Six Blind Men & an Alien Read Online Free PDF

building, towering above all others, was the recently-constructed Kenyatta Conference Center, begun in 1966 and not completed until 1973. He examined it as thoroughly as he could without entering it, but was unable to find any trace of its sensing devices, its radar trackers, or its cannons-yet he knew they must be there. War was the natural state for sentient beings, and surely this building would be the greatest prize a conquering army could claim.
        He was so intent on finding the Center’s hidden defenses and weaponry that he didn’t see the two uniformed men coming out of the Long Bar of the New Stanley Hotel a block away from where he lurked in the shadows.
        "What the hell is that ?" said one of the men.
        Matoka turned, saw the men, and froze momentarily.
        "Jesus!" said the other. "That better be what men look like when you’ve had too much to drink."
        "That’s no man!"
        "I was afraid you were going to say that."
        "Draw your gun and let’s find out what it is," said the first man, withdrawing his own handgun from its holster.
        When the men didn’t shoot, Matoka realized that they were only displaying their guns to frighten or impress him, or at best for self-protection. He knew he could kill them both before they could get off a shot, but he also knew that if he did so, the inhabitants would realize they were up against a race with superior weaponry. He doubted that they had anything that could counteract his weapon, but he had no intention of using it against two inebriated men and being proven wrong.
        He ducked behind a nearby building, and the two men broke into a run. He could hear them coming, looked around for a doorway, couldn’t see any that were clearly unlocked-and he couldn’t take the chance that the door he went to wouldn’t open-so at the last instant he dove into a huge metal dumpster. It must have belonged to a restaurant, because it was filled with loosely-tied plastic bags of partially-eaten human food. The odor was sick-making, but he held perfectly still as he heard the two men race up, come to a stop, and begin speaking.
        "Where the hell did he go?" asked one.
        "Maybe he never was," suggested the other hopefully.
        "I saw him. You saw him. We couldn’t both have the same delusion."
        "Maybe we didn’t. What color was yours?"
        "Dark gray, maybe."
        "Mine was brown."
        "Dark gray and brown can look at lot alike from a distance at two in the morning."
        "How many legs?"
        "Two arms, two legs, just like us."
        "What was he wearing?"
        "I don’t know. By the time I got a clear look at him, he was running hell for leather for this alley." A pause. "So what do we do now? If we report it, we’re going to spend a lot of time with the shrink, and if he doesn’t believe us, and there’s no reason why he should, we could be looking at brig time."
        "I know," said his companion. "I suppose we could just forget it. It’s not as if he threatened us."
        "Then it’s settled?"
        "Yeah, it’s settled."
        The two men began walking back toward the New Stanley. "What do you suppose it was, really?"
        "I don’t know."
        "A chimpanzee, maybe, or a gorilla?"
        "Wearing clothes?" said his companion with a laugh. "It’d be the first of either that was even seen in Kenya, let alone Nairobi. Besides, what would a chimp or a gorilla be doing in Nairobi?"
        "Yeah, it’s probably better that we decide here and now that we never saw anything."
        Then they were out of earshot. Matoka waited another five minutes to be sure they didn’t come back, then climbed out of the dumpster. Despite the plastic bags, he found himself wiping pieces of lettuce and some orange peels off himself.
        He began walking south until he’d passed out of the commercial sector and found himself in a dilapidated area of