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

Damian’s father, Jason Playne, paid Lucas and his mother a visit the next morning. A burly man in his late forties with a shaven head and a blunt and forthright manner, dressed in workboots and denim overalls, he made the caravan seem small and frail. Standing over Julia’s bed, telling her that he would like to ask Lucas about the scrape he and his Damian had gotten into.

“Ask away,” Julia said. She was propped amongst her pillows, her gaze bright and amused. Her tablet lay beside her, images and blocks of text glimmering above it.

Jason Playne looked at her from beneath the thick hedge of his eyebrows. A strong odour of saltwater and sweated booze clung to him. He said, “I was hoping for a private word.”

“My son and I have no secrets.”

“This is about my son,” Jason Playne said.

“They didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Julia said.

Lucas felt a knot of embarrassment and anger in his chest. He said, “I’m right here.”

“Well, you didn’t,” his mother said.

Jason Playne looked at Lucas. “How did Damian get hurt?”

“He fell and cut himself,” Lucas said, as steadily as he could. That was what he and Damian had agreed to say, as they’d sailed back home with their prize. Lucas had pulled the shard of dragon stuff from Damian’s arm and staunched the bleeding with a bandage made from a strip ripped from the hem of Damian’s shirt. There hadn’t been much blood; the hot sliver had more or less cauterised the wound.

Jason Playne said, “He fell.”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you sure? Because I reckon that cut in my son’s arm was done by a knife. I reckon he got himself in some kind of fight.”

Julia said, “That sounds more like an accusation than a question.”

Lucas said, “We didn’t get into a fight with anyone.”

Jason Playne said, “Are you certain that Damian didn’t steal something?”

“Yes sir.”

Which was the truth, as far as it went.

“Because if he did steal something, if he still has it, he’s in a lot of trouble. You too.”

“I like to think my son knows a little more about alien stuff than most,” Julia said.

“I’m don’t mean fairy stories,” Jason Playne said. “I’m talking about the army ordering people to give back anything to do with that dragon thing. You stole something and you don’t give it back and they find out? They’ll arrest you. And if you try to sell it? Well, I can tell you for a fact that the people in that trade are mad and bad. I should know. I’ve met one or two of them in my time.”

“I’m sure Lucas will take that to heart,” Julia said.

And that was that, except after Jason Playne had gone she told Lucas that he’d been right about one thing: the people who tried to reverse-engineer alien technology were dangerous and should at all costs be avoided. “If I happened to come into possession of anything like that,” she said, “I would get rid of it at once. Before anyone found out.”

But Lucas couldn’t get rid of the shard because he’d promised Damian that he’d keep it safe until they could figure out what to do with it. He spent the next two days in a haze of guilt and indecision, struggling with the temptation to check that the thing was safe in its hiding place, wondering what Damian’s father knew, wondering what his mother knew, wondering if he should sail out to a deep part of the Flood and throw it into the water, until at last Damian came over to the island.

It was early in the evening, just after sunset. Lucas was watering the vegetable garden when Damian called to him from the shadows inside a clump of buddleia bushes. He smiled at Lucas, saying, “If you think I look bad, you should see him.”

“I can’t think he could look much worse.”

“I got in a few licks,” Damian said. His upper lip was split and both his eyes were blackened and there was a discoloured knot on the hinge of his jaw.

“He came here,” Lucas said. “Gave me and Julia a hard time.”

“How much does she know?”

“I told her what happened.”

“Everything?”

There was an edge in Damian’s voice.

“Except about how you were hit with the shard,” Lucas said.

“Oh. Your mother’s cool, you know? I wish…”

When it was clear that his friend wasn’t going to finish his thought, Lucas said, “Is it okay? You coming here so soon.”

“Oh, Dad’s over at Halvergate on what he calls business. Don’t worry about him. Did you keep it safe?”

“I said I would.”

“Why I’m here, L, I think I might have a line on someone who wants to buy our little treasure.”

“Your father said we should keep away from people like that.”

“He would.”

“Julia thinks so too.”

“If you don’t want anything to do with it, just say so. Tell me where it is, and I’ll take care of everything.”

“Right.”

“So is it here, or do we have to go somewhere?”

“I’ll show you,” Lucas said, and led his friend through the buddleias and along the low ridge to the northern end of the tiny island where an apple tree stood, hunched and gnarled and mostly dead, crippled by years of salt spray and saltwater seep. Lucas knelt and pulled up a hinge of turf and took out a small bundle of oilcloth. As he unwrapped it, Damian dropped to his knees beside him and reached out and touched an edge of the shard.

“Is it dead?”

“It wasn’t ever alive,” Lucas said.

“You know what I mean. What did you do to it?”

“Nothing. It just turned itself off.”

When Lucas had pulled the shard from Damian’s arm, its translucence had been veined with a network of shimmering threads. Now it was a dull reddish black, like an old scab.

“Maybe it uses sunlight, like phones,” Damian said.

“I thought of that, but I also thought it would be best to keep it hidden.”

“It still has to be worth something,” Damian said, and began to fold the oilcloth around the shard.

Lucas was gripped by a sudden apprehension, as if he was falling while kneeling there in the dark. He said, “We don’t have to do this right now.”

“Yes we do. I do.”

“Your father—he isn’t in Halvergate, is he?”

Damian looked straight at Lucas. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re worried about. He tried to knock me down when I went to leave, but I knocked him down instead. Pounded on him good. Put him down and put him out. Tied him up too, to give me some time to get away.”

“He’ll come after you.”

“Remember when we were kids? We used to lie up here, in summer. We’d look up at the stars and talk about what it would be like to go to one of the worlds the Jackaroo gave us. Well, I plan to find out. The UN lets you buy tickets off lottery winners who don’t want to go. It’s legal and everything. All you need is money. I reckon this will give us a good start.”

“You know I can’t come with you.”

“If you want your share, you’ll have to come to Norwich. Because there’s no way I’m coming back here,” Damian said, and stood with a smooth, swift motion.

Lucas stood too. They were standing toe to toe under the apple tree, the island and the Flood around it quiet and dark. As if they were the last people on Earth.