Max followed her into the room, listening to the Builder's voice shouting behind them. Liz and the others followed, but Valenti and Michael remained between them and the Builder.
A series of capsules in a wheel shape occupied the center of the room. The capsules looked like long test tubes. The incandescent light gleamed dully through the dust-covered surfaces.
'The crew,' Isabel said, leading Max to one of the capsules, 'didn't survive planetfall. The ship and the hibernation systems were heavily damaged.' She wiped off one of the tubes, revealing the skeleton inside the tube. Though basically humanoid in appearance, the horns and four-fingered hands revealed the extraterrestrial origins of the dead.
'Then why didn't the Builder know this?' Max asked.
'There was an accident,' an ancient voice stated.
Looking up, Max watched as another figure formed in the center of the room. More drones swirled together, creating another figure that stood up in the room. This one looked less human than the Builder, as if these drones could no longer quite fit together properly.
'The enemy ships were unmerciful in their attack,' the drone-creature said, gazing down at the capsules that contained the dead aliens. 'We tried to save them, but the damage to the systems was too severe. Our… loss… was too hurtful. We only wanted to die as our crew did. We went mad, but we could not allow ourselves to die, because that goes against our programming. We were going mad. So to save ourselves, we built another. One of us who did not know.'
'Lies!' the Builder snarled. The first creature slithered into the room, staying back from Michael and making no threatening gestures.
'No,' the second drone-creature said. 'We tried to save them. We couldn't. The ship separated. We separated. When we landed, we decided to keep the truth of our loss to ourselves. So we told ourselves that the crew had survived and that we must protect them until help arrived. Separating from ourselves was a horrible experience, but we succeeded.'
'No!' the Builder yelled, rippling over and over, changing shapes and features slightly as if losing control. 'You killed them. You weren't good enough to save them. You were supposed to save them.'
The second drone-creature faced their accuser. 'We were not good enough. But we didn't want to accept our blame. We wanted only to be reunited with the One back on our planet. We give up so much when we are placed aboard these ships and help the crews.'
'We should have died with them,' the Builder said.
'No,' the second drone-creature replied. 'It is always our way to live.'
'We can't live here,' the Builder said. 'This is not our home. We can't reunite with the One here. We are incomplete outside of the One.'
The second drone-figure turned to Max. 'We protected the ship from the Mesaliko people until the desert sands drank us down. During that time we remained separate from our others.'
'A mind divided,' Isabel said.
'We used the legends of the Mesaliko people to enforce our privacy,' the second drone-figure said. 'And we shut down the ship, freely entered stasis. We had thought the power would gradually dwindle and we no longer would exist, but that was allowable because we had no power over that. The thought of existence while trapped here was painful to us. Instead the ship's engines powering up not far away woke us.'
'The Granilith,' Max said, so they would all know.
'We sensed the ship,' the second drone-figure said, 'and we went on alert. We could not stop ourselves.' The figure turned to face the Builder. 'We would stop ourselves now. We would end our pain.'
'No,' the Builder said.
'Yes. We serve no purpose here.'
'The distress beacon,' the Builder said.
'Failed. If it still circles this planet, it is inoperative. There is no reason to chase the surrounding people from their homes. We're hurting others needlessly.'
Soundlessly the Builder exploded into thousands of drones that immediately went on the offensive. 'We can't live on our own. We choose not to live on our own.'
Michael unleashed an energy bolt. The blue-white blast arced into the midst of the spreading drones that had been the Builder. Drones burst into electrical fireworks, chasing strings like failing Christmas lights.
Suddenly a powerful voice spoke in an alien tongue. The tone was downbeat, like a death knell. Words came in perfect cadence, one falling relentlessly after another.
'Go!' the second drone-figure shouted. 'We have initiated the self-destruct sequence.'
'I thought you couldn't do that,' Isabel said.
'Only if we are invaded by hostile enemy troops. We see you as the enemy. You have served our purpose. Go. There is very little time remaining to make your escape.'
Which 'we'? Max wondered. The 'we' that suddenly realized they weren't going home again, or the 'we' that didn't want to be responsible for hurting anyone else? He had no way of knowing, so he ran.
Michael took the lead, throwing energy bolts at swarms of drones that tried to intercept them. Every time the energy hit the drones, the strings of explosions ripped across the rooms, leaving the way clear.
A warning Klaxon screamed through the hallways as room after room suddenly filled with pale amber light. Max's head screamed in pain and he felt dizzy, but he didn't let up.
At the doorway leading to the tunnel from the spaceship, Liz stumbled and fell. Without hesitation Max stopped and helped her to her feet. Together, hand in hand, they ran, scrambling up the tunnel to the cave mouth.
Valenti and Michael caught them at the top, pulling them from the cave mouth and toward the outside. The interior of the cavern whipped by, then they were outside in the night air, stumbling, falling down the hillside.
Gasping for air, Max pushed himself up and watched as a swarm of drones rocketed down the hillside after them. 'If we are to perish,' the drones said, 'then you will perish with us.'
Max put up his energy shield, watching as the lead drones blew up on contact with the force field. Then an enormous explosion rocked the landscape and the top of the hill collapsed, crunching down into the earth.
The remaining drones fell to the ground. As Max watched, the drones dissolved, leaving nothing.
'Biodegradable,' Michael commented wryly.
'Degradable, at any rate,' Isabel agreed.
Dust clouds gathered over the fallen hill, but the wind quickly wiped them from the sky.
EPILOGUE
'Although the military doesn't accept responsibility for the explosion that ripped through Mesaliko reservation territory, speculation remains constant that the blast came from a munitions dump kept in the area during World War II.'
Max watched with idle interest the television news. Three days had passed since the spaceship had been destroyed. There had been no more ghost sightings in Roswell or in the Mesaliko tribal lands. He sat in his room and tried to remain calm with the idea of not beating his brains out trying to find a way to get to his son and fix things with Liz.
During the last three days he hadn't talked with Liz, hadn't felt like he could be around her without putting pressure on her. He wanted her back in his life, wanted everything to be back like it was before Tess came along to twist things so badly.
The phone rang unexpectedly.
Max scooped the receiver up and said hello.
'It's me,' Liz said.
The world suddenly seemed to stop around Max. He had to force himself to breathe. 'Hi,' he said.
'Are you okay?'
'Sure. I was just dozing,' Max said. 'Still catching up on sleep.'
'I just wanted to check. 1 haven't seen much of you these past few days.'
'I knew you were busy with the repairs being done to the Crashdown.'
