“Simple,” she said. “We’ll space his ass right out the airlock.”
* * *
“You don’t have to go to Phobos, Jill.”
I appreciated Ken telling me that. “I want to go. Arlene and Fly wouldn’t know what to do without me. Besides, they couldn’t have saved me without you.”
“That’s true,” said Fly.
Ken was sitting up in bed. He’d wanted to see us off from his wheelchair, but he’d been working hard and had tired himself. His face was a healthy coffee color again. When he was first unwrapped, his skin had been pale and sickly. They unwrapped him in stages so for a while he had stripes like a zebra as his color returned. Now he looked like himself again, except for the knobs and wire things that they hadn’t taken out of his head yet.
“I’m grateful to all of you,” he said. “Especially you, Jill,” he added, taking my hand. “But you’re so young. You’ve been in so much danger already. Why not stay here where it’s safe?”
“Safe?” echoed Albert.
“I should say safer,” said Ken.
Arlene brought up a subject that Albert and I had avoided: “Before we left Salt Lake City, there were people who thought it would be better for Jill to stay there.”
Ken coughed. He sounded really bad. I brought him a glass of water. “I feel so helpless,” he said. “You only need Jill’s computer assistance on the first leg of the mission. If only there were some way I could help by long-distance.”
“You’ve put your finger on the problem,” Fly told him. “We can’t anticipate everything we’re going to need. Too bad Jill is the best troubleshooter for this job.”
“Just like before,” I reminded everyone. “You should take me to space with you, too.”
“That’s not part of the deal,” said Arlene, sounding like a mother.
“We should be grateful for this time together,” Albert pointed out. He was right. The only people with Ken were Fly, Arlene, Albert, and me. The mission would start tomorrow morning.
“If only they had launch capability in the islands here,” Ken complained. “They should have been better prepared.”
“We’re fortunate they have as much as they do,” argued Arlene. “There’s everything here except the kitchen sink.”
“The kitchen sink is what we need, and it’s at Point Mugu,” said Fly. “Thanks to Ken, we have a launch window.”
“I never thought I’d do windows,” Ken rasped between fits of coughing. “I always say that when you take off for a body in space it’s a good idea for your destination to be there when you arrive! It’s also nice to have a crew to fly the ship. The primary plan to return Fly and Arlene to Phobos has all the elegance of a Rube Goldberg contraption.”
“I don’t even feel homesick,” said Arlene. Everyone laughed.
Ken had paid us back big time for saving him from the spider-mind. He was smarter than I was about lots of things. I also realized he cared about me; but I don’t think he realized how much I wanted to go with the others.
“There’s a fallback plan?” Albert asked.
Ken smiled. “The less said about that the better, at least by me. Before you depart, I want to talk to Jill some more. I have some suggestions for her return trip.”
“I want to go to Phobos,” I said.
Every time I said that, Arlene repeated the same word: “No.”
Fly sounded like a father when he said, “Believe me, if there were any other way, I’d never dream of taking Jill back into danger . . . well, greater danger, anyhow. We do need her for this.”
“We’re all needed,” said Ken in a sad voice. “We’ll all be needed for the rest of our lives, however short they may be.” He looked at me again. “But I agree with you about one thing.”
“What?”
“It’s important to fight to the end. Sometimes I forget that.”
“After what you’ve been through—” Arlene began, but he wouldn’t let her finish.
“No excuses,” he said. “I’ve been too ready to give up. But then I think about the terrible things these monsters have done to us, and it makes me angry. We will fight. So long as there are Jills, the human race has a chance.”
I saw a tear in his eye. I was going to say something, but I suddenly couldn’t remember what. Instead I went over to Ken and hugged him. He held me and kissed me on the forehead.
“You know, as long as we’re all together again, there’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask,” Fly threw out.
“Shoot,” said Albert.
“Bad choice of words around marines,” said Ken.
“Civilians,” said Arlene. She made it sound like a bad word.
Fly asked his question: “I keep meaning to ask one of the old hands around here: why are the masterminds behind the monsters called Freds?”
“I know, I know,” I piped up. “I heard that sergeant gun guy talking about it.”
“Master gun, hon,” Arlene corrected. When she didn’t sound like a mom she sure came off like a teacher.
I finished up: “Anyway, that man said a marine named Armogida started calling them Freds after he took a date to a horror movie.”
“I wonder what movie it was,” wondered Arlene.
“Well, maybe we should start calling our heroic young people Jills,” Ken brought the subject back to me. “I can’t change anyone’s mind, so let me say I hope your mission goes well.”
As I said, I appreciated Ken worrying about me. He just didn’t understand how important it was to me that I go along. Fly promised I’d get to ride a surfboard.
12
The last thing I needed was a brand-new monster, fresh off the assembly line. For this, Fly, Albert, Jill, Captain Hidalgo, and I had traveled all the way to the mainland? For this, we’d taken a voyage in a cramped submarine meant for half the number of personnel aboard? (Of course, the sub seemed like spacious accommodations after the shuttle we’d built on Deimos.) I mean, I was all set to encounter new cosmic horrors when we returned to the great black yonder. Arlene, astrogator and monster-slayer—I’m available for the job at reasonable rates! But none of us were prepared for what awaited us in the shallows off good old California.
The military airfield at Point Mugu is about five miles south of Oxnard. When we passed the Channel Islands, Captain Ellison told us we’d be offshore—as close to land as the sub dared—in about thirty minutes. Of course he used naval time. After spending years in uniform, I’m surprised I prefer thinking in civilian terms for time, distances, and holidays.
The trip had been uneventful, except for Jill hassling me about what a great asset she would be to the mission if we took her to Phobos. I finally got tired of her and suggested she bug Captain Hidalgo. After all, he was in charge. Too much of Jill and I thought our marine officer might be willing to space himself.
Hidalgo handled Jill very well. He simply told her that her part of the mission would be finished at the base. He also reminded her that Ken had gone to a lot of trouble to work out a plan for her return trip, and she didn’t want to let him down, did she? Then he wouldn’t listen to her anymore. In some respects Hidalgo was more qualified to be a father than Fly was. But that didn’t prove that he had what it took to save the universe from galactic meanies. That was sort of a specialized field.
I’d never been aboard a submarine before. I disliked the odor. In working hard to eliminate the men’s-locker-room aroma, they had come up with something a lot worse, something indescribable—at least by me.
The captain of the sub was a good officer. Ellison was plenty tough and well qualified for the job. He was almost apologetic when he explained how we were expected to go ashore.
“You’re kidding,” said Albert.
“Surfboards,” repeated Captain Ellison. “We have four long boards for the adults and a boogie board for the . . .” He saw Jill glaring at him and choked off the word he was about to say. “The smaller board is for Jill. It was especially designed for her body size.”
“Neat,” said Jill, mollified. “It’s just like Fly promised.”
“Why are we going in by surfboard?” I heard myself ask.
Fly shrugged. He’d found out about it before Jill or I had. That didn’t mean he approved.
Hidalgo had a ready answer. “So the enemy won’t find a raft or other evidence of a commando raid.”
I should have kept my mouth shut. I was the one telling Fly to hold off on passing judgment. But I didn’t seem able to keep certain words from coming out: “You think these demons can make fine distinctions like that, the same as a human enemy in a human war?”
Captain Hidalgo believed in dealing with insubordination right away. “First, this is a decision from above, Lance Corporal. We will follow orders. Second, there are human traitors, in case you don’t remember. They might be able to make these distinctions. Third, we will not take any unnecessary chances. Fourth, I refer you to my first point. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” I said it with sincerity. He did have a point, or two.
When Jill got me alone—not an easy thing to do on a sub—she said, “Hooray. We get to surf!”
“Have you ever ridden a board?” I asked.
“Well, no,” she admitted, “but I’ve been to the beach plenty of times and seen how it’s done.”
Oh, great, I thought.
“Have you?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, I have. We’ve just left the ideal place to learn. Hawaii. They have real waves there. You can get a large enough wave to shoot the curl.”
“Huh?”
This was looking less and less promising. I explained: “The really large waves create a semi-tunnel that you can sort of skim through. You’ve seen it in movies.”
“Oh, sure. But we won’t have waves that large off L.A., will we?”
She was a smart kid. “No, we shouldn’t. We’ll be dropped near a beach north of L.A. This time of the year, with no storms, the waves should be gentle.”
Jill wasn’t through with me. “How hard can it be to hang on to our boards and just let the waves take us in?”
She had me there. It wasn’t as if we needed to show perfect form and win prizes. We simply had to make it to the beach. The equipment and provisions were in watertight compartments. They’d float better than we would. Each of us would be responsible for specific items, and they’d be attached to us. All in all, getting to shore should be a relatively simple matter.
Only trouble was that none of us had counted on the appearance of a brand-new monster.
Actually, there had been intimations of this new critter on the last day Fly and I had spent on the beach at Oahu. When the admiral noticed the lone cloud drifting in, there was no reason to doubt that we were looking at a cloud. Later, when Fly and I noticed the black triangle cutting through the water, we naturally assumed it was a shark. We didn’t pay any attention to the sky. If we had, we would have noticed that the cloud had disappeared. We might have wondered about that.
When the sub surfaced as close to shore as Ellison was willing to go, the Big Four gathered for our last adventure. It was a strange feeling that Jill was not going all the way. Hidalgo would replace her when we reached the spacecraft.
I didn’t want Jill to accompany us on a journey that might be a suicide mission. On the other hand, I didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind in California doom. Hidalgo had assured Big Daddy Fly and me that the plan for Jill’s return to Hawaii was foolproof. Ken would never have said that, though the plan was his. Guarantees like that are offered by fools.
The plan, however, hadn’t taken into account the fluffy white cloud descending toward the water as we paddled around on our fiberglass boards. We were outfitted in our wet suits, floundering around in the calm area, waiting for some wave action. Fly was first to notice the cloud coming right down to the surface and then sort of seeping into the water. Not vanishing. Not evaporating. “Seeping” was the only way to describe the cloud as its color changed to a vague green and it sort of flowed into the water.
“What the hell was that?” asked Fly.
“It’s right in front of us,” observed Hidalgo.
“That’s unnatural,” shouted the sub’s captain from the conning tower. He was too decent a man to submerge again until he knew we were all right.
“Maybe it’s weird weather,” suggested Jill quite reasonably.
I could believe that. So much radiation and crap had been bombarding Mother Earth that she might have some surprises of her own. But after fighting the alien denizens of hell, I was suspicious of anything unusual. When I saw a shark fin appear right where the cloud had joined with the ocean, I became a lot more suspicious.
By then Hidalgo and Albert had caught the first wave. They were on their bellies, on their boards, paddling with their hands. I’d told everyone to go all the way in to shore without standing up. The boards would keep even a natural landlubber afloat.
The rest of us caught the next gentle swell that would take us toward the beach. That was when I saw three fins circling the spot where the cloud had gone into the water.
Naturally, I thought they were sharks. That was adequate cause to worry. The fin of a surfboard and its white underbelly looks like a fish. The paddling hands and kicking feet attract attention, too. It wasn’t as if our team was made up of people who could surf their way out of danger; and the waves weren’t providing anything to write about.
“Shark!” I shouted. The others started repeating the call. We would have continued thinking the fins belonged to separate creatures if they didn’t start rising out of the water. What appeared to be long black ropes writhed up out of the sea. Hidalgo and Albert paddled furiously to change direction, but the current continued drawing them toward the thing.
As the huge creature continued to rise, I expected to make out more details. But it seemed to bring a fog with it. The mantle surrounding the thing was the same white as the cloud.
Within the mist, I could see fragments of recognizable objects. A slight breeze was blowing in toward the shore, but the fog didn’t dissipate. The stuff hung on like sticky cotton; but gaps did open up where I could see more.
A claw. An eye. A large glistening red opening in a larger dark surface that seemed to open and close. Could this be a mouth? None of us needed to know that answer all that badly. The entity constantly shifted. I got a headache from trying to focus on it. One moment the black surface seemed to have a metallic sheen. The next moment the surface rippled as only a living thing could do. All through my attempt to see what we were fighting, the mist remained a problem, changing in density but never going away.
Most of our weapons were secured in the waterproof packages, but Fly had put a gun in a plastic bag and zipped it inside his suit. He got it out with admirable speed and started firing at the whatsit. He’d picked out a nice little customized Ruger pistol for this part of the mission. He could be like a kid in the candy store when let loose in a decent armory; and Hawaii currently had a lot more in its arsenal than ornate war clubs.
He felt better after he’d fired off a few rounds. I felt better, too. Near as I could tell, the horrible inexplicable thing from the sky felt absolutely nothing. Fly demonstrated his skill, again, for what it was worth. Although he was behind Albert and Hidalgo, his bullets came nowhere near hitting them. Every shot went right into the center of the roiling mass—and probably out the other side if the monster had the power to discorporate, which I was ready to believe. Fly got off all his shots while lying on his belly and hanging on to his board. He really is very good at what he does.
Suddenly someone got off a shot that made a difference. A sound of thunder from behind, a whistling-screaming over our heads, and an explosion that knocked all of us off our boards.
Ellison had the largest gun and he wasn’t afraid to use it. The shell struck the creature at dead center. I wasn’t sure this monster could be killed, but the submarine captain’s quick thinking made the new menace go away.
Jill li
terally whooped for joy. She waved back at the submarine, but I doubt they saw her. I barely saw her. We were surrounded by mist from the explosion. So much water turned into steam that I wondered if the shell had set off something combustible in the monster. Maybe we were receiving residue from the sticky cloud-fog stuff. One thing was certain: we wouldn’t be doing any scientific analysis out here.
Hidalgo performed his duty: “Everyone sing out! Let me hear you.”
“Sanders!” I shouted back at him.
“Taggart!”
“Gallatin!”
“I’m here,” Jill finished the roster.
“Name!” Hidalgo insisted, and then took a moment to cough up some water.
“I’m Jill. Sheesh.”
“Last name!” Hidalgo insisted.
“Lovelace,” she finally relented.
Meanwhile, the sun was climbing in the morning sky. I was getting hot inside my wet suit. The sub was now far enough behind us that it counted as history. Before us was the future, where the breaking surf became white spray to cover the white droppings of seagulls. I’d never been so happy to see those scavenger birds. Some things on the home planet were still normal.
13
“What do you mean you hate zero-g?” Arlene asked with genuine surprise.
“Just do,” I said.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
Arlene was not an easy person to surprise. I wasn’t sure why the subject had never come up. I wasn’t deliberately holding out on her. Jill laughed—the little eavesdropper.
“You never cease to amaze me, Fly Taggart,” Arlene continued. “Here we’ve traveled half the solar system together.”
“Now, that’s an exaggeration,” I pointed out, unwilling to let her get away with—
“Hyperbole,” she explained, showing that she’d been an English major once upon a time.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “We’ve only done the hop from Earth to Mars and back again.”
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