“I see. Well, I’m sure it’s a large reward,” Reg said, pretending to be flattered by the attention.
Ali looked him in the eyes and nodded seriously. “Very large.”
“Interesting,” Reg said calmly, as he began to think about the fastest way out of the truck. “Obviously, you learned about this from those soldiers in the jeep.”
Ali shook his head. “I spoke to Faisal on the radio. He told me that if I didn’t kill you myself, I can never come back.”
“And you’d like to go back?”
“Naturally.”
Reg casually slid his hand close to the door handle, preparing to escape if Ali reached for his pistol. “That puts you in a bit of a predicament. Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Ali smiled. “Yes, I have. I told Faisal something I learned from American movies. I said, "go screw yourself!’ ” Ali laughed, and Reg joined in, uneasily. “And then I said something else, something stupid maybe.”
“What was that?”
“I told him to call off the order. I said that I’m going to kill him if anything happens to you.”
Reg stared at him for a minute without blinking. “You really said that?”
Ali sighed and nodded, indicating that the decision hadn’t been an easy one.
Reg was impressed. The first words he could remember coming from Ali’s mouth were a chauvinistic warning to the Israeli pilots that no Jews were allowed in Saudi Arabia. But now he’d made an irreversible decision to join a group that included a Jew, an ill-behaved Saudi woman, a Palestinian, and three Westerners—one of whom had a price on his head. Reg knew it was one thing for him, a foreigner, to cast his lot with this ragtag, international group, but was quite another for a Saudi officer to do the same thing, especially on his home soil. It took real guts. Or insanity. Or both.
“Did you tell Faisal about the biological weapons?”
“He already knew about them,” Ali said. “He said there is a plan to attack the ship by air and land. I told him that we believe the germ canisters are inside the ship. Will that stop him from going ahead with his plan? I don’t know.”
“Well, after your conversation, I don’t think you should be the one to go up there and try to talk him out of it.”
“I don’t think Faisal would be happy to see either one of us.”
“Still, we ought to send someone up there to try to convince him.” Neither one of them said it, but they knew that Fadeela would be the most logical candidate for the job. She had bargaining chips at her disposal that no man could possess.
“Good,” Ali agreed, and opened his door. “But first we have to get out of this area. These people will soon hear of the reward on your head. Probably, they will not try to harm you. But they have lost their homes and everything else. They are desperate. We should find another place.” He stepped out of the truck to begin collecting the rest of the team.
“One more thing,” Reg said. “Just in case I don’t get a chance to say this later: Thanks.”
Ali smiled. “No problem.”
A few minutes later, they were on the road again. The civilians of Qal’at Buqum, emboldened by what they’d heard from the soldiers in the jeep, started marching down the hill in a group to see what remained of their homes and shops. Reg and the team decided to escort them in case they ran into any trouble. If the town was clear, they would proceed with the task of stopping Faisal from bombing the downed destroyer.
Only one of the truck’s headlights had survived when Yossi had driven it over the embankment that morning and smashed down on the alien chariot. Like a growling cyclops, the battered vchicle rolled down the middle of Qal’at Buqum’s only road at live miles per hour. Walking alongside and behind it were a group of Saudis, some of them carrying guns, some of them armed only with sticks and stones. Edward and Remi protected the truck’s flanks with their flamethrowers. Reg and Yossi knelt in the alien chariot, one hundred feet behind, resting the barrels of their assault rifles on the curving front wall. Tye and Fadeela were ready with the pulse weapon.
Lying in the road were the remains of several of the men who had tried to fend off the alien attack. Some of the corpses were blackened by pulse blasts, others showed signs of having succumbed to the pain of mental interrogation. It wasn’t until they were approaching the post office at the center of town that they realized why the place felt so empty: The trees were gone. The two thousand palms and tamarind trees that had provided a lush canopy of green on either side of the road were missing. When they turned the headlight of the truck into the park, they saw what remained: felled and twisted trees, many of them broken off at the roots, others left standing but stripped of their foliage. The floor of the oasis had been swept clean of the ferns and ground-cover plants that had been there only hours before. Even the bark had been peeled away from the tree trunks.
The trees had been damaged in two ways: Some had been broken, probably by the strength of the biomechanical armor. On other trees, the bark and leaves had been stripped away in furrows, almost as if they’d been cleaned with a large potato peeler. The furrows were continuous, traveling in spirals up the length of the trunks. It looked as if they’d been eaten, but there was no evidence that either teeth or blades had been used.
Yossi returned from a quick foray deeper into the oasis and said he’d found an undamaged glade of trees surrounding one of the larger artificial ponds. The team decided to investigate, and Ali ran the truck over a curb and entered the park. The moon, the truck’s remaining headlight, and the small flames licking from the barrels of the flamethrowers all combined to cast eerie, crisscrossing shadows through the broken, denuded trees.
When they came to the glade Yossi had described, it didn’t take long to discover that the aliens had left something behind. Dozens of white globules glistened in the glare of the headlight. Roughly the size of basketballs, some of them sat on the ground lining the banks of the pool, others drooped from the tree trunks.
“What the hell?” Sutton asked, leading the rest of the team close to one of them. It clung to the yellowish base of a tamarind tree, dangling about a foot above the ground.
“It looks like a ball of phlegm,” remarked Tye.
“Or a cocoon,” Fadeela said.
“I’m going to see what’s inside,” Reg said, pulling out a pocket-knife. “Do me a favor, will you? If anything jumps out at me, kill it before it can do anything nasty.”
Then he reached out and sliced through the membrane. It was hollow inside, like a pouch. When the incision was long enough, the membrane tore open and a lump of flesh spilled onto the ground: an alien embryo. It was alive.
“Get out of the light,” Reg said, leaning down for a closer look at the thing. Its tiny platelike head was translucent and fully formed. There was no skull, so Reg could see the brain working like a muscle just below the skin. Its pulpy limbs were still incipient little stubs that writhed through the air like the antennae on a garden snail.
“It wants to be cuddled,” Tye joked grimly. “He thinks you’re his daddy.”
“Well, let’s see if baby’s hungry,” Reg said. He reached up and pulled off a handful of the tamarind’s red-and-yellow-striped flowers and sprinkled them onto the young alien’s body. Within seconds, they began to break down and dissolve.
“It’s digesting them.”
“I’m officially disgusted now,” Sutton remarked.
“That explains the damage to the other trees,” Fadeela said. “The spiral markings. If they feed by dissolving their food and absorbing it through their skins, they could have crawled up the trees, eating as they moved. There doesn’t seem to be any mouth.” The fetus’s eyelids opened a crack, and the fetus looked up at the humans. Its silvery eyes reflected like mirrors in the light. Reg looked up suddenly and scanned the area as if he’d heard something.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I don’t think we’re alone. Let’s fan out and see
what we can find.”
“What do we do about Junior?” Tye asked.
“Leave it,” Reg said. “We’ll have to bum the glade before we leave.”
Suddenly, there was a rush of movement in the bushes on the other side of the lake. The group hurried toward the source of the noise, letting the flamethrowers lead the way. By the time they arrived, whatever had made the noise was gone.
“Look at this,” Yossi said. There was a fresh splash of water on the ground near some bushes. “Something was hiding here, watching us.” “Found a footprint,” Sutton announced. “Only two toes on it. Headed that direction.” The team moved where he’d pointed, toward an area thick with ground cover. They fanned out and beat the bushes as they advanced. They’d traveled less than fifty paces when Fadeela stopped.
“There it is,” she whispered. “There it is.” The others didn’t know where she was pointing them. Then she muttered something in Arabic, buckled at the knees, and fell to the ground. When the others reached her, she was clutching the sides of her head and moaning in pain.
“It’s close by,” Reg shouted. “Find it before it kills her.” The others scattered in all directions, kicking the bushes and checking behind every tree. Reg got down on his knees and forced Fadeela into a sitting position. “Where is it?” he asked, shaking her. “Show me where it is! Point to it!”
Desperate to help her, he picked her up in his arms and began to carry her out of the area. Only then did she extend her arm and point toward her attacker. She pointed straight up into the trees. Reg looked up and saw a pair of silver eyes amid the fronds of a palm. He reached for his pistol, took aim, and squeezed off several rounds. A moment later, the alien body came plunging through the air and hit the ground.
Fadeela’s body, which had been rigid and trembling, relaxed into Reg’s arms. A moment later, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. When she realized what had happened, she tried to smile but ended up crying. Sutton was the first one to reach them.
“You need to get her out of here,” he said. “We’ll destroy the rest of these egg sacs and meet you out on the road.”
Reg nodded gratefully and carried Fadeela out of the trees.
After carrying her out to the trees, Reg had set Fadeela down near the edge of the road and rocked her in his arms while she cried. The encounter with the alien hadn’t done her any lasting physical damage, but she was badly shaken. Between sobs, she tried to explain the fierce, overwhelming malice she’d felt from the alien mind.
“I never imagined there could be such a hatred,” she said. “They only want one thing. They want us dead and out of their way.” Her eyes had widened as she came to the dread realization of how focused the aliens were on annihilating the human race. When a fresh tear had run down her cheek, he reached out to catch it on his finger. He had only been attempting to comfort her when he leaned down and whispered to her, “I know, I know,” he’d said, “but you’re going to be all right now. I’ll see to that.”
As soon as those words had left his mouth, Fadeela changed. Her body began to stiffen, and she pulled away from him.“I can take care of myself. Take your hands off of me and get away.”
It had been nearly an hour since then, and they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since. They rode in the back of the truck along with Sutton, Remi, and Tye. All five of them sat facing in separate directions, lost in their private ruminations. They had managed to avoid being killed thus far, but they were beginning to think it was only temporary. Although they tried not to, they couldn’t help sniffing at the air every now and again, wondering if they’d be able to tell when the deadly pathogens would surround them, let loose from the vials the aliens had stolen.
Eventually, Ali slowed the truck, pulled off the road, and parked behind a stand of tall brush that would hide them from any passing vehicles. They had come within a mile of the turnoff to Dawqah, the road that led to Faisal’s hiding place in the mountains. Dried twigs and branches were strewn around on the ground, and everyone wanted to build a fire, but it was too dangerous. The flames might be spotted by a roving band of alien chariots. Or they might attract soldiers with orders to kill Reg.
A brief meeting was held at the tailgate of the truck, during which two goals were agreed upon. First, someone had to go to
Faisal’s camp and make sure he understood that attacking the downed destroyer meant exposing the entire country to anthrax and ebola contagion. Second, Reg and Ali had to leave the country as soon as possible. The team would have to split up, something none of them wanted.
“I’ll go up there and speak to Faisal. I’m the logical choice,” Edward said. Remi and Yossi volunteered to go with him.
“He’ll be surprised to see me again,” Yossi said. “We’ll be able to convince him.”
Ali endorsed the plan and began working out some of the particulars, when Fadeela broke her silence and made an announcement.
“No,” Fadeela said. “I am the one who must go to speak with Faisal. The rest of you will put yourselves in grave danger by showing your faces there. You probably wouldn’t be able to get close to him. But I am certain I can convince him. I will make him listen.”
“The woman is right,” Ali said. “Edward can drive her. Is everyone agreed?”
“I will go alone,” Fadeela said. “You can drive me to the turnoff, and we will find someone who is driving to the camp. I will go with them while the rest of you escape.”
Reg was about to raise an objection when Fadeela shot him a determined look. Obviously, she had made up her mind to go.
“No, no objections,” he said.
“Fine,” Ali announced. “We will rest for half an hour and then set out.”
Reg wandered away from the others and found a place to sit where he could watch the highway. Every few minutes, a lone truck or a fleet of jeeps would rumble past. After a few minutes, Fadeela walked over and stood near him. She looked at Reg in the dim light of the moon and smiled.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” he told her.
“Actually, I’m worse, but thank you. I came to say good-bye, and to apologize for the way I spoke to you before.”
“Totally unnecessary,” he said, hanging his head. When
Fadeela laughed out loud, Reg looked up, wondering why.
“You’re acting like a wounded puppy. I don’t think you understand why I was upset, and before I leave I wanted you to know why.”
“I’m all ears, princess,” Reg said, looking at her expectantly. The moment the nickname princess had come out of his mouth, he regretted using it. He called her that only because he was feeling betrayed by her decision to go to Faisal’s camp. It made sense that she should be the one to go, but he couldn’t help feeling that she was somehow choosing Faisal over him.
“My wish is to be attacked by another alien,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Yes. I hope it happens again, because the next time, I will be stronger. I am going to control it, just as you did in the oasis. I think I understand now what you meant about being able to resist them.”
Reg scowled at this ludicrous idea. “I, for one, hope you don’t run across any more of them. I hope none of us do.”
“You don’t think I’ll be able to resist? You think I’m too weak?”
“Not at all.”
“Yes, you do. You said it just now. You called me princess again.”
“Look, I don’t really think you’re a princess. I was just... I’m sorry I said that. You’ve been fighting like a banshee all day, and you deserve some credit.”
“What is a banshee?”
“A jinn. You’ve been fighting like a jinn. You saved Edward and Remi’s lives at that petrol station this afternoon. That whole wall would have collapsed if you hadn’t worked that trick with the medallion. You bought them the time they needed to stay alive.”
“But as you point out, it was only a trick. Now that I understand what the enemy is, I know that tricks are not enough.
I want to be taken seriously. I don’t want to be treated like a helpless little girl.” She imitated the way Reg had spoken to her earlier:
‘“It’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry. ’ I want to be like that Jewish woman. What was her name?” “Miriyam.”
“Yes, Miriyam. She was useful. She was a real soldier. Let me ask you something about her. Did you like her?”
“Yes, I did. She was a brave woman.”
“As I suspected. And what about me, do you like me?”
Reg looked up at her, surprised by the question. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I like you very much.”
“Why?”
“Why do I like you?”
“Yes, why?”
“There are lots of reasons,” he said vaguely. But after thinking it over for a moment, he decided on an answer. “I like that you hate being called a princess. I like your bravery and the fact that you want to be braver still. Most of all, I like that you haven’t given up.”
Fadeela smiled broadly. “An excellent answer,” she said, “a very correct answer. I have not given up. In fact, I have an idea to discuss with you. It’s a plan that may strike you as too bold, but I’ve been thinking about—”
“Whoa! Hold on.” Reg held up his hands. “Turnabout is fair play. What about me?
“What about you?”
“I think you’re attracted to me. I think you like me,” Reg said, going out on a limb. “Am I right?”
Fadeela grimaced and looked impatient. “Of course I’m attracted to you. You’re handsome, brave, intelligent, moderately well educated, young, strong, and a good listener. I’ve practically been throwing myself at you since the moment we met, but right now I have something more important to discuss with you. May I go on?”
“Please do.”
“I’ve come up with a plan, and I want you to tell me what you think of it. What time is it now?”
He checked his watch. “Quarter to one.”
“That leaves only a few hours until morning. If the aliens are planning to use the germ weapons they took today, won’t they do so early in the morning?”
Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03] Page 24
