by Sandra McDonald
"I don't believe a word of it," Fox said, but he was sweating. He glanced at the clock. It was almost twenty hundred. "You think I'm going to call out base security because a UFO is going to land in the compound?"
"A UFO roughly the size of a New York City block," Jenny corrected, "and yes. You pissed off the wrong people, George."
"So they're going to land and just bust you out, is that it?" Fox forced a laugh. "They're going to land and be some kind of interstellar SWAT team - "
"You don't know what weapons they have," Jenny reminded him. "And you don't know what they're capable of. Mind-control, hypnosis, I don't know. But they seem to have absolute faith that they'll be able to break into this compound and walk away with me and Scott. Paul thinks they can do it. All I have to do is know where Scott is and be ready to run when they tell me to."
Fox snatched up the phone. "Then I'll move Scott. There are hundreds of miles of underground tunnels here, it used to be a - "
"A nuclear weapons storage facility," Jenny said. "Amazing what SALT talks can accomplish."
"How did you know that?"
"Same way I knew Scott was here. They have people in the government."
"That's a load of bull. People that highly placed in the government need security clearances. I am absolutely sure being an interstellar alien would show up in a background investigation."
She smiled coldly at him. "Take that chance, George. And go ahead, move Scott. They'll search until they find him."
"I'll call for back-up. I'll set up a trap to snare them."
"The minute you get on that phone they'll know and won't show up. You'll be calling out the Air Force for a UFO and looking damned silly when it doesn't show up."
Fox put the phone down and studied her across the desk.
"And your plan?"
"My plan?" Jenny leaned back in her chair. "My plan is very simple. I tell you how to stop them. You'll have a whole hangar full of aliens to keep you happy for the rest of your life, George. You won't need my fifteen year old boy."
"Tell me your plan, exactly. To the very last detail. And maybe then we'll discuss your options, Mrs. Hayden."
o O o
Scott spent a few anxious hours worrying that he'd never see Jenny again, and while he worried he sat on his bed, knees drawn to his chest, and felt something growing within him. He hadn't felt it since San Francisco. It was hard and strong and scaring him. About three hours after the door had closed it opened again, and they brought Jenny back.
"How you doing?" she asked, holding him, stroking his hair.
"Hungry," he joked. "They forgot dinner."
Jenny's hands cupped his face. "Scott, I need you to listen to me. Whatever happens tonight, whatever goes down, you have to know I'm doing it for us. Do you understand?"
"What's going to happen?" he asked, afraid.
"We'll be safe," she said. Jenny pulled him to his chest. "Just remember that. We'll be safe, and we'll be together. And that's what really counts."
o O o
"Paul, get in the jeep," Tia said.
Paul hesitated. He looked out across the dark desert, to the lone light that shone at the front gate of the base. The building complex was about five miles beyond the front gate but from there he felt the stirring of anxiety. He looked back at Tia. "Scott."
"He's all right," she assured him. "I can feel him. Jenny's with him."
Paul tried to shake his foreboding and got into the jeep. Tia rolled it along easily. The tires bounced over the rocks with near silence. She didn't turn on the lights; no need to, not with her mind's eye finding its way unerringly without light. They swung up to the barbed wire fence, sailed over it in the jeep, and landed with a graceful bump. Under Tia's mind power they rolled about a half mile, and then she turned on the ignition.
o O o
It dropped out of the sky like a massive white neon sphere, maybe the most massive sphere in the universe, and if the snipers stationed on the roofs and in the foxholes hadn't been expecting it they would have opened fire the minute they saw it. Faster than a raindrop it fell out of the sky, growing larger and larger and finally blotting out the sky; then it slowed, seemed to hover with a hum, and then landed with a bump two hundred yards from the main complex. Fox, watching from the underground bunker, motioned to his security chief. "Tell them to fire a few rounds. If they don't fire at all the aliens will get suspicious."
The security sergeant looked at Fox like he was crazy. The monitors all showed the massive glowing spaceship. The radio was awash with static and the garbled, broken-up communications from the guard posts. Only once before had the sergeant seen something this monstrous and amazing; Meteor Crater, Arizona. He wiped the back of his mouth with his hand. "Fire a few shots at it," he ordered.
From the speakers they heard the staccato burst of fire, and nothing happened to the spaceship.
"What now?" the sergeant asked Fox.
Fox was barely aware of the recording machines, the excited mutterings of the scientists, the hot phones to the National Defense Command and Strategic Air Command. He too remembered the meteor crater. His underarms itched with sweat and he felt his pulse skipping along with anticipation. "Wait until they come out, then cut all base electricity."
"Do what?" the sergeant asked dumbly.
"All of it," Fox ordered. "Every single bit."
o O o
Tony exited the elevator and was stopped by the first guard posted in the long sterile hall to Scott's room.
"What are you doing-" the guard asked, raising his gun, but Tony levitated him to the ceiling and jammed the trigger on the gun so that it wouldn't fire. He sent the two guards rushing for him to the ceiling also; they clung there, looking silly, pinned to the white tile.
"I'll be right back," Tony promised, and he hurried to Scott's door. It had an electromagnetic lock on it and he didn't have time to search for the card or get Tia, whose specialty was locks. Tony concentrated on the lock and felt it weaken a little; he shorted out a circuit, and it sizzled and let the door click open.
"Hi Jenny," he said. "Nice to meet you, Scott. Ready?"
"Who are you?" Scott asked as a klaxon started sounding.
"Sort of an intergalactic cousin," Tony said. He tossed something to Scott. "Catch."
Scott caught the Maker and looked at Tony in amazement. "You - "
He didn't finish as Jenny pulled him off the bed. "We have to get moving."
Jenny spared no extra looks for the guards pinned to the ceiling but Scott was wide-eyed until they got to the elevator and the lights died. Tony listened intently. No air-conditioning, either. Only the lights on the emergency exit signs stayed illuminated, and they were operated by battery. He sent a message to Tia, who was waiting with Paul behind a pile of sandbags near the spaceship. Tia told him the spaceship was dark. Without the base's energy to feed off it was useless, and George Fox obviously knew that.
(Be careful, Tony) Tia sent, worry obvious in her thoughts.
"Great," Scott said, shivering in the darkness. "How do we get out?"
Tony pulled a pencil flashlight out of his sleeve and shone it on the closed elevator doors. "No problem," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. Fear was useless, he reminded himself. He opened the doors with mind power. It was eerie, standing in the dark interior as the car rose on Tony's power alone; Scott gripped his mother's hand tightly. Jenny's expression tightened into a scowl. "Almost out," Tony reassured them, and when they reached the first level tunnel Tony stopped the car and opened the doors. The mile-long tunnel was very dark but the jeep was where Tony had left it. He shined the flashlight on it and was very surprised when George Fox's men slid a hypodermic in his arm.
The world wavered and went black, but before he collapsed Tony sent (Tia!)
Tia turned to tell Paul, but he'd already left.
o O o
"No!" Scott cried out, as battery lanterns switched on and Fox and his men became obvious in the yellow pools of light. Fox and five guards, all of them armed, one of them now holding Tony's slumped body. Jenny put a restraining hand on Scott's shoulder.
"Scott, wait," she pleaded.
"Just as you said it would happen, Mrs. Hayden," George Fox smiled. He nodded at his men and they loaded Tony into their jeep. "You came through, in the end."
Scott looked at Jenny in confusion. "Mom?"
"I did it for us, Scott," Jenny said, but she didn't meet his eyes. She was looking instead at Fox. "Now you keep your part of the deal."
"As soon as he turns over that little crystal sphere," Fox said, motioning towards the Maker in Scott's hand.
"You can't have it," Scott said defiantly, clenching his hand and pulling it to his chest.
"Scott, please," Jenny said. She put her hands on his shoulders and levelled a sorrowful gaze at him. "Hand it over."
"Dad's alive, isn't he?" Scott asked, and when she didn't answer he felt little pieces of himself breaking off into sorrow and grief and betrayal. His last fortress had crumbled. Jenny had sold them. He didn't know for what price or on what terms but he understood it with every sense of his half-human, half-alien being.
Jenny's hand closed over his fist and slowly her fingers pried open his; as he let the Maker slip into her gasp he bowed his head, fighting back the tears that threatened. Jenny took the Maker and handed it to Fox.
"Good, good, good," Fox said. "Into the jeep, we'll go back to the main compound, and we'll see about this spaceship."
"And then you let us go," Jenny said.
"And then I let you go," Fox agreed, and he marvelled at how stupid Jenny Hayden really was.
o O o
Paul slipped into the darkened hallway, trying to remember the floorplan of the complex. Tony had gone undercover for two weeks as a repairman in the base compound and he'd sent Tia messages detailing every elevator, every stairway, and every passage he could find or heard about or saw on the blueprints. Now Paul was using that inside information to get to the underground road that ran from the main complex to the silos where they'd been keeping Scott. It took more of an effort for him than it did Tia or Tony but he energized an elevator with his Maker and reached the bottom. He spent five worried minutes in the darkness, waiting for the guards posted in the compound with rifles to appear, but they didn't come. Instead he saw two sets of headlights rapidly approaching in the tunnel. Paul stepped into the shadows and it wasn't until the jeeps stopped and everyone was standing that he showed himself.
"Fox," he said, and Fox whirled with a gun in hand.
"Dad!" Scott said, stepping forward, but Jenny held him back with a frightened expression on her face. The five guards had their automatic rifles aimed at Paul but Paul only had eyes for Fox.
"So you show yourself at last," Fox said. "I guess your little plan didn't work."
"It would have," Paul said, and his gaze flickered to Jenny for a second.
"I had to do it," Jenny said. She tightened her grip on Scott's shoulders but he pulled away, shaking his head.
"How could you?"
"Because I love you," Jenny said, wiping at her eyes. "And I can't stand to lose you again."
"You already did," Paul said. Scott ignored the guns and pushed past Fox too fast for the government agent to stop him. He burrowed his head against Paul's chest and Paul rubbed his back reassuringly. "It's all right. Everything's all right."
"Don't you see?" Jenny asked desperately. "If you give yourself up he doesn't need Scott. He has the spaceship, he has Tony . . ."
Paul's attention shifted to the unconscious young man in the second jeep but Fox's next words cut off whatever he was going to say.
"He doesn't have to give himself up. He's ours now." Fox turned to Jenny. "Is there anyone else?"
Jenny wrapped her arms around her chest and implored Paul with her eyes to forgive her. "There's a girl, up in the compound with a jeep they came in."
"Jenny," Paul said, shaking his head.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"We're leaving," Paul said, taking a step backwards with Scott, "and there's nothing you can do to stop us."
"You're not going anywhere," Fox warned.
"The only way to stop us is to kill us," Paul told him.
"It'll save us time when we dissect you," Fox said cruelly. The guards took better aim.
"No!" Jenny cried out. "Stop it!"
"It would have worked," Paul said sadly to her. "Goodbye, Jenny Hayden."
Paul pulled Scott backwards towards the elevator as Fox raised his own gun to fire. The government agent shouted and dropped the weapon as it seared his hand with sudden, flaring pain. The other guards dropped theirs, too. Tony, the cause of the heat, rolled out of the jeep. A guard swung at him with the butt of his rifle and Tony didn't duck in time. He staggered against the spare tire, blood flowing down the side of his head. Jenny picked up the tire iron from the jeep and smashed it against the guard's shoulder. He turned on her to grab her and then he sailed upwards into the air, up and up to the cavern's rock ceiling.
Jenny turned and saw the other guards rising as well. Even the ones who had grabbed Paul and thrown him to his knees soared upward. Fox rose, rose and rose, his arms and legs wriggling madly, his face a wild contortion of anger.
"Took you long enough," Jenny said accusingly to Tony. Her voice was shaky with relief. "I thought you were really out."
"Told you," Tony said, holding his hand to his head cut, "it takes twice any normal dosage to put my people out." He glanced quizzically at the men hanging in mid-air near the ceiling. "I'm not doing that."
"You're not - " Jenny turned to Paul and they both looked at Scott, who had grabbed Paul's Maker when it had rolled free. Scott's eyes were closed in concentration, his face coated with a thin sheen of sweat. He must have felt both of his parents' gaze upon him, because he opened his eyes and gazed at them in awe and fright combined.
"I'm doing it," he said, and the Maker glowed red in his palm.
Paul pulled himself to his feet and put his hand gently on Scott's shoulder. "Just concentrate," he told the boy. "Let it flow through you."
"Not half bad," Tony said, and with Jenny's help he left the jeep and headed for the elevator. He said to Paul, "We've got to get back to the ship. Tia's got it powered up and ready to go - "
"Forrester!" Fox yelled from the ceiling. "You won't get away."
"Too late," Paul said calmly. "We already have."
Paul ushered them into the elevator and the doors closed.
Fox swore and fumbled for the radio at his waist.
"Take out that ship!" he yelled into it. "I don't care how you do it, blast all the missiles we have, but take out that ship!"
A full moment later the ground above seemed to roar, with an earthquake or a nuclear explosion or maybe the power of an alien spaceship exploding into nothingness; and George Fox remembered thinking later that the reason he'd fallen so swiftly and forcefully to the floor was because the source of the power that had held him up there had been completely destroyed.
o O o
All of the video cameras and base monitors told the same story; at 01:12:37, a full seven seconds before the explosion and total annihilation of whatever that ship had been, all video and audio cut out. Complete blankness. Nothing recorded, nothing erased. At 01:12:46, two seconds after the explosion that registered on seismic meters as far away as California, the cameras flickered back to life and showed the fireball on the desert that had been the alien spaceship. Although witnesses claimed to have seen four people emerge from the terminal building and run towards the ship, no evidence existence on the tapes.
The metal debris from the explosion was collected for three months, cataloged and tagged, and then stored in a special hangar where it would be studied for years.
George Fox, after recovering from a badly sprained back, took to insisting in Washington that the aliens and Haydens had planned the explosion and must have escaped on the ground during the excitement; he was met repeatedly with the arguments that it was a hundred miles on open ground to the nearest towns and the search helicopters that had been airborne within minutes had found no trace of any ground escape. He became so irascible and moody that he was removed from the case, sent to work on special projects for the Pentagon, and retired early with a full government pension and a house in Maine.
For the rest of his life he seethed with anger over Paul Forrester and Jenny Hayden, and although he never stopped reading the newspapers in hopes of stories of strange aliens and half-alien children, he never met the Starman or his family again.
o O o
In the Pacific Northwest, most local townsfolk steer clear of the ancient volcano called Witch Mountain. A few of the older town residents remember a time when foreigners came to settle in the valley, European folk with strange accents who eventually died out; it was shortly after their arrival that the mountain became haunted, with faraway music and strange lights dancing in the evening mists. Most of the European folks died out or moved away, and the tales of the haunted mountain faded, but sometimes in the late summer nights an occasional unexplained light will blink beneath the stars, or a note of a strange and alien melody will drift through the pines.
A hundred miles east lies a coastal Washington community where no one has ever heard of Witch Mountain, and the only music talked about is the occasional heavy metal that seems to have gotten so popular at the high school. Jeff Doerr, riding home from school one Monday afternoon on his brand-new ten speed bicycle, had his mind neither on mountains or metal. He was thinking of trying out for the basketball team, and as he cruised through the wide streets of his street, past the neighbors and around the curves, he imagined himself at a wild center of exuberant cheerleaders after sinking the winning shot of the game.
Jeff thought a lot about cheerleaders lately. Since starting at the local high school he'd found an inordinate amount of his time preoccupied with thoughts of girls. He thought of them in class, at lunch, at the debate team meetings, at drama practice, at Honor Society functions. He thought of them so much he was forgetting that he had to keep a low-profile at school. Although the time for running was past it never hurt to keep a low profile. One day, his dad Chris kept assuring him, there'd be a time when Jeff would walk the front pages of every newspaper in the world; Chris had foreseen it a long time ago, in a promise made to his mother.
Until he saved the world, though, Jeff was determined to meet a lot of cheerleaders.
He coasted up his driveway to the split-level ranch house he could call home. Chris Doerr was in the driveway, bent under the hood of their beat-up Toyota, vainly trying to make sense of the wires and hoses and belts that made up the engine. Laura was teaching him how to change the spark plugs. "And you measure the gap with this little thing," she said helpfully, "and if it's too small you widen it this way - "
"You're making a big mistake," Jeff said. "Dad's mechanically inept, remember?"
"I am not mechanically inept," Chris said, wiping his hands on a rag. "I'm just inexperienced."
"I wish you wouldn't get experience on the microwave," Jeff complained good-naturedly. "It was a perfectly good microwave until you made it blow up."
"I don't need abuse like this," Chris said, raising his eyebrows. "I can let your mother change the spark plugs and go play my new video game. It's called 'Star Invaders' and it's about an alien invasion of the galaxy - "
"My turn for the video games," Jeff reminded him.
Laura leaned over and kissed her husband. "Besides," she said, "it's probably terribly inaccurate."
Chris grinned.
"I'm sure it is," he said.
They stood there, in the Washington sunshine, just an ordinary family gathered around the family car talking about video games and spark plugs, the stuff of normal life that they had craved for so long. Their house, their true home together, stood firm and solid and as a haven of secrets and security for the nights Jeff remembered explosions and Laura remembered horrible loneliness. If inanimate objects tended to float in mid-air in the Doerr house, if little crystal spheres glowed in the night and Chris spun tales of worlds almost too fantastic to believe, if mundane matters like insurance bills and dentist appointments and report cards were embraced enthusiastically over nightmare matters like the United States government and men in black suits - there was no one but the Starman and his family to notice.
They fell into grateful silence around the car, as if each had finally realized that peace was at hand, then linked their arms in affection and walked up the drive together.
THE END
Written by Sandra McDonald. If you have any comments on this story please E-mail them. If you would like to know more about this author please CLICK HERE to see her home page.