She looked up at me as I returned with her drink. "You don't sound very much as if you were planning to believe me."
Again, it seemed like a situation in which skepticism might be more productive than faith. I said, "Well, I'm not much for ghost stories. Or science fiction, either. But I'm willing to be convinced."
Resentment showed in her small, freckled face. She said sharply, "Well, believe it or not, what I saw was a flying saucer after it had broken down and stopped flying. I saw it right up close, as close as anybody has."
"Don't give me that," I said. "I've read plenty of reports of wild-eyed citizens who've claimed to have been taken right aboard the things. Did you go on board?"
"Well, no," Netta admitted. "God, no! I just scrunched down in my life jacket and tried to look like a piece of flotsam. Or jetsam. They weren't exactly friendly and hospitable, if you know what I mean."
"No, I don't know, exactly," I said. "What did they do to indicate their hostility?"
"They blasted the boat as they came over. Is that hostile enough for you? I'd gone out with Phil and another couple-"
"Phil?"
"A guy I'd met up north of here, in Guaymas. That's where I stayed first in Mexico: The Posada San Carlos, in Guaymas. Nice place. He was there for the fishing, but it wasn't much good, and he heard it was better down here in Mazatlбn, so he decided to drive down. I rode with him. It's a day's drive. He was a pretty nice guy. I don't dig fishing one little bit, but I don't mind sitting in a boat, watching, as long as there's a shady spot so I don't sunburn too badly. He got another couple to share the expenses. I mean, the boat charter or rent or whatever you call it is pretty steep, something like forty dollars a day. I don't remember their names and it doesn't matter. They're dead and so's Phil. If the ray or whatever it was didn't get them, they were killed when the boat blew up."
"Ray?" I said, trying to convey a hint of a sneer. "You mean like in death ray?"
She shrugged. "Don't ask me what it was. I guess maybe they wanted that piece of ocean all to themselves to land in. I was down in the cabin getting a beer; I didn't know what the hell had happened. There wasn't any noise; Just a big shadow passing over the boat, and a sudden blast of heat, and flames everywhere. I tried to get back out to where the others were, but the whole cockpit or whatever you call it was on fire. I grabbed a life preserver and scrambled out an opening onto the forward deck. It was burning in spots, too; that's how I hurt my arm. I guess it was the gas tanks that blew up, right after I jumped." She grimaced. "Then there was just one O'Leary in the water, and some floating wreckage, and this damn plativolo, sinking."
"Plativolo," I said. "That's a new name for it. New to me, anyway. You saw it sink?"
Netta nodded. "Well, I saw the end of it, let's say. They were scrambling around trying to keep it afloat, but they weren't having any luck. And then they blew up, too. Bang, just like that. A great big searing whoosh of flame, like the end of the world. Stuff raining down for minutes, it seemed like. Then I paddled around for a while all alone until somebody came out to investigate the fireworks and picked me up." She shook her head ruefully. "I should have kept my trap shut about what I'd seen, I guess. I should have said the boat just caught fire and exploded. Just call me Public-spirited Patsy for short."
"And that's what all the excitement is about?" I said in a cynical voice. "Hell, I've read fancier Youfoe stories in the papers. Complete with little Martians in metallic play suits." I kept my voice casual. "You haven't said what they looked like."
Netta laughed softly. "So I haven't, dad. That'll cost you another drink."
"My God, the girl's got a hollow leg." I fixed her up again, and stood over her. "Okay, give."
She drank from her glass, and looked up, shaking her head solemnly. "No, to hell with you. You've decided I'm just making it up as I go along. Haven't you? Even if I said they were human, you wouldn't believe me."
I grinned at her mockingly. "But they weren't human, were they, Carrots? It wouldn't make as good a story if they were human. They were giant grasshoppers, or little bitty manikins with great big brainy heads and no hair. Come on, O'Leary. Let's hear what you told the tape recorder. Let's hear what that redheaded Irish imagination produced to impress the suckers. I bet it was as good as a TV show: the people from outer space are upon us; the conquest of Earth begins; E-day is here! Is that it?"
She didn't answer at once. She was getting pretty tight; it showed in her careful movements and owlsolemn expression and unladylike, legs-apart posture, sitting there on the bed. When she spoke again, her voice was thick and the words were slurred.
"Damn you!" she blurted. "Damn you, you think you know everything, don't you? Well, I don't give a damn what you think! They were human, damn you. They were ordinary human men in ordinary human uniforms, how do you like that? Ordinary U.S. Air Force uniforms! And that overgrown dish they were flying had U.S.A.F. insignia on it. And how do you like that, Killer Helm…?"
8
IN THE MORNING, I got up stiffly from the chair in which I'd spent the night-what had been left of it after Netta had passed out on the bed. I went into the bathroom and shaved without closing the door.
I've heard of men who have great ideas while shaving, but it's never happened to me, and it didn't now. Even after a wakeful night to work on it, I couldn't decide what to think about what the girl had told me. Of course, it did explain certain things, for instance why I'd been sent here to bring her back or shut her up permanently.
Obviously somebody in Washington, after hearing the taped interview, had panicked at the possibility that she might blab her story around. The idea that the U.S. was operating strange and dangerous flying machines over friendly foreign territory, and blasting friendly foreign boats and citizens with death rays in the interest of total secrecy, was one that the image-conscious gents in the nation's capital would feel must be kept from spreading by any means, no matter how drastic. This could well apply whether the idea was true or false.
But the main questions remained unanswered: was the kid actually telling the truth, or what she thought was the truth, and if so, just what had she really seen?
On the one hand, I knew of no reason for her to lie – which didn't mean that none existed. On the other hand, her story wasn't very plausible, at least not to a patriotic American who loyally endorsed his Air Force's scoffing attitude towards pies in the skies. To such a steadfast citizen, the thought that the U.S.A.F. might have had something up its sleeve an the time it was dismissing various odd celestial phenomena as marsh gas or the planet Venus, would of course be unthinkable.
Unfortunately, many people in the world had always been sadly skeptical about our flyboys' pronouncements concerning UFO's. This included even Americans who, like me, had seen things in the heavens they couldn't explain. And the disturbing fact was that the events the girl had described could easily have taken place pretty much the way she'd described them. You didn't even have to subscribe to her "death ray" to believe the rest of the story.
Say that a secret, experimental U.S. aircraft, crippled and on fire, had descended into the sea, shedding some flaming debris that just happened to land on top of an innocent Mexican fishing vessel. To a girl in the water, dazed and scared, the half-submerged wreckage of the plane-whatever its original appearance-could easily have looked like one of the much-publicized saucers of which she'd doubtless seen photos and sketches galore..
Well, it wasn't my problem. I had troubles of my own. First I had to get a hungover and disheveled young lady in shape to appear in public. She groaned when I first shook her, peeked at me resentfully on the second shake, and sat up groggily on the third, swinging her bare feet to the floor and pushing the tangled hair out of her face.