The three strangers came out of their ship each day, for a few minutes. Johnny wanted to talk to them. Maybe—just maybe—they could cure his sickness. All the doctors he had ever seen just shook their heads and said that nothing could be done. Johnny would never live to be a full-grown man. But these strangers, if they really came from another world, a distant star, they might know how to cure a disease that no doctor on Earth could cure.
Johnny could feel his heart racing as he thought about it. He forced himself to stay calm. Before you can get cured, he told himself, you’ve got to talk to the strangers. And before you can do that, you’ve got to sneak past all those soldiers.
A smear of dust on the highway caught his eye. It was a State Police car, heading toward the Army camp. Sergeant Warner, most likely. Johnny figured that his mother had realized by now he had run away, and had called the police to find him. So he had another problem: avoid getting found by the police.
He turned back to look at the ship again. Suddenly his breath caught in his throat. The three strangers were standing in front of the ship. Without opening a hatch, without any motion at all. They were just there, as suddenly as the blink of an eye.
They were tall and slim and graceful, dressed in simple-looking coveralls that seemed to glow, just like their ship.
And they cast no shadows!
The strangers stood there for several minutes. A half-dozen people went out toward them, two in Army uniforms, the others in civilian clothes. After a few minutes the strangers disappeared. Just like that. Gone. The six men seemed just as stunned as Johnny felt. They milled around for a few moments, as if trying to figure out where the strangers had gone to. Then they slowly walked back toward the trucks and tanks and other soldiers.
Johnny pushed himself back down from the edge of the hill he was on. He sat up, safely out of view of the soldiers and police, and checked his supplies. A canteen full of water, a leather sack that held two quickly made sandwiches and a couple of oranges. He felt inside the sack to see if there was anything else. Nothing except the wadded-up remains of the plastic wrap that had been around the other two sandwiches he had eaten earlier. The only other thing he had brought with him was a blanket to keep himself warm during the chill desert night.
There wasn’t much shade, and the sun was getting really fierce. Johnny got to his feet and walked slowly to a clump of bushes that surrounded a stunted dead tree. He sat down and leaned his back against the shady side of the tree trunk.
For a moment he thought about his parents.
His mother was probably worried sick by now. Johnny often got up early and left the house before she was awake, but he always made sure to be back by lunchtime. His father would be angry. But he was always angry nowadays—most of the time it was about losing his job. But Johnny knew that what was really bugging his father was Johnny’s own sickness.
Johnny remembered Dr. Pemberton’s round red face, which was normally so cheerful. But Dr. Pemberton shook his head grimly when he told Johnny’s father:
«It’s foolish for you to spend what little money you have, John. It’s incurable. You could send the boy to one of the research centers, and they’ll try out some of the new treatments on him. But it won’t help him. There is no cure.»
Johnny hadn’t been supposed to hear that. The door between the examination room where he was sitting and Dr. Pemberton’s office had been open only a crack. It was enough for his keen ears, though.
Johnny’s father sounded stunned. «But… he looks fine. And he says he feels okay.»
«I know.» Dr. Pemberton’s voice sounded as heavy as his roundly overweight body. «The brutal truth, however, is that he has less than a year to live. The disease is very advanced. Luckily, for most of the time he’ll feel fine. But towards the end…»
«These research centers,» Johnny’s father said, his voice starting to crack. «The scientists are always coming up with new vaccines…»
Johnny had never heard his father sound like that: like a little boy who had been caught stealing or something, and was begging for a chance to escape getting punished.
«You can send him to a research center,» Dr. Pemberton said, slowly. «They’ll use him to learn more about the disease. But there’s no cure in sight, John. Not this year. Or next. And that’s all the time he has.»
And then Johnny heard something he had never heard before in his whole life: his father was crying.
They didn’t tell him.
He rode back home with his father, and the next morning his mother looked as if she had been crying all night. But they never said a word to him about it. And he never told them that he knew.
Maybe it would have been different if he had a brother or sister to talk to. And he couldn’t tell the kids at school, or his friends around the neighborhood. What do you say? «Hey there, Nicko… I’m going to die around Christmas sometime.»
No. Johnny kept silent, like the Apache he often dreamed he was. He played less and less with his friends, spent more and more of his time alone.
And then the ship came.
It had to mean something. A ship from another star doesn’t just plop down practically in your back yard by accident.
Why did the strangers come to Earth?
No one knew. And Johnny didn’t really care. All he wanted was a chance to talk to them, to get them to cure him. Maybe—who knew?—maybe they were here to find him and cure him!
He dozed off, sitting there against the tree. The heat was sizzling, there was no breeze at all, and nothing for Johnny to do until darkness. With his mind buzzing and jumbling a million thoughts together, his eyes drooped shut and he fell asleep.
«Johnny Donato!»
The voice was like a crack of thunder. Johnny snapped awake, so surprised that he didn’t even think of being scared.
«Johnny Donate! This is Sergeant Warner. We know you’re around here, so come out from wherever you’re hiding.»
Johnny flopped over on his stomach and peered around. He was pretty well hidden by the bushes that surrounded the tree. Looking carefully in all directions, he couldn’t see Sergeant Warner or anyone else.
«Johnny Donato!» the voice repeated. «This is Sergeant Warner…»
Only now the voice seemed to be coming from farther away. Johnny realized that the State Police sergeant was speaking into an electric bullhorn.
Very slowly, Johnny crawled on his belly up to the top of the little hill. He made certain to stay low and keep in the scraggly grass.
Off to his right a few hundred yards was Sergeant Warner, slowly walking across the hot sandy ground. His hat was pushed back on his head, pools of sweat stained his shirt. He held the bullhorn up to his mouth, so that Johnny couldn’t really see his face at all. The sergeant’s mirror-shiny sunglasses hid the top half of his face.
Moving still farther away, the sergeant yelled into his bullhorn, «Now listen, Johnny. Your mother’s scared half out of her mind. And your father doesn’t even know you’ve run away—he’s still downtown, hasn’t come home yet. You come out now, you hear? It’s hot out here, and I’m getting mighty unhappy about you.»
Johnny almost laughed out loud. What are you going to do, kill me?
«Dammit, Johnny, I know you’re around here! Now, do I have to call in other cars and the helicopter, just to find one stubborn boy?»
Helicopters! Johnny frowned. He had no doubts that he could hide from a dozen police cars and the men in them. But helicopters were something else.
He crawled back to the bushes and the dead tree and started scooping up loose sand with his bare hands. Pretty soon he was puffing and sweaty. But finally he had a shallow trench that was long enough to lie in.