Strangers

“ God?” Brendan interrupted. "Are you saying they see themselves as servants of God?"

“Something like that,” Bennell said. "However, they aren't spreading any religious message. They simply feel they have a sacred obligation to help intelligent species find one another, to bind intelligences across the vast emptiness of space."

“Bind,” Falkirk said ominously, and he looked at his watch.

General Alvarado had been moving slowly to his right, putting himself at the periphery of the colonel's vision. He took another step.

Ginger was increasingly uneasy about the undercurrent of antagonism between Falkirk and Bennell and Alvarado, which she did not entirely understand. She moved closer to Dom and put an arm around him.

“And they bring another gift,” Bennell said, frowning toward the colonel. "They're such an ancient species that they've evolved certain abilities we think of as psychic. The ability to heal. Telekinesis. Other things. Not only have they evolved those talents, but they've learned to . . . to infuse the same abilities in other intelligent species that lack them."

“Infuse?” Dom said. “How?”

“We don't entirely understand,” Bennell said. "But they can pass these powers along. That is evidently what was done with you, and now you have the ability to pass the power to others."

“Pass the power?” Jack said, astonished. "You mean Dom and Brendan could give us ... or anyone ... what they have?"

“I've already given it,” Brendan said. "Ginger, Dom, Jackyou didn't hear the news Parker brought from Father Wycazik. Those two I healed in ChicagoEmmy and Wintonthey've both got the power now."

:'New sources of infection," Falkirk said somberly.

' And evidently,“ Parker said, ”since Brendan healed me, I'll have it too, sooner or later."

“Although I don't think it's passed only in healing,” Brendan said. "It's just that the healing is such an intimate contact. Along with knitting up the tissues of the person you're healing, you somehow pass the power to them."

Ginger's mind reeled. This news was every bit as earthshaking as the existence of the starship. "You mean ... my God . . . you mean they came to help us evolve to a new level as a species? And that evolution is now already under way?"

“It would seem to be, yes,” Bennell said.

Looking at his wristwatch again, Leland Falkirk said, "Please, this masquerade is getting boring."

“What masquerade?” Faye Block asked. "What are you talking about, Colonel? We were told you believe we've all been somehow possessed, some nonsense like that. How can you have gotten such a crazy idea?"

“Spare me this charade,” Falkirk said sharply. "You all pretend to know nothing. In reality, you know everything. Not one of you is human any longer. You're all ... possessed, and this innocence is playacting to convince me to spare you. But it won't work. It's too late."

Repelled by Falkirk's air of madness, Ginger turned again to Bennell. “What is all this stuff about infection and possession?”

“A mistake,” Bennell said, moving a few steps to his left.

Ginger realized he was trying to pull the colonel's attention in that direction, away from General Alvarado, in order to give the general a better chance of slipping entirely out of Falkirk's notice.

“A mistake,” Bennell repeated. "Or rather . . . an example of the human race's typical xenophobiahatred and suspicion of strangers, of anyone that's different. When we first viewed some of the videodisks I mentioned, when we first learned about the extraterrestrials' desire to pass these powers to other species, we apparently misinterpreted what we were seeing. Initially, we thought they were taking possession of those they changed, inserting an alien consciousness into a host body. I guess it's an understandable paranoia, after all the horror novels and movies. We thought perhaps we had a parasitical race on our hands. But that misapprehension was quickly dispelled when we'd seen more of their disks and had time to puzzle out some of the finer points. Now we know we were wrong."

“I don't know it,” Falkirk said. "I think you were all infected and then, under the control of these creatures, you began to downplay the danger. Or ... or the disks are merely propaganda. Lies."

“No,” Bennell said. "For one thing, I don't think these creatures would be capable of lying. Besides, if they could so easily take us over, they wouldn't require propaganda. And they sure as hell wouldn't bring us this encyclopedia that tells us they're going to change us."

Ginger had noticed Brendan Cronin following the discussion even more avidly than everyone else, and now he said, "I know the religious metaphor may not be entirely appropriate here. But if they feel they come to us as the servants of God . . . and if they come to hand down to us these miraculous gifts, then you could almost say they were angels, archangels bestowing special blessings."

Falkirk laughed harshly. "Oh, that's rich, Cronin! Do you really think you can get to me from a religious angle? Me?

Even if I were a religious fanatic, like my dead and rotting parents, I wouldn't buy these creatures as angels. Angels with faces like buckets of worms?"

“Worms? What's he talking about?” Brendan asked Bennell.

The scientist said, "They look very different from us. Bipeds with forearms rather like us, yes. Six digits instead of five. But that's about all we have in common in the way of looks. Initially, they seem repulsive. In fact, repulsive is a mild word. But in time . . . you begin to see they have a certain beauty of their own."

“Beauty of their own,” Falkirk said scornfully. "Monsters is what they are, and they'd only have beauty in the eyes of other monsters, so you've just proven my point, Bennell."

Ginger's anger with Falkirk drove her to take a couple of steps toward him in spite of his submachine gun. “You damn fool,” she said. "What does it matter what they look like?

The important thing is what they are. And evidently they're creatures with a deep sense of purpose, noble purpose. No matter how different they look, the things we have in common with them are greater than our differences. My father always said that, as much as intelligence, the things that separated us from the beasts were courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy. Do you realize what courage it took for them to set out on this journey across God knows how many thousands of millions of miles? So that's one big thing we share with themcourage. And love, friendship? They must have those too. Otherwise how would they have built a civilization that could reach to the stars? You need love and friendship to have a reason to build. Compassion? They've got a mission to bring other intelligent species to a higher rung on the evolutionary ladder. Surely, that takes compassion. And empathy? Isn't that obvious? They empathize with our fear and loneliness, with our dread that we're adrift in a meaningless universe. They empathize so much that they commit themselves to these incredible journeys on the mere hope of encountering us and bringing us the news that we are not alone." Suddenly she knew her anger wasn't directed so much at Falkirk as at this horrid blindness in the human species that led it frequently into spirals of selfdestruction. “Look at me,” she told the colonel. "I'm a Jew. And there are those who'd say I'm not the same as they are, not as good, even dangerous. Stories of Jews drinking the blood of gentile babiesthere are the ignorant who believe that garbage. Is there any difference between that sick antisemitism and your stubborn insistence, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that these creatures come to drink our blood? Let us go, for God's sake. Stop the endless hatred here. Stop it now. We have a destiny that leaves no room for hatred."

“Bravo,” Falkirk said acidly. “A very nice speech.” Even as he spoke, the colonel swung his machine gun toward General Alvarado and said, "Don't go for your gun, General. I assume you're carrying one. I won't be shot. I want to die in the glorious fire."

“Fire?” Bennell said.

Falkirk grinned. "That's right, Doctor. The glorious fire

that will consume us all and save the world from this infection."

“Christ!” Bennell said. "That's why you didn't bring more men with you. You didn't want to sacrifice more than necessary. " He turned to Alvarado. “Bob, the crazy bastard's gotten into the tactical nukes.”

Ginger knew that Alvarado was feeling precisely what she felt at this news, for his face twisted and went instantly gray.

“Two backpack nukes,” Falkirk said. "One right outside that door. The other in the main chamber downstairs.“ He checked his watch. ”Less than three minutes, and we'll all be vapor. Not even time left for you to change me, I'll bet. How long does it take to change one of us to one of you? Longer than three minutes, I suppose."

Abruptly, the machine gun tore out of Falkirk's hands as if it had acquired life and taken flight, wrenching loose of his grasp with such force that it cut his fingers and tore off a couple of his nails. At the same instant, Lieutenant Horner screamed as his machine gun erupted from his grasp with equal suddenness and force. Ginger saw both weapons spin through the air and drop with a clatter, one at the feet of Ernie Block and the other at Jack Twist's side, both of whom jubilantly took up the guns and covered Falkirk and Horner.

“You?” Ginger said wonderingly, turning to Dom.

“Me, yeah, I think,” he said breathlessly. "I ... I didn't know I could do it until I had to. Sort of the way Brendan heals people."

Stunned, Dr. Bennell said, "But it doesn't matter. Falkirk said three minutes."

“Two,” Falkirk said, cradling one bleeding hand in the other and grinning happily. “Two minutes now.”

“And backpack nukes can't be disarmed,” Alvarado said. Running, Dom shouted: "Brendan, you take the one outside this door. I'll get the one downstairs."

“They can't be disarmed!” Alvarado repeated.

Brendan knelt beside the nuclear device and winced when he saw the time remaining on the clock. One minute, thirtythree seconds.

He didn't know what to do. He had healed three people, yes, and he had caused some pepper shakers to whirl through

the air, and he had even generated light out of nothingness. But he remembered how the pepper shakers had gotten out of control and how the chairs had leapt off the diner floor and smashed against the ceiling. And he knew if he made one false move with the detonator in this bomb, he would not be saved by all his superhuman power.

One minute, twentysix seconds.

The others had come out of the cavern where the ship rested and had gathered around. Even Falkirk and Horner remained under guard, though there was no reason for them to try to get their guns. They trusted in the efficacy of the bomb.

One minute, eleven seconds.

“If I smash the detonator,” Brendan said to Alvarado, "pulverize it, would that-"

“No,” the general said. "Once armed, the detonator will trigger the bomb automatically if you try to wreck it."

Oneohthree.

Faye knelt beside him. "Just make it pop right up out of the damn bomb, Brendan. The way Dom tore those guns out of their hands."

Brendan stared at the rapidly changing numerals on the detonator's clock and tried to imagine that entire device popping free of the rest of the bomb.

Nothing happened.

Fiftyfour seconds.

Cursing the slowness of the elevator, Dom virtually flew out of the doors when they opened, with Ginger close behind him, and dashed to the backpack nuke standing in the center of the main cavern on the bottom level of Thunder Hill. Heart pounding even faster than his stomach was churning, he crouched beside the bomb and said, “Jesus,” when he saw the digital clock.

Fifty seconds.

“You can do it,” Ginger said, stooping at the other side of the hateful device. “You've got a destiny.”

“Here goes.”

“Love you,” she said.

“Love you,” he said, as surprised as she was by that statement.

Fortytwo seconds.

He raised his hands over the nuclear device, and he felt the rings appearing immediately in his palms.

Forty seconds.

Brendan had broken out in a sweat.

Thirtynine seconds.

He strained, trying to work the magic that he knew was in him. But though the stigmata burned on his palms, and in spite of the fact that he could feel the power surging in him, he could not focus on the ur ent task. He kept thinking about what could go wrong, and that in some way he would be responsible if it did go wrong, and the more he thought the less he could direct the miraculous energy within him.

Thirtyfour seconds.

Parker Faine pushed between two onlookers and dropped to his knees beside Brendan. "No offense, Father, but maybe the problem is that you, being a Jesuit, are just too damn prone to intellectualize. Maybe this requires going with your gut. Maybe what this needs is the wildass, goforeit, tryanything, gonzo, berserker commitment of an artist." He thrust his own large hands toward the detonator and shouted: "Come out of there you fucker!"

With a snap of wires, the detonator leapt out of its niche in the bomb package and straight into Parker's hands.

There were cries of relief and congratulations, but Brendan said, "The clock's still counting down."

Eleven seconds.

“Yeah, but it's not connected to the bomb any more,” Parker said, grinning broadly.

Alvarado said, "But there's a conventional explosive charge in the damn detonator."

The detonator erupted out of the bomb, into Dom's hands. He saw the clock still counting, and he sensed it had to be stopped even though there was no longer a chance of a nuclear explosion. So he simply willed it to stop, and the lighted numerals froze at 0:03.

0:03.

Parker, unaccustomed to the role of magician, panicked at this secondary crisis. Certain his power was depleted, he chose a course of action perfectly in character. With a war cry to rival John Wayne in one of the Duke's old movies, Parker turned and threw the detonator toward the far wall of the cavern, as if lobbing a grenade. He knew he could not cast it clear to the other side of the chamber, but he hoped he could pitch it far enough. Even as it left his hand, he flung himself to the floor, as the others had already done.

Dom was kissing Ginger when the explosion sounded overhead, and they both jumped. For an instant he thought Brendan had failed to disarm the other device, then realized a nuclear explosion would have brought the ceiling down on them.