He blinked and looked around. Crime scene tape kept the crowd back, but the numbers had swelled, and they pressed close, taking in the details of his torn, sweaty shirt, his worn Levi’s with the hole in the knee, the rigid Mother-One in his arms.
There were Elaki in the crowd. Knots of them. As one, they turned their backs, too polite to witness the shame of the Elaki Mother-One. A chopper boomed overhead, and a camera recorded every detail.
“Della!” David took a breath, hating the press of people. “I ordered blackout.”
“And I overrode.”
The voice was familiar and welcome, for all that it brought bad news. Captain Halliday looked tired, but not annoyed.
“Get that ambulance crew here!” Halliday shouted.
Three men wheeled a stretcher.
“Della, you ride shotgun,” Halliday said. “Take care of things on our end. She may still be dangerous—”
“She’s not dangerous,” David said.
“Put her on the stretcher, David.”
David set her down gently, grateful, for once, to be told what to do. She trembled. The attendant tightened a strap across her chest.
“You don’t need it,” David said. He glanced at Della and she nodded.
“Please,” Dahmi said.
David crouched beside her. “Please what?”
“Please … nobody to hurt my pouchlings?”
David swallowed and nodded. “Nobody to hurt your pouchlings.”
TWO
It was a gentle killing.
The pouchlings were very small, very young; the size of puppies. Even from the doorway, David could see that they were clean, comfortably laid out on the floor, a small white cloth cushioning the eye stalks that had glazed in death approximately three days ago.
“You going to the hospital?”
David turned, saw Captain Halliday. The captain had put on a few pounds, but his face was still thin and pointed. His black silk tie, slightly askew, was so narrow it looked like a stripe down his midsection. He pushed his reading glasses up on his head and rubbed his eyes.
“While you’re there,” Halliday said, “better have your shoulder looked at.”
“Shoulder?” David frowned at the balloon of blood that had soaked his shirt. “Aw, hell.”
The coroner’s tech, Miriam Kellog, looked up from the pouchlings. Her reddish-brown hair was tied back in a French braid.
“Is it bad?” she said. “Want me to look at it?”
“No, it’s the shirt. Rose is going to kill me, she told me not to wear it to work. I forgot I had it on.” He looked at Halliday. “You got anybody on the neighbors?”
“Mel and String doing either side of the house. Uniforms everywhere else. Just hope they get there before the media. They’re like Japanese beetles out there.”
David nodded. He squatted beside Miriam.
“Della’s already back at the office with Pete,” Halliday said. “Pounding the keyboard. They’ll have background for you in a couple hours.”
David cocked his head sideways, studying the faded pouchlings. “They look peaceful.” He looked around the room, harsh now with spotlights, trying to remember it as it was before gunfire had torn it apart. He looked back at the pouchlings, all roughly the same size, lying side by side, fins touching, bottom fringe tucked neatly. He frowned. “They been washed? Did she clean them up after she killed them?”
Miriam Kellog nodded. “Looks like. I’ll get you a prelim in a few hours.”
“Any ideas?”
“Maybe drowned them, maybe poison. Hard to tell.”
David shook his head. “Unlikely. Elaki have odd hangups about water. And poison hurts.”
“What do you think she did?” Miriam pushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. It stayed back for about a second, then drifted over her cheek.
David chewed his lip. His shoulder was starting to burn just a little, irritating, like a paper cut.
“My guess would be suffocation. She would wait until they were asleep, then hold a pillow over the belly slits. They would never know.”
Miriam took a magnifying light and small forceps and pried open the belly slit of the pouchling on the end.
“Um.” She moved to the next pouchling, and pried open another slit. A thin, yellowish fluid seeped out, emitting a faint, sour odor. Miriam held the slit open with the forceps, and, one-handed, selected a tweezer from her kit. She plucked something from the side of the slit and held it up. “Look at this.”
“Fiber?”
Miriam nodded. “With a little luck, this’ll tell us what she used to smother them. If that’s what she did.” She put the fiber in a specimen bag and muttered into her mike, then looked at David. “How’d you know?”
“She didn’t want to hurt them,” he said. “She just wanted to kill them.”
Miriam turned back to her kit. “I wonder what made her snap.”
David cocked his head to one side. “I’m not sure she did.”
Miriam looked at him.
“Something scared her. I just wonder if it was real or in her head.”
The emergency room at Bellmini General Hospital was clean, bright, and quiet. The waiting room smelled like flowers, with a tinge of the lime scent David associated with Elaki. One Elaki stood in the corner of the waiting room and looked out a window. David paused, and the glass double doors shushed behind him. He was hit with the aroma of rich, cinnamon-spicy coffee. Elaki made great coffee.
Trays of fruit, cheese, and taifu, an Elaki pastry, were positioned on a mahogany side table. David sighed. He was hungry.
A security guard rushed him before he got to the receiving desk.
“Sir, I think you made a mistake. The hospital you want is Euclid Central. Can I call a car for you?”
David flashed his badge. The guard, an old man with a burr haircut, blushed.
“Oh, my,” he said. His eyes were tired. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
The old man nodded and moved away. He glanced over his shoulder. “Can I get you some coffee, Detective?”
“Please. Cream, no sugar.”
The receptionist was human, a skinny blonde, her lips a thin, tight slash. She frowned at the blood on his shirt.
“Sir, we can’t treat you here.”
David walked past without a second look. He stepped off the thick black carpet, onto a white tile floor, and passed through double swing doors labeled EMERGENCY.
The staff was a mix, Elaki and human. An Elaki glided toward him, stethoscope wrapped around its waist.
“You need medical aid?” the Elaki said. The voice was feminine, warm. Her side slits were tight.
No Mother-One, David thought.
“Detective Silver.” David flashed his badge. “I need to see—”
“Ah. You are the policeman. You wish to interrogate my patient?”
“Talk to her,” David said.
“Did she …” the Elaki doctor hesitated. “Did she in real effect kill her pouchlings? I understand she cut them in half?”
David’s voice was gentle. “Where is she?”
“Please to follow.” The Elaki moved toward a white-curtained cubicle. The emergency-room doors opened and David heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, lady, do they pay you extra to be nasty, or do you do it free of charge?”
David turned around. String came into the ER, followed by Mel, who was cramming an Elaki pastry into his mouth.
“My associates,” David said.
Mel waved and held up a foam cup. “Old guy out there told me to give this to you.”
David waved it away. “Later,” he said. “What did you find out?”
“She is ideal Mother-One,” String said.
David looked at Mel, who shrugged. “He’s right, David. Everybody says how great she was. She sounds perfect, other than the one thing.”
“One thing?”
“You know. Killing the kids.”
“String,” David said.
“I hate to say it, but—”
“I will stay here. She is most afraid the Izicho.” His left eye prong drooped.
“See if you can get anything from the doctors,” David said. “Mel, wipe the crumbs off your mouth.”
Mel gulped down the last of the coffee. “Cinnamon.” He grimaced. “Next time, David, you don’t drink your coffee, order it black.” He crumpled the cup and handed it to the Elaki doctor. “Take care of this for me, will you, sweetheart?”
David tried not to smile.
THREE
Wires ran from Dahmi’s midsection to an ivory machine on the table nearby. The S-curved hospital bed made David’s back ache.
“Dahmi?” David said softly.
The Mother-One rustled in the bed. Heavy restraints had been buckled across her body, and thin strips of webbing ran from thick leather bands.
“I see they made you comfortable.” Mel pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Jesus. David, surely all this ain’t necessary.”
David sat down on the other side of the bed. “Dahmi?”
The Elaki was rigid. Her eye stalks twitched.
“Izicho coming.” Her voice dragged.
“She drugged?” Mel said. “This won’t hold up, if she’s drugged.”
“It won’t hold up anyway,” David said. “Dahmi? All the pouchlings are dead.”
“Yes,” Dahmi said. “All the little baby ones are safe now.”
“Safe from what?” David said.
“Cho invasion.”
David and Mel looked at each other. David felt a chill.
“Uh-oh,” Mel said.
David scooted his chair closer. The Elaki tried to turn and shift, but the webbing held her tight.
“Please,” she said. “I will not hurt them. Go home. Please to go home.”
“Is there somebody we can call?” Mel said. “A friend. A …” He looked at David. “Somebody from your chemooki?”
“Chemaki,” David said.
“Yeah,” said Mel. “Chemaki.”
“No one. All gone. All gone. Guardians.”
“The Guardians? What about the Guardians?” David asked.
The Elaki stilled and said nothing.
“Dahmi, what happened with the pouchlings?”
“Izicho.”
“The Izicho killed them?”
“I kill them.”
David kept his gaze steady. “You killed them, Dahmi? You killed your pouchlings?”
“I kill them.”
“Why?” Mel asked.
“To keep them safe.” Dahmi shifted, and the restraint buckles rattled. “Mikiki did not stay asleep.” Her voice was raw, hoarse. “Mikiki open him eyes.”
Outside Dahmi’s cubicle, the noise level was rising. David stepped outside the curtains. Not exactly business as usual. There were few patients, but a profusion of personnel, many of them grouped around a small TV on the counter. There was an almost electric feel of excitement, and Elaki stood off together in groups, murmuring. David watched for belly ripples. Sure enough, he decided, looking around. Something they thought was funny.
David squinted at the television. The Elaki were tall, he could not see over their heads.
“David?”
String slid close, the Elaki doctor in tow.
“What’s going on?” David said.
“Toilet paper,” String said.
“At the Houston Stock Exchange,” the doctor added. “Close it down one hour before time. A ton of toilet paper, dropping from the skies. Everything clogged.”
“From ceiling,” String said.
“Angel Eyes again?” David said. “The Guardians?”
“You need to ask?” Mel’s voice was loud beside him.
“Is she not wonderful?” the Elaki doctor said.
“Childish,” String said.
The Elaki doctor stiffened and twisted sideways, her eye stalks slanted at String. “I forget. You Izicho.”
String said something in staccato syllables that David could not understand. It was rare for an Elaki to speak Home-tongue in front of a human, and it was only the second time David had heard it.
The Elaki doctor answered in kind, her voice a whistling hiss. David watched them grimly. So much for the heart-to-heart he wanted to have with the doctor.
He realized that the ER had gone suddenly quiet. He looked up and found them watching, looking from him to the television. He moved toward the screen.
He could not make out what the reporter was saying, but the image onscreen was clear. He saw himself emerging from the dark Elaki house, Dahmi in his arms.
He wondered if Rose was watching. He hoped she wouldn’t notice the shirt.
FOUR
David turned off the two-lane road, barely missing the deep pothole that festered outside his driveway. Gravel crackled beneath the tires.
Rose had been out doing yard work. There were pink begonias planted alongside the porch, and a hoe rested in the corner by the front door. She had set the lawn animals out. Mechanical squirrels and mule deer wandered sightlessly through the grass, chopping at the lawn with their sharply honed teeth.
The lawn animals made soft rustling noises. David didn’t like them. No matter how often Rose told him the animals were safe, he insisted the children never be outside with them. He did not like to think of the sharp-bladed teeth anywhere near his daughters’ plump, tiny toes.
God forbid little girls should wear shoes in the summertime.
For once, the children were waiting for him when he came through the door. They had given up waiting since the first cho invasion nineteen months ago, but tonight they were there.
They were ready for bed, all three wearing long, multicolored T-shirts, and all of them with plastic wires in their hair.
“What’s this?” David said, bending down to hug them. In his mind’s eye he saw the pouchlings, side by side, fins touching. “You get good reception with those things?”
“Daddy,” Lisa said. “Mommy says these curls will stay in two weeks, even when we get our hair wet. It’ll just spring back.”
“But they hurt.” Mattie pulled at the wires that were already sagging in her fine, silky hair. “Come mere, Daddy. I got to kiss you.” Her lips were soft and wet on his rough cheek. “And tell you I love you. Mommy says you have a bad day, and we gots to softy you up if we—”
“Shhhh.” Kendra clapped a hand over her sister’s mouth. “We saw you on TV, Daddy. How come you were holding that Elaki? Was it dead?”
“She,” David said. “No. She’s in the hospital.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
David looked at Kendra helplessly.
“She going to be all right?”
“Isn’t it bedtime?” David said.
“I want a story,” Mattie said.
“Kendra will read to you.” David stood up.
“I want you, Daddy.”
“Why can’t she listen to a tape?”
“Do it,” David said. He turned his back on his daughters and went to the kitchen. He ought to read to Mattie. He ought to read to all of them. He would do it tomorrow night, no matter how tired he was.
Rose had her back to him. “David?”
“Hi, sweet.”
“Didn’t figure on seeing you anytime soon. You home for the night?”
“Just a few hours.”
She was crouched by the back door, bent over a new lawn animal. It was shaped like a calf, brown eyes and black nose painted wetly. The eyes blinked sleepily.
“What’s wrong with it?” David asked. He opened the refrigerator.
“Its mother died.”
“Ha. Did you cook tonight?” Dumb question, he thought.
“Just packages,” Rose said absently. She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Saw you on the tube.”
David put a hand over the bloody rip that had ruined the cotton designer shirt Rose had given him three weeks ago.
“I got hurt,” he said.
“So I se
e. You ought to clean it up.” Rose bent back over the lawn clipper. “Did that Elaki mother really kill her children?”
“Pouchlings,” David said. “Yes.”
“God, I wish they had the death penalty.”
“She’s in bad shape, Rose.”
“Good. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for her, David. Any mother who offs her kids. There’s nothing that justifies it.”
“I wonder,” David said. He moved close to Rose, reached down to touch the curl that had come loose from the braid at the nape of her neck.
The lawn trimmer bawled and skittered its legs. David stumbled backward. The lawn animal looked at him, panic in the soft brown eyes.
“That’s a cow,” David said.
“Calf, David, just a baby.”
“But it’s real.”
“Of course it’s real. Another victim of Ridley’s Petting Zoo. This was a bad one. Gag city. Operating down in Georgia this time.”
“Jesus, I thought it was—”
“What?”
“A lawn animal. I saw you had them out.”
Rose put an arm around the neck of the calf and scratched its ears. The calf’s legs looked spindly and vulnerable. The calf bawled and butted Rose’s shoulder.
“We had to destroy the mother,” she said softly.
“Rose, we don’t need any more animals.”
She glanced at his shirt. Silence settled.
“Just awhile,” Rose said.
“Awhile.” David scratched the back of his neck, and winced. His shoulder was getting sore. “Where’s the dog? And where’s Alex?”
“Hilde is out in the yard. I don’t know where the cat from hell is. I threw him out because he was upsetting this baby here.”
“How many others are there?”
“Others?”
“Come on, Rose, I know you. How many?”
“Okay, one.”
“What?”
“Just a llama. There might be an ostrich later, but it’s bad-tempered and—”
David closed his eyes.
“The llama’s in the barn,” Rose said. “The children might could ride it, when its sores heal up, and it’s filled out a little.”
“Rose, there’s got to be an upper limit. This is the third petting zoo you’ve shut down in the last year. What if—”
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