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Lorsis wondered what the primitives would think. Their villages of brick and wood were growing into cities of concrete and steel. Their civilization was transitioning from an era of superstition to one of logic and reason. What would they think they were seeing?
His ship took another direct hit. Fragments of burning metal rained over the control room.
“Leader!” the technician shouted. “Anti-gravity is failing!”
“Sensors still cannot detect our attackers,” his assistant added.
The control room smelled of ozone and burnt chemicals. The once silent engines now rumbled and sputtered, shaking the deck and bulkheads. Warning lights flickered, and Lorsis watched the arid landscape below fill the forward viewport.
“I have a target!” the gunner shouted. “Vector seven. The Vorpons’ cloaking device must be malfunctioning.”
“The target is too small,” the technician said.
“It reads metal. What else could it be?” the gunner asked.
“The primitives have rudimentary flying technology.”
“Not anti-gravity. The target is hovering directly above us. It cannot be an aeroplane. It must be the Vorpons.”
Lorsis gripped the arms of his command chair, the green skin of his fingers yellowing at the joints. Viscous fluid stirred unpleasantly in his chest. “Gunner,” he said, “your logic is correct and therefore holy. Destroy the enemy.”
“Yes, leader.”
A burst of plasma flared into the night, hitting an invisible object in the upper atmosphere. The resulting fireball seemed too small, too tiny to be an entire Vorpon battle cruiser, but at least the enemy would not escape unscathed.
Lorsis turned his attention back to his own ship. The pilot lay dead at his post. The main computer spewed smoke. A crash landing was imminent. The Hykonian body, though softer and more flexible than that of other species, capable of withstanding greater quantities of stress, could not survive an impact at such velocity.
Lorsis closed his eyes and prayed to the Twin Gods for a quick, painless death.
* * *
Captain John Murphy stood in the first floor hallway of the airfield’s detention center chewing a cigarette. It was four in the morning. He’d been summoned by a phone call from General Brenner’s secretary and was waiting for someone to tell him why. His eyes hurt, his back ached, and he’d chewed his cigarette so much it just tasted like saliva-dampened paper and soggy tobacco.
Some men had come home from World War II and found a girl to kiss in the streets of New York. Others came home to find their fathers dead from polio, their mothers dead from loneliness, and their sweethearts married to some other guy. Murphy belonged to that second category.
Rather than start a new life like most of his war buddies, he stayed in the service. He specialized in radios and RADAR, and as long as his country still needed his skills he had nothing better to do. D.O.D. sent him all over the country doing special jobs for the Army Air Force. At the moment, he was stationed at Roswell Army Air Field for a top-secret assignment.
“Murphy!” someone hollered.
Murphy turned, slouching against the wall, and saw Captain Jiggins striding towards him, a toothy grin across his face.
“They wake you up too?” Murphy said, half smiling.
“I’ve been up,” Jiggins answered. “This night’s been wild.”
“What’s it about?”
Jiggins leaned against the wall and whispered in Murphy’s ear. “Something fell out of the sky,” he said.
“What?” Murphy whispered back.
“A weather balloon.”
Murphy laughed.
“I’m serious. One of your high altitude listening devices, I reckon.”
“You aren’t supposed to know about that.”
Jiggins shrugged. He was the type who made friends with everyone, even the folks who didn’t want any friends. He was always asking questions, doing favors, getting involved in this or that on base. Supposedly he played cards so bad the top brass invited him to all their games. Such a popular guy heard all the rumors. No one could keep a secret with Jiggins around.
“The really wild part is that your weather balloon got shot down.”
Murphy smiled and shook his head. “By what?”
“Some kind of ray gun, I figure. Because something else fell out of the sky tonight: a Martian space ship. Must have exploded. Crashed in a dozen places between here and Corona. Some on private property. The boys had to make up stories to get at it all.”
Murphy regarded his friend, noticing his tussled hair and muddy boots and how his toothy grin had disappeared. “You’re serious?”
“Saw the bodies,” Jiggins said. “Small. Greenish-grey. Like nothing else.”
“Does General Brenner know about this?”
“Yup. But–now this is the wildest bit of this whole damned, wild night–story is while all this was going on they caught a Russian spy on the base.”
* * *
When the general arrived, his uniform crisp, his expression stern, he asked Murphy and Jiggins to follow him. He listened to Jiggins’ full report as they walked, not asking a single question or saying a single word.
“Captain Murphy,” he said when Jiggins was done, “I imagine the spy was after your top secret project. I’m not sure how this Martian nonsense fits in, but it’s a mighty big coincidence all this happening the same night.”
“Yes, sir,” Murphy answered.
“Where’s Major Marcell?”
“Still gathering pieces of–whatever it was, sir,” Jiggins said. “He sent me in his place.”
Brenner stopped at a door guarded by two military policemen. The MPs saluted, and one began unlocking the door.
“Jiggins,” Brenner said, “you’ve seen the wreckage, and Murphy, you know everything there is to know about Project Mogul. I want you both to hear what the spy has to say and listen for inconsistencies.”
“Yes, sir,” Murphy and Jiggins said.
A single light bulb hung from the interrogation room ceiling. The walls were flat grey without windows, and some tape recording equipment was set up on a table. Another MP and a service woman snapped to attention as the general, Murphy, and Jiggins entered.
Murphy glanced at the spy and caught his breath. She sat in a simple, wooden chair, yet she looked like a queen upon her throne. She leaned lazily to the side, legs crossed, her skirt showing far too much skin to be decent. Her curly, blond hair glittered in the dim light, and when she met his gaze Murphy took a step back. He’d never seen eyes like hers before. They were bright violet, almost luminous.
“Golly, she’s a looker,” Jiggins whispered.
“I searched her, sir,” the service woman told General Brenner. “She had nothing on her except a fake ID and this old pocket watch.”
Brenner held the watch first, turning it over in his hand; then, he examined the ID.
“I hear you’re from the future,” Brenner said while the service woman turned the recording equipment on.
The blond smirked. “That’s right.”
“And a journalist.”
“Yes.” She flashed her teeth: flawless white.
“Hot damn,” Brenner said. “A lady journalist. That must be some crazy future you come from.”
She laughed. It sounded musical. “If you think that’s crazy, wait until you hear about President Obama.”
“You know, Miss… hmm… Tappler, is it?” Brenner said, taking another look at her ID.
“That’s right. Talie Tappler.”
“Weird name,” Jiggins whispered.
“Miss Tappler, D.O.D. suspects there’s a Russian spy on my airfield. I don’t suppose you might be that spy?”
Talie laughed again. “Of course not. Captain Jiggins is the spy.”
For once in his life, Jiggins was speechless.
Murphy scowled. He felt outraged on his friend’s behalf. Such an accusation against a true-blooded American… a war hero… it was absurd. Unthinkable. But then he noticed Jiggins’ trembling lip and red, perspiring face. How much did he know? How many secrets had he uncovered in his own good-natured way?
The tapes continued to record.
“Well, Miss Tappler,” Brenner said, “we might check on that, but for now you remain suspect number one.”
Talie shrugged.
“What’s this?” Brenner asked, showing Talie her watch.
“My time machine,” she said.
“I see. So you used this to travel to 1947 to cover a story about Roswell Army Air Field?”
Talie’s eyes widened. She seemed impressed the general had figured that out all by himself.
“Why are you here?” Brenner said. “What’s your big story?”
“You have a crashed Hykonian spaceship.”
“Hyko-what?”
“We have billions of viewers in the Hykonian Technocracy,” Talie said. “They’re all worried about the crew on that ship, and they’re worried this incident will spark a war with the Vorpons, because their distress call mentioned a Vorpon battle cruiser.
“We’re doing team coverage. I’m here on Earth, another reporter is on the Hykonian home world, and a third is on Vorponia Prime.”
Murphy shook his head. Yet even though he didn’t believe her story, he wanted to. She had a trustworthy quality, a definite asset for a journalist. Or a spy. He even wanted to believe his best friend was a traitor simply because Talie Tappler said so.
“When will your story air?” Brenner asked.
“Yesterday.”
Brenner frowned.
“We broadcast the news backwards through time,” Talie explained. “The Tomorrow News Network: bringing you tomorrow’s news today since… I guess you haven’t heard our slogan. 20th Century Earth doesn’t have the technology to receive our signal.”
