And that’s where we left it. She wouldn’t touch me at first, but then she embraced me and hugged me close. Maybe it was just fear, but I’d like to think, particularly considering what happened afterwards, that it meant something more to her. It sure as hell did to me, especially later.
About eight that morning, while we were having a light breakfast, I heard a convoy of trucks rolling down Novato Boulevard, and I rushed out in my robe to see what I could see; but my vantage point on Olivet Avenue just gave me a glimpse of the camouflaged military vehicles as they rumbled by. I thought I spotted a couple of half-tracks, a few artillery pieces, and some transport trucks littered among the Humvees. I quickly got dressed, gave Becky a peck on the cheek, and told her I’d be back for lunch.
Half an hour later, a second convoy of National Guardsmen deployed north of the impact area, together with some state police and a representative from the Governor’s Office. The new landings of Martian ships in the Bay Area had finally alerted the authorities to the seriousness of the situation, and similar responses were already being initiated at the sites where the capsules hadn’t yet unfolded.
Somebody yelled and pointed at the sky. I saw a long streak of green stretching its way from the western horizon towards us, finally disappearing eastward with a loud, single clap of thunder, like a sonic boom.
Another alien ship had just planted itself in good California soil.
CHAPTER NINE
INTERPLANETARY WAR
Be not disturbed by planetary war.
—Elinor Wylie
Alex Smith, 26 December, Mars Year i
Novato, California, Planet Earth
After throwing on some old clothes, I hurried down Novato Boulevard, following the traffic and hordes of people to where the military was. Some of the locals were carrying lawn chairs and picnic lunches and ice chests filled with drinks. Blasting the aliens—or whatever they were—had become almost a town party.
The National Guard had established two emplacements, one to the north of the pit and one to the south, both in non-populated areas. The police had been moved away from the perimeter and ordered to keep the lookie-loos from interfering with the military. There were maybe a hundred Guardsmen at each camp, and more were arriving all the time in small convoys.
The funny thing was, nobody seemed much concerned about the situation, either soldiers or civilians. I saw a vending truck selling sandwiches, beer, soft drinks, and other snacks. With the weather so unseasonably warm for winter, people spread out blankets on the hills surrounding the pit, picking out the best spots to view the coming action while munching nattily on their Nachos. The Guardsmen began moving very slowly and methodically to position their mobile cannons and half-tracks where they could cover each other.
I saw my next-door neighbor, Brice Boston, sitting on one of those portable lawn stools, the canvass kind, drinking a Coors Light, and holding a portable radio in his lap, earplugs already strapped over his patriotic NRA cap. Brice was a strong supporter of the current Governor, a real horror show.
He popped his plugs and said: “Hey, man, it’s all over but the shouting. The Guard’ll cut ’em to shreds in two minutes, if they actually start something. Want a brewski?”
He held out a Quatro Equis, but I passed. A bit early in the day, if you know what I mean—and in any case, I never understood what the additional X’s meant.
“What we really oughta be worried about,” he said, “is the goddamned Liberals. They’ll probably want us to hold off or somethin’, so we can analyze the little buggers to death. I say kill ’em all before they kill us!”
Brice was a practical kind of guy. He had an old-fashioned revolver stuck in a holster right there in his lunch box. The permit was taped on the top for everyone to read, assuming that they could. No way he was going to let the aliens get away!
“I thought we had this Alien Registration Act,” he said in his whiny little voice. “When are those goddamned Congressmen going to do something right for a change? There oughta be a law.”
Still, I suggested, it might be best to move a little further away from the possible action.
“Naaah, I mean, what are they going to do, man?” Brice said. “Piss on us? Hey, I want to see everything.”
“They say Nevada City’s burning,” someone said. “One of those things crashed there. The fire companies are just going crazy.”
I bought a turkey sandwich from a mobile van, together with some cold bottled water, and then thought about Min while I munched away on the miserable mystery meat. I wondered where he’d gotten himself to by now—I hoped somewhere cool and pleasant and safe. I managed to eat about half of my snack before throwing the rest away. Then I decided to mosey on down towards the landing site.
Under the Novato Creek Bridge I found the first group of soldiers. They told me no one was allowed past the stream; looking down along the road, I saw one of the men standing sentinel there. I talked with them for half an hour, and told them what I’d seen the previous night. None of them had glimpsed the Martians themselves, so they were very curious.
But I was startled to find that the Guardsmen really didn’t know all that much about their situation, or even what their commanders intended to do. They were as ignorant of the aliens and their war machines as the townspeople. I described the sting-ray weapon to them.
“Hey, we’ll just hunker down and rush ’em,” a Private named Mayer said.
“Yeah, piece o’ cake,” another soldier said. “Our guns’ll knock ’em out for sure.”
And so on.
One of them wanted to know what the Martians looked like, so I gave them a general description.
“Squids,” Mayer said, “that’s how I see ’em. Well, one tentacle or ten, they’re going down when the bullets start flyin’ ’round here.”
“You bet,” another said, “friggin’ freaks of nature. We’re goin’ on safari, guys.”
That got a big laugh all around, but they didn’t have any idea of what they were talking about. I’d seen the aliens in action; they hadn’t.
“Big game huntin’!” Mayer said, jerking his head at the black guy, “Hey, we’re headin’ for the Serengeti, and Larrah here’s our ‘Bush’ Man.”
They all laughed again, until Sergeant Larrah lunged forward and knocked the man’s helmet off.
“Don’t try droppin’ any of that racist shit on me,” the noncom said. “I’ll boot your ass all the way back to ’Frisco.”
“Didn’t mean nothing by it,” the first man said, backing away and holding up his hands. “Talkin’ about the President, you know?
“Hey,” one of his companions said, “why don’t we just shell the damn things and be done with it?”
“This is the Army, boys,” the black man said. “We don’t do nothin’ without ‘due consideration.’ We move when we get orders to move.”
“Shit,” they all said together, and added the soldiers’ standard refrain: “It’s all FUBAR.”
They were still discussing the situation, waiting for orders from their absent officers, when I left. I couldn’t get close enough to the landing site to see anything else. The surrounding hills didn’t provide enough elevation to observe more than the mound itself, and the troops that I talked to in both camps didn’t have any hard information. The officers were mysteriously absent, apparently consulting with their superiors. People from town were feeling secure again for the first time in several days. I overheard Jan Alexander, manager of the local Ralf’s market, say that her son Benedict was among those missing from the previous day. The police were evacuating people from the western sections of Novato, forcing them to abandon their homes.
I returned for a late lunch a little after one, feeling very tired. The day already seemed dull, filled with that yellow atmosphere that drew the energy right out of your bones. I tried waking up by taking a cold shower. Becky wanted me to drive her to Sonoma and Aunt Anita right away, but I managed to put her off, saying I was too beat to do anything. A
bout half past two I checked the news again, because the early reports had only given a sketchy and inaccurate description of the multiple landings of the Martians around California.
But there was little in the evening editions that I didn’t already know. The Martians hadn’t shown themselves anywhere since last night: they were all still buttoned up in their respective ships, doing whatever they were doing. They seemed to be very busy at something, hammering and creaking and pounding very loudly for extended periods of time. Every so often the microphones on these sites would record the sounds of sloshing and what appeared to be Martian “conversation,” the “oohs” and “aahs” that they made seemingly at random. No one could make any sense of it. The pits themselves were sealed up, possibly as a defensive mechanism, but issued an almost continuous stream of gray-green smoke.
The wire services and the Internet and CNN all reported “Fresh Attempts at Communication” with the aliens, but most of the time the invaders didn’t even bother to zap the groups trying to reach them. Only when individuals approached the pits within a perimeter of, say, fifteen or twenty yards, crossing some invisible line in the sand, did the Martians respond immediately with a vile and vicious attack, wiping out everyone and everything within range, even those beyond the “border” area.
One small group of officials tried to get around this by waving an American flag on a long pole, as if they were actors in some old ’50s flick. The Martians took about as much notice of this as we might of cows mooing in the pasture. I had the impression that they didn’t really regard us as intelligent, although why this should be so I couldn’t possibly imagine. I mean, the signs of our highly-developed civilization were evident everywhere around them.
About three o’clock I heard the dull thud of a big gun firing at measured intervals from the northern military camp. The Martians didn’t respond. I hurried to the battle site, as close as I dared approach, and used a pair of old binoculars to peer through the haze. I couldn’t see much, even with the increased magnification. Becky had remained at home, refusing to join me.
About five I heard another muffled detonation from the north camp, and immediately afterwards a burst of firing in very rapid succession, like machine-guns or small-arms fire—rat-a-tat-tat! I was near the southern emplacement, which was closer to Novato proper. A violent boom suddenly shook the earth. The high school behind me burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the First Baptist Church came crashing down beside it. When the smoke cleared, I could see that the cross on the pinnacle of the church had vanished, and the roof line of the school looked as if a hundred-ton woodpecker had been gouging away at it.
This was getting way too close for comfort! I retreated from the base as half-tracks began moving forward and unleashing their weapons. The Martian response was immediate: one of the vehicles exploded in a cacophony of flame and bursting shells, while a second partially melted sidewise into the ground. It just missed me.
I ran away, I’m ashamed to admit. I wasn’t a soldier, and I couldn’t face death straight-on.
Our house stood near the apex of a small hill in Novato, just off the main drag. As I ran home, I could just see the roof as I came down our street. A stray shot had cracked our chimney open, and knocked a piece of it down into the yard.
“I’m sorry!” I shouted to Becky, who was standing on the front porch. “We can’t possibly stay any longer. The Martians are breaking out. I should have.... Forgive me?”
I held her close for just a moment.
“Come on,” she said, pushing me away. “Time enough for that later. We’ve got to get out of here. Everything’s packed and ready to go.”
I backed the car out of the garage. People were screaming and running up the street behind me.
“They’re coming!” one man was shouting.
“101?” Becky asked over the din.
“No,” I said. “Everybody’ll be heading for the freeway, and it’s too close to the danger zone anyway. 37 will do.”
State Highway 37 was a four-lane road that slanted northeast from Novato towards Vallejo.
“I thought we were going to Sonoma.”
“We’ll take 37 to 121 north. Maybe we should go even further, I don’t know.”
“I’ll call Anita and tell her we’re on the way.”
Down the hill I saw a truck full of soldiers pull to a stop by the bridge over Novato Creek; they began running from house to house, yelling at the occupants to get the hell out. The sun dimmed suddenly, obscured by the smoke rising from the burning trees and structures; the blood-red light threw a lurid slant upon the scene.
A policeman was directing traffic at the intersection.
“What’s happening?” I yelled out the window.
He turned, stared at me, and shouted something about “a thing like a dish cover,” before I lost him in the rearview mirror. In another minute we were out of the smoke and noise and heading across town.
Even on 37 it took us forever to get out of Novato, or at least it seemed that way, although Becky assured me later that it was just fifteen minutes to the junction. Before us stretched a vista of serene, sunny suburban landscapes, filled with houses and stores and restaurants and sanity. Behind us in the mirror I could see thick streams of black smoke shot through with threads of red fire driving shafts into the still air, throwing dark shadows upon the green-black treetops to the west. The cloud already extended a great distance into the sky, almost like a thunderhead—maybe as far north as the pinewoods outside of town, and running towards Stafford Lake on the west. Everywhere people were scattering like ants from a stirred-up nest, not knowing what to do or where to go.
And very faintly now, but very distinctly through the warm, quiet air, I could hear the rattling of a machine gun and the crackling of small arms fire. Then it all stopped, just like that. Apparently the Martians were destroying everything with their sting-ray.
It took all my concentration to avoid running someone down. Just before we turned onto State Highway 121, I glanced back at downtown Novato, but it was completely hidden behind a pall of black smoke. From there we drove north to the town of Sonoma, a little more than twenty miles from Novato.
The trip took us forever and a day, and it seemed almost like another world when we finally stopped.
Anita, I thought to myself when she appeared at her front doorstep, a crazy bright orange shawl wrapped over her head like a turban, you just laugh your funny laugh all you want. I stepped forward and enthusiastically embraced her. I never saw a more surprised person in all my life.
CHAPTER TEN
THE MARTIAN SCEPTER
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden scepter o’er a slumbering world.
—Edward Young
Alex Smith, 26 December, Mars Year i
Sonoma County, California, Planet Earth
Sonoma lies northeast of Novato. It’s ensconced within a beautiful green countryside sprinkled with patches of woods, fields, vineyards, houses, and farms, although the latter are rapidly being developed out of existence. The heavy firing from Novato ceased as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the evening peaceful and still and mercifully cool. We reached the town without incident just after dark. Anita had saved us a cold dinner, which we gulped down like the starving refugees we were.
“What have you heard?” she asked.
I told her about our journey.
“There’s absolutely nothing on the news,” Anita said.
Becky had been curiously silent throughout our drive. I pointed out to her again that the Martians were certainly tied to their pits by Earth’s gravity and by their sheer bulk, but I didn’t really believe what I was saying, not after seeing what we had seen in Novato.
She answered me in monotones.
After we’d filled our bellies, she turned to me and said, “You’re not going back, Alex.”
By then, though, my perversity of curiosity had
once more supplanted my better sense.
“I’ve got to, Becky,” I said.
“Why, Alex? Why?”
“I just want to see this through. Nothing’s ever really happened to me, nothing like this anyway. I’ve had an easy, complacent life, pontificating to my students and planting my nose firmly in my books. I’m not complaining, mind, but I’ve never really done or experienced anything truly big. This is my great chance, Becky. It’s an opportunity for me to see history in the making, and then to report back to the world what’s actually occurring here.”
“What if they reach Sonoma? What then, Alex?”
“Even if they beat us, which I don’t believe, they’re going to be heading south towards the big city”—I was talking about San Francisco—“not this way. You’ll be perfectly safe here.”
“You don’t know anything about them. You really don’t. You think you do, but what you’re seeing is your own image reflected back at yourself. Don’t leave me alone, Alex. Please don’t abandon me.”
“You’ll be in good hands with Anita and Dave.”
Dave Bol Kwon was Anita’s current “live-in,” whom I’d just met for the first time an hour earlier. Old Dave was a nice enough guy, I suppose, but a bit stodgy for my tastes. I doubt if he’d cracked a book since high school. Still, salt of the earth and all that.
“Listen, I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m just going back for a day or two, and then I’ll return.”
“Please, Alex, listen to me.”
“I have to go,” I said.
Then I kissed her once, and once again. My heart was a lump of lead in my chest, but that wasn’t enough to deter me. Nothing was, not fear, not loss, nothing! There was a fire in my soul that drove me forward. God Himself couldn’t have stopped me. Becky’s face, I remember, was a pale white mask in the darkness. It watched me sadly as I drove away, and then turned and went back into Anita’s house.
Invasion! Earth vs. The Aliens Page 5