I’d seen people die on television, of course—sometimes in made-up stories, sometimes on the news. Let me tell you, it’s not the same as seeing it happen, not the same as actually watching people shoot each other, watching flesh rip and blood spurt as men, women, and children fall, never to rise again.
Not the same at all.
As I stared at the battle I remembered Broxholm telling me that it had been over three thousand years since any other intelligent species in the galaxy had had a war, and I understood why the aliens were so frightened of us.
I glanced at my friend. His skin, usually a deep lime-green, was an off-yellow that told me he felt very ill.
“Perhaps it would be better to put an end to this,” he whispered, his voice thick with sorrow. “We cannot allow such a sickness to escape into the galaxy at large.”
I understood what he meant. Trying not to cry, I watched as Duncan, his face grim, pressed his poot against his shoulder. I remembered him telling me that he had never been allowed to have a teddy bear, because his father thought it would make him a sissy. I wished I had brought Murgatroyd; I could have used something to hold onto myself.
Another round of gunfire shook the air beneath us. More blood, more screams. Suddenly Susan grabbed my arm. “What’s he doing?” she whispered.
Looking in the direction she pointed, I saw a man crawling across the line of fire. Then I spotted his goal. He was trying to rescue a boy, not much older than me, who had been wounded and couldn’t get away from the fighting.
It was terrible to watch. I felt my muscles begin to tense, as if somehow I could lend the man strength. Nearer he crept, and nearer. Then, when he was less than a yard from the boy, a bomb landed. Mud erupted into the air.
Man and boy were gone.
I could feel Susan shaking. “We didn’t even know which side they were on! Were they good guys or bad guys?”
I closed my eyes, unable to answer.
Susan turned to Kreeblim. “Please take us out of here.”
“We can go,” said Kreeblim. “But it won’t end the battle.”
Our next stop was in South America. The aliens flew us over a vast section of charred, black land, where smoke curled from the remains of fallen trees. My first thought was that this was the aftermath of some enormous forest fire.
“I can’t believe people are so careless,” I muttered.
“Careless?” asked Broxholm. “This was no accident.”
Then he explained that we were looking at a section of Amazon rain forest that had been burned to clear grazing land for cattle.
“You seem to be at war against the planet itself,” said Kreeblim after she had shown us a Russian river thick with poisonous chemicals and an American forest brown from acid rain. The tone in her voice told me she found the idea almost impossible to understand. “It’s as if there is some secret rage in your species, some hidden pain that is driving you to destroy the things around you.”
Broxholm echoed her confusion. “To treat your planet this way—it’s like being at war with your own body.”
Susan, Duncan, and I were silent. What could we say?
Moments later we were flying above Africa. Kreeblim shielded the ship so that it could not be seen. As she brought it down for a landing, Broxholm pulled three small chains from a compartment located beneath the control panel. From each chain dangled a metal sphere. One by one, he hung the chains over our heads. Then he took a small box from the same compartment. It had a yellow button on the top.
Broxholm pushed the button.
“Hey!” cried Duncan. “Where did everyone go?”
I laughed. It didn’t take Duncan long to see (or not see, so to speak) his mistake.
“Oh, wow! We’re invisible! How did you do that?”
“You can access the technical details through the computer in Kreeblim’s house,” said Broxholm. “Peter will show you how.”
I started to object, then realized I didn’t really mind showing Duncan how to get into the computer.
“We want to go up close for this observation,” said Kreeblim, “and we want to do it unseen. However, we also need to be able to communicate. Broxholm, if you would refocus us for a moment . . .”
Suddenly we were all visible again.
“Take one of these,” said Kreeblim, handing each of us a V-shaped strap. The straps had small, squishy balls at their upper ends, and dime-sized circles made of some sticky fabric at the bottom. “Tuck the receivers into your ears,” she said, demonstrating with her own strap, “then attach the transmitter to your throat.”
The balls were the receivers, the sticky patch was the transmitter. I pressed the patch lightly against my throat and felt it stick to my skin.
“These will let us speak to each other without being heard by anyone else,” said Kreeblim. “The slide on the right strap sets the volume at which you hear what we say. Start at about halfway, then adjust it as you please. Tap the throat patch twice to turn the device on, three times to turn it off.”
After we had fiddled with our devices a bit, I heard Kreeblim ask, “How does this sound?”
I blinked. She had moved her lips in silence. Yet her words came clearly through the little receivers in my ears.
“If you whisper without speaking aloud, the throat patch will pick up the vibrations and broadcast them,” Broxholm explained.
“LIKE THIS?” asked Duncan.
I felt as if someone had bellowed directly in my ear.
Broxholm flinched, and closed his eyes in pain. “No, not like that!” he whispered fiercely.
Duncan looked crushed. He started to apologize, then stopped, afraid of messing up again.
“Remove the patch from your throat,” said Kreeblim.
Duncan did as she instructed.
“All of you,” she said, looking at me and Susan.
We did the same thing.
“I should have given you a chance to practice first,” said Kreeblim. “It’s not really your fault, Duncan.”
He nodded, but I could tell he felt bad anyway. It was kind of sad. The old Duncan would have thought what he had just done was funny.
Or would he?
Suddenly I realized he might simply have pretended to think it was funny. I wondered if Duncan had always been sensitive about his mistakes.
“Try to speak without letting any sound come out,” said Broxholm.
We all practiced for a bit. When we thought we had it right, they let us reattach the throat patches.
“How’s this?” I asked, in a voice softer than a whisper.
Kreeblim smiled and nodded. “Just right,” she replied directly in my ear.
We practiced a little longer, then stepped from the ship, invisible and silent. I gasped. If fimflits had made my tongue think it had died and gone to heaven, what I saw now made my heart feel like it had died and gone to hell.