Pythias stood watching the carnage in horror, jaw agape. He waited for the last car to be destroyed. It was sufficiently far behind the others so that the driver was able to stop.
The men got out and started running back down the road—all but one of them.
One by one, the four fleeing men were vaporized by the laser fire. Only one remained alive now, looking up at the sky fighter with his long, straight blond hair streaming from under his hunter’s cap.
Waiting for him to be killed, Pythias was amazed to see the skyfighter move away from the cliff, out over the ocean, and vanish without firing a single shot at the lone man.
Even from here, Pythias knew who he was.
The man was John Ellis.
Chapter 8
Jane Foley was worried. Her daughter had been missing since this afternoon. There was no answer at the lab, where Sarah worked for Dr. Brunk as his personal assistant. Worse, that brooding hulk John Ellis was telling everyone to stay indoors. And so, here she was, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee while she should have been out looking for her daughter.
Sarah could take care of herself, of course. But if the Visitors were back, as Jane suspected . . . why didn’t they go away and leave Earth in peace? If they’d asked for our help, I'm sure we would have given it to them, Jane thought.
She sipped her coffee and made a face. It was cold; she’d been sitting here at the table brooding so long the brew had turned to a bitter, icy liquid. Jane looked out the window at the streetlamps’ glow in the dark. It looked very quiet out there. Surely it wouldn’t hurt if she took a little drive along the coast to see if she could find out anything. She hadn’t survived nearly sixty years by being a shrinking violet.
It only took a moment for her to get on a jacket and go out to the car. The streets were deserted, but it was eleven o’clock at night, after all. Two or three hours earlier, she had heard four or five cars full of shouting men drive past the house. They had cleared the way for her, no doubt, Jane thought sarcastically. As much noise as they were making, the Visitors would have heard them coming from miles away.
Jane started up the Honda Civic and backed out of the yard, the front-porch light guiding her way under the elms and maples. She headed off toward the north side of town, driving slowly and looking out for pedestrians. She lit a cigarette as soon as she got outside of town, making her way steadily toward Brank Laboratories.
About ten minutes had passed when she saw a lone straggler. She immediately recognized the long gray beard and balding head. It was Pythias Day.
Jane pulled up on the shoulder across the road from where Pythias was walking, and rolled down the window.
“Need a lift, Mr. Day?” she called.
Pythias peered into her window. “Jane . . . Jane Foley, is that you?”
“Yes, ’tis. What are you doing out here?”
Pythias went around to the passenger’s side and got into the Civic. Slamming the door shut, he said, “Jane, I don’t know where to begin.”
“Well, do you know anything about Sarah?”
He nodded. “She got away, with Dr. Brank and the others up at the lab.”
“Then the Visitors are up there?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Do you know where Sarah and Dr. Brunk are?” Pythias shook his head. “Can’t say that I do, Jane. But I was there when the Visitors arrived, and everybody was gone from the laboratory buildings already.”
“Thank God.” This meant that Sarah was only hiding someplace. “Ever since Thaddeus died, that girl’s all I’ve got.”
“Ayuh.” Pythias slumped down into the bucket seat, exhuasted.
“Pythias Day, you look a mess!” Jane exclaimed. “Let me take you home.” She turned the car around.
“If you don’t mind, Jane,” said Pythias, “could I stay at your place a little while?”
“Why?” Jane glanced at him out of the comer of her eyes as she drove.
“It might prove dangerous for me to go home tonight.”
Jane reacted with a double take, and the car swerved a little.
“There’s somebody in this town who’s a traitor,” Pythias said, “and he’s probably found out from his lizard masters that I know too much.”
The front door of the tavern flew open, slamming against the wall. John Ellis stalked in and flung himself onto a stool. There were only a few lobstermen drinking at the bar and sitting in booths.
“Bourbon,” Ellis gasped.
Sherman poured him a shot.
“Make it a double,” John Ellis ordered.
“Okay.” Sherman added another shot and handed him the glass. Ellis downed it in a single gulp. “They’re all dead,” he wheezed.
“Who?” Sherman asked, not wanting to believe what he knew he was about to hear.
“Everybody. Wilbur, Charlie, George, Hank, Dan-all of ’em, killed by Visitors.”
“No.” Sherman’s eyes widened in terror.
“Yeah, blew our cars right off the road with laser fire. I don’t think anybody got away except me.”
The men who had been sitting in booths rose and gathered around Ellis. “Where’d it happen?” one of them asked.
“Up Blacklick Road, where it rises up the cliffside. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Somebody’s gonna have to tell their wives,” another man said.
“Maybe you could do it, Herb,” Sherman said. “Go tell the preacher at least, and he can go around and see the women.”
“Yeah.” Herb backed away and went out the door to perform the disagreeable but necessary task.
John Ellis had another double bourbon and then asked, “Did Pythias Day show up yet?”
“Not yet.”
Ellis nodded. “I wonder where he is,” he said, his big red hand clutching his glass. “I wonder where he is.”
Chapter 9
In the darkness of the storage closet, Willie contemplated the courage and integrity Pythias Day had shown, and was glad that he had freed the old human, in spite of the fact that he had taken Pythias’ place.
His captivity had given Willie much time for meditation, and he could find no fault in the things he had done since he had come to Earth. He was right to side with the humans, even though it would probably now cost him his life. His people were wrong; it was their own inner turmoil that made them bring suffering on the primitive people of this world, not really the need for water or food. These were things that were available elsewhere in the galaxy. It seemed that his people had singled out the human race for punishment.
Willie’s speculation was interrupted by the clicking of a key in the storage closet’s lock, and light streamed into his makeshift cell, blinding him.
Without a word, a guard pulled him to his feet and led him into the laboratory proper. The long tables had been removed, and Ronald’s troops were lined up along the walls of the narrow building’s interior.
Willie was led between them, their crimson uniforms blazing in the morning light streaming through the windows. They all wore sunglasses, of course, so the light didn’t bother them very much. Ronald was at their head, sitting in a director’s chair on a low platform at the end of the gauntlet. Willie was pushed to his knees in front of Ronald.
“I have decided upon a punishment,” the Visitor captain said, “which will be quite fitting, considering your love for this planet.” Ronald’s scales seemed to twitch with pleasure at the thought of what he had in store for Willie.
“You will be set free, Willie.”
Willie lifted his head in surprise. What was Ronald talking about? Did he mean to convert Willie and send him among the resistance fighters as a spy? Surely he knew that wouldn’t work. With his knowledge of the preta-na-ma, Willie could withstand the conversion process. No, he meant something else, but what?
“I have not yet determined the time and place for your liberation,” Ronald said. “The setting will be most important. I must select it with the utmost care, for t
here you will die.”
Willie raised his head again, and the guard pushed his face down onto the concrete floor.
“Take him away,” Ronald commanded.
Willie was dragged back to the closet and locked up again in the dark. He understood that Ronald meant to torment him, and so he must return to his meditations, chanting from the ritual of Zon.
He began to chant, the knowledge that such singing was forbidden giving him strength.
When he got out of the bath, Pythias smelled coffee brewing in Jane’s kitchen. He toweled himself dry, put on his rather unsavory clothes, and went downstairs to breakfast.
“Bacon and eggs,” Jane said as he entered the kitchen.
“Smells grand.” Pythias sat at the table while Jane served him. He thought about getting up to pour his own coffee, but Jane seemed to enjoy being his hostess.
When all the food was on the table, she sat down. “So, Mr. Day,” she said, buttering a piece of toast, “are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”
“I hate to get you involved in this thing,” he said. “I’m already involved, so tell me.”
Pythias set down his coffee cup. “The Visitors have found a collaborator in Cutter’s Cove.”
“You mentioned that last night. Who is it?”
“You might find this hard to believe, but it’s John Ellis.”
“John Ellis! That boy’s lived here all his life! How could he do something like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they brainwashed him, or maybe they promised him money or power. I don’t know how they got him. All I know is that they got him.” Pythias stared glumly at a framed print on the wall. “His father and mother must be turning over in their graves.” “But how can you be so sure?” Jane asked. “There’s no doubt about it. He led those men into a trap, making sure he was in the last car, which the Visitors didn’t shoot at. The men got out and they were picked off, all but John. He stood right there and they never fired a shot anywhere near him.”
“Does he know you saw him?”
“No.”
“Then why are you worried about what he’ll do?” “Well, if he’s in communication with the Visitors— and he must be—they’ve told him I’ve seen what’s going on up at the lab. I think they’d like to keep what they’re doing here quiet, to make it easier to find Dr. Brunk.” “That’s who they’re looking for, then—Dr. Brunk.” The fact that her daughter was with Brunk made Jane uneasy. “Do you think they’ll find him, Mr. Day?” “I honestly don’t know, Jane,” Pythias said, spreading out his hands. “John Ellis has destroyed the local
resistance in one fell swoop. If we can put together a new fighting force, we might be able to find him before the Visitors do. And, uh, Jane?”
“Yes, Mr. Day?”
“Please call me Pythias.”
Chapter 10
“The way I see it,” John Ellis said drunkenly, “they must have captured old Pythias and tortured the facts out of him. Once they knew how many of us there was, it was easy for ’em to figure out we’d be coming after the old buzzard. They just waited in that skyfighter until we came up the cliff road, and . . .”
“You think Pythias Day sold us out?” Herb Walsh asked, incredulous.
Ellis turned slowly toward him. “There wasn’t anybody else had the chance, Herb. Pythias walked into a trap yesterday, the way I see it. Once they had him in their power, he had to break sooner or later.”
“Pythias Day?” Herb persisted. “I can hardly believe he’d do something like that.”
“You believe what you want,” Ellis said, finishing his drink. “But all you have to do is put two and two together, and it adds up to our newly appointed sheriff setting us up last night.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Herb said, but there was less conviction in his voice now.
“Why would Pythias do such a thing?” Mike Sherman asked. “I mean, those men were his friends and neighbors.”
“I told you before—torture, or maybe he’s just trying to get himself in good with the lizards in case they win. That way he’ll be king of the hill around here once the shooting stops.”
“But what if we beat the Visitors back, like we did
before?” Sherman asked. “That would mess up his plan, wouldn’t it?”
“Not really. He’d come down off the mountain, claim he’d been a POW, and everybody’d call him a hero. I imagine old Pythias could live with that.”
The few men in Mike’s Tavern murmured among themselves about the plausibility of John Ellis’ scenario concerning Pythias Day’s motivation for turning on his own people. The more Ellis talked about it, the more likely it seemed. And yet, none of them really wanted to believe Pythias would do such a thing.
“Damn it,” Mike Sherman finally said, “we’re standing here in safety, condemning Pythias Day as a traitor, and for all we know those aliens have killed him.”
For once, John Ellis said nothing. How could he admit that he knew Pythias Day was alive? His best bet was to discredit the old coot before he showed up again. But where was he? He should have showed up by now, unless the Visitors were wrong. He might have been fatally wounded and died in the woods somewhere out of town. Or maybe he had slipped into town late last night or early this morning. He’d better check it out.
“I’ll see you later,” Ellis said, tossing some bills down on the bar.
The men grunted their farewells as he staggered out onto the wooden sidewalk in front of Mike’s. He took a walk up Union and then crossed over onto State Street, where Day’s house was.
Ten minutes later, he was standing in front of the whitewashed old two-story dwelling Day had shared with his late wife. As far as Ellis knew, the old codger had grown up in the same house. Family had been here for generations, so there wasn’t much chance he’d have someplace else to go. And the place sure looked deserted. Still, there was only one way to find out if he was back.
Ellis walked boldly up to the front door and knocked. He waited a few moments and knocked again. Nobody answered. He tried one more time. When there was still no answer, he gave up, satisfied that there was nobody home.
Starting back toward Union Street, he began to believe for the first time that Pythias Day might be dead. He hadn’t communicated with Ronald since last night, after all, and a lot could have happened since then. And then there was his earlier notion that Pythias Day might have died last night in the woods alone. It would serve the old meddler right, after what happened yesterday. That turncoat alien had been right in his hands, and Day had stopped him from stringing him up. Ronald wasn’t very pleased about that, but at least they had that lizard resistance fighter where he couldn’t do any harm now.
A car horn beeped, scaring him. He swung the barrel of his gun around, right at the startled face of Mrs. Foley, the widow, as she pulled into her driveway.
She shut off the engine and leaped out of the car. “Who do you think you’re pointing that thing at, John Ellis?” she demanded.
“Sorry, Mrs. Foley,” he apologized. “The way things have been going around here, I didn’t know what it was, for a second there.”
“That’s because you’re soused as usual, young man. And just what are you doing walking around here with a gun anyway?”
“Just trying to make sure everything’s all right.” He grinned.
Mrs. Foley looked skeptical. “Protecting little old me, are you, John?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, don’t bother. You’re more likely to shoot me than one of the Visitors, walking around here with a loaded gun and three sheets to the wind.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about pointing it at you. I was looking for Pythias Day.”
Her face darkened. Was that fear he saw there? “Why?”
“Well, he’s been missing since yesterday,” he said lamely.
“Don’t you think he’d let it be known if he was back?” Mrs. Foley said.
“Yeah, I guess. ...”
“Wh
o put you up to this? Surely not the mayor. Mr. Day’s the sheriff now that Mr. Evans is dead, you know. It’s his job to worry about the safety of Cutter’s Cove’s citizens, not yours.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was getting tired of this old bat’s lecturing. “Got to be going now, Mrs. Foley.”
“Good.” She pulled a bag of groceries out of the Civic and slammed the door. There were two more bags in the car. Ellis was all the way to Union Street before he remembered that Sarah, the old woman’s daughter, had disappeared with Dr. Brunk. That sure was a lot of groceries for one old woman.
Chapter 11
Jane locked the door and put the chain up before she put away the groceries. Pythias came softly down the stairs. “He was looking for me,” he said.
“With a gun,” Jane added. “I don’t have a gun, or I’d give you one so you can protect yourself.”
“I have a weapon,” Pythias said, stepping out of the shadows. He held the laser pistol that Willie had tossed to him as he made his escape from the occupied laboratory.
“Is that one of . . . their weapons?” Jane asked. “Yeah, and a very accurate weapon it is too.” “You’re not planning to use it on John Ellis, are you?” “Not unless I have to,” Pythias replied.
He went to the closet and got out his coat.
“Where are you going?” Jane asked.
“To my office,” said Pythias, zipping up. He hid the laser under his jacket. “This foolishness has gone on just about long enough.”
Jane didn’t want him to go, but she sensed that it would do no good to plead with him.
“Be careful,” she said.
He looked at her with affection. “Jane, I want to thank you for all you’ve done. I’m going to do my best to get your little girl back for you. Until then, keep a close watch out.”
“I will.” She closed the door behind him.
Pythias had a good twenty-minute walk to the courthouse, where the sheriff’s office was located. Gone this
morning were most of the aches and pains, the results of the alien cattle prod they’d used to torture him, as well as the minor bums, bruises, and cuts he’d sustained in his escape. Walking helped get the kinks out, and he felt better than he had any right to by the time he got to the office. This he attributed more to Jane Foley than anything else.
V 09 - The New England Resistance Page 3