Robert Sawyer - Illegal Alien

“Dr. Wills,” said Dale, “the prosecution has spent a lot of time on the missing parts—the items apparently removed form Dr. Calhoun’s body by whatever person killed him. Would you start by telling the jury what the significant characteristics are of the human throat and lower jaw?”

“Certainly,” said Wills, who had a pleasant, deep voice. “The shape of the cavity made by the throat and the lower jaw is what allows us to produce the complex range of sounds we’re capable of. In other words, it makes human speech possible.”

“Is the throat shape significant in any other way?”

“Well, the Adam’s apple serves as a secondary sexual characteristic in humans; it’s much more prominent in adult males.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Dale was pleased with Wills’s performance; the defense could play the “see, we don’t rehearse expert testimony” game every bit as well as the People could. “Well,” said Dale, “consider a chimpanzee’s throat and a human throat. What differences are there?”

Wills adjusted his wire-frame glasses. “The angle made by the path between the lips and the voice box is quite different. In a human, it’s a right angle; in a chimp, it’s a gentle curve.”

“Does that cause any problems?”

“Not for the chimp,” said Wills, grinning widely, inviting everyone in the court to share in his joke.

“How do you mean?”

“In humans, there’s a space above the larynx in which food can get caught. We can choke to death while eating; a chimp can’t.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wills. Now, what about the appendix? We’ve all heard of it, of course, but can you tell us a bit about it?”

“Certainly. The appendix is a hollow tube of lymphoid tissue between two and twenty centimeters long, and about as thick as a pencil. In other words, it looks like a worm—which is why we call it the vermiform process; vermiform is Latin for ‘wormlike.’ One end of this worm is attached to the cecum, which is the pouch that forms the beginning of the large intestine. The other end is closed.”

“And what does the appendix do?”

Wills blinked his blue eyes. “The common wisdom is that it does nothing at all; it’s just a vestigial organ. Our primate ancestors were herbivores, and in its original form, the appendix was probably of some use in aiding digestion—modern herbivores have an extended cecum that resembles a longer version of our appendix. But for us, the appendix does little, if anything.”

“And are there any dangers associated with the appendix?”

“Oh, yes. It’s prone to infection and inflammation. About one out of every fifteen people will come down with appendicitis during their life-times.”

“This is a minor condition, no?”

“No. It’s a major, excruciating, and potentially fatal problem. Usually, the appendix has to be surgically removed.”

“Thank you, Professor. Your witness, Ms. Ziegler.”

Ziegler consulted briefly with her second chair, Trina Diamond, then shrugged. “No questions.”

“All right,” said Judge Pringle. “In view of the lateness of the hour, we’ll recess until ten A.M. tomorrow morning.” She looked at the jury box. “Please remember my admonitions to you. Don’t discuss the case among yourselves, don’t form any opinions about the case, don’t conduct any deliberations, and don’t allow anyone to communicate with you regarding the case.” She rapped her gavel. “Court is in recess.”

Hask still spent his nights in his room at Valcour Hall. As usual, Frank escorted him back home, along with a total of four LAPD officers—two in the same car as Frank and Hask, and two others in a second cruiser. The one problem with Valcour Hall was that although the building had been finished, the parking lot adjacent to it hadn’t been surfaced yet, and so the police cruiser had to let Hask out about two hundred yards from the residence. Wooden stakes had been driven into the grass all around the dorm, with yellow “Police Line—Do Not Cross” tape stretched between them. Still, every day after the trial, hundreds of students, faculty members, and other Angelenos could be seen waiting behind the line for a glimpse of Hask. Frank and Hask left the police cruiser together. As usual, Frank was having trouble keeping up with the Tosok, whose stride was much longer than his. It was only four-forty in the afternoon. The sun was still well up the bowl of the cloudless sky.

To Frank’s ears, the two sounds seemed to begin simultaneously, but, of course, one of them had to have come first. The first sound was a cracking so loud it hurt the ears, like thunder or bone breaking or a frozen lake shattering beneath the weight of a stranded man. It echoed off walls of glass and stone, reverberating for several seconds.

The second sound was high-pitched and warbling, unlike anything Frank had ever heard before. It was partly the sound of shattering glass, and partly the sound of train wheels screeching to a halt on metal tracks, and partly the wail of a hundred phones left too long off the hook.

Frank had thought — hoped —the first sound had been a car backfiring, but it wasn’t. In a blur of motion, two of the four police officers surged forward, running toward the crowd of people behind the police line. They had a man to the ground almost at once. Frank looked down at his own chest, and saw a spiderweb splash of pink across his jacket, shirt, and tie.

And then he realized what the second sound had been.

Hask was still standing, but as Frank watched he crumpled as if in slow motion to the ground, each of his legs folding first at its lower joint then its upper one. His torso tumbled backward, and the alien’s scream died as the square of his mouth diminished in size until nothing was left but the horizontal slit that marked the outer opening. He continued to fall, his rear arm splaying out behind him. Frank moved forward, trying to catch him, but the Tosok’s collapse was completed before the human reached him.

The assailant—a white man in his late twenties—was pinned to the ground. He was yelling, “Is the devil dead? Is the devil dead?”

The bullet hole in Hask’s tunic was obvious, surrounded by a pink carnation of Tosok blood. What to do was less obvious, though. Frank was certified in CPR—anyone who got to spend time alone with the president was required to be. Spectators were ignoring the police tape now, and had rushed to reach the downed alien, clustering around him in a circle. Frank leaned in and placed his ear next to one of Hask’s breathing orifices. Air was being expelled; he could feel it on his cheek.

But he had no idea where to check for a pulse. Not much blood had spilled out of the wound—possibly a sign that the being’s four hearts had stopped pumping.

Frank looked up, about to tell someone to call for an ambulance, but one of the cops was already on his cruiser’s radio, doing that. Frank reached into his own jacket pocket and pulled out his cellular flip phone. He hit the speed-dial key for the cellular that had been given to Captain Kelkad, and then handed the phone to the other officer, not waiting for Kelkad to answer. Frank bent down over Hask again. “Hask,” he said. “Hask, can you hear me?”

There was no response from Hask. Frank loosened his tie and pulled it up over his head, then wadded it up into a ball and used it as a pressure bandage on the entrance wound. He had no idea if that was the right thing to do, given how little he knew about Tosok physiology, but—

“Frank,” said the cop. “I’ve got Kelkad on the phone.” She handed the cellular to him. He took it in his left hand while continuing to lean on the wadded-up tie with his right.

“Kelkad, what should I do?” said Frank. “Hask has been shot.”