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

Herb nodded, eyes dancing. “They excited some sorta atmospheric resonance effects. They projected the beams from our own asteroid belt.”

Denise frowned. “But they got here only a few years back.”

“They sent robot probes that got here in the 1940s. They’d already planned to send a one here and land to take samples. So they used the beams somehow to, I dunno, maybe let us know somethin’ was up.”

“Seems odd,” Denise said. “And what about all those people the UFOs kidnapped? They did all kinds of experiments on ’em!”

Herb’s mouth turned down scornfully. “That’s just National Enquirer stuff, Denise.”

McKenna smiled so he could control the laugh bubbling up in his throat. “Learn any biology?”

Herb said, “We’ve got plenty land-dwelling reptiles, plenty fish. Not many species use both land and sea.”

Herb took a breath to launch into a lecture and Denise put in, “How about gators?”

Herb blinked, gave a quick polite smile and said, “The bio guys figure the Centauris had some reptile predators on the islands, gave what they call selection pressure. Centauris developed intelligence to beat them down when they came ashore, could be. Maybe like frogs, start out as larvae in the water.”

Denise said wonderingly, eyeing Herb, “So they’re like tadpoles at first?”

“Could be, could be.” Herb liked feedback and McKenna guessed he didn’t get a lot from women. Maybe they were too polite to interrupt. “They grow and develop lungs, legs, those funny hand-like fins, big opposable thumbs. Then big brains to deal with the reptiles when they go ashore.”

McKenna asked, “So they’re going to hate our gators.”

“S’pose so,” Herb allowed. “They sure seem hostile to ’em around Dauphin Island. Could be they’re like frogs, put out lots of offspring. Most tadpoles don’t survive, y’know, even after they get ashore.”

Denise said brightly, “But once one does crawl ashore, the adults would have to help it out a lot. Defend it against reptiles. Teach it how to make tools, maybe. Cooperation, but social competition, too.”

Both men looked at her and she read their meaning. “I majored in sociology, minor in biology.”

Herb nodded respectfully, looking at her with fresh eyes. “Hard to think that something like frogs maybe could bring down big reptiles, eh?”

Denise tittered at the very thought, eyes glistening eagerly, and McKenna got up to get them more drinks. By the time he came back out, though, they were getting up. Herb said he had to get home and they discovered that they didn’t live all that far from each other, what a surprise then to meet out here at this distance, and barely noticed McKenna’s good-byes.

He watched them stand beside Denise’s car and exchange phone numbers. Now if only he could be as good a matchmaker for himself. But something in him wasn’t ready for that yet.

And what else have you got in your life? the unwelcome thought came.

Work. Oh yes, the Jorge papers from the FEMA people.

Jorge had stuffed all sorts of things into the envelope. Receipts, check stubs, unreadables, some telephone numbers, a Mexican passport with a picture that looked a lot like the corpse.

He was stacking these when a thin slip fell out. A note written on a rubberstamped sheet from Bayside Boats.

It wasn’t that far to Bayside Boats. He went there at dawn and watched a shrimp boat come in. When he showed every man in the place Jorge’s photo, nobody recognized it. But the manager and owner, a grizzled type named Rundorf, hesitated just a heartbeat before answering. Then shook his head.

Driving away, he passed by the Busted Flush mooring. It was just coming in from a run and Merv Pitscomb stood at the prow.

His supervisor said, “You get anything from SIU on these cases?”

“Nope.” The Special Investigations Unit was notoriously jammed up and in love with the FBI.

“Any statewide CAPs?”

CAPs, Crimes Against Persons, was the latest correct acronym that shielded the mind from the bloody reality, kept you from thinking about the abyss. “Nope.”

“So you got two drowned guys who worked boats out of the same town. Seems like a stretch.”

McKenna tried to look judicious. “I want a warrant to look at their pay records. Nail when these two worked, and work from there.”

The supervisor shook his head. “Seems pretty thin.”

“I doubt I’ll get much more.”

“You’ve been workin’ this one pretty hard. Your partner LeBouc, he’s due back tomorrow.”

“So?”

A level gaze. “Maybe you should work it with him. This FBI angle, these guys coming up to you like that. Maybe this really should be their game.”

“They’re playing close to their vest. No help there for sure. And waiting for LeBouc won’t help, not without more substance.”

“Ummm.” The supervisor disliked the FBI, of course, but he didn’t want to step on their toes. “Lessee. This would have to go through Judge Preston. He’s been pretty easy on us lately, must be gettin’ laid again…”

“Let me put it in the batch going up to him later this morning.”

“Okay, but then you got to get onto some more cases. They’re piling up.”

He had boilerplate for the warrant application. He called it up and pasted in I respectfully request that the Court issue a Warrant and Order of Seizure in the form annexed, authorizing a search of premises at… And such as is found shall be brought before the Court, together with such other and further relief that the Court may deem proper. The lawyers loved such stuff.

Merv Pitscomb’s face knotted with red rage. The slow-witted Buddy Johnson, ex-con and tire deflator, stood beside Pitscomb and wore a smirk. Neither liked the warrant and they liked it still less when he took their pay company records.

Ethan Anselmo was there, of course, and had gone out on the Busted Flush, a night job two days before the body washed up. No entry for Jorge Castan. But some initials from the bookkeeper a week before the last Anselmo entry, and two days after it, had a total, $178. One initial was GB and the other JC.

Bookkeepers have to write things down, even if they’re supposed to keep quiet. Illegals were off the books, of course, usually with no Social Security numbers. But you had to balance your books, didn’t you? McKenna loved bookkeepers.

“Okay,” his supervisor said, “we got reasonable grounds to bring in this Pitscomb and the other one—”

“Rundorf.”

“—to bring them in and work them a little. Maybe they’re not wits, maybe these are just accidents the skippers don’t want to own up to. But we got probable cause here. Bring them in tomorrow morning. It’s near end of our shift.”

There was always some paperwork confusion at quitting time. McKenna made up the necessaries and was getting some other, minor cases straightened out, thinking of heading home.

Then he had an idea.

He had learned a good trick a decade back, from a sergeant who had busted a lot of lowlife cases open.

If you had two different suspects for a murder, book them both. Hold them overnight. Let the system work on them.

In TV lawyer shows the law was a smart, orderly machine that eventually—usually about an hour—punished the guilty.

But the system was not about that at all. The minute you stepped into its grinder you lost control of your life and became a unit. You sat in holding cells thinking your own fevered thoughts. Nobody knew you. You stared at the drain hole in the gray concrete floor where recent stains got through even the bleaching disinfectant sprayed over them. On the walls you saw poorly scrawled drawings of organs and acts starkly illuminated by the actinic, buzzing lights that never went out. You heard echoing yells and cops rapping their batons on the bars to get some peace. Which never came. So you sat some more with your own fevered thoughts.