Xenophobia (28 page)

Jameson led them into a cafeteria. The tables and chairs had been used to barricade one end of the room overlooking the courtyard. A couple of the tables had been put back on the barren linoleum, but most of them still lay in chaos by the windows. Jameson gestured to the table and chairs.

“Lieutenant McCallister is on his way,” one of the trailing soldiers said, standing guard by the door.

“Well, he’s going to love this,” Jameson replied.

Stella wheeled around the room as Elvis and Bower sat at the table. She was inquisitive. Bower could see her probing overturned chairs, and the shattered remains of a vending machine with cans of coke and candy bars strewn across the ground, but she was most interested in the serving benches with their stainless steel tops.

There were two jugs full of water on the table, along with a bunch of paper cups.

“No coffee, I’m afraid,” Jameson said, pouring water into the cups and handing them to Elvis and Bower. “Are you hungry? Can we get you some food?”

Bower nodded, drinking the water quickly and getting a refill.

One of the soldiers by the door slipped carefully along the wall and into the kitchen to get them something to eat.

“And what about our friend?” Jameson asked. Bower noted that Jameson kept the table between him and the alien as the creature moved around the room. Bower and Elvis were content to sit there comfortably with the alien rummaging around the cafeteria, Jameson was still unnerved by her and didn’t sit down until Stella settled.

“She likes water,” Bower said, trying to be helpful.

Elvis took the glass jug over to the creature. He placed it on the stainless steel bench, saying, “Are you thirsty?”

The creature stopped and began examining the jug. Bower was fascinated to watch as a stream of bugs raced up and down the red blades touching briefly at the jug. Before her eyes, the glass jug appeared to dissolve from the top down as the creature assimilated both the glass and the water at once.

“Well, she liked that,” Elvis said, laughing as he sat down again. He turned to a soldier standing by the kitchen and said, “Same again, bartender.”

Elvis turned his chair around so he could straddle the seat as he leaned on the chair back watching the alien. He was mesmerized by Stella.

A young lieutenant walked in and froze in the doorway. Instantly, the alien bristled, all its appendages stiffening like swords and spikes.

“Easy, girl,” Elvis said in a soft voice. “It’s OK. We’re safe. We’re among friends.”

Whether the alien understood his words or just the tone of his voice, Bower wasn’t sure, but Stella relaxed and went back to examining the serving line. She was opening drawers and cupboards, just as Bower had seen her do on the factory floor.

“It’s OK, Frank. Just don’t make any sudden moves,” Jameson said.

“Is that ... Is that ...”

“Yep,” Jameson replied. “Apparently it is.”

The young officer never took his eyes of the alien. He moved cautiously, slowly stepping over to the far side of the table next to Jameson.

“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked quietly.

Elvis smiled, saying, “If you don’t shoot at her, she won’t tear your arms out of their sockets.”

Bower wasn’t sure that helped.

“We’ve got to call this through,” the
lieutenant said. “Command is not going to believe this.”

“So what happened back there?” Jameson asked. Bower could see him looking intently at Elvis and his withered arm.

“We were overrun,” Elvis began. “I lost my arm while sheltering from an RPG. Stella gave me a new one.”

“So, what?” Jameson asked. “She carries spares?”

Elvis laughed, gesturing to his elbow as he said, “It was a bloody mess. Somehow, she regrew my arm. I don’t know how.”

Elvis looked to Bower.

“I saw it, but I can’t explain it,” she said, somewhat lost for words.

“From there,” Elvis continued. “I hot-wired a truck and we came here.”

Jameson scratched the side of his head. Bower could see the look on his face. He must have known Elvis was compressing an inordinate amount of detail into just a few words, but he let that slide. He was clearly impressed. Having an alien before them was just too fantastic. There would be time for a proper debrief at some point, but not here, not now.

“And Bosco?” Jameson asked.

“They killed him,” Elvis replied, cutting in rapidly before Bower could say anything, not that she would have.

On one level, it was a lie, Bower knew that, and yet Elvis was right to blame the warlord. It may have been Stella that carried out the sentence, but the sentence had been passed by Adan and his men. Elvis wasn’t being forthcoming, and Bower understood why, he was protecting Stella. Given the creature’s menacing, threatening appearance, the last thing anyone needed to hear was that she’d shredded a US Ranger in barely a second. And yet Bower couldn’t leave the details so scant. She was determined to say more while being careful not to implicate Stella.

“Adan captured us,” she said, and Elvis shot a fierce look at her, clearly wanting her to shut up. “They murdered Bosco in front of us. He never stood a chance.”

“And the alien?” Jameson asked.

The lieutenant sat down next to Jameson. Bower could see the glazed look in his eyes. He might not be up to logically resolving the various aspects of this puzzle, but Jameson was.

“They threw us in with Stella. We don’t know where she came from or how they captured her, but she was there when we got there, trapped on the ground floor of an abandoned factory.”

“And Adan captured her?” Jameson asked, pulling at the threads of the story. “You’re sure of that?”

“Yes,” Bower replied.

“So you saw Adan alive?”

“Yes.”

Elvis had his lips clenched.

“Do you know how or when Adan died?”

Bower shook her head.

“We heard he was killed by a woman, a foreigner.”

Bower looked down, avoiding eye contact with Jameson. She was afraid if she explained her part in Adan’s death she’d inadvertently give away Stella’s part in Bosco’s death.

Jameson wasn’t satisfied, the tone of his voice revealed that, but the lieutenant was as he smiled, saying, “Well, it’s exceptional work. You’ve escaped in the confusion surrounding the general’s death, and you’ve freed an alien. God knows what we’re going to do with ... her, but you did the right thing, and that is to be commended.”

The soldier returned from the kitchen carrying a plate with several packages of food wrapped in foil. Like Jameson and the lieutenant, he approached the table so as to keep the flimsy structure between him and the alien. You have no idea how fast she can move, Bower thought, but she didn’t want to spook them so she remained silent. If they felt safe approaching from that direction, all well and good.

“Is there anything I can get for ...” the soldier asked, his sentence trailing to a stop midway.

“Another jug of water,” Elvis replied.

Bower was fascinated by the presumption with which Elvis treated Stella. They had no way of knowing what Stella needed. Another jug of water was a good guess, but it was only a guess. And yet that could have been like a Mars Bar for the alien creature; hardly something that would provide any real nourishment. Bower doubted Stella could make use of terrestrial proteins. Perhaps raw materials like water and the silica in glass were best, but they really needed Stella to tell them what she needed.

“OK,” Jameson said. “Well, it’s damn good to have the two of you back, even if you have brought home a stray. McCallister and I are going to have to call this through.

“I’d like to ask you to stay here. You’re not under arrest, but I’d rather the three of you didn’t go wandering around. There are toilets over there, and we’ll get you anything you need, but for now, just stay put while we figure out what to do from here.”

“Roger, that,” Elvis replied.

“OK,” Bower said, feeling it was important to respond for herself.

Jameson and McCallister got up cautiously, taking pains not to scrape their chairs on the linoleum and make any excessive noise. Stella appeared to ignore them. As they left, Bower could hear them talking excitedly to each other in the hallway.

For her part, Stella had found a potted plant, an indoor palm no more than two feet high. Extraterrestrial bugs ran along Stella’s outstretched arms, examining the leaves, trunk, soil and the pot itself. She seemed particularly interested in the soil.

Bower poked at the food packets on the table.

“What is this?”

“They’re MREs,” Elvis replied. “Meals Ready to Eat.”

As unappealing as they looked, Bower was past caring. She tore one open and began eating something that tasted vaguely like corned beef and sweet corn mixed with a limp, leafy green vegetable that had long since lost its green. Whether it was spinach or okra, it tasted precisely how it looked, disgusting. Truth be told, Bower was aware that taste was a function of expectations, both in terms of sight and smell before the tongue ever savored any flavor, but she couldn’t see this pre-cooked meal as desirable for anything other than the raw consumption of calories.

Elvis tossed one of the MREs across the floor toward Stella. The package slid over next to the palm. The alien probed the plastic, tearing it open and examining the contents for a few seconds before turning back to the palm.

“Well, what do you know,” Elvis said to Bower. “MREs are now MRAs, Meals-Rejected-by-Aliens.”

He laughed, taking a bite out of something that looked distinctly like compressed cardboard.

Time dragged.

Elvis fell asleep.

Bower wasn’t sure how he could sleep sitting on a chair, but he was resting his head on his elbow propped up on the table. His feet were up on another chair and he seemed comfortable enough.

Bower watched Stella.

The alien had found a spider’s web in the corner. With a deft touch, she examined the silk threads of its web, observing how the spider responded to various vibrations. Flies buzzed around, Stella caught one with her lightning reflexes, catching it between two pincer-like ends of her scarlet-red fronds. She held the fly gently, so much so the insect continued to beat its wings, trying to pull away. From her core, extraterrestrial insects streamed upward toward the fly, examining what, Bower wasn’t sure, but they were busy. After a few minutes, Stella placed the fly in the spider’s web and watched as the arachnoid scurried over and enveloped the fly in silk. At least, ‘watched’ was the best verb Bower could think of to describe the six or seven blades poised around the web, each with an extraterrestrial beetle at its tip, somehow observing what was going on.

There was a newspaper rack by the door. Bower picked up a glossy magazine adorned with images of the latest bimbo gaining her fifteen minutes of fame.

“Forgive me,” she said, placing the open magazine on the floor next to Stella. “Don’t look too closely at the content, but this is how we communicate in written form, with words and pictures.”

For the first time, Bower realized the creature was multitasking, and not in the swiftly switching manner that humans would multitask, giving only fleeting attention to several different things in rapid succession. The vast swirling arms on the creature continued their observation of the palm at one level, the spider on another, while several thin blades began examining the magazine.

Bower stepped back, wanting to observe how curious the alien was about the contents of the magazine and its compressed, two-dimensional images of three-dimensional people and nature scenes. The creature picked up the magazine with the tips of its fronds, making Bower wonder quite how it achieved such gecko-like grip.

Stella examined the magazine, but she was more interested in the media than the content. She probed the thickness of the paper, the binding on the spine, the dimensions of the page, but she only flicked through a couple of pages before putting the magazine down.

“I know how you feel,” Bower said, sitting back down at the table and staring at the alien creature.

Stella split open several of the palm leaves, but not vertically as a human would cut through a leaf, she split them sideways, cleanly separating the upper and lower faces of the leaves with surgical precision.

A swarm of insects at her heart moved in a stream out to her extremities. Whether they were simply all taking a look or retrieving samples for some kind of analysis back at the core of the creature, Bower wasn’t sure, but she got the impression Stella was in her element. The alien was content to examine a level of biology most humans would walk past without a second thought.

Bower was tired.

She rested her arms on the table, crossing them and resting her head on the soft muscle of her forearm. For a few minutes, she stared lazily at the astonishing creature with its brilliant red fronds reflecting the light around it, and its inner core a hive of activity. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.

When she awoke, she woke with a rush.

Bower recognized the roar around her immediately. Fighter jets were blazing past somewhere overhead.

“Hey,” Elvis said, seeing she was awake.

Bower sat up.

Her neck was sore, but she was surprised to find her head had been resting on a pillow. Someone had seen her sleeping and slipped a pillow beneath her. Bower wiped some saliva away from the corner of her lips. She’d been dribbling in her sleep, and that made her feel embarrassed. There was a slight, damp mark on the pillow, but Elvis didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he just didn’t care.

The angle of the sun had changed. The shadows that had been so long in the early morning, now cut back at a sharp angle. The day was hot. Fans turned on the ceiling, circulating the air but bringing no relief. It had to be about one or two in the afternoon.

“Sleep well?” Elvis asked.

“Like a rock,” Bower replied. “Hard and uncomfortable.”

Elvis smiled.

He’d changed into a white singlet, leaving his blood-encrusted jungle shirt hanging over one of the chairs. A nice, neatly ironed shirt lay on the table next to him, but in the heat of the day he hadn’t put it on.

Although Elvis didn’t have sunglasses, he had slicked back his hair, having shaved to give his face a clean-cut look with sharply defined sideburns. Elvis was back. Sure, his arm still looked anemic and stunted, but he was as cocky as the first day she’d met him. Had he used water or vegetable oil from the kitchen, she wondered, looking at his neatly combed hair. Oil would last longer but would attract dust. It had to be water, she figured, either way, the rock-god was ready to go on stage.

Several rows of plants lined one of the walls and the bench-top. They hadn’t been there when Bower fell asleep. There were more palms, ferns, flowering Gerbera, daisies and orchids, every plant that spoke of somewhere other than Africa, plants that would only ever be found within an embassy in the sun-scorched country that was Malawi.

“They must have figured she likes botany,” Bower said.

“I guess so. I was asleep. Stella seems to like flowers. They keep her amused.”

Dirt had been tipped out on the floor and piled up neatly, like sand having run through an hourglass. Several of the plants were lying on the ground, their roots exposed to the air, and still Stella seemed enthralled by the diversity.

“Looks like she’s been having fun,” Bower said, trying to suppress a yawn.

“They brought you a change of clothes,” Elvis said, gesturing to a set of Army fatigues and a towel sitting on the table. The clothes were not only clean, they’d been ironed. Bower picked them up; a shirt, trousers, a nice new leather belt, a pair of white socks and some underwear. No bra, though, but that was no surprise as sizing wasn’t generic. The underwear didn’t look too flattering, but they were as white as new fallen snow.

Bower went to the bathroom. She was surprisingly stiff and sore. She used a hand towel to wash at the basin. After changing, she took some time to wash water over her face and through her hair. When she came out, Elvis was eating a candy bar. He offered her one.

“Chocolate’s melted, but if you’re looking for a sugar-hit, they’re not too bad.”

Bower took the candy bar, saying, “Thanks.” She didn’t recognize the brand, but she was sure it wasn’t supposed to be so limp and mushy. Peeling back the wrapper, she struggled not to make a mess as she ate. Bower ended up licking her fingers and placed the grotesque-looking wrapper in one of the paper cups.

The sound of helicopters grew closer.

Bower stood and moved over by the broken windows. As she stared out across the city, a flight of four F-18s banked hard to one side above the horizon, their engines roared as they soared low over the city. Explosions rumbled through the air. Smoke drifted upwards. A few seconds later the ground shook.

Jameson walked in.

The sound of helicopters passing overhead shook the building.

The alien bristled.

“Easy, girl,” Elvis said, and Stella visibly relaxed. Whatever connection the creature held with Elvis, its trust was resolute. Although the thump of rotor blades continued to beat at the air, the creature
went back to comparing flowers. Troops slid down fast ropes thrown out of the helicopters, dropping onto the rooftops surrounding the embassy.

Elvis walked over and stood by Bower near the window.

“What’s going on, Sarge? Those aren’t US choppers. And those planes, they’re not carrying US markings.”

“South African Defense Force,” Jameson replied.

“I thought the UN had pulled out of Malawi,” Bower said.

“They had. That was, until they realized the only alien left on the planet was sheltering in the US embassy in Malawi.”

“I don’t understand,” Bower replied. “What’s happened?”

“The mothership has returned to its original position near the Moon. From what we can tell, they’re preparing to leave. Look, from what I’ve heard, this whole thing has been a cluster-fuck from the start. Everyone’s been so goddamn paranoid.

“People fear that which they don’t understand. And fear leads to lousy decisions. The Russians and Chinese were convinced the US was behind the floaters, that the floaters represented some kind of alien-human alliance led by the West. No one could believe that NASA wasn’t on top of communication with the alien fleet moving through our atmosphere. Truth’s a bitch. The reality was, we were as surprised as everyone else.

“The Russians brought down any floater that crossed into their air space, while the Chinese used tactical nukes against a bunch of floaters that entered the atmosphere over Mongolia. There was no way they were going to allow a bunch of aliens to drift over Beijing or Shanghai.

“The US was more tolerant. At least it wasn’t our official position to bring down the atmospheric craft, but there were plenty of red-necks willing to try. And once the floaters were down, the hunting began. There’s been newsreel showing US civilians parading the carcasses of dead aliens through the streets of Dallas-Fort Worth, Des Moines Iowa, Oklahoma City, you name it.

“A couple of trigger happy pilots in the National Guard brought down another floater outside of DC. That the alien craft was passing almost fifty miles inland from the capital didn’t matter. They complained about lost comms and said they had to take the initiative. The Media treated them like fucking heroes. As far as the Press was concerned, they were repelling the invasion. NASA pleaded for reason, but no one listened. They were too busy celebrating our independence from an alien war that never happened.”

Bower was speechless.

“Apparently, your buddy with the red, wavy fronds can be pretty darn vicious when cornered, but these aliens were still no match for a gang of armed men motivated by sixty years of Hollywood hyperbole. It didn’t take too long for word to get out that the alien’s core is vulnerable. No armor. Can you imagine that, going into battle without any armor.”

“They didn’t think they were going into battle,” Bower said, feeling indignant.

“Yeah, well, we fucked this up. We were pumped. Too many movies or ghost stories, I guess, but we were ready for them. Problem is, they weren’t ready for us.”

“So what’s going to happen to Stella?” Elvis asked.

“Shit, I don’t know,” Jameson replied.

Bower didn’t believe him. There was a slight hesitation in his reply, just enough to cause her to doubt his sincerity.

Jameson must have caught the look on her face, as he continued explaining. “As soon as I confirmed we had a live alien in custody, control got passed from CentCom to NASA. There are a whole bunch of guys stateside dying to talk to you two ... well, to you three.”

“I won’t let anything happen to her, Sarge.”

Elvis gritted his teeth. He looked as though he could have taken on the entire US army singlehanded.

“Easy, big guy. No one’s going to hurt her. In fact, that’s what all this is about. The South Africans have orders not to let anyone within a mile of the embassy. They’re going house to house, driving everyone out, pushing them back beyond the cordon. And that fly-by, that was purely for show. Those birds don’t need to come in that low. They’re flexing muscle, sending a clear signal to the rebels that the gloves are off. There’s two AC-130U Spooky gunships en-route with orders to flatten anyone that so much as sticks their head out of a window with a weapon. Malawi’s center stage. Lilongwe is going into lockdown.”

“And your orders?” Bower asked.

“To keep you safe, all of you.”

“Next steps?” Elvis asked.

Jameson smiled. He had been hiding something, that much Bower knew. Elvis called his bluff.
Jameson
must have been lousy at Poker.

“Look, don’t be alarmed. There’s no conspiracy here. The UN is going into overdrive to protect your friend. No one’s going to let anything happen to her.”

“Where are they taking her,” Elvis asked coldly, and Bower got the distinct impression Elvis knew what was happening, perhaps not the specifics, but he understood the military mindset. NASA might have executive control, but operational control had to lie with some general somewhere, and Bower didn’t even want to think about the political machinations of the United Nations complicating things further.

“There’s no secret base at Area-51 or anything like that. The powers that be simply want to get the alien into a secure environment.”

“Where?” Elvis demanded.

“The William Lawrence is steaming down from Dar El Salam into the straits between Mozambique and Madagascar, while the Ronald Reagan has turned back from Diego Garcia and is en-route toward Dar El Salam to provide air support.”

Bower cried out, saying. “You’re going to put her on a warship? Are you mad?” She couldn’t help herself. She got to her feet, as though standing would somehow make her objections more resonant.

“Think about it,” Jameson replied. “She’s in the middle of a war zone. It’s the safest option.”

Bower shook her head.

“They’re sending in a Osprey to take you to the USS William Lawrence.”

“And what if we don’t want to go?” Bower demanded, her hands resting on her hips. She could see the lieutenant standing behind Jameson. He was quiet, letting Jameson do the talking.

“No one’s going to force you to do anything,” Jameson replied, his hands out in a gesture of friendship. “Look, Liz. It’s me. You know me. Remember back in the village? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you out of harm’s way. I’m not going to do anything that would hurt you or Elvis or this creature. Sure, I’ve got orders but, honestly, if I thought they were in anyway belligerent I’d have no hesitation in defying them.”