F&SF July/August 2011 Read online

  All the while, the intruder was changing. Its rounded shape held steady but the hull was a shinier, prettier black. Putting his face close, Bloch felt the heat left over from slamming into the atmosphere; nevertheless, he could hold his face close and peer inside the glassy crust, watching tiny dark shapes scurry here to there and back again.

  "Neat," he said.

  Bystanders started to shout at the shirtless boy, telling him to be careful and not burn himself. They said that he should find clothes before he caught a cold. But Bloch was comfortable, except where his elbow was sore from busting out the van window. He held the arm up to the radiant heat and watched the ship's hull reworking itself. Car radios were blaring, competing voices reporting the same news: A giant interstellar craft was striking the Earth's night side. Reports of power outages and minor impacts were coming in. Europe and Russia might be getting the worst of it, though there wasn't any news from the Middle East. Then suddenly most of the stations shifted to the same feed, and one man was talking. He sounded like a scientist lecturing to a class. The "extraordinary probe" had been spread across millions of square miles, and except for little knots and knobs, it was more delicate than any spiderweb, and just as harmless. "The big world should be fine," he said.

  On Pender Boulevard, cars were jammed up for blocks and sirens were descending. Fire trucks and paramedics found too much to do. The dead and living children had been pulled out of the van, and the screaming woman stood in the middle of the carnage, steering the first helpers to them. Meanwhile the cat-litter man and hose man were staring at the spaceship.

  "It came a long ways," said the litter man.

  "Probably," said the hose man.

  Bloch joined them.

  "Aren't you cold?" the hose man asked.

  The boy shrugged and said nothing.

  And that topic was dropped. "Yeah, this ship came a long waysI pick up the corner of the net... I pick up the corner of the netacH h," the litter man reported. "I sure hope they didn't mean to do this."

  "Do what?" asked his friend.

  "Hurt people."

  Something here was wrong. Bloch looked back at the Buick and the sun, waiting to figure out what was bothering him. But it didn't happen. Then he looked at the spaceship again. The shininess had vanished, the crust now dull and opaque except where little lines caught the last of the day's light.

  Once again, Bloch started forward.

  The two men told him to be careful, but then both of them walked beside the sixteen-year-old.

  "Something's happening," the hose man said.

  "It is," his buddy agreed.

  As if to prove them right, a chunk of the crust fell away, hitting the ground with a light ringing sound.

  Bloch was suddenly alone.

  Radio newscasters were talking about blackouts on the East Coast and citizens not panicking, and some crackly voice said that it was a beautiful night in Moscow, no lights working but ten centimeters of new snow shining under a cold crescent moon. Then a government voice interrupted the poetry. U.S. military units were on heightened alert, he said. Bloch thought of his brother as he knelt, gingerly touching the warm, glassy, and almost weightless shard of blackened crust. Another two pieces fell free, one jagged fissure running between the holes. Probe or cannonball or whatever, the object was beginning to shatter.

  People retreated to where they felt safe, calling to the big boy who insisted on standing beside the visitor.

  Bloch pushed his face inside the nearest gap.

  A bright green eye looked out at him.

  Swinging his sore elbow, Bloch shattered a very big piece of the featherweight egg case.

  "Beautiful," bystanders said. "Lovely."

  The screaming woman found a quieter voice. "Isn't she sweet?" she asked. "What a darling."

  "She?" the hose man said doubtfully.

  "Look at her," the woman said. "Isn't that a she?"

  "Looks girlish to me," the litter man agreed.

  The alien body was dark gray and long and streamlined, slick to the eye like a finely grained stone polished to shine in the reflected light. It seemed to be lying on its back. Complex appendages looked like meaty fins, but with fingers that managed to move, four hands clasping at the air and then at one another. The fluked tail could have been found on a dolphin, and the face would have been happy on a seal—a whiskerless round-faced seal with a huge mouth pulled into a magnificent grin. But half of the face and most of the animal's character was focused in those two enormous eyes, round with iridescent green irises and perfect black pupils bright enough to reflect Bloch's curious face.

  The egg's interior was lined with cables and odd machines and masses of golden fibers, and the alien was near the bottom, lying inside a ceramic bowl filled with a desiccated blood-colored gelatin. The body was too big for the bowl, and it moved slowly and stiffly, pressing against the bone-white sides.

  "Stay back," bystanders implored.

  But as soon as people backed away, others pushed close, wrestling for the best view.

  The screaming woman touched Bloch. "Did she say something?"

  "I didn't hear anything."

  "She wants to talk," the woman insisted.

  That seemed like a silly idea, and the boy nearly laughed. But that's when the seal's mouth opened and one plaintive word carried over the astonished crowd.

  "Help," the alien begged.

  People fell silent.

  Then from far away, a man's voice shouted, "Hey, Bloch."

  A short, portly figure was working his way through the crowd. Bloch hurried back to meet Mr. Rightly. His teacher was younger than he looked, bald and bearded with white in the whiskers. His big glasses needed a bigger nose to rest on, and he pushed the glasses against his face while staring at the egg and the backs of strangers. "I heard about the crash," he said, smiling in a guarded way. "I didn't know you' subsequentb aTord be here. Did you see it come down?"

  "No, but I heard it."

  "What's inside?"

  "The pilot, I think."

  "An alien?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Mr. Rightly was the perfect teacher for bright but easily disenchanted teenagers. A Masters in biology gave him credibility, and he was smarter than his degree. The man had an infectious humor and a pleasant voice, and Bloch would do almost anything for him, whether moving furniture after school or ushering him ahead to meet the ET.

  "Come on, sir."

  Nobody in front of them felt shoved. Nobody was offended or tried to resist. But one after another, bodies felt themselves being set a couple feet to the side, and the big mannish child was past them, offering little apologies while a fellow in dark slacks and a wrinkled dress shirt walked close behind.

  To the last row, Bloch said, "Please get back. We've got a scientist here."

  That was enough reason to surrender their places, if only barely.

  The alien's face had changed in the last moments. The smile remained, but the eyes were less bright. And the voice was weaker than before, quietly moaning one clear word.

  "Dying."

  Mr. Rightly blinked in shock. "What did you just say?"

  The creature watched them, saying nothing.

  "Where did you come from?" the litter man asked.

  The mouth opened, revealing yellow teeth rooted in wide pink gums. A broad tongue emerged, and the lower jaw worked against some pain that made the entire body spasm. Then again, with deep feeling, the alien said to everybody, "Help."

  "Can you breathe?" Mr. Rightly asked. Then he looked at Bloch, nervously yanking at the beard. What if they were watching the creature suffocate?

  But then it made a simple request. "Water," it said. "My life needs water, please, please."

  "Of course, of course," said the screaming woman, her voice back to its comfortable volume. Everyone for half a block heard her declare, "She's a beached whale. We need to get her in water."

  Murmurs of concern pushed through the crowd.

  "Fre
shwater or salt?" Mr. Rightly asked.

  Everybody fell silent. Everybody heard a creaking noise as one of the front paddle-arms extended, allowing the longest of the stubby, distinctly childlike fingers to point downhill, and then a feeble, pitiful voice said, "Hurry," it said. "Help me, please. Please."

  DOZENS OF STRANGERS fell into this unexpected task, this critical mercy. The hose man returned, eager to spray the alien as if watering roses. But the crashed ship was still warm on the outside, and what would water do to the machinery? Pender Slough was waiting at the bottom of the hill—a series of head-deep pools linked by slow, clay-infused runoff. With that goal in mind, the group fell into enthusiastic discussions about methods and priorities. Camps formed, each with its loudest expert as well as a person or two who tried making bridges with others. Mr. Rightly didn't join any conversation. He stared at the alien, one hand coming up at regular intervals, pushing at the glasses that never quit trying to slide off the distracted face. Then he turned to the others, one hand held high. "Not the Slough," he said. "It's filthy."

  This was the voice that could startle a room full of adolescents into silence. The adults quit talking, every face centered on him. And then the cat-litter man offered the obvious question:

  "Where then?"

  "The penguin pool," said Mr. Rightly. "That water's clean, and the penguins aren't here yet."

  The man's good sense unsettled the crowd.

  "We need a truck," Mr. Rightly continued. "Maybe we can flag something down."

  Several men immediately walked into the westbound lanes, arms waving at every potential recruit.

  Mr. Rightly looked at Bloch. "How much do you think it weighs?"

  Bloch didn't need urging. The hull was cooling and the interior air was hot but bearable. He threw a leg into the shattered spaceship and crawled wondered what acH h inside. Delicate objects that looked like jacks lay sprinkled across the flat gray floor. They made musical notes while shattering underfoot. A clean metallic smell wasn't unpleasant. Bloch touched the alien below its head, down where the chest would be. Its skin was rigid and dry and very warm, as if it was a bronze statue left in the sun. He waited for a breath, and the chest seemed to expand. He expected the body to be heavy, but the first shove proved otherwise. He thought of desiccated moths collecting inside hot summer attics. Maybe this is how you traveled between stars, like freeze-dried stroganoff. Bloch looked out the hole, ready to report back to Mr. Rightly, but people were moving away while an engine roared, a long F-350 backing into view.

  Two smiling men and Mr. Rightly climbed inside the ship, the egg... whatever it was. One of the men giggled. Everybody took hold of a limb. There was no extra room, and the transfer was clumsy and slow and required more laughs and some significant cursing. Mr. Rightly asked the alien if it was all right and it said nothing, and then he asked again, and the creature offered one quiet, "Hurry."

  Other men formed matching lines outside, and with the care used on babies and bombs, they lifted the valiant, beautiful, helpless creature into the open truck bed, eyes pointed skyward, its tail dangling almost to the pavement.

  Mr. Rightly climbed out again. "We'll use the zoo's service entrance," he announced. "I have the key."

  The hose man finally had his target in his sights, hitting the alien with a cool spray. Every drop that struck the skin was absorbed, and the green eyes seemed to smile even as the voice begged, "No. Not yet, no."

  The hose was turned away.

  And the screaming woman ran up, daring herself to touch the creature. Her hands reached and stopped when her courage failed, and she hugged herself instead. Nearly in tears, she said, "God bless you, darling. God bless."

  Bloch was the last man out of the spaceship.

  Mr. Rightly climbed up into the truck bed and then stood, blinking as he looked at the destruction up the road and at the shadows cast by the setting sun. Then Bloch called to him, and he turned and smiled. "Are you warm enough?" he asked.

  "I'm fine, sir."

  "Sit in the cab and stay warm," he said. "Show our driver the way."

  Their driver was three weeks older than Bloch and barely half his size, and nothing could be more astonishing than the extraordinary luck that put him in this wondrous place. "I can't fucking believe this," said the driver, lifting up on the brake and letting them roll forward. "I'm having the adventure of a lifetime. That's what this craziness is."

  There was no end to the volunteers. Everybody was waving at traffic and at the truck's driver—enthusiastic, chaotic signals ready to cause another dozen crashes. But nobody got hit. The big pickup lurched into the clear and down the last of the hill, heading east. People watched its cargo. Some prayed, others used phones to take pictures, catching Bloch looking back at the children and the paramedics and the bloody blankets thrown over the dead.

  "Can you fucking believe this?" the driver kept asking.

  The radio was set on the CNN feed. The solar sail had reached as far as Atlanta. Power was out in there, and Europe was nothing but dark and China was the same. There was a quick report that most of the world's satellites had gone silent when the probe fell on top of them. There were also rumors that an alien or aliens had contacted the U.S. government, but the same voice added, "We haven't confirmed anything at this point."

  They crossed Pender Slough and Bloch tapped the driver on the arm, guiding them onto Southwest. The driver made what was probably the slowest, most cautious turn in his life. A chain of cars and trucks followed close, headlights and flashers on. Everything they did felt big and important, and this was incredible fun. Bloch was grinning, looking back through theI pick up the corner of the net... I pick up the corner of the netacH h window at his teacher, but Mr. Rightly shot him a worried expression, and then he stared at his hands rather than the alien stretched out beside him.

  "Hurry," Bloch coaxed.

  The zoo appeared on their left. An access bridge led back across the Slough and up to the back gate. Mr. Rightly was ready with the key. Bloch climbed out to help roll the gate open, and a couple trailing cars managed to slip inside before a guard arrived, hurriedly closing the gate before examining what they were bringing inside.

  "Oh, this gal's hurt," he called out.

  Bloch and his teacher walked at the front of the little parade, leading the vehicles along the wide sidewalk toward the penguin exhibit.

  Mr. Rightly watched his feet, saying nothing.

  "Is it dead?" Bloch asked.

  "What?"

  "The alien," he said.

  "No, it's holding on."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  Mr. Rightly looked back and then forward, drifting closer to Bloch. With a quiet, careful voice, he said, "She was rolling east on Pender. That means that she fell from the west."

  "I guess," Bloch agreed.

  "From the direction of the sun," he said. "But the big probe, that solar sail... it was falling toward the sun. And that's the other direction."

  Here was the problem. Bloch had felt this odd worry before, but he hadn't been able to find words to make it clear in his own head.

  The two of them walked slower, each looking over a shoulder before talking.

  "Another thing," said Mr. Rightly. "Why would an alien, a creature powerful enough and smart enough to cross between stars, need water? Our astronauts didn't fly to the moon naked and hope for air."

  "Maybe she missed her target," Bloch suggested.

  "And there's something else," Mr. Rightly said. "How can anything survive the gee forces from this kind of impact? You heard the sonic booms. She or it... whatever it is... the entity came down fast and hit, and nothing alive should still be alive after that kind of crash."

  Bloch wanted to offer an opinion, but they arrived at the penguin exhibit before he could find one. Men and the screaming woman climbed out of the trailing cars, and like an old pro, the pickup's driver spun around and backed up to the edge of the pond. Half a dozen people waved him in. In one voice, everybody shouted,
"Stop." Night was falling. The penguin pool was deep and smooth and very clear. Mr. Rightly started to say something about being cautious, about waiting, and someone asked, "Why?" and he responded with noise about water quality and its temperature. But other people had already climbed into the truck bed, grabbing at the four limbs and head and the base of that sad, drooping tail. With barely any noise, the alien went into the water. It weighed very little, and everyone expected it to float, but it sank like an arrow aimed at the Earth. Bloch stood at the edge of the pool, watching while a dark gray shape lay limp at the bottom of the azure bowl.

  The screaming woman came up beside him. "Oh God, our girl's drowning," she said. "We need to jump in and help get her up to the air again."

  A couple men considered being helpful, but then they touched the cold November water and suffered second thoughts.

  Another man asked Mr. Rightly, "Did we screw up? Is she drowning?"

  The teacher pushed his glasses against his face.

  "I think we did screw up," Mr. Rightly said.

  The body had stopped being gray. And a moment later that cute seal face and those eyes were smoothed away. Then the alien was larger, growing like a happy sponge, and out from its center came a blue glow, dim at first but quickly filling the concrete basin and the air above—a blue light shining into the scared faces, and Bloch's face, too.

  Leaning farther out, Bloch felt the heat rising up from water that was already most of the way to boiling.

  The woman ran away and then shouted, "Run."

  The driver jumped into his truck and drove off.

  Only two people were an unusual number of should aTorleft at the water's edge. Mr. Rightly tugged on Bloch's arm. "Son," he said, "we need to get somewhere safe."

  "Where's that?" Bloch asked.

  His teacher offered a grim little laugh, saying, "Maybe Mars. How about that?"

  THE LEOPARD

  ANY LONG STASIS means damage. Time introduces creeps and tiny flaws into systems shriveled down near the margins of what nature permits. But the partial fueling allowed repairs to begin. Systems woke and took stock of the situation. Possibilities were free to emerge, each offering itself to the greatest good, yet the situation was dire. The universe permitted quite a lot of magic but even magic had strict limits and the enemy was vast and endowed with enough luck to have already won a thousand advantages before the battle had begun.