Smiling slightly, she glanced around at the one hundred or so Visitor officers in attendance. The specially dispatched water transport had entered Earth’s orbit last evening, bringing about thirty new recruits who would be staying on to serve the Leader by helping Diana conquer this new world—or die in the attempt.
For an instant she felt a small pang of jealousy. No doubt many of them had enjoyed one last submersion in the love-pits before making the journey to Earth, or had strolled along the paths of contemplation to watch the moons rise as they cast their pale multishadows over the sands. Diana had overheard two of them say that the Leader himself had made a rare personal appearance to honor them and wish them good fortune just before their leave-taking. He’d just emerged from his most recent molt, they’d said, looking more patterned and splendid than ever.
This was a noticeably smaller group than the last one she had oriented three months ago—grim testimony to the losses from the war here, and drought and famine back home. Their records showed that they were quite young for their new responsibilities, and their human faces reflected ages in the low to mid-twenties. There was something vaguely pathetic about their youth, despite the well-fitting red uniforms and new, gleaming insignia of rank, they had no real conception of the responsibilities of command. The human-seeming masks could be molded to reflect any age, of course. But their psychologists had discovered that adjustments to a new appearance were easier if their outward selves reflected some inner truths, at least on a relative scale.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, smiling, but her eyes roved the class eagerly to see whether any of them failed to comprehend the human greeting.
“Good morning, Diana.” The chorus came back, enthusiastic if still a little ragged—except for one young female. Forgetting to speak in English, she had tried to use her altered vocal apparatus to address the commander of Earth-based forces in her native language. Her hissing screech filled the hall and echoed off the walls, tearing a two-inch gap in the comer of her mouth.
Rage flared up in Diana, and she strode down from the podium. ‘ ‘ You—must—remember—to—speak—English— at—all—times!” Each word was punctuated with a ringing slap across the young officer’s face. At the last blow, the recruit’s head snapped back, and a large flap of skin ripped and fell away from the ruined mouth onto her neck, revealing the glistening green scales beneath. Hissing softly in pain, she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
“Take her out of here,” Diana said to the recruits sitting ramrod straight on either side of the sprawled figure. “Tell Lydia I said that this one needs one of her special lessons in remembering to use English.”
As they hastily dragged the limp body out of the room, Diana turned back to face her raptly attentive audience. “That is the first lesson I want all of you to remember. As long as you are on or above this planet, you will speak the language of the humans in the area of your assignment. Is this understood?”
It was, and Diana’s smile returned. “Very well. You have come to Earth at a very crucial time in our mission. As you all know, while the food and water shortages on our own world have reached critical proportions, the resources on Earth are abundant. It is only a matter of time before we claim this entire planet in the name of Our Leader. It is our own rightful domain, since we are superior to the humans in all ways.”
A red-haired young Visitor raised his hand. “Then why must we take on their forms?”
Diana pushed a button in the lectern, and a large screen slid smoothly down behind her. “Yes, we wear their skins and have been trained to mimic their sounds, movements, and behaviors. This is because they lack tolerance for appearances that are different from their own. We have even observed them fighting with members of their own species with different skin pigments or whose eye sockets were shaped differently.”
A shocked murmur rose in the room.
“Yes,” said Diana, “I know you were prepared for dealings with a primitive race, but such realities may be hard to accept. Now you can see the wisdom of adopting these guises. Imagine our difficulties, were we to attempt our mission in our true forms. But remember, while lacking our higher level of intelligence, the humans do possess a certain treacherous cunning. You must be on your guard at all times.”
She crossed the stage, her boots tapping loudly again. “Lydia, our chief of security, will instruct you in specifics of self-defense at a later point. My purpose this morning is to update you on our progress to date and to impress upon you the importance of knowing as much as you can about our enemy.” The room darkened, and holographic images filled the screen—Visitor troops marching in triumph through the ruins of Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, New Delhi; thousands of humans herded along, hands behind their heads, into waiting shuttlecraft, transported to looming Mother Ships; the Nile and Amazon rivers diminished more each day by the newly erected Visitor plants that were pumping them dry.
“You see, we are winning,” said Diana. “But it is a slow and often costly war.” A briefer series of scenes depicted the burning shells of the two Newark plants, ambushed Visitor vehicles, scores of dead and injured, and, finally, one vast glassy plain slagged into black and gray unrecognizability, surrounded by a scorched heat-blasted desert which seemed to stretch forever.
“You are looking at what was formerly the city of Beirut. When their cursed red dust died out in this region and we attempted to reoccupy the city, fanatic terrorists indigenous to this region managed to obtain and detonate a nuclear device. Our Mother Ship in the area, commanded by Abdul, was destroyed with its entire crew. The waste of potential food and water resources is immeasurable.”
The picture behind Diana shifted and resolved itself into various shots of Los Angeles. “Here, in the city below us, we need not fear such radical events. I have crafted the appearance of a truce between us and the humans of Los Angeles—which will continue, of course, only as long as it remains useful to us. In the meantime, I want you to become familiar with these particular humans.”
The Hollywood hills gave way to the features of a handsome man in his mid-thirties, with green eyes and brown hair, laughing, frowning, looking pensive as the various poses merged into one another. “This is Michael Donovan, one of the most dangerous criminals on this planet. He has killed or injured hundreds of us. Anyone who aids in his capture in any way will be richly rewarded and receive the Leader’s personal accolade.”
The screen continued to flash with the faces as Diana identified each enemy—Ham Tyler, Maggie Blodgett, Chris Faber, Sancho Gomez, and other known members of the resistance.
“We must be especially alert for any signs of them and their subversions at all times. And here are two other people I want you to be able to recognize, although I must stress that they are to be captured unharmed.” A picture of two smiling young women, both in their late teens, shimmered and formed behind her. “Robin Maxwell, with the dark brown hair, and her . . . sister, Elizabeth. They are both very special to me. In the event of a capture, I want them well treated and brought directly to me.”
The room lightened and Diana stepped forward again. “This brings us to the present. You and I have been entrusted with a special mission by the Great Leader himself, and nothing must stand in our way. You will all be privileged to assist me in this effort to renew our desalinization of the oceans and prepare a shipment of water to our home world. I have spared no time beginning this project. Even as we speak, the water is being collected, and—”
She hesitated, annoyed, as a thin, brown-haired Visitor entered the back of the auditorium. He edged closer, and she recognized the insignia and short, jerky strides of her senior botanist.
“Why, Bernard!” A smile stretched across her mouth but didn’t touch her eyes. Diana hated to be interrupted during one of her lectures, even by members of her personal research staff. “I am pleased that you could join us. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Bernard, who is leading our efforts to test and collect the water. ”
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Diana.” He glanced quickly around the room, then looked back to her.
“As I was saying, we have already begun filling our holding tanks, and—”
“Diana, if I may interrupt for a moment ...” Bernard faltered into silence.
She glared, then her features smoothed into glacial impassivity. “Perhaps you should continue this portion of the lecture, Bernard.”
“Oh, no, I—”
“Please, Bernard.”
“No, Diana, really—”
“Come up here, Bernard.”
With a small, helpless shrug, he walked up the aisle, came up to the platform, and faced the crowd. “Uh, well,” he said, “we, uh, we definitely have made some progress.”
Diana smiled slightly. She would speak to him later about barging into her presentation. For now, she was content to watch the shy botanist squirm under the public scrutiny of the young officers.
“We ... all feel we benefit greatly from working with Diana. She provides excellent guidance and leadership at all times, even when the occasional difficulty arrises. Uh—” He glanced at his commanding officer in desperate appeal, then down at the floor.
What in parching thirst was he talking about? Diana frowned at him. The normally terse, direct Bernard was babbling.
His eyes slid sideways to her again, pleading. “Yes, when troubles arise, Diana is always alert to them and is extremely responsive in suggesting possible solutions. She embodies the essence of, uh, true leadership in being able to recognize immediately when a problem exists.”
“Why, thank you, Bernard.” Diana summoned a confident smile as realization dawned. “I can see that it is just about time for lunch. Why don’t we break for an hour and reconvene after that?”
Moving over to the lectern, she pushed another button. Along the side wall, a row of paneling slid back, revealing several rows of cages in which mice, rats, and guinea pigs squeaked and scurried.
As the students eagerly rushed over for their meals, Diana drew the scientist into the corridor. “What is it, Bernard?” “The ocean water has been poisoned.”
“What?” All sounds, all movements, everything in the universe seemed to Diana to shrink down to the tiny lights in Bernard’s eyes as he gazed mournfully at her.
“The humans have developed another form of red dust that is now reproducing in the local seaweed plants. It enters the water as a by-product of the kelp’s wastes. It’s proliferating rapidly, and ... we can’t filter it out. Harmless to their own life forms, it’s death for us.”
“Damn them!” Diana barely restrained herself from using her native speech. “Damn them all.”
Chapter 3
Wishes, Dreams, and Nightmares
Pausing a moment to wipe the sweat off her brow, Julie Parrish bent over the microscope again, adjusting the focus. From this perspective, the kelp took on a weird, spectral beauty, a symmetry all its own as cells jostled up against one another, following a blueprint known only to them.
“Well, Andy, looks good,” she said, straightening. “Of course, we won’t know for sure until the fifth or sixth generation of cells has been cultured, but as far as I can tell, the bacteria has settled into the cytoplasm and into a healthy and mutually productive symbiosis.”
“You mean they like one another,” Andrew Halpem translated, grinning. His eyes lingered on her appreciatively, and Juliet was suddenly conscious of the sweat that had collected under her breasts, plastering her cotton shirt to her rib cage. All of southern California had been languishing in the heat wave of the last couple of days, and even Catalina’s breezes had turned hot and muggy under the unrelenting sun.
Tugging the fabric away from her skin, she said, “Yeah, something like that.”
“Does that mean we get to go home?”
“Yeah.” Amelia Anderson looked up eagerly from the slides she was staining. She was a short, intense woman of about forty, with a wonderful laugh that would burst out at unexpected moments. “I’ve forgotten what my husband looks like. These three clowns are starting to look good to me, so I know it’s time to go home.”
Bill Kendall chuckled. “Joe ’n’ me had some rough times with women, but never anything worse than listening to this one snore all night.” He jerked a thumb at Amelia, who made a face at him and flipped him the bird. Kendall was a tall, laconic Vermonter who possessed a slow grin and an endless supply of tall tales about his hound dog Old Joe. He was also an avid collector of Depression glass and loved Mozart. Julie wasn’t sure whether Old Joe was, or had ever been, real, but she certainly had learned a lot about her companions during the past two days.
“I’m sure that my nocturnal warblings are more musical than your sad attempts to whistle Symphony Number Fifteen,” Amelia retorted, winking at Juliet.
“I’ve got to get back to my own bed and some decent cooking,” said Juan Perez, patting the broad expanse of his stomach. “My wife makes the best sweet-and-sour chicken known to mankind. Even fresh sea trout gets to be old hat after a while.”
“Especially when it’s your main dish every day,” agreed Amelia, “and Halpem cooks it.”
“See the ingratitude I have to put up with, Julie?” Andy spread his arms and affected a saintly, long-suffering expression. “Take me away from all of this, and I will be your grateful slave forever.”
Julie’s stomach lurched queasily at the mention of Halpem’s specialty. She’d run out of Maalox and was now working on a roll of Di-Gel that Kendall had given her. Her abdominal distress was beginning to worry her.
Smiling a little ruefully, she said, “I wish I could. I can’t okay the closing of this station until we’re absolutely certain that there’s been no adverse effect on any of the marine life or the kelp itself.”
There was a chorus of groans, and Perez said, “Come on, Julie! There are no absolute certainties in biological science. You know that.”
“We’re running almost ninety-one percent sure,” said Halpem, looking at her intently. “Yeah, a few of the cultures died, but that could be due to inherited DNA defects rather than anything we did to it.”
“I’d still like it to be closer to one hundred percent,” Julie said. The air in the tent was stifling her, and she wondered if she were going to throw up again.
“Thought you said Bates was in a hurry for this,” said Kendall, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“He is. Dammit, we all are!” Shoving a hand through her hair, which felt glued to her scalp, Julie paced beside the workbench along the side of the tent. “But I’m not going to take the chance, however small, that we are creating something that could be a bigger ecological nightmare to our planet than the Visitors themselves!”
She went to the entrance of the tent, pushed the flap aside, and went outside onto the beach. The sand was hot and harsh beneath her bare feet, but she didn’t care. The air was cooler here, with fresh, wild sea smells. A soft pink twilight was settling on the Pacific and the hills behind her, which pushed one another up toward the clouds. A crescent moon stretched near a palm tree, way up near the top of a cliff, and she saw a couple of dark spots beside it.
“Bison,” said Andy Halpem, coming to stand beside her and pointing upward as though he guessed her thoughts. “We met a tour guide from Avalon named Carlos when we first arrived. He told us they’re part of a herd that was brought over from the mainland in the twenties for filming a silent Western. When the movie crew left, the bison stayed and did what bison do. There are several hundred now.”
“They don’t eat seaweed, so we don’t have to worry about them, I guess,” Julie said. She was conscious of his closeness, the warm, musky smell of his sweat, and she hugged her arms. “I’m sorry I went off in there.”
He nodded amiably. “It’s the heat. We didn’t mean to push you either. After three weeks of cold salt-water showers, sleeping bags, and the stink of seaweed, I think we were all hoping we’d get a reprieve out of you and Science Frontiers.
“It sho
uld only take another couple of weeks for you to collect the additional data. In all probability, you’ll be able to march into my office, wave the results in my face, and give me a resounding T told you so!’”
He grinned suddenly, looking more like a college student than a widely known and respected botanist. “Did you ever think, when you were nine years old, that you’d be doing anything like this?”
She shook her head and watched the progress of a fishing boat heading toward the harbor.
“I was going to be a fireman,” he said. “Rescue babies out of burning buildings, save lives, that kind of stuff.”
“I always wanted to be a doctor, ever since I could remember.” She shrugged a little. “I still do. I was a medical student with a side interest in research. After the Visitors came, pursuing research seemed to make more sense.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You know, in a couple of weeks, after I’ve come in to harass you about being overcautious, I’d like to take you out for a drink. I hear there’s a great new spot in L.A. that is the place to be—the Club Creole—and—”
She shook her head, smiling. “Thanks just the same.” He looked at her, and his mouth quirked gently. “I’d like to assume it’s because of somebody else and not me.”
“You’re quite right. As a matter of fact, you remind me a little of him.”
“Lucky guy.”
"I’m lucky.” She looked at her watch. “I guess I’d better get my stuff. Mac will be here soon to pick me up.”
Gallantly, Halpem preferred his arm, and they strolled back toward the tents in the gathering dusk.
Night had crept into the hills and canyons of Los Angeles like a dark, silent animal. From the old rocker on the back porch of Kyle’s house, Elizabeth Maxwell watched for a long time as the stars thickened above the glow of the city. Her thoughts were vague arid troubled, and neither the soft scents of the night nor the breeze that ruffled her hair could rouse her from her uneasiness. Something was coming. . . .
The Starchild sensed danger with that indefinable sense that she knew set her apart from both sides of her heritage. Something bad, something potentially devastating was brewing. Elizabeth hugged her arms against her small breasts, shivering. She had no tear ducts, but her eyes and throat ached dryly.
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