V - The Original Miniseries Read Online Free Page A

that morning."
    "I did. You were on the phone, hustling somebody for an assignment, and didn't hear me." She paused, turned to him, her green eyes eloquent. "I'm sorry." Donovan smiled, a little tensely. "So was 1." Their eyes held for several seconds, then she looked away. "What time is it?" Donovan checked his watch. "Seven fifty-six."
Kristine hurried away to check her last-minute preparations. Donovan busied himself with his camera settings. The minutes crawled by.
    At seven fifty-nine, a distinguished white-haired man emerged, flanked by armed escorts. Donovan recognized him as the secretary general and watched as he waved to the rooftop troops to lower their weapons. Donovan trained his camera on the gigantic floodlit shape of the alien craft hovering far above them, so enormous it dwarfed the tallest of the skyscrapers. He could hear someone counting down under his breath.
    One of the newsmen was speaking into a mike: "... and a hush has fallen ... not just here, I am sure, but around the world ..." "Nine ... eight ... seven ... six ..." Five, thought Donovan, four, three, two, one"... as eight o'clock strikes ... 0100 Greenwich Mean Time."
Donovan stared upward, the viewfinder of his camera pressed against his eye. His eye watered as he tried not to blink.
     
There! Something-hard to make out in that silver-blue vastness-a tiny dark opening! Donovan allowed himself that blink, then squinted back at the ship.
    He zoomed in, centering directly on the opening, watched it fill with something-something that resolved into a streamlined shape that detached swooping down toward them. Donovan could hear Kristine's cool, professional tones, and with one part of his mind admired her control-he knew she was as nervous as any of them, but her poise argued that she did this every day. "The smaller craft is moving at an angle downward, now-across Third Avenue and Thirty-Ninthcoming directly toward the UN Building."
    Donovan pivoted to follow the craft as it slowed prior to landing. It gleamed white, with small dark triangles that could have been opaque windows at regular intervals. On what looked to be its nose was a red symbol of some kind, a combination of dots and lines, like nothing the cameraman had ever seen before, but holding a haunting familiarity nevertheless. The craft descended with barely a whoosh of displaced air to mark its passage.
Kristine continued her commentary: "Now the craft is drifting to a stop some ten feet in the air above our heads ... Now it's landing ... The air itself feels strange ... vibrating slightly ..."
    A panel opened at the bottom side of the craft, just as the assembled crowd heard a voice-a strangely resonant, slightly echoing voice: "Herr General Sekreterare . . ." Donovan shifted the camera to pick up the secretary general as the man stepped to the front of the crowd, his face set in lines of calm determination, his back very straight.
The voice continued: "Var intre radd kom upp for trappan. " At the same moment a short ramp extruded onto the rooftop, resting there securely.
    Kristine's voice reached Donovan, still poised, calm, but with a new tightness. "I think the voice spoke Swedishthat's the secretary general's native language . . ." She listened intently to a button in her ear. "Yes, I have the translation now . . . 'Mr. Secretary General ... do not be afraid ... Please climb the ramp."'
    Beneath his shock of white hair, the elderly man's face was set, his strides coming with a steady precision. He .reached the ramp and began climbing, step by step, until he reached the top and disappeared. The armed guards raised their weapons. Donovan realized he'd been holding his breath only when his vision began to blur. He let it out slowly, his eye riveted to the camera's viewfinder, and waited.
    There was a stirring at the top of the stairs, shadows moving within darkness. Then-a face! The secretary general emerged, moving with a quick vigor that was in huge contrast to the rigid strides he