Firechild

by Jack Williamson

  Julia was a hawk-faced blonde, recently and bitterly divorced. She stood possessively behind her mother’s chair and kept staring watchfully at Anya Ostrov through dark-lensed sunglasses. When the brief service was over, she demanded a look at the will.

  Back at the beachfront mansion, the old man’s lawyer found it in a wall safe. He gathered them around a table in what Roman had called the cathedral room, a long dim hall that shone with the color-and gold of old Russian icons and a huge photomural of an ancient iconostasis that framed the doorway to his study. The lawyer’s voice changed as he read, and he stopped once to stare hard at Anya. Listening, the company men scowled and blinked in consternation.

  Roman-World-Mart was to be liquidated. Half the proceeds would be used to establish a foundation for Soviet-American studies. To be the administrator of the estate, the guardian of his beloved wife, and the first director of the foundation, he had chosen “my faithful private secretary and a loyal member of our corporate family,” Anya Ostrov. There was a final provision that the bequests to “my wayward, headstrong” daughter, Julia Rose, be reduced to one dollar in the event that she contested the will.

  “You c-c-conniving huh-huh-whore!” White-faced and stammering with wrath, Julia shook a red-nailed forefinger at Anya. “You and your cr-cr-crooked commie pals! I’ll see you never get a penny.” She appealed to the attorney. “Barry, tell the filthy b-b-bitch!”

  The lawyer scanned the will again and went into a huddle with the muttering company men and Julia’s attorneys. She waited impatiently, glaring at Anya through her dark lenses and gasping for breath as if her legacy had been her father’s emphysema.

  “Julia, I don’t know what to think.” The attorney left the huddle to shake his head at her. “This is certainly not the document I drew up a year ago.” He gave Anya a scathing glance and turned again to the quivering daughter. “As I had informed you, Julia, the instrument I saw named you as executor, your mother’s guardian, and the ultimate heir. It contained no provision for this Anya Ostrov or any Soviet-American foundation.”

  “Mr. Roman changed his mind.” Anya had risen, her fair skin flushed and her accent stronger. “He made this new will last month, just before he left on his last trip to the USSR.” She paused to smile at Julia, a happy malice in her eyes. “It was drawn up by the lawyers for our new foundation. They have signed and notarized copies, kept where they are safe. The will expresses Mr. Roman’s wishes, and it is legally correct. The courts will support it.”

  Early next morning she was on her way to Enfield, leaving legal matters to the lawyers. From the airport, she called Scorpio, the agent she had first known as Ranko Barac. He was now working as a night guard at EnGene Labs, where he used the name of Herman Doerr. Her call woke him. Muttering angrily, he agreed to let her pick him up at a bus stop a few blocks from his apartment.

  Though Scorpio’s competence had been well proven, she hated him heartily. Probably of some mixed Turko-Balkan ancestry, he was muscular and bald, with cold, lead-colored eyes set wide apart beneath heavy black brows. She had met him first in Miami.

  Using yet another name, he had come across from Cuba with the Mariel boat lift in command of a death squad. His targeted enemies of the Cuban revolution had been efficiently removed, but, reporting his success to her, he had displayed a proficient willingness to kill that appalled her. Though enemies of the people sometimes had to be neutralized, that was a duty she always tried to avoid.

  She knew he hated her. He disliked working under a woman and resented her for rejecting him. Once, drunk on straight vodka at the Miami safe house, he called her- a cheap Ukrainian whore when she laughed off his clumsy passes, and then tried to rape her when she said she wasn’t cheap enough for him. Now, climbing into the car beside her, he greeted her with a snarl.

  “What crap is this?” He was good at many things, his English convincingly native. “You can get me killed.”

  “Or both of us.” Careful with the unfamiliar car on unfamiliar streets, she pulled away from the curb and drove slowly on toward the few tall buildings in the city center. Just as careful in dealing with him, she kept her voice emotionless. “A necessary risk. I protested. I was overruled. I’ve brought you a revised assignment.”

  “And the CIA tramping on our heels?” He twisted in the seat to glower at her. “What is wrong with the O’Hare drop?”

  “Time. The Center wants action now.” She glanced into the rearview mirror. “I know the danger. I take good care. I have been driving for an hour. We are not followed.”

  “I told you not to come here. If Moscow is unhappy with me, let them find somebody else—”

  “They are pleased.” Detesting everything about him, even his unbathed, animal odor, she rolled down the car window. “Your reports have been extremely important. They asked me to commend you. But they want action. Now.”

  “What action?” His dark features hardened. “Do they think I’m this cartoon Superman? You have read my reports on EnGene. Too many spies swarming in, trying to bribe everybody, to steal everything they can. Spies from the people’s republics and imperialist nations. From American companies and foreign companies. As well as the CIA.”

  “Are you afraid of spies?”

  “Afraid?” An insolent snort. “Of these bungling idiots? All of them looking for more than I think the En-Gene scientists have yet discovered. Leaving clumsy traces of their stupidities. Locks broken. Papers out of order, important records missing. They’ve got the whole staff uptight about security. Made my own work almost impossible. No more shop gossip worth picking up. Nothing in the wastebaskets.”

  “You have good contacts.”

  “I’ve already milked them for all they know.”

  “Which has been useful.” She hated to say it. “To encourage their good service, the Center wants them well rewarded for those recent printouts.”

  “Reward Amy Carboni?” A scornful shrug. “That crazy kid? No friend to anybody. No loyalty to anything except his damn computers. Bleeding us dry for jumbled stuff that makes no sense to—”

  “It makes sense to Moscow. Experts there read enough of it to frighten them. They want action. That’s what I’ve come to tell you.”

  “Okay!” He sneered. “You tell me.”

  “You are to execute a two-stage plan.” She tried to contain her loathing for all he was: a hairy, stinking, evil-natured animal. “It will have the highest priority, supported with all our resources. There can be no delay—”

  He muttered a word she didn’t catch.

  “Those printout—” Another driver honked and drove fast around her. “They reveal that the Americans are very near success with a genetic weapon. More dangerous, our own experts believe, than anything nuclear.”

  “So?” He shrugged. “Experts have been wrong.”

  “The errors of experts are not your problem.” She let her voice ring cold. “You are to follow the research here, reporting every detail as soon as you discover it. If any weapon is developed, you are to obtain technical data on its nature and its means of production. You are then to sabotage the weapon and the laboratory. If possible, you are to neutralize every person who has been entrusted with any genetic secret.”

  “Hah?” He mouthed a contemptuous-sounding word in some tongue she didn’t know. “Can you send me a batallion of the KGB?”

  “The growing American alertness has forced the Center to rely on agents in place.” She enjoyed her authority and the angry way he reddened at her words. “I am to keep in closer touch with you. We now have a confidential source of abundant American funds from the Roman estate. Further instructions will be coming, as Moscow analyzes our reports.”

  “Moscow!” He glared at her. “Moscow expects miracles.”

  “The Center expects results.” They were in the outskirts of the town. In her tension, she had pushed the car too near the speed limit. She slowed, turning into an empty residential street. “I understand that we are working on genetic weapons of our ow
n. Our own mission is to buy time for our own genetic engineers.”

  “You speak as if we were generals,” he muttered, “given armored divisions—”

  “Our mission would justify generals.” She raised her voice to cut him off. “Divisions, if we could deploy divisions around Enfield. We cannot. Comrade, the task is no smaller because it has fallen to us. We have been promised full support. If we need weapons, we can obtain them. Weapons better than tanks—”

  His sardonic grunt checked her.

  “Listen, comrade!” She hated to call him that. “I am speaking of military biologicals. None of our own are yet fit for deployment, but the Center has hinted of some powerful new instrument that might be made available for use in emergency. Only as a last resort, however. And only if we are confident that the Americans can be deceived into believing the deaths were due to an accidental mishap with their own experiments.”

  “Kill ourselves?” He scowled at her sullenly. “With some synthetic plague? I know knives and poisons and bullets. I am not a laboratory rat.”

  “You are a soldier.” She let her voice sharpen. “We are fighting a war. Fighting for the future of all the people’s democracies. Perhaps even for human survival—”

  “You quote Pravda?”

  “Here in Enfield, we fight at the front.” She ignored his sarcasm. “Not because we volunteered. Just because we happen to be the agents in place. Believe me, our failure here at EnGene could cost Mother Russia more than the loss of an army. The Center made that very clear.

  “The American weapon—it must be obliterated!”

  Herman Doerr was late for work that night. He had spent four unwilling hours in the rented car with Anya Ostrov, most of the time parked at malls and supermarkets, outlining a series of contingency plans, discussing resources he might require, planning ways of getting quick reports to her. She left Enfield the next morning, flying back to Florida to begin her own legal battles with Julia Roman and the Roman-World-Mart attorneys for control of the dead capitalist’s estate.

  Enfield had not yet died.

  5

  Task Force

  Watchdog

  Driving back in the humid gloom, away from the cop and whatever had struck Enfield, Dr. Saxon Belcraft felt as utterly dazed and blank as the cop had looked. On impulse, recalling the squawk of the police radio, he twisted the dial of his own. A burst of rock music. A deodorant commercial. A country singer wailing. He snapped it off.

  Red neon flashed ahead. ENBARD MO EL. The building looked shabby and deserted when he slowed for it, no cars in sight. He drove on to look for a phone, for any news from Enfield, perhaps a room for the rest of the night.

  A yellow light slowed him again, blinking in the middle of the road. His headlamps picked up two farm tractors and a battered station wagon parked in position to block the pavement. He stopped and rolled the window down.

  A thick rank scent swept over him, the jungle reek of weeds and undergrowth the tractor wheels had crushed. Nothing moved anywhere. The hot night seemed oddly quiet till he heard the throb of a helicopter far overhead. A sudden searchlight blazed into his face.

  “Listen! You at the barrier!” A bullhorn behind the searchlight, hoarsely braying. “Stop where you are. Turn back now.”

  He climbed out of the car and stood squinting into the glare, trying to shield his eyes.

  “Get this! You by the car. You are in an emergency safety zone, created under military authority, now policed by Task Force Watchdog. The flasher marks the perimeter. Exit forbidden. Get back and stay back.”

  “Why?” He blinked into the blinding light. “What’s hap—”

  “Warning! The perimeter is closed. Turn your car. Get away and stay away!”

  He tried to shout again, but his voice had dried up. For a moment all he could hear was the chopper’s steady beat.

  “Get this!” the bullhorn boomed. “You on the road. You are a suspect carrier. You are confined to the quarantine zone. If you don’t move, we’ll obey orders. Fire to kill!”

  He backed away. The searchlight followed. Still blinded, he felt the car jolt off the pavement. He stopped till the beam went on to light a narrow bridge and pick up black shadow-clots of brush and trees in a shallow valley below. He saw no movement anywhere. The bullhorn gone silent, all he could hear was the chopper’s throb, the heart of the dark. When he could see, he drove back toward Enfield.

  Suspect carrier?

  The words echoed in his mind like a tolling gong. The city’s knell, perhaps his own. The darkness settled suddenly on him, suffocating. All he could see was the yellow flasher, growing fainter in the rearview mirror. Breathing hard, he shuddered.

  Could he get out?

  With luck enough, perhaps he might. Whatever the forces on the perimeter, they must have been called up on very short notice. Perhaps he could find some back road not yet watched. If he drove without lights, perhaps the chopper couldn’t follow. Or would the crew have infrared detectors?

  At worst, he might abandon the car and strike out on foot. The moon had been full last weekend—-the night Midge left, he had walked under it for endless hours, fighting the truth and the pain. Now it would be rising soon after midnight, perhaps in time to help—

  That panic impulse died. The shape of danger was still invisible, remote enough to be denied. Speaking to Jeri only this morning, he had heard no desperate alarm.

  He left the headlamps on. Deliberately, he took a deep breath and slowed the car, searching for all he could recall about EnGene. Pharmaceutical reps calling at the office had told him more about it than he had ever heard from Vic.

  A pioneer among the hopeful new outfits set up to exploit genetic engineering, it was rumored to be creating miracle endorphins and interferons, magical antibiotics, and fabulous new vaccines, but no EnGene salesman had ever called on him to offer any such wonders.

  Had Vic been involved? Perhaps with some synthetic microbe meant to heal but somehow turned malign? He shook his head, trying not to consider that. The imagined perils of genetic research had always alarmed a few crackpots, but crackpots were everywhere, shouting alarm about every chimera they could invent. Such paranoias had no place in medical science, and he refused to entertain them now. Evident panic had hit the town, but it had to be—surely it had to be—merely hysteria.

  He tried to relax at the wheel, taking cautious stock of his own sensations. His seat felt numb, his shoulders stiff from driving too long. His head ached a little. That slab of cold pizza heavy in his stomach, he had eaten nothing till late afternoon, then only a quick double cheeseburger. Now, longing for a cold beer and a good rare sirloin, he certainly felt no symptom of any synthetic virus working in him.

  Again he tried the radio. A slick commercial for an album of country music stars. A drawling local newsman, reading official estimates of a bumper wheat harvest. A hoarse evangelist screaming threats of hellfire in the hereafter. Nothing of any hell in Enfield, here and now.

  Ahead, the ENBARD MO EL still flashed its gap-toothed invitation. Though the flickering neon said NO VACANCY, the place looked empty. Nowhere better in view, he stopped and walked inside. The jangling bell brought a thin little woman out of a dark hallway. Limping a little, she wore the penetrating turpentine stink of some patent liniment.

  “Yes, sir?” She squinted warily though steel-rimmed glasses. “Want a room?”

  “Maybe. If I can use a telephone.”

  “Pay phone yonder.” She nodded vaguely.

  He found the phone on the wall beyond the Coke machine and dialed the number Jeri had answered. A busy signal beeped. The woman stood waiting till he came back, both bony hands flat on the cracked glass counter, dourly patient.

  “Single is thirty-seven eighty-nine if you want to stay. Cash now.”

  “VISA card?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why not tonight?”

  “Pay now if you want the room.” She pushed an index card across the broken glass.


  “What’s going on tonight?” He tried to decipher her pain-pinched, pale-eyed face. “Has something happened in Enfield?”

  “They’s some crazy tale.” She rolled a tape-wrapped ballpoint after the card. “On the room TV if you want to hear about it. Channel Five.”

  “The roads are closed,” he told her. “Both directions.”

  “So you got stuck?” Her bird-quick nod reflected no regret. “Hope you ain’t hungry. We don’t serve meals. Not even breakfast since Mr. Bard died—my late husband.” She shrugged toward the vending machine. “Fritos and candy bars if you want a snack.”

  “Later, maybe.”

  He signed the card, and her yellow talons took his cash.

  “I’ll put you in number nine. Straight back. Has to be tidied up.”

  She gave him the key on a heavy wooden ball. He parked outside number nine, and she limped after him into the room. The bed looked unused, but soiled towels littered the bathroom floor and empty beer cans had been tossed at the wastebasket.

  “Full up before sundown, but that fool tale scared everybody out.”

  She collected the clutter and took it away. He used the bathroom and tried Channel Five. A national network news show was just ending on heart-rending shots of big-bellied infants dying of famine in the Sahel. A cosmetics commercial followed, then one from Enfield Federal, “where we take interest in you and you get interest from us.”

  Mrs. Bard rapped and shuffled in again with a water-stained glass and two skimpy towels. He asked what she had heard on Channel Five.

  “Hokum!” She hung up the towels and flushed the toilet. “From nobody regular. Some crazy guy there in the news studio. Drunk as a skunk. Making up wild lies that panicked all our guests till they jumped in their cars and took off. Most never settled for their rooms. I’d like to sue him.” Her gaunt jaw set stubbornly. “It’s got to be another hoax, like way back the year I married Mr. Bard. That radio thing about the monsters from Mars.”