Hangar 17 at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia was locked in complete and rigid security. Outside, four armed marines guarded the perimeters of the building, and inside, three high-ranking Army officers stayed on alternate watches of eight hours each, guarding a sealed room inside the hangar. None of the officers knew what he was guarding. Besides the scientists and doctors who were working inside, there had been only three visitors permitted in the sealed chamber. The fourth visitor was just arriving. He was greeted by Brigadier General Paxton, the officer in charge of security. “Welcome to our menagerie.” “I’ve been looking forward to this.” “You won’t be disappointed. Come this way, please.” Outside the door of the sealed room was a rack containing four white, sterile suits that completely covered the body. “Would you please put one on?” the General asked. “Certainly.” Janus slipped into the suit. Only his face was visible through the glass mask. He put large white

The huge mothership floated noiselessly through dark space, seemingly motionless, travelling at 22,000 miles an hour, in exact synchronization withthe orbit of the earth. The six aliens aboard were studying the three-dimensional field-of-view optical screen that covered one wall of the spaceship. On the monitor, as the planet Earth rotated, they watched holographic pictures of what lay below, while an electronic spectrograph analysed the chemical components of the images that appeared. The atmosphere surrounding the land masses they passed over was heavily polluted. Huge factories befouled the air with thick, black, poisonous gases, while unbiodegradable refuse was dumped into landfills and into the seas.The aliens looked down at the oceans, once pristine and blue, now black with oil and brown with scum. The coral of the Great Barrier Reef was turning bleach-white and fish were dying by the billions. The Amazon rain forest was a huge, barren crater, where the trees had been

DAY FOUR -London, Thursday, October 18th Leslie Mothershed’s role model was Robin Leach. An avid viewer of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Mothershed carefully studied the way Robin Leach’s guests walked and talked and dressed, because he knew that one day he would appear on that programme. From the time he was a small boy, he had felt that he was destined to be somebody, to be rich and famous. “You’re very special,” his mother would tell him. “My baby is going to be known all over the world.” The young boy would go to sleep with that sentence ringing in his ears, until he truly believed it. As Mothershed grew older, he became aware that he had a problem: he had no idea exactly howhe was going to become rich and famous. For a period of time he toyed with the

Robert took the bus into Richmond and began strolling the streets. Within five minutes he identified his trackers. There were two of them. One was on foot and one was in an automobile. Robert tried ducking into restaurants and shops and hurrying out back doors, but he was unable to shake them. They were too well trained. Finally, it was almost time to return to the Farm and Robert still had not been able to get away from them. They were watching him too closely. Robert walked into a department store and the two men took up positions where they could cover the entrances and exits. Robert went up the escalator to the men’s department. Thirty minutes later, when he came down, he was wearing a different suit, a coat and hat, talking to a woman and carrying a baby in his arms. He walked past his pursuers without being recognized. He was the

When Robert broke the news to Susan, he said gently, “This is my last overseas assignment. After this I’ll be home so much you’ll get sick of me.” She smiled up at him. “There isn’t that much time in the world. We’re going to be together forever.” The chase after the Fox was the most frustrating thing Robert had ever experienced. He picked up his trail in Argentina, but missed his quarry by one day. The trail led to Tokyo and China and then Malaysia. Whoever the Fox was, he left just enough of a trail to lead to where he had been, but never to where he was. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, and always Robert was just behind the Fox. He called Susan almost every day. In the beginning, it was, “I’ll be home in a few days, darling.” And then, “Imight be home next week.” And then, finally, “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” In the end, Robert had to give up. He had been on the Fox’s trail for two and a half months, with no success. When he returned to Susan, s