“OK, two minutes. No longer!” Lenel warned. He could see the swirl of green light coming from beneath the ship and knew Okun had gotten the door off. He stepped through the opening and began edging along the top of the slope.
Okun concentrated on making himself very skinny and eventually succeeded in worming out from under the door. Then he looked up and beheld the spectacular play of light caused by the aqua-box, its energy racing around the inside of the chamber like a transparent cyclone of crystal green water. An exact clone of the one at Area 51, it exhibited the same paper-thin walls of rock, the same hairwidth filaments arranged in a complex geometrical pattern. But there was one important exception: floating in the center of the hexagonal chamber, suspended in midair, was a small piece of metal shaped like an ankh. Like a gyroscope, it was spinning and rolling while remaining in one spot. It seemed to be gathering the energy off the sides of the hexagon and sending it out in a controlled manner. Each of the ankh’s four arms sent out a razor-thin beam. He remembered the chaotic way the other ship’s box had purged the system of energy and how the ships would have had to fly improbably close to one another. This was the answer, and it had been hanging around his neck the whole time. Incredible!
When something moved across the doorway, Okun reached out and grabbed the tire iron. But it was only Lenel, who immediately concealed himself behind the rock wall. “Too late. They’re here.” He pointed up through the ceiling. “They’ve found us, and it’s too dark out there for me to see where I’m going.”
Okun gathered up his possessions. He’d seen how the aqua-box worked. He was ready to help Lenel make his escape. But as he made to leave, he decided he needed to try one last experiment. He slipped his necklace off and tried to undo the knot, but couldn’t. “Might work anyhow,” he muttered. He wanted to switch the two ankhs, to make absolutely sure they were interchangeable. He reached up and pulled the spinning piece out, preparing to switch them. Immediately the ship lost power and began settling toward the floor. Okun hadn’t counted on that. He shoved the new piece into the chamber and closed his eyes tight, expecting to feel the weight of the ship crush down on his chest. Luckily, it accepted the second ankh, leather string and all.
If I take both ankhs, they won’t be able to fly this ship out of here! He decided to go for broke.
“What in Hades are you doing over there? They’ll be coming through the door any second. Let’s get—” Lenel, glancing outside, saw something that stopped him in midsentence. Hovering directly overhead was the nose of an alien saucer. It crawled forward until it was away from the cliffs, then turned itself around and crept closer. Peeking around the corner of the doorway, Lenel had a clear view through the windows into the interior of the craft. A handful of the large-headed creatures were gathered at the windows, inspecting the cliff.
“How we doin’ over there?” Okun called over his shoulder. He was too focused on his task to notice that Lenel’s answer was an unintelligible stammer. He was trying to get his ankh out of the aqua-box without having the ship squash him. He had crawled back into the trench and was reaching with the tire iron, trying to snag the loop of leather string. But this was as difficult as a carnival game owing to the fact that the spinning ankh was moving the string in all directions.
The hovering saucer pressed in closer. Lenel picked up a large rock and stood with his back pressed to the wall, his eyes glued to the doorway. He planned to clobber anything that stepped inside. He felt the nose of the spacecraft bump against the wall and wondered if they were going to use the ship as a battering ram to open the cave. He found his voice long enough to whisper hoarsely across the darkness of the cave: “They’re right outside.”
One last try, Okun told himself. I know I can get it. But before he could take a final stab at the dancing leather string, a powerful blast of white light entered the cave from outside. It was sweeping across the floor and heading his way. Faster than he knew he could move, he rolled into the trench, hiding himself a split second before he was seen. The search beam scanned the cave’s interior for several seconds before abruptly shutting off.
“Now do you believe me?” Lenel’s voice was trembling. “Please, Brackish, let’s go.”
Cowering in the trench, Okun asked if the ship had moved away. Suddenly his idea about challenging the aliens had vanished. When Lenel reported that it had flown a little way off, Okun leaped out of the trench and ran for the door. Without a word, he helped his old friend step through the hole and out onto the ledge. The spacecraft was hovering near the bottom of the cliffs, not far from where the station wagon had been parked a few hours before. Okun was more terrified than he’d ever been. He felt the strong urge to sprint away down the cliff and be well hidden by the time the aliens came out of their ship. But he couldn’t abandon Lenel, especially after making him wait so long to escape. He tried to pull the man along gently, but was afraid of knocking him off-balance. When they came to a flat section of the stone ledge, he left Lenel for just a moment to run ahead and check the switchback trail Pedro had shown him that afternoon. It looked too treacherous for the old man. As Lenel took the last few steps toward Okun, he lost his way and walked off the narrow trail. He landed on the gravel slope and crashed hard against the rocks. By the time Okun got to him, he had slid ten feet down the hill and was clutching a handful of shrubs. Desperately searching for a way to reach his friend, he heard the old man whimpering in pain. Even the quietest sound was a roar of noise in the Silent Zone.
“Lenel,” he rasped, “reach up here and grab my hand. I’ll pull you up.”
The old man shook his head. “I think I broke something. You get out of here. Get back to Area 51.”
“Not without you I’m not.” Okun wedged the toe of his shoe into a fissure in the rock and started lowering himself headfirst down the slope. Before he could grasp the old man’s wrist, the root of the bush Lenel was holding gave way, and Lenel began sliding down the rocky slope. Horrified, Okun made a last desperate lunge, but couldn’t reach him. The old man slid away until he plunged over the side of the lower cliffs and landed a second later with a sickening thud.
“Lenel, are you all right?” he whispered, knowing his voice would carry to the bottom of the cliffs.
No answer. He was about to start down the hillside to find his friend when he heard a metallic click echo through the valley. Then he watched a circular pool of light form on the ground below the ship. The hatch door had been opened. Adrenaline pumping, he ran a few more strides along the trail before diving into a shallow foxhole near the base of the trail leading to the top of the cliffs. Climbing the trail now would definitely expose him.
He looked down on the ship until he saw the little beings step onto the ground and begin wandering around the area. They moved toward the base of the hill, to the place where Lenel’s body must have fallen. Although he couldn’t see Lenel, he could see the creatures standing around him. He wanted to shout at them to get away from his friend, but was too terrified even to move. Suddenly, they abandoned Lenel and began climbing the hillside. Okun knew that probably meant the old man was dead.
Peeking and ducking, he watched the aliens trying to climb the first steep wall toward the cave. From everything he’d learned about them, he expected them to be much more nimble. But they were having just as much trouble as he had had with the rocky terrain.
It occurred to him he could probably make a run for it. In fact, he probably should because his foxhole was only seventy-five feet from the opening. When they realized someone had been messing around with their ship, wouldn’t they come out and search the area? Maybe they’ll think Lenel was in there by himself. No, he had to get out of there immediately. He reached down to grab his notebook and his ankh and realized he’d left them inside! He slapped himself in the forehead. The searchlight scanning the cave had scared him so badly, he’d forgotten to pick up his things. He’d come all this way only to blow it at the very end. He briefly considered making a mad dash back to the door, ducking i
nside to grab his possessions and racing out again. But, like the other heroic plans he’d made that evening, he thought about it too long. Soon six of the awkward little creatures were approaching the mouth of the cave. At the bottom of the slope, he spotted a taller creature, climbing the hillside even more awkwardly than the others. That must be the Tall One.
The smaller aliens had already been inside for a couple of minutes when the Tall One reached the top of the slope. They came outside and flitted around the taller creature, seemingly agitated. As Okun watched this scene unfold, the Tall One turned its head in a very deliberate way and seemed to look directly at Okun across the darkness. Okun ducked out of sight, fighting to control his fear. It was dark; maybe he hadn’t been seen. His heart racing like it was going to explode, he quietly turned on his back and tried to clear his mind. He knew he had to stay hidden, but he also knew he had to run. He heard the sound of their feet moving across the gravel again. Were they moving in to surround him? He flipped back over and glanced up at the switchback trail. It was time to find out who could run faster, a terrified earthling or these creatures from who-knew-where. But when he peeked once more over the edge of his hiding place, the creatures were in retreat. The six smaller ones were marching away down the hillside and the Tall One was disappearing alone into the cave.
They climbed down the lower cliff and didn’t walk over to Lenel’s body. They went straight to their ship and climbed in. Okun counted them again to make sure none of them were sneaking around to ambush him. A moment after the circular door snapped closed, there was a whirring hum and the sixty-foot craft zipped straight up into the air, disappearing into the canopy of stars at a fantastic rate of speed. When the ship was gone, the zone of silence swallowed him once more. He heard the Tall One moving around inside the cave. Somehow, being left alone near this most terrifying of the aliens was worse than being near all six of the others. Is the Tall One reading my mind right now? Does he know I’m out here?
No longer indecisive, Okun began his escape. He pushed himself quietly away from the gravel of his hiding place and I stepped back onto the trail. He began climbing the narrow trail to the top of the cliffs, which was littered with pebbles and sand. Each footstep became a matter of life and death. To help him find the Zen of the moment, he imagined himself as Grasshopper, the young Shao-Lin priest from the Kung Fu television series. Hands gliding through the air, knees bent, Okun climbed the treacherous slope as delicately as if it were a rice-paper carpet he could not afford to tear. When he reached the top of the bluff, he found himself on a large mesa. After a final glance over the side to make sure he wasn’t being followed, he tore away at a dead run. He ran as fast as he could in a straight line across the open plain, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. When he got to the far side of the plateau, he wasted no time. He ran down this new set of slopes which were every bit as treacherous as the ones outside the cave, something he could never have done if his system weren’t overloaded with adrenaline. It didn’t matter to him that he was running ever deeper into a waterless no-man’s-land where he might die of thirst or starvation. His immediate problem was getting as far away from the cave as humanly possible. He wanted to be miles away when the Tall One came out of the cave to look for him. After twenty minutes of sprinting, a stabbing pain in his side forced him to stop. He limped to a place between two boulders and collapsed in the sand, gasping for air and dripping with sweat. He was sure they wouldn’t find him here, even if they came looking.
When he’d been lying there long enough for his breathing to return to normal, he heard a droning sound in the distance. He listened to the sound for a long while until he recognized what it was—an airplane engine. It was coming from the direction of the power lines. Cibatutto and Freiling must have reached a phone and called in the Marines. He wanted to run back the way he’d come and help them locate the cave, but he was beyond exhaustion. All he could do was hope the military found the spot before the Tall One escaped with the ship. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he listened to the plane’s engine purring in the distance.
14
THE OKUN ERA BEGINS
Even before he opened his eyes, he felt the presence standing over him. He was lying on his stomach and felt every nerve ending in his body tingle to full alertness. His deepest instincts told him not to move, not to change his breathing. He was certain he was being watched.
A voice asked, “Mr. Okun?”
Brackish deftly flipped himself onto, his side and cocked his leg back, ready to mule-kick his attacker, when he noticed he was in a hospital. The doctor at his bedside, who had almost taken a face full of foot, was a young man with a goatee, a buzz cut, and a very intense look on his face. He hadn’t flinched.
“Feeling better this morning?”
“Dude, I was just about to kick your teeth out. You’re supposed to get out of the way when that happens.”
“Much better than yesterday, I see.”
Okun looked him over. “What do you mean? How long have I been here? Where am I? What’s wrong with me?”
The man arched an eyebrow. “Much much better.” He introduced himself as Dr. Issacs and explained they were at Fort Irwin, California. Okun had been there for a week, and although there was nothing physically wrong with him, he was suffering from an extremely unusual form of memory loss. Although Okun could remember everything that had gone on in Mexico, he could recall none of his stay in the hospital. Each morning for the past week, he had woken up anxious to tell about the alien ship he’d found. Although he was only half conscious, he managed to relate the story accurately and in some detail. When Issacs and the other doctors explained to him that he’d already told them about the trip south of the border, he became quarrelsome, refusing to believe them. Each morning he asked if the ship had been recovered, if Lenel was dead, and whether his ankh necklace had been found. He remembered the answers he received until he slept again—whereupon he forgot everything. Even when he drifted off for a ten-minute nap, he woke up surprised not to find himself in the desert. Dizzy and confused, he began asking the doctors where he was, how long he’d been there, whether the ship had been recovered, and if Lenel was still alive. Issacs, who was not a psychiatrist, said it was a case of amnesia unlike any he could find described in the medical literature and had no idea of how to go about treating the condition. Gazing steadily, almost menacingly, down at his patient, he expressed a guarded optimism. “You’ve seemed groggy all week, but today you appear to be quite alert. I take it as a good sign.”
Okun looked confused and opened his mouth to speak.
“Before it occurs to you to ask,” Issacs cut him off, “let me assure you that Dr. Lenel is alive and well. He broke two ribs and fractured some bones in his left hip, but his doctors expect him to recover nicely. Your story matches his in every detail up to the point where he fell down the hill, and we have no reason to suspect your account of the facts after that point.”
“So, what you’re telling me is”—Okun wanted to get this straight—“I keep not remembering yesterday.”
“Precisely. Or you might say you keep on unremembering it in your sleep, and I don’t mind telling you that the whole thing has begun to get on my nerves. We’ve had the same conversation every day this week.” He explained that the two of them had spent hour after hour arguing because Okun refused to believe Issacs when he said Okun had told him the same exact story the previous day. “Frankly,” the stolid young doctor said, “it’s become incredibly tedious.”
Okun was beginning to wish he’d kicked this guy when he had the chance. He tried to remember yesterday. The last thing he could recall was finding the spot between the boulders and listening to the plane’s engine. He started to ask Issacs something, but the doctor held up his hands.
“Before you begin asking your usual questions”—he rolled his eyes wearily—“perhaps you’d allow me to answer them for you. First: the search planes located the cave shortly after dawn on Monday morning. The exterior wa
ll had been destroyed, very possibly broken from the inside out, but there was no other evidence of the ship you and Dr. Lenel have described. Second: no, your necklace was not in the cave. Third: no, the other ankh was not in the cave either. Fourth: yes, the recovery team headed by Mr. Jenkins searched in the loose earth where you had been digging. Fifth: you were found by two members of the search party, a pair of agents from the CIA’s Domestic Collections Division. Am I going too fast for you?”
“No one even saw the ship leaving the cave?”
“Radar abnormalities were observed in the region, but no definitive sighting was made.”
“So, basically, we came away empty-handed?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
Okun buried his face under his pillow and briefly considered smothering himself. Issacs, who briefly considered helping him, went on. “I’m very encouraged by the fact that you appear to believe what I’m telling you this morning. It may mean you’re cured. Today is different for another reason as well. Colonel Spelman is visiting from Washington and is waiting to see you. I’ll show him in.”
A groan came through the pillow when Okun heard he would have to face Spelman. He was positive he was about to be bawled out by an irate soldier for all the rules he’d broken and all the damage he’d caused. But when the barrel-chested officer came into the room, he was all handshakes and smiles. He didn’t seem angry at all.
“Nonsense,” Spelman said, when Okun began apologizing for the way he’d chased after the second ship. “You did your best. If we had trusted you a little more, and sent you down there with some military backup, we would have captured the thing and maybe even taken some prisoners. But we were a little nervous after your visit with Dr. Wells. You couldn’t have played it any better than you did.”
“I need to get back there, Colonel. I need to search the cave for something. See, I had this necklace with a little piece from the ship shaped like an ankh—that’s the ancient Egyptian symbol for life. Anyhow, I—”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 49