"You could have just stayed on the road," said Maxwell a few minutes later. "They probably would'a come got us if they had something important to say."
Another rut caused him to bounce in his seat. His head rebounded off the doorframe.
"Slow down, will you, kid," he said, rubbing his temple. "The shocks on this thing were nothing to write home about to start with."
"I think we're almost there," Ralph said.
Ralph's exhaustion had seemed to evaporate at the prospect of seeing the aliens again. He leaned forward over the steering wheel as if willing the car to take off.
Maxwell had a sudden vision of the station wagon soaring skyward like a squashed Herbie the Love Bug. To his relief, it continued to bounce over rocks and shallow gullies.
They hit another crevice and his shoulder collided with the window. The jolt of pain down his arm acted like a dose of whisky, cutting through the buzz of thoughts in his head.
"Stop the car," he said.
"What?"
"Stop the car, Ralph, stop the damn car."
He reached over and yanked on the gear lever. The transmission whined in protest and Ralph slammed on the brakes.
They came to a shuddering stop.
"Bill, what are you-"
"Quiet, kid," he said. "Something's not right. This ain't right."
The car's headlights lanced out into the darkness. Flying sand shimmered in the twin beams.
"Tell me, Bill," Ralph said in the eerie hush.
"Nothing's on the fritz," said Maxwell. "Electricals are all humming along. The radio's not talking to us. I don't know, it's-"
"It's like they don't know we're here," said Ralph.
"Bingo."
"Aren't you curious?" Ralph said after a pause.
"Hell, yeah, I'm curious," said Maxwell. "I just think maybe we hadn't oughta go charging in like the Fifth Calvary."
"You mean," Ralph said, "We should try to sneak up on them?"
"No, not sneak exactly," said Maxwell, "Maybe just some light recon."
Ralph was quiet.
"How is reconnaissance different from sneaking?" he said at last.
Maxwell pursed his lips.
"Look, kid," he said, "You can go charging in hell for leather if you want, I'm just saying this might not be our typical contact scenario."
"Okay, Bill," said Ralph. "I hear you."
He shifted the car into Drive and pulled forward.
"Ralph!"
"Calm down, Bill," said Ralph, cutting off the headlights. "I'm just getting a little closer."
Another blue light flared a few hundred feet in front of the car.
"Close enough," Ralph said. He cut the engine and the headlights dimmed out.
The afterglow of the blue flash faded slowly. A bright dot floated in Maxwell's vision as he reached over and pulled the door latch. He heard Ralph open the driver's side door.
"Leave the keys," Maxwell said. There was no answer, but he didn't hear jingling.
Maxwell couldn't suppress a slight shiver as stepped out onto the sand. The air was bitingly cold.
He reached across his chest with his right hand and felt the solid weight of his revolver snug in its shoulder holster. Reflexively, he tugged his fatigue jacket down so the line fell naturally, concealing the bulge of the gun.
"Bill."
Ralph was giving him a school-teacherly look over the roof of the car.
"What?" he answered. "They knew I was a Fed when they pegged me for this mission, Ralph. They're not gonna be surprised when I show up carrying."
"I wouldn't wave that thing around, that's all," Ralph said. "These are enlightened beings. I'm sure they've evolved beyond firearms."
Maxwell snorted.
"Yeah, I forgot," he said, starting forward into the dark. "They come from the planet of fluffy bunnies. That's why they gave you a magic suit that sprouts flowers instead of stopping bullets."
"I'm not going to argue ideologies with you right now, Bill."
"Good deal," said Maxwell, picking his way across the sand.
"Remind me later."
"Less talking, more walking, Ralph," said Maxwell. He was gratified to hear the younger man keeping pace on his left.
"Do you really think there's something wrong?" Ralph said a few moments later. His voice had dropped so low, Maxwell could barely hear it from the distance of a few feet. "I thought you were just blowing smoke with that story about a crash, but now-"
"I don't know, kid," he muttered. "Seriously, let's ice the chatter until we get a visual."
As his eyes readjusted to the dark, Maxwell thought he could see a pale patch in the darkness ahead. There was no shape, just a faint glow seemingly radiating up from the ground.
"Hold it," he murmured when they were within a dozen yards of the lighter area. He waved his hand in Ralph's direction. "All right, huddle up."
When Ralph moved close enough to touch, Maxwell seized his shoulder.
"Okay," he said in the younger man's ear. "I don' know what scenario they're running here, but it's obvious these green guys don't have their mother ship in the vicinity."
"Unless it's invisible, which I doubt," he said. "But there's obviously something here, 'cause sand don't glow like that."
He pulled Ralph a little closer.
"So here's the drill," he said, so softly it was barely audible. "You circle left, I'll circle right. If you see green guys, I don't care if they're having a teddy bear picnic, you meet me on the other side and report in before, I repeat, before you make a move to contact. Got me?"
Ralph nodded. His eyes were very wide as he stared at the blue glow.
"If it turns out these guys are hostiles, and the balloon goes up," Maxwell went on, "So do you. Start flying. Whoever these guys are, if they've done any kind of sniffing around old Mother Earth, that should give 'em something to think about, 'cause everybody knows, humans don't fly."
"In that scenario, you also do not engage, but meet back here at the transport and start driving like a bat out of hell. I guarantee," he said, "You will not have to wait around for OJ Maxwell. You got all that, kid?"
Ralph nodded. "Got it," he said.
"Good."
"One question, though."
Maxwell gritted his teeth.
"What?" he hissed.
"What if I go invisible and go take a look first?" Ralph whispered.
"As a plan," said Maxwell. "It stinks, kid. They're bound to have perimeter alarms."
"We could trip them anyway," said Ralph, shooting him a look. "And in my scenario we stay closer to the car."
"Nope," said Maxwell. "No soap, kid, sorry. I appreciate your initiative, but we're sticking with the professional scenarios on this one."
"You just don't like it because it was my idea," Ralph said.
"Wrong," Maxwell said, his voice rising. "I don't like it because as scenarios go, it's about as knuckle-headed as they come."
Maxwell took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"End of discussion," he said, "Get ready. On my mark."
He squeezed Ralph's shoulder.
"One, two-"
"Three," Ralph said and he vanished.
Maxwell's startle reflex kicked in and he lost his grip on the younger man's arm. The next instant he thrust out his hand and waved it wildly in the space around him, but he was alone. Over his own panting breath, he heard the soft crunch of footsteps on the sand.
"Damn, it, Ralph,' he hissed. "Get back here, right now!"
There was no response.
Maxwell ground his teeth together. Cursing all boneheaded amateurs and the horses they rode in on, he jerked his revolver from its holster and thumbed back the hammer. After a moment's thought, he reached to the back of his waistband and yanked out the smaller piece he kept tucked away for insurance.
Both weapons armed, he turned the barrels skyward. The one and only saving grace in this cock-up, he thought, was if he aimed low, the suit would protect Ralph from getting whacked by friendly fire.
Probably.
He shifted into an infantryman's crouch and moved crab-wise to his right. A little extra angle of attack wouldn't hurt, he reasoned. If the balloon did go up, he wanted a clear kill shot.
He squinted across the sand at the blue light. There was no flicker in the steady glow to give away Ralph's current position.
Maxwell shifted his stance and took a few slow steps forward. If there was a perimeter alarm, and with their luck there was bound to be, he thought, Ralph would be the one to trip it, strolling up like the damned Galactic Welcome Wagon.
As he slid his feet forward, working at not making a sound to give away his position, Maxwell realized he was moving on a slight up-slope.
A few more cautious steps brought him to an elevation that caused a mental shift in perspective. The blue glow wasn't rising from the sand; it was below the level of the ground. He was looking down an incline at something half-buried.
The blue glow was radiating from a silver metallic hull, imbedded in the down-slope of the hill. It was tough to judge from the part he could see, but he thought it looked to be about the size of a small truck.
"Fan-frigging-tastic," he thought. "That's just great. All we need is a squad of little green guys to come boiling out of there like popcorn out of a popper to make this day complete."
He chewed his lip as he took another sliding step forward. If they got out of this one, he decided, he'd swear off fishing for aliens for good. They had plenty of messes to clean up without borrowing trouble.
His next step took him to an angle where he could see the whole ship. The top half was smooth and unmarked. The bottom half was bent and crumpled like used tin foil.
"Looks like I'm not the only one that wrecks official equipment," he thought with a little satisfaction. "The interstellar Carlisle is going to have something to say about that."
He hoped the driver wasn't wounded. He knew from experience, the cornered and bleeding soldier was a lot more dangerous than one that still had everything to lose.
He added that thought to the list of points he'd make to Ralph as he kicked the idiot's keester back across the desert for him.
There was no way to tell how far the kid had gotten. He was considering the possibilities of trying out a night bird call - he was rusty on birds, but he had no clue how to do a coyote bark – when a sizzling sound made him jerk his head around to the left.
A blazing white spark arced from the top of the dune to a point in the air above it. He heard a sharp yelp, choked off in a grunt of pain.
"So much for stealth," he thought, grimly. "Time to make the most of surprise."
If they ran for it now, they might make it back to the car before the opposition got their little green thumbs out of their ears.
"Kid," he yelled, shoving his guns back out of sight, "Scrub the mission. Fall ba-"
The word was cut off in a storm of spitting, crackling electricity. Blinding bolts of energy rocketed out of the sand.
Ralph was a negative shape, outlined in flashes of brilliant white light. Maxwell saw the slim figure buck and convulse as flare after flare shot up from the ground.
As he started running, he felt his feet carry him in a curving path to the left. Entirely outside his conscious control, his body was keeping him outside the evident kill zone.
The moments seemed to stretch out to infinity as he pounded across the sand. He smelled the sharp tang of static. The hair on his arms was standing out like quills.
He was within a yard of the coursing light, squinting against the glare, when Ralph winked into sight. His back was arced at a crazy angle and he stared at the sky with wide eyes. His mouth gaped open, but there was no sound.
Maxwell reached out, knowing it was an idiot move, and the arcing energy shut off as suddenly as if he'd flicked an invisible switch.
In the afterglow, he saw Ralph sag and fall backwards. He hit the ground like a sack of meal.
Maxwell landed on his knees beside him. A crackling discharge traveled down Ralph's limp body and lit the sand around his feet before dissipating in a faint sizzle.
Maxwell winced as heat from the cooked sand bit through his jeans. He reached out. His hand was an inch from Ralph's arm when a bolt of static leaped across the space and scorched his fingers.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward until he felt the smooth fabric of the red suit. His hand closed on Ralph's upper arm and he gasped as a stronger bolt shot up his arm, but he kept his grip.
Bracing his toes in the sand he rose to a crouch and started backing down the dune, grateful for the slippery sand as he tugged Ralph's limp body with one hand and yanked out his service revolver with the other.
He felt a muscle spasm under his hand and tore his gaze away from the top of the dune. The dark was closing in again farther from the steady blue glow of the buried ship, but he saw Ralph's mouth trying to shape a word before he heard the faint breath.
"Wha-?"
The kid was tough. No doubt about it, super suit or no, the kid was tough.
"Take it easy, Ralph," Maxwell said, his voice hushed in spite of himself. "We're making a strategic withdrawal. Just go with the flow."
He felt the boy start to struggle and grimaced.
"You're complicating things, again," he said. "Listen to me this once and keep still till I get us to the car."
Mercifully, Ralph seemed to understand or to pass out. Either way, he stopped wriggling. Maxwell quickened his pace, slithering backward down the dune. They had to be close, he knew.
Any second, he thought, he'd feel the front tire behind his heel. Any second now.
A sudden metallic grinding sound broke the stillness. His head jerked up.
The blue glow brightened, casting the top of the dune into silhouette. A birdlike chittering carried down the slope toward him.
He spared a glance behind them and spotted the station wagon squatting a few yards off to their left.
He weighed the options. It would take valuable seconds to hoist Ralph up and into the car. The enemy had unknown armaments. Their defenses were a given – they'd have bulletproof suits or his name wasn't Maxwell.
He bent sideways and shoved his arm under Ralph's back. With a grunt, he rolled his partner toward him, bracing his shoulder against the other man's abdomen. He sucked in a breath and came up with Ralph bent over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
Keeping his gun hand trained on the top of the dune, he scuttled sideways. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the car roof a foot away. He grimaced. He'd have to set down either his gun or Ralph to get the door open. The gun was easier to lift. He laid it on the roof of the car and reached for the door handle.
Wrong decision, he thought, as a movement at the top of the dune refocused his attention. A dark shape detached itself from the curve of the sand. A bulbous head rose above wide rounded shoulders.
"Encounter suit," he thought, "Has to be or the thing's built like a tank."
The thing kept rising, unfolding from the scenery. Maxwell estimated about eight feet of alien before it started down the hill toward them.
Only one then, he thought. That's the bright side. Only one of those monsters could fit in that ship.
He crouched and lowered Ralph to the rocky sand. The kid wasn't completely boneless this time; he rolled onto his back under his own power and blinked up at Maxwell.
"You with me again, Ralph?" he said, grabbing up his gun. "Lights on upstairs?"
"Yeah, what-"
"You took about 40,000 volts from a space age barbed wire fence," Maxwell said, tugging out the snub nosed revolver with his other hand. "If it wasn't for the suit, I reckon, you'd be an extra crispy combo platter with chips on the side."
Maxwell positioned himself in front of his partner's prone body and spread his feet in a shooter's stance.
"It's safe to say, this joker ain't one of our little green friends," he said. "Not picking up any brain waves are you, kid?"
"No, nothing," Ralph answered. His voice sounded like sandpaper on gravel. "Bill, your guns don't stand a chance against this thing."
"You're probably right, kid,' he said. "But there's one way to be sure, ain't there?"
He raised both guns and sited between the barrels. He took in a long, even breath, held it, and squeezed off one shot, then another.
The one from the snub nose went wide. The range was too great. But the service revolver scored a hit in the middle of thing's mass. The approaching shape jerked back and staggered. Maxwell allowed himself a grin of triumph before the thing straightened and kept coming.
"Next time you see your space buddies," he said through gritted teeth, "Tell them we could use a ray gun, huh?"
He dropped the snub nose to the ground and gripped the revolver with both hands. The next shot would hit higher. If that thing had a vulnerable spot, he thought, it was the bulbous head.
He heard rustling fabric and realized Ralph was trying to struggle to his feet.
"Stay down, kid," he barked. "Or get behind the car. I can't cover you if you stand up."
As per Standard Operating Procedure, Ralph wasn't listening. In his peripheral vision, Maxwell saw him stagger upright.
"For crying out loud, Ralph," he said. "For once in your life-"
He broke off as the thing coming toward them came to a skidding stop on the sand. It hissed like a startled cat and let out a stream of chittering clicks.
Maxwell glanced over and saw the red and white emblem on Ralph's chest lit up in the blue glow.
"It's your suit," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper as if the thing could understand. "He recognizes it."
"Yeah," Ralph whispered back. "Maybe I should-" He broke off and took step forward.
"No!" Maxwell said. "Ralph, stay back, for God's sake!"
The thing took a step back and dropped a hand to its side.
Maxwell could have painted a picture of how the next few seconds were going to go down. He wasn't wrong.
The thing's hand came up with a weapon. Maxwell squeezed off three quick shots, but the thing got off two.
A bolt of energy slammed into the sand at his feet. The second one hit Ralph square in the chest.
Maxwell's third shot impacted with the thing's head. Wet matter sprayed into the air.
Ralph was falling. The thing rocked back and dropped to the ground, arms flung out wide. It shuddered once and stopped moving.
Maxwell didn't care. He spun and saw Ralph hit the ground before he heard the scream.
-continued-