Excerpt
Jean, feeling even more comfortable in her garb, began to look around and survey the area. The floodlights were quite effective, allowing her to easily see the entire debris field, even the ditch gouged into the earth by the crashing vessel and the young trees that had been broken and scraped aside as it had passed between and over them. She noticed personnel not too far from her and became worried that she might be spotted in view of the bright lighting all around her. She decided that she should keep her head down as she scanned the ground. She would seem less conspicuous that way. If she saw anyone moving toward her, she would investigate in a different direction.
She found another piece of the vessel’s skin on the ground nearby and picked it up. It looked similar to aluminum foil but when she squeezed it in her fist it wouldn’t crumple. It just sprang back out into its original smooth state. She tried to tear it but it wouldn’t yield. She held it up to her respirator but she could smell nothing as she had done with the earlier smoldering pieces of skin. She thought back about several of the articles and eyewitness accounts that she had stumbled across in her research.
She realized that no one was talking as each did his or her job. Each worker went about a particular assignment. Each obviously had an individual responsibility and attended to it with speed and preciseness. She did notice a few hand signals that were occasionally used between the workers but had no idea what they meant. She ignored them. It was definitely getting a little warmer in the suit.
To her right she saw a lifeless form on the ground. One of the workers was walking toward it with a sheet in his hand. Maybe this was the pilot. It was face down, motionless and dressed in a one-piece uniform made of a metallic gray fabric. She couldn’t see its face but the shape of its head seemed odd to her...egg shaped to be more exact. She saw another body farther to her right that had already had been covered with a sheet.
All seemed routine until a worker with a sheet began to fan out the sheet to cover the body. Then something terrible happened, something that made her whole body tremble. Just before the sheet came down, another worker turned the body over on its back.
The face looked up with the blank stare of death...and those eyes. They were huge. It wasn’t human. Memories emerged from deep in her subconscious. She had seen that face and those eyes before, many times before. She felt weak and she could taste the acid in her throat.