The Border

by Robert McCammon

  “We’re not here to interview me.”

  “All right, Mr. Derryman,” Ethan said. “As chief of staff you have immediate access to the President. May I speak with him?”

  It was a moment before Derryman answered, and when he did it was with a thin-lipped smile. His eyes were even more cautious than before. He brought from a pocket a communications device like the one Jackson had used. He pressed a sequence on the keyboard. “Ambler Seven Seven,” he said quietly. “Go to code yellow and scan to the northeast. Also get a team of eyes up top.” He waited for a voice to answer, “Copy that, sir,” and then he put the device away. Ethan picked up Weapons Control from someone. He glanced at the military man, who was scared to death of him, and got the name Winslett, first name Patrick, nicknamed Foggy for some reason. Oh…he used to chain-smoke so much he carried around his own fogbank. Derryman took a seat in the chair and folded his hands together. Then he simply stared at Ethan as if trying out his own powers of mental perception.

  “I guess,” Ethan said to the silence, “that my friends have been put in separate rooms and they’re also being interviewed?” He knew it was true, so he went on. “You’ll get the same story from everyone, but please listen closely to what Dave McKane and Olivia Quintero will explain. Also you’ll find Jefferson Jericho of interest. He’s had occasion to be in the presence of the Gorgon queen.”

  The silence remained unbroken, but Foggy Winslett looked as nervous as if he expected either Ethan to grow two heads and six arms at any instant, or the roof to crash in on his skull.

  “How close is the Gorgon ship now?” Derryman asked, almost as if posing a casual question.

  Ethan spent a few seconds in concentration. The mass of this mountain was a little interference, though not enough to mask the ship from him. “Thirty miles, but it’s holding its position.”

  “You’re telling them to hold there?”

  “No. As you’ll learn from the others, I am a threat to both Gorgons and Cyphers. I want this war to be ended, sir. They don’t understand what I am, and they both want to either capture me, take me apart on their dissection tables, or kill me. I believe they’re thinking they can harness my energy in some way to create new weapons.”

  “Your energy,” said Derryman. He nodded. “I’ve seen that in action on the visual feed. Tell me, then…what are you, and why should you want the war to be ended?”

  “I have a question to ask you first, before we go any further.” Ethan had been unaware of what he might find here, but his realization of what was running the power at this installation had given him a clue. “Your power source here is not of human design. Where did it come from?”

  Derryman hesitated. Ethan could read his mind, but he wanted to hear it, and he knew Derryman was a very intelligent man who fully understood that.

  “You’re correct. It’s of alien design. And you knew about that, how?”

  “Mr. Jackson didn’t realize he was telling me when I asked.”

  “Of course. Well, that’s a very interesting ability you have there, Ethan. I like the silver eyes. They’re a little disconcerting at first, but impressive. I’m assuming there’s some reason for that, maybe you can see a spectrum we can’t?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing is purposeless in the universe, is it? The crystal that powers everything here—and seems to the physicists who have studied it to have unlimited power—comes from Area 51,” Derryman said. “Do you know what that is?”

  The knowledge of that, sketchy at best, was in the boy’s brain, but Ethan wanted to hear Derryman’s explanation of it. “I am aware that this planet has been visited many times by other civilizations. I’d like you to tell me the details.”

  “Sir,” Winslett said tersely, “I would advise that you—”

  “I hear your advice, General, and it is noted.” Derryman’s eyes never left Ethan. “I think our visitor here could pick out every detail of Area 51 from your mind or mine anyway. He’s being gracious in not tromping around in our heads. Also he wants to hear an earthman’s understanding of it. Am I correct there, Ethan?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “This is the point where I ought to stand up and walk out of here,” Derryman said. “I ought to consider you a threat of the highest magnitude and figure out some way to dispose of you, but that might be a little difficult. It also might be the wrong choice. I’m thinking that you’re an energy source yourself, and you’ve incorporated a human body? Or is that a manufactured form?”

  “A human body,” Ethan replied. “I regret that the boy is gone, but it had to be done.”

  “Vance, I need a drink,” Winslett said. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his dark brown, defeated eyes looked bloodshot already.

  “Area 51,” Derryman said, “is in New Mexico, about five hundred miles from here. It’s a base where new fighter and surveillance aircraft are created and tested. There’s a section of Area 51, called S-4, that holds what used to be lead and silver mines in the 1870s. Those mines have now been occupied, modernized, and powered as an interlocked research center. We research there any alien mechanism, device, or flesh we can get our hands on. This has been going on for over sixty years. Needless to say we’ve learned a lot we’ve been trying to keep other countries from knowing. Russia had its own program and a few other countries with the right facilities and the luck to get hold of an alien craft or artifact did as well. All that is the worst-kept secret in the world, because we can’t control all the sightings or the crashes. And let me ask you this while I can, Ethan: if the aliens who have been able to reach us have such fantastic machines, why do they sometimes crash? We’ve helped a couple come down by pilots who got scared enough to fire missiles at close range without the proper authority, but we’ve seen four crashes that seem to be mechanical error. Why is that?”

  “Intricate machinery no matter how advanced can sometimes fail, no matter what the propulsion system or the intelligence behind it. That’s true all across the cosmos.”

  “My God,” said Derryman, as if he’d just realized the enormity of the moment. “I’m sitting here talking to an entity who can answer the questions.” He looked at Jackson and Don, who both were stoic, and then to Winslett who appeared shaken and in desperate need of his drink. For a moment Derryman seemed about to be overcome, and then he got himself under control once more, and the hard-souled, tough-minded ex-lawyer from Connecticut came back. “Now answer my questions: what are you, where are you from and if you’re neither Gorgon nor Cypher why do you have any interest in stopping their war?”

  “I am…” Ethan thought JayDee had captured it best. “I am a peacekeeper, comparable to the soldiers of your United Nations. I’ve come from a great distance. My interest in stopping their war is to save your world.” Something was intruding on his mental flow…what was it? He realized in another few seconds. “Another Gorgon warship has joined the first. A third is within sixty miles, approaching from the west. There’s a fourth…over a hundred miles away yet, coming from the southeast, but slowly. What weapons do you have?”

  “ERAM surface-to-air missiles, fired remotely from a launcher up top about two hundred feet. A second launcher firing Patriots, and two radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns on rotating turrets at the peak.” Derryman paused, and Ethan knew what he was going to ask next but did not interrupt. “Will it be enough?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Those weapons were designed to knock down enemy aircraft built by humans, not those things.” Derryman stood up; in spite of his steady demeanor and the movement of cool air in the room, a sheen of sweat glistened on his head. “Foggy, you and I need to get the other officers together.”

  “Area 51,” Ethan said. “There are many alien artifacts there, removed from the ships?”

  “As I understand.”

  “And weapons?”

  “I’ve never been there. My briefing didn’t give me the details of the layout. I really didn’t want to know.”

 
“Did your briefing tell you how to get in?”

  Derryman was slow in replying. “Now why would you want to do that, Ethan?”

  “Obviously, your weapons are not sufficient. I’m not sure, but something might be there I can use.”

  That statement caused silence to fall again. Derryman studied the knuckles of his right hand and then his closely trimmed fingernails.

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” Ethan said.

  Derryman looked up and asked sharply, “Are we?”

  “Your world is on the brink of destruction right now. I’m your best hope, but I believe you’re coming to that conclusion yourself.”

  “Quite a supposition, that we should trust any alien lifeform.”

  “Your choices,” Ethan said, his silver eyes aimed like energy beams at Vance Derryman, “are limited. Your time is limited too. No, that’s not a threat, sir. It’s reality. Do you want to think about this for awhile? I’d like to at least have the chance to offer the idea to your President.”

  Derryman stared back at Ethan. His facial expression and cold eyes gave the others no clue as to what he was thinking but Ethan knew he was just as frightened as Foggy Winslett.

  At last Derryman sat down again. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again he said, “General Winslett, you have my authority to detail to this individual any information you have concerning Area 51.”

  “Vance…listen…I don’t think we—”

  “Do it,” came the command, and it was final.

  Winslett’s red-veined cheeks and nose already spoke of an intimate relationship with a supply of mind-numbing whiskey. His uniform and position did not shield him from terrors in the night.

  He began, with an obvious effort and a distaste for the order. “I have been there,” he said, as he stared at the beige carpet. “The base was evacuated two years ago. A security system would’ve automatically gone on-line. That’s also powered by alien technology, so it’s still active. The place is sealed up tight. Any try at breaking in would trigger defense mechanisms and ultimately blow the S-4 site to pieces. There’s a nuclear device buried underneath it. I don’t have the code to open the complex. The Vice President did. The Secretary of Defense had it, but I understand his plane went down over Virginia. The officials and scientists in the research group had blue badge clearances. They’re all missing.”

  “The President has it,” Ethan said.

  “He does. The code gets you in, but to go deeper requires a handprint against a recognition scanner on every level.”

  “I believe I need to get inside and see what’s there. As I asked before, may I offer this idea to the President?”

  Derryman and the military man exchanged glances, and Ethan knew.

  “There’s something wrong with the President,” he said. “Mentally wrong?”

  After a hesitation, Derryman said, “He comes and goes. He’s tried to commit suicide twice. One was last week, with sleeping pills. He…doesn’t know the full scope of what’s happened. We’ve kept it from him so he doesn’t crack completely. The First Lady keeps it from him too.”

  “And the only way into the research area at S-4 without triggering the defense system is with his handprint.” It was not a question from the peacekeeper, but a statement.

  “Correct. We can’t risk the President leaving this facility. He would lose his mind if he really knew, and we need him…as a symbol, if nothing else. We give him false military news. Hopeful news, Ethan, to keep him sane.” Derryman stood up again. The interview was over. He said to Jackson, “You two stay with our visitor for awhile. You’re not a prisoner, Ethan, but we would all appreciate it if you would confine yourself to this room until we get ourselves in order.”

  Ethan was aware of something else now, another sensation, another set of harmonic signatures from which he drew a mental picture. His human heartbeat quickened. “I have to tell you…the Gorgon ships are converging but keeping their range…and…there are two…three…four…Cypher warships taking up position ninety…eighty-six miles to the south. Not the small Cypher craft. These are battleships. Very big.”

  “Thank you for that.” Derryman sounded a little choked. “We may need your help in weapons control if our radars can’t pick up any targets. In the meantime…welcome to the White Mansion.”

  He and the General left the room. Bennett Jackson eased himself into the chair Derryman had vacated, his pistol still in hand. Both he and the other man seemed to want to look anywhere but directly at the alien who wore the body of a human boy.

  Ethan took the opportunity to stretch out on the bed. There was no use closing his eyes; he saw Gorgon and Cypher warships hovering in the air. Would they attack each other, or the White Mansion? They might fight for him as the prize, because one would not want the other to get him. He was too valuable a research tool. All he could do now, like any ordinary human, was to wait, and for the first time in his ancient existence, he felt absolutely powerless.

  TWENTY-EIGHT.

  “SOMETHING’S COMING,” ETHAN SUDDENLY SAID, AND HE SAT UP with a burning blue sphere in his mind. It had been only a few minutes since Derryman and General Winslett had left the room. “It’s Gorgon…but not a warship. It’s something else…a weapon.”

  Jackson was on his comm device before Ethan had finished speaking. “Ambler Seven Seven, this is Jackson. Do you read me?”

  “Go ahead, Bennett.”

  “Sir, Ethan says there’s a Gorgon weapon of some kind on the way. Coming from what direction?” he asked the peacekeeper.

  “South. Launched from a ship.”

  Jackson relayed this information.

  Ethan saw the blue sphere coming, speeding over a desert landscape. It was bright and getting brighter every second like a miniature blue sun. It held a tremendous amount of energy. The warships were still keeping their distance. Ethan thought this oncoming weapon was a test of the stronghold’s defenses. He realized he had seen this eye-dazzling blue glow before, and he knew what it was.

  He stood up, startling both men and causing them to train their weapons on him.

  “Is the bus inside?” he asked. He knew, from Jackson’s mental answer: Not yet. “Bring the bus in right now,” he said. Jackson was still on the comm device with Derryman, he didn’t know how to respond to this command or what the bus had to do with the weapon streaking toward them.

  “You’re going to be too late,” Ethan said. “It’s almost here. I’m going out, please let me pass.”

  “No, Ethan, you’ll have to—”

  The peacekeeper brushed them aside with two flicks of his left hand, from which he saw the slightest leap of a mild silver-colored electrical charge. Both men hit opposite walls with maybe a little too much force than Ethan had intended. Jackson’s gun went off and the bullet plowed upward through the ceiling. The other man’s head clunked solidly against the American eagles. Before Jackson could get to his feet, Ethan was out the door and running toward the stairs.

  As he reached the stairs and started down, heading to the garage level, he heard a high-pitched alarm go off. Whether this was because of him or because of the oncoming weapon, he didn’t know nor did he particularly care. He saw a soldier who’d taken a position at the bottom of the stairs. The young man lifted an automatic rifle and took a shooter’s stance. Just that fast Ethan brushed him aside, and the soldier went skidding across the floor, the rifle torn from his hands and flying in the opposite direction.

  Ethan ran along the corridor to the metal stairs and started down. The alarm was still going off, a pulsing sound that echoed between the garage level’s walls. He saw that at least the entrance had been closed, but the bus was still outside. When he reached the garage floor someone shouted at him and suddenly there were men in his way, grabbing at him and trying to pin him down. He restrained his power, not wanting to let it flail out and possibly kill one or more of these men. “Wait! Wait!” he cried out, but they were not listening and
they were full up with fear; they got him to his knees and one of them had a rifle in Ethan’s face and that was when Ethan felt the blue sphere pass over, in a bright mental flash and a crawling of the flesh at the back of his neck.

  He recalled when he’d seen that before. When he, within the boy, was hiding under the pickup truck in the high school parking lot. When the sphere had briefly flared out its energy beams born from the darkest territory of the Gorgon mind, and then the truck and the other abandoned vehicles in the parking lot had—

  Something crashed against the slab of rock that sealed the White Mansion. A booming echo filled the garage. All shouting ceased. The hands that were holding Ethan to the concrete were gone as the men stared at the entrance.

  Ethan stood up. Again something massive slammed against the stone. The alarm was going off like a madman’s scream. Ethan realized that if the Gorgons could create life in a matter of seconds, they could in the same amount of time program a purpose for that life, and this purpose was to smash into the humans’ stronghold.

  A third time, a body hit the stone wall. Dust puffed from it. The floor shook and the vehicles jumped. Something cracked and shattered in the far reaches of the garage. Comm devices were going off, voices asking for details. The shuddering of this chamber had been felt all through the mountain, on every level. Once more a tremendous strength battered the stone. There was a cracking noise like a broomstick being broken. Pieces of rock flew from the wall and slid across the concrete.

  “Give me a picture!” a voice shouted from a comm device. “What’s happening?”

  “We need firepower at Level Two!” It was Jackson’s voice. Ethan looked back to see the man standing just behind him on his own communicator, his pistol in hand. “This is Code Red at Level Two! Send us some guns, Rusty!”

  Ethan had another mental image of four huge mottled warships picking up speed. “The Gorgon ships are coming in!” he told Jackson, who relayed the information, got back a garbled voice and then said to Ethan, “There’s nothing on radar!”