It was dark.
   His mind registered the fact that it was dark without curiosity, the same way it accepted the damp, heavy smell lingering in his nostrils and the sharp taste of blood in his mouth. Gradually, a thin line of light began to appear, a soft blue horizon with a slightly irregular curve A moment later, he realized that the 'horizon' was light creeping under his closed eyelids.
    He opened his eyes and saw a sky full of stars staring down at him. He was lying on his back on damp earth and wondering how he got there, listening to a cool night breeze whisper nonsense in his ears. His head was aching, and a hand cautiously raised to the side of his face came away dark and dripping.
    He staggered to his feet, groaning as gravity drove a spike through his skull. The stars throbbed in sympathy, making him queasy, and he tried not to look at them. A playful gust of night air made him shudder and he suddenly noticed his clothes--or rather, the lack of them; his flight suit was in shreds. He hesitated a moment, then ripped off what remained of it and threw it away in disgust. Naked against the backdrop of desert night, he used the stars' silver-blue light to try to get his bearings.
    The low hills, the positions of the stars, it all looked strange. Nothing seemed familiar except the wreckage. The shallow floor of the valley had been gouged and furrowed for an incredible distance by debris from the crash. Surveying the debris field, he felt a perverse sense of pride at the sheer size of the mess he had made. A mess you almost were, chum, he thought wryly. The crash...I don't even remember ejecting, for God's sake!
    "Where the hell am I?" he yelled, but the stars just winked humorously in reply. He rubbed a suddenly shaking hand across his face. "I can't remember," he whispered. "Who the hell am I?"
    Get a grip, he ordered himself, and took a deep breath in an attempt to do just that. "They'll be looking for me," he said, but his voice sounded uncertain in his own ears. "Okay, no who, what, where or why--and no clothes," he sighed. A semi-hysterical chuckle escaped him and he clamped down on it firmly. "None of that, pal. Keep those marbles in the bag."
    Suddenly, a flash of movement in the distant low hills caught his attention. Two small yellow lights were winking in and out in the darkness, moving closer but not taking a direct path. Very faint but growing steadily louder came the rough mechanical sound of an all-terrain vehicle. "Searchers," he breathed. "They've found me...I'm okay!"
    Euphoria engulfed him. Forgetting his fears, his nakedness and his expected embarrassment, he stumbled toward the approaching lights, waving his arms. "Over here!" he cried. "I'm over here!"
    The lights veered in his direction, picking him out in their yellow path and coming to an abrupt halt about fifty feet away. He could hear a low murmur of voices, and a few ominous clicks. The clicks stopped him in his tracks, stirring some vaguely threatening memory. "I crashed," he called to the shadows behind the lights, but his voice had turned thin and apprehensive. "I'm the pilot you're looking for..."
    The shadows shifted, then slowly alighted from their vehicle and circled the lights. He squinted, trying to identify the silhouettes behind the all-too-recognizable guns. Slowly he raised his hands over his head in the universally recognized gesture of surrender. The shadows stopped. Something...he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was very wrong. If only he could remember...
    One of the shadows called out to him, stirring another memory; his flight instructor and the base commander, drilling the squad in basic phrases in at least a dozen languages. If you are shot down, his memory-commander intoned, understanding the instructions of your captors can save your life. How right he'd been; that shouted command had been, "Don't move!"
    He didn't move, wishing he could connect that language with a name, a place, some reason for his being here. There was nothing. Then the shadow shouted again. "Identify yourself!"
    Name, rank, and serial number, his commander prompted; to which he replied, Easy for you to say. Aloud he said, "I can't remember much. I've been injured." He knew they probably couldn't understand him, but he felt better for saying it all the same.
    Their little tableau remained frozen and silent with indecision for several heartbeats; not very long, since it was his own racing pulse he was counting by. Then the taller silhouette began to approach him again, cautiously. As it left the camouflaging flow of light the softer starlight began to pick out details of its appearance. First the slick hollow of a gun barrel shimmered into focus, then a silver line crept up the length of the sight to the hand...
    He staggered backward with an involuntary cry as the sight of the five-fingered hand brought his memory back in a cold, fearful rush. His sudden movement caused the other man's knuckles to whiten around the gun's stock, an his companion assumed a more defensive position behind him. Somewhere in their vehicle, a radio cracked out a question that was ignored.
    No one would be looking for him, he knew that now. After the S-5J incident, the one these people called Roswell, Sol had been placed on restricted flyby status. All missions here were necessarily covert, and any crash or forced landing was automatically assumed...terminal. No search parties, no rescue missions, just a heartfelt eulogy from his commander and a flag for his mother; his girlfriend would undoubtedly 'start over'. His death was already a reality back home; now it was up to him to make it real here.
    It took only half a second of concentration to activate the implant he'd been given the day he joined the service, but in the few more seconds he had left before the reaction kicked in he had plenty of time to think. He wished he could talk to the two men before him, soldiers like himself, and just find out what they thought of it all. He wished he could tell them not to be afraid, wished he could show them how similar their two races were, wished he could warn them to call home every day just to tell their mothers how much they loved them.

    It took quite a while for the two enlisted men to work up enough nerve to go near the alien corpse, which had started to dissolve almost before it had hit the ground. They stared down at what remained of the slender, gray-skinned body, the long four-fingered hands, the oversized cranium; stared in disbelief, afraid to touch it, afraid to call for help. The younger of the two looked away first. "Johnson, are we...did we really see this?"
    Johnson's eyes were still glued to the bulbous dead eyes of the alien at his feet. "No," he murmured. He felt like the alien had been wanting to tell him something before it died, but he couldn't be sure. And he wasn't about to ask Jones if he felt the same way; you had to watch your back in this man's Army. "No," he repeated slowly. "I think we'd better decide right now that we didn't see anything. Agreed?"
    Jones sighed. "Agreed," he said. "But we still have to call in this," and he waved a hand at the scattered wreckage, "before someone else does. Think the body'll be gone by the time they get here?"
    "Yeah." Johnson reluctantly left the strange pilot's side and followed Jones back to the jeep, letting him call in the report. His gaze was locked on the once-distant stars, wondering which one this fellow soldier would never go home to.
     He felt an overwhelming need to call his mother.