Read Online Unearthly Neighbors by Chad Oliver - Free Book Online Page A

it.
    Don King was waiting for them at the base of a tall tree. Monte wiped the sweat out of his eyes and was annoyed to notice that Don looked as natty as ever.
    “Hello, Don. Ralph tells me that you two have nosed out a burial.”
    Don pointed. “Right up there, boss. See that thing that looks like a nest on that big limb? No—the other side, right close to the tree trunk.”
    “I see it,” Louise said.
    Monte examined it as well as he could from where he stood. It looked very much like a nest that might have been made by a large bird, although it seemed to be made mostly of bark. He chewed on his lower lip. If he could just get his hands on those bones…
    “Well, Monte? What do you say?”
    Monte sighed. “You know what I have to say, Ralph. It’s no go. We can’t move those bones.”
    Don King swore under his breath. “It’s the first solid lead we’ve gotten! What’s the big idea?”
    Monte put his hands on his hips and stuck out his bearded jaw. The accumulated frustrations of this job were beginning to get him on edge. “In case you haven’t heard,” he said evenly, “we are trying our feeble best to make friends with these people. It would seem to me that desecrating one of their graves would be a fine way of not going about it.”
    “Oh Lord,” Don groaned. “Next you’ll be telling me that those bones were probably somebody’s mother.”
    “Not necessarily. They might just be somebody’s old man. But I haven’t got the slightest doubt that we’re being watched all the time. I’d like to have those bones just as much as you would—maybe more. But we’re not going to steal them—not yet, anyway. It may come to that. But it hasn’t yet. Until I say otherwise, the bones stay there. Understand?”
    Don King didn’t say anything. He looked disgusted.
    “I guess he’s right,” Ralph said slowly. “Sometimes we have a tendency to forget what those bones mean to people. You remember that joker in Mexico in the old days who tried to buy a body right at the funeral? He almost wound up in a box himself.”
    “Nuts,” Don said.
    Even Louise looked disappointed.
    “Let’s go on back to camp,” Monte said, none too happy himself. “Those bones won’t run away. They’ll still be there when the time is right.”
    “When will that be?” Don asked, running a hand through his sandy hair.
    “I’ll let you know,” Monte said grimly.
    It was indeed fortunate, in view of the general morale, that the reconnaissance sphere landed when it did with the big news. The usually reserved Tom Stein popped out like a jack-in-the-box, just as excited as Ralph had been about die tree burial. His pale blue eyes flashed behind his thick glasses and he even forgot to be analytical.
    “Ace and I found a whole bunch of ’em about ten miles north of here,” he said. “It must be the main local village or something—at least a hundred of them. They’re living in caves. We saw kids and everything. How about that?”
    “That’s wonderful, Tom,” Monte said. “Maybe we can do some good with them. Maybe if we catch a lot of ’em in one place…” He thought for a moment. “Tomorrow we’re going to take that recon sphere and set it down right smack in the middle of those caves. We’re going to make those people talk if we have to give them the third degree.”
    “Hey, Janice!” Tom yelled to his wife. “Did you hear what I found? There’s a whole bunch of ’em…”
    Monte smiled.
    Things were looking a little better.
     
    An alien yellow moon rode high over the dark screen of the trees and the orange firelight threw leaping black shadows across the flat surfaces of the tents.
    Monte, lying on his back on his cot, understood for the first time that the old saying about feeling invisible eyes staring at you was literally true. He knew that the camp was ringed with eyes, eyes that probed and stared and evaluated. It was not a pleasant feeling, but it was the way he had wanted it to be. Indeed, the