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

Bloch was standing in the middle of Pender when the man emerged. This was the same old fellow who saw his brave oak stop the rolling spaceship. Cranes and a National Guard truck had carried away the useless egg case. Extra fragments and local dust had been swept into important buckets, waiting for studies that would never come about. But the human vehicles were left where they crashed, and Bloch saw every tire mark, every drop of vigorous blood, and he studied a blond Barbie, loved deeply by a little girl and now covered with dried, half-frozen pieces of her brother’s brain.

The old man came out on his porch and looked at the apparition, and after taking careful stock of everything said, “Huh.”

Nobody was hunting Bloch anymore. The initial panic and search for the monster had spread across the city and then dissolved, new and much larger panics taking hold. One monster was nothing compared to what was approaching, and the army had been dispatched to the east—Guard soldiers and policemen and a few self-appointed militia hunkering down in roadside ditches, ready to aim insults and useless guns at the coming onslaught.

The old man considered retreating into his house again. But he was too worn down to be afraid, and he didn’t relish more time with his wife. So he came down the stairs and across the lawn, leaning his scrawny body against the gouged trunk. Pulling off a stocking cap, he rubbed his bald head a couple times, and using a dry slow voice explained, “I know about you. You were that kid who climbed inside first.”

Bloch looked at him and looked East too. Dawn should be a smudged brightness pushing up from a point southeast. But there was no trace of the sun. The light was purple and steady, covering the eastern horizon.

“Do you know what’s happening to you?” the old man asked.

“Maybe,” Bloch said. Then he lifted one hand, a golden light brightening his entire arm. “A machine got inside me and shouldn’t have. It started to rebuild me, but then it realized that I was alive and so it quit.”

“Why did it quit?”

“Life is precious. The machine isn’t supposed to build a weapon using a sentient organism.”

“So you’re what? Half-done?”

“More like three percent finished.”

The old man moved to where Bloch’s heat felt comfortable. Looking up at the gray face, he asked, “Are you just going to stand here?”

“This is a fine place to watch the battle, yes.”

The man looked east and then back at Bloch. He seemed puzzled and a little curious, a thin smile showing more in his eyes than his mouth.

“But you won’t be safe outside,” the boy cautioned, new instincts using his mouth. “You’ll survive longer if you get into your basement.”

“How long is longer?”

“Twenty or thirty seconds, I would think.”

The man tried to laugh, and then he tried to curse. Neither worked, which was when he looked down the hill, saying, “If it’s all the same, I’ll just stay outside and watch the show.”

The purple line was taller and brighter, and the first trace of a new wind started nudging at the highest oak limbs.

“Here comes something,” the man said.

There was quite a lot to see, yes. But following the man’s eyes, Bloch found nothing but empty air.

“That soldier might be hunting you,” the man said.

“What soldier?”

“Or maybe he’s a deserter. I don’t see a gun.” This time the laugh worked—a sour giggle accompanied by some hard shaking of the head. “Of course you can’t blame the fellow for running. All things considered.”

“Who is he?” Bloch asked.

“You don’t see him? The old grunt walking up the middle of the road?”

Nothing else was alive on Pender.

“Well, I’m not imagining this. And I wasn’t crazy three minutes ago, so I doubt if I am now.”

Bloch couldn’t find anybody, but he felt movement, something massive and impressive that was suddenly close, and his next instinct touched him coldly, informing him that a cloaked warrior had him dead in its sights.

“What’s our soldier look like?”

“A little like you,” the old man said.

But there was no second gray monster, which made the moment deliciously peculiar.

“And now he’s calling to you,” the man said.

“Calling me what?”

“‘Kid,’ it sounds like.”

And that was the moment when Bloch saw his brother standing in front of him.

Matt always looked like their father, but never so much as now. He was suddenly grown. This wasn’t the shaved-head, beer-belching boy who came home on leave last summer. This wasn’t even the tough-talking soldier on Skype last week. Nothing about him was worn down or wrinkled, yet the apparition carried himself like their father did in the videos—a short thick fellow with stubby legs churning, shoulders squared up and ready to suffer any load. He was decked out in the uniform that he wore in Yemen, except it was too pressed and too clean. There was a sleepless, pained quality to the face, and that’s where he most resembled Dad. But those big eyes had seen worse than what they were seeing now, and despite cares and burdens that a little brother could never measure, the man before him still knew how to smile.

“How you doing, kid?” Matt asked.

With the doll-voice, Bloch said, “You’re not my brother.”

“Think not?”

“I feel it. You’re not human at all.”

“So says the glowing monster decked out in his fancy fiberglass underwear.” Matt laughed and the old man joined in. Then Matt winked, asking Bloch, “You scared of me?”

Bloch shook his head.

“You should be scared. I’m a very tough character now.” He walked past both of the men, looking back to say, “March with me, monster. We got a pile of crap to discuss.”

Long legs easily caught the short.

Turning the corner, Bloch asked where they were going. Matt said nothing. Bloch looked back. The old man had given up watching them, preferring to lean against the wrecked Buick, studying the purples in a long sky that was bewitched and exceptionally lovely.

“We’re going to the zoo,” Bloch guessed.

Matt started to nod and then didn’t. He started to talk and then stopped himself. Then he gazed up at the giant beside him.

“What?” Bloch asked.

“Do you know what an adventure is?”

“Sure.”

“No, you don’t,” Matt said. “When I was standing outside the barracks that night, texting you, I figured I was going to die. And that didn’t seem too awful. A demon monster was dropping from the heavens and the world was finished, but what could I do? Nothing. This wasn’t like a bomb hiding beside the road. This wasn’t a bullet heading for me. There wasn’t any gut-eating suspense to the show, and nothing was left to do but watch.

“Except that spaceship was just a beginning. Like the softest most wonderful blanket, it fell over me and over everything. An aspect found me and fell in love with my potential. Like you’ve been worked on, only more so. I learned tons of crazy shit. What I knew from my old life was still part of me, still holding my core, but with new meanings attached. It was the same for my unit and the Yemeni locals and even the worst bad guys. We were remade and put to work, which isn’t the same as being drafted, since everybody understood the universe, and our work was the biggest best thing any of us could ever do.”

They passed the house where Bloch spent the night, hiding in the basement. “What about the universe?” he asked.

“We’re not alone, which you know. But we never have been alone. The Earth wasn’t even born, and the galaxy was already full of bodies and brains and all sorts of plans for what could be done, and some of those projects were done but a lot of them were too scary, too big and fancy. There’s too little energy to accomplish everything that can be dreamed up. Too many creatures want their little piece of the prize, and that’s why a truce was put in place. A planet like the Earth is a tempting resource, but nobody is allowed to touch it. Not normally, they aren’t. Earth has its own life, just like a hundred and six other planets and moons and big comets. And that’s just inside our little solar system. Even the simplest life is protected by law and by machines—although ‘machine’ isn’t the best word.”