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

Other men formed matching lines outside, and with the care used on babies and bombs, they lifted the valiant, beautiful, helpless creature into the open truck bed, eyes pointed skyward, its tail dangling almost to the pavement.

Mr. Rightly climbed out again. “We’ll use the zoo’s service entrance,” he announced. “I have the key.”

The hose man finally had his target in his sights, hitting the alien with a cool spray. Every drop that struck the skin was absorbed, and the green eyes seemed to smile even as the voice begged, “No. Not yet, no.”

The hose was turned away.

And the screaming woman ran up, daring herself to touch the creature. Her hands reached and stopped when her courage failed, and she hugged herself instead. Nearly in tears, she said, “God bless you, darling. God bless.”

Bloch was the last man out of the spaceship.

Mr. Rightly climbed up into the truck bed and then stood, blinking as he looked at the destruction up the road and at the shadows cast by the setting sun. Then Bloch called to him, and he turned and smiled. “Are you warm enough?” he asked.

“I’m fine, sir.”

“Sit in the cab and stay warm,” he said. “Show our driver the way.”

Their driver was three weeks older than Bloch and barely half his size, and nothing could be more astonishing than the extraordinary luck that put him in this wondrous place. “I can’t fucking believe this,” said the driver, lifting up on the brake and letting them roll forwards. “I’m having the adventure of a lifetime. That’s what this craziness is.”

There was no end to the volunteers. Everybody was waving at traffic and at the truck’s driver—enthusiastic, chaotic signals ready to cause another dozen crashes. But nobody got hit. The big pickup lurched into the clear and down the last of the hill, heading east. People watched its cargo. Some prayed, others used phones to take pictures, catching Bloch looking back at the children and the paramedics and the bloody blankets thrown over the dead.

“Can you fucking believe this?” the driver kept asking.

The radio was set on the CNN feed. The solar sail had reached as far as Atlanta. Power was out there, and Europe was nothing but dark and China was the same. There was a quick report that most of the world’s satellites had gone silent when the probe fell on top of them. There were also rumors that an alien or aliens had contacted the US government, but the same voice added, “We haven’t confirmed anything at this point.”

They crossed Pender Slough and Bloch tapped the driver on the arm, guiding them onto Southwest. The driver made what was probably the slowest, most cautious turn in his life. A chain of cars and trucks followed close, headlights and flashers on. Everything they did felt big and important, and this was incredible fun. Bloch was grinning, looking back through the window at his teacher, but Mr. Rightly shot him a worried expression, and then he stared at his hands rather than the alien stretched out beside him.

“Hurry,” Bloch coaxed.

The zoo appeared on their left. An access bridge led back across the slough and up to the back gate. Mr. Rightly was ready with the key. Bloch climbed out to help roll the gate open, and a couple trailing cars managed to slip inside before a guard arrived, hurriedly closing the gate before examining what they were bringing inside.

“Oh, this gal’s hurt,” he called out.

Bloch and his teacher walked at the front of the little parade, leading the vehicles along the wide sidewalk toward the penguin exhibit.

Mr. Rightly watched his feet, saying nothing.

“Is it dead?” Bloch asked.

“What?”

“The alien,” he said.

“No, it’s holding on.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Mr. Rightly looked back and then forward, drifting closer to Bloch. With a quiet careful voice, he said, “She was rolling east on Pender. That means that she fell from the west.”

“I guess,” Bloch agreed.

“From the direction of the sun,” he said. “But the big probe, that solar sail… it was falling toward the sun. And that’s the other direction.”

Here was the problem. Bloch felt this odd worry before, but he hadn’t been able to find words to make it clear in his own head.

The two of them walked slower, each looking over a shoulder before talking.

“Another thing,” said Mr. Rightly. “Why would an alien, a creature powerful enough and smart enough to cross between stars, need water? Our astronauts didn’t fly to the moon naked and hope for air.”

“Maybe she missed her target,” Bloch suggested.

“And there’s something else,” Mr. Rightly said. “How can anything survive the gee forces from this kind of impact? You heard the sonic booms. She, or it… whatever it is… the entity came down fast and hit, and nothing alive should be alive after that kind of crash.”

Bloch wanted to offer an opinion, but they arrived at the penguin exhibit before he could find one. Men and the screaming woman climbed out of the trailing cars, and like an old pro, the pickup’s driver spun around and backed up to the edge of the pond. Half a dozen people waved him in. In one voice, everybody shouted, “Stop.” Night was falling. The penguin pool was deep and smooth and very clear. Mr. Rightly started to say something about being cautious, about waiting, and someone asked, “Why?” and he responded with noise about water quality and its temperature. But other people had already climbed into the truck bed, grabbing at the four limbs and head and the base of that sad, drooping tail. With barely any noise, the alien went into the water. It weighed very little, and everyone expected it to float, but it sank like an arrow aimed at the Earth. Bloch stood at the edge of the pool, watching while a dark gray shape lay limp at the bottom of the azure bowl.

The screaming woman came up beside him. “Oh god, our girl’s drowning,” she said. “We need to jump in and help get her up to the air again.”

A couple men considered being helpful, but then they touched the cold November water and suffered second thoughts.

Another man asked Mr. Rightly, “Did we screw up? Is she drowning?”

The teacher pushed his glasses against his face.

“I think we did screw up,” Mr. Rightly said.

The body had stopped being gray. And a moment later that cute seal face and those eyes were smoothed away. Then the alien was larger, growing like a happy sponge, and out from its center came a blue glow, dim at first, but quickly filling the concrete basin and the air above—a blue light shining into the scared faces, and Bloch’s face too.

Leaning farther out, Bloch felt the heat rising up from water that was already most of the way to boiling.

The woman ran away and then shouted, “Run.”

The driver jumped into his truck and drove off.

Only two people were left at the water’s edge. Mr. Rightly tugged on Bloch’s arm. “Son,” he said. “We need to get somewhere safe.”

“Where’s that?” Bloch asked.

His teacher offered a grim little laugh, saying, “Maybe Mars. How about that?”

Any long stasis means damage. Time introduces creeps and tiny flaws into systems shriveled down near the margins of what nature permits. But the partial fueling allowed repairs to begin. Systems woke and took stock of the situation. Possibilities were free to emerge, each offering itself to the greatest good, yet the situation was dire. The universe permitted quite a lot of magic, but even magic had strict limits and the enemy was vast and endowed with enough luck to have already won a thousand advantages before the battle had begun.

Horrific circumstances demanded aggressive measures; this was the fundamental lesson of the moment.