Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  The chief firefighter, a likeable guy: the first of the named dead. Then Molly shuddered as she took in Gene’s words: a few hundred yards closer and that space rock would have destroyed the library. For a moment, she froze in the thought of Gene’s death.

  She stroked the back of his neck. ‘I’m needed here, darling. Take the car. Don’t drive through town, okay?’

  Their hands touched as she passed the keys. Don’t say, drive safely. Don’t think of his mishaps driving.

  ‘Get some sleep when you can,’ he said. ‘I guess I won’t see you for a bit, but look after yourself too.’

  Back to her duties: save the world one nosebleed at a time. She kissed him properly, the audience be damned.

  *

  Midnight in the casualty station and Sister Pearce strode in, short, grey-haired and sour. Their feud was old and fierce. Molly called her Sister Barracuda behind her back.

  Pearce handed over cow-eyed, sulking Nurse Hooton, who was looking sick and sullen. There was always one student in every class who disgraced herself throwing up in the operating theatre.

  Sister rubbed tired eyes. ‘Doctor, if you have any trouble with Hooton, send her home. You’d think people would make some sort of an effort in an emergency. Nurse Myers, we have a problem on the isolation unit. You’re tough, you’re smart and you’ll keep your mouth shut.’ That was an order.

  They went to the fifth floor. Outside the door, Pearce said, from nowhere, ‘I was going to fire you.’

  Molly blinked; the only surprise was that Sister had said it out loud.

  ‘You got sloppy.’ Molly had never seen the stern leader of the fifth floor look so anxious and uncertain. ‘But I knew . . . I hoped . . . That’s why I gave you another chance.’ She went on, ‘I think I was right, but now I need you at your best. It’s unbelievable – and a secret. I mean it: you cannot talk to anyone. Do you understand me?’ Almost under her breath, she added, ‘We’re stretched so thin . . . Hooton is weak, but I had no one else.’

  Molly wasn’t sure if she was more curious than worried. ‘What is it, Sister?’

  ‘I’ll have to show you.’

  Pearce led the way to the end isolation room, like all of them with an outer space for staff to robe up and prepare, the inner room for the patient. The blind was down. As they went through the rigorous counter-infection procedures, Molly noted a child-sized shape on the bed. It was only when she entered the inner room and drew closer that she saw, and her mind stumbled. The thing on the bed, whatever it was, wasn’t right. The face had two fistfuls of tentacles, a rich reddish-purple colour. Molly’s mouth opened, then clamped shut in disgust and shock, with curiosity bringing up the rear. Those thick worms longer than fingers were obscuring where a mouth might be. Did it even have a mouth?

  For a moment, Molly wondered if this was some sick joke, a puppet to make a fool of her. Then it coughed, and the tentacles writhed for long seconds before falling still. The skin was an unhealthy grey colour and covered with a light oily sheen. She took two steps closer. The creature twisted. Its eyes had white films, like inner eyelids. Somehow, it reminded her of a child on the edge of fevered sleep. But it was very strange . . .

  The thing gave a low moan. ‘Cor-cor-cor . . .’ Was that speech? There was a silver device on its wrist, but even a monkey could wear a watch.

  Those tentacles were the biggest shock. She came another step closer, wanting to see if they were really part of it. She couldn’t know then that they were like fingers, so dextrous he could use them to put in cufflinks, and part of the wonderful openness of his expression.

  She started when Sister Pearce broke into her thoughts, saying, ‘Yes, it’s real and, yes, it comes from space. We’ve treated the wounds, but there’s something else wrong and we don’t know what. The mother’s in the next room.’ Molly had never heard Sister Pearce’s voice so strained. ‘Her breathing is very weak now . . . She’s going to die.’

  Far away, a bell rang. Molly forced her attention back to the thing on the bed.

  ‘This one’s sweating, so we’re guessing it’s too hot, but that is just a guess. Now, infection control.’ Pearce ran through procedure like Molly was a raw student. She must’ve been wearing her ‘dumb insolence’ face because Pearce suddenly snapped, ‘It came from another planet. It may not have immunity to Earth diseases.’

  Ah.

  ‘Yes, Sister, good point.’

  ‘The fever’s been getting worse since Sheriff Olsen and Dr Jarman found them. Who knows if we’re immune to what they carry? It might be like Indians and smallpox – we might be putting the lives of millions at risk of a space plague.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Be professional. ‘So how will we know what medications we can give it? Or what to feed it? Or how much?’

  ‘Boiled water is safe and we’ve got a few alien drugs, pain relief and the like, and some food. Dr Jarman’s still trying to save the adult. Administration don’t know and they’re not to be told. I guess we’ve got until tomorrow morning before they figure it out. Lord knows what’ll happen then.’

  Rocks and fire and thunder from the sky! Unlike Gene, Molly had never wasted time worrying about aliens. They didn’t exist or they weren’t here, so either way they weren’t a problem. Like God really. But here was a creature who was breathing and moaning and it needed her care.

  Sister Pearce looked down at the creature, then left.

  A patient is a patient, Molly told herself, just like any one of the dozens of others she’d helped tonight. She began by sponge-bathing the alien and brought her masked face down to see if the diaper needed changing. Nursing was so glamorous! It smelled rank, sharp and musky. That first day, she couldn’t quite figure out how to fit a diaper around the thick rope of a tail. She’d learn the healthy smell of the child’s skin in time, like a pony, or herbs; she’d understand that pale purple was a good colour. The neat little slit in front made her think it was a girl. It was hairless everywhere, with ridges where eyebrows might be. The outer eyelids were back, but the inner white ones made it look blind.

  Their ignorance would kill it – how can you help a creature if you don’t know what normal is? How would you intubate it, or put a line in a vein? Could you give it human saline? Surely this strange thing was going to die . . . but she’d never given up on a patient yet.

  Nurse Fell, the new nurse with dark eyes and a tangled love-life, came in. Good, Molly thought, she’s calm and competent.

  ‘The mother looks the same,’ Fell said, rolling her eyes. ‘Dr Jarman wants an update.’

  They exchanged glances, colluding on this extraordinary secret, before she took the report and left Molly alone with it. For a while the alien lay very still, but then it jerked like a hooked, dying fish, crying out and thrashing, as if it were having a fit. Molly noted the time: 1.27 a.m. She put a gloved hand to its chest and rang the bell. In the turmoil, who knew if anyone would come?

  ‘You’re not allowed to die on my watch,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here, I’m here. You’re safe. We’ll do our best. Heavens above, you’re a strange one, but I’m not giving up yet.’

  She felt so helpless, but who was here to help it except her? ‘I’m here to look after you,’ she said softly. ‘Pearce is a sour old cow but she knows her job. She’d arm-wrestle the Grim Reaper. I could tell you stories . . . Come on, be strong. We’ve Earth to show you.’

  Slowly, a webbed paw came up to touch her hand. It was frightened and sick and in need of comfort.

  Something opened inside her.

  She began to sing, old lullabies, through the mask. Gene told her often enough she could hold a tune but she’d always hated an audience. Yet sometimes, in the dark of a hospital night, she would sing to a child who needed it.

  The strange ears moved: maybe it heard? But when she moved her hand a little, its four-fingered paw fell away. No, hand – it had a thumb. Skinny ribs ros
e and fell like breathing was hard labour, and it gave that weird little cough.

  It’s a child.

  She rang the bell again, keeping her finger down, until Dr Jarman, the man who led the doctors and knew it, walked in, already masked. That tall, stooping shambles of a man came to work each morning looking like he’d been up all night in his clothes; he moved like someone had taught a bear to walk. His hands were enormous, but Molly once saw him draw a shard of glass from a child’s cheek, fingers as delicate as a lace-maker. People forgave him a lot.

  Dr Jarman walked with shoulders down, his head forward and his eyes low. ‘The mother died at 1.30 a.m.,’ he said. ‘Nothing we could do. We’ve lots of questions, but we need to focus on the child. Report, please, Nurse.’

  Molly said what she knew, which wasn’t a lot.

  ‘We’re flying through thick cloud. His mother did give me their first-aid box and some food packs. Let’s hope he gets better before we run out. Let’s hope he can eat our stuff.’

  He? ‘It appears to be female.’

  ‘His mother was clear he’s male,’ he said, attempting a smile. ‘I’ll try another one of their shots.’

  She must have missed something. ‘The mother spoke English?’

  ‘A box on her suit spoke for her – translated, I guess. She managed to tell us what the drugs were. It was like . . . Master­piece Theatre.’

  Molly had so many questions: Where had it come from? And how? Had they been watching the Earth? Were there more of them?

  Jarman broke the silence. ‘There were two dead when we found them, an adult and a child. Now the mother’s gone too, leaving just the smallest.’

  ‘Do we know his name?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing I could pronounce. Boy Alien. If we save him, we can ask.’ He pulled out what looked like a plastic pen and started searching on the child’s arm for a vein.

  You need to give the patient a name, thought Molly, something to call him. Little cor-cor-cor. If nothing else, you need a name to bury him under.

  CHAPTER 5

  The day after Meteor Day

  At the nurses’ home, Molly managed three hours’ sleep. When she came to, muggy-headed, it was afternoon and Amber Grove was sulking under weird black cloud. She phoned the library and left Gene a message, then went to find a sandwich.

  In the crowded canteen, two firefighters in unfamiliar uniforms slumped over their coffee. Were the fires still burning, even after that rain? Beyond them stood Mayor Rourke, deep in conversation. She thought the other man was the Mayor of Bradleyburg. All around, tired-looking people wearing makeshift armbands with Volunteer written on them sat silently in front of uneaten food.

  She thought, I could stand on a chair and tell them about the alien. What would happen? Maybe they’d all jump up and rush upstairs to see, pushing over chairs and tables in their excitement. Maybe someone would lead her away to one of those wards or hospitals where they took people who saw things. She shuddered a little; that wasn’t a place she wanted to be, as a nurse or as one of the dead-eyed patients.

  Ahead of her in the line were two bright-eyed nurses burning with other news. Rumour always travels fast round a hospital.

  ‘There’s troops everywhere,’ one was saying, ‘and helicopters buzzing all last night and trucks parked anyhow. They’re saying they won’t let anyone near the impact site.’

  ‘And if you do try, they just bring you back under armed guard.’

  Molly bolted her sandwich and walked to the foot of the stairs, past two teenage boys helping an old woman limp down the corridor and a man with a bandaged head arguing with two nurses and a doctor. There must be hundreds injured, and no word yet on how many dead.

  She climbed to the fifth floor, wondering if the boy was awake, to find Jarman had put an even more strident notice on the boy’s door:

  CONTAGIOUS AND DANGEROUS

  FULL INFECTION PRECAUTIONS

  AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY

  Jarman’s flamboyant signature at the bottom gave it added weight.

  She went into the outer cubicle to scrub up before donning gloves and mask and apron. The larger inner room was sealed behind two glass doors; the airlock system had air filtered to cut the risk of infection. A tiny risk remained.

  Peggy Fell was standing by the bed, thank goodness. She quickly ran down the details before making her excuses; she was due elsewhere in this busy hospital with so many needy people.

  Soon, Molly was alone with little Cor-cor-cor, pale and still; what could be done? No normal mask would fit that face, so last night they’d lashed something together to give him oxygen. She touched one ear with a gloved finger and wondered how it might feel to be so alone. The child’s eyes were still covered with those white inner lids, seeing nothing, and the tentacles were still. Only the rise and fall of his skinny chest and the machine recording his pulse showed that he was alive.

  His temperature was back up and he didn’t respond to the straw. Boiled water was sterile and safe, fed from a plastic bottle designed to sip from. Did they dare a drip?

  She put the bottle down to help the child sit up, mindful of the gash in his side, and noticed the silver wrist device was gone.

  ‘Cory,’ she said out loud, testing the name. Well, she had to call him something. ‘Are you thirsty, Cory? We’ve got lots of time together now. You’ll be all right.’

  An ear twitched and the child’s body moved a little into hers. It was bony, but not that unlike a human child to hold. When she slipped the straw into his mouth, the tentacles twitched.

  Come on, little one, remember what to do.

  She glanced at the clock and realised it was twenty-four hours since the Meteor had fallen. Just one day, and this was another world.

  Holding a child who needed her, nothing else existed. After a while, there came a feeble little movement. His eyes stayed closed, but he began to suck.

  *

  In the staff lounge, Molly sat with her shoes off, each foot massaging the other under the table. Dr Jarman looked like he’d been awake for a week and Sister Pearce looked like she wanted to punch someone.

  ‘I promised his mother we’d keep him safe,’ Jarman said, pouring coffee. Molly watched as he began to spoon sugar, one, two, three, four. ‘She’d heard of the Hippocratic Oath, although Lord knows how. So, the boy’s need-to-know only. I’m in no hurry to tell anyone official. Who knows what they’d do? Sheriff Olsen tells me they’ve got hundreds of soldiers at the impact site.’

  Molly imagined the nightmare: the boy might disappear into some government laboratory and never come out. He’d be cut up like the frogs in biology class; she’d hated that part. Who’d stand up for him then? ‘Won’t the Sheriff tell the authorities?’ she asked.

  Olsen was popular, re-elected twice, always to be seen swaggering along the sidewalks or spinning a yarn in front of the station. Dark rumours surrounded him, though: how he swore in his brothers and cousins as deputies; that prisoner who’d somehow broken his own arm, lawsuits . . .

  ‘Sheriff Olsen will keep his mouth shut. He promised the mother, he promised me. Trust me,’ Jarman said.

  Pearce was boiling over. ‘We need to be serious – we’re stretched to breaking point. The child is very sick and we ­haven’t the first idea what to do for him. We need the best minds in the country. The government can throw money and people at the problem, they can nurse him in isolation for weeks, months, even a year, whatever is needed. Everyone wins.’

  Molly was reeling at the idea that they might hand Cory over. The boy was her patient – hers; how dare Sister suggest they give him away?

  ‘The Governor’s coming for some media circus or other. Let’s hope the President stays away.’ Jarman sipped, grimaced, and added another two spoons of sugar. He said firmly, ‘We must keep the boy a secret.’

  ‘Why?’ Pearce demanded.

&
nbsp; Jarman swigged the coffee down. ‘The moment we tell them, he’ll be whisked away. We’ve got to keep him secret until I’ve got a better plan. That means only the staff who already know, Sister.’

  ‘A secret?’ said Pearce, quivering. ‘The entire floor knows we have a mystery patient – by tomorrow, the whole hospital—’

  ‘Nobody has any idea who, though. I’ve told the Director we’re treating a burns case with some virulent unknown infection – that’s so we can cover the face if we need to.’

  Pearce gave her trademark sigh and tried one last time. ‘Why not call in some of the real specialists, in confidence?’

  ‘Most of the top people do defence work,’ Jarman said, with a slight frown, ‘and the more people who know, the more likely it’ll get out. Then we’ll have the army camped on our doorstep.’

  ‘I can’t stop people talking.’

  Jarman smiled. ‘Sister, you could teach the Navy a thing or two about discipline. Your staff will take your word for it – and if you have problems, just send them to me.’

  Molly’s cautious inner voice said, We mean well but a country hospital mightn’t be good enough. Then she thought of the four-star generals and their body-counts and body-bags and the sharp-suited politicians with their smart words and their excuses.

  ‘I think we should keep him quiet for now,’ Molly said. ‘I need to go back. Uh, Dr Jarman, what did his mother tell you? Why are they here? What happened?’

  ‘Well, she was dying and she was pretty confused, but she did keep saying she’d sent a message to their people and they’ll be coming to find him, in large numbers. She said they’ll judge us by how we treat him.’ His face was grim. ‘I don’t blame the mother. We must look like violent savages from the outside.’

  ‘We can’t let him die through sheer pride,’ Pearce said, rubbing her eyes. ‘You must call in other people – people you can trust.’ She looked to heaven as she said, ‘This puts him in danger, it puts other patients in danger, maybe the staff. Lord, we might be putting the whole planet in danger.’