V 16 - Symphony of Terror

by Somtow Sucharitkul (UC) (epub)

  Her mind seething with Machiavellian intrigues, she punched a secret number on the console.

  Electronic impulses darted from satellite to satellite and were routed through the switchboards of half a dozen Mother Ships before her call could be put through.

  When it was, the face of a young black man wearing a tuxedo appeared in the screen. He sported a crimson bowtie and cummerbund, and clutched a long conductor’s baton in one hand. From somewhere in the background came the excruciating sounds that passed for music among these lower beings. She winced.

  “How you can like such obscene noises is beyond me, Dingwall,” she said.

  “Well, it’s all part of the persona,” Dingwall said gruffly. “You’ve never heard of ‘method’ acting, have you? It’s a technique these humans use in one of their art forms known as the theater, where they pretend to be other people. I’ve been taking a leaf from their book, and so far no one has penetrated my disguise. But what are you doing calling me . . . and on my secret access code, no less? I’m in rehearsal. It’s Mozart’s G minor symphony. Very interesting, in a primitive sort of way—” .

  “Must you lecture me about alien art forms every time I call you?” Medea said irritably.

  “Now look here. There’s absolutely no one to talk to here except these humans. The Washington, D.C., area happens not to be under our occupation, remember? We’re not even supposed to be here. I’m having a hard time blending in, and I’m not making that much headway as a spy.”

  “It’s your fault for trying to assume a persona in alien arts,” Medea snapped.

  Dingwall sighed. “I thought it would be easier,” he said. “Their artists are so eccentric, I figured that if I did anything reptilian by mistake they’d just interpret it as an artistic foible. And in a way I enjoy being conductor of the McLean Youth Orchestra.” He looked around and whispered con-spiratorially, “The young ones are the tastiest!” “You haven’t been—”

  “I’ve been discreet, I assure you! But it is so hard to resist sometimes. Well, is this just a social call, or am I to understand that Medea is once again in trouble with the powers that be?”

  Medea flinched at how well he knew her. It should not have surprised her; once, back on the home planet, they had been very close. They had even considered getting married and raising a brood of hatchlings. But then the opportunity to colonize this barbarian world had come up, and neither of them had been able to resist the challenge.

  “Well?” Dingwall said, and made to turn off his communicator.

  “Wait! There is trouble. And I think it’s coming your way. How are the plans for the papinium project coming?”

  “Prototype papinium-coated tanks, capable of penetrating into red dust-infested areas without injury to the operators, are even now being tested in North Carolina,” Dingwall said. “Why this sudden interest? I’d rather tell you about the new Loukas Stourmwitch symphony.”

  “And who is Loukas Stourmwitch?” she asked, knowing full well that she’d have to endure more of this artistic chatter before he would be willing to discuss her pressing problem. “One of your precious human primitive artists?”

  “Good heavens no. Why, what a philistine you are, Medea! Stourmwitch”—he gave it the proper reptilian pronunciation now, beginning with a savage hiss and ending with a tongue-flick and a sharp intake of breath—“happens to be a very great musician from our own home planet. And it just happens that I will be playing his new work, the ‘Galactic Symphony,’ in a special arrangement for these cacophonous ‘musical’ instruments of theirs, with the McLean Youth Orchestra, at a special gala to celebrate intergalactic brotherhood.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more about your ridiculous hobbies! I just want to tell you that three key members of the resistance are escaping towards

  Washington in a stolen skyfighter . . . and they may be carrying the lump of papinium that Donovan and Parrish stole from the Los Angeles command center last week.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner? It all ties in with this Loukas Stourmwitch concert—”

  “All right, all right! I still outrank you, Dingwall, if only barely. I want the papinium tanks put on alert! Today! I want to be able to give chase all the way through the no-man’s Sand ... up to the free zone if necessary!”

  “Those three must be pretty important to you,” Dingwall said. “Don’t tell me you have some deal going with Diana. Well, don’t expect any help unless you cut me in, Medea. I don’t want to be stuck here forever. It’s lonely to be a spy in alien territory. I want a more cushy job . . . like yours, maybe.”

  “Yes, yes, something will be arranged.”

  “But I don’t want to jeopardize my own little plan, Medea. About the Stourmwitch concert. I have my own little project going, one that might return a large region of this planet into our hands.” “Just by playing a piece of music? That’s preposterous.”

  “Well, as one of their playwrights once said, ‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast.’” “More of that primitive nonsense. I don’t see what you see in it. I’d no more listen to human poetry than I’d listen to the squeals of this hamster,” she said, popping one into her mouth. “It’s all food,” she said with her mouth full. “Nothing more than food.”

  “But you don’t understand the beauty of it. This planet has food that can sing and dance; you can even have sex with it! The human being is the perfect biological product: it entertains, it serves as slave labor, and it’s one of the most nutritious creatures in the galaxy.”

  “There, my dear,” Medea said thoughtfully, “is where we understand one another completely.”

  PART 2

  FLIGHT THROUGH NO-MAN’S LAND

  Chapter 9

  As he cleaned his rifle, Raymond Paul Smith whistled to himself. A hare turned slowly on a spit, its mouth-watering scent mingling with the cool fragrance of an Appalachian morning. His companion, who wore the guise of a young human male, smiled at him.

  “Want some of this hare, boy?” Ray said, slicing off a haunch with his knife.

  “No thanks. You see, I’m a veterinarian.”

  “Well, just because you look after them don’t mean you can’t eat ’em,” Ray said, taking a hefty bite. _

  “No, 1 mean . . . did I say something wrong?” The young man smiled again, floundering around for the right word. “I mean to say, I’m a vegetable . . . no, a vegetinarian . . .”

  “Oh, a vegetarian? You’re a mighty queer lizard. If you’re a lizard. We passed through a dust zone back there and you didn’t even cough.”

  “Dr. Brunk, back in New England, he gave me an antidote. It’s supposed to last me until I get to California. I got on the bus for Hollywood. No one

  told me there was one in Florida as well as in California. I didn’t find out until I reached Raleigh.”

  “Can’t rightly say I believe you,” Ray said. “What’s your name?”

  “I am called Willie.”

  “Mighty weird name for a lizard. Well, Willie, there’s no war going on here in North Carolina. This is no-man’s land here. Lizards stay south, humans stay north. Here, we live as we please.”

  “That’s not true,” Willie said with surprising vehemence. “I’ve seen terrible things here. Evidence of secret installations. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think they’re planning something. Please . . . you must help. Or you may lose your freedom.”

  Ray thought about this for a moment as he ate. Here in the wilds of North Carolina there was no obvious evidence of the lizard occupation. He’d seen it all on television, of course. But he’d never seen a lizard up close before, until Willie had approached him, obviously distraught. Ray thought he was a pretty good judge of character, though, and even though this fellow couldn’t speak proper English there was something convincing about him.

  “What can I do?” he said at last.

  “Help me locate someone in the resistance,” Willie said.

  “You ain’t asking much!” Ray said
. “Around here, we keep pretty much to ourselves. I tell you what, though. Stick around in the village for a few days. Who knows, maybe something’ll turn up.”

  “I think it just did!” Willie said, pointing up at the sky.

  “Shi-i-it!” Ray said, looking up.

  What was that flaming metal object hurtling through the air like a comet? What were those red dots dropping from the sky? “Parachutes,” he shouted. “Lizard parachutes!”

  The ball of fire and metal slammed into the mountainside up ahead.

  “Let’s go look,” said Ray.

  “1 fear the worst,” Willie said anxiously. The two of them scrambled downhill through the lush woods.

  “There . . . smoke, maybe a forest fire,” Ray said. A blast of heat hit him in the face. He kept his rifle pointed straight ahead. “Lizard scum! Oh, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Willie puffed, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  Up ahead, three figures were struggling to free themselves of some bushes. They were wearing Visitor uniforms.

  “I’ll be damned,” Ray said. “Guess you’re right, them lizards are trying to take over the mountain. Well, those three aren’t gonna make it past me.”

  He fired a warning shot. The echo bounded and rebounded across the mountains.

  “Wait a minute,” Willie said, “one of them’s only a kid.”

  “And one of them’s Chinee,” Ray said. “But they’re still lizards underneath. They ain’t gonna take over my village.”

  He aimed his rifle—

  “No!” The kid’s voice carried on the wind. “Don’t shoot . . . like, we’re human, we’re human!”

  Ray gaped as the three staggered toward them. They were bruised; the man’s face was bloody from a cut over one eye. The oriental woman seemed to be limping. The boy’s hair stood on end, and he had a shiny blue ornament in his ear. They were the oddest assortment of people he’d ever seen.

  They approached now. “Thank God,” the man said. “I’m Matt. This is Tomoko. And CB. We’re from Los Angeles. Where are we?”

  “That has got to be the most unlikely story I ever heard,” Ray said slowly. “First one of them lizard skyfighters crashes into the mountain”—it was still burning in the distance, filling his nostrils with an acrid, searing odor—“then you guys hop out and tell me you’re from Los Angeles, and you’re wearing lizard uniforms and insisting you ain’t lizards. And then this here Willie says he is a lizard but he’s really on our side and he’s not wearing one of them uniforms—”

  “Willie!” Tomoko cried out. The self-styled alien’s jaw dropped. They obviously recognized each other. It was a coincidence beyond belief.

  “Tomoko! Matt!” Willie shouted, and ran to embrace them. “This is amazing. I was just asking this man to direct me to someone in the resistance, when—”

  “We’re not in the resistance anymore,” Matt said. “We’re just trying to get to freedom.”

  “It’s terrible,” Tomoko said, “the riots in L.A., the death of Nathan Bates—”

  “He’s dead?” Willie said. “There must have been a blackout, 1 never heard about it.”

  “Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Ray said in exasperation.

  The three newcomers turned to him. The woman said, “Please help us, sir; we have to find a way to the free zone, and we don’t even know where we are.”

  “You ain’t reached freedom yet, ma’am,” Ray said. “It’s to the north. This is North Carolina. The no-man’s land. But this side of the mountain is pretty much red-dusted. We ain’t seen an alien in months here. Except this fellow.”

  “He’s a fifth-columnist,” Matt said. “He’s probably on antitoxin.”

  “But I’m running low. 1 need to get south, where the dust isn’t active.”

  “And we need to get north,” Tomoko said. “Please,” Willie said, “I have to talk to you. Something truly awful is happening here . . . secret installations . . .”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Matt said. “We’ve paid our dues. I want the kid to have a normal childhood. What’s left of it.”

  Ray looked at the boy, who seemed anything but normal. “What’s that thing in your ear?” he said at last.

  “Oh, an ear cuff,” CB said. He pulled it off. It was a some kind of blue-gray metal.

  When Willie caught sight of it, he groaned. “Papinium,” he whispered. “I should have guessed. I didn’t know they were already producing it. Oh, this is terrible, terrible. That explains everything!”

  “What are you talking about?” Matt said.

  “There’s not going to be a free zone if you don’t help me,” Willie said desperately.

  This was all too much for Ray. “Come back to the campfire,” he said. “Before I hear any more of this sci-fi stuff, I better pour me a stiff drink.”

  “I think I’d better have one too,” Matt said.

  “Me too,” said Tomoko.

  Ray raised an eyebrow.

  “Me too,” said the kid.

  “You’re too young,” Matt said.

  “Considering what you’ve all probably been through,” Ray said, “I think we should all get drunk. Including the kid.”

  Chapter 10

  When Dingwall put away his wristwatchsized communicator screen and returned to the auditorium to continue the rehearsal, he was barely able to concentrate on the barbarities of the Terran music he was conducting. Normally, he found its crude, jerky mood shifts and incomprehensible rhythmic patterns charmingly quaint, though it was sometimes hard to suppress a derisive smirk or two at the more outlandish harmonies. But at the moment he had no patience at all. For one thing, he had to finish the rehearsal as quickly as possible and return home for another dose of the stolen antitoxin; already his immunity was slipping and the omnipresent red dust was beginning to make him queasy. He could last it out another hour or two at the most.

  He tapped the baton on his podium. “Very well, children,” he said. “Enough of this Mozart. Will you get out the Stourmwitch score now, please.” “Yech!” said one of the violinists. It was one of the Van Pischke boys. “Not this weird avant-garde stuff again.”

  “Just because it was written by an alien,” Dingwall said huffily, “doesn’t mean it’s bad. We’re all going to have to get used to alien cultural artifacts, you know, i think you’ll find there’s a certain beauty in it.” One more crack out of you,'he thought, and I’ll roast you over a hibachi and have you for lunch! Oh, if only I didn’t have to be so discreet! “All right. Bar 102,” he said, giving a ponderous downbeat.

  That was more like real music! The strings wailed in a passable imitation of the stranjoops of the homeworld, and, by the clever expedient of having the players loosen their violin bows and coat the strings with vaseline, he had contrived to recreate with chilling precision the timbre of a gallindor, a sound not unlike the mating yowl of one of those mammals . . . what did they call it? A cat. The music filled him with nostalgia for the homeworld, and for a moment he was at peace. If only he’d known how desolate it would be to live among these aliens, constantly listening to their inane jabberings, unable to satisfy his appetite for human flesh except on rare and furtive outings into the slums of the city! It irked him no end that the Visitors’ conquest of the planet was incomplete, that there remained outposts, like these free states, where humans actually looked down on reptiles and refused to kowtow.

  Thank goodness these humans were so gullible, Dingwall thought. Despite the frustrations of being stranded among these apelike aliens, he had made many important contacts in the “free” world. He preferred to think of it as the as-yet-unconquered world, for these humans were such fools —disciplineless dreamers—that it was astonishing that they’d been able to climb this far up the ladder of civilization. Indeed, they had barely made it this far; they’d almost wiped themselves out a couple of times in this one century alone. Ah, it had been interesting studying their history; it was one of the bloodier ones he’d ever encountered
, rivaling even the Visitors’ own; it was far more entertaining than their wishy-washy, charmless art.

  He waved his arms impetuously, loving the wildness of Stourmwitch’s vision even filtered through these bizarre musical instruments. The very incompetence of these youths added to the effect, for did not Stourmwitch intend, in this Galactic Symphony, to depict the chaos of creation, the searing brilliance of the quasars, the desolation of black holes, the vastness of space itself. . . that very space Dingwall had traversed in awe and terror, only to find himself on a planet full of loathsome talking apes? Why, this was hell itself, Dingwall thought. He did not believe in the ancient myth of the beautiful garden and the pure reptiles who fell from grace at the blandishments of a temptress ape. He felt no attraction for these creatures!

  Only, now and then, hunger.

  They were warm-blooded!

  Keep a straight face, he told himself, it would not do to start salivating in the middle of the rehearsal, though the sight of thirty-five potential platters of succulent young meat was enough to drive any self-respecting reptile mad with gluttony.

  He continued to conduct. He wasn’t sure how he managed to make it through the rehearsal . . . after Medea’s startling revelations, and knowing full well what political maneuverings were in store for him tonight, at the Romanian ambassador’s residence, when he would have to lay more groundwork for his secret plan.

  Confound that Medea! Had she blabbed to Diana? he thought. Surely not—she was too stupid to be that treacherous. Or wasn’t she?

  The rehearsal finally dragged to a close. Parents thronged the vestibule of the Alden Theater, waiting to pick up their charges. Dingwall could hardly wait to leave.

  He climbed into the Porsche bequeathed to him —unintentionally—by a rich banker whom he had converted and then devoured, and drove to his townhouse in downtown Alexandria, a quaint little Virginia suburb of Washington. The house was the unwitting gift of another convert.

  He parked in a side alley. It was night. Two teenagers were breakdancing by the side door of the house.