Alien Nation #8 - Cross of Blood

by K. W. Jeter

  It’s no wonder she hates them, thought Cathy. She had seen the same tight-lipped expression come over the nurse’s face, triggered by something on the evening news or a picture on the front page of a newspaper. Anything to do with the Human Defense League or any other Purist group got the same silent reaction, Paula’s eyes narrowing with contempt. Over the last several months, Cathy had pieced together just how devoted Dr. Quinn’s nurse had been toward him; she had worked a long time with him. And now to think of him as a small collection of barely identifiable remnants in the coroner’s office . . . They would’ve killed her as well. That was another grim realization. It was just as Matt had told her, that the Purists had entered into that stage of fanaticism where it no longer mattered to them who they killed, just as long as somebody died for the sake of their warped beliefs.

  Cathy knew it was also the reason why Paula Eward had agreed to continue the supervision of her medical care, even after they both had come so close to dying in the bomb attack on Dr. Quinn’s clinic. Nobody would have blamed the nurse if she had dropped out after that traumatic event; it would have been enough for most people. Instead, Nurse Eward had acted as a one-woman transition team, using her expertise in Newcomer medicine and her knowledge of Quinn’s research to bring the BNA doctors up to speed with their new patient. That was her way of fighting back, Cathy had figured; her way of making sure that the Purists didn’t win.

  “We need to get a blood sample.” Nurse Eward turned back toward the bed. “Won’t take but a minute . . .”

  She watched as the nurse expertly slid the needle point under the skin. The clear syringe filled slowly with pink liquid—her blood at least was still Tenctonese, no matter what was happening someplace else in her body.

  “Ouch!” The needle stung as the nurse drew it out.

  “Sorry.” Nurse Eward pressed a bandage over the tiny wound. “I usually do better than that.”

  Cathy managed to smile at her own flash of irritability. “I thought pregnant women were supposed to get all mellowed out, from those endorphins in the brain and stuff.”

  “Well . . .” The nurse shrugged. “Back when I worked straight obstetrics, I did have a few patients who were slightly more—shall we say?—zoned than you are.”

  “Just my luck.” She laid herself back against the pillows. “All of the work and none of the fun.” Gazing up at the ceiling, Cathy shook her head. “Now I know what humans mean when they say God couldn’t be a woman—She would never have thought up a system as stupid as this.”

  “Probably not.” Nurse Eward carried the tray with the blood sample toward the door. “Get some rest. You’ve got a lot more work ahead of you.”

  “Yikes.”

  When she was alone in the room, Cathy found herself staring at the acoustic tiles above her, unable to sleep. A month to go—a minute trace of apprehension lurked behind her thoughts. She’d had vague ambitions, since her people had come to this place where everything had suddenly seemed so possible, of becoming famous, of doing something no one—no Tenctonese woman, at least—had ever done before.

  It wouldn’t be too much longer now, before all those ambitions came true, whether she was ready or not.

  “Hey, nice of you to show up.” The words were heavy with sarcasm.

  The squad car’s door slammed shut behind him. George looked up and saw his partner Sikes striding down the path that led to the hospital’s entrance.

  “I’m sorry, Matt.” Just inside the tinted glass doors, a couple of officers in uniform were already standing guard; he recognized them as being part of the BNA security detail. “I came over here as soon as I got word that you had taken Cathy in.” George rubbed his brow, as though to erase his own confusion. “I really must have lost track of time; I didn’t think the infant was due yet. Unless . . . is Cathy all right?”

  “She’s fine, you genius.” Matt walked past him toward the driver’s side of the car. “At least she’s still got all her wits about her. For Christ’s sake, George, you’re only about a month off; Cathy’s not due to pop for weeks yet.” He yanked the door open and slid in behind the wheel. “Come on, get in. We got other business to take care of.” Leaning across the seat, he peered up through the passenger side window. “What, you so spaced that you’ve forgotten you’re still working as a police detective?”

  He shook his head. “No . . .”

  “Then act like one, already. Jeez.” Matt pushed open the door, and it hit George’s leg. “Look, get in or I’ll drive over to the women’s prison by myself; I don’t have a problem with that. But the department might wonder what the hell you’re doing these days to earn your big Detective Two paycheck.” Matt drew back behind the steering wheel, watching with grumpy satisfaction as his partner got into the car.

  As Matt drove, swinging the squad car up the curving ramp onto the freeway, George sat stiffly beside him, hands on his knees. “I know I really do owe you an apology, Matt.” He gazed straight ahead through the windshield as the dense traffic parted to either side and disappeared behind them. His partner always drove too fast for his liking, at least when there wasn’t an actual emergency that would have required turning on the siren. “I’ve been preoccupied these last few months . . .”

  “Oh, think nothing of it, pal.” Sikes one-handed the steering wheel, his other elbow stuck out the rolled-down window. “It’s not like you oughta have any reason for thinking I don’t have time for doing your job and mine. Hey, all I got on the burner right now is that my main squeeze is gonna have a kid, which is just something that no female of her species has ever done before, but what the hell—there’s a first time for everything, right?”

  “Matt, it’s not difficult for me to discern that you’re annoyed with me—”

  “Annoyed? Annoyed?” Sikes barked out a harsh laugh, then hit the top curve of the steering wheel with his fist. “Like I got enough time to be annoyed with you! I just stuck Cathy in that hospital and there isn’t a single doctor in the place who can tell me whether she’s gonna be alive ten minutes from now, let alone in a month when they wheel her out of the delivery room!”

  George flinched as his partner came close to side-swiping a gasoline truck. “Please, Matt, I understand how you feel. I know that an impending birth can be a considerable generator of stress . . . for everyone involved.” He tried a wan, conciliatory smile. “After all—I’ve been there, in a way that I’m sure we’ll agree is impossible for you.”

  “Get bent.” Sikes’s scowl grew even darker. “You popping a kid is like normal, okay? For Cathy it’s not, and you can’t tell me otherwise. Remember, pal, you were the one I told about all this, about Cathy even getting pregnant in the first place, and you didn’t think it was possible. Instead, you gave me just about the worst friggin’ advice anybody could’ve thought up—”

  “Let’s not go through all that again. I was wrong; I’ve already apologized for what I said then about you and Cathy. How was I to know? As you just put it, this has never happened before.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s never happened before that a partner of mine has just completely flaked out the way you have. Where the hell have you been the last couple of months? Even when you show up at the station, George, it’s like that spotty head of yours is still out in the ozone somewhere.” Sikes was practically standing on the accelerator now. “What gives? You were supposed to be in charge of the security arrangements for Cathy—hey, I asked the Bureau guys to bring you in on this—and you’ve been just about totally vacant on the whole thing. I’ve had to do everything—I’ll be holding Cathy’s hand, trying to keep her from busting out in tears, and my brain’s running around like a rat in a rain barrel, worrying about whether some HDL hit team is climbing in through the windows!” He jabbed a finger toward George. “Fat lot of help you are!”

  “Matt . . .” He tried to reach past his partner’s hand, to get his own on the steering wheel. “Perhaps you should let me drive.” Whatever truth there might have been in the comments about his
mind being elsewhere, he was still conscious of every near-miss that Sikes’s driving produced. The car’s mounting speed blurred the freeway traffic on either side. “Seriously . . . you’re upset . . .”

  “Oh, real good, Sherlock. There’s a great example of that fabled Newcomer brainpower we keep hearing about.” Sikes cut the wheel hard, slamming the squad car around a White Gold tanker that had suddenly loomed up in the center lane. “You’re so on top of things, why don’t you tell me who we’re going to see? I’ll bet you don’t even know!”

  George reached between the seats and pulled up the emergency brake handle; at the same time, he yanked the steering wheel to the right. The squad car swerved and fishtailed, finally coming to a stop on the freeway’s narrow shoulder space. Dust slowly settled as the other cars and trucks flung themselves hurtling by.

  “As a matter of fact, I do know.” He dug into his coat pocket and came out with the yellow memo form that had been routed from the department’s legal office. “I got the same notice that you did, Matt; that’s why I came over to the hospital to find you. The Bureau of Newcomer Affairs finally managed to get a judge’s order allowing us to go and talk with Darlene Bryant. We probably have only a few hours before the Human Defense League attorneys find some other way of slamming the door in our faces. So that’s why we’ve got our pack animals in such a hurry. There—are you satisfied now?”

  “Asses,” muttered Sikes sourly. “Asses in a hurry. And no, I’m not satisfied.” He shoved the gearshift into neutral and pushed himself back into the seat. “Look, George, if you got something else cooking—something else going on that you haven’t told me about—hey, that’s fine. Whatever. But you’re gonna have to face up to the fact that it’s cutting into your other duties. You don’t wanna be part of this security detail thing, just say so; we’ll go back and tell it to Grazer, he’ll deal with the BNA and get you reassigned. But I’m not coming off the detail with you, man. I can’t; we’re talking about protecting the woman I love, ya know?”

  George nodded. He couldn’t say anything; sitting in the squad car, with the traffic roaring by a few yards from him and his partner, he felt oddly disassociated from the scene, as though Sikes’s words were being radioed in from a long distance away. Somebody named George Francisco was listening to those words, or making a show of listening to them, but it wasn’t him anymore. Sikes was right; his mind really was somewhere else. Someplace more real than this, a world whose contours of force pressed more urgently about him . . .

  He clenched one of his fists, concentrating, summoning himself back to this time and place. For a moment, he had been in danger—as he always seemed to be these days—of slipping away, drifting off just as his partner had accused him of doing, dropping the thread of the words being spoken to him. And picking up another one, heavy and solid as a chain around his skull, with no words other than his own name being whispered aloud, no vision other than light streaming past the hands of a shadowed image.

  “I’m sorry,” spoke George. If he just bore down, kept the mental pressure on, he could keep the fragile little world around him from dissolving into mist. This is insanity, he told himself. He knew that, but it didn’t help. There was so much at stake in that other world that kept drawing him away; everything depended upon what happened there—but he couldn’t tell his partner that. “You’re right . . . of course you are.” He reached over and laid his palm on Sikes’s shoulder. “There is something . . . but I can’t discuss it now. Soon, though. I promise you that.”

  Sikes peered at him, the angry expression replaced by one of genuine concern. “Are you all right, George? I mean, what the hell’s going on with you?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Matt . . . it’s nothing . . .”

  “Jesus H. Christ; if one more person says ‘Don’t worry’ to me, I’m gonna deck ’im.” Sikes shook his head in disgust. “Maybe you oughta take a coupla days off or something. Just go home to your wife and kids and just . . . relax. Then you’ll be able to—”

  “No!” His partner’s suggestion filled George with alarm. “No, I can’t do that. It’s too important—”

  “What is?” Suspicion moved behind Sikes’s gaze. “What’re you talking about?”

  He said nothing. Biting his lip, George turned and stared out through the windshield.

  “You wanna know something?” Sikes drummed his fingertips across the top of the steering wheel. “I think you’re cracking up. I really do. The pressure’s on me, and you’re the one falling to pieces. I always knew you were a sympathetic kind of guy, but boy . . . this is really something.”

  “I’m fine.” The words grated from George’s throat. “As I told you before, you have no reason to worry about me.”

  “Right. You oughta check yourself out in the mirror some time, pal. You look like death in a mayonnaise jar—jeez, even your head spots are faded! Isn’t that a Newcomer thing, like a dog having a dry nose?—the next stop’s the pet cemetery?”

  “No,” said George testily, “it’s not. And I find the comparison offensive.”

  “Suit yourself.” Sikes gave a shrug. “But you look like you haven’t gotten any more sleep since the last time I got on your case about it.”

  He glanced from the corner of his eye at his partner. What did Sikes know? “Perhaps you’re correct . . .” His words came slowly from his mouth. “My sleep hasn’t been . . . very good lately . . .”

  “George, that comes with the territory. Cops don’t sleep like babies—they see too much bad stuff, right? So deal with it, already.” Sikes spread his palms outward. “Take a pill. Or start hitting the sour milk a little harder; a nightcap now and then isn’t going to be considered like major dereliction of duty.” He slapped a hand against his own chest. “Hey, I don’t sleep too good. I wasn’t sleeping too good before I found out about Cathy being pregnant.” With a deep sigh, Sikes shook his head. “These goddamn dreams I keep having . . . they’re about to drive me nuts . . .”

  His spine went rigid. George kept his voice flat and expressionless, to avoid revealing the sudden shock that had pierced him. “What . . . what kind of dreams?”

  “Ah, stupid stuff.” With one hand, Sikes rubbed his eyes. “Nothing I’d probably even remember, if I didn’t keep having the same one over and over. Just creepy: it’s like I’m someplace where it’s all dark, only there’s light coming from over there, behind some big dude who’s got his arms stretched out like he’s about to take a swan dive off the high board, and I can’t see his face and I hear him whisper my name and then I wake up in a puddle of sweat. Man, I must be getting old; I must be losing it if that’s all it takes to scare the bejeezus out of me.”

  He knows, thought George. He’s seen it. At the same time, it was obvious that Sikes didn’t know; he didn’t know what the visions meant. The truth beyond what he had seen was still hidden; the great revelation had not yet been made to the human mind. But still . . . for Sikes to have even gotten a glimpse of the light, to have heard the voice of the one who had come again . . .

  It meant that the time was close at hand.

  Closer than he had hoped, than he had feared . . .

  A faint noise, part electronic and part mechanical, came from the close, insubstantial world of the squad car. It took George a few seconds to discern and then recognize the sound of the police radio’s telefax unit. It stopped, and he heard Sikes tearing off the printed strip of paper.

  “Aw, shit . . .” A sour disgust filled Sikes’s voice. “That’s just great.”

  George pulled himself back from the deep abyss of his thoughts. “What’s the matter?”

  “We just got the word from Grazer.” Sikes glared at the curling slip of paper in his hand. “The HDL lawyers have already filed for an injunction.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re going to have to step on it if we’re going to get any time at all with Bryant, before we get yanked out of there.” Sikes crumpled up the fax paper and threw it down on the car’s floorboard, then shoved the car back int
o gear.

  His partner’s angry mutter had only filtered partway into George’s consciousness. “It’s not important,” he said softly.

  “Huh? ‘Not important?’ What’re you talking about? We got zip for leads right now. If we can’t squeeze something out of Bryant, then we’ve got no way of even beginning to figure out what the HDL’s planning.”

  The dream and the vision it contained still filled George’s thoughts.

  “Someday,” he said, “you will understand. It will all be made clear to you, Matt.” He closed his eyes and let the squad car’s sudden acceleration push him back into the seat. “And it will be soon.”

  C H A P T E R 1 0

  HE WAS GREETED by a smile. And that only made him feel worse.

  “Albert!” From behind the parking-lot-sized mahogany desk, Vogel rose up, leaning forward with his big hand outstretched. The Precognosis CEO grabbed Albert’s hand, squeezed and pumped. “Hey, it’s good to see you! How you been?” He sat back down in his high-backed leather chair and gestured toward the slightly smaller one across from him. “Have a seat. Did you just get here? Would you like something sent up, a little refreshments maybe? How about a tray of those little ranch-style kidney nips—you’re the guy who recommended them, remember.” Vogel grinned and winked. “Hey, and those things are flying out of the stores. If Hormel wasn’t so happy with your services, we wouldn’t be able to get any of them at all!”