Strangers

silence to the nearest end of the cylindrical vessel. Although her heart had begun beating hard and fast the moment she had entered the chamber and seen the ship, its previous pounding was mild compared to its current furious hammering. They stopped within an arm's length of the hull and studied it with an attitude of wonder bordering on veneration.
        Random swirling patterns of fine-grain abrasion swept across the entire curving bulk of it, as if it had persevered through clouds of cosmic dust or particles of a type and origin as yet unknown to man. Random nicks and small dents were scattered across the surface, clearly not part of the design but inflicted by elements far more hostile than the winds and storms that battered the ships of earth's seas and skies. The hull was mottled gray-black-amber-brown as if bathed in a hundred different acids and scorched in a thousand fires.
        Aside from its intrinsic and powerful alienness, the strongest impression Ginger got from the ship was a sense of great age. For all she knew, it could have been built only a few years ago and could have journeyed to Elko County at faster-than-light speeds, arriving on the night of July 6, just a few months or a year after being launched. But she did not think that was the case. She could not ascertain the source of her conviction - call it intuition - but she was certain that she was standing in the shadow of an ancient vessel. And when she reached out and touched the cool metal, letting her fingertips move lightly over its scarred and finely abraded surface, she felt even more strongly that she was in the presence of a venerable relic.
        They had come such a long way. Such a very long way.
        Following her lead, Dom and Jack had touched the hull, too. Dom took a deep quaverous breath. His, "Ahhhhhhh," was more eloquent than any words could have been.
        "Oh, how I wish my father could have lived for this," Ginger said, remembering dear Jacob the dreamer, Jacob the luftmentsch, who had always loved tales of other worlds and distant times.
        Jack said, "I wish Jenny'd lived longer… just a little longer… "
        Ginger suddenly realized that Jack did not mean the same thing she meant, that he was not saying he wished his Jenny had lived to see this vessel. He was wishing she had lived through these events because, as a result of this extraterrestrial contact, Brendan and Dom had acquired the power to heal her. If she had not succumbed on Christmas Day, they might have been able to go back to her - assuming they got out of Thunder Hill alive - and might have knit up her damaged brain, bringing her out of her coma, returning her to the arms of her devoted husband. That jolting moment of comprehension made Ginger aware that she had hardly begun to grasp the implications of this incredible event.
        The portly man in the military uniform and the bearded man in the lab coat had walked over from the table near the ship's portal. The civilian put his hand to the hull, which Ginger and Dom and Jack were still exploring. He said, "An alloy of some kind. Harder than any steel produced on this world. Harder than diamond, yet extremely light and with surprising flexibility. You're Dom Corvaisis."
        "Yes," Dom said, offering his hand to the stranger, a courtesy that would have surprised Ginger if she had not also sensed that this mild-spoken scientist and the military man with him were not their enemies.
        "I'm Miles Bennell, director of the team studying this… wonderful event. And this is General Alvarado, commanding officer of Thunder Hill. I can't tell you how deeply I regret what's been done to you. This shouldn't be a secret possessed by a few. It belongs to the world. And if I had my way, the world would hear about it tomorrow."
        Bennell shook Jack's and Ginger's hands, too.
        Ginger said, "We have questions… "
        "And you deserve answers," Bennell said. "I'll tell you everything we've been able to learn. But we might as well wait until everyone's assembled. Where are the others?"
        "What others?" Dom asked.
        And Ginger said, "You mean from the motel? They're not with us."
        Bennell blinked in surprise. "You mean most of them managed to slip through Colonel Falkirk's hands?"
        "Falkirk?" Jack said. "Do you think he brought us here?"
        Bennell said, "If not Falkirk - who?"
        "We came in ourselves," Dom