Shep, standing on the passenger seat, gave a quiet whine.
Jason looked from one to the other and started the Jeep.
Still, everything seemed calm. The road had widened a bit and the Jeep was handling well, even in muddy spots. But just when he felt safe enough to reach for a cola, Vooorh jerked in her tub.
"They are here," she said.
"Where?" Jason put down the bottle and leaned over the wheel, searching the road, then the gray patches of sky above the trees.
"They are hidden, but they are here. In a landing craft."
Jason almost turned to face her, but kept his eyes on the road.
"Hidden?"
"Invisible. It is technology. You can find them if you know how to look. I... feel them."
"Feel? How?"
"It is a sense we have, like some of your own sea creatures. It is not so strange." She paused. "They move around above us. They may not be certain where we are."
It sounded almost reasonable. "Let's find out," he said, and swerved beneath a thick stand of pines.
"Can you... sense... if they come lower, or pass on by?"
"Yes."
"Good. Please let me know."
They waited. The motor ticked.
"How'd they know where to look?"
"They came searching before you found me. I stayed hidden, but they knew I was near."
She turned her face toward a point above them and to one side, as if she could see the lander through the roof. "They come lower now. They know where we are."
Jason cranked the motor and jolted onto the road in a spatter of mud and gravel, lurching around curves toward a settled area just ahead. A new sound, like a low moan, drifted over the seatback. He set the rearview so he could keep an eye on her, wondering what she must be thinking—
The fish concoction came up without warning. Vooorh cringed in her tub as a vile fish smell filled the Jeep.
A few clustered cottages appeared ahead and Jason began to slow.
"They are higher now," Vooorh said, voice trembling. "So many houses..."
Jason pulled off the road near the houses and parked in a thicket by a small forest stream. Shep stood watch while Vooorh washed in the cold water and cleaned her breathing gear. Jason rinsed her clothes and tub and reassembled her nest with saltwater, and fresh bedding. As she climbed into it, he offered her a clean cola bottle.
"Can you drink fresh water, or should I salt it?"
"I can drink fresh."
He studied her color, worried over the food she'd lost and the healing she still had to do. She noticed, but took the bottle without comment and resumed her search of the overhead.
"They are hovering, high over us," she told him.
"Fine." Jason said. "Let them hover a little longer." Leaving Shep out to run a bit, he relaxed in his seat to eat his sandwiches, doors open to the cold, clean air. He tossed Shep a canned sausage each time the dog ran by. Then he collected their trash and leaned over the seat back, rummaging through the stores.
"We'll need more water, maybe blankets, too," he said. He whistled to Shep, lowered the windows to flush out the last of the fish smell, and sat behind the wheel, checking the gauges. "Gas too. We'll have to stop again."
Vooorh hissed a little as he pulled back onto the uneven road. It smoothed out as they wound through the hill country, where frequent small farms kept the shell people high overhead. But as the farms gave way to large, commercial fields, Vooorh lurched in her tub.
"They are just over us! And they come lower!"
An odd "chuf-chuf" sounded from some where. A scatter of dirt kicked up from the roadway ahead. Small gravel peppered the hood.
"They're shooting at us! Vooorh, Get down—"
Something big passed just overhead and the Jeep fishtailed, buffeted by a strong gust of wind. Jason wrestled it straight and raced for the forest beyond the fields. A brief tailwind from a second flyover gave them a nudge into the cover of the trees.
"They attacked us!" Vooorh rasped, rising higher in her tub, hands braced on the seat-back. Her voice was low, rough and hard. Her squared eyes in the rearview pinched into narrow slits. "They meant us harm."
Jason stared into the mirror. "These creatures tried to paralyze you, Vooorh. And this surprises you?"
"They did that to hold me. This was to kill. When they know—" She stopped short, hissing loudly, fingers rigid on the seatback.
Jason kept his eyes on the road.
Gradually she relaxed her grip and sank back into the tub, face toward the overhead, eyes blank. "They are over us still, much higher now. But they will come back."
Wonderful. Jason glanced at his watch. Just past three, and many more miles to go. He drove as fast as he dared, braking only for the sharp left turn onto the paved road toward Tennessee. Small difference to the aliens, what state they were in. But he felt better, just that much nearer to Sara.
They hurried on, swerving at every curve, his thoughts on the gas gauge, hers on the skies, till he slowed a few miles later, eyeing a roadside store. It was dingy and dark. Out front, a few scruffy-looking bikers kicked the gravel and smoked, beer bottles in hand.
He almost decided against it. The gauge showed enough gas for a few more miles. But what would he find when that was gone? Swearing under his breath, he pulled in past the bikers and parked in the end slot farthest from the door.
"Stay low," he told Vooorh. "I'll get water and pay for the gas. Then I'll pull over to the pump. Shep will bark if there's trouble."
As he closed the door, Shep scrambled over for a scratch. "Guard," Jason said under his breath, and gave the dog a pat through the open window.
The place seemed safe enough as he headed for the store. But when he reached for the screen door he saw the bikers again. One of them was looking back. Jason hurried inside. It was a face he knew, and it was grinning.
He grabbed water jugs and some dusty fleece throws and had just reached the cashier when Shep set up a howl. He dropped a couple of bills and hurried out. There'd be another gas station somewhere.
The bikers had moved toward the Jeep. Two were beside it, leaning in the windows on either side. One made a lunge with his hand, too fast for a scratch, and Shep howled again.
Jason walked over, as calmly as he dared.
"You might want to be careful there. That's a sick old dog," he said, emphasizing the 'old dog.' Shep slumped over in the seat, whining as if in pain. "I'm not real sure what's wrong with him. Just taking him to a specialist in Erwin."
The biker jerked back his hand. The others stood farther from the Jeep.
"We don't mean no harm. Just smelled some fish. Little different smell from what we catch hereabouts. Thought we'd see what you had, if that dog o' yours 'ud let us near it."
"Yeah, he can be mean when he's hurting," Jason said. He opened the door, setting the blankets and water by the tub. Vooorh was well hidden, her trash bags pulled down tight—except for a corner of her air tank that poked out at the back. He glanced at the bikers. The one he'd recognized was nowhere in sight. Time to git.
He was into his seat and starting the Jeep when one of them came running from the store.
"Hanklin wants to see you before you go—"
"Tell him I'm sorry, but I've got no time," Jason said, and shifted into gear. Shep whined mournfully. The bikers scattered as he backed out and pulled away.
"One of them saw my tank," Vooorh said. "I heard him say something, and they tried to look."
"That'll be trouble," Jason said. "The bag's dropped down some at the back. You need to pull 'em all the way up, over the tank."
"They liked the guns too," she said.
"Dang, I should have thought about that!" He banged the wheel with his fist. "Throw a blanket over them, will you? And see they stay covered."
He kept a moderate pace, watched the rearview till the road curved around a hill. Then it dipped into a small river valley and he raced through rich bottomland.
"They are still
above us," Vooorh said. "They will fly low again in open places."
Jason nodded, and drove.
Across the river and up another slope, the road skirted a grassy hillside. A flicker of motion caught Jason's eye as a figure appeared from a house near the top and leapt down the slope toward the road.
As they neared, the man pulled on a highway patrol hat and held out his hand to stop them.
"Better get down," Jason said, "and cover that tank." He whispered "old dog" again and scratched between Shep's ears as he brought the Jeep to a stop.
The trooper's uniform was rumpled, as if he'd shucked it after a long day and just now thrown it back on. No patrol car was in sight.
Jason put his elbow out the window and smiled.
"Some trouble around here, officer?" he asked, still petting Shep, who whined feebly.
"Just a license check," the officer said. He looked around the Jeep's interior, wrinkling his nose, as Jason dug out his license and registration.
"That dog sick?" he asked.
"No, just old." Jason handed him the cards. "Some bikers back at the gas station were teasing him so bad I said he might be contagious." He grinned. "You should have seen 'em scatter!"
The trooper's lips quirked. "Yeah. Well, I guess that'd explain the call I got. Said a Jeep with a dangerous dog was comin' my way. But he don't look all that threatenin' to me." He peered into the back of the Jeep. "Did say somethin' smelled funny in the tub there."
"Yeah. Fish-based fertilizer. Organic, you know. And a spreader tank. Some folks swear by it. But it can get strong. Want a look?"
The off icer inched away. "Naw. That's okay."
"That fellow that called, wouldn't be Hanklin, would he?" Jason asked. "Thought I saw him back there. Little out of his range, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but that's our Hanklin. Loves trouble anywhere he can make it." He took the documents around to the front of the Jeep, hitched his hat to one side, and spoke quietly into a cell phone.
Suddenly his voice rose.
"... the dog don't look dangerous. Just old and cranky." He glanced into the Jeep and lowered his voice, but not enough.
"Hanklin and his gang was teasing..." Jason heard. Then, "... just fish fertilizer..."
The trooper was silent for a moment, listening to the phone, then looked skyward, clearly peeved. He answered a little louder.
"He offered me a look but I didn't want to push it. Okay? Maybe something did seem a little off, but nothing to put my finger on."
Then: "Look, you do Hanklin's dirty work if you want, but I am bushed. Long shift today. Covering for you this mornin', as you'll recall? Someone else can deal with it." He punched the phone off and came back to the window with Jason's cards.
"No problem here," he said, "but you might want to hurry along."
He stepped back, waving them on their way.
Easing onto the pavement, Jason got a last glimpse of the trooper in the mirror. The man was still shaking his head, climbing wearily up the steps to the house.
Jason was shaking his head too. Rumor had it that Sam Hanklin made his living digging up "problems" in the back country for political types to "take care of" in very public ways. All for their own advantage.
He pushed the pedal closer to the floor. Hanklin had bribed troopers before to chase folks over the state line.
Water sloshed behind him.
"There is a problem?"
"Could be, but nothing now."
He drove on, thoughts churning, taking the curves faster than he liked.
Soon, with no sign of anyone following, he glanced in the rearview at Vooorh. She was laying back, hooded head on a pillow at the edge of her tub, gazing at the overhead.
"There're a few things I need to know," he said. "Could be important, later."
Vooorh closed her eyes.
"Ask."
"Before the crabs—the shell people—took our friend Connie, they hadn't taken any of you, had they? Any of your family, I mean. Why did they take you now?"
"We tried to help your friend, Sshaas and I. We had not done that before." She paused. "Sshaas went with them, waiting for a better time to get away. I... defended myself. But there were too many. They put that poison in me so I could not run again. They put a different poison in your friend, made for humans. They had done that with other humans before, but never us, from their own world. Never before...!"
"From their own world?" Jason stared into the mirror, and quickly back at the road. "What... you and the crabs are the same?"
"I should not say this to... people not our own."
Her eyes were wide open now, her face grayish. Was it lack of food, or water? Or something else? He watched her in the mirror, worried. But she looked away.
"You are right to ask," she said at last. "You have helped me, and we may need to... to defend ourselves... together."
She sipped from the cola bottle.
"Long ago, when we lived in water, we were the same. But a starship fell there and broke apart. Many died, and those who lived were sick. There were mutations. We all fled, my people went high in the water, others... very deep. Terrible, dark places. Still all our young changed, but in different ways. The ones in the deep became the shell people.
"When my people began to live on land, the dry people already living there explained this to us, and helped us change even more. But—"
"Hold on!" Jason shouted, and hit the gas. A cloud of dust trailed over the field on the left, traveling fast at an angle to meet the main road just ahead. As he glanced at it, the dust cloud put on speed.
Seconds before Jason crossed the intersection, a patrol car heaved up the rise from the field road and cut ahead of him. It shot across both lanes, skidding halfway onto the wide right shoulder before it turned. Jason swerved and squeaked by on the left, tires squealing. The trooper lurched onto the roadway behind him.
Jason slid back into his lane at top speed. He slewed around a curve to find a sudden drop in the road, with another blind curve near the bottom. He descended in a rush, Vooorh's tub almost tipping in the lower curve.
After that the road straightened a bit, an easier stretch marked by a large white sign.
As he sped past it, Jason looked back to see the trooper throw on his brakes and swerve to a stop. He grinned, and began to slow.
"We are all right now?" Vooorh asked.
"If that's a law-abiding trooper back there we are," Jason said. "Welcome to the great state of Tennessee."
"He is not following us?"
"Not so far." He pointed to the overhead. "How about the folks upstairs?"
"They follow still," Vooorh said. "They will try again to stop us."
Jason stared at the road ahead. "And what will they do then?"
The hiss from the tub was long and low. "That is hard to know, but... not good."
Jason nodded. "All right. So tell me about these shell people, and how the hell we can 'defend ourselves' against them."
"They are violent. The young ones like only to fight, and these are very young. And careless. When they damaged their ship they found us here and took one of ours, with its lander. And they began to take human captives." She glanced at him in the mirror. "We do not know why."
"So they grew those shells in the deep ocean?"
"Yes. They grew smaller too. The dry people tried to change them, to make them peaceful. But that way they did not change."
"When they took you, and put those disks in you, how did you get away?"
"The poison is slow. I broke free and ran while I could, to tell Father." Her voice lowered to a rasp. "But these flew ahead and caught me, far from our ship. They cut me... tore the garment that warms me. They tried to break my tanks. I fought them still."
That strong look was back in her eyes, catching his in the rearview.
"They would have hurt me more, but older shell people, who try to teach them, called them back to the ship. The old ones were angry at them even before I ran. If these go back now they
will be punished."
She paused, still with that look. "They left me there, on your mountain. I came to find your mate for help, but the poison was slowing me. When I found the place in the rock I had no more strength at all."
She fell quiet, watching the overhead.
Jason hunched over the wheel and sped on. Nearly four o'clock. Five miles to the next town, with about that much gas in the tank. Then Erwin, maybe by four-forty-five. Then the mountains.
And a road through a deep river gorge.
They'd need all the daylight they could get.
They passed a lake with a small resort. Its gas station was crowded with cars.
The next had no safe place to park.
A convenience store had no gas.
Vooorh, hood pulled low over her breathing tube, raised her head to look out through the windows. Silent, her color fading. He watched her reflection and frowned.
They passed a church and a school, finally stopping where he could pay with his card at the tank.
He climbed out slowly, stiff legged, and looked around. There was only one other driver, just replacing the hose. She drove on.
He continued his survey as he pumped. A deserted campground across the road offered parking, but little shelter. Climbing back into the Jeep, he looked into the tub. Vooorh lay curled in her bedding. It looked dry.
Was the fish smell stronger? He sniffed. Could be.
He drove across the road and into a thin patch of trees, refilled Vooorh's bottle, this time with salt, and poured most of the next-tolast jug into her pillows. Then a quick drink for Shep and a cola for himself, and he drove on, turning at last onto the road to Erwin.
Four-thirty and the mountains were drawing near.
"It's three or four miles on the Interstate to our exit," Jason said as they drove into Erwin, only minutes before five. "It'll be busy this time of day. Think they'd try anything there?"
"It is possible," Vooorh said. "I will tell you if they come low."
But a little later she cried out. "They have gone! I cannot sense them!"
She turned her face one way then another, searching every direction as Jason crept through packed streets toward the interstate and minutes passed. It was well past five when they drove up the ramp. A trooper was watching there, and Jason tensed. But no sirens followed. His breathing slowed as they merged into faster traffic.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-07 Page 22
