Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  leave for ten days in late December, I went to New York with a bunch of

  postcards of the Tranquility Motel, and I put one in each of his boxes.

  He didn't go to those banks often, just a few times a year, and they've

  all got thousands of safe-deposit customers, so nobody remembered what

  Twist looked like or suspected that I wasn't him. It was easy."

  "And ingenious," Miles said, staring with admiration and fondness at the

  bulky, shadowy form of his friend. "Finding those cards would've

  electrified Twist. And if Falkirk had gotten wind of it, he'd have no

  way of knowing who'd done it."

  "Especially since I always handled the postcards with gloves," Alvarado

  said. "Didn't even leave a fingerprint. I planned to come back here,

  give Twist time to find them. Then I was going to go into Elko and,

  from a pay phone, make a couple of anonymous calls to other witnesses,

  give them Twist's unlisted number, tell them he had answers to their

  various mental problems. That would've set the ball rolling pretty

  well. But before it got that far, someone else had sent notes and

  Polaroids to Corvaisis, more Polaroids to the Blocks, and a new crisis

  was already underway. Like Falkirk, I know whoever sent those pictures

  has to be here in Thunder Hill. You going to fess up, or am I the only

  one in a confessional mood?"

  Miles hesitated. His glance fell upon the vague grayness of the report

  on his desk: Falkirk's psychological profile. He shuddered and said,

  "Yeah, Bob, I sent the pictures. Great minds think alike, huh?"

  From his own pocket of darkness, Alvarado said, "I told you why I picked

  Twist. And I can figure why you'd want to stir up the Blocks, since

  they're local and sort of at the center of everything. But why'd you

  pick Corvaisis instead of one of the others?"

  "He's a writer, which means a vivid imagination. Anonymous notes and

  odd pictures in the mail would probably grab his interest a little

  faster and tighter than anyone else's. And his first novel has had

  tremendous prepublication publicity, so if he dug up some of the truth,

  reporters might be more likely to listen to him than to the others."

  "We're a clever pair."

  "Too clever for our own good," Miles said. "Looks like sabotaging the

  cover-up was too slow. We should've just violated our secrecy oaths and

  gone public with the news, even if it meant risking Falkirk's anger and

  government prosecution."

  They were silent a moment, and then Alvarado said, "Why do you think

  I've come here and opened up to you like this, Miles?"

  "You need an ally against the colonel. Because you don't think he meant

  a word of what he told you on the phone. You don't think he's suddenly

  gotten reasonable. You don't think he's bringing the witnesses back

  here to let us study them."

  "He's going to kill them, I think," Alvarado said. "And us, too. All

  of us."

  "Because he thinks we've all been taken over. The damn fool."

  The public address system crackled, whistled. A speaker was set in the

  wall of Miles's office, as in every room within the Depository. The

  announcement followed the whistle: All personnel, military and civilian,

  were to report first to the armory to be issued handguns, then to their

  quarters to await further instructions.

  Getting up from his chair, Alvarado said, "When they're all in their

  quarters, I'll tell them it was Falkirk's idea to put them there but my

  idea to arm them. I'll warn them that, for reasons that'll be clear to

  some and a mystery to others, we're all in danger from Falkirk and his

  DEROS. Later, if the colonel sends some of his men to round up the

  staff and shoot them all, my people will be able to shoot back. I hope

  we can stop him before it goes that far."

  "Do I get a handgun, too?"

  Alvarado moved to the door but did not open it. Standing in the dark,

  he said, "You especially. Wear a lab coat with the gun under it, so

  Falkirk won't see you're armed. I intend to wear my uniform coat

  unbuttoned, with a small pistol tucked into the back of my waistband, so

  he won't ' realize I'm armed, either. If it seems he's about to order

  our destruction, I'll pull the gun and kill him. But I'll alert you

  first, with a code word, so you can turn on Horner and kill him, too.

  It's no good unless we get both, because if Horner has a chance, he'll

  kill me when I open fire. on Falkirk. And it's imperative I survive,

  not just because I'm inordinately fond of my own hide, which I am, but

  because I'm a general, and I ought to be able to make Falkirk's men obey

  me once their CO's dead. Can you do that? Can you kill a man, Miles?"

  "Yes. I'll be able to pull the trigger if it means stopping Horner. I

  consider you a good friend, too, Bob. Not just because of the poker and

  chess, either. There's also the fact that you've actually read all of

  T. S. Eliot."

  " 'I think we are in rats' alley, Where the dead men lost their bones,'

  " Bob Alvarado quoted. Laughing softly, he pulled the door open and

  stood revealed in the argentine glow of the cavern lights. "How ironic.

  Ages ago, my daddy used to worry that my interest in poetry was a sign

  I'd grow up to be a skirt-wearing sissy. Instead, I became a one-star

  general, and in the hour of my greatest need, it's poetry that persuades

  you to kill for me and save my ass. Coming to the armory, Dr. Bennell?"

  Miles rose from his chair and joined the general in the spill of frosty

  light in the doorway. He said, "You realize that Falkirk is, in

  essence, acting in the name of the Army Chief of Staff himself and even

  higher authorities. So after you've killed him, you'll have General

  Riddenhour and maybe even the President coming down hard on your neck."

  "Fuck Riddenhour," Bob Alvarado said, clapping a hand on Miles's

  shoulder. "Fuck all the politicians and their toadying generals like

  Riddenhour. Even though Falkirk will take the security computer's new

  codes with him when we kill him, we'll get out of here in a few days,

  even if we have to dismantle the damn exit. And then ... do you

  realize, when we take the news to the world, we're going to be two of

  the most famous men on this sorry planet? Maybe two of the most famous

  men in history. Fact is, I can't think of anyone in history who had

  quite such important news to spread ...

  except Mary Magdalene on Easter Morning."

  Father Stefan Wycazik drove the Cherokee because he had experience with

  four-wheel-drive vehicles from his service with Father Bill Nader in

  Vietnam. Of course, those adventures had been laid in swamp and jungle,

  not in a blizzard. But he discovered the Jeep handled about the same in

  either condition. And though his daredevil experiences were long ago in

  time, they seemed recent in his heart and mind, and he controlled the

  wheel with the same reckless disregard for danger and sure-handed

  expertise that he'd shown in his younger days, under fire. As he and

  Parker Faine headed away from the lights of Elko into the snow-blasted

  night, Father Wycazik knew that God had called him to the priesthood

  precisely
because, at times, the Church required a man who carried a

  thick splinter of an adventurer's soul lodged in his own.

  Because I-80 was closed, they went north on State Route 51. They

  switched to a series of westward-leading county roads-macadam, gravel,

  dirt, all under a mantle of snow. The roads were marked by

  cat's-eye-yellow reflectors on widely spaced posts along the berm, and

  the luster of those periodic guideposts, casting back the headlight

  beams, was frequently the only thing that kept Stefan from going astray.

  Sometimes, he had to drive overland to get from one lane to another.

  Fortunately, they had bought a dash-mounted compass and a county map.

  Although their route was winding and rough,

  they made steady progress in the general direction of the Tranquility

  Motel.

  On the way, Stefan told Parker about the CISG, about which he had

  learned from Michael Gerrano, after Michael had gotten the news from Mr.

  X, Ginger Weiss's friend. "Colonel Falkirk was the only military member.

  The CISG looks like a typical waste of tax dollars: a study group funded

  to do a think-tank-type assessment of a social problem that would most

  likely never arise. The committee consisted of biologists, physicists,

  cultural anthropologists, medical doctors, sociologists, psychologists.

  The acronym CISG stands for Contact Impact Study Group, which means they

  tried to determine the positive and negative impact on human society of

  first contact with an intelligent species not of this world."

  Keeping his eyes on the snowy road, Stefan paused to let his meaning

  sink in, smiled slightly when he heard the artist take a sudden sharp

  breath. Parker said, "You don't mean . . . you couldn't mean "Yes,"

  Stefan said.

  "Something came . . . you mean that . . . something .

  For the first time in Stefan Wycazik's acquaintance, Parker Faine was

  speechless.

  "Yes," Stefan said. Although this amazing development was no longer

  news to him, he still shivered at the thought of it, and he appreciated

  what Parker was feeling. "Something came down that night. Something

  came down from the sky on July sixth."

  "Jesus!" Parker exclaimed. "Uh, sorry, Father. Didn't mean to be

  blasphemous. Came down. Holy shit. Sorry. Really. But . . .

  Jesus!"

  Following cat's-eye reflectors along an especially twisty gravel road

  that hugged the lower contours of folded and refolded hills, Father

  Wycazik said, "Under the circumstances, I don't think God's grading you

  on verbal restraint. The CISG's primary purpose was to arrive at a

  consensus of how human cultures-and human beings themselves-would be

  affected by face-to-face contact with extraterrestrials."

  "But that's an easy question to answer. What a joyous, wondrous thing

  to discover we're not alone!" Parker said. "You and I know how people

  would react. Look how they've been fascinated by movies about other

  worlds and aliens for decades now!"

  "Yes," Stefan said, "but there's a difference how they react to

  fictional contact and how they might react to the reality. At least

  that's the opinion of many scientists, especially in the soft sciences

  like sociology and psychology. And anthropologists tell us that when an

  advanced culture interacts with one less advanced, the less advanced

  culture suffers a loss of confidence in-and often a complete collapse

  of-its traditions, institutions. The primitive culture loses respect

  for its religions and systems of government. Its sexual practices,

  social values, and family structures deteriorate. Look what happened to

  the Eskimos following their encounter with Western civilization: soaring

  alcoholism, family-destroying generational conflict, a high rate of

  suicide. . . . It's not that Western culture is dangerous or evil.

  It isn't. But our culture was far more sophisticated and richly

  textured than the Eskimo culture, and contact led to a serious loss of

  self-esteem among the Eskimos that they've never regained and never

  will."

  Stefan had to pause in his elaboration of the issue, for they came to

  the end of the gravel track on which they had been traveling.

  Parker studied the map in the dim glow of the glove-compartment light.

  Then he checked the dash-mounted compass. "That way," he said, pointing

  left. "We go three miles due west, all of it overland. Then we'll come

  to a north-south county route called . . . Vista Valley Road. We

  cross Vista Valley, and from there it looks about eight or nine miles,

  overland again, until we might come up behind the Tranquility."

  "You keep checking the compass, make sure I stay pointed west." Stefan

  drove the Cherokee into the snow-shrouded nightscape ahead.

  Parker said, "This stuff about the Eskimos, all this detail about what

  the CISG's point of view is like-Mr. X didn't pass all these fine

  points along to Father Gerrano in one telephone call."

  "Some of it; not all of it."

  "So I gather you've thought about the subject before."

  "Not about extraterrestrial contact, no," Father Wycazik said. "But

  part of Jesuit education involves a hard look at both the good and bad

  results of the Church's efforts to spread the faith to backward cultures

  throughout history. The general feeling is we did a disturbing amount

  of damage even as we brought enlightenment. Anyway, we study a lot of

  anthropology, so I can understand the concern of the CISG."

  "You're drifting north. Angle left as soon as the land will let you,"

  Parker said, checking the compass. "Listen, I'm still not sure I

  understand the CISG's concern."

  "Consider the American Indian. Ultimately, the white man's guns didn't

  destroy them; the clash of cultures did them in; the influx of new ideas

  forced the Indians to view their comparatively primitive societies from

  a different perspective, resulting in a loss of esteem, a loss of

  cultural validity and direction. According to what Mr. X told Father

  Gerrano, the CISG believed contact between mankind and very advanced

  extraterrestrials could have those same effects on us: the destruction

  of religious faith, a loss of faith in all governments and other secular

  belief-systems, a rising feeling of inferiority, suicide."

  Parker Faine made a harsh scoffing sound in the back of his throat.

  "Father, would your faith collapse because of this?"

  "No. Just the opposite," Stefan said excitedly. "If this enormous

  universe didn't contain any other life, if the trillions of stars and

  billions of planets were all barren of life-that might make me think

  there was no God, that our species' evolution was just happenstance.

  Because if there's a God, He loves life, cherishes life and all the

  creatures He created, and He'd never leave the universe so empty."

  "A lot of people-most people-would feel the same," Parker said.

  "And even if the species we encounter is frighteningly different from us

  in physical appearance, that wouldn't shake me. When God told us He

  created us in His image, He didn't mean our physical appearance was like

  His. He meant our souls, minds, our capacity for reason and compassion,


  love, friendship: Those are the aspects of humanity that are in His

  image. Which is the message I'm taking to Brendan. I believe Brendan's

  crisis of faith was related to a memory of an encounter with a race

  vastly different from us-and so shatteringly superior to us-that he

  subconsciously believed it put the lie to what the Church teaches us

  about mankind being in God's image. I want to tell him that it's not

  what they look like that matters or whether they're far more advanced

  than us. What indicates the divine hand in them is their capacity to

  love, to care-and to use their God-given intelligence to triumph over

  the challenges of the universe that He gave them."

  "Which they've had to do in order to come so far," Parker said.

  "Exactly!" Father Wycazik said. "I'm sure when the brainwashing loses

  its hold on Brendan, when he remembers what happened and has time to

  think about it, he'll come to the same conclusion. But just in case, I

  want to be there beside him, to help him, guide him."

  "You love him very much," Parker said.

  For several seconds, Father Wycazik squinted into the tumultuous white

  world ahead, progressing more slowly and cautiously than when he'd been

  following the reflectors along a known road. At last he said, in a soft

  voice: "Sometimes I've regretted entering the priesthood. God help me,

  it's true. Because sometimes I think about the family I might have had:

  a wife whose life I could share, who'd share mine, and children to watch

  grow. . . . The family that might have beenthat's what I miss.

  Nothing else. The thing about Brendan is . . . well, he's the son I

  never had and never will. I love him more than I can say."