Illegal Alien

"God did not move me to do that; despite what happened to Clete, I am no murderer."

Frank’s voice was hard. "And what, precisely, did happen to Clete?"

"He discovered that Seltar was still alive. I had been careless. While the others were off at the lecture by that paleontologist, I took the opportunity to contact Seltar by radio; I missed her so much, I could not bear not to speak with her. Although my translator was off, Clete overheard me — I had not realized that he, too, had demurred from attending the lecture to work on his script, and he had the habit of pacing the halls as he thought of what he wanted to write. Clete realized that I was speaking to a Tosok other than the ones at the lecture — and doing so in realtime. I chased him back to his quarters and tried to explain to him the necessity of keeping the secret. He said he would not tell anyone — but I could tell he was lying; his face had grown brighter."

"What?" said Dale.

"His face grew brighter — all your faces do that when you lie; I noted the correlation within days of arriving on Earth."

"You mean you saw him blush?" asked Dale.

"No — blush is to change color, is it not? No, I said brighten."

"Oh, Christ," said Frank. "We suspected you guys could see into the infrared, but…"

"What?" said Dale.

Frank looked at the lawyer. "He sees infrared — he sees heat. Even if a person isn’t visibly blushing, capillaries do dilate in the cheeks, causing the cheeks to warm. Hask here is a walking lie detector."

"As you say," said Hask. "I had no doubt of Clete’s intentions. The moment I left, he was going to rush off to the lecture hall to tell you, Dr. Nobilio. I could not allow that — I could not risk that you, or someone you would tell, would reveal the information to Kelkad and the others. Remember, the other Tosoks all knew when you were lying, too." He paused. "I— I just wanted to restrain Clete long enough to bring him proof of what the other Tosoks were going to do, in hopes that he would make a sincere promise of silence… so I encircled his leg with the monofilament. I told him that if he struggled at all it would cut through him, but… but he did struggle." Hask paused, and his tuft waved in sadness. "I am so sorry. I meant only to detain him. But he kept bleeding and bleeding. I have never seen so much blood in my life."

"So, with him dead, you decided to dissect the body," said Frank.

"Yes. Do you not see? I was looking for proof of perfection in its design. I wanted so much to find proof of that — it would have saved your race. But instead I found design flaw after design flaw. I could not dispose of the corpse, but I did manage to steal at least some of the most egregiously obvious evidence of evolution rather than inspired design. The bad design of the throat was obvious at a glance, especially since I had already seen you choke on some water, Frank. The eye was harder — but my pocket computer allowed me to do a decent scan of its structure. And as I traced your digestive system — messy thing that it is — I found that closed tube that seemed to do nothing at all. By wrapping them up and tossing them in the trash, I had hoped to delay the others discovering that your race is not divine."

"But why didn’t you just come forward and tell the world the truth?" asked Dale. "For God’s sake, you were interviewed by Barbara Walters. You could have simply said, while the cameras were rolling, that your people have come to destroy us. Then we would have apprehended all the other Tosoks. End of problem."

"Counselor," said Hask, "surely you do not think all of us would have come down to Earth’s surface without some way to control and operate our mothership remotely? Yes, our main engine is damaged, but the fusion reactor still functions, and the particle-beam weapon is in working order.

Kelkad has surgically implanted in his person a device that can activate the weapon from the ground. True, using it while he is still on the surface would kill him and the rest of the Tosoks, but he would view that as proper fulfillment of his destiny, and it would accomplish the primary mission: sterilizing the surface of your planet. If any attempt is made to arrest him, I have no doubt that Kelkad will trigger the weapon."

"Well, then," said Dale, "our military could simply shoot Kelkad dead."

"The same device monitors his vital signs. If he dies, the weapon will be fired automatically."

"Christ," said Frank.

"Exactly."

"So, what do we do now?"

"I am not sure," said Hask. "But there is much more to this court case than simply my fate. The fate of your world hangs in the balance."

"What if the particle-beam device were disabled?" asked Frank.

"Neither Seltar nor I have the expertise to do that; it had automatically locked onto your world from the moment we entered your solar system, and we were terrified that if we meddled with its workings, we would accidentally activate it."