“Well, Alex, you mustn’t keep the rest of the crowd waiting. People have come from great distances to honor you. It’s the sort of thing heroes have to tolerate,” Enduran told him.
“I’m no hero,” he said softly.
“Whether you are or not doesn’t matter.” He nodded toward the doorway. “They think you are. As such, you have certain responsibilities. You will stay, won’t you?” Alex hesitated, looked over at Grig, who nodded.
He paused long enough to hug the tough-skinned alien, not giving a damn what any of the exalted spectators might make of this peculiar human gesture. Grig understood its meaning readily enough, though, and so did Enduran.
Then the two of them started out the doorway. The crowd of representatives and officials made way for them. As the door opened, an alien fanfare greeted their appearance. They found themselves on a balcony, looking out across a sea of enthusiastic alien faces.
He’d been ready for this. Enduran and the others had told him what to expect. What he was not prepared for was the sight of the elderly figure seated on a nearby mobile platform. Two uniformed Rylan medics stood at attention on either side of the tiny vehicle. Ignoring the crowd, Alex ran toward the newcomer.
“Centauri! You’re supposed to be dead!”
The old man grinned. “I’m supposed to be a lot o’ things, my boy, but deceased ain’t one of ’em. My people are a tough bunch, and I’m the toughest of the lot, even if I am what your kind would call a cantankerous old coot.”
“What means ‘coot’?” Grig asked.
“It’s a bird that can make a living just about anywhere,” Alex explained.
Grig nodded knowingly. “How appropriate.”
“But I saw you die . . . after you brought me back to the base,” Alex insisted. “The medic working on you . . . ”
Centauri shook his head. “Oh, I was good and dead, all right. Let me tell you, being dead’s no picnic, boy. But my people are tough. The body can expire, but it takes the brain a long time to die. They were able to bring the rest of me back. The important thing was that the memory patterns stayed intact. Just like puttin’ a puzzle back together, except the medics had to build me a few new pieces.” He looked Alex over thoughtfully, taking in the new uniform, the new attitude, the recently bestowed decorations. “What about you? What are you going to do now, Starfighter?”
Alex turned to gaze out across the cheering sea of alien faces, at the impossible skyline of the capital city of Rylos beyond. Everything had happened so quickly. Events had swept him up in their grasp and left him with little time for thinking about such things as “after.”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
It was cold out. Or maybe it wasn’t, but it felt chilly to Maggie. She sat on the edge of the porch that ran across the front of the general store.
Where are you, Alex? Too far away for me to imagine? That’s what the machine that looked like you said. Where is that? I don’t even know what part of the sky to look at.
“Alex?” another voice called out.
A light breeze stirred the dust in front of the store. A hunting spider scrambled across the open space, searching for some unfortunate arthropod smaller than itself.
“Alex?” the voice called again, a note of concern attached to it now. That was Mrs. Rogan. How much should she be told? The Beta Unit hadn’t forced any guidelines on Maggie, had told her to use her own judgment. It was her world, her people. Her life.
She rose. It was time for Alex’s mother, at least, to learn the truth. Mrs. Rogan might throw her and her incredible story out of the trailer, but she felt bound to try. She patted Mr. President and left.
Behind her lights, sounds, movement familiar and yet different. The videogame on the porch was going gently berserk, humming and flashing, vibrating on its levelers. Maggie didn’t see, concentrating on how she’d tell Mrs. Rogan.
Just as she didn’t see the old weathervane atop the store begin to spin wildly, even though there was hardly any wind. It picked up speed, soon was rotating fast enough to be little more than a blur in the night.
Between the trailers Maggie paused, thoughtful. Granny was leaning out of a window nearby, a thick cigar smoking between her fingers.
“Granny, have you seen Alex?”
“Can’t say as I have. That boy’s been kind of scarce here lately.” She gestured with the stogie. “You’re not the only one lookin’ for him, neither.”
“I heard Mrs. Rogan.”
“She ain’t the only one.”
Figures appeared, exiting the Rogan trailer and walking toward Maggie. She recognized several of her friends along with Mrs. Rogan, and one non-friend; Jack Blake. She stood and waited for them.
“You want to know where Alex is?” Blake was saying as soon as he spotted her, “ask Maggie. She knows. She was with him when he stole my pickup.”
“He did not steal it,” Maggie shot back angrily. “He borrowed it.”
“Yeah?” Blake was snarling at her, not the least bit affectionate now. More important things were at stake. “Then where is it?”
Maggie thought back to the wild chase in the truck and the robot’s little surprise box under the dash and the incinerating heat when the pickup had smashed into the alien assassin’s ship and said nothing.
“Maggie,” Mrs. Rogan asked in a gentle but no-nonsense voice, “where’s Alex?”
“Where’s my truck!” Blake yelled, without giving her a chance to reply. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
Maggie ignored him, wondering that she could ever have found him even slightly attractive, and kept a lid on her temper as she spoke to Mrs. Rogan. It was apparent that no one was going to leave until they got some answers. She’d just have to try and explain as best she could.
“Mrs. Rogan, it’s like this about Alex. He isn’t …”
The dogs began to howl. All the dogs, not just Mr. President. They were joined by the cats. If Mrs. Edward’s goldfish could’ve howled they would have joined the chorus as well. Suddenly no one was listening to Maggie.
Outside Otis’s trailer, Mr. President was yowling with puppylike enthusiasm. His master came stumbling out and was about to berate his fool dog when something on the porch caught his eye.
Oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything over his union suit, Otis started for the porch, transfixed by the sight of the rocking, squealing, strobing videogame. Above him, unseen, the weathervane stopped spinning as if shot and all four compass point indicators suddenly bent sharply toward the night sky. Something blew Otis’s sleeping cap off. A descending bright light made him step backward, shielding his eyes. The Starlight Starbright sign on the front of the store was glowing powerfully, bright enough to be read a hundred miles away.
The falling light came from the underside of something that was lowering itself toward the parking lot. Leaving Mrs. Rogan and her friends from school behind, Maggie started walking rapidly toward the light. Other faces appeared at windows and doors as the residents of the trailer park left bed or TV or bathroom to have a look. The commotion was sufficient to penetrate the brightly painted teepee set up in the Rogan yard. Two small occupants emerged to see what was happening.
“Far out!” said Louis’s friend David. “We been invaded!”
“Klingons!” shouted Louis gleefully as he started toward the descending shape.
The spaceship touched ground, silent except for a deep internal humming. Maggie recalled the Beta’s warning words. This mi ght be another assassin, bolder than his predecessors. But she couldn’t keep herself from moving slowly toward the faintly glowing ship.
The logo emblazoned on its side looked like the one the Beta had described to her, but she couldn’t be sure. She was cautious, but hopeful. Setting down in the midst of a hundred witnesses, primitive or not, didn’t seem like the ZZ-Designate’s style.
A voice called to her. “Maggie?” Otis, standing in front of the store. She ignored him.
Something was descending from the belly of the spacecraft, a lift of some kind. Mutterings rose from the growing crowd of curious onlookers. They stood there by the store in their underwear and bathrobes, and watched as a creature stepped off the lift and walked toward them. It wore a peculiar suit and helmet. Its outline looked human enough.
Then it stopped in front of Maggie and removed its helmet.
“Alex!” Her face lit up as brightly as the ship’s landing lights. “Alex, is it you? Is it really you?” She took a step toward him, hesitated. “Or should I open you up to check?”
He grinned down at her, a familiar, warm, guileless grin. “Nothing in here but us organics, Maggie.”
She jumped into his arms, staggering him. “It is you! Alex, Alex, Alex. . . .”