He knifed into the water. Cold water crushed his chest. He submerged, fighting his way to the surface, the chute draping itself around him. Kicking his legs to stay afloat, he detached the clips and stroked away.
The shore was less than two miles away. That was the good news. He was cold, but he'd swum further under worse conditions and come out okay.
He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Carrie! Carrie!"
He scanned the waves. Other than the occasional curl of foam, they were featureless, far too dark to make out anything bobbing within them. They splashed around, as waves were wont to do. His heart thudded. He couldn't wait out here forever. They'd already planned to rendezvous at the house in Manhattan Beach.
"Walt!"
The voice was as faint as faint got. He spun a quarter-circle to his right, waited, then spun to the left.
"Walt!"
It sounded like it was coming from the north, but he couldn't see a damn thing. Flaming bits of the basket fluttered into the sea, winking out as soon as they touched the water.
"Walt!"
Definitely to the north. He unlaced and tugged off his shoes, letting them fall away into the deep, and kicked toward the voice. "Keep calling! I'm coming!"
"Did you shove me out of the balloon?"
Amid the rush of the ocean, her words were lost enough for him to plausibly deny hearing them. He swam on, careful not to push himself too hard.
Carrie screamed. Walt straightened. A swell lifted him. Hundreds of feet away, steam whooshed from the water. A ship surfaced, its slick, smooth topdeck gleaming under its own lights. A spotlight snapped toward a figure bobbing in the water.
She screamed again.
He reached for the laser in the hip pouch belted around his middle. The waves dropped, taking him out of sight. When he lifted high enough to see again, tree-like objects thrashed toward Carrie—the long, slim limbs of aliens.
His hand fell away from the pouch. The waves dipped again. As he rode the next swell, the Swimmers hauled a limp body up onto the deck of the submarine.
Walt turned and swam east toward the shore.
The next time he glanced back, the ship was steaming harder, surging forward. Lights swooshed over the waves. As one neared, he gasped for breath and dived. Light shot through the water. He kicked forward. The light pulled away. He surfaced, inhaling, salt dribbling down the back of his throat.
The ship hove south. Walt tore through the water as hard as he could. Compared to the ship, this was a snail's pace. Another searchlight cruised over the sea, driving him under again. Eyes stinging, he frog-kicked his way forward. The submarine hummed less than two hundred yards away. He dived a third time, keeping himself submerged, bubbles tickling his nose. The sub cruised past.
He surfaced, keeping no more than his nose above the surface until the ship and its lights were a quarter of a mile to the south.
Trying to ignore everything that was going on in his head, he struck for shore. Currents tugged him this way and that, changing directions every minute. He was already growing used to the chill of the water, his core warming, his breathing fast but even. He concentrated on his movements. The distance to the shore. The ship hanging behind him and the ruins of the first one poking from the sea far to his left. Between these concerns, he had no headspace for anything else.
A mile from the sands and piers of the beaches, his arms started to flag. His pouch was equipped with an inflatable life vest. He treaded water, rooting through the contents of the bag. There it was: orange and deflated. He tore open the plastic bag containing it. The life vest fell in half, one piece dropping into the water. He snatched it up.
And discovered it was a pair of children's water wings.
He threw one as far as he could, which turned out to be about eight feet. It flapped into a wave, borne away on the currents. Instantly regretting his decision—if he ran into trouble, the water wings might save his life—he crawl-stroked to it and returned both wings to his bag.
He was starting to get cold again. No more time to waste. He oriented himself toward land, kicking along, paddling his arms enough to keep their blood flowing but not so hard as to wear himself out. As he pulled closer to land, he oriented himself to the coastal landmarks. Looked like he was going to come in a few hundred yards south of a big, single-pronged pier. Manhattan Beach. At least he knew his way around town.
A half mile out, a strong current flowed away from the shore. He fought it for two minutes, arms aching, but he wasn't sure he'd advanced an inch. Getting his wits about him, he turned south, swimming parallel until the current slackened, then pivoted east again.
His arms were getting heavy. Burning with the buildup of lactic acid. He gave them a rest, scissoring his feet through the water. All he could taste and smell was salt. The ocean was so dumb. All that water, working itself into a frenzy, going nowhere. And unless there was a lot of land around, a reef or an underwater vent or something, it could hardly even support life. The ocean was a loser, really, but because it was so big, nobody had ever told it that.
Waves hissed and slumped against the sand. Walt swam onward, into the breakers, raised up and dumped into the foamy churn. Water shot up his nose. He fought to the surface, blowing his nose and spitting water. Another wave broke over his head. He ducked under the water. Bubbles rushed and popped. His right foot struck sand.
He got his feet under him. His body felt like it weighed six hundred pounds. The surface of the water dropped from his shoulders to his waist. An outgoing tide sucked at his legs, as if the sea wasn't done with him yet. He stopped, staring dully at the beach. Seaweed flushed past him and tangled around his ankles. What if he sat down, stretched out, and let the tides take him where they would?
He was shivering. Driven by an instinct that was beginning to feel much more like a curse than a blessing, he waded forward, swaying from foot to foot. He plodded onto soft sand, making his way above the tideline. The beach was festooned with brown scraggles of kelp and tiny white shells. He lowered himself to the sand, damp cheek pressing against the dry grains, and lay there. Partly, this was exhaustion. But mostly, she was gone, and he didn't know where to go.
To the north, low, thudding noises—almost certainly bombs—went off every few seconds. Sounded like they were a few miles away. The airport, probably. Apparently they weren't having any better luck than he was. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn't find the strength.
His body went on shivering, taking care of itself despite his utter disinclination to help it out. They'd taken her prisoner. He doubted she was dead yet—they liked to take prisoners, and would want to question her, if they could—but he had no way to get to the ship. They could detect the balloons. Now that he'd tried to take one against the ship, they'd be all the more vigilant.
Conceivably, he might fly high above them in a plane, dive out the side, and go all HALO on the ship. But he didn't know how to fly; finding or repairing a workable plane would take weeks if not months; and he expected their jets would intercept any aircraft that tried to get within twenty miles of the mothership.
She was gone.
Some time later, a jet screeched overhead, rousing him from a sleep he hadn't known he'd fallen into. His hands and feet felt numb. He cranked himself up to his elbow. Way up the beach, a light moved south along the sand. He couldn't see the bearer, but given that the light was constant and not flickering, and that it was a weird shade of orange, he had a good guess which species was bearing it.
He swore, angrier with himself for bothering to go on than he was with the crabs for inciting him to do so. He braced himself on his knee and creaked himself upright, legs shaking. Cold wind poured over his frigid skin. He hobbled up the sand toward the jogging path bordering the beach, dried-out kelp floaters popping beneath his bare feet. He got his laser from his pouch, swinging it back and forth to dry it off. They were Swimmer weapons, hence waterproof, but firing them wet produced steam hot enough to burn the wielder.
He reached the
bike path. Houses abutted it, a blend of Cape Cods, Moderns, and Spanish Colonial. All had once been extremely expensive but were now some of the worst real estate in the city. He jogged down a path, sand gritting his feet, and crossed a street, continuing up a concrete pedestrian path set between two rows of houses.
He was only a few blocks from where he and Carrie had holed up prior to the second invasion while his broken ankle had been healing. He was inclined to find somewhere else, but the house had supplies. Familiarity. He walked toward it, damp, salty clothes chafing his crotch, back, and sides.
The doors to the house were closed. He hadn't bothered to lock it. Anyone who wanted in would have just smashed the windows. He moved into the hardwood foyer. As his eyes adjusted to the greater gloom, he peeled off every piece of his clothes, then ran up to the master bedroom, ransacked the en suite for towels, and dried off, grimacing as he rubbed salt into his skin. Dried, he mounded all the blankets he could find on the bed and balled himself up beneath them.
He thought that he should scream, or cry, or whatever it was that grownups did to express themselves when they'd lost the one they loved. He rubbed his feet, coaxing the feeling back into them.
It was nothing but one loss after another. Month by month and year by year, you patched over a wound until it was surely healed and you knew you'd never feel that same hurt again. Get older, and you could grow a shell over those tender organs that used to be so vulnerable to the slightest poke. Most things slid off that shell. But if anything cracked it? Your guts weren't any tougher than they were when you were young. The pain that came was just as bad. Worse, even, because you were no longer used to feeling it.
In the face of that, what sense did it make to keep throwing yourself into the fray? Why not hike to Alaska, where it was too wretched for alien invaders to give a shit? Or put your laser to the side of your head and make a brain omelet?
He reached for the weapon, touching its elegant curves. It would only take a second. But if nothing else, as he'd aged, he'd learned himself better. He hadn't been able to end it the first time, when the world had ended and everything had been taken from him. And he wouldn't be able to now.
He pressed his face into the pillow and screamed. These days, survival was treated as the highest virtue of the land. He knew better. It wasn't a virtue, it was a prison. Your genes insisting they were the only thing that mattered. Not your thoughts or your feelings. Just the helical strands at the core of your cells.
He should have insisted she stay on shore. Maybe it would have been best if they'd never met at all. How long had they had together? A year and a half? A bad TV show could last longer than that. He'd had more venerable cell phone contracts. She would surely trade her too-brief relationship with him in exchange for not being captured and tortured to death by aliens, wouldn't she?
Except he wasn't sure that he would.
There was no winning a game where you had rifles and your own two feet and the other guys had lasers and spaceships. There was only one smart play: getting out. So that's what he'd do. Starting tomorrow, he'd haul his miserable ass out of Los Angeles, gear up somewhere between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, and make way for Alaska. The mountains there were so remote the Swimmers would never find him.
He had half a mind to get up and start moving then and there. But he was so tired. If he hadn't already been lying in one, the thought of cleaning himself up and packing for a trip would have made him want to crawl into bed.
The decision to give up soothed him like aloe for the soul. He should have done that so long ago. Before he knew it, he was asleep.
* * *
Creaking. Like a door. Opened, but not shut. A pause, then a rasp. Hard clicks. Wood. A floor. Something was moving across the floor.
Walt's eyes shot open. His body ached, but it was already juicing itself with adrenaline, shutting down the pain signals. It was dark outside and something was inside the house. With his brain lost in one of the deepest mental fogs he'd ever felt, he rolled out of the bed and hid beneath it.
The clicks carried across the floor, then ceased, replaced by more sloughing sounds. Carpet. The space beneath the bed was a wasteland of dust and hair. What it didn't have was any weapons. Cursing his own idiocy, he dragged himself out and grabbed his laser from the nightstand.
The steps were moving faster, thumping up the carpeted steps. Naked, Walt pressed himself to the wall eight feet from the doorway. The wood floor was cold against his feet. The steps reached the landing. They were a combination of a shushing sound and rapid tippety-taps. Alien footsteps.
They receded down the hall and went silent. Walt edged to the door, keeping his movements as compact as possible. He peered around the corner. It was almost perfectly dark, but his vision was acclimated.
Spindly limbs entered the hall, followed by the dark oblongs of a body and head. Walt closed one eye to preserve his night vision and squeezed the buttons of his gun.
Blueness lanced into the Swimmer's head. It crackled and snapped. The hall filled with the stench of clams left too long on the baking rocks. The alien dropped, claws snapping at nothing. Walt administered a coup de grace and moved to the landing. Below, the house was silent. He descended to the ground floor and checked out the windows. Seeing nothing, he closed the door.
He walked back upstairs, feet landing heavily. He stood over the body. He lifted his foot and slammed his heel on the alien's head. His third stomp cracked the skull. He didn't stop until his heel ached and he stood in a spew of thick yellow blood.
He staggered back, breathing hard. Had he broken his foot? If so, he'd do it again.
Because he remembered how good it felt to kill those who had wronged you.
12
Across from him, Inana stood motionless. The posture of attention, sense-pods lifted halfway, tentacles poised to respond. Seeing this submissive pose in his subordinates always made Commander Toru feel something primal. The urge to lash out, to capture, to eat. There were days when this response amused him, making his claws clack.
Today, however, it made Toru feel the unease of stepping into a waterless land.
"And so," Toru gestured, careful not to allow his unsettled emotions to color the tone of his signals. "The arrests?"
Inana wavered forward. He signed, "Proceeding."
"Well?"
"The first of the Farschool have arrived at the hive. They were taken without violence."
"But willingly?"
Inana bobbed an uncertain tentacle. "They expressed shock. Dismay. And also anger. That which is felt at betrayal."
"They are the ones who have betrayed."
"I agree, Commander. Yet if they did not feel the righteousness of their cause¸ they would not be here to begin with."
Toru clicked a claw, though this was more in appreciation of the point than in humor. "But no violence has come to them."
"None. And none is expected."
"As our people feel sympathy with the Farschool."
Inana gestured carefully. "It is agreed they are transgressors. But it is wondered if their transgression is greater than their value as gutbrothers."
"They have killed billions of natives," Toru motioned, tentacles snapping, as whip-like as the barbs of a threatened chindin. "How can it be wondered if this was in any manner in service to the Way?"
"You do not need to convince me, Commander."
He relaxed. "I am sorry for my vehemence."
"But your vehemence is the symptom of wisdom."
Toru clicked his claws in high amusement. "No flattery. I am frustrated, Inana. I fish by the most tenuous of lines. At times it is so thin I can almost not see it. We must take in the Farschool. Insulate them from committing more harm. Yet we must treat them fairly, so that the stories they tell us of what took place here swim with the truth. How can we decide what is to be done next when we act on falseness?"
"Poorly?"
"That is so. And as we insulate the Farschool, what is to be done with the nati
ves? Can it be blamed when they bring violence to those who look as if they must also be Farschool? The invaders who have killed so many? But as you say, there is also sympathy for the Farschool. And when the natives kill our people, as with the jet, I am as angry as any other. When they take our blood, we must take theirs in kind. This is the only way to serve the bond of gutbrothers. To do less is an affront to the Way."
Inana bobbed forward. "I am glad to hear you speak this."
"Are you surprised?"
"There is less surprise. It is more that it is welcome to hear such broad thoughts."
"I then hope the others would not be surprised. Perhaps I should speak my broad thoughts more broadly."
"This may be wise."
Toru tapped his tentacles together in thought. "Then this will be added to my schedule."
"Perhaps it is also wise to attack the problem at its holdfast," Inana signed. "To reach the natives and calm them—through reason or through force."
"And which of them do I speak to? Where is their command? Are they united, or must I speak to a hundred different petty chieftains? Further, how is it to be spoken when they can't even sense the presence of motion? It is thought some of the Farschool understand native speech. But we do not."
"Then our questioning of the Farschool should include this matter."
"Make it done. Yet once this is done, what is to be told to the natives? I don't yet have peace to promise them."
"You could promise it falsely."
Toru considered his adviser. "To take wrong action is to jab one's own eye. It blinds us to future truth."
"But if it would keep peace, for now, in what way is it false? And is it not better to prevent further shed of gutbrother blood?"
"I will tell no lies and do no violence. To do either is to cheapen us as well as them." He drew up his tentacles. "But I will make my mind clear so that others do not wonder why we do as we do. I will draw this up once the taking of tonight's Farschoolers is complete. Until then—"
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