V01 - V

by A. C. Crispin

  Elias and Caleb pulled the tape off the rolled-up rug and, with a dramatic flourish worthy of Cleopatra herself, spilled the now-conscious Brian out onto the floor. Dazed by the sudden brightness, the Visitor officer scrambled up, blinking, and backed into a corner. "What is this place?"

  Elias grinned. "As far as you're concerned, this is Harlem, my man."

  "Harlem?" Brian obviously missed the reference.

  "The end of the line," Caleb explained helpfully, taking off his butler's coat and pulling his white bow tie askew.

  Ham Tyler came into the lab, followed by Maggie, who was carrying a bouquet of roses, Donovan noted. Brian looked from one unfriendly face to another, from one drawn weapon to another, visibly daunted by his capture. Robert Maxwell, wearing a white lab coat, walked over to him. "You couldn't have made a better choice, Julie. When do we get to fly out the toxin on lover-boy, here?"

  Julie pushed back her hair wearily, and her jaw hardened. "Robert, we discussed this. There will be a number of tests performed, but we'll have no unwilling guinea pigs here. Brian will be helpful to us for his security information, and some of his blood and other metabolic responses will be useful in tests. But that's the extent of it. Don't forget that."

  Maxwell's mouth thinned, but he made no further protest. Juliet gestured the young Visitor into the isolation chamber. Brian scuttled into it as though he was glad to have heavy plexiglass walls between him and the others.

  The door to the laboratory opened. Robin, holding Elizabeth (who now appeared to be about nine years old) by the hand, stood in the doorway. Brian called, "Robin!" A microphone hanging from the ceiling of the isolation chamber picked up his words. "Robin, tell them to let me go! Help me, Robin!"

  Slowly Robin and her child walked up to the chamber, Robert Maxwell made as if to step out and bar her way, but Donovan held him back. "Let her confront him, Bob. This is the first time she's come out of herself in a long time. Maybe facing him again will help her lay her ghosts." Maxwell looked at the newsman for a long moment, then, nodding, remained where he was.

  Brian's voice became lower, more coaxing. "Robin, darling. I'm so glad to see you. Tell these people I mean them no harm. You know that. I love you, Robin!"

  She stared at him, as expressionless as the little girl beside her. Brian noticed Elizabeth for the first time. "The child . . . is she your sister, Robin?"

  For the first time in weeks, Robin spoke more than a monosyllable. "This is your daughter. Brian. I named her Elizabeth."

  The news evidently rocked Brian, but Donovan could see him recovering after a second, see the calculation in his eyes. "I'm glad, Robin, This means we're a family. We can go away together, the three of us."

  "Where could we go, Brian?" Robin was too calm. Donovan felt his hands begin to sweat. "I don't want to be with your people. I know what they look like, you see. I know what you look like. If I'd known that day, I never would have let you touch me, and you know it. You lied to me."

  "No, I didn't! I really love you!"

  "Bullshit, Brian." Robin's dispassionate demeanor showed a few cracks. "You lied to me about helping me escape, you lied to me with your fake face, and then you wouldn't stop when I cried and begged you to! You put a monster in me, Brian! Elizabeth had a twin, and it looked like you—except it had my mother's eyes! Your people killed my mother! You killed her!"

  With a sudden, vicious yank, she twisted the outside lock on the isolation chamber and, pulling a vial of reddish powder out from under her baggy sweatshirt, hurled it into the chamber and slammed the door again, relocking it.

  Everyone stood stunned, then Maxwell shouted, "It's the toxin! She's got the batch I cultured today!"

  "What have you done?" Brian shrieked as he was enveloped by a pale reddish powder that drifted and eddied with his frantic movements. "Help!" He began pounding on the plexiglass. Donovan started forward, but Juliet caught his arm.

  "Don't open it, Donovan. it may be harmless, but we can't know for sure. It could be that it won't affect him, but could kill us if you break the seal."

  Brian's screams shortened suddenly into choking grunts. He went to his knees, clawing desperately at his throat, gasping. "It's the toxin," Cal Robinson said. "It's entered the breathing passages, and the waste products are clogging the alveoli so they can't take in oxygen. He's suffocating."

  As Brian ripped at his face, his human skin shredded and flaked away, revealing his reptilian features. He fell over on his side, still jerking. It was obvious that he was dying.

  Ham regarded him with grim satisfaction. "He's a goner," he said, "but he'll twitch for a while yet. Everyone knows a snake doesn't die till the sun goes down."

  Robin turned slowly to face the group, her own eyes fever-bright, a hint of a smile on her face. "He's dead," she said. "Now he can't lie to anyone again."

  Robert sprang to catch her as she crumpled to the floor. Elizabeth watched dispassionately as Maxwell carried her mother out of the laboratory. Ham watched her go, then turned his hard, cynical gaze on Elizabeth. "Well, she sure blew her chances at child support."

  Donovan looked at him, disgusted, then was seized by a sudden, insane urge to laugh. A couple of other members of the resistance poked their heads into the laboratory to see what had happened. Sancho looked speculatively at the red dust, which was now settling to the floor very slowly, falling like red snow on Brian's splayed body. "Hey, maybe I can market this stuff. Put it in fertilizer or something."

  "Don't be too anxious, Sancho," Juliet said grimly. "You might end up killing more than you grow. However unpleasant and irrational Robin's actions were tonight—and poor girl, she hasn't been in her right mind for quite awhile—she's solved part of our problem."

  "Look, it killed him! What more do you want, Julie?" Elias asked.

  "We have to know now if it'll kill us."

  "Let's draw straws and find out," Ham said.

  Caleb gave him a sarcastic look. "Let's try a popularity contest. I'll hold the door for you, Mr. Tyler."

  "Your old man's a barrel of laughs," Ham said to Elias.

  "I'll volunteer my mother," Donovan said, only half kidding.

  "Why, Gooder, where's all your sweetness and light, those ethics and morals you're always spouting?" Ham cried in mock horror, then, after a beat, he said, "I got a deck of cards in my room. We'll draw for it. Low card wins."

  "Now wait a minute!" Donovan said.

  "We ain't got a minute," Ham replied. "If we don't get this weapon into production, the damn lizards are going to drain us dry!"

  "Well, Tyler you're gonna have to take one minute, while we talk this out. I don't like the way you treat human life. It's all too casual with you. The next step is disregarding human life completely!"

  Ham made a disgusted gesture. "I don't believe this guy," he said to the room in general. "We're talking nuts and bolts survival here, and he's talking moral questions. Survival is immoral, Gooder! It involves aggression, it involves death, no matter how civilized you get, or how far removed you are from the killing! It's still there, whether you want to admit it or not." He put his hands on his hips, glaring at them. "This is a case of them or us, and I can't think of a clearer cut one in all of history. Survival is the rule—not morals and ethics!"

  Donovan shook his head. "That's the difference between you and the rest of us, Tyler. Your argument is just a bunch of gobbledygook that sounds reasonable only because it's so uncomplicated."

  "Julie!" Caleb shouted.

  Donovan turned away from Tyler in time to see Juliet step into the chamber with Brian's body, then use the key to lock the door from the inside.

  "No!" In one leap Mike was across the room, feeling the plexiglass wall slick against his fingers, staring in at her. "Julie! Get out! Now!"

  She smiled as he pounded at the door, then deliberately took a deep breath.

  "Julie!" Donovan banged frantically at the door, but the lock held. "Open the door!"

  "Come on, Julie!" Caleb said, joining
Donovan.

  "Come on, Caleb. Together!" They prepared to fling themselves at the door of the isolation chamber, but even as they moved, fingers as steely as pistons grabbed their arms.

  "No!" said Ham. "Don't bust it in! We're gonna need that isolation chamber!"

  Donovan took a wild swing at him, but the motion seemed to return him to his senses, because he dropped his arms and stood, breathing hard, to glare at Ham. "You—" Donovan surged forward, only to be held back by Caleb. "This is your damn fault! If you hadn't been so damn bloodthirsty, she wouldn't have done it!"

  "Easy, Donovan. The lady made up her own mind."

  Mike subsided, then went back to the door to yank on it again. "Go get the other key. It's in the lab."

  "It's too late, Mike. She's been breathin' that stuff for a minute now," Elias said.

  "Get it!"

  As Elias left, Donovan calmed down considerably, seeing Juliet on her feet, showing no signs of discomfort. When Elias came back, Mike grabbed the key from him, but Juliet, grinning wildly, making the "V" sign, unlocked the door herself and stepped out, only to be swept up by Donovan.

  "You idiot!" he said. "You crazy nut!" He hugged her hard.

  "We needed an answer. Ham's right. We're running out of time. Besides, I figured it would be more pleasant to die miserably with my lungs choking on bacteria than it would be to listen to you two argue anymore!" She gave Tyler a mock glare past Donovan's shoulder.

  "That's the kind of attitude we could use a little more of. Sometimes you gotta take a few risks," Ham said, unrepentant.

  Mike pushed her away slightly, scrutinizing her face. "How do you feel?"

  "Okay. It has a slight odor, like oregano."

  "But not enough to kill you."

  She laughed and took his face between her palms, shaking it slightly. "Not if you like Italian cooking, you dope!"

  He hugged her again. "You're crazy. I love you."

  Ham Tyler made retching noises. Donovan flipped him the finger, then kissed Juliet, long and hard, doing a thorough, slow job of it. "I thought I'd never get to do that again."

  She pushed his hair back off his forehead, smiling at him a little shakily. "We may have lots of time for that—now."

  "All right!" Tyler's voice made them step apart. "Back to business! Except for any scientific four-eyed types Julie needs to consult, nobody—and I mean nobody—who wasn't in this room is to know what went on. Understand? Elias, you go round up anybody who was in here when scaly croaked, and give 'em the word not to even tell their families. This has gotta be top secret."

  The door to the lab banged open, and Chris Faber darted in, Robert Maxwell close behind him. "It's the padre!" Faber said. "He's taken the kid and split!"

  "What?" everyone exclaimed.

  "He's right," Maxwell said. "I took Robin back to her room with Elizabeth, and Father Andrew came in. He hadn't heard what had happened tonight, and Robin, when she came back around, began to cry, telling him she'd committed murder, and begging him for absolution. She told him she'd killed Brian."

  "Did she tell him how?" Ham demanded.

  "No—no, she was too incoherent to explain. But he did understand she'd killed the Visitor who was Elizabeth's father. He told her he'd pray for her, and that God understands that people are sometimes driven out of their minds by grief, and that anybody who'd suffered what she's suffered couldn't be held responsible for their own actions. He told her that Christ would forgive her. That calmed her down, and I gave her a sedative and put her into bed. When I came out, Father Andrew and Elizabeth were gone!"

  "I've searched the place, boss," Chris said to Ham. "He's split, all right. Probably figured Robin might try for the kid next."

  "Jeezus!!" Ham slammed one fist into the other. "Well, at least Father Andrew doesn't know about the toxin, and the kid doesn't talk—yet."

  "All right, gang, start packing," Juliet called. "Donovan, you help me supervise. Elias, bring up the trucks. I want this place cleared out in an hour. Lock, stock, and barrel, understand. We've got to move again."

  Diana sat in the conference chamber of the Mother Ship, alone, looking out the observation port at the full moon rising. From this height it was very large, very clear..

  The portal slid open. Jake stood there with two figures, one large and burly, one small, behind him. "I have some good news, Diana."

  The Second-in-Command straightened. "What is it, Captain?"

  "A member of the resistance has turned himself in."

  "How extraordinary!" Diana said, her suspicion plain. "Just like that?"

  "He claims to be an emissary of peace. He says he's brought proof of the ties between our peoples."

  "Bring him in, Captain," Diana said. A burly, mustached man entered, leading a little girl about nine years old by the hand.

  "Be seated, sir." Diana gestured. "Who are you?"

  The burly man sat down, and the little girl solemnly climbed into a chair beside him. "I'm Father Andrew Doyle, Diana," he said. "I'm a Roman Catholic priest. This is Elizabeth—the first interplanetary child—interstellar, really."

  Diana stared unbelievingly at the little girl, doing some rapid calculations in her head. "Are you trying to tell me this is Robin Maxwell's child?"

  "Yes."

  "But her growth! She can only be a few weeks old!"

  "Yes. Is it dangerous, such growth?"

  "I'll have to examine her. I suspect the accelerated growth can be slowed to a safer rate. Controlling the secretions of the pituitary gland might be one way."

  "Elizabeth here is an extraordinary child, Diana. She doesn't speak, but she's very intelligent—as you'll discover if you test her. She's also a symbol. A symbol of the universal oneness of all God's creations. It's my hope her birth can be the bridge to peace between our two peoples."

  "That's very nice, of course," Diana said, watching the priest through slitted eyes, "but I wonder also if you didn't bring her because you were afraid for her. Hmmm?"

  He gazed at her for a moment. "It was a factor," he said, "because her mother is only a child herself, and shouldn't be burdened by having to handle something of this magnitude. But it also should be apparent to you that her existence proves that we're all made as part of the same cosmic plan—the same genetic stuff, no matter our outward physical differences."

  "Go on," Diana said.

  "Well, if you follow this reasoning through to its logical point, then harvesting human beings for food for your people is tantamount to cannibalism. Do you Visitors eat your own kind?"

  "No," Diana said, "at least not in several hundred years, we haven't." She leaned forward to study Elizabeth, who stared back at her unblinkingly. "I'm intrigued by your audacity in coming here, Andrew. Courage is a quality I can respect. And your argument, though flawed, is well drawn. I never realized that any of the human religions emphasized clear thinking and logical presentation of conclusions."

  Father Andrew smiled. "We Jesuits specialize in that sort of thing. I'd be happy to debate the question with you and clarify my position further."

  "And I would like to talk to you again." Diana stood up, speaking now to Jake. "See that Father Andrew is given guest quarters, and is well treated. I must give Elizabeth here an examination." The little girl looked up at Father Andrew as the priest stood up.

  "I'll see you later, Elizabeth," he said, putting his hand on her head, almost as though he blessed her. Then he followed Jake out the door.

  Diana held out her hand to the little girl. "Come along, Elizabeth." The child hesitated, then slipped her fingers into the Second-in-Command's. Diana looked down at her, ruffling the tow-colored hair for a moment, her eyes speculative. "What am I going to do with you?" she wondered softly, aloud.

  Elizabeth looked up at her but did not speak.

  Chapter 31

  The next four weeks were hectic. The resistance relocated its headquarters to the Johnson Dairy outside of Los Angeles. The dairy had been closed down due to the water shortage. The
owner, Terence Johnson, was understandably opposed to the Visitors for ruining his business—and also because his daughter, a laboratory technician, had "disappeared" during the first major Visitors sweep.

  Culturing the toxin in vats of yogurt, the rebels processed and packaged it for shipment around the world. With the international resistance network in full swing, the Los Angeles plant ran twenty-four hours a day, day in, day out. After the first week or two, another plant, located in Switzerland, joined their efforts. Juliet, Robert, and Cal retired into the lab again, this time to work on a vaccine to protect the Fifth Columnists from the deadly red dust.

  After a week's work, they came up with a substance that they verified would immunize their Visitor friends against the toxin, but how long its influence would keep them safe, they didn't know. All Fifth Columnists were advised to wear oxygen masks, and to avoid breathing the substance if possible. Lorraine on the Los Angeles ship and Jennifer on the New York ship quietly supervised the distribution and injection of the immunization serum among the Mother Ships. By this time the Fifth Column had spread throughout the fleet, to an extent that would have horrified John and Pamela if they'd known.

  Martin, with his knowledge of Visitor codes and inner workings, proved an invaluable ally. He posed as a mute human, living in the city, monitoring many of the Visitor broadcasts with a receiver he'd put together himself, using communication devices from several stolen squad vehicles.

  One day, shortly before distribution of the toxin was slated for completion, Mike Donovan received an urgent message to meet the Visitor in a small Chinese restaurant in the city.

  When Donovan entered the restaurant, the small, wizened owner popped up. "Table for one?"

  "Wa Chi," Donovan gave the password.

  "Of course, sir. This way." Without missing a beat, the man led Mike into the private dining room, bowed once, and left. Martin rose, offering his hand. Donovan shook it firmly and let go, and then, as he sat down, realized suddenly that the coolness of Visitor flesh was something he hadn't noticed in a long time. Times change, he thought. Boy, do they change.