Alan Dean Foster

by Alien Nation

  "In the camps we were lodged four to a room. You must remember that the processing was overseen by the military. It was all done very arbitrarily and in considerable haste. We were simply told which room to go to after we had been issued bedding, identification cards, and toiletry articles-and new names."

  He passed Sykes, moving toward the bar's back exit. Sykes looked after him, then followed, careful to watch where he put his feet.

  The alley looked like any big-city alley. The Newcomers had not had time to build housing to their liking, and they left human structures pretty much alone, adapting to them without extensive modification. They hadn't had much choice. It was easier to rent than to build, especially in a city as expensive as Los Angeles. A few attempts to build specifically to Newcomer needs had been made by entrepreneurs like William Harcourt, but their projects were isolated and few.

  To make it worse, wealthy humans drawn to anything new and different outbid those few aliens with money enough to buy a house for the slightly alien structures Harcourt and his partners built.

  Porter was leaning against the far wall of the alley, hands jammed in his pockets and looking sullen. His accent was thick and liberally laced with a weird mixture of human and alien street slang. It hadn't taken the younger Newcomers long to learn that there was mre than one kind of English.

  Francisco confronted him, keeping out of easy reach. "You don't know what your father and these two men who came to visit him that day were arguing about?"

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  " I told you. " Porter spoke without looking at the big detective. "I was in the back of the store. I just heard muffled voices. I had the box on and I couldn't hear any words. Just talking sounds, like."

  Francisco sounded doubtful. "You didn't try to listen in, maybe learn something useful? A deep-holed ss'yuti' like yourself?"

  "I told you, I didn't hear nothin'!" Porter responded defensively. "I didn't give a damn about the old man and his friends. He had a lot of visitors. I always figured it was just business, so I stayed out of it.

  That kind of ss'loka crap never interested me. "

  "Didn't it?" said Sykes. "Why do I have this tight feeling inside that you're not telling us the truth?" When Porter didn't comment he tried a different tack. "One of the two men was named Hubley, right?"

  "What if it was?"

  Sykes ignored the challenge. "What about the other one? Did you see him?"

  S) kes leaned in close so that the punker couldn't avoid his eyes. "You're not being helpful enough, Porter. It would please me if you were a I ittle more helpful."

  The younger man shifted uneasily against the wall. "Okay, what of it? Yeah, I seen him around. Highroller dude named Strader. Joshua Strader. Runs a club on the West Side. 'Encounters,' I think it's called."

  Sykes was nodding to himself. "Yeah, I heard of it." He spat in the direction of the X-Bar's exit. "Caesar's Palace compared to this rathole.

  "

  "That's all I know." Porter was shifting nervously from one foot to the other, like a cat that's been too long in a box on its way to the vet. "You want to know anything more, you ask somebody else."

  He turned and waited expectantly. After a long look, Francisco moved aside to let him pass. As the punker mooched through the doorway leading back into the bar, the Newcomer detective had a final word for him.

  "I am sorry about your father."

  Porter threw him a last, inconclusive look. Then he was gone, swallowed back up by the alien hissing and ultravio-89

  lets. Sykes and Francisco headed up the alley toward the main street.

  Francisco paused once they'd reached the slugmobile. "If I may make a suggestion, Matt?"

  Sykes looked across at him, the door open and his hand on the handle.

  "Like what?"

  "We have different weak spots than you do. If you intend in the future to try extracting information from one of us by the use of physical force, you should know exactly how to go about it." He raised his right arm and pointed. "There are sensitive nerve centers here, beneath each arm. A blow to this spot will produce the effect I think you were looking for, "

  "Yeah, sure." Sykes didn't look at his partner as he climbed into the car. "I knew that all the time. I just never got the opening, that's all."

  Francisco's face was expressionless as he slid in alongside his partner.

  "Of course. . ."

  Sykes studied the menu mounted above the serving counter. It was late and the burger stand wasn't crowded. The menu was in both English and the alien language. To the detective the Newcomer hieroglyphs looked like the scribbles Kristin used to bring home from kindergarten.

  Teenage humans and aliens mixed freely behind the counter, working together to produce both varieties of fast food. Sykes envied thern their easy camaraderie. It just proved what everyone knew all along: if you put any group of kids together and kept 'ern away from the adults, they'd get along fine. It took experienced grown-ups to really screw things up.

  They'd been waiting less than five minutes when the pretty brunette brought them their food. She didn't so much as glance at Francisco. Sykes noted that all the cashiers were human. Given time, that too would change.

  "Six forty-two," site demanded boredly. Her attention was split three ways: among her two customers, the night manager working the grill, and the tall gangly boy her own age presently shaking oil from the latest batch of fries.

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  He shelled out bills and change, waited while Francisco methodically counted out his share. They argued briefly over a quarter, with the result that their server gained an unexpected tip.

  "Missing a chocolate shake," Sykes told her.

  Her eyes flicked over their tray and she nodded without commenting.

  headed for the shake machine. While he was waiting, Sykes found his attention drawn once more to the brightly lit overhead menu.

  "I don't think I could ever learn to read that shit. Looks like a bunch of worms screwing." He glanced curiously at his partner. "How long did it take you to learn English?"

  Francisco gazed down at him. "You find my English acceptable?"

  Sykes shrugged. "Got a ways to go, but it ain't bad."

  "Thank you. It took me three months." At the look that came over his partner's face he added, "Certain things we learn quickly. We may sometimes appear to be stupid, but we are not, Matt. It is simply that our talents are concentrated in certain areas. Some things that you do easily and well I do not think we will ever be able to manage. Other tasks we find hard but can do. A few things we are very good at because we were designed to adapt to them. It is our strength, what we were bred for. To adapt to difficult environments. To survive. Learning a native language is an essential survival skill. Your own early explorers of your planet knew this as well.-

  The girl returned to put Sykes's shake on the tray.

  "That's a large?" Sykes eyed the Styrofoam container dubiously.

  She nodded. "New cups. Complain to the management."

  "Where? In Chicago?" He picked up the shake and put it in the bag atop his burger and fries. The detectives headed for the door, digging food out of their sacks as they talked.

  "My neighbor's kid has a Newcomer girl in his class. She's six years old.

  The basketball coach at the high school down the street's already trying to get her family to commit. -

  "Our physical size has been of benefit to us, which is fortunate."

  Francisco held the door for his partner. "We 91

  arrived with nothing but our bodies. Many of us have been forced to make a living on strength and size alone." They were out in the parking lot now. "Considering that much of the reaction to our arrival has been less than friendly, can you imagine what our situation would be like if instead of being bigger and stronger than the average human, we were smaller and weaker?"

  Sykes's brow furrowed as he considered this new thought. Then he brightened. "Actually, it might've been easier on you. Big as you run, there are always s
ome folks who are going to view you as a threat."

  "Such people, I think, would also tend to view humans bigger than themselves as threatening. Are you saying that had we been smaller we could have relied more on the goodness of human nature to ease our acceptance into your society?"

  Sykes hesitated outside the slugmobile, pondering that one carefully.

  Finally he declared around a mouthful of greasy fries, "Don't go asking a cop about the goodness of human nature, George. - He slipped in behind the wheel and started unwrapping the rest of his food.

  Except that it wasn't his food. His expression contorted as he fought to mute his reaction. "Oh, God. I think I got yours here." He held up two neatly sliced strips of raw meat. Patches of animal fur clung to the unskinned exterior.

  He wasn't alone in his disgust. Francisco could barely stand to hold on to the dripping cheeseburger he'd just unfoiled. They quickly swapped handfuls.

  Sykes bit gratefully into his burger, savoring the taste of grease and fried beef and processed cheese. It helped settle his stomach. But he couldn't restrain his curiosity.

  Porter had been wrong. They did teach you a little about Newcomers in cop school. They just never taught you enough.

  He nodded at the unwrapped meat in his partner's hands. "Which kind is that? Raw what?"

  Holding one of the two strips like a piece of jerky, Francisco bit off a few inches. He replied while chewing slowly, clearly delighting in the taste of the dreadful stuff.

  "This is mole. We are extremely fortunate in that our 92

  digestive systems are similar enough for us to ingest local foods. "

  " Geez, don't call that garbage 'food.' Have some respect."

  "Furthertnore," Francisco went on, "we find much of what you call vermin extremely palatable. This works to your benefit as well as to ours, since our culinary preferences coincide neatly with your dislikes. There is a new restaurant on the West Side, I am told, which specializes in serving heaping platters of. . ."

  "George! Just eat your crap, will you, and keep your mouth shut when you're not chewing?"

  Francisco hesitated, then obediently took another bite out of his meat strip. The second one rested on his lap, atop yellow wrapping paper. The foil it had been served in was identical to the square which had held Sykes's cheeseburger except that the script on it was all alien. The burger chain's instantly recognizable logo was also unchanged.

  "It is good," he said around his mouthful, a bit defensively.

  "I'll bet." Sykes couldn't keep from staring in fascination as his partner masticated. Thank God the Newcomers naturally chewed with their mouths shut. "I got a kitchen question. "

  "I will try to answer."

  "Would it really put you out if they tossed that on the grill for a minute or two?"

  "It is not only a question of taste, Matt. If the food has been cooked, our bodies cannot assimilate the nutrients."

  "Kind of like with rice and vitamins, huh?"

  "I believe it is something like that. I have made a minor study of our different food habits. Serving is a hobby of my mate's. Did you know that in Southern America, in the regions crossed by the Andes Mountains, guinea pig has been a staple food of the local humans for thousands of years?"

  Sykes's stomach did a complete flip-flop. His daughter had kept guinea pigs as pets for several years. They were fat and furry. The thought of eating one cooked, much less raw ...

  Francisco rambled on, oblivious to the look on his partner's face. "The word for them down there is cui, pro-90

  nounced 'koo-ee' in English. I have seen pictures. Sometimes they are served in stews, sometimes simply gutted and split and unfortunately boiled with sauces. Often the hair remains on. I imagine that even after being dreadfully seared by flame the hair is still nice and crunchy on the way down."

  "George, I've got a large-caliber handgun in my shoulder holster, and if you don't shut up I may have to use it. "

  Francisco responded with a wide smile, not quite sure if his partner was merely engaging in the usual human hyperbole or if his suggestion was serious. Sykes blanched at the smile.

  "Oh, that's real attractive. You got fur in your teeth, George. Come on, man, do something with yourself, will you? We can't go out like that.

  We're gonna be talking to people- Geez.-

  The Newcomer made an effort to pick the fur out of his teeth. It caught under his fingernails and he scraped the accumulated fuzzy lumps off on his serving paper. Sykes watched a moment longer. Then, his appetite gone, he shoved the remainder of his supper back into his sack and tossed it into the back seat.

  He gazed quietly out past the parking lot, trying to watch the pedestrians and cars, taking his thoughts slow while praying for his partner to finish as rapidly as possible. Unfortunately, Francisco decided to linger over his second mole strip.

  Better to talk about anything than sit listening to those munching noises, Sykes finally decided. Clinging to the wheel and his stomach, he asked, "So what was that other word for hurnan everybody was using? 'Slow ka? That's what that jerk kid Porter was calling me."

  "Ss'loka'." Francisco corrected him gently. "It means literally 'small but intelligent creature.' "

  Sykes looked over at his partner, uncertain whether he approved of the definition. Francisco must have noticed something in his expression, because he added reassuringly, "It loses much in the translation."

  "I see." Sykes mulled this over, found himself getting nowhere.

  Linguistic subtleties weren't his forte. "And what 94

  was that one about my mother? That was a good one. Even if it didn't mean zip to me."

  "Ss'troyka ss'lato 'na'."

  "I'm damned if I can figure out how you make sounds like that with just your mouth."

  "You must learn to move your tongue properly against your upper palate."

  "Say what?"

  Francisco demonstrated. The result was a pure hissing sound. "Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth where the accents fall. The trick is to make the ... sound by inhaling, not when breathing out. Your linguists have learned how to do this."

  "Yeah, but two years' high school Spanish is as far as I ever got."

  "With a little practice I think you could do it, Matt. Try. I will help."

  Sykes took a deep breath. "Say it one more time."

  "Ss'troyka ss'lato na'.

  "Yeah, that's it. Again. Slowly."

  Francisco complied, stretching out the peculiar consonantal combinations and exaggerating the hissing sound where appropriate. Sykes tried, failed miserably, then tried again. He kept trying. Each time he sounded a little better.

  "I can almost understand you," his partner said encouragingly. "Let us try one word at a time now. Then we will put it all together."

  Sykes nodded determinedly. "Right. And don't be afraid to correct me, okay? I use this on some Slag, I want to make sure he gets my point."

  They worked on it steadily, until Sykes had achieved near fluency with the phrase. It was only three words and a lot of hissing, but he felt oddly elated when his partner pronounced him perfect.

  _V11

  The difference between the Encounters Club and the X-Bar was the difference between the Plaza Hotel and the Bates Motel, between the disintegrating depths of Slagtown and the upscale West Side, between night and day. Well, between evening and day, anyhow. It couldn't compare to the all-human clubs up on Sunset, but compared to the best downtown Slagtown had to offer it was damn impressive.

  The place was full ofyoung professionals, mostly human but with the occasional Newcomer individual or couple. They tended to cluster in the comers and against the walls, where the darker lighting helped them to blend in with the human clientele. Sykes wondered if they found the dance floor lighting painfully bright and suffered it for die sake of being able to mix freely with human company. If he got the chance he'd have to ask George.

  One thing to be said for steady drinking, he mused, When you were falling-down dr
unk you didn't care what planet your drinking buddy hailed from.

  Music blared from several sources as their hostess led them through the maze of tables. They walked past the dance floor, traveling from the realm of technopunk to Newtone. She found them a small table not far from the stage, then moved slinkily away. Sykes watched her legs through the slits on the sides of her skirt, finally forced himself to concentrate on the stage.

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  The music changed abruptly and a new dancer appeared on the runway. The beat was familiar but the dancer was not. She was well over six feet tall, not unusual for a Newcomer feinale, and appropriately proportioned. Her high naked skull was covered with a silvery wig, her makeup an exotic combination of human and alien tastes. With the full wig you didn't even notice the absence of external ears.

  Not that anyone was likely to be looking for her ears anyway, Sykes decided.

  As she danced to the pounding rhythm, the silvery nylon wig bounced wildly.

  Sykes observed the entire performance in total silence, fascinated by some of her inhuman movements as well as her more familiar attributes. Francisco merely sat stolidly and looked on with what could best be described as nonjudgmental politeness.

  Sykes had expected to be bored, turned off. The strength of his reaction and interest surprised and startled him, so much so that he was actually disappointed when the music died and the dancer fled the stage. She was instantly replaced by another performer, human and pretty, who seemed somehow very small.

  Francisco was resting a big hand on his shoulder. "Let's go."

  Sykes shook himself. "What?"

  "If we do not hurry we may miss her."

  "Yeah, right." He rose and followed his partner to the left of the stage.

  The guard there tried to stop them, shrugged indifferently when Sykes flashed his badge.

  They found her as she was making her way back to the dressing rooms. She studied them with interest, her gaze lingering curiously on the towering form of Francisco.

  "Aren't you boys in the wrong place? Next show's in an hour. I don't do private performances."

  "You are Cassandra?" Francisco inquired formally. This time Sykes said nothing about his partner keeping silent.