“Just shoot!” Medea shrieked. “Surely you don’t need any brains for that!” Angrily, she downed her third blood cocktail. With such incompetents working for her, no wonder Diana made fun of her. But she’d show them—she’d show them! “Now what’s the matter?” she said.
The pilot’s face disappeared from the screen; it was replaced by an aerial view of the desert. The skyfighter’s probe beams lit up the road, a long silvery thing that snaked through the glistening sand. There was the offending vehicle! She saw it now, a tiny thing, moving at a mere crawl, no more than a hundred and thirty miles an hour. It had been painted to look like a Visitor vehicle, and the symbol of the Visitors’ space armada was boldly blazoned on its doors. The cheek of these mon-
strous ape-like beings, to appropriate the very insignia of the glorious empire! She fumed and drank some more. The blood raced down her parched throat, cooling her, delicate and sweet to the tongue. “Attack!” she screamed.
“I’m doing my best!” the pilot yelled back.
“Drive closer!” she said to her driver. The driver, a converted human, pulled the patrol truck out and began to steer it in the direction of the enemy van.
“They’re getting closer, commander!” he said, as a radar beep and some bright red LEDs on his console indicated their relative locations.
“Position laser cannon,” Medea grated. She sat back in her seat, glancing back and forth to the bank of video screens that filled the back wall of the patrol truck. “I intend to enjoy this spectacle,” she said, forcing her dermoplast human face into a leering rictus of a smile, a distorted parody of a human emotion.
Laser turrets slid into position on either side of the truck.
“Distance!” she cried.
“They are approximately five minutes away, Medea,” the driver said, reading the console.
“Good.”
She watched the screens for a while. The skyfighter was having some difficulty maneuvering. In the aerial view she could see brilliant lines of blue laser light criss-crossing the sand . . . damn it! Why did they have to give her trainee pilots with such terrible aim? The Chevy van cut out across the desert now, weaving in and out of view. The image transmitted from the skyfighter wavered and flickered and jerked about madly. What was going on? “Shoot,, you confounded idiot!” she shouted.
Suddenly the van sped into view, a dot on the horizon—
“Fire!” she shouted at her assistants. “Fire!”
The patrol truck shuddered as a blast of blue light shot out of one of its turrets. In the middistance, a cactus blew to smithereens, providing a momentary firework display.
“Not the cactus, stupid!”
Another burst of light.
“A hit!” the driver shouted.
“Only a glancing one,” said the officer whose finger was on the button. But she could see that the enemy van was careening wildly now, out of control perhaps.
“Medea,” came the voice of the skyfighter pilot, “I think my lasers are weakening. They haven’t been recharged in months, and—”
“Swoop down lower,” Medea said. “Hover right over them . . . like a vulture. That’ll scare them while I move in for the kill!”
She watched in the monitor as the skyfighter moved earthward and the resistance fighters’ vehicle grew larger and larger in the screen. She could see their faces now . . . why, the driver was a mere child! Were they training their very babies to fight? What barbarians! Any other sentient race would have long since accepted their subjugation and been crushed by the Visitors’ superior might, but these earthlings, these obscene-looking apes ... it was horrible to contemplate what went on in their minds. If they even had minds at all, that is.
There was Matt Jones, and that half-Japanese wife of his. What was that she was clutching in her hand? By the supreme saurian, it was ... it was one of those miniature laser cannon that had been missing from the L.A. Mother Ship! What impertinence! The woman was sliding open the side door of the van now, and Medea could see quite clearly that she was pointing the device at—
The patrol truck began to vibrate! The left fender was sheared off, and the laser cannon operator was dead! A greenish rheum dribbled down his neck. “I’ll push the button myself,” Medea said, shifting her hefty bulk over to the front and slamming her hand down hard on the button, sending laser-bursts flying over the sand dunes—missed, missed, missed! She’d always been bad at target practice, preferring to rise in the ranks of the Visitor hierarchy by sly manipulations rather than soldierly talents. She began to jab at the button fast and furiously, hoping to score a hit.
“Medea,” said the pilot’s voice, “I think you’d better take a look at this.”
She looked up at the monitor. What was happening? The enemy was clearly visible under the skyfighter’s probe beams, bathed in an eerie blue light. The side doors were cracked open; she could see Tomoko’s laser device peering through. The boy was driving like a demon. But what was Matt Jones doing? He was climbing out of the other side door, clutching to his chest a strange article that looked something like a crossbow, and a bolt attached to a length of rope. What would these humans think of next?
Matt squatted on the roof now, his device pointed at the skyfighter. He was poised to shoot . . . a dart? What could he hope to achieve against a skyfighter with just a crossbow?
Jabbing the fire button a few more times for good measure—she missed every time—she called up to the skyfighter pilot, “Regain altitude. I think something fishy is happening.”
“Medea, my controls are sticking! I’m stuck in the hover pattern, with the automatic pilot homing in above the enemy vehicle!”
“Get me Diana,” Medea barked. “Now, this instant, do you hear? I want a call put through this minute. I don’t care what she’s doing. Priority one, emergency override, anything!”
Terrified, the driver hastened to obey.
At that moment, Matt fired the crossbow up at the skyfighter that loomed only twenty feet above his head—
The enraged face of Diana appeared on another monitor. A half-eaten rat dangled from her lips. “Medea! The last person I wanted to hear from!” she said. “How dare you interrupt me during dinner?”
Medea sputtered in a frenzy.
Matt could hear Tomoko yelling against the blasting wind. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He had to concentrate. If he blew this chance . . . “I’m trying an old ninja trick!” he cried. “Only I bet it’s never been tried on a moving skyfighter before!”
It hovered overhead, not trying to soar away. Was there something wrong? Was it a trap? He couldn’t think of that now.
He aimed the crossbow, hoping that he could propel the steel-clawed suction device on the end of the bolt with enough force to make it cling to the hull of the skyfighter. And fired! He felt the bolt strike and the cord attached to it grow taut. Flinging the bow aside, he started to climb the rope. The wind whipped at him. He dangled precariously . . . would it snap? He was swaying like a pendulum now. Still the skyfighter didn’t move. There must be something wrong with its drive system, he thought.
He had almost reached the side of the craft when it began to move. His body smashed against cold metal. He reached into his equipment belt, pulled out some suction pads, fitted them on his fingers, all the while gripping a ledge in the metal with his knees. Then, making his hands into claws and applying the suction cups to the metal, he cut himself clear of the rope. There was nothing to stop him from being dashed on the road below now . . . except his fingertips. This better work, he thought, and began to inch his way toward the hatch.
The skyfighter jerked up! Through a pane of the hatch he could see the pilot now, grimly manning the controls. They shot forward, soared, plummeted, whirled in a crazy somersault.
“You’ll never shake me loose!” Matt whispered harshly, as he tried to give into the impact of the skyfighter’s maneuvers. He was holding on by one hand now as he brought the other fist crashing down a
gain and again on the airlock handle ... it was frozen shut! There now, there ... it was giving way a little ... it sprang open!
He held on to the door, his body trailing like a kite tail into the wind. Then, gathering up all his inner strength into a single, powerful knot of force, he cartwheeled over the open door into the skyfighter’s interior—
For one split second he was in free fall, for one split second of terror—
His feet landed hard on metal! He barked in sharp pain. The pilot was standing not six inches away from him, ready to push him out again! Using his feet as a fulcrum, he propelled his whole body forward, sending the pilot sprawling.
The pilot reached for his laser pistol. Matt kicked it out of his hand through the open airlock. He saw it spinning off into the wind. The pilot lunged at him. Matt dodged. The pilot went sailing out of the hatch. Matt didn’t look. He sat down at the controls and tried to make the craft move. Everything seemed to jam. He needed Tomoko up there with him. Tomoko had learned how to fly one of these things from Fieh Chan himself, and she’d piloted it all the way back to America from Tokyo. . . .
Damn it! The console was marked in those lizard hieroglyphics.
He banged about helplessly. At last, the skyfighter began slowly to descend, straight down, like a helicopter. That wasn’t what he’d wanted! He looked out over the desert ahead.
The patrol truck was approaching. If he didn’t do something, they’d soon be right alongside them. Although their laser operators seemed to have abominable aim, he didn’t think they’d miss at point blank range.
The skyfighter was almost skimming the ground now, parallel to the Chevy van. Evidently there was some kind of homing device that kept it within a few feet of it. He went to the hatch and shouted to CB: “Stop the van!”
CB rolled down the window and yelled, “We’ll be sitting ducks!”
“I want you and Tomoko on board this skyfighter, now!”
The van screeched to a halt. The skyfighter jerked into a holding position only a few feet above the ground. Matt lurched forward, colliding with metal. He felt warm blood gushing down his forehead, but he couldn’t stop to clean it up. One eye was flooded.
The kid and Tomoko were clambering out of the car. He held his hand out. Tomoko held the boy’s hand and clasped Matt’s. She could barely reach. With all his might he pulled. The skyfighter wobbled.
“It won’t work!” He heard Tomoko’s voice above the roaring of the wind. “We’re going to die!”
He had to pull ... his wife, his kid, his whole world . . . God, he loved them. He had to make it. With his last ounce of strength he dragged Tomoko into the skyfighter. The boy followed. Then Matt collapsed onto the floor of the craft. As he watched Tomoko crawl over to the control console, he turned and saw through the open hatch—
The Chevy exploded! Shards of white hot metal spattered the hull of the skyfighter. And there, alongside them, was the control truck of the Visitors . . . and he was staring right into the face of one of them, a dumpy, dark-haired female with death in her eyes! “Get us out of here, Tomoko!” he gasped.
“That fool of a pilot!” Tomoko said. “There’s a loose connecting wire in the fuel computer. CB—got a piece of metal?”
“Here’s the papinium,” CB shouted, scooting over to the front and molding it into a long, thin rod with his hands.
“I hope it conducts,” she said, and plunged it into the console somewhere.
He saw the hulk of the Chevy burning as they
lifted off. “There go your sci-fi books,” he said.
“Keep still,” Tomoko said. “I’m going to take her northeast, toward the Grand Canyon.”
The wind was whistling in from the open hatch.
“Jesus, shut the door!” he moaned.
CB did so. Silence fell suddenly. Through the pane he could see the patrol truck with its laser turrets angled at the sky; he could see the lines of light issue intermittently from them.
Oh shit, he thought, this is it, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die. Then he lost consciousness.
Chapter 6
As the Chevy van exploded a few feet ahead of them, Diana’s face in the screen said, “Well, what is it? I don’t have all night to listen to your foolishness.”
Medea said, “We’ve destroyed their vehicle, Diana.”
“Excellent!” The supreme commander’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Frankly, Medea dear, I’m surprised that you were able to pull it off. But then, this was on a much smaller scale than that abortive Florida project of yours, wasn’t it? Well, when can 1 expect their heads? You did say I would receive their heads, didn’t you? I’m so looking forward to it.” She must have detected Medea’s unease, for she paused and said, “You don’t seem very happy, Medea, considering that you’ve probably just earned yourself a promotion.”
“Well . . .” She thought she’d better blurt it all out at once. “They’ve stolen a skyfighter! They’ve taken off, they’re somewhere to the north!” Diana’s eyes narrowed into slits. Even through
the human mask her reptilian nature showed. Medea shuddered.
“You force me to take action myself, Medea. And you know how busy I am.”
“Please! If you would only send me a couple of operational skyfighters, I would go after them and—”
“Operational indeed! Your own pilots couldn’t fly your craft, but they seemed to have no trouble. Are you telling me that humans are more capable of operating Visitor devices than your own subordinates?”
“Diana—” Medea said, cringing as she thought of her future promotion being flushed away by this one error.
“Well, there’s nothing for it but for me to come out myself, with two or three skyfighters,” Diana said. “That should teach you a lesson.”
“But—” Medea could think of nothing to say. She took another sip of her blood cocktail as she desperately tried to think of some way of getting out of this mess.
“You may expect me in less than an hour,” Diana said. “I’ll soon flush them out. It’s plain to see that this is a job for professionals, not for some weak-minded bureaucrat who weaseled her way up the ranks by poisoning and by sex! In any case, I see that your fabled wanton charms have gone to seed. You pathetic creature.”
Fulminating, Medea cut the connection with a flick of her tongue and turned to bark some anxious commands at her surviving subordinates.
“Are we safe?” CB whispered, as he sat down beside Tomoko, intent on the controls of the alien craft,
“Yes. But I don’t know how long for.” The Grand Canyon yawned ahead: the cold stars shone down, silvering the jagged edges of the plateau. The colors were muted by darkness. It was so vast, so beautiful.
“It was like this before the lizards came,” CB said, wondering. “And when we’re gone and the lizards are gone, it’ll probably still be there. It’s awesome.”
“Yes.” They had unscrewed part of the console’s chassis and rewired it to bypass the offending loose connection; the papinium sample was now safely back in CB’s pocket. Matt still dozed. She didn’t want to wake him up yet. They’d need him soon.
They soared up high above the canyon now. The morning star had risen; it was only a few hours before dawn. CB was very wise sometimes, she thought, putting an arm over his shoulder. It was true that the conflict of man and reptile had not touched this vista of breathtaking beauty at all. The canyon stretched from horizon to horizon, a winding serpent of shadow draped in night’s deeper shadow, here and there a glimmer where the starlight touched the water. Man had come into being, reached the heights of civilization, perhaps would fall to extinction under the savage rule of the Visitors. And this place had seen it all.
“CB,” she said softly.
But the boy had fallen asleep on her shoulder. She was alone, then, with her thoughts. Smoothly, the skyfighter sliced the air, its motion barely perceptible.
She thought of the people she’d cared for, whom she’d lost because of this terrible war. Anne Willi
ams, Matt’s bold secretary, who had died fighting the lizards. Professor Schwabauer—was he really still alive? And Fieh Chan, whom she had thought to be evil once, who turned out to be Kenzo Sugihara, the alien swordmaster; who had died so that her love for Matt might be renewed. She missed him, wanted him beside her now. They were alike, she and the alien who had fought on the humans’ side. They were both creatures of two worlds: she of east and west, he of the stars and the Earth. They were different . . . rejected by both their worlds, confusedly trying to find their own pathways through the labyrinth of their existence. He was the only one who understood me, she thought. Even though I love Matt, and we’ve been through so much together ... the only creature who really could see into my heart was a reptile from another planet.
But he was dead.
Yet Tomoko hoped, she hoped . . .
Her reverie came to an abrupt end when she saw three stars drifting across the sky. Stars don’t move that fast! she thought. They must be—
“Wake up!” She prodded CB and told him to go and wake Matt. “We’ve got company.”
“What’ll we do?” CB said. He looked up at the horizon and saw them too. “Total gross-o-rama! Must be half the lizard fleet!”
“Oh, Matt, Matt, wake up!” she said, panicking.
“Wake up, Matt . . . please wake up . . CB pleaded, shaking him.
“Wha—” said Matt, sitting up abruptly.
“Lizard skyfighters!” said CB. “And I think they’re coming after us.”
“Uh oh,” Matt said. “I hope your video arcade wrist is in good shape!”
“Never better, Matt,” said the boy. “I turned ‘Galaga’ over fifteen times the day before we left.” “Quick then. Strap yourself into one of the laser consoles and set your sights. I’ll take the other one and—”
“Oh, no! Only one of them is working!” CB said. “Considering how we had to juryrig the steering console,” Tomoko said, “I’m not surprised.”
“Well, we’ll just have to make do,” said Matt. “You want to shoot, CB? Or do you want me to?” “Are you kidding, Matt? Like, you know you suck at video games.”
V 16 - Symphony of Terror Page 4