Starman

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Crap,” Fox muttered, staring at the electronic map. “If it lands in one of those big lakes up there we’ll never find it.” He said almost offhandedly to Brayton, “Get ahold of Mark Shermin.”

  The image on the television screen in the apartment living room was oversized, as was the player dribbling the basketball. Crowd noises spilled out of the stereo speakers and filled the room. The play-by-play announcer was barely audible above the roar of the fans:

  “. . . and the score is New Jersey one-oh-one, the Washington Bullets one hundred. If Ruland can hit these two free throws that’ll be five in a row at home for the Bullets!”

  There was nothing remarkable about the appearance of the man who walked into the living room. What marked him as unusual was not visible. He had a mind of exceptional depth and was particularly noted for an ability to assimilate reams of seemingly unconnected facts and reduce them to one or two simple, obvious conclusions that everyone else wondered why they hadn’t seen in the first place.

  Right now that mind was wondering whether or not Jeff Ruland, one of the better free-throw shooters in the NBA for a big man, was going to crack under the pressure of having to make a pair of potentially game-winning charity tosses.

  Mark Shermin used his right forearm to sweep his desk clear of debris. He had to do it that way because both hands were full: one with a sloppy sandwich on old french bread and the other with a bottle of beer. The beer was Hinano Export. He got an occasional case from a friend whose job it was to fly blackbirds over the French National atomic-testing site at Muroroa Atoll in the South Pacific.

  As he sat down the swept-away papers went flying. Some of them were marked in bold stenciled letters SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL. Shermin’s casual treatment of them made sense if one realized that only a few people in the world could make up or down of their contents. His cleaning lady wasn’t among that small elite.

  His attention was focused on the screen as he took a mouthful of sandwich and a swig of beer. Meat sauce trickled down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of one hand.

  Ruland made the first free throw, tying the score. The crowd went wild. When he missed the second, thereby sending the game into overtime, a collective groan issued from the speaker. Shermin added his own opinion and started in seriously on the sandwich.

  The damnphone rang. Always to Shermin it was the damnphone; never the damn phone. It continued to ring, insistent, demanding, like an electronic mistress. Eyes still locked on the TV he growled softly and picked up the receiver.

  “Call back in twenty minutes, I’m . . .”

  Whoever was on the other end managed to slip a word in before Shermin could break the connection. He made a face, reached for the remote control and muted the sound on the TV. Not many callers could make him do that. Not with the Bullets heading into overtime.

  “Yes sir? What? Sure, no problem. No, I was just watching the Bullets’ game. Overtime. Yeah, I’m sorry too. Chequamegon Bay? Where the hell’s that, up near Baltimore? Wisconsin?” He sighed, set the sandwich aside. “Yes sir, whatever you say, sir.”

  He hung up, sat thinking for a long moment. Then he turned the sound back up. Whatever it was could wait a few minutes longer. It couldn’t possibly be as important as the outcome of the game.

  The cabin was small and contemporary, woodsy without being primitive, cozy but not cramped. It fit the young woman in her twenties who was sitting in the middle of the living-room floor. Her name was Jenny Hayden and she was equally engrossed in the home movies unspooling on the screen in front of her and the bottle of wine she was drinking. The bottle was nearly empty and Jenny Hayden was more than full. But she kept watching and she kept drinking because she didn’t know how to stop doing either.

  The picture on the screen was grainy but the bay outside the cabin was easily recognizable. The camera was watching a man only slightly older than Jenny herself. He was paddling toward the camera in a canoe, mouthing amiable inanities as he approached.

  Suddenly he stood up, turned his back toward the camera, pulled down his pants, and bent over. This complex maneuver proving too much for his sense of balance, if not his sense of humor, he promptly went overboard, waving his arms wildly as he went into the lake.

  The camera searched the empty surface when without warning a face erupted in front of it and spat a mouthful of water straight into the lens. This was followed by a cockeyed, if somehow endearing, grin.

  Jenny watched silently until the screen turned white. The trailer ran through the projector gate and began to flap repeatedly against the takeup reel. She was blinking away tears by the time she shut off the machine. The light faded, along with something less immediately visible. Putting the heels of both hands against her eyes, she pushed firmly and rubbed in opposite directions. Then she clasped her arms across her chest and drew in a deep, shuddery breath.

  As she stumbled toward the bedroom she fought to convince herself that she hadn’t done anything as immature as having gotten drunk. Her depression was due not to excessive consumption of alcohol but to the loss of something deeply felt. As yet she wasn’t sure whether watching the movies again had been a good idea or not. The wine muddled both her thoughts and her emotions, which was just as well for her peace of mind.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her more out of habit than necessity, crossed to the bed. A bottle of sleeping tablets waited on the nightstand. She dumped a couple into her left hand and found herself hesitating, staring at the bottle. The thought passed quickly. She put the bottle back on the table, screwing the cap back in place with careful deliberation.

  The pills went down without a chaser. The wine was too tempting. Besides, she wasn’t thirsty anymore. She staggered a little as she wrestled her jeans off and flopped down onto the bed. She started to remove her sweater, wondered why she was bothering, and fell back on the sheets. Consciousness fled with blissful speed.

  Far out on the lake a loon cried out uncertainly. There were uncomfortable rustlings in the reeds and bushes when a sudden, unnatural breeze sprang up around them. Owls raced for the safety of their trees while nocturnal gatherers sprinted for their burrows. Something fast and white-hot was streaking across the sky, heading for the forest.

  It came in low over the treetops, tumbling unsteadily. It went through the first trees as though they were made of papier-mâché, igniting the tops of those it merely brushed while incinerating the ones it struck head-on.

  The fire was spreading rapidly by the time the explorer was able to emerge from his damaged craft. He scanned the burning woods, the ridge of earth that defined the rim of the impact crater his vessel had gouged. Only flames moved around him, and these he could ignore.

  Finally he moved, abandoning the craft and rising to ground level. The humus-heavy soil was smoking all around him. The fire continued to spread, engulfing trees and brush in every direction.

  A rising whine became audible above the excited crackling of the flames. The whine became a roar as several fighter-bombers shot past directly over the impact crater. They disappeared into the western sky. The explorer didn’t doubt they’d be back. He considered his options and surroundings, and then he began to move.

  Traveling with incredible swiftness, he went right through the flames. The only witness to this impossible feat was a startled, panicky deer searching for its own escape route.

  The four aircraft returned and made another pass over the devastated section of forest. They were moving much too fast to pick out fine details, and in any case the fine detail they would have found most interesting had by now moved a good distance away from the conflagration.

  Smaller trees the explorer cleared, large low-hanging branches he ducked beneath. He traveled with an instinctive feel for the mass and position of objects in his path. Eventually the woods gave way to a long, treeless strip of something hard and flat. It cut through the forest to left and right. Lights appeared at the far end of the road, moving toward him.

  Curious, he rose and hover
ed, taking the time to examine the peculiar land-bound vehicle which was approaching from the north.

  The young forest ranger was trying to steer the pickup and see through the forest at the same time. He held onto the wheel with one hand and the CB mike with his other. He was trying to control his emotions, but some of what he was feeling crept unbidden into what was supposed to be a professional, dispassionate report. For that he couldn’t be blamed, since he’d never seen anything like what he was trying to describe before. What he didn’t know was that neither had anyone else.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he was yelling into the mike. “All I saw coming down was a big ball of fire. Burning airliner, maybe. Better get some choppers and maybe a tanker up here—she’s building fast. Heavy smoke. Not too much wind, but you know how dry it’s been up here and the undergrowth’s like tinder. Just saw a firebrand leap one trail.”

  The explorer watched thoughtfully from his vantage point until the pickup truck had disappeared down the road. Then he considered his position with respect to the rapidly expanding forest fire, the as yet untorched sections of woods, and the nearby lake. He began to move again. Anyone else flying low over the lake that night might have seen a strange golden glow dancing across the water. Or maybe it was just the moon.

  The lake was not large and the explorer soon reached the far side. There he found a single building, a small shelter of some kind with a sharply angled roof. He drifted above it, studying both the structure and the surrounding trees. There were small furry things in the growths and on the ground. They did not react to the explorer’s presence. Methodically he assigned each a place within his mental catalog, estimating the intelligence and impact on the environment of every living thing he saw.

  This done, he drifted low toward the artificial habitation and cautiously circled it. There was no sign of movement from within. Out in front was a sign with an example of primitive writing on it. It read FOR SALE.

  Moving around the side, the explorer came upon a smaller, separate structure. It was not as well built as the other. Another of the simple land-bound vehicles rested within: a 1977 Mustang with oversized rear wheels and racing tires, chrome pipes, and a metal-flake paint job. Someone had lavished a great deal of love and care on that car, but it made no special impression on the explorer, who merely identified it as a machine similar in type and purpose to the forest ranger’s pickup.

  A sudden noise made him freeze. The sound was sharp and metallic, though not unpleasant. He moved toward it, relaxed when he saw that it was activated only by meteorological conditions and not intelligent purpose. The wind chimes tinkled again, loud against the night. A simple device, but not without charm.

  The chimes disturbed Jenny Hayden without waking her. She moaned softly in her sleep and turned over on the bed. One arm reached across the sheets as if groping for someone who wasn’t there. Then the wine and pills took hold again and she fell silent once more.

  The entrance to the structure was sealed, though not tightly. After locating a sufficient opening, the explorer entered by seeping through the crack under the front door, following a route often used by bugs and mosquitoes but utilizing a radically different method of locomotion.

  Once inside he gathered himself again and rose to the ceiling to survey the building’s interior. He recorded and analyzed.

  Had he been familiar with local culture he immediately would have recognized a household in the process of being moved. Boxes half full of books and clothing and kitchenware were scattered around the room. Others were stacked neatly in one corner, sealed with packing tape, their contents marked in black crayon.

  Not everything had been packed yet, however. The explorer dropped to the floor and began to inspect the unpacked goods. There was the nearly empty wine bottle, the projector, a blender, a small microwave oven, and more. The explorer paid equal attention to each item, occasionally moving one or another in order to gain a better look at back or insides. His inspection was not haphazard, however. He was looking for something in particular, looking rather anxiously in fact, and not finding it.

  Unseen in the bedroom, Jenny Hayden stirred uneasily in her sleep.

  The explorer drifted over to a box that rested by itself on a nearby countertop. It was a special box, though he had no way of knowing that yet. It contained a significant and eclectic potpourri of items, from fishing gear to a tennis racket and well-used balls, old sneakers which had long since outlived their usefulness, several well-frayed sweatshirts, and a handsomely blued forty-five automatic. To the explorer each was as interesting, each as significant as the other. To him the major difference between the tennis racket and the handgun was in their composition.

  The counter was covered with other unpacked items. Carefully he went over a typewriter, a small color television set, more clothing, and another pile of books. One of the books lay open. It was an odd sort of book that contained no words: only pictures which has been pasted onto the otherwise blank pages.

  The explorer paused there and began to examine each page of this strange book. A slight wind seemed to turn the pages in steady sequence. Most of the pictures in the front of the book were of a young boy, beginning with him as an infant and following his growth. Next to one picture was a small glassine envelope full of blond hair.

  With each new page the boy grew older, becoming first a teenager and then a young man. The last portrait showed a handsome male in his mid-twenties. It was the same man Jenny had watched cavort on her movie screen earlier that evening.

  The explorer had no way of knowing that, of course, but he did recognize the natural progression from the first picture to the last. As he studied the photo album something very peculiar began to happen to that last picture. A duplicate of it rose from the page and expanded into three dimensions. It rotated obediently as the explorer analyzed it in front of him before settling back onto the page and resuming its original appearance.

  The pages began to turn again, this time flowing backward toward the beginning as if flipped by an invisible hand. They stopped at the page holding the glassine envelope. This peeled off the paper and popped open. The lock of hair within did not fall to the floor. Instead, it began to separate, returning one by one to the envelope until only a single hair remained. The explorer concentrated on this one; estimating, appraising, deciding. He looked deeply into its substance.

  Jenny wasn’t able to identify what had awakened her. She blinked sleepily and lifted her head from the pillow. Another bird trying to get into the attic, she thought, or those chipmunks again. Her head hit the pillow when a distinct sound came from the living room. It was too substantial to have been made by a scurrying rodent.

  She looked toward the bedroom door. There it was again, almost a crackling noise. Her gaze fell to the crack beneath the door. Faint flashes of light were filling the living room, as if someone was taking a whole series of flash pictures.

  It occurred to her that she might not be alone in the cabin.

  Sleepy . . . she was so sleepy. Come on, get it together, she admonished herself angrily. Too much wine, and those damn sleeping pills. She was all alone out here on the bay. All alone.

  Kids. Maybe that was it. Just a couple of kids looking for videogame money. But she couldn’t take the chance.

  She swung her legs off the bed and sat up, fighting to clear her brain. The flashes of light continued to illuminate the floor in front of the door. Why would a thief bother taking pictures? Wavering slightly, she stood up and tiptoed around the bed to the night table on the other side. She made two grabs before getting a grip on the knob and pulling the top drawer open.

  Empty. Sure it was empty. She’d been packing.

  She closed the drawer and turned fearfully back to the door. The sounds in the living room continued. It didn’t sound like a burglar at work, going through her things and tossing what he didn’t want onto the floor. It was too regular, too even. Maybe it was a hiker who’d hurt himself and had come stumbling into her cabin in sea
rch of help. He might be lying on the floor, trying to crawl toward the sink. Sure, that was it.

  But what about all the light?

  A new noise reached her; a thin, uncertain whimper like a child might make. That decided her. She walked to the door and pulled it open, still trying to clear her mind from the effect of the wine and sleeping pills.

  There was a figure lying on the floor. It was small and apparently uninjured. She’d been right after all. It was a child, but one much too young to be out in the woods by itself. An infant abandoned on her doorstep, just like in the movies. She took a step toward it.

  And found herself starting to shake.

  It was growing. The child was growing even as she looked at it. It twisted and contorted, whining with the effort it was making. Legs and arms lengthened before her eyes. The torso expanded. Facial features began to crinkle and develop definition. And with each new spurt of growth it threw off a brilliant flash of light.

  No sense. It made no sense at all. It was impossible. She stood there, halfway through the doorway, trying to make some sense out of what she was witnessing. She held the back of her right hand against her open mouth and seemed suddenly unable to close her jaws, just as she was unable to tear her gaze away from the thing on the floor of her living room.

  It was bigger now, much bigger. In the poor light she couldn’t make out many details, and each flash of light left her half blinded. The infant was long gone now. In its place a grown man lay twisting and turning on the hardwood floor.

  The energy that drove the transformation began to fade, the flashes of light to become less overpowering and more infrequent. Finally they ceased altogether. The new man lay on his back on the floor, panting hard. With a visible effort he got his breathing under control and rolled clumsily onto his hands and knees. One hand opened and seven small silver gray spheres spilled out onto the floor, like a handful of silver marbles. Jenny thought she saw colors buried deep inside the silver, but given the bad light and her rapidly disintegrating sense of right and wrong she couldn’t be certain of much of anything.