Its eyes were open again and Joze realized in sudden horror that the helmet was filled with water. It must have leaked in, the thing was drowning. He grabbed at the helmet, seeing if it would screw off, tugging at it in panic.

  Then he forced himself to think, and shakingly let go. The alien was still quiet, eyes open, no bubbles apparently coming from lips or nose. Did it breathe? Had the water leaked in–or was it possible it had always been there? Was it water? Who knew what alien atmosphere it might breathe; methane, chlorine, sulfur dioxide—why not water? The liquid was inside, surely enough, the suit wasn’t leaking and the creature seemed unchanged.

  Joze looked up and saw that Dragomir’s panicked strokes had brought them into the harbor. A crowd was waiting on the shore.

  The boat almost overturned as Dragomir leaped up onto the harbor wall, kicking backward in his panic. They drifted away and Joze picked the mooring line up from the floorboards and coiled it in his hands. “Here,” he shouted, “catch this. Tie it onto the ring there.”

  No one heard him, or if they heard, did not want to admit it. They stared down at the green-cased figure lying in the stern sheets, and a rustle of whispering blew across them like wind among pine boughs. The women clutched their hands to their breasts, crossing themselves.

  “Catch this!” Joze said through clenched teeth, forcing himself to keep his temper.

  He hurled the rope onto the stones and they shied away from it. Then a youth grabbed it and slowly threaded it through the rusty ring, hands shaking and head tilted to one side, his mouth dropped in a permanent gape. He was feebleminded, too simple to understand what was going on: he simply obeyed the shouted order.

  “Help me get this thing ashore,” Joze called out, and even before the words were out of his mouth he realized the futility of the request.

  The peasants shuffled backward, a blank-faced mob sharing

  the same fear of the unknown, the women like giant, staring dolls in their knee-length flaring skirts, black stockings, and high felt shoes. He would have to do it himself. Balancing in the rocking boat, he cradled the alien in his arms and lifted it carefully up onto the rough stone of the harbor wall. The circle of watchers pushed back even farther, some of the women choking off screams and running back to their houses, while the men muttered louder: Joze ignored them.

  These people were going to be no help to him—and they might cause trouble. His own room would be safest: he doubted if they would bother him there. He had just picked up the alien when a newcomer pushed through the watchers.

  “There—what is that? A vrag!” The old priest pointed in horror at the alien in Joze’s arms and backed away, fumbling for his crucifix.

  “Enough of your superstition!” Joze snapped. “This is no devil but a sentient creature, a traveler. Now get out of my way.”

  He pushed forward and they fled before him. Joze moved as quickly as he could without appearing to hurry, leaving the crowd behind. There was a slapping of quick footsteps and he looked over his shoulder; it was the priest, Father Perc. His stained cassock flapped and his breath whistled in his throat with the unaccustomed exertion.

  “Tell me, what are you doing… Dr. Kukovic? What is that … thing? Tell me… .”

  “I told you. A traveler. Two of the local fishermen saw something come from the sky and crash. This … alien came from it.” Joze spoke as calmly as possible. There might be trouble with the people, but not if the priest were on his side. “It is a creature from another world, a water-breathing animal, and it’s hurt. We must help it.”

  Father Perc scrambled along sideways as he looked with obvious distaste at the motionless alien. “It is wrong,” he mumbled, “this is something unclean, zao duh. …”

  “Neither demon nor devil, can’t you get that through your mind? The Church recognizes the possibility of creatures from other planets—the Jesuits even argue about it—so why can’t you? Even the Pope believes there is life on other worlds.”

  “Does he? Does he?” the old man asked, blinking with red-rimmed eyes.

  Joze brushed by him and up the steps to the widow Korenc’s house. She was nowhere in sight as he went into his room and gently lowered the still-unconscious form of the alien onto his bed. The priest stopped in the doorway, quivering fingers on his rosary, uncertain. Joze stood over the bed, opening and closing his hands, just as unsure. What could he do? The creature was wounded, perhaps dying, something must be done. But what?

  The distant droning whine of a car’s engine pushed into the hot room and he almost sighed with relief. It was his car, he recognized the sound, and it would be bringing the doctor. The car stopped outside and the doors slammed, but no one appeared.

  Joze waited tensely, realizing that the townspeople must be talking to the doctor, telling him what had happened. A slow minute passed and Joze started from the room, but stopped before he passed the priest, still standing just inside the door. What was keeping them? His window faced on an alleyway and he could not see the street in front of the building. Then the outside door opened and he could hear the widow’s whispered voice, “In there, straight through.”

  There were two men, both dusty from the road. One was obviously the doctor, a short and dumpy man clutching a worn black bag, his bald head beaded with sweat. Next to him was a man, tanned and windburned, dressed like the other fisherman: this must be Petar the ex-partisan.

  It was Petar who went to the bed first; the doctor just stood clutching his bag and blinking about the room.

  “What is this thing?” Petar asked, then bent over, hands on his knees, to stare in through the faceplate. “Whatever it is, it sure is ugly.”

  “I don’t know. It’s from another planet, that’s the only thing I know. Now move aside so the doctor can look.” Joze waved and the doctor moved reluctantly forward. “You must be Dr. Bratos. I’m Kukovic, professor of nuclear physics at the university in Ljubljana.”

  Perhaps waving around a little prestige might get this man’s reluctant cooperation.

  “Yes, how do you do. Very pleased to meet you, Professor, an honor I assure you. But what it is you wish me to do, I do not understand?” He shook ever so lightly as he spoke and Joze realized that the man was very old, well into his eighties or more. He would have to be patient.

  “This alien … whatever it is… is injured and unconscious. We must do what we can to save its life.”

  “But what can we do? The thing is sealed in a metal garment—look it is filled with water—I am a doctor, a medical man, but not for animals, creatures like that.”

  “Neither am I, Doctor. No one on Earth is. But we must do our best. We must get the suit off the alien and then discover what we can do to help.”

  “It is impossible! The fluid inside of it, it will run out.”

  “Obviously, so we will have to take precautions. We will have to determine what the liquid is, then get more of it and fill the bathtub in the next room. I have been looking at the suit and the helmet seems to be a separate piece, clamped into position. If we loosen the clamps we should be able to get a sample.”

  For precious seconds Dr. Bratos stood there, nibbling at his lip, before he spoke. “Yes I suppose we could, but what could we catch the sample in? This is most difficult and irregular.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference what we catch the sample in,” Joze snapped, frustration pushing at his carefully held control. He turned to Petar, who was standing silently by, smoking a cigarette in his cupped hand.

  “Will you help? Get a soup plate, anything from the kitchen.”

  Petar simply nodded and left. There were muffled complaints from the widow, but he was back quickly with her best pot.

  “That’s good,” Joze said, lifting the alien’s head, “now slide it under here.” With the pot in position he twisted one of the clamps; it snapped open but nothing else happened. A hairline opening was visible at the junction, but it stayed dry. But when Joze opened the second clamp there was a sudden gush of clear liquid under pressure, and before he fumbled the clamp shut again the pot was half full. He lifted the alien again and, without being told, Petar pulled the pot free and put it on the table by the window. “It’s hot,” he said.

  Joze touched the outside of the container. “Warm not hot, about one hundred twenty degrees I would guess. A hot ocean on a hot planet.”

  “But… is it water?” Dr. Bratos asked haltingly.

  “I suppose it is—but aren’t you the one to find out? Is it fresh water or seawater?”

  “I’m no chemist… . How can I tell? … It is very complicated.”

  Petar laughed and took Joze’s water glass from the nightstand. “That’s not so hard to find out,” he said, and dipped it into the pot. He raised the half-filled glass, sniffed at it, then took a sip and puckered his lips. “Tastes like ordinary seawater to me, but there’s another taste, sort of bitter.”

  Joze took the glass from him. “This could be dangerous,” the doctor protested, but they ignored him. Yes, salt water, hot salt water with a sharpness to it.

  “It tastes like more than a trace of iodine. Can you test for the presence of iodine, Doctor?”

  “Here … no, it is quite complicated. In the laboratory with the correct equipment—” His voice trailed off as he opened his bag on the table and groped through it. He brought his hand out empty. “In the laboratory.”

  “We have no laboratory or any other assistance, Doctor. We will have to be satisfied with what we have here, ordinary sea water will have to do.”

  “I’ll get a bucket and fill the tub,” Petar said.

  “Good. But don’t fill the bathtub yet. Bring the water into the kitchen and we’ll heat it, then pour it in.”

  “Right.” Petar brushed past the silent and staring priest and was gone. Joze looked at Father Perc and thought of the people of the village.

  “Stay here, Doctor,” he said. “This alien is your patient and I don’t think anyone other than you should come near. Just sit by him.”

  “Yes, of course, that is correct,” Dr. Bratos said relieved, pulling the chair over and sitting down.

  The breakfast fire was still burning in the big stove and flamed up when Joze slid in more sticks. On the wall hung the big copper washtub and he dropped it onto the stove-with a clang. Behind him the widow’s bedroom door opened, but slammed shut again when he turned. Petar came in with a bucket of water and poured it into the tub.

  “What are the people doing?” Joze asked.

  “Just milling about and bothering each other. They won’t be any-trouble. If you’re worried about them, I can drive back to Osor and bring the police. Or telephone someone.”

  “No, I should, have thought of that earlier. Right now I need you here. You’re the only one who isn’t either senile or ignorant.”

  Petar smiled. “I’ll get some more water.”

  The bathtub was small and the washtub big. When the heated water was dumped in it filled it more than halfway, enough to cover the small alien. There was a drain from the bathtub but no faucets: it was usually filled with a hose from the sink. Joze picked up the alien, cradling it like a child in his

  arms, and carried it into the bath. The eyes were open again, following his every movement, but making no protest. He lowered the creature gently into the water, then straightened a moment and took a deep breath. “Helmet first, then we’ll try to figure out how the suit opens.” He bent and slowly twisted the clamps.

  With all four clamps open the helmet moved freely. He opened it a wide crack, ready to close it quickly if there were any signs of trouble. The ocean water would be flowing in now, mixing with the alien water, yet the creature made no complaint. After a minute Joze slowly pulled the helmet off, cradling the alien’s head with one hand so that it would not bump to the bottom of the tub.

  Once the helmet was clear the pulpy crest above the eyes sprang up like a coxcomb, reaching up over the top of the green head. A wire ran from the helmet to a shiny bit of metal on one side of the creature’s skull. There was an indentation there and Joze slowly pulled a metal plug out, perhaps an earphone of some kind. The alien was opening and closing its mouth, giving a glimpse of bony yellow ridges inside, and a very low humming could be heard.

  Petar pressed his ear against the outside of the metal tube.

  “The thing is talking or something, I can hear it.”

  “Let me have your stethoscope, Doctor,” Joze said, but when the doctor did not move he dug it from the bag himself. Yes—when he pressed it to the metal he could hear a rising and falling whine, speech of a kind.

  “We can’t possibly understand him—not yet,” he said, handing the stethoscope back to the doctor, who took it automatically. “We had better try to get the suit off.”

  There were no seams or fastenings visible, nor could Joze find anything when he ran his fingers over the smooth surface. The alien must have understood what they were doing because it jerkingly raised one hand and fumbled at the metal sealing ring about the collar. With a liquid motion the suit split open

  down the front; the opening bifurcated and ran down each leg. There was a sudden welling of blue liquid from the injured leg. Joze had a quick glimpse of green flesh, strange organs, then he spun about. “Quick, Doctor—your bag. The creature is hurt, that fluid might be blood, we have to help it.”

  “What can I do?” Dr. Bratos said, unmoving. “Drugs, antiseptics—I might kill it—we know nothing of its body chemistry.”

  “Then don’t use any of those. This is a traumatic injury, you can bind it up, stop the bleeding, can’t you?”

  “Of course, of course,” the old man said, and at last his hands had familiar things to do, extracting bandages and sterile gauze from his bag, tape and scissors.

  Joze reached into the warm and now murky water and forced himself to reach under the green leg and grasp the hot, green flesh. It was strange—but not terrible. He lifted the limb free of the water and they saw a crushed gap oozing a thick blue fluid. Petar turned away, but the doctor put on a pad of gauze and tightened the bandages about it. The alien was fumbling at the discarded suit beside it in the tub, twisting its leg in Joze’s grip. He looked down and saw it take something from the sporran container. Its mouth was moving again, he could hear the dim buzz of its voice.

  “What is it? What do you want?” Joze asked.

  It was holding the object across its chest now with both hands: it appeared to be a book of some kind. It might be a book, it might be anything.

  Yet it was covered in a shiny substance with dark markings on it, and at the edge seemed to be made of many sheets bound together. It could be a book. The leg was twisting now in Joze’s grasp and the alien’s mouth was open wider, as if it were shouting.

  “The bandage will get wet if we put it back into the water,” the doctor said.

  “Can’t you wrap adhesive tape over it, seal it in?”

  “In my bag—I’ll need some more.”

  While they talked the alien began to rock back and forth, splashing water from the tub, pulling its leg from Joze’s grasp. It still held the book in one thin, multi-fingered hand, but with the other one it began to tear at the bandages on its leg.

  “It’s hurting itself, stop it. This is terrible,” the doctor said, recoiling from the tub.

  Joze snatched a piece of wrapping paper from the floor.

  “You fool! You incredible fool!” he shouted. “These compresses you used—they’re impregnated with sulfanilamide.”

  “I always use them, they’re the best, American, they prevent wound infection.”

  Joze pushed him aside and plunged his arms into the tub to tear the bandages free, but the alien reared up out of his grasp sitting up above the water, its mouth gaping wide. Its eyes were open and daring and Joze recoiled as a stream of water shot from its mouth. There was a gargling sound as the water died to a trickle, and then, as the first air touched the vocal cords, a rising howling scream of pain. It echoed from the plaster ceiling, an inhuman agony as the creature threw its arms wide, then fell face forward into the water. It did not move again and, without examining it, Joze knew it was dead.

  One arm was twisted back, out of the tub, still grasping the book. Slowly the fingers loosened, and while Joze looked on numbly, unable to move, the book thudded to the floor.

  “Help me,” Petar said, and Joze turned to see that the doctor had fallen and Petar was kneeling over him. “He fainted, or a heart attack. What can we do?”

  His anger was forgotten as Joze kneeled. The doctor seemed to be breathing regularly and his face wasn’t flushed, so perhaps it was only a fainting spell. The eyelids fluttered. The priest brushed by and looked down over Joze’s shoulder.

  Dr. Bratos opened his eyes, looking back and forth at the faces bent over him. “I’m sorry,” he said thickly; then the eyes closed again as if to escape the sight of them.

  Joze stood and found that he was trembling. The priest was gone. Was it all over? Perhaps they might never have saved the alien, but they should have done better than this. Then he saw the wet spot on the floor and realized the book was gone.

  “Father Perc!” he shouted, crying it out like an insult. The man had taken the book, the priceless book!

  Joze ran out into the hall and saw the priest coming from the kitchen. His hands were empty. With sudden fear Joze knew what the old man had done and brushed past him into the kitchen and ran to the stove, hurling open the door.

  There, among the burning wood, lay the book. It was steaming, almost smoking as it dried, lying open. It was obviously a book; there were marks on the pages of some kind. He turned to grab up the shovel and behind him the fire exploded, sending a white flame across the room. It had almost caught him in the face, but he did not think of that. Pieces of burning wood lay on the floor, and inside the stove there was only the remains of the original fire. Whatever substance the book had been made of was highly inflammable once it had dried out.

  “It was evil,” the priest said from the doorway. “A zao duh, an abomination with a book of evil. We have been warned, such things have happened before on Earth, and always the faithful must fight back—”