This time I silently said, please leave Magda out of this. If it’s her fate to go like this, then okay. But if it’s because of something I did, break my skull. Break me—but please leave her alone. That’s all. I dianked him and the hand in my mental image put down the phone. No pleading or elaboration because He knows what I’m talking about. And He’s got a lot of phones to answer.

“All right.”

My eyes were closed but I jumped hearing the voice. Magda’s limp hand lay in mine. God had just said all right. I opened my eyes and was looking directly at the paramedic. He smiled and said it again in that unmistakable voice. “All right. Mr. McCabe. We can save your wife.”

Magda’s eyes were still closed. Her face looked very peaceful. I knew no matter where she “was” she wouldn’t be able to hear us now.

“We can do what you ask, sir. But you’ll have to do something for us.”

“Are you God?” I asked timidly.

His smile grew warmer. “No, but we are more powerful than human beings. We can facilitate making certain things happen that you can’t.” He had a big face—big eyes, wide nose, his teeth were the color of a yellowed meerschaum pipe. Altogether there was nothing special about his face. You wouldn’t notice or remember it. Maybe that was the point.

“A small group of us, including Astopel, came to Earth—”

“So you are aliens? Gee-Gee was right?”

“Yes.” He wouldn’t stop smiling. Now he looked encouraging, like a teacher pleased with a student’s answer to a hard question.

“There are aliens on Earth that look like people? This is a goddamned 1950s movie! Why aren’t we in black and white? We’ve already got the Pod People here!”

I was too loud. He put a finger to his lips to shush me. “If you saw what we really looked like you would be alarmed. We didn’t come here to cause a disturbance. That was Astopel’s doing and why all these odd things have been happening to you.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a blue and white pack of gum. The writing on it was Cyrillic. The black plastic identity tag on that pocket said his name was Barry– Barry the alien.

“How long have you been here, uh, Barry?”

“A little over a month. Some of us longer, like the Schiavos. As you know the two of them have been here for years. Would you like a piece of Russian gum? It’s very good.”

I was dumbstruck. “The Schiavos are—Geraldine Schiavo is an alien! Oh-my-God! That’s why they disappeared like that and their house... Holy Christ! Why are you here?”

Leaning forward he spoke to the driver. “Nate, stop the car. We need some time before we get to the hospital.”

“What about my wife?”

“She’ll be all right until we get there. Don’t worry. This is all within our control, Mr. McCabe. Or rather this part is. Please trust me.”

What else could I do? More importantly what parts weren’t under their control?

The ambulance slowed and made a hard right turn. Looking out the window, I saw that we were in the parking lot of the Grand Union market. Ironic because it was where Old Vertue had been found that first day.

“Are we stopping here on purpose? Is this place some sort of symbolic gesture?”

Barry Smiles lost the smile and looking bewildered said no; we simply needed a place to talk and this was convenient. I didn’t believe him. Sliding the door open, he gestured for me to climb out. After checking Magda again, I did. The parking lot was mostly empty, but the heat of the day was already beginning to rise from the pocked, cracked pavement. A lone white seagull drifted above us. Seeing something on the ground, it dropped for a landing. The flattened body of a mouse turned out to be the object of the bird’s affection. It pecked away at what was left of the squashed blob.

Barry watched this and said, “There are no animals where we come from. They’re extraordinary things. You’re very lucky to have them. That’s what I like most on Earth—the animals.”

“What’s your favorite?”

The gull rose into the air carrying the flattened carcass in its beak. Landing on top of a streetlamp, it looked around like it didn’t know how it got there.

Barry chuckled, his head bent way back to watch the bird. “That’s an interesting question. Off the top of my head I would have to say either the dodo bird or the stegosaurus, although you couldn’t really call that an animal, could you?”

“No, most people would call it a dinosaur. And the dodo is extinct.” I waited for a response but he just kept looking up.

The seagull lifted lazily off its high perch and flew away with the ugly prize still in its beak.

“Yes, both creatures are extinct.”

“But you’ve seen them alive since you’ve been here, right Barry? Or am I wrong?”

My Favorite Martian shook his head. “No, you’re not wrong. The first thing we did when we got here was review mankind’s history. We visited every era of the earth’s past to familiarize ourselves with where humanity came from.”

I said, “Hmm.” Standing in the Grand Union parking lot listening to a man from outer space say he’d paid a quick visit to the Jurassic period to see dinosaurs while on a field trip for his class in Mankind 101. What else could I say but Hmm?

“It must be hard to believe. Would you like some proof, Mr. McCabe?”

“Barry, once again you read my mind.”

“Fair enough. What can I show you? What would you like to see? A stegosaurus?”

“No, it would crack the pavement and then I’d have to arrest both of you for disturbing the peace. But are you serious? Can you call up whatever I want to see?”

“Yes, so long as it exists now or once existed. Nothing beyond that. As I said, we do have limitations here.”

“I know exactly what I want to see.”

“Really, a stegosaurus would be no problem—”

“Skip it, Barry. You want to prove who you are? I’ll tell you what I want to see.”

After I did, his shoulders sagged like they were silently complaining “that’s all?” But he straightened them again and said okay, follow him. He started across the parking lot toward the market.

“And Magda will be all right?”

“Trust me.”

“You keep saying that. Why should I?”

“In five minutes you’ll know why. For five minutes trust that nothing will happen to your wife.” His big open face was one you immediately felt you could trust. It was perfect for the job he’d been sent to do. You saw this guy and right off you thought, I’m in good hands. Maybe I’m in trouble, but here’s a man who looks like he can help me. I’ll trust him.

Too bad he happened to be an alien.

He stopped walking, turned, and looked straight at me.

Paranoia hit like a glass of ice water thrown in my face. “What? What’s the matter?”

“Something...” Touching his chin with three fingers he slid them back and forth as if feeling for stubble. “Something just happened here in town that matters. I don’t know what, but something important. I just felt it. It’s very strong. It’ll affect things.”

“What?”

He raised a hand palm up. “I don’t know what, but something... something very definitely just happened in your town that will affect things.”

“That doesn’t help, Barry. If you traveled from your planet to here and can change time, conjure dinosaurs, bring back the dead, how come you can’t... Where are you from anyway?”

“It would be best to express it mathematically but since that’s not your bent, I’ll say it phonetically: Hratz-Potayo.”

“Rat’s Potato?” My gut jumped in before my head had time to think. A laugh burst out of me that sounded like a bizarre jungle bird: Yee-Yee-Yee—Caw—caw—caw. “You come from Rat’s Potato!” I couldn’t stop laughing. The name sounded so stupid—like a name from a TV show for little kids. Plus I’d reached some kind of breaking point—after all that had gone on it finally felt as if my brain was melting like hot candle wax.