1988 - Stinger

by Robert McCammon

  Rhodes knew dangerous ground lay ahead. He said, carefully, “Maybe we know who you’re talking about and maybe we don’t. If we do, what do we get from the deal?”

  “You get to keep your asses,” Stinger said, the eyes bright—almost merry—with the prospect of violence. “That clear enough?”

  “You’ve already killed quite a few people. That’s not good business.”

  “Sure it is. My business is squashing bugs.”

  “A professional killer?” Rhodes’s throat felt dry enough to crack. “Is that what you are?”

  “Man, you people are dense! Ugly too.” Stinger looked down at the twitching mass hanging from its chest. “What is this shit?”

  “I’d like to know where you came from,” Rhodes pressed on. “What planet?”

  Stinger hesitated, the head cocked over to one side. “The planet Moondoggie, in the constellation Beach Blanket Bingo,” the thing said, and cackled. “What the fuck does it matter? You wouldn’t know where it is, anyway. Face it, man: I’m not leaving without the guardian, so you might as well hand her over and let’s be done with it.”

  Jessie could stand being silent no longer. It was the wrong, stupid thing to do, and she knew that, but it burst out of her anyway: “No! We’re not giving her up to you!”

  Rhodes twisted around and his stare burned holes through her. She got control of herself again, but the damage was done. The counterfeit Mack Cade face watched her impassively, while the dog’s jaws snapped at the air as if ripping off hunks of fresh meat. Stinger said quietly, “Now we’ve got it clear who we’re talking about, so we can quit dicking around. First off, I know my bounty’s here. I tracked her ship to this world, and my sensors are picking up the pod’s energy. Exactly where it is, I’m not sure—but I’m narrowing it down, and I know she won’t be too far from it.” A metallic smile flashed. “Technology’s a great thing, huh?”

  “What do you mean, your ‘bounty’?” Rhodes asked. “Are you being paid for this?”

  “ ‘Paid’ is a relative term, man. I’m being rewarded for carrying out a mission.”

  “To find her and kill her?”

  “To find her and take her where she belongs. She—” Stinger stopped, a grimace of annoyance rumpling the face. “You don’t know a damned thing, do you? This is like trying to talk to my asshole and expecting it to”—there was a pause and a slow blink, and Rhodes could almost see the thing searching at mind-boggling speed through the man’s language center for the correct analogy—“sing like Aretha Franklin. Man, this is primitive shit!”

  “Sorry we’re so uncivilized,” Rhodes said, “but we’re not invading other worlds trying to kidnap children, either.”

  “‘Invading,’” Stinger repeated after a few seconds of reflection. The eyelids had slid down to half mast. “There’s another relative term. Listen, I couldn’t care less about this dump. I’m just passing through. As soon as I get my prisoner, I’m history.”

  “What makes her so important?” Tom spoke up, and the creature’s head twisted toward him.

  “I see the problem around here,” Stinger announced. “Too many chiefs and not enough ensigns… engines… Indians,” the thing corrected itself. “You ought to know ‘she’ isn’t what you’d call female. And she’s not male, either. Where she comes from, that doesn’t matter. All the screwing on her world’s done by the tides or something. ‘She’ could just as easily take a man to be a guardian; the guardian’s a shell for her to walk around in. But since I don’t find any description of the creature in your lingo, I guess it’s okay to call it a ‘she.’” Stinger sneered the word. “And for her to take a little girl as a guardian is a real laugh, because she’s as old as dirt. But she’s smart, I’ll give her that much, and she’s sure run me a chase.” The thing’s gaze slid back to Rhodes. “It’s over now: where is she?”

  “I never said we knew who you’re talking about.”

  Silence stretched, and the replicant’s gray lips twitched like cankerworms. “What you can’t seem to figure out is that I’m on the side of law and order. My assignment is to find the criminal and return her to a maximum-security penal world—from which she escaped. She got into a guard and stole a garbage scow. I figure the ship went haywire, sailed off course, and got sucked into the gravity field here. She must’ve jettisoned her guardian and gotten back into her pod before the crash; she ejected, and that’s the story.”

  “Not all of it,” Rhodes said. He kept a poker face. “Why is she a criminal?”

  “After her planet was liberated, she decided to disobey the new prime directives. She started urging her kind to resistance, violence, and sabotage. She’s nothing but a wild animal.”

  “ ‘Liberated’?” Jessie didn’t like the sound of that. “Liberated from what?”

  “From waste and stupidity. See, there’s a natural chemical on her world that’s poisonous as all hell anywhere else. What you folks don’t know is that all kinds of little wars are going on out there—alliances breaking up, new ones forming, one group deciding it wants a planetary system and another kicking sand about it. Goes on all the time.” The thing’s shoulders shrugged. “Well, suppose some up-and-comer decides to get hold of the poison and start spreading it around. I’m telling you, the shit is deadly. That stuff gets out in space, and it might even drift this way. It cuts right through body armor and dissolves the bones and guts into mush. That’s why we liberated the planet—so we can keep that shit from getting into the arsenals of fruitcakes. Everything was going fine until ‘she’ started raising hell. Made herself out to be a ‘revolutionary’ and all that crap.” The head shook back and forth, the face puckered with a scowl. “She’s trying to get back so she can stir up more trouble—maybe sell that poison to the highest bidder.”

  Rhodes didn’t know whether to buy the story or not. “Why didn’t you tell us this before now?”

  “Because I didn’t know anything about you. As far as I knew, you were helping her. Everybody seemed like they’d rather fight than talk like sensible folks.” Stinger’s eyes bored into Rhodes’s. “I’m a forgiving kind of dude. Let’s be friends. Okay?”

  Just like Mack Cade would’ve done it, Vance thought. Sucker ’em in with a glad hand and squash ’em with a fist. He found his voice, and he said, “Colonel? I inkthay it ielays.”

  Rhodes saw Stinger blink with incomprehension, saw the gears of language start turning behind the manufactured face; they slipped on the grease of pig Latin. I think it lies, Vance had said.

  “Explain,” Stinger demanded, the metallic voice all business again.

  “We’ve got to talk about this. The others and myself.”

  “Nothing to talk about, man. Either we deal or not.”

  “We need some time.”

  Stinger didn’t move, but the dog’s head thrashed angrily. Seven or eight seconds crept past. Rhodes felt sweat trickling from his armpits. “You dudes are playing games with my brain,” the creature said. “Trying to fuck me up.” It advanced on Rhodes, and was right there in his face before he could back away. Gunniston lifted the .45 and aimed it at the monster’s head, and Vance hefted the rifle up and put his finger on the trigger.

  “You listen,” Stinger hissed. The thing was breathing—its imitation lungs doing the job of the originals. The breath was a faint rumbling, like the noise of a blast furnace going at full burn miles distant, and the air from Stinger’s mouth washed into Rhodes’s face and reeked of hot plastic and metal. The dog’s teeth snagged Rhodes’s shirt. “Playtime’s over. I want the guardian and the pod.”

  “We need… more time,” Rhodes said. If he retreated one step or otherwise flinched, he knew those saw-blade nails would be on his throat. “We’ll have to find her.”

  “I tried to be friendly, didn’t I?” The index finger rose up and glided across his chin. “You know, I create things. Out in my ship. I’ve got a workshop in there. Just give me the flesh, and I can create… wonders.” The smile came up again, and the needle teeth
glittered inches away from the colonel’s face.

  “I’ve seen one of your creations. The flying thing.”

  “Pretty, huh? If you’d like to see my workshop, I could snatch you under my arm and take you there right now. I could make you over, better than you are. A lot stronger… and a lot meaner too.”

  “I’m already mean enough.”

  Stinger cackled; there was a sound like grind wheels turning in its throat. “Maybe you are, at that,” the creature agreed, and lifted its left wrist. Embedded in the flesh was the diamond-studded face of a Rolex watch with a tiny inset second hand. “I figure this is a tool to mark the passage of time. I’ve been watching it work. What’s the time right now?”

  Rhodes was silent. Stinger waited. “Three minutes before two,” the colonel said.

  “Good boy. When that long spear rotates again, I’ll be back here. If you don’t have the guardian and the pod, I’m going to create a real special bug squasher.”

  “That’s only one hour! We can’t find her in that short a time!”

  “It’s all you’ve got. You understand, Colonel Matt Rhodes United States Air Force?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and felt doom settle on his shoulders like a cold shroud.

  “One hour,” Stinger said. The thing’s head turned, and Stinger stared at Gunniston and the .45 the man aimed. “Would you like to eat that?”

  Gunniston’s hand shook. Slowly he lowered the pistol.

  “I think we understand each other now.” Stinger walked to the edge of the hole and hesitated with one foot over empty space. The dog’s eyes shone red in the lamplight. “One hour,” the voice emphasized. “Think on these things.”

  The replicant dropped into darkness. They heard it hit bottom, followed by the smack of its boots as it raced away through the tunnel’s ooze. The noise faded, and Stinger was gone.

  * * *

  42

  The Fortress

  No one spoke for a long moment. Smoke drifted through the light. Then Vance jabbered, “I was ready to shoot the bastard! I was just waitin’ for the word, and I could’ve blown its head off!”

  “Right,” Rhodes said. He wiped the creeping line of blood from his cheek, his eyes hollowed out and scared. “And gotten yourself and the rest of us torn to pieces too. Tom, what time is it?”

  “One minute till two.”

  “Which means we’ve got fifty-eight minutes to find Daufin and her pod. We’re going to have to split up and start searching.”

  “Hold on!” Jessie said. “What are you saying? That we’re going to give Daufin up?”

  “That’s right. Have you got a better idea?”

  “We’re talking about my little girl.”

  “We’re talking about an alien,” Rhodes reminded her. His insides were still quaking. The smell of hot metal remained in his nostrils. “No matter what it looks like. We’ve gotten into something here that I think we’d better get our asses out of real fast.”

  “I’m not handing my little girl over to that sonofabitch!” Jessie vowed. Tom started to touch her shoulder to calm her, but she pulled away. “Do you hear me? I’m not doing it!”

  “Jessie, it’s either Daufin or a lot of people—your friends—who die. I’m not doubting for one second that Stinger could lay waste to this whole town. Right now I don’t care why Stinger wants Daufin, or what she’s done; I just want to find her and save some people’s lives, if I can.”

  “What about Stevie’s life?” Tears scorched Jessie’s eyes. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. “My God, we’ll be throwing my daughter’s life away!”

  “Not if we can find Daufin and get her to go back into her pod. Maybe that’ll release Stevie.” He couldn’t stand this house any longer; the walls were closing in on him. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any choice. Sheriff, I say we go get your deputy and break into teams for a house-to-house search. Go up and down the streets and pick up some volunteers, if we can find any.” He knew that a street search in all this smoke and dust was going to be almost impossible, but there was no other way. “Maybe somebody at the clinic’s seen her, or she might’ve gone across the bridge into Bordertown. Tom, will you and Jessie go check your house and start searching east along Celeste Street from there?”

  Tom stared at the floor. He felt Jessie watching him. “Yes,” he said. “We will.”

  “Thank you. We need to meet somewhere in thirty minutes and map out where we’ve been. How about the Brandin’ Iron?”

  “Fine,” Tom said.

  “All right. Let’s get started.” Without waiting for the others, he left the house and went out to the patrol car, parked in front of the Hammonds’ Civic at the curb. Vance and Gunniston followed, then Jessie and Tom. Vance said, “Better take this,” and gave Tom the Winchester. “I’ll pick up the other rifle at the office. You two be careful, hear?”

  “We will be,” Tom told him, and Vance got behind the wheel, pulled the car away from the curb, and drove back toward the center of town.

  Jessie watched the car’s lights move away and be swallowed by the murk. She felt faint and she stumbled, but Tom caught her and she held on to him. Tears tracked through the dust on her cheeks. “I can’t do it,” she said weakly. “Oh Jesus, I can’t give her up.”

  “We have to. Listen to me.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head. “I want more than anything in the world to have Stevie back, just like you do. But if Stevie’s gone—”

  “She’s not! Daufin said she was safe!”

  “If she’s gone,” Tom continued, “our world’s not going to end. We have Ray, and we have each other. But if we don’t find Daufin and turn her over to that thing, a lot of people are going to die.” Jessie was almost blinded by tears now, and she put her hands to her face. “We have to,” he repeated, and he opened the door for her and then went around to the driver’s side. Jessie was about to slide in when she heard the muttering of an engine, coming closer. A single headlight showed brownish yellow through the smoke. Somebody on a motorcycle, she realized.

  Tom hesitated, gripping the door handle, as Cody Lockett stopped beside the car. Cody pushed his goggles back up on his forehead. Attached to the handlebars with a strip of electrical tape was a sawed-off baseball bat with nails protruding from it: a weapon from the ’Gade arsenal. “I’m lookin’ for Vance and Colonel Rhodes,” Cody said. “They’re supposed to be here.”

  “You just missed them. They’re on their way to the sheriff’s office.” Tom opened the door and put the Winchester into the backseat. “Who told you they were here?”

  “I… uh… ran into Rick Jurado. Listen…” He glanced at Jessie, could see from her red and puffy eyes that she’d been crying. He didn’t know exactly how to say this, so he just plowed on ahead. “I found your little girl.”

  Tom was speechless. Jessie choked back a sob and said, “Where is she?”

  “Up at the fort. The apartments, I mean. There’s a whole lot of people up there, so she’s okay.” Cody would never forget the faces of Tank, Nasty, and Bobby Clay Clemmons when he’d told them that the little girl wasn’t what she appeared to be. They hadn’t believed him until she’d started to talk, and then their jaws had fallen to the floor. Along with most of the Renegades, there were about two hundred or more people in the building who’d been drawn by the electric lights. Cody had gotten the creature settled in, poured warm beer over the two gashes on his ankle, and taped a cloth around it, then come hunting for Vance and the colonel. “Uh… there’s somethin’ else you ought to know,” he said. “I mean… she looks like your little girl and all, but… she’s not.”

  “We know that,” Tom replied.

  “You do? Man, I thought I was goin’ off the deep end when she told me who she was!”

  “Same here.” He glanced at Jessie, and saw she knew what he was about to say. “We have to tell Rhodes. We can catch him before he leaves the sheriff’s office.”

  “Tom… please. Wai
t,” Jessie said. “Why don’t we talk to her first? Try to make her understand that we’ve got to get Stevie back?”

  Tom looked at his wristwatch. It was four minutes after two, and he’d never thought a second hand could move so fast. “We’ve got less than thirty minutes before we’re supposed to meet at the Brandin’ Iron.”

  “That’s time enough for us to talk to her! Please… I think we might be able to make her understand better than Rhodes could.”

  His gaze lingered on the racing second hand, but his mind was already made up. “All right,” he said. “Take us to her,” he told Cody, and got behind the wheel as Cody lowered his goggles and swung the motorcycle around.

  At the end of Travis Street, a dozen cars and pickup trucks were parked haphazardly in the apartment building’s lot; a couple of them had run right up to the front door. Cody waited for Tom and Jessie to get out of their Civic, and then he threaded his motorcycle through the vehicles and to the door, which was covered with gray sheet metal and had a narrow view slit like all the first-floor windows. “Open up, Bobby!” he called, and heard the sound of the many latches being thrown back. Bobby Clay Clemmons pulled the heavy door open, its hinges groaning like the entrance to a medieval castle, and Cody powered the motorcycle on through and into the stark white glare of the wall-mounted incandescents.

  He popped the kickstand down and left the Honda near the stairway that ascended to the second floor, and a moment later Tom—carrying the Winchester—and Jessie came in. “Lock it,” Cody said, and Bobby Clay pushed the door shut and shot all four of the bolts home.

  Neither Jessie nor Tom had ever been in the Winter T. Preston apartment building before. A long corridor lined with doors—some of them torn off their hinges—went the length of the first floor, and the cracked plaster walls screamed with graffiti in a blaze of Day-Glo orange and purple. The place smelled of marijuana, stale beer, and the ghost aromas of the mine workers and their families who’d lived here: a commingling of sweat, dry heat, and scorched food. For the first time in almost two years, voices other than those of Renegades echoed through the building.