Illegal Alien

The second sound was high-pitched and warbling, unlike anything Frank had ever heard before. It was partly the sound of shattering glass, and partly the sound of train wheels screeching to a halt on metal tracks, and partly the wail of a hundred phones left too long off the hook.

Frank had thought — hoped — the first sound had been a car backfiring, but it wasn’t. In a blur of motion, two of the four police officers surged forward, running toward the crowd of people behind the police line. They had a man to the ground almost at once. Frank looked down at his own chest, and saw a spiderweb splash of pink across his jacket, shirt, and tie.

And then he realized what the second sound had been.

Hask was still standing, but as Frank watched he crumpled as if in slow motion to the ground, each of his legs folding first at its lower joint then its upper one. His torso tumbled backward, and the alien’s scream died as the square of his mouth diminished in size until nothing was left but the horizontal slit that marked the outer opening. He continued to fall, his rear arm splaying out behind him. Frank moved forward, trying to catch him, but the Tosok’s collapse was completed before the human reached him.

The assailant — a white man in his late twenties — was pinned to the ground.

He was yelling, "Is the devil dead? Is the devil dead?"

The bullet hole in Hask’s tunic was obvious, surrounded by a pink carnation of Tosok blood. What to do was less obvious, though. Frank was certified in CPR — anyone who got to spend time alone with the president was required to be. Spectators were ignoring the police tape now, and had rushed to reach the downed alien, clustering around him in a circle. Frank leaned in and placed his ear next to one of Hask’s breathing orifices. Air was being expelled; he could feel it on his cheek.

But he had no idea where to check for a pulse. Not much blood had spilled out of the wound — possibly a sign that the being’s four hearts had stopped pumping.

Frank looked up, about to tell someone to call for an ambulance, but one of the cops was already on his cruiser’s radio, doing that. Frank reached into his own jacket pocket and pulled out his cellular flip phone. He hit the speed-dial key for the cellular that had been given to Captain Kelkad, and then handed the phone to the other officer, not waiting for Kelkad to answer. Frank bent down over Hask again. "Hask," he said. "Hask, can you hear me?"

There was no response from Hask. Frank loosened his tie and pulled it up over his head, then wadded it up into a ball and used it as a pressure bandage on the entrance wound. He had no idea if that was the right thing to do, given how little he knew about Tosok physiology, but—

"Frank," said the cop. "I’ve got Kelkad on the phone." She handed the cellular to him. He took it in his left hand while continuing to lean on the wadded-up tie with his right.

"Kelkad, what should I do?" said Frank. "Hask has been shot."

Kelkad and the other Tosoks were in separate cars, on their way back from the Criminal Courts Building. The connection was staticky. There was a long pause, then a spate of faint Tosok language — but not in Kelkad’s voice — then some more of the alien tongue; this time it was Kelkad. And then the voice of the translator. "Describe the injury, and the way in which it was made." Frank realized Kelkad had to be moving the cellular back and forth between his translator and his ear slit.

Frank lifted his hand up off his pressure bandage. Although the tie was covered with Tosok blood — which was crystallizing, like a thin layer of ice, rather than clotting the way human blood did — the total volume if bleeding seemed to be tiny. "He’s been shot by a metal projectile — presumably lead. He’s lying on his back, is still breathing, but appears to be unconscious. The bullet entered between the front arm and the left leg, about eight inches below the breathing orifice. I can’t tell what angle it moved through the body. I was applying pressure to the wound, but it seems to have stopped bleeding, and the blood is crystallizing."

There was a sound from Kelkad, and noises from the translator — plus traffic sounds, and a siren. The car Kelkad was in was now rushing to the scene.

"You will probably not harm him by rolling him over onto his front," said Kelkad. "Did the bullet go all the way through the body?"

Frank handed the phone to the cop and grabbed the upper part of Hask’s left leg with both hands, feeling the odd alien skeleton beneath the skin, then rolling him ninety degrees. He examined the back of Hask’s dun-colored tunic, but could find no exit hole. He looked at the cop. "Tell him there’s no sign that the bullet came out."

She did so, then she listened for a moment. "Kelkad asks you to confirm that lead is atomic number eighty-two."

"What?" said Frank. "Christ, I have no idea."

"He says lead is highly toxic to Tosoks. He says the bullet will have to be removed within the hour."

"Where’s that damn ambulance?" said Frank.