They would have their lips cut off, their eyes and tongues gouged out, and their genitals removed. There would generally be seawater in their lungs, no matter where the bodies were found. The grays would cut them up, drown them, then leave them as warnings. The grays could very definitely be crossed, and this particular action was certain to qualify.
He really did not feel so comfortable right now, sitting in this dismal little hole of a room and, frankly, waiting to start getting cut to pieces by somebody he couldn’t even see. He’d long held that the grays couldn’t read minds beyond a few feet, and that they had trouble even understanding what was going on in the human mind. But lying here on this bug-ridden bed watching Jay Leno wish he could suck any part of his guest, Drew Barrymore, he feared that the opposite might be true.
His only chance was speed. If he could get this done by tomorrow night, he could be back in D.C. by noon on Wednesday, and maybe he would be okay.
AT ALFRED AFB, THE FLIGHT line was being used for foul-weather training runs, and the sound of engines being fired up and jets screaming off into the night could be heard clearly in the disused office block where Lauren Glass and Rob Langford had been together for hours. Since he had caught up with her last night, he had not let her out of his sight.
And now that she’d understood that there were two opposing groups within the Air Force, she was glad that she had ended up with Rob. She had never liked Colonel Wilkes, and had not been surprised to discover the danger he posed to her.
She sat across from Rob in the office, watching the snow sift past the windows. She was exhausted, and she was hoping that he would soon let her rest.
He remained formal and distant, though, and showed no sign of either becoming more at ease or of offering her a place to sleep.
She wished it was not so. He was a lovely man, handsome in a way that made her want him, simply and frankly. His eyes were gray and intense, but also had a sort of wide-open look to them, as if he was as friendly as he was dedicated. They were the eyes of somebody who worked hard, but, she thought, also liked to have fun.
He did not trust her. There was a secret he wanted to tell her, but he was wary. If he decided that she was the enemy, what then?
She knew what then. She just didn’t want to think about it.
“Tell me again about your relationship with Adam,” he asked. In all these hours, she had not refused to answer a question, no matter how often he had repeated it. She knew this interrogation technique. She would let him use it. She would cooperate fully.
“I’ve been with somebody who shared the life of my soul,” she said. “I don’t think he was a predator like Mike said. Losing him has left a hole in my life, almost as bad as when my dad died.”
“That’s not what you said the last time.”
“I’m being creative.”
What you said was, “They aren’t predators, but I think they’re missing something they know we have, and they’re trying to get it.”
Rob could not take his eyes of Lauren Glass. It wasn’t just her beauty, it was the trembling, delicate play of emotions in her eyes as she spoke about Adam. He could see that the love was genuine, entirely so. But there was also something furtive about Lauren, as if, on some level, she might be lying to herself, and might at least sense that.
This long, repetitive interrogation was leading to a judgement. When he was finished with it, he would draw his conclusions and her life would either continue or it would not. He wondered if she knew, decided to assume that she did. “So tell me, are the grays a danger to us? How do you feel about that?”
“I guess I miss Adam more because I know he’s somewhere. If he’d died in the fire, that would have been cloture, you know.” She fell silent.
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“It did, indirectly. If you want a precise answer, I have never been able to figure out exactly what the grays are here for, so it’s pretty hard for me to tell if they’re a danger. I mean, they look like aliens. God knows, they act like it. But I’ve seen the Bob autopsies. They’re partly biological and partly manufactured, and they have no brain as we know it. Just all those threads of glass in the head. But far, far fewer neurons than we have. So why do they think so well? We don’t know. And since we can’t say what they are, we also can’t assign motive. Those are my thoughts, anyway.”
He watched her. He didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for—perhaps for some mistake, the nature of which would only reveal itself when she made it. Potentially at least, this woman could play an important role. He had no doubt that the grays had maneuvered her very neatly out of Wilkes’s hands and into his, and he had understood that it was so that she could perform a function with the child.
She asked him, “Listen, do you know anything about them? Like, where they’re from? I’ve always asked Adam about that but, you know, he doesn’t tell you much.”
She wasn’t afraid of him, and that was good. “We don’t know anything about where they’re from. We do know that there are a lot of them out there, and they’re on their way here.”
“So the DNA thing is true?”
“You know about that?”
She nodded. “Mike told me that they’ve used up their DNA and they want ours.”
“That’s part of it.”
“So this is the reconnaissance element of an invasion force and we should fear them.”
“I didn’t say that. I think they may also be our only chance of avoiding extinction.”
Her lovely mouth opened. The tip of her tongue, a soft, pink pearl, ran along her lips and withdrew. “Are you—uh… no.” She shook her head. “Wow. That’s big.”
“The calculations are correct. There’s going to be a tremendous environmental breakdown. In fact, it’s been building for eons. We’re at the climax.”
She sat there, staring at him.
“Lauren?”
“What about babies?”
He shook his head. “Nobody makes it… except your friend Mike and his outfit. Have you ever heard of the Trust?”
“No.”
“The way they’ve got it set up, about a million people will survive, chosen by the Trust—Mike and his group.”
“But then the grays will get them. They’ll have gained nothing.”
“That’s not how it works. We have reason to believe—to know—that the grays will give up on us unless there are billions of us alive. Smaller numbers will be of no use to them. The reason that Adam left when he did is that something has come to crisis, and Adam is apparently involved. Man and the grays are both in danger of extinction, and they’re trying to save us all. Your boss and his friends are trying to prevent that so the grays will go away and leave the Earth to their million elite.”
He watched her thinking, saw the pain in her eyes, the shock… saw a young woman’s face reflect fear for children who had not yet been born. “What happens… if the grays get their way?”
“Lauren, a very long time ago, there was a war on this Earth. A great civilization fell. When it did, we lost our knowledge of how physics really works. We set off down a road of ignorance that’s led to where we are now: all six billion of us trapped on an overburdened and dying planet. Meantime, the grays are so ancient that they’ve used up their DNA. Without each other, both species go extinct. They’re looking for a sort of marriage: they get access to our youthful DNA, we get access to their brilliant minds. Everybody survives.”
“But how? What happens?”
“Lauren, it’s my growing belief that you are one of the most critical human beings now alive on this planet, because you are a big part of the answer to that question.”
Suddenly, she looked every inch the soldier. Her eyes flashed. Rob thought, as always, that the grays had chosen well. She would be able to do this. He made his decision about her, after all these hours, in that split
