“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.”
“As Captain Suttles said, you’ll be well paid for your cooperation, Mr. Hager.” Kerry was staring so hard at the diminutive figure stuffed in the Texan’s backpack that she was trembling.
“There’s nothing more you can do with the alien, Ross Ed.” Robinett made a face as he reeled in his line and saw that he’d caught only kelp. He continued talking as he cleaned the hook. “You’ve had him for a while. Why not give the experts a chance? Fair’s fair. Are you worried that we’re going to damage the body? Do you really think we’d be so careless with the discovery of the millennium? Or is that you think our intentions are bad, that we want to learn the secrets of the alien suit so we can use them to help us build super-secret super-weapons?”
“Don’t you?” snapped Caroline.
“Wouldn’t be averse to it,” Robinett admitted, “but that’s a small pan of the knowledge we hope to gain. A very small part.”
“As sworn soldiers, the defense of the United States is our responsibility.” Kerry drew herself up. “I work for the United States Army, not the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation or Aunt Jennie’s Bakery back home in Greensboro. When Captain Suttles told you that we were just doing our job, he was doing no less than telling you the truth. You wouldn’t want your alien and his miraculous suit technology to fail into the wrong hands, would you? It’s impossible to keep this sort of thing secret from other governments for very long. We know, for example, that the Russians and the Japanese already have an inkling of what’s been going on out here.”
“None of which matters.” Reluctantly, Robinett set his pole in one of the metal holders than were spotted along the seagull-stained railings. “Because this is where it ends, Mr. Hager. You can’t get off this pier.” He indicated the dark green waves rolling in beneath their feet. “The water’s cold, it’s deep here, and sharks like to feed at night. I wouldn’t chance it.” His eyes met Ross Ed’s. “Besides, aren’t you tired of running? Why not just do the sensible thing and come with us? I promise you that everyone will end up happy. I’ve seen the tranquilizer darts. Getting punctured by one doesn’t look like it’d be a lot of fun.”
“We’ve made friends here in Los Angeles.” Caroline was emphatic in her half-truth. ‘key could make a lot of unfavorable publicity. You wouldn’t like that.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Suttles admitted, “but we’d live with it.”
Ross Ed drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “Nobody’s taking Jed until I’m good and ready.” Reaching up and back, he swung the backpack around until it was resting against his chest. Carefully he removed the alien corpse from its carrier. Robinett sucked in his breath as he got his first clear, full-length view of the body. Kerry’s eyes glinted.
“I claim my rights as an American. Jed stays with me until I say otherwise.” Advancing on Robinett, who bravely held his ground, Ross suddenly turned and extended both arms over the railing. “If you won’t let us leave here quietly, I’ll drop him in the ocean.”
Robinett twitched. Kerry started forward and Suttles had to put out an arm to restrain her. “Easy now, let’s everybody just take it easy. You don’t want to do that, Mr. Hager. You don’t want to trash something you’ve spent so much time protecting.”
“Don’t fool yourself.” Robinett considered making a grab for the alien, which was only inches from his grasp. “I’m a strong swimmer. Throw it over and I’ll be right behind, even if it is cold down there. It won’t hit the water much before I do.”
“What if he sinks?” Ross Ed continued to dangle Jed precariously over the roiling water. “What if he goes straight to the bottom? This suit’s pretty solid. It’s dark down there.”
“Be reasonable.” With a great effort Kerry kept her emotions in check. “Do that and we’d have a team of specialists out here in minutes.”
“Me, I don’t know if that’d be fast enough.” Caroline’s expression was stern. “Like Ross Ed said, the water’s dark. There are waves, and tides.”
“We’d recover the body promptly. Make no mistake about that.”
“I reckon you would,” Ross conceded, “but in what kind of shape? No telling how old this suit is. I wonder if it leaks? Seawater might contaminate it right quick. Might even dissolve poor little Jed’s whole body.”
“You argue plausibly.” A visibly distraught Robinett took a step forward.
Ross Ed effortlessly retreated a comparable distance. “Back off, mister. Have you forgotten what happened the last time you tried to take him away from me?”
“We haven’t forgotten.” Kerry was rapidly running out of patience. “But it’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
