“For everyone’s sake, please try to look at this rationally.” Suttles glanced back over his shoulder. “There are forty rangers on the beach, more in the lot behind the restaurant. They have heavy weapons and their commander isn’t as sold on talking as we arr.” He did his best to empathize. “You can’t get away, Mr. Hager. It’s over.”
“More like a stalemate. I’d say.” Caroline stood close to Ross Ed. “Rush us and we dump the alien in the water. Stand there talking and Ross Ed’s arms get more and more tired.”
Kerry’s voice was hard. “I think you’re bluffing. This is the second time I’ve seen you with the artifact. You’ve grown attached to it. It’s downright unnatural. I don’t think you can speak so sympathetically about it one moment and consider abandoning it to the ocean the next.”
Ross Ed’s response took the form of a thin, infuriating smile. “Well, ma’am, you know how to find out.”
“I’m not leaving this pier without it.”
“Why not just put it down while we’re talking?” Suttles urged him.
“So some sharpshooter can put a bullet in him?” Caroline hugged the Texan. “Don’t do it, Ross Ed.”
“This is a matter of national security!” By now Kerry had advanced from simple frustration to outrage.
“National insecurity, you mean.” Ross Ed’s determination was unshakable. Unfortunately, his arms weren’t. Slowly, so as not to panic the three officers into trying something desperate, he set Jed down on the railing, resting him in his familiar ventriloquist’s dummy posture. It was eerie to see him sitting there, practically of his own accord, the fog-diffused light shining moistly off the unearthly suit, the multiple limbs dangling loosely. Ross kept the body from tumbling off the railing by clutching a fistful of suit fabric tightly in his right hand.
Caroline’s comment had started him thinking about long-range scopes and infrared sights. Were there crosshairs trained on his head and hers even as they argued with the three officers? He made sure to keep Jed balanced precariously on the edge of the weathered wood so that if he was shot, the little alien would go spinning into the sea.
The one called Suttles was right, he knew. He was tired of running. And if they’d managed to find him here, they’d find him and Caroline anywhere they tried to flee. Next time they might decide to shoot first and talk later, even if only with tranquilizer darts. It was pretty clear that it was simply a matter of time before they caught him asleep or off guard and snatched Jed away. He turned to his left.
“What do you think, Caroline? What d’you think I should do? Jed’s turned bullets before, but I ain’t sure I want to count on him doing it again.” Instead of replying, she looked over her shoulder and frowned. Frowned at the sky and the fog. “What, what is it?” He followed her line of sight and saw nothing.
“Don’t you hear that?” Terse determination had given way to puzzlement and uncertainty.
He squinted into the mist. “What is it, more whales?”
“No. Not whales.”
“Excuse me?” Suttles took a step forward. “Remember us?” But the big Texan and his statuesque companion ignored him.
The light was faint at first, too dim to be seen from shore. As it drew nearer it split into several distinct sources. All thoughts of fishing forgotten, Robinett stepped away from the railing.
“Chopper,” decided Kerry curtly. ‘be Grandparents of the Damned from Indiana, or worse. Somebody get on the phone, quick.”
“It’s not a helicopter.” Robinett was backing up slowly.
Between the end of the pier and the land, the fog bank remained solid and impenetrable. From the cupola westward a vast globe of mist simply evaporated, as if scooped out by a giant hand. In its place hovered a disk-shaped artifact a little larger than Disneyland and slightly smaller than Burbank. A very few faint lights showed along the edge facing the pier as it whispered of faraway places and inconceivable technologies.
Tearing his gaze away from the fantastic aerial apparition, Ross Ed noted that Jed’s suit was not glowing. What that portended he did not know, but he had a feeling they were going to find out.
He found himself telling Caroline that everything was going to be okay. She was less than completely convinced.
“How do you know it’s going to be okay?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he found himself saying. “It’s Jed’s folks come to recover his body.”
“How do you know that? How do you know it has anything to do with Jed’s people? Remember the cube-ship in the mountains?” She was flinching slightly, as if that would make any difference should the gigantic object choose to close the intervening space between its underside and the surface.
“Yes I do, and this doesn’t look anything like it. Who else would just suddenly show up like this except someone looking for Jed? We didn’t perform any kind of ceremony and his suit isn’t glowing or reacting defensively. We didn’t send any kind of signal.” He nodded in the direction of the monstrous ship. “Whoever’s in there came looking for him. Has to be.”
“But how did they find him?”
Ross shrugged. “Maybe his suit’s been putting out some kind of undetectable signal ever since he’s been here and it was blocked until I pulled him out of that cave.” He glanced back at the three awestruck officers. “Pretty good timing.”
“If they’re here for Jed, then what are they waiting for? Why don’t they take him? It’s like they’re looking us over.”
“If you’re not going to use that phone,” Kerry hissed at Robinett, “let me have it.”
“What for?” The tall scientist-soldier stood gaping at the ship. “Who you gonna call, alien-busters? Looks like we’ve been outflanked.”
“We can’t just let him go,” she argued desperately.
“Can’t we? Tell you what,” Robinett told her, “you run over there and try wrestling him away from good ol’ Ross Ed. But let me get off this pier before the aliens see what you’re up to.”
“What makes you think they’re watching us?” Her usual conviction was lacking.
“You think this ship’s here to take on a load of kelp?”
Before she could reply, Ross Ed had lifted the alien body off the railing and thrust it skyward, holding it high over his head.
“Here he is!” he yelled. “I’ve been looking after him for a while, but now I guess it’s time to take him home for a proper burial!” Or whatever it was Jed’s kind did with their dead, he reflected.
A shaft of palest blue light emerged from the leading edge of the vessel, bathing in its luminescence the dead alien, Ross Ed Hager, and Caroline Kramer. All three, together with the section of the pier on which they were standing and the upper three feet of water in which it was resting, promptly vanished. A soft whistle accompanied their departure, followed by an ear-tickling pop as air rushed in to occupy the volume thus displaced.
Suttles found himself staring at a gap in the pier some ten feet long. The cupola at the end had become an island. As he leaned out over the freshly cut edge, he got drenched when the occupants of the ship dumped the seawater they’d inadvertently sucked up back where it belonged. The mass of planks and pilings extracted from the pier followed, just missing him.
“Well, that’s that.” Robinett aided his friend and fellow officer in his attempts to dry himself off. “I think we can stop wondering about whether technologically advanced life exists elsewhere in the universe.”
