The Stalk by Janet Morris & Chris Morris

Author:Janet Morris & Chris Morris [Morris, Janet & Morris, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1994-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Message Delivered

Reice was sitting out near the Ball site in the BLUE TICK when the alien came to call. Imagine. There you are, sitting in your police cruiser, directing traffic, relaxed as you please, a jelly donut in one hand and a no-spill cup of half-cold coffee in the other, feet up on your console, listening to Traffic Control with one ear and your favorite late twentieth-century analog recording with the other, when all of a sudden your nice, cozy routine is disturbed so completely you just know nothing will ever be the same again— not your day, not your week, not your mission or your job or your life. Not ever.

Nothing external seemed to change when Reice's world turned upside down. The crowded traffic into and out of Spacedock Seven still moved at a snail's pace as towing rigs and tugs and destroyers and carriers and container ships with warning: explosives stenciled on their sides jockeyed for position in the merge lane bound for Threshold. None of the ConSpaceCom convoy vehicles with their military designators and security escorts noticed anything amiss when Reice's life turned from predictable to perilous. Nobody out there seemed to have an inkling that anything strange was going on aboard the ConSec cruiser BLUE TICK.

Reice should have been able to look forward to sitting out here every day for the foreseeable future, eating dozens of jelly donuts, listening to hundreds of good old tunes, and catching up on his paperwork. Because preparing to tow Threshold to a new orbit was such a huge undertaking, Reice had every right to expect to be here a good long while, doing the usual. Breaking up arguments over priority access to the special convoy route. Taking names and kicking ass when the inevitable fender benders occurred. Stopping traffic altogether for the occasional hotshot with a diplomatic escort or a bunch of stars on the nose of his insystem cruiser. Today should have been, in short, a normal day, a day like any other.

But no. Today was the day the Unity aliens—or alien— invaded the BLUE TICK. It was a red-letter day in Reice's personal History of the Universe, and one which changed everything for him, nearly beyond his ability to endure.

Reice had to admit that it was probably the Ball site that was doing this to him—thrusting him in harm's way and into the center of events too damned big for guys like Reice to handle. You had to want to be rich and famous, like the old Scavenger, Keebler, who'd discovered the Ball and towed it to Threshold in the first place, to think alien contact with a Probably Superior Race was a good idea. You had to think your job description included Saving the Galaxy from Invaders to welcome a surprise visit from some cone-headed Unity alien on an urgent mission. You had to believe that your shift tasking included Carrying the Fate of The World on Your Shoulders to make such an alien welcome.

Reice was

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