The room could have been the interior of the world’s largest garage. Piles of components and shards of strange alien materials were scattered everywhere. In the very centre was what must have been the fairly intact remains of the spacecraft that had crashed at Roswell. It wasn’t entirely dismantled, and I could still see the basic shape. The ship looked to be in excellent condition, considering that it had crash-landed. It wasn’t saucer-shaped at all, but looked more like a big, metal boomerang. I took a walk around the ship, not seeing anything particularly overwhelming — except, of course, for the fact that it had come from another world.

As I looked around, I had the same sensation I always felt around snakes, except now I couldn’t see or hear it. I just knew it was there somewhere, waiting. Out of the corner of my eye, I swore I saw something move. I spun around and stared at one of the corpses. Had it twitched?

This book is dedicated to Gail Peterson (for the motivation); Chris Jones (for inspiration); Rob Peterson (for good Scotch and smoked); Mike, Jeanette, Bruce, Ivar, and Steve (for miscellaneous banter, etc.); and especially for my sweet Krissant for all the above and more.