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lights on turned out to be the residence hall. Off the lobby, a mixed group of
young people were watching a basketball game and laughing. A young woman
with pink hair and a ring through one eyebrow was sitting nearest the door work-
ing on her nails. Darcy asked her in a low voice if she knew what room Luisa Del-
bosque was in.
You bet, she said, around the gum she was chewing. She lives down the hall
from me. I ll take you there.
They went up a flight of stairs and stopped before a door nearly covered with
things taped to it, most notably a large picture of Albert Einstein, who Darcy rec-
ognized, and another of a tweedy-looking handsome man she didn t. There were
also notes, signs, cartoons, and a set of photographs of people in various costumes
standing on a stage. Her guide pushed the door open.
Luisa was sitting on the floor with her legs under her talking with another girl
on her bed. She looked up, shrieked Oh, my God! and jumped up, hugged
Darcy, and held her at arm s length. She hugged her another time and pushed her
back again. Darcy s head swung forward and back with each push and pull.
You re all right! she exclaimed. My God, my God, we thought they d grabbed
you! Are you OK? What happened? Oh, my God! The other girl was on her feet
by now, staring at the Darcy and Luisa in wonder.
I m OK, was all Darcy could think to say.
Did they take you away? Where? How d you get away? Oh, my God!
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Al Past
35
They took me to some military base in El Paso, she answered, but they
didn t watch me very closely and I got away from them and got a ride back here.
I didn t know where else to go.
Oh, my gosh, I m so glad to see you! Darcy! You look exhausted! Did they
chase you?
I didn t see anyone after me. I don t think they know where I am. I didn t
know what else to do.
The girl who had been sitting on Luisa s bed, a tall, lean muscular black
woman, stepped forward. Why did they want you, anyway?
Luisa answered for her. You remember all those helicopters, and those people
asking questions? They were looking for Darcy!
Really? Why? What d she do?
My parents figured it was because they were Immigration and Darcy s Cana-
dian.
Canadian? the black girl snorted. Me, I m Barbadian and there ain t
nobody chasing me. I wish there was!
They d never catch you, the way you run. Actually, Immigration doesn t usu-
ally chase people with helicopters, especially not Canadians. Papa said they were
soldiers, not La Migra. Did they ever tell you why they were after you, Darcy?
It must have had something to do with me going to see that astronomer. He
must have called the soldiers. I was asking him about& about something I had
seen in the sky in Canada, and he told me I was crazy and threw me out.
That s nuts! Maybe you saw something you weren t supposed to see, like a
secret government satellite or something? Luisa looked at the pink-haired girl,
still chewing her gum, who shrugged imperceptibly.
Girl, you don t look so good, said the athlete. It was true: Darcy was
unsteady on her feet, and her eyelids were drooping. Here, sit down. You need
something to drink?
No, thank you. I just need a place to sleep tonight, and tomorrow I ll find
some place to go.
Luisa glanced at the black girl. Cheryl, you don t have a roommate this
semester, do you?
No, I don t. It s fine with me if Darcy wants to sleep in my room, long as she
doesn t snore. I got class in the morning, so you can sleep late as you want. The
housekeeper doesn t come until Wednesday. But you better not get caught by the
RA!
Darcy looked alarmed, but Luisa laughed. Don t worry about that. I m the
RA. Just keep a low profile and we ll see what happens.
Al Past
36
Cheryl chuckled. Hoo, girl! You nearly out on yo feet. Come with me. I ll
tuck you in.
The meeting room in the federal office building in El Paso was crammed with
FBI agents in suits and two female agents not in suits, but close to suits. The man
at the head of the table, Special Agent Smelly, widely suspected of a lifelong pre-
occupation with living down his name, had a sheaf of papers in front of him and
an expression of studied concern on his face. He always had that expression,
though, so no one could exactly say whether this time there was reason for it or
not.
All right, folks. Folks! Let s get down to business, please. This is an odd situa-
tion, as you ll see, but Washington is coming down hard on it and we re going to
go all out until we wrap it up. This has to do with a suspected alien that was
picked up near Fort Davis who escaped custody here in Fort Bliss and is still at
large. He paused. When I say alien, I mean a person or being possibly not
from here. From Earth, that is. Possibly not from Earth. You could have heard a
pin drop.
Reynolds, an agent close enough to retirement to not care, said I heard it was
a little blonde girl, a kid who looked like a junior high student, who spoke perfect
English and had the good sense to act scared. I can believe she was spacey, but
why would Washington think she was a space alien?
Special Agent Smelly did not bristle at this. He looked down at his papers. He
told them about the descending blip that changed course, plotted by three differ-
ent radars. He described the exhaustive search that turned up nothing except a
couple of burned spots (one of which was determined to have been a hay bale)
and an unidentified woman (apparently a woman, that is) making bizarre claims
to the head astronomer of the McDonald Observatory. And he related the wild
story she told while briefly (thanks to those Army goofballs) in custody, of being
human, but from a different solar system, and of supposedly observing Earth
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