“Jed!” Ross would have enveloped the alien in a true Texas bear hug, except he feared damaging the suit’s external instrumentation. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was not designated the Enlightenment because of a paucity of imagination. Even deceased, I like to think I’m a little smarter and a little cleverer than the majority of the living.”

“That sounds like a writer, all right.” Shaking his head and grinning, Ross Ed chose an antless log and sat down. “How’d you pull it off?”

“While everyone else was busy attending to your needs, I was attending to mine. I had been offered a new survival suit immediately after our arrival on board the flagship. I accepted, but put off making the transfer until last night. Once broadcast neuromuscular facility had been regained, it was a relatively simple matter for me to program not one, but two of these marvelous little craft. My old survival suit, together with my personal signature, was on my instruction loaded aboard the duplicate vessel. None of the scientists aboard the survey ship which dropped us here paid it any mind, assuming it to be pan of someone else’s experiment.

“Similarly, I was able to maneuver myself when no one was looking into the modest cargo bay of your craft long before you were loaded. My only fear was that I would be discovered during the ceremony of departure. But only the life-support bay was checked, to ensure your comfort. I, of course, was perfectly content in the cargo compartment, since I carry my own survival system with me.

“When this craft was released, so was its mate. Instrumentation on board the survey vessel will record the event as a single drop signature. Adjustments I performed to camouflage instructions will have hidden our craft not only from your kind’s primitive detection devices but also from my own.”

“They’ll still come looking for you,” Ross Ed warned.

“And they’ll find me, by tracing the drop signature. Or at lea.st, they’ll find my old survival suit. Then they really will be confused. They won’t know whether I’ve gone to ground on this world or simply shot myself out into space, where, if nothing else, there can be found eternal peace. No trace of my manipulations remains aboard either the survey vessel or the flagship. I made certain of that before I put my little enterprise into effect. “Your world is large, crowded, and off-limits to general exploration. This time I won’t be found.”

“No? What if they come looking for me, to ask me questions?”

“My dear aborigine, did you think I ever gave them the coordinates you selected for me? If they come looking for you at all they will have to find a way to search a large metropolitan complex halfway around the world. The Culakhan, should they return, will have an even more difficult time. I don’t think anyone will try it. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You and I are here, not there.”

Half expecting to see an isolated storm cloud drifting speculatively through the sky overhead, Ross Ed rose from the log. Sweat was pouring down his face. He wasn’t properly dressed for the climate, but that could be fixed soon enough.

“Sure this is what you want?”

A hissing sound issued from the larynx. “I am nobody’s monument! I intend to enjoy my death, thank you.”

“What about this little ship, and the other one?”

“The other’s self-destruct sequence was preengaged. I will now activate this one.”

In less than five minutes nothing remained of the Shakaleeshva drop craft except a few wisps of smoke, its molecular structure having been completely broken down. A prospector passing through might have been struck by the remnants of certain exotic metals and other substances underfoot, had he bothered to examine the ground in the immediate vicinity, but such an encounter in this place was highly unlikely.

“Much better,” the Enlightenment observed with satisfaction. “What now? You chose this location, Ross Ed. Not I.”

“I guess we walk. Or rather, I do. I’d better carry you in case we’re seen. If we landed in the right place we ought to find people or a road pretty soon.”

“I can finesse my new suit’s levitation function to ease your burden. We need to acquire another backpack.” The corpse rose and drifted forward to settle gently into the Texan’s waiting arms.

Sure enough, it took less than an hour’s walk to hit a narrow, paved road. Hitching a ride into the nearest town, Ross Ed chatted amiably with the trucker who’d picked them up. The man glanced at Jed but asked no questions. As Ross was soon to learn, he’d chosen an area where folks didn’t pry into other people’s business.

With the little money remaining in his pocket he bought Jed a nice new backpack. There was plenty of work to be had in surrounding towns, and with the alien’s assistance and advice, money was soon no longer a problem. Given enough cash, a man could buy anything in the Top End, including new identification and a valid passport.

He was going to like it here, he decided. True, it wasn’t Texas, and to the locals iced tea seemed an alien concept, but other than that he was content. There were even a couple of decent Mexican restaurants in Cairns, just down the highway apiece, and all the hotels showed American football on their closed-circuit cable systems. Furthermore, even he had to admit that where beer was concerned, there was simply no comparison.

He made new friends, who politely forbore from questioning him about his history. Occasionally he would pull cut his alien dummy and treat them to the damnedest ventriloquist act any of them had ever seen. It was suggested that he turn professional, but he demurred, insisting he performed only for his own amusement und that of a close chosen few.

Eventually he met a girl who was even taller and more beautiful than Caroline. When Jed approved, they were married. At first wary of the alien shape, his new wife came to accept her husband’s explanation that it was an old movie prop lovingly brought over from the States, and thereafter she became as big a fan of his ventriloquist act as any of their friends.

As for Jed (whose real name was far too long and difficult for a simple country boy like Ross Ed Hager to manage), the Enlightenment of the Shakaleeshva, venerated artist of the Twelve Systems and the Twenty Worlds, creator of aesthetic marvels and stylish insulter of the Culakhan, he was more than content to sit propped erect on the porch of their rainforest home and perceive the daily passing of strange creatures and even stranger humans.

On rare occasions, when Ross Ed and his wife were out of the house and the irresistible muse could no longer be denied, he even composed. Fortunately, the nearest neighbors were too far away to complain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The New York Times–bestselling author of more than one hundred ten books, Alan Dean Foster is one of the most prominent writers of modern science fiction. Born in New York City in 1946, he studied filmmaking at UCLA, but first found success in 1968 when a horror magazine published one of his short stories. In 1972 he wrote his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first in his Pip and Flinx series featuring the Humanx Commonwealth, a universe he has explored in more than twenty-five books. He also created the Spellsinger series, numerous film novelizations, and the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An avid world traveler, he lives with his family in Prescott, Arizona.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Ian Koviak

Copyright © by 1997 Alan Dean Foster

ISBN: 978-1-5040-9348-4

This edition published in 2024 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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ALAN DEAN FOSTER

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA