Is that thing really an alien?'
'Well what else could it be?' I mumbled with my mouth still hanging open in awe. 'A fucking rabbit?!'
In the hours since the ship had first appeared I had just about managed to come to terms with the implications of its unexpected arrival. Now that I was sitting watching live television pictures of an alien, however, my ability to accept what was happening was suddenly questioned. The nervous disorientation I had felt earlier returned. Everything was back to square one again.
'What do they want?' Rob asked. He had an irritating habit of asking pointless questions that no-one could answer at just the wrong time.
'Bloody hell,' I snapped, irritated, 'how the hell should I know?'
The alien on the screen continued to stand its ground as the fevered activity in the surrounding seas became even more frenzied and intense. Very slowly it seemed to take a long, deep breath and then tilted its obtuse head back on its slight shoulders until it was looking straight up towards the source of the brilliant white light that continued to pour down from the bowels of the mothership hovering high above. The television picture suddenly changed to a close-up of the creature taken from a nearby boat. I was taken aback by the obvious similarities to a human face. Other than an unusually pronounced forehead (which gave the alien a slightly Neanderthal appearance - totally unjustified considering the obvious technical expertise of the species) the basic facial elements were much the same as our own. It had a wide, thin-lipped mouth, a small button nose, two ears (which were flat and smooth and tilted back at a more acute angle than a human's) and a pair of sharp, crystal-blue eyes.
The alien looked back down from the mothership, took another deep breath of salty sea air (was it nervous?) and then turned to its right where a group of heavily armed soldiers waited on the deck of a small military boat. The shuttle drifted down lower until it was almost touching the waves. The creature then held its arms out wide to indicate, perhaps, that it had nothing to hide, and then carefully walked down the sloping hull of its ship. It stepped out onto the boat which then, in a matter of a few short seconds, disappeared away into the night.
The light from the mothership faded into darkness.
Once again the entire pub was silent.
Another few seconds (which felt like minutes) passed before anyone did or said anything else. Ray Mercer rang the bell for last orders.
'Right then, ladies and gents. Let's have those glasses now please.'
Obediently and without any complaints the pub slowly emptied.
'Ready?' I asked Siobhan. She nodded, yawned and reached out for me.
'I'm tired,' she sighed as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
It was twenty-past one. We walked back home together in silent disbelief.
Chapter 6
By the time I woke up next morning it was almost the next afternoon. I was more tired than I had been before I'd gone to bed. I also had a chronic (but not totally unexpected) hangover. It was almost as if the beer I'd drunk last night had been on a time delay. I'd felt fine when I'd fallen into bed in the dark but now I felt like death warmed-up. Siobhan had got up and gone to work early and I hoped that she was feeling better than I was. My head was thumping and my stomach was so sickeningly sensitive that for a few minutes the nausea was all that I could think of. It took a while before I remembered anything of what had happened yesterday.
The heavy curtains were still closed but I could tell from the shadows and the heat in the room that it was a bright day outside. I glanced up at the alarm clock and saw that it was almost midday. I couldn't remember anything much after getting home last night. I remembered getting undressed and falling into bed with Siobhan but that was about it. It had been cold last night. Now the temperature in the room was stifling and the bedclothes were soaked through with sweat.
Suddenly deciding that it was time I made a move, I sat up quickly and swung my feet out over the side of the bed. A big mistake. A tidal wave of sickness washed over me and for a few seconds I thought I was going to pass out or vomit or both. Once the bile and