by K. W. Jeter
Distantly he could still hear George firing at the rising helicopter. Sikes brought a knee hard up into his attacker’s groin, then his fist into the man’s jaw, the blow jolting back into his own elbow. The man’s eyes rolled white, and he slumped unconscious in Sikes’s grasp.
Pushing himself up on his hands and knees, Sikes saw Ahpossno take out one of the pair of attackers with a slashing forearm to the throat. The other one had enough knowledge of Newcomer physiology to aim a crowbar blow at the nerve center in the pit of Ahpossno’s arm. Though the Newcomer twisted to one side, the impact of the bar’s curved end against his chest was enough to stagger him, knees buckling. As the attacker raised the bar above his head for a killing strike, Sikes plowed into him from behind. The two of them grappled on the asphalt, their hands gripping the crowbar between them.
The shots from George’s gun, and the answering fire from the helicopter, hammered into Sikes’s ears. On his back, he caught a momentary glimpse, past the grimacing face of his opponent, of the copter rising a couple more yards into the air. A small cockpit window shattered, and the copilot’s face blossomed red. The body slammed against the seat, then pitched forward into the splintered Plexiglas.
That was all he saw. His hand slipped in its own sweat upon the crowbar, the edge of the metal scraping across the insides of his fingers. The other man pressed his weight into the bar. Sikes felt it press against his throat, his trapped breath swelling inside his chest.
A sudden gasp of air rushed past the black spots dancing in his vision. There was no weight above him—he rolled onto his side and saw Ahpossno lifting the man from behind. The crowbar dropped onto the asphalt. With a muffled crack of bone, Ahpossno broke the man’s neck, then tossed him aside.
Sikes, panting for breath, struggled to his feet. One glance passed between him and Ahpossno, the unspoken recognition of each having saved the other’s life. Then Ahpossno turned, his outstretched hand pointing toward the helicopter.
Moving out from the angle of the car’s door, George got off the final round in his gun. The bullet sparked against a landing strut. He tossed aside the empty gun and ran toward the helicopter.
Inside the cockpit, the body of the copilot slumped against the controls. The pilot pushed the dead weight aside and pushed forward on the stick. The engine whine spiraled up in pitch as the copter lifted higher.
From beneath, George leapt and caught hold of the landing gear. As he clung to the thin metal strut, the copter’s vertical motion pulled him clear of the ground.
“George!” Sikes stumbled forward; his own gun had been lost during the fight. “Don’t . . .”
The pilot felt the drag of the extra weight; looking out a side window, he saw the Newcomer detective clambering up onto the landing gear, a forearm now hooked over the bottom strut.
The copter turned directly over Sikes’s head, George’s feet kicking in air several yards above. That was close enough to see a grim smile on the pilot’s face, and his hand reached for a small lever mounted next to his seat.
A hissing sound coursed snakelike against Sikes’s ears. The nozzles mounted on the arms beneath the copter suddenly burst into life. The spray caught George directly in the face.
Sikes watched as his partner fell twenty feet to the asphalt. George landed on his back and was still; Sikes ran to the spot.
“Shit . . .” He knelt down and raised George up in his arms. “Hey . . . come on, man . . .” George was breathing, but unconscious; his face shone wet from the spray.
Another sound cut through the beat of the helicopter blades. Sikes looked over his shoulder and saw Ahpossno; the Newcomer had scooped up the small electronic device that had been knocked loose from his hand. The glow from the device’s red light tinged the cuff of Ahpossno’s sleeve as he aimed it at the copter.
Another glow, the greenish one from the gauges inside the cockpit, died. Sikes was just able to see the copter’s interior plunged into darkness, the pilot frantically manipulating the controls. The engine noise cut abruptly; for a moment, the copter hung in silence, then spun and tilted.
Even as the helicopter plummeted to earth, Sikes shielded his partner’s face and chest, bending close over him. The fiery crash sent a wave of heat across his back. He saw his and George’s combined shadow stretch and waver across the lit-up field. Ahpossno slowly lowered his arm, then tucked the small device back into his belt pouch.
George stirred, his eyes weakly fluttering open. “We did it . . . we stopped them . . .”
“We sure did. Now just take it easy.” Sikes kept his voice low and soothing. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Ahpossno stepped close, reaching down a hand to help bring George to his feet.
“Stay back!” Sikes waved Ahpossno away. “He’s got the bacteria all over him!”
A moment’s hesitation, then Ahpossno retreated a couple of yards. He stayed there watching, his arms folded across his chest.
“Everything’s gonna be fine now . . .” Sikes could hear the sirens coming, catch the headlights of the emergency vehicles sweeping through the staging area’s gate. “Just fine . . .”
C H A P T E R 2 1
NOW THERE WAS an empty bed in the hospital’s isolation room. Sikes kept watch as the nurses placed George in the bed that had been Emily’s, before she had recovered. Only a few feet away, George’s wife, Susan, still lay deep in her coma.
Dr. Quinn bent over George, examining him while Cathy drew a blood sample. Farther away, near the door, Ahpossno also stood and observed.
“Matt . . .” George managed to open his eyes and reach a hand out toward his partner.
“Right here, pal . . .” Sikes slid in beside the nurses surrounding the bed. “Everything’s under control . . . believe me.”
“Please . . . my children . . .” George’s voice was hoarse and faint.
“Don’t worry. I called Buck; they’re on their way.”
Another word formed on George’s lips, but he dropped into unconsciousness before he could speak it.
Cathy had finished taking the sample. She gestured to Quinn and Ahpossno; Sikes followed them over to the corner of the room.
Quinn shook his head. “He’s failing much faster than Susan.”
“Why?” Sikes butted in. “What’s different? Maybe it’s because he got so much of the bacteria, sprayed right into his face like that.”
“No . . .” Cathy’s brow furrowed. “The amount of the infectious agent doesn’t seem to be a factor; the body appears to go into the same pathological state whether it gets hit by a little or a lot. The problem is with how much faster the subsequent progress of the disease is with George.” Her expression became one of desperate concentration. “Matt, the victims who died of the bacteria—they were both men, weren’t they?”
“Yeah, they were.”
“Maybe that’s it . . .”
Ahpossno spoke up. “Something in the female immune system.”
Sikes felt his dislike of the stranger flare up. “Then how come Emily recovered, but Susan hasn’t?”
“I don’t know,” said Cathy. “Somehow they’re different.”
“It isn’t diet . . .” The doctor rubbed his chin. “Not environment . . .”
“Perhaps it is the age.” Ahpossno looked toward Cathy. “How old is the girl?”
“Yes!” Cathy’s face lit up. “That’s it! Emily’s twelve years old—she just turned twelve!”
Ahpossno nodded. “The swollen mata gland.” He turned to Quinn. “We need female Newcomer blood . . .”
“At least ten units.” Cathy pushed the doctor toward the door. “Hurry!” She came back to Ahpossno after Quinn had rushed out of the isolation room. “We can use the isolator you brought us . . .”
“Of course. It was made for such need as this.” The gaze that passed between Ahpossno and Cathy held a mutual triumph.
“What?” Sikes hadn’t caught what the sudden excitement had been about. “What’re you talking about?”
&
nbsp; Cathy had no time to explain. “We need to extract female hormone.” She and Ahpossno hurried out.
“Why?” Sikes caught up with her in the corridor outside. “What for?”
She made a visible effort to be patient. “The hormone must act as an antibody. It must be what cured Emily!”
“But . . .” He was still confused. “But Susan’s a female. And she’s still not any better.”
“Susan’s at the end of her cycles. She doesn’t have a high enough level of the hormone.”
“The girl,” said Ahpossno. “Emily—she is in Neestas.”
The same excited expression came into Cathy’s face. “Right now, Emily’s body is releasing a tremendous surge of the hormone.”
“Neestas?” Sikes hadn’t heard the word before. “What the hell’s that?”
“Puberty!” Cathy and Ahpossno were already heading down the corridor. She shouted over her shoulder to Sikes. “Emily’s going through puberty!”
Out at the nurses’ station, he made some phone calls. This business going on between that weird number Ahpossno and Cathy was starting to make him feel like a fifth wheel. A suspicion kept nagging him as to what else that relationship might be turning into.
“Hey, Zep; this is Sikes here.” He leaned back against the station’s counter. “Yeah, I’m still at the hospital.” She asked him how things were looking for the Franciscos. “Beats me. Cathy’s hot on trying something with female hormones.”
“Do they need a donor? I got plenty of those . . .”
“Yeah, I bet.” He appreciated her try at lightening the mood. “We’re talking Newcomer juices, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell ’em you made the offer. Look, reason I called, I just wanted to know if everything got cleaned up out there at the copter field.”
“Sealed off, and the mops are working.” Zepeda’s voice held a note of satisfaction. “That Purist bunch must’ve brought their whole supply of the bacteria; we pulled canisters off every helicopter, and then we found a truck parked at the side with the rest. They’re going to have a hard time cooking up that much again, let alone getting it up into the air.”
“Righteous. Getting anything out of the punks we collared?”
Zepeda gave a low whistle. “That’s a messed-up buncha puppies you left out there. The dead ones aren’t going to be doing much talking, and the rest are still being patched up. Hey, tell me—how much did that Ahpossno character contribute to the action?”
“He was there.” Sikes had already made a decision on how he was going to write his report on the incident. Some things would get glossed over—he wanted Ahpossno on the outs, where he could keep an eye on him.
“Yeah, well, looks like the guy really rock-and-rolled tonight.”
Sikes reined in his irritation. “Look, if any useful information comes in, give me a call.”
“Sure thing.”
He hung up, handing the phone back to the nurse on the other side of the counter. For a long moment, he stood gazing at the corridor that led to the lab section that had been set up for Cathy. She and Ahpossno were back there now, working away.
He knew he could walk in there and check up on them. But he didn’t see what the point would be.
They had worked for hours, preparing the serum. The units of Tenctonese blood, specified female, had been run through the extraction and analysis device Ahpossno had fetched from his shuttle craft. He had even taken a small sample of blood from the little girl Emily, in order to match the relative levels of hormone. At last a quantity sufficient for treating two adult individuals had been rendered out.
Cathy didn’t need to tell him to hurry as they headed with the precious ampules toward the security unit. He had noted how fast the police detective’s condition had been worsening; his concern had been that George would die before the serum was ready. That would seriously affect his own plans, revolving as they did around the relationship of trust he had established with these escaped slaves.
The rest of the Francisco family, the teenage son holding the infant, were waiting in the corridor outside the isolation room. Cathy nodded to the boy and Emily as she and Ahpossno went inside.
“We’re all set . . .” The human doctor indicated the nurses standing by. “We’ve got the code blue cart here in case we need it.” In the beds, George and Susan lay comatose, their breathing rapid and shallow.
“Let’s hope we don’t.” Cathy filled a hypodermic from the first ampule. Leaning over the bed rail, she injected the serum into George’s arm.
The door opened; the human detective Sikes stepped inside.
“I brought his Serdsos.” Sikes placed the glowing sphere on the table beside the bed.
Cathy had the next injection ready; she crossed to the other bed and injected Susan.
“Look . . .” Ahpossno pointed toward the monitor above George’s bed. His temperature mounted rapidly: 105.8 . . . 105.9
106 . . .
“Okay . . .” Cathy handed the hypodermic to one of the nurses. “This is just what we wanted. We’ve triggered the same kind of metabolic crisis we saw with Emily.”
“Susan’s responding as well.” Quinn indicated the other monitor.
An alarm sounded when the red digits spelling out George’s temperature hit 108.
“Oh, man . . .” Sikes’s voice was tight with worry.
Another alarm, shrieking at the same pitch as the first. A red flush blossomed across Susan’s face.
A reading of 109 showed on both monitors.
“Come on, you sonuvabitch . . .” Sikes glared at the monitors. “So turn, already . . .”
The red numbers held at 109.
Then changed.
108.9 . . . 108.8 . . .
The alarms cut out, one a few seconds after the other, as the temperatures plummeted on the monitors.
“Come on, keep going . . .”
Ahpossno heard, muffled through the glass, the sound of the infant crying outside the isolation room. He looked behind himself at the window, and saw George’s son trying to soothe the baby.
Someone else had heard the soft cry. George’s eyes opened.
“George . . .” Sikes laid his hand on his partner’s arm.
A tentative smile formed on the police detective’s face as he managed to bring those above him into focus. He rolled his head on the pillow, looking toward Susan’s bed.
“Susan . . .”
Her eyes had also opened. A weary smile formed as she caught sight of her husband.
Then Emily and the boy, and the baby in his arms, were in the room, crowding around their parents’ hospital beds. “Mom . . . Dad . . .”
“Everything’s okay . . .” There was hardly room left at the bedside for Sikes. “You’re both gonna be all right . . .” He backed away, then turned and left the room. Cathy followed after him.
Ahpossno watched from the corner of his eye; through the window, he could see Sikes and Cathy outside. His hearing was just sharp enough to catch their voices through the glass.
Sikes slumped down to the corridor’s floor, his back against the wall. Cathy sat down beside him.
“You okay?”
Sikes nodded. The two of them looked exhausted, their relief letting the fatigue come through at last. And something more—Ahpossno could see another emotion pass between them, just beneath the surface.
“You really pulled it off,” said Sikes. “That was great.”
“Thanks.” Cathy closed her eyes, leaning her head back. “I’m so tired . . .”
Sikes seemed to be gathering his courage, taking a deep breath before he could speak. “I’ve been thinking . . . about a lot of things.” He didn’t turn his head to look at Cathy, but gazed straight at the wall opposite. “Cathy—you were wrong about me. About me not being able to love the differences in you . . .”
She didn’t hear him. She had fallen asleep. Sikes glanced at her beside him, then smiled. He put his arm around her, pulling her close.
Ahpossno watched and listened, abso
rbing these additions to his store of information. Much of what he had suspected about the relationship between Cathy and the human police detective had been confirmed. He would have to take care as his own plans unfolded. He had accomplished much, but it all could be jeopardized by just such small things.
He heard a voice behind him. “Ahpossno . . .” George’s voice, still weak from the siege of infection.
The children made room for him at George’s bedside.
“Thank you,” whispered George. [“Thank you . . .”] He reached up, and Ahpossno clasped his hand. Susan watched from the other bed. “If there’s anything we can do for you . . .”
“Sleep, my friend.” He let go of George’s hand, and it fell back to the bed sheet. “That is all you must do now. Sleep well.”
George closed his eyes.
All the others, the children and the medical staff, stayed close to the patients’ beds. Ahpossno stepped back to the other side of the isolation room.
And watched.
Things had turned out well. A warrior had to take advantage of the opportunities he encountered. Soon enough, the true outcome of his labors would be apparent. To all of them. Soon enough . . .
Arms folded across his chest, he watched and waited.
C H A P T E R 2 2
THE OLDEST NURSE at the station, a salty case in support hose and air-pillow shoes, had gotten tired of his using their phone.
“Detective Sikes . . .” She glared at him over the tops of her half-framed glasses. “Isn’t it about time you took your little operation back to your home base? After all—we don’t go over to the police station and put bandages on people. Now, do we?”
“Maybe you should.” Sikes started dialing. A younger, friendlier nurse, who had always given him a smile the whole time he’d been hanging out at the hospital, had handed him the phone across the counter before the battle-ax could intervene. “Might be a good idea—we got some candidates for brain surgery back there.” He turned and leaned back against the counter.