The Trojan Horse

Chapter Twenty-Five

Washington DC

USA, Day 47

Wilhelmina Potts was nervous.

She didn’t let it show on her face. Showing weakness in front of Young Children was always a bad idea, or so she’d been taught. The Washington Educational Foundation believed firmly in results-orientated learning, a focus placed on the staff by the wealthy billionaire who’d endowed the educational centre with enough money to ensure that the pupils received an excellent state in life. Wilhelmina and her fellow teachers taught children from the ages of six to twelve, ensuring that they learned to read and write by the time they reached six — and were ready for more advanced subjects at twelve.

And they’d been honoured with the promise of a visit from a real live alien! The other teachers were excited, but Wilhelmina was nervous. She’d never liked snakes and the thought of walking humanoid creatures that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to snakes chilled her to the bone. And then there was the heavy security surrounding the visit. Armed policemen were stationed on the sports field — where the children played and learned how to keep themselves fit — and the school’s security centre had been taken over by the Secret Service. The alien hadn’t even arrived and the whole building was already upside down.

She studied the long line of children carefully. They all wore their Sunday best, even though a pair of cynics on the staff had pointed out that the aliens probably wouldn’t notice if the children were naked. The girls and boys — carefully selected from ones who posed no behaviour problem — would welcome the alien with flowers, while the school’s choir would sing a hymn of greeting. It seemed rather like too much protocol for her liking, but it was important that it worked. The school needed more pupils and the visit from an alien would be good publicity. If only they hadn’t looked like snakes…

“Look,” one of the boys said. “Look up in the sky!”

Wilhelmina followed his gaze, sighing inwardly as the children fell out of line to point and gape as the alien shuttle flew into view. Beside it, a pair of fighter jets turned loop-the-loops before vanishing off into the distance, an escort intended more to keep the news choppers away than intimidate the aliens. The alien shuttle seemed to slow to a halt over the sports field, and then slowly start lowering itself to the ground. A gust of steam blew up underneath it — to the general delight of the watching children — just before it touched down. The gardener, Wilhelmina realised, wasn’t going to be pleased. Nor was the Building Manager who attended to repairs to any damaged structures.

She swallowed hard as the ramp came down and the alien appeared in the hatch, staring down towards the children with bright red eyes. The children fell silent as they stared back in a mixture of horror and awe. As the alien advanced, some children began to giggle while others started to back away from the creature. There was something about the way the alien moved that was profoundly wrong.

Wilhelmina had to fight down her own fear as the alien came closer. A strange smell, almost spicy, touched her nose and she coughed. Oddly, it steadied her a little as the alien reached the children and stopped. Most of the children had stood their ground, while the others were still slipping backwards; the alien didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he reached into a belt and produced a small black device, which he passed to the nearest child. As soon as she pressed the button on top, a holographic image of her appeared in front of the crowd. The children laughed with delight as the alien straightened up and held out a hand to Wilhelmina.

She hesitated, unable to meet the alien’s eyes, and then somehow forced her hand forward. The alien’s palm felt hot and warm and uncomfortably scaly; the handshake was brief, almost perfunctory. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something and Wilhelmina remembered her manners. They’d certainly rehearsed enough over the last couple of days.

“Thank you for honouring us with your presence,” she said. “I am delighted to welcome you to the school.”

The device on the alien’s neck started to blink as he spoke. “And I thank you for receiving me,” he said. “I am happy to have received such a welcome.”

There was no trace of irony in his voice. Wilhelmina nodded urgently to the youngest girl and she came forward to offer flowers. The alien took them gravely and handed them to one of the human security officers. Wilhelmina found herself momentarily lost for words. What did one say, what small talk could one offer, to an alien?

“I would be delighted to show you around,” she said. The alien would visit all of the classrooms and see — and be seen by — the children. And then he would go and the visit would be over, or so Wilhelmina hoped. “If you would please come with me, we can start the tour.”

Danny Raytheon leaned by the side of his squad car as the alien craft came into land. Merely seeing the craft filled him with envy, the kind of envy he felt for the handful of humans who’d flown into space and returned. It had been a long time since he’d been the small boy who’d dreamed of walking on the moon, but the dreams still had their power. He would have sold his soul for the chance to fly into space, perhaps live on another world. Washington just wasn’t what it had used to be, he sometimes felt; the economic crunch had taken its toll. Perhaps another world would be ideal.

He looked up as he saw a man making his way towards the crowd of onlookers. Danny stood up and gave him the look, watching his reaction. The newcomer was black, with a head partly covered with a baseball back. He was carrying a camera around his neck. Danny hesitated, and then stepped into his path. Something wasn’t quite right.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Might I see your ID?”

The man stopped for a moment, as if he hadn’t been aware of Danny’s presence until he’d spoken. He reached into his pocket and produced a wallet, complete with ID card that marked him as a Secret Service operative. Danny had to smile; the Secret Service goons might have been making a visible deterrent, but the ones in plainclothes might be better at spotting and intercepting threats before they became a problem. He stood back and allowed the man to keep walking. It was odd, though; he was running terribly late.

The child stepped into the alien’s path before Wilhelmina could wave him back.

“Sir,” the young boy said. He was tall for his age, with blonde curls that he found a little embarrassing. Nine was such a strange age for a boy. “Can I have a ride in your spacecraft?”

Wilhelmina flushed, despite herself. She should have known. Young Hal was flight-mad, so determined to fly that he’d even tried to convince her to take the class to flight school. It hadn’t been even remotely possible, of course, but it hadn’t deterred him from asking again and again. On every other issue, he was a model pupil.

“One day you will all be flying in starships,” the alien said. He lowered himself to Hal’s height and met his eyes. The bright red alien eyes met human eyes and neither flinched away. “And maybe you will be one of the first.”

“I want to see a picture of your home,” the boy said. “Is it anything like Earth?”

“There are many worlds like Earth,” the alien replied. “One day, you will visit them.”

Wilhelmina sighed inwardly. At least the alien didn’t sound irritated — or angry — at the childish questions. Maybe the visit wouldn’t be such a total disaster after all. And if they were the first to get a look at the alien’s home planet… they would be famous. Everyone would want to send their kids to the school.

Polly watched as the alien passed her seven-year-old daughter, feeling pride at how Cassie met the alien’s eyes without looking away. She’d warned Cassie that she might be scared of the alien, who looked utterly inhuman, but she shouldn’t show it on her face. Besides, if judging people by the colour of their skin was wrong, so was judging people by their race. And now all the petty colour differences between humans seemed meaningless. What did it matter if someone had black skin, when someone else might have a completely different biology?

She nudged the person standing next to her. “My daughter’s over there,” she said, proudly. “She’s…”

And then she saw what he was carrying. She screamed aloud. “Look out,” she screamed, as the crowd recoiled. “He’s got a gun!”

Wilhelmina’s head snapped up as she heard the scream, too late. The first gunshot rang out, followed rapidly by two more. She turned to start pushing children to the ground, but something slammed into her back and sent her falling down to the ground. Her body hurt and she felt something choking her throat, almost as if she was going to be sick. It took her several minutes to realise that she’d been shot, just before something green and scaly hit the ground beside her. The alien had been shot!

And then she realised that the children, too, were being gunned down.

Danny was moving as soon as he heard the gunshots. The crowd was scattering, terrified for their lives. He cursed the shooter under his breath as he ran towards him, wondering why the Secret Service snipers hadn’t taken him down. The answer was obvious the minute he posed the question. There were too many people around the gunman… Danny’s eyes opened wide in horror as he saw the gunman for the first time. He was the man he’d allowed through, the man with Secret Service credentials…

“Put down your gun,” he bellowed.

The gunman didn’t seem to be aware of his presence. He was still shooting towards the kids. Danny didn’t hesitate; he fired as soon as he had a clear shot.