Teo. Dummies. Mannequins.”
I was confused. It made a crazy kind of sense, but I had the feeling that your brother was perhaps too convinced.
“But the screams, Phil. We hear screams.”
He chuckled. “All calculated to scare you off, can’t you accept that? And it’s working really well, isn’t it?”
It made me wonder. Was it really so hard to believe, after all? It was easy enough to believe in human beings so fanatical that they would allow themselves to be nailed to crosses in religious ecstasy; was it so hard to believe in beings from outer space? I am not so backward, Señor, to believe that we are alone in the universe. In an infinite cosmos, there are certainly infinite possibilities.
But there was something else in your brother’s eyes. “What does she say, Phil?” I asked him.
“She— she knows they’re leaving soon,” he said. There was deep sadness in his voice, and the light in his eyes dimmed a little.
I looked at his face, Señor, and I began to believe that he was in deeper trouble than I had imagined.
“I am thinking that they are not so different from us after all,” I said. I was afraid to contemplate what I suspected.
Again, he blushed. Then an embarrassed little smile tickled the corners of his mouth.
“No, not in some ways. Basic ways. Important ways. But they are different. They’ve got hair, for instance, lots of it, all over.”
I remembered the man from the village—what I had thought was a man—and the beard that seemed to start directly beneath his eyes, the animal look of him. And that is why the long black dress! I thought. The heavy clothing, even in the heat of September. And I remembered the hatred in the man-thing’s glance. ‘You will leave us alone,’ it had said.
“Compadre, let her go,” I pleaded. “No good can come of this.”
His smile vanished, and in that instant, I understood. He shook his head, and truly looked desolate.
“I can’t,” he said. “She’s pregnant.”
He had confirmed what I had already guessed. I was convinced that this final blow, the fact of her leaving, would surely kill him. He could not stand another disappointment of the kind that had sent him here to the jungle.
Oh, you smile, Señor, and you chuckle behind your city face. You don’t believe me, any more than I believed him at first. But I will take you to the plateau of Xitapec, and you will see.
Soon, Señor, soon. There is only a little bit of the tale left. Another drink? My throat is dry.
Thank you.
Ah, you are looking at the glass. You think Teo has seen this story at the bottom of a bottle, perhaps? It is true, I drink. More than I should.
But if you had seen what I have seen…and your brother, Señor, he does not drink at all.
A week had passed since I talked with your brother at the table. His walks became longer, and one day he did not come back at all until the next morning. His eyes were those of one haunted, or a trapped beast. He would not talk of it.
And the glow from the plateau ant night was brighter, the sounds louder. I had the feeling that something was about to happen. The air was charged. The interior of the mine was full of a presence, a vibration you could feel in your bones.
I decided that I had to follow him, to see if it what he had told me were really true. Though it all made a kind of sense, I had to see for myself. I was as full of doubt as you are now.
He left early in the morning. I followed him a few minutes later, noting the direction of his passing from the disturbance of the dew on the ferns, the displacement of a vine or branch. The jungle in the morning is a wonderful place: the stirrings of small creatures, the echo of birdsong, the sun filtering through a vaulted green ceiling—I had never loved it as much as I did then.
I doubt if I will ever love it again.
I stopped when I heard voices speaking softly. They were in a clearing near the foothills. I had never been so close to the plateau before; even the ruins I had taken your brother to were half a mile back in the direction of our camp. There was a smell about the place—I can only describe it as “unearthly—and I suppose now that it was, no?
He was embracing her, and at first, I turned away, embarrassed.
But you know, I had to look—to prove to myself that he was wrong.
She was not wearing a dress that day—oh no! No need for lovers to hide from each other! And he had been right; she was not so different from us, except for the hair.
And her tail.
Oh, Señor, I almost cried out when I saw it! She had her arms around him, and that tail was twitching as it caressed his shoulders!
I cannot tell you how I felt. Embarrassed, frightened, disgusted, fascinated—perhaps all of those, and more.
And the bulge of her belly! He had only told me of her pregnancy a week before, yet she was already showing. Not so different, and yet entirely alien, eh, Señor? I looked away. I am not a voyeur.
When it was over, they talked in hushed tones, anxious tones. I could not hear what they said, nor did I want to. I only knew that I had to stop your brother from seeing that —woman—! It was not right. It was not meant to be.
She cried as they parted, and she dressed again in her enveloping black garment. I hid her bulge, but it would not do so much longer. Your brother held her overlong in a bitter embrace. His eyes had grown dark circles again.
She began to climb up a half-hidden trail to the top of the plateau. Your brother turned and came toward me so rapidly I had no time to conceal myself in the brush.
His eyes blazed as they saw me. “How long have you been here?” he demanded.
“Not long,” I lied, and he saw the lie in my face. He raised his arm as if to strike me—I have never seen such anger!—and then dropped it just as swiftly.
“Oh, hell,” he said, defeated. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
“Compadre,” I said. “For your own good. No more of this.”
He laughed bitterly. “For my own good? That’s a laugh. They’re going to kill her, Teo.”
“But you said the crucifixions were—”
“—fake? Jesus Christ, I wish they were! If I had only known, Teo! If I had only known”
“Known what?”
“That’s how they punish their people. That’s why they fit in so well with the penitente legends. Oh God!” he exclaimed, and buried his head in his hands. “Their women are a dime-a-dozen, Teo, expendable as hell. Their gestation cycle is only three months, so they can reproduce an entire population in a matter of years.”
“But why the crosses? Why here? Why punish her?”
“You don’t see it, do you?”
I shook my head.
“Weight, Teo, weight. They can’t afford the extra pounds. Their ship can only hold so much, and they’ve taken up most of the available space with samples they’ve collected. Plus their repairs only fixed part of the engine…”
“And they do not need their women.”
He let out an agonized groan.
“Especially not pregnant women.”
“Then all of the crucifixions I have seen—?”
“Women. All women. They’re worse than chattel, almost vermin to the men.”
“If that is so, why do they—?”
“—bring women along on interstellar trips?” he finished for me. He laughed derisively. “Convenience. Like a frozen dinner. They train girls for this all their lives.”
I looked at him in stunned silence.
“Oh, but she’s one of the lucky ones,” he said bitterly. “Some of the parents on their home planet kill daughters at birth.”
We both looked toward the plateau. Lark-Ellen’s figure was just disappearing over the top.
“What will you do?” I asked him.
“I was going to ask you to help me, Teo. I want to try to get her out tonight. They’re leaving in a couple of days, but it’s not that. If they find out she’s pregnant…”
He did not need to finish, Señor. I
had heard the screams.
We took climbing ropes, lanterns, electric flashlights, and guns. In the evening, the glow of the setting sun gave way to the gleam of the alien “campfire.” The humming that was not chanting was louder that night, and the electric crackle more pronounced. It was as if Lark-Ellen’s people had nothing to disguise anymore. We had never seen such naked evidence of their divergence from the earthly norm. Your brother looked anxiously at the throbbing sky above the plateau.
“Jesus, it’s like they’re leaving tonight! We’ve got to get up there!”
It was difficult going in the jungle, and the journey was longer than it might have been during the day, but we were glad for the cover of the night. The feeling of static in the air was stronger the nearer we approached the plateau, and sparks seemed to dance around our metal implements.
Halfway up the hidden trail, we began to hear the screams. They were high-pitched, and there was no doubting the horror and pain behind them. Your brother climbed as one possessed.
A thought occurred to me, a wild hope. “How many—?”
“There were five women left, Teo.” He had had the same thought. If only we could be in time!
The trip up the trail was painfully slow. The throbbing hum pounded in our heads, the static made our clothing cling to our bodies, and sparks were now visibly arcing between the metal casings of our flashlights and the muzzles of the guns.
And of course, there were the screams.
As we approached the surface of the plateau, the air suddenly changed. It became palpable, a pliable, pulsing envelope surrounding us. The humming passed the point of pain, and rocketed into the ultrasonic. I knew we were too late; the