"Benford-DoingAlien" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benford Gregory)

GREGORY BENFORD - Doing Alien

I REMEMBER HOW MITCHELL was putting the moves on some major league pussy when
the news about the aliens came in.

That Mitchell, he stopped in mid-line and cocked his big square head and said
kind of whispery, "Double dog damn." Then he went back to the little redhead he
had settled onto the stool next to his, way down at the end of the mahogany bar
at Nan's.

But I could tell he was distracted. He's the kind of fella always drawn to a
touch of weirdness. At Mardi Gras he just loved the confusion, not being able to
tell guys from gals, or who was what, the whole thing.

He left with the redhead before ten, which was pretty quick even for Mitchell.
When he's headed for the sheets there isn't much can get in Mitchell's way. But
he kept glancing over at the Alphas on the TV. Going out, he gave me the old
salute and big smile but I could tell he was thinking off somewhere, not keeping
his mind and his hands on the redhead. Which wasn't like him.

Mitchell's been my buddy since the earth's crust cooled off. I can read him
pretty well. We graduated high school about the time the dinosaurs started up
and went into farm equipment sales together when there were still a few nickels
to make in that game. I've seen Mitchell bareass in the woods howling around a
campfire, watched him pulling in six-foot tuna off the back of McKenzie's old
boat, laughed when he was drunk up to his eyeballs with a big brassy broad on
each arm and a shit ass happy grin. For sure I know him better than any of his
goddamn two ex-wives or his three kids. None of them'd recognize him on the
street, pretty near.

So when the Alphas showed up right here in Fairhope I could tell right away that
Mitchell took it funny. These Alphas come in slick as you please, special escort
in limos and all. They go down to the wharf and look at the big new Civic Center
and all, but nobody has a dime's worth of idea what they're here for.

Neither does the escort. Two suits on every Alpha, dark glasses and
shoulder-slung pistols and earplug radios and the like. You could see it plain,
the way their tight mouths twitched. They dunno from sour owl shit what to
expect next.

For sure nobody thought they'd go into Nan's. Just clank on in, look around,
babble that babble to each other, plunk down on those chrome stools.

Then they order up. Mitchell and me, we was at the other end of the bar. The
Alphas, they are ordering up and putting them down pretty quick. Nobody knows
their chemistry but they must like something in gimlets and fireballs and
twofers, cause they sure squirt them in quick.

Pretty soon there's a crowd around them. The suits stand stiff as boards, but