The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) Read Free Page B

”
    After
resting and calming himself he looked over, and he finally asked,
“ Why do you think people join the
army? ”
    “ To go and see the world and
universe! ” I replied,
wondering why they did join up.
    “ Universe! ” he moaned back. “We’re the Home Guard! You’re
hardly going to see anything …”
    “ Or to get about and do things people
normally don’t get to do! ” I continued.
    “ Let me explain! ” he moaned, staring into my
face for a few seconds, staggered by something, and putting his
elbow in his tea cup and making it spill over the table, in a
puddle, and he swiftly grabbed an old pair of pants out his bin and
started using it to clean it up.
    Once he finished he calmed himself, showing
his hidden depression and inner despair, by the situation and his
job ahead, and start of the war.
    He calmly started saying, “ Once upon a time,
in the old days, about a century ago or so, people joined the
French Foreign Legion to forget! Problems! Things they just wanted
to escape out of! Escape from weary existences! The problems of the
world! Even hide away from crimes they committed! ”
    He suddenly stared straight into the depths
of my eyes, almost trying read my thoughts, searching my
consciousness.
    “ Well, I ’ m sure I ’ d have recalled doing that! As you
said it’s just the Home Guard! Not the Foreign Legion!”
    “ Really!” he replied, smiling. “How do
you know you never? ”
    “ I’ve little recollection of much at
the moment! So I can ’ t properly answer that! ”
    Suddenly I realized what he had replied with
and it struck me that he might have been trying to suggest
something to me that I should know, and I realized I could have
done something and have forgotten it and that he might know of it!
I sat in horror for a few moments contemplating it, and if he could
have found out about it, and I gasped as I realized my mind was
more blanker than I had contemplated, and I had hardly any memories
of many things, and I could not grasp what!
    While I sat considering this Godfrey sat
making absurd strange faces, which I had not seen before, as though
in pain, and he slightly bent over and held his head firmly in his
hands, and relaxed there, and his shoulders quivered and slackened,
and he remained like it until he recovered, and I watched him
calmly return to what he normally did.
    “ Perhaps
you should just leave! ” he moaned firmly, looking sad,
almost looking as though he might cry, and he turned away from me
and looked away, and the situation left me confused and I realized
my goal now was to find out what the hell had happened!
    Later I was sure the captain and sergeant
thought I was up to something, and hiding something.
    “ I ’ ve another question! ” I quickly asked the
captain.
    “ What? ” he moaned back, not looking directly at
me.
    “ What the hell will we be doing?
Surely the military doesn ’ t need the Home Guard at the
moment? ”
    “ We’re
getting ready! We ’ re also doing other things! At the moment
we’re helping the police search for a killer! Perhaps you can help
us with that? ”
    “ Perhaps I can!” I replied, wondering
why the police needed the army. “What sort of things has he
done?”
    “ You’re a reporter! It’s classified!
We don’t want the newspapers getting it! They can have the killings
but not the whole story! Got it?”
    “ Yes!”
    “ The police don’t want the public
panicking! There have been a large amount of killings by someone!
He virtually destroys his victims …”
    “ Are
there any witnesses to anything?”
    “ No!
But the police have just started their
investigations! ”
    “ Perhaps this war is having more of a
reaction on people than they think!”
    “ Well! We can help them! We can use
you to investigate what’s going on, and get some information for us
on what’s happening!”
    A shiver ran through me, and I shuddered,
and I considered the dangers, and the guy who could do such a
thing!
    “ Why are