by K. W. Jeter
It’d been a long time since he’d given up smoking, but he found his hand rooting through his jacket pocket, searching for the still familiar feel of a soft pack wrapped in cellophane. He didn’t even want to have a cigarette; it was just a reversion to old habits, the body’s ingrained modes of comfort.
He took out his hands and laid them flat on the table, studying his knuckles as if they had taken on some new interest for him. “I tried to get George to bring in a priest. I thought it was a good idea.”
Lorraine set down the burger, chewed, and swallowed. “A priest?”
A stone had lodged in his throat; it was hard to squeeze the words around it. “Looks pretty bad. Emily might die tonight.” The tabletop felt cold under his palms. He looked up at Lorraine. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Well . . . I know you were raised Catholic . . . but still—”
“Catholic’s got nothing to do with it.” He felt a twinge of irritation. “Yeah, I got the nun parade when I was a kid, but I had cousins who went to the Lutheran church, and my aunt Theresa who lived in Compton used to drag me over to the Abyssinian Baptists because the singing was better there. So what? It’s not like the mackeral-snappers have got an exclusive on this kinda thing.”
Lorraine’s expression became even more confused. “So what was the deal with thinking George should get a priest?”
“Because of Emily . . . the last rites and all . . .”
“You’re worried about her soul . . . ?”
He let his silence answer yes.
“Matt . . .” She kept her voice gentle. “We don’t even know if they have souls.”
“Of course they do!” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing from her. “Come on!”
She slowly shook her head. “There’s nothing in the Bible about Newcomers. Christ came to us as . . . as we are. He died on the cross for human beings.”
“What are you saying?” He looked at her in amazement. “They’re not in the club?”
“I’m sure God has a plan for the Newcomers . . .” Lorraine shrugged. “But it’s not the same as ours.”
Across the dining area, he heard voices, the rattle of silverware on the cafeteria’s plastic trays, the hiss of the soft drink dispensers. He could even hear his own pulse, thumping loudly at the corner of his forehead.
“You know, that kind of stuff makes me sick.” He shoved his chair back and stood up from the table. “I gotta get back. Swell talkin’ to you.”
“Matt—” Alarmed at the angry disgust in his face, she tried to grab his hand.
“I’m sorry, Lorraine.” Sikes wiped his hands with the paper napkin, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it onto the plate. “I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us.” He turned and walked away, toward the exit. He couldn’t tell if she called out his name again; the blood roared in his ears, blocking out everything but his own wordless fury.
C H A P T E R 1 8
HE HAD BEEN operating the vehicle for several hours straight. The last one he’d stolen had still been where he’d left it before, near the hospital. He’d debated for a moment the advisability of stealing another one, or using this one more time. He’d decided on the latter course; the streets were so packed with traffic that the chances seemed remote of this one being identified.
A round trip, driving out of the city’s dense traffic—Ahpossno had been able to figure out enough of the simple rules that the others obeyed so that he had avoided being noticed. And there were certainly enough slaves behind the wheels of the vehicles so that one more Tenctonese driver was nothing to cause comment. In many ways, his activities on this planet were facilitated by the degree of adaptation shown by the fellow members of his species. They moved about freely; so could he.
With certain precautions, of course. Ahpossno watched as the outskirts of the city—this ‘Los Angeles’ that the escaped slaves had settled in—approached on the horizon. He had already encountered the native security force, the underling stationed at the door inside the hospital, who had barred his way, and who hadn’t realized how close death was at hand; he could have killed the figure with a single blow to the point where the neck joined the cranium. Again, discretion had halted his clenched fist. There would be time enough for all appropriate punishments when his mission had been successfully concluded.
There had been another instrument of security he had come up against at the hospital, one who apparently possessed greater rank and authority despite the casual nature of his dress. A human named Sikes, a ‘police detective’—he had garnered the identification data from his unobserved eavesdropping in the hospital corridors. It had been obvious that he had aroused the suspicions of this Sikes; that had been astute on the part of the detective. A person of instinct, who trusted his own perception of subtle indices—such persons could always endanger the smooth running of an operation that relied on subterfuge and concealment. He might have to do something about Sikes before the police detective was able to infect others with even a tiny bit of the truth.
In the meantime, an initial rapport had been established with the Tenctonese female Ahpossno had targeted, the one who had assumed the humanlike name of Cathy. He had seen in her eyes, if not trust, at least a willingness to suspend doubt. She had been ready to give him a chance. Even that limited acceptance was an opening, a flawed spot in the defense. Through such a small gap between stones, a serpent could glide into the nest, wrap its coils at its leisure around the small, warm things it found there, the helpless and trusting . . .
The slaves were born of an inherently trusting race. Many strengths, of mind and body, but with a weakness that was as much a part of their genetics as the temperature of their blood. Much of the Chekkah training had been devoted to rooting out that weakness, putting steel in the raw hole where it had been. Ahpossno gazed unflinching at the light streaming through the windshield; his hands rested easily and in control upon the curve of the steering wheel. The memories inside him had long ago been transmuted into something denser and harder than steel. The path he had walked, to the instilling of the cold wrath of the Chekkah between his hearts, had wound through the gates of pain and fear. They were behind him now, and inside him at the same time, and in the weapons of his fists. That made him different from the slaves, members of a species that was no longer truly Tenctonese. Whatever he had lost—trust, and other things with soft words for names—was well lost.
As long as this Cathy had them . . . then they were still useful to him.
He took a hand from the steering wheel and rested it on the object filling the seat next to him. That, and the beginnings of Cathy’s trust in him, had been the reason for this small, time-consuming errand. He had gone back out to the shuttle craft’s hiding place, and fetched out the device.
A thing of value . . . a gift. The one that she would value the most, that would take him deeper inside her trust. There would be little that the human police detective Sikes, or anyone else, could do to stop him then.
Ahpossno drove on toward Los Angeles, and the sure unfolding of his plans.
He had managed to stay awake through the long hours of the night, while exhaustion had claimed the others. George was as exhausted as any of them—indeed, his fatigue had put him into a dazed state, like a walking dream, or nightmare—but the sound of his wife’s and daughter’s labored breathing prevented him from getting any rest, even if he’d wanted to. And Emily’s so much worse than Susan’s, the small body wracked by fever; she’d moan in the delirium that had claimed her, and he’d feel as if parallel knife blades had pierced his hearts.
She lay on her bed, still encased in the blue plastic ice-wrap. She’d been quiet for the last hour—he’d marked the slow progress of minutes on his watch. On the monitor above, Emily’s temperature fluctuated slowly between 105.7 and 105.6, the red LEDs shifting the last digit back and forth. A seed of hope quickened inside George each time the lower number appeared, then hung suspended when her temperature climbed the small notch aga
in.
He’d drawn his chair close to his daughter’s bedside, so he could lean close over the bed’s rails, and stroke her brow, letting his life-force flow into her. The room was full of living things, the plants and the kitten sleeping on a folded blanket in a cardboard box, tucked out of the way in a corner. Dr. Quinn and a couple of the staff nurses had prevailed upon Albert to take away the chicken he’d brought—it had started to flap and squawk unnervingly when Emily’s temperature had first gone up—but he knew that the creature had already done her good. As much as it was able to; as much as anything could. Perhaps even as much as her father’s presence. Whether all of that would be enough . . . that remained to be seen.
Cathy had gone out into the hallway to confer with the nurse on duty. Leaving one other living thing in the room; George glanced over at his partner, Matthew, asleep in a chair, his long legs splayed out in front of him, head rolled onto his shoulder. Unshaven stubble covered his face.
His partner . . . There was a certain comfort in being able to think of Sikes that way again. They had gone through so much in just the brief time they had been working together, it would have saddened him even more to think of all that falling apart. Not just falling, but exploding. Humans were a prideful species—he had known that, had tried to avoid hurting Sikes’s feelings about his promotion to Detective Two. But it had been like walking on a mindfield—no, minefield; he corrected himself the way Matt would have.
Then again, he had to wonder how much of the human propensity toward pride had rubbed off on himself, become part of his own nature. Perhaps it had always been there, innate within his Tenctonese soul. It had just needed a chance to emerge. When they had all been slaves, there had been no pride; all they had possessed had been their own suffering. And the remote solace of their deaths, given to them when they had worn out their usefulness to the Overseers and the masters beyond them.
Perhaps he had flaunted his promotion, thrown it in Sikes’s face. He had been so happy with his achievement, something that no other Newcomer had yet achieved. And Susan had been so—there wasn’t another word for it—so proud of him. And his children, and Albert at the station, polishing his shoes for him . . . That nameplate Susan had given him for his desk—George shook his head, thinking about it. Now he regretted that.
He had started to regret other things as well. The long hours sitting by his daughter’s side had given him time to sort through the darker, sadder contents of his thoughts. Even the promotion . . . Perhaps there was a dark side to that, something he hadn’t anticipated. He hadn’t imagined there could be any negative consequences to his own ambition, to rising as far and as fast as he could in the department. But what was the worth of that if it cost him so much? He glanced over at the sleeping Sikes. They were partners again, and friends—but for how long? He was aware of the rumors going around, that the police department brass and the board of supervisors and the mayor’s office, they all had their reasons for wanting a Newcomer to zoom up the ranks. Perhaps all the way to the top—George had felt dizzied, and even somewhat frightened, when he’d first realized how high he could go. It would do a lot to smooth out the department’s troublesome relationship with the Newcomer community, for him to ascend to one of those absolute-top office jobs. At that level, he’d be more of a politician than a cop.
Thinking about it . . . he could do a job like that, he had no doubts about that, and he could accomplish a lot of good in it. For Newcomers and humans; they all had to get along with one another. But to get there, he would have to leave Sikes and all his other friends at the station behind.
He smiled ruefully as he watched Sikes sleeping with his mouth open, head now back against the chair. Sikes could never be a politico; he was a cop, a detective, pure and simple. And a good one. He had the brains to perform any kind of upper-level job—but George also knew that his partner liked the hands-on grittiness of getting out on the street and making collars, dragging miscreants in by the scruffs of their necks and tossing them into a holding tank, just so he could look into their faces and, without saying a word, let them know that they had really screwed up big-time. There was no way that Sikes was going to give up something like that.
A new thought struck George. The Detective Two exam, even the oral part, hadn’t been that hard, especially for someone with Sikes’s experience. He wondered if Sikes might have bombed it—either deliberately or subconsciously—in order to forestall the process that might have eventually taken him off the streets and out of his real police detective’s job. It was something to think about. Later, when there was time . . . There would be plenty of time soon enough . . .
He closed his eyes, not sleeping, but letting his fatigue rise above him, like a warm, nonlethal ocean. He knew he was still in the hospital’s isolation room, close to his wife and daughter in their own deep unrest. But he was dreaming at the same time, lost on a night street that stretched endless in either direction. A siren wailed in the distance, at first faint, then deafeningly loud, until he had to press his hands against his temples to keep his skull from splitting in two. Bright headlights pinned him where he stood; he saw past their glare to the spinning red lights on top of a patrol car. No one was driving; behind the blood-spattered windshield he saw Susan and Emily, slumped together, shoulders touching. He knew that they were dead. He turned, to try to run away from the car bearing down on him. But he couldn’t find his way out of the dream; it had closed seamlessly around him, the door hidden in the cold stars . . .
His eyes snapped open, his spine jerking into a straight rod against the chair. Red numbers pulsed in his vision; in a fraction of a second, he realized he was looking at the temperature monitor above his daughter’s bed: 105.8 . . . A shrill electronic note sounded from the device; that had been the siren in his dreaming. The alarm went louder as the numbers changed to 105.9, then 106.
Another sound beneath the alarm; he looked down and saw Emily hiss in her breath through her teeth, her jaw clenched rigid. Her back arched to the breaking point, lifting clear of the mattress beneath; her fingertips clawed into the blue plastic wrapped around her.
“What . . . what the . . .” Across the room, Sikes groggily shook his head. Full awareness hit him, and he jumped to his feet, rushing next to George at the side of Emily’s bed.
Cathy and the nurse charged into the room from the corridor. They shoved George and Sikes away from the bed’s chrome rails.
“What is it?” George tugged frantically at Cathy’s arm. “What’s happening?”
She shook him off, and shouted to the nurse, “Get me ten cc’s of holodka!”
As the nurse quickly loaded the hypodermic, Cathy placed a hand against George’s chest; she pushed him gently back from the bedside. “It’s the crisis,” she said quietly. “There’s nothing you can do right now.”
He felt a hand grab his shoulder and tug him a step backward. “Come on,” said Sikes. “You gotta give ’em room to work.”
“Hurry!” Cathy held her hand out to the nurse, who slapped the hypodermic onto her palm. The nurse swabbed Emily’s arm, holding it steady as Cathy leaned down, bringing the point of the needle against the girl’s skin.
The alarm stopped before Cathy could proceed with the injection. Her gaze flew up to the monitor.
105.9 . . .
“It’s dropping . . .” George’s voice had been reduced to a hoarse whisper.
105.8 . . . 105.7 . . . Then faster: 105.6, 105.5 . . .
“No!” George strained against Sikes, holding him back by his arms. “She’s dying . . .”
The temperature continued to fall, then slowed. The red digits held for a moment at 99.3, then changed to 99.2. The LEDs stayed at the point as all eyes in the room watched them.
George turned to Cathy as she took Emily’s vital signs. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Temperature, respiration . . .” Cathy scanned across the bank of monitors, the steady blip of green lines upon the small screens. “Dextral heartbeat . . . si
nistral . . .” She shook her head in astonishment. “They’re all normal.”
George stepped to the bedside and looked down at his daughter. The muscle spasm had gone, her spine relaxing against the mattress. Her eyes fluttered open, weak and trembling.
A swallow, then a tiny voice. “I’m thirsty . . .”
“Emily . . .” He laid his hand upon hers.
She strained to raise her head. “Daddy . . .” She saw her mother on the other bed. “Mom . . .”
George put his fist against Emily’s brow to comfort her. She settled her head back against the pillow.
“I’m sleepy . . .”
“You rest now. Everything will be all right.”
Her eyes closed. Stepping back from the bed, George motioned Cathy out of the room. Sikes followed them into the corridor.
“I don’t understand . . .” George turned toward Cathy. “If Emily’s getting better, why isn’t Susan?”
“I can’t answer that. There’s a lot about the bacteria we just haven’t been able to figure out.” She put an arm around his shoulder. “I’m still running some tests. When the results come back from those . . . then maybe we’ll have a better idea.”
She went back into the isolation room. Through the window, the nurse could be seen removing the blue plastic wrap from the bed.
Sikes turned away from the glass. “George—take it easy. If Emily beat it, then there’s hope for Susan. For all the Newcomers.”
A voice came down the corridor. “Detective Sikes . . .”
Both men turned. A male nurse held open one of the double doors. “There’s a call for you. From an Officer Zepeda.”
George followed his partner out to the nurses’ station.
“Thanks.” Sikes took the phone handed across the counter. “Yeah, Zep. What’s happening?” He listened, then nodded. “Okay, get a warrant—I’m on my way.”
