Alien Nation #3 - Body and Soul

by Peter David

  “Let me emphasize,” she said, “it’s too soon to be certain she is a hybrid.”

  There was no good way to answer the question, but that was one of the less preferable. It sounded as if she was backtracking, trying to avoid something unpleasant despite the fact that she was simply reiterating the position she’d had from the beginning. McGee smelled blood. “But couldn’t this signal the end of the human race as we know it?”

  “There are over four billion humans on this planet,” Cathy said reasonably. “Less than three hundred thousand Tenctonese . . .”

  “So your answer is yes!” shouted McGee. “It’s just a matter of time!”

  And Grazer again lost control of the situation as all the reporters started shouting simultaneously all over again.

  “I don’t like this, George,” said Sikes worriedly. “Things could get really ugly.”

  “That McGee has always been a problem for Newcomers,” said George. “He and that wire service reporter out of Chicago. They always act like they see monsters everywhere.”

  At that moment, a dispatch officer came up to them and handed them a message.

  “Patrolmen just responded to a call in Little Tencton,” he told them urgently. “That giant Newcomer you’ve got an APB on . . . he was caught stealing from a fruit stand.”

  “One of those promising leads we hear so much about,” Matt said to George. He turned to the dispatch officer. “Tell ’em we’re on our way . . . and we want that guy alive.”

  And they dashed out of the squad room, leaving Grazer sinking fast in a sea of waving arms and shouted questions.

  C H A P T E R 1 1

  AT THE FAIRCHILD ADVERTISING Agency, Jessica stared at Susan with incredulity.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. She started ticking off the points on her fingers. “He hasn’t been sleeping around but he’s going to. And he announced his intention to do so.”

  “That’s right.”

  “At the dinner table. In front of the kids.”

  “Right.” Susan sat there, her chin in her hands.

  “And he thought that you’d approve. That, in fact, you’d be happy for him.”

  “He actually seemed a little hurt that I wasn’t.”

  “And the kids were on his side.”

  “I think so.” Susan looked up. “What does ‘No duh’ mean?”

  Jessica shrugged. “And while he’s getting geared up to boff this tootsie, you have to be high and dry for a month.”

  “Yes.”

  Jessica sat back and heaved a loud sigh, “Y’know, just once—just once—I’d like to be wrong. I mean, I’m use to men living up to—or maybe I should say, down to—my expectations. But then, every so often, something comes along that sets a new standard. I thought I’d heard everything until now. Of all the bald-faced—sorry,” she amended when she looked at Susan. “Of all the nerve. You poor thing.”

  Susan sat back in her chair, pulling on her own fingers nervously. “Maybe I’m overreacting . . . ?” The question was directed partly at Jessica and partly at herself.

  Jessica shook her head firmly. “Overreacting. Honey, I’d’ve kicked him in the prostate.”

  “George doesn’t have a prostate,” Susan pointed out.

  “Well, whatever he has, I’d’ve kicked him in it.”

  Susan sighed again. She’d been sighing a lot, it seemed. She had slept the way she always slept when George wasn’t with her: badly. Usually it was because he was out on stakeout or some such thing. She thought that there was nothing worse than lying there, staring up at the ceiling, unsure of whether her husband was safe, and when—or if—he’d come back.

  But certainly lying there, knowing that he was as near as the living room but as far as anger could keep him, had to be right up there in terms of pure heartache.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

  “Baby, there’s only one thing to do. You fight fire with fire.”

  Susan looked up at her, puzzled. This had to be earth vernacular. She could not believe that Jessica really was suggesting she torch George.

  “When Frank tries to pull his bushwa on me,” said Jessica conspiratorially, “I buy something tight and sexy. I may be forty-eight, but I’ve still got great gams.”

  If this was supposed to clarify things, it didn’t. “Sweet potatoes?” said Susan, hopelessly befuddled.

  For a moment, Jessica stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then it clicked. “Not yams,” she said, trying not to laugh. Susan felt badly enough without having her confidant snickering at her. “Gams. Legs. Anyway, Frank gets all hot and bothered and I just freeze up. He doesn’t get what he wants until I get what I want.”

  “You mean you manipulate him by withholding sex?”

  “Yeah. What else have I got?”

  “Jessica, I don’t know. I mean . . . remember, if he goes through with this, we aren’t supposed to be having sex anyway.”

  “Even better,” said Jessica. “You’ll be letting him know that you can make the month’s abstinence a living hell for him. Strutting your stuff and he can’t take advantage of it? It’ll drive him crazy. Not to mention that you’ll also be reminding him that when he comes crawling back to you after he’s had his little fling, you can turn the rest of your married life into a sexual torture chamber.”

  “But why would I want to do that?!” said Susan. “What kind of way is that to live? That sounds terrible. Using sex as . . . as a weapon. How can anyone exist in a relationship that way?”

  “Honey, what planet are you—no. Forget I said that.” She sat down close to Susan and said firmly, “Listen, you play doormat to a man, and believe me, all you’ll get is the bottom of his shoe.”

  Susan looked bewildered. “It’s all so . . . so foreign.”

  “Baby, this is war,” said Jessica with utter conviction. “And I’m not going to let you lose it. You gotta say to yourself, Nobody loses a fight when a Francisco is involved.”

  In Little Tencton the car screeched to a halt next to a black and white police squad car. Matt and George leaped out and approached officers Chase and Morra. They looked as if they’d been rooted to their unit, either unable or unwilling to move. Apparently they were quite pleased that they’d been told to keep their distance and wait for Francisco and Sikes.

  “Where is he?” said George.

  Chase pointed and replied, “Down the street.”

  Moving in the direction that Chase pointed, Sikes said, “You got him cornered?”

  “Uh-uh,” Morra told him. “He’s got us cornered.”

  Sikes didn’t understand what Morra was talking about until he got within range of the disturbance. Then he understood only too well.

  There was a huge Newcomer sprawled across the roof of another black and white patrol car. The patrolmen were still inside because the giant was holding the doors shut with his powerful arms, keeping the frustrated cops from getting out. They could, of course, have shot directly through the roof with their guns. But there was a good chance the bullets might not penetrate, which meant they’d be injured or killed in a ricochet. Besides, cops weren’t allowed to fire their weapons unless they’d been fired upon or otherwise believed that their lives were in immediate danger. There was nothing in regulations about being held prisoner inside your own unit. Nearby a fruit stand had been overturned. One did not need a slide rule to figure out what had happened.

  Chase and Morra backed up the two detectives as they approached and then stopped several yards back. Sikes whistled. “Look at the size of him . . .”

  “Guy’s missing a few parts upstairs,” Chase ventured an opinion.

  Sikes and Francisco looked at each other. They didn’t even need to discuss how to handle the situation. It was fairly obvious.

  Slowly, so as not to appear the least bit aggressive, George called out to the giant, [“Come down off the car. No one is going to hurt you.”]

  He had hoped to get some sort of coherent response, just t
o see whether they were dealing with a being who could be communicated with, or some raging behemoth. If it was the former, then perhaps things could be dealt with in a reasonable manner. If the latter, then it was quite possible that someone was going to get badly hurt . . . or worse.

  His initial hopes were dashed as the giant’s only reply was an earsplitting roar of anger. But George was too much of a veteran to let his trepidation show. [“No one is going to hurt you. Come down off the car.”] he said, trying to have a mixture of firmness and sincerity in his voice.

  He stopped five feet away. The giant just glared at him and held even more tightly to the car.

  Morra, who seemed more amused by it than anything, removed his hat, and scratched his head. “What are we going to do?” he addressed the question to the assembled officers.

  “He tried to steal fruit,” said Sikes reasonably. “He must be hungry.”

  He looked for confirmation at George, and the Newcomer nodded. He drifted over toward the overturned fruit stand and picked up the largest red apple he could find.

  And then, because George was, after all, still George, he checked the posted price on the cart and carefully placed fifty cents in the spot from which he’d taken the apple.

  Sikes rolled his eyes. Then, bringing his mind back to business, he moved off to one side so that he and George would be flanking the giant, should the big guy suddenly show a disposition toward moving.

  George held up the apple, keeping it steady until the giant’s gaze was locked onto it. [“Are you hungry?”] George asked him. [“You can have all the food you want. Just come down.”]

  He kept repeating it over and over like a mantra. The giant was spellbound by the combination of the proffered food and the almost hypnotic quality of George’s voice. Sikes pulled out a set of handcuffs, making sure to do so without any overt fuss. He did not want to distract the giant at this crucial moment.

  The giant was clearly considering George’s offer. His eyes narrowed, but not in any sort of sinister or canny manner. George realized that the creature was exhausted. Who knew how long he’d been on the run, or what emotional demons were tearing at him.

  And hungry. He was unquestionably hungry.

  Slowly, the giant slid off the top of the car. Sikes forced himself to hold back as the giant’s feet touched the street.

  Nearby, various passing Newcomers were passing no longer. They had stopped whatever they were doing in order to watch the fascinating drama being played out in the streets of Little Tencton. Not that anyone was offering the cops any help, of course. Things simply didn’t work that way in Little Tencton.

  Sikes gestured that the two cops in the car should sit tight. He didn’t want them leaping out and becoming two more bodies in the way. He waited until the giant was in perfect position, with his back to the human police officer and all his attention focused on the apple.

  And that was the moment that Sikes attacked.

  He grabbed the giant’s arm, twisting it around with all the strength he had so that he could get the cuffs on him.

  Unfortunately, all of Sikes’s strength didn’t even come close to what was required in this instance. The giant bellowed and swatted Sikes, sending him flying. He crashed into the top of the police car and rolled across the roof, thudding to the ground on the other side.

  With the giant distracted by Sikes, George took the opportunity to rush the giant. The giant turned back and grabbed at Francisco, but George was too quick. He darted underneath the behemoth’s flailing arms and sprang onto his back.

  The giant whirled, but George desperately hung on. Roaring defiance, the giant stumbled back and slammed up against a lamppost. The impact was bone-jarring, and for a moment, George almost lost his grip.

  But then he crisscrossed his arms even tighter, and moments later had his legs intertwined around the giant’s waist. The move shoved air out of the giant’s chest and left him gasping, trying to suck in new air that was being denied him through George’s hold around his throat.

  Sikes staggered to his feet and saw his partner holding on for dear life. But now George was no longer quite as desperate—with the giant’s air choked off, George went on the offensive. He jammed his thumbs under the giant’s ears.

  The giant’s eyes opened wide in alarm. Sikes, a few feet away, recognized what George was doing immediately. It was a Newcomer sleeper hold, incredibly effective. The question was, would it work on so massive a Newcomer?

  The behemoth staggered forward, taking one titanic step after another. He closed on Sikes, and George shouted, “Matt! Get back! Don’t help me!”

  Sikes needed no urging, because he saw what was happening. The giant’s knees began to buckle, his eyeballs rolled up into their sockets. And with a final groan of protest, the giant fell forward like a tree, crashing to the ground so hard that Sikes was certain he felt the street vibrate under his feet.

  The giant thrashed spasmodically a few more times, but that was after the fact more than anything else. Consciousness had already fled him.

  George lay atop him, panting from the exertion. Finally, satisfied that the giant really was out of it, he relaxed the hold. Sikes was by his side, helping him to his feet. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  The Newcomer detective examined the sleeves of his jacket. The impact had shredded both of them rather badly, and he sighed. Terrific. More things for Susan to be angry with him about.

  “I’m fine. Yourself?”

  “Yeah,” Sikes said, nodding briskly.

  The moment he’d ascertained that Sikes was all right, George turned back to the giant. Considering that the giant, given the opportunity, would have ripped him apart, George was extremely concerned about his welfare.

  The uniformed patrolmen were handcuffing him both behind his wrists and around his legs. Sikes, upon seeing the precautions, could only breathe in relief, but George called out loudly, “Don’t hurt him!”

  The cops stepped back once their job was done, and they all stood in a small circle around the behemoth. The moment seemed familiar to Sikes for some reason, and then he realized why. It was like the old cartoon “Gulliver’s Travels” that Sikes had seen when he was a kid. The Lilliputians, going to extreme lengths to truss up the unconscious man of Brobdingnagian (to them) proportions, only to have him wake up and snap the bonds without even giving it any thought.

  Recalling how that scene had played out didn’t exactly do a lot for Matt’s confidence.

  In quiet awe, George said, “I’ve never seen a Tenctonese like this.”

  “And he’s hard to miss,” said Sikes. “Where do you suppose he’s been hiding?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. But I can tell you where he’s going.”

  C H A P T E R 1 2

  CAPTAIN GRAZER STUDIED THE afternoon newspaper with tremendous satisfaction. Damn, it was a good picture of him.

  Front page, above the fold. It didn’t get better than this. There was the headline in as large a type as he’d seen recently—at least as big as when the Pope came to visit. “NEWCOMER BOMBSHELL,” it read, followed by a smaller headline that stated, “HYBRID INFANT REVEALED BY POLICE CAPTAIN.”

  He looked up at his wall, trying to figure out where he would hang a framed copy of this. There were twenty copies of the newspaper piled up on a chair nearby, for whatever uses he could come up with.

  The phone had been ringing off the hook. Suddenly he was the source on Newcomer affairs. Undoubtedly, when any articles were written subsequently, he would be one of those “authorities” who was always contacted and liberally quoted.

  Oh yes. This was going to be a major step upward.

  Then there was a knock at the door. He looked up and saw a khaki officer with a Newcomer couple standing in the doorway, looking just a bit nervous over the brouhaha that was going on in the station.

  “Captain,” said the officer, “these are the folks that social services sent over.”

  Grazer rose from
behind his desk and extended a hand. The male Newcomer shook it firmly as Grazer said, “Captain Bryon Grazer.”

  “Franz Kafka,” replied the Newcomer. He indicated the female beside him. “This is my wife, Hans Brinker Kafka.”

  He looked at her with interest. “They gave a female a male name? Don’t get that too often.”

  She inclined her head slightly. “All earth names have no real significance to us, Captain. The name Hans has no more meaning to me than the name Bryon Grazer.”

  He smiled at that, but then his smile drooped slightly. Something about her voice made it sound as if she wasn’t particularly thrilled to see him.

  Franz Kafka indicated the stacked newspapers. “We read the item of which you seem to have so many copies. Quite a flattering picture of you.”

  “Thanks,” said Grazer.

  Then Kafka’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you’ve given real thought to the likely result of your actions.”

  Now Grazer was mystified. “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” said Mrs. Kafka sullenly.

  And then, in a tone that indicated that as far as they were concerned, this conversation was over, Kafka said, “And now, if you would be so kind, we’d like to see our foster child.”

  “Of course,” said Grazer. “Right this way.” But he watched the Newcomers carefully as they preceded him out of the office.

  He’d understand, they said. Now what in the world did they mean by that?

  The giant sat huddled in a cell that seemed in stark contrast to his remarkable size.

  Throughout the day, officers had been trickling by the holding cell area, every single one finding some flimsy excuse to stop by. The real reason was obvious, of course. But if the giant was aware that he was on display—an object of curiosity, or even fear—he gave no sign. Instead he sat there, his hands to his spotted head, bent over in almost a fetal position. Inevitably, when some cop would come by, he or she would speak in a low, hushed voice, as if in the presence of something beyond comprehension.