so close to you—to all of you.”
“Yeah, probably.” He was almost childishly eager to reveal to her the true nature of their bond, and to realize it; after all, he had never had a mother before. But he could not take it on himself without the others’ approval. However, just as conscientiously, he could not leave her on her own. “From now on, I think you better stick close to us.”
“Will your friends trust me?”
“After tonight it won’t be easy for us to trust anybody.” He smiled. “But I’ll work on ’em.”
The next day was Easter, but Alex did not spend the morning in church. He was laboring in his lounge-to-be, pushing a floor brush Fulweider had loaned him and using a sheet of pegboard—in the absence of a dustpan—to transfer the refuse to a bag. Then he became aware something was happening around him: the walls were changing color. From off-white (which had probably started life as white), they were changing to Loden green; it streamed down them in a smooth coat, like paint from a roller. It scared him, and he could not look away from it: it was on all sides.
All at once, he realized who was doing it. Not that many people knew Loden green was his favorite color. Also, he could sense her behind him—he did not know how; sound, smell, something. He turned to confirm the impression. Yup. Only she was closer than he had expected. “Change it back,” he said.
She reached out to touch his arm. “Alex?” He stepped out of reach. “Alex, guess what? I’m human—at least, half of me is.” He looked her over despite himself, as if to check out the claim. “We all are. We had to be, to survive here. We’re like you.”
He cast an eye to the wall. “Not exactly.”
“True. We’re not exactly like anyone. But that doesn’t mean you and I can’t be close.” She reached out again.
“I said, change it back.”
“Alex, please. With so much hostility out there, can’t we share just a little affection?”
He turned on her. “It’s me, all right? Not you, me. I thought I could do it—break down the fences, hop a comet, and go sailing through the galaxy, like Liz. But I’m strictly a small-town guy. An alien girlfriend’s great in theory.” He forestalled the correction she was about to make. “Okay, half-alien. But that’s half too much. I don’t like you popping up in my dreams, or changing ketchup into mustard, or being on the FBI’s most-wanted list. I only want to lead my simple little earthly life without any complications. Please, Isabel, just change it back. Now.”
Sighing, she did as he had requested; in a few seconds, the room was restored to its former dingy white. “Guess you wouldn’t be up for breaking into their trailer, then. To find out what all they have on us.” His face told the answer. “I didn’t think so.” Her face told of regret. “All right, have it your own way. But you could have chosen differently.”
When she had left, he retreated to the wall and sank down, shrank down, there. He had never felt so in his life. “How?” he asked the not-quite-swept, not-quite-white room. “How?”
After a long day of sweeping and wiping, which after Isabel’s visit felt less satisfying than at first, and was interrupted by many things—meal breaks, further musings on his plans for the place, and intermittent funks in which he did nothing but stare at the walls and reflect on how much better they would have looked in Loden green—he came home feeling, on the whole, despondent. There he found the UFO conclave still in session. As he passed the door of the den, his father waved at him. “Alex! We were just talking about you. Step in for a minute.” He did so, a little warily. “You know most of the guys. But there is one new face—Phil?”
The man turned, and Alex was surprised to see who it was. “Mr. Evans! Never saw you here before.”
“Only my second time.”
“Phil was just telling us he’s filed an appeal for the release of Doc Grunewald.”
“Grunewald?” This surprised Alex even more. “Didn’t think you were a big fan of his. After what he did to Max.”
“Excuse me, we don’t know what he may have done to Max, or vice versa. Max isn’t saying. In any case, Grunewald’s now a victim himself. There was no hearing to ascertain his sanity. The government secreted him away to silence him. But they can’t suppress the truth forever.” Alex listened in amazement; he wondered if he were dreaming it.
“Alex,” said Don, with the air of changing the subject to an unpleasant one, “we’ve just been discussing this Space Bar of yours.”
“Orbit Lounge.”
“Whatever. We feel it’d be more prudent if you were to take a different tack.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
It was Philip who replied. “We’re seeing a growing backlash against the campaign by the media to instill in the public mind a sympathetic attitude toward nehis—”
“Excuse me, nehis?”
“NHIs,” Don translated. “Non-human incursors.”
“—to distract us,” Philip concluded, “from the very real menace they pose.”
Don’s description was more succinct. “Bunch of pro-alien propaganda.”
Alex looked from one to the other. “You sound like those two in the tent.” He did not remember seeing Philip there, but then he had not been looking.
“They know what they’re talking about,” his father averred solemnly.
“They’re fanatics!” Alex insisted. Then he thought twice. “Or they’re pretending to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kind of funny, their showing up right now, at the same time the Army’s moving in.”
A man he did not recognize stood up. “What do you know about that?”
“I’ve seen the Jeeps on the highway. Everybody has. Bet it’s got something to do with this new energy bureau—BEAM?” He turned to Philip. “Ever hear of it?”
“Heard the name. That’s all.”
“Probably how they prefer to keep it.”
“You want to watch that kind of loose talk,” said the stranger.
Alex distrusted him already. “Excuse me, who are you?”
“This is Trent,” said Don. “He’s from—where was it, now?”
Trent did not answer. “So you’re a booster of this covert agency?” Alex asked.
“Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state have to be avenged by agencies extraordinary.” Alex had heard something of the kind before. “Believe me, you don’t want to come down on the wrong side of this thing.”
“Agreed. I’d need to know exactly who I was siding with.” Trent’s scowl deepened. “’night, Dad. Mr. Evans.”
As he left, he heard behind him a low voice: “Where’d you say he goes to school?” The voice was Trent’s. It unsettled him. He started toward his room and then changed his mind: Isabel might have had an idea, after all. He slipped out the front door while the group was still engaged in noisy agreement with one another.
The fairground was empty when he got there. The tent and the trailer were both dark; he listened for voices and heard none. He went to the trailer door and knocked. He had no idea what he would say if someone answered, but he guessed no one would. And he was right. He searched the tent for an object to force the door with; all he could find was a clipboard—not ideal, but it might do. He tried to wedge it between the door and the frame. A minute’s effort told him this would never work. As he was contemplating what to try next, a voice at his back caused him to jump. “You realize breaking and entering is a crime?”
For a second, he was afraid the voice was Trent’s. He was actually relieved to recognize it as belonging to the agent of a legally constituted authority. “So it’s important to know what you’re doing,” Valenti concluded, stepping up beside him. Alex now saw he was carrying a long crowbar. He ran his eye along the door frame until he found a gap and jammed the bar into it. “Give me a hand, will you?” The two of them leaned their combined weight on it, and with a crunch, the door popped open. “Like a can of peas.”
“I never did like peas.” Then he realized this was not quite to the point. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Same as you. Investigating.”
They stepped up into the cave-like space. Valenti triggered his flashlight, which exposed a stack of boxes in the corner; on the side of each were stenciled the letters B E A M. “I was right,” said Alex. “That’s who they’re working for.”
“You mean, who planted them here. Yeah, or it mighta been some other group this BEAM is partners with.”
“Who?”
“Take your pick. FBI, CIA, WB, any set of initials that come to mind. There’s nobody we can rule out absolutely.”
“Why would they send out agents to stir up prejudice against aliens?”
“If I was guessing? As a justification to do what they want. Like those kids—snatch them, harness them, milk them for all they’re worth. And if any bleeding hearts get wind of it, you can always say you’re just putting down the bad guys.”
“Who have no rights the white man is bound to respect,” Alex quoted.
Valenti nodded. “History repeats.”
“Then may I take it you’re no longer a believer in the alien conspiracy?”
“Wouldn’t go that far. But obviously it’s not the only conspiracy going.”
Alex shook his head grimly. “I don’t want to be mixed up in this. Not at all.”
“Me either, son. What’s that got to do with it?”
Alex’s eye fell on a map pinned to the wall. “Sheriff? Some light over here.” It was what he had thought, a copy of the cave map, with one area circled in red. He did not have to read the label to recognize it. “That’s Angels’ Ground.”
Not far from the fairground, in the heart of town, the UFO Center was closed for the night. But someone was inside. The owner, having gotten a report of a prowler from a neighboring property owner, returned now to check it out. He lived nearby, and he felt a responsibility to his archives—the Sadusky collection—if not to the barn-like edifice that housed them. Through its front doors, he saw a light, and a shadow flitting back and forth in front of it. He quietly let himself in and crept down to see whose shadow it was.
He was relieved, but also puzzled, to find Max there, and hard at work. Somehow he had slid aside two exhibit cases to clear a wall, which he was now traversing. Alongside him as he walked, forms were magically materializing, bulging out of the plaster: in short, he was sculpting a relief mural with no hands. Milton was too astonished to do anything but watch. On reaching the end of the wall, Max turned and saw him at the foot of the stairs in the foyer. “Milt! I—” No words came.
With his well-tried air of office as a recourse, Milton was more quickly able to put a good face on the situation. “What’s all this, Evans? Eh?” He trotted out to take a look.
From a distance, the piece was too complicated to make out, a wild tangle of shapes and colors; up close, all was so vividly clear it almost set him back on his heels. Below a sign identifying this new section of the museum as the “Hall of Humans,” and submitting “Lest you forget” as its motto, it vividly chronicled the most terrible deeds in human history from antiquity through the present. Some of them were in the history books; some, Milton—who was up on his history—did not recognize, and he wondered where Max had dredged them up from. “Other side of the coin,” said Max. “Humans and the suffering they’ve caused. They’re the real monsters.” He was not forgetting he was human himself; indeed, the fact was uppermost in his mind.
“Not a fan of the species. So you think our planet ought to be handed over to the newcomers lock, stock, and barrel?”
“I don’t know about that.” He pondered. “No. I guess it’s six of one, half dozen of the other.” That describes me, he thought. It describes all of us. Then he remembered his “place,” as his employer would see it: he was just a kid who worked there part-time. “Sorry I put it up without asking. I was—inspired.” By an attack of self-loathing, he might have added.
Milton let his eyes wander among the other exhibits, the ones he had put up himself, and with considerably more trouble than it had taken Max. “Back in third grade, I was the most popular kid in class. The one who knew all about aliens. Every day at recess, the others would ask me scads of questions, and I had all the answers. Then they moved on. By the sixth grade, they were making fun of me—Miltie the Martian. And in high school, forget it. But I couldn’t stop. I was hooked. And my greatest hope was that some day—some day....” He looked squarely at Max. “Keep me on the beam, Evans. Tell me you’re not one of those.” He pointed across to a dummy of a bug-eyed monster.
Max smiled. “No, I can honestly say I’m not one of those.”
Milton turned to the new installation. “And humans aren’t all like this. But you know that, don’t you?” He did, now; funny how a second perspective, even Milton’s, could keep you “on the beam,” as he put it. He was now taking another look at the mural, whose virtues stood out more clearly to him, the initial shock having passed. “On the other hand,” he allowed, “I guess a little self-analysis never hurt anybody.”
“You’re going to keep it?”
“Too much trouble to take it down. And it might get us some favorable coverage. I’ll send out the release tomorrow.” On Vallosa, everyone created art, and Max had done so; on Earth, they kept it around, and he was doing that too—had to now. Six of one. “Come on, Evans,” said Milton. “Time to go home.” He paused, as if making up his mind to something, and then spoke more naturally. “Glad you chose this as your—destination. I hope you are.”
Max found an understanding in his eyes he had not expected to see there. “Working on it.”
Milton laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “Don’t give up on us. I need you here.”
Max smiled at him. “You’re right, Milt. Some humans aren’t so bad.” His boss returned the smile, and they walked out together.
I once heard that dust is made up of human skin cells. If that's true, I think there's a naked man under my bed!
ADDED BY ISLANDGIRL 5 FOR GALEN, AS ALL PARTS WERE POSTED IN SEPARATE THREADS
Series: ...And I Can’t Hide
Episode 1.21X: Homecoming Day
Rating: Teen
Summary: Alex comes up with a promising business scheme.
Disclaimer: The rights to the characters and situations of Roswell are the property of Warner Brothers, Jason Katims Productions, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox, Regency Television, and Melinda Metz.
The following morning, Alex stopped in at the Crashdown to warn Liz her interest in Angels’ Ground was shared by the new visitors, or those who had sent them. He also wanted to find out what exactly she knew about the place. But his musician’s timing betrayed him again. She, Michael, and Maria had been working every day through the spring break; since Maria was still barely speaking to either of the others, conditions had been strained at best. And this morning, Liz did not trust herself to speak to anyone except the customers: it was the morning her mother was due to leave. So when Alex—whom she had written off days before in any case—tried to engage her attention, he ended up following her from sideboard to table to counter, without any acknowledgment from her, and feeling pretty foolish. “Liz, remember what you were saying before about—”
He had gotten that far when her mother entered from the back room, Jeff trailing her with armloads of suitcases, which he carried out to the Acura. Lacking, for the moment, any customers whose needs required filling, Liz picked out an empty table and pretended to be cleaning it. Nancy stopped beside her. “Liz, I’m going now.” Her daughter gave no sign of having heard. “You can visit whenever you like. No need to call. And after you graduate, if you should decide—that is, I’d like having you in the house. I’d like to continue being your mother.” Still no sign. “Gee, don’t I even get a farewell hug?”
“Oh, Mom!” She ran into the back, fighting off tears. Nancy found herself fighting too; she had really hoped for a happier send-off. But, taken all in all, this one better befitted the life she had lived there. She left without a goodbye, unless there had been one contained in her last words. Not the best time, I guess, thought Alex, and he left too, for the lounge site.
When he got there, he received a shock. At some time overnight, the room had been trashed—what there was of it to trash: the walls were striped jaggedly with anti-alien slogans in spray paint, some of them barely readable, some obscene: “Martians Go Home,” “Nehi Lover,” “ET Fone DEAD,” a crude rendering of the Roswell alien inside the “No...” icon—circle and diameter—and more of the same. There were no perpetrators in sight. “What, is this supposed to scare me?” he shouted, with great bravado. But he approached the closet door with trepidation. Soon after the building opened, Isabel stopped by and found the room empty to appearances, but when she poked her head into the closet, she discovered him still in there, squatting with his arms clasped around his knees.
“Why’d you come back?” he asked.
She knelt beside him. “I felt your need.” This drew the kind of look she would have expected. “No, literally.”
“Can’t keep any secrets from you, can I?”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know.” He bowed his head. “I don’t know anything any more. That stuff on the walls....”
“I can make it go away.” Then she remembered how her last offer had been received. “If you’d like me to.”
“I don’t want it to go away! I want it never to have happened.”
“So at the first sign of opposition, you give up?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She smiled in encouragement. “Then you’re going ahead.”
“Didn’t say that either.” He was silent for a little. “I just thought it’d be a cool business venture, you know? I didn’t expect threats or hate crimes. I didn’t expect a war!”
“Alex, sometimes we get situations we don’t ask for. The question is, do you face them, or run away?”
“I always duck. Then I look up when it’s all over.”
“Time you came out of hiding, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m too scared.”
“You think I’m not? You have a whole world to reinforce your image of yourself. Until a week ago I had nothing—no validation, no explanation of who I am. Then I met someone who showed me what I could be. It was liberating. For once I could say, I am what I am, I’ll do what I want. Then it all went wrong, and she was gone, and I had no one to turn to. Except you, and you turned away.”
“Like you never did that to me? Every time I thought we were really going to nail down this thing between us—”
“I know, Alex, I know. I’m sorry. Once this crisis is over—”
“Can that ever happen? Isn’t crisis what our life’s all about?”
“Ours?” She looked hopeful. “Is that what you want?”
He gazed at her with a fervency she found touching. “Oh, yes. Most definitely.” Then he wavered. “I mean, I think.”
“Alex—!” She rose to her feet. “All right, are you willing to stand up for it?”
“Huh?”
“Us. This place. Yourself.”
This whipped up his courage. “You bet I am!” Then he wavered again. “The uh, only thing—”
“Alex! ”
“Okay, yes!”
She waited. “Come on, then.” He looked baffled. “Do it!”
“Huh?” Then he realized. “Oh, you mean—” He stood. She clasped his hands and planted a kiss on his lips, which extended itself pleasantly. A few minutes later, they came out into the graffitied room.
“Who was responsible for this?” she asked.
“My dad’s UFO buddies, probably. They’ve been listening to those rabble-rousers at the fairground—who are working for BEAM, by the way.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I burglarized their trailer. Like you asked.”
“Alex! How sweet!”
“It was the sheriff who did it, mainly. For an officer of the law, he’s very cool about committing felonies. BEAM’s name was on everything. They’re war-mongering, is what it is. Against—well, against you guys.”
“What do they stand to get out of it?”
“God knows. But they have their eye on a place Liz knows something about—Angels’ Ground.”
“Then we have to get her here. The others too. Maybe we can stop this war before it happens.”
Max arrived at the building a little later. From the stairs, he heard space music (courtesy of Isabel) and followed it to the former storeroom, now renovated (also courtesy of Isabel) into what enormous cut-out letters above the raised stage announced to be the Orbit Lounge. Alex stepped up to him on one side, his sister on the other: the one attired as a Buck Rogers counterpart of the night club emcee in Cabaret, the other in a slinky hostess outfit to match. “Welcome to the Orbit Lounge,” said the emcee, “your home away from your home planet.”
The hostess slipped a drink into her brother’s hand. “Here you are, sir. One Saturnian smoothie.”
Max was sure they had both gone daft. “Why did you summon me here? What the hell’s going on?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” He turned to see Michael standing in the entrance. “I’m only here because Liz insisted,” said Michael.
Maria was standing there too, but on the other side, well away from him, and with her arms folded. “That makes two of us. Where is the girl anyway?”
“Here!” she said, breezing in past them. “Sorry I’m late. I had to get rid of the customers first.”
“Wait a minute,” said Michael. “Who’s covering for us while your dad’s gone?”
“Nobody. I just closed up. Since he’s gone, he’ll never know.”
“Ay, caramba,” Maria muttered.
Isabel stepped forward. “You asked what’s going on,” she began.
“What the hell’s going on,” Max corrected.
“Let’s start with Liz. I think you’re all aware she’s no longer high-risk.”
“My blood is stronger than ever,” she said proudly.
“Our mission here was to end the human race for good by mingling our blood with yours. But it turns out your blood works on ours too. Instead of a take-over, what you get is more of a merger.”
Maria was not to be placated so readily. “But people have died—my dad, for one. Your people killed them.”
“One person,” said Michael.
“And can you tell me the same urge isn’t in you? In all of you?”
“Of course it is,” said Isabel. “And this is in you!” With a wave of the hand, she restored the hate messages to the walls. Those who had not seen them before were appalled. “But there’s more to it than that. The three of us are only half Vallosan. Human genes were poured into us. Everything that’s in you is in us. But the opposite is true too. Everything that’s in us is in you.”
Maria set her chin stubbornly. “I don’t accept that.”
“We’ll show you,” said Liz. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Where it all started for us. Angels’ Ground.”
So the six came to stand together on the plateau that was Angels’ Ground, with the Jeep sitting where they had left it at the head of the drive. “The energy within our planet,” Isabel explained, “drove its cities and its spaceships. It also entered into our genetic material. It makes us what we are.”
“The same energy exists in isolated pockets on Earth,” said Liz. “Like this one, and the others Michael was looking for.”
“BEAM is looking too,” Alex noted. “At this one especially.”
“That’s because the strongest concentration is here. And it was here the three of us—Maria, Alex, and I—were conceived. At the moment of our conception, the energy of this place soaked into us.” She turned to Max. “Your blood could never have harmed me. You’re within us. We’re within you. It’s no accident we found each other.”
“No man is an island, entire unto himself,” Michael, said rather grandly.
“That’s another quote, isn’t it?” said Maria. She repeated it in her mind. “But a very cool one.” She smiled at him. “Muy chido.” Suddenly everything was cool. But only with him, and with the others in that place; outside their circle lay Klima and who knew how many more. They had to stick together.
Max, who had thought it through on the drive up, had arrived at a similar conclusion, and now proposed it to the rest. “In this war we can’t take sides, because we’re on both sides. So we’ll make our own side. We’ll fight for we believe in—what’s best in all of us, Vallosan or human. Wisdom. Respect. Love.” He was standing at the edge that looked out over the town. Liz came and locked her hand in his. The others joined them, one by one, until they were all shoulder to shoulder on the lip of the plateau.
“My side is with you,” Liz said to Max. “I knew it before we ever met.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” He was remembering the dream they had shared as children. Meeting her eyes, he imparted it to her.
Her face lit up. “That was you!” she said. “I understand now.”
“I’ve been through the gate,” said Max. “And I changed, as I was meant to. But I was wrong about us. What we have—that hasn’t changed. Not since we were”—he lifted their linked hands—“this high. And it won’t.”
“Forever and always,” she said.
“Forever,” he repeated, “and always.” The other couples repeated the vow. Then all three sealed it with a kiss. As their lips touched, an aurora borealis filled the sky above.
Liz laughed to see it. “You’re doing that!” she accused Max, as she had accused him once before.
“We’re doing it,” he said. They watched in awe.
Then there came to them the growl of engines: below, a row of Jeeps was circling up the drive. Then the knock of a hammer: two soldiers were pounding a sign into place at the foot of the hill. The Ground would be off limits from now on, and the rocks, and the woods. Things had changed: they all felt it, Max most of all. “So,” he said, “the battle for Roswell begins.”
“There’s a dark night ahead,” said Isabel. “I hope we see a dawn.” They hurried back to the Jeep and drove down on the other side.
After dropping off their human partners, the ship-borns paid a call on the sheriff. Hearing a knock, he looked up from his paperwork to find them already in the room, and blocking the exit; he eyed his holster, which was slung over a chair by the wall. “How’d you get past the front desk?”
“Side door,” said Max.
“It’s locked.”
“Not to us. As you should know better than anyone.”
Valenti recognized the significance of the admission. He wondered why Max was granting it to him now; as a last request? “Oh, yeah?” he said noncommittally. He rolled his chair nearer to the holster.
Isabel explained. “Alex trusts you. I trust Alex. Max trusts—well, you can work out the rest.”
“And it’s not like we have a lot of people to choose from,” said Michael.
“Jeez, you know how to make a guy feel wanted.” He considered. “Okay, not that I need it, but if you could provide a small demonstration—just to convince me my imagination’s not running away with me.”
Isabel volunteered by raising her hand, just like in class. On the desk sat a brass paperweight in the shape of a cannon. She stared at it until it turned brown. “Looks like chocolate,” Valenti said.
“Try it.”
He broke off a corner and nibbled on it. “Not bad. But—”
“It’s never the same,” said Max, ahead of her.
“No offense, but I prefer it in brass.” She changed it back, but with the corner piece still missing. Valenti turned it over meditatively. “Funny—my whole life, I’ve been scared of you. Now it looks like I’ve been scared of the wrong people.” He looked at Maria. “Ask your mom how she’d feel about having some guests to dinner this evening.”
Her mom said she was okay with it, the evening came in due course, and Liz and Max were the first to arrive there—not counting Michael, who was helping in the kitchen. They tried to blot out the voice that was resounding through the streets, as it had done the evening before. “And if you’re asking yourself who’s to blame,” it thundered, “look no farther. It’s them—the invaders—the monsters.”
Amy heard the last part as she let her guests in. “He’s at it again?”
“Since the sun went down,” said Max. “And sounding wilder all the time.”
Valenti came to the door to listen. “I don’t like it,” said Amy.
“I don’t like the Trivetts,” he responded. “Even if they are just plants. But looks like this is their day.”
And now the rest of the party showed up, practically on top of one another. Amy greeted each in turn. “Deputy Owen. Mr.—Sadusky.” But the women did not ring a bell. “I don’t know either of you, do I?”
“Jen.”
“Kathleen.”
“Wow.” Amy shook her head, as if fluffing her hair.
Maria looked around, puzzled. “Uh, wow?”
“As in, wow, what a wonderfully diverse community we’ll be breaking focaccia with tonight.” She waved them inside. “I mean, think of it. The harmonics!”
“Yeah,” said Valenti, as he shut the door, “them.”
During dinner he hurried the courses along so he would have more time to brief the group afterwards. He started before they had finished their tiramisu. “Reason I asked you here was, number one, so we could all get acquainted. Because we—most of us,” he amended, glancing at Amy, “—have something in common. Special knowledge, like.”
“What kind of special knowledge?” Amy asked innocently.
Stuck, he did his best to answer without answering. “Knowledge about—what’s going on in Roswell. Incidents other people aren’t aware of. Stuff like that. So—”
“Well, I certainly can’t claim any such thing,” she broke in. “No more than anybody else. And as for Milton here, or your deputy—no offense, I’m sure they’re intelligent people, but—” She saw the others were looking down or away. “I have a feeling I’ve said something that was supposed to be left unsaid.” Valenti scratched his temple.
“You have to tell her,” said Maria.
Liz nodded. “She’s bound to find out sooner or later.”
“Find out what?” Amy asked.
Valenti looked down the table. “How about the rest of you?”
“I think it’s too late to do anything else,” said Max. There was a drone of general agreement.
Valenti sighed. “So be it. Amy, babe—jeez, where do I start?”
“Let me,” said Isabel. “It’ll be easier to take coming from another woman.” She turned to Amy. “There’s no way I can prepare you for what you’re about to hear. A person’s individual belief system is so fragile, so delicate, a thing like this could demolish it completely.” She clasped Amy’s hand earnestly. “Be brave.”
By that point Amy was looking as befuddled as it was possible to look. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“No, you don’t. And the reason—you poor, unsuspecting dear—”
Michael had tired of this. “Ms. Deluca? Keep your eyes on that dessert spoon.” He focused on it. Within seconds, it had changed to a silver heart. He picked it up and handed it to her. “For our hostess.” He forgot it had been hers to start with.
And so did she. “Why, it’s beautiful! Thank you!” Then it hit her. “Wait a minute! You did that. Just by looking at it.”
“Little more complicated. But essentially, yeah.”
“Then you’re....” He shrugged apologetically. Her eyes moved to Isabel. “And you?” Isabel smiled. “And you!” Max nodded. Finally she looked at Maria. “Not you, I hope?”
“No, no!” her daughter assured her.
Amy sat for a long time, absorbing it, while the others watched uncertainly. Finally she broke into laughter. “Well, this is just—so great!” Valenti and Maria exchanged looks of surprise. “All the time I’ve been selling these tacky alien doodads, the real thing’s been right under my nose, and I didn’t see it.”
“Then it doesn’t shatter your world view?” asked Isabel.
“Honey, it is my world view.”
“You mean you’ve always believed in us?”
“No! I always thought it was a cartload of crap. A nice way to earn breads, but still a cartload of crap. No, my world view is that everything is always much screwier than we have any idea of. So this is just—the perfect thing.”
Valenti took her hand. “I had a feeling we were made for each other. Now I’m sure of it.”
“My God,” said Maria. “I may be part of a functioning family unit. Will I be able to cope?, I ask myself.”
“Shut up,” Michael said amiably. To everyone’s surprise, including her own, she did.
Valenti resumed the briefing. “Okay, counting Amy, we make a dozen. The rest of the town is out there listening to that firebrand. If they get unruly—and I’m guessing they will—it’ll be up to us to calm them down. I’m appointing you my deputies for tonight. Everybody okay with that?”
Nobody looked happy, but most of them nodded. “Why’d you choose us?” asked Jen. “We’re not trained or anything.”
Valenti glanced at the ship-borns. “You came recommended.”
“Hold on now,” said Alex, belatedly. “Just us? Against all of them?”
“One of my regulars is out of town, and the rest will have their hands full protecting the public buildings. I can radio for extra help, but they’ll be a spell getting here. In the meantime, we’re it.”
“Do we get weapons?”
“Just me, Deputy Owen, and Agent—excuse me, Ms.—Topolsky. And of course some of us”—he glanced at the ship-borns—“have them built in. I’m hoping that’ll be enough. If not, we’ll proceed as the situation dictates.”
“I don’t know,” said Alex. “It sounds—”
“Son, it’s your town too. Question is, are you willing to stand up for it?”
“The standing-up thing again. I see.” He glanced at Isabel, who clutched his arm supportively. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
The crisis came sooner than anticipated. The crowd Trivett had been haranguing had cleared the tent, and were now parading raggedly down Main Street with him at their head. “Whose town is this?” he shouted. “Is it yours? Is it?”
“Yes!” they shouted back.
“Then why are they here?” He pointed to the Crashdown and the Center. “You want to know why? Do you?”
“Yes!”
“Because they have allies here conspiring with them, sneaking them in—till before you know it, there’ll be more of them than there are of you. Then your days will be numbered. One clutch of that cold hand, and you’ll fall cold and lifeless, with a silver handprint on your chest. You, your families, your children—innocent babies. And any of you who survive, they’ll hunt down and turn their death machines on you—to kill you slowly, without mercy. Tearing through your flesh and bone just to see how humans die. Is that what you want? Is it?”
“No!”
“Then get them! Get them! Get them before they get you! And get the collaborators—the quislings—the traitors! The ones who are hiding them! You know where they are! There—and there! Find them! Kill them! Kill the nehis! The e.t.s!” He pronounced it “eaties.” “And the e.t. lovers! The bleeding hearts! The ones who are different—the ones who don’t belong! You know who they are! And you know what to do with them!”
A man in the crowd held up a lighter and flicked it to life. “Burn them!”
“Yes!” Len hissed, his eyes gleaming wildly. “Yes! Burn them! Burn them all!” The mob responded with cries of bloodlust. Michele, who had been watching in growing alarm, saw her husband, and all of them, had passed beyond reason. “Len, stop!” she cried. But it was too late. All those around her were possessed with the same fury, and now it exploded among them, propelling them this way and that—but all in the same few ways, so that without purposing it, they accreted into smaller but more or less cohesive bands. Only one of them stayed aloof: an old man with a Roswell Daily Record tucked under his arm. He retreated into the shadow of a storefront to watch.
One band broke into the UFO Center and dragged out the dummy alien, along with a length of bundling cord, which they wrapped around its neck and used to string it from a lamppost. Someone set a lighter to it, and within seconds it was ablaze, to the cheers of the ravagers. Another band assaulted the Crashdown. Some of them rammed at the doors; others hurled rocks at the saucer over the doors. Three began to scale the wall. Jeff stuck his head out the bedroom window. “Hey, you! Get off there!” The attackers began to pelt him too. The old man in the shadows smiled.
The disturbance brought out the armed half of the sheriff’s posse: himself, Owen, Topolsky, and the three ship-borns. He had left the others at Amy’s to watch that end of town, to which the hysteria had not yet penetrated. He led his contingent to the intersection of Maple and Main, from which they could see the frenzy spreading throughout the business quarter. The teens saw people they knew, people they liked (or did not like): their teachers, their principal, kids from school, store owners, Alex’s father, and— Isabel clutched Max’s arm. “It’s Dad!” She saw him, and then she did not. “Is Mom with him?” Her eyes searched the crowd.
“You three,” said Valenti, “it’s time. Whatever you can do, do it. We’ll be your back-up.”
“But our parents—”
“Hey, we’ve all got friends and relatives out there. Best thing you can do for them is put a stop to this craziness.”
“Isabel, he’s right,” said Max. But she had realized that before he said it.
The two of them, and Michael, looked at one another, and instantly found themselves welded into a single consciousness. “It’s like back in the ship,” said Michael. “I’m having thoughts that aren’t mine. And mine are swimming around in this pool that’s three times as big as it was.”
“I believe,” said Isabel, “it’s called being of one mind.” Together they formed a plan faster than they could have spoken it. They turned toward one of the marauding bands, and then to the asphalt at its feet. The marauders found themselves sinking into a lake of black gelatin—but gelatin that clung to their legs and would not permit them to advance.
Now the old man stepped out of the shadows. He pointed his rolled-up newspaper at the captives. Moving as one, they ceased struggling and dropped their eyes to the gelatin. It rolled back in a wave, as if it had been icing on a cake. The wave changed course toward the ship-borns, and itself changed as it went, to a bank of hot lava. The three of them raised up a glacier, waist-high, to block it. The lava hissed and steamed against the ice, and then burbled away to nothing. “How’d they do that?” asked Michael. Behind the crowd, the old man had stopped to rest against a lamppost and was fumbling with a pill bottle. No sooner had Michael seen him than an unspoken exchange took place between him and the others.
Klima—
—powering them—
—by channeling energy—
—from one of the map sites—
—the only one close enough—
—the one we haven’t identified yet—
—and he’s using the Lodestone—
—but he can’t, it was lost—
—or the Stones from the cave—
—but I hid them—
—and of course he knew where he had hidden them, and so of course they all did. Max spoke aloud now; speech seemed to give his commands more force. “Maybe we can use them against him. Michael, you and I will go get them. Isabel, bring the others.” She knew which ones he meant. “We may need them too.” He and Michael departed for the school, Isabel for the Delucas’.
The Earthly members of the contingent had been standing a little apart, powerless to do more than watch as the magic show unfolded before their eyes. Now they were not sure what to do. During Klima’s weak spell, his unknowing agents had lost their impetus and were now standing sluggishly, swaying a little. “What now?” Owen asked.
“Keep our eye on ’em. See what they do next.” The others looked doubtful. “Anybody got a better plan?” Nobody had. So they remained where they were, taking no action, but monitoring the now-dormant troublemakers.
Turning onto Maple Street, Isabel failed to see the figure crouching in the bushes at the corner. As she passed, he sprang out at her with a cry. “The blood! The blood!” His speech was thick and slurred. His hands grabbed at her neck. Without thinking, she dug her nails into one of them and used the contact to send his animus back at him. He collapsed onto the pavement, clutching his head; a moment later, he was out. Only then did she recognize him as Grunewald. “I wish I could help you,” she said. “But you’ve gone beyond a place where that’s possible.” Besides, she had a duty to carry out. So she left him lying there.
At the Delucas’, alien-themed trinkets hung from the deodars in the yard, both for decoration and for sale, if anyone asked to buy. One of the bands of raiders had spied them and were plucking them down to tear apart or crush underfoot. Isabel arrived to find Amy and the others trying to fight them off. She changed the grass around their feet to cement that set instantly, pinning them where they stood; they struggled vainly to free themselves. “Come with me,” she ordered the three teens. “We need you.” As the others began to follow, she held up a hand. “Sorry, it’s kids’ night.” Watching them go, Amy felt like the grown-up Wendy watching her daughter fly off to the Neverland.
She perked up again on realizing she had in her power the people who had destroyed her handiwork. She picked up a baseball bat one of them had dropped and circled them while smacking it against her cupped hand. “You know how long it took me to make those? You—” She drew the bat back as if to swing; the captives cowered away. Then she lowered it. “—are so lucky I’m a pacifist.” Her fellow deputies, Milton and Jen, were patrolling the street; the neighborhood was quiet now. So she went inside.
Perforce, the captives remained. After a minute, they tensed, all at the same time, as if the same electric current were passing through them all. Then they turned their heads together toward the cement at their feet. It melted into water, freeing them. They moved in a body out of the yard and toward the school. In other parts of town, other groups did the same.
Max and Michael were there already. Michael was withdrawing the Stones from the base of the sign, where he had deposited them. Only now they were glowing; the blue light showed through the sack. “They weren’t doing that before,” he said. Both boys realized what it meant, but Max was faster at putting it into words. “This is the last site on the map! West Roswell High. I bet, if we knew the history—”
“We know the year it was started,” said Michael.
They moved to a bronze dedication plaque at the top of the steps. “‘1947,’” Max read. “The same year we landed.” The coincidence had not struck him before. “Maybe it was put here just for us.”
“The plaque?”
“The whole school.”
They had no time to weigh the theory just then, for Isabel and those she had gone to fetch came running up the steps, followed at a distance by the mob, now regrouped into a single organic unit, many-bodied but single-brained, and that brain guided and goaded by its creator, who was walking alongside, driving his herd. “It’s them!” he shouted. “The strangers! The wrong ones! Kill them!”
Under his sway, and fueled by whatever power he was wielding, his minions turned the school steps into a thick ooze, veined with blood and lightning. It distended and reared up over Max and the others like a giant jellyfish. Michael, who was carrying the Stones, changed it to a ball of green fungus, which he then exploded, spraying their attackers with slimy mold. “Nice one,” said Max.
“He’s channeling the energy of this place,” said Isabel. She could have flashed the message silently to two of them, but spoke it aloud for the benefit of the rest. “He’s using them as a conduit.”
“Which can go in either direction,” Max answered. “We’ll channel the energy into ourselves.”
“Can we handle it?” Michael asked.
“With the Stones, I think so.”
Michael opened the sack and began passing them out, like treats from Santa’s bag. But there was one too few. “That’s okay,” Alex said, “really.” He stepped away.
Isabel was not about to let him off that easily. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “We’ll share,” she said firmly. The six of them lined up and raised the Stones in unison. The Earth kids felt the Vallosans steering their thought into the right paths, which were (literally) alien to them. Only something was off; they could all feel it; the power was there, but weak and distant, unequal to the task.
Michael was the first to grasp the problem. “V formation!” he ordered. “The signature pattern! That’s the way the energy flows!” They aligned themselves like the icons on the map, with Max at their apex. Immediately they felt the energy streaming into them. Their bodies took on auras of the same otherworldly blue.
“You feel it, Liz?” Max shouted.
“Max, my God! It’s like the best—” Her sense of decorum stopped her, even in those straits. “—massage ever,” she finished.
Then something else intruded on her consciousness: a force pulling her where she did not want to go, pulling her toward Klima. It was too much for her—for all of them together—to resist long. He was holding his rolled-up paper pointed at them, and from inside, through all the layers of newsprint, a light shone brightly. And suddenly the paper blew off, as if in a high wind, to reveal what it had been hiding. “The Lodestone!” Michael cried. “He found it somehow.” But its light was no longer blue. Now it was a fiery red.
“It’s drawing the other Stones!” said Isabel.
“And us!” said Max. “He’s using the energy we absorbed to suck us in. We have to discharge now.”
“In what direction?” Michael asked.
“Guess.” He trained his eyes on Klima, and so did the others. Uniting into a single force, the novice Earthlings riding on the backs of the more seasoned Vallosans, they fired with all the power in their combined arsenal. He did not see it coming, and the hit knocked him back several yards. He fell to his knees. When he looked up, he had a different face—and this time it was an older one. He managed with effort to pick himself up, and returned with a hobbling gait to the shadows, where he vanished away. “Took care of him,” said Maria.
Michael shook his head. “Wish it was that easy.”
Then he and the others, in silent communion again, worked to undo all the damage that had been done, everywhere it had hit. Those who had done it, now cut loose from their tether, remembered next to nothing after they had entered the tent earlier that evening. Deprived of purpose and of understanding, and needing some comfort, some peace, somewhere, they began leaving for their homes, a few at a time.
Valenti found Len Trivett sitting on a curb, looking as confused as the others. His wife ran up and sat at his side. “Len! Are you all right?”
“What happened?” he asked her. “What the hell happened?”
Valenti regarded the two of them coldly. “Musta been aliens.”
“Aliens? There are no aliens. That’s all—” He stopped, realizing his slip.
“A hoax? I thought you were the great alien experts.” Len dropped his head.
“That was an act,” said Michele. “We don’t know any more about them than the speech you heard—part of the packet we were handed. We were sent to plant the seed of suspicion in people’s minds.”
“Sent by who? BEAM?”
“Yes, but it’s bigger than that.”
“How big?” She would not answer that. “And how many others were sent? To how many other towns?”
“You think they’d tell us?” She seemed genuinely distressed. “It was never supposed to come down this way.” Her face took on a dark look. “I don’t believe we were the only agents at work out there.”
Valenti stared impassively at her. “You want to be careful, Mich. That kind of crazy talk can break up a family.” She appeared chastened. “Get up, the two of you. You’re both under arrest for inciting to riot.” He raised his voice to reach what remained of the crowd. “The rest of you, go home. Hell night’s over.” And everybody went.
...yet somehow they were still there, the six of them: the ship-borns and their Earthly complement. And somehow it was now daytime. But apart from themselves, the campus was deserted; their footsteps echoed as they started across the empty quad. “Didn’t we go home?” asked Alex. “I could have sworn we went home.”
“A long time ago,” Isabel agreed.
“Then what are we doing here?” asked Max.
Liz knew. “We have to be here.” She pointed to a banner above. “It’s Homecoming Day.”
“Everything looks normal,” said Maria. “If you disregard the absence of living organisms.”
“Not quite,” said Michael. His eyes were still on the banner. “Homecoming’s in the fall.”
“We’re dreaming!” said Isabel. She was amazed at herself for not having spotted it sooner. “This is a dream we’ve created for ourselves.”
“Not me,” Liz declared. “I’d never dream of a place with nobody in it.”
“Oh, no,” said Alex. He rushed off with a worried look. His puzzled comrades followed him down the halls and into a classroom. “My home room,” he said. He checked the roll book on the desk. “My name.” He held it up for them to see. His was the only name written on the page, or on any page. “My dream. My ideal. Alex all by himself, with no one left to be afraid of.” He looked at Isabel sheepishly. “Sorry, Is. I’m still a frightened small-town boy. And my fear is imprisoning all of us.”
“Don’t let it!” she urged him. “Fight it!”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Try.”
He tried, but faltered. “I—”
She grabbed both hands. “Alex! Really try.” She stared into his eyes, and into his mind—his waking mind, but it was where his nightmares fed: terrible forms, and terrors without form, overhung on all sides. “My God, Alex. How long has it been in this state?”
“As long as I can remember.”
“Time to clean house.” Concentrating, she summed up all the resolve she could and spread it to him, split it with him, as if the two of them were sharing a sundae; she had enough for both. With her reinforcing him, he was able to push his fears back, farther and farther, until they dissolved into the walls of his mind; they were not gone, but were now mingled with other thoughts and feelings, in proportion. He felt a relief deeper than any he had known since he was a small boy. “Gosh, Is,” he said.
But then—
They were at the Orbit Lounge, dancing; the dance floor was dark and crowded; overlapping spotlights, in colors never seen on Earth, skittered about on the walls. The crowd was mixed, an intergalactic petting zoo, embracing extraterrestrials of every shape and feature. Then the lights went out, and the aliens turned on them, thrusting at them with claws and maws— “Maria!” Liz said sharply. “This has to be your dream. Snap out of it!” She gave Maria a shake. The monsters vanished.
But then—
They were in the Crashdown. No monsters here, nothing to fear—except the man who was about to shoot his partner. Maria looked at Liz. “This one’s yours, kid.” The man pulled his gun. Liz was standing in the line of fire, as before, but this time she was smiling calmly. “Um, shouldn’t you move or something?” Maria suggested.
“It’s all right. My biggest fear used to be dying. But Max took that away.” And sure enough, the bullet passed through her without effect.
But then—
They were in Hank’s trailer, with Hank. “Aw, come on,” said Michael.
Isabel realized what was happening. “It’s Klima, using the dream power against us.” Then she realized something else. “Only women possess the power. That means—”
And then—
It was nighttime again. They were in the school stadium. The scoreboard above traced out the spiral rune in yellow lights. The bleachers were filled. All of Roswell was there....
But they were not only in Roswell. They were also on Vallosa, on one of its eternal battlefields, among the dead, the wounded, and those eternally killing; what were bleachers in the other world were here barbed-wire cages, and the spectators prisoners....
The six saw both scenes at once, in dual focus. They were existing on two planes of reality: one more than they were used to. Below the stadium lay the nucleus of the energy that resided there, and it empowered them to bridge both space and time. For Vallosa was gone; its death plains were gone. The six of them were both then and now, both there and here.
A figure was crossing the field toward them: Klima, in her true form, which encompassed all her forms: a hundred-headed goddess, with all the heads contained in one. And she was bearing the Lodestone. Its spiral radiated a blinding light, like a sun’s light, not blue, but red. “Now you know,” she said, “what the rune signifies. See it. Feel it. Hatred—hatred always, hatred everlasting. This is the only truth, the only source of victory. Many Vallosans fought all their lives and never learned that.” She lifted the Stone high above her head. “Behold my dream.” Beams shot out from it in all directions; the sudden surge caused her to stagger a little.
“You can’t frighten us!” Alex shouted. Then he amended himself. “Actually, you can. But it won’t do you any good.”
She regarded them with disdain. “You would resist. Yet your own hatred draws you.” The Stones they were holding—they realized now they had been holding them all along—were glowing blue, yet red was beginning to creep in at the edges. Again they felt the power of the greater Stone pulling them. “One Stone to rule them all,” Klima said.
The Earthlings felt within them a loathing that was not theirs, and saw the faces of the ship-borns contorted with it. They looked like Klima. Liz had said she “hated” Pam Troy, but now she knew she never truly had—and never could, she hoped. Klima laughed with greedy delight. “You’re mine. And you won’t be alone. Who knows how many others there may be? We’ll form an army, search out all the wells of power, and fuse them into a force such as this world has never seen—the force of hate.”
Liz grabbed Max by the arm. “Don’t listen to her, Max! That’s not who you are—any of you!” After a moment, his face relaxed, and was as it had been. So were the others’. But she knew she had not done it. At the far end of the field—both fields, the stadium and the battleground—another figure was standing. He called out now to Klima. “You speak by halves, sister. As always.”
Klima turned with a sneer. “If it isn’t my brother. The monk—the hermit.” Brother and sister, thought Liz. No wonder they’re always fighting.
“Neither monk nor hermit, dream twister. But one who sees both halves of the circle—the dark and the light.”
Shrieking with rage, Klima turned the Stone on her brother. From it a red shaft shot toward him. Then another. And another. He dodged them as he continued his approach. But each step fell more weakly than the last. The red bolts grew weaker too. The powers of the two Vallosans were waning, eroded by the very energy that enabled and sustained them. At last Feddin stopped in front of his sister. She drew back, but not far enough. He laid his hand on the Stone. Its light shifted from red to blue.
“In the sandwriting of our dead world,” he said, “this rune signifies hatred. That much is so. But it also signifies love. The two are halves of the same circle—the dark and the light. Each is the only power that will defeat the other. Neither can be defined, only discovered. And the discovery happens within yourself. Some of you have discovered hatred. Others”—he looked at the Earthlings—“have yet to.” His voice enlarged to resound over the whole field. “But how much greater is the power of your love!”
As they listened, any dark feelings they had harbored were swept away, to be replaced by pure light: the blue light of the Stones they were holding. It poured into the great Stone, the one Stone, which flashed a brilliant white and then burst into a thousand gleaming slivers; the spectacle of it was like the city’s yearly Fourth of July display, only bigger and better. Klima was thrown back. Feddin stood his ground. But what had disintegrated, the others saw immediately, was only the shell. The thing it had encased was intact, and now exposed to view. And it was hurtling toward them. Max made a leap for it; Liz did the same, but a moment sooner. As the others gathered around, she opened her hand to reveal a round yellow gem, like the others but larger.
“Behold the Stone itself,” said Feddin, “free of its confines. It should be borne by the one in whom the power of love is strongest.”
Liz offered it to Max. He shook his head. “By rights it belongs to you.” Feddin nodded approval.
“Then it belongs to us all,” she said. She gave Alex her smaller Stone so each of them had one, and without another word, they moved into the V formation.
But now they were one too many. “Where will you stand?” Max asked Liz.
“Where the ship stood.”
“The sixth symbol,” Max murmured.
She nodded. “It knew what you had to do.”
When she had taken her place, they all lifted their Stones and extended them toward the center of the V. Their hands were glowing blue; the glow spread up their arms and to their whole bodies. Blue rays emanated from each of them to all the others, forming a web of blue light, as if they themselves were suns. They felt flowing through them what they could only have described as goodness: the essential goodness of the universe. When it had filled them completely, they opened their hands to reveal—nothing. The transfer was complete; the power of the Stones had passed into them. They looked around for Klima, but she was gone. So were the football crowd, and the corpses of the field. Only Feddin remained.
“Is it over?” Alex asked him. “I think it’s over.”
He looked kindly on them. “Not for you. For you are now the guardians of the citadel—you and such allies as you can muster. The war for this world begins here. With luck, it may end here. Our day—mine and Klima’s—is past. The future is yours.”
“We don’t mind,” Liz said. “Honestly, we don’t. Only—first, could we get some sleep? For some reason I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“Return to your beds, my children.” His voice echoed in their heads. “For in truth you never left them. All that has been”—the voice began to fade—“was in the dreamtime.”
On the last words, Liz opened her eyes to find herself in her room. Now she remembered having gone home hours before. Her head sank into the pile of pillows, and she returned to sleep. But this time it was a sleep free of false dreams. The six of them had prevailed, tonight. But there would be other nights to come.
The following Sunday, a pair of visitors slid chairs up to the bed where Jim, Sr. lay with his eyes shut. “Clock’s winding down,” the orderly had said. One of the pair was Junior; the other was a girl he would not have recognized if he had been aware of her. Very gently, she took his hand, and very gently reached into him. He opened his eyes. They looked at her first, and then at his son. “Jimmy! Why didn’t you tell me? I was right all along.” But he was happy about it, not angry. He was vindicated at last. “You oughta had told me,” he said.
Junior struggled to hold back his tears. “Part right, Pop. You figured them for the bad guys. And the one you were tracking—he was one of the worst. But some of ’em”—he glanced at Isabel—“are the closest thing to angels we’re likely to see.”
“Reckon I’m—’bout due to find—out.” The last word was a gasp; there was no more strength in him. He shut his eyes again.
“He’s going,” said Isabel. “Shall I let him?”
His son nodded. She released the old man’s hand. His breathing became shorter, and soon stopped. He was at peace—finally—and it showed in his face. Jim let the tears roll now; his father had earned them.
“Thank you,” he whispered to Isabel.
She smiled. “He was a kind man. A good man.”
“I’m glad you saw that in him. Not many people did, later on. But he was doing his best, you know? Trying to deal with it.”
“You mean, with us. I know. We all have to learn to do that.”
When they emerged, the other five were waiting outside. Alex saw a grace in Isabel’s countenance that had not been there before. She moved to him and clasped his hand. “I got something to say to you,” the sheriff began. “You three. And your friends.” He paused to find the right words. “A lot of people have been hurt on account of you being here. Not your fault. It’s just how things played out. But you can help. You can fix it for some of ’em. And keep other people from getting hurt. Nobody else can do that. It’s your—calling, so to speak. So would you think about it? Please, just—think about it?”
Each of them glanced at the others. “I’m in,” said Michael.
“All opposed?” asked Maria. There was a silence.
“So,” said Max,” tomorrow we start saving the world.”
“Not tomorrow,” said Liz. “We’ve got school. Really, this time.” The others groaned. In all the fuss, it had somehow slipped their minds.
“Dear journal,” Liz wrote that night, “you may be wondering why you haven’t heard from me in, like, forever. It seems the more caught up in life you are, the less you have to say about it. I used to confide to you all my hopes and expectations. And now guess what? Not only have they all come true, more things have happened to me than I ever dreamed of. And it just doesn’t stop. So, dear journal, I have a feeling you won’t be hearing from me for a while. Hope you won’t mind too much. Good night. Yours truly, Liz.”
She shut the book. Then she crossed to the window and leaned out to stare up at the sky, past the V pattern, to a true star: Polaris, the fixed center of an ever-revolving wheel. To it she addressed a prayer:
“Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight
Wish I may, wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight.”
She turned to the boy who had been standing silently behind her, waiting for her to finish. She was all his now. And he was hers. Forever and always. Their two bodies united—arms, lips, and, finally, all that could meet or be met—tinged as if by magic with the silver of the celestial lights.
I once heard that dust is made up of human skin cells. If that's true, I think there's a naked man under my bed!
