Phantom of the Seven Stars

Chapter 11

76

STARTLING STORIES

with faux patience. “Looks like it burned. The men fled and never came back, and it was forgotten.”

Mac studied him. Finally, she murmured, “You’ve never heard of the Big Magnet Proj-ect.”

“I’m not familiar with every video on YouTube.”

He started to turn away.

“It was a scientific expedition in the 1930s,” Mac said softly. “My great-grandfa-ther was the assistant commander.”

Slowly, as if acting against his better judgment, Chick turned back to her. “An Antarctic expedition?”

“It was mostly wiped out,” she said. “Be-cause they found a spaceship buried in the ancient ice and—”

“And it held something—dare I say it? Aliiiiiive!” Chick’s last word imitated the show’s introductory voiceover, but he drew out the word in mockery. “Save the Tommyk-nockers crap for pitch sessions, gopher.”

As Chick strode away, the script supervi-sor lowered his iPad and approached Mac, murmuring, “It does sound far-fetched.”

“So’s this show,” Mac said. “A bunch of mactors running around Antarctica, playing survivalist in bikinis and G-strings. Sure, summer temperatures are a lot warmer than they used to be. But we’ve just moved base camp to the South Pole. It’s dropped below freezing here, with no improvement in sight. People are going to die.”

“That’s why the outcasts signed a release longer than the Treaty of Versailles.”

The script supervisor was a short, soft man with dead-black hair and the name Stu-art Spivek. His mask bore the logo for the re-cent remake of The Crow. Removing Buddy Holly shades, he exposed dark eyes rimmed in kohl and crinkled with morbid humor.

“Only in Hollywood would they name a TV show after a book about stranded plane crash survivors who committed cannibal-ism.”

“That’s why I like you, Stu.” Mac touched the back of his gloved hand. “You’ve heard

of books.”

“I never heard of any Big Magnet Proj-ect.”

“I wish I’d made it up,” Mac said.

“I believe you,” Stu said. “But there’s a big difference between a forgotten Antarctic expedition and an alien spacecraft.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “But family lore says whatever my great-grandfather found, it scared a man who didn’t scare easily. And he insisted no one go back to the South Pole, because what they found could infect any living thing, big or small, human or animal. My great-grandfather thought even a tiny fragment of the alien’s flesh could infect someone.”

“Infect?” Stu’s eyebrows rose. “Like a disease, or maybe an implanted egg, like in the Alien movies?”

“Like demonic possession,” Mac said. “Say the alien infected your best friend. He’d become an alien, too, but you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.”

“The new alien retains the infected per-son’s appearance?”

“And all the infected person’s thoughts, memories, and behaviors.”

“Talk about the ultimate make-over,” Stu said.

Mac didn’t laugh. “You’d be totally con-vinced you were talking to your best bud, and the alien would use your ignorance to infect you. Then you’d both go looking for more creatures to infect. And no one would suspect what you were up to. Why would they?”

“The gift that keeps on giving.”

“A threat to every creature on the planet,” she said. “Infection was the space invader’s means of reproduction, and reproduction its raison d’être.”

“So why aren’t we all aliens? Or—” Stu shuddered. “You’re making me paranoid.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“If we were already aliens, we wouldn’t even know it!”

“Are you telepathic?” Mac asked.

“What? That crap was debunked way