Грегори Бенфорд - Not One of Us - Stories of Aliens on Earth

She pressed the button on the red pistol and the eetee exploded, showering the wall above her with great gobs and ropy drips of what looked like snot.

“Take that, Ben, ” she whispered.

Civilization is a wonderful thing, but survival trumps it every time.

Then a human soldier, a black woman, pushed through the barrels toward her to offer a hand. “The warehouse is burning! Come on!”

The soldier took the red pistol from Alexandra’s now nerveless hands and tugged her through an obstacle course of tumbled communications equipment, pooled blood, dead human and alien bodies, and furiously burning sacks of dried peas. At last they burst onto the smoke-filled parking lot. The remains of the Army’s fuel trucks still blazed brightly. Soldiers pushed her down behind a tank.

“This the one who let the militia in?” one of them said.

“She splattered the froggy with the fearmonger,” her rescuer told them. “Lucky for you.”

But there had been no fearmonger.

As the flood of paralytic terror receded, dragging cold shakiness in its wake, Alexandra’s last thought but one rose back into sight. The eetee hadn’t carried a fear gun. It hadn’t needed one to shoot her full of abject terror.

Noise and commotion went on for a long time after that: the burning diesel, eetee aircraft sweeping overhead, explosions, missiles screaming into the sky, shouts, rattling gunfire. Alexandra knew Ben’s plan had gone entirely wrong, and she was, plainly and simply, screwed. Ben and his deputies were even more screwed, if they weren’t already dead. Now Lewisville really would suffer a military occupation. They would all be herded into camps.

Still, right at the moment she felt like God looking down on creation. She had killed an eetee.

Her brain could not leave alone the image of that clouded alien face at the moment she had pressed the trigger.

All this time she’d been hearing about Ben and his deputies—so brave to venture out, over and over, against such a terrible weapon—and it turned out there was no such thing as a fear gun.

The red pendants must be just some kind of officer’s insignia. It said you were authorized, you had the ability or the training to wield terror. But as for the fear itself—

It all begins and ends in the mind.

Fred crossed the dry, thistly lawn and stopped in front of the old brick building with the flagpoles that Harvey would never let him piss on. In hot weather the children stayed away and the building usually sat empty, but now the strangers had brought grownup people there. Fred hoped Harvey might be one of them.

Fred dropped his burden to sample the air for Harvey’s scent. The air was still heavy with the acrid taste of yesterday’s conflagration. He reared on hind legs to put his nose to the windows. No one had opened the mesh coverings, but the sashes had been raised so he could smell all the guests packed inside. There were even more than at the big barbecues Harvey and Susan used to hold. The people were not enjoying this party, though. Many stood in line in front of a table. The rest sat around on cots or folded blankets, glum, angry, or fearful.

Fred recognized some of the people. Mister Mayor drifted along the line of people, talking. Fred could tell that Mister Mayor felt glum and fearful, too, but he soothed the others with his warm smooth voice that had always reminded Fred of cow fat.

At the table at the head of the line sat the woman vet who had kept Fred tied up in the cold hard room. With her was the otherwise nice man who had helped with the big, long, nasty needle. Now the vet-woman had a lot more needles with her, and the nice man—as well as some of the strangers—were helping her, sticking needles in each person and writing things down.

Near the table Fred noticed Alexandra, who had stopped coming out to Harvey’s a long time ago. Alexandra hadn’t liked Fred’s nose, even when he’d sniffed her crotch in the friendliest way. Alexandra had already gone through the line and now she was smiling and being friendly to some of the strangers.

Ben was not talking to the strangers or to Alexandra. Ben had a leash between his feet and hands and he could only shuffle along. Several strangers led him forward to get stuck with a needle. Fred hoped Ben would be okay. The night before, he had smelled Ben, angry and afraid, through a basement window in the building with the big statue.

At last, in the far corner, Fred located Susan, and nearby, Harvey. Harvey sat on a cot and stared miserably at the wall.

Fred remembered the old days when he and Harvey had romped for hours in the cool of the evening, when the two of them had been joyously happy together. Then Harvey had grown afraid: so afraid of the world and of Fred, he thought he should kill Fred, even though he didn’t want to.

Fred so much wanted Harvey and Susan to be happy again. When Harvey got the present Fred was trying to give him, he would quit being so miserable and alone. He would know that he didn’t have to be afraid of Fred.

Fred picked up the present in his jaws again and loped around the corner of the brick building. A couple of the strangers’ trucks pulled out of the driveway. Their occupants paid no attention to him.

Toward the back of the brick building it was cooler and shady. A cat turd lay under a bush. For a moment, he thrust his nose against it, intrigued. Then he recalled his mission. He would not be able to go home if he failed, not while Harvey and the vet-woman wanted to kill him.

He continued to the back door of the place where the children used to eat. The sweet odor of old garbage lingered here, but there were also fresh smells where cans of oil, bags of potatoes, and crates of stale crackers and raisins had rested on the cement for a few moments. Most interesting was the delirious scent of raw meat. Someone had recently killed a cow.

From inside the building, Fred could smell boiling potatoes. He trotted up to the door itself. Two sweaty strangers guarded it. Fred put down the present and wagged his tail.

Hello, he said to them, in the new way he had learned.

They glanced down. “Hey, boy,” said one of the strangers. Fred wagged his tail some more and the stranger patted him on the head. The stranger liked him. Most people liked Fred.

I like you, too, Fred told him, wagging some more. Will you open the door, please?

The stranger pulled open the door. He didn’t look down as Fred picked up his present and trotted inside. It was just the way it had worked with Harvey and Susan, and at the big building that was kind of like the vet’s. The nice man hadn’t noticed he was letting Fred out. It was because he had wanted Fred to be happy, even though he was afraid Fred was sick.

None of them would be afraid of Fred anymore if they understood that Fred wasn’t sick, he had just learned to do some new things.

They would learn new things, too. They would all be happy once they understood each other. They would stop being afraid of each other, and hating each other, and trying to make each other do things. Like him, they would take off their leashes and run joyously, rapturously free.

At least, that’s what he hoped they would do. But people were sometimes unaccountable.

Fred followed the scent of raw meat into a big kitchen where there was a lot of stainless steel. Men and women chopped potatoes and onions, and big pots of water steamed on the burners. More strangers with guns stood around, making sure the men and women didn’t go outside. The strangers were looking forward to the meat, too.