Her answer had a clenched-teeth sound to it. “Nothing I can’t live with, farmer.” He didn’t press her about it; it would only have brought on another spitting match over the tac net.
“But I owe you one,” she grated, taking him completely by surprise.
In her cockpit, Rook looked down at the fizzling avionics, so badly shot up, and at the left thigh and bicep sections of her armor, which had been split open by flying shrapnel and Invid force ricochet. Blood seeped from her wounds.
Lancer scouted ahead, and in less than ten minutes the VTs had located a place to rest. They stopped in the midst of a tiny chain of islands not too far off shore. While Rand coached Rook in for a landing, Lancer went back to help Scott provide air cover and guidance, and convoy the boats in.
Their rest stop had been a resort only a generation before. A place where people came to worship the sun to the point of melanoma; pay for drinks with plastic beads; coo and woo under the coconut trees; surf; scuba.
To make love, Scott thought, looking around at the place. The bay was translucent blue and the sand powder-white. Eat, drink, gamble. The team was doing all those things now, he assumed, although he might be projecting a little on the trysting part. And the freedom fighters were gambling with and for things a lot more precious than plastic beads or casino plaques.
Annie had been reading manuals and instruction pamphlets, and decided to play nurse on Rook. The onetime biker queen gritted her teeth but sat still for it. Annie wound her upper arm and thigh in enough bandage to restrain a small moose. Rand watched interestedly without seeming to; Rook had certain soft spots, like the one for Annie, and he was determined to learn them. Then Rook scowled at him, and he turned his attention elsewhere.
Stripping to his shorts, Rand took the swim he had been thinking about since he had listened to the chorus of the gulls that morning. Lunk had promised Scott that he could patch up Rook’s Alpha and the other damage the VTs had suffered, with minimum delay. But meanwhile, all they could do was wait. Rook rested her chin on her fist and squinted balefully at Annie and Rand, who were frolicking in the surf.
Marlene, in a white mini kini made of knotted lengths of parachute silk, went running and yelling into the water. The wet silk made Rand gape, and then he looked away, swallowing with a loud noise.
Scott appeared, to say that everything would be ready when Lunk was done. Rand came out of the water sniffling and laughing and dripping—and happy. Rook’s jaw muscles jumped a bit, but she held back her temper.
Then Rand was holding his hand out to her, more serious than she was used to seeing him. “I’m sorry you were injured, but—c’mon down to the water and enjoy yourself. Otherwise I can’t be happy.”
It shocked her so much that she didn’t quite know what to say, but she saw that Rand suddenly wasn’t smiling; he was just watching her.
She practically stuck the back of her hand in his eye. “I guess it can’t hurt. Well? Aren’t you gonna help me up?”
Marlene and Annie stopped splashing each other and shouted happily for Rook’s recovery as Rand gallantly helped her up and led her down to where the waves were foaming. Rand called triumphantly, “Hey, look who finally gave in and decided to have some fun!”
Scott saw Rook’s fingers, the ones on her free hand, curl into a fist and then open again, away from Rand’s sight. It was like some quick debate.
Scott watched Marlene’s lithe grace in the spray and surf. Maybe they’re right about this place. We should enjoy it while we can.
Corg and Sera and the mecha they led split up to search the chain of islands for the rebels and for the Simulagent, Ariel. Sensor triangulations indicated that there was a strong possibility she was near.
They understood their orders. If possible, they were to contact Ariel. If not, they were to observe her interaction with the Humans in order to determine the cause of her malfunction. Failing any of the above, they were to destroy her utterly, and the outcasts who had swayed her.
Lancer grew despondent looking at the pointless destruction the Invid had inflicted on the island. He followed a stream he had spotted from the air and found a small waterfall in a grotto a few hundred yards up an overgrown trail into the jungle. He tried not to reflect upon all the people who had come that way before him, and what their eventual fate had been.
This time he put aside the Musume persona. He waded in and began washing the sweat of fear and battle and the rankness of too many hours in the cockpit from him. He sang loudly in Lancer’s voice. He sang as if he were trying to drown out some other tune, perhaps a funeral dirge.…
It might have been memory of the Magruder ambush that kept him alert. Even though the little waterfall was splattering, he heard foliage parting and swinging back, and caught the movement of a shadow out of the corner of one eye.
Sera had picked up those strange auditory impulses through the superattuned senses of her mecha. The Regess had given her crowned offspring the means to know what it was to be a demigod, to soar over oceans and continents—to see each movement of the blades of grass, hear each bend of a leaf.
But the Regess never guessed what a trap that could be. The strange sonic input kept Sera from firing on its source. It kept her from contacting her brother Corg, or the Pincer Ships. The only thing she could do was stalk closer. She had heard the music of the spheres, but she had never heard Human singing before.
Before she realized what she was doing, she was out of the all-embracing armored safety of her mecha, padding through the strange smells and sights and sounds of the island, the terrifying intimacy of it. She was drawn by the siren song.
She couldn’t put a name to what she felt. She knew that not all of her genetic coding came from the Regess, of course. Some of it was Human. Was that what was forcing her to this aberrant activity? She repressed any doubt; she must see what was making these compelling, beautiful sounds. Information wetware input told her that it was what the Humans called “singing” but that word was a mere cipher.…
The Human had long purple hair and was a male. He was standing under a precipitation runoff as some sort of an ablutionary function or perhaps a superstitious rite. The Human sang, and Sera hunkered down to listen. But her hand pressed frond to frond, which made slight noise and changed the silhouette of vegetation against the westering sun.
She saw him tense and look around, and she drew back. When she edged one eye up for another look, he was pressing into the heavier part of the waterfall, off to the right, where the view was screened from her by the thickness of the foliage and the weight of the water.
This was madness. She should kill him, summon her brother Corg, and eradicate all the rest of them. But there was something about the sounds he made. His “song” was so haunting, so soft and knowing, as if he had been given instruction in the things most intimate to her.
The feelings that stirred in her had no name. Sera pushed forward a little in the undergrowth to hear more before she would be obliged to still that voice forever.
She could hear nothing. She waited, standing on the rim of the waterfall’s pool, looking this way and that. With the song ended, a measure of sanity returned. Better to kill the Human now and forget the aberration of his singing.
Two hands closed on her ankles, pulled, and Sera screamed. Then she was swallowing water.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
There were all these escapist books (as Rand called them) at the resort—I couldn’t make out the name of the joint too well from the sign, but I think that for some reason or other it was called “Club Mud.”
These books were all about what fun everybody was gonna have living action-packed lives after some global disaster. They didn’t mention radiation sickness and self-aborting children and plagues and famine and pillagers and—oh, you jaded old-timers! I’m sick of you!
Escapist? From hot showers and hot meals and dentists and intercontinental airline flights and innoculations and a planet that belonged to the Human race? Esca
pe me there!
Annie LaBelle, Talking History
Sera opened her eyes and saw a pale face and purple hair riding the water lazily, before her.
Lancer saw an indistinct figure in some sort of body suit. This certainly wasn’t an Invid. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be another turncoat. The person squirmed, blowing breath in silver bubbles of alarm, thrashing to the surface.
Lancer held his captive by one wrist, shaking the water out of his own hair. “All right, pal! You’re not going anywhere until … until … Um. You’re a woman.”
She seemed transfixed, a slim Human female, medium-tall, with short-trimmed blonde hair and the strangest red eyes—the kind of thing you see in a bad flashphoto. Her hairstyle was, even wet, some short, green-blonde upswept thing: Peter Pan Meets the Razor and Car Vacuum People. She was dressed in a bodysuit of colored panels of black, purple, and pink.
Lancer’s nerveless fingers had gone limp on her wrist. “Ah wo—mahn?” she repeated back at him, breathing quickly, as nervous as—as someone he remembered. They were knee-deep in the pool now, and she just stared at him.
She lurched to get away from him, but Lancer cuffed his hand around her wrist again, more astounded than alarmed. “Sorry, but we’ll have to know where you’re from.”
He looked over her dermasuit, a second skin. “At least you’re not armed. Or is beauty your weapon?” His lips were close to hers.
She pursed her own, parted them, then suddenly struck at him, and struggled frantically to break free, sobbing.
Rand shook the water out of his thick red hair. Marlene, listening to a shell, flinched a bit as the water hit her but never lost her smile. She laughed at the water that was being sprayed at her; there was light everywhere she looked.
Rand was panting, leaning on the boogyboard he had found in the ruins of the resort. “Scott, you’re missing a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Quit pretending to be a sand crab.”
“Rand, I am not pretending to be a sand crab. Uh, what is a sand crab?”
“What’re you talking about? At least take off that dumb flight suit!”
Scott had no way of refusing Rand’s demands short of physical violence. Flight suit and all, Rand dragged him into the water. Rook watched them, easing her aching leg and arm. Rand seemed so young and limber and in the water, especially, he seemed slick and carefree as a pink sea otter. What hope could she have for a life with someone like that? He hadn’t accumulated the chronicle of sins that she had. Rook sighed.
Scott confessed that he didn’t know how to swim; virtually none of the spaceborne generation did. Rand only took that as a challenge to teach him. About thirty seconds of Rand’s instruction had Scott spitting water, and heaving, and vowing to stick to solid ground from then on.
Out where the mecha were parked, Lunk was running repairs and listening to Annie’s apparently endless heartbreak stories. “I’m beginning to think I’ll die an old maid! I might even wind up as a librarian!”
That comment brought Lunk’s head up out of the cockpit of Rook’s Alpha, where he had been working. The only meaningful relationship he had had was a romance with a librarian. She was a fiery young woman who knew how to handle a gun and was determined that the books would live and that they would be there when Homo Sapiens eventually started picking up the pieces.
Lunk had had to run, but he had often thought back to the dark-haired, dark-eyed librarian—so impassioned.…
He drew a great breath and told Annie, “You’re such a heartbreaker, you’ll probably get married five or six times. Do me a favor and invite me to every wedding.”
She shrieked with laughter, grabbed the thick hair of his sideburns and showered his face with kisses.
Lancer thought he had spied his prey. He dodged into a clearing, but he saw that he had been fooled by a trick of the light. He stopped, froze, then called out, “Wait! I only want to talk to you! There may be Invid nearby! You may be in great danger!”
He heard a thrashing behind him, turned to see the pink along one flank as she ran, and yelled after her even as he sprinted to pursue. “Please stop—”
Sera could have gotten away if she had really wanted to. Why had she lingered? Why had she watched him?
“I just want to know who you are and where you’re from! It’s very important to me! Hey!”
Lancer could hear her ahead, sobbing and stumbling. He ran with an even breath, hopping some obstacles and ducking others. At last he bounded into a clearing where hot, blinding light shone down on him. He shielded his eyes with the flat of his hand and gazed up.
It was an alien mecha like nothing there had ever been before, anywhere. The late morning sun glinted all around it, and reflected off enormously strong purple components and pink trim, making the machine-mountain difficult to see.
Lancer blocked the light with his hand, moving a little. It must have landed while I was swimming, but—it didn’t attack me! It seems abandoned. But how could that be? According to all reports the drones are helpless eggs outside their mecha.
He heard a sound and sensed some movement. The young woman stepped out from behind one of the machine’s colossal legs. He saw now that the color pattern of her bodysuit reiterated the colors of the alien Trooper.
He stared at her as she watched him silently. “Y-you can’t be the pilot! You’re Human, not an Invid drone; where’s the pilot, the alien?”
Something galvanized her; she leapt, incredibly high, as the mecha bent toward her, the turret in its muzzle blossoming open to receive her. Rather than the egg-nest described by Rand and Annie, the new Trooper’s control nacelle was a padded cockpit completely encased in armor.
Lancer was still yelling to her as the cockpit closed and the Trooper’s back and foot thrusters fired up. He was nearly blown from his feet and singed by the backwash; the invader lifted off, leaving the grass burned and smoldering where it had stood.
He blinked, coughing from the smoke and the sand she had kicked up. By the time he opened his eyes again, the Trooper was a diminishing meteor racing to the east.
This is unbelievable! She was the pilot of that mecha! Does this mean Humans are fighting for the Invid?
Shaken by her encounter with Lancer, and unable to unravel the complex series of feelings and impulses that had assailed her, Sera rejoined Corg and the contingent of Shock Troopers. But she made no mention of what had happened and that, too, confused her.
But Corg and the Troopers’ sensors had detected Lunk’s test activations, as he checked his repair job. Sera had barely rejoined them when they assumed attack formation and rocketed toward the island where Humans had been sensed.
Rand eased himself into a frayed chaise longue next to Rook. Scott threw himself down on all fours in the sand, resolving never to go swimming in a flight suit again. As he hunched around to sit down, his hand happened to touch Marlene’s shoulder.
She gasped as if she had been touched with a live wire, and seemed to go into shock. “Must’ve pinched some kinda nerve,” Rand diagnosed.
“I tell you, I barely touched the woman!” Scott shot back angrily, face reddening at the thought of how he longed to caress her.
“Su-uure, Scott,” Rook teased. “Probably just your sexual magnetism.” She looked to Marlene, who was gazing into empty air. “This might be a good sign, though, if she’s having flashbacks or something; maybe it means her memory’s returning.”
“I hope so,” Scott said, but he wondered if he really did, or if he would be sorry on the day that happened.
Marlene abruptly clutched at her hair. “I feel them coming closer! They’re here!”
But the thunder of the attack had already made the Humans look up. Down through the clouds plunged Corg and Sera, leading their Pincer Ships and Shock Troopers. “Invid squadron heading this way!” Rand hollered, bounding out of his beach chair.
“Invid,” Marlene was moaning. “Reflex Point … Regess …”
“We’re out of time, but I think we can still make a b
reak for it,” Scott said, tight-lipped. “I’ll run the boats. Rand, Rook: suit up and make sure you’re ready for my signal.”
They snapped to it, fast as any Mars Division elite troops, sprinting away, feet throwing up sand. Scott grabbed for Marlene’s arm, but this time she showed no reaction to his touch.
The Invid completed several sweeps of the island, preparing to go in closer. Then they noticed the pair of PT boats moving out to sea at maximum speed.
Corg felt delighted at the chance to slay Humans. With voice and arm signals, he ordered the attack. Pincer Ships followed him for the first pass. Scott, on shore, watched and did his best to evade the enemy’s strafing runs, but the jury-rigged remote controls were slow in responding.
Rand and Rook rushed to get into their armor, dragging the camouflage nets off their VTs even while Lunk was working, with infuriating deliberateness, to finish the last of his repairs on Rook’s Alpha.
Two passes had both PTs leaking smoke and had blown open the weather bridge on one. Receiving no counterfire, the Invid dropped lower to recon. They saw the boat’s wheel moving with no living hand upon it, and noted the remote transmissions it was receiving.
The Regess’ voice spoke from their computer/commo net. “Scanners reveal no Human units in target vessels. Warning! Possible strategic entrapment maneuver!”
Scott figured he had played the possum hand for just about all it was worth. Here we go; firing all missiles.
The team had loaded the PT boats’ racks with surface-to-air missiles, since surface-to-surface combat was unlikely. Now the launchers rose and traversed and targetted. Guided by their radars, the racks emptied, and sixteen Tarpon heat-seekers came boiling and corkscrewing up at the Invid. Caught by surprise, three of the Pincer Ships were blown to bits. The rest went into evasive maneuvers.
Corg studied the situation. The computer delivered its analysis in the Regess’ voice. “Tracking sensors place origin of remote control transmissions at coordinates delta 6-5. Presence of Human life-form at that location is also confirmed.”
Invid Invasion: The New Generation Page 36