It hated the cold; it probably did want nothing but to leave.
”What’s the story, General?” Schaefer called.
”You aren’t going to like it,” Philips called back. “And I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’ve been ordered to let them lift off without interference. So back away, nice and easy.”
Ligacheva wondered what the alien thought of all this. Did it understand the words? Was it confused? Did it think this was all some sort of trap?
Or was it just fascinated-or amused-by the spectacle of its prey fighting among itself?
”I’ve been dancing to your tune since this whole thing began, General,” Schaefer said. “What the hell has it ever gotten me, listening to you? You people have taken everything that ever meant anything to me-my job, my home, my brother. What’ll I get if I do what you tell me now-a bullet in the head? Screw it!”
Schaefer dove for the pack.
On the canyon rim Wilcox smiled coldly as he squeezed the trigger. “Been looking forward to this since that day on the firing range,” he said as the rifle bucked in his hands. “Adios, cop!”
He had misjudged Schaefer’s speed; the bullet tore through the flesh of Schaefer’s outer thigh, nowhere near any vital organs.
It was enough to send Schaefer rolling out of control across the scorching-hot hull of the alien spaceship, though; he tumbled down past the pack and sprawled at the creature’s feet, a yard from the open doorway.
He looked up at the thing, at the twitching mouth parts. He took a deep breath and smelled his own flesh starting to burn from the heat of the ship.
”Yeah, come on,” he said to the creature. “Let’s finish it!”
The monster looked down at him, its eyes narrowing, then glanced up at the canyon rim.
Then it turned and ran down into its ship, leaving Schaefer lying on the hull.
”No, you bastard!” Schaefer shouted after it. “You alien son of a bitch! Better I die fighting you than let that asshole Wilcox get me!” He tried to struggle to his feet and succeeded only in falling and rolling, this time tumbling clear off the side of the ship, landing in the gravel and mud that surrounded it.
”First shot was for God and country,” Wilcox said, sighting in on Schaefer’s head. “This one’s for me!”
Beside him, General Philips clenched his teeth.
A rifle shot sounded, echoing from the walls of the ravine
And Wilcox suddenly tumbled forward, blood running freely from the fresh wound where a bullet had punched through his shoulder.
Philips spun and looked uphill.
”And that one was for me,” a voice called-a familiar voice with a bit of a Brooklyn twang.
Philips spotted the man with the smoking rifle-an overweight man in a Russian Army overcoat and furlined cap, carrying an AK-47. Somehow, despite the equipment, Philips had no doubt that the man was American.
”Howdy, General,” the rifleman said. “Meet the other general.” He waved with his free hand, and Philips saw another twenty or thirty men in Russian uniforms approaching, their rifles trained on the small band of Americans. One of them, a big man in an officer’s coat, did not have a visible weapon, and the speaker gestured at him. “General Ponomarenko, of the Russian Army.”
Ponomarenko stepped forward. “You men are trespassing!” he shouted in heavily accented English.
Below, standing on the boulder, Ligacheva listened and watched what little she could see from her place in the pit. She recognized Ponomarenko’s voice and knew she ought to feel relieved that her people had come to the rescue, but instead she felt a wave of despair, the same sort of bitter despair that she thought the American detective must have felt. Right and wrong were being lost here; all that mattered was who had the drop on the other side, who had the weapons and where they were pointed. No one up there cared about the good men those things from the stars had slaughtered; all they cared about was political advantage. They didn’t see the aliens as monsters, but as a potential technological treasure.
Her people-which is to say, all humanity, not merely Russians-were fighting among themselves while their true enemy killed with impunity and was allowed to escape.
What had so many died for? What had they suffered for? When this was over, what would anyone truly have gained?
Not justice, certainly.
She was suddenly distracted from the drama being played out above. The stone beneath her feet was starting to vibrate, and something was whining, a sound almost like a jet engine warming up.
She knew immediately what was happening and dove for the side, trying to get off the ship before it could launch. On her way she snatched up Schaefer’s explosive-filled backpack-she didn’t know why, but acted out of instinct.
The whining grew louder as she slid down beside Schaefer. He was struggling, trying to get to his feet, but his wounded leg wouldn’t support him, and his burned flesh made any movement painful.
”They’re getting ready to launch,” he said.
”You think I don’t know that?” she replied angrily. “Come on, we have to get clear!” She grabbed Schaefer’s arm and threw it across her shoulders, and tried to heave them both up out of the pit the ship lay in.
She couldn’t do it; Schaefer was too big, too heavy.
”Need a hand?” a voice said in English.
Ligacheva looked up and grasped the offered hand. Together, she and the stranger hauled Schaefer up across the rocks.
Schaefer, weak from burns and blood loss, looked up at their savior and said, “Rasche?”
”Yeah, it’s me,” Rasche replied. Ligacheva thought he sounded as if he were on the verge of tears. “For cryin’ out loud, Schaef,” the American said, “we’ve got to quit meeting like this!”
”Christ, Rasche,” Schaefer asked, “how the hell did you get here?”
”I heard a few things and thought maybe you could use some help,” Rasche said as he and Ligacheva pulled Schaefer farther up the side of the ravine. “Good friends are hard to find, y’know?”
Schaefer didn’t answer. Ligacheva stared at him for a moment, then up at this Rasche.
Schaefer evidently wasn’t as alone in the world as he had thought.
Ligacheva suddenly felt that she was intruding; once the three of them were safely off the steepest part of the slope, she left the American to his friend as the two men sought shelter in the rocky side of the canyon. They had found their peace for the moment, she thought. Schaefer had had his friend come for him, halfway around the world and through competing armies; even he could not find the universe completely bleak and without value in the face of such devotion.
For her own part Ligacheva had never doubted the existence of human warmth, even in the Siberian wastes. It was justice that she sought and that seemed so elusive, justice for the workers of Assyma who had been butchered by those things simply because they were in the way. She heaved Schaefer’s backpack up and looked at the electronic detonator.
It seemed simple enough. She knew enough English to read the SET and START buttons, and of course numerals were the same in English and Russian.
Below her the rumbling and whining grew louder, rising in pitch.
She typed in 45-she couldn’t have given a reason, but somehow forty-five seconds seemed right. She glanced down at the alien ship.
Openings at the stern were glowing blue, lighting the arctic night almost bright as day. The opening she cared about, though, the entrance to the ship’s interior, was still a dull red-and still open, so far as she could tell.
She could throw the pack into it, she was sure. From where she stood, on a ledge on the canyon wall, it would be a long, difficult throw, but she could do it. She reached for the START button.
”That’s quite enough, Lieutenant,” General Ponomarenko’s voice said from above.