“Closer than this?” She moved nearer, teasing.

“As close as you can.” He grinned back. “You don’t want to get chilled out here.” His arm wrapped around her.

Illuminated by Jed light, they searched the fog for passing ships. Some were out there, as evidenced by the occasional querulous blatt of a foghom, but the mist was too thick to see through.

“You sang for that club crowd.” she remarked softly. “How about you sing something for me, Ross Ed Hager?”

He pondered the couple of ballads he knew reasonably well, finally selecting the one he thought most appropriate to the situation and surroundings. Hesitant yet resonant, his voice drifted out into the fog.

Not too bad, he told himself. His audience might be small, but it was appreciative.

It soon grew larger.

The eerie, wavering reply which boomed out of the mist stalled him. “What the hell is that?”

Caroline’s eyes were wide. “Keep singing. I think you’ve got an audience. A big audience.”

She was right. There were only three of them, but together they unarguably constituted a big audience. Whales were common along the coast of California that time of year, migrating from the Gulf of Alaska south to Mexico and the Galapagos. Usually they were grays, but occasionally they were joined by some of their larger cetacean cousins.

The trio of humpbacks that clustered around the end of the pier had just enough water under them to support their massive bodies. Keeping time in its haunting falsetto with Ross Ed’s country-western lament, one immense female rolled over on her side and waved lazily with a flipper that towered over the wooden cupola. This whale-lice-encrusted metronome gleamed whitely in the light from Jed’s suit.

Between vocalizations the humpbacks exhaled in powerful whooshes, reminding Ross of pistons at work on a rig. He wanted to stop and just listen to their haunting whoops and hollers, but Caroline urged him to continue. So he did so, even though he knew it was the alien suit and not his singing which was most likely responsible for drawing the congenial leviathans up from the deeps.

Not only were they louder than he, they could carry a tune better, too. What old Preacher Williams wouldn’t have given, he thought, remembering his Sunday-school days, to have had them in his choir.

Damned if they didn’t applaud, too, those great flippers smacking together wetly when he finished the song. Suitably inspired, he chose another and started in, his voice carrying out over the water. One cow decided to show her gratitude by

rubbing up against the pier, her fifty-ton bulk causing the sturdy structure to groan momentarily. Jed’s suit was now blazing orange and pulsing in time to the music.

Two ballads later Ross Ed decided he’d had enough. When the whales realized that the improbable, improvised quartet had sung its last, they breached simultaneously while emitting a final, farewell wail. Falling back, they sent water cascading over the railing. Only by turning and retreating rapidly to the far side of the cupola did Ross Ed and Caroline manage to avoid a soaking.

Together they stared into the fog until the rhythmic moaning frayed to a final pianissimo. The last, lingering chords gave Ross Ed a start of recognition.

“Hey, that’s Patsy Cline. I didn’t sing any Patsy Cline.”

“Maybe they picked it up from a passing boat.”

“You reckon? I’d heard that some whales sing, but I didn’t know they could mimic human songs.”

“Mimic? I’d say that was an improvement.”

He threw her a sharp look. “You can’t improve on Patsy Cline.”

The orange refulgence was fading from Jed’s suit. “Maybe we should go back. Tealeaf’s liable to panic when she finds her car home but not her guests. We don’t want her putting out an all-points on us.” She hugged herself tightly. “Besides, it’s getting kind of chilly.”

It wasn’t the chill, he knew. It was the damp; little fingers of ocean that snuck slyly up your pant legs and down your back, working their way into your muscles. Putting his left arm around her shoulders and hefting Jed in the other, he turned to go.

However, despite the lateness of the hour, the fog, and the rising dank, they were no longer alone on the pier. Not was the couple waiting to greet them spooning teenagers or retired celebrities out for their evening constitutional.

“Hello, Mr. Hager.”

It was the quiet-voiced but determined army captain from El Paso. Flanking him was the lady officer Ross Ed had first encountered at the roadblocked New Mexico rest stop. They wore uniforms this time. When a third figure stepped out from behind a tall piling, Ross recognized their lanky companion. He held what looked like a fishing pole. Closer inspection, surprisingly, confirmed it.

They didn’t appear to be armed. Captain Suttles spoke softly, casually, as though relating an ordinary day’s happenings. “You ran us quite a race, Ross Ed, but even the fleetest deer leaves a trail. For example, we ran into some of your saucer people in New Mexico.”

“They’re not my saucer people,” Ross protested.

Suttles chuckled. ‘key think otherwise. They feel they have a proprietary interest in you. We enlightened them, of course. We didn’t believe everything they told us, but there was enough to more than whet our interest. Especially after what your dead friend, or your dead friend’s defense mechanisms, did to us south of Safford.

“After that we lost you for a while, until one of our units received a copy of a report from a very distraught motel manager in a place called Tuba City. Seems he’s confined to a hospital because he’s suffering from persistent hallucinations. He claims to be the reincarnation of a sixteenth-century Hopi medicine man named Saqaatska.” The captain was momentarily distracted as Robinett cast his line into the water.

“Then there’s the story we wrested out of a couple from Indiana whom the government has crossed paths with in the past. At that point we thought we were closing in on you, but you lost us again. Lost us completely, until we heard about what happened in Los Angeles.” He was almost apologetic. “There isn’t much out of the ordinary that happens in a city as thoroughly monitored as Los Angeles that one government agency or another doesn’t hear about. Computers make inteIligence sharing a loc easier than it was in the past. You should consider yourself honored. Ross Ed: you’ve been hypertexted.

“Considering the way our luck had been going. I was half convinced that when we arrived here you’d already have left for someplace else. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when we saw you and your lady friend standing out here on the end of the pier.” He leaned to his right to peek curiously around the big Texan. “Were those whales I was hearing a little while ago?”

Caroline growled at him. “What if they were?”

“Just curious. Please don’t be angry with us. Try to understand our position. We’re just doing what we think is not only right, but necessary. I still don’t know why you ran from us back in New Mexico, but I want to personally assure you that you’ll be given the best of treatment. And no hard feelings.”

Ross Ed eyed him solidly. “What happens now?”

“You’ll be handsomely compensated for your discovery and given proper recognition and credit.” Suttles tried his best to inject some levity into what was a tense situation. “The army doesn’t even plan to charge you for the damage that occurred to their vehicles and equipment back in New Mexico.”

“What if I told you I wasn’t interested?”

When Kerry broke in, her manner was impatient and brusque as ever. “What ore you interested in, Mr. Hager?”

“I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought.” It was his turn to smile. “You folks haven’t given me much time to think things through. I guess I just want to make sure that whatever I end up doing with Jed, it’s the right thing.”

Robinett barely looked up from his fishing. “Now there’s a radical notion. I’m not sure the government has a procedure for coping with that. I’m curious, Mr. Hager. To your way of thinking, just what would the right thing be?”

“I told you, I don’t know yet. Whatever’s best for me, and Caroline, and Jed, too, of course.”

“Nothing personal, Mr. Hager,” murmured Suttles gently, “but I think that your alien friend long ago left behind any concerns about what is right, wrong, or best. He’d dead. We only want to have a look at him. And his wonderful suit, of course.”

To his irritation, Kerry once again injected herself into the conversation. “Just in case you’re entertaining any thoughts of making a run for it, Mr. Hager, you need to have a look at the parking lot between the end of the pier and the Sandpiper restaurant.”

Ross Ed and Caroline peered into the hovering mist. Clad in civilian clothes but leaving no doubt by their actions as to who they took orders from, armed men and women were lined up in a semicircle facing the far end of the pier. Others had advanced to guard the stairway which crooked sideways down to the beach. Behind them were the vague outlines of squat Humvees and a large truck. Ross couldn’t be sure, but thought he saw where at least one heavy machine gun had been set up on the sand.

Like the laconic Robinett, the soldiers on the beach carried long, thin objects. Ross Ed didn’t think they were fishing poles.

“We don’t want any trouble, Mr. Hager.” Suttles did his best to mute Kerry’s bellicosity. “The troops you see are art armed with tranquilizer rifles. Nobody wants you to get hurt. But we really can’t allow you to get away from us again. Chasing you around the country is expensive, time-consuming, and makes us look bad.

“Besides, we want your help. It’s obvious that the suit has somehow imprinted on you, perhaps because you were the first human to come in contact with it. We really don’t know, and that’s one of the things we urgently want to find out. You’re more familiar with it and the body it contains than anyone else. Your cooperation could save us a lot of time and money.

“So you see, much as I would personally like to, we can’t let you go gallivanting around the country by yourself with something this valuable.” He hesitated only briefly. “You do have some idea of how valuable it is, don’t you?”

“If you mean financially, yeah, I have a pretty good notion.”