Alien Caller (7 page)

He studied her some more while
she ate, as she in turn studied him, each starting to discover that
they had much in common as well as their obvious differences. They
both enjoyed the fruit bran; maybe she had a cholesterol issue
too
.
They both expressed
that enjoyment through smiling and making similar noises. They were
also both right handed, using the spoon in the same way. She had
used a spoon before. He wondered if she had used spoons on her own
world or previously on Earth.

When the first
bowl was gone, he poured her another, realizing she was probably
hungry. He didn’t know how long she’d been wandering around out
there hurt and lost, but it was a fair bet she hadn’t eaten for at
least a day or so. He noticed she didn’t object as he poured it
into her bowl. He left her with the yoghurt and went to put on the
kettle. Coffee, was always his truest breakfast. But he wondered if
she would be interested in it.

Carefully he
brought the jar over to her, letting her smell the contents, and
also a packet of tea bags, and some hot chocolate mix. It was the
chocolate that caught her interest and she pointed at it with
interest. Soon he put a cup of hot chocolate down in front of her
with some milk and sugar beside it for her to add if she wanted. In
return she handed him the empty cereal bowl and nodded her thanks,
another typically human custom. For a moment, a few fractions of a
second perhaps, he was overcome by the familiarity of it all. The
homeliness.

Here she was, a
woman who was completely alien to his world and who was nothing
like any human being, and yet they were playing happy families in
the kitchen as though they were old friends. It was peculiar to say
the least and he was sure she felt it too.

The moment
passed and she reached for the milk and sugar. Soon she was taking
good sized sips of the drink and rubbing her stomach while making
yum yum noises. David realized that she was both telling him that
it was good, and also poking fun at his earlier pantomime as he had
worried human food would harm her. But it was in a light hearted
sort of way, as though she shared a joke. He was becoming quite
good at reading her expressions, mainly because they were the same
as anyone else's.

A sense of
humour was clearly another trait they shared. Tool making,
technology, humour, sketching, a desire for exploration, as well as
the physical two arms, two legs, two eyes, breathing the same air
and eating the same food. Yes, they definitely had a lot in common.
The more he thought about it, the more their similarity surprised
him. He didn’t know what he’d expected of an alien, but she surely
wasn’t it.

His guest he
noticed didn’t seem totally overcome by their similarities or
differences. Instead she took them in her stride, which meant she’d
known in advance. Which made sense. Her people had surely been here
for some time and had sent home reports. But then why didn’t she
speak English? And then he remembered that she did. Or at least she
knew one word. Perhaps she wasn’t a linguist, or maybe her duties
had nothing to do with study. She might be a pilot or a crewman, or
perhaps a soldier. Not a good thought but possible, especially
considering her fighting reactions.

Which led him
to the next question. What was he to do with her? His duty was
clear. He had to take her to the authorities and let them deal with
her. The problem was that he had a fair idea of what they would do
to her and he couldn’t allow that. Ever. Whatever else she was, he
knew she wasn’t a spy or a double agent out to steal American
secrets or to blow up or assassinate anyone, and he didn’t want her
suffering on his conscience. Besides, if he brought her back to
them he would be pulled quickly back into the intelligence world
and that was something he never wanted to return to again. Then
again he might well be killed if he refused. Or even if he didn’t.
There was also the very real possibility that she wouldn’t want to
go, and he had to assume she was armed like him. Maybe better.
There could be a battle, and who knew what could happen after that
if her people found out. War? It was unthinkable, but very human.
And despite being an alien, she was very human too.

War against an
alien race with the ability to travel to the stars. That would be a
complete disaster.

The second
option was to bring her back to her people. But that would entail
him walking into her folk’s lair, assuming he could find it and
that was also something he was more than a little loath to do. Sure
she seemed pleasant enough, but that didn’t mean she’d let him walk
away with the knowledge he had of her. No more would her people in
all likelihood. Then again what if she was an enemy? Was she merely
accepting his hospitality, such as it was, while she recovered her
strength, and really was just waiting to pounce?

Maybe her
people really were here preparing to launch a war. Maybe she was
just pretending friendship. Lying to him. How could he risk letting
her return?

The only other
choice was to keep her here as a prisoner and he really didn’t want
to do that. Or rather he would have preferred for her to stay of
her own volition but he wasn’t sure that he could trust her to do
that. It also wasn't something he was happy about when he had a
possibly armed and dangerous alien, who he could barely communicate
with, on his hands. Besides for how long would she stay? A day, a
week, a year, a lifetime? Still, it was also the only option that
left neither her nor the Earth at risk.

And how to
explain any of it to her?

The sudden
sound of tires on the gravel outside, took him completely away from
his worries, and brought him back to the present with a thump. His
first thought was that her people had arrived to collect her. Who
else would visit this early in the morning, especially when he was
playing house with an alien? Would they knock or burn the house
down? And how would they know she was here? Also, why would they be
driving a car when they surely had space ships? He drew his gun and
held it at the ready. Unfortunately, she saw his reaction and drew
her own device. No doubt she thought it was his own people come to
take her away, and besides she’d watched him draw.

For the longest
seconds of both their lives, they both stared suspiciously at each
other, and the door, waiting. It was hard to say which of them was
more nervous. But David knew one wish above all others; that he had
had windows on the rear side of the cabin to see who was coming.
But of course all the windows faced the lake. It was after all a
lake front cabin.

The foot falls
approached. They both heard them getting nearer up the gravel
drive. Just one set, and not moving very quickly so it clearly
wasn’t a squad of marines. Then the footsteps changed. They went
from crunching gravel to hard taps. It was then that he knew the
visitor had reached the rear deck; hard shoes on a wooden floor.
Finally, they stopped and someone knocked on the door causing them
both to jump, despite the fact they’d been expecting it.

“Mr. Hill, it's
Alice. Can I come in?” Another surprise as he heard the elderly
lady’s voice and wondered what on Earth she was doing visiting him
at this hour. Or at all.

Alice James was
the resident gossip queen and a well-meaning busy body. She hardly
ever called on him. Not that he disliked her or she him. It was
just that they had so little in common. They moved in different
circles and only stopped to make polite conversation from time to
time.

“Ahh, can you
wait a minute? I’m ahh, not dressed.” It was all he could think of
at such short notice. But one thing he knew. He didn’t want her to
see the alien. God alone knew what she might do, but he had a
perfect idea of who she’d tell - everybody. But how to persuade the
alien to hide in the next room before Alice decided to go to the
glass slider at the front of the cabin instead of the back
door.

Even as he
turned to try he saw the look in her eyes, suspicion. She didn’t
trust him. But it was not the sort of look he’d expected to see.
Because she wasn’t afraid of the woman at the door, she was scared
of him. She feared he might do something bad to his neighbour. He
wondered why.

He wasn’t given
the chance to find out as the back door suddenly swung open and he
turned in surprise to see Alice marching calmly in as if she owned
the place. She had the most knowing look on her face and there was
something in her eyes that said she wasn’t even vaguely surprised
by what she saw. She’d expected it. David stared at her and then as
the truth dawned back at his house guest. They knew each other and
he’d been set up. Yet at exactly the same instant, she too stared
at Alice and then back at him.

“Looks like
you’re well enough covered to me.”

Fingers
tightened on weapons David and his alien guest spent an eternity
staring at each other and then at Alice, wondering who would shoot
first. Neither wanted to, but they were both afraid the other
would.

“Play nice now
children. No-one’s going to hurt you.” It took a while before
either of them let the old woman’s words wash through them. Then
they took hold. Neither of them took their hands off their weapons,
but the tension eased, just a tiny bit as they stepped back from
the edge once more.

“Put the guns
down. We’re all friends here. You’ll only end up doing something
stupid.” She was so calm and so certain, David found himself
obeying, or at least lowering his gun, and wondered why. The alien
also lowered her weapons, as she imitated David’s actions,
understanding everything even though she didn’t even speak English.
The tension eased off a few more notches, but apparently it wasn’t
enough.

“I said put
them down! Right down! And then push them away. You’ll only end up
hurting each other.” There was a sudden strength in the old woman’s
voice and David felt the need to comply. A little. He wasn't
discarding his weapons, but he still cautiously slung his weapon
behind his back, watching as his former patient returned hers to
her belt. Their weapons no longer in their hands at least, once
again they moved carefully to opposite ends of the room, neither
knowing what to expect, what to do.

“That’s better.
Just like little children with cap guns.” Coming from the old lady
it almost seemed a reasonable statement, and David tried hard not
to feel like a small child as she shook her head pityingly. He
wasn’t entirely successful. Yet he wasn’t the only one affected. On
the other side of the room his former patient was similarly trying
not to look down at her toes. It was strange that they shared the
same body language he later reflected. But apparently they did as
he understood her reaction perfectly.

How was it he
belatedly wondered, that his guest could apparently understand Mrs.
James when she spoke English, and yet she couldn’t understand him?
Yet even as he wondered he heard the answer, echoing faintly in his
alien guest’s ear. He’d been hearing it for some time, and thought
it was just the buzzing of a fly. He turned and looked closely,
noticing for the first time that she had a tiny black lump just on
the entrance to the ear canal. He hadn’t noticed it before. But
then he hadn’t really looked closely at her ears. In turn he saw
his neighbour had something similar on her throat. She spoke, and
it translated her words into his patient’s ear.

David wanted to
ask how she could have such a thing, and then realized he really
didn’t want to know the answer. The fact that they could
communicate in such a way suggested that there was some close
connection between the alien woman and his elderly neighbour, and
that spelled all sorts of trouble for an ex-military intelligence
agent. He had to do something. He just didn’t know what. Her next
words unfortunately took the decision out of his hands.

“David Hill,
I’d like you to meet Ayn Cyrea. Ayn Cyrea, David Hill.”

In that one
sentence he later realized, Alice changed his entire world forever.
Perhaps more so than anything else in his life ever would. Partly
it was the fact that she clearly knew the alien woman, and he had
to accept that his elderly sweet old neighbour was in fact in
cahoots with aliens, and that he should no doubt be ringing up the
authorities about her too. But it was that she knew his patient’s
name which really turned his world upside down. For in doing so
David suddenly had to accept the alien woman was a person and not
just an alien. A nameless alien was so much easier to fear and if
necessary kill, while a person, no matter where they came from or
what they looked like, wasn’t an alien. Not really. And she was a
person, though she wasn’t a human being.

Ayn Cyrea made
a gesture with her hands, unfolding them and pushing them forward
towards him as though she was releasing a basket ball, and he
eventually realized that she was probably doing the equivalent of
nodding. In turn he nodded very slightly to her, acknowledging the
introduction. Neither of them however, took their eyes off the
other.

“So I see
you’ve been having fun.” With that Mrs. James cast her eyes around
the remains of his lounge, and for the first time he took in the
devastation they had made with his own eyes as they followed hers.
Chairs were knocked over and broken, coffee cups and their contents
were strewn around the floor, and the floor rugs were scattered
like lumps of dough around the walls. Ayn Cyrea also saw the mess
and for a split second he thought he might even have seen a trace
of shame in her eyes. But he ignored it, his mind finally returning
to some semblance of order, and instead knew he had to ask the old
lady all the questions he couldn’t ask the alien woman.