Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls

by Phyllis Irene Radford

  I wish I could say he was dirty and hairy and smelly. He did smell like leather, but it was well tanned, and so was he. He swore he shaved with a flint razor; he had a couple of artistic nicks for proof. He looked healthy, fit, and disgustingly happy.

  Janie ran to him and hugged him. I stood there feeling empty. She was babbling ninety to the dozen, all about pterodactyls and mammoths and chocolate ice cream.

  “Chocolate,“ sighed Marco. “I do miss chocolate.“

  “You know what you can do about it,“ I said.

  Even before we split, I couldn’t talk normally around Marco. Everything I said came out sharp or whiny or both. Now wasn’t any different.

  “You’re looking pale,“ he said. “Are you all right?“

  “Yes, I’m all right!“

  That’s the other thing. Looking at him always makes me want to cry.

  “Caitlin,“ he said, “you could get a month’s admission on Janie’s account. You must have that much time accumulated, at the rate you don’t use vacations.“

  He tried that every time. He’d tried to get me to move into the preserve with him in the first place, and never mind that the divorce had been final for a year.

  I can’t say I didn’t look at his bronzed muscles (skin cancer city, I reminded myself) and his air of complete satisfaction, and wonder, just for a nanosecond, if...

  “No, thanks,“ I said. “I hate raw bear.“ I swallowed. “Good-bye, Janie. See you next month.“

  Janie pulled loose from Marco and ran to hug me. I thought of holding on and running, but I was supposed to be civilized, wasn’t I? I kissed her and said, “Be good.“

  “Good-bye,“ said Janie. “Thank you for the pterodactyl.“

  The shuttle was waiting. Marco glanced at it but didn’t say anything. It was Janie who got hold of his hand and pulled him away. She was talking about pterodactyls again: big beaks, strong talons, soft fur. Nothing about red eyes or hunger, or yearning to fly out of its cage.

  “Next month,“ I said to the shuttle as it pulled away, “I’m taking you to the Space Museum.“

  oOo

  Judith Tarr...

  ...is known primarily as an author of fantasy novels, especially historical fantasy, but she grew up reading and writing science fiction. She especially enjoys writing science-fiction short stories.

  ALIENS

  Its Own Reward

  Katharine Kerr

  Early on a Tuesday morning Lieutenant Mitsu Morgan of the San Francisco Police Homicide Division slides two steaming bowls of apple-cinnamon oatmeal out of the microwave and plops them down in front of her kids. Alan and Trish barely notice, since they’re fighting over the TV remote, which drones about weather on the opposite wall. Mitsu slops milk over the cereal, slops a little into her coffee, then intervenes.

  “Trish! His turn. You got Doctor Blast-off.“

  With one last whine on a dying fall Trish surrenders the remote. Mitsu checks the time — another hour before she’s due down at the Hall of Justice, less before Trish needs to get to her live tutorial. While she wonders if her current daycare person will make it on time, she pours herself more coffee and the kids juice. Synth music floods the kitchen.

  “Down!“

  The music drops to a tolerable level. On the huge screen a consumer tape-crawl show is gearing itself up, the Admart Experience, or so this one terms itself.

  “Alan, love, why are you watching this?“

  “Cause Dad promised to buy me a jetboard for the lake this summer if I could find a good one used.“

  “Ah. Well, you know, I wouldn’t put a lot of energy into it. Your Dad sometimes has trouble remembering things.“

  Alan grins and holds up a comp stick.

  “I got it in writing.“

  Mitsu laughs and hands dribbling Trish a paper napkin. Alan shoves the stick into his notebook’s slot and sits poised, vulture-like, over the record button.

  “Something good comes on, I’m gonna bank it for Dad to watch later.“

  On the TV the music fades to a mutter. While Mitsu shoves dishes into the washer and sorts the piles of school junk and old mail that always seem to fetch up onto kitchen counters, she finds herself watching bits and pieces of the show, an endless loop of home-made ads. Nervous sapients, both human and lizzie, stand in front of home holocams and stumble through their spiels while their unwanted material goods sit sullenly beside them, old zap ovens and comp units, collections of twentieth century Elvis plates, camping equipment, fiber-hide luggage, nearly-new lamps in the shape of Saturn and its rings, and every now and then a really peculiar object, such as an alabaster globe on a Lucite stand. Down in one corner of the screen lot numbers flash while across the top, the station’s link code hangs, gleaming pink and begging viewers to call toll-free and bid. Finally, just when Mitsu wonders if her kids might be better off watching sex and violence, a pale blue void swirls and forms into the long thin oval of a Val Chiri Gan face. She stops working to stare.

  Under a thatch of black hair a huge brow-ridge proclaims him male, and he wears faceted jewels inlaid directly into that sweep of cartilage so that they protrude through the thin gray skin in a pattern of sparkle and scars. His tiny eyes gleam golden: he’s from a northern clan, then. For a long time he merely stares into the cam lens, his thin slit of a mouth working, driven by some deep feeling. That he would show feeling shocks her as much as his appearance on this advertising channel. Mitsu speaks out of sheer instinct.

  “Alan, record this.“

  He hits the button on his notebook. At last the Val Chiri raises a speaker-unit in his top-right three-clawed hand and presses it to his long, ridged throat. No Val Chiri mouth can produce more than a few American sounds, any more than a human one can cope with the Gan-Girun syllabary.

  “I acknowledge all who watch and listen.“ The formal greeting sounds grotesquely appropriate. “By the time this my image speaks to you, I shall be dead. I record this message at 2000 hours of March the nineteen in the year forty-one of our common era known as the time in which our people have met one another. I apologize to this city of San Francisco for the trouble my murdering shall cause to be upon its police officers. I have drawn up what is termed here a will, which shall be made public once my death is discovered, so that all may read its provisions and know I speak truth. One of the provisions of that will is this: to the San Francisco Police Force, for the sole purpose of giving to whomever it should be who provides the evidence that produces the discovering of my murderer’s identity, I bequeath as I say four times forty-four times four again kilograms of pure gold.“

  On the screen the Val Chiri pauses, as if allowing his listeners a chance at an expletive.

  “That’s lots,“ Trish says. “Right?“

  “Multo lots, love,“ Mitsu says. “Now please, let’s listen.“

  “I cannot say who will be murdering me, or I would save all much inconvenience. I do hope that this reward will be bringing forth witnesses and informants.“

  The Val Chiri lowers the voice unit and stares once again into the lens. Then he touches his eye-ridge with one finger of his top-left hand and speaks what seems to be a single sentence in his own language.

  Mitsu cannot understand one word.

  The void swirls, then reforms itself into a living-den, where a female lizzie in a purple sarong is trying to sell her old incubators. Mitsu reaches over the table and punches the stop button on Alan’s notebook.

  “Sorry, love, but I gotta have that flat. Go get yourself a new one out of my office.“

  “But Mom! It’s the one with Dad’s promise on it!“

  Mitsu stops herself from venting her feelings.

  “Well, rats,“ she says instead. “Tell you what. If he tries to back out, I’ll break my own rule and interfere. That’s the best I can do. I got no idea if anyone down at work’s recorded this message, and it’ll take all day to subpoena the crawl station.“

  “You mean this is a case?“ Alan’s eyes grow wide. “
I thought that dude was just some actor dubbed over or something.“

  “Nope. I got this sinking feeling it’s all real.“

  And what’s more, she thinks, it’ll be mine to handle. Although Mitsu’s never been to deep space, she’s traveled out of the gravity well to a watch station a couple of times, and by some perverse logic on the part of the higher-ups, cases involving aliens always come to her. Alan slides the flat out and hands it over. Mitsu tucks it into the shirt pocket of her uniform, grabs Trish’s bowl just as Trish tries to pick it up and drink the last of the milk out of it.

  “You have a glass, and there’s more milk on the table.“

  The CopComm unit at her belt begins to beep hysterically. The doorbell rings. Mitsu sets down the sticky bowl.

  “That must be Elena. Trish, love, go answer it. I gotta take this call. Alan, turn off the TV. Now!“

  Without one word of back-talk they follow orders. It will be the last satisfying moment of Mitsu’s day.

  oOo

  The Val Chiri Gan delegation has rented two floors of the New Palace Hotel down on lower Market Street. Three pink ziggurats joined by ramps and enclosed bridges, it hunkers around a triangular courtyard that, at the moment, swarms with police. Mitsu’s partner is waiting for her at the gold-veined synthmarble registration desk in Building One — Sergeant Bill Hoffman, a skinny blond Cauc with a perpetually runny nose. Not even gene transplants can cure his allergies to the yellow skies of Earth.

  “We got the area cordoned off,“ he announces. “No one speaks much American up there, but I did find one guy. Jeez, Morgan, these people are weird. I bet they really are psychics, just like you always hear.“

  “Medic team on the job yet? The lab dudes?“

  “Sure are.“

  “Well, let’s go up. See what we can see.“

  Mitsu strides off across the lobby toward a bank of bronze-colored turbolifts. Bill trots after.

  “You don’t think they’re psychic, huh?“ he says.

  “Think it’s a lot of bull.“

  “But I saw this special, it was on one of the nets. The Secret World of the Val Chiri Gan. Come on, they wouldn’t spend a whole hour on a special if it wasn’t true.“

  “Bill, sometimes I wonder how you got into police work.“

  Bill opens his mouth to answer, shuts it fast, and contents himself with a scowl.

  The turbolift drops them at a white corridor carpeted in white. The air is hot, sticky with artificial humidity and the spicy scent of Val Chiri. The first thing Mitsu notices is that all the doors to the various rooms have been removed; the second, that huge potted tree ferns of a kind she’s never seen before make a green and random maze out of the halls. Val Chiri Gan males drift from room to room or stand under the ferns and stare. Since they’re a small people, maybe 1.2 meters on average, they seem to scuttle whenever they move on their four lower appendages, which can be either arms or legs depending on need. They always hold their heads and top arms upright on double-jointed torsos, and since they’re draped and swathed in layers of cloth, mostly blue and a metallic gold, Mitsu finds herself thinking of beetles. Sharply she reminds herself that they’re as warm-blooded as she is, mammals of a sort, and intelligent as all hell.

  As they walk down the hall, dodging ferns and pedestrians alike, she glances into rooms. Hanging panels of multicolored cloth, a scatter of tubular cushions, big wooden boxes, small and shiny brass things, more ferns — no real furniture to speak of, only Val Chiri males, standing and talking in low chirps and mutters, sitting and staring at nothing. Occasionally someone looks up and waves an upper arm, a gesture mimicking the human one and meant to be friendly. She waves back and keeps walking. The scent, a mix of something like cinnamon, something like roses, and the tang of an open sea, seems to billow around them. Beside her, Bill sneezes, stops to blow his nose and snort. His eyes are bright red.

  “You want to go take over on the street?“

  “Thanks, sir, but no. I’ll be okay.“ He’s fishing in the cargo pocket of his walking shorts. “Brought a lot of Kleenex and some pills.“

  At a T-junction the corridor ends. One arm of the T leads to an open doorway, where a cop stands glowering.

  “The master suite.“ Bill waves a Kleenex in its direction. “Where the murdered dude lived with his... well, I guess it’s his family. There sure are a lot of them.“

  “The victim was high-status, then.“

  “You bet. That reminds me. Got a call from Washington.“

  “Washington? Jeezus christ.“

  “Yeah. They sounded hysterical. You’re supposed to call them back once you got something real to tell them. Turns out that these people are here to dicker over the terraforming project on Venus.“

  “And without their engineers, it’s no go?“

  “Yep. We gotta be real careful. Can’t cause a diplomatic incident, no matter what the cost, the guy said.“

  “Okay, I gotcha. Let’s be real nice and polite.“

  Down at the opposite end of the T, sapients and ’bots crowd round a pair of double doors, med techs, the pathologist, a big anti-grav flat of equipment, three beat cops dressed in regulation blue. In among them, swathed in gold lamé, a Val Chiri is standing on his lowest legs to make himself look taller. His bluish-gray hair has been swept up in a plume as well. Around his neck like a necklace hangs a speaker-unit.

  “Those doors lead outside, don’t they?“ Mitsu asks.

  “To one of the enclosed bridges, and the bridge leads to the other building, so the doors are never locked.“

  “So anyone could have come through there last night?“

  “You bet.“

  “And the corpse was found?“

  “Just on the other side of those doors. Kind of slumped up against them, like he was trying to get back in.“

  As they approach, the pathologist hurries over to give her report. The murdered sape died at some time between 0000 and 0400 hours of multiple stab wounds from a thin curved blade. One wound, inflicted from the front, pierced the main heart. For the others, which seem to have been made after death, the knife entered from the back between the shoulder blades and grazed the secondary heart.

  “I get the impression that he reflexively twisted round to grab at the door handles,“ she finishes up. “But he would have been dead before he could touch them. There’s blood on the corpse’s forehead, too. He might have cut himself as he fell into the door.“

  “These wounds on his back?“ Mitsu says. “Made by someone in a rage?“

  “Good guess, lieutenant. Why else stab a dead man?“

  With the rustle of cloth-of-gold the Val Chiri with the speaker unit joins them. He folds his top four legs over his torso and bows to Mitsu, then puts the box back into position.

  “You are the officer in charge?“

  “Sure am. Thank you for being willing to humble yourself by translating our unworthy words into your tongue.“

  “I will endeavor to do so to the limit of my poor powers.“ He bobs his head rapidly. “But there is something I must be making clear at the very beginning of your most excellent investigation. We cannot surrender to you the body of our leader. We must have it here tonight for the traditional ceremony.“

  “Well, sir, I’d never interfere with someone’s religious beliefs, but couldn’t we pick it up for the autopsy after the ceremony?“

  “That will be impossible. I cannot say why.“

  “Well, then, we’ll do the autopsy and return it to you for the ceremony.“

  “That will be impossible. I cannot say why.“

  Mitsu decides that arguing can wait till later.

  “Well, let’s start getting some information.“

  Bill brings out his notebook and turns it on.

  “Now, sir, if you’ll just give me the victim’s full name, and yours as well.“

  “I cannot do so. Honored lieutenant, you are not of Chiri Gan. You are doubtless not understanding what you are asking. I am sure in my
many cells, deep as you say, that you do not understand how you are giving offense by asking for such a personal thing as a name.“

  “Most certainly I mean no offense, honored translator. But our courts of law will demand names.“

  “But honored lieutenant, will this matter truly become dragged into a public court?“

  If Washington’s involved, he has a point.

  “Okay, Bill, for now, put the victim down as M.M. Murdered Male.“