Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  Up ahead, Storm’s Jeep had stopped and was now reversing carefully back down the road.

  ‘Shall we get out? Less weight.’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ Gene muttered, and hit the dashboard. ‘Piece of junk.’

  The car made it, although she smelled burning, like the time her father had let the oil run dry. Each little loss of control went straight to Molly’s stomach. She’d lost where they were on the map half an hour ago.

  Up among the pines, the solitude was so thick it felt solid. They counted off entrances to closed-up holiday places; there were plenty up here.

  Another turning later, they saw a single light, shining in the half-light: they’d reached the lake shore. Tall trees stood like frozen giants, but there was clear ground to the water. The light glowed outside a single-storey wooden cabin with a porch facing the lake. The Jeep was already turning in to park up, ploughing a deep trail in the snow, and Gene drew the old Lincoln alongside. Storm jumped out and strode towards the cabin, an electric torch stabbing light ahead of her.

  How remote it felt. Molly badly wanted to get inside and forget that tense, threatening drive, where every car could have been an enemy, chasing them.

  To the right, perhaps a hundred yards away, was a much bigger cabin, perched on a little rise.

  Carol appeared at their car window. ‘Let’s get inside before you freeze. Storm will get the fires going in the Hauser place – we keep the heating going for them when the place is empty, because otherwise, you know, the pipes freeze and cause no end of trouble.’

  Bundling up their few precious possessions, the Myers followed Carol into the cabin. Warmth and light embraced them; Molly could smell the little Christmas tree adorned in baubles and coloured lights. A typewriter and neat stacks of paper took up half a table. Framed photos, real works of art, filled the walls: landscapes, portraits and studies of dogs and horses. One was of Carol, very grand in a green ballgown and pearls, but laughing, looking so relaxed and alive.

  Carol was trying to watch Cory without staring. She shifted the paper, murmuring, ‘My book, eventually. Are you hungry? We’re having Storm’s famous beef stew later. Do you want hot chocolate?’

  Gene looked wistful.

  Molly told her, ‘Cory doesn’t eat meat – just fish, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, we have tins,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We’ll manage.’

  Molly thought of the joy of good home cooking, how far they’d come – and how much longer the road ahead might be.

  ‘Cory help. Where this? Christmas Eve tomorrow! Where-where put stockings . . . where we put stockings?’ His tentacles danced.

  Molly gave him a hug. ‘It will have to be promise-presents, sweetie-pie.’

  The chocolate was thick and full of flavour, touched with spices. Molly felt its warmth settle her stomach. Her nerves were playing havoc with her digestion. The cookies were fruit and oats and she ate two, suddenly hungry.

  Storm came back and, shedding outdoor clothes, asked Cory, ‘Shall I show you my camera?’ In no time they were on one couch, chatting away. Molly ignored a touch of irrational envy; business had to come first, but Molly was itching to talk cameras with Storm herself.

  Carol sat and got out her notebook. ‘Okay, start at the beginning,’ she said.

  ‘Molly will tell it until I came on the scene,’ said Gene, rubbing his eyes.

  There’d be no mention of nightmare powers or death in space, no coming into dreams, nothing that made Cory threatening. They’d ask Carol not to put his hiding in the story.

  ‘Take photo now-now-now,’ Cory demanded. ‘Cory the-most photo-genic.’

  Storm looked at Molly and said, ‘When your folks are happy, then I can start on the photos, okay?’

  Carol’s gentle, precise questions steered them through the core of the story as outside, the dark deepened. The story swung to and fro between Molly and Gene, while Storm told Cory about riding horses, working on a dude ranch, sailing out to look at whales in the Bering Sea . . . and he chatted back cheerily, the happiest he’d been since they’d fled the house.

  At last Carol said, ‘I need to track down my editor, which will be fun this time of year. His deputy is far too yellow to take on the Administration. But trust me: our intrepid girl reporter has won far harder battles.’

  Molly nodded, and she went on, ‘Then the real work starts. Once we’ve eaten, I’ll need to go through your story and work out what we can prove. I think this might fill half the magazine. And of course, Storm will need to work her magic with the photographs. We don’t have anything without them.’

  ‘She’s extremely talented,’ Molly said, glancing around the room.

  ‘She is. We’re lucky to have her. Anyway, my first thoughts are, we hit them with Cory’s existence – no mention of Two Mile Lake. The government know we know, so it gives them an incentive to play ball, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Molly said, non-committal. She felt so drained, and she had just realised that of all things, she did not want the world to see her like this, with badly reddened hair. This plan had to work, to keep them safe and set free the people they loved, the friends and family who had paid the price of protecting them. Right now, she wanted the dark woods to hide her and her family for ever.

  CHAPTER 33

  Christmas Eve at Fort Fife

  Dr Pfeiffer was so tired his mind could not focus. The long conference room was thick with stale cigarette smoke which was hurting his eyes. They should let some of the icy wind in, just so he could breathe.

  The walls were covered in maps: the whole country, the state, its borders, all dotted with black and red and white pins, for different types of sightings.

  There was always someone on the phone or poring over Teletext, always one or other of the disgusting tobacco-addicts lighting up.

  The Myers had been on the highway north to Canada, then they did a U-turn. Red pin: no doubt about that sighting. Then two sightings in some one-horse town called Windville, Wynneville, something. Then they just disappeared into thin air.

  He got up to study the maps, find a pattern; that’s how he’d realised that if the Myers had a second car parked away from the house, Elliott Street would be the best place to hide it.

  ‘Sandusky, Ohio,’ said the saturnine FBI man, tapping in a white pin. ‘We’ll check it out, but I think it’s noise, not signal.’

  What were the Myers doing? Fleeing like animals harried by dogs, zigzagging away from the chase with no plan but survival? Or was this some carefully considered scheme, once they’d found that John and Eva Myers had been arrested? He worried about some neutral nation taking them by ship to Cuba, or by plane to Moscow. Or perhaps they were just holing up for a few weeks with a sympathetic friend, or breaking into a holiday cabin, or staying in a motel.

  There was a vast machine hunting them across the northeast: State Troopers covering their patches, using their local knowledge, FBI agents brought off leave, local cops trawling the streets of the many towns along the Eastern Seaboard . . . how much earth would they have to turn over before they found the gold?

  And of course, the overwhelming majority of those looking knew nothing about Cory or the Ship, because that just raised the risk of them being discussed openly and word getting out. He didn’t know whether he was more anxious about the press or the Russians getting the truth first.

  The map told him nothing. How long could the government of a free country hold travellers at the borders? Could the Myers use Cory’s extraordinary power to just walk into Canada? He understood some major work was underway with the Canadian government, a mixture of threats and bold promises to their genial neighbour and ally, but Canada was an independent country and proud of it. And of course, they wanted to know what the fuss was about.

  His hand was still shaking; he had never been closer to death. On the road, that thing in the car . . . a raven
ing predator at his throat . . . He had always scorned those who peddled the idea of psychic powers, but here was absolute solid proof.

  He had failed to capture them, and then to find them, but maybe someone else would. Keeping the Myers from the agents of the Soviet Union was vital, but he had no doubt his enemies in the US Administration were just as keen to keep the Myers from him.

  ‘I’m going to the detention centre,’ Pfeiffer said.

  The FBI man looked at him. ‘You might feel fresher after a break.’

  ‘These people know what the Myers are up to.’

  ‘We do know how to interrogate,’ the FBI man said mildly. ‘It’s our job.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Try not to make enemies of people you need.

  The night air revived him a little. The FBI were keeping up the pressure, but he suspected they would get little useful from the Hardesty women or Forster, the half-blind old veteran. He wasn’t sure Molly’s relatives being held in Indiana and Florida knew much either.

  Diane Alexander, though – she was deep in the thick of it, and her little girl too; they had found frequent mentions of Cory in the child’s diary. Pfeiffer grabbed one of the army nurses as he went in to act as chaperone.

  The recreation room was bleak, but in the hour or so since he was last there, someone had brought in a little fir tree and decorated it.

  ‘What’s the meaning of that?’ he asked a soldier.

  ‘For the children,’ the soldier said, keeping his face wooden.

  A great knot of emotion roiled in Pfeiffer’s stomach. ‘These children have vital information. Don’t forget that.’

  The Alexanders’ room had a locked door, but it wasn’t quite a cell. The nurse pulled a chair over to the door and sat, watching Mrs Alexander, on the bed, brushing her daughter’s stiff hair.

  She fixed Pfeiffer with a stare, then launched straight in, her voice reminding him of a sombre cello. ‘Son of Belial – servant of Ahab! Wager of war on women and children! What do you want?’

  ‘You know what I want.’ Pfeiffer drew up the remaining chair. With the bed and the camp-bed, the room was pretty much filled.

  ‘I hate you,’ said the girl. She’d been crying again.

  ‘Where is our lawyer?’ Mrs Alexander demanded.

  Pfeiffer addressed himself to the child. ‘Bonnie, we need to find your friend Cory, and we think you know where he might be. We’re not going to hurt him.’

  ‘I’m frightened, Mommy,’ Bonnie wailed. ‘The man wants to hurt me!’

  His guts churned again. She was the same age as his youngest.

  ‘Remember Daniel in the lion’s den, darling: “Do not fear the teeth of lions or the flames of the furnace, because the Lord is with us.” And the law and the Constitution. Judgement will come, and the wrongdoers will be punished, in this world and the next.’

  ‘Mrs Alexander, if you do not cooperate, Bonnie will be moved to another building – supervised by female staff, of course . . .’

  Bonnie clung to her mother, who said, with contempt, ‘What kind of a man are you? Herod. Abomination. Bonnie, remember those brothers and sisters valiant for the truth . . .’

  Together, the two of them started, ‘“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . He maketh me to lie down in green pastures” . . .’

  Pfeiffer had lost all patience with the damned woman. ‘Oh, stop that! We’ve arrested your adult children. Hubert Jr has violated his parole. He’s going to prison. Maddie’s boyfriend deals marijuana; she is being charged alongside him. Cooperate, and you will be amazed what we can do. And then there’s your sister . . .’ He was almost certain that Mrs Alexander’s sister and her children knew nothing either. The Myers had kept their secret tight.

  He looked from the little girl to her mother and back and met two identical looks of silent hatred. She quotes the Bible because she sees it makes you uncomfortable. She brings up race for the same reason. The little girl can cry at will. He steeled himself to give the order, his stomach protesting at the scene to come. ‘Separate them until further notice.’

  Now to deliver the same message to Mrs Henderson.

  As he left the room, Dr Tyler jogged up and announced, panting, ‘Dr Pfeiffer . . . There you are! There’s been a Russian attempt on the Ship – two of their agents are dead and one’s in custody.’

  ‘What? How?’ They had excellent security behind the fence; it had been strengthened and reinforced since the Russian meteors.

  ‘We don’t know. They had diving equipment – it looks like the Ship killed them. We did catch their radio operator before he could kill himself.’

  ‘This is a disaster.’ So here was the unknown question: were the Myers in bed with their country’s enemies, or in desperation, at least willing to deal with them? Maybe the Russians knew about Cory too? Or were the Myers mere innocents, without the cunning to keep out of the Russians’ grasp? At least any breach in security at Two Mile Lake was not his fault, a point he would need to make at once.

  And the Ship spoke Russian. This was very bad.

  CHAPTER 34

  Christmas Eve at the cabin

  The three of them snuggled together in the Hausers’ double bed; Cory hadn’t stayed long alone in his little camp-bed. Molly, lying on top of the covers, was cold, even though the fire still glowed and she was wearing socks. Gene and Cory looked so peaceful sleeping. She left them to it.

  The cabin was not to her taste. It was littered with bright orange and green rugs, crude folk pottery and odd, naïve paintings, and shelves of battered books. The kitchen was decked out like a ship’s galley, ridiculous but endearing. She was surprised to find snowshoes and an old sled: somewhere this remote wouldn’t be her choice for a winter holiday. The main room reached to the roof, with bedrooms coming off the inner balcony. Vast shuttered windows opened onto a snow-piled porch and a stunning view of the lake. To heat the place in winter must cost a fortune.

  She smiled at the image of Cory finding the second staircase to the upper storey and pounding around the cabin three times, just for the fun of it.

  She went out to clear her head and to see the place in the light. It was Christmas Eve and the world was made new with the snow, every path and track smoothed out, ice sparkling from the gables and the sky faint with haze. White-shrouded evergreens surrounded the cabin on three sides, while to the north, the land sloped to the water. The lake was so still, she wondered if it was frozen. On the other side of the lake were more pines. There was no sign of human life.

  Carol’s smaller cabin was a short walk away.

  Molly had seen fierce winters, but she’d never seen anything so silent, so beautiful, so gripped by winter.

  Now, she thought, I must think like a fugitive, like a soldier. How do we get out if we need to? The map showed trails running along the shore and snaking down into the woods. From now on, she wouldn’t stay anywhere without thinking of back doors and exits by car or foot. She vowed she’d never again be trapped in a dead end. There were people to be worried about, dreadful futures to imagine. She could let herself be swallowed up, or she could deal with it. She walked down to the lake, every breath hurting, but she felt alive.

  With a little shock, Molly realised she hadn’t taken Gene skating in years. They’d loved it once, after that first date under a spectacular Moon, but when the shadow fell across her life, her marriage, they’d given up so many things. Kids give you excuses to go back to things you’d loved, she thought. She should take her menfolk skating.

  From the lake, looking back at Carol’s place, she could see Storm was out with a shovel, digging out the path, sending snow flying everywhere.

  After an hour’s walk, Molly felt renewed. She’d seen other cabins and a boathouse, but there were no signs of occupation; the only smoking chimneys belonged to them.

  *

  It was all bustle when Molly
walked into Carol’s cabin, but she couldn’t miss the tension in the air. Carol and Storm were cooking pancakes; no, they said, they didn’t need a hand. ‘We work around each other’s elbows,’ Carol said, with a brief, forced smile.

  ‘Well, mostly.’ Storm looked grim.

  Cory sat at the table in the large room, head down over a large sketchbook but not drawing.

  Gene sat close, looking tired. He kissed her and mouthed, ‘They had a row.’

  Well, she’d guessed that. ‘About us?’ she mouthed back.

  He shrugged, and stroked Cory’s ear.

  ‘Storm’s going to take you out to do some photographs with us,’ he said, but still Cory didn’t look up. A new place, all that fresh snow, different woods to explore and yet he was silent.

  ‘Come on, Super-Cory, what’s the matter?’

  Cory gave a little moan, the hoo-hoo that was a sob. ‘Cory’s the M-Monster. Cory h-horr-i-ble. Frankenstein on TV: all those people hate m-me. Everyone h-hate m-me every-everywhere.’

  Molly put an arm around him. ‘No, of course they don’t!’ She tried to pour reassurance into him. ‘People who know you love you, don’t they? Every kid you’ve ever met loves you. And just think of all the grown-ups . . .’

  ‘Everyone ch-chase me for ever,’ said Cory, ‘with guns, hoo-hoo, like was a sea-demon. And fires and helicopters and silly little human space rockets . . . No one like m-monsters no one.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘And Cory must d-do the bad thing, over and over.’

  Molly really didn’t want Carol nosing into ‘the bad thing’.

  ‘Listen, sweetie-pie, Carol and Storm are going to sort everything for us. And we’ll see all our friends again and everything will be fine.’

  ‘Go to Canada another way. Or Ven-ez-wela: tallest waterfall in world, Mom-Mom. Or Scotland for so-grand castles. Bring Chuck and Bonnie.’