Even if that wasn’t possible, even if human beings didn’t get a stardrive out of it, at the very least those things had weapons and technologies that could put the U.S. so far ahead of the rest of the world that dealing with bozos like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi would be no more trouble than swatting a few flies.
This was the biggest thing anyone had ever been involved in-it had been his own private playground, and they had taken it away from him.
He hoped they hadn’t just abandoned everything. Maybe they had put someone else on it, someone they trusted more. Maybe someone like Lynch was in charge.
He hoped so.
Maybe, he told himself, it wasn’t as bleak as he thought. Maybe they really did intend to call him, and those things just hadn’t been back to Earth since the New York affair, so there hadn’t been any need for him. Maybe they’d get around to calling him eventually.
Or maybe the big brass honestly thought those things were gone for good.
Hell, maybe they were gone for good-that whole mess must’ve been embarrassing for them, too. They’d come to Earth looking for a good time, or maybe to avenge the hunter Dutch had killed all those years ago, and they’d wound up getting two or three of their boys notched; if they were an outfit running the equivalent of paid safaris, that wouldn’t have looked good in the ads back home. Or if they had some sort of noninterference rules, they’d blown those out of the water when they landed their ship in the middle of Third Avenue.
Hushing all that up must’ve been a bitch, Philips thought. Even on a Sunday morning, there must have been a hundred witnesses.
Maybe the top brass thought that the trouble had all happened because people had tried to interfere. Maybe they thought there was no way to get that technology, so they just wanted to ignore the aliens now. Even when Philips had been running the show he’d usually had orders to let the hunters have their fun, kill a few people, take a few trophies-don’t make ‘em mad. The brass had always been more worried than eager, more concerned that they not get the aliens mad enough to start an actual war than with having anyone learn anything from the spacefaring bastards.
And now they weren’t giving Philips a chance to interfere and maybe piss the creatures off. The big brass was keeping him waiting here, at an empty desk, staring at a phone that never rang…
The phone rang.
At first Philips didn’t even notice. He heard the sound, but it didn’t register. He didn’t recognize it as anything that concerned him; it was just more of the background noise that was always present.
Then it rang again, and that time it penetrated. He jerked as if he’d been shot, dropped the empty glass, and snatched up the receiver.
”Philips here,” he barked into the receiver.
He was trembling.
Chapter 7
Rasche awoke slowly, his mind hazy; he didn’t really remember where he was.
He lived in Bluecreek, Oregon, he remembered that much-he and his wife, Shari, and their two boys. They’d moved out here to be safe, after that mess in New York.
He wasn’t at home now, though, was he? Whatever he was lying on, it didn’t feel like an ordinary bed. He opened his eyes.
At first he saw only darkness. Then bright light, painfully bright, cut through the dark, blinding him. He closed his eyes again, still trying to collect his thoughts.
That mess back in New York… who were those things, really? What were they? Why were they there? Would they come back?
Would they come back for him?
Schaefer had had them all figured out, but Rasche had never really understood it. Hunters from space, yeah-but why? How did they decide who to hunt? Where would he be safe-anywhere? Was Bluecreek far enough away?
He couldn’t stop thinking about them, couldn’t stop remembering the strange masks and the hideous faces underneath, their yellow flesh and black talons, the dripping blood and mutilated bodies of their victims.
He blinked. He felt as if he had been drugged, had he? He couldn’t remember. He still couldn’t remember where he was, how he had gotten there. He tried to see through the light, through the mental haze.
A mask-he saw a mask hovering over him. And long yellow fingers were reaching toward his face.
It was one of them, he realized-one of those things from outer space!
”He’s awake…” someone said.
Rasche forced himself to act, suddenly and decisively. He wasn’t a young man, he looked overweight and out of shape, but he could still move fast and hard when he needed to, and he moved now, lunging at the thing in the mask, his hands reaching for its throat as he shouted, “Not again! You won’t get away again! This time I’m taking you down with me!”
His foe went over backward and tumbled to the floor. Rasche landed on his opponent’s chest, and that unbearably bright light was behind him instead of in his eyes, so that he could see clearly again.
A woman shrieked, “Sheriff Rasche, please! Stop it!”
Rasche looked down and saw that the shadowy figure wasn’t what he had thought. The mask was white paper over gauze, not alien metal; the throat in his hands was human. The yellow fingers were rubber gloves. And Rasche knew he couldn’t have knocked over one of those alien predators anywhere near so easily. He released his hold.
Then at last the mental haze cleared, and Rasche realized he was kneeling atop his dentist.
”Dr. Krelmore,” he said, suddenly remembering the man’s name.
Krelmore made a choking noise.
”I’m sorry,” Rasche said as he got off his victim. “The gas… I mean…”
”The gas?” Krelmore said as his hygienist helped him up off the floor.
”I was imagining things that weren’t there,” Rasche said. “Hallucinating, I guess.”
”Hallucinating?” Krelmore brushed himself off. “I’m just a dentist, Sheriff, but I never saw anyone react like that just to the gas.” He coughed. “Your filling’s all done, but maybe… maybe you’d be better off consulting, you know, a psychiatrist or something.”
Rasche shook his head. “I’ve seen enough psychiatrists to diagnose the entire state of Florida,” he said. More to himself than the others, he added, “Jesus, I really thought I was over it.” He looked at Dr. Krelmore. “I had this real bad time…” he began.
Then he caught himself. Telling his dentist that he’d been involved in a secret war against alien monsters on the streets of New York was not exactly a good career move.
”Look, Doc,” he said, “I’m really sorry for what happened. I… I’d appreciate it if you could keep this under your hat.” He managed a sickly smile.
”I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, y’know? New place, new job, I’m still getting settled in.”
”Sure,” Krelmore said, rubbing his neck-the red marks left by Rasche’s chokehold were already fading. “Sure, no problem, Sheriff. Your secret’s safe with me.” He forced a weak grin in response to Rasche’s smile. “Every time they show Marathon Man on TV, it’s the same damn thing. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
”Nobody’s ever…” the hygienist began, then stopped as both men turned unhappily to face her, afraid she was going to say something they’d all regret.
”Well, we’ve had some upset patients before,” she said, “but I think you’re the first one to actually take Dr. Krelmore down like that.”
Krelmore’s smile reappeared. “Best two falls out of three?” he asked.