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  The alien star ship still hung in the middle of the camp circle, glowing warmly and barely touching the ground. For a wild instant, Johnny thought of it as a bright beach ball being balanced on a seal’s nose.

  Inside, the van’s air conditioning was turned up so high that it made Johnny shiver.

  But General Hackett was sweating. He sat squeezed behind a table, a heavy, fat-cheeked man with a black little cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth. It was not lit, but Johnny could smell its sour odor. Sitting around the little table in the van’s main compartment were Sergeant Warner of the State Police, several civilians, and two other Army officers, both colonels.

  There were two open chairs. Johnny and Gene slid into them.

  “I don’t like it,” General Hackett said, shaking his head. “The whole world’s going nuts over these weirdos, every blasted newspaper and TV man in the country’s trying to break into this camp, and we’ve got to take a little kid out there to do our job for us? I don’t like it.”

  Sergeant Warner looked as if he wanted to say something, but he satisfied himself with a stern glare in Johnny’s direction.

  Gene said, “We’ve got nothing to lose. All our efforts of the past three days have amounted to zero results. Maybe the sight of a youngster will stir them.”

  One of the civilians shook his head. A colonel banged his fist on the table and said, “By god, a couple rounds of artillery will stir them! Put a few shots close to ‘em—make ‘em know we mean business!”

  “And run the risk of having them destroy everything in sight?” asked one of the civilians, his voice sharp as the whine of an angry hornet.

  “This isn’t some idiot movie,” the colonel snapped.

  “Precisely,” said the civilian. “If we anger them, there’s no telling how much damage they could do. Do you have any idea of how much energy they must be able to control in that ship?”

  “One little ship? Three people?”

  “That one little ship,” the scientist answered, “has crossed distances billions of times greater than our biggest rockets. And there might be more than one ship, as well.”

  “NORAD hasn’t picked up any other ships in orbit around Earth,” the other colonel said.

  “None of our radars have detectedthis ship,” the scientist said, pointing in the general direction of the glowing star ship. “The radars just don’t get any signal from it at all!”

  General Hackett took the cigar from his mouth. “All right, all right. There’s no sense firing at them unless we get some clear indication that they’re dangerous.”

  He turned to Gene. “You really think the kid will get them interested enough to talk to us?”

  Gene shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

  “You don’t think it will be dangerous?” the general asked. “Bringing him right up close to them like that?”

  “If they want to be dangerous,” Gene said, “I’ll bet they can hurt anyone they want to, anywhere on Earth.”

  There was a long silence.

  Finally General Hackett said, “Okay—let the kid talk to them.”

  Sergeant Warner insisted that Johnny’s parents had to agree to the idea, and Johnny wound up spending most of the morning talking on the radio-phone in the sergeant’s State Police cruiser. Gene talked to them too, and explained what they planned to do.

  It took a long time to calm his parents down. His mother cried and said she was so worried. His father tried to sound angry about Johnny’s running away. But he really sounded relieved that his son was all right. After hours of talking, they finally agreed to let Johnny face the aliens.

  But when Johnny at last handed the phone back to Sergeant Warner, he felt lower than a scorpion.

  “I really scared them,” he told Gene as they walked back to the tents.

  “Guess you did.”

  “But they wouldn’t have let me go if I’d stayed home and asked them. They would’ve said no.”

  Gene shrugged.

  Then Johnny noticed that his shadow had shrunk to practically nothing. He lurned and squinted up at the sky. The sun was almost at zenith. It was almost high noon.

  “Less than two minutes to noon,” Gene said, looking at his wristwatch. “Let’s get moving. I want to be out there where they can see you when they appear.”

  They turned and started walking out toward the aliens’ ship. Past the trucks and jeeps and vans that were parked in neat rows. Past the tanks, huge and heavy, with the snouts of their long cannon pointed straight at the ship. Past the ranks of soldiers who were standing in neat files, guns cleaned and ready for action.

  General Hackett and other people from the morning conference were sitting in an open-topped car. A corporal was at the wheel, staring straight at the ship.

  Johnny and Gene walked out alone, past everyone and everything, out into the wide cleared space at the center of the camp.

  With every step he took, Johnny felt more alone. It was as if he were an astronaut out on EVA—floating away from his ship, out of contact, no way to get back. Even though it was hot, bright daylight, he could feel the stars looking down at him—one tiny, lonely, scared boy facing the unknown.

  Gene grinned at him as they neared the ship. “I’ve done this four times now, and it gets spookier every time. My knees are shaking.”

  Johnny admitted, “Me too.”

  And then they were there! The three strangers, the aliens, standing about ten yards in front of Johnny and Gene.

  It was spooky.

  The aliens simply stood there, looking relaxed and pleasant. But they seemed to be looking right through Johnny and Gene. As if they weren’t there at all.

  Johnny studied the three of them very carefully. They looked completely human. Tall and handsome as movie stars, with broad shoulders and strong, square-jawed faces. The three of them looked enough alike to be brothers. They wore simple, silvery coveralls that shimmered in the sunlight.

  They looked at each other as if they were going to speak. But they said nothing. The only sound Johnny could hear was that high-pitched kind of whistling noise that he had heard on tape the night before. Even the wind seemed to have died down, this close to the alien ship.

  Johnny glanced up at Gene, and out of the corner of his eye, the three aliens seemed to shimmer and waver, as if he were seeing them through a wavy heat haze.

  A chill raced along Johnny’s spine.

  When he looked straight at the aliens, they seemed real and solid, just like ordinary humans except for their glittery uniforms.

  But when he turned his head and saw them only out of the corner of his eye, the aliens shimmered and sizzled. Suddenly Johnny remembered a day in school when they showed movies. His seat had been up close to the screen, and off to one side. He couldn’t make out what the picture on the screen was, but he could watch the light shimmering and glittering on the screen.

  They’re not real!

  Johnny suddenly understood that what they were all seeing was a picture, an image of some sort. Not real people at all.

  And that, his mind was racing,means that the aliens really don’t look like us at all !

  7

  “This is one of our children,” Gene was saying to the aliens. “He is not fully grown, as you can see. He has a disease that will. . .”

  Johnny stopped listening to Gene. He stared at the aliens. They seemed so real when you looked straight at them. Turning his head toward Gene once more, he again saw the aliens sparkled and shimmered. Like a movie picture.

  Without thinking about it any further, Johnny suddenly sprang toward the aliens. Two running steps covered the distance, and he threw himself right off his feet at the three glittering strangers.

  He sailed straightthrough them, and landed sprawled on his hands and knees on the other side of diem.

  “Johnny!”

  Turning to sit on the dusty ground, Johnny saw that the aliens—or really, the images of them—were still standing there as if nothing had happened. Gene’s f
ace was shocked, mouth open, eyes wide.

  Then the images of the aliens winked out. They just disappeared.

  Johnny got to his feet.

  “What did you do?” Gene asked, hurrying over to grab Johnny by the arm as he got to his feet.

  “They’re not real!” Johnny shouted with excitement. “They’re just pictures. . . they don’t really look like us. They’re still inside the ship!”

  “Wait, slow down,” Gene said. “The aliens we’ve been seeing are images? Holograms, maybe. Yeah, that could explain. . .”

  Looking past Gene’s shoulder, Johnny could see a dozen soldiers hustling toward them. General Hackett was standing in his car and waving his arms madly.

  Everything was happening so fast! But there was one thing that Johnny was sure of. The aliens—thereal aliens, not the pretty pictures they were showing the Earthmen— the real aliens were still inside of their ship. They had never come out.

  Then another thought struck Johnny. What if the ship itself was a picture, too? How could heever talk to the star-visitors, get them to listen to him, help him?

  Johnny had to know. Once General Hackett’s soldiers got to him, he would never get another chance to speak with the aliens.

  With a grit of his teeth, Johnny pulled his arm away from Gene, spun around and raced toward the alien star ship.

  “Hey!” Gene yelled. “Johnny! No!”

  The globe of the ship gleamed warmly in the sun. It almost seemed to pulsate, to throb like a living, beating heart. A heart made of gold, not flesh and muscle.

  Johhny ran straight to the ship and, with his arms stretched out in front of him, he jumped at it. His eyes squeezed shut at the moment before he would hit the ship’s shining hull.

  Everything went black.

  Johnny felt nothing. His feet left the ground, but there was no shock of hitting solid metal, no sense of jumping or falling or even floating. Nothing at all.

  He tried to open his eyes, and found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. He couldn’t even feel his heart beating.

  I’m dead!

  8

  Slowly a golden light filtered into Johnny’s awareness. It was like lying out in the desert sun with your eyes closed; the light glowed behind his closed eyelids.

  He opened his eyes and found that he was indeed lying down, but not outdoors. Everything around him was golden and shining.

  Johnny’s head was spinning. He was inside the alien ship, he knew that. But it was unlike any spacecraft he had seen or heard of. He could see no walls, no equipment, no instruments; only a golden glow, like being inside a star—or maybe inside a cloud of shining gold.

  Even the thing he was lying on, Johnny couldn’t really make out what it was. It felt soft and warm to his touch, but it wasn’t a bed or cot. He found that if he pressed his hands down hard enough, they would gointo the golden glowing material a little way. Almost like pressing your fingers down into sand, except that this stuff was warm and soft.

  He sat up. All that he could see was the misty glow, all around him.

  “Hey, where are you?” Johnny called out. His voice sounded trembly, even though he was trying hard to stay calm. “I know you’re in here someplace!”

  Two shining spheres appeared before him. They were so bright that it hurt Johnny’s eyes to look straight at them. They were like two tiny suns, about the size of basketballs, hovering in mid-air, shining brilliantly but giving off no heat at all.

  “We are here.”

  It was a sound Johnny could hear. Somewhere in the back of his mind, despite his fears, he was a little disappointed. He had been half-expecting to “hear” a telepathic voice in his mind.

  “Where are you?”

  “You are looking at us.” The voice was flat and unemotional. “We are the two shining globes that you see.”

  “You?” Johnny squinted at the shining ones. “You’re the aliens?”

  “This is our ship.”

  Johnny’s heart started beating faster as he realized what was going on. He was inside the ship. Andtalking to the aliens!

  “Why wouldn’t you talk with the other men?” he asked.

  “Why should we? We are not here to speak with them.”

  “Whatare you here for?”

  The voice—Johnny couldn’t tell which of the shining ones it came from—hesitated for only a moment. Then it answered, “Our purpose is something you could not understand. You are not mentally equipped to grasp such concepts.”

  A picture flashed into Johnny’s mind of a chimpanzee trying to figure out how a computer works.Did they plant that in my head ? he wondered.

  After a moment, Johnny said, “I came here to ask for your help. . .”

  “We are not here to help you,” said the voice.

  And a second voice added, “Indeed, it would be very dangerous for us to interfere with the environment of your world. Dangerous to you and your kind.”

  “But you don’t understand! I don’t want you to change anything, just—”

  The shining one on the left seemed to bob up and down a little. “We do understand. We looked into your mind while you were unconscious. You want us to prolong your life span.”

  “Yes!”

  The other one said, “We cannot interfere with the normal life processes of your world. That would change the entire course of your history.”

  “History?” Johnny felt puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  The first sphere drifted a bit closer to Johnny, forcing him to shade his eyes with his hand. “You and your people have assumed that we are visitors from another star. In a sense, we are. But we are also travelers in time. We have come from millions of years in your future.”

  “Future?” Johnny felt weak. “Millions of years?”

  “And apparently we have missed our target time by at least a hundred thousand of your years.”

  “Missed?” Johnny echoed.

  “Yes,” said the first shining one. “We stopped here—at this time and place—to get our bearings. We were about to leave when you threw yourself into the ship’s defensive screen.”

  The second shining one added, “Your action was entirely foolish. The screen would have killed you instantly. We never expected any of you to attack us in such an irrational manner.”

  “I wasn’t attacking you,” Johnny said. “I just wanted to talk with you.”

  “So we learned, once we brought you into our ship and revived you. Still, it was a foolish thing to do.”

  “And now,” the second shining sphere said, “your fellow men have begun to attack us. They assume that you have been killed, and they have fired their weapons at us.”

  “Oh no. . .”

  “Have no fear, little one.” The first sphere seemed almost amused, “Their primitive shells and rockets fall to the ground without exploding. We are completely safe.”

  “But they might try an atomic bomb,” Johnny said.

  “If they do, it will not explode. We are not here to hurt anyone, nor to allow anyone to hurt us.”

  A new thought struck Johnny. “You said your screen would have killed me. And then you said you brought me inside the ship and revived me. Was. . . was I dead?”

  “Your heart had stopped beating,” said the first alien. “We also found a few other flaws in your body chemistry, which we corrected. But we took no steps to prolong your life span. You will live some eighty to one hundred years, just as the history of your times has shown us.”

  Eighty to one hundred years! Johnny was thunderstruck. The “other flaws in body chemistry” that they fixed—they cured me !

  Johnny was staggered by the news, feeling as if he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, when the first of the shining ones said:

  “We must leave now, and hopefully find the proper time and place that we are seeking. We will place you safely among your friends.”

  “No! Wait! Take me with you! I want to go too!” Johnny surprised himself by shouting it, but he real
ized as he heard his own words that he really meant it. A trip through thousands of years of time, to who-knows-where!

  “That is impossible, little one. Your time and place is here. Your own history shows that quite clearly.”

  “But you can’t just leave me here, after you’ve shown me so much! How can I be satisfied with just one world and time wheneverything’s open to you to travel to! I don’t want to be stuck here-and-now, I want to be like you!”

  “You will be, little one. You will be. Once we were like you. In time your race will evolve into our type of creature—able to roam through the universe of space and time, able to live directly from the energy of the stars.”

  “But that’ll take millions of years.”

  “Yes. But your first steps into space have already begun. Before your life ends, you will have visited a few of the stars nearest to your own world. And, in the fullness of time, your race will evolve into ours.”

  “Maybe so,” Johnny said, feeling downcast.

  The shining one somehow seemed to smile. “No, little one. There is no element of chance. Remember, we come from your future. It has already happened.”

  Johnny blinked. “Already happened. . . you—you’re really from Earth! Aren’t you? You’re from the Earth of a million years from now! Is that it?”

  “Good-bye grandsire,” said the shining ones together.

  And Johnny found himself sitting on the desert floor in the hot afternoon sunlight, a few yards in front of General Hackett’s command car.

  “It’s the kid! He’s alive!”

  Getting slowly to his feet as a hundred soldiers raced toward him, Johnny looked back toward the star ship—thetime ship.

  It winked out. Disappeared. Without a sound or a stirring of the desert dust. One instant it was there, the next it was gone.

  9