Escape Velocity: The Anthology (25 page)

      
I wrap the cotton blanket around my body like a cocoon and fade down onto the mattress. I ate a few minutes ago and now I'm tired. Sleep is good. I close my eyes. Sleep is escape.

      
It's time to go home. I want to go home.

The tall, gray-haired soldier stared at the television screen on the console. He carried the insignia of a major general on his shoulders and several rows of ribbons across his chest. He shook his head. “He's not doing too well. We may have to move him to the new location, soon. At least the poor bastard will be able to get a little fresh air.”

      
Dr. Jackson shrugged and switched off the black-and-white television monitor. “I'm just glad I'm not in his shoes. It might be more merciful to take the poor guy outside and shoot him in the head.”

       “
That's not an option.”

       “
I suppose not.”

       “
No. Do you realize how much we've already learned from him?”

       “
I don't like thinking about it, General.”

       “
The best minds in this country are already researching the information we've gathered from him. We just leak it to them one piece at a time. A group up in Chicago is working on something called an 'integrated circuit.' I have no idea what it means.” He added quietly, “You wouldn't believe some of the things he's told us. It's going to change everything we know.”

       “
Maybe, General. But it seems wrong, though. A cheat.”

       “
Who's to say the whole thing wasn't meant to happen this way?”

      
Jackson yawned and stretched. “Paradoxes. Right. I'm not a physicist, I'm a psychiatrist. Personally, I think he's on the brink of a total mental breakdown. Then, nobody will be able to squeeze anything more out of him. He's cracking already, you know.”

       “
I know.”

       “
Do you believe his story? I mean, where he's from…and when?”

       “
Yes. I think I do.”

       “
It's true, then. You found him in that wreckage, with those…things?”

       “
That's classified.”

      
A long silence hung over the little room. A row of bulky control banks with analog needle indicators and big flashing lights kept a silent vigil on the prisoner. The vacuum tubes beneath their sheet metal panels hummed in unison.

      
General Martin finally broke the nervous silence. “All right, yes. We found him at the site you're talking about. He calls himself an 'astronaut.’ He said those 'things' were ambassadors from another planet and he was their liaison. He was supposedly ferrying them to some type of meeting here on Earth. One of our scientists tried to explain how to me how they all ended up in our time. When he started talking about time warps, I made him stop. I don't really understand it all.” He shot Jackson a warning stare. “Say anything about this and
you'll
be the one going outside for a pistol shot to the head.”

      
Jackson held up his palms. “Hey, take it easy, general. Who would believe me anyway?”

       “
I don't care. Just take my advice and keep your mouth shut.”

      
Jackson said nothing and turned back to the console.

       “
I have a meeting now. I'll be back in a few hours.” The general exited the control room and headed for the elevator. He could see the prisoner's cell and the long interrogation table sitting a few feet away. When the elevator opened, he stepped inside and pushed a button marked 'surface.'

      
A few minutes later, he was in a jeep and heading out the main gate in a cloud of desert dust. As he passed the guards at the box, they saluted smartly.

      
The sign on the gate read: Groom Lake Test Facility. Area 51.     U.S. Government Property. No Trespassing.

      
Witnesses
, General Martin thought,
what a pain in the ass. Time to drive back to Roswell and straighten out a few more.

      
Things were going to change, that was for sure. How much, and in what direction, he was not certain.

Chester

Karl Bunker

I first saw that I had an alien when I got home from grocery shopping. It was clinging to the outside of one of the shopping bags I’d lifted onto the kitchen counter. About the size and shape of a chestnut, the alien was covered with dappled black and white fur, with six tentacle-legs splaying out from its body.

       “
Blegh!” I said, jerking back. Then I leaned in for a closer look. It looked back at me with brown BB-sized eyes. An earless head blended into a round body without a visible neck, but that didn’t seem to impede its mobility. I entertained myself for a bit by shifting my body back and forth and watching it swivel its head to follow me.

      
I figured I’d better catch the thing, so I got an empty plastic food container. I nudged the creature into the container with a spoon and snapped on the lid. I cut holes to give it air.

      
The government had been sending out pamphlets for several years: ‘What To Do If You Find an Alien in Your Home.’ On the cover was a drawing of the thing I had bottled up. Mine was climbing up the wall of its prison; I could just make out the rows of little suction cups on the ends of its flexible legs. Page one of the pamphlet said ‘Step one: Don’t Be Afraid!’ in big letters. ‘These creatures, referred to as Hexapods, are NOT dangerous. There are no reliable reports of anyone receiving a meaningful injury from a Hexapod. Hexapods do NOT carry disease.’

       “
Okay,” I said. “Not afraid. Check.” The Hexapod was now walking, upside-down, across the inside of the lid.

       “
Step two:” the pamphlet continued, “Please call this number immediately. A local representative will then contact you.”

      
Local representative of what? The Department of Funny Looking Little Tentacle Bugs from Outer Space?

       ‘
Step three:’ Please do not try to dispose of the Hexapod. Please do not harm it. Your government and scientists all over the world are very interested in gathering information on each of these creatures as they are found.”

      
My alien was crawling around the floor of the container. It didn’t look threatening. I dialed the number from the pamphlet and gave my details to a bored sounding man.

      
My phone rang five minutes later. “Charles Paulie? This is Amy Saunders; I’m with the Department of Exobiology at Stanford University. We’re handling the interviews of people who have found Hexapods. I understand you have one?”

       “
Yup.”

       “
I can be there in fifteen minutes. Is the Hexi safe?”

       “
I guess so.”

       “
Good,” she said, and hung up.

      
I looked at the dead phone and said “Okay, no problem, see you soon, bye.” Then I looked at the Hexapod. It was squeezing itself through one of the triangular air holes, a third the size of the creature, but it had somehow oozed halfway through. Its torso was grotesquely pinched in the middle, and it looked hopelessly trapped.

       “
What are you doing, you idiot?” I yelled. I thought its little body would be sliced open at any moment, a shower of blood and tiny alien guts spraying out. I pictured the perky (I imagined) Ms Saunders arriving just in time to catch me wiping the remnants of her precious alien off my shirt. As I watched, it kept pulling itself through the hole. Three, then four of its tentacles were outside the lid, gripping the plastic and pulling. Finally it popped free and sat on top of the lid.

       “
Damn,” I said.

      
Now that it was free it seemed contented to sit, pivoting its head to watch me.

      
I was putting away my groceries when Amy Saunders rang my doorbell. I buzzed her in and opened the door to see a lithe young woman coming up the steps two at a time.

       “
Mr Paulie?” She was wearing jeans, a snug knit blouse and a felt beret. She looked like a graduate student, or young faculty.

       “
There it is!” she exclaimed, seeing the creature on the desk. Ignoring me, she picked the little thing up and lifted it to eye level. “Hellooo, little one. Hellooo, hellooo.” With a deft forefinger she rolled it over on its back. Its boneless legs wriggled in the air. She tickled its belly, and it gripped her finger with all six legs. Then she lifted her finger so it was hanging suspended upside down over her palm. “Ooh, you’re a lively one, aren’t you?” she cooed.

      
I shifted, and she turned to me. “Hello, I’m Amy Saunders.” She casually plunked the creature down on my desk and held her hand out. I shook it, making a mental note to wash before eating. She turned away from me and bent over my desk to look again at the Hexapod. “Oh, it’s so funny to see a baby again. For months now I’ve been doing behavioral studies with adults.” She held her hands about two feet apart. “You know, big, twenty-five pound guys.”

      
I nodded.

       “
Well,” she continued, shrugging out of her backpack. “Let’s get started. Where did you first see it? And do you have any herbal tea?”

      
The second question threw me. “Uh, for you, or...?” I pointed at the Hexapod sitting quietly on my desk.

       “
She laughed. “For
me
. I try to stay away from caffeine.” I tried to imagine a caffeinated version of Amy Saunders and decided she had the right idea there. “That reminds me,” she said. She snatched up her backpack and got a few green pellets from a pocket. “Here you go, little fellow; you must be starving.”

      
It picked up a pellet with its two front legs and started munching. “As they mature, they need certain amino acids that are very rare in Earth plants. That’s why they don’t reproduce in the wild. They don’t reach sexual maturity because they’re malnourished.”

      
With the word ‘reproduce’ a suspicion was confirmed: She had a slight r-w speech impediment. I was surprised to realize that I found this immensely attractive. I didn’t have any herbal tea, so I poured some white wine for both of us.

      
Between sips, she put the Hexapod onto a piece of graph paper and photographed it, weighed it on a little scale, took a drop of its blood with a little hypodermic (“Ouch ouch ouch” she said in sympathy with the little thing), and took a swab from inside its mouth with a sliver of cotton-tipped plastic the size of a pin.

       “
So,” she said then, sitting back in my desk chair and holding her wine glass with both hands. “Are you going to keep him?
Please
say you’ll keep him. I
know
you’ll be happy with him.”

       “
What? Keep it? I thought you were going to take it.”

       “
We don’t need him; we get all the specimens we need from laboratory breeding. When one shows up in the wild we like to document it to keep track of how many of their eggs are falling from space and where. But you’re welcome to keep this one. As long as you have him neutered it’s legal for you to keep him as a pet.”

       “
Uh... I haven’t had a pet since... I mean, I wouldn’t know how to... I don’t think I...”

      
Amy laughed, tilting her head back and showing me a beautiful throat. “It’ll be fine, Charles.” They make
wonderful
pets. They test as being about as intelligent as dogs; they're devoted, playful, and very sensitive to the feelings of their owners.” She regarded me for a moment. “Here, let’s do an experiment.”

      
I loved the way she said ‘expewiment.’ She scooped up the Hexapod and set it down in her palm. It was still clutching a food pellet.

       “
Now you try. Put your hand here.” She transferred the creature to my palm. I tensed as I felt its suction-cup feet gripping my skin. Carrying its food, it walked off my hand and onto the desk until it was a couple of inches away from my fingertips. Then it started eating again.

       “
You see? He knows you’re not comfortable with him yet.”

       “
Maybe he just doesn’t like me.”

       “
Noooo,” she sang. “He’s not running away from you, is he? He knew you felt tense. See how he watches you? That’s the amazing thing about Hexis; they’re incredibly observant of creatures around them. That’s how they learn to be so sensitive to body language and facial expression.”

      
I thought about the full-grown Hexis I’d seen on TV. I’d seen some who had learned to catch and throw a ball, rearing up on their four hind legs to throw.

       “
Hmm, I’ve been thinking about getting a pet lately...” Dogs chew furniture, cats scratch and puke up hairballs. I wondered what pet Hexapods do. Climb up to the ceiling and pee on your head? I reached out a forefinger to stroke the little guy. His fur felt like velvet. “Okay... I guess I’ll try keeping him.”

       “
Good,” said Amy. For a happy moment I thought she was going to hug me.

      
Then I remembered something. “Uh, what about the sting?” Each foreleg of these creatures, I’d heard, had a retractable stinger.

“
Don’t worry, they don’t have any venom until they’re seven months old, they only sting to defend themselves, and the venom isn’t that toxic. Less painful than a bee sting.”