CROSSFIRE Page 14

  Waves of red and black ... not again ... he stood over Mrs. Dalton's body in the library and watched her die, but not before he'd lifted her by the hair and...

  Scherer hit him again in the stomach. Jake went down, unable to breathe. The red and black receded, replaced by an awful noise that Jake dimly realized was himself. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't get any air in his lungs, he was going to die...

  Gasping, in agonizing pain, Jake watched Scherer suddenly fall as if in slow motion, twisting as he went down. Saw the laser hole in Scherer's neck—saw it, improbably, a second before the blood started to spurt in wild jets. Saw Private Franz Mueller, Scherer's handpicked soldier, standing over the body, so ashen he looked made of salt. Then Jake couldn't see anything at all.

  When Jake struggled back to consciousness, the scene had only minimally changed, and he realized he had only been out a minute or so. Private Mueller bent over Scherer. The soldier was crying silently. Jake, still trying to force air into his lungs, didn't know if Mueller would shoot him, too, if he moved. But Gail lay so still against the wall...

  He dragged himself toward her. Mueller jerked up his head. Tears flew off his cheeks like tiny diamonds. "Mr. Holmar ... do not. You are hurt maybe. I look by her."

  Jake's heart paused while Mueller bent over Gail. But Mueller didn't hurt her, merely checked her pulse and pulled back her eyelids. "She is okay, maybe. I call for a doctor!"

  Now Jake became aware of a clamor coming from the monitors. Painfully he turned his head. Shipley and George Fox, at the beacon site, were demanding, "What's happening? Jake? Jake!" George was ineffectually waving his arms, his usually cheerful face terrified.

  Mueller said, "Lieutenant Halberg," and then a rapid speech in German. Jake had forgotten about Halberg. He wheezed into his own wrister, despite the sharp pain it sent through his lungs.

  "Dr. ... Shipley. Come back. Mueller ... shot Scherer. Gail... unconscious..." Too late, he realized that he wasn't thinking clearly. There were dozens of doctors in Mira City, closer than Shipley. Jake tried to say this but no more words came out.

  George Fox answered him. Fox's image on the monitor had stopped waving its arms. It stood stone still, gazing upward.

  "Jake, we can't come now. Halberg says the alien ship wasn't destroyed by the blast. A shuttle is coming down now. It'll be here in less than ten minutes."

  Shakily, Jake stood. He moved every part of himself: no broken bones except maybe a rib or two. He could stand, walk, talk. But he couldn't do any of it quickly, and sharp hot pains kept darting through his chest. Fortunately, Mueller did whatever Jake told him. "Call for a doctor. Then bring me that surgical tape ... good. Now wind it around my chest, tight ... tighter..." It was torture to raise his arms out of the way, but once Mueller had taped the ribs, Jake had a little more mobility.

  "Lay Ms. Cutler out flat and elevate her feet a bit ... good. Turn her head to the side in case she vomits. Do we have a blanket?"

  They didn't, but Mueller stripped off his own uniform jacket and covered Gail. Jake felt a quick flash of sympathy for the soldier, along with a flash of regret that they hadn't allowed more people in the monitor bunker. More people would have meant more clothing, more help. Lucy had wanted to come, and Robert Takai, and Nan Frayne ... Jake and Gail hadn't wanted the distraction. Ha! Consider the blasting of the Ariel and death of Scherer as distractions!

  Halberg said over the monitor, "The alien mother ship remains in orbit. Damage, if any, unknown. Shuttle lands in four minutes." The lieutenant's voice wobbled slightly, a first as far as Jake could remember.

  Mueller said, "We must bury Captain Scherer. Soon right away."

  It seemed a strange statement under the circumstances— couldn't Mueller see that they had other things to do "soon right away"? Jake chalked it up to nerves. Mueller had just shot his commanding officer. And he hadn't called for a doctor.

  "Mueller—a doctor!"

  "Dr. Shipley comes."

  "No, not Shipley! Someone closer! Call Faisal."

  "No one else comes here," Mueller said, not looking at Jake. It took a moment for Jake to realize why. Mueller was trying to contain his crime, confining knowledge of it to those already aware. Unexpected empathy pierced Jake ... Mrs. Dalton, lying on the library floor...

  "Damn it, call for a doctor!" Jake didn't dare leave his post at the monitor for the beacon site: what might happen next? Mueller ignored him.

  Gail stirred and moaned.

  "I'm here, Gail," Jake said. "Don't try to get up. Just lie still."

  "I see them," George Fox shouted. "Here they come!"

  A peculiarly shaped craft screamed through the atmosphere and set down a few hundred yards from the beacon tower. It resembled a horizontally positioned egg with a long, flexible tail that whipped around for a few moments after landing. Almost immediately a door slid open in the end of the egg opposite to the tail, and a short, steeply pitched ramp lowered itself.

  Jake braced himself for an attack of Furs, blood-hungry as the ones battling Larry Smith's Cheyenne.

  A long moment passed. Then a small platform, no more than a foot square, rolled down the ramp. It was covered with a clear dome that appeared sealed to the ramp, and it was going far too fast to be stable at the ramp's steep rake. The rolling cart hit the ground, teetered, and nearly tipped. But it righted itself and rolled out of the way just as a second cart started down the ramp.

  Inside the dome appeared to be something very complicated, filling the dome with dull red-brown ... somethings. Jake leaned closer to the monitor, as if that would create a higher resolution. He realized that the inside of the dome was slightly cloudy, as if with steam, which was one reason he was having trouble seeing inside.

  George Fox said, "My God, I think they're—" and the dome on the first cart shattered.

  "No!" Dr. Shipley cried. "Don't fire! Halberg—"

  This time Jake saw the laser beam shoot from the bunker toward the cart. It hit it again. The second cart was rolling frantically back up the ramp.

  "Oh, the—" Shipley said before George Fox yanked him to the ground. The big man fell heavily, ungracefully. Jake actually shook the monitor, which sent piercing pain through his chest. Another laser beam shot out from the bunker and hit the shuttle, its door now closed. As far as Jake could see, the beam had no effect on the shuttle.

  "Halberg!" he screamed. "Cease firing now! Stop it, you son of a bitch!"

  Another laser beam. Gail moaned, or maybe it was Shipley at the beacon site. Jake couldn't even tell. He couldn't see George Fox. Fuck it to hell, Halberg was going to kill all the aliens if he could, the aliens that Scherer had already tried to kill in orbit—

  "Jake," George's voice said, shaking. "He's dead."

  For a moment Jake thought he meant Shipley. But the Quaker was rising painfully to his knees beside the bunker. There was no more laser fire, and Jake realized that George meant Halberg was dead.

  "I fried him with my side torch," George said, and now his voice definitely shook. "We carry torches to burn off brush in the wild... red creeper ... I didn't..."

  "It's all right, George," Jake said, which was idiotic because it wasn't all right, of course it wasn't all right, it was the farthest from all right that it could possibly be.

  Shipley was on his feet. Slowly he started toward the shuttle.

  "No, Doctor, don't, it's too dangerous, they'll kill you!" Jake said. Shipley must have heard him but he kept walking anyway, unsteady but determined, holding his hands in front of him with palms upturned, demonstrating that they were empty.

  Behind Jake, Mueller made a sound. Jake wouldn't have been surprised if Mueller, too, had started shooting, killing him or Gail or both. But Mueller didn't fire. Neither did the shuttle. Shipley crossed the hundred yards of open ground until he stood beside the shattered dome on its little cart. By the time he reached it, George Fox had caught up with Shipley. Both men stood beside the silent shuttle, looking down at the broken cart.

  For th
e first time, Jake noticed that the flexible tail on the shuttle had stiffened and bent to point directly at the two men. Never had he seen anything he was so certain was a weapon. But the tail didn't fire.

  William Shipley said to the thing twisted among the shattered pieces of dome, "I am so sorry. I am so very, very sorry."

  George said, a little of the natural excitement returning to his voice, "Jake, this thing is dead. But I think it is—was—a flora-analogue. With leaves and vines ... yes. I'm sure. This alien wasn't a Fur. It was a plant.

  "And so was the other one that rolled back in when we started shooting."

  Nothing was simple. And yet it all seemed to be decided quickly. Later, Jake would realize he had made a dozen decisions, one after the other, quickly and without hesitation. At the time he was barely aware of what he was doing; he just did it.

  The aliens did not emerge from their shuttle. Nor did they fire on George and Shipley, who didn't touch the dead alien but did stay gazing at it for a long time. Jake had ordered George to leave the remnants alone. Let the aliens have their own death rites, if there were any, if they chose to. Jake just hoped the death rites didn't include racial revenge.

  Neither Shipley nor George could fly the skimmer. "I don't want to leave anyway," George said. He was recording everything he could about the dead alien. Were its fellows watching? Would they object? How the hell did Jake know?

  "I don't want to leave, either," Dr. Shipley said, although with less enthusiasm. "You have other doctors in Mira City for you and Gail, Jake."

  "Yes." He had said the same thing to Mueller. But that was before humans had killed the first star-faring alien they'd ever met. "But I don't want news of this to spread too far. The rest of the Board knows, of course; they're linked to my monitors. But they don't want panic, either. Faisal will handle lifting of the blackout without causing a stampede of people out to the beacon tower. Fengmo is controlling his own people. And Gail and I don't seem to be badly hurt. Did you examine Halberg?"

  "Only enough to determine that he's dead."

  "All right. Look, I'm going to have Private Mueller fly the large skimmer out there—"

  "Can he fly it?" George asked stupidly.

  "Of course he can—all Captain Scherer's people can pilot anything. For God's sake, George. I'm going to bring Gail with me. I think the situation has changed. The aliens in the shuttle aren't retaliating, so maybe some negotiation might be necessary—"

  "With a plant?" Faisal's voice said over the link.

  "I said a 'plant-analogue,' " George said. "It's obviously not a plant. There are weird projections and what might be a slime-trail locomotion device, like on snails ... I can't be sure of anything unless I examine tissues."

  "Absolutely not!" Jake said.

  "I know," George said unhappily.

  Shipley said, "Are you positive Gail can be moved?"

  "She's moving now, Doctor. She's sitting up—she's standing."

  "Then bring her here carefully," Shipley said, and started instructions for transporting Gail. She interrupted these angrily. "I don't need a stretcher, I'm fine. Just what happened at the beacon?"

  "Tell you in a minute," Jake said. "Private Mueller, please go get the other skimmer and bring it here. Private?"

  The soldier stood gazing down at Scherer's body. His tears had dried, but there was a strange, unreadable expression on his face. Fear? That, and something else Jake couldn't identify. He said, "Private Mueller ... Franz ... you will not be court-martialed. You acted correctly. I will tell Lieutenant Wortz." Who was now ranking security officer.

  Mueller didn't respond.

  "Private Mueller!" Gretchen Wortz's voice from Mira City. Yes, of course, she was waiting with the Board and the other scientists, ready to defend the settlement if necessary.

  If possible.

  Mueller responded to Wortz's voice. "Yes, ma'am."

  "Follow every one of Mr. Holman's orders. Mr. Holman, you have only Private Mueller by you in security. I come also."

  Jake said harshly, "I think we've had enough contributions from the security team already." After a moment he added, "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. Stay where you are. We don't know what the aliens will do with regard to Mira City."

  "Yes, sir," she said, and Jake heard in her voice some strange counterpart of the complex look on Mueller's face. He didn't have time to examine either.

  Mueller left in the rover to get the large skimmer from its concealed location a few miles away. Jake said, "Faisal?"

  "All goes well here, Jake. Do not worry about Mira City. Fengmo and I have things organized. May Allah be with you."

  "Can He negotiate with aliens?" Jake asked, and cut the comlink. He bent over Gail. "How are you?"

  "Fine," she said, crossly but unconvincingly. "Except for my arm."

  "Well, I've got broken ribs. So don't give me a bear hug and we'll both be fine."

  "Jake ... what will they do?"

  "How the fuck do I know?"

  She ignored this. "They approach our ship in orbit and we blow it up, trying to destroy them as well. They land and we immediately kill the first alien out the door. If the positions were reversed, I know what I'd do. I'd assume enmity and blow away the beacon tower and everything anywhere around it before I was attacked again."

  "Yes," Jake said.

  "So why aren't they?"

  "Maybe they don't have the firepower."

  Gail snorted. "They come in at a huge fraction of light speed and decelerate at a rate that should have squished them all into puree, and they don't have the technology to demolish George Fox while he stands there gazing hungrily at their dead comrade? I don't think so."

  Jake didn't think so, either. "Gail, they're aliens. How are we supposed to know what they think?"

  "We didn't have much trouble decoding what the Furs thought on the Cheyenne subcontinent."

  Jake didn't answer. Gingerly, careful of his ribs, he walked back to the console and accessed the space satellite recordings. He wanted photos of the alien ship in orbit.

  It was the weirdest-looking thing he'd ever seen. A thick flattish disk, with a slender tube projecting from one side. The end of the tube bulged outward. It looked like a deformed drinking straw stuck into a cow pie. He couldn't get any idea of the scale. He called Faisal back.

  "Faisal, I need a physicist. There isn't one on the Board, but surely—"

  "Of course we have physicists, Jake," Faisal said, some of the urbane amusement back in his voice. "Just not on the Wellcome Trust team. I will send you one of my people, Karim Mahjoub, very good, studied with Nigel Fearling at Cambridge. And Karim has excellent English."

  "Good. Actually, he can just report in from Mira City, he's probably already accessed the sat pictures."

  "Yes, but I think he would prefer to be with you. Where the action is," Faisal said, wryly proud of this colloquialism.

  "But—"

  "I will inform Karim," Faisal said, and the link went dead.

  Nothing was happening at the beacon site. George still stood gazing at the dead alien. "Jake, there's a bit of leaf or something that was torn off and landed a little away from the body. Can't I just—"

  "No! Where's Shipley?"

  "In the bunker. He's examining Halberg, for some reason."

  "Dr. Shipley?" Jake said. "Please answer. Lieutenant Halberg is dead?"

  "Yes," Shipley said. "Jake, you're coming here now?"

  "Yes. Why? Is there some new information?"

  "I'm not sure yet," Shipley said. "Please come soon." What new information could there be about Halberg? Suddenly Jake didn't want to know. The crucial thing right now was the alien shuttle. It sat immobile, unknowable. Unvengeful. So far.

  14

  Gail kept cradling her left arm in her right. Curtly she refused Jake's offers of a sling, comfort, anything else, so he shut up. When Mueller arrived with the skimmer, she climbed in unassisted, a laborious and painful-looking process. Before she'd finished, a rover could be seen
and heard on the horizon. Faisal's physicist.

  Four figures got out of the rover.

  "No," Jake said. "Absolutely not. Good God, Ingrid, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "I'm senior geneticist," Ingrid Johnson said. "I need to be there. George does systemic biology, not genetics. I need to be there when the aliens land."

  "So you brought Lucy and Nan Frayne?"

  Lucy said, "Jake, don't be angry. We were all together, waiting for news, when Faisal called for Karim. I want to be at the site, too."

  "The last thing we need is a paleontologist!"

  "I know," she said humbly. Her eyes said, But I need to be where you are, which was the stupidest reason for letting her come that he'd ever heard. Or not heard, since only her gaze conveyed it. And Nan Frayne...!

  Nan still looked rat-chewed, her hair cut ragged to remove the filthy mats, in places so short that the scalp showed through. Her face and body were gaunt. But she stood stolidly, looking defiant ... as if that were anything new.

  "Listen, Jake," Nan said, "you might need to negotiate with these people. That's what I do, remember? I'm the only one who does it. The—"

  Jake, Mira Corp's negotiator, said coldly, "You negotiate with Furs. Sort of. These are not Furs, and you are not going."

  Nan's gaze looked past him to Gail, standing in the doorway of the skimmer. "Gail—you're hurt!"

  "Broken arm," Gail said. "Go back to Mira City, Nan."

  "No."

  Something exploded in Jake. "You mangy brat, I'm not your saintly father. Get in that rover with Lucy and drive back to Mira City or I'll have Private Mueller shoot you down where you stand." He turned and walked toward the skimmer, pushing Gail inside. Ingrid, having not been mentioned in Jake's rant, climbed in meekly after him. Karim Mahjoub followed. Franz Mueller got in and closed the door.

  No one spoke until they were in the air. Then Gail, leaning back in obvious pain against the skimmer seat, said quietly, "It didn't do any good, you know. Nan and Lucy know where the beacon site is. They'll drive a rover there."