Stephen Dedman: Tour de Force

Barnes pushed Kylie to one side with one hand, and reached for his pocket with the other, but the intruder was faster, and we were dazzled again, this time by the muzzle flash from the gun. Barnes fell back against me, and didn’t move again.

I could feel Sergei, standing next to me, tense up, but he remained completely still. We stayed there until our vision had returned, and carefully looked at the gunman. It was the blond “tourist” from the roadhouse.

“Dr. van Elven?” he said, mockingly. “We meet again. And you, you must be Sergei Arseniev. I thought you’d have retired by now.”

Sergei shrugged, very slightly. I knew he had a Lagva flashlight, but it would be next to useless at that range; we’d have to wait for the intruder to come closer. I looked down at Barnes. The bullet had passed through the left lens of his goggles; he was certainly dead. A small knife, balanced for throwing, lay by his right hand.

“I’m sure you’re armed,” the blond continued. “Everyone else around here is, even the tourists. And you outnumber me, too.” There was another thud from the entrance, and the blond woman came scrabbling down the slope, unslinging an AK-47 as she descended. “If you drop all your weapons, maybe I won’t have to even up the numbers. You first.”

They patted us down after we handed them anything that could be used as a weapon—two Lagva flashlights, two Swiss Army knives, and a rockhammer. Finding nothing, they took our belts and boots, and dumped the lot into the gorge along with Barnes’s body.

“It’s okay,” said the man. “We won’t be here long enough for anybody to find us.”

“I’d bet against that,” responded Sergei, in German. “We’re expecting a holo-V news team sometime before midnight. What do you think you can do in that time?”

The man gestured toward the spaceship with his gun. “Just get a souvenir of our trip,” he replied, in English. “A weapon would be best, of course, but anything we could sell will do.”

“Ah,” said Sergei. “A mercenary. I thought you talked too much to be a professional spy.”

“We’re patriots,” the man replied, coldly. “Not a concept I would expect any of you to understand. A Russian-American, a Chinese-Australian, a black—”

“Skip it,” I advised. “My ancestors’ve been kicked out of more countries than yours ever invaded. But Germany’s not doing so well in the trade war, either, is it? With the Neo-Nazis scaring the tourists away, I guess your economy needs a shot in the arm—or is this just a shot in the dark?”

The man opened his mouth to reply, but the woman spoke first. “We’re wasting time. This is the spaceship?”

“Yes.”

“You have been inside?”

“Christ, no!”

“Why not?”

Sergei and I stared at each other. Telling them that it was the most important archaeological site in history (well, you know what I mean) obviously wasn’t going to cut any ice. “The atmosphere,” Sergei said. “They might breathe chlorine, like the Lagva, or fluorine, or cyanide—”

The man smiled, and reached over his shoulder into his backpack, removing a respirator and a pair of goggles—the same brand as ours. “Or worse,” I said. “There might be viruses in there… you’ve heard of War of the Worlds? The Andromeda Strain? Open that ship, and there might be a plague that makes the black death look like the common cold.” I was fairly sure I was lying—the aliens hadn’t decayed, and neither had the egg, which meant they probably routinely sterilized everything coming through the airlock—but it sounded good. The couple actually hesitated.

“Besides,” said Sergei. “The ship has no power. How’re you going to get it open? You just threw the rockhammer outside.”

They considered that, and then the man replied, “Would you build a spaceship without a manual control for the airlock?”

I almost swore. Another freaking science fiction fan. He turned to the woman, and said, “Cover them. I’m going to have a look at the door.” The woman grunted, scrambled backward up the slope, then sat with her back to the entrance. The man donned his respirator and goggles, and she followed suit. “So much for the rest of us,” Kylie whispered, bitterly.

“Don’t worry,” I said, loudly. “Those are only twenty-minute tanks.” I heard the man muttering on the far side of the ship, and we waited for what seemed like an hour before there came the sound of a soft metallic grinding.

Nothing exploded, and none of us died suddenly. The air smelt a little worse, but that might have been us.

“Oxygen breathers?” murmured Sergei.

“Great,” I replied. “Aerobic bacteria, air-born diseases—” and two beautifully preserved alien bodies suddenly exposed to our bugs. I remembered a scene from Five Million Years to Earth, when the mummified Martians started decomposing as soon as their ship was opened, and discovered that my goggles were starting to cloud up. I was crying. These stupid, swinish, fanatical morons—

“At least there won’t be any weapons,” said Sergei. The AK-47 swung around to point straight at him. “Before we were so rudely interrupted,” he said, politely, “my colleagues and I were discussing the design of the ship, and the occupations of its, uh, occupants. They’re obviously not military—even halfway competent military personnel would never leave a door unsecured like that in unfamiliar territory.” I thought of the G.I.s in Vietnam who used to travel around in their APCs with the hatches open, as though at a picnic, and nodded my agreement. “And spies would be even more careful,” Sergei continued. “Therefore, they must be civilians. Unarmed.”

I turned, and looked through the window. The man was hammering at hatches on the wall, which refused to open. Voice-activated, maybe? Or bioscanner locks? Maybe it didn’t matter. He picked up a few of the triangular cards, and then threw them away. Eventually, he kicked at one of the bodies—and then noticed the fanny-pack. I heard Sergei think Shit !—probably in Russian—but kept my expression neutral.

A moment later, the man returned, peeled the respirator off thankfully, and took a careful sniff of the air. “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got what you came for. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“Not so fast,” he replied, and smiled. He’d holstered his pistol, and held the alien device in his right hand; we watched him poke at various switches without result.

“Battery’s probably dead,” said Sergei. “Or it’s corroded into a useless lump; it’s been there for at least—” and then he shut up, as the object unfolded. The end result resembled a triple-barreled machine-pistol with a complex triangular scope. The man broke into a grin, and then laughed aloud, then pointed the contraption at Sergei. “I’ve had enough of you, Colonel,” he said, still giggling, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. He stared at Sergei, and then at the device. I heard someone giggle, and realized that it was me. The man stared at me, and then fumbled for his pistol with his left hand.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. It doesn’t work. But this does. Give me one good reason not to kill the lot of you.”

I gulped for air, and finally managed to stop laughing. “I might be able to show you how to use it,” I wheezed, then shook my head and began giggling hysterically again. “God, the look on your face—”

“Shut up!” he screamed, waving the pistol and the alien device at me. He waited until we’d both calmed down a little, then said, “Okay. I’ll give you three minutes. At the end of the first minute, we kill the Russian. At the end of the second minute—”

“I get the picture,” I replied, holding my hand out. He harrumphed, and then handed the device over.