“You have to help me get this out of here,” Haak said. “This is my biggest score yet. I can’t leave it!”

  “You can have it,” Malena said, waving at the ball that rested on the floor. “If you can catch up to it.”

  She kicked the sphere toward the nearest shaft. It began rolling and made a rumbling sound as it went. Haak stumbled after it, wiping his mouth with his hand.

  “I should shoot you both!” he shouted.

  “It’s picking up speed, Haak!” she shouted back, turning to run the other way. Tanner was right behind her. They reached the end of the passageway and stepped across the corner of the shaft quickly. The moment they were on the far side, they began running again.

  They never did see what happened to the big ball of X, but they heard and felt something unexpected moments later. The entire ship lurched and buckled around them.

  -31-

  Malena was thrown off her feet. To her, it seemed like the metal deck of the ship had moved by itself. The flat steel surface had pushed up for a moment, then dropped away several feet, leaving her hanging in midair.

  When she did come down, it was on her chest with both hands sprawled out to break her fall. She didn’t quite manage it, and felt her chin contact the decking. It was like running into a wall or being struck by a metal club.

  Groaning and rolling onto her back, she felt the floor continue to shift in sudden lurches. She put her hands over her head to protect herself. She’d lost sight of Tanner. She tried to cry out for him, but there was so much loud groaning, the sounds of tortured metal shifting, that she could not hear her own voice.

  A hand came down and grabbed her elbow. She was lifted up onto her feet. Tanner was there, red-faced and bleeding. His eyes were wide and wild.

  “Keep moving, we’ve got to get off this ship now!” he shouted.

  The cords stood out on his neck. She could tell he was literally screaming into her face, but she could hardly hear him. One of her eyes wouldn’t open, it had been sealed shut and seared with pain. She felt she had numerous injuries, but didn’t have the time or the wits to tend to them.

  “What happened?” she shouted back at Tanner.

  He shook his head at her. “Don’t know. But I think it was an implosion. A big one.”

  An implosion? She thought about the term. She’d taken physics back in college, but hadn’t dealt much with explosions or implosions. The concept was the opposite of an outward blast of energy. Instead, an implosion sucked matter into itself. Popping like a vacuum-filled light bulb. She couldn’t recall what else caused implosions from her physics class, but she did remember it was a bad thing, usually followed up by an outward release of energy.

  The X, she thought. It had to be the big ball of X. Had it rolled all the away to the shaft—and gone over the edge? They hadn’t waited to see if Haak would catch it in time. Apparently, he hadn’t.

  As she ran to the end of the passageway and they struggled with the big latch they found there, she wondered what had happened to the ship on the lower decks, and the visitors who might have been down there. She shuddered to think about how many might have died in their capsules—who might be dying right now all around them.

  “It’s stuck,” Tanner said, slumping over the latch. “We might be too far down underground. Or the implosion might have warped the mechanism.”

  He turned to her. Behind them, heat was beginning to gather. The ship was filling with dark smoke, and she knew that somewhere far below something was burning.

  “It will use up all the oxygen in time,” she said. “The smoke will rise. If we climb higher, we’ll find more heat and smoke every level we go up.”

  “If we stay here, we’ll die anyway,” Tanner said. “Listen, we don’t have time to try every passageway on the ship. The next one has to be the right one. It’s up to you.”

  Malena shook her head. “Me?”

  “You have to find the way out. Use your headset. A good psi agent—a real pro—they could sense an exit. Feel for the X in the powered hinges. Look for a hole in the hull that let’s your perceptions go through it.”

  She almost said, but I’m not a pro. I’m not even a gifted amateur! But she held the thought inside her head as it wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Tanner was right. The next passageway they chose had to be the right one.

  She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. She sensed everything around her. Everything was cold metal—but there were hot spots. She focused on these. The spots weren’t fire, but rather sources of X. There was a cluster around them right now, she supposed this was their equipment, and she tried to ignore it.

  She reached out farther. There were spots here and there. The end of the passages had power, where the hatches were. They were very regular and reached up for several levels. She didn’t sense anything that made one seem different from another.

  She opened her eyes again and shook her head. “It’s no good,” she said. “They all look the same. We’ll just have to try them all.”

  The corridor was growing hazy now. Gray smoke made them choke and cough. Tanner grabbed her hand and pulled. She stumbled after him.

  Every second or so, she closed her eyes and tried to feel for something useful—anything. There were small sources of X, tiny sparks in a sea of darkness. But they weren’t useful to her. She wished she could feel past the hull of the ship, to see the outside world for once.

  They passed over a shaft. Heat rolled up from it like a chimney. They moved down another passage at random. Tanner was half dragging her now. Her body had stiffened up from a dozen injuries.

  Suddenly, she realized she could sense something beyond the ship’s hull. It was only a spark—but it was there. How could she be sensing something outside?

  She opened her eyes again and grabbed Tanner by the arm. “Stop,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Wrong way, I’m getting something from that direction.”

  “That’s the way we just came.”

  “We have to go up a level then.”

  They both looked up the nearest shaft. The smoke was thick up there, and getting thicker every minute.

  “We don’t have time for lines,” she said. “We’ve got to use the handholds the visitors set up. They’re a big stretch for my legs, but I’ve done it before.”

  Tanner looked at her, coughed, then nodded and started climbing. They both went separately, without lines. There wasn’t time for setting up their climbing equipment. Along the way they did throw tie-off loops around a projection now and then. If they slipped, they would at least have a chance.

  By the time they reached the next level up, they were coughing and nearly exhausted. They crawled out of the shaft and staggered to the end of the passageway, which seemed longer than the others.

  Malena slipped and fell on an anvil-shaped protrusion, gasping. Tanner dragged her to her feet and they kept going.

  “We’re going to have to have you do some wind-sprints when we get home,” Tanner said jokingly.

  “I’m in excellent shape,” she replied.

  They looked at each other and laughed for a moment, as she realized what she’d said sounded absurd. She was on her last legs. Despite the fact she regularly worked out, it was obvious this mission had exhausted her.

  Tanner looked at her, and she looked at him. He had an odd expression on his face, which was coated in grime and streaked with trickles of sweat. She thought maybe he was about to tell her this was the end of the line, that they were both dead and he was sorry.

  Instead, he put his arm around her. She blinked. Where was this going? He’d helped her a dozen times over the last few days, but she could stand on her own now.

  She was even more surprised when he kissed her. She felt an urge to pull away, but that faded. The kiss went on for a few seconds before she politely broke it off. It had been unexpected, but pleasant.

  “Get me out of here and I might let you do that again,” she said.

  He nodded and they dragged themselves to the end of the passage. They found the hatch and saw it had been burned through in places. Malena suspected those holes had allowed her to reach out beyond the walls and sense the world outside.

  They tried the latch—and it moved. A minute later they were staring out into the light of dawn. They’d lost all track of time. It was morning in Cuba. Looking down, she saw the ground was only twenty feet or so below them. They climbed down together and moved to a safe distance. They crouched in a thicket of brush. Behind them, the ship continued to make the strange sounds of a gigantic dying animal.

  Malena stretched out on her back, staring at the sky. It was a lovely shade of blue. There were rainclouds up there, dark gray with lighter outlines. They looked beautiful to her.

  The Zapata Swamp wasn’t a friendly place, but she loved its primitive beauty. It was warm and humid even in November and always vibrantly green. As she stared at the landscape for a long moment, a small flock of wild green parrots sailed over the treetops, making a great deal of noise.

  She looked back up at the ship. The hull had warped and caved inward in places, as if crushed by a gigantic hand. The hatch still hung open. Black smoke poured out and rose up into the air.

  “Call headquarters,” Tanner told her.

  She nodded and tried to reach out. As it was daylight, she called Ostlund. A few minutes later, she smiled at Tanner.

  “They’re coming to extract us,” she said. “I told them we had a big find of X.”

  Tanner grinned. “Then you didn’t lie,” he said.

  “What do you mean? We dropped that big ball, it must have been destroyed. The whole ship is a wreck.”

  “Right, but I managed to snag this as we were leaving.”

  He lifted up a sack, and showed her what was inside. It was full of metal marbles. As she stared, one of them arced to another with a blue-white sizzling spark. At some point, Tanner had stolen Haak’s bag of batteries.

  * * *

  The following hours were a haze for Malena. She’d thought they might fly her to Guantanamo Bay as this was a medical emergency, but they took her back to XCU instead. She was told by the medical people that Gitmo personnel didn’t have the clearances they needed to work on her. She didn’t have the energy left to argue.

  She passed out aboard the rescue helicopter. As they only had a few hundred miles to go, and Cuba’s air-defense system seemed to be on vacation, she was back in the Florida Keys in the afternoon.

  She was more badly injured than she’d realized at the time. She had two cracked ribs, several torn ligaments and numerous cuts and burns. Smoke inhalation was the most immediate concern of the medics on the flight home. They put her on oxygen and humidifiers aboard the helicopter. She was in and out of consciousness, overcome with fatigue and relief at having survived her first brush with beings from other worlds.

  When she awakened a few hours later, there was a familiar figure looming over her hospital bed. The white face, white skin and black hat were sharp and distinctive.

  “Ostlund?” Malena asked.

  He lifted his fingers and spread them widely, indicating she should remain calm and lying flat.

  Another figure stood at the head of her bed. It was a nurse, someone she’d never met before. The nurse read a number of gauges and operated odd pieces of equipment.

  Malena found herself in a strange state of mind. She felt disconnected from her surroundings. She was hazy, and she didn’t think it was just the medication.

  At least she was out of that ship. She could hardly believe that part. While inside the alien hulk, the normal world had seemed like a lost piece of her past.

  Ostlund and the nurse were talking. Malena realized she’d awakened in the middle of a conversation.

  “What’s she registering?” Ostlund asked quietly.

  “A six.”

  “That’s too high. Increase the wavelength.”

  Malena frowned at the two of them. “What’s wrong?” she managed to ask. “Where’s Tanner?”

  “Tanner’s fine, and you will be too,” said Ostlund, turning back to her with a smile that was meant to reassure. “You’ve done very well.”

  “We brought back some X.”

  “Yes. I’m very pleased you followed my orders, rather than Burke’s ranting.”

  Malena blinked at him. She’d always sensed some tension between the day chief and the night chief, but Ostlund’s statement made it clear there was a serious rivalry going on. Despite her foggy state of mind—or perhaps because of it—she decided to ignore the matter entirely. She didn’t want to get involved and pick sides.

  She craned her neck to see what the nurse was doing. There was an odd machine in the woman’s hands. The device looked like a stone, but it had lights on it. Bars of soft amber glowed on the smooth black surface. She counted the bars, which were arranged in two loose triangles set apart. That must be the reading of six which Ostlund had mentioned.

  She knew immediately there was X in the device. She could feel it and it made her a little sick to be close to it. She lifted a hand to her temple, and felt the headset was missing. She felt naked without it.

  “Can I have my headset back?” she asked.

  “Soon,” Ostlund said, still smiling. “I have a surprise for you.”

  Malena had always wondered if his frequent, vague smiles were false, but now she realized it was just a mannerism of his. He was earnest, if a little odd.

  “Malena Marin,” he said, assuming a formal tone. “I hereby promote you to the rank of Agent. You are a Junior Agent no longer.”

  “Well, that’s very nice, and I thank you very much, Chief. But I’m afraid this job isn’t for me. I’m washing out—quitting.”

  Ostlund cleared his throat and looked pained. “May I remind you of certain realities, Ms. Marin? One such reality is the ink on your signed contract. It stipulates a full year of service has been agreed to.”

  “I know that, but I’m not sure I’m fit for this kind of duty. I won’t be able to perform in the field again as I did over this past week.”

  “We’re paying you quite a bit of money—”

  “And I will refund everything I owe, I assure you.”

  Ostlund looked alarmed now. His smile had vanished for the first time. “But why would you want out so badly? This mission was a hazardous one, I’ll admit. It turned out to be what Tanner would call a ‘charley-foxtrot’. But it isn’t always so unpleasant.”

  “Look,” she said, “you want to know my reasons? I can tell you easily: I love to study biology in the field. In that sense this is a wonderful opportunity. But so many people died. I’m not sure I’m cut out for that.”

  “The situation did, admittedly, spiral out of control. Let me assure you that this is not the norm. We usually investigate dull archeological sites. There won’t be gunplay and active visitors next time. Well, at least the odds are against it.”

  “You’re telling me you won’t send me to sites where I’ll have to fight for my life?”

  Ostlund looked pained. He signaled the nurse again.

  “Five now,” she said.

  “Five what?” Malena demanded.

  “It’s nothing. You’ve been heavily exposed to raw X. That can be dangerous to your long term health. Fortunately, we have equipment to counteract such conditions.”

  Malena looked at both of them in alarm. “You mean I’ve been exposed to radiation? Am I going to get cancer or something?”

  Ostlund laughed oddly. She’d never heard the sound before, and she found it rasping on the ears.

  “Certainly not,” he said. “X isn’t radioactive. Think about it as a substance in a third state—neither matter nor energy. It’s a combination of both. In any case, prolonged exposure to high levels of X can cause…well, abnormalities.”

  Malena struggled to rise. Ostlund lifted his calming hand again. “Don’t worry. You haven’t been altered in any significant way. There’s never any warping with a stable reading of six. But we have to bring the level down. After a few days in our facility, you’ll feel much better.”

  “Where am I, exactly? Why aren’t there any windows in my room?”

  Ostlund produced his odd rasping laugh again. “We’re on level B3 at XCU, which is largely used for recovery, isolation and experimentation.”

  She didn’t like the sound of all this, but she figured she had to trust them to heal her. If they’d wanted to get rid of her, they could have dropped her in the Caribbean on the flight home.

  “I’m grateful for your efforts on my behalf,” she said. “But I still want out.”

  Ostlund’s smile became strained. “There is another point to consider,” he said. “Your contract isn’t negotiable. You can spend your time serving us—or you can serve time elsewhere. If you choose the latter, there will be no pay, and you’ll probably be placed in solitary confinement.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it. How can we allow disgruntled ex-agents to wander the streets telling people wild stories? That’s how we’ve maintained such a tight level of secrecy and kept the realities of our fieldwork quiet. Why do you think every UFO believer is a discredited hoaxer? It’s all part of the plan. Your place in that plan is up to you. But please choose wisely, Malena. I don’t want to order you into a rehabilitation program, especially not after such exemplary service.”

  She didn’t feel she’d rendered exemplary service. She’d failed and lot of people had died. But realizing she couldn’t change anything now, she shrugged and laid back on her stiff, antiseptic-smelling sheets.

  “Perhaps I should point out that your promotion comes with a significant increase in pay,” Ostlund said.

  Malena felt greed tug at her. She was tired of living month to month. Working for XCU was hazardous, but it was also exciting and highly profitable. Perhaps she could do it just for a year, just long enough to set herself up…

  “All right,” she said. “Have it your way. But will you promise to assign me to sites that have no living aliens? I don’t like the way Earth’s visitors treat us.”