If Tomorrow Comes

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Judith Ryan shoved her way to the front of the crowd, moving people with her elbows, her cane, and her age. It took her twenty minutes to get from the car to the cordon; the crowd was vast and Judith, eighty-five, was slow. When she reached the cordon, she was still five hundred yards from the spaceship, gleaming and silent on its little hill in the autumn Pennsylvania countryside.

“Step back, ma’am,” the soldier said. He wore riot gear and a gun. “You can’t go any far—I said to step back!”

“Please,” Judith quavered, “my grandson—”

The soldier glanced quickly around, looking for a child that might have slipped under the cordon. Nothing. “Step back, ma’am.”

“You don’t understand! He’s on the ship! I have to talk to someone and warn them!”

The soldier scowled. Nothing like this had been covered in his briefing. He fell back on clear orders and native skepticism. “Uh-huh. Makes no difference. You can’t—Ma’am!”

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