Maggie grinned, genuinely touched by the compliment. “Thanks.”
They settled into a companionable silence, waiting.
The Visitors’ own laserguns had proven to be the most effective weapon against their body armor. Unfortunately, the weapons and a couple of Visitor shuttlecraft the resistance now possessed had proved easier to steal than the small energy cells that powered them. They’d gotten the tip on this shipment from a resistance member who had managed to eavesdrop on a conversation outside the L.A. Visitor legation.
Maggie shifted her position, frowning as she brushed newspaper and orange-peel fragments from the seat of her jeans. The air was baking hot—hot even for a Los Angeles afternoon in July. At least there was no humidity and little smog. Visitor restrictions on traffic had improved L.A.’s infamous smog problems, but, Maggie thought, this was definitely a case where the solution had proved far worse than the problem.
“Hand me the timer, will you?” asked Chris.
Maggie blinked in the sun as she handed over the device. “How can you stand to wear that jacket?” she asked. “It’s gotta be ninety-nine degrees out here.”
He shrugged heavy shoulders philosophically. “Used to it, I guess.” With his jaw-length shaggy hair, wispy blond beard and mustache, he resembled a cross between a sixties demonstrator and a grizzly bear. As Maggie looked at him, she experienced a sudden memory of the moments following Brad’s death, when she’d looked back at the flaming hell of the hydro plant that had become his pyre. She’d lost it for a few minutes then, and come back to find herself flailing wildly at Chris’s chest and midsection. Her fists had hurt because what she’d thought was beer gut was mostly muscle. He’d stood there, letting her pound out her anguish and grief until she’d collapsed, sobbing, and then his arms had encircled her, giving her something to lean against while she cried.
He glanced up at her now, and she looked quickly down at her watch. “Let’s check our time,” she said. “I’ve got two thirty-eight.”
He nodded in that offhanded way of his, pushing the bomb casually aside. “Six more minutes. You still scared?”
“Yeah, but I can handle it.”
“Betcha can’t tell me a Visitor joke I haven’t heard,” he challenged, his pale blue eyes crinkling at the comers.
“Hmm . . . what do Visitors call joggers?”
“Fast food. That’s an oldie.”
Maggie grinned, feeling some of her anxiety abate in spite of herself. “I’ll have to update my collection.”
“Time the boss showed up.” Chris had barely finished the sentence when Ham Tyler stepped from a recessed doorway on the other side of the building and beckoned to them.
Maggie didn’t know the ex-CIA man well, but then, no one did. The solidly built man with the thinning brown hair was an enigma, his dark eyes seldom revealing anything except calculation and contempt.
“We’re all set,” said Chris, tossing him one of the bombs with what seemed to Maggie appalling casualness.
Ham nodded at Maggie. “Okay, hon, it’s show time.”
Pulling a plastic squeeze bottle out of her bag, she squirted herself liberally with theatrical “blood,” so that it dribbled down her face and chest. At the mouth of the alley, she checked to make sure the street in the old warehouse district was deserted, then gave the thumbs-up without looking behind her.
Face to the wall and crouched into a protective ball, she covered her ears and counted to ten. An instant later, a loud explosion rocked the asphalt beneath her, and debris showered from the exploded Fairlane as its gas tank caught fire with a whoosh. Maggie darted into the middle of the street, then fell, sprawling safely away from the heat of the burning hulk.
Minutes dragged by as she forced herself to lie still, the makeup itching maddeningly as it dripped from her scalp in the direct sunlight. Finally she heard the rumble of a heavy vehicle as it came around the comer.
For a horrible instant, Maggie wondered whether they might just run over her, but then the engine noises changed, gears clashed, and the truck rolled to a halt less than ten feet from her.
The sounds of a door slamming open and booted feet clumping up to her filled Maggie’s awareness.
“You fool!” an alien-resonating voice boomed just above her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m hungry,” said another voice like cold metal. “This one looks freshly killed, and—”
“Surprise,” Maggie murmured as she rolled over and blasted the alien in the face with the lasergun she’d been lying on. The other Visitor fell back with a startled cry which turned into a death scream the next instant as he was hit from behind.
“Ain’t we got fun?” Ham asked from the rear of the Visitor vehicle, gesturing with his weapon. “Watch your backs, kids.”
Maggie scrambled to her feet as the side hatch split open and five Visitor shock troopers spilled out, weapons raised.
Ham felled another of them, then dodged left as a laser bolt charred the place he’d been standing an instant before. More blasts crisscrossed the air in front of them, leaving crazy afterimages behind, and the air smelled of ozone and charred Visitor flesh—like a chicken left on the barbecue way too long.
Maggie squeezed oif a couple more shots, which only scored the side of the squad vehicle as she raced toward the back.
Chris was aiming point-blank at the one wearing officers’ insignia as the alien stood in the back door of the vehicle. As he squeezed the trigger, a forlorn whine came from the weapon as the beam turned pale and scattered. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, his face shocked as the alien staggered back a moment, then jumped him.
He grappled hand-to-hand with her; her small size belied her strength. Raising the butt of his weapon, he slammed it against the Visitor’s head. The false human skin split and flapped down her cheek, revealing the greenish reptilian scales beneath.
Hissing, the Visitor opened her mouth wide. Maggie saw the flash of what looked like a second set of teeth, and Chris screamed as venom sprayed into his face.
Smiling hideously, the alien raised her own weapon for the kill, then fell forward against Chris, her back a mass of blackened leather from Maggie’s laser blast.
Ham shot one of the two remaining Visitors, but the other had scrambled back into the vehicle and was starting it.
“Nice shooting, kid,” he said, squatting beside the injured Chris, who was frantically pawing at his eyes and cursing. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here before the reinforcements arrive.”
“Can’t see a damn thing,” Chris muttered as Ham helped him stand up. Maggie glanced up at a sound overhead to see a Visitor skyfighter swooping low, strafing the ground around them with laser blasts.
"Go!” Ham yelled, shoving her in the back. Grabbing Chris’s hand, she stumbled toward the shelter of the alley as the skyfighter circled back.
Ham waited until the last possible instant, standing in the road, almost daring them to strike; then he sprinted for the shelter of the alley. He fiddled with a device hooked on his belt, then covered his head. A loud whuump! came from underneath the moving ground vehicle as it burst into flames.
The concussion caught the belly of the alien aircraft and sent it rocking wildly out of control. The craft tried to pull up, but the tall billboard at the end of the street loomed in front of it. Crashing right through the smiling face of the Marlboro man, the vehicle plummeted into the roof of an old warehouse and exploded.
“We didn’t get the goddamn energy cells, but at least now they’re not gonna do the scalies any good either,” Ham said as he joined them. “How’s Chris?”
“We’ve got to get him to a doctor,” Maggie said, dabbing cautiously at the big man’s face with the tail of her T-shirt. Faber stiffened but made no sound as she wiped the viscous liquid off his face. “See these bums? He got it in his eyes, as well as around them.” She focused suddenly on a spreading red stain on Tyler’s upper arm. “You’re hurt too.”
“Nah, it’s
nothing. Let’s head back and call the clinic. Doc Akers knows his stuff and how to keep his mouth shut.”
Slowly, Chris between them, they walked toward Ham’s car.
* * *
“No, I don’t like it.” Elias Taylor, owner of the Club Creole, frowned and shook his head at the pencil sketch.
“How about this, then?” Miranda Juarez sketched rapidly for a few moments, then pushed another drawing across the bar in front of him.
“No, that’s too preppy looking. See, what I really want here is something classy, a statement. Not just another piece of tacky advertising, you understand, but a true status symbol. Something the owner can use to say, ‘Hey, I have the good taste to eat and drink at the hottest spot in L. A., and the rest of you turkeys better get on the program.’”
Miranda made a rude noise. “Yesterday he was a punk street kid hustling quarters and stolen watches. Today he’s Mister Big-time Fashion Designer.”
“Hey, if it’s bringing in the bucks ...” Elias stopped when he saw the teasing grin on the young woman’s face. He had hired Miranda as a waitress after they’d met in the resistance, and she’d proved invaluable in both roles. A registered nurse who’d served in Vietnam, the young Hispanic woman possessed a street-savvy toughness that could give way to a surprising gentleness when someone needed comfort or stitches. Elias found her long blue-black hair and high-cheeked features very attractive, and had several times considered asking her out—but was it a good idea to mix social and business relations? Elias wasn’t sure.
As their gazes clung and held, Miranda turned away suddenly, her cheeks flushed. “Hey, Willie! Can you come over here a second?” She waved at the bartender, who came forward, wiping his hands on a dishcloth.
Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, he was a shortish, compact man with curly blond hair and features that were open and pleasant rather than handsome. “Yes, Miranda?” The unmistakable voice resonance identified him as a Visitor.
William had begun his pseudo-human life as “Ahmed,” learning to speak Arabic for his expected assignment in Saudi Arabia. But the Visitors, advanced as they were technologically, proved to be just as prone to bureaucratic snafus as humans. He had wound up as a technician at the Richland refinery in L.A. with little English and even less instruction in the social customs of American humans.
Decency and a sense of morality were not confined to the human race, however, Willie had risked his own life to save Caleb Taylor, Elias’s father, from a cryogenics accident at the plant. Since then, he had had a lot of associations with humans and had come to respect them not only as individuals but as a species equal in intelligence to his own.
A vegetarian himself, Willie had been shocked to discover the real mission of the Visitors. When he was captured, he had already decided to help the humans in any way he could, and chose to remain with his adopted people willingly. Part of this decision had been due to Harmony Moore, the first human woman he had ever met. Sweet and gentle, she had learned what he really looked like and said she loved him anyway. That revelation had come only days before she’d died in his arms from a Visitor laser blast.
“Which one of these do you like the best?” Miranda spread out the series of sketches.
“Um . . . they are all most excellent, Miranda.” “Yeah,” said Elias. “But which one really grabs you, Willie? I need the one that knocks your socks off, makes you want to die to have it, y’know?”
Willie blinked uncertainly as he struggled with the colloquialisms. “I cannot see how a piece of paper could restrain me and remove my socks, and I’m sorry, Elias, I do not wish to die to have any of these.”
“He means which one is your favorite, Willie,” said Miranda. “Which one would you most like to buy?”
“Oh.” Looking at the designs, the Visitor pointed to one, then another. “Perhaps a combination of these designs—the palm trees from here, and . . .” Taking a pencil, he drew a small sketch beside one of Miranda’s larger ones.
“I’ll be damned!” Elias said, his dark brown eyes widening with surprise—then pleasure—as he looked down. “That’s it! Willie, my man, make yourself a drink. I’ll order twelve dozen of ’em and get hold of a friend of mine who lives in—” The door to the Club Creole opened, and Caleb Taylor entered. “Hey, Pop!” Grinning happily, Elias hugged his father and gestured him to a seat at the bar. “Have a beer on the house.”
“Hello, Caleb,” Willie said, smiling as he brought a draft. The elder Taylor grimaced a little as he eased himself onto a stool. “Hey, Willie.”
“How’s your arthritis doing, Pop?”
“Could be better. I can’t go running around at all hours of the day and night like you young folks anymore. It’s . . Caleb’s glance fell on the scattered drawings on the bar. “What the hell’s this?”
“Design ideas for the new line of sport shirts I’m introducing for the club. Should make a bundle. Here’s the winner— Willie’s idea.”
Caleb snorted. “A lizard under a palm tree?”
“Yeah, a little inside joke, you know? With the club’s initials.”
“Yeah, well ...” Caleb shook his head, grinning, then looked around the room. “This place has shaped up real nice. ” His father’s expression of frank admiration at the tasteful wood decor, the rattan furniture, the profusion of plants made Elias smile. He’d worked hard on this place to create an impression of both spaciousness and intimacy.
“Who would ever have thought my son would own the hottest night spot in town?”
“Aw, Pop ...” Elias laughed. “I’m a businessman now, and it pays the mortgage.” The phone buzzed softly, and the flashing light beneath the bar told him someone had just entered the secret tunnel leading to the resistance headquarters in the subbasement. “Excuse me,” Elias said, then picked up the phone. “Club Creole, may I help you?”
“You and Miranda better get down here right away. Tell her to bring her first-aid kit. ” Ham Tyler’s voice sounded brusque as usual, but there was an odd, underlying strain to it. “Have Willie call Doc Akers. Chris took a shot of venom, and he’s blind.”
“Diana, I need those power packs right away!” The graying man with the no-nonsense look about him leaned forward in his plush executive’s chair.
On the TV-like screen on the desk in front of him, Diana’s classical features remained serene and unconcerned. “Nathan, if I said I would see to it that they are delivered to you, then I will do so. Surely you, used as you must be to dealing with bureaucracies of many sorts, realize that these things take time.”
Nathan Bates, head of Science Frontiers, leaned back in his chair, thinking quickly.
He was used to walking the tightrope between dangerous
and daring ever since the day his dream of heading up an independent, high-powered research-and-development think tank had come true. People alternately feared, admired, hated, and envied those in positions of wealth and power—he’d learned that early on.
For the population of L.A., Nathan Bates was either a hero or the worst turncoat on the West Coast, depending on who you listened to. When the red dust bacteria had died out in the frost-free areas of the world, Bates had bargained with Diana, now commander of all Earth-based forces, to make the City of the Angels an “open city.” In exchange for certain concessions, such as helping to stamp out the disruptive resistance efforts, he had agreed that Visitors and humans were to be free to move about the city unarmed.
It seemed reasonable to Bates that he should become the head of the provisional government that now ran Los Angeles—why make the rules unless you could also enforce them? From his point of view, his actions had saved his city from the destruction and occupation visited upon less fortunate southern cities.
He’d bought time.for the human race, and Science Frontiers now provided a place where the best minds could work together to come up with a solution to the Visitor infestation once and for all. If his actions also brought him greater position and profits, well, so much the better. He
was not a particularly introspective man, and his philosophy of life could be pretty well summed up as, “You do what you have to do.” “Diana,” he said as he leaned forward to face the screen again, “as you know, all of my computers and security systems were modified to run on your power packs. We’re down to a seven-day reserve, and, frankly, my people are getting a little nervous about it.”
“Can’t you return to your old supplier of electricity?” she asked reasonably.
Damn her! he thought, bending a paper clip into a twisted clump of wire. The bitch knew good and well that the generators, transformers, and linkages of Pacific Edison had been badly damaged in the Visitor strikes* and counterstrikes over the past couple of years. He couldn’t trust his massive data banks to the current surges and brownouts that happened much too frequently these days.
He wished Juliet Parrish were here. His number-one assistant was a scientist, not a businessperson or a diplomat. But she had a calm, matter-of-fact way of looking at problems and coming up with reasonable and practical solutions that had proved invaluable over the past months.
“Have you forgotten about that raid I tipped you off to three weeks ago, Diana?” he asked gently.
“Of course not, Nathan.” The beautiful woman-face’s smile had a patronizing touch to it. “But someone also warned the underground that we had been warned. When our strike forces arrived, the area was deserted.” She gave a mock sigh. “I realize you humans have not cultivated patience as we have. I suggest you try and learn more about this particular virtue—it will stand you in good stead. In the meantime, I will see what I can do. Good-bye.”
The image faded, but Bates stared at the blank screen for nearly a minute before he reached over to turn it off.
Bates is a fool, Diana thought, turning away from the communications board on the bridge of her Mother Ship. She really didn’t have time to waste thinking about a foolish and insignificant human, however. The bridge communications signal had just flashed, indicating that a transmission of extreme importance had just been received and was being decoded.
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