Alien Affairs
Chapter 16

After five days NASA had logged over seven-hundred landings. Carrie called Deshler. “Come, Carrie Player, it is good to hear from you again.”

“I could not stay angry with you, Deshler. What exactly are you doing now? Seven-hundred landings? Sooner or later we are going to get a clear shot at you.”

Deshler laughed. “What reason do you have to destroy us now? Our work is as good as done. We are just making certain that you have many places to search for the containers.”

“That’s a pretty crude deception. I expected something more sophisticated from you.”

“It is admittedly crude, but you must allow, effective.”

“So, how much longer do I have the pleasure of our conversations?”

“Perhaps a half cycle of your moon. We have to give you enough places to search to keep you occupied until the aerosols release and we have to sample some specimens to verify the efficacy of the virus.”

“You intend to test people?”

“Of course.”

“You cannot do that! People will be terrified.”

“Carrie Player, this has happened many times in the past.”

“And you have ruined people’s lives.”

“Our memory deleting techniques are improved.”

“At least let us supply you with volunteers instead of abducting innocent people.”

“That sample would not be random. You might supply people already known to be sterile.”

“You are a suspicious bastard, Deshler.”

“And you are a cunning specimen, Carrie Player. Was your daughter able to conceive before the release?”

“No, you did not give us enough time.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Is there not something more about your history that you would like me to answer?”

“History does not matter to people who have no future.”

“Perhaps that is true. Going.”

“Going.”

Carrie distributed the translation but did not bother to call the director. Georgia Turnbull called her. “I guess we’d better tell the president about the pending alien abductions.”

“Do you need me?” Carrie asked rhetorically.

“I’ve come to rely on your support.”

“Why didn’t he fire you?”

“I can only guess that since we never scored a kill, he assumed we followed his orders.”

“Do you really think he’s that lame?” Carrie asked.

“I can’t answer that question.”

“You just did.”

As was his style, the president lied to the people. He told them that he would protect them from the rumored abductions. Carrie watched the announcement in the bullpen with her team.

Paul said, “Didn’t it occur to the dumb son of a bitch that people would be less scared if they didn’t know what to expect?”

“I didn’t want to tell him in the first place,” Carrie said.

“I guess the director does have to answer to him. I can’t believe she didn’t get fired,” Jan said.

“Let’s count our blessings. So, Eddy, do you want me to try to arrange an abduction for you?”

“You bet. Can you do it?”

“I’ll try but everybody says the smell is unbearable.”

“I’ll get a gas mask.”

Carrie smiled and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. She brought it awake and tapped Deshler’s icon.

Deshler answered, “Come, Carrie Player, how are you today?”

“Come, Deshler, I am well. I am calling to ask a favor.”

“Yes?”

“One of my associates is keen to ride in your ship. Would you be willing to take him on board? You can test his potency while you are at it.”

“Is this some subterfuge of yours?”

“Deshler, you wound me deeply. I am trying to do favors for two friends.”

“My apologies. I will send you coordinates and a time for a rendezvous with your associate.”

“Thank you, Deshler, you are going to fulfill a young man’s dream so you don’t have to delete his memory.”

“As you wish. I see no harm in this little adventure. Going.”

“Going.”

Twenty minutes later Carrie saw numbers in the display of her phone. She copied them onto a note and took it to Eddy. “It’s sweet of Deshler to convert to base ten for us,” she commented as she handed the figures to Eddy who entered them into his GPS app.

“This is weird. It includes altitude above sea level in units of fractional degrees of longitude. It’s the roof of our building. But when?” he said.

Carrie reread the text message. “In ten minutes. The clever little bastard. How did he know where we are?”

“Beats me, but I’ve got to hurry. Wish me luck.”

Jan, Paul and Carrie followed Eddy up the stairs that had roof access. The final door was alarmed. Eddy checked his watch and waited for two full minutes. “I hope he’s punctual,” he said and leaned against the breakaway bar. The alarm began hooting as the four poured onto the graveled roof. Hovering over the parapet was the giant saucer with the aperture open. An alien waited backlit in the rectangular doorway. Eddy crossed the roof tentatively, turned and waved at his workmates and stepped into the craft. The alien leaned out of the hatch slightly and looked at the three humans. It nodded its bulbous head and vanished as did the opening. The saucer shot straight up and disappeared with no apparent gradient of acceleration.

A security team with assault rifles crashed through the door and leveled their weapons at the trio. Carrie held her identification tag up so the guard could see her photo. “What the hell are you doing up here?” he demanded.

“We had an alien sighting,” Carrie said.

“I don’t see anything.”

“They just left.”

“Why didn’t you call security?”

“Alien affairs are our department. This is what we do,” Carrie said.

“Yeah, well campus security is our department. Filing reports is what we do. Let me see all your ID’s please.”

That afternoon Director Turnbull called Carrie. “You summoned a flying saucer to land on our roof?” she bellowed.

“It was just Deshler. We’re doing some fact replaceing.”

“What? How?”

“Eddy volunteered to be abducted.”

There was a prolonged silence. “Did it ever occur to you that field operations require approval? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that we might learn something useful.”

“I might, just possibly might, have approved you going, but what the hell can Eddy do?”

“He had his heart set on it.”

“Oh, for Christ sake, Carrie, he’s a reckless kid. What do we do if they won’t let him go?”

“Deshler wouldn’t do that. We already know they’re playing catch and release all over the planet. I wanted to insert one of our own.”

“If you can’t get him back I’ll have your ass in a sling.”

“I knew that going in.”

Turnbull made a disgusted sound and hung-up.

Carrie dialed Deshler. “Come, Carrie Player.”

“Come, Deshler, how is Eddy?”

“He is a rather bothersome creature. We cannot stop him from tampering with things he does not understand.”

Carrie stifled a laugh. “He is naturally inquisitive.”

“Undoubtedly. He did not seem to appreciate our sample collection technique.”

“How do you do that?”

“With males, genital manipulation, of course. How would you do it?”

Carrie squirmed on Eddy’s behalf. “Perhaps I should talk to him.”

“By all means.”

Eddy said heatedly, “You didn’t tell me I was going to get an alien hand job.”

“How was I to know? Do you want me to tell Deshler to erase your memory?”

He hesitated. “No, I’ll get over it. Everything else is pretty cool, though, except the smell.”

“I warned you about that.”

“I guess. Do you have any idea when they’re going to bring me back?”

“No, if Deshler is still there, put the phone on speaker.”

“He’s here, go ahead.”

“Deshler, when do you plan to release Eddy?”

“Very soon. Look in the direction of your planetary rotation. Going.”

“We’ll see you soon, Eddy. Going.”

Carrie called the director’s office. “Do you want to see them return Eddy.”

“Hell yes.”

“Meet us in the lobby—stat.”

When Director Turnbull exited the elevator, the four hurried across the CIA eagle inlaid in the floor and rushed past the Cryptos, monument to deception, and onto the lawn. The ship fell from the sky and braked in air inches above the grass. A groundskeeper stopped his mower and stared with his mouth open as the opening below the periphery of the saucer appeared and Eddy stepped casually onto the ground. The rectangle vanished and the craft shot vertically skyward and disappeared in a second.

Eddy strolled rather dazedly across the lawn toward the foursome and the maintenance man remained frozen on his mower. Turnbull said, “You young fool! Are you all right?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was really cool, except for getting jerked off by a little gray pervert with BO.”

Turnbull suppressed a laugh, turning it into a scowl.

Carrie said, “Now you’ve got a great story to tell your grandkids—if you could have grandkids.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see anything that you thought could be the aerosols?” Carrie asked.

“Uh, let’s take this inside,” the director said.

Inside Eddy said, “The lab looks like an operating room. They took my jizz and stuck it into what I took to be an electron microscope. The DNA helix came on a sort of monitor and they pointed to several of the rungs. They seemed happy so I guess I’m reproductive toast.”

“What did you do that made Deshler call you a pest?” Carrie asked.

“A pest? I just went looking around. I must have pushed some important buttons because they got real upset and undid whatever I did real quick.”

Georgia Turnbull grunted and said, “Well, I’m glad you had fun. It was a silly waste of time. Go shower and burn those clothes.” She left the office without additional comment. A few minutes later Gibbs and Overton arrived to debrief Eddy who had changed into the sweats he wore to the gym. They used Carrie’s office so she sat with Paul and Jan.

“What do we do now to justify our existence?” she asked the pair.

Paul lifted his eyes to the ceiling and hesitated, looking like he was on the brink of a major announcement. “Unless we can narrow the search for the virus canisters, we might as well strike our tent and go home.”

Jan said, “The only way to do that is to wheedle information out of Deshler.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Carrie said.