Voyagers II - The Alien Within (24 page)

Then he decided that they were human beings, nothing less, and they could understand anything that any human could understand. He decided to tell them the entire story, just as they had told theirs, from the beginning.

“Many years ago,” he began, “I lived in the land called America. I was a scientist, a man who studied the stars.”

“I, too, study the stars,” said one of the councilmen with a bright, eager smile.

Stoner nodded and returned his smile. “In my native land, we have built enormous machines to help us in such studies. And one of the machines we built was placed in space, among the stars themselves, alongside the machine that watches this village for the Peace Enforcers.”

An Linh stirred slightly, but Stoner held her and went on with his story. He began to enjoy the challenge of putting his tale into terms that the village elders could understand. They recognized the alien for what he was, a visitor from another star. They saw nothing impossible or fearful in that—at least, nothing more fearful than the various strangers who had invaded their village over the centuries.

Stoner told them about his voyage to the alien spacecraft, and how he was frozen there and eventually recovered and brought back to Earth.

“You slept for eighteen years?” asked an incredulous councilman.

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you dream?” asked another.

Stoner paused. “I don’t know. I cannot remember any of my dreams.”

They muttered among themselves for a few moments before Katai said, “But now that you have awakened, what brings you here to our village? And where did you find this woman?”

Stoner glanced down at An Linh. In sleep her face looked more childlike than womanly.

“We seek the Peace Enforcers,” he said. “My daughter married one of them. I have not seen her in twenty years.”

“And this woman with you?”

“She was being pursued by evil men. I am protecting her.”

That puzzled them, and Stoner had to admit that the situation puzzled him as well. Had he taken An Linh under his protection, or had she sought him out and clung to him? Some of both, he decided. The rare hermit aside, no human being likes to be alone. Even holy men who have shunned civilization end up by creating a monastic order of monks and building temples and castles, transforming their tiny slice of wilderness into an ordered, sheltered habitat with rigid rules of conduct and thick stone walls.

“The Peace Enforcers will come in the morning,” said Katai. “I have spoken with them on the radio they left with us. They will send a helicopter for you in the morning.”

For a moment Stoner was surprised that Katai knew the word “helicopter.” Then, as he grinned his thanks to the old man, he marveled at how supple the human mind can be. Radio, helicopter, Peace Enforcers with remotely controlled drone weapons, modern electronics, observation satellites—all these strange new bits of technology were miracles on the day the villagers first saw them and commonplace a few weeks later. Just like people anywhere. The first space missions were the biggest peacetime media events of the century, but by the time the third team of astronauts reached the moon, hardly anyone cared.

Most of the old men of the council were obviously sleepy. Stoner rose slowly to his feet, lifting An Linh in his arms, and thanked them for their hospitality.

“How can I repay you?” he asked.

The man who studied the stars replied, “If you are not too sleepy, you could come outside with me and we could examine the sky together.”

“I’d be glad to.”

Stoner carried An Linh upstairs and deposited her sleeping form gently on the cot. Then he hurried down again and, together with the village stargazer and Katai, stepped out into the deeply dark night.

There were no lights at all outside the village’s central building. The other councilmen were making their way back to their homes by the faint glow of a crescent moon and fainter glimmerings of the stars. Throwing his head back, Stoner saw the resplendent heavens: Orion and his Dogs, the Bull, the Twins, the shimmering band of the Milky Way glowing against the darkness. He felt a thrill he had not known since childhood as he picked out individual stars, like old friends, and renewed acquaintances.

Hello, Altair, he said silently. Hello, Rigel and old Beetle Juice, Sirius and Procyon, Castor and Pollux. Still in your places, I see. Still as bright and dependable as ever.

One of the points of light was moving slowly from west to east. A satellite. Maybe the alien’s spacecraft, Stoner thought. He closed his eyes and saw the stars from a different view, a vantage point deep in space above the alien world, a sky that no human eye had ever seen. Not the velvet softness of Earth’s night with its inconstant moon and scattering of stars. This sky was ablaze with stars, hundreds of thousands of them, gleaming and glittering like heaps of multicolored jewels strewn so thickly that no darkness pierced their display. Stars so thick that they dazzled the eye, so close that you could almost touch them.

“Is that the machine that watches our village?”

Stoner snapped his eyes open. He was in Africa, the night was dark, the stars above few and feeble. Insects buzzed and chirruped in the shadows.

“That is an artificial satellite, yes,” he answered the stargazer.

“Is it true that the stars influence our destiny?” Katai asked.

Stoner felt himself smile in the darkness. Of course it’s true, he told himself. But to the village leader he said, “That depends on what you mean by ‘influence.’ ”

They launched into a discussion of philosophy and astronomy as the stars wheeled slowly above them. Katai grew weary, finally, and bade them good night. Stoner and the stargazer, whose name was Zahed, debated the possibilities of predestination, discussed the origin of the universe, the nature of time, the orbital mechanics of artificial satellites.

Zahed produced a pair of binoculars, a gift from one of the Peace Enforcers, and they took turns studying the slim crescent of the moon. Stoner saw pinpoints of light shining on the darkened part and told his newfound friend that they must be the lights from human settlements on the moon.

“Oh, yes,” said Zahed quite matter-of-factly, “there are several villages on the moon now. I have seen them on the television.”

The moon went down, and they turned their attention to the stars. The binoculars were not powerful enough to separate Castor into its three binary components. But they could see the shining veils of luminosity that hung among the blazing stars of the Pleiades. As he peered through the binoculars, resting them against a low fence to keep them steady, Stoner wondered if this star cluster might be the home of the alien. No, he decided. The view from the homeworld is clear, not shrouded with nebulosity. And the Pleiades is too poor a cluster to make the heavens glow the way I saw them.

At last the stars began to dim and the sky turned gray, then milky white. A brilliant star rose above the eastern horizon, far brighter than Sirius.

“That is the planet Venus,” Stoner said.

“Yes, I know,” replied Zahed. “One of the Russians among the Peace Enforcers told me that it is a world like ours, but so hot that the ground glows like burning coals.”

Nodding, Stoner agreed. “True enough.”

The sun rose, huge and red, its glare overpowering the lesser lights, driving even beautiful Venus from sight. The true jealous god, Stoner thought. He will have no other gods sharing our adoration.

Then he heard the faint whickering sound of a distant helicopter.

Zahed heard it, too. “The Peace Enforcers. Katai said they would be here in the morning.”

“They must get up early.”

“They are like you,” said the stargazer. “They never sleep.”

Stoner laughed. “I haven’t seen your eyes close all night.”

“I will sleep later, during the afternoon, when the sun climbs high and it is too hot to do anything else.”

Stoner could see the helicopter now, a dark spot moving fast across the sky to the west of the village.

And he saw a white streak leap up from the wooded hills out in the distance, crossing the sky almost faster than the eye could follow, heading directly for the approaching helicopter.

Before he could say a word, the rocket hit the helicopter and exploded in a blazing fireball. The helicopter blew apart, dark, smoking pieces raining down onto the dusty plain below. One of the pieces looked like a human being, and Stoner imagined he could hear the man screaming to his death.

The shock wave of the explosion took almost a full minute to reach them, and when it did Stoner flinched as if struck in the face. The realization hit him at the same time: someone has destroyed a Peace Enforcer helicopter and killed its pilot.

He stared wordlessly at the dirty black smoke cloud expanding into the clean morning air. Beside him, Zahed gaped as if one of his gods had just been killed. Then he turned and ran toward the village’s central building.

Stoner saw flashes of light from the distant hills, rockets being fired from the concealment of the forests miles away. In the moment it took his brain to register that the rockets were being fired at the village, the first of them hit and exploded just outside the rickety palisade. The fence caved inward, spindly stakes bursting apart like so much kindling. Four more hit just behind it, inside the village, blasting apart several mud-walled huts. The roar of the explosions almost deafened Stoner. The dried thatch of other huts’ roofs caught fire. People ran screaming from their homes, some of them naked, women clutching babies, older children stumbling, sprawling, crying.

The next explosion knocked Stoner off his feet. A cinder-block house took a direct hit and disappeared in a ball of flame and dust. More shells rained down. Stoner saw one hit in the open area where people were milling about. Bodies flew everywhere, the stench of blood and death carried on the concussion wave that blew stinging dust into Stoner’s face.

Groggy with shock and pain, he forced himself to his feet and staggered toward the central building. The solar array on its roof was already coated with dust from the soil churned up by the explosions.

Katai was at the doorway, leaning against the jamb, his eyes wide with terror. Stoner could not see any obvious wounds on him, the central building had not been hit, yet the old man sagged as if mortally wounded.

“But we are under the protection of the Peace Enforcers!” he screamed to Stoner. “We are under their protection!”

A fresh round of explosions shook the ground and knocked him to his knees. Stoner pushed past the dazed old man and went into the building. An Linh was running down the stairs, stuffing the freshly washed shirt of her camouflage fatigues into the waistband of the trousers.

“I thought this village was safe!” she shouted to Stoner.

“So did they.”

He put his arm around her shoulders as they rushed toward the door. Another explosion knocked them both to the cement floor. Windows and the display screens of the telephone and computer on Katai’s table shattered. Groping, coughing in the gritty dust, Stoner saw that the doors had been knocked off their hinges. A smoking crater yawned just outside, bodies and pieces of bodies strewn bloodily around it. More explosions, air bursts this time, and the ground was churned by thousands of chunks of white-hot shrapnel flaying the flesh of the living and the already dead without distinction or mercy.

The back half of the building blew away, and the ceiling over them groaned hideously, timbers splitting, flames already licking along their length.

“Come on,” Stoner said into An Linh’s ear.

“Out there?”

There was no time for discussion. He picked her up in his arms and dashed outside, dodging the sprawled bodies. He heard the deadly whistle of incoming shells and dived into the crater, covering An Linh with his own body. More air bursts, spraying the area with singing, lethal shrapnel.

“They’re out to kill everybody,” Stoner muttered.

“But why?…”

The solar array took a direct hit, mirrors shattering into a thousand glittering slivers that twirled and glinted in the early morning light as they blasted outward in every direction. Two more shells flattened the building, cinder blocks pulverized into dust as Stoner buried his face in the blood-hot protection of the crater’s freshly dug earth. Another round of air bursts churned the ground, and he felt a hot sliver slice through the meaty calf of his right leg. An Linh cried out. Turning, he saw a rip across the back of her shoulders, blood soaking the green fatigues.

It’s death to stay here, he realized. They won’t stop until they’ve killed every living thing in this village.

He scooped her up in his arms and waited, crouching in the crater, while a fresh round of shells blasted into the village. Then he got to his feet and climbed out of the crater. His right leg stung painfully, but it bore his own weight and that of his burden. Sprinting carefully, deliberately, Stoner headed toward the far end of the village. He stepped over the mangled body of an old man. The face was torn off, nothing below the scalp but an oozing red pulp. It might have been Katai. Stoner did not stop to find out. He heard more shells whistling toward them and ducked behind the shattered wall of what had been a cinder-block house a few moments earlier. The explosions seemed to be concentrated near the center of the village now. They were methodically destroying every building, starting at the periphery and working inward.

Running, dodging bodies and shell holes and the burning debris strewn across the ground, Stoner carried An Linh to the edge of the village, where the palisade fence leaned and sagged like a wall built by a drunkard. In several places the fence had been blown away altogether, replaced by craters.

Stoner looked back into the village. Hardly a building remained standing. No one was moving. The shelling seemed to have stopped. He saw several clouds of dust out in the distant hills: trucks or personnel carriers. They’re sending in the infantry to finish the job. They want to make certain they’ve destroyed the village and everyone in it.

An Linh moaned as he lifted her again. He wondered how deeply the shrapnel had cut into her. And where the nearest medical aid might be. But as he wondered, he ran. In a careful, controlled, measured sprint, he ran away from the village with An Linh in his arms, heading out along the dusty deforested barren ground, running for his life.

Is it me that they’re after? he asked himself. Did they destroy the whole village just to get at me? Or An Linh?

Shaking his head, he wondered if he wasn’t being paranoid. The village was just another victim in a senseless war. A war you were going to stop, he reminded himself. So what have you accomplished? Nothing. Not a thing. With your delusions of grandeur to guide you, you’ve witnessed the devastation of a peaceful village and perhaps gotten this poor girl killed.

He ran until fatigue and the growing pain in his leg forced him to stop. Placing An Linh down carefully against the stump of a tree, he sat on it and stretched his leg out. The wound did not look serious; it was already clotting. But it hurt.

Pain is the body’s communication system, Stoner explained to himself. It informs the conscious mind that there is a wound or an infection that must be dealt with. Yes, the other part of his mind replied. But the system has its drawbacks. It activates hormonal reactions. Pain stimulates the adrenals and other glands. It leads to fear and panic.

He forced himself to stand and survey his situation. No fear. No panic. Stay calm and see just where you are. In the middle of the barren, dusty, blackened area that once was a forest. Picked clean now, like the carcass of a noble gazelle gnawed to nothing but bones by jackals and hyenas. Except that the bones would be gleaming white, a final proclamation against fate, while the dead remains of these trees were blackened by fire. On every side, nothing but scrawny dead sticks or hacked stumps. No life at all; as barren as the moon. Stoner scanned the area and could not even see a termite nest.

He looked back toward the village. It was a smoking ruin, more than a mile away. Not a sign of life there, either, except for the dust clouds of approaching vehicles coming down from the hills. Katai, Zahed the stargazer, those children who sang for us. All smashed to pulp. Stoner knew that he should feel frightened, angry, remorseful or revengeful or more. But it was as if all emotion inside him was smothered. As if something or someone was damping down the glandular secretions that produced emotions. He was a detached observer, as emotionless as an astronomer peering through a telescope. Somewhere deep within him there should be rage, he knew, fury and hatred and overwhelming grief. But he felt nothing; his soul was frozen, disconnected from the rest of the world by a layer of impenetrable ice.

And he was glad of it. He knew, in the gray thinking part of his brain, that if his emotions held sway, he would collapse right here in a mindless heap of blubbering anguish and guilt. He tensed at the thought of guilt. But yes, it was there. Beyond all shadow of a doubt, beyond the need for evidence, Stoner
knew
that the village had been attacked because he had been in it. Whoever had demolished the village had been trying to murder him. Not An Linh, he realized. Me. This attack had nothing to do with the war. Or with her. They were after me.

And they still are. The troops will go in there and try to find my body. When they don’t, they’ll send patrols out looking for me. Or helicopters.

He bent down to reach for An Linh again, but as he did his eye caught a flicker of something high up in the sky. Looking up, he saw contrails, six of them. Planes flying so high that they could be neither seen nor heard. In two groups of three they came across the sky from the west.

And the ground erupted beneath them. The hills where the attackers’ artillery had fired from simply disappeared in a carpet of flame and thundering, earthshaking explosions. Even at this distance Stoner felt the ground tremble. He sank to his knees, his eyes unable to move from the distant scene of destruction. Methodically, dispassionately, the hillsides where the rocket artillery had been hidden were pounded into flaming rubble. Nothing could live through the terrible bombardment. Nothing.

The dust clouds that marked the troop-carrying vehicles began to veer away from the trail that led to the village and scatter madly across the countryside. To no avail. One by one, each vehicle was sought out and blasted into oblivion. Stoner could not see how, or what weapons were being used. It was as if the finger of an angry god reached down from the heavens and snuffed each vehicle out of existence.

The Peace Enforcers, Stoner knew. Too late to save the village, but not too late to avenge it. Were they angry, whoever flew in those planes, whoever directed those devastating weapons? Or were the Peace Enforcers merely technicians who calmly touched buttons on computer keyboards as they flew seven or eight miles above their targets? Did they realize that they were blasting apart human flesh, pulverizing bones and brains, killing men? Or did they keep their eyes and their thoughts focused on display screens that reduced the facts of mass death to bloodless equations and neat graphs?

It was all the same to the troops on the receiving end of the Peace Enforcers’ weaponry. In a matter of moments half a dozen sooty black pyres marked the spots where the troop carriers had been. The hills where the artillery had been sited were ablaze.

The six white contrails, so high above in the pure blue sky, circled the area once, then headed back the way they had come. The village was avenged. Death for death.

But how can we give life in place of death? Stoner asked himself. How can we stop men from killing each other?

He looked down at An Linh again. Her eyes fluttered open. She slowly turned her head, scanning the devastation all around her.

“Am I going to die?” she asked in the voice of a frightened child.

Reaching for her, Stoner said with a confidence he did not feel, “No. I won’t let you die. I’ll take care of you.”

He picked her up again, feeling the burden of her life in his arms, and began walking blindly away from the ruins of the village, through the dead land, toward the east.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon in Moscow, one of those rare days when the sun shone out of a clear sky, when people smiled at one another on the streets and the brightly colored onion domes of church towers gleamed brilliantly.

“After all these years,” said Kirill Markov happily, “you finally come to visit me.”

Jo grinned at him, masking the haunting fears that followed her. “I never realized what a beautiful city Moscow is.”

“Ah!” Markov beamed. “The city is smiling for you. Even nature herself is at her best, to honor the occasion of your visit.”

They were standing on the balcony outside Markov’s office. Across Red Square, the brick wall of the Kremlin stood as stoutly as ever. But the flamboyant domes of the Archangel Cathedral and the palaces seemed like fairyland towers to Jo. She wore a demure doeskin suede chemise of deep forest green, cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt and solid gold buckle. Markov, never a fastidious dresser, was in a rumpled gray suit and darker turtieneck pullover.

“All of Moscow is at your feet, beautiful lady. What can I do to please you?”

“You always knew how to turn a girl’s head.”

Markov’s smile was also a mask. “Dearest Jo, in the old days I spoke to charm you into a horizontal relationship. But now, at my age…”

Jo arched an eyebrow. “You’re a dangerous man, Kirill.”

“Not as dangerous as you.”

“Oh?”

“Do you remember the swimming we did at Kwajalein? And the sharks?”

She burst into loud laughter. “And the outrigger that you managed to turn over!”

“I managed?” He feigned outrage. “There were two of us in that canoe. And to this day I’m not certain it wasn’t sabotaged by reactionary elements among the natives.”

Laughing together, they stepped back through the French windows into Markov’s office. It was a modest room, large enough for its purpose but not so big as to awe visitors. Markov had accepted it from his predecessor when the academy had voted him its new director. The furniture was solid and functional, unchanged from earlier days. The gleaming silver samovar was also the same as before. The only things Markov had introduced into the office had been a splendid carpet from Samarkand to replace the threadbare one he had found there when he had moved in, and a small shelf of books he had written while a professor of linguistics at the university.

Markov went to the samovar to pour tea while Jo sat in the cushioned armchair beside his desk. She accepted a delicate china cup and saucer from him; the hot tea steamed deliciously.