The Sky Eels had come much farther than M. Coopersmith would have expected in so short a time. They could sense the energies of the Remnant, detect its collected power, knowledge, history, and now, finally, its use. They had traveled across space packed inside a tiny metal capsule, ever tracking the distinctive energy signature of the Remnant, and understood, as much as their primitive brains would allow, that whichever planet they seized upon as the Remnant's home would have to be correct; for their transport capsule would be rendered useless for further travel once they emerged from it. But now they knew beyond all doubt that they had been correct: the Remnant was here, waiting for them to destroy it...and, along with it, all who stood in their way.
***
M. Coopersmith re-tied the little brown bag and hooked it to one of his belt loops. "We have to go now," he said.
And off they went.
"Mr. Coopersmith," Chris began after a few moments spent hurrying down the passageway, "I want to ask you something."
"Of course, my boy!"
"Out of all those creatures we saw, which one are you?"
"Remember the big tall blue ones?"
"That's what you really look like?"
"Similar, anyway," said M. Coopersmith.
Within minutes they had arrived at what would be their next to last portal. M. Coopersmith once again yanked it open for Chris and Samantha to pass through first, only this time he remained on the other side. "You two get on over and wait for me," he instructed them. "We're almost at the surface again."
Chris glanced down and realized the ground had an upward slope, becoming steeper as the cave went on.
Samantha said to M. Coopersmith, "What about you, though?"
"I've got my trap to set." He eyed her conspiratorially. "Here's the beauty of it. These Sky Eels are some of the hardiest, most difficult to kill creatures known. But it can be done. Those little blue lights we've used to navigate are far more than just sources of illumination. In fact, that was never really their purpose. I built them to transmit energy, lots of it! There's enough in their power cells, I think, to kill those two Sky Eels dead in their tracks. And here's something that's almost as a good. The Enemy designed the implants in their heads to self-destruct when the life functions of a Sky Eel cease. They disintegrate completely upon death. That was done to keep us from studying the technology the Enemy used to control them. I used to think it was a problem, but now I'm grateful for that feature. It means that when these two Sky Eels die, there will be no trace left of our Enemy at all. Its last foul vestiges will be wiped clean from the universe. Isn't that nice?"
"That sounds great," Chris said quickly. "I guess you should start working on it right now, huh?"
"Good idea," M. Coopersmith said, chuckling when he realized Chris was trying to get him to hurry up and do what he promised, instead of just talking about it.
M. Coopersmith disappeared back down the cave.
When Chris could no longer see him, he turned to Samantha. She half-smiled at him in the gloom, but it was a nervous, fleeting smile, almost a tic.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said back.
"Some night, huh?"
He took a cautious step forward.
"Yeah," Samantha said, "definitely some night."
"I really think we're going to be okay, though. I didn't at first...but now I do."
She nodded. "I think so too."
A long pause followed; then Chris said, "I'm sorry about all of this."
"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault."
"Actually, it is. If I had just remembered my phone, none of this would have ever happened. To us, anyway."
"Yeah, you're right," Samantha agreed. "It really is your fault."
"Thanks."
"You know what, though? I'm glad you forgot it, Chris. I'm glad we had to come back...because if we hadn't, you're right. None of this would have happened. I wouldn't have had the scariest, most amazing night of my life."
"Are you serious?"
"I'm serious. I've learned so many things tonight, all in just the last hour. I've learned about aliens and other planets and other ways of being and feeling. And I've learned about me. And you."
"What have you learned about me?"
"That you're brave. Strong. All that good stuff."
Chris felt himself blush and hoped she could not see it in the darkness of the cave. "That's nice for you to say."
"It's the truth."
Chris thought, I guess I might as well lay it all out.
"Do you know why I joined the Yearbook Committee?" he asked her quietly.
"No. Why?"
"Maybe I shouldn't tell you."
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
"No, I want to. It's just that...if we don't survive this, I don't want to die with any secrets, you know?" He paused. "I joined the Yearbook Committee so I could meet you. There. I said it."
"To meet me?"
"Yeah. I really liked you and I wanted to find a way to spend time with you. And this was it."
"But we didn't even meet until you joined."
"Well, you hadn't met me. But I had sort of met you. More like seen you around, actually. But that was all it took, I guess. I just wanted to get to know you better. Stupid, right?"
"No."
"Look, I know you've got a boyfriend and it probably wouldn't work anyway, so don't worry. If we live..."
"Stop saying that. We're going to live."
"Yeah, well, either way, I won't bother you afterwards. I'll leave you alone."
"Chris," Samantha began, "if you ignore me after all this, I'm going to be really mad at you."
"You are?"
"Yep. Really, really mad. Because we're gonna be friends, Chris, you and me. You're right that I've got a boyfriend, but no matter what else happens, you're going to be a part of my life from now on. Do you hear me?"
"Yeah." He averted his eyes.
"Look at me, Chris. Do you hear me?"
He met her gaze and smiled. "I hear you."
"Good. Don't forget it."
"All right!" M. Coopersmith hooted as he climbed through the aperture. He had arrived so softly that his return gave the two teenagers quite a start. "The trap is set."
Chris and Samantha came forward.
"And this'll do it, you think?" Chris asked. "This'll kill them?"
"Oh, yes," M. Coopersmith promised. "They'll be dead as doornails. And the Remnant will be safe, and I'll be on my way to my new home, and the two of you will be asleep in your beds by midnight. Things will be absolutely fine."
"Good," Chris said. "So we can go now?"
A humming noise filled the air. Then the dark earth surrounding them began to vibrate.
"Yes," M. Coopersmith said to Chris and Samantha. "I think that would be a very good idea."
***
The Sky Eels halted. Up and down the length of the passageway the blue lights were pulsing, brighter each time, almost flashing. The creatures felt heat on their skin, first only uncomfortable, but growing steadily more painful...
***
The merciless incline of the cave floor made the trio's walk difficult. M. Coopersmith showed no sign of flagging, but Chris and Samantha, frightened though they were, kept falling back. Each time it happened, though, M. Coopersmith would reach out and gently pull forward whichever one they were leaving behind, so that both kids stayed even with him.
The shaking of the ground was getting worse. Clumps of dirt began to fall around them.
"What's happening?" Samantha asked M. Coopersmith.
"I've deactivated the systems that kept the caves intact. Within a few minutes they should collapse entirely on themselves. There's no need for them anymore, now that I've got the Remnant and we're on our way out. And it wouldn't do at all, you know, for people to be poking around in here after I leave."
"No, I guess not," Chris said, trying to catch his breath.
"Funny. It took me a century to dig these caves," remarked M. Coopersmith as they neared the end of the passage, "but only a few minutes to destroy them. Good riddance, though." He chuckled. "Who ever heard of caves in coastal Georgia, anyway?"
***
The two Sky Eels were in agony. Both were attempting to plunge ahead, but the pain from the invisible energy field now saturating the caves made it impossible for them to navigate. One of the Sky Eels became blind, ran into the collapsing cave wall. It tried to extricate itself, but failed; black earth rained down on its writhing, shimmering body. Its partner was similarly disoriented, though faring better physically.
***
The passageway terminated at a narrow ladder, going directly up. M. Coopersmith led Chris and Samantha to the base of it, and Chris noted that the ladder was about ten feet high, ending at an aluminum hatch above them.
"Go ahead, Christopher," M. Coopersmith ordered. "Use that strong back of yours to get the thing lifted. Samantha, you follow once he's got the hatch open. I'll keep watch just in case."
Suddenly there was a screech from farther back in the tunnel, followed by a loud blast. Chris, about to clamber up, froze.
"Hear that? One of the Sky Eels just blew up. That's one down," said M. Coopersmith, grinning. "The other should follow any minute."
Chris nodded, began to climb.
"Any minute now," M. Coopersmith said again, softly.
But there was only silence.
Reaching the top of the ladder, Chris strained to push the hatch open. It took some doing, but he got it. He shoved the hatch off and thrilled in the ambience of the moon and the bracing chill of the autumn air.
"Come on, Samantha," he called down to her, and then hauled himself onto the surface.
"Where are we?" Samantha asked as she came up the ladder.
But the bright moon made it easy to see.
"We're at the port," Chris told her, reaching down to give her a hand. She took his assistance gratefully.
After Chris had helped Samantha get above ground again, the pair took stock of where M. Coopersmith's tunnel had brought them. It was the industrial park adjacent to the Port of Summerville, about one hundred acres that had been cleared for distribution facilities, manufacturing plants, and whatever other business ventures the city fathers could bring. About five hundred yards away, visible between piles of industrial components and debris, were the dark blue waters of the SummervilleRiver, a grand body shimmering under the moon's gentle gaze on its way to join with the Atlantic. Behind Chris and Samantha lay railroad tracks, a few newly-built warehouses, and vacant, grassy land. M. Coopersmith's hatch had been secreted away in a vast bed of weeds.
"We must have come two miles underground," Samantha marveled, scanning the area. "At least two miles."
M. Coopersmith finally joined them topside. "Ah!" He took a deep breath. "Well, looks like we made it."
"The other Sky Eel," Chris said. "Is it dead too?"
"It will be soon, I'm sure." M. Coopersmith stared up at the night sky. That sky was pregnant with starlight, no clouds in sight. "Lovely," he said.
Chris glanced down at the hole from which they had just emerged and saw that it was rapidly closing in on itself, dirt filling the empty space. They had barely made it out in time.
"So it's over," he said to M. Coopersmith. "Now we just wait for your friends to get here, right?"
"That's right," M. Coopersmith said. "It shouldn't be but a few minutes more. You two can even go home now if you'd like, although I do think you'd both enjoy seeing our spacecraft when it arrives."
"So what you're saying," Samantha responded, "is that you'd like for us to stay with you until they get here."
"Very much so," said M. Coopersmith.
She looked at Chris. "Want to?"
Chris nodded. "Yeah, I would. I've never seen a UFO before."
"Oh, believe me, you'll like ours," M. Coopersmith told him. "It's pretty snazzy."
"Snazzy, huh?"
M. Coopersmith blinked. "People don't say that anymore?"
"I don't hear it much."
"Ah. Well, look, since we have a few moments, I thought there was something we could do to pass the time. That is, if you're both open to the idea."
Samantha began, "What exactly do you...?"
"I had told you that, in our normal form, my species doesn't communicate the way that yours does, what with using vocal cords to shape air into words and so forth. But we do have a way of communicating with one another, and, if it all possible, I'd like to try it with the two of you. I've met a lot of people in Summerville over the last hundred years or so, but I've never made any real friends. I couldn't afford to, you see, because there was too great a risk of my identity being exposed. Now, though, it doesn't matter. You two know all the essential things about me, but here at the end, I thought maybe we could take a moment to get better acquainted."
"What does this involve?" Samantha asked him.
"Yeah," Chris said, "I mean, I have no idea what do you want us to do?"
"When two of my kind communicate with one another, Chris, we don't do talk to each other. Instead, to put it simply, we become each other." He tapped his right temple. "We join our minds together, and, for a brief moment, we allow ourselves to become a single being. I would like to join with the two of you, and to have you two also join with each other."
"But I may not want you guys to see inside my head," Samantha replied, voice cautious. "No offense."
"I completely agree," said Chris.
"You needn't be concerned about that," replied M. Coopersmith. "The joining isn't complete. You join with your partner or partners only as much as you allow. It works exactly the same way as carrying on a verbal conversation. You reveal what you choose to reveal and nothing more."
Chris considered for a moment. Then he said, "All right. I'll do it."
"You'll keep everything confidential, right?" Samantha said to Chris.
"Sure I will. What are you looking just at me for, though?"
"Because Mr. Coopersmith is going to another planet. I don't have to worry about him telling all my secrets in school."
"You'll still have all your secrets after this, Samantha," said M. Coopersmith. "Trust me."
"Okay," Samantha sighed.
"Come a little closer together," M. Coopersmith urged them, "so I can easily reach both of you."
Nervously, the two teenagers did as they were told.
M. Coopersmith then held out his hands. With his right hand, he cupped Chris' head; with his left, Samantha's.
"And now," he said, "just relax."
Chris closed his eyes; he didn't will himself to do so, it just happened. He closed his eyes and fell asleep, even as he continued to stand there.
The words belonged to M. Coopersmith, but Chris heard them in his own voice, in his own thoughts: "It's a long time that I've stayed here, a long time spent watching this town and its people, and I must say that at the start, as I told you before, I had very little interest in being a part of this place. But after awhile all you people just wore me down. There was no need for me to buy that building. I did it for the sake of the parades. Bridgewell is a big street for parades in Summerville. The Homecoming Parades, the Memorial Day and Veterans Day Parades, and all of them I watched from the windows of my office, unless it was a year that ended in zero, on which occasion I would walk outside to watch it in person, waving a little American flag on the patriotic holidays, so that I could feel a part, in the smallest way, of the world around me, a world that was not my own, in a town that was not my own, yet a world and a town that had welcomed me, made me feel I was a part of it..."
And now Chris heard words that were his, but spoken in the voice of M. Coopersmith: "I had a dog named Buster and he was my best friend, even though I had other kids I claimed to be best friends with, but they weren't my real best friends and I wasn't their best friend either. Maybe we were good friends, but the thing about Buster that made him my real best friend was that, no matter what, he was always glad to see me. Whatever I wanted to do, he wanted to do. And sometimes I was mean to him, or I ignored him, or didn't treat him well, but each and every time he forgave me, and was ready to be my best friend again. And when he had to be put down, I cried really hard in front of my parents and the veterinarian because I knew I had lost my best friend forever."
Samantha's words now, but in Chris' voice: "When I was a little girl I used to go to my grandmother's house and I loved to sit down in front of her dresser and put on her costume jewelry and some makeup and then walk around the house with my jewelry and makeup and let everybody see me and my grandmother thought it was the funniest thing but I actually thought I was a beautiful, like a princess or a queen, until one day I walked into the living room on Thanksgiving, when we had all gathered at her house, and it just so happened that my older cousin, Denise, who must have been about sixteen or so, told me I looked like a prostitute and I knew what that word meant and I tried to laugh but I started to cry and I ran out of the room and into my grandmother's room and my grandmother followed me and she dried my eyes and said, 'Darling, your mascara's running,' and then she hugged me and laughed and I couldn't help it but I started to laugh too."
Samantha's voice now; again, the words of M. Coopersmith: "When at last I leave this place, I will feel a great emptiness. I stayed human for so long that, in the process, I think a part of me has become human. I never fought that, and perhaps I should have fought it but it wasn't a fight worth winning. When I go home, I will be different from the others. They would call me an alien here on Earth, but will I not be alien, in some regards, when I am back among my own? Funny, how geography and those who inhabit that geography can affect, even shape, one who is not native to it. I am ashamed to say so, but in some ways I fear returning to my own civilization."
The voice of M. Coopersmith; Samantha's words: "A lot of times I feel like all I do is perform for other people. It's been that way from the beginning: first dance lessons, and then piano lessons, and recitals, and everyone telling me how good I did but lately I've started to think, 'Why?' Why did they make do all these things? Was it for me? Was it for my own good? Okay, maybe it was good for me, I don't know, but why so many things? And when do I get a break? I mean, now it's the drama club and the journalism club and the yearbook committee, but who is all this for? Can it only be for me, or was it just because my last name was Gibbons and a Gibbons girl had to be tops at everything and I was never supposed to have a choice, I had to perform, I had to excel and be as close to perfect as I could possibly be."
And, last, Chris' words, spoken in Samantha's voice: "What is it that I'm doing wrong? I feel like ever since I went past thirteen years of age everybody has been after me. It's not like I get into trouble. It's not like I'm disrespectful or mean. But whenever I do something wrong, no matter how small, I feel like people come down on me so hard. What did I do? I tried to be funny and maybe I said something I shouldn't have; maybe I don't want to go out and rake leaves, or make my bed as soon I get up, and suddenly I'm a juvenile delinquent. I mean, what is it about me? Is it the way I look, or talk? I'm just trying to make it here, okay? I'm just trying to make it."
M. Coopersmith removed his hands from the heads of the two teenagers. Chris opened his eyes, saw Samantha open hers as well. He looked at M. Coopersmith.
"How was it?" M. Coopersmith asked them.
"Different," Chris said.
"Strange," Samantha replied. "But...not bad." She looked at Chris, smiled at him. "Not bad at all."
"Good," said M. Coopersmith. "I thought it would be helpful for all of us to get to know each other a little better, especially the two of you."
"Why us?" Samantha asked him.
M. Coopersmith shifted on his feet, put his hands behind his back. "I'm going to say something completely inappropriate," he said.
"I'm not sure if I want to hear this," Samantha said.
"Me neither," Chris seconded.
"No, it's nothing bad. It's just that I eavesdropped on your conversation earlier and I actually think the two of you would make a lovely couple, if you just got a little more familiar with each other. The heck with being friends." He tickled Chris' chin. "I mean, look at this face!"
Chris jerked his head away from M. Coopersmith's hand, but he found himself chuckling afterward at this odd and exuberant alien, so human yet so not human. He looked at Samantha and saw that she was smiling too, at both of them.
"I'll think about it," she told M. Coopersmith.
"Good. That's all I can ask."
Suddenly the ground jerked beneath their feet: a sharp, violent tremor.
"Was that the caves still falling in?" Chris asked M. Coopersmith.
"No. That would have been over by now."
"So what is it, then?"
Another tremor.
Something bad was happening. Chris could tell by the grim look on M. Coopersmith's face.
"I'm afraid I might have been a little too optimistic about my trap," said M. Coopersmith. "I didn't want to say anything before, but in the back of my mind I was concerned there might have been some deterioration in the power cells. I still thought there would be enough to kill both of them, but apparently I only got one. And now it's burrowing its way to the surface, which means I'll have to deal...directly, let's say."
Chris' mouth opened, but it was Samantha who spoke first: "So now what do we do?"
M. Coopersmith untied the bag that held the Remnant. "Take this and run to the bank of the river. Our ship will be here soon. In the meantime, I'll handle the Sky Eel."
"What if your people think we're hostile?" Chris asked him. "Like we're trying to destroy the Remnant instead of protect it?"
"They won't think that," M. Coopersmith replied. "They can detect hostility and warmth and a million other emotions in human beings. You'll be fine."
"What about you?"
"I'll be fine too," said M. Coopersmith. "Now hurry on, both of you. I'll catch up as soon as I can."
Chris and Samantha, who held the bag close to her chest, turned to run. But just as they started off, M. Coopersmith called out, "Children?"
They stopped, looked back at him.
M. Coopersmith bowed to them, a wide grin on his face. "Thank you both," he said, "for a splendid evening."
Chris and Samantha, despite their fear, found themselves grinning back at M. Coopersmith. Then, for the third time, they felt the earth move beneath them, and once more took off running; took off running through a maze of scrap metal, steel pilings, lumber, and discarded railroad ties on toward the SummervilleRiver, with its vast waters shining darkly in the moonlight.