Starman (25 page)

He tried to shrug it off. “Your friend said that ours is a society full of aberrations. Consider this one of mine. It’ll make an interesting footnote in my journal.”

“Thank you. I don’t know what to say. I—” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him hard before he could pull away. Not that he wanted to. The starman watched without comment. Then he too stepped forward and bussed the startled consultant.

“Uh, thanks,” Shermin told them, wiping his mouth.

He watched as they hurried through the milling state troopers and climbed into the Cadillac. Jenny Hayden slid behind the wheel. The car pulled out of the lot and started up the narrow road that led to the crater. The young sergeant from the cafe joined him.

“Not the right ones, huh?” He gazed at the dust the Eldorado was kicking up in its wake. “They sure as hell fit the description. The car had Nevada plates, too.”

“Nah, close but no prize,” Shermin replied casually. “Guy we’re after’s much older. I never did trust that report out of Vegas.” He removed his last cigar from a coat pocket and began to peel it slowly, lovingly. He was looking quite pleased with himself when the
whup-whup
of an approaching helicopter caused the sergeant and his fellow officers-to look up. Shermin didn’t. He knew who it was.

Fox was the first one out of the chopper. He sprinted for the cafe, moving with unexpected speed for a desk-bound bureaucrat. Halfway to the door, he spotted Shermin and the sergeant and changed course toward them. His eyes searched the interior of the patrol car, Shermin’s face. Something told the security director that all hadn’t gone according to plan. Maybe it was his advisor’s grin.

“Where are they? What’s happened to them? They still inside?” When Shermin didn’t respond he turned to the state trooper. “Sergeant, where are your prisoners?”

“Wrong ones,” the officer told him, sounding a mite puzzled. “We let ’em go. What’s all the fuss about?” Suddenly his gaze narrowed and he turned to look questioningly at Shermin.

You could see the thoughts racing through Fox’s brain, lining up like magnets. He glanced a last time at Shermin before rushing to the cafe. He threw open the door and found himself staring at the night cook. He was the only one present.

“Hi,” said the man. “I’m fixin’ to close until six. That’s when we open for breakfast.” He looked happy as he peered around the security director. “Quite a crew you got out there. I expect they’ll all be wanting to eat. There’s still some cherry cobbler left. Say, what’s this all ab—?”

Fox let the door slam behind him, cutting off the older man’s query.

He strode up to Shermin until their belt buckles were practically touching, but the advisor didn’t back away. “You’re finished, Shermin,” he said tightly. “I’ll have you eviscerated for this. You’ll never work for another government agency or a company holding a government contract as long as you live.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Be as snide as you want, It’s your last chance.”

“In that case, as much as I hate to resort to symbolism,” Shermin said calmly. He’d fired up his cigar while the security chief had been making his inspection of the cafe. Now he removed the brown bomber from his mouth and, with an inordinate amount of delight, blew a thick cloud of smoke straight into the taller man’s face.

An occasional rumble of thunder could be heard as Jenny sent the Cadillac careening down the narrow, empty road, but no raindrops splattered the bug-stained windshield.

“There it is,” she whispered as a ridge of unnatural regularity came into view ahead. “You don’t seem excited.”

“I am conserving my strength,” he replied with a wan smile. “I am very tired now, Jennyhayden.”

She smiled back encouragingly. “Don’t worry. Well make it.”

She pulled to a stop in the deserted parking lot, led him up the first marked trail toward the crater rim. By the time they’d begun their descent he was having to lean on her for support.

Something in the sky growled, and this time it wasn’t thunder.

“Got ’em!” The chopper’s copilot was peering through the windshield of the big S-65, eying the ground.

Fox pressed between pilot and copilot, trying to see over the latter’s shoulder. “Where? Where?”

“Walking across the bottom of the crater, sir. The light’s not good, but they’re the only thing moving down there.”

Fox scanned the horizon. “Where the hell are the gunships?” He hefted a pickup, spoke into it. “Angel Command to Angel One. Where are you?”

“Don’t worry, sir,” said the copilot. “Where can they run to?”

Jenny stopped to look back the way they’d come. The rim of the crater was a stark black silhouette against the rapidly intensifying light. The faint singing sound was growing steadily louder.

“I hear something.”

The starman paused to listen. “I have heard it before. Aircraft are coming.”

Even as they stared, four Cobra gunships suddenly appeared, barely clearing the crater ridge.

“What now?” Jenny asked him.

“Now? There is nothing more for us to do, Jennyhayden.” He tilted back his head and scanned the thickening clouds, but the sky was still devoid of promise.

The first chopper came in low and fast, its machine guns chewing up the sand in front of them. Warning bursts, Jenny thought wildly.

The starman stood murmuring next to her. Even his voice was growing faint, she noticed. “No, no. This is all wrong. So wrong,” he murmured softly.

Another helicopter popped over the ridge, remained hovering back by the crater wall. An insistent voice reached them via amplifier. “Mrs. Hayden. This is George Fox of the National Security Agency. You and your companion must surrender immediately.”

The first chopper swung around and sprayed the sand and cinders a second time. The bullets landed very close.

“Last warning, Mrs. Hayden,” the voice boomed. “There can be no argument and no discussion. National security is in question here. I promise you that no one will be harmed, but you and your companion must surrender immediately or . . .”

“Jesus Christ,” gasped the helicopter pilot, speaking over Fox’s ultimatum, “what’s that?”

It looked like a dust devil, but it was growing much too rapidly. Heretofor not so much as a light breeze had disturbed the floor of the crater. Now there was a dust devil moving toward the center of the basin and the two people standing there. A brisk wind sprang up seemingly from out of nowhere. Dust began to rise from the crater floor, obscuring everything from sight.

Fox was screaming into the mike. “Take ’em out! That’s an order. Take ’em out now!”

As he spoke the wind rose from a stiff breeze to gale force. Suddenly the chopper pilots were too busy fighting to stay airborne to worry about hitting a couple of tiny targets on the ground below. The helicopters bucked crazily in the sudden disturbance. As the wind rose outside, the barometer plunged.

Something came out of the bottom of the clouds. It was a ship, or rather, the underside of a ship. It was not quite as big as the Capitol building back in Washington, through whose quiet halls Fox had strode purposefully only a couple of days ago. Of course, it was only the bottom part of the ship. The rest was concealed by burgeoning stormclouds and the dust devils that were multiplying on the floor of the crater.

Jenny put her hands to her ears, wincing in sudden pain. She swallowed hard and the pain went away. It was just like descending a steep mountain road, she thought.

As she reacted to the abrupt drop in pressure, it began to snow. The white stuff fell out of the clouds that surrounded the great ship and began to accumulate on the cinders.

Suddenly they were bathed in red light, a soft ruby glow a hundred feet across. Instantly the wind ceased, though it continued to snow.

Outside the circle of red light the helicopters bucked madly as their pilots fought to cope with the storm that had assaulted them without warning. Fox yelled and threatened and demanded, but one by one the choppers were forced to retreat. The alternative, as the copilot of the S-65 attempted to explain to the apoplectic security director, was to be shaken to pieces or smashed against the crater wall.

Jenny had forgotten about the helicopters. She stood close to the starman in the beautifully quiet, red snowstorm, the big flakes falling gently all around them. Even her frosted breath was faintly red. Her expression was serene as she observed the starman’s resurrection.

As soon as the light had touched him he’d seemed to straighten. Color had returned to his face, albeit red-tinged, and strength and confidence to his voice. He gazed at her solemnly and said the words she’d dreaded to hear, yet knew she must.

“I have to go now,”

“Take me with you.” How strange to say such a thing, she thought. Strange because it sounded so natural, because it was said so easily. Within her there was neither concern nor fear for the future.

An impossible future, which he realized even if she did not want to.

“I cannot.”

“Please.”

He glanced significantly upward. “You would die there. As I would die here. Or worse, you would slowly suffocate from loneliness, deprived of the companionship of others of your own kind.”

“I don’t think I’d care.”

“I care. I must go and you must stay. It is the way of things. Sometimes there are certain things experience cannot prepare us for, and I suspect this is one of them. That is as true for me as it is for you. Now, tell me again how to say good-bye.”

She shuddered slightly, and not from the cold. “You kiss me and say that you love me.”

The starman remembered the movie. He put his arms around her and held her tight. Then he said, “I love you.” How odd. Odd because it felt so natural, so normal, and was anything but.

“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” she asked him.

“It is extremely unlikely. No. I will not play a game with you. You will never see me again.” She was crying now, the tears warm on her cheeks. He kissed the droplets away, then kissed her full on the lips.

“I love you.” She sobbed. “That’s crazy insane, isn’t it? We’re nothing alike.”

“That is where you are wrong. The body is nothing more than a shell, a frail envelope that contains the spirit. In spirit we are very much alike. Tell the baby about me. I believe there will come a time when he will be able to understand.”

“I will.”

He held her a moment longer. Then he stepped back and removed two things from the pocket of the windbreaker. One was the still unsigned check from the casino in Las Vegas. The other was a small gray sphere about the size of a marble. The last gray sphere.

“These are for you.”

She took them both, stared at the gray sphere.

“What do I do with this? I’ve seen you use these, but I . . .”

“It is not for you,” he told her. “It is for the child. When he is old enough to understand complex concepts, explain to him where it comes from. It is full of—imprints. Information. Other things you have no name for. He will take it and sleep with it and it will help him to mature properly. To realize his potential. Your potential.” He moved to kiss her a last time.

“Good-bye, Jennyhayden.” Then he turned and walked away from her, off into the red snow.

“Good-bye. Good-bye.” She clutched the sphere to her like a talisman and stared after him. He never looked back.

The red glow seemed to contract around him, becoming incredibly bright. Much later, when she’d had time to look back on it and consider, she couldn’t have said if the light had swallowed him up or if he’d become part of it.

And then he was gone.

The red light began to fade. The snow stopped failing and the temperature rose. She had to swallow again as the pressure changed. The great ship began to recede skyward, vanishing into the cloud layer on the first step of its journey back to somewhere infinitely far away.

“Good-bye,” she whispered a last time. Off in the distance she could hear one of the helicopters hesitantly probing the crater rim. In a few minutes its pilot would discover that the powerful winds which had driven him and his colleagues away had disappeared as rapidly and mysteriously as they had materialized. Then they would come for her.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now.

No, that wasn’t quite true. Something did matter, mattered very much. They were going to ask her questions, a lot of questions. She would answer them all, politely and at length, and eventually they would tire of hearing the same ones over and over again and then they would let her go home, back to Wisconsin.

But she wouldn’t tell them the one thing they would find the most interesting. She wouldn’t tell them because it was none of their business. It was a private matter.

She touched her belly lightly and rested her hand there, and by the time Fox’s helicopter touched down nearby she was smiling.