Not One of Us by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781597809573
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2018-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

He crunched down his oyster-shell road in the dark. Coming around the bend he barely saw against the yard light two people sitting in the glider swing on his porch. He swung his car off into the trees. He wanted to get inside and study the papers he had from Fredson, but he had learned caution and so put his hand on his 9mm as he walked toward them. The gulf salt tang hung under the mimosa tree. A breeze stirred the smell of salt and fish and things dead, others spawning. Sugarcane near the house rattled in the breeze as he worked around to the back.

He let himself silently into his back door. When he snapped on the porch light the two figures jumped. It was Denise and his distant relative, Herb. Unlikely they knew each other.

McKenna opened the front door and let them in, a bit embarrassed at his creeping around. Denise made great fun of it and Herb’s confused scowl said he had been rather puzzled by why this woman was here. McKenna wondered, too. He thought he had been pretty clear last time Denise showed up. He didn’t like pushy women, many with one eye on his badge and the other on his pension. Even coming to his front door, like they were selling something. Well, maybe they were. He grew up when women didn’t ask for dates. Whatever happened to courtship?

Not that he was all that great with women. In his twenties he had been turned down more times than an old blanket. He got them drinks and let the question of why Denise was here lie.

They traded pleasantries and McKenna saw maybe a way to work this. Herb said he’d been in the neighborhood and just stopped by to say hello. Fine. He asked Herb if he knew anything new about the Centauris, since the Pizotti fish fry, and that was enough. Herb shifted into lecture mode and McKenna sat back and watched Denise’s reaction.

“There’s all kinda talk on the internet ’bout this,” Herb said with relish. “Seems the Centauris deliberately suppressed their radio stations, once they picked up Marconi’s broadcasts. They’d already spotted Earth as a biological planet centuries ago, see?—from studying the atmosphere. They’d already spent more centuries building those electric starships.”

“My, my,” Denise said softly.

Herb beamed at her, liking the audience. “Some think they’re the origin of UFOs!”

Denise blinked, mouth making a surprised O. “The UFOs are theirs?”

“The UFOs we see, they’re not solid, see? The Centauris sent them as a kind of signaling device. Pumped some kind of energy beams into our atmosphere, see, made these UFO images. Radar could pick them up ’cause they ionized the gas. That’s why we never found anything solid.”

McKenna was enjoying this. “Beams?”

Herb nodded, eyes dancing. “They excited some sorta atmospheric resonance effects. They projected the beams from our own asteroid belt.”

Denise frowned. “But they got here only a few years back.”

“They sent robot probes that got here in the 1940s. They’d already planned to send a one here and land to take samples.

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