by K. W. Jeter
More information, to be stored and sorted through. Humans were the natives of this planet—and their relationship to the Tenctonese slaves was more complicated than the previous theories that had been advanced.
“But here is a human—” Ahpossno turned the paper toward the other “—who works to save the infected ones.”
The rags shrugged. “They’re not all murdering bastards. Just a few of ’em.” The other laughed, short and hollow. “But that’s enough, ain’t it?”
He laid his finger on the picture. “This is a . . .” He searched his rapidly expanding vocabulary for the words. “A ‘hospital,’ is it not? Where is it?”
Wobbling unsteadily on his feet, the other goggled at Ahpossno. “There’s nothing you can do . . . Give it up . . .”
The other wasn’t worth killing; with a quick shove, Ahpossno sent him sprawling backward into the alley’s strewn rubble. He turned and strode quickly toward the alley’s mouth and the street beyond.
The street was not empty now. He spotted another vehicle, a smaller one, stationed halfway up the block; the noise of its idling engine broke the street’s silence. The driver, a Tenctonese male, had gotten out and was depositing small, flat rectangles of paper into a metal container painted blue with red numerals on the side.
He was down the street and had slid behind the vehicle’s steering wheel before the driver noticed: He quickly examined the interior; there was one less pedal to operate, but everything else seemed to be of a similar design to the truck he’d driven before.
“Hey!” A shout came from the other side, at the curb. “That’s my car!”
The driver scrambled to the passenger door, tugged it open, and scrambled inside the vehicle. Ahpossno, still examining the gearshift, ignored the intrusion, until the driver grabbed his shirt.
“Get outta my car!”
He swiftly pinned the driver with a hand to the throat. He ripped open the driver’s sleeve, exposing the wrist and forearm. There was only bare, unadorned skin, with no tattoo. A slave.
“What are you . . .” Sudden fear mixed with the driver’s confusion. “Wait . . .” He had no time to say anything more, as Ahpossno slammed a fist under the driver’s arm. The blow to the nerve center stunned the driver; his eyes rolled upward in their sockets as he slumped unconscious on the passenger seat.
Ahpossno shoved the limp form out upon the curb, then pulled the door shut. He jammed the vehicle into gear, and it lurched forward, scraping the fender of the vehicle parked ahead of it. Swerving into the center of the street, he pressed the accelerator flat, the vehicle’s tires squealing before catching traction.
He glanced at the mirror above the windshield. He could see the mouth of the alley disappearing behind the vehicle. The Overseer in rags had managed to crawl out to the sidewalk. The individual raised an imploring hand and shouted something after Ahpossno. But he was already too far away to hear what it was.
C H A P T E R 1 5
HE HAD TO wait until 9:00 A.M. for the gift shop to open.
Sikes had stayed at the hospital all night, either stationed up at the corridor outside the Franciscos’ isolation room, or taking a long break in the twenty-four-hour cafeteria. After midnight, the only things available were strange coffee and defeated-looking items of food to be thrown into the microwave and then thrown down the garbage chute two bites later. He’d done that twice, ridden the elevator down and sat among the expanse of empty tables and chairs, under the overbright fluorescents. Once silent and by himself, the other time with Cathy, taking her own break from setting up her lab. A few others, humans or Newcomers, had drifted in and out of the cafeteria, keeping their own long vigils on their loved ones in the intensive care units. A couple of men were excited and flustered, fumbling coins into the coffee machine, then darting back out; Sikes had figured they were doing time over in Maternity.
When Cathy had gone back to her work, he’d stood at the cafeteria’s windows, overlooking the deserted parking lot. Sipping the last tepid bits from the cardboard cup, he’d gotten that hollow not-there feeling that came with these nocturnal territories. Hanging out in public places, while all the straight world lay deep in sleep . . .
He’d done enough of this over the years. It came with the job. Waiting around to see if a fellow cop was going to make it, or have his life leak away through a hole too near his heart. Or if a suspect, or a victim, even further down the hierarchy of insiders, could be patched together and questioned though a fentanyl haze, get the little mumbled scraps of answers you needed before the doctors and nurses chased you away from the tube-cluttered bedside. You did the hours, waiting, and you drank the bad coffee, waiting.
A whole empty world, just on the other side of the door to the bright, busy daylight one. Sikes gazed down at the parking lot’s herringbone patterns, his thumb crimping the edge of the empty cup. It pained him, an ache inside the job’s scar tissue, to think about Susan and Emily having tripped and fallen into these night lands. George’s wife had always been real nice to him, like he could walk into their home any time and he was supposed to be there, she smiled and made him welcome. Yeah, well, you screwed that up royally, didn’t you? his own voice nagged inside his head. That’s all gone now, buddy. He shoved the voice away, threw an iron lid over it.
And Emily—she was just a kid. Gone now . . . a small echo . . . all gone . . . That was the kind of thing that pissed him off. A pretty kid, barely a teenager, didn’t belong here. But kids wound up here all the time, he knew it; and that came with the job as well.
That goddamn Parris . . . He squashed the cup into his fist. If there had been enough of that dirtbrain’s sky-high butt left to kick, he’d have been happy to go down to the morgue and do it.
When the morning light came up, sending long shadows of the street’s palm trees across the lot, Sikes went down to the hospital’s lobby and loitered in front of the gift shop. Behind the glass wall were ranks of magazines and small stuffed animals. At five after nine—he had to work to keep his impatience in check—a frizz-haired woman with harlequin glasses showed up, keys in hand. She wheezed as she bent down to undo the door’s bottom lock.
Sikes went into the shop right behind her.
“Good morning.” The woman stationed herself behind the cash register.
“Yeah, right.” He scanned the merchandise. “It’s lovely.”
At the back of the shop was a glass-fronted cooler cabinet with flower arrangements inside; they looked fresh enough to have been delivered yesterday. He pulled open the door, catching a chill draft in his face. His hand stopped an inch short of picking up one of the vases. Grazer had told him what the flowers that had come to the Francisco home had been, all expensive mums and other fancy types. It was probably a good idea to avoid anything like that, just because of the bad associations involved.
He carried over to the counter a simple arrangement of daisies and some other flower that he didn’t know the name of. The cashier lady had turned on a mini-TV right next to the register. The voices of an L.A.-area news show rattled on as he dug his wallet out of his hip pocket.
“. . . authorities fear the deadly bacteria could be used by illegal Purist organizations against the Newcomer community . . .”
There was no getting away from it. And why should there be? Sikes started pulling folding money out of his wallet.
The newscaster on the tiny screen turned over a sheet of paper. “In other local news, officials announced renewed malathion spraying in the continuing effort to eradicate the medfly. Agriculture officials—”
The cashier’s pudgy hand turned down the TV’s sound. “You believe that?” She looked disgusted.
“Yeah, well, it’s just a possibility at this stage.” He looked at the total the woman had rung up, then laid down a twenty. “The Purists might not have the bacteria. We can hope that’s the case.”
“What? Oh, that.” She handed him his change. “I mean the malathion. It just ruins the finish on my patio furniture.”
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br /> He was stunned for a moment. He’d forgotten that the daylight world had things creeping around in it that were just as bad.
“Patio furniture . . .” He jammed the money into his pocket and grabbed the flowers. “That’s a real tragedy, all right.”
As he strode toward the door, he knew the woman was so stupid that she’d be goggling at his back with one of those wide-eyed What did I say? looks. And he also knew there wouldn’t have been much point in trying to explain it to her.
There had been a map, a primitive thing of colored lines on folded paper, in a compartment inside the vehicle. Ahpossno had quickly scanned it until he had spotted the same words in the human language that had been in the newspaper. The name of the hospital where the infected slaves were being kept—the rest, the deciphering of his position by the map’s coordinates, was relatively easy. The natives of the planet had made it so, by the expedient system of marking the streets’ names with elevated metal signs at each intersection.
With daylight, more vehicles had appeared on the streets; he’d had to be more careful, observing the others until he’d figured out the rules they obeyed. It was galling to place himself under such petty restrictions, but for the time being he wished his presence to remain a secret.
He’d found the hospital, and had abandoned the car on a narrow street close by.
No one stopped him as he entered the multistory building; no one gave him more than a inconsequential glance as he walked past them. The Tenctonese slaves and the native humans appeared to mingle freely here. As in the newspaper photo, the Tenctonese care-givers were clothed in distinctive white garments. But there were enough others, dressed in varieties similar to the garments he had appropriated, for him to pass unnoticed.
The words security unit had been in the newspaper. He found them on a much simpler map on one of the hospital’s walls. His comprehension of the native human language had already advanced to the degree that he could eavesdrop on the conversation of two female care-givers as they rode up in the elevator with him. He listened for any mention of the infected slaves, but there was only talk of one’s trivial romantic interests, and the other’s commiseration with her.
The two got off on the fourth floor; he rode up to the fifth. Another nurse, a Tenctonese, was walking past as the doors drew open. “Excuse me . . .” He stepped forward and caught her attention. “Where is the security unit?”
“Right over there.” She pointed to one of the corridors.
A human in a dark-colored uniform, with a shiny oval of metal pinned to the chest, stopped Ahpossno before he could push his way through the double doors. “You got a pass?”
It would have been easy to sweep the person aside. He held back; more of the situation needed to be assessed before he could proceed.
Behind him, he heard another set of elevator doors slide open. A human with a vase of flowers tucked into the crook of his arm strode past Ahpossno. The guard at the security unit entrance nodded in recognition as the other human flashed a similar piece of metal set in a folding rectangle of leather. He tucked it into a back pocket and went on through the doors.
The guard watched Ahpossno with suspicion as he turned away. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Is this the fourth floor?”
A shake of the head, apparently signifying no. The guard pointed to the numeral painted above the elevators. “It’s the fifth.”
“Ah. Thank you.” He walked away and pushed the button set in the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw the guard was distracted for a moment, talking to a nurse pushing a cart into the security unit. Quickly, silently, Ahpossno moved toward one of the other corridors.
He found an angle where he could watch the comings and goings at the guarded door, without being seen. All he had to do was wait. The means of accomplishing the next step would come soon enough.
Briefly he wondered who the clown in the cowboy shirt was, hanging out around the security unit’s entrance. It didn’t matter to Sikes, though; there were always flakes on the scene, wherever things got tense. That was something else cops got used to. He’d long ago figured that they all had some kind of ESP, some fruitcake telepathy, that alerted them like an air raid siren going off in the night.
Sikes had already forgotten the guy by the time he got down to the isolation room. The light spilling into the corridor was dimmed, the room’s blinds having been closed.
The same doctor he’d talked to before came out, and Sikes grabbed his arm. “Where’s Detective Francisco?”
“He’s with his wife.” The doctor nodded toward the window. “We’re intubating her droonal flanges. Just hang on—it’ll only take a few minutes.”
The doctor hurried off, leaving Sikes standing with his vaseful of daisies. He glanced over his shoulder, hearing footsteps from the other direction.
Albert Einstein, not in the janitor’s overall he wore at the station, but in a glaring plaid sport coat with padded shoulders, smiled as he approached. The effect was made more surreal by what he carried: a small potted dieffenbachia in one arm, a live chicken in the other.
The chicken squawked, stuck out its neck, and pecked at Sikes’s sleeve. “Albert—” He pulled his arm away. “What are you doing? What’s all this?”
Albert lifted the plant and chicken higher against his chest. “These are for Susan and Emily.” Tucked between Albert’s fingers was the pass that had gotten him past the guard; Sikes recognized Cathy’s handwriting.
Two beady eyes stared with idiot satisfaction at Sikes. “You can’t bring a chicken in here.”
Albert looked puzzled. “But I did.”
The question of how he’d gotten it past the guard would have to be settled later. “I mean, you’re not supposed to.”
“Why not?”
“Look, uh . . .” Sikes gestured with his free hand, and the chicken took another swipe at him. “It’s an animal. You just can’t bring animals into a hospital.”
“But we’re animals . . .”
This was what he got for telling people like Grazer that Albert’s mind just worked differently from other people’s. “Yeah, Al; you’re right. We’re animals, technically. But we’re human beings—I mean, I’m human. And you’re a Newcomer. And that’s different.” Sikes pointed to the chicken. “This is an animal animal.”
“Susan and Emily need it.” Albert clutched the chicken tighter. “They need the life force of many nahooma. Many souls.” He looked tenderly at the potted plant in his arms. “Like this one, too.”
A voice called from down the corridor. “Albert . . .”
George walked toward them. He stopped and admired the gifts in Albert’s arms. “Look . . . just look at what you’ve brought.”
“I tried to tell him about the chicken.”
“It’s very therapeutic.” George stroked the chicken’s head with his forefinger. “Just what the doctor ordered.” He turned toward Sikes. “And you brought . . .”
Sikes saw the disappointment snap into place behind George’s eyes. “Look, I know they’re just daisies and stuff, but I thought maybe . . .”
“They’ve been cut off.” Albert spoke in a low voice. “From the plant. So their souls are gone.”
“It’s just one of those things.” George tried to smooth over the awkward moment. “Tenctonese believe that dead flowers aren’t good for the sick.” He forced a smile. “But I know Emily and Susan would want to see you. Please . . .” He gestured toward the room’s door.
Sikes looked at the flowers in his own hand. He should’ve known, listened to his gut feeling back at the gift shop, that they were a bad idea. Beside the door was a trash can combined with a sand-filled ashtray on top; he shoved the flowers through the opening on the side of the cylinder, and heard the vase drop with a solid thunk to the bottom.
The isolation room, once they’d all gone through the air lock, was bathed in the radiance from a bank of UV lights overhead; the purpleish glow colored skin and the sheets upon the beds. Sikes could see how
many living things had been brought into the room. There was already a row of various potted plants lined up against two walls; one, some kind of glossy-leafed tropical, stood as high as his shoulder. A kitten, a little silver tabby, lay asleep, curled up in a ball, at the foot of Emily’s bed. He and George stood by the girl’s bed as Albert set the plant he’d brought down with the others.
George’s daughter slept fitfully, her breathing labored. “She hasn’t regained consciousness.” Her father touched her brow with his fist. “Even before the ambulance came . . .” The words trailed off.
They stepped over to Susan’s bed. She was able to open her eyes, the lids fluttering weakly. “That’s good . . .” A whisper, as her unfocused gaze took in the faces above her. “You . . . you’re friends again . . .”
Sikes glanced at George from the corner of his eye. His ex-partner said nothing to contradict his wife, but merely stroked her brow with his fingertip.
“Susan . . . is there anything you want?”
She was leaving them, falling into a semiconscious doze. Her eyes closed, and her voice was even less audible. “Visahooli . . .”
“I’ll get it,” said Sikes. Fetching something would be a good excuse to withdraw discreetly from the scene. He glanced over at Albert. “What’s a visahooli?”
“A song.” George turned from his wife’s bed. “She wants us to sing her a song.”
“Song?” He drew a blank, as though he’d never heard the English word, either. It took a second for Sikes’s brain to click back into gear. “Uh, I don’t know any Tenctonese songs.”
“That doesn’t matter. She likes human ones. Since we came here . . . to this planet . . . that is what she likes to hear. They mean a lot to her.”
Sikes knew that was true. He had a memory flash, from the days when he and George had been working together, of the two of them getting a little tanked after wrapping up a big case, he on a pricey bottle of Glenfiddich, George on that god-awful sour milk Newcomers got bombed with. They’d gotten into dirty limericks—he’d been surprised at how many George had known, until George had confessed he’d read a ethnological textbook on them—and then George, his expansive mood at a peak, had started singing. Sikes had been knocked for a loop; it was the last thing he would’ve expected.
