V 10 - Death Tide

by A C Crispin, Deborah A Marshall (UC) (epub)

  “Spare me your cute metaphors, Gooder,” said Ham, looking pained. “I’ll tell you what we’re practically out of, and that’s power packs for the laserguns and our other scaly toys. I got word to our friends in the New York contingent, and they said they could spare a few and asked if we could courier some things around in return. Since you’re turning into such a regular errand boy around here anyway, 1 elected you for the job. Take the lizard buggy out tonight around three, fly low under radar range, and you should get there by nine A.M. Eastern Standard Time.”

  “lyier, that’s cold, real cold, even for you.” Mike sat up abruptly, causing the couch to creak alarmingly. “You figure the power packs on the shuttlecraft will last long enough for me to ditch in Lake Michigan, or should I plan for somewhere in the middle of the Great Plains?”

  “Fly easy, stay out of trouble, don’t use the auxiliaries, and you should make it. I don’t want to lose that aircraft.” “Your concern for me is touching.”

  “You’re replaceable. The shuttlecraft isn’t.”

  “Ham, if you’ve got a heart anywhere in that cold granite——

  “Hi, Doc.” Tyler’s flat-brown eyes flicked uninterestedly past Donovan to Juliet Parrish as she entered the room. “How’s that seaweed surprise coming?”

  “Slow,” she said, smiling over at Mike, who smiled back. “Well, I got better things to do than argue with Gooder here about the obvious, so I’ll see you later. ” Folding his map, Ham sauntered out.

  “Arrogant S.O.B.,” Donovan muttered as he went over to Julie and put his arms around her.

  “He just likes pulling your chain, Mike.”

  He leaned over to find her mouth, but her head moved, and his lips brushed her cheek instead.

  “I’ve missed you these past couple of days,” he said, pulling her down to sit on the couch, his hand stroking the blond shimmer of her hair, then moving down her neck. “Seems like you’re either off working somewhere, or I’m busy making sure the resistance isn’t going to run out of groceries.” For a moment her body was tense under his hand, then, as he pressed a kiss against her ear, he could feel her relax.

  “There’s always tomorrow night,” she whispered, and there was an appeal Mike couldn’t identify in her voice. “Fd like to see you. Maybe we could talk.”

  “Damn it.” He sat back to look at her as memory struck him. “I can’t, Julie. Ham just told me I’ve got to make a courier run to New York tonight to pick up some power packs. We’re running so low that we’ve gotta grab whatever we can get.”

  “Couldn’t Maggie go? She’s a good pilot.”

  “She’s looking after Chris these days, and I have a little more flying experience.”

  “Oh. Well, I understand. Fortunes of war and all that.” Julie’s smile tightened at the comers.

  Mike was suddenly struck by her pallor and the tiny blue-edged lines of fatigue around her eyes and mouth, and he looked at her with concern. “Hey, are you feeling okay?” “I don’t know. I’m tired—maybe I’m getting a cold or the flu, God forbid.”

  “I sure hope not. ” He continued to hold her but shifted back a bit. “I’ll see if I can bring back a couple of steaks from New York, maybe even some champagne. We’ll have a special night together, just you and me.”

  “That . . . would be really nice, Mike,” she said, but her shoulder remained tense under his hand.

  Robin Maxwell stood behind the window curtains of Julie’s fourth-floor apartment near Santa Monica, peering out, waiting. It was six-fifteen, over an hour past the time Julie had said she would be home, but there was still no sign of her.

  Pushing a hand through her cropped hair (a recent attempt to disguise herself), Robin continued her vigil, scanning the street outside. Despite her rising panic, she was careful to remain just out of sight behind the curtain. She had learned a lot since becoming a fugitive and, later, an active member of the Los Angeles resistance, and some of the lessons were bitter ones.

  All of them had suffered at the hands of the Visitors, but Robin felt she had experienced more than her share of anguish. When the Visitors had begun their hate campaign against the scientists, she had been ridiculed by the other high school seniors for being the daughter of an anthropologist. Her humiliation had soon given way to incessant fear as her whole family was forced into hiding, then smuggled to the first resistance headquarters.

  Scared, lonely, and only seventeen, she had sought comfort in dreams of a relationship with Brian, the handsome Visitor

  Youth leader. But when she had been captured by the Visitors, she had been subjected to some kind of internal alteration just before Brian had seduced her (actually it was more like rape). She’d soon discovered that Diana’s meddling had in reality been a successful attempt at gene splicing—Robin had found herself pregnant with the first Visitor/human child.

  With Mike Donovan’s help, Robin had escaped from the Mother Ship, only to witness her mother’s death and then suffer through her strange pregnancy which culminated in the birth of alien twins. One, reptilian and forever nameless, had almost pushed her over the edge when she saw it; mercifully, it had only lived a few hours.

  The other, Elizabeth, was outwardly human, beautiful, and a source of cautious happiness. Her daughter, however, had undergone several molts, growing and maturing at such a rapid rate that she now appeared to be eighteen, the same age as her mother—and they were both in love with Kyle Bates.

  Robin’s father, the brave and gentle Robert Maxwell, had died not long ago, sacrificing his life to save many others. After so much loss and upheaval in her life, Robin now peeked out of windows and watched clocks with a special intensity, living always on the bare edge of fear and anguish. She tended to worry easily if people she cared about were late. . . .

  She was picking up the phone to call Julie’s office for the third time when she spotted the white VW Rabbit pulling up to the curb across the street.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, Robin,” Juliet Parrish said minutes later, panting a little from running up the stairs. She had a shopping bag in her hands, which she put on the kitchen counter.

  “I was worried about you, Julie. ” Robin put a hand over her mouth to hide the sudden trembling of her lower lip.

  “I wound up working later than I’d planned, and then I had to stop at the Club Creole. Then Mike happened to be there, and I ended up talking to him for a few minutes.”

  “You could have called.”

  “You’re right.” Julie came over to give her a hug. “I should have called. I’m sorry.”

  “We’ve having beef burgundy.” Robin smiled, beginning to relax. “I finally got around to trying out that crock-pot recipe you gave me.”

  “It, uh, smells wonderful.”

  “And for dessert, I made . . . ” Robin frowned and looked at her friend more closely. “Julie, are you okay?”

  “Oh, sure, fine.” The blond scientist didn’t look at her as she pulled off her lab coat on her way into the bedroom, returning a moment later with a silky red caftan on a hanger. “Look what I bought yesterday.”

  “Oh, Julie. It’s totally awesome, i mean, it’s really beautiful, and the color is perfect for you.”

  Smiling a little too brightly, her friend smoothed down the translucent fabric. “It cost a chunk of my last paycheck, and it is a bit extravagant, but Mike and I are planning this special dinner together when he gets back from New York. He says he’s going to scare up steaks and a bottle of champagne, and it will be a really special occasion, for just the two of us, and—” “Julie, what’s wrong?” Robin asked suddenly.

  Julie looked as though she had been caught trying to rob a bank. “Why, nothing! Everything’s fine.”

  “You’ve always treated me as an adult, whether I deserved it or not, and you’ve always been honest with me, whether I wanted it or not.” Robin shook her head slowly. “I’ve kind of gotten used to that kind of treatment from you, and I hope things aren’t starting to change between us.”


  Juliet bit her lip, and Robin saw tears welling up behind her eyelashes. “I’m late, Robin, and I’ve been sick to my stomach all the time for the past week. I’m afraid I might be pregnant. ” “Oh, Julie.” Robin came over and hugged her, hard. Suddenly she felt strong and very adult. This was something she had been through, and now she could help Julie for once. “Are you sure? Have you gotten any test results?”

  “It’s still too early for a conclusive test.”

  “I thought you were on the Pill.”

  “I am.” She moved restlessly into the living room, her face drawn and shadowed. “There’s been a rumor out of the Seattle underground that the Visitors have been secretly tampering with shipments of contraceptives so that they’re rendered ineffective.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Robin, confused.

  “To make more fat, bouncing little humans for their food chambers, I suppose,” Julie said bitterly. “Oh, Robin, I can't have a baby, not now! Not until we’ve got our own world back! What am I going to do?”

  “Have you told Mike yet?”

  Julie shook her head wearily. “No, and I’m not going to. It’s my problem at this point. He’s got enough worries about Sean without losing more sleep over the possibility of another child. At any rate, it wouldn’t be fair to mention it until I’m sure. This might be a reaction to the stress I’ve been under. Or it could be due to some bizarre side effect of that new kind of red dust I’ve been working with.”

  “I think Mike would want to know.” Robin patted her shoulder gently. “He really loves you, Julie. He’d want to do whatever is best for you.”

  “I know. But I’m so unsure of everything right now.” “If it’s true, would you have an abortion?”

  “I don’t know, Robin.” Julie’s voice was soft and haunted. “I just don’t know.”

  Chapter 5

  Connecting Flight

  “I don’t know,” said Mike Donovan darkly, looking up from his scan of the controls in the console of the shuttlecraft. “In some ways trying to read these things is always guesswork, but I’ve never seen the power indicators look this low. ” “You’ll make it. ” Ham Tyler, leaning against the doorway of the vehicle, examined a hangnail. Behind him, the night sky up here in the Los Angeles hills was starry and bright under the gaze of the quarter moon.

  “Easy for you to say,” Mike muttered, going back toward the storage bay, “since it’s not your butt that may be in a sling this time. Flying at six thousand feet may not be much as aircraft go, but it’s more than enough to kill me if I crash.” “C’mon, Gooder. Where’s your usual flag-waving, rah-rah, for-the-good-of-God-and-country optimism? ”

  “Maybe cynicism is more contagious these days.” He stooped to check one more time on the items he was carrying. Crates of fresh oranges and grapefruits dominated the small cargo hold, along with lettuce, avocados, and other produce. There were several courier packs containing papers and computer disks for the New York-based resistance group, code-named White Christmas, as well as various other parcels and packages. Some of these latter were small gifts from Julie and the other scientists to friends in the Brook Cove research group.

  Former hotshot recon pilot in ’Nam, award-winning news cameraman and evening anchorman—now he was the local greengrocer and Purolator courier. Hell of a comedown, Donovan thought, tightening one last strap.

  Satisfied that everything was secured, Mike swung himself into the pilot seat and strapped in. “Zero-four-niner to control tower, requesting permission to take off, over,” he said, looking at Ham.

  “Hit the skies, Gooder.” Ham stepped off the ramp. His rock-still expression never altered, but he lifted a hand. “Give my regards to Broadway.”

  Mike smiled a little as he touched the controls to raise and seal the ramp door of the hatchway. “Want me to bring you back an issue of Variety, Tyler?”

  Ham’s thumbs-up gesture was the last thing that Mike saw from the ground, then the shuttlecraft was nosing toward the star-sprinkled night.

  The alien engines were eerie in their almost total silence. The faint, low-pitched hum and the rush of wind along the craft’s streamlined sides told him that everything was working as it should. Only the night-dark blurs of houses and highways and the occasional headlights of a passing car flashing by underneath gave him any real sense of movement.

  As the San Gabriel Mountains began to stretch below him, Mike made adjustments for the thermal currents and reflected once again how much easier it was to fly the Visitor ships than any human-made machines. Certainly, his flight training in various aircraft, coupled with fast reflexes and good instincts, had helped save his skin the first time he had stolen a skyfighter, but the little craft were basically designed to be flown by a moron of any humanoid species with a minimum of training. Donovan wished that the resistance had one to spare, that he and a couple of flight engineering types could tear down and examine without having to worry about putting it all back together again.

  Once he had crossed into the frost zone, safely out of Visitor airspace, there wasn’t much to do. He put the craft on autopilot, then set the radio transmitter to broadcast the special signal the New York resistance had provided which advertised the pilot of this alien craft as a friend. Then he settled back in his seat to gaze down at the moonlit clouds and snowcapped peaks of the Rockies gliding by.

  The cabin was cold and dark. Although the interior was equipped with lights and a heater, Mike felt he had to conserve every erg of energy he could from the shuttle’s weakening power packs.

  Shivering, he drew his suede jacket more tightly around himself, then frowned down at the scrapes on the sleeves, the frayed ends of his shirt cuffs underneath, and his faded jeans. These were his best clothes these days, he thought, and he tried to remember the last time he had bought a new suit or jacket. Life as a resistance fighter and fugitive tended to be tough on clothes, and even tougher for making any kind of money to replace them.

  He ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the feel of the ragged patch behind his left ear. The results of Robin’s earnest attempt at a haircut before he’d left had fallen short of the forty-five-dollar stylings he had regularly gotten during his days on national television. So he wasn’t there for his looks— still, it was demeaning to accept handouts and walk around with two bucks in his pocket most of the time.

  “Freedom and dignity, Michael.” He could picture his mother, Eleanor, the way she used to walk back and forth in front of the fireplace of her elegant home, hands clasped primly in front of her. “That’s what money means more than anything else. More than diamonds or furs or anything material, money buys your freedom from drudgery, the small and meaningless things in life, and dignity through self-respect and respect from others.”

  Now that a year had passed since she had died, Mike thought he could understand a little better why someone like Eleanor Dupres might have thrown in her lot with the Visitors. His mother had grown up in “a little hick town in Louisiana,” as she had often told him. Donovan knew she had married his father partly for money; when Patrick Donovan had died several years ago, she had promptly remarried a rich industrialist, Arthur Dupres.

  When the Visitors had landed with their bogus plea for assistance in manufacturing a chemical that would save their dying world, Eleanor had pressured Arthur into bidding for the contract. His Richland plant had been among the first to begin operations, and they were well rewarded for their efforts. While the rest of the world was being slowly crushed under the weight of the Visitors’ growing domination, Eleanor had ridden high on the wave of freedom and dignity in the company of the Visitor officer Steven. Diamonds, position, power—she had it all.

  Maybe she had gotten in too deep, and her old values, such as caring for other people, honesty, and all the other ones she had instilled in her only son, had been lost along the way. The last time Donovan had seen her alive, his mother had pulled a gun on him, threatened to kill him, and had almost gotten him captured by the Visitor
s.

  She had died on V-Day while Donovan was on the Mother Ship trying to prevent the nuclear destruction of the world. Robert Maxwell had broken the news to him later, saying she had come screaming out of the Los Angeles Visitor headquarters when the resistance had stormed it. Telling them to hold their fire, she had claimed that she had been held prisoner by Steven and forced to do his bidding. Moments later, Steven had stepped out from behind her, his laser flaming at her back. It didn’t help that a few minutes later Ham Tyler had poured red dust into Steven’s face and watched him die.

  Mike knew Eleanor had always been an opportunist, ready to grab the best of every chance that came along. Hell, there was something of that in himself. He liked to think, though, that his mother had meant what she’d said at the very end, that she really had been trapped and had only realized it too late.

  There were a lot of things he had wanted to ask her, arguments to settle, and some small things that had never been said between them but should have been. There would never be a chance now. . . .

  In the coolness and silence of the cabin, Mike Donovan thought about his mother as he flew over the moon-washed wheat fields of Nebraska and Iowa, and for the first time since her death, allowed himself to grieve.

  Eventually, his thoughts turned to his son, Sean, who was the source of another kind of heartache.

  Sean and his mother, Maijorie Donovan, Mike’s ex-wife, had been captured early in the initial days of the struggles with the Visitors, along with thousands of other residents of San Pedro. Sean had been put through Diana’s “conversion” process and used as bait to try to get to the resistance through Donovan.

  Mike had turned himself in to the Visitors in exchange for his boy’s safe return, subjecting himself to Diana’s torture and her truth serum. He had betrayed his friend Martin, a Visitor member of their own fifth-column resistance, before the two of them had managed to escape.

  Mike remembered how good it had been at first to have his son back following the initial defeat of the Visitors. Sean had had problems readjusting to a normal life, though, and after some troubles at school, Mike took him to a psychiatrist. The doctor confirmed his suspicions that the boy was suffering from the lingering aftereffects of Diana’s conversion process and had recommended a special school for boys where some of Sean’s inner conflicts might be smoothed out.