“What happened to the real Gilbert Odin?”

The muscles in the imposter’s throat convulsed as he tried gulping. Finally he managed to say, “He was abducted years ago.”

“Then why are you here? To abduct me? To abduct others?”

“No. To safeguard the surveillance vessel, the UFO.”

“Safeguard from whom?”

The radio clipped to his shoulder suddenly cackled with traffic. “Hawk Vanguard. Hawk Vanguard. This is Eagle Team. What’s your situation? Over.”

The imposter raised his hand and motioned to the radio. “Please, they’re calling me. I don’t answer, they’ll assume the worst and open fire.”

I released my grip and let the imposter go. He withdrew, coughed and clutched his throat. After a moment, he unsnapped his microphone and spoke. “Eagle Team, Hawk Vanguard here.” The imposter gave me a conspiratorial glance. “Negative on the intruder.”

“Why are you here alone?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m playing the hero. It pays extra.” He clipped the microphone back on his shoulder harness and massaged his neck. He found his glasses and put them back on.

“You asked who I safeguard the UFO from?” The alien imposter motioned out the trailer, back toward the security force. “From the humans. Normally when there is an incident like this, rescue teams retrieve the ship and cleanse the crash site. In Roswell, your government seized the surveillance vessel and occupants before we could react.”

“We?”

The imposter pointed toward the sky. “The Galactic Union.”

“There are more of you?”

The imposter rose to his feet and leaned against the wall. “Many more. It’s a galactic union.”

“Where is Gilbert?”

The imposter’s aura flashed nervously. “Your friend Gilbert Odin didn’t take the zero-point flux well.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You mean Gilbert’s dead?”

The imposter sighed. “It happens. He passed away soon after the, uh, abduction. Really, we meant him no harm.”

“If you’re an alien, how come you don’t look like the stiff in the box?”

The imposter laughed. He sounded like Gilbert. “One of those stiffs-good way to put it. Careless assholes would be more accurate. They knew Earth was off-limits. No, I’m not one of them. I’m from a different species, one closer to yours. Human.”

“I’m not human. Not anymore.”

“My apologies, Felix. I’d resent the slur, too. Humanoid, then.”

“You swear pretty good for an extraterrestrial,” I said.

“I watch a lot of cable television.”

The imposter’s radio cackled again. A wave of anxiety pulsed through his aura. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Let me worry about that,” I replied. “You were chosen to replace Gilbert because you most resembled him?”

“Not completely. It took some minor cosmetic surgery, replacing my stalk eyes with these,” he touched his eye sockets, “removing my sucker toes, rearranging my genitals, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds painful.”

“It’s a living.”

“You might want to work on that cabbage stink,” I said.

“Huh?” He lifted an arm and sniffed. “My genome profile could need tweaking. That bad?”

“Trust me. You got a name-beside Gilbert Odin, I mean?”

“My original name is hard to pronounce unless you have a trifurcated speaking passage.”

I remembered Gilbert Odin’s, rather the imposter’s, denials when I first brought proof that it was the red mercury that had caused the nymphomania. My jaw tightened and the bitterness of my anger rose into my throat. “You lied to me.”

The imposter’s aura lowered into a sizzle. “Sorry.”

I splayed my fingers so that he could better appreciate my talons. “You knew all along. About the nymphomania. The UFO. I brought you Dr. Wong’s diary and you said it was a hoax. Why?”

He looked over his shoulder. The lights of the security force became brighter as they neared us. The imposter’s aura sizzled with nervousness. “We don’t have time for long discussions. The Eagle Team gets here and finds us like this, then my cover is blown.”

“They don’t know you’re an alien?”

“As far as DOE is concerned, I’m Gilbert Odin, GS-15.”

“Why the lie?”

“Like I said, to safeguard the UFO.”

“Safeguard how? The government’s torn apart the UFO. They’ve certainly dissected the crew.”

“I keep tabs on what’s learned.”

“Why not announce your presence to the planet?”

His radio called again. He answered, “Eagle Team, still negative on the intruder. What’s your ETA?”

“Hawk Vanguard, give us five mikes.”

The imposter rubbed the microphone nervously. “You got five minutes, Felix.”

“Keep talking.”

“We can’t announce ourselves because we’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “That’s the complication. Otherwise we would’ve intervened a long time ago. Earth is under quarantine. Humans are much too violent and dangerous of a species.”

“Why would our government keep the UFO a secret?”

“Fear mostly. Of us. Of mass panic. They used Project Redlight to spread disinformation and debunk the existence of UFOs, aliens”-the imposter made quotation marks in the air-“creatures like me. It then became more expedient to stick to the lie than admit the truth. That’s what all governments do best.”

“Even the Galactic Union?”

“Even the Union.”

“If you knew about the UFO and the conspiracy to cover it up, why hire me? Why press me to investigate?”

“To prove that DOE’s security precautions weren’t good enough to stop a determined intruder. Which you’ve done, in spades.”

“And you’ve been involved with this since the Roswell crash in 1947?”

“Me?” the alien asked. “Hell no-do I look that old? I hope not. I was assigned about ten years ago. You see, after your government moved the surveillance vessel from Roswell, we lost track of it. I have to hand it to the humans, they can be sneaky. That’s one reason they are so dangerous.”

“You knew nothing of moving the UFO from Roswell to Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base?” I asked. “Then from Wright-Patterson to Rocky Flats?”

“No. I swear.”

“How does Rocky Flats fit into this?”

“Your government needed better facilities for its studies. All the security surrounding plutonium at Rocky Flats was a sham to cover the real secret.”

“The study of this UFO?”

The helicopter passed overhead. Its rotor blades drummed the air.

The imposter followed the noise. “Yes,” he answered simply.

“And the use of rare, radioactive materials for weapons manufacture was a cover to hide this isotope of red mercury?”

“Another yes.”

“And the nymphomania?” I asked.

“An unexpected consequence,” he answered. “It only happened to human females. Earth women are surprisingly complicated.”

“Tell me about it.”

The imposter’s gaze shifted to the containers behind me. His aura grew barbed points, indicating deceit and anxiety.

“There’s more to this, isn’t there?” I moved toward him, my fangs and talons growing to maximum length.

The alien cringed against the wall of the vault. His eyes grew so wide with fear they looked ready to pop from their sockets.

“Was getting me to break into this trailer part of your alien plan? What did you really want?”

His aura burned hotter and went from distress to outright terror.

I pressed a talon into the soft flesh under his chin. “Talk or I’ll do more cosmetic surgery.”

The imposter turned his gaze back to the containers. He remained silent.

I pushed my talon in a little harder. “Did the Union send you here to die?”

The imposter shook his head. “No.”

“Then what are you here for?”

“The Psychotronic Device.”

I withdrew my hand and pointed over my shoulder. “In those?”

He nodded.

“What does this Psychotronic Device look like?”

Gilbert’s imposter pantomimed with his hands. “Maybe this big.”

The dimensions were about the same as the object I had found.