Cottonwood

by R. Lee Smith

  “Get out of this man’s house this minute!” Sarah shouted. And when the other low soldier raised his gun at her, she actually snatched it out of his hands and threw it to one side. Sanford groaned. A second later, she was sprawling beside Baccus.

  The leader bent down and hauled her onto her knees by her hair. “Do you see what it says on the van, sweetheart?” he demanded, shaking her. “Huh? Do they still teach dumb hicks like you to read? Population Enforcement, that’s what it says. That means we are working, and you are shutting the fuck up and letting us work.”

  “This is an illegal search!” she shouted. “I’m reporting this!”

  Laughter, from all but the leader. He stared down at his prisoner with an expression that was almost one of wonder. Sanford felt his heart throb again, sickly certain he was about to witness his first human/human murder. Even Baccus was leaning away as much as she could, trying to take herself out of the line of fire when that gun went off. Only Sarah remained oblivious to her impending death.

  “You’re telling, is that what I just heard you say? You’re going to tell on us, you little playground snitch? No, sugartits, I’m telling you. Article 89-A of the Alien Control Bylaws ratified by IBI and the United Nations says all I need is a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to enter any bug’s residence, and I got that when this bug—” He gave Baccus a kick to the chest. “—was seen dragging a whole pig home last night and the night before.”

  “A pig?”

  “Two pigs. In two days. Now the only reason these roaches make off with that much meat is for their little egg farms, which, thanks to Article 89, I am not just allowed to shut down, but ordered to. Got it? Now shut the fuck up. Davis! Did you get lost in there?”

  “Hold your water, chief, it’s coming. Get clear!”

  The soldiers stepped back as a long section of the back wall of Baccus’s house shuddered, came loose, and dropped with a bang onto the hard ground, kicking up a cloud of rust-red dust and releasing an even greater cloud of black flies and rotten meat stink. The hatchery was not very big, and the sheer number of evenly-spaced eggs packed into it on racks made it seem even smaller. He’d known she was doing this, of course, but he had no idea how many eggs she’d made. How she’d managed to hide the hatchery this long was really the only mystery.

  The eggs were black and narrow mouth-pipes protruded from each one; they had molted in the egg already and were nearly due. The first pig was gone, nothing but a heap of bones too big for Baccus to eat. The heat had already done its work on the second pig, which hung bloated and discolored over the hatchery, its head and forelegs already gnawed away and regurgitated. Baccus tended her eggs very well for a hatchery. Every one, shiny and fat and neatly marked to set them apart from the others. Every one, skreeing weakly at daylight. Sanford could see yang’ti gathering in the alleys, but none came too close. No one wanted to be seen here, but some, he knew, were surely the fathers.

  Sarah didn’t seem to understand. She gripped the hand that held her hair, staring into the hatchery. Her face in the sunlight was white, save where it had been smeared by blood.

  “You never seen one of these, I’m guessing,” said the man who held her. “It’s one of their egg farms. Look at ‘em all. See, this is why we need enforcement, because every one of these buggie fucks can spit out fifty or sixty eggs at a time. If we didn’t do this—”

  “They’re alive,” Sarah said hoarsely, still staring at the keening eggs. “You’re scaring them. They’re crying.”

  “Not for long. Go ahead, boys.”

  The other two soldiers moved into the hatchery, opening crates and cupboards, searching for hidden eggs. The noise was tremendous, terrifying. The unborn yang’ti cried and rocked inside their shells. Two days, and they would have hatched. Two days and they would have been safe. His heart ached.

  “What are you doing?” Sarah cried. “Stop it! Stop it, you’re hurting them!”

  “That’s the point, Pollyanna.”

  “They’re screaming!”

  And they laughed at her, laughed and started smashing eggs, ending newborn squeals one stomp at a time. Chaw rose in Sanford’s throat; he swallowed it and did not make a sound.

  “This is how we control the population, sweetheart,” the lead soldier said. “Remember what your orientation tapes said: They’re not alive until they can jump around.”

  Sarah, frantic as no yang’ti could dare to be, lunged to one side, seized a rusted chunk of metal lying in the street, and smashed it with both hands into the man’s leg. Things happened very quickly after that.

  He bellowed and drove his boot at her face, knocking her sprawling against Baccus. She jumped up bleeding and ran directly at the eggs, as if anything at all could be done, as if anyone of them could still be saved. A second soldier grabbed at her as she went by; she grappled with him while he laughed at her, then suddenly drove her knee up into his groin and wrenched away from him. She lunged again for the hatchery—

  And fell limp as a sack of sand when the third soldier cracked her on the head with his gun. She hit the ground heavy, abruptly silent, and lay motionless in the dust.

  The lead soldier limped over and the three of them stood around her, contemplative. Yang’ti shifted in the alleys, peered from the windows. Baccus’s arms minutely lowered.

  Sarah did not move.

  “Fuck me, did I kill her?”

  To determine, the lead soldier kicked her.

  No response.

  He squatted and gripped at her throat. “She’s breathing now,” he said. “And that’s good enough. Let’s finish up and get out of here before that changes. Bad luck to you, buggies,” he called. “That’s an agent of IBI lying there. She dies in Cottonwood and we get to open up the big cans of Raid.”

  All three laughed. They went back to work, smashing the last of the eggs and spraying down the entire hatchery with accelerant. One of the soldiers threw in an incendiary striker. With a muted thumping sound, the flames ignited. Baccus watched her home and eggs burn as the humans retreated. Their leader gave Sarah one more investigative kick before boarding his vehicle. The van roared. They drove away.

  Sarah did not move.

  Sanford bolted for the door, heard a tattoo of fists on the floor, and paused long enough to let his son out of the cramped lower room. T’aki was out the door ahead of him, flying to the human’s side. Several other yang’ti were there too, clicking and muttering to one another. Baccus had run off already, but oddly, Sam was there, kneeling at her head and feeling at her soft and hideously vulnerable veins, and suddenly that vague familiarity that had always hovered around Sam snapped into place. He’d been a medic. That was how Sanford knew him. He’d been one of the ship’s surgeons.

  “She’s alive,” Sam said tersely, probing at the back of Sarah’s head now. “She’s bleeding, but I think they only broke her skin, not her bones. Get her legs. They want to flop. Turn her over with me, and…turn.”

  She did want to flop. Too limp. Too white. One eye was partially open. Not a good sign in any species. Sam pried it open all the way, then the other. He clicked judiciously and felt at her throat again. “Pupils are even and reactive. Pulse is…not great, but okay. She’s fine. Lucky she’s so thick-headed.” He glanced up into the burning house. The dead larvae were only smoking husks now, but there was the furniture, still blazing away. “We need to get her away from this before that funny shit on her head catches. Help me get her back to my place.”

  “Why? So you can throw her out again?” Sanford snapped, carefully working an arm beneath Sarah’s limp neck, mindful of his spikes.

  Sam actually looked surprised for a second, and then annoyed. “Fuck you, I barely touched her! And what are you going to do, change her batteries?”

  Sanford stood up, holding Sarah possessively close.

  Sam started to speak, glanced down the yet-empty causeway in the direction of the nearest gate, and buzzed rudely instead. “Fine,” he said. “Keep her quiet for at least
an hour and don’t let her leave until she’s walking straight. She does anything strange, babbles or slurs or starts puking, send the boy. I’ll stay sober.”

  “You’d have to get sober to stay that way.”

  Sam’s antennae whipped flat, smacking against the shell of his head. His eyes were clear and furious and for that instant, he was not drunk or dirty or even captive on this world. He stood up fast, towering over Sanford, and said, snapping hard and buzzing under every word, “You take another shot at me and I’ll put you on the fucking ground. Get her out of the fucking sun right now and if she isn’t awake in five minutes, you better send your fucking kid.” He spat chaw on the ground and glared. “I’ll stay sober.”

  Sanford kicked dirt over the chaw-stain, already baked dry in this heat, and took Sarah away with him. She began to come around even as he was setting her in the chair, so maybe she wasn’t hurt as badly as she looked. She groaned like rusty hinges, panted twice, and groaned again. It occurred to him only then that he’d never really seen a human in pain for any great length of time. He didn’t even know if these were normal sounds.

  She reached up, groping, missed her head and clutched the chair instead. Her eyes, shut, squinted tighter. She uttered a cracked cry, one that was almost as much confusion as pain.

  T’aki tried to climb into her lap. Sanford pulled him back, but not before her eyes opened. She stared in agony and without comprehension at his room. Then she said and did a horrible thing. “Oh, thank God, I dreamed it,” was what she said. What she did was look out the window and see smoke.

  He would have given much not to see the crumpling of her face in anguish and understanding. It was too much like his own heart throbbing, given hideous life in expression, too much like all that must be hidden for fear of provoking laughing men with guns.

  She lunged up.

  Sanford pushed her gently down.

  “They’re burning!” she cried, fighting him.

  “They’re burnt.” He waited, keeping careful pressure on her, until it had found her mind and latched. “They’re burnt, Sarah. It’s done.”

  He had never used her name before, wasn’t sure he could pronounce it, but it came out just fine, as things so often do when you don’t think about them.

  She stared at him, her eyes pouring water. Then she tried again to stand, her mouth working, cutting panic into words he doubted she planned. “We have to put the fire out. Help me. There’s hoses along the aqueduct. We have to put the fire out!”

  She would not be still, so he followed her, catching at her arm when she stumbled, as she frequently did. He followed her to the crumbling wall and held her while she patted along it in confusion, seeking hoses that had never been.

  “They’re supposed to be here,” she kept saying. “They’re supposed to…They… What…” She turned around, staring in glaze-eyed horror at the smoking ruin of Baccus’s home and hatchery. “What is this place?” she shouted, and fell over into Sanford’s awkward grip, braying tears.

  He had nothing comforting to tell her. He took her back inside.

  * * *

  Security had orders to alert him the minute Miss Fowler returned, but she got in. She didn’t sneak in, she just walked in, past the empty desk, where a certain security guard had gone absent to cadge a smoke, and on up to the second floor and her own cubicle. She’d been quietly writing up paperwork for half an hour before Piotr noticed her on the cameras. He directed the girl to van Meyer’s attention and both went out to confront her.

  They were almost on top of her before she looked up. She did it without hatred or anger or even indignation. She looked exhausted. She also looked as though she’d been packed in a barrel and rolled off a cliff. Van Meyer shot his hyena a hard stare, then gave Pollyanna a polite nod. “Are we paying you overtime, Miss Fowler?”

  “Incident reports,” she said, with difficulty. Her mouth was swollen.

  “Reports? Plural, do I hear?”

  Piotr shifted, sneering.

  “They might be related. I’m not sure. There was a fire. And I fell down.”

  “Fell down,” Piotr snorted.

  She looked at him again, her brows knitting as with confusion. She nodded. “I think so. Things got ugly with a…with a client.”

  The two men exchanged glances. A bug, had she been about to say? Their Pollyanna?

  “He gave me a shove off his doorstep. I tripped.” Her hand rubbed at her head. “I think I blacked out for a bit. Things get really confused. I can’t really…I know I was awake because I can remember…the fire…I couldn’t find the hoses on the aqueduct…I think I hit some of the…of the residents…and I’m all banged up. I just don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t you worry about that,” van Meyer said slowly. “It is your health that concern us most. Are you very injured?”

  “I don’t think so. I was going to go to Urgent Care in Wheaton…make sure.” Rub, rub at the head. “I figure it’s a weekend and I have time to just lie around and recover. I’m sure I’ll be back on Monday, I just…I just don’t know exactly what happened. I’m sorry, Mr. van Meyer.”

  She was nearly in tears. Van Meyer waved slightly to push Piotr back, then gave the girl a broad smile, a grandfatherly pat on her shoulder. “Not at all. I want you to go—leave that, it’s quite complete enough—go down to the medical wing right here, Basement level, D-Wing, and have them look you over, ja?”

  “I haven’t got my insurance paperwork back yet. I don’t think I’m covered.”

  “But you turn it in, nee? Quite all right, I will see to all things. You go now. Go, go!” he coaxed, still grandfatherly, smiling.

  She smiled back, her hand at her head, and got up. Her step was slow, but mostly even. She did not give Piotr more than a nod in passing.

  When she was gone, the two men stood quiet.

  “Well?” van Meyer said, no longer grandfatherly. “Do I just see Academy Award for Best Actress, eh?”

  “Uh, yeah, about that…” Piotr avoided his eyes, unaccustomed to confession. “When she first came at us, I noticed she’d been kinda roughed up. Blood in her hair, that sort of thing. And she was sure acting hysterical, like maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly. I just assumed she was doing her Pollyanna, Queen of the Bugs bit, but yeah, she could have taken a hit.”

  “Before or after you crack her skull?”

  “That was Davis and he didn’t hit her that hard. One of the bugs must have given her a thump. The way she was carrying on…maybe she had a concussion.” Piotr shrugged one shoulder, his eyes still averted but narrowed with what seemed sincere confusion.

  His hyena did not lie to his Master. If Piotr’s men had roughed over the girl, he would admit this thing, apologize, make amends. If he said now that there had been sign on her of some earlier altercation, then sign there had surely been.

  “So.” Van Meyer picked up the incident reports and scanned them, not for content, but seeing haphazard lettering from a hand that had heretofore been neat, large gaps in memory, clumsy punctuation. “Ja,” he said at last, almost to himself. “We give this one benefit of doubt. But you watch her, Piotr. I have seen many good actress in my time and there is something about our little Pollyanna I do not trust. Not one whit.”

  * * *

  The medical wing at IBI was better manned and better outfitted than most hospitals Sarah had seen, even those on TV, which Sarah guessed only made sense if your patients got their arms ripped off on a regular basis. Van Meyer’s promise was apparently good; his name and a phone call got Sarah in to a doctor in just two minutes. He asked surprisingly few questions, just cleaned her up (she had six shards of rusty metal embedded in her back, which she hadn’t even known), gave her a few X-rays, a few bandages, and a shot of what he called ‘the good stuff’. The good stuff burned going in, but soon after soaked up all the ugly heat throbbing in her head and just kind of swirled it away.

  They shaved her head in patches to get at the lacerations on her scalp for stitching. The on
e over her ear needed twenty-three of them and had raised a knot the size of a goose egg. Looking at herself in the doctor’s shiny metal cabinet was like looking at a funhouse mirror where her reflection was slowly replaced by that of a zombie. She felt a little like crying, except that she’d done enough of that today.

  “Must have been a real adventure, eh?” the doctor said as he finished. “Still…no real harm done. I doubt your bug friend knew he was roughing you over quite as hard as he was. They’re not smart…one more…and they’re fearfully strong. The important thing…there we are!…is to know what you did to set him off. Do you?”

  “He knocked my papers out of my hands,” said Sarah, having decided on this lie before she even went back to the office. ‘And you are such a wicked good liar,’ Kate would always say, admiringly. ‘People just look into that big baby-eyed face and can’t believe you even know what a lie is.’ “I lost my temper and shoved him.”

  “Oh ho.”

  “He shoved me back.”

  “Yes, he did. Into a wall or…?”

  “I’m not sure. I think I might have blacked out. Stuff happened—” Stomping. Screaming. Smoke. “—I don’t remember it very well.”

  “Your memory might come back, but I wouldn’t worry about it if it doesn’t, dear.” He checked her eyes, checked her stitches, and finally let her climb down from the table. “But if your bug persists in his aggressive behavior, I can’t urge you strongly enough to report him and get him removed. I don’t mean to scare you. It’s likely he won’t single you out, they don’t have the memory for stalking any one specific person. Which is why an aggressive bug is so dangerous, he’ll be dangerous to anyone, and aggressive bugs don’t limit themselves to shoving matches.” He chuckled, checked her eyes again. “He might have given you a little tap to the zygomatic bone here.” He touched her cheek below her right eye, where Piotr had kicked her away from him. “It’s cracked, and I bet it’s painful, but it ought to heal up on its own in a few weeks. I advise you to pick up some liquid meals for a day or two, and don’t spare the aspirin, but you’re all right. Have you got a way home?”