The Valley-Westside War ct-6

by Harry Turtledove

  When they marched past a little place selling tacos and tamales and hamburgers, the soldiers' neat footwork faltered again. The smell of greasy, spicy roasting meat made spit flood into Dan 's mouth. His stomach rumbled loudly, and his wasn't the only one.

  “Keep moving! Keep moving!” Sergeant Chuck bawled. “It's all probably chopped-up kitty and lizard, anyway.”

  “I don't care,” somebody behind Dan said. “I'm hungry.”

  “Who's the wise guy?” Chuck shouted furiously. “Was that you, Dan?”

  “No, Sergeant.” Dan could tell the truth with no trouble at all. That was a good thing, too. He might not have said anything out loud, but he didn't care what was in the savory-smelling goodies, either. If he meowed after he ate some of them… well, so what?

  Chuck challenged several other soldiers marching near Dan. They all denied everything. Nobody blew the whistle on whoever had spoken up. Chuck fumed and swore, but that was all he could do. Dan, by contrast, noted just where the little cookshop stood. The freeway line didn't lie very far south of it. If he got some free time, he could come back and spend a dime or two.

  The Santa Monica Freeway line was a good one for King Zev 's soldiers to defend. The freeway had been built above the ordinary streets around it. That gave the Valley men the advantage of high ground in a lot of places. Here and there, though, the overpasses that let the freeway leap above the ordinary streets had collapsed. Maybe that happened when the Fire fell. Maybe earthquakes brought the overpasses down later. Or maybe they just fell because nobody had taken care of them for more than a century. Any which way, that cut down the number of possible invasion routes from the south.

  Of course, there were far fewer routes from the north. King Zev 's soldiers had broken through anyhow. Dan wished that hadn't occurred to him. He and his comrades took their place on the freeway itself west of Westwood Boulevard. No trouble could approach unless they saw it first.

  But some trouble was already behind them. Chuck spoke to Captain Kevin about Luke. Dan couldn't hear what Kevin said. But a runner went pelting back into Westwood. A slow smile crossed Dan 's lace. From here on out, Luke wouldn't have a very happy time of it. Too bad, Dan thought.

  A knock on the door in the middle of the night. How many books and movies and video games featured that kind of automatic suspense-maker? Liz had always thought it was such a clichй. But when somebody banged on the door to the house where she was living, her heart went thud, thud, thud. It was dark, so she had no idea what time it was. Ten o'clock? Midnight? Three in the morning? Groggy with sleep, she couldn't have said for sure.

  A few watches and windup clocks with luminous dials survived from Old Time. None was in Liz 's bedroom. She yawned and thought about sticking her head under the pillow. She decided she wouldn't imitate an ostrich-or what people said was true about ostriches. Besides, whoever was knocking out there didn't seem ready to go away.

  She walked out into the hall, feeling her way in the darkness. She almost screamed when she bumped into somebody. Her father said something pungent. “What's going on?” she asked. In the face of unknown trouble, she felt like a little kid again.

  “Don’t know.” Dad answered. “I think I'd better find out, though.”

  He was nothing but a darker shadow in a hallway full of gloom. Liz had never missed electricity so much as she did right then. “Do you have a gun?” she asked, a question she never would have thought of in the home timeline.

  “You better believe it, sweetie,” her father said. “Stay here, okay? That way I have one less thing to worry about it.”

  “What if you need help?” Liz squawked.

  “I'm here, and I've got a gun, too,” her mother answered out of nowhere. “Do you?”

  “No,” Liz said in a small voice.

  “Then stay here, like Dad told you.”

  Muttering. Liz did. She listened to her father's soft footfalls as he approached the door. “Who's there?” he asked. The knocking stopped, which was a relief.

  Standing there m the hall, Liz shivered. Even in summertime, Los Angeles nights could get chilly. Thinking this one was, gave her a reason not to think she was scared.

  She couldn't hear the answer from whoever stood out there. She did hear Dad say, “Oh, for heaven's sake”-and then something stronger than that. A moment later, he unbarred the door and opened it. The man outside came in. Dad barred the door again in a hurry. Then he called, “Light a lamp!”

  There was always a lire in the kitchen. Liz scurried across the courtyard. She lit a twig from the hot embers and used it to light a lamp. The smell of hot olive oil filled her nose.

  The lamp didn't shed much light-even a toy flashlight would have put it to shame. Shadows jumped and swayed crazily as Liz carried the lamp toward the doorway. She didn't need much light to recognize the newcomer, though. “ Luke!” she said. “What are you doing here?” She'd more than half expected it would be Dan.

  “Well, little lady, everybody's gotta be somewhere,” the trader answered.

  Her temper went off like a firecracker. “If you don't tell me what I asked you, you'll be out on the street again so fast it'll make your head swim,” she snapped.

  Luke blinked. She'd always played the girl who didn't speak up for herself. Most girls in this alternate were like that. But she was from the home timeline, and she had more self-respect. And her father nodded. “ Yes, Luke. You'd better speak up. What are you doing here? Who's after you? Somebody is, right?”

  The trader seemed to wilt. Reluctantly, he nodded. “It's those Valley clowns,” he said. “They think I'm spying on them.”

  “Well. You are.” Again, Liz spoke up where a local girl would have kept her mouth shut.

  “That doesn't mean I want to get killed on account of it!” Luke exclaimed. He turned to her father. “You got some place you can, like, hide me, man?”

  Nobody from this alternate knew about the subbasement or was likely to find it. All the same, Liz thought No! as loud as she could. She didn't want Luke going down there. That was where transposition chambers materialized. Nobody from this alternate had any business seeing such things.

  “How far behind you are they?” Dad asked.

  “Not far enough,” Luke answered.

  “They'll know to come here,” Liz said. “People will remember he's visited us. Or maybe the Valley soldiers have bloodhounds.”

  “I took care of that-I put down ground pepper.” The ghost of a smile crossed Luke 's face. As if on cue. two dogs started baying frantically. “Well, that bought me a little time, anyways.”

  When he talked about pepper, he meant the red kind. It grew in the New World. Black pepper was a rare luxury here. Most of it came from Old Time supermarket shelves. The plants from which black peppercorns came grew only across the sea. Ocean traffic aboard windjammers was even more erratic than hauling goods overland.

  Dad looked very unhappy, and pepper had nothing to do with it. “They will come here- Liz is dead right about that,”' he growled. “I ought to turn you lose and see how fast you can run.“

  “Wouldn't try that.” Luke 's right hand dropped toward a pistol.

  “Wouldn't try that,”' Mom said from out of the darkness. Luke froze-her voice carried conviction. Very slowly and carefully, he moved his hand away. She didn't say anything else, not even, That's better. No point to letting him know exactly where she was.

  “Well, come on,” Dad said, and led Luke into the courtyard. No! Liz wanted to yell again. Biting her lip. she made herself keep quiet.

  Dad didn't send Luke down to the subbasement. Instead, he got a ladder and nudged it up against the ceiling of a storeroom. “There's a hidey-hole up there,” he said. “Push aside a couple of boards, get in, and put 'em back. And keep quiet from then on out, if you know* what's good for you.”'

  Luke touched the brim of his hat. “Much obliged to you. sir.”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “You are. Now climb.”

  The trader from Speedro did,
and disappeared into the hidey-hole. “I didn't even know that was there,” Liz said in a low voice.

  “Life is full of surprises sometimes,” Dad answered, which might have meant anything or nothing.

  Liz didn't get much of a chance to figure out what it meant, because more knocks came from the front door. “The Valley men!” she squeaked.

  Dad took down the ladder. “Mm, I don't suppose it's the Tooth Fairy or the Great Pumpkin,” he agreed. “We'd better answer it, don't you think?” He sounded almost indecently calm.

  “Open up, in the name of King Zev!” the men outside shouted. Liz was pretty sure the Great Pumpkin didn't go around yelling things like that.

  Dad did open the door. Liz went with him. Mom stayed out of sight-and kept the pistol where she could use it in a hurry. “Hello,” Dad told the Valley men. who did have a couple of bloodhounds with them. “You probably want to know about Luke the trader, don't you?”

  “Better believe we do,” growled the sergeant who held the dogs' leashes, “You got him here? There's a twenty-dollar reward on his head.”

  Twenty dollars, in this alternate, was a lot of money. Dad sounded impressed when he said, “Good grief! What did he do?”

  “Spied for the enemy, that's what,” the sergeant answered, and he wasn't lying- Luke had done just [hat. “I'm gonna ask you one more time, buddy-you got him here?”' He sounded tough and mean.

  Dad looked sorry as he shook his head. He made a better actor than Liz would have given him credit for. “With that kind of reward, I wish I did. But I sent him off with a flea in his ear. I don't want any trouble with anybody.”

  “Can we track him?” another sergeant asked the dog handler. Then he asked Liz 's father, “Which way did he go?” Liz thought she would have asked those questions in the opposite order.

  “That way.” Dad pointed south.

  “I don't know.” The sergeant with the bloodhounds looked almost as sorrowful as they did. ''That person”-which wasn't exactly what he said-”has some kind of smelly stuff to mess up his trail. Rocky and Bullwinkle got all fubared before we came here.”

  Rocky and Bullwinkle? Liz thought. They aren't dogs! But they were here and now. And what was fubared supposed to mean? The English they spoke around here was mostly easy to follow, but every once in a while…

  The bloodhounds did pick up a scent. It was probably the one Luke had left the last time he walked out of the house. The Valley soldiers seemed happy enough to let them follow it. One of the men nodded politely to Liz and her father as the group hurried off down the street.

  Dad's shoulders slumped in relief when he reached for the bar to close up the door again. “I'm getting too old for this,” he muttered.

  “I'm getting too old for this, and I'm a lot younger than you are,” Liz said.

  That got her a weary grin. “ 'Do field work,' they told me,” Dad said. ““You can't really understand anything without field work,' they said. I'll tell you what I understand-I understand how you can be scared out of your gourd all the time when you're doing field work, that's what.”

  “Yeah,” Liz said. “And there are plenty of alternates worse than this one, too.”

  “Tell me about it!” her father exclaimed. “There are probably some of them where they give you your money back if you don't have a coronary the first day you're there.” He snapped his fingers. “And I understand one more thing, too.”

  “What's that?” Liz asked.

  “I'd better get Luke some water and a honey bucket,” he answered. “With luck, a honey bucket with a lid.”

  “A honey bucket?” Liz said, and then, “Oh.” Most of the time, euphemisms made her impatient. That one, though, she found she liked. She added, “You'd better let him know you're not giving him to the Valley soldiers, too.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Dad said. “I think he's liable to shoot first and ask questions later.” He sang out as he hauled the ladder into place again: “It's just me! I've come with your fresh cauliflowers!”

  Cauliflowers? Liz wondered. Dad could be weird sometimes. She didn't believe this was the right moment for it.

  But maybe she was wrong. Luke opened the hidey-hole, and he didn't shoot first without bothering to ask questions later. “They gone?” he asked-quietly now, so his voice wouldn't carry. Questions first: the right way.

  “For now, anyway,” Dad answered. “How long do you want to stay there?” He asked questions, too.

  “I was thinking till tomorrow night, if that's cool,” the trader from Speedro said. “That way, they won't jump up and down so much, you know what I mean? If I went and split tonight, they'd still be all uptight, like.”

  '“Groovy,” Dad said, a small smile on his face. He enjoyed talking like a twentieth-century hippie. Liz was fried if she could see why. It made him sound like a jerk. She sure thought so, anyhow. “I brought you some goodies, then,” Dad went on. He handed up the water and the… honey bucket. Then, from the top of the ladder, he told Liz, “Why don't you get our friend some bread and a chunk of that chicken we had tonight?”

  Because I don't want to. Because I'm not more than fifty-one percent convinced he is our friend. Because I’d rather give him a clout in the teeth than a drumstick. All of that went through Liz 's mind in a fraction of a second. None of it came out. The only thing that did was, “Sure, Dad.”

  As she hurried away, Luke laughed softly. “Don't think your daughter trusts me for beans.”

  “Don't be silly!” Dad played the good host. Well, of course he was a good host. If he weren't a good host, those bloodhounds would have been baying at Luke in here, pepper or no pepper.

  How did he know? Liz wondered as she cut Luke a big chunk of bread and brought not a drumstick but a whole chicken leg back to the ladder. How could he tell? She was positive she'd been not just polite but even eager-sounding. But she hadn't fooled him-not even close. So what did she do wrong? She wanted to ask, but that would mean admitting she didn't trust him. She didn't want to do that-it would be too embarrassing.

  “Thanks, dear,” Dad said when she brought him the food. He handed it up to Luke.

  “Thanks is right!” Luke echoed. “These are better rats than I'd see at most of the inns around town. If your room up here was just a little less cramped, you could make good money renting it out.” He laughed again.

  Thais not rat! It's chicken! was Liz ’s first indignant thought. But she was listening to this alternates English with ears from the home timeline. Rats came from military slang, not hippie talk. It had nothing to do with Mickey Mouse 's bigger cousins: it was short for rations.

  “This is the kind of room where, if you start advertising it, nobody wants to stay in it anymore.” Dad said. He was bound to be right about that. II everybody knew about a hiding place, what good was it?

  ''Well, friend, in that case I'm going to pull my hole in after myself again,” Luke said. Dad took the ladder away. Luke put up the boards once more. As far as Liz could tell, the hidey-hole vanished completely.

  Dad sighed. “Not the kind of game I like to play to settle my digestion.” He set a hand on Liz 's shoulder. “You did real well. Mow… Do you think you're up to going back to sleep?”

  “Beats me.” she answered. “I sure aim to try. though.” To her surprise, she did it. She didn't know what that proved- probably how tired she was to begin with.

  When Dan saw a Valley patrol with bloodhounds working its way toward the Santa Monica Freeway, he wondered what was going on. “You guys looking for Luke the trader?” he called to them.

  That won him more attention than he really wanted. The whole patrol converged on him. He was used to attention from Sergeant Chuck. Now he had the undivided attention of two sergeants at once, and discovered it was at least four times as bad.

  “How come you wanna know, kid?” demanded the one with the dogs.

  “How'd you hear about Luke, anyway?” the other one growled. The bloodhounds didn't say anything, but in the torchlight their long,
sad faces declared they were angry to have to pause in their search for even a minute.

  “If it weren't for me, you guys wouldn't know about him.” Dan spoke to the sergeants. He hoped they'd make the bloodhounds understand. “Have you been to the trader's house on Glendon?”

  “Yeah, we were there,” said the sergeant with the dogs. “You really do know too much, don't you? How'd you know about that house?”

  “Well, it's the girl there.'' Now Dan knew he sounded a little sheepish. “Did you see her?”

  “Oh. The girl.” That was the dog handler. All of a sudden, things seemed to make sense to him. “I might've known.” The other sergeant grunted. Even the bloodhounds seemed sniffy in a different way.

  Dan wondered if his ears were on fire. They sure felt that way. “Don't you guys have girls?” he asked-not that he had Liz or anything. He just wished he did.

  “We've got girls,” the sergeant with the dogs said.

  “But we don't have Westside girls,” the other one added. “Not like that, we don't. For fun, yeah. Not for real.”

  To Dan 's amazement, his ears got hotter yet. He hadn't thought they could. “How can you tell?” he asked. To make him feel like a complete idiot, his voice cracked in the middle of the question.

  Both sergeants laughed themselves silly. Dan thought the dogs laughed, too, but maybe that was his imagination. The handler said, “You sound goofy when you talk about her, that's why.”

  Now Dan was the one who said, “Oh.” Then he changed the subject as fast as he could: “What about Luke?”

  “He was there, but he got away maybe three jumps ahead of us.” The dog handler frowned. “I'm not sure how fresh this trail is. though. The dogs aren't all that stoked about it, and we know he's been down this way before.”

  “So why are you following it?” Dan asked. Yes, talking about Luke was a lot easier than talking about Liz.