V_The 2nd Generation

by Kenneth Johnson

  Diana walked slowly, watching the shuttle's hatch unseal and the ramp extend downward like a long silver tongue. Shawn, walking just behind, knew that she was carefully timing her arrival. She did not want to arrive at the base of the ramp a moment too soon and have to be seen waiting.

  As the ramp touched the deck Diana slowed slightly, knowing that the individual inside the shuttle would be calculating his appearance with the same care as she. Finally the Emissary appeared in the hatch. From the vantage point of the Players, Emma, craning her head for a better look, could see that he appeared to be in his late thirties. He was very lean and handsome with dark hair and coloring that was somewhat like Diana's.

  Mark Ohanian, who hadn't risen to mayor without being able to read people exceedingly well, was also watching carefully and was sure he caught a calculating glint in the Emissary's eyes.

  For her part, Diana had immediately noticed something about the newcomer that piqued her ire, but she managed to show no reaction. Then she raised her hand casually in the palm-up greeting, which signalled all the other Visitors and Teammates attending to follow suit. A thousand arms shot up and out in greeting. The Emissary acknowledged the assemblage with a modest salute of his own, then nodded politely to Diana.

  He slowly descended the ramp, and Diana nodded with a queenly attitude, saying merely, ". . . Jeremy."

  He was equally self-assured and smiled. ". . . Diana."

  What she had noted, and been slightly annoyed by seeing, was his rank insignia. "Full Commandant? I hadn't heard."

  Jeremy stood at the base of the ramp facing her with a self-effacing shrug. "Our Great Leader's whim."

  "Congratulations," Diana said dryly. "And the face: nice choice."

  Jeremy chuckled and looked past her to where Shawn was waiting patiently. Shawn saluted respectfully and added his personal emphasis to Diana's comment, "Indeed it is, sir!"

  "Thank you, Shawn." Jeremy seemed to be measuring something about Shawn, his allegiance perhaps? "It's good to see you again."

  "And you, Commandant"—Shawn clicked his heels smartly—"welcome to the Flagship, sir."

  Among the Visitor contingent Willy and Martin were watching carefully. Willy frowned as he whispered to his compatriot, "Wait, they're both the same rank now?"

  "Mmmm"—Martin nodded—"but I've heard that Jeremy has more than just the Leader's ear."

  Willy's eyebrows went up in surprise. "You mean . . . ?" He let the sexual innuendo hang unspoken.

  Martin understood and nodded slightly. "Mmmm-hmmm."

  Willy was amazed. "But wasn't that Diana's act?"

  "It was."

  Willy mulled the new situation. "Well, this could get very interesting."

  He and Martin could feel the chill between the two Commandants who continued to take watchful measure of each other as Diana guided Jeremy slowly past the welcoming group. She introduced him to several individually, including the mayor who was cordial, J. D. Oliver who was practically drooling, and to Emma, of whom Diana spoke fondly as she studied the lovely young woman up close. "She is one of Earth's most popular musical artists."

  Jeremy was polite to Emma and each of the others, but Mark's seasoned political eye recognized a dignitary just going through the motions. Jeremy did not even seem particularly interested when Diana introduced him to grandfatherly Secretary-General Mendez, who also seemed to be merely going through the motions of politeness himself.

  Overall, however, the impression transmitted to those billions watching around the world was one of cordiality and friendship. In the Resistance communications truck, Margarita and Ysabel were also studying the ceremony as it unfolded on TV. Margarita's hazel eyes narrowed. "I wonder why the Secretary-General is always so closely guarded? And always looks so . . . ?"

  "Troubled? Yeah." Ysabel had often noticed it, too.

  In the hangar bay Jeremy and Diana moved away from the Players and were now proceeding past the ranks of Visitor fighter pilots. One of the flight leaders stood in the forefront. She was Gina, the striking Asian-looking Visitor who had gunned down Nathan's fighter. Her sharp almond eyes were focused like lasers on Jeremy. When his gaze crossed hers, they locked on to one another for a fleeting, but potent moment.

  Willy whispered again to Martin, "Did you catch that look?"

  Martin remained motionless. "Mmmm-hmmm."

  IN DANNY'S CLASSROOM AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL, THE TEACHER HAD lowered the volume on the overhead plasma screen as the ceremony aboard the Flagship drew to a conclusion. The eighth-graders were working quietly. Thomas Murakami glanced over toward the unoccupied desk where his friend Danny normally sat. A low wave of guilt folded uncomfortably over Thomas's heart. He hadn't wanted to tell about Danny's vid, but Vice Principal Gabriel had made it clear that Thomas would share Danny's punishment if he didn't denounce his friend. A metallic squeak attracted Thomas's notice. Glancing out the open classroom door he saw the half-breed janitor Ted passing by in the hall.

  Ted had his mop in a large metal bucket that he was pushing up the hall. One of its small wheels needed oil. Since the incident with Danny, Ted had been ordered to mop all the floors twice a day. Ted's own attention was focused up the hall where he saw the sunny-faced vice principal receiving a small gift from a local Patroller who smiled. "In appreciation of your help."

  Gabriel was surprised and pleased, but reluctant. "Really, I told your captain that it was unnecessary. I was just doing my part."

  "And for that you are rewarded." The Patroller smiled.

  Gabriel opened the small box. As Ted passed by he saw that it contained a signet ring inset with a diamond. Gabriel inhaled with amazement. "Oh, no, this is really too extravagant."

  "Nonsense," the uniformed Patroller sloughed it off. "And the captain said he'd been looking into that question you had about the new position opening up over at Benjamin Franklin. I think you'll find yourself occupying the principal's office very soon."

  Gabriel's round face glowed with delight; Ted turned away, his eyebrows bunching sourly.

  NATHAN WAS TRYING TO APPEAR INCONSPICUOUS AS HE GLANCED over the magazines at a small newsstand near the corner of Fremont and Mission. He kept looking casually up and down the street waiting for the female contact that Street-C had told him to expect. In the meantime he had been thumbing through the magazines and realizing how bland they were. Many of the articles were identical from one magazine to another. Of course he had always known that the Visitors exercised careful censorship over all of the media. As a former Teammate he had helped enforce that censorship by seizing and destroying material the Visitors deemed inappropriate or aberrant and arresting those responsible for it. But he had always believed that his work was in the best interests of a public that was vulnerable to Resistance lies and Sci propaganda. Only in the last twenty-four hours had his perspective altered drastically.

  Looking down Fremont, Nathan was startled to see a large vid sign suddenly display his face with the flashing words: Seen this traitor? Report it! He shrank back into a doorway and pulled the brim of his Teammate baseball cap lower. Then he spotted a young Hispanic woman crossing the street. She seemed to be angling toward him. His anticipation grew, but then she flagged down a cab. Tight-lipped, he blew out a small, antsy puff through his nose. Where was his contact?

  Kayta was patiently watching Nathan from an apartment building rooftop. Then her keen senses detected a new presence behind her. She glanced across the roof and saw Bryke approaching with Ayden, the amber-eyed man with whom she had communicated via the holographic transmission in the mountain cabin. Ayden walked with an unusual, heel-to-toe, measured gait that added a curious majesty and strangeness to his imposing, steely affect. Ayden's skin had a more pronounced sheen than Kayta's. He was no longer naked, but clothed in the black leather pants, gray turtleneck, and bomber jacket that had been taken from the dead outdoorsman Burton.

  "Welcome, Ayden." Kayta nodded with great respect as she interlaced her fingers before her in greeting. She notice
d the irritation he felt from his clothing and that his breathing was slightly labored.

  "Is the air always this bad?" he asked.

  "I'm afraid so, sir. And I know the garments are uncomfortable. But on the brighter side . . ." She nodded toward Nathan below.

  Ayden carefully assessed the sandy-haired man down on the sidewalk. "Bryke told me he made initial contact with them?"

  "Yes, last night."

  "Why haven't they taken him in yet?"

  "Perhaps they're as cautious as we are."

  On the sidewalk below, Nathan was reaching for another magazine when he suddenly felt a pulse pistol being pressed into his hand. He turned to see his contact and was surprised to be facing a stoop-shouldered eighty-year-old woman. Her thin, stringy gray hair hung out of the cheap knit cap pulled over her ears. Her deeply wrinkled face also had a gray pallor to it and her eyes looked as though they had cataracts. Nathan blinked incredulously. "You're Street-C's 'Old Lady'?"

  The crone nodded as she pulled her thin shawl closer around her and pointed across the street at a black Visitor patrol captain who wore a Parnassas Precinct patch on his uniform. The captain was getting information from a young Native American woman who had a small bead stand on the sidewalk. The old woman beside Nathan nudged him and spoke in a rasping voice, "Do him. In the back. Now."

  Nathan saw that the captain had left the Indian and was walking away up the Fremont Street sidewalk. Nathan quickly crossed the street and fell into step behind the Visitor. His quarry's path forced Nathan to walk directly beneath the six-foot-wide vid screen displaying his face and branding him a traitor. He kept his chin down and his shoulders up, trying to hide as much as possible. Had Nathan looked back he would've seen that the old lady was hobbling along, following as closely as her aged legs would allow.

  Nathan gained on the captain and when he got within six feet he raised the pistol. But he found he couldn't pull the trigger. He couldn't shoot anyone in the back, even a damned Visitor. He grabbed the startled captain and spun him around, confronting him, "Say good-bye."

  Nathan pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. He tried again, then realized that the gun was empty. During Nathan's confusion the captain was unholstering his own pulse weapon. Nathan felt a strong hand jerk him aside and watched with amazement as the old lady performed a flying spin-kick that caught the captain right in the throat and dropped him. Then the old woman grabbed Nathan, hissing angrily, "Come on, you idiot!"

  Three young Teammates were among those on the street who had witnessed the encounter and were running to the captain's assistance. The old lady executed some well-practiced martial arts moves, catching one Teammate assailant in the stomach with her pile-driver foot while slinging a second through the plate-glass window of a bakery. Nathan managed to take down the third Teammate.

  On the rooftop across the street Kayta and Ayden exchanged a glance. They were as surprised and impressed by the old woman as Nathan was. Then Kayta pointed down toward an old Chevy sedan that was careering up the street toward Nathan and the old lady. With its back door flapping open, it slowed beside them just long enough for the crone to shove Nathan in and climb in behind him. Then the car peeled away.

  While Kayta's and Ayden's focus was on the street below a Visitor Patroller had appeared from a doorway on the rooftop behind them, making his rounds. He saw Kayta and Ayden watching the action below and crossed toward them, gesturing at them with his rifle. "Hey," he said officiously, "you're not allowed up here. Let's see some ID right now."

  Ayden barely glanced at him. Then, so lightning-fast that the Patroller never saw it coming, Ayden slashed out with a gleaming white fourteen-inch sword. The Patroller's severed head rolled away, with a startled expression frozen on the face.

  Kayta, her focus still on the street below, emitted a crackling chirp. On the street level, Bryke came out of an alley. She saw Street-C driving the Chevy containing the old woman and Nathan. Bryke raised an odd-looking small pistol and shot a tiny jellied blob of goo onto the passing car.

  Inside the getaway car the old lady was breathing hard as she pulled off her gray wig and peeled the latex from her face. Nathan was surprised to see a sultry auburn-haired beauty emerging from beneath the disguise. And he was thoroughly pissed off. "What the hell is going on! Why'd you give me an empty gun?"

  "Just to see if you'd pull the trigger," Margarita said angrily. "If you'd done it from behind there'd have been no trouble. You're not much on following orders are you?"

  The scruffy kid riding shotgun in the front seat turned to look back at Nathan. It was bright-eyed little Ruby. She lifted a stun gun and wiggled her eyebrows.

  Nathan raised his hand. "Hey, now wait just a minute—"

  But by then Ruby had already shot him and Nathan's world swirled down into darkness.

  8

  LEVEL 125 OF THE FLAGSHIP WAS THE SECTION AT THE THINNEST outer edge of the dish-shaped, sixteen-mile-wide interstellar spacecraft. It was an area reserved for the highest strata of the Visitor command and their invited guests. Pundits, when there had been pundits before they had all disappeared, used to refer to Level 125 as a combination Visitor White House, Pentagon, Kremlin, and Mount Olympus. The corridors within it were similar to those elsewhere in the general-access areas of the vast ship. They were seven and a half feet in height, ten feet in width, a medium gray color, and octagonally shaped. The lighting was indirect and subdued except where it pooled at various intersections. Small control panels presented themselves near the numerous hatch doors that slid open into the bulkheads with a touch to reveal chambers whose sizes differed depending upon their intended use. Most Flagship corridors bore pipes or electrical conduit in their upper corners, but the bulkheads and ceilings on Level 125 were smooth, uncluttered, and elegant.

  The hatch to a transport tube at the end of the corridor opened. Diana stepped out of the small car leading Jeremy and several aides including Shawn and Press Secretary Paul. Martin, who was one of Diana's secondary aides, brought up the rear while listening carefully.

  Jeremy was saying to Diana, "I was sorry to hear of the original Commandant's 'accident' "—he glanced sideways at her—"but you've obviously taken firm control."

  Diana felt his intimation and said with a calm and firm voice, "Indeed I have."

  Jeremy was picking tiny pieces of lint from his uniform as he walked. "Unfortunately our Leader feels your efforts here have been insufficient."

  "Indeed?" Diana smiled smugly as she paused beside the Patrollers who stood at attention outside her personal conference room. "Well, Jeremy," she continued with some heat, "our Leader certainly hasn't conveyed those sentiments to me."

  Jeremy met her superior gaze with an equally self-satisfied look. "Consider them conveyed." Then he walked past her and into her conference chamber as though he now owned it.

  Diana contained her ire for the moment and followed him in, trailed by her three aides. The chamber was slightly darker gray than the corridor outside. A floor-to-ceiling window made of thick, darkly tinted Visitor glass formed the long outside wall. It was facing south so the southern portion of the San Francisco peninsula stretched into the hazy distance beneath them, with the Pacific Desert off to the right. Visitor fighters or shuttle craft occasionally glided by outside the window. At the far end of the room was what in an earthbound conference room would be called a small wet bar. Jeremy had noticed a nice selection of small live animals nosing around in tiny cubicles next to the bar and walked toward it. A short male janitor stood up from behind the bar where he'd been using a small vacuum cleaning tool. When Jeremy saw the janitor's face his eyes grew cold with displeasure.

  The janitor, an eighteen-year-old half-breed named Jon, was short for his age and slight of build. His blue human eyes stood out in stark contrast to the flat, reptilian nose and the leathery scales that covered two-thirds of his face. Jeremy saw that his mouth seemed particularly misshapen, as though it had never quite decided whether to be human or reptilian. The sca
ly forehead curved up into unruly, brownish human hair that formed a widow's peak in the front. The boy's hands were small, delicate, and human-looking with only patches of scales here and there. His overall demeanor was gentle and very polite.

  Reading Jeremy's distasteful expression, the young janitor bowed subserviently and walked toward the exit. He passed behind Shawn who, Martin noticed, seemed to make a particular point of averting his eyes as Jon went past.

  Diana registered Jeremy's obvious aversion for the half-breed and goaded, "You don't find them attractive?"

  "How can you have such lowlifes around you?"

  "They're useful for the unpleasant work."

  "So that prompted you to relax our strict rules against fraternization with an occupied species?"

  "I know that your personal experience at overseeing an occupying force is very limited, Jeremy," she explained with a patient, patronizing tone. "A good field commander must always grasp the realities of a situation and adjust her, or his, standards as best suits the situation. No matter how strict the rules, on an operation of this duration it was inevitable that some of our troops would transgress." She glanced subtly toward Shawn who looked away with slight embarrassment. Then she refocused on Jeremy. "We certainly don't encourage it, but no harm has been done by the presence of the half-breeds. And overall the opportunity for sexual release has aided troop morale."

  Jeremy was doing his best to avoid her lecture and had been eyeing the food that was displayed in covered containers behind the bar. There were chunks and shreds of flesh in some of them, twining entrails in others, small organs and glandular meats in still others. All were raw and coated with a thin film of red blood.

  "This is fresh, I trust," he sniffed aristocratically.

  "Killed within the hour, of course," she confirmed.