Alien Eyes

by Lynn Hightower

  Painter’s scales took on a yellowish cast. David, standing to one side, could see one of the pouchlings, rigid and still behind the Mother-One. David thought of his daughters, afraid of Strange men at the door. Impossible to imagine Rose afraid. But the Elaki Mother-One certainly was.

  David inclined his head. “Wait for me.”

  Mel looked at String, then shrugged. “We’re going to wander down the street. Honk the horn when you’re ready.”

  The Elaki Mother-One watched String and Mel leave the yard.

  “We don’t have to go in,” David said. “We can stay right here, if you want.”

  “I see you on the television box,” Painter said. “You carry Dahmi out. No one will tell for me. She is hurt? They have … they have plugged her?”

  “Shot her?” David said. He wiped sweat from the back of his neck. “No. She wasn’t hit.”

  “There was much gunplay.”

  “Gunshots? You heard a lot of shots? That scared you, didn’t it?”

  Most Elaki were afraid of guns. David took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He moved past the Elaki Mother-One, taking care to stay clear of the pouchlings, and sat on a landscape timber that separated a clump of dwarf trees from the sidewalk. It was cooler under the little trees. Cedar chips beneath their base gave off a pungent, woody scent.

  “Dahmi wasn’t shot,” David said. “But she had a gun. Her pouchlings were in the room and so was I. Some of the officers were afraid. They fired.”

  “They must have been very afraid;”

  “Yes.” David stretched his feet out. “They were trying to protect the pouchlings.”

  “Protect the pouchlings—or you, their brother flatfoot?”

  David folded his arms and considered her. “Likely? Protect me.”

  The Mother-One rocked from side to side. “A truth teller,” she said. “Many hot dogs tell lies.”

  “Where’d she get the gun?” David asked.

  The Elaki Mother-One glided past him into the house. “Please to come in.”

  “Thank you,” David said. It would be good to get out of the heat.

  “Most welcome. Must clean shockee anyway, to prepare for death watch.”

  It hurt his feelings.

  The inside hall was narrow, the ceiling high, and David got a panicky feeling in his chest. Small, tight places bothered him now. He wished they’d stayed outside.

  Inside was cool, at least.

  The lime scent of Elaki was strong, but not unpleasant. The pouchlings followed their mother like baby ducks. The hallway snaked to the right, then curled left. There was one door on the left, but it was closed. Going through Elaki houses—shockees—was like falling down the rabbit hole.

  The hall widened into a large room with a tile floor and a glass ceiling. David’s heart quit pounding. He could breathe here. There were squared-off areas filled with small pebbles. David wondered if they were the start of a new project, or a completed scenario that only an Elaki might appreciate. String would know. It would have been good if he’d been able to come along. This hostility to Izicho was new, judging from String’s bewilderment. Kind of like what cops put up with in the 1960s.

  Poor String.

  There were reasons in the sixties. Were there reasons now?

  The Elaki Mother-One stopped abruptly and David expected the pouchlings, following so closely, to run into her. They didn’t. He veered to the right to avoid tripping over the one ahead of him. His reflexes were good—honed by years of going places with his own kids just ahead.

  Painter scooted to the center of the room. She swept sideways gracefully and turned to face him. Her left wing went out. The pouchlings seemed to find the motion meaningful.

  “But, the Mother-One,” a pouchling said—the one with the reddest inner coloring.

  “Please, please, please,” said the other, smaller pouchling.

  Interesting, David thought. Even alien children chanted at their parents.

  “Conversation not of interest to young ones,” Painter said calmly.

  “Oh, but, Mother-One, it is, it is. Very much interest.”

  Painter’s voice took a hard note. “Conversation not proper for pouchlings. Please to use new construction materials in vid room.”

  “Yes, Mother-One.” The small pouchlings swayed. “What shall we build?”

  “You must decide.”

  “Yesss, Mother-One.” The pouchlings moved their fringe scales slowly.

  David laid his jacket over his arm. It was an Elaki home—no chairs.

  “Dahmi’s pouchlings were younger,” David said.

  “Yesss. Baby ones. Tonight I do the death watch. No one from the chemaki will come. Cannot be reached. Out of town.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Home planet,” the Elaki said. “Dahmi’s pouchlings. Please to tell—she did this? She kills them?”

  “I’m afraid so,” David said.

  “Hard for to believe. And yet—”

  “Yet?”

  “They did not suffer?”

  “No,” David said. He thought of the pouchling who had opened his eyes. “No. Tell me. Where did Dahmi get the gun?”

  The Elaki twitched an eye stalk. “Very good question, yes. I have no knowledge here. I know Dahmi very little. Live near, but both involve with pouchlings too much for the close association.”

  “Where would you get a gun? If for some reason you were desperate to have one.”

  “I do not think it would be possible for me to secure such a thing. Not common to Elaki. Complicated and dangerous.”

  “Suppose it was a matter of life and death. What would you do?”

  “What could be such a matter?”

  “Suppose you needed it to protect your pouchlings?”

  “Ah. That then. I still do not know. Perhaps to ask a friend. To ask Dahmi.”

  “Why Dahmi?”

  “Because now she had one.”

  David gritted his teeth. If it suited her to play stupid there was nothing he could do.

  “Dahmi, then,” David said carefully, “was the kind of Elaki who knew about guns.”

  “But no.”

  “You said—”

  “I meant just. I mean if I had to find gun, I would ask a friend who knew such things.”

  “Did Dahmi have any friends who knew about guns?”

  “I do not knowledge.”

  “Why’d she do it, Painter? Was she crazy?”

  “Dahmi not crazy. Elaki not crazy.”

  “Was she a good Mother-One?”

  “You can ask?”

  “Yes. Tell me.” David folded his arms.

  The Elaki swelled. “Very good Mother-One. The best.”

  “Why did she do it?”

  “You do not know?”

  “Tell me.”

  “To protect, David Silver. To protect.”

  “To protect from what?”

  The Elaki scuttled to the other side of the room. “There are worse things than dying in the sleep, David Silver. Much worse things.”

  “What was she afraid of? Did she tell you?”

  “No. She would not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Would not involve other Mother-One, other pouchlings.”

  “Why didn’t she go to the police?”

  “I do not knowledge. I can only think of things. I know nothing. Talk to the Angel Eyes.”

  “Angel Eyes? Was Dahmi involved with the Guardians?”

  “She was … interested. A lecture attendance. Wednesday-day. That is as far as it would go; she have pouchlings.”

  There were loud, scraping sounds from the hallway, and a high-pitched series of squawks. The smallest Elaki backed through the door, pulling a bench made of a malleable plastic, bright red and shiny.

  “Please to interrupt, Mother-One. But the human needs a sit. And I have made one with new materials.” The small Elaki straightened, belly rippling.

  “You were told—”

  “H
umans get tired, Mother-One. I have studied them. It would be bad hospitality not to bring sit.”

  The Elaki stiffened, but she waved a fin tip. “Permission.”

  The small Elaki turned to David. “Please? Have a sit?”

  The bench did not look like it had a prayer of holding him.

  “Thank you.” David pressed his palm on the plastic. It was soft. The pouchling skittered back and forth, watching.

  David sat down carefully. The bench held, damp on the seat of his pants. It was low to the ground, and David’s knees rode high. He felt ridiculous, but touched.

  “Good sitting, David Silver,” the pouchling said, voice high and fluting.

  “Good sitting,” David agreed.

  The pouchling rippled and slid from the room. The Elaki Mother-One was silent.

  “What was Dahmi afraid of?” David asked. “Cho invasion?”

  “I will not speak of such things. It is not safe.”

  “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “On TV.”

  “Before that?”

  “Outside with pouchlings. Throwing them into trees.”

  “Doing … into trees?”

  “It is game. She did not throw them into a tree. She … it is a game.”

  “When was this?”

  “Nine days before last night.”

  “Nine days.” David rippled his fingers, counting. “Sunday? Sunday, you saw her?”

  “Sunday-day. Yes.”

  “Did she play with the pouchlings outside a lot?”

  “Infrequent. Only when she was … the word? Happy. Only when she was happy, David Silver.”

  TEN

  David glanced up and down the street. No sign of string or Mel. He stepped up on the running board of the van and leaned in the open window.

  The horn seemed overly loud in the quiet neighborhood.

  “What’s up?” the van asked. “Problem?”

  “Mind your business.” David draped his jacket over the headrest and looked down the street to Dahmi’s house.

  The sun was high and hot. David rolled the sleeves back on his shirt, wondering if it was worth the trouble to wear a suit to interview Elaki. They didn’t care what people wore. No scales no sales. As far as Elaki were concerned, people had strong cheesy odors, and it stank in a suit or a pair of jeans. Painter was going to clean her house this afternoon just because he’d been in it.

  He stood outside the shockee where Dahmi/Packer had killed her pouchlings because she loved them. Was the danger real, or in her mind? What kind of danger could an Elaki Mother-One be in?

  She had not gone to the police. Elaki were orderly, rule followers. Dahmi was afraid of the police.

  Cho invasion. Enough to frighten any parent, Elaki or human.

  They were very like the home invasions of the past. The bastards broke in while the families were home and took what they wanted, trashed the house, and, worse, tortured the families. Men, women, children—rape, pain, twisted pleasures. Usually they left them alive.

  Cho invasions went a step further. They didn’t leave them alive. But they took their time with the killing.

  Motiveless sprees was the official line of thought. Very sick clusters of criminals, creating a twisted synergy. There had been two in Saigo City in the last nineteen months.

  Could the Izicho be responsible? Both Saigo City victims had been predominantly Elaki groupings, with tenuous ties to the university, and stronger ties to the Guardians. But neither was deeply involved with the organization. Their connections were almost peripheral, very much on the fringes, nothing more serious than being, say, registered Democrats.

  As far as he knew.

  The killers were Elaki. Were they Izicho?

  String, in the midst of the investigation.

  David bit his thumbnail and looked at the house.

  The ivy ground cover was trampled and torn, and bits of waxy green leaves spotted the gravel walk that led to the door. The front yard was crisscrossed with deep tire ruts, and there was broken glass near the front door. David walked around back.

  The back window was sealed with thin plastic that had bowed in the hot sunlight. Shards of broken glass were scattered in the dirt beneath the window. David looked inside. The room was bare. In his mind’s eye, he saw the four pouchlings side by side on the floor.

  David heard voices.

  “But yes, the human mind is easy to read.”

  “Sure, String, sure.”

  “Pick any number between one and ten.”

  “Four.”

  “Do not tell the number. Pick another one.”

  “I know I heard that horn honk. David?”

  “Pick any other number.”

  “David?”

  “Back here.” David moved around the side of the house to the front yard.

  Mel grinned at him. “So what? She put the moves on you, partner?”

  “The moves?” String said.

  “Slang for a pass.” Mel sighed. “A sexual advance.”

  “Between human and Elaki? You must joke.”

  “Yes, he must,” David said.

  “What did you learn?” String asked.

  “That she was a wonderful mother, very happy, no access to a gun.” David looked at String. “She was playing with her children Sunday week. She was happy. Throwing them into trees.”

  Mel grimaced. “Already snapped, huh?”

  “It is game, Detective Mel. Play it with the little baby ones.”

  “Much belly rippling,” Mel said sourly. “I didn’t know Elaki played.”

  “The point is,” David said, “she was happy. Do you think it’s likely … String, say Dahmi was convinced that she and her pouchlings were going to be the target of a cho invasion. How likely would it be for her to be outside, throwing her pouchlings into the trees?”

  “There aren’t even any trees around here,” Mel said.

  “Not all likely,” said String.

  “Humans … a human mother, or father, still might play with their kids, even if they were upset.”

  String teetered back and forth on his fringe. “Human would ignore pressing matters and play?”

  “People, parents,” Mel said, “might still play with the kid if nothing could be done about it then. Why drag the kid down with you? Let them be normal.”

  “And the pouch … the child has no idea the problem or upset?”

  Mel shrugged. “A lot of the time they know something’s up. Depends how bad it is.”

  “Ah. This is when the pretending is taught.”

  “Just answer the question, String,” David said. He wiped sweat from the back of his neck. “Likely or not?”

  String considered. “Hard to say. But this outdoor game. Is it part of the usual regimen? Mother-Ones often most organized the day.”

  “No,” David said. “Painter said she only saw them out playing like that now and then.”

  “Ah,” String said. “More sense. It is a spur moment thing. Would be like human female, walking down street, swinging her purse.”

  David was quiet.

  “Something happened, then,” Mel said. “Something major happened between the time she was doing whatever weird thing she was doing out here with the kiddos. Yeah, I heard you, throwing them into the trees. And between the time she killed them. Miriam tell you how long they’d been dead before you found them?”

  “Ninety hours.”

  “This is Wednesday, then. She kill them Friday night?”

  “Afternoon or morning,” David said.

  “And when was she throwing them around?”

  “Sunday.”

  “So whatever it was happened between last Sunday afternoon and Friday morning.”

  “She had to get the gun,” David Said. “It happened before Friday.”

  “I wonder what it was.”

  ELEVEN

  The waiting room of Bellmini General was full, and the cacophony of distressed Elaki gave the air a frantic flavor.
One Elaki moaned. The others politely turned away.

  David wondered if there was coffee this afternoon. He must be an addict to want coffee in this heat.

  Two pouchlings skittered in front of him and he stopped just in time. Another Elaki cried out and teetered sideways. The other Elaki turned away as one, only to find themselves facing a sick pouchling. Elaki hisses filled the air, as Elaki twisted and turned in doomed efforts of courtesy.

  The same blonde sat behind the reception desk. Her hair stuck up in clumps around her head, and her lipstick was worn and chewed. She spoke in soft, careful tones to an Elaki Mother-One who held a tiny pouchling.

  “Yes, yes, ma’am.” Her voice was shaky. “We are giving proper priority. We’re shorthanded, excuse me, short on staff.” Her voice became tearful. “We’re usually not this busy Wednesday mornings. Yes, ma’am, yes … it would be good to plan for such things.” The blonde looked up and saw Mel over David’s shoulder. She flinched.

  “Doctor …” David frowned and looked at String. “What was that doctor’s name?”

  “Aslanti,” String said. “Please to see the Aslanti, medical.”

  The blonde frowned. “You’ll have to wait.”

  Mel smiled with his teeth. “Sweetheart, just tell us if she’s on duty.”

  “Yes. But she’s—”

  “Get me some coffee, will you, hon?”

  “I most certainly will not.” The blonde straightened her back and raised her chin.

  Mel grinned and led David and String through the swing doors to emergency.

  There was no television in the ER this afternoon. David leaned close to String.

  “Wednesday a big day for Elaki accidents?”

  String drifted slightly sideways, the equivalent of an Elaki shrug. “Not for me to know the experience of.”

  “Gumby, if you mean no,” Mel said, “just say no.”

  String hissed. “There.” He slid across the tile floor, belly plates rippling. “Aslanti, medical.”

  Her answering hiss was audible.

  Mel looked at David. “Looks like love to me.”

  “Dr. Aslanti?” David said.

  “Yes, police detective. Please to hurry, much to do.”

  “We need to talk to Dahmi. And I’d like an update on her condition.”

  “Yes?” Aslanti teetered back and forth on her fringe.

  There was a short silence.

  David tried again. “Can you tell us—”