Darrell Bain Read online

  Maddie stuck her head in the door. “Cherry! Someone to see you outside!"

  I blinked, then remembered I was Cherry. Not many people used that name for me. Damn. Now what could this be? I finished toweling my hair on the way toward the front of the building, slicked it back and tossed the towel away. I stepped outside. General Shelton, commanding officer of the Brider Enclave, was waiting on me.

  "Hello, Mai. Come along, no time to waste."

  "But ... my gear, I have to ... my hair..."

  "I said we can't waste time. I'll have someone send for your gear and you can use my comb if you're worried about your hair. Let's go. I'll tell you what's happening on the way."

  I had heard the thwacking of helicopter blades a little earlier but thought it was just the first arrival of the ones that would take our group back in the morning. It wasn't. I knew that as soon as I saw the star painted on it. It was the general's personal chopper.

  "Where are we going?” I asked, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.

  "To an airport, then to the Rocky Mountains."

  And that's about all I learned right then. Helicopters aren't conducive to conversation. I don't even know where the little airport was located. Probably it was simply presenting a front as a civilian airfield owned by a big corporation and was really run by one of the security agencies. Maybe even Army Intelligence; I never asked. But once we were aboard the private passenger jet I learned plenty. General Shelton himself briefed me.

  "Mai, sorry to cause you to miss the graduation, but this is far more important."

  "I'll live, sir. What's happening now?” Graduation wasn't all he caused me to miss, damn it, but I nodded affirmatively. I could gauge the seriousness of the mission by the fact that the general himself was wearing a machine pistol strapped to his chest.

  "We've located two other Crispies here in the United States. They landed in the Rockies and have been hiding all this time, gradually accumulating lore on us humans."

  "Did they contact us?” Wow. Exciting, and Sira would be glad.

  "No, we learned of them after another exhaustive analysis of the radar and atmospheric anomalies we turned up when all their lifeboats fell to Earth. Sira helped, too, with her additional knowledge, once someone thought to ask her. Once we had their location pretty well pinpointed we began searching by satellite. It was difficult but we did it. We got photos of two Crispies yesterday from space."

  He shook his head as if disgusted and he probably was, what with us having had the data in hand all this time and not knowing it. Frankly, I couldn't blame him. For a group that started out with Army Intelligence, their performance had been singularly unremarkable.

  "And I take it we're going to bring them in. But why me?"

  "There are problems. They must have built themselves a pretty good little hidey hole and have been using their cloaking gadget to bring equipment to it and set up a base."

  "But what were they intending to do? Just the two of them? And you said they used the cloaking gadget. I guess that means they haven't converted to humans yet, huh?"

  "No. I told you we have photos of Crispies! And we want to make sure they don't convert to human before they have a look at all your research on the potential problems. And here's the thing: they obviously don't trust us or they wouldn't still be hiding."

  I thought of all the data they might have picked up about us from the net, without a human around to guide them in sifting through it, and shuddered. “If they've tried learning about us without help, it's no wonder."

  "Right. And we need you to convince them we're trustworthy. You know more about Crispies than anyone else we have now that Jeri and Kyle have gone."

  "Why me? Why not Sira? Seems like she should be the one going to talk to them."

  "You know why, Mai. She's the only Crispy we have until the U.K. gets theirs over here, if they ever do. They keep stalling so we can't risk her. In fact, had we known how retentive the Brits were going to be with the ones they control we'd never have allowed Jeri to go on those two missions where she damn near died. As it was, I got reamed out over the mission to China and damn near got relieved of command."

  "But ... but all my research data is back at SFREC. I can't show them anything without that. I have a good memory, but not that good!"

  He grinned. “Give me a little credit. I brought your notebook computer and duplicates of all your files. Sira showed me which ones."

  "Oh.” I should have known. General Shelton wasn't commander of SFREC because he was a dummy.

  * * * *

  I spent part of the time during the flight trying to rest up. I spent the rest of it reviewing the data I had accumulated on why Crispies converting to male had problems and why any conversion, whether to male or female, could run into trouble without having good mentors and going slow. Damn, I sure wished I had Sira with me but wishes get no points in heaven. I'd have to make do without her.

  There were two other scientists in the plane and the rest of the ten seats were filled with a half dozen well armed soldiers. I was introduced to them but I had too much on my mind to pay a lot of attention. This was a hell of a thing to throw at me fresh from a week of grueling training.

  By the time we landed my eyes were blurring from reading so much in the dry air of the jet but there was no time to rest. We immediately transferred into two separate helicopters and took off again, quieting any more talk. I did have a good view of a snow-covered mountain but I didn't recognize where we were.

  The pilots were good. They brought the choppers down in a little clearing where they had to practically whack off the limbs of the surrounding firs and aspens to get them down. Two Humvees with drivers were waiting there. It was a tight fit but they got us all inside. We drove a half hour on little more than a hiking trail and then even that played out. The jeeps came to a stop and we all bailed out.

  "Come on, Mai,” the general said to me. To the soldiers he said, “Guard detail, trail us but keep your weapons shouldered. We don't want to present ourselves as a threat. You other two, wait here."

  The two scientists didn't like being left out but there wasn't much they could do about it. I followed Shelton as he consulted a piece of paper, probably a map, and wondered why bring the guards at all if we didn't want to look threatening? Whatever, I soon quit wondering because I had to save my breath. We began hiking, mostly uphill, then across the steep side of a mountain and gradually worked our way farther up. The exertion didn't seem to bother Shelton. He couldn't be sitting at his desk all the time.

  Eventually we came to another clearing, even smaller than the other.

  "This is it,” he said. He checked to see that a little radio at his belt was working right, then told the guards to stay alert. To me he said, “Let's go, Mai. And remember, they don't know we're coming, so take things slow and easy."

  We followed a barely discernible trail 50 yards into the forest then came to a stop where a giant boulder seemed to be holding up the mountain. There were smaller ones around it and a few stunted firs trying to get a toehold where soil had been blown into crevices in the rocks.

  "This should be where they're holed up, according to our contact team's coordinates,” Shelton muttered. He never mentioned how they'd gotten the information but obviously he trusted it. He turned in a full circle, looking around. Nothing. I spent that bit of time examining the big boulder. Something about it didn't look right. For a moment I couldn't put my finger on it, then it came to me. It wasn't weathered enough. I took a couple of steps closer to it and began running my hands over the surface. They came away almost completely clean. No rock dust. Hardly any dirt. From there it didn't take long to spot a cleft in the rock above eye level. It looked too conveniently handy. I reached up and ran my hand into it and felt around.

  "Watch for snakes,” the general said, just as the rock moved.

  I had to hurry to get out of the way as it slid to the side, revealing an entrance into the mountain—and a Crispy in its original for
m standing there with a little gadget in its hand I recognized. I was startled silly at first by its unearthly appearance but then my eyes focused on what it was pointing at me with one of its middle arms. Jeri had shown me hers. It was a disintegrator. If the Crispy used it on me, I'd turn to dust and blow away.

  "We're peaceful!” I said hurriedly, hoping it had learned to speak English. I sure as hell couldn't speak their language.

  "That's debatable. Come inside."

  "Thank you,” I said, with General Shelton echoing my words.

  They had carved out living quarters from solid rock, presumably with their disintegrators and somehow rigged up a lighting system. The fluorescent bulbs were just like the ones back at the enclave but the power had to originate from their survival packs, proving they'd made an easier landing than some of the others.

  We were led along a short hallway to a room that was suspiciously designed for human occupancy.

  "Is there a human living here? Or have one of you converted to human form?” I asked.

  "It doesn't matter. The question is what are we to do with you?"

  I looked at General Shelton. He nodded, telling me to do the negotiating.

  I decided to start right off with a bombshell. “I sincerely hope none of you have converted to human form yet, particularly male. We've seen instability result from it."

  Silence. Apparently I'd hit them where they weren't expecting it. I decided to go for broke. “We've made friends with two others of you. One we rescued from a foreign country where she was unhappy.” I gave them Sira's and Jeri's Cresperian names as closely as I could enunciate them. I had learned both of them just for fun and now I was damned glad I had.

  "What of the third?"

  So they knew about Ishmael. Again, I went for the throat. “We rescued him from some very bad humans, at great danger to ourselves. Many humans lost their lives getting him away from those people. We brought him back to our place and tried to make friends with him. We also attempted to rescue another of your compatriots from China but it was too late. He'd already gone too far into madness."

  Even without having human features, I knew they were bound to be befuddled, so I plowed on. “I worked with both Jeri and Sira, the human names they took. During the course of our work, or research I should say, we learned that any Crispy converting to human should go slowly. And that especially applies to Crispies converting to the form of human males. The sex-determinate chromosomes lead to an unstable personality if not monitored very carefully. I'm sorry to say that Ishmael was hurried because we knew no better at the time. Jeri, one of your own highly regarded comrades, even helped. Ishmael, the name the male took, turned out to be unstable, as I said. He became obsessed with sex and power. He left our security and we have no idea where he is now."

  The two Crispies were apparently having problems assimilating all I'd said so quickly. The general and I were both still standing since they hadn't asked us to sit. They ignored us and jibber-jabbered in their own language for awhile. Finally one of them spoke to me. I couldn't tell them apart so I don't know which it was.

  "I can tell with my perceptive sense that you are speaking the truth. However, human society is so unstable that we'd like to speak to another of our kind. Are either Jeri or Sira available?"

  "No, we feel like they are better off staying where they are now, both for our own security and theirs. And to be very frank, Sira is now the only one of your kind we have to work with so we didn't want to risk her away from our enclave."

  "I see again that you are truthful, but where is Jeri?"

  "She's already left on the first spaceship, looking for your home planet. We're hoping they can find it, but there's a huge problem. They left before I made my discoveries about the dangers of conversion. Now we're getting another ship ready as rapidly as possible in order to try catching the first one before they find your home planet, if they do. It would be horrible if many Crispies began converting to human form without being aware of the dangers, especially the ones converting to male."

  "What dangers? There is no danger in converting to a male human."

  The voice came from behind me. I recognized the son of a bitch who was speaking, too. It was Ishmael.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "Ish!” I said. “Thank goodness we found you! You need to come back to SFREC and let us help you."

  "Yes, Ishmael,” General Shelton added. “I can only offer our apologies for not exploring the conversion process more thoroughly before you did it. Our only excuse is that it had worked so well with Jeri we thought it would go as well with all of you. Damn it all, the horrors we experienced with Lau should have warned us, Ish. He was verging on crazy by the time we got to him but we thought it was because he'd been subjected to malevolent influences by his Chinese captors."

  "No, you're completely wrong!” Ishmael said loudly. “Lau was preparing to lead the Chinese to glory, to their proper place at the head of the human hierarchy. And since Jeri killed him it falls to me to take over his unfinished duties. I will show my friends here how to construct a new ship and take the wealth of human pleasures back to our people."

  "Ishmael, please, no,” I said. “Look, I brought all the research notes that Jeri, Sira and I have. It will show you where we went wrong, but there's hope. Sira and I believe that with proper guidance you can repair the damage to yourself."

  "I have no damage.” He turned away and spoke rapidly to his friends. I guess they were friends. He had evidently been living at the place with them. We were probably in his room right then.

  I noticed he was becoming angry. Apparently what he'd told these two Crispies and what we'd told them didn't jibe too well and it was already beginning to look as if they were going to believe us rather than Ishmael. Or at the very least, they were willing to listen to us before making a decision.

  "You said you had your research notes with you?” a Crispy asked. Of course it knew what I'd said, but I suppose it was being polite or making a peace offering of sorts.

  "Yes. Do you have a computer connection here? I brought my notebook with me but I was in such a rush I don't know how much of a charge I have left on it."

  "Certainly. It's farther back."

  "Don't believe them!” Ishmael yelled in English. I guess his temper got the better of him.

  They ignored him. Shelton and I began following the Crispies.

  The next thing I knew Ishmael's strong arm was around my neck, choking me, and he was shouting.

  "Goddamn you fucking humans!” Then he added something in the Crispy language.

  I don't know what he intended but he certainly didn't use his perceptive powers to examine my body or he'd have known I wasn't the same person as the last time we'd met, there in my room. I snapped my elbow back so hard that I heard his ribs crack and twisted in his grasp at the same time, breaking contact and stepping back several paces to put some distance between us. Fortunately, he didn't possess a disintegrator but he did have a gun. He went for it at the same time I drew mine but his broken ribs slowed him down. I was just a little bit ahead of him.

  I should have shot to kill but I didn't. I still had hopes of salvaging him. I had no idea of what horrible things he'd done a few minutes before arriving in the cave or I would have put a bullet right between his eyes. My shot took him in the left shoulder just before he fired his gun. I know he was aiming to kill me, but the wound from my gun threw him off. His slug hit me in my right hip. The force of it twisted me half way around. I started to fall but hit the wall of the tunnel first and managed to stay upright.

  He fired one more time. General Shelton took the bullet full in his chest and fell to the floor. He shot again, aiming for me. The only thing that kept me alive was my preternatural reflexes that he still wasn't allowing for. I managed to get out of the way in time and he missed, but then he twirled and ran for the exit that was still open.

  The two Crispies were just standing there, unsure of ho
w to handle the situation. I took off after Ishmael, ignoring the burning pain in my hip. I could feel pieces of shattered bone grating together as I ran back outside. Ishmael was hurtling down the trail, ignoring obstacles. I limped after him, knowing I'd never catch up. Suddenly I thought of the guards we'd left behind. What of them? I yelled something unintelligible to try drawing their attention.

  Ishmael looked back over his shoulder at me. The bastard was grinning about something. I paused to take a shot at him but he moved just in time and I missed. Damn it, I'd never hit him again, not with him using his perceptive sense.

  Ishmael looked back over his shoulder at me but then he wasn't there! I shook my head, wondering how he'd disappeared so fast then I remembered my unbuttoned blouse that day. Shit! How could I fight him when he was close enough to tamper with my short-term memory? But I couldn't let the likes of him loose on humanity.

  I gathered my courage and ran toward where I'd seen him last, hurrying as fast as I could. My vision blurred with the almost overwhelming pain in my hip and I stumbled. That probably saved my life because a bullet zinged by overhead as I was on my way down. I rolled and came up firing before I even knew where he was. Anything to keep his mind occupied.

  I guess I managed it just long enough because the guards heard the shooting and came running. I couldn't see them, but I heard them crashing through the brush as they came toward me.

  "Watch out!” I yelled, not wanting them to run into Ishmael.

  I had one more look at him. He stopped running and stood for a moment, indecisive. He looked backward at me and his face was twisted up into a cruel mask. I aimed my gun at him.