V 10 - Death Tide

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

  He also felt awkward about Julie. Several times, he’d tried to catch her eye, give her a reassuring wink, but she wouldn’t look at him. She appeared tired and pale and was uncharacteristically quiet. Julie was usually the life of the party.

  He saw her get up and head toward the kitchen and was wondering whether he should follow, see if she was okay, but then Margie started to relate the story of the mouse in their honeymoon suite, and he had to laugh and embellish the tale.

  “Hey, Mike.”

  He squinted up through the haze at Robin Maxwell. Hands hooked into her belt, the slight young woman was looking down at him, her expression grim.

  “Hey, Robin. What’s up?”

  “Can you take a little walk outside with me? We need to talk.”

  “Uh . . . yeah, sure. Excuse me.” He got up too quickly, causing the room to lurch a little.

  Without a backward glance, Robin led the way outside. The air was cool, fresh, and smelled good after the smoky closeness of the club. He inhaled deeply. “What’s on your mind?”

  “You and your ex-wife seem to be getting along really good,” Robin blurted, turning to face him, and he saw with surprise that she was furious.

  “Yeah, well, it’s been a long time, and a lot of things have happened since Margie and I last saw one another. Life seems too short and precious these days to hang on to a lot of old bitterness, I guess.”

  “You ought to be more aware of what your apparent reconciliation with her is doing to Julie.”

  Donovan felt his mouth tighten. Mingled with his resentment at this eighteen-year-old lecturing him on his love life was the deeper, more honest realization that she had struck a nerve of his own guilt. “Just because Margie and I are talking to one another in civilized tones again doesn’t mean we’re reconciling.”

  “Come on, Mike. Do you have any idea what Julie must be thinking, seeing you two together all the time?”

  “Julie knows how much I care about her.”

  “Does she? Your timing really stinks, Mike. Julie needs you now more than she ever has.” Robin stopped suddenly, her expression under the lamplight that of someone who has said more than she had intended.

  Donovan’s comfortable glow vanished in a wave of concern. Reaching out, he grasped Robin by the arms, turning her to face him. “Why? What’s wrong? Julie’s not sick, is she?” “She’s . . .” Drawing a deep breath, Robin looked at him, then down at the ground. “I think you need to have a long talk with her. Soon.”

  “Hey, if you know something I—”

  Something metallic clattered to the sidewalk behind him, and Mike whirled around. Two Visitors in guards’ uniforms staggered back from an overturned chair belonging to the Club Creole’s sidewalk caf<5. One belched, then muffled a laugh under his gloved hand. “Excuse me,” he said loudly.

  “Hey, the lights are on, but the door’s locked.” The other continued to pull irritably at the door handle as though he could force it open by willing it.

  “The sign says ‘closed,’ friend,” Mike said, jerking a thumb at the window.

  “We want a drink,” the other said, turning aggressively. “We want it now.”

  The first one nodded and turned from the door. “We had a

  rotten day, and we intend to get drunk and stay that way all night. ”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve had enough already. Why don’t you go home, sleep it off?”

  “I’ve heard that human’s voice before, Harry,” the first one said, fumbling for his sidearm.

  “Yeah ...”

  Mike suddenly recognized their voices, too. These two were the same guards he and Ham had decked earlier that day when they’d stolen the van!

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered, diving outside the reach of the lights haloing the club’s entrance. “Robin, get outa here!”

  Her scream shattered the night’s quiet behind him as a brilliant streak of light slashed the darkness just above his head and sent chunks of paint, brick, and mortar flying out of the wall.

  Hitting the sidewalk, Donovan rolled as more brilliance scored the pavement where his head had been an instant earlier. Mike heard the club’s door open, and Kyle hurtled out. His swinging crutch caught one alien in the arm, sending his lasergun spinning into the darkness. Jumping to his feet, Donovan used the diversion to tackle the second Visitor, and they staggered and went down in a tangle of flailing arms and legs.

  Wrenching his arm loose, the Visitor slammed his gun against Mike’s head. Light and sound scrambled together in Donovan’s awareness for an instant as pain cut a laser bolt across his vision. Groping for the other’s hand, he pounded it on the pavement until the weapon clattered out of the alien’s fingers.

  Dimly Mike heard Robin shout, “Kyle, look out!” and he saw her lift a piece of two-by-four to clobber the Visitor who had pulled Kyle to the ground.

  Then the Visitor under Mike heaved up, throwing him off balance, and the alien was reaching for the lasergun—

  Donovan felt heat high up on his thigh; the Visitor screamed and writhed, clutching his stomach as it glowed then charred, and a burning-chicken smell filled the air. The Visitor convulsed again, then lay still.

  Shakily, Mike pulled himself to his feet as Ham Tyler stepped down from the doorway of the Club Creole. “Stand back, honey,” he said to Robin, sighting along the barrel of his newly charged laser pistol, then he coolly french-fried the other Visitor.

  “Nice of you to drop by,” Donovan said. His voice sounded weak and tinny in his own ears.

  “It was getting stuffy in there anyway.” Ham’s glance flicked laconically past the two Visitor bodies. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” He felt experimentally around the wet place in his hair, where the lasergun butt had hit him. Then he felt real regret when he noticed the tom and dirty elbows of his new sports jacket and the singed spot high on the leg of his new slacks. “Next time, Tyler, watch where you’re aiming. Just because your sex life’s lousy doesn’t mean you have to try to end mine.”

  “If I wanted to do the world a favor, Gooder, I’d aim for your mouth. Let’s go dump the bodies.”

  Chapter 11

  Turnabouts

  Robin’s heart pounded, her mouth was cottony, and her stomach felt like a popped balloon. She stumbled a little as she walked slowly back into the Club Creole, her legs weak and trembling. She was halfway to her table before she realized her numb fingers were still clutching the broken two-by-four.

  Miranda took one look at her face and set a margarita in front of her moments later. It was a double, and Robin gulped it gratefully, letting the fiery tequila replace the coldness inside her with warmth.

  “Take it easy,” Miranda said. “You don’t want to get sick. ” “Mother, what happened outside?” Elizabeth’s eyes were large and watchful in the dim lighting of the club.

  Trying to steady her breathing, Robin set down her glass, knocking some salt onto the tablecloth. “There . . . was some trouble outside. A couple of Visitors . . . they were drunk, and they picked a fight with Mike.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yeah, he seemed okay. The Visitors aren’t, though. Ham killed them. Just shot them, right in front of me.”

  Miranda made a sympathetic noise. “Pobrecito, no wonder you look shook up.”

  Robin nodded mutely, sipping her drink. They sat in silence for several minutes, then Elizabeth spoke.

  “Mother, do you think the humans and the Visitors will ever be able to exist together in peace?” Elizabeth looked at her, her blue eyes troubled.

  Robin looked up at the tone in her voice, sensing the anguish her daughter was feeling. “Honey, I don’t know. I like to think that maybe, someday, it’ll be possible, but there’s so much anger between us now.”

  “Father Andrew once called me a symbol of peace.” Elizabeth stared down at the candle flickering on the table between them, her voice low and flat. “But the longer I live, the more I end up feeling like a symbol for war�
�something inhuman, a living mistake between two cultures that should never have met, that are too different to ever really understand one another. Or even want to try.”

  Robin wanted to reach over and hold her, but something in her daughter’s posture kept her seated. “Elizabeth, honey, what is it?”

  “Mother, I had another of the dreams last night. The red dust was thicker this time, but I could still see the man’s face through it. He was a young man, very handsome, and he was holding out his hand to you. Then I saw you, and your face was a stranger’s, full of hate. He screamed and pulled off his face, and he was really a Visitor. Why are you in the dream, and why do you have that look on your face?”

  Robin took a deep breath, realizing she would have to face memories that she’d spent the last eighteen months doing her best to forget. Guilt awoke once again, mixed with the terrible anger of betrayal, but she fought it down, forcing her voice to stay low and steady. “The young man was your father, Elizabeth. And, yes, I did kill him, just about the way that you saw it in your dreams. He had hurt me, betrayed me, and I . . . wasn’t really responsible for my actions. It was weeks before I could even realize what had happened, what I’d done, and then it seemed as if somebody else had tossed that red dust in with him.”

  “How can you love me if you hated him so much?” Robin stared at her bleakly. Desperately she searched for words, special words that she could say to her daughter, the words that would make everything okay, soothe the restless demon that lurked deep within her. But they stuck in her throat as a soft, formless sound. Then Kyle came limping slowly through the door, and Elizabeth rose and ran over to him.

  The moment was lost, and Robin was left alone with her tears and her margarita.

  “Exactly what did you learn from Bernard, Willie?” Julie asked, absently stirring her half-finished Coke with a straw.

  “Well, he is a scientist, he does not like working directly for Diana, and he does not grasp his liquor at all well. He was becoming intoxicated after only two of my drinks.”

  “What else?” Elias asked.

  Willie’s features wrinkled in concentration, and Julie found herself idly admiring the exquisite skill that had gone into creating the life masks that could mimic even subtle human expressions. The Visitors might have taught Earth doctors a few things, given new meaning to the profession of plastic surgery, if they had ever kept their promises of sharing their vast scientific achievements.

  “He says Diana has been working him over lately,” Willie answered after some thought.

  “What?” Julie looked at him blankly, then at Elias.

  “You mean she’s overworking him,” Elias corrected automatically. “That he’s working a lot of hours.”

  “Yes, that is it.” Willie nodded. “Bernard is overworking on a special project that they are calling Operation Red Dust. ” Julie felt the muscles in her abdomen tighten and hoped she wasn’t going to be sick again. “Do you know what they are doing?”

  “They are creating a decaffeinated—no, no, a defector? A . . . defecation?” He waved his hands in frustration. “My English is so small.”

  “Describe it,” Julie coaxed. “Take your time, Willie.” “It is a substance to kill all the kelp and sea plants in the ocean surrounding California.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said softly. “A defoliant “Yes, that is it!” Willie brightened.

  “Aw, man!” Elias grinned in relief. “Just something that kills seaweed? I was thinking this could be really serious.” “It is serious!” Julie said, banging her hands down on the bar. Her agitated gesture sent the partially full glass of Coke cascading down the bar in a brown puddle as she turned to face him. “Don’t you know what this means? The ecology of the whole California coastline is in terrible danger! If the seaweed dies out, so will the plankton, which the smaller fish feed on, then there won’t be any larger fish, and—”

  “Biology wasn’t my best subject in school,” Elias admitted. “As a matter of fact, school wasn’t my best subject in life.”

  “This is most serious.” Willie nodded, his expression solemn, even haunted. “This is how it began on our home world. We did not take care of our own plants or our small animals, and now our world is dying. We must stop—”

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” Ham asked. Kyle Bates was leaning on his shoulder, holding a broken crutch and grimacing as his injured leg bumped into one of the barstools. Mike Donovan was behind them, looking similarly dirty and rumpled, with a smear of blood near his left temple.

  “No,” Julie said, sliding off her barstool, “but I guess Miranda and I’ll have to do. Miranda!”

  “Actually, I was thinkin’ of something tall, cold, and definitely medicinal.” Ham glanced over at Willie. “Like a double Scotch.”

  Julie took a step toward Donovan, her eyes fixed on the cut. “Mike, are you . . . ?”

  “Oh, Mike!” Margie ran in from the other room, her expression stricken as she reached for his face.

  “Aw, it’s nothing,” he said, pulling away from her in embarrassment.

  “Let me see.” Briskly assuming her best “impersonal physician” demeanor, Julie stepped past the other woman and ran expert fingers into Mike’s hair, checking the scalp wound. It wasn’t serious, so she bent to examine Kyle’s swollen knee. Miranda, wiping her hands on a dishcloth as she came in from the kitchen, took one look and went right back for the first-aid kit and a bucket of ice.

  “You should’ve seen what the other guys looked like.” Donovan grinned weakly as he accepted the brandy Willie put in front of him.

  “You didn’t exactly help this along,” Julie said, unwrapping the Ace bandage around Kyle’s knee. “What the hell happened?”

  As Mike briefly related the incident outside the club, Ham drank most of his Scotch, reached into his jacket, and pulled out two crumpled wads of cloth. Staring at them for a moment with a look of profound disgust, he threw them into Elias’s face—two Club Creole shirts. “The damn scalies had them on under their uniforms. Now are you satisfied, Taylor?”

  “I’m glad nobody was seriously hurt,” Elias said, yanking the shirts off his head and glaring at Ham.

  “This time. ” Julie looked at him wearily, wondering for the thousandth time when all this was going to end.

  “Are you listening to me?” Ham was up and standing in front of Elias in the next instant, his barely controlled fury turning his body rigid. “We just got jumped outside by two of your regular customers, although I’m afraid you won’t be seein’ them around anymore.”

  Elias shrugged and attempted a smile. “Hey, be cool. At least they already paid for their shirts.”

  “Oh, no, Taylor.” Ham pushed his face inches from Elias so that the younger man stepped back a pace. “You’re not fobbing us off with cute remarks or sanctimonious statements about you being king of the club, running the show up here—not this time. Far as I can tell, the lizards are running things around here now anyway. I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

  “It was just one of those things. They happen around any place that serves liquor where people—or lizards—drink too much.”

  “Except this is more than a place that serves liquor, and a lot more’s at stake here,” Julie said, holding Kyle’s leg while Miranda gently rigged an ice pack. “Like people’s lives and what we’re trying to do to make this a better world for humans and a lot poorer one for Visitors—most of them anyway,” she amended, looking at Willie.

  “What do you want?” Elias spread his arms. “You got the power packs you needed to defend yourselves, and—” “—And another giant-sized crisis is brewing,” Julie pointed out. “We’ve got to put a stop to the Visitor’s Operation Red Dust.”

  Under her hands, Donovan flinched as she dabbed the cut above his hairline with Betadyne. “Ow, that hurt!”

  Not as much as you and your little Margie sitting together all cozy on the couch hurt me, she thought, resisting the urge to swab harder. “Donovan, you’r
e always such a pain in the ass to patch up,” she said aloud, daubing at the excess. “Hold still, you big chicken.”

  Mike grimaced again but remained in his seat.

  “Ham’s right, Elias,” she said. “We’ve got to step up activities. Which means we’ll be running in and out of here more often—and some of us appear on wanted posters.”

  “You want me to declare the club off limits to Visitors, don’t you?” Elias asked sullenly.

  “Either that, or we find a new clubhouse for our little games,” Ham said. “It’s that simple.”

  Elias looked as though he was going to say something else for a moment. Instead, he shrugged and reached over the bar for a bottle of beer. “Okay, Ham, you win. But only until this crisis is over. The Visitors account for almost forty percent of my gross receipts, and I can’t take that kind of loss forever.” “Your patriotism and willingness to sacrifice for the cause are duly noted and appreciated,” said Ham, clinking his glass against Elias’s bottle with exaggerated solemnity.

  “Thank you, Elias,” Julie said, stretching up to kiss him on the cheek.

  Elias’s grin flashed. “Hey, do that again and I’ll think of something else I can be noble about.”

  Willie’s start-up of the blender drowned out all possibility of conversation around the bar for several seconds. He looked around apologetically as he poured himself a drink. “How can we learn more of this Operation Red Dust?” he asked.

  “Well, I have an idea,” Elias said, leaning back against the bar. “Willie, do you still have your old uniform?”

  Julie’s attention was drawn to Margie, who had started putting on her jacket and was moving toward the door. Donovan was standing beside his ex-wife, and Julie strained to hear their conversation.

  “. . . walk you to your car?” Mike was saying, helping Margie with her coat.

  “No thanks, Mike.” She smiled.