Flight Lieutenant Verges was on the longest solo flight of her career. Her Harrier carried no ordinance, but its belly was loaded with cameras. Pago Pago would be her final refueling stopover en route to the Royal Navy carrier Ark Royal, and her commander had given her full permission to offend the Americans, if needed, to complete her mission.
“RAF 467 this is Pago Pago. Abort approach. Unsafe runway,” the air traffic controller responded to her request to land. “Abort approach. Redirect to alternate, Apia, Western Samoa.”
“This is inbound RAF Harrier 467, scheduled arrival for refueling. I don’t require a runway. Request permission for vertical landing.” Verges now had an excellent view of the pair of runways at Tafuna, the lagoon they sided, the nearby neighborhoods, and the mountains farther back.
“RAF 467, go around. Unsafe runway. We have an unsafe runway. Reroute to Apia.”
Verges flew over the runway forty feet off the tarmac and slowed the Harrier to a hover-stop in front of the terminal, shooting panoramic footage of the entire area to fulfill her orders. “Pago Pago this RAF 467, requesting permission for vertical landing.”
Her conversation was interrupted by a pair of F-18 Hornets overflying the runway so close to the speed of sound that their tails vanished into shock collars of vapor drawn from the air by the pressure drop. Verges transmitted her footage via satellite link as the F-18s rose and turned in formation. There were four more Hornets on the tarmac, along with two C-17s, and a stratotanker.
“Pago Pago, please advise,” Verges said. There was a long pause and visible movement in the ground patrol on the fence line. A pair of HumVees, likely brought in on a C-17, were turning toward the terminal. The tail numbers on the C-17 closest to the hangar were familiar, and Verges decided to land alongside it, regardless of whether permission was forthcoming.
“RAF 467, this is Pago Pago. Permission granted.”
“Thank you, Pago Pago. RAF 467 descending.” She chose a suitably offensive landing site and brought the Harrier down, continuing to taxi alongside the C-17. The stance of her armed welcoming committee suggested that the Americans were unhappy with her arrival. Having guns pointed at her was always worth a little adrenaline. She ran through her shutdown checklist, and then released the canopy, guiding it back with one hand. Climbing from the cockpit, she recognized the career C-17 crewman from Whidbey Island.
“It’s a small world,” she said.
“I understand you’re here to refuel,” he said. “Access to this airfield is presently restricted. You will remain with your aircraft.”
“Understood. Is Lyndie here, too?” she asked.
“Excuse me?” He was too surprised to keep all recognition from his face.
“Lyndie Hume,” she said. “I dropped him off at Whidbey. He flew out on your C-17.”
“You’re mistaken,” he answered. “I’m Sergeant Pollock. The fuel truck is coming. You’ll be on your way shortly.”
“I’m Verges,” Verges said. “I think you remember me.”
“Get back in your bird,” Pollock said flatly.
Verges held his glare until the staring contest was broken by an urgent voice from Pollock’s radio. “Subject moving. All personnel, the subject has left the hangar door. Observe and report.”
The soldiers by the hanger had snapped to attention.
“What’s…?” Verges didn’t finish her question — she couldn’t — because something stuck its head out of the hangar door behind Pollock. Its bright colors made her think of tropical birds, but it was an altogether different creature. It clambered through the door on four limbs that bent in odd directions.
“Guns down. Give it space,” Pollock said, loud and even.
The creature had spiky blue skin. The spikes had reddish roots and its joints shared that rusty red shade. Its eyes were bright yellow. It crept toward the Harrier on all fours, its manner inquisitive. “Is that…?”
“An alien, yeah,” Pollock answered.
“What do we do?”
Pollock lifted his radio. “Distant observer. Dewey? Do you see this?”
“Got it.” Dewey reported the position of the creature in feet from the door, his voice traveling through multiple open radios. As it closed on Verges, he added proximity to the Harrier to his litany.
It reached out and touched the bottom rung of the ladder to the Harrier’s cockpit. Verges realized that she should have moved much sooner. “We can’t let it—”
“Stay where you are,” Pollock responded. “Stay calm.”
The creature started climbing and Verges had to act. She approached with her hands raised. “Stop. Please stop,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
The bright sun made it hard to look at the creature and Verges froze when it turned to face her. Her eyes were watering. She ducked as it leapt to the tarmac, its joints lightly clicking as it spread the force easily through its fingertips. Shifting onto its hind legs, it beckoning her with a rippling of its odd split fingers then retreated to the hanger door and raised its fingers again.
“Is it…?” she asked.
“I think so,” Pollock answered.
“What do I do?”
“It wants you to go into the hangar. I want it to go into the hangar. You’re going into the hangar.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Fuck if I know,” Pollock replied. “Follow it.”
Verges took one step. The creature seemed satisfied. It curled its fingers again and proceeded to the door from which it had come. Pollock’s distant observer now relayed both the alien’s position and hers. She kept a healthy distance between them. The soldiers surrounded the open doorway as she walked through it.
A compact twin-engine navy supply plane was parked in the hanger. Two weathered wooden porch chairs were set near it, and the creature led her to them. A soldier sat in one of the wooden chairs, his profession obvious despite his relaxed posture and lack of uniform. A second blue alien was near his feet, crouched attentively by a man lying on the floor. It was her former passenger, Lyndie Hume. He was better dressed, more bruised and still wearing his sandals.
While the creatures fixed their strikingly colored eyes on Hume, Verges was watched by the other occupants of the room. Soldiers stood in each corner and a stout man lingered in a distant office doorway. No one seemed alarmed by Hume’s condition. They all watched and waited.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He’s resting,” the man in the chair answered.
The two aliens fell back a few steps and looked at her with clear expectation. Actually, their eyes swiveled from her to the object of their concern. She approached cautiously, knelt and gently placed a hand on Hume’s shoulder.
“Lyndie?”
“You know him?”
“He was my passenger.”
“You’re that Harrier pilot? Funny.”
“Funny?”
“Funny-strange,” he said.
She wrapped her fingers around Lyndie’s wrist. His pulse was strong and steady. There were sweat stains on his blue dress shirt. When she pressed the back of her hand to his face, checking his temperature, he shifted beneath her touch. “What’s going on?”
“He’s asleep. Sedated.”
“Why?”
“Collective idiocy,” the fellow answered matter-of-factly. “I’m Sergeant Malone.”
“Flight Lieutenant Verges, Royal Air Force,” she said. “They’re staring at me.”
“They do that,” Malone said. “And some people see things. Do you see anything unusual?”
“Two aliens,” Verges said. “What do they want?”
“We don’t know.”
“I mean, right now. It brought me in here.”
“Maybe Estlin will tell us when he’s feeling better.” Malone stood and stretched. The natural gesture seemed out of place. “Do you mind watching them? I’ll be right back.”
“Wait! Are they—?” She stood.
“Mostly harmless,” he said.
The aliens stood on their hind legs and tipped their heads simultaneously, watching her closely. Verges hesitated, then sat. The aliens settled, nodding again towards Lyndie.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Think happy thoughts,” Malone suggested as he walked away. “They can read minds.”
* * *
Tie line in hand, Jeanette stepped onto the dock. A woman sunbathing on a nearby yacht watched as Harry eased the Zodiac into the last berth in the row. Jeanette tied off the lines, and Harry joined her on the dock, slinging the bag of radio gear over his shoulder.
“French,” Harry said, glancing at the yacht as they left the dock. “We aren’t the first ones here.”
Jeanette agreed. The yacht was similar to the one she’d seen in Wellington. She followed Harry to the road, trying to get a sense of the place. Canneries and reservoirs for water and oil were set into the mountain across the harbor. The peak dwarfed the fishing vessels at anchor. The houses had wide porches and fishing nets spread across the lawns. A white church was the most striking building on the lane. A rosette of stained glass above the entry way was framed by two tall rectangular towers. The indistinct words of a hymn, sung by an untrained mix of voices guided by a piano, floated through the open windows to join the cries of the seagulls. The realization that it was Sunday triggered a far stronger sense of displacement for Jeanette than stands of palm trees and the rugged green mountains surrounding them.
“What now?” she asked. “Rent a car?”
“I’ll find a cab.” Harry pointed up the street. “There’s a bank.”
Harry hung back as Jeanette went to the bank machine. As she withdrew her limit, she found herself glancing at the dark panel of glass through which the security camera stared. She turned away, folded the bills into her pocket and emerged to find Harry had wandered down the street and was conversing with the driver of a white and yellow cab.
“I found us a ride.” Harry said. “Fofo this is Jeanette.”
Fofo opened the door for her. The interior of the cab was worn but colorful. The radio was throwing cheery music through the windows. “Where can I take you, Jeanette?”
“The airport,” she said.
“Why do you want to go?” Fofo asked. “Harry says you just got here.”
“I’m just planning ahead,” she said. “I think this flight’s going to cost me.”
“The airport is closed,” Fofo answered.
“I’ll look at the flight schedule if I can’t book a ticket,” Jeanette said.
“Closed is closed, love,” Fofo answered. “I won’t waste your money. There’s no one can help you there today.”
“Can we hire you for the morning?” Harry asked. “To tour us around?”
“This I can do,” Fofo answered. “All morning if you like, but I run my Gramma home from church at one.”
“Perfect,” Jeanette said. “I’d still like to stop at the airport and ask when it will re-open.”
“Part of the tour.” Fofo started the cab.
“Is there a scenic look-out near there?” Harry asked.
Fofo rattled off their immediate options as they wound southward. Jeanette realized the advantage they’d gained for abandoning the independence and privacy a rented car would have offered.
“We should pick up lunch. For all of us,” Harry added.
“There’s a KFC out by the airport,” Fofo suggested.
The coastal highway offered a series of spectacular views. Jeanette found herself trying to look around every curve, waiting to see the airfield. The windows of the cab were all cranked down, but the air flowing in was hot. There were clusters of pedestrians wearing white shirts that gleamed in the sun. Finally, they got their view. In the distance, a matched pair of military transport planes squatted next to a hangar that was well removed from the main terminal building.
At the turn off, a red squirrel was bounding along the roadside. It had tufts of fur on the tips of its ears. Jeanette tapped Harry’s knee and pointed at it. They were going the right way, but they didn’t get far. The next turn was blocked by orange pylons spread across both lanes in front of a white truck with a security decal on the side of it.
As they pulled up, a Samoan the size of a linebacker got out of the truck. He ambled over to the cab, hitching his thumb on a belt that was weighted with a radio and holstered weapon. “Airport’s closed.”
“Liufau, why are you way out here?” Fofo asked.
“Because this is where I am. The airport’s closed.”
“I told them,” Fofo answered, pointing to his passengers. “You going to open tomorrow?”
“Don’t know.” Liufau leaned over into the back passenger window to address Harry and Jeanette. “The runway was damaged. Fixing it wasn’t too bad, but they have to bring in a special inspector. Nobody knows when he’s coming yet. See those big birds? You’ll know when the airport’s open because you’ll see them taking off. While they’re stuck, you’re stuck. That’s just the way it goes.”
“And everybody gets a holiday, except you?” Fofo asked.
“I’m not complaining,” Liufau answered. “I’m getting double time to park out here and turn you around. Go on, Fofo, and don’t come back.”
“Got it.” Fofo restarted the cab and turned it back onto the highway. “There’s nothing wrong with the runway. My cousin’s a paver. I can tell you for sure it’s not that. It’s a military exercise. A slew of Hornets buzzed us last night. They rattled my Gram’s windows. Most of them went over to Ofu. Eat in or take out?”
“Drive through,” Harry said. “We should eat somewhere scenic.”
“Most times, you can walk the beach by the airport right out to the point, but maybe not today. If I take you to the ridge, you’ll get a view of the lagoon.”
Jeanette knew a view of the lagoon meant a view of the runway.
“Sounds good,” Harry said.
* * *
“Do we know when he’ll wake?” Sergeant Malone asked.
“Within an hour,” Commander Fleckman responded. “We could force it now if we had to.”
“Better to wait,” Malone said, satisfied with the time-line. “Someone’s going to have to apologize to him.”
“Feel free,” Fleckman replied.
“It won’t mean anything coming from me,” Malone said. “What do we do about the pilot? Strange to have that RAF pilot turn up here.”
“I think the Brits are pressing all their assets into service,” Fleckman said. “They wanted a look at the facilities here and got lucky with the timing. If we were on schedule, she would have missed us. When the Ark Royal calls, we’ll tell them that their pilot collapsed with heatstroke shortly after landing.”
“It beckoned her,” Malone said. “Those were some of the most humanistic gestures we’ve seen.”
“They do have a way of getting what they want,” Fleckman answered. “I need to know more about Professor Sanford and his history with Hume.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were on the flight to Wellington together — your flight.”
“The request to get a physicist to Wellington came to us because of the lack of commercial seats,” Malone explained. “We knew that having a civilian aboard would help us sell the paperwork we wanted Hume to sign.”
“But you chose Sanford.”
“We got a short list of suitable academics in Washington State. Sanford was closest and a widower. He was our best bet, but I had a man pursuing the nearest alternate.”
“It’s too coincidental,” Fleckman answered, “that the man with the right theory would be on your flight.”
“Are his ideas that different?”
“Did Hume and Sanford talk? Are we getting a delusion-driven echo of theories presented to Hume before he even met the aliens?”
“He doesn’t have the background to generate these equations,” Sergeant Malone answered. “They were tutoring him on the carrier, starting from the absolute basics.”
“It could be entirely subconscious,” Fleckman suggested. “Hume could be working within the only theoretical framework he has to describe the phenomenon, thereby giving it elevated importance.”
“I understand your reasoning,” Malone said, “but it’s not my instinct.”
* * *
Dark forms slid across a forbidding landscape, pressing one by one through walls of blinding heat. The burning earth forced Estlin to his feet. He was standing before he was awake, and falling before he could open his eyes. Hands caught him, but could only guide his fall, and he landed on a girl. He knew it was a girl because she had a certain shape and made a certain sound and held him a certain way when he tried to get up again.
“Lyndie?” She spoke his name with an accent he trusted and kept talking until he settled bonelessly in the shade. He took a second to find his own senses, stop seeing heat, and realize that shade did not make his haven cool.
“Lyndie?”
“Yeah?” He was encouraged to slide to the floor.
“Do you have your brain now?” Verges said it kindly, her hand on his cheek to help him focus.
He tried to work through the confusion of her presence, but the questions piled into each other.
“Huh?” His brain squashed all fine structure from the query, but Verges got it.
“I’m surprised to see you, too,” she said.
He looked at the familiar rafters. He was still in the hangar, the Waes were above him and Sergeant Malone leaned into view. Estlin’s feelings on that were mixed, so he let his eyes slide back to Verges. Her brown hair fell in layers that complimented the shape of her face. It was a little longer than he’d thought, having assumed that all military barbers were butchers. “How’d you get here?”
“I have a plane.” Verges kept it simple. “What happened?”
Estlin didn’t know where to start. “I was…uh…they…” He pointed at the rafters, where the waetapu were swinging jubilantly amongst the structural beams. He didn’t know what to say about them and let his gesture drop to the Greyhound. He pointed roughly at it with a loose open hand because articulating his fingers was too much trouble. “I flew. And then they….” He scraped a hand across the back of his neck. There was nothing there. “My brain is full of mud. When did you…?”
“Not long,” Verges answered. “Your face is bruised.”
“He hit me.”
“I was careful,” Malone responded.
“Careful.” Estlin rubbed his neck again. “You said you’d protect me.”
Malone crouched next to Estlin, gently tugged his hand aside and checked the back of his neck. “It’s a little red,” he said. “I pulled those things off right away, but you were already on your way out.”
“Liev doesn’t care if I suffer collateral damage,” Estlin said. “Respond to the threat.”
“She got the message. The critters came down,” Malone said. “They were guarding you. No translation required.”
“They climbed back into the rafters a few minutes ago,” Verges added.
Malone straightened. “Need anything?”
Estlin’s brain stalled. He couldn’t muster himself to demand a phone. Verges had come with a plane, and he wanted to lie exactly where he was and admire the view. I need a pillow, he thought. He apparently thought it loudly, or said it, because Verges pulled off her olive green flight jacket and folded it into a bundle. She slipped it under his head.
“I’ll tell them you’re awake,” Malone said.
Estlin knew he was something more than awake. “Unhappy,” he said. “Awake and unhappy. I had bad dreams, Malone.”
“He’s gone,” Verges said.
Estlin thought that she had really pretty cheekbones. “I have bad dreams, and maybe they have bad dreams.” He pointed at the rafters.
Verges followed his gesture. “Is that a squirrel?”
“Aliens,” Estlin answered.
“Next to the aliens.”
Estlin knew she was right. His brain was getting a little less muddy and there was definitely a squirrel up there. The waetapu were aware of the squirrel, but weren’t interacting with it. From the squirrel’s perspective, while the waetapu were trying to look like martens, they were definitely not martens. The squirrel was ignoring the pair of not-martens from a safe distance because it had come to see the shiny one.
Estlin decided to lie back and be shiny.
* * *
There was an old picnic table at the lookout. Fofo had parked and carried the food to it. Harry stood on the bench seat to take in the wider landscape. The view was incredibly scenic, but ultimately not as good as he’d hoped. From this angle, the terminal building hid much of the hangar and aircraft beyond it.
Jeanette was sitting with Fofo, and struggling with a leg of greasy chicken.
“You don’t like it?” Fofo asked.
“I’ve been traveling with vegetarians,” she said.
“Poor thing,” Fofo answered. “No wonder you’re so skinny.”
Harry glanced at his companion, considering the Samoan’s opinion. To him, Jeanette was the perfect curvy weight.
The terminal and hangars obstructed the view, but they could see the runways where they projected out along the far edge of the lagoon, and the tail fins of the largest aircraft rose above the buildings.
“Is that a hotel?” Harry asked.
“Expensive,” Fofo responded.
“But close to the airport,” Harry said. “Maybe we’ll go there next.”
“I thought you had a boat?”
“I’d love a bath and big bed,” Harry answered. He looked further up the mountain. “That’s a banyan tree. We should go have a look at it. Banyans grow down from the canopy rather than up from the earth. It’s worth the hike.”
Jeanette gave him a skeptical look, playing her part. “It’s hot.”
“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be worth it for the view.”
“All right,” she said. “Fofo, want to finish the chicken? We won’t be long.”
“It’s your dime.” Fofo helped himself.
A steep, narrow trail took them into the trees. The canopy was a vibrant green while the fallen leaves were baked brown and crackled beneath their feet. The heat made for hard going, but they sweated up to the banyan, where a gap in the canopy gave them another view of the lagoon. The wide base of the banyan was a forest of interconnected trunks. It had taken root on a high branch of a tree and grown to the ground, expanding to smother its host.
Harry dug the radio tracking equipment out of the bag and turned it on. It took him a few minutes to fiddle it into working. It took longer to realize that the first signal he got was a squirrel in the trees above them.
“Do we really need that?” Jeanette asked. “We saw the squirrel at the airport.”
“Ten or twelve would make an absolutely convincing report.”
“And what does that get us?”
“I don’t know.”
“If Estlin was out there waving a flag, would it help?”
“I’d jump the fence.”
“Maybe that’s what we should do,” Jeanette answered. “One of us, at least.”
Harry read the gleam in Jeanette’s eyes. “They’re patrolling that fence line. You’d be stopped before your feet touched the ground.”
“Could be worth it.”
“What?”
“I perturb the system, you watch. Once we call your general, there’s no point waiting. If I get snatched for trespassing, I’m still on the other side of the fence. I’ll either get to stay there or get kicked to the local authorities and demand a lawyer and an explanation.”
Jeanette’s enthusiasm did not inspire Harry. He felt a sharp slap of fear. “What if you get shot for trespassing?”
“Unlikely,” Jeanette answered. “I’m not looking to take that kind of risk.”
“That’s exactly the risk you’re taking.”
“They won’t shoot,” she answered.
“This is a shoot first, apologize later situation.”
“I’ll wear a damn bikini if you want. No concealed weapons.”
“No.” Harry was absolute.
“It’s my choice.”
“We’ll do this together, and we’ll use our brains.” Harry saw the defiance in Jeanette’s eyes. “You try and go around me and I’ll get mean.”
“Okay,” she said. “Are we really going to the hotel?”
“It’s three or four stories. Closer. We might get a better view than we have from here.”
“And you’re going to ask for that? Airport side and a clear look at the runway, please?”
“I don’t know,” Harry answered. “I’m not a good spy.”
“You a spy?” Fofo asked from the shaded trail. He was winded and swiped the sweat from his face with an open hand.
“Shit.” Harry fumbled the receiver, catching it roughly against himself before it could drop to the ground. “No, Fofo, I’m a biologist.”
“What’s that in your hands?” he asked.
“It’s just….” Harry utterly failed to think of a reasonable lie.
“It’s for tracking squirrels,” Jeanette answered.
This, apparently, was the dumbest thing Fofo had ever heard. The tracking equipment chose that moment to emit a shrill whine. Jeanette reached over and shut it off.
“Find another ride,” Fofo said, and backed away. He kept one eye on them even as he turned to follow the trail.
“Bugger,” Harry cursed. “That was stupid.”
“I just wish he’d dumped us closer to the damn airport,” Jeanette said. “What now?”
“I guess we make some notes and hike to the nearest phone.”
“And then?”
“We find some other way to screw this up.”
* * *
“We should have corralled them while they were on the ground,” Commander Fleckman said.
Sergeant Malone stood square to the commander. He didn’t answer because no direct question had been asked.
“You sat next to them,” Fleckman continued. “Dangerously close, considering their spines. They could be as toxic as a lionfish for all we know. But that’s not my question. Why didn’t we surround them with nets?”
“The prerogative so far has been to absolutely avoid the use of direct force,” Sergeant Malone answered. “Their defensive positioning around Hume suggested that they would resist confinement.”
“That explains why you did nothing,” Fleckman said. “What about the rest of us?”
“Commander, there’s a squirrel in the hangar.” One of Fleckman’s team stood in the doorway of the hangar office.
Sergeant Malone scrambled to the door and immediately spotted the squirrel bounding across the central H-beam in the rafters. It was a very distinctive red squirrel with tufts of fur on the tips of its ears.
“How’d it get in?” Fleckman asked.
“That’s a Russian squirrel,” Malone noted.
“Even better,” Fleckman responded as he walked across the hangar to where Estlin was idly watching the squirrel.
“What is that?” Fleckman asked Estlin.
“First contact for all squirrel-kind,” Estlin suggested.
Malone followed. “Hume, where did it come from?”
“It’s not from here.” Estlin was slow to answer.
“And I don’t think it swam,” Malone said.
“No,” Estlin answered with his peculiar absent focus. “It fell.”
“Get rid of it,” Fleckman ordered. “Now.”
“I can’t.” Estlin reclined, adding emphasis to his refusal and provoking an angry glare from Fleckman.
“He attracts squirrels. It’s a side effect. He can’t control it,” Malone supplied. “There are three more.”
“Get rid of them,” Fleckman pressed Estlin. “You know a way.”
“There’s a company in San Paolo that sells squirrel repellant,” Estlin answered. “But it’s expensive, it stinks, and it doesn’t work.”
Fleckman was not amused.
“This position isn’t secure,” Malone stated bluntly.
“When was it?” Fleckman grimaced. “Dontis has authorized the flight. We need to get them ready to go.”
“To go where?” Estlin asked. “Pearl Harbor?”
Fleckman glanced at Verges and didn’t answer.
“You let Liev drug me.”
“I was overruled.”
“Right.” Estlin considered the squirrels above them. “This is where I stop cooperating.”
Malone stepped forward. “Your alien friends came down from the rafters and asked us not to drug you again. Even Dontis got the message,” he said, though he knew, at best, Dontis would change his tactics, not his objectives.
“Do you know what they think is going to happen?”
There was a darkness in Estlin’s words that made Malone look at their visitors. They were dangling by their tails and hind limbs and turned their heads in synch to meet his gaze. He understood why Dontis was keeping to the corner office. The moment was interrupted by Pollock who barreled into the hangar.
“There’s a problem,” he reported. “We’ve got snails on the runway.”
“Snails?” Malone was lost.
“These are huge snails, a foot long.”
“Is this a mass hallucination?” Fleckman asked.
“No, it’s a local infestation,” Pollock replied. “Giant African land snails. The shells are bigger than your fist and they are everywhere. If they get sucked into the engines…?” Pollock mimed the potential consequences of a fist-sized snail hitting a turbofan. It wasn’t an option. “We can’t take off.”
“Clear the runway,” Fleckman ordered.
“How?” Pollock asked.
“Carefully,” Malone answered, thinking as quickly as possible. “Consider who invited them. We can use the fire truck and wash them aside, then gather all hands for a shoulder-to-shoulder walk. It’s the only way to deal with runway debris.”
“How long is this going to take?” Fleckman demanded.
Too long, Malone thought, and didn’t answer.