Impossible Places (21 page)

McMurray murmured something into the telephone in the briefcase before turning it off and closing the case. “Probably thought he was safe, he did. Wouldn’t have understood if you’d taken the time to try explaining it to him.” After a quick look around to ensure that they had not been observed at work, they headed for the car parked in the nearby beach lot. “Tracked the phone’s location via satellite search from Zurich, and its internal GPS pinpointed it for us. There was never any place for the sorry bugger to hide.”

“Not as long as he left the phone on active sending.” Parker opened the door on the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel, nodding at the briefcase as he did so. “The bonds still in there?”

His colleague nodded. “Doesn’t look like they’ve been touched. A hundred and sixty million Swiss francs’ worth of convertible paper.” His eyes gleamed. “It’s bloody tempting, you know.”

“Now mate, none o’ that.” The engine on the rented car coughed to life. “You know they’d send blokes like us after us if we were to try and disappear with that.”

“It was just a thought, Eddie.”

“Well, blow it out your arse. Let’s get back to the hotel. First Qantas out of this shithole tomorrow, we’re on it.”

Gembogl watched the men drive away. When he was sure they had left, he ran to the picnic table. He saw instantly that Wahgi was dead. The car had stopped at the petrol station across the street, and he hurried across the road toward it. While one of the men pumped fuel, he slipped inside the station and in a frantic, hushed stream of words began relating what had happened to the silent attendant. The man was a Huli and therefore, however distant, a kinsman.

The knock at the hotel door the following morning prompted McMurray to grab his pistol and station himself flat against the wall to one side of the portal. Nodding to his partner, Parker approached cautiously and without a word put his eye to the peephole set in the door. The tiny Fresnel lens showed a small black woman clad entirely in white standing on the other side. She was holding an empty laundry basket.

“Who is it?” McMurray asked tightly.

Making a disgusted face, Parker whispered to his colleague. “It’s a maid.” Nodding sourly, McMurray put his automatic pistol back in its shoulder holster.

The woman on the other side spoke matter-of-factly when Parker cracked the door. “You are checking out this morning, sir. We have a big tour group coming in, and I need to take away your dirty linen.”

“But we’re not ready to—oh, all right!” He slipped the door’s security latch. “But be bloody quick about it!” To McMurray he muttered, “We don’t need any of the help complaining to management that we’re keeping them from doing their job.” Curtly, he pulled the door inward.

The maid came in. Calling her diminutive would have flattered her. She was maybe four foot six, but perfectly formed. Cradling her basket, she headed toward the beds as Parker closed the door behind her, enjoying the sight of her compact ass twitching from side to side beneath the tight white maid’s uniform.

A dozen very short, very muscular men burst through the half-open door like circus midgets shot from a single cannon. They had wild kinky hair that spread out from the sides of their heads, skin dark as bittersweet chocolate, and physiques like miniature linebackers. They also wielded knives and machetes like the exploded components of a berserk threshing machine.

Parker was hacked to bits before he could react. McMurray went down with his hand on the stock of his machine pistol, but before he could find the trigger a bamboo arrow caught him in the throat and went completely through his neck. A foot of fire-hardened shaft emerged from the back. He had time enough to marvel at the incongruity of it. A bloody great arrow! In this day and age!

“Who . . . ?” he gasped before the blood welling up in his throat choked off any further speech.

He did not recognize the young man who came forward to stand over him.

“You killed my friends. Wahgi and Kuikui.” He gestured at the watching coterie of small but ferocious men who filled the room. The maid had left to stand watch outside. “This is payback for what you did to them. A friend who worked at the petrol station where you stopped last night after doing your killing owed my village some old payback. We got on his motorbike and followed you here. Madani who works for the hotel is an Engan, not Huli, so we now owe her tribe big payback. For compensation we will give her village ten pigs for her help this morning in sneaking us into the hotel.”

“Ten—pigs . . . ?” McMurray choked. He was fast bleeding to death.

He did not get the opportunity to do so. The oldest man in the group—short, white-haired, but straight as an arrow—approached and with a single swing of his bloody machete, cut the European’s head half off. He apologized to his companions for not making a better job of it. He was not as strong in the arms as he used to be, he explained.

As they were making preparations to leave, something began beeping within the briefcase. Opening it, Gembogl removed the strange telephone. Remembering how Wahgi had used it, he pushed the appropriate button.

“Parker?” a voice inquired. “You should be departing with the case in an hour or so. Don’t leave any tracks. I know you’re not in London or New York, but there’s no reason to make things easy for the local police, no matter how primitive they might be,
verstehen
? You never know—one of them might even know how to spell Interpol. I’ll be expecting you tomorrow at the airport.” The voice paused briefly. “Parker, are you there?”

“It looks valuable.” Curious, the wiry elder examined the phone.

“Who said that?” The voice on the other end grew alarmed. “Parker, who’s in there with you and McMurray?”

“What should we do with it?” Another man was using a bedsheet to wipe blood from his machete.

“It may be valuable, but it killed Wahgi and Kuikui.” Raising his arm and ignoring the sudden stream of frantic babble that spouted from the device, Gembogl brought his own blade down sharply. State-of-the-art it might be, but the satellite phone was no match for a honed machete. It splintered into fragments of metal and plastic.

As they were about to leave, Gembogl picked up the briefcase. “And this, what should we do with this? Destroy it also?”

The old man regarded it narrowly. “It killed Wahgi and Kuikui too—but you said it was worth a million kina?” The young man nodded. “Then we will keep it, and hide it until we can understand how to make it work for us. Just like we are learning to make other things from the outside world work for us.” Turning, he shook his woolly white head as he walked toward the door. “These white people make many magical things work for them, but between you and me, man to man, I will still take a good machete over a device that talks through the air any day.”

SUZY Q

“Oh Suzy Q. Oh Suzy Q. Oh Suzy Q, yes I love you,
oh Suzy Q.”

Puccini it’s not, but certain song lyrics stick in the
mind like gum under the desk in front of you in
high school. Transcending lyricism, they become mnemonics. Ask anyone of my generation to sing you the
words to “The Mickey Mouse Club Song” and see how
many on the verge of senility can spout the entire
rhythmic banality—hopefully with a proper modicum of
embarrassment.

What does this have to do with
Alien Abductions
,
which was the anthology this story was written for? An
alien abduction, like everything else, is often so much a
matter of perspective. I hesitate to call it a shaggy dog
story . . .

She felt that she understood them fairly well. Under the circumstances, that was as much as could have been expected. Whether they understood her was another matter entirely.

It had been difficult at first. They did not look or sound like anything she had ever encountered before, and they had a unique, utterly distinctive smell: a cross between the pink roses in the garden and old man Charlie Woods, who lived next door and with whom she enjoyed an ongoing relationship that Joe had tacitly assented to for years. Yet in spite of their strangeness, she had found herself oddly drawn to them. But then, she had always suffered from an excess of interest in the new and exotic.

She knew she shouldn’t have gone after them. No one had the slightest idea where she was headed at the time, and now it was very likely that no one knew where she was. Her evident interest seemed to puzzle them. Whether they would have ignored her or not she did not know, but at the last minute, just as she had decided that she had seen enough and had better start back home, they had scooped her in as easily as she would have picked up a baby rabbit, and taken her with them.

Doubtless she ought to have resisted. Joe would have—but she wasn’t Joe. Deep within herself she knew that it was wrong, that she should have put up a fight, or at least called out. That she did none of those things seemed to surprise them. In their peculiar way they were as taken with her as she was with them.

Others were not so amenable.

She encountered her fellow captives inside the ship. A man was fighting and screaming as they secured him to a bench or table. The process was interesting to observe. One of the creatures held a device from which spewed what appeared to be tightly restrained ropes of light. It reminded her of the way Joe liked to eat Cheez Whiz right from the can. Friends of theirs thought it a disgusting habit, but when the two of them were playing and laughing and Cheez Whiz was flying all over the house, manners didn’t seem to matter. It had struck Suzy on more than one occasion that most people not only didn’t have much fun, they did not even know how to
have
fun. If one thing could be said to characterize her long relationship with Joe, it was that the two of them always knew how to have a good time.

The unknown man presently being light-strapped to the table-bench certainly wasn’t having fun. He was crying. This disturbed Suzy, and she tried to remonstrate with the busy creatures on the man’s behalf, but they ignored her. Or perhaps they simply didn’t understand. Certainly their language was entirely alien. When they crowded close around the man his blubbering dropped to a nervous whimper. Though she could sympathize with his position, his distress made no sense to Suzy. Sure, these strange beings were odd-looking, with their imposing, bloated heads and multiple arms and leprous skin. They also had very big teeth and exceptionally large, penetrating eyes. Four apiece.

So what? She knew plenty of people who were equally strange-looking, and she didn’t break down in their presence. As far as she could see, the visitors were not hurting the man. So why was he so distraught? Still, the urge to try to comfort him was strong. She felt it was up to her to share what reassurance she could from within the serenity of her own self. It was something she was very good at. Many of her and Joe’s friends had remarked on it.

When she called out to him, his moaning stopped and he looked sharply in her direction. Seeing her standing there, he looked first startled, then confused. When one of the creatures started toward her, the man began shouting at it. Unafraid, Suzy remained calm at the approach of the lumbering, toothy alien, tracking its progress from behind bright brown eyes. Finally it halted, towering over her, those sharp teeth very close. Dealing as she did with strangers every day (though none quite so strange as these), she met its quadruple gaze without flinching. One of several multiple limbs reached for her.

It urged her, gently but firmly, toward the bench. Relaxing, she allowed herself to be guided, not resisting at all. These beings had done her no harm, and she therefore saw no reason to be afraid of them. Her natural curiosity overrode any sense of fear. The compelling digits pressing against the back of her neck were warm and strong. If necessary, she could try to break free of the firm, clinging grasp—but to what end? Like the man, she was trapped inside the alien craft.

She found herself right up next to the bench. The limb that had been pushing her steadily toward it now relaxed. She was free to step away if she wished, but instead she remained by the side of the bound man. He was watching her intently, pleading with his eyes as if he thought she might somehow be able to come to his aid. She studied his face. He looked to be older than Joe, but not by very much. A taller, slimmer version of Charlie Woods.

Though the illumination in the room was dim, with a distinct bluish tint, she found she could see clearly. In any event, it would have been impossible to miss the large, complex device that was hovering above the table. In the shadowy, accented light, two of the aliens began to make adjustments to mechanisms whose design and purpose were unfamiliar to her. Emitting a soft whine, the hovering machine began to descend. The indirect lighting suffused its surface with a dull silvery patina. His eyes drawn to the movement, the man on the bench started screaming again. Suzy failed to comprehend any reason for his profound agitation.

The device halted about a foot above the heaving, twisting chest. A bright purplish beam emerged from a small cone to strike him in the face. Almost immediately, his screaming stopped, for which Suzy was grateful. The unceasing shrieks of despair had begun to get on her nerves.

Instruments emerged from the underside of the machine, glistening and delicate. Some were made of metal, some were transparent, and the substance of others she was unable to identify. They reminded her of the tools at the garage where Joe worked. Unsurprisingly, their purpose was as unknown to her as their composition. Their functions were soon demonstrated, however, as they dipped down to swiftly and efficiently crack the recumbent man’s chest cavity. As the operation unfolded, the alien next to her, the one that had impelled her to move to the side of the bench, rarely took its multiple eyes off her. When she reacted with nothing more than quiet, polite interest to the procedure that was being performed on the table, it turned and conversed in a low rumble with the alien on its left.

The procedure did not take long. After conducting a rapid yet detailed examination of the man’s internal organs, skeletal structure, and nervous system, the creatures smoothly replaced everything they had removed. Colored lights resealed the gaping cavity in the human torso, and the eyes-wide-open yet motionless man was removed to a place where Suzy was not allowed to follow. Concerned, she wanted to check on him, only to find herself firmly restrained. Sensing the strength in those alien digits, she did not put up a fight. Humming methodically, a flat mechanism made several passes over the now unoccupied table until the last of the blood that had pooled up on the slick surface had been evaporated, leaving it once more clean, sterile, and dry.

She became aware that an alien on the opposite side of the table was eyeing her meaningfully. Once she met its gaze, it tapped the flat, stark plain of the operating bench with the tips of two limbs. Its intent was unmistakable.

Smiling brightly, she hopped up onto the gleaming table. Her ready compliance occasioned another round of rumbling conversation among the nearest of the creatures. The one that had drawn her forward to watch the previous examination leaned over the table and appeared to engage in a brief argument with those on the other side. She felt powerful digits curling around the back of her neck to draw her off the table. Once again, she complied. Not that she could have resisted if she had wanted to. These visitors were much stronger than she was, a good deal stronger even than Joe.

A woman was brought into the room, her flesh wan and sickly looking in the bluish haze. She was quite young, with hazel eyes, dyed blonde hair, and a stocky yet supple shape. Presently, she had a dazed look about her. As Suzy looked on, the operational routine she had just observed was repeated, complete with the preliminary struggling and screaming. As before, the purple beam put a stop to all that.

She was permitted to observe two more dissections and examinations, whereupon the alien that seemed to have taken a personal liking to her escorted her to a chamber fashioned from some kind of metallic black gauze. There was no furniture, and the light seemed to issue from the enclosing material itself. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she sat down on the floor and waited.

Eventually, a small machine brought food and water. She eyed the food with understandable reluctance, but a quick taste sufficed to suggest that it was harmless and nutritious. The water was as pure and clean as any she had ever sipped. All in all, she was quite content with the situation, except for one thing.

She missed Joe.

He would be missing her, too, she knew, as well as worrying himself sick about her. When he returned from his job at the garage and found her absent from the house he would grumble and make dinner, take a shower, then sit down to watch the ball game on the new television. When she was not back by the time the evening news came on he would start to become really worried. First he would probably check to see if she was visiting any of her friends in the neighborhood. When that proved fruitless he would start making phone calls.

There was nothing she could do about it. There was no way to let these creatures know what she wanted. They didn’t understand anything she said, and their method of communication remained impenetrable to her. On the plus side, she was fascinated by them, by their surroundings, and by their activities. For their part, they seemed to enjoy her company. Whether it was her individual appearance, the evident interest she had taken in their work, or her willing compliance with their orders she could not have said, but for whatever reason, after that first day they never again tried to put her up on the examination table.

More people were brought in, to have their bodies opened up like cans of dog food, to see their insides removed for examination and study and alien handling before being replaced and their owners sent on their way. Suzy beheld it all with the same unflagging interest. Strangeness and strangers had always intrigued her, sometimes to her detriment. On more than one occasion Joe had warned her about blindly placing herself in situations that might expose her to serious danger, but she had invariably ignored him. After each of her little adventures he had lectured her severely, sometimes even shouting, but the love he felt for her eventually muted his tirades. It was something she knew she could count on. No matter how mad he became at her, she always knew how to calm him down and win him over.

She missed him more each day.

The sustenance that was being supplied graduated from adequate to excellent. It improved with every meal, as if the aliens were studying her eating habits and adjusting the diet they were providing accordingly. Some of the culinary combinations she was offered proved to be as tasty as they were exotic. After a while, though, the novelty began to pale, and she found herself missing dinner with Joe in front of the TV, him bellowing his irresistible, hearty laugh as he commented on the activities on screen, her listening and except for an occasional excited outburst letting him do all the talking. At such shared moments they were completely comfortable with one another, a sign of a healthy and mutually respectful relationship. They had been together for more than ten years now.

The aliens did their best to keep her occupied. In the company of the being who had initially taken a special interest in her she was allowed to see most of the interior of their strange craft. Nothing was placed off-limits. It was as if they knew that it was all far beyond her comprehension, that she could take nothing in the way of secrets away with her. In this they were quite correct, but Suzy did not feel in any way slighted. She was as confident of her intelligence as she was of her attractiveness.

She found it all fascinating, even if she understood nothing of what she saw. She did not even worry about ending up on the examination table. It probably helped that she had never been one to think very far ahead. Unlike Joe, who spent too much of his time lost in preoccupation and worry, she was quite content to live for the moment. He was fond of remarking how much he envied that ability of hers, and wished he could learn to live like that himself.

There finally came a day when she was escorted to a part of the craft she vaguely remembered. Her memory of the place was confirmed when her alien (she had come to think of it as “hers”) manipulated a discoloration on the wall to create an opening to the outside. Familiar world smells rushed in on her: oak trees, cloying humidity, something dead nearby. It was very late on a particularly dark night, and trees blocked her view of anything in the distance. Joe, she thought. It was time to leave—if they would let her.