He drew his own sword. They threw off their pelts and stood in the vestments of ninjas: not black but white, to better camouflage them in the snow.
“Come at me!” said the alien ninja.
She felt the power flow through her body . . . the sword was a part of herself, an extension of her innermost beings. She tensed a little, and the sword flew upward, whistling in the moist chill air.
She ran. He deflected her. Steel met steel; the clang echoed and rebounded across the mountainpeaks. She stretched her body taut. She coiled herself, she leaped, she sprang . . . she was a cat, a dragon . . . she was the wind.
They laughed.
And kissed, knee-deep in the snow.
“Soon will come spring,” said the alien ninja, and though Tomoko trembled with the soul-searing cold, she knew that it was true.
And come spring they would go down into the lands of the lizards. They would live always in hiding, always ready to strike at the oppressors and to fade back again into the wilderness.
Matt would be proud of me, Tomoko thought. She thought of him often now, and with less and less grief. For he had not died in vain. She had become fiercer now, more strong-willed, readier to fight for the freedoms men had lost.
“Shall we work out again?” the alien ninja said.
“Yes.” She raised her sword. Once more she felt the flow of power.
A tiny voice across the roaring wind: “Hey, Tomoko!”
She turned abruptly.
He was standing by the fire, a compact, shadow-slim youth. At first she did not recognize him through the sheets of snow.
Then: “CB!” said the alien ninja.
And they ran to him. Tomoko said, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
The boy said, “Well ... I kinda sneaked away.”
“But surely, life at the ambassador’s residence . . .” the alien ninja said.
“Bummer,” CB said. “Like, 1 like it and all, but it’s getting boring. I don’t think Matt really meant for me to sit on my ass all day doing algebra. I mean, like he knew he was supposed to want this stuff for me, but . . .”
He looked at her with earnest eyes. She saw that he had overcome his grief now. He had managed to find, at the core of those turbulent experiences, a fierce, profound concord.
“I’ve grown up a lot,” the boy said, reading her mind.
“But how did you get here?”
“I followed the trail of the papinium labyrinth. There aren’t as many lizard garrisons in the no man’s land as there were before. I avoided them easily. Then I found Ray Smith in the village, and he told me where you were. Man, it’s been, like, weeks getting to you. Weeks through the snow.
Well, I guess, Merry Christmas, you know.” He pulled a turkey sandwich out of his pocket and offered it to the two of them.
“Your voice is changing, Christopher,” Tomoko said.
“That’s not the only thing that’s changing!” CB said. “Ask the chicks at McLean Junior High! They’ll tell you I’m awesome.”
“Yet you have come to us,” the alien ninja said.
“Well . . . yeah. I talked it over with old Andrescu. He told me to go for it. I mean, like, it’s my life, and I wanna do something really important in this war with it. For Matt’s sake. Oh, he gave me a present to take to you, too.” He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to them. It was a Russian Orthodox crucifix. “For keeping out nosferatu, "CB said solemnly, his still childish voice imitating the Bela Lugosi-like tones of Ambassador Andrescu.
Tomoko took the crucifix and showed it to the alien.
“Well,” the alien said, “nothing can stop us now!”
“So what are the plans?” the boy said. “Like, I get to stay, don’t I?”
“It’ll be hard,” Tomoko said.
“Hard! I can deal with hard, you know that.”
“But we’ll manage.”
They stood on the side of the mountain in the snow, the three of them, overlooking the magnificent valley beneath.
“When the snow melts,” said the alien ninja, “we’ll cut across to Arizona. Maybe we’ll work with the resistance. Maybe we’ll be a resistance of three, swooping down to harass the Visitors whenever we can—”
“We’re gonna kick ass!” CB said.
“But there is a little something I ought to tell you,” Tomoko said. “You might ... I don’t quite know how to say this . . . well, we might need a babysitter now and then, and—”
“You’re shitting me!” CB exclaimed.
“Now, let’s not get our hopes up,” said the alien ninja. “The chance of our human-alien union producing a viable foetus is far from certain, and I don’t think that one missed period is any cause to think that-—”
“I’ve always wanted a little brother!” CB said.
“Maybe he’ll be a lizard,” Tomoko said, thinking of the strange twins that had been born to Robin Maxwell.
“I don’t care if he’s a lizard!” CB shouted. The snow pelted their faces, but they didn’t mind; joy warmed them. Tomoko looked out over the terrain and thought; How beautiful Earth is . . . this world . . . our own Earth. And CB cried out into the roaring wind: “I’m gonna have a kid brother—and he’s going to be the greatest swordmaster in the whole world!”
V 16 - Symphony of Terror Page 17
