Stainless Steel Visions

RESCUE OPERATION

Pull! Pull steadily…!" Dragomir shouted, clutching at the tarry cords of the net. Beside him in the hot darkness Pribislav Polasek grunted as he heaved on the wet strands. The net was invisible in the black water, but the blue light trapped in it rose closer and closer to the surface. "It's slipping…" Pribislav groaned and clutched the rough gunwale of the little boat. For a single instant he could see the blue light on the helmet, a faceplate and the suited body that faded into blackness — then it slipped free of the net. He had just a glimpse of a dark shape before it was gone. "Did you see it?" he asked. "Just before he fell he waved his hand."

"How can I know — the hand moved, it could have been the net, or he might still be alive?" Dragomir had his face bent almost to the glassy surface of the water, but there was nothing more to be seen. "He might be alive."

The two fishermen sat back in the boat and stared at each other in the harsh light of the hissing acetylene lamp in the bow. They were very different men, yet greatly alike in their stained, baggy trousers and faded cotton shirts. Their hands were deeply wrinkled and callused from a lifetime of hard labor, their thoughts slowed by the rhythm of work and years.

"We cannot get him up with the net," Dragomir finally said, speaking first as always.

"Then we will need help," Pribislav added. "We have anchored the buoy here, we can find the spot again."

"Yes, we need help." Dragomir opened and closed his large hands, then leaned over to bring the rest of the net into the boat. "The diver, the one who stays with the widow Korenc, he will know what to do. His name is Kukovic and Petar said that he is a doctor of science from the university in Ljubljana."

They bent to their oars and sent the heavy boat steadily over the glasslike water of the Adriatic. Before they had reached shore, the sky was light and when they tied to the sea wall in Brbinj the sun was above the horizon.

Joze Kukovic looked at the rising ball of the sun, already hot on his skin, yawned, and stretched. The widow shuffled out with his coffee, mumbled good morning, and put it on the stone rail of the porch. He pushed the tray aside and sat down next to it, then emptied the coffee from the small, long-handled pot into his cup. The thick Turkish coffee would wake him up, in spite of the impossible hour. From the rail he had a view down the unpaved and dusty street to the port, already stirring to life. Two women, with the morning's water in brass pots balanced on their heads, stopped to talk. The peasants were bringing in their produce for the morning market, baskets of cabbages and potatoes and trays of tomatoes, strapped onto tiny donkeys. One of them brayed, a harsh noise that sawed through the stillness of the morning, bouncing echoes from the yellowed buildings. It was hot already. Brbinj was a town at the edge of nowhere, located between empty ocean and barren hills, asleep for centuries and dying by degrees. There were no attractions here — if you did not count the sea. But under the flat, blue calm of the water was another world that Joze loved.

Cool shadows, deep valleys, more alive than all the sun-blasted shores that surrounded it. Excitement, too: just the day before, too late in the afternoon to really explore it, he had found a Roman galley half-buried in the sand. He would get into it today, the first human in two thousand years, and Heaven alone knew what he would find there. In the sand about it had been shards of broken amphorae; there might be whole ones inside the hull.

Sipping happily at his coffee, he watched the small boat tying up in the harbor, and wondered why the two fishermen were in such a hurry. They were almost running, and no one ran here in the summer. Stopping below his porch, the biggest one called up to him.

"Doctor, may we come up? There is something urgent."

"Yes, of course." He was surprised and wondered if they took him for a physician.

Dragomir shuffled forward and did not know where to begin. He pointed out over the ocean.

"It fell, out there last night, we saw it, a sputnik without a doubt?"

"A traveler?" Joze Kukovic wrinkled his forehead, not quite sure that he heard right. When the locals were excited it was hard to follow their dialect. For such a small country Yugoslavia was cursed with a multitude of tongues.

"No, it was not a putnik, but a sputnik, one of the Russian spaceships."

"Or an American one." Pribislav spoke for the first time, but he was ignored.

Joze smiled and sipped his coffee. "Are you sure it wasn't a meteorite you saw? There is always a heavy meteor shower this time of the year."

"A sputnik," Dragomir insisted stolidly. "The ship fell far out in the Jadransko More and vanished, we saw that. But the space pilot came down almost on top of us, into the water. "

"The WHAT?" Joze gasped, jumping to his feet and knocking the coffee tray to the floor. The brass tray clanged and rattled in circles unnoticed. "There was a man in this thing— and he got clear?"

Both fishermen nodded at the same time and Dragomir continued. "We saw this light fall from the sputnik when it went overhead and drop into the water. We couldn't see what it was, just a light, and we rowed there as fast as we could. It was still sinking and we dropped a net and managed to catch him…."

"You have the pilot?"

"No, but once we pulled him close enough to the surface to see that he was in a heavy suit, with a window like a diving suit, and there was something on the back that might have been like your tanks there."

"He waved his hand," Pribislav insisted.

"He might have waved a hand, we could not be sure. We came back for help."

The silence lengthened and Joze realized that he was the help that they needed, and that they had turned the responsibility over to him. What should he do first? The astronaut might have his own oxygen tanks, Joze had no real idea what provisions were made for water landings, but if there was oxygen the man might still be alive.

Joze paced the floor while he thought, a short, square figure in khaki shorts and sandals. He was not handsome, his nose was too big and his teeth were too obvious for that, but he generated a certainty of power. He stopped and pointed to Pribislav.

"We're going to have to get him out. You can find the spot again?"

"A buoy."

"Good. And we may need a doctor. You have none here, but is there one in Osor?"

"Dr. Bratos, but he is very old…"

"As long as he is still alive, we'll have to get him. Can anyone in this town drive an automobile?"

The fishermen looked toward the roof and concentrated, while Joze controlled his impatience.

"Yes, I think so," Dragomir finally said. "Petar was a partisan."

"That's right." The other fisherman finished the thought. "He has told many times how they stole German trucks and how he drove. "

"Well, then one of you get this Petar and give him the keys to my car, it's a German car so he should be able to manage. Tell him to bring the doctor back at once."

Dragomir took the keys, but handed them to Pribislav, who ran out.

"Now let's see if we can get the man up," Joze said, grabbing his scuba gear and leading the way toward the boat.

They rowed, side by side though Dragomir's powerful stroke did most of the work.

"How deep is the water out here?" Joze asked. He was already dripping with sweat as the sun burned on him.

"The Kvarneric is deeper up by Rab, but we were fishing off Trstenilc and the bottom is only about four fathoms there. We're coming to the buoy."

"Seven meters, it shouldn't be too hard to find him." Joze kneeled in the bottom of the boat and slipped into the straps of the scuba. He buckled it tight, checked the valves, then turned to the fisherman before he bit into the mouthpiece. "Keep the boat near this buoy and I'll use it for a guide while I search. If I need a line or any help, I'll surface over the astronaut, then you can bring the boat to me."

He turned on the oxygen and dipped over the side, the cool water rising up his body as he sank below the surface. With a powerful kick he started toward the bottom, following the dropping line of the buoy rope. Almost at once he saw the man, spread-eagled on white sand below.

Joze swam down, making himself stroke smoothly in spite of his growing excitement. Details were clearer as he dropped lower. There were no identifying marks on the pressure suit; it might be either American or Russian. It was a hard suit, metal or reinforced plastic, and painted green, with a single, flat faceplate in the helmet.

Because distance and size are so deceptive underwater, Joze was on the sand next to the figure before he realized that it was less than four feet long. He gasped and almost lost his mouthpiece.

Then he looked at the faceplate and saw that the creature inside was not human.

Joze coughed a bit and blew out a stream of bubbles: he had been holding his breath without realizing it. He just floated there, paddling slowly with his hands to stay in a position, looking at the face within the helmet.

It was still as a waxen cast, green wax with roughened surface, slit nostrils, slit mouth, and large eyeballs unseen but prominent as they pushed up against the closed lids. The arrangement of features was roughly human, but no human being had skin this color or had a pulpy crest, partially visible through the faceplate, growing up from above the closed eyes. Joze stared down at the suit made up of some unknown material, and at the compact atmosphere-regeneration apparatus on the alien's back. What kind of atmosphere? He looked back at the creature and saw that the eyes were open and the thing was watching him.

Fear was his first reaction; he shot back in the water like a startled fish, then, angry at himself, came forward again. The alien slowly raised one arm, then dropped it limply. Joze looked through the faceplate and saw that the eyes were closed again. The alien was alive, but unable to move; perhaps it was injured and in pain. The wreck of the creature's ship showed that something had been wrong with the landing. Reaching under as gently as he could, he cradled the tiny body in his arms, trying to ignore a feeling of revulsion when the cold fabric of the thing's suit touched his bare arms. It was only metal or plastic, he had to be a scientist about this. When he lifted it up, the eyes still did not open, and he bore the limp and almost weightless form to the surface.

"You great stupid clumsy clod of peasant, help me," he shouted, spitting out his mouthpiece and treading water on the surface, but Dragomir only shook his head in horror and retreated to the point of the bow when he saw what the physicist had borne up from below.

"It is a creature from another world and cannot harm you!" Joze insisted, but the fisherman would not approach.

Joze cursed aloud and only managed with great difficulty to get the alien into the boat, then climbed in after him. Though he was twice Joze's size, threats of violence drove Dragomir to the oars. But he used the farthest set of tholepins, even though it made rowing much more difficult. Joze dropped his scuba gear into the bottom of the boat and looked more closely at the drying fabric of the alien space suit. His fear of the unknown was forgiven in his growing enthusiasm. He was a nuclear physicist but he remembered enough of his chemistry and mechanics to know that this material was completely impossible — by Earth's standards.

Light green, it was as hard as steel over the creature's limbs and torso, yet was soft and bent easily at the joints as he proved by lifting and dropping the limp arm. His eyes went down the alien's tiny figure: there was a thick harness about the middle, roughly where a human waist would be, and hanging from this was a bulky container, like an oversize sporran. The suiting continued without an apparent seam — but the right leg! It was squeezed in and crushed as though it had been grabbed by a giant pliers. Perhaps this explained the creature's lack of motion. Could it be hurt? In pain?

Its eyes were open again and Joze realized in sudden horror that the helmet was filled with water. It must have leaked in, the thing was drowning. He grabbed at the helmet, seeing if it would screw off, tugging at it in panic.

Then he forced himself to think, and shakingly let go. The alien was still quiet, eyes open, no bubbles apparently coming from lips or nose. Did it breathe? Had the water leaked in-or was it possible it had always been there? Was it water? Who knew what alien atmosphere it might breathe; methane, chlorine, sulfur dioxide — why not water? The liquid was inside, surely enough, the suit wasn't leaking and the creature seemed unchanged.

Joze looked up and saw that Dragomir's panicked strokes had brought them into the harbor. A crowd was waiting on the shore.

The boat almost overturned as Dragomir leaped up onto the harbor wall, kicking backward in his panic. They drifted away and Joze picked the mooring line up from the floorboards and coiled it in his hands. "Here," he shouted, "catch this. Tie it onto the ring there."

No one heard him, or if they heard, did not want to admit it. They stared down at the green-cased figure lying in the stern sheets, and a rustle of whispering blew across them like wind among pine boughs. The women clutched their hands to their breasts, crossing themselves.

"Catch this!" Joze said through clenched teeth, forcing himself to keep his temper.

He hurled the rope onto the stones and they shied away from it. Then a youth grabbed it and slowly threaded it through the rusty ring, hands shaking and head tilted to one side, his mouth dropped in a permanent gape. He was feebleminded, too simple to understand what was going on: he simply obeyed the shouted order.

"Help me get this thing ashore," Joze called out, and even before the words were out of his mouth he realized the futility of the request.

The peasants shuffled backward, a blank-faced mob sharing the same fear of the unknown, the women like giant, staring dolls in their knee-length flaring skirts, black stockings, and high felt shoes. He would have to do it himself. Balancing in the rocking boat, he cradled the alien in his arms and lifted it carefully up onto the rough stone of the harbor wall. The circle of watchers pushed back even farther, some of the women choking off screams and running back to their houses, while the men muttered louder: Joze ignored them.

These people were going to be no help to him — and they might cause trouble. His own room would be safest: he doubted if they would bother him there. He had just picked up the alien when a newcomer pushed through the watchers.

"There — what is that? A vrag!" The old priest pointed in horror at the alien in Joze's arms and backed away, fumbling for his crucifix.

"Enough of your superstition!" Joze snapped. "This is no devil but a sentient creature, a traveler. Now get out of my way."

He pushed forward and they fled before him. Joze moved as quickly as he could without appearing to hurry, leaving the crowd behind. There was a slapping of quick footsteps and he looked over his shoulder; it was the priest, Father Perc. His stained cassock flapped and his breath whistled in his throat with the unaccustomed exertion.

"Tell me, what are you doing. Dr. Kukovic? What is that. thing? Tell me. "

"I told you. A traveler. Two of the local fishermen saw something come from the sky and crash. This. alien came from it." Joze spoke as calmly as possible. There might be trouble with the people, but not if the priest were on his side. "It is a creature from another world, a water-breathing animal, and it's hurt. We must help it."

Father Perc scrambled along sideways as he looked with obvious distaste at the motionless alien. "It is wrong," he mumbled, "this is something unclean, zao duh…"

"Neither demon nor devil, can't you get that through your mind? The Church recognizes the possibility of creatures from other planets — the Jesuits even argue about it — so why can't you? Even the Pope believes there is life on other worlds."

"Does he? Does he?" the old man asked, blinking with red-rimmed eyes.

Joze brushed by him and up the steps to the widow Korenc's house. She was nowhere in sight as he went into his room and gently lowered the still-unconscious form of the alien onto his bed. The priest stopped in the doorway, quivering fingers on his rosary, uncertain. Joze stood over the bed, opening and closing his hands, just as unsure. What could he do? The creature was wounded, perhaps dying, something must be done. But what?

The distant droning whine of a car's engine pushed into the hot room and he almost sighed with relief. It was his car, he recognized the sound, and it would be bringing the doctor. The car stopped outside and the doors slammed, but no one appeared.

Joze waited tensely, realizing that the townspeople must be talking to the doctor, telling him what had happened. A slow minute passed and Joze started from the room, but stopped before he passed the priest, still standing just inside the door. What was keeping them? His window faced on an alleyway and he could not see the street in front of the building. Then the outside door opened and he could hear the widow's whispered voice, "In there, straight through."

There were two men, both dusty from the road. One was obviously the doctor, a short and dumpy man clutching a worn black bag, his bald head beaded with sweat. Next to him was a man, tanned and windburned, dressed like the other fisherman: this must be Petar the ex-partisan.

It was Petar who went to the bed first; the doctor just stood clutching his bag and blinking about the room.

"What is this thing?" Petar asked, then bent over, hands on his knees, to stare in through the faceplate. "Whatever it is, it sure is ugly."

"I don't know. It's from another planet, that's the only thing I know. Now move aside so the doctor can look." Joze waved and the doctor moved reluctantly forward. "You must be Dr. Bratos. I'm Kukovic, professor of nuclear physics at the university in Ljubljana."

Perhaps waving around a little prestige might get this man's reluctant cooperation.

"Yes, how do you do. Very pleased to meet you, Professor, an honor I assure you. But what it is you wish me to do, I do not understand?" He shook ever so lightly as he spoke and Joze realized that the man was very old, well into his eighties or more. He would have to be patient.

"This alien… whatever it is… is injured and unconscious. We must do what we can to save its life."

"But what can we do? The thing is sealed in a metal garment — look it is filled with water — I am a doctor, a medical man, but not for animals, creatures like that."

"Neither am I, Doctor. No one on Earth is. But we must do our best. We must get the suit off the alien and then discover what we can do to help."

"It is impossible! The fluid inside of it, it will run out."

"Obviously, so we will have to take precautions. We will have to determine what the liquid is, then get more of it and fill the bathtub in the next room. I have been looking at the suit and the helmet seems to be a separate piece, clamped into position. If we loosen the clamps we should be able to get a sample."

For precious seconds Dr. Bratos stood there, nibbling at his lip, before he spoke. "Yes I suppose we could, but what could we catch the sample in? This is most difficult and irregular."

"It doesn't make any difference what we catch the sample in," Joze snapped, frustration pushing at his carefully held control. He turned to Petar, who was standing silently by, smoking a cigarette in his cupped hand.

"Will you help? Get a soup plate, anything from the kitchen."

Petar simply nodded and left. There were muffled complaints from the widow, but he was back quickly with her best pot.

"That's good," Joze said, lifting the alien's head, "now slide it under here." With the pot in position he twisted one of the clamps; it snapped open but nothing else happened. A hairline opening was visible at the junction, but it stayed dry. But when Joze opened the second clamp there was a sudden gush of clear liquid under pressure, and before he fumbled the clamp shut again the pot was half full. He lifted the alien again and, without being told, Petar pulled the pot free and put it on the table by the window. "It's hot," he said.

Joze touched the outside of the container. "Warm not hot, about one hundred twenty degrees I would guess. A hot ocean on a hot planet."

"But… is it water?" Dr. Bratos asked haltingly.

"I suppose it is — but aren't you the one to find out? Is it fresh water or seawater?"

"I'm no chemist. How can I tell?… It is very complicated."

Petar laughed and took Joze's water glass from the nightstand. "That's not so hard to find out," he said, and dipped it into the pot. He raised the half-filled glass, sniffed at it, then took a sip and puckered his lips. "Tastes like ordinary seawater to me, but there's another taste, sort of bitter."

Joze took the glass from him. "This could be dangerous," the doctor protested, but they ignored him. Yes, salt water, hot salt water with a sharpness to it.

"It tastes like more than a trace of iodine. Can you test for the presence of iodine, Doctor?"

"Here… no, it is quite complicated. In the laboratory with the correct equipment—" His voice trailed off as he opened his bag on the table and groped through it. He brought his hand out empty. "In the laboratory."

"We have no laboratory or any other assistance, Doctor. We will have to be satisfied with what we have here, ordinary sea water will have to do."

"I'll get a bucket and fill the tub," Petar said.

"Good. But don't fill the bathtub yet. Bring the water into the kitchen and we'll heat it, then pour it in."

"Right." Petar brushed past the silent and staring priest and was gone. Joze looked at Father Perc and thought of the people of the village.

"Stay here, Doctor," he said. "This alien is your patient and I don't think anyone other than you should come near. Just sit by him."

"Yes, of course, that is correct," Dr. Bratos said relieved, pulling the chair over and sitting down.

The breakfast fire was still burning in the big stove and flamed up when Joze slid in more sticks. On the wall hung the big copper washtub and he dropped it onto the stove-with a clang. Behind him the widow's bedroom door opened, but slammed shut again when he turned. Petar came in with a bucket of water and poured it into the tub.

"What are the people doing?" Joze asked.

"Just milling about and bothering each other. They won't be any-trouble. If you're worried about them, I can drive back to Osor and bring the police. Or telephone someone."

"No, I should, have thought of that earlier. Right now I need you here. You're the only one who isn't either senile or ignorant."

Petar smiled. "I'll get some more water."

The bathtub was small and the washtub big. When the heated water was dumped in it filled it more than halfway, enough to cover the small alien. There was a drain from the bathtub but no faucets: it was usually filled with a hose from the sink. Joze picked up the alien, cradling it like a child in his arms, and carried it into the bath. The eyes were open again, following his every movement, but making no protest. He lowered the creature gently into the water, then straightened a moment and took a deep breath. "Helmet first, then we'll try to figure out how the suit opens." He bent and slowly twisted the clamps.

With all four clamps open the helmet moved freely. He opened it a wide crack, ready to close it quickly if there were any signs of trouble. The ocean water would be flowing in now, mixing with the alien water, yet the creature made no complaint. After a minute Joze slowly pulled the helmet off, cradling the alien's head with one hand so that it would not bump to the bottom of the tub.

Once the helmet was clear the pulpy crest above the eyes sprang up like a coxcomb, reaching up over the top of the green head. A wire ran from the helmet to a shiny bit of metal on one side of the creature's skull. There was an indentation there and Joze slowly pulled a metal plug out, perhaps an earphone of some kind. The alien was opening and closing its mouth, giving a glimpse of bony yellow ridges inside, and a very low humming could be heard.

Petar pressed his ear against the outside of the metal tube.

"The thing is talking or something, I can hear it."

"Let me have your stethoscope, Doctor," Joze said, but when the doctor did not move he dug it from the bag himself. Yes — when he pressed it to the metal he could hear a rising and falling whine, speech of a kind.

"We can't possibly understand him — not yet," he said, handing the stethoscope back to the doctor, who took it automatically. "We had better try to get the suit off."

There were no seams or fastenings visible, nor could Joze find anything when he ran his fingers over the smooth surface. The alien must have understood what they were doing because it jerkingly raised one hand and fumbled at the metal sealing ring about the collar. With a liquid motion the suit split open down the front; the opening bifurcated and ran down each leg. There was a sudden welling of blue liquid from the injured leg. Joze had a quick glimpse of green flesh, strange organs, then he spun about. "Quick, Doctor — your bag. The creature is hurt, that fluid might be blood, we have to help it."

"What can I do?" Dr. Bratos said, unmoving. "Drugs, antiseptics — I might kill it — we know nothing of its body chemistry."

"Then don't use any of those. This is a traumatic injury, you can bind it up, stop the bleeding, can't you?"

"Of course, of course," the old man said, and at last his hands had familiar things to do, extracting bandages and sterile gauze from his bag, tape and scissors.

Joze reached into the warm and now murky water and forced himself to reach under the green leg and grasp the hot, green flesh. It was strange — but not terrible. He lifted the limb free of the water and they saw a crushed gap oozing a thick blue fluid. Petar turned away, but the doctor put on a pad of gauze and tightened the bandages about it. The alien was fumbling at the discarded suit beside it in the tub, twisting its leg in Joze's grip. He looked down and saw it take something from the sporran container. Its mouth was moving again, he could hear the dim buzz of its voice.

"What is it? What do you want?" Joze asked.

It was holding the object across its chest now with both hands: it appeared to be a book of some kind. It might be a book, it might be anything.

Yet it was covered in a shiny substance with dark markings on it, and at the edge seemed to be made of many sheets bound together. It could be a book. The leg was twisting now in Joze's grasp and the alien's mouth was open wider, as if it were shouting.

"The bandage will get wet if we put it back into the water," the doctor said.

"Can't you wrap adhesive tape over it, seal it in?"

"In my bag — I'll need some more."

While they talked the alien began to rock back and forth, splashing water from the tub, pulling its leg from Joze's grasp. It still held the book in one thin, multi-fingered hand, but with the other one it began to tear at the bandages on its leg.

"It's hurting itself, stop it. This is terrible," the doctor said, recoiling from the tub.

Joze snatched a piece of wrapping paper from the floor.

"You fool! You incredible fool!" he shouted. "These compresses you used — they're impregnated with sulfanilamide."

"I always use them, they're the best, American, they prevent wound infection."

Joze pushed him aside and plunged his arms into the tub to tear the bandages free, but the alien reared up out of his grasp sitting up above the water, its mouth gaping wide. Its eyes were open and daring and Joze recoiled as a stream of water shot from its mouth. There was a gargling sound as the water died to a trickle, and then, as the first air touched the vocal cords, a rising howling scream of pain. It echoed from the plaster ceiling, an inhuman agony as the creature threw its arms wide, then fell face forward into the water. It did not move again and, without examining it, Joze knew it was dead.

One arm was twisted back, out of the tub, still grasping the book. Slowly the fingers loosened, and while Joze looked on numbly, unable to move, the book thudded to the floor.

"Help me," Petar said, and Joze turned to see that the doctor had fallen and Petar was kneeling over him. "He fainted, or a heart attack. What can we do?"

His anger was forgotten as Joze kneeled. The doctor seemed to be breathing regularly and his face wasn't flushed, so perhaps it was only a fainting spell. The eyelids fluttered. The priest brushed by and looked down over Joze's shoulder.

Dr. Bratos opened his eyes, looking back and forth at the faces bent over him. "I'm sorry," he said thickly; then the eyes closed again as if to escape the sight of them.

Joze stood and found that he was trembling. The priest was gone. Was it all over? Perhaps they might never have saved the alien, but they should have done better than this. Then he saw the wet spot on the floor and realized the book was gone.

"Father Perc!" he shouted, crying it out like an insult. The man had taken the book, the priceless book!

Joze ran out into the hall and saw the priest coming from the kitchen. His hands were empty. With sudden fear Joze knew what the old man had done and brushed past him into the kitchen and ran to the stove, hurling open the door.

There, among the burning wood, lay the book. It was steaming, almost smoking as it dried, lying open. It was obviously a book; there were marks on the pages of some kind. He turned to grab up the shovel and behind him the fire exploded, sending a white flame across the room. It had almost caught him in the face, but he did not think of that. Pieces of burning wood lay on the floor, and inside the stove there was only the remains of the original fire. Whatever substance the book had been made of was highly inflammable once it had dried out.

"It was evil," the priest said from the doorway. "A zao duh, an abomination with a book of evil. We have been warned, such things have happened before on Earth, and always the faithful must fight back—"

Petar pushed in roughly past him and helped Joze to a chair, brushing the hot embers from his bare skin. Joze had not felt their burn; all he was aware of was an immense weariness.

"Why here?" he asked. "Of all places in the world why here? A few more degrees to the west and the creature would have come down near Trieste with surgeons, hospitals, modern facilities. Or, if it had just stayed on its course a little longer, it could have seen the lights, and would have landed at Rijeka. Something could have been done. But why here?" He surged to his feet, shaking his fist at nothing — and at everything.

"Here, in this superstition-ridden, simpleminded backwater of the world! What kind of world do we live in where there is a five-million-volt electron accelerator not a hundred miles from primitive stupidity? That this creature should come so far, come so close. why, why?"

Why?

He slumped back into the chair again, feeling older than he had ever felt before and tired beyond measure. What could they have learned from this book?

He sighed, and the sigh came from so deep within him that his whole body trembled as though shaken by awful fever.