Making the Galaxy Great
Did You Lose Your Gerbil?

The soldiers cuffed Jason’s and McCauley’s hands behind their backs and pushed them forward. Jason was so nervous he could barely move his feet. Previously, when he and McCauley were running, or dodging drones, or especially when he’d been driving 100 miles an hour, he’d felt an exhilaration that had momentarily swamped other emotions. But now, as they marched slowly down a strange corridor somewhere underground at a government facility that wasn’t supposed to exist, wearing alien clothing and followed by soldiers whose guns were pointed at their heads — now when he had time to really consider the precarious situation in which he found himself — the exhilaration had given way to terror. And he still needed to pee.

And one of the things he feared most was that McCauley would suddenly turn medieval on their captors. As she herself had noted, that would probably end badly for everybody. But as they wound through the labyrinth of hallways, past countless doors marked only with letters and the trilingual alien signs, McCauley showed no sign of violence. At last they stopped and one of the soldiers opened a door. Jason was expecting an office, but instead he recognized the interior of one of the light rail cars, like he’d ridden with Michael.

This time, instead of traveling horizontally, they traveled vertically — and very fast.

“They should have had one of these instead of a ladder,” he told McCauley. “In that Yrrean ship.”

She glared at him. “Gerald, if he doesn’t stop talking, you can go ahead and shoot him.”

Gerald looked as if he might be willing to accommodate.

They passed through several levels of the base and suddenly the light in their compartment was supplemented by daylight. As the doors opened, they entered a room that looked like the living room at Jason’s grandparents’ house in Ohio.

“Where the hell—?”

The Colonel’s office, it turned out, was located in the original farmhouse on the property that became Kirk Lumber and now provided the cover for Area 69. On one side of the room there was an old sofa covered in faded pink chintz, a side table and lamp, and an ancient oval rug with several moth holes. Did it represent extreme attention to detail, or simply a lack of funding from the federal government? Jason wondered. Along another wall was a desk and computer, and a soldier in uniform behind the desk. She immediately stood up.

Gerald began to speak to her but was interrupted by the entrance of a man in his fifties or early sixties, who wore a navy suit and an irritated expression. His arms swung widely at his side, palms facing backward as he walked, in the way of short, stocky men who imagine themselves to be more imposing than they are. That impression was not improved by the amateurish comb-over of his conspicuously thinning hair. Behind him were two Yrreans. Jason noticed weapons attached to their jumpsuits.

“What is this?” the short man in the suit grunted, as if he’d been interrupted in the midst a high-level conference. “Are these—?”

“Agent McCauley and . . . the other guy. Sir.”

Jason was tired of being the other guy. He was about to announce his name when the man in the navy suit exploded in a rage. “Get them out of here! They should be on their way to Moredale already. Jesus, this place is a nuthouse.”

“Wait!”

Jason recognized the Colonel’s voice. A moment later, she walked into the living room. She was uncuffed, which Jason took as a hopeful sign. But she was accompanied by two men in black, which struck Jason as an equally unhopeful sign.

“Colonel, this is a—” McCauley started to say.

“Quiet!” barked the man in the navy suit.

“Quiet yourself,” said the Colonel.“These are my people, and they somehow managed to get this far, which is astonishing, you have to admit. And since they did, they deserve to say their piece.”

Perhaps responding to the naturally authoritative tenor of the Colonel’s voice, the man in navy seemed inclined to calm down. But before he would let McCauley speak, he directed the two men in black to search the two suspects. With rifles still pointed at him, Jason discovered that the term ‘patted down’ was a remarkable understatement.

“Christ, you’re crushing my gonads,” he exclaimed as he felt a large hand roughly exploring his crotch. Then, as the the hand reached around to the back side, he added: “Dude, unless you lost your gerbil you really don’t — unghh — need to go there.”

There was no answer from his black-suited assaulter, but he heard the Colonel stifle a chuckle. He could only imagine what McCauley’s pat-down felt like for her.

“All right then, speak,” said the Colonel.

“This is a frame-up,” continued McCauley. She quickly described L’harra’s strategy, as she and Jason understood it. Jason noticed that she left out any mention of the Oasis Mission or Jason’s contact with them. Throughout her explanation, the man in navy — whom Jason had decided must be the “guy from the NSA” — frowned, rolled his eyes and even shook his head. It was clear he had already decided they were guilty.

“You want us to believe some Yrrean set up this whole elaborate scheme just to make us think the Haku were double dealing behind our backs so we’d trash our deal with them and make a deal with the Yrreans instead?”

“Exactly,” she answered. “And here’s the proof.” She held out the tiny Marjan recording device they’d brought back from the meeting.

The guy from the NSA directed one of the men in black to take the device from her. “Well, it’s an interesting story. Unfortunately for you, we’ve already seen exactly what happened.”

“Just look at it!” McCauley insisted.

“I don’t know what you’ve fabricated, Agent, but we’ve seen the incident. Ambassador K’pana, would you mind?” The NSA guy turned to one of his Yrrean companions, who held out a device identical to the one McCauley had just handed over.

Jason gulped. An alien ambassador. So L’harra definitely wasn’t acting on her own.

The Yrrean tapped her device and they all watched the hologram. There was the path in the woods, the clearing and the small shed. And next to it, the two Russians and the Haku, all alive. They looked up and Jason, to his dismay, heard McCauley’s voice. “Caught you, you bastards. Nobody fucks with the USA on my watch.”

All three of the men stared blankly.

“What?” said one of the Russians. “I do not understand.”

“Don’t act innocent,” said McCauley’s voice. “Shall I tell my government what you’re up to?”

“Your government?” said the Haku. Suddenly he held up his hands. “What—?”

There were three flashes and then three bodies, faces frozen in expressions of surprise and pain, crumpled to the ground, their flesh smoldering.

Jason felt as if a group of caffeinated rodents were holding a dance party in his colon. The whole scene was disgusting, and it seemed so . . . real. Right down to McCauley’s voice.

“That’s not how it happened!” he burst out. “They were already dead when McCauley got there.”

“How do you know?” asked the Colonel.

“Because I was watching remotely, on that thingamajig that McCauley just handed you.”

“So you weren’t actually in the clearing?” said the NSA guy, narrowing his eyes.

“No, but I saw—”

“And how do you know Agent McCauley hadn’t already killed them, then fabricated what you saw so you would be her alibi?”

Jason glanced at McCauley, whose own desperate eyes seemed to be searching him for some sign of what he was thinking. Was there any possible way she could have fooled him like that?

He shook his head. “No way.”

The Colonel was about to say something but the NSA guy cut her off. “We’ve heard enough. This thing is totally out of hand and needs to be put to bed before we have an . . . interplanetary—”

Before he could pontificate further, there was a great deal of commotion behind Jason and McCauley. Jason heard someone say something that sounded like ‘curry’ and he remembered how hungry he was.