by Jean Kilczer
I sniffed the empty chair beside me and the fuzzy thing beneath me. Salty water leaked from my eyes as I smelled my Terran cub's left-behind aroma. I wiped my eyes with a paw and searched my belly pouch for the Earth sugary rolls that tasted sweeter than a dire flapper's gall bladder and crunchy as its flapper bones. They gave me comfort in my liver to eat them, like the warm sun on my back as I swam in Kresthaven's northern seas.
Then I remembered. I had lost all the Earth bars in the ocean. Ten Gods, I thought, this is a small thing compared to the loss of my Terran cub and his female! Sweeter than candy, my love for my Jules cubfriend.
“Are you crying, Huff?” the bat asked me.
I shook my snout. “No. I am leaking water from my head for my Julescub.”
“Watch out your brains don't leak out with it,” the chance said.
I nodded. “I will.”
“Enough, Chancey,” Joe said in a harsh voice. He studied a piece of paper on the table and rubbed his chin. “Would be nice if one of our elite commando teams would go in and rescue them.”
“The Seals or Delta Force?” the bat asked.
“Or both,” the chance said.
Joe shook his head up and down. I had come to learn that this was another way to say Yes. “Unfortunately, there's no proof of a federal criminal offense. It's a missing person's case.”
“What about the WCIA?” the chance asked.
Now Joe shook his head the other way. “Even if they had the authority to go in, there are families living in the compound.” He leaned his forepaws on the table. “Nobody wants women and children caught in a crossfire, Chancey, not the CIA, the WCIA, the FBI, the commando teams, or the SWAT teams. Two members of our team disappeared on a night dive. That's all we've got.” He tilted his head toward me. “And an alien who isn't known for his astute judgment as an eyewitness.”
“Which leaves only us,” the chance said.
“Which leaves us,” Joe repeated and rubbed his eyes, a human gesture that meant I am tired or I am sad or I don't know what to do. “The local police department and the politicians are in Don Rastelli's pocket.”
I put a forepaw on the table. “I will help, JoeBoss,” I said, “in any way that I can, to free my Terran Jules friend and his female.”
The bat reached over and patted my paw. “We all want to see that, Huff.”
“Fortunately,” JoeBoss said, “none of the Mafiosi on Equus ever saw us face to face. Huff, you say they didn't see you on the beach when they captured Jules and Sophia? Is that right?”
“That is right, but what they did was wrong!” I shook my head from side to side in that human gesture. “I hid beyond the lights and behind the ice.” The memory of how the Al One had hit Jules and made him go into their burrow ached in my liver, and water dripped again from my eyes. “I could crush the skinny Al One with a forepaw and squeeze the red liquid out of his evil body!”
“Take it easy, Huff,” the bat said.
JoeBoss stared at a glass in the wall. I wondered what his human eyes saw through it. “This goes no further,” he said wearily and lifted a hand as though to hold down his words. “A friend in the WCIA agreed to tap the compound's comlinks for us.”
“That's a plus!” the chance said.
“Once a week,” JoeBoss said, “the compound calls for a laundry pickup and delivery. My WCIA buddy is in contact with the company that services them.”
The bat leaned back and folded his front paws on the table. “Is that when we go in?”
“This has to be a surgical mission,” JoeBoss said. “We go in with the truck, make the delivery and pick up the dirty laundry.”
The chance smiled. “And among the diapers…” he chuckled. When's the next delivery and pickup, boss?"
“Thursday. Two days from now. We'll fly to Southampton tomorrow morning and take a hovair to the laundry company, You Soil, We Toil.”
“Oh, cute!” the chance said.
Joe studied the paper. “This is a blueprint of the compound we got from the building department. Study it. Commit it to memory.”
“If there were only some way,” the bat said, “that we could get in touch with Jules and Sophia.”
Joe glanced at me.
I lifted my snout and waited.
“Huff,” Joe said, “Jules tells me that you have some latent tel abilities.”
“Does he tell you that?” I asked. “From where does he tell you?”
“Never mind.” JoeBoss let out a long breath of air. “Your mission, Huff, is to swim to the beach and get as close as you can to the compound without alerting their guard dogs.”
“I will rub myself with dead fish and move as silently as the doplestriker of the ice!”
JoeBoss' brows came together over his nose. “Damn good idea, Huff. Tomorrow night, when you're as close to the building as you can get, try to project thoughts to Jules. Just tell him over and over that on Thursday afternoon, to look for a laundry truck. That will be our rescue vehicle.”
“Should I tell him,” I asked, “to just look, or to find it?”
JoeBoss hit the table with a curled forepaw. “Yes, Huff! To find it.”
“How does Jules put up with him?” the chance asked.
“Sometimes,” JoeBoss said, “I don't know how either one of them puts up with the other. I only hope Jules knows where they're holding Sophia.” He stared up at the overhang of his burrow and ran his paw over his lips. “Someone at the compound might want to know what happened to the usual pickup and delivery crew. Our story is that they had an accident with their truck and we were asked to cover for them. If they call the laundry company, the manager is ready to confirm the story.”
“We'll do our best, boss,” the bat said in a soft voice.
“That kid,” JoeBoss said, “will make me old before my time.”
“What kid?” I asked and looked around. “How can a kid make you old before you are old?”
“With Jules,” JoeBoss said, “it's a piece of cake.”
A piece of cake, I thought. So sweet. As sweet as Earth candy rolls. I drooled and licked my lips. “Is your female,” I asked JoeBoss, “baking us a piece of cake?”
JoeBoss stared at me.
“Now, boss,” the bat put a hand on his forearm, “think of Huff as a kid.”
“Just two kids,” Joe said, and rubbed his eyes again.
I looked around and under the table, but could see no kids. Perhaps they were beyond the dark glass. I opened my snout to ask, but bat moved his head from side to side. I knew the meaning was No, don't talk.
Ten Gods, I prayed, in two days let me see my Terran cub again and his female. Keep them safe, please, I beseech you, inside the bag of dirty diapers.
Chapter Twenty
I sat at a corner table in the compound's communal dining room as Sophia entered with Vito by her side. She paused and smiled at me. I smiled back. Vito ushered her to the buffet breakfast table and they filled dishes on trays. I ate a piece of spicy sausage and watched men follow Sophia with their eyes. I guess Vito was riding shotgun.
The room smelled of fresh-baked bread. Pans clinked. Families laughed and talked loudly. Some people glanced my way, pointed, and whispered to others. Kids ran around the buffet table, shouting and grabbing food.
A teenage girl, her red sweater tight across small, pointed breasts, her brown hair piled on her head and held with a ribbon, sauntered up to my table and winked at me. She tapped the edge with long red fingernails.
“Amelia!” an old woman at a nearby table called hoarsely, “vieni qua.” The woman's lips were curled down. Her black hair was tight in a bun.
The girl hurried to the table and sat down. The old woman raised her hand and shook it, then let it drop.
Beauty and the beast, I thought as I watched Sophia and Vito walk to my table with trays. Sometimes I forget how exotic Sophia really is with her dark, slanted eyes, her black hair thick around those high, sharp-bladed cheekbones. We'd been given clothes to wear after
stripping off our thermo dive suits; just plain black pants and white shirts, but she stood out like a flower among weeds. What makes her more lovable is that she is so unaware of her striking good looks.
Vito escorted her to my table and they both sat down.
“Sophia.” I smiled at her.
She just nodded. I saw the tears in her eyes. I think her throat was too tight to talk.
“How about a little privacy?” I asked Vito.
He took his dishes off the tray. “No can do.” His long, thinning hair fell across his bony face and hooked nose as he ate.
I reached a hand to Sophia, with a folded note between my thumb and palm. She felt it as I clasped her hand, and her eyes widened.
“How are they treating you, dear?” I glanced down at our hands.
She cleared her throat. “All right,” she said hoarsely.
I spread my fingers, and she curled her hand around the note and drew it toward her. She scratched her chest beneath the open top buttons of her shirt and I saw her tuck the note inside her bra.
I needed an answer to the question in it.
“How are you, Jules?” she asked.
“Oh, I'm OK. You know, working on the bristra project.”
We both started eating and I motioned toward the restroom with my head.
She put down her fork. “Excuse me, please. I need to go to the restroom.” She stood up.
“Aw, now?” Vito slammed down his fork. “C'mon.”
He walked with her to the ladies room door and stood there as she went inside.
When no one was looking my way, I slipped a ceramic salt shaker into my pants pocket. I went to an empty table, took the salt shaker and returned to my table, where I shook some on my already salted eggs and continued to nibble on them.
Five minutes later Sophia came out the door and walked to our table with her left hand balled into a fist.
“Dear,” I said as she sat down, and reached for her hand. “You look pale.”
“Oh, no.” She clasped my hand. I felt the note and slid it into my palm. “I'm really all right, dear,” she said.
I released her hand. “Well, I'm glad to hear that.”
“Are you two gonna eat or what?” Vito said with a mouthful of eggs. “The don wants you back in the lab,” he told me. A piece of egg flew out of his mouth. “This is just a break.”
I picked up my fork and let it slip from my fingers to the floor.
“Oh, butterfingers,” Sophia remarked and turned to Vito to distract him while I stuffed the note into my sneaker and picked up the fork. “He never could hold onto anything. I thought he'd never hold onto me, either. But then he –”
“Yeah, yeah. Mangia!” Vito bit into a sausage. “Eat.”
I nodded once to her and wiped my fork on a paper napkin.
“Hey, Mister,” a young dark-haired child came up to me, “are you the kraut?”
“Go back to your table, Francesca,” Vito told her.
She pointed at my shoe under the table. “But he just –”
Sophia stopped chewing.
“You heard me,” Vito said.
Francesca shrugged and skipped away.
“My stomach's kind of upset,” I said. “I think I'll just go back to the lab.”
“Yeah, go 'head,” Vito said. “You know the way.”
I got up and kissed Sophia on the cheek. “See you soon, dear,” I said. “Very soon.”
She nodded. “Soon.”
Back at the lab, I walked past Norma, who was studying a tank of young shoots and taking notes. I locked the bathroom door behind me and opened the note. It was my crude drawing of the compound and a message to Sophia: Mark the place where they're holding you. Rescue mission by the team this afternoon. I love you.
She had ripped out a tiny piece of the paper on the area marked Top Floor, East Wing.
I tore the note into small pieces and flushed it.
Vito and Zach were waiting in the lab when I came out of the bathroom.
“What's up?” I asked casually.
“Francesca says you stole a knife an' put it in your shoe,” Vito said. Zach, the gorilla, just grinned. “Take off your shoes,” Vito ordered. “The socks too.”
“Whatever.” I took them off and shook them out. “You tags see a knife?”
“I don' see no knife,” Zach said.
Vito went into the bathroom. I heard him banging around as he searched.
Zach smiled at Norma. “You gotta boyfrien'?”
She backed away and nodded.
“Ah,” Zach said, “that'sa too bad.”
Vito came back out of the bathroom. “Stupid kid. C'mon, Zach!”
They went out the door and he slammed it behind himself.
I glanced at Norma, who was staring at me. “What's your problem?”
She shook her head and went back to the tank and her notes.
I walked past the rows of tanks. Somehow, I would have to destroy the roots before we left the compound. There were four Bunsen burners on a bench. No, they would never reach the tanks from their fuel source. The roots breathed through tracheae tubes along their bodies. Clog the tubes, and they die. Two fire extinguishers were clamped to the walls. That should do it.
“You seem distracted,” Norma said.
I jumped. “I was just thinking that we should do some clinical tests.”
“On animals?”
I nodded. “Pigs would be appropriate.”
“It's OK with me.”
“I'll talk to Vito about purchasing some piglets.”
“Uh, Jules, you know,” she came closer, pursed her ruby-red lips, and arched her back so that her breasts were against my chest, “I'm really glad we're working together on this project.” She let her lips stretch into a smile.
I smiled back as I thought of tying her to a chair when the rescue came. Let's see how sexy she could look with a gag stuffed in her mouth.
* * *
When Norma left with Vito for lunch, I washed out the salt shaker and opened a lower cabinet that held clean folded rags, cans of alcohol, propane for the Bunsen burners, boxes of lab gloves, instruments, and assorted paraphernalia. I found a roll of duct tape and a pair of dissecting scissors.
This will do, I thought as I ripped off four pieces of tape and let them dangle from the counter, then slipped on a pair of gloves. I unlocked and opened the tank lid on some juvenile roots, lifted a tendril and cut it off with the scissors. The shoot spasmed and curled tightly around my finger. I closed the lid quickly and locked it as the other roots reared up and attempted to escape.
The shoot clung tenaciously to my finger and had already cut through the glove as I uncurled it and stuffed it into the salt shaker. I used the pieces of duct tape to securely close the bottom. The sticky surface would foil the bristra's tiny claws as it tried to cut through them. The holes in the shaker would provide air. I had my cutting for the Los Alamos Lab, if I ever got back there again.
Footsteps!
I stuffed the shaker into my pants pocket and went to the door.
Zach opened it and almost hit me with it. “Vito wants to know if you comin' fer lunch or what?”
“On my way,” I said and walked past him.
It was twelve forty-five pm by the dining room clock as I filled a dish with grilled peppers, meatballs, and pasta, and brought it to the table where Sophia and Vito already sat eating.
Huff hadn't told me what time to expect the rescue in his attempt at a tel send from the beach the night before.
“About time,” Vito said around a meatball. “You better eat fast.”
I kissed Sophia's cheek. She put her arm around my waist and smiled up at me. I saw Amelia watching as I sat across from Sophia and started eating.
I found myself staring at the clock as I chewed.
Would the team come for me and Sophia, or should we try to get to the laundry room, in a basement of the complex, and wait for them there?
Should I destroy the tanks
of bristra right after lunch or wait for Joe? A diversion. That's what I needed, I decided, and stared out a window. Dark clouds drifted from the west.
“Looks like snow,” I told Sophia. “I think it won't be long now.” I nodded.
“We need a change…in weather,” she said.
“Will you two stop talking an' eat?” Vito asked.
We did. Now that I had made my decision, I felt relaxed and hungry. I knew what I had to do.
* * *
Norma was already in the lab when I got back from lunch. The fly in the ointment, I thought as I unclamped a fire extinguisher.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“What does it look like I'm doing? I'm about to destroy all the bristra and start a fire.”
She smirked. “I could almost believe you.”
“I could almost mean it.” I went to a tank, unlocked it and threw open the lid. Before the roots could react, I sprayed them with foam, slammed down the lid and locked it.
“Are you crazy?” she said and backed toward the door.
“Could be.” I went after her, grabbed her arm and dragged her into the bathroom while she pummeled me with small fists.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “You can't destroy the project.”
“I can't? Now stay there. I'd hate to hit a woman.” I closed the door and shoved a chair under the doorknob. I would let her out before I started the fire. Hell. I owed the bitch that much.
I did not feel good about what I was doing as I went from tank to tank and systematically sprayed the roots. The first ones were already dying, trapped in their tanks, when I reached the last root, a fully mature bristra, probably twenty feet long when uncurled, black, and thick around as a sapling. “Sorry, guy.” I opened the lid. It reared up so fast I didn't get a chance to step back. I gasped as I saw the row of small black eyes, like a spider's, just below its bulging head. It swung its body and sent the extinguisher flying from my hands.