Alan Dean Foster

by Alien Nation

  His thoughts were interrupted by the action of his other guest. The slim gentleman had moved to shake first the Newcomer's hand, then Sykes's. He was smiling cheerfully as he greeted them.

  "Victor Goldrup, Mayor's Office, special liaison for Newcomer Affairs.

  Congratulations, gentlemen. This is a historic moment in Human-Newcomer relations and a historic day for the Los Angeles Police Department. I am proud to be a

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  small part of it. You're both going to find yourselves in the history books.

  "

  It had taken Warner those couple of moments of introduction to make the connection he'd been seeking. His initial suspicions were well grounded. It was just that everything had happened a tad too fast for him to put it together. Now he glared hard at the uncharacteristically altruistic Sykes.

  "You are to have nothing to do with the investigation into Bill Tuggle's death. You know that. Leave that for Fedorchuk. It's his baby, his and Alterez's. I won't have my people butting into each other's business, no matter how noble their motives. "

  If he expected an argument he was disappointed. Sykes merely nodded agreeably. "Departmental policy."

  "That's right, and don't forget it." By way of afterthought, Warner glanced over at the alien. "You understand too?"

  "Yes, sir. " The Newcomer didn't nod. They could, when they wanted to. The lack of a nod bothered the Captain but he couldn't say so. That was also departmental policy. The situation was delicate enough, having a Newcomer uniform on the premises. Going and making one into a detective had potentially explosive ramifications among the rank and file. No point in making things worse. So if he didn't want to nod, fine.

  "Good."

  Before he could say anything else, Sykes stepped forward, trying not to appear overly anxious. It helped that he was dead tired from emotional fatigue and lack of sleep.

  "If it's all right, Cap, considering the uniqueness of our situation and all, there's another case I'd like to take. Sort of start out with something I'm a little familiar with, you know?"

  Warner didn't look up at him, but his tone was still wary. "What case?"

  "A homicide. Newcomer named Hubley."

  Warner pretended to study the papers carpeting his desk. Goldrup was ignoring everyone, off in some bureaucratic heaven of his own. Probably contemplating the potential

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  PR. So no one noticed the look Francisco threw Sykes. The aliens weren't always so inscrutable. It was plain that the Newcomer knew his volunteer partner was up to something. But he didn't comment, and Sykes took pains to avoid his stare.

  "Granger and Pitts are already on it," Warner said brusquely.

  Sykes pressed his argument. "Granger and Pitts have one hell of a caseload.

  They're also doing the Wilcox murder, and they've been stuck on the Silver Lake rape for six months now. They might be able to come up with a lead on that, if they didn't have sixteen other things to do. Now you're gonna dump this one on 'em."

  "Granger and Pitts are my best investigative team."

  Sykes let that one pass. "They're only human, Cap." The humor slipped past his listeners. "They need a break or they won't find piss on anything. I would've thought what with Francisco here being the first Newcomer plainclothes, and Hubley's body being found over in the Newcomer community, it would only make sense for the two of us to take the Hubley case."

  "Don't tell me what to think," Warner told him sharply even as he found himself mulling over the detective's words.

  The thrust of the conversation had drawn Goldrup out of his daze. "He's got a good point, Captain Warner. That's the sort of thing we should be doing with this early-advancement program. Much better than sending them out on something routine like patrol and search. If we're going to get any airtime out of this we're going to have to go for something kind of exciting, if you catch my drift."

  Yeah, I catch it, Warner thought sourly. Right in the ass, where I usually catch dorks; like you. The Captain bore it with the air of the long-suffering martyr compelled to endure yet another fiendish torment.

  There was nothing he could say and what the hell difference did it make anyway? Other than the fact that the victim was a Newcomer, the Hubley case was your standard Homicide One, Unsolved. So Sykes was interested in it, so what? Everybody knew

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  how weird Sykes was. Around the station, Bill Tuggle had been regarded as a saint for putting up with the guy for nine years. Sykes would be in a nuthouse somewhere, or the gutter, if not for one unarguable fact: he was a good detective.

  Obviously his volunteering to work with the Newcomer had something to do with Tuggle's death at Newcomer hands. Just as obviously, he wanted the Hubley case because it also involved a Newcomer. Was that anything to worry about? So long as he kept his nose clean and left Tuggle's murder to Fedorchuk and Alterez, his other motives need not concern Warner.

  I've spent far too much time worrying about it already, he thought abruptly. I've got a precinct to run.

  He sighed deeply, and recognized it for the acquiescence it was. He tried not to smile.

  _1V_

  The door that blocked off the bottom of the ground floor stairwell was solid steel, intended not only to keep out aggravated street types and unwelcome media mavens but bullets and fair-sized explosives. It banged noisily against its hinges as Sykes slammed it wide. Francisco followed close behind. Even allowing for the fact they were from different worlds, they made an odd couple. Sykes had slept in and looked it, while the Newcomer in his neatly pressed suit more closely resembled a canvasser for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

  They'd spent the rest of the day talking, going over official procedures, doing what was expected of new partners. Because of his recent advancement, Francisco had plenty of additional paperwork to deal with. He handled it adroitly. That surprised Sykes as he watched his new partner at work. Maybe this guy Francisco was real smart. That wasn't necessarily a good thing.

  Black-and-whites were pulling out on the evening watch as the two detectives made their way across the parking lot. Sykes was doing all the talking. He'd been lecturing Francisco most of the afternoon, ever since the Newcomer had tidied up the last of his official forms.

  ". . . And we work my hours. I'll do the driving, you do the paperwork. You gotta learn it, so you might as well do it. I saw you back there. " He nodded in the direction of the 42

  40

  station house. "You handled yourself okay. But filling out personnel chits isn't the same thing as making out an arrest sheet or trying to describe an arsonist's state of mind at the time of arrest."

  "I have done my homework." Francisco spoke quietly, smoothly. A moment later he added, in a tone only slightly different from the one he'd employed all day, "Sergeant, I'd like to thank you for what you're doing."

  "What's that?" It made no sense to Sykes until he realized what the alien was referring to. "Look, get one thing straight in your pointy head. We're not pals, we're not married, and we ain't gonna take long moonlit walks together. So don't thank me. We're just partners. All we do is work together. The rest of the time we're on opposite sides of the moon, got it?" The alien listened intently and without comment.

  "One more thing. Don't call me 'sergeant.' Call me Sykes. Or Matt, if you have to. No, Sykes would be better."

  "I understand the significance of being on a first-name basis. I would not presume. By the way, mine is Samuel."

  Sykes nodded absently and they continued on until his expression contorted and he called a halt again.

  "Wait a minute. Let's make sure I've got this straight. Your name is Francisco. Samuel Francisco?"

  The Newcomer nodded.

  "Wasn't that a mission padre or something? Some guy who built shit for the Indians and taught them how to make adobe, stuff like that?"

  Again the alien nodded.

  Sykes shook his head doubtfully. "You look about as much like a Spanish friar as a chilied chicken." The Newcomer didn't react to th
is sally, not that Sykes had expected him to. Tug, now ...

  Forget about that.

  "This won't do. Francisco's bad enough, and people are gonna start whistling the same old tune at you. I'm damned if I'm gonna run around calling you 'Sarnuel.' That's not gonna carry the right weight if we have to use the radio." He shook his head, grinning to himself.

  "I've heard some good ones for you guys. Humphrey 44

  Bogart, Harley-Davidson. Could'a been worse in your case. I guess the people at Immigration got a little punchy after awhile, coming up with names for a quarter of a million of you. Samuel Francisco might cut it for a mortuary worker, but not for a cop. Understand?"

  "It sounds too much like a familiar California city."

  Sykes nodded vigorously. "Besides the padre business. So you're not a total jerk. Good. The Francisco can stay, but the Samuel's gotta go."

  "My true name is SS'tangya T'ssorentsa'."

  "Gesundheit. I'd call you ST, but that's too close to another bad joke. How does 'George' strike you?"

  "Strike me?" The Newcomer was puzzled. If only they had external ears instead of those damn holes, Sykes thought. Then they wouldn't look half so bizarre.

  "How does it sound to you? Any objections?"

  "Why should I object," the alien replied blandly, "when the name Samuel Francisco was not one of my choosing either?"

  "Fine. Glad you understand." Sykes completely missed the implied bitterness, which was just as well. "George it is, then. Nobody can object to that. It still sounds a little silly, but not half as silly as the other. Anyway, what's it matter to you if we think it's funny, right?

  Whatta you care?"

  "That is quite correct." The alien's face was devoid of expression, which was fortunate in the light of what he said next. "it is like your own name.

  Sykes."

  The detective frowned slightly as he scanned the parking lot. "What's wrong with Sykes?" There was the slugmobile, right where he'd left it. He turned to his left.

  "Nothing-.-as far as you are concerned. I'm sure it doesn't bother you at all that it sounds like 'ss'ai k'ss', two words in my language which mean respectively 'excrement' and 'craniurn.' "

  Sykes paused on the driver's side after unlocking the internals. He wore a perplexed look, so the Newcomer took the liberty of elaborating.

  "Shit-head."

  He climbed in, squeezing his bulk through the too-small passenger door on the other side, leaving Sykes standing

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  there alone. The last vestiges of the smirk the detective had been wearing all afternoon were falling rapidly from his face.

  There was plenty of traffic, most of it law-abiding. Sykes ignored the violators. He wasn't interested in maintaining the speed limit or ticketing Valley housewives whose taillights had burnt out. He wasn't even interested in pausing to verbally flay the pair of teenagers they'd caught vandalizing a vacant house. He had only one thing on his mind, though it took him awhile to get around to discussing it.

  At least the alien had good command of the languagefor a Newcomer. Too many of them bordered on the non-verbal, at least in English. But then, he reminded himself, George wouldn't have made detective even with the aid of the special Federal program if he hadn't been reasonably fluent.

  Sykes eyed his partner. George was more than slightly cramped by the passenger's seat. Detroit hadn't started building wheels to Newcomer dimensions. Not yet.

  "Let's talk Hubley," he said without preamble.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Anything and everything." Sykes nodded toward the glove compartment. "You got the file?" The Newcomer nodded. "Then read it. Talk to me, George. Skip the procedural stuff. "

  Francisco opened the file and scanned the contents. "His body was discovered three days ago, in an alley off Central, near downtown."

  Sykes kept his eyes on the road ahead. "With two BRI sabot slugs in the chest."

  "Through the chest," Francisco gently corrected him. "Rupturing both the primary and secondary hearts."

  The slugmobile skidded abruptly rightward, avoiding a Jaguar sedan that had slowed for a left-hand turn. Sykes yelled irritably out the window. "Nice signal, dickwad!"

  The unexpected outburst, not to mention the peculiar commentary, threw Francisco off stride. The aberration appeared to be temporary, he decided, since his new partner was once more sitting silently behind the wheel and concentrating on his driving. Humans were prone to such inexpli-46

  cable and unpredictable outbursts, but they were still startling to observe.

  Very little about human behavior was predictable. At times the entire race seemed hell-bent for a collective nervous breakdown. He wondered if a response was required, assumed from Sykes's continued silence that one was not. He hefted the file and continued reading.

  "He was employed at the Northwest Petroleum Refinery in Torrance and was manager of the methane facility there. " Francisco flipped the page and read on. "He was also a principal partner in a real estate venture to develop low-cost housing for Newcomers."

  Sykes made a face. "Terrific. A real pillar of the community. Which tells us squat. " He rounded the next comer, ignoring the red light and chewing on his lower lip as he thought hard and fast. "Was Hubley missing anything when they found him? Had he been ripped off?"

  Francisco checked a form in the back of the file. "There was no wallet.

  Hubley wasn't wealthy, but he had a good job and other investments. It is reasonable to assume he would have been carrying a modest amount of cash as well as appropriate credit cards. However, when found he was still wearing a watch and two rings."

  "What about them?"

  "The watch was a Seiko. Nothing fancy, worth perhaps twenty bucks on the street. The rings were both gold, however, one set with'some small but good-quality diamonds. "

  Sykes was smiling to himself now. "Sound familiar? Anybody who'd kill a guy for his wallet wouldn't leave stuff like that behind even if he had to slice the fingers to get at the rings. The guys at the minimart last night made a half-assed grab at the money in the till, but I don't think that's what they were there for. I think we got us a couple'a executions on our hands, George. How's that strike you?"

  Francisco closed the folder quietly as he tried and failed to find a more comfortable position on the narrow bench seat. "The murder which occurred at the minimart is not our case. The Captain stated quite specifically that. . . "

  An obviously pissed Sykes interrupted. "Look, you want to fit in here, right? You want to learn how to get along, be 47

  like all the other detectives? How you can blend in with the group and go with the flow-at least as much as you'll ever be able to?"

  "Yes. I I

  Sykes relaxed a little then as he turned back to his driving. "Well, there's a thing about partners, about being somebody's partner. You won't find it in the manuals they gave you to read at the Academy, and you won't find it posted on the duty board at the station. You do for each other. And that means that other people's rules don't mean shit. It's the rules you set up between the two of you, that's all that counts. It's got to be that way because your partner is the guy who's guarding your ass on stakeout or takedown, not somebody talking rules back by the duty board. If the two of you don't have a private understanding, then you got nothing. You haven't got a partner, you've got deadweight.

  - You've got to be with somebody you can count on no matter what the

  'rules' say, count on every second, because one second might mean your life. You've got to be able to read each other without talking. You've got to know what your buddy's thinking so you can react without thinking.

  Understand?"

  Francisco nodded slowly.

  "Okay. See, there's nothing real complicated about it, so don't make this out to be bigger than it is. My friend and partner was murdered last night and I'm after the shitbag that did it. As my partner I'm asking you to respect me and help me find him."

  The Newcomer pondered the
human's words thoughtfully. Sykes tried not to watch his shifting alien expressions- Not that you could tell much of the time what one of them was really thinking anyway. Francisco would be quite within his rights to take everything Sykes had just told him straight to Warner. That would result in new partnerships for both him and Francisco, as well as Sykes's being assigned to track down some guy for nonpayment of back child support off somewhere safe like the North Valley. He'd taken a calculated risk laying it on the line with the Newcomer. Whether it paid off or not was up to Francisco.

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  The Newcomer finally responded, though not as Sykes had hoped.

  "And as my partner, I must ask you to respect me and my desire not to break with procedure. I realize the death of your friend has put you under a great deal of stress. Please keep in mind that as the first Newcomer to achieve the rank of detective in a human police department, much less in one as visible and important as that of the city of Los Angeles, I will be subject to constant scrutiny both by the civil authorities and by my own people. This unending attention will be difficult for me to deal with, as I am by nature more of a private than a public person. I am having troubles enough dealing with external forces without having to worry about violating procedure. The results if I should do something wrong will be much worse for me than for you."

  Sykes gave him an exasperated stare, abruptly slammed on the brakes, and threw the transmission into park. Francisco banged into the dash, recovered, and quickly took note of the fact that they had halted square in the middle of traffic. Horns began blaring behind them. Drivers leaned from their windows to bombard the slugmobile with inventive invective. Sykes ignored it all.

  "What is wrong?" Francisco muttered.

  Sykes was very calm as he turned to face the much bigger Newcomer.

  "Nothing's wrong. I just want to get something straight. I just want to make sure that we're operating on the same wavelength here. You agree that there's a good chance these two shootings are somehow related, right?"