Dressed in pants and T-shirts, Mats and Ann stumbled out of their tent and onto the beach. They saw the camp wake up around them, just before they had to squint and cover their eyes from the searchlights beaming from the hills.
A number of pickup vehicles, with searchlights mounted to their fronts and roofs, had stopped on the top of the cliff face ten meters above the beach. From the vehicles came men armed with shotguns, holding leashed dogs, and moved down the paths toward the beach. The men were dressed in ordinary civilian clothes.
"Who are they?" Takeru asked Charlotte who had emerged from a tent, unarmed, in her wetsuit. Some of the Phibs carried baseball bats, but they looked quite scared and vulnerable as they squinted and cowered in the searchlight beams. More than ever, the Phibs looked like kids. Ann wondered if their parents knew.
"It's the Reels," Charlotte said angrily. "Those snipers, they hate Sirians, and they hate us even more. Call us race traitors and alien lovers. But the real reason they hate us is because we've sworn to never lie."
A small contingent of the "Reels" came down on the pebble beach, aiming their flashlights at the huddling, trapped Phibs. The armed Reels outnumbered the Phibs two to one; they fired a few gunshots in the air and hollered.
Mats thought: Rednecks. Gutter-talk, guns, racism. We've got to get out of here. These people can't be reasoned with, they'll just get angry if we try.
"Grab your gear and hit the water," Charlotte shouted to her friends. "Bag the computers first!"
The three scientists stood as paralyzed among the scrambling teenagers.
"Where's Soldier?" said Takeru.
The sea lay open to the west, with just a few small waves beating against the coastline. The moon hung naked in the starry sky, illuminating the waves - but they couldn't see Soldier out there.
"Call the police," Ann told Mats. "Before somebody gets hurt!"
Mats still had a cell phone that the hypnotized cargo-ship crew had given him. The Swede reached into his pockets – and then he noticed that the local police force was leading the approaching mob.
At the head of the pack came a fat, clean-shaven man in a fur jacket, wearing a sheriff's hat and badge. He stopped fifteen meters from Ann's group. The Phibs were already retreating into the surf, grabbing their surfboards, bags and little motorized dinghies. It seemed a well-rehearsed escape, as if they had done it before.
"Wait!" Takeru shouted to the Phibs. Charlotte stopped, and urged her friends to halt. Turning to the sheriff, Takeru called out: "Sir, please! What are you doing? Do not hurt these innocent young people, you would commit a great crime!"
Mats clasped his forehead in frustration and terror, thinking that Takeru was going to get badly hurt if he attempted to preach love, peace and understanding. The obese sheriff strode over to the much smaller Takeru and stopped.
"Who the hell are you, Jap bastard?" the sheriff growled, his posture reeking of hostility. "Some kind of Phib friend?"
"I am Takeru Otomo of the Extraterrestrial Contact Team. I worked with Carl Sayers. Do not harm these youngsters!"
It was difficult for him discern the sheriff's face behind the blinding lights, but the dog on his leash started to bark.
"Shit! You're one of the traitors against mankind who sold us out to the coneheads! Boys! Don't let any of them get away!"
Eager cries for blood came from the mob. A fear reflex made Takeru step backward - and the sheriff unleashed his large dog. The canine growled and leaped at the short man; it was practically half his size. Ann shut her eyes. Just as the slavering dog jumped at Takeru's throat, it seemed to be struck in mid-air by an invisible object. It tumbled clumsily to the ground, missing Takeru, and ran off whimpering as if it had been kicked. At the same instant, all the other dogs began to yelp and cower in fear. And every man and woman present felt a faint pressure against their eardrums... as if the noise that upset the dogs was barely within human hearing range.
"What's that? Some kinda alien weapon?" The sheriff grunted in rage and took aim at Takeru with his shotgun. Out of the darkened part of the beach appeared a very tall figure, ran up behind the sheriff and grabbed his weapon with ease. The figure snatched the shotgun from the man's hands in an instant, and hurled it into the sea. The sheriff turned to face the figure, screamed in terror, and reached for the revolver in his belt. The tall figure leaned over the fat man, grabbed his belt and ripped off the revolver holster, with the revolver still in it. He tossed the gun into the sea just as swiftly.
One could hear - and smell - how the sheriff instantly lost control of his bowels.
Soldier’s voice sounded across the beach, bass deep and full of righteous anger: "LITTLE LAND-HUMAN… THE ANCESTORS HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAW YOU DO, ON YOUR TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY?"
Before the stunned eyes of the Phibs and the mob, the sheriff staggered away from the figure. He tripped and fell to his feet, blubbering and sobbing.
"No! Get away from me!" He waved his hand at some ghost visible only to him. "You can't know! Nobody knows!"
"THE WHOLE UNIVERSE KNOWS! YOU KILLED A MAN IN ANGER. YOU LIED TO YOUR PEOPLE ABOUT IT, AND ANOTHER MAN WAS PUNISHED FOR YOUR CRIME. THE EVIDENCE LIES BURIED BENEATH THE HOUSE OF YOUR VICTIM!"
"No... you can't know that... it's impossible," sobbed the broken sheriff, his voice thin and hysterical. He clasped his hands in prayer and stared up at the red-eyed alien. "Please don’t let me burn... please don’t take me there... help me, God..." His comrades stood still, stunned and silent.
"In an infinite universe..." Mats said, baffled by the scene. "Let's move, before the rednecks come to their senses."
He dragged Ann by the arm, and they ran for the other side of the beach - too late. A few of the "Reels" had circled the camp and was blocking their escape route. The twelve Phibs were still poised at the edge of the sea, waiting.
"RUN!" Soldier roared to his three companions, and pointed to the sea. They immediately ran off into the surf. Their pursuers, still convinced that their guns were sufficient against the stranger, took aim at the figure in the sombrero and raincoat.
Soldier opened his mouth wide, and surprised them again. This time, he emitted a low-frequency sound - and aimed it at the mob.
Without hearing a sound, every man in the mob was struck by violent nausea, lost his sense of balance and fell to the ground. The Reels writhed helplessly, vomited, cursed and screamed for help.
Mats had read about this phenomenon, in reports of military research into sound-wave weapons - special frequencies that would cause resonance and uncontrolled vibrations in living tissue. But how could Soldier know the exact frequencies, and emit them by his own force?
The sight stunned the Phibs only for a moment. Then they shouted to the three scientists to enter the boats. In the confusion and cacophony of screaming men and yelping dogs on the beach, Ann, Mats and Takeru rushed safely to the rubber dinghies. The young Phibs pushed their boats into the sea, started the outboard motors and made for the northwest. Behind them, they could see the tall figure on the beach starting to run for the nearby cliffs to the north, and he dropped his sombrero. The lights from the cars outlined his silhouette, so that they could see his shape. He had a long, bullet-shaped head with a pointed end.
"It's one of them!" Charlotte shouted excitedly to her fellows. "They're still here!"
Before the escape party's eyes, the tall figure quickly scaled the cliff wall, made a perfect headfirst dive into the waves below, and vanished in the night.
The Phibs steered their four boats toward the part of the rocky coastline where the figure had dived. Before they could come dangerously close to the rocks, the pointy head of the humanoid appeared in their way, floating just above the waves. He shouted at them to put out their flashlights, and dived again – then he reappeared alongside one boat, and asked to come aboard. The amazed Phibs could do nothing but comply. Within seconds, their boats were speeding northward along the coast with the amphibian passenger.
None of the Phibs dared speak to him.
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