The Night of the Close Encounter
Part One
Surprise!
Artemus Gordon awoke to the glorious sensation of his wife cuddled up against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. His wife! After all those years of lonely (and, he had to admit, footloose) bachelorhood - all those years since his high school days of loving Lily Fortune from afar - at last he had landed her. His wife, Lily Gordon. He smiled to himself, lying in bed beside her in what was now their stateroom in the varnish car of the Wanderer. For years he and James West, his partner in the Secret Service, had lived on this private train, traveling the country arresting the bad guys and righting the wrongs. And now Lily lived here too.
"Life is good!" he said softly into the early morning darkness.
"Hmm?" Lily stirred. "You say something, Artie?"
"Shh. I'm sorry, Lil. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was just saying that life is good."
She slipped a hand up to caress his stubbly cheek, then pulled his head toward hers for a good morning kiss. "It certainly is," she agreed.
He kissed her in return, enjoying her sweet response to his touch, enjoying the way she said, "Oh, Artemus!" as he nuzzled in below her ear and started nibbling the side of her neck. His hands began to stray; so did hers…
Suddenly, just as he was whispering a sweet nothing into her ear, she cringed and dug her fingers into his shoulders. "Artie!" she squeaked.
All right, that did not sound to him like the throes of passion. Artie opened his eyes and looked into her face, saw how wide and panicky her eyes looked, and realized he could see her. Someone had put the lights on.
"Jim!" he growled as he turned around. "You may be my best friend, but you have got to learn to… knock…?"
"That's not Jim," Lily said unnecessarily, her voice still high and tight.
No, it certainly wasn't. Artie raised a hand to shield his eyes from the incredibly bright light pouring forth all around them. As if in response to that gesture, the light lessened and now Artie could better distinguish just what was present with them in the room. The bulbous head, if it could be called a head, was what captured Artie's attention first, a head with no discernible face upon it. Down from the head depended long streaming limbs, perhaps a dozen of those, inevitably calling to mind the word "tentacles." An all-encompassing bubble, clear and glittering with opalescence, surrounded the apparition; the bubble seemed to be filled with some sort of liquid, giving the creature within it a rippling appearance. Also rippling were swirls and blotches in a multitude of colors all over the skin of the creature. Where the light was emanating from, Artie could not tell, but the entire being, whatever it was, was at no point touching the floor; it floated before them, gently bobbing in mid-air.
"Great jumping balls of St Elmo's fire!" Artie exclaimed. "What on earth…?"
/Earth has nothing to do with it,/ came a voice that was in Artie's head but not in his ears. /Mr Gordon, we need your help./
"My… my… my help?" Artie stammered, stunned. He sat up in the bed, interposing his own body between his wife and the floating tentacled phantasm. "What are you talking about? What are you?"
At that moment the stateroom door slammed open and Jim West leapt into the room, gun in hand, instantly taking aim on the intruder even though it wasn't possible that whatever the intruder was could have yet registered in his consciousness. The next moment the revolver went flying from Jim's hand to glue itself to the ceiling.
/Your weapon will not be necessary, Mr West. We come in peace./
Jim glanced at his partner. "Are you hearing words inside your head?"
Artie nodded. "Yes. It says it comes in peace. Lily, you hear it too?"
Wordlessly, clutching the bed sheets to her bosom, his wife nodded as well.
Jim turned to the intruder. "What are you doing here? What do you mean by needing our help? What are you?"
/We are the Ghex./
"Ghex," Jim repeated after it, shaking his head. "That has no meaning to us. What are the Ghex?"
/In the future, your people might speak of us as space aliens. Little green men./
"I doubt that," said Artie, "considering you are neither little nor green nor anything remotely anthropoid. But get to your point, Mr Ghex. Why are you here?"
/We need your help,/ the creature repeated. /We are an old race, from a planet so far from yours that your people have no name yet for our star. We travel about the stars collecting…/
The creature's words faltered at that point, a confusing pattern of shifting colors and shapes cascading over its epidermis. After a few seconds, Jim prompted, "Collecting what?"
/Ah… specimens. Representative creatures of the planets we visit. We choose interesting living things, replicate them, and take the original home with us, leaving the replicant, or clone, behind to live out its natural life./
"Do you get permission?" asked Jim.
This question seemed to puzzle the Ghex. Purple whorls popping out all over it, the creature asked, /Permission? What do you mean?/
"He means do you ask the living things you are collecting if they want to be duplicated and hauled off to be an exhibit in your zoo?" said Artie, getting angry.
/You do not understand. There is no zoo. We are scientists, studying the diversity of life across the galaxy./
"Oh, that makes it even better then. You don't put the specimens on display; you use them to run experiments on. Vivisection, I suppose?" Artie's voice was becoming dangerously sarcastic.
Bewilderment filled the Ghex's next statement as large blotches of maroon spread over its skin. /Why are you angry? Do not your own scientists use specimens they collect for experimental purposes?/
"Specimens, yes: plants, animals. But not people!"
Now Jim looked at him. "People? What makes you say that?"
"Well, didn't you see…?" Artie paused, then started over. "Back when Mr Ghex here mentioned collecting specimens and made such a long pause between the words, you didn't see anything, Jim?"
"See anything? No. What do you mean?"
Artie looked at Lily. "And you didn't see anything either?"
She shook her head.
"Well, I saw something," said Artie. "Here inside my head I saw a flash of a large, open aired complex under a yellow sky. All sorts of cages - well, not exactly cages, more sophisticated than that. But there were all kinds of creatures held in these enclosures… pens… ah, kennels. Most of the creatures were animals of some description or another, but there was one…" Artie looked up at the Ghex, anger boiling up in his brown eyes as he continued, "One of the captives under that mustard-colored sky was human. And not merely a human, but a child!"
Lily threw a hand over her mouth, her face blanching. And Jim glared at the Ghex as well. "Show me. What Artie saw, show me as well!"
/It was not what you think,/ said the Ghex.
"Show me what Artie saw!" Jim demanded.
The Ghex seemed to sigh, and now a vision flooded Jim's mind, and Artie's and Lily's as well. Just as Artie had described it, there was a vast area filled with enclosures, each enclosure housing a single creature. Some of the creatures were familiar, but most of them were fantastic, unknown, unreal. And one of the pens, on which now the vision focused itself, zooming in until that one pen filled the mind's eye, held a small and miserable-looking human being. He was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped around his drawn-up legs, his face hidden as he rested his forehead on his knees.
/This, in fact,/ said the Ghex, /is the reason we have come to you for help. We have recently come to the knowledge that the scientist who collected this specimen altered the replication process. Instead of making a perfect duplicate, Betolo… shall we say, enhanced the clone before leaving it behind./
"What do you mean by enhanced?" asked Jim.
/And not only this specimen. Betolo apparently has been experimenting with such enhancements for some time now without the Board being aware of his actions. Many other planets have suffered from the effects of his enhanced creatures, even as your planet has suffered./
"Our planet?" asked Artie. "What are you talking about? What suffering are you referring to?"
/The replicant of this specimen was greatly enhanced in mental abilities, though not, as you know, in physical abilities. That replicant has caused your people much grief, and that…/
"Wait a minute," Jim interrupted. "As we know?"
/Yes. You, of all your fellow Earthlings, have had the most experience with this replicant, and that is why we have come to you to appeal for your help in capturing it./
"You want us to capture… I thought you guys were the experts in collecting your so-called specimens," said Artie.
/We are experts, yes. But Betolo apparently gives his replicants warnings about the Ghex before turning them loose again on their home planets. We cannot get near this one, for it recognizes us and escapes, time and again./
Jim and Artie glanced at each other, the words "escapes time and again" sounding very familiar to them. "Who is he?" said Jim, and Artie added, "He's not really a child, is he?"
The vision zoomed in still closer just as the miserable captive raised his head. And so Jim, Artie, and Lily found themselves looking right into the stunning blue eyes of Miguelito Quixote Loveless.