David frowned. Something was ringing a bell, something at the edge of his awareness. There was a connection he ought to be making.
God, his head hurt. He rubbed his temples. Whatever it was, wasn’t coming. Maybe he’d get it later.
“So you think Luke Cochran was digging there or something?”
“Maybe. We know he was there,” Vanessa said. “There’s a generous amount of Cochran’s blood mixed in with the soil. And Elaki scales. The interesting thing is, Caper tried to get a scale match, from the soil sample and the three Elaki that took Cochran away in the car.”
“And?” Halliday said, shifting sideways in his chair.
Vanessa shook her head. “No go. The Elaki involved in the digging wasn’t one of the three who picked Cochran up. We know the car was out there at the farmstead, from the soil we found up in the wheel well, but it never showed in the car’s black box. So I analyzed the navigational program, making sure the car had no record of being out there. And I found it. Layered in and covered up, but it was there. Which is interesting, that somebody tried to hide that.”
“You sure about that?” David asked.
Della was nodding. “I looked at the program myself. Somebody tried to wipe it out of the memory. Somebody who knew Cochran’s code.”
“Cochran?” David asked.
Della shrugged. “Why?”
David frowned. “Can you tell when, exactly, the car was out there?
Della shook her head. “Nope. Could have happened at any point.”
“How about in the middle of that scenario we just watched?” Mel’s voice was thick.
“If you’re asking me could the sequence be wrong, could the car have been to and from the Bailey Farmstead after they picked up Cochran, and before the car went over the guardrail, the answer is yes.”
Mel took a hard breath. Looked at David.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” David said. His throat was sore. He took another sip of coffee.
“Maybe those three Elaki took them out there and buried the bodies,” Mel said.
David set his coffee cup down gently. “Take it easy, Mel. If they did that, why leave the car parked at the Elaki-Town exit? Why leave the tools in the trunk?”
Della was nodding her head. “David’s right, Mel, it makes no—”
Walker slid to one side, close in to String. She said something in low tones David could not quite make out. Soften the blow?
String rose up on his bottom fringe. “Please to call attention. Is to make the sense if killing retaliation the blood sanction. Is to smack the face with the factuals. An oblique taking of credit. Saying we have done this. Beware us.”
“Jesus,” Mel said. “They buried them.”
“Vanessa, were there any other blood traces?” David asked.
Mel blew air between his teeth. “You know, if you mean Miriam, say it. You find traces of Miriam’s blood in those soil samples, Vanessa? Caper?”
“No.”
“No.”
“You look?”
“I looked,” Caper said.
Halliday looked at David, which meant everyone else did too. He wiped sweat from his upper lip.
“What do you think, David?”
“Have Sifter Chuck brought in.”
THIRTY-FIVE
David was headed down the hall toward mel when Halliday tapped his shoulder.
“David, could you stop by my office just a minute?”
“Sir, I’m sorry about the pig incident. The thing was—”
“David. This isn’t about the pig.”
“Oh.”
“Aslanti. She’s helping unofficially, right?”
“Right.”
“She’s here. She wants to see you.”
“Now? Here now?”
“Yeah. I offered to let her come into the conference room and give us her findings, but she … evidently she wants to see you privately. She was very insistent. So I put her into my office. Told her you’d be right up. David?”
“Yeah?”
“You went a little green there. You okay?”
“Just long hours, no sleep. I’m fine.” David headed for the elevator, then veered toward the stairwell. He didn’t want to look at anybody’s face.
Someone, Aslanti he figured, had lowered all the blinds in Halliday’s cubicle, making the square office small, dark, and claustrophobic. David closed the door reluctantly, surrendering to the dreariness.
Aslanti had wedged herself into a corner behind Halliday’s chair.
David looked at her. “I get the feeling you have bad news.”
She slid back and forth. “The human attempts humor?”
“Not so I noticed. Does this seem funny?”
“Silver the Detective David, please do not joke me. Have news that be the formidable.” A stillness came over her.
David braced himself.
“In blood testing have found the evidence of you in disease.”
It was odd, his overwhelming urge to grin at her, even to laugh. Part of his mind told him to get serious. He just didn’t know how.
“What disease am I in?” he asked.
She turned her back on him in exquisite Elaki courtesy. “Is a bacteria/virus hybrid, common on Elaki home planet, all Elaki immunize against as pouchling embryo.”
He took a deep breath. “There’s a vaccine, then?”
She waved a fin in a thin, fluting motion that conveyed a distress that should have warned him.
“This is Elaki vaccine only. Isss not to be translatable to the human physiology.”
David sat down on the couch. The lights were dim. He wondered if Aslanti had ordered them up that way, or if the system still needed work.
He looked at his hands. “Help me out here, Aslanti. I’m not sure what questions to ask.”
“You want all knowledge, no pit-patting about?”
“No pit-patting,” David said. “Tell me.”
She was silent a moment. “Isss bad thing, most toxic, destructor of internal organs in most advanced form of virulence.”
“Is it what killed Annie Trey’s infant son?” His use of the term infant son snagged him. Cop distancing technique, he realized, something he did automatically. If he said “tiny little baby boy Hank,” it would hurt him.
Aslanti was talking. “For sure, cannot say without my own tests to run. After the long look of the notes of Miriam, and some discreet talking to other medicals, my guess is most yes.”
“Is this … is this definitely fatal, then?”
“Do not know, Detective David. The human will have none of the exposure, nothing like this in physical histories, so no antibodies or defenses built up.” Her voice rose. “So you body have the complete defenselessness. So very vulnerable you are, most sorry.”
David laced his fingers together. His mouth was dry. “Last night. The other night you asked me about my pouchlings.” God, they had him doing it. “About my children. How contagious is this?”
“Not very, and danger is minimal trace to female species human or Elaki.”
David felt dizzy for a moment, just sitting still. “You’re sure?”
“Of the absolute most.”
He took a deep breath. Felt almost happy. Almost.
“Your Rosebud wife and three shiny pouchlings—childrens—are to be most safe. Female can be infected, but worst symptoms to be the respiratory irritation.”
“Like a bad cold?”
“Yesss.”
“Oh,” David said. Little Jenny Trey had had a bad cold.
“Isss not to be easy, this transmission. If careful, family not go even to the cold stages. Can make you noninfectious.”
“You can?”
“But yes. That at least is able.”
“I want that.”
“Small decline chances of survival. Not much, but is to be considered.”
“I don’t want to take any chance on giving this to anyone.”
She was quiet. “Right decision, Det
ective David.”
“So how did I get it?” He looked at her. “Look, you can turn back around, Aslanti. I’m okay. I’m not going to embarrass you.”
“My wish is not to be causing you the embarrass.”
“Tell me how I got this.”
She still would not turn around. “Obvious be the Trey family. Transmission must go through you the blood, mix blood from infector, in some rare case saliva.”
He looked at the deep scratch healing on the back of his hand.
“Big question, Detective, is how was infection absorbed by the baby Hank. You must understand how intensive be the screen before on-planet presence allowed. No unvaccinated Elaki allowed entrance permission.”
“Could it be transmitted on things, like a child’s toy? A teddy bear?”
“Iss vague the possibility. For the short time periods, during weather hot conditions, as now. But not long times before bacteria/virus agent die down dead. Also, all possessions put through screening freeze, none are the exceptions. Have to be live organism of infection on here this planet. Of a scariness to contemplate.”
“Some unvaccinated Elaki got through.”
“Unlikely this, Detective Silver David. All pouchling embryo, all, vaccinated.”
David ran his hand through his hair. He could not seem to think.
“Other disease vector include germ warfare mechanism. Possibly unlikely but possibly it is. Other disease vector is animal, but no animal allowed between planet for just such this reason.”
David frowned, some memory tugging. “What kinds of animals?”
“Only Elaki animal creatures. The Bredit fur-bearing reptile, some insect, and of course, trillopy.”
“Trillopy?”
“Predator, dangerous this. Not tame. Not allowed, presence controlled even home, most careful.”
“But String said something about a trillopy the night we found Cochran’s car. He heard some kind of noise, a whistle or a trill, some kind of cooing whine. He thought it sounded like a trillopy.”
At last she turned to look at him, belly rigid. “You are to be sure?”
“String wasn’t sure, he didn’t see it.”
“Coincidence too big.” One eye prong twitched. “If so, the trillopy here, is most bad and upper high hand dangerous.”
“Because of the disease?”
“Dangerous animal. Like lion loose in place of nursery pouchlings.”
“If one was running loose, we’d hear reports of some kind.”
“Yesss. So if here, is in control. Some are kept as—petters, you call it?”
“Pets.”
“Pets. By the rich eccentric loony tunes.”
David looked at her. “I take it there’s no treatment?”
“Take it wrongly.”
He tried to keep his voice calm. “I thought you said there’s no vaccine for humans.”
“Isss other broadside treatment.”
David chewed his bottom lip. Reminded himself that human doctors were no better—too much medical jargon and too little time for explanations. If you could get in to see one.
“We have too many varieties to have medicines or vaccines specific. Develop combat for one, ten more to show their tails, eh? So the broadside treatment is the freeze-dry.”
“Like they do food packages?”
“Some difference apply to living tissues wishing to keep alive.”
“Yeah,” David said hoarsely.
“Iss process selective. Goes for the invading hybrid, attention specific. Body wastes out the freeze-dry offenders. Problem be this—maybe not all be targeted and got. Not good for body the continuous treatment. So if enough freezed away, then body takes care of ones left. Boost immunities with drug treatments. But if not enough killed gone, or body weak, then overwhelm the immune, attack organs internal, and deteriorate to death.”
David cleared his throat. “But there’s a chance.”
“Yesss.”
He thought for a moment. “Just what are my odds, Aslanti?”
She began to sway from side to side. “Do not find such a calculating prediction at all possible, Detective Silver David. I be most alarmed for you yessss, but I be ready to fight for you, yesss. The best to do now is let disease have way to the body and reach a certain peak momentum. At this point the new chemical messages in disease communication make change from procreate to survive. This crucial the point be. Change from procreate then freeze before virulence takes the hold. If miss some not so able to make lots new, because now in survival mode. If body can focus, maybe win.”
“So what you’re saying is, I wait until I get worse, then I go through the freeze-drying thing, and I survive it or I don’t.”
“Not quite the dry cut. Can win out total. Can have the chronic constant up and down. Or can be fine, then time elapse and hidden ones flourish and flare.”
He was having trouble catching his breath.
“Am sorry to be, Detective Silver David. You say no pit-pat.”
“How hard is it to make me completely noncontagious? I mean, is it complicated, does it take—”
“Have brought with me proper air injection, will have the effect of immediacy.”
“Thank you for that,” David said, and meant it.
THIRTY-SIX
David’s first impulse was to go home and hug his little girls. He had been impatient while Aslanti fumbled over the injection. Time was wasting. He might not have all that much.
He thought, on the way home, as the scenery went by much too slowly, of obscure, remote tribes of people wiped out by marauding anthropologists, even into the 1980’s, with measles the typical culprit. AIDS, before the vaccine. Cancer. The plague.
He thought of Annie Trey, losing her child and vilified as a baby killer. He was getting angry. His grip on the steering wheel was tight enough that his hands ached.
He wanted Teddy, and now it was too late. Calling her now would be emotional blackmail, unforgivable. Love me, please, I may be dying. Why hadn’t he called her before, just to say hello, so what’s the big deal?
He wondered how the disease would progress. Would it attack his brain? Would he get moody and unpredictable, like his mother? Would he be unkind to his children? What would it do to them, watching their father die?
Rose knew, as soon as he came into the kitchen, that something was very wrong. He was not surprised. They had been married a long time.
The kids weren’t home—they were in school; he’d managed to forget that. His only thought had been to see them, and they weren’t there. He considered taking them out of school. Too upsetting for them, he decided. Disruptive.
Rose was watching him. “You want to talk in here?”
“Fine.”
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. It had not been wiped after breakfast, and there were sticky rings of milk, and a smear of grease.
“I’m sick, Rose.”
“Sick?” She nodded. “I thought you were coming down with something last night.”
She didn’t get it.
“I mean that I have a serious and possibly fatal something or other—it’s a sort of virus/bacterial hybrid. The girls are safe, so are you. It’s only fatal to males.”
She went rigid. “Fatal.”
“I’m a long way from dead, Rose.” He touched his chest, smiled at her. “Heart still beating. I’ve got a good chance of pulling through this.”
“But, where did—”
“It’s a long story. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
She nodded slowly. “And talk fast, will you?”
He knew what she meant. She wanted every question answered all at once. He’d felt the same way in Halliday’s office.
It calmed him, the physical and familiar act of making coffee. Focusing on Rose made it easier not to worry about himself. He had a lot of ground to cover. The days when he’d confided every detail of his work were long gone.
For a while, just a short while, it was like the old da
ys between them, except that while he talked she cried very unobtrusively, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was quick, she understood police work. They could talk in a sort of professional shorthand, and when he told her something, she knew exactly what he meant. He had missed these conversations.
Eventually the talk wound down. David’s throat was sore. There was a long silence between them.
“How do you feel now?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should rest. You didn’t get much sleep last night.”
He stared at the floor. Sleep was not attractive. Sleep was not what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He took a sip of coffee. He’d made it strong and it was cold now, tasted horrible.
“Look, David. I know things aren’t great between us. I just … you know I’ll take care of you. I’ll get you through this.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me, Rose.”
“I’m not being nice, David.”
“Feel sorry for me? Every night I come home, you throw something at me. And now you’re going to take care of me?”
“Get real, David. Yes. I feel sorry for you. Tell me you have a potentially fatal illness, tell me you might die—I’m not going to feel sorry?” Her eyes were red-rimmed, bathed in tears. “You’re posturing, David. You’re angry, so you’re going to project it all on me. I don’t accept it and I don’t deserve it.”
“Now who’s posturing?”
He left her sitting at the kitchen table, slammed the door on his way out. He never slammed doors; he’d had that tendency drummed out of him in childhood, and he didn’t tolerate it in his kids. But Rose did it all the time. He’d expected to enjoy it more.
He went to a far, dark corner of the barn, burrowed in the corner, pulled the filthy bedspread off his old Triumph. The motorcycle didn’t run anymore, it needed work. As he recalled, it hadn’t needed all that much; he just hadn’t been able to get to it.
He blew dust off the seat. No time like the present.
THIRTY-SEVEN
David was up to his elbows in grease when his chest got tight and his breath started coming short and fast. He felt heat spread through his body, wondered if his face was as red as it felt. He put his wrench down, sat on a moldy bale of hay that had been in the barn since they’d bought the property. His hands were shaking.
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