Chapter Two
Help


“HELlllo!!”

Eva stopped and trembled.  She knew that senility did not strike like lightning.  She knew it did not arrive all at once, in one’s ear; she knew it did not come on people’s birthdays, like greeting cards; she knew it did not speak.  Yet there it was.

“HelLOOO!  Are you Listening to Me??”

Eva gritted her teeth and angrily raised her hand to her left ear.  She was mad and baffled: someone was speaking to her through the hearing aid.  They must have slipped her a radio earpiece, as a joke.  Or some incredible mistake had been made.  It had given her a scare, and she had no idea why they would do it.

“SILlyhead are you LIStening???”

Eva did not turn the aid off.  She had lived long enough to know she would rather take her healthy scare now than walk back the four blocks to the audiologist’s office with the hearing aid silent and wonder what in blue blazes was going on all the way.  Plus, she told herself, there was the minuscule but chilling chance that turning off the hearing aid would not stop the voice.

“Sillyhead if you are Listening then please Say Something to me!”

There was nothing to do but respond.  “Who are you and why are you talking in my ear?” she demanded sharply.

“Where Else should I talk?” answered the voice.  It was dulcet and oddly strained and only marginally masculine...and that only when it gave special emphasis to a syllable, which it did disturbingly often.  Eva wondered whether it was a government agency that was tracking her, some rogue agent using technology irresponsibly to disguise his voice.  Even as she thought it she rejected it, and shuddered nonetheless at the very thought such a thing was possible.

“I was told what I bought was a hearing aid!  Nothing more.”

“That is TRUE.  But you do Not need to be Snappy.  I would only like to Speak with you.”

Eva shook her head.  Whatever happened to secure telephone lines?  Was this an update for the thirties?  “Why are you speaking to me through my hearing aid??” she hissed, leaning over a parking meter and cupping her hand over her ear.  No one was paying her any attention.

“That is Lucky that you do Wear them in your Ears,” said the voice.  “If you did wear them Elsewhere I do not know How I would speak to you.  Will you listen to me?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Eva.  “I’ll listen to you for as long as it takes to get back to the audiologist.  Now tell me what’s going on.”

“I Only do want a Favor from you.  You do not Need to be Cruel.  I even will give you Stuff so that it is not Truly a Favor.”  The strange voice punched the beginnings of its words and held the rest back, like a recitient child.  Indeed, even through the fuzziness of an unclear reception, the speaker sounded childlike.  There was an overtone of whining and slurred consonants—but for the strange confidence that accompanied it.

Eva was on her way back to the clinic.  She had decided to take a different route back, just in case.

“If you wish to trade ilicitly with me, you’ll do it in person,” Eva snarled.  “No, better: you’ll do it over the telephone.”

“I have GOT no telephone.  I am in SPACE,” said the exasperated voice.  Eva contorted her mouth in disgust and bewilderment.  She stopped walking for only a second, and then resumed all the more briskly, trying to wipe the fool’s notion out of existence.

“You think I’m easy to put one over.  I can’t imagine why.”

“Put one over What?”

“I’m an actor, bunda.  I’m the one who puts one over.  Are you going to come clean, or what?”

“I am CLEAN.  I am a POMMIT.  I would like a FAVOR which is not truly a FAVOR.  Will you help me Pleease!”

She grimaced at how unbelievably pitiful this person was, whoever it was.  “What—favor.”

“You must help us to understand some strange creatures!  You have better understanding than me I think.”

The speaker might be exasperated, but he didn’t tire easily.  “Understand some strange creatures?” repeated Eva.  “What on earth are you—”  But she stopped short, musing that someone who claimed to be in space would surely say—

“They are NOT on Earth!  They are sillyheads from Elsewhere!  Will you help PLEASE!!?  I will give you lots of food and metal and medicine and whatever else I find!!”

“Well, I must say an offer like that is hard to turn down.”  Halfway back.

“That is why you should Not turn it down!  All I need is your underStanding and I will give you Lots of stuff.”

“Look—why do you think I have any special...’understanding’?”  Eva stopped where she was, as if she were talking to someone in person, and tipped back one foot, a gesture of mild insolence.  “I’m not a spy.  I don’t know any confidential information.  If you think there is something you can learn from me you won’t get anyplace else...you have got me confused with someone!”

“You are a Human.  You do underStand things.  You are Wise as well.  I could ask any human but I ask You.  Where can I come and get you?”

“You’re not coming for me.”

“Then does that mean you will NOT help me??” squealed the plaintive voice.

Eva gritted her teeth and put her hand to her ear.  She was on a less busy street than before, but it still had a few pedestrians.  A couple of them glanced over at her.  She shook her head, feigning a headache, and walked on.

“I have no reason to help you,” she eventually murmured, getting sick of it all. You are a human, he’d said.  What was this guy prentending to be, then?

“I will give you whatever you want if I have got it.”

“Who are you?”

“I am a Creature!  I am a Living Thing.  My name is Jemmiut.  I would ask who are you but I already know who are you.  You are Eva DurRant.  You are a human thing and today you are fifty-Nine.  You are just the Perfect age to help us.  So why do you not help us?”

Eva was too set on getting to her destination to stop, but this pronouncement made her sorely tempted.  “What, if anything, does my age have to do with it?” she demanded.

The voice was pitifully naive and a little wounded.  “Because that is the age of human wisdom,” it explained as though it were obvious.

Stunned finally into silence, Eva stormed up the block toward the clinic she had just left.  People glanced at her, surprised perhaps to see such anger in a stately woman walking alone.  It was Boston, though, and this didn’t hold their attention for more than a second.  Just before she reached the front entrance, Eva swung aside into an alleyway.  She breathed, slower and slower.

“Please help us,” said the voice.  “You are the twelfth person I have asked.  All the other eleven said no.”

Eva’s breathing became silent again.  She closed her eyes.  She put her fingers at her brow.

“Either they said no or they got rid of their hearing aids.  Or one person laughed at me.  German is my favorite human language and so I found a human who likes to speak German, but he just laughed at me when I asked him for help.  He laughed a lot.  He would not help me.”

Eva walked out of the alley and into the clinic.  She asked to see the audiologist.  About a problem with her hearing aid.  No, she couldn’t wait.

“You have an emergency situation with your hearing aid?” inquired the skeptical receptionist.  “It can’t wait forty minutes?”

Eva wrinkled her face, ready to make something up, but realized there was nothing to say.  If the hearing aid were causing problems, she could always take it out.  Why didn’t she just take it out?

“Please help us.  We are confused.  We will pick you up anywhere you like and give you things.  Please.”

Eva sat down to wait.  She left the aid in place.



It was hard, taking it out, when the time finally came.  The voice hadn’t been a constant stream of pleas, but it had been persistent.  She stalled, making chat with her audiologist, until there came a lull; the speaker hadn't spoken for a while.  Then she took it out.  The hearing aid looked a little like an alien artifact now, with its embedded high-power telephony coil and hints of circuitry visible beneath the plastic.  Two decades earlier, it would have been stranger still, filling the whole of the outer ear with a mold to match.  Eva was grateful such a thing was available, but wondered what devilry had made it into a receptor for this strange...creature.

“Well, I don’t know what I can do but assure you—this was made right here, in the laboratory adjoining my office,” said the bemused audiologist.  “And no, it doesn’t have a built-in radio—you didn’t want a built-in radio, remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember.  Someone has been talking to me on this thing.  I don’t know how.  Here!”  She thrust the device into his hand.

“I...”  He hesitated, and glanced the device over, turning it in his hand.  “There’s nothing wrong with it that I can see just by looking at it.”  He turned his head doubtfully toward the laboratory.  “Hold on...”  His mind wandering, the man turned the corner and retreated into the laboratory, calling to some unseen people while Eva waited tensely.  His head and shoulders reappeared around the corner a minute later.

“They made it to spec, all right,” he announced.  “Be right back...”

Five minutes later, the audiologist returned.  He sighed as he put the hearing aid back into Eva’s hand.  “We found a staff member it fit closely enough to produce amplification,” he said.  “Nothing wrong with it.  No voices.  No unusual effects.  I don’t know what to tell you.”

Eva didn’t know what to say, either.  She looked at the hearing aid doubtfully.

“It’s sterile.  You can wear it again.”

Eva held back a protest.  She popped it into her ear, carefully, as if a misguided insertion might cross the wires in her brain and produce unnatural interference.  There was nothing for a few seconds; Eva allowed herself a tense half-smile.  Then it was back.

“If you do not want to talk to me then Say So.  Then I will leave you Alone and ask aNother person.”

That voice was just so inhuman.  Childlike in its delivery, its cadences, but in the tambre of the voice it was outworldly.  Eva found herself almost ready to believe it was an extraterrestrial voice.  She wasn’t going to let it go, though, whatever the outcome.  This was the sort of thing that led somewhere, real or fake.  Never in her life had Eva let something like this go.  But what could she do?

“Can you make me another one?”

“We can make you another one, sure.  We have your cast right in the day’s records.  We could pull it up and make you a new one for a little over half the price.  But I don’t...I don’t think your insurance would give you any coverage for the second one.”

“That’s—that’s immaterial.  Make me another one.  When can I expect it done?”

The audiologist smiled and shook his head gently, looking down.  Then he looked her in the eye, like a professional.  “We should have it by the end of the day, for sure.  Check back in three hours.”

“I’ll do that.”



It was an embarrassment.  Going home again, being unable to read, unable to memorize, unable to approach her character in her current project.  Going out twice in the same day for the same hearing aid.  Eva was distracted.  She was used to embarrassments and knew how to handle them, and this was no exception.  Yet, this was one distraction she didn’t know how to face.  The problem was that no explanation seemed to make sense.  At Eva’s age, and after having done all she’d done, if a problem brooked no explanation even after three hours of worrying over it, something was wrong.  She had reached the point where every five or six minutes, she allowed herself to hypothesize that the mysterious speaker was genuine.  A real alien.  Not just a loopy, but a loopy from beyond the stars.  It seemed wrong, but so did everything else.  Eva began to regret leaving the original hearing aid at the clinic.  She wanted to have it, just in case.  This was too much to be separated from.

She came in after precisely three hours and asked after the new hearing aid.  It was granted her.  Eva held no regrets as she parted with what had been her luxury money for the month.  There were levels on which a person lived her life, and luxury and mystery did not exist on the same level, popular impressions notwithstanding.  Unless you were royalty.

She peered doubtfully at the new hearing aid.  It looked no less alien than the old one.  Eva reflected that her impression of modern hearing aids had been forever correupted.  She excused herself, opting to step into the ladies’ room before trying it out.  She knew how to use it; it was exactly like the other one.  The only question was...

“You are Wearing it Again!!  Hooray!”

Oh, God, thought Eva.  No escape.

But of course that wasn’t true.  All she had to do was say “No.”  If he could be trusted, apparently she had only to tell her petitioner to go away, and he would.  So this could be over.

But it would not be over as long as it kept Eva from her work.  And, tragically, she knew a loose end like this had the power to distract her for the rest of her life.

“Yes,” she whispered.  “I’m wearing it again.”

“You know, you are a silly thing I think.  You have taken out your machine and put back in a different machine that is completely the same!  That is silly I think!!”

Eva couldn’t resist.  “You are silly, I think.”

“You think that I am sillyy???  ...   That is very kind of you to say.  Will You Help Me?”

Eva smiled.  She didn’t mean to, but she did.  “Let me get back to you,” she whispered.  Popping out the hearing aid and putting it in its case, she left the audiologist and his clinic behind her and headed, nerves shaking, to her car.



She realized when she was halfway home that she didn’t want to deal with this alone.  Home was a place where you invited friends.  Family.  Ideas you love and are comfortable with, in the form of books.  Home is for the familiar.  Eva couldn’t go home to put in her hearing aid again.  She went all the way around the roundabout leading to her home, drove off again to the west.  She needed to go someplace away from the ordinary, but safe.  Someplace where the weird was commonplace.

After driving around for ten minutes, she decided on her brother’s place.

Neal Carruthers was the manager of a music store that was more than a music store.  First and foremost, it was his home, or the foundation for it: he lived in three rooms above the store, and one of these was semi-subsumed into the store’s business, in use as overflow storage.  Secondly, the store was, miraculously enough, a hot spot.  With the invention of VersiDiscs and VersiDisc Micros a few years back, music vendors experienced a fresh breath of business which saved some, such as Neal, from going under in the nick of time.  While computerized music storage remained the primary way most young people were familiar with the world of home audio, these amazing discs were making a comeback for mechanical audio reproduction.  Combined with the recent innovation of Open Mic Recording Jams that had made its way from California over to the East Coast, the music store was once more becoming a viable contender in the youth social scene.  Neal Carruthers, a soft-faced, gentle-tempered man who at fifty-one was something of a lucky dinosaur in his field, had struck platinum with his In-Store Recording of the Month program.  He had done an excellent job arranging the store to be conducive to “chats and chills”, not just to doing business.  He had been so successful in drawing young clientele, moreover, that he had convinced the owner to convert part of storage into floor space and bring in a small Piamont’s coffee franchise.  That was the third thing the store was beyond being just a music store.

The most recent and most impressive new role played by Carruther’s Music, however, was harder to describe.  The crux of it was that Neal had not brought in a representative cross section of the musical youth demographic.  His clientele were...quite open minded.  Perhaps a bit too open-minded.  Neal told himself this was probably because of the frequent open recording sessions—free speech brings free thinkers.  So Neal and his employees often found themselves listening to—and occasionally sucked into—conversations on body-mind dualism, syncretic religion, alternate histories, trance healing, neopagan theology, every kind of conspiracy theory imaginable, and yes, alien abductions.  Neal welcomed the melange of ideas to the business.  He put up posters expressing unusual points of view, started stocking a modest collection of mystical books, and once or twice a month agreed to let the store host a musical ritual from one religion or another.  After dark he would close the blinds, light up whatever aromatic the ritual might call for, and welcome a new and strikingly different group of dancers, drummers, chanters and others into his store, whereupon they would embark on  what they could get away with nowhere else in town, and Neal would sway and perhaps hum along to a ritual meant to bring good luck to the community, appease any spirits who might happen to be displeased, or attune two souls in harmony forever.  It had become a significant, if not precisely meaningful, part of his life.  He liked to think the ceremonies meant something to him.

One person he rarely saw at the store was his sister, Eva.  Neal liked Eva and respected her quite a bit.  Everything that Neal had gone through in his childhood and adolescence, he had seen Eva go though first.  Neal had encountered only half the twists and turns she had, but unlike Eva, this taste of the chaos that was urban reality left Neal frightened and at times withdrawn.  His parents had tried to get through to him, but it was typically Eva that had given him the push he needed to get back into his life, whatever that consisted of at the time.  He wasn’t sure that she knew this, though.  She was his older sister more through example than through tutelage.  When he wanted to see her, he typically had to schedule time with her.  Then he would make one last check that the store was in good hands, get in his ’11 Acura Cyclone, and drive to her house, where she would welcome him with a bright smile, considerate questions, and more often than not, iced tea.  She didn’t usually have any reason or inclination to visit Carruther’s Music, though, so when Neal, who was supervising behind the counter, saw her car pull up in front, he feared an emergency.

“It’s not an emergency, Neal, and I’m sorry to trouble you with it.  It’s not an emergency, but...it’s important.”  By her tone of voice, it did sound important.  Neal had put the senior clerk in charge and taken Eva up to his sitting room, where he was too distracted to get her the iced tea reciprocal hospitality would prescribe.  He looked into her face, searching for signs of danger, and without looking back pulled a pillow from the sofa and offered it to Eva.  She took it and held it under her arm, tightly.

“Did I mention I was getting a hearing aid for my left ear?  Mom recommended it.”

This was far too tense to be small talk.  “Did something bad...happen?”

“Not exactly.”  She paused.  “I mean, what bad thing could happen?  I...Neal.”

He looked into her eyes, his face paler than hers.  “What is it?”

“There’s someone on the other end.”

“Of...the hearing aid?”

“Yes, that’s right.  When I wear it someone speaks to me.  And this is even after I replaced it with a new one!”

“That’s...”  Neal gulped and glanced nervously at the floor.  “That’s strange.”

“It’s someone asking for help.  Someone who knows my name.  And that today is my birthday.”

Neal was caught more off guard by this than by the news itself.  “It’s your birthday?” he asked, a little guilty.  “I didn’t remember.”

“It doesn’t matter, Neal.  Neal, this person claims to be from outer space.  It’s someone who keeps asking for my help.  To help understand someone or something.  And wants to know where they can pick me up.”  She cut her narrative short, finishing by staring into his eyes with the urgency that told him, yes, this was truth, and it was an emergency.  He looked frightened.

“Lot of guys who come in here would love doing a joke like that.  I don’t know what they’d do it to you for.”

“Is that all you have to say?  Because I don’t think this is a joke, Neal.”  Hearing herself rule out the possibility made her believe it.  “And I believe the man at the clinic when he said he had nothing to do with it.”  Another possibility ruled out, and Eva was getting scared.  “He said they put it in someone’s ear and they didn’t get spoken to.  It’s someone who wants me.  But I don’t know if it’s an intelligence man, or if...or what.  I don’t know anything worth knowing to someone like that.”

“No.  No, it doesn’t sound likely!”

“What do you think, Neal??” Eva demanded lowly.

“Can I see it?  Can I touch it?”

Eva dug into her purse and obliged.  She opened the case.  Apparently it looked just as alien to him as it had to her.  He flinched at the sight.

“Go on, see if it fits you.  I don’t care about keeping it clean.”

He shut his mouth tightly, his chin bulging.  He took out the device and held it up, turning it over several times until he found the right orientation.  Then with one last glance at Eva, he put it into his ear.  He waited.

“Nothing,” he said.

“I didn’t think so,” said Eva.  She seemed disappointed.  For a moment she said nothing.

“This isn’t a joke on me, is it?  Because if it is, please don’t do it.  I get enough of—”

“It’s not a joke!”  Eva frowned, and held out her hand.  Neal looked apologetic and gave it back.

“I don’t know what to do about it.  I don’t know...what to expect if I say yes.  I guess I wanted to ask...”

Neal was holding her hand with both of his.  Eva looked distressed.  Neal tried to say something, then started to shake his head, then looked nervous.  “You’ll have to tell them where to pick you up.  Alone.  If it’s someone out to get you, they’d have the perfect chance.”

“Then...then I can’t do it.  I can’t say yes.”

“Have you said no?”

“Not...not definitively, no.”

Neal did shake his head this time.  “Eva...tell them to leave you alone.”

“Should I?”

“I don’t know!”

Silence.  In this moment Eva closed her fist around the offending object.  She was getting angry.  Something so frivolous on the surface shouldn’t be causing her such anguish.  It did not have the right.

“You could call the FBI if it keeps happening.”

“No.”

“What about...well, maybe a different brand?  You got the advanced telephony coil right?  Maybe if you didn’t get it—“

“But I want it,” insisted Eva.

“Well, then I don’t know what to do.”

Eva sat in silence and looked at the object of her quandary.

“Would—“  Neal cleared his throat.  “Would you like some iced tea?”

“Yes,” Eva murmured.

Ten minutes later, Neal popped downstairs.  When he came up again, Eva was sitting quietly in a stuffed chair and nursing an iced tea while contemplating the object before her.  Like a piece of fine art that displeased her.  Or an engagement ring she didn’t want to accept.  She was utterly quiet.

“There’s a situation downstairs.  I’ve got to get back on duty.  Do you want to stay up here?"

His sister nodded.  He left.



When Neil reappeared, his shift was over.  It was early evening.  Eva was reading a book of Neil’s, reclined slightly on his sofa, detached.  The hearing aid sat on the endtable beside a lamp.  Its case was beside it.

Neil was with two young men, both eccentric by the sight of them.  One was small and wore jeans with a leather belt, a plain white shirt and a pair of metal twists as earrings.  He seemed constantly apprehensive.  The other was tall with a frizzy cone of black hair, a perceptive, stubbled face, and a loose-fitting back T-shirt.  The picture on the T-shirt was the face of a gray spaceman, eyes glowing like forbidden knowledge.

“Hi, Eva?”  That was the man with the alien shirt.  Eva looked up.  “Yes?” she asked.

“I’m Geoff.  Neal said you had a potential encounter.  Situation.”

“Neal?  Did you tell these men about what I told you?”  Her tone was mildly admonishing.

“Yeah, Eva.  They know about how to deal with it.  ...They’re regulars.”

Eva scrunched her face and looked away.  She picked up the hearing aid--protectively.

“I’m Stuart,” said the other man.

“Look, I know this is scary,” said Geoff.  He seemed to be misinterpreting her reaction.  “It’s your decision whether to pursue it.  But if you do, you need to do it right.  We can back you up.”

“I just thought they ought to know.  They’re both big in the local xenology chapter.  I’m lucky to have them as customers.”

“When Neal mentioned you were getting signals, we thought maybe it was fate that we were in the store today,” explained Geoff eagerly.

“They’re not signals!” Eva objected.  “They’re messages!  And they’re really not any of your business!”

Stuart shrugged, shrinking into the background.  Neal came up and set down next to his sister.  “Come on, Eva.  If this is a real alien species it’s everyone’s business.  Everyone in the world.  Am I wrong?”  From a distance Stuart shook his head.

Eva held in her displeasure.  She held the aid tightly, and then flashed a glimpse of it to the “xenologists.”  Her teeth were similarly glinting.  “My messages.  My business.”

Geoff sighed.  “Okay, fine.  Look, will you at least let us know—“

“Please don’t yell at my customers, Eva.  Yell at me if you have to.”

“You can’t talk with aliens and keep it secret, Eva.  It’s a crime against humanity.”

Eva turned her profile, turned the hearing aid the correct way, and stuck it into her ear.  Immediately everyone was silent.  So was the aid.

And then...

The voice was faint at first.  Then something moved or shifted and it became clear.  “...you know, one woman in Burma even Said she would help us.  She told us she Wanted to.  And then we did Ask her to find a Place to pick her Up and she could not Name a place!  Why do you think is That?”

Eva took in a breath and forgot to exhale.  Stuart and Geoff tensed.  They whispered something between them.

At last Eva spoke.  “I suppose you want to pick me up someplace isolate.  And you want me to be alone.”

The answer came immediately.  “Yes, that would be Good.  Unless you do know another human at the age of wisdom who would Also want to help.”  Then there was an intake of breath from the aid, a surprising sound because it didn’t sound like human breath.  “Does That mean you will HELP us??”

Eva looked around the room.  “Do I?” she mouthed.  Geoff shrugged deferentially.  Stuart nodded slowly but enthusiastically.

“Sure,” said Eva.  “Why not.”

“That is too WONDERFUL!  Then if that is Truue, at what place would you like us to Meet?”

Eva looked at the xenologists.  “Where?” she mouthed.

“There’s an open field with a treeline on both sides just north of Interstate 90, just past Worchester,” said Geoff quickly.  “Hold on, I’ll give you GPS coordinates.”

Eva told the voice to wait while Geoff dug out his GPS unit and a map, and worked things out with Stuart’s help.  They worked quickly and seemed excited to get to use their knowledge.  Eva was surprised they didn’t know the coordinates by heart already.

When they had it, Eva relayed the information to the creature on the other end.  She told it to arrive for her at 2 A.M the following night.

“What is 2 A.M.?  No wait, I do know that.  All right then, I will do so!  Thank you.  Please bring along some clothing that you can wear on you.”

“Clothing...?  You mean extra clothing?  Will I be...with you for long?”

“Well naturally yes.  You must help us with the Carapacians, and they are tricky.  It will take time.”

Eva conveyed this to her companions.  Geoff seemed unsure what to say, but Stuart gave her a quiet thumbs up.

“Very well.  I’ll pack some personal things then, shall I?”

“Personal?  What is that?  Yes then, pack some things.  Goodbye and I will see you at two on the day that is not tonight but the next night.”

Eva wanted to giggle and also to wail.  She did neither.  “Goodbye,” she got out.  Then the aid went silent, and she turned to the three men.  She realized she was grinning.  Her eyes were heavy and she wanted to cry.

“We’ll stake it out for you,” said Geoff.  “Man!  If this is for real it’s the big time!  Way to go, Eva!  Way to go!”

She put up her hand and made him keep his distance.  “You won’t stake it out.  You’ll stay at home.  Do you want to disobey these...people?  On our first ever encounter, as far as we know?”

“It’s probably not the first.  There are records of dozens of different—”

“Did any of those accounts ever involve an alien using the phrase, “That is too wonderful?”

They had no answer.

“You’ll stay at home.  If you follow and you’re discovered...”  Eva shook her head.

“Okay, Eva, okay, but what if it’s not for real?” Neal pled, coming near her.  “What if it’s someone who wants to kidnap you?”

She snorted.  “What a way to kidnap someone.”

Neal’s lips trembled.  He put his hand on her arm.

“Look at it this way, Neal,” said Eva.  “If it’s a gag, it’s a gag.  We have our laughs, me and whoever it is, and we go home.  And if it really is a plan to misuse me somehow...well, I have to give them their due.  I appreciate good acting.  Anyone who can act like that deserves to get what they want.”

Neil blanched.  “Even if that’s you??”

Eva looked away.  “I’m going to see what it’s all about.”

“Not alone.”

“Alone.”  She looked the two xenologists over with a challenging gaze, and then looked her brother in the eye.

“I’m going to give them their due.”

Chapter 3

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