Alien Eyes

by Lynn Hightower

  “Mine either,” David said. But it might be kind of fun if the kids were along. Then it would be legal to enjoy it.

  He looked around the room. The clientele was about half and half—Elaki and human, but no mixing between tables. He and Angel attracted stares. Some of the people were dressed up, others, nearly threadbare. They were no more than two miles from the disadvantaged area of Little Saigo.

  The menu cards were old, well fingered, and David had doubts that their choices would register. There were three entrees—boeuf bourguignonne, brochettes de moules, and larves de hanneton en papillote.

  Angel glanced at him. “Difficult to decide, yes, David?”

  “Ummm.” He pressed for the beef.

  Angel looked up. “Did you order as he say?”

  David nodded. He didn’t recognize anything else. He watched as she bent down and made her choice. Larves de hanneton en papillotte. He wondered what it was. Larves—did that mean snail? He’d had snails and liked them okay.

  Pierre had said the beef. David looked at the back of the menu.

  “There is nothing else to order,” Angel said. “Pierre decides side dishes and drinks.” She swiveled an eye stalk in his direction. “He has the good instinct. You can trust.”

  “Interesting attitude,” David said.

  “Pierre is most unusual human. Not”—Angel tilted sideways—“that I am the perfect judge. He like to cook and feed, and like to sell to Elaki because Elaki have no taste prejudice. Will eat any nutritious, well-prepared meal. Pierre is true gourmet.”

  David looked at the front of the small café. Pierre still stood beside the bar, unsmiling.

  “You are flattered, David,” Angel said. “Pierre does not speak to many.”

  David smiled. “He spoke to you.”

  “But yes.”

  It snagged him, for a moment, the way she said it. It wasn’t conceit, he decided, so much as admitting reality. She was Angel. Angel Eyes. Of course Pierre talked to her.

  Angel waved a fin. “Do you believe that SSStephen Arnold is in danger from Izicho?”

  David sat back in his chair. “I think he’s in danger, yes.”

  “Most careful, you,” Angel Eyes said.

  Their food came—brought by a thin girl with short, lank blond hair and large brown eyes. She wore blue jeans that sagged over her bony hips, and a black sweater with holes in the sleeve. A dirty apron was tied around her waist. She wore long earrings, but no makeup, gave David a hesitant smile, but flinched when Angel looked her way. The boeuf bourguignonne, smelling like heaven, came in a brown tureen accompanied by a plate of noodles. Beside the beef were spears of fresh asparagus. David wished he hadn’t already had dinner.

  David glanced across the table at Angel’s plate. “What is that?”

  “Larves de hanneton en papillote,” the girl said.

  Yes, David thought. But what was it?

  “How do you prepare it?” he asked.

  The girl put a cutting board on the table and set a long crusty baguette on top.

  “Salt and pepper them,” the girl said, wiping her hands on the apron. “Roll them in flour and bread crumbs, wrap them, buttered. He bakes them in ashes.”

  David sighed. “What are them?”

  “Grubs.”

  “Grubs of what?”

  “Beetles,” Angel told him. “Want to try?”

  “No,” David said. “But thanks.” It was good Pierre liked cooking for Elaki. Someone should.

  The beef was the best—and the richest—he had ever tasted. Tender brown chunks in red Burgundy gravy. The asparagus was pickled and tangy. He ate it with his fingers, and tore off hunks of bread, and was well on the way to finishing his second big meal of the evening.

  David took a large swallow of wine. Angel did not seem affected by the alcohol. A shame it didn’t work on her like it did on String.

  David chewed a noodle. Slowly. Shoving food in was beginning to hurt. He would definitely call a halt to the bread. He raised his wine glass, then put it down.

  Angel ate slowly but steadily, one fin splayed into fingerlike extrusions. Silverware was one human habit she had not acquired.

  “Suppose the Izicho aren’t responsible for these cho murders, Angel.” David opened his hands. “I don’t mean believe it. Just suppose it, for the sake of argument. If they weren’t responsible, who would be?”

  Angel waved a fin, dropping a buttered crumb onto the striped tablecloth. “Is no one else, David Detective Silver. Talk frankly?”

  He nodded.

  She glanced sideways, then back to his face. Her eye stalks were rigid. “No other grouping has the reason to hurt. No other grouping the power of position.”

  “Why?” David said. “Why concentrate their efforts here and now? What’s the catalyst?”

  Angel leaned sideways. “I must tell you now is the very critical moment. Mainline Elaki, mainline Izicho—go together, you see? And they feel the threat of the Earth habit. Here …” She snagged a wrapped beetle grub and ate it. “Here there is not the habit of social force. The pressure of the others, the social group, the community of peers that regulate the society. Yes, some places, we have found like things. Some of the oriental groupings, and in—I believe it is Haiti? The smaller places. But not to the extent of home. And this give Elaki much freedom and little structure. The Elaki who are coming in—they are the creators. And the criminals, yes, I do admit this. And because of the one, the Izicho answer is to suppress the other. Suppress all. This work against philosophy of Guardian. Guardian feel the society pressure not worth the squelch of us. Too much oneness in Elaki, can you understand this? Face Elaki with problem—will go stand in a bog all night. Become one?” Angel waved a fin, and went rigid. “This mean do nothing, accept a what you call, oh, status quo. Stagnant, David, still waters of sludge. This is Elaki mental state, so too often.”

  “But not you,” David said.

  “Not me ever. But Izicho want to scare. Keep Guardian from getting strong hold, here, where the ideas most acceptable.”

  “Won’t that backfire, though?”

  The waitress appeared with ceramic mugs of coffee. David’s was rich brown, cream no sugar, Angel’s black. He wondered how they knew he liked his coffee that way.

  It was strong, but not bitter. A clear taste, rich, no odd notes of aftertaste. He could drink this coffee all night.

  “It backfire?” Angel said.

  David wiped his mouth with a black cloth napkin. “Do them more harm than good. Killing families, torturing them. What’s more likely to happen is the Izicho will get thrown out.”

  “They very close to human government figures. Do you not know this? Study own history, David.”

  “Not if it happens in people’s faces. Not like this.” He grimaced. “Enid West won’t allow it. There’s already been one backlash.”

  “Ah, yes,” Angel said. “The experiments. The drug the Elaki have. This Black Diamond.”

  “There was a lot of anti-Elaki sentiment over that.”

  “You must understand mentality. It is fear reaction, these Izicho. Fear, not logic. If ruled by logic, would not have happened, the past … the past atrocities.” Angel leaned sideways. She had stopped eating, and she slid a fin across the side of the coffee cup. “This place, you know. It remind me. I was young Elaki, when began Guardians. Did you know I was there? Early times?”

  David nodded his head.

  “Yes. I be there.” She was oddly still now, the stillness David associated with Elaki meditation—the state of being one Angel scoffed at. “Full of ideas then, and excitement. I think time of much happiness. I think then it be possible to make the big change, you see, and so full then of the way it could be. We meet together for food and hot drink and … is hard to explain.”

  David nodded gently. They were revolutionaries—young, excited, idealistic, changing the world to suit their vision of what was good. A moment of happiness, before the scars that would come. He glanced at the white
web work on her midsection, and wondered how she had held under torture. He wondered how he would hold.

  “There is much we do not know then,” Angel said. “About how scared Elaki Izicho can react. About how our own selves react.” She turned toward David. “There are betrayals,” she said. “In our own group. It is such a thing that takes my pouchlings.”

  David felt a tickle of coldness at the base of his spine.

  “I had little baby ones. Two pouchlings, male and female. This you knew?”

  He nodded. Her voice had gone so soft he had to lean across the table to hear.

  “What happened?”

  “Is cho invasion,” Angel said. “I not home with them. Off. Off to make a little inconvenient mess. How childlike and pointless that now seem. And while I gone, the Izicho come. My little baby ones tortured. A chemaki male and female, there to watch and protect …” She leaned close. “Literally, David Silver. They are torn to pieces.”

  David swallowed. He thought of her on television, asking for understanding for Dahmi. Did she know where Dahmi was? Did she have her safely tucked away? It was almost more than he could ask. Almost.

  “Where is Dahmi?” David said.

  Angel Eyes was very still. She did not have the nervous movements he knew so well. Just stillness. She turned her eye stalks and watched him. Her eyes looked moist, but he knew better. He knew Elaki did not cry.

  “I do not know where Dahmi be. I worry for her, most often.”

  “Angel, isn’t it possible that these cho murders are the work of some fanatic, offshoot group of crazies?”

  “Elaki do not have this, the mental illness crazies. We do not have such fragility of psyche. It is our luck. Be careful not to project this human trait to us. It will lead you wrong.”

  David sat back. “Maybe if there—”

  Her sudden, high-pitched whistle of distress brought him up out of his chair, and he was by her side in a moment. She curved over, supporting herself on the tabletop. Her cup of coffee went sideways, spilling onto her plate, a brown swirl of liquid making a mush of well-seasoned grubs and bread crumbs.

  “What is it?” he said. “How can I help?”

  He was aware of Elaki turning their backs, and people craning to see.

  “Is pain, old pain. Physical problem.” Her voice was brittle. If she’d had teeth, she’d be gritting them. “Old problem be later okay, must go now.”

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  She could barely move. He tugged gently, feeling a ripple of something—revulsion?—beneath her scales. Again, he knew she did not like to be touched. He was careful, gentle. She clamped a fin around his arm and he pulled. She was lightweight, sliding in fits and starts on the snake-belly scales of her bottom fringe.

  Pierre watched them, eyes sharp and knowing.

  “I’ll drive you to a hospital,” David said.

  “No. Not necessary. Old problem, need rest and must have Elaki vehicle. Cannot afford pleasure of police car.”

  “Of course,” David said. His face was red. He should have known without being told.

  Pierre nodded when David asked for a car. The man moved quickly, with grace, no panic, and little real interest. Just competence. David and Angel moved out to the front stoop to wait, to avoid the eyes of the humans, and the backsides of the Elaki.

  The car came quickly. A red van.

  “You sure you’ll be okay? I hate to send you off like this.”

  She was shedding scales. “It is old problem. From bad old days—”

  David was embarrassed. It seemed bad form somehow, to bring up torture. Socially unacceptable.

  “Is not offshoot group doing cho, my David.”

  My David, he thought.

  “I know these Izicho, I better than anyone. The cho killers are Izicho. I have not the hesitation of knowledge. My own hopes are stone. Have been too long in the years. For so long, I do not have the care, only now … now … I feel the care, again. I do not like it. It feels like being afraid.” She went rigid under her scales. “I know the smell and the feel and the taste of it.” She hissed. “I know the habits of the beasts.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  David peered into the elaki documentation center. It was a clean, tunnellike building that consisted mainly of a narrow walkway bordered by crushed red rock. Elaki design. Elaki milled in what passed for a line, skittering on their fringe scales, some of them hissing.

  Waiting in line, David decided, was a new and unappreciated concept.

  He moved away from the window slit, stuck his hands in his pockets, and staggered off. The market cacophony of noise and color would hit hard after the cocoonlike confines of the documentation center. David scratched the heavy growth of beard on his cheek. He smelled bad. The nano odors he’d acquired made him nauseous, but God knows he was a convincing drunk. Nobody would smell this bad on purpose.

  He wandered down the crushed gravel walkway that led from the EDC to the market. Long narrow stalls, painted translucent colors, emitted spicy cinnamon food smells—cinnamon coffee, cinnamon tacos. The walkways were narrow and people bent backward to stay out of his way. Most stalls had a flag out front, so the Elaki could judge the strength of the wind. Newly arriving Elaki were hyper on the subject of Earth’s killer winds.

  The stalls sold junk. Large belts, vests, real human artifacts that could be worn. Earth vids were everywhere, claiming to explain humans and human behavior. The stall proprietors were Elaki, but they used people for the scut work. Teenagers roamed the street, ignoring each other and waiting.

  Mel stopped at a window and looked in.

  “Here, David, you should look at this.” Mel’s voice was loud in David’s earpiece. “Be sure and stand downwind, okay?”

  David looked around the marketplace, saw Mel standing in front of a stall several yards away. He waited for Mel to leave before he worked his way over. The star display was a harness and anchor, dangling from a metal hook. A tiny screen showed an Elaki wearing the harness as he slid down a “typical” Earth street. A sudden wind took hold of the Elaki, who quickly pulled a ripcord and “dropped anchor.” The wind became fierce. Another, unluckier Elaki was picked up and carried away, hissing and squirming.

  “See the vid?” Mel was saying. “Our hero in harness. Stays put while his buddy gets the mother of all blow jobs.”

  “Does not work,” String said. He bent close to a water fountain—something he could never resist. The water arced high in a cold, steady stream, splattering drops on the Elaki’s eye prongs. David realized that he would have to stand on his tiptoes to get a drink. None of the newer fountains were made for people.

  David heard String mutter to a wall clock, asking for the time. He checked his watch. Two minutes after the hour.

  “Biachi to arrive in seven of the minutes,” String said. “Rose is here? I do not see her.”

  “Said she’d be here, she’s here,” Mel said.

  David frowned. He hadn’t seen her either.

  “What of the pouchlings?”

  “They’ll look after themselves awhile.” David was muttering the way he’d seen drunks mutter, as they wandered the streets alone. “Big sister in charge. We got a friend coming over around dinnertime. He’ll see they get fed and looked after till one of us gets back.”

  “It is time for the scatter,” String said. He flashed a signal to Walker, who signaled Ash and Thinker. The Elaki-Three fanned out.

  It was bright out, sunny. Wind chimes made of doll-like people clanked and tinged at every slap of breeze. The wind wasn’t strong—just enough to make String falter now and then, before it died down.

  A boy walked the top ledge of the brick wall. He held a basket of popcorn balls, strung together with edible plastic. He jumped down and moved to the center of the sidewalk, two feet from the mouth of the tunnel that would disgorge newly arrived Elaki into Earth society.

  Thirty-seven Elaki were due in at 1:07. Elaki proprietors kept an eye prong on the streets, and their human emp
loyees edged ever closer to the documentation center. Everyone was waiting—stall keepers, guides. Cops.

  In the last thirteen months, twenty-seven Izicho officers had left the Elaki home planet. All had been seen leaving. Each one had supposedly been processed through the EDC. None had been seen since, including Calii, Yahray’s long-lost son.

  David wanted an overview. He wanted to know how much involvement there was on the street, how thoroughly orchestrated the action.

  Walker and Ash and Thinker were stationed inside the EDC where they could blend with other Elaki, stay out of trouble, and watch. They would see that Biachi, code-named the Little Nipper (by Mel), made it through. All three were under orders to stay out of the way under any and all circumstances. Rose would pick Biachi up on his way out of the tunnel. The rest of the team had a section of the market to watch.

  Rose would stay with Biachi. No one else was supposed to get close.

  “Heads up.” David heard the captain’s voice in his earpiece. “Little Nipper’s coming through.”

  David shoved the sleeves up on the ratty sweater he wore, and took a swig of tea from the box of alcohol. He let some of the liquid dribble down his unshaven chin.

  Mel paused by a fountain of water that cascaded into a pool. He climbed up on the stone wall at the water’s edge and held up his arms. He wore a rumpled plaid suit, and David knew from riding over with him that he smelled like onions.

  “Sinners!” he shouted. None of the humans paid any attention, but several Elaki looked up. “Fornicators! Elaki abominations! Chemaki boffing adulterers! Let the one true God show you the way.”

  A very small Elaki male pouchling slid close and gazed raptly up at Mel. The young one waved a fin, demanding one of the vid cards Mel held.

  “Beat it, kid,” David heard Mel say, sotto voce in the mike. “This stuff’ll warp your mind.”

  The Elaki skittered backward and away. David ducked his head, swigging warm tea. The nano odors were getting stronger in the sun. He noticed one of the Elaki stall owners watching him. The owner moved back and forth on his bottom fringe. Unlike everyone else, he did not watch the EDC. He watched the crowd. He watched David.