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Perhaps, it could revive people. If these creatures had been watching the Earth and molesting humans for years, as some UFO nuts had always claimed, then they might be very well-versed in human anatomy.
    Stupidly, I allowed my heart to soar. What if the ship really could bring my kids back to life? It seemed wild, but a defibrillator would probably look like white magic to a tribesman from centuries past. We revived people all the time in hospitals. Until brain-death set in, what was the limit? Four minutes or so, I thought, for our science. Longer if the subject was in a cold environment. So with advanced techniques, who knew?
    I had hope again, and I almost feared it more than the ship itself. With hope, one can be disappointed. Hope would allow me to feel the pain of my loss all over again.
    I felt the tiny shuddering sensation. It seemed to me now that I wasn’t able to detect acceleration, but when the ship halted I could feel it if nothing else was going on. Were we over my farm? My heart leapt, but I tried to stop myself from believing anything could be done.
    The door melted open as before, and I watched the great black hand reach down to my farm. I thought I saw—yes, there were flashing colored lights down there. They splashed red, blue and yellow over the roof of my house. Emergency vehicles? Had someone reported the attack? I couldn’t see the vehicles from my vantage, and I didn’t want to step into the room with the open floor for a better look. By no means did I trust the ship yet. For all I knew, this was yet another elaborate test.
    What kind of test might I be participating in now? Perhaps it wanted to know what I would do if given one chance at them. I wondered if I had chosen badly. Maybe, I should have demanded that the aliens show themselves and commit suicide at my feet. When they revived my children—or didn’t—I decided I would indulge myself with such commands.
    I wondered if there were police down there. I knew a deputy lived nearby. Perhaps he’d heard my shotgun go off and had made the call. If Deputy Dave Mitters was down there, I had to wonder what he thought of my spaceship. We’d had a few beers and football games between us.
    The answer came as the hand snaked down and fished about. Popping sounds rang out.
    “Don’t shoot my kids you moron, Dave,” I muttered aloud. But I pulled back a step from the opening. If he was firing up into the ship, I didn’t want him to get lucky.
    Suddenly, a brilliant flare lit up beneath the ship. Blinding green light filled my vision, like a silent explosion. My eyes snapped themselves shut, but it was too late. Purple, splotchy after-images danced on my retina. When I opened one eye back up, blinking and putting my hands to my face, the intense green glare flashed into existence again. But this time I was ready with my arm shielding my aching eyes.
    The sounds of gunfire were gone now, replaced by silence. Not even the crickets in the fields were chirruping anymore. From the opening, where the arm reached out of my new world of moving liquid metals down into my old world of rippling fields, a wash of heat came up into the ship. With the hot air came a smell, a smell of ozone and burnt things. Quickly, this hot smell was replaced by a gush of black smoke. What had happened down there? I had to think the ship had returned fire. Automatically, I supposed.
    Had it burned down Dave Mitters? I worried about it, thinking perhaps I had inadvertently caused more death by telling my ship to return to my farm. I remembered that I had fired on the ship myself, and it hadn’t burnt me down then. Maybe the rules had changed, now that I had made it to the bridge.
    The snake-arm retracted back into the ship. It retracted faster as it reached the end. There, in the grip of the thing, was an ambulance gurney. My mouth sagged open. A sheet covered the face, but by the shape of the body I figured it must be Kristine. Black ash speckled the white sheet over her