Robert Sawyer - Illegal Alien

The Tosok hesitated. “Of course,” said the translated voice, “there is a small chance that I will trigger the weapon when I interrupt the feed. I suppose some last words are in order, in case that happens.” A pause. “How about, ‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your neighbors’?”

Hands appeared in the picture again—this time, holding small tools—and the image bounced back to show the red unit. “Here we go…” One of the tools snipped what looked like a fiber-optic cable leading into the unit.

“The weapon did not discharge,” said the Tosok voice.

“The deadman switch should be deactivated now,” said the human voice.

In the sixth-floor lounge, Torbat said, “Hask will die for his treachery.” As if on cue, the recorded voice said, “As you humans would say, this is one for the history books, so I suppose I should get a decent shot of myself.” The image went dark as a hand reached toward the camera, and there was a clicking sound as it was disengaged from the suit. The view spun wildly as the camera was swung around, showing the Tosok—

“Seltar!” said Kelkad, the word sounding somewhat different when untranslated. “ Kestadt pastalk ge-tongk!”

“If that’s ‘I thought you were dead!’ ” said Perez, with relish, “then you’ve got another think coming.”

“That should take care of everything,” said Seltar, on the tape. “You can go ahead and apprehend the others now.”

Michaelson moved in and clicked off the VCR. The TV came on in its place, showing Wheel of Fortune .

“Now,” said Perez. “Which of you is Dodnaskak?”

A front hand went up meekly.

“Dodnaskak, you have the right to remain silent—”

“Where is Hask?” said Kelkad.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Perez.

“He is here, no?”

“That’s not important,” said Perez. “I advise you again to say nothing until you’ve consulted with an attorney.”

“He is here,” said Kelkad. His breathing orifices were dilating. “I can smell him.”

“Stay where you are, Kelkad.” Perez gestured at one of the officers, who put a hand on his holster.

“Do not threaten me, human.”

“I can’t allow you to leave,” said Perez.

“We have submitted to enough of your primitive foolishness,” said Kelkad.

He began to walk backward, front eyes still on Perez.

“Stop, Kelkad!” shouted Perez. Michaelson removed his gun from his holster. A moment later the other four officers did the same thing. “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”

“You will not kill an ambassador,” said Kelkad, whose long strides had already taken him most of the way to the elevator.

“We are allowed to use force to subdue those resisting arrest,” said Perez.

Michaelson had his gun trained on Kelkad; the other four officers had theirs aimed at the remaining five Tosoks, who were standing perfectly still, except for their tufts, which were waving like wheat in a high wind.

“I know Hask is in this building,” said Kelkad, “and he is going to answer to me.”

“Don’t take another step,” said Perez.

Michaelson shifted his aim slightly, taking a bead on the controls for calling the elevator. He fired a single shot. The sound was loud, and a lick of flame emerged from the gun’s barrel. The elevator controls exploded in a shower of sparks.

“You’re next,” said Michaelson, reaiming at the alien captain.

“Very well,” said Kelkad. He stopped moving, and began reaching his front hand up toward the ceiling. His back hand, hidden by his torso, must have been rising, too, and when it cleared the top of his dome-shaped head, Perez suddenly realized that there was something shiny and white in its four-fingered grasp.

There was a flash of light in Kelkad’s palm, and a loud sound like sheet metal being warped. Michaelson was knocked backward against the wall.

Perez wheeled around. A neat hole, perhaps an inch wide, had been burned through the center of the man’s chest. His corpse was now slumping to the floor, leaving a long smear of blood on the wall behind him.

Four more quick flashes of light, four claps of aluminum thunder, and the remaining uniformed cops were all dead as well. “Do not make me kill you, too, Detective Perez,” said Kelkad. “Did you think that after the attack on Hask, I would walk around unarmed?”

Perez immediately bent down to pick up Michaelson’s gun, now lying on the floor. By the time he got it, Kelkad had already disappeared down the right-hand wing of the building. Perez crabbed sideways, keeping the gun trained on the remaining five Tosoks, who seemed to be unarmed. He picked up a second officer’s gun. But another one of the guns had ended up quite near one of the other Tosoks. Perez couldn’t get at it without exposing himself to physical assault, and he couldn’t run off after Kelkad without the other Tosoks grabbing it, as well as the remaining two revolvers. Perez tucked one gun into his pants’ waist and, keeping the other one aimed at the Tosoks, used his left hand to get his cellular phone out of his jacket pocket to call for reinforcements.

Hask was in his dorm room on the second floor of Valcour Hall, clearing out his personal belongings. What with the other six Tosoks being taken away to jail, there was little point in him continuing to reside in this giant residence, which, after all, USC did have other uses for.

It was bad enough being a traitor to his own people, and knowing that he would never see the stars of home again, but at least his few possessions would help him remember his old life. Hask picked up the lostartd disk that had decorated his dorm room. The crack in it where the two halves had been joined together was only visible if he held the disk obliquely to the light. He carefully packed it in the suitcase Frank had given him, wrapping it in two of his tunics for protection.

Suddenly the sound of a gunshot split the air. It had come from upstairs.

Hask felt all four of his hearts pounding out of synchronization—the sound reminded him of the shot that had dug into his own chest on the lawn outside this very building. Moments later he heard the sound of five Tosok blaster discharges. By the absent God—one of them must have brought a blaster along on the journey! Hask hadn’t thought any handheld weapons had been among the mothership’s supplies; no direct contact, after all, had ever been intended with aliens.

The sounds fell into place in his mind—the other Tosoks were resisting arrest. Another sound, faint and distant, came to his sensitive ears—the echoing slaps of Tosok feet on concrete. One of the Tosoks was coming down the stairs.

There had been five blaster discharges—presumably five humans now lay dead. And the Tosok with the blaster might very well be coming to get him.

Valcour Hall was large. If Kelkad—who but the captain would have brought a hand weapon on the journey?—had been up in the sixth-floor lounge, he’d have to come down four flights of stairs. The sound was clearly coming from the stairwell at the end of the other wing; that meant he’d also have to run the length of both wings to reach Hask’s room, which was at the opposite end of the building.

Hask thought about making his own escape, smashing his dorm-room window and jumping to the ground below. Earth’s gravity was less than that of the home world; it was a significant fall, but probably one that he could survive. Hask would then have to try to escape by running across the campus. But the blaster had a range of several hundred meters—Kelkad could probably pick him off with ease. No—no, he would make his stand here.

Hask understood much of human law now: he was about to be attacked with a high-energy weapon and he honestly believed his life was in danger.