Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Aliens™ Book I: Genocide

Dedication

Prologue

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Epilogue

Aliens™ Book II: Alien Harvest

Dedication

Captain Hoban’s Prologue

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Hoban’s Afterword

About the Authors

Also Available from Titan Books

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

THE COMPLETE ALIENS™ OMNIBUS

VOLUME 1

VOLUME 3 (DECEMBER 2016)

VOLUME 4 (JUNE 2017)

VOLUME 5 (DECEMBER 2017)

VOLUME 6 (JUNE 2018)

VOLUME 7 (DECEMBER 2018)

THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS

ALIEN™

ALIENS

ALIEN3

ALIEN RESURRECTION

ALIEN

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

SEA OF SORROWS

RIVER OF PAIN

THE RAGE WAR

PREDATOR: INCURSION

ALIEN: INVASION

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: ARMAGEDDON (SEPTEMBER 2016)

The Complete Aliens Omnibus: Volume 2

Print edition ISBN: 9781783299034

E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299041

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: June 2016

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

™ and © 1993, 1994, 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

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For the Haldemans—

Jay and Vol

Joe and Gay

Thanks for everything, folks!

PROLOGUE

The planet was not hell.

It just looked and smelled and tasted like it, according to the marines who had come there and raped it.

Its denizens were not demons.

They were far worse.

The marines simply called it Hiveworld, although the navigators of hyperspace had an obscure numbered tag for it. They had come here, to this blighted planet, and they had plundered it, stealing its queen mother.

Without the psychic bonds of the ruler to guide the lives of her minions, genetic drift occurred. Different queens, pretenders to the throne, developed and flourished.

All were killed by the most dominant of the bunch, a traditional creature who could have been an identical twin to the queen mother who had perished in a nuclear blast in the Pacific Northwest of Earth.

Call them “black.”

Call her the “black queen mother.”

And the new group, the changelings.

Call them “red,” though they were not red. To a casual observer, they looked identical. But to the “blacks,” through touch and smell and morphic fields, they were anathema. Strangers, aliens. Freaks that had to be destroyed.

Leader of this new brood, living against all calculable probability, was the “red” queen mother.

Bearer of recessive genes, any sign of whose chromosomal changes had brought instant death in the hive before.

The red queen mother and her minions fled. In the confusion of reorganization, they escaped and they established a new hive far enough away to thrive.

The red queen mother spawned, using the herds of animals that roved this bleak planet.

A new rival kingdom was created and for years the kingdoms lived in peace.

But each knew instinctively that the other hive was the enemy, that this peace would not last long. And when war came, the principle weapons would be in the numbers of warriors.

And so the creatures bred… and bred… and bred.

While others of their ilk were hunted under different suns…

1

The alien hive was exactly at Hollywood and Vine.

The god of the bugs alone knew if the sliming, sucking, skulking bastards knew the cultural significance of the intersection they’d chosen. In truth, that section of La-La land wasn’t exactly what it had once been, but then nothing in Los Angeles was these days. And the fact that they chose to infest the old creaking bank building, in what after all was comparatively open territory, testified to the fact that this batch’s IQ seemed rather low.

Still, thought Captain Alexandra Kozlowski as she stood a block away from the sun-faded concrete dialing the polarizing filter down on her faceplate against the grim and gritty southern California sun. You could count on each and every one of the merciless mother-killers being just as mean and nasty and ornery as the worst of the last hive she’d exterminated for Uncle Sam.

Who ya goin’ to call?

Bug Busters!

Oddly enough, it felt good to be back in an E-suit, clunky helmet and all.

She turned to the hunky lieutenant to her left, already sweating in his armor.

“Got your jock strap on tight, Lieutenant Michaels?”

“You want to check?” The square jaws grinned defiantly and the blue eyes crinkled.

“Maybe later.” She winked and chinned her radio. “Approaching hive zero zero nine, LA sector B forty-seven.” She chinned her radio off and gave a significant look to the platoon under her command: 69th platoon. AOE. Alien Occupation Eradication. The toughest soldiers in the biz. They all looked back at her, smiles covering what she knew was fear.

A fear she felt in her own heart.

A fear every time she got near the things.

“Roger, it’s a go, Captain,” crackled the command voice over her radio. “Commence exploratory and extermination. Backup targeted.”

In Captain Alexandra Kozlowski’s humble opinion, the “backup” should have been all that was necessary. A couple of borer missiles with multi-K payloads, primed to go off when the sensors were buried in alien hive musk. Just burn the bastards, erase them, destroy. However, with the numbers of aliens so significantly reduced on this, the eighteenth year following the Alien-Earth War, scientists and private interests wanted carcasses, pickled eggs, photographs, and any royal jelly that could be scarfed up.

This meant Personal Delivery. Service with a Death Grin. Rock and roll and kill.

Well, it kept a lot of lads out of gangs, anyway. The other twenty members of this assault squad had the same radios in their suits and heard the same message, but Kozlowski gave the hand signal anyway, just to reinforce her command—and to assure herself of it as much as to remind her “bug guys.”

They rolled out. They were just foot soldiers marching alongside the anchor vehicle, a Mark 23 Access Tank. In this kind of operation, if you needed extra ammo or just a quick ham sandwich, not to mention a little close-up heavy artillery, it was nice to have a Big Metal Brother along. The metal treads chewed up old concrete and worn metal stars on the Walk of Fame as the troop approached their objective. Almost immediately they broke through the ribboned “perimeter” that had been staked out when the authorities for what was left of Los Angeles had determined the existence of the hive in the old Bank of America Building. Basically, this informed the natives that this was a danger zone, that if they trespassed—no sweat off legal backs—they were likely to become egg-fodder.

Even here, fifty meters from the objective, Kozlowski could see the hardened ooze of the hive stuff filling up the building’s windows and frozen down the side.

“Hey, Koz!” said Lieutenant Michaels. “Why did the bug cross the road?”

“To get to the other side, wreak havoc, kill and spread its kind, and generally give ‘life’ a bad name, you asshole,” she barked back.

“You heard it before!”

“You know I hate jokes while I’m working.”

“Just smart-ass remarks.”

“As long as they’re mine, subordinate officer Michaels.”

He glared at her and she started defiantly as they marched along. It was a way they’d found they could get up for a heavy mission like this. Afterward, when the acid got sluiced from their suits and any wounds were mended, she and Michaels also had another tradition.

Strip and hump each other’s sweaty bodies like bloody bunnies.

Ain’t love grand? thought Kozlowski as she let her keening hormones blend with adrenaline and regulation Army boosters for what brewed up to be a regular Kamikaze Cocktail. She and Michaels had been an item for a year now, which in this Idiot’s Army was just about a lifetime. The favorite gag around the barracks was that if the captain and the lieutenant ever got hitched and pregnant, the spawn would come charging out its birth parent (it was still up in the air in the minds of the privates as to who that would be) with a flamethrower in one hand, a missile launcher in the other—and a grenade in its mouth.

As for Kozlowski, she was always just glad that they could spend any time together at all.

They’d met in the service and he fit her like a hand in a glove. He was a couple years younger than her twenty-eight, an army brat who’d spent his younger years first in a safe area on Earth, then offworld after the evacuation. He was smooth and fit, a devotee of exercises and sports, a big blond package of sexuality that she never grew tired of unwrapping. Captain Alex’s muscles—and scars—had been earned in the field. Even before she’d joined the army she’d been battling the aliens. Her parents—landowners in Montana—had stayed and battled the things. She’d lost her brothers to the monsters, her mother had died of a broken heart—and her pop… Well, her pop was a tangle of mean gristle and bone and determination, eternally guarding his ranch under the big blue sky against the critters from beyond.

And Alex? Well, Alex was just a chip off the old tendon, a small-breasted, big-hipped storm cloud of a gal, feisty as an undefeated bantam-weight fighter. She had a brunette haircut from the Bowl-on-the-Head Salon, dark eyebrows like accents over burning hazel eyes, and a pair of scars like parentheses over a classically cut face. She could fight or make love with equal abandon. She just wasn’t sure which she liked better.

A burnt stench was hanging over the area, moving down from the Cahuenga Pass like a curse. Smog hung over the rest of the city like a stubborn spirit condemned to hell but staying put. The squad rolled along with practiced ease to the hole that was the principle entrance to the nest.

Ten meters from the entrance, she chinned her radio and commanded a halt. “Okay. Main thrust force. Double line. Let’s move it.”

However, before they could even assemble, the defenders struck.

Five large bugs, the sun gleaming sickly on their carapaces, their prehensile skeletal tails snapping behind them, scuttled from the frontmost tunnel, just below the crooked sign that read BANK OF AMERICA.

“Jesus! Guns!” she cried, unstrapping her own .45mm blaster. “Rodriguez… Swivel and fire. Take cover!”

Like the crack team they were, the soldiers broke ranks and took positions as though this were all in the plan. Even as Kozlowski lowered her rifle, the turreted guns of the tank angled and aimed. A nanosecond later, they spoke, hurling a frenzied hail of fire at the enemy.

Kozlowski found her crosshairs, aligned them on the closest alien—a twisted thing with a burned or deformed forelimb—and squeezed off a charge.

The stream of fiery energy tore off its feet at what served as its kneecaps. The thing acted as though losing its limbs was an everyday affair. Slavering as though in anticipation of burying its secondary jaws in Kozlowski’s throat, the xeno raced onward.

The others let loose with their own weapons, only staggered beats behind Kozlowski and the tank.

The resulting fire tore the X’s apart. Arms and heads and deadly acid blood flew and splattered. Entrails blew across the street. One of the banana-shaped heads rolled toward them like a lobbed bomb.

Instinctively Kozlowski aimed and fired, crushing and rendering the thing a charred, fragmented skull.

She gave them a moment to play a little more fire at the things, just in case, and then ordered a cease.

The smoke slowly cleared, revealing the scattered, steaming remains of the bugs.

“What the hell was that?” said Michaels, taking in a hoarse breath, sweat now pouring down his temples.

Ultimately, as always, it was their trained reflexes that saved them. This kind of offensive action in midday hardly ever happened with the aliens.

Kozlowski shook her head. “Don’t know. These bugs… they’re getting weird.”

“Big sons of bitches,” muttered Sergeant Garcia, lifting his helmet to spit onto the street.

“Yes,” said Michaels. “Maybe we’d better send a robo in there.”

“Right? You think the Army’s going to waste good robots when they’ve got cheap soldiers?” Kozlowski snorted disgust, lifted her faceplate, hawked and spit out a gob of phlegm on one of the smoking bodies. “C’mon. These xenos have got something in there they don’t want us to have. Which makes me want it!”

Michaels nodded, but Alex detected a glint of fear in his eyes, of vulnerability and foreboding. A pang of empathy sprang inside her: the poor guy. Spiking the X’s wasn’t second nature to Peter Michaels. He hadn’t jammed his instinctive horror and terror of the things back into a rock-hard ball to use against them. For a moment she wanted to hold him. Hold him and tell him that it would be okay, that this was just a destructive game and when it was over, she’d soothe his hurts and make everything all right.

But she couldn’t. She was in charge here. She was the dominant, and she had to pretend she’d left her femininity back in the makeup case in the locker.

“All right, groaners. Pop ’em if you got ’em, and let’s get in there while their carapaces are around their ankles!”

A halfhearted cheer sounded in her earphones as she dialed out a pill for herself. One second, two seconds. Hold the nose, open the gums—look out, stomach, here it comes. She opened her mouth just in time to accept the dosage of Wail. Getting it intravenously was faster, but the designers of these suits hadn’t figured out how to safeguard soldiers from accidentally getting jammed with drug-filled needles.

Pills were just fine with Koz. She had an oral fixation anyway. She took lots of pills. Oodles. The higher-ups not only didn’t mind, they helped supply them. Yep, things were sure different in This Gal’s Army.

“All right, assholes. Let’s roll!”

Holding her gun at the ready, she waved them on and the mechanical pack kicked into motion again, heading for that door into X-land.

By the time they made it to the otherworldly entrance, the drugs had kicked in. Kozlowski felt a power, an elation—a sense of belonging and an Army urge to fuse her forces into a brilliant battering ram and crush out this threat to Earth. Primal territorial urges were tapped. She was the leader of a Neanderthal pack, guarding her tribe from saber-tooths. She was the head of a village on the English coast, guarding her kin from marauding Vikings, broadsword gleaming in the lightning. She was Gaia, guarding her precious brood from cosmic crawly interlopers.

The suited soldiers entered the hole into the bank building without incident. They continued down the tunnel. It was like a tube through a cancer. Noxious drippings oozed along the sides. X-holes always had an acrid, unnerving stench. Alex had already kicked in her filters.

“Looks like a normal hive to me,” said Michaels. “I hope this is a by-the-book.”

“Only these xenos want to be stars. I bet they’re all wearing sunglasses and sporting tans!” said Garcia.

“Well, this is the only take we’re going to have on this production,” said Alex, bringing up her rifle. “Lights, camera, action, guys.”

They came up to a narrower passage that dived downward.

“The tank won’t fit,” barked the machine’s operator into her ear.

“Yeah,” said Alex. “I figured as much. Okay, you stay here. Sentinel duty. The rest of us—we go down. Looks routine to me, but expect the unexpected anyway. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” chimed the voices of the units cacophonously in her ear.

“Good. I want the short rangers out on the horn tip.”

Two men with Mark Five Crankers—the equivalent of high-tech sawed-off shotguns—trundled up to take the lead, and they were off to see the lizards.

Within twenty-five yards, the tunnel opened up into a large underground chamber—the remains of a huge vault basement, daubed with alien gunk.

“Gimme some light!” said Alex, and the guys obliged her by turning up their suit lanterns. The chamber blazed with incandescence, but as usual in these kinds of places, Alex Kozlowski wasn’t crazy about what she saw.

Against one of the tenebrous walls hung people.

Alien egg sacks.

Live people, impregnated with alien young. Chest-bursters that looked like they were about to blow at any minute. The victims—ten men, five women—hung at the edge of death, dangling like corpses that had forgotten to rot.

“Agents,” said Garcia.

“What?” said Kozlowski.

“Hollywood agents. That building got overrun by bugs last week down the road.” The dark-skinned man nodded toward the ropy remains. “The Creative Talent Agency, one of the diehards of the entertainment industry that stuck it out here in LA.” He walked forward to have a closer look, remaining cautious.

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember,” said Michaels. “Whole building blew up. The assumption was that everyone was killed.”

“Looks like they’re still making deals,” said Kozlowski.

One of the agents, a woman in a shredded dark black jumpsuit, her hair a mat of grease, slimy green threads clamped into her skull, seemed in some netherworld of delirium. She had on an ear-tab that sprouted artfully into a thin microphone, and she was mumbling dramatically into it.

Garcia stepped back into ranks, clucking his tongue. “Too far gone. All of them.”

Kozlowski nodded. She’d suspected as much. If you caught an egger early, you had a pretty good chance of squeezing out the spark of new life in it. But this far along, a baby xeno was so linked up in its parasitic position amid vital tissue that even if you were able to yank the X out without it boring a hole in you, there was no way you could save the donor.

Kozlowski knew what had to be done. There were precedents. She’d done it before, and would probably do it again. She was just following orders. Orders that made sense.

That didn’t mean that she liked it.

“Needles,” she whispered.

Three of the men were certified executioners in this kind of circumstance. They brought out their air pistols, tapped in cartridges of darts filled with a fast-acting poison that shut down the nervous system first, then destroyed the body. Two of the men had grim frowns as they aimed. The other man, Dickens, was an LA native. Dickens had been a writer and producer and actor in LA.

Dickens was grinning.

“Put the poor bastards out of their misery,” commanded Kozlowski.

Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

Three of the hanging bodies shuddered, and then were still.

Quickly, the executioners finished their task, then stepped back. “Okay, quick—before the bursters hit their ejection buttons!” Kozlowski screamed.

Two men had readied themselves. They stepped forward. One sprayed a thick fluid on the bodies, stepped back. The other, with a high-density flamethrower, stepped forward and with fire condensed to incredibly high temperatures immolated the dangling egg sacks.

When the smoke cleared, all that was left was blackened, incinerated ashes.

“Good. Now let’s go slag the Xes that did this!” barked Kozlowski.

“Amen,” said Lieutenant Michaels, pale, with sweat shining on his brow.

* * *

Of course, they weren’t just here to slag xenos.

Nope, that would be too easy.

In this day and age, in a disintegrating place like the City of Angels, theoretically you could just slip a limited nuke down a nest and skedaddle. Easy, quick, and a minimum of lost soldiers. However, although that nuclear holocaust up in the Pacific Northwest years back had certainly turned the tide in the Alien-Earth War, giving humanity a hope of getting its planet back, such extreme measures weren’t used these days, for more reasons than just the glowing glands they tended to produce in neighboring villages.

No, these xenos had their uses these days.

And damn them for it.

“Okay. Fall out. The chamber’s probably down that tunnel there,” called Kozlowski. “Garcia?”

“You got it, sir,” said the grizzled vet. “These bugs haven’t changed that much, and this tunnel looks like the anteroom to where we’re headed. What I ain’t seen though is enough bugs. These hellhounds know we’re here. I don’t get why they didn’t try and protect their progeny. Something stinks.”

“Could be they’re out somewhere,” said Michaels. “Could be lots of things.”

Garcia grunted. “Yeah. Lots.”

“We’re here, we’ll do what we came to do, and second-guess later. We’ve got artillery guarding our asses, and we’ve got firepower. Now move it!” Kozlowski growled in a low, no-bullshit voice. She’d perfected it when she realized she had to order men around. Lowered voices worked well with dogs and human males.

The troop descended quickly but cautiously, illumination lamps picking out their direction for them down the foul, mucousy passageway.

Kozlowski would have liked these missions much better if she could just obliterate all the xenos. However, there were two things that the Army wanted her to haul out these days.

A couple of bug bodies, dead of course.

Random DNA samples.

And whatever royal jelly from the queen’s chambers they could tap. Gold from outer space, some of the top brass were calling it these days. Bug juice. The lab coats were going absolutely nuts with it, and there was talk about all kinds of new possible uses for the stuff. With the U. S. government pretty much busted, private industry had suddenly become the main financial backer for the armed forces. Drug companies, mostly, along with other medical and scientific researchers. The government wanted their share, of course, but when push came to shove, the interest groups holding the biggest bucks in their outstretched hands got the biggest shovelsful of goop.

Alien royal jelly.

The stuff that made the right land of drones into queens. Food of the xeno gods. Kozlowski wasn’t entirely sure what they needed it for. Hell, it could just be gab, and they were collecting the stuff for nothing. But it was what the upper brass told them to do, and so they did it, without questioning.

The scuttlebutt that she heard was this:

Each hive was based around a queen. Queens bred drones. However, only a certain kind of bug could breed queens—the so-called queen mother. None of which existed on Earth now. Rumor had it that it was the queen mother royal jelly that was the primo stuff. Regular jelly had its uses, but it was nothing compared to the Q-M gunk. In truth, though, Kozlowski had other more important things to think about. Like staying alive.

There were all kinds of differences between alien hives and insect hives on Earth. Scientists didn’t really understand the full activities of the beasties. Was their communication telepathic, or some weirder somatic buzz? It had already been established that the wavelengths of a queen’s call could be picked up by human dreamers. One of the best ways of scoping out obscure hive locations was listening to these sensitive dreamers who acted as receivers, and in the best circumstances as locators.

Just what did the monsters want? Where had they come from? What were they doing? Where were they going? What was their cosmic destiny?

Were they so grouchy because the race had gotten up on the wrong side of their galactic beds in some prehistoric starday?

Kozlowski had a theory.

They’d accidentally eaten all their males, and were on one hell of a PMS jag. The theory wasn’t exactly scientific, but it did explain a lot. Here were all these hysterical bugs, with no men to scream at.

Anyway, the core truth of what they were doing down here was the tanks in the cart that Private Henderson drove. Of course, to get to the jelly, you had to off the royalty first, and this was probably the most onerous task anybody could want in this kind of situation.

Corporal Michelin’s head snapped up from a radar set.

“Incoming!” he said. “Twenty-five yards ahead. Sensor range. Picking up five bogies, coming in at five klicks per hour. Same direction.”

Kozlowski was almost relieved. This dead silence was getting to her. “Okay, dig in, and I want a man with his weapon trained on the ceiling. Adams—you can shoot skeet. I’ve seen them break through and jump down from above. If they do that, I want ’em dead before they hit the ground.”

“Yes, sir!”

She didn’t have to notify the front or rear guards.

They were already down and dug in, ready for the attack. Kozlowski threw a beam of light down on the floor. Solid-looking enough, but she was ready if any of the bastards popped up from that direction. With bugs, you just didn’t know where they could pop from. They couldn’t teleport, that much was known. But for all of that, sometimes it seemed like they could. And the commanding officer who underestimated them usually ended up just as dead as her men…

Or worse.

In this case, though, what the sensors showed was all the hive was throwing at them.

Five bugs.

Plenty, though.

As soon as they scrabbled into view, the frontmost boys let loose a barrage of fire. Down here in the claustrophobic darkness, Kozlowski felt the familiar tug of total irrational fear. Trapped-in-a-coffin fear. Preternatural mammal-hiding-from-the-dinosaur fear. That was one of the unnerving intellectual aspects of the bugs. They seemed to have been designed specifically to grip those hard claws deep into the softest parts of your soul. And squeeze.

The bugs dodged the first bolts. Awareness of human weapons was either bred or trained into them by their maturity these days. These were Earth bugs and they were ready to scrap with Earth people.

However, the soldiers had also been trained, and better. Countless simulations gave them a sense of exactly where the things would hop in their erratic jumps.

A bolt hit one. The explosion shattered it, splattering its viscous blood over the whole corridor.

“Duck, dammit!” cried Kozlowski, hitting the dirt as the acid blood sprayed every which way The stuff could bore through the best armor if you got enough on you. She peered up through the smoke. The boys were still firing away, but crouched low and off to the side. “Knees and head!” she cried. “Knees and head.”

You hit the head, the things died with a minimum of acid splatter. You hit the knees, you had the bug on the ground and a good chance for the head.

Alex Kozlowski immediately saw that she was going to have a chance to show them. A bug minus a right arm had broken loose and was scampering along the side wall. Alex lifted her weapon and squeezed off two quick but carefully aimed shots. The first missed, exploding far away. But the second caught the left knee dead on, shattering the joint and causing the alien to go down.

Garcia’s next shot caught it right in its banana brain with a satisfying thud and soft ker-plow, like an M-80 in a gourd.

With this guidance, the boys calmed down and picked off the rest of the things. The fire boys cleaned up the wiggling jaws and claws with a dose of concentrated high temp, and then applied a splash of acid-neutralizing spray to get through.

Kozlowski allowed herself a smile. They’d killed lots of aliens already, without so much as a stubbed toe. “Good work, chums, but don’t get cocky. The toughest part is straight down there, in the general direction of hell.”

“Hey, don’t we know it!” said Michaels.

“Pretty dumb bunch of bugs, though,” said Garcia.

“They’re not exactly known for their high IQs,” said Kozlowski. “But then neither are grunts, so I don’t want any slackers. Move it! We’re not exactly in unfamiliar territory now.”

Chances were the xenos were about as ready as they could be for the attack, but that didn’t mean it was good for the men to rest on their laurels. Best to use the adrenaline and the other performance-augmenting drugs while they were peaking.

They traipsed over the dead, crackling things in the tunnel, trundling into the darkness.

The corridor widened, and their lamps illuminated a chamber.

In the center, like a giant flower bulb of chitinous flesh, grew the “throne”—the storage place for the royal jelly and home of the spawning queen.

Kozlowski had been in these places before. That didn’t mean she was used to them. The hole was like Death’s uterus, with hubs and cordings and odds and ends of effluvia that while biological seemed antilife. Every cell in her body rebelled at the sight presented here. Training and experience and resolve fought with a deep instinct in her to turn and run.

A bent, insane frieze of alien sculpture, a mockery of life.

Otherwise the chamber was empty.

“What the hell?” said Michaels. “Where are they?”

Garcia looked like if he hadn’t had a helmet, he would have very much liked to have scratched his head. “I don’t understand. Where’s the freakin’ queen?”

“Off at the Hollywood high spots?” quipped a jokester.

“I don’t like it,” said Kozlowski. “Get back. The queen doesn’t leave her chamber unless there’s a damned good reason.”

Michaels shook his head. “Look. We’ve got a pot full of royal jelly waiting to be tapped. Half the time, the stuff gets blown up or burnt.” He grabbed a tapper and started walking toward the bulb. “I say let’s get this stuff tanked right now and we’re assured a good supply, no matter if we take out these bugs or not!”

“Michaels! Halt!” screeched Kozlowski. “I’m not certain that junk is all that valuable. It’s certainly not worth the extra risk. You’re not going anywhere—and that’s an order.”

Michaels stopped in his tracks. He turned around, his eyes flaming. Kozlowski could see the drugs in those eyes, and the male pride. Don’t do this to me, Koz, said those eyes. Don’t be so damned protective.

“Yeah! Lover boy might get himself a boo-boo!” said a veiled voice in baby talk.

“What have you got on the sensors?” Kozlowski demanded.

The private looked up from the telltale board. “Activity, but nothing close.”

“Come on, Captain. I could have started tapping by now!”

“Yeah. We get our quota, we get extra leave!”

She didn’t like it. Not one bit. But there wasn’t any good reason to say no. And if she didn’t let Michaels do this, the other jerks here would call favoritism, and she couldn’t deny that.

“Okay, but I want the rest of you to back him up. And, Daniels… you go along.”

“No problem,” said the tough Army man.

Damn it, Peter. Why are you doing this to me?

“The rest of you. Fan out and check for other exits.”

The men, grateful for action, spread out.

“What do you think, Garcia?” she asked the sergeant as Lt. Michaels strode for the huge bulb.

“I don’t know, sir. It’s not like the bugs to leave their jelly unguarded.”

The soldier walking off to one side looked up from his instruments. “Sir! I’m reading lower rooms. They’re chambers, sir, and just as big as—”

The lieutenant was just driving in the tap, connected to a couple of storage tanks. Daniels had slung his rifle in order to help with the tricky manipulation.

It came to her like thunder.

This wasn’t the main chamber. And if it wasn’t what they were really after, then it was a—

“Michaels! Daniels!” screamed Kozlowski. “Get away from—”

Trap!

The bulb split open like a pregnant belly. And the baby was deadly as death itself.

“Jesus!” cried Daniels, leaping back, pulling his rifle down.

The emerging bug struck with the speed that still was astonishing to see, even though Kozlowski had seen it many times before. It grabbed Lieutenant Michaels by the arms and pulled him up.

It had been hiding inside. The alien was just waiting for them to tap.

Michaels screamed as he was hoisted upward in the claws. The secondary jaws, slathering drool, rammed against the reinforced helmet, cracking it.

Michaels screamed again.

Automatically Daniels fired his rifle.

Only yards away, the shell hit its mark. The mark, though, was the torso of the beast. A gory hunk of creature was torn away, and like a burst vessel, alien blood pumped.

The secondary jaw whacked into Michaels’s helmet again, cutting a hole before the thing began to crumple. Michaels fell under it, and Kozlowski, helpless, watched as the alien blood spouted into the interior of her lover’s helmet.

Directly into his face.

The scream ratcheted through the radio, until the radio was killed. It seemed to grow louder and more horrible carried only by the fetid air.

The acid worked with amazing quickness upon the face. It was as though she were watching time-lapse photography. The skin sizzled off, snapping with gooey bubbles. The eyes boiled and melted.

The screaming stopped.

The skull began showing and then the acid began to eat through that, frying Lieutenant Peter Michaels’s brain.

“Nooooooo!” cried Kozlowski. She grabbed up her rifle and was about to riddle the beast with slugs.

A hand on her suit’s shoulder stopped her. Garcia. “Don’t. You’re in charge her, Captain. Stay in charge.”

The alien slumped, twitching.

The burnt remains of her lover mixed into a liquid, unholy embrace.

“Check on him,” she said tersely.

If only I hadn’t let him go. I knew there was something wrong!

“He’s gone.”

“I said check on him!” she bellowed. “If he’s not, I don’t want him to suffer!”

Garcia nodded. He stepped over to the bodies, gingerly nudged the lieutenant with the butt of his rifle.

Acid mixed with smoking gore rivuleted out into a horrible puddle.

It burned straight through the floor, leaving a ragged, smoking hole.

“Dead.”

“Right,” said Kozlowski. She could feel the iron grip of control exert itself and she was in command again. “There’s another chamber, and that’s where we’re going. No more heroics, you assholes.” She took a breath. “No more carelessness. Or I swear to God, if the bugs don’t kill you, I will.”

The silent squad followed the telltale to their destination.

Lieutenant Alexandra Kozlowski tongued for another pill. She swallowed it and her tears.

2

THREE YEARS LATER — BAGHDAD, IRAQ

Victory.

The smell of it was in the air, alongside the fading stench of the ruins of war.

Victory.

Domination.

Excellence.

He could feel the demand for it throbbing in his sinews, pulsing in his veins. He could feel the need in the stadium crowd outside, the impatient stamping of their feet, their calls and their applause. Its power and its glory electrified the air.

Now it was time to electrify some nerves. Goose some synapses. Nudge some neurons.

Jack Oriander stood in the shadows of the tunnel. Outside, his fellow contestants milled around, waiting for the officials to call for the beginning of the hundred-yard dash. He felt more secure here, away from the open space. He was slightly agoraphobic; anyway, that was what his dad had said. He wasn’t so sure about that himself, since he didn’t really have a fear of being outside. He just preferred walls around him.

Pop was dead now. He’d been a captain in the Alien-Earth War, and he was dead now. The Army had not supplied the details, nor did the Oriander family want details. Not when it came to the aliens.

Jack Oriander took a sip of cold water from a paper cup, swished it in his mouth, and spat it out. The Middle Eastern sun was hot out there. Jack wanted his mouth wet, but he didn’t want his stomach bloated. He had his sunblocker lotion on, and he’d taken care to drink lots of fluids yesterday and today as well as “carbing up” for the contest. At twenty years old, he was in absolutely peak condition. His muscles, trained and corn-fed in Iowa, sang with health and speed and proportion. He’d run track and field in junior high and high school and now college at Iowa U, now that these kinds of things were getting back on track. The Earth had lost some time—and so had Jack, because of the war and reconstruction. But time didn’t mean that much when you were young. There seemed lots of it behind you and lots of it ahead of you. Even though you saw people older than you with bald heads and paunches and lines around their eyes, the idea that you’d be like that one day seemed absurd.

“Win today, grow old tomorrow,” Coach Donnell had said, his eyes glaring down like lasers into Jack. “We’re counting on you, Jack, to put us on the map.” That’s what the graying, grizzled man said every day of the training.

He got his message across in more ways than one.

The tension in the air was thick. Jack’s nerves seemed stretched as tight as violin strings. He knew that if he was going to get some help, he’d have to get it now. Around his waist was a light flesh-colored belt of synthetic material. Jack de-Velcroed a pouch, pulled out a small bottle. A fresh one. Best if fresh, his mom had always said, and though Jack wasn’t sure if that applied to this stuff, his obsessive-compulsive nature made him use a fresh bottle even though there was a half-full one in his luggage.

Jack cracked open the safety seal and knocked out a pill.

Hell, why not?

He rattled out another one into his palm, then quickly screwed the top back on and stuffed it back into the pouch, readjusted his oversize shirt, tucking it into the elasticized top of his shorts.

He looked down at the capsules. They were a deep green, seemingly embedded with silver sparkles.

For a moment he heard the old man’s voice at the back of his head. “Take it from me, Jack. You’ve got all the drugs you really need in you already. Learn to tap those first before you go for other ones.” But he discounted it as he’d always done, listening to the voice of the coach instead. “Tell you what, Jack. You do what you got to do to win.”

Jack slipped both capsules between his lips. He took the paper cup and used the small amount of water left to wash them down. Not too much. Didn’t want to get too much moisture inside of him. Balance. That was the ticket. The old man was always keen on balance. Yin and yang. Now the old man was dead. So if what Jack swallowed tipped the scales a little to his favor, what did it matter?

Xeno-Zip.

Street name: Fire.

From Neo-Pharm.

Great stuff.

He’d been taking Fire ever since it first came out. He’d asked the coach about it and the guy had taken a few seconds to read the label. ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS. That was okay with the coach, just as long as there weren’t any steroids in the mix. Not that the man had anything against steroids himself. Anything that could give you that extra edge was really okay by him. Judging committees were a lot more laissez-faire these days.

Besides, it wasn’t any worse than a couple of extra cups of coffee in the morning. That’s what the ads implied, anyway.

He hadn’t looked into it very closely. Jack immediately noticed that not only was he more alert and self-confident after swallowing one, his athletic abilities improved. Concentration, agility, coordination: all jumped into higher levels. Not only that, he felt better. Fire gave a little more zing, a little more oomph.

The official line was that they made the stuff from alien queen mother royal jelly.

Rumor had it that they used ground-up alien bodies from the war.

Jack didn’t care. He liked the stuff. The glow that it put on life’s horizons was just the icing. What Jack liked was the edge it gave him in sports.

Jack waited for the glow to start, listening to the sounds outside, peeking into the light, shading his eyes.

The stadium was a spectacular tribute to the reconstruction of Earth, a wonder spawn of new technology and architecture. Lots of companies had tossed in contributions to build the thing, and not just demicreds. Big coin. A tubular confluence of lines and efficiency, of new and mighty alloys, centered around a traditional field. Wedding of the new and the old. Blimps and zeppelinlike hovercars hung in the sky, bristling with tracking devices and media sensor arrays. Field Humanitas was the name, and these competitions in which Jack Oriander participated had been dubbed the Goodwill Games.

Now that the Olympics had been destroyed, along with much of old Earth, you had to start with something, after all. Something to unite people, something to celebrate the New Humanity, something to take civilized minds off the savage past.

A sweeter conflict among nations.

A good-natured competition among athletes.

Jack Oriander leaned out into the sun a bit. He could smell the familiar humanity out there. He smelled the popcorn and the hot dogs, the spilled beer and the excitement in the air. He intended to be the center of that excitement now, yes, sirree bob.

He felt a lick of the drug playing around his nerves, and blinked.

Ah!

“Yo! Oreo! You want to get your ass out here!” called Fred Staton. Staton was the other guy from the States. He was clean-cut and slender like Oriander, only he had neatly clipped blond hair instead of black, with no widow’s peak. A strapping young man. As Oriander’s senses sharpened, squeezed into a fine focus by the tongues of fire, he smelled his friend’s lemony deodorant and the talc on his hands. Caught a wisp of grape jam from today’s breakfast, along with the astringent touch of Gatorade. “We’re just about set to line up!”

“Uh… yeah, right.”

“Hey, man. You okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I dunno. Your eyes… they’re a little odd.”

“This sun… it’s kind of getting to me. That’s why I’m staying in the shade as long as possible.”

“And your hands. They’re trembling some.”

Oriander lifted his hands. He fancied he could feel special blood pouring into them now. Fiery blood.

But they’d never shaken before on Fire.

“Man, I just guess I’m a little nervous!”

“Aren’t we all.”

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a sec.”

“Sure. But seconds aren’t mine to give. And those officials arc oiling up their guns.” He slapped his friend on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Take a deep breath. You’re only a few feet away from a hundred yards.” He snapped his fingers. “It’ll be all over like that and we’ll go out and celebrate, huh?”

“Yeah. Right.” Jack grinned.

Fred was right. He should move on out. He could see the milling racers not just lining up, but slotting themselves in their starting posts.

Yet the sun was not only hot, it looked terribly bright now, much too bright. Fire had never sharpened his vision up this much before. He felt like he had just been blessed with telescopic sight. Such incredible detail!

Maybe he shouldn’t have taken two pills after all.

Squaring his shoulders, pushing back the razory feeling along his spine, Jack Oriander trotted out to assume his position.

As he slotted himself in line, he got the A-OK signal from Fred. “C’mon, Oreo. Let’s show them that American sneakers can still kick butt.”

Jack smiled and waved. He fitted his feet into the metal stirrups, leaned down onto his knuckles. A buzzing began to keen in his ear, like an amp feeding back. He cocked his ear, waiting for the starting pistol. The finish line loomed ahead like a magnificent promise.

Glory. Achievement.

Winning.

The crowd noise died down to a hush.

But the keening in his ear grew to a roar.

What was—

The chemical rush hit Jack Oriander like the hammer of Thor. Molten energy poured into his muscles and lightning exploded from his brain.

The signal pistol went off, and his legs answered as though they’d been waiting for this moment their entire life. They pushed him forward, shooting him off like a bullet down a rifle chamber. Suddenly he wasn’t just Jack anymore. He could feel the atoms exploding in his sinews, he could feel a cosmic power gushing through his entire being.

He was a god!

The crowd went crazy.

The PA system rumbled with the announcer’s astonishment. “Unbelievable! Jack Oriander of the USA is literally burning up the track!”

His face had grown a rictus of determination and sweat burst from his brow in rivuleting globules. His feet seemed to have grown wings. The air rushed past him like a wild river and the determination to win inside his breast burst into white-hot brilliance.

The yards streamed by in a flash.

Jack Oriander crossed over the finish line, well ahead of the others, his feet a blur and his mind hot as an incandescent filament in a megawatt bulb.

And Jack Oriander kept on going.

* * *

The crowd in the stadium and the millions watching the race would never forget the close-ups.

Jack Oriander’s arms pumping.

His legs slamming onto the turf outside the track like John Henry’s sledgehammers.

His eyes gazing into madness.

The young athlete from Iowa did not seem satisfied in shaving off a solid four seconds from the world record for the one-hundred-yard dash. As though eager to get on to yet another race, unseen by any but him, he loped over the finish line, covering the distance between the edge of the track and the wall in a couple of blinks of the eye, reason and sanity burned out in chemical conflagration in his cortex.

He smashed through the corrugated plastic of the wall.

Only the steel girder just beyond stopped his demented run.

And the blood…

The blood was everywhere.

You can buy black market videos from media vultures. You can see shreds of skin and veins and hair torn from the speeding body and hanging from the edges of the shattered plastic wall in clumps of gore. You can see the twisted remains of the rest of the body, lying akimbo under the harsh glare like road kill in a cleated tank run.

And, if you look closely in these tapes, you can see the medic take something from Oriander’s blood-spattered pouch belt, and tuck it into his own pocket.

Xeno-Zip.

3

The sun shone down gently and pleasantly on Quantico Marine Base, Virginia. It wasn’t often these days you got sun, not with some of the clouds that still hung in the atmosphere, not with the strange weather since the invasion. Colonel Leon Marshall had his drapes flung wide to let the warmth into his office.

He sat at his desk now, the report printout neatly encased in clear mylar before him. He glanced over the neatly listed facts and figures and smiled to himself, feeling a pleasant rush of anticipation.

Amazing.

Absolutely astonishing.

Puissance to the formerly powerless, power to the formerly impotent, is heady stuff indeed, and the close-cropped, burly colonel was feeling positively giddy with the prospects that lay before him.

The digital clock on his desk turned silently to 11:00 A.M. The general was a prompt man. He’d be here any moment. Colonel Leon Marshall had been preparing his demonstration since seven hundred hours this morning, and all was ready to go. Now he could afford to take a quick breather, relax and enjoy the prospects that lay before him, his career and, of course, the future of this battered country in its efforts to build a strong defense even as it rebuilt its cities and its economy.

The digital clock was just threatening to transmute to another number when his intercom chimed softly and the adenoidal voice of his secretary swept through.

“Colonel. General Burroughs is here.”

“Excellent.” Colonel Marshall slapped his desk and its thin burden lightly and stood up. “Send him in.”

The door cycled open with a whir and the burly figure of General Delmore Burroughs marched in, his eyes turreting like offensive guns on a land carrier. They lighted on Marshall and a flicker of camaraderie shone in them below the grim and businesslike exterior. “Leon.” Pudgy fingers were extended. The general’s grip was certain and firm.

“General Burroughs. Thank you so much for coming.”

“I believe the words ‘urgent’ and ‘maximum importance’ were used in your communication, Colonel. I tend to respond to those words. But I am a busy man.” The eyes turned stony. “I hope that my time here is not misspent.”

General Delmore Burroughs was a beefy black man with a bald pate rising up from grayed temples. He had a broad nose and a voice deep and full. He smelled strongly of bay rum and the Instistarch of his uniform. He was a general who had gotten where he’d gotten by taking no shit, and Marshall respected that. If he was a person who trifled with such things as mottos, then this general’s motto would have been “The ends justify the means.” That was why Colonel Marshall needed to get him in on the project.

“I’m not a man to waste time, you know that,” said Marshall. “Tell you what—you think it’s a waste of time, you get to use my ski chalet in Vermont for a weekend… complete with my little black book.”

The general’s eyes glimmered a bit. A hint of a smile played on his lips. Then his teeth clamped down, his face assumed its normal grim posture. “Fair enough.”

“Good. Then lean back, drink some Kona, and have a cigar. This will take a couple of minutes and I might as well kiss your butt awhile as well.”

The general couldn’t help but chuckle. “Cigars? Where you getting cigars, Colonel?” He sat down.

Marshall stuck a cup of steaming Java beside the general’s elbow. Then he pulled out a humidor from one of the drawers. Smith y Ortegas. “They’re just swinging into production again, and my sources dug up the best of the first batch.”

The general rolled it, sniffing. “You know, soldier. It’s been so long since I’ve had one of these, this might just kill me with pleasure.” He chuckled and took up the clipper Marshall offered, dealt with the cigar end in an almost reverent fashion. “Now exactly what have you got on that scheming mind of yours?” He stuck the cigar in his mouth and allowed Marshall to play a flame over the end. He puffed, blew out bluish smoke. His eyes seemed to roll back with pleasure.

“General, do you recall that unfortunate incident last week with the Iowa boy at the Goodwill Games?”

“Sure. Put the world record in the American camp firmly. Probably for years to come.” Puff. Spume. “Too bad about the accident.”

“Colonel, did you know that drugs were involved?”

“Nonsense. Good American talent and muscle pulled that boy over the line.”

“You didn’t read the results of the autopsy? Oriander had Xeno-Zip in his blood.”

“Xeno-Zip? Fire? What, that silly pick-me-up they’re putting in the stores now? Marshall, he probably had caffeine and lots of good old-fashioned testosterone, too. Ain’t nothing that great about those pills. Hell, I tried a couple. Goosed me a bit is all, but with no crash and burn. Nothing that would make me win a race!”

“That’s exactly what everyone says. But I did a quick search of news cuts for the last couple of months. And then I had the boys at biochem do some quick testing. Came up with some remarkable findings.”

He gave the general a moment to exhale his last puff of smoke, and then he tendered the plastic-enclosed paper to the man. General Burroughs grunted. He murmured a whiff of annoyance, and then dug into a side pocket for a pair of half-frame spectacles, which he put on. His eyes strafed the paper for several moments, then he shrugged and handed it back to Marshall.

“I’ve got a team of science boys to read this stuff for me and digest it. I don’t get much out of it on my own, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all right, General. I had to have most of it explained to me. Just a few items of jargon, some facts and figures to illustrate the fact that I’ve done some serious work on this.”

“Right, Colonel. I believe you, but I still don’t see where you’re coming from.” The general tapped off some ash from the cigar, then left the smoking thing sitting in the tray. He folded his arms. A sure sign of impatience. Time to cut to the chase.

“You’re aware of the active ingredient of Fire, aren’t you, General?”

“Sure. The PR is that it’s alien royal jelly. Actually, there’s more to it than that. It’s alien royal jelly, with a drop or two of queen mother extra royal jelly. All that comes from one source, the queen mother who got nuked. Can’t get it anywhere else. A minuscule amount of this mixture acts in a positive boosting fashion on the human nervous system.” The cigar remained in the tray. It went out. The general ignored it.

“Correct. However, even with a minuscule amount, Neo-Pharm, the manufacturer, found itself running out of the regular jelly. They started manufacturing synthesized stuff, with mixed results. It still needs a few molecules of queen mother royal jelly to work, though.”

The general grinned. “Right. I’m not surprised they’re running out of jelly. We blew most of the bug bastards straight to hive hell!”

“Absolutely and we did a fine job of it, too—and a better job of reconstructing. But that leaves us, as the military, in a bit of a quandary, doesn’t it? And I don’t have to give you a sheet of facts and figures to prove it. The enemy is mostly defeated, all the governmental money is pouring into rebuilding or into outer space. Now that the military’s done its job, it’s the same old story. No respect. We get squat in the way of money to develop what we have to develop to stay modern.”

The gray eyes sparked with anger. It was a sore subject with all career military sorts. The general had taken the bait. Now all Marshall had to do was to reel him in.

“Public sentiment is also very antiwar machine. I think it’s a historical distrust of power. The media tends to think that if the military has too much resources in a time of peace, they get antsy and take over the government. So the other extreme occurs. The military gets weak. And so when the country needs us, we get thrown into the fray, unprepared… and get clobbered. That’s provable history, General.”

The general nodded, anger etched into his face. He picked up the cigar, stuck it into his mouth. Marshall happily relit it for him.

“What can we do about it? We’re not getting the funds to build new and improved equipment. So… why not build a new and improved soldier?”

General Burroughs squinted suspiciously. “What? Synthetics? Cybernetic? DNA jobs? That costs a pretty cred, too, Marshall.”

The old boy wasn’t following the line of reasoning. That was one thing about Burroughs, he was a little thick sometimes, a little bullish. But like a bull, if you pointed him in the right direction, all you had to do was grab the tail and he’d take you where you wanted to go. That was why Marshall had cooked up his little exhibition. In show-and-tell, the “show” carried the greatest weight.

Marshall smiled. “How about if you could do it for just a few bucks a head, General?”

General Burroughs barked a growly laugh. “Pull the other one, Colonel.” He pushed out a stream of smoke and palpable disbelief.

Marshall checked his wrist chronometer. The players in the game would be just about ready. “General, if you’d care to step out on my balcony, there’s a little demonstration I’d very much like to show you, courtesy of some of the men in my company.”

Burroughs shrugged. “I’m here. I’ve smoked your cigar. I’ve listened to your curious nonsense. And I must say, you must have used some of the government money I’m responsible for to throw together this bit of research. So I guess you’ve put me into a position where I don’t have much of a choice in the matter.” He took out the smoking cigar and pointed it gruffly toward the colonel’s nose. “But let me tell you, Colonel. I’d better see some serious justification for the use of this taxpayer’s money.”

“Naturally, sir.” Marshall got up and marched over to a side wall, hung tastefully with mementos, weapons, and equipment. He pulled out two pairs of electronically enhanced binoculars from rechargers and handed one to the general. Then he pointed toward the sliding glass doors and the open spaces beyond.

“Come on, General. Wait till you get a gander at this.”

* * *

The “balcony” was actually an extension of a catwalk and stairs system that connected a number of buildings in the newly built assembly of offices, barracks, and warehouses that comprised this portion of Quantico.

Beyond, a bank of obsidian-bottomed clouds hung on the horizon. A storm was brewing. Nothing unusual on Earth now, storms. Marshall shivered a bit at the prospect. They moved fast, those storms. Dark battalions of weather, phantom marchers left behind after the war. But there would be time for the exhibition.

Marshall picked up a walkie-talkie from the desk.

The two officers walked to the edge of the balcony. Marshall leaned against the railing and pointed down at the open yard below. Some yards away, a group of enlisted men seemed to be milling about, up to nothing much more than loitering.

The general glowered. “Looks like a bunch of men goofing off!”

“If you’ll just direct your binocs toward that lone private over there in the corner, sir…”

General Burroughs harrumphed. But he angled the cigar off to one side of his mouth and put the binoculars up, finger expertly adjusting the focusing vernier. “Looks like just a normal grunt. And a mighty doofy one, come to think of it.”

Marshall brought up his glasses and took a look. Yes, there he was, the poor guy, looking a little lost and oblivious as usual. Gawky. Geeky. Big Adam’s apple, tiny brain. Colonel Marshall was a collector of mid-twentieth-century cultural remnants and he remembered one of Edgar Bergen’s puppets. That was who the guy reminded him of.

Mortimer Snerd.

“That’s Private Willie Pinnock. And if I may say so, your assessment is right on the money. Private Pinnock barely made it through boot camp. His reflexes are slow, his IQ is low. He can barely handle latrine and KP duties… but he can, which is why he isn’t booted.”

“So what’s so special about this particular private?”

“Just a moment. You’ll see.” Marshall opened up the walkie-talkie he’d taken with him. “Corporal Glen. Can you read me?”

The walkie-talkie sputtered and spat back. “Roger. I read you, Colonel.”

Marshall pointed to where the corporal was standing on a crate, snapped to attention, waving at them. “Our referee, if you will, General.” He clicked the channel back on. “Corporal, you may proceed with the exhibition.”

“Yes, sir,” spat the walkie-talkie.

Up went the binoculars.

Corporal Glen, a well-built specimen who looked good even in fatigues, semaphored to the private off to one side of the courtyard. However, Pinnock did not respond.

Glen signaled again.

Nothing.

General Burroughs arched an eyebrow.

Cripes, thought Marshall. This had better come off or my butt is cooked.

“What’s wrong with that soldier?” he barked into the walkie-talkie.

“Off in his own little world, sir.”

“Well, drag him out of it and let’s get the show on the road. The general hasn’t got all day.”

Glen “yessirred,” then trotted quickly off to where Private Pinnock stood, spinning rainbows. He tapped the nerd on the shoulder, flapped his gums in traditional mad army Drill Instructor fashion, and Marshall didn’t need binoculars to see Pinnock jump, flinch, and generally cringe at the chewing out. A bob of head from the private, and then Glen trotted back to his monitoring duty.

Pinnock’s shoulders were slumped. He looked quite hesitant and more than a little frightened at the prospect before him. Nonetheless, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his fatigues and drew something out.

“Get a close-up on what he has in his hands, sir,” suggested Marshall.

“A bottle of that drug… Xeno-Zip.”

“Yes, sir, that’s right.”

Pinnock visibly drew a deep breath. He turned toward a wall, as though he were doing something shameful, and then dragged a shaky hand through his blond short-cropped hair. He opened the bottle of Fire, poured out three tablets, then choked them down, without the benefit of water.

He stiffened, and visibly shuddered.

“Doesn’t look like he’s having much fun, Colonel.”

“No, sir. May I give you a brief personality profile? Pinnock is a meek fellow with a minimal aggression quotient. His adrenaline levels are low; he doesn’t get mad when the other soldiers tease him. They generally just put up with him, since he tends to do the distasteful chores for them.”

“With no resentment.”

“None that is reported.” Marshall looked at his chronometer. The increased dosage in the subject was his order, to increase the speed of release of the chemicals in the bloodstream. The last thing he needed was an impatient general. The results were going to have to be fairly immediate, or Burroughs would just about-face and leave. A minute since ingestion. That would be about right.

“Glen. Next step.”

“Yes, sir,” snapped the walkie-talkie.

The colonel signaled the milling group of men. They loosely ordered themselves and began marching toward the lone private like a gaggle of surly Teamsters headed for a manager. They were bulky lads, with rock muscles earned by constant drilling and exercises. Marshall could hear a couple of them, joking with one another. They had no weapons, only their fists. Marshall had planned it that way. He didn’t want to see Pinnock or anyone get hurt, exactly. Scuffed up a bit, that was all. A little red on the turf was always a dramatic underline.

Besides, these barracks bullies might be in for a little something they hadn’t bargained for.

The frontmost of the group, a beefy tower of a man, stepped up to Pinnock, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. A few obscene motions and words were made. Pinnock did nothing. Another man stepped forward and shoved the private. Pinnock shuffled backward, still not reacting. Not even cringing, which was a good sign.

Then another grunt snuck up behind him and got down on all fours. Big Pecs stepped forward, executed a sharp, swift push. Pinnock tumbled onto the ground. The smallest of the men, a little guy with a rat face, stepped in and gave a sneaky kick to the private’s backside.

“What the hell is going on?” said the general. “This is absurd!”

Marshall tensed. There should be some reaction here by now. Was all this going to be a ridiculous fiasco?

The ratty-faced man sneered and went in for another free kick. However, this time, he did not step back after the blow was delivered. And the sneer melted into a look of alarm.

Something snapped. There was a scream, and Rat Face was flung ass over elbows backward. He was slammed into the corrugated metal of a barracks wall and left a smear of blood as he poured onto the ground, out for the count.

The burly bully boys took a step back.

Private Pinnock jumped to his feet.

“Holy shit,” said General Burroughs.

The officers’ binoculars leapt to their eyes.

Pinnock’s eyes seemed to glow.

“Three tablets of the synthesized version of Fire,” said Marshall. He brought up his walkie-talkie. “Okay, Glen. Have the boys subdue the private.”

The corporal barked out orders. The men stepped forward again, looking quite a bit more tentative now, and probably a damned sight startled. Still, they were good military men and they followed orders.

They advanced, closing in on Pinnock on all sides. There would be a wonderful tussle, but there were a good eight tough boys there and they’d pin the guy down and then they’d get in the restraining leg cuffs and force jacket and let Pinnock burn off his sudden energy.

“We did a genetic workup on the men, and Pinnock proved to be the most susceptible to the effects of the drug,” Marshall explained. “Of course no one understands what the hell happens, really, or what’s likely to. Sometimes it appears to have no effect at all. Pinnock is a most suitable specimen, don’t you think, sir?”

“He’s outnumbered… but what’s happening to him?” said the general. “This is remarkable!”

Up with the binocs. Down with the jaw. It wasn’t just the man’s attitude and spirit that had changed. His whole physique seemed—altered. Latent muscles seemed pumped up, and the whole face seemed chiseled purpose and resolve. And those burning eyes…

Pinnock grabbed the first of the men and with lightning speed lifted him off his feet and hurled him back, knocking over five more Army men.

… those burning eyes. His face seemed twisted into a mask of hatred and anger.

From Mortimer Snerd into Superman…

“Amazing,” said General Burroughs, echoing Marshall’s thoughts. He had no idea…

Pinnock didn’t give the others a moment to rally He charged in, punching and throttling. Gobbets of blood flew into the air, along with shrill shrieks and gurgles.

Maybe he shouldn’t have used three pills…

Glen’s voice erupted over the walkie-talkie, but the device was hardly necessary. Marshall could hear him yelling desperately down in the courtyard.

“Colonel! Pinnock’s getting out of hand!”

Pinnock leapt onto the back of Big Pecs, and grabbed ahold of the man’s neck. Big Pecs tried to throw him off, but Pinnock was as firmly planted on him as the Old Man of the Sea. The crazed private gripped the head, and wrenched, his tendons standing out from his neck. A loud snap!, a pulse of arterial blood, and the big man wilted to the ground, his neck broken, his head almost torn from its mooring.

The other soldiers had watched this, stunned and stuck in indecision. The bloody demise of their fellow soldier sent them racing away.

Pinnock, grinning like a death’s-head, caught two and slammed their skulls together. He raced and tackled another, pummeling him into a pulp with fists.

Perhaps, thought Colonel Marshall, I should not have chosen a soldier with such understandable resentment buried in him.

The walkie-talkie spoke again. “Colonel! He’s out of control. We need armed soldiers out here. We—”

“Oh, my God!” cried the general. “Behind him!”

The crazed berserker that had been a meek private leapt upon the corporal, grabbed the walkie-talkie, and slammed the hard metal-plastic over and over again into the man’s face, until it was a bloody mess.

Colonel Marshall did not pause long to watch. He was screaming into another radio channel for backup. Armed backup. There’d been absolutely no indication that this exhibition would get this far out of control.

Two soldiers, one with a machine gun, one with a blaster, raced into the courtyard.

Somehow, in the sudden blur and explosion of fire and bullets, and despite a bullet wound and the loss of part of an arm, Pinnock managed to wrest the machine gun away and use it on the backup soldiers, killing them instantly.

Amid the decimation, Colonel Marshall watched with horror as the bleeding and burnt chemically charged maniac slowly swiveled around like a gladiator surveying his kill—and seeking out the emperor…

“Christ!” said General Burroughs. “He’s looking at us!”

…and not for approval.

“General. Quickly. Back to the office!”

Even at their first step, a hail of bullets splattered over their heads; Marshall was stung with flying cement chips. Ducking, they lunged through the office doors, and the glass windows exploded. Burroughs took cover behind a desk, and Marshall leapt for his wall of weapons. He tore two loaded semiautomatic Hyper machine guns from their racks and threw one to the general.

“I haven’t used one of these in years!” moaned Burroughs.

“Watch!” Marshall clicked off the safety. He ran to the billowing curtains, took cover, and squeezed off a salvo at the approaching maniac. No hits, but he got the feel of the thing. He dodged as another hail of bullets crashed through the door, tearing up a wall of certificates and pictures. Marshall retreated, letting off two more burps of fire.

There was a moment of silence, and then Pinnock marched in like he was Superman. He gripped the gun and the grin on his face was like an ax wound. One eye was a bloody gouge, but the other gleamed like diamond. Blood rivuleted down his face. One whole side of his body was burned.

He lifted up the machine gun, like a crazed zombie with firepower.

Burroughs had figured out how to use the Hyper and he ripped off a clip. However, only a couple of bullets hit their mark, the others splattering along a wall. Pinnock was knocked off his feet, falling back onto the balcony. But with iron determination and a brain burning with chemicals, he began to get up.

Marshall lifted his gun to fire again, but it jammed. He did not waste time on the weapon, flinging it down and leaping to a rack. The nearest weapon was a bazooka. He tore it off the wall, grabbed a shell, loaded up, and ducked back behind a chair just as a new hail of bullets chunked and screamed into the weapons wall.

A pause. Pinnock was out of ammunition. He had to be.

Marshall thumbed off the safety, checked the go-light of his weapon, thanking the Powers That Were he’d kept up on his weapons training. He brought the short barrel of the mini-bazooka up and gave himself only a fraction of a second to aim.

Private Pinnock, smoking and smelling of burnt flesh, still grinning, walked toward him, death glaring from his one good eye.

Marshall squeezed the trigger.

The shell whooshed out of its pipe and whacked directly into the maniac private’s chest, pushing him back through the door into the balcony before it detonated. The explosion of the shell blasted the private and his gun to pieces, not even leaving smoking boots behind.

Marshall gasped and collapsed, dragging ragged breaths into his weary lungs. What a fiasco! A catastrophe of the first order! Support from the general? He’d be lucky now if he didn’t get his chops busted, didn’t get demoted or sent to deal with some alien infestation in northern Alaska.

General Burroughs cautiously poked his head from behind the desk. His uniform was torn and he had a stunned look to his eyes. He regarded the tattered gore, the remnants of Private Pinnock spread over the balcony like an explosion in a butcher shop.

He smiled slowly. “I believe, Colonel, this drug bears some further investigation. But please—not while I’m around.”

4

War is good business.

War is even better business after the war is over, especially if there was massive destruction on the order of the kind administered by the alien infestation. When humanity fought off its enemy it found many of its cities ravaged. But like London after the Nazi air blitz of World War II, this was not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, some good buildings were destroyed by bombs in that case—but also destroyed were massive numbers of creaky docks and ancient buildings that should have met the wrecking ball years before.

The result of the devastation: reconstruction and a better city.

Such was the case with the alien infestation.

Take New York City. Manhattan in particular. It had been rotting for years, its roads and subways tottering on the brink of disaster.

The extermination of the aliens had left behind many ruins and much potential. Nothing on the order of Los Angeles, which was still pretty much a smoking ruin with odd nests of the creatures still needing to be wiped out. But the Big Apple needed a big overhaul.

The U.S. government, weak but still there, brought in two traditional weapons in this particular struggle: free enterprise and deregulation. Any entrepreneur, any company that had the stomach for it, were awarded the privilege of going in and wrestling with the wreckage and the building.

A man named Daniel Grant not only had the company and the willpower for such a job, he had a cast-iron stomach and platinum business nerves as well.

Now, Manhattan’s towers were shiny again, and majestic bridges spanned the East River and the Hudson. Its subways were streamlined and the aliens were all dead here, though not necessarily all the vermin.

Rats, like Daniel Grant, were survivors.

* * *

Although his chic East Side penthouse was only ten blocks away from the infamous Grant Tower, Daniel Grant always had himself driven to work in one of his sleek fleet of robo-chauffeured turbostretch limos.

You had to put on a show.

You needed leverage for business deals. Flash and illusion and glitz helped gain leverage. Sometimes, when the numbers in your bank account were either preceded by negatives or promises, flash and illusion and glitz were all you had.

This was why Daniel Grant always made sure that he entered his building through the front door, so that the spectacle was available to the local media.

Today was a brisk spring day in Manhattan and Grant had his window open so that he could see his tower as he approached. God, it was gorgeous! A hunk of gleaming obsidian thrusting up toward the sky from the famously firm island bedrock, Grant Tower dwarfed its surrounding midtown neighbors. Of course a lot of these were still in twisted ruins, which gave Daniel Grant’s skyscraper the edge. In fact, it looked like a streamlined monument in an urban cemetery. Still, Grant only had to look at it to feel like the Top Dog, the King of the Hill, the Duke of New York.

“Nice day for a skyscraper, eh?” he said to his female companion, tucked away in the plush, dim corner.

Candy (or was it Bambi?) barely looked up from her compact mirror. “Very impressive, Mr. Grant.” She glanced at the erect structure, nodded, and winked coyly. “Reminds me of last night!” She extended a long, sleek leg and teased his ankle lightly. Grant smiled, glorying as much in his own manly scent as in the mists of perfume and femininity that wafted his way from this choice little bundle of boobs and buttocks and blond hair he’d bedded down with last night, after the de rigueur champagne, caviar, and camera clicks. Hopefully, his nightclub antics would make Spy Sheet again this month. Let his competitors think he had money to burn—which, of course, he didn’t. These days, though, the newshounds checked your clothes and your chicks—not, fortunately, your checkbooks.

“You’re the best, honey,” he said as the limo smoothly cruised up to the new permacrete fronting of the G.T.

“You won’t forget my number, will you, Danny?”

Grant tapped his sternum. “Your digits are stamped in my heart, babe.” He pulled out a micro-card, tapped in a five-hundred-cred-buck limit for the day, and tucked it into her sweet palm. “Go buy yourself something nice, sugar cheeks.”

“Oh, Danny, thank you.” He got a face full of lips and bosom for his effort.

“Gotta be at Lapshitz and Garfunkel’s in Brooklyn Heights, though, sweet cakes. The car will take you there and back to your digs.” He puffed up importantly. “But I’m going to need it at twelve-thirty for an important date.”

Actually, he had the thing leased out through his car service then, but an important man had to look like he had full use of his limo, right?

“No problem.”

“And remember what I told you if you see any signs of aliens?”

She nodded her head importantly. “Call you!” Her voice was slightly and unpleasantly squeaky, and as he began to open the door and some sunlight got at her, he realized it didn’t flatter her as much as candlelight did.

Unlikely she’d see any aliens. But you never knew. “That’s right, darling. Last night was wonderful. I wish our time had never ended. But even billionaires have to work… probably harder than most people!” He swept off the seat carefully so he wouldn’t crease his trousers. “Ciao, baby!”

She blew him a kiss just as the clatter and flashes of cameras began. Nimbly, he jumped so that a few photographic images would record décolletage and blond tresses (for his ex-wife as much as envious mate competitors) and then shut the door.

The robo-limo smoothed off toward Brooklyn Heights and the perma-thrift department store he owned. Fortunately, Candy (Bambi?) was far too dumb to know the difference between new merchandise and restructured merchandise.

Daniel Grant swiveled around to greet the chroniclers of his arrival, trying to looked annoyed.

“Can’t a busy man have any privacy?” he groused, straightening his power neck jewelry so that it would look right in the pictures. Daniel Grant was sheathed in his usual sartorial splendor. His tailored camel-hair coat hung over his tailored suit perfectly, every angle and nook and color complementing the jut of his square jaw, the tilt of his brain-filled brow, the steely slate of his penetrating eyes. Even the tousle of his hair was follicle-calculated to be photogenic.

Today, even Grant was surprised.

There were usually one or two people here to record his arrival and ask a few questions.

Today, there was a mob.

From the corner of his eye he caught a reporter with a new face and an old question. “Mr. Grant. How do you account for your meteoric rise to success? What’s your secret?”

Grant paused, lifted his hand like a heckled but patient monarch requesting heed for his proclamation. He went into automatic speechifying mode. Mental tables appeared before his eyes. He chose from column A and column B.

“No secret! I just make a point of proving an old saying: ‘You can learn something new every day.’”

Whew. What did that mean? Sounded damned good, though.

“Mr. Grant, what led to the recent split between you and your last wife?”

“No comment.”

“Can you confirm rumors that you are planning to enter politics?”

“Of course not.”

Loved those kinds of questions. You give a definite answer that didn’t mean a goddamned thing.

“Who was that young lady you drove up with?”

A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “A friend.”

“Is it true that your financial empire is in trouble?”

He feigned total astonishment. “Where did you hear that one?”

“Mr. Grant, could you comment on the alleged lethal side effects of your new wonder drug?”

Oops. Time to check Column C.

As there was nothing appropriate there, he just had to wing it. “I’m unaware of such reports.” A lie. But he honestly didn’t think the “wonder drug” actually was lethal. But these impromptu news conferences were no place for complex ethical and biochemical delineations. “I have full confidence in all my employees. Especially those hardworking people at Neo-Pharm.”

Yes, that good old tried-and-true method. Head ’em off the track with a statement. In a legitimate question and answer session, Grant could keep up the palaver for so long, a reporter was lucky to remember his name, much less his original question.

Still it was an alarming question, one that he really hadn’t been ready to deal with, despite the news reports.

Time to beat the retreat.

He spun around on the sole of his spit-polished wing tips, again a busy businessman, immersed in the burdens of accruing riches, and stamped away, letting the hail of further questions slip off him. He dodged between two uniformed, sunglassed guards into the building, waggling the finger of command. The thick-necked men stepped between the press and the door, preventing them from further pursuit.

Grant stepped into the marbled halls of the first floor and made a hasty hop and skip for his special turbo-elevator.

He put his face up against a window for a retinal read, even as he placed his thumb into a hole for a quick DNA check.

In this kind of political and economic atmosphere, you just couldn’t be too careful.

The car closed behind him and he punched a button. Thus, he was zoomed down to the basement offices and labs of his principal company, the foundation from which Daniel Grant had boosted into the wheeler-dealer stratospheres.

Neo-Pharm.

When he’d sent the message via sub-space to his folks on Beta Centauri colony that he’d used the money they’d given him to purchase a little-known drug company, his old man had thought he’d said “bought the farm”—and thought he was dead. From a friend back on the colony, he’d heard the old fart had just shrugged and poured himself another boost of booze. Fortunately, his mother had replayed the message and gotten the true gist of the message before she poured herself another drink. Then, in celebration, they’d bought everyone at the bar a drink and promptly gotten stinking drunk.

Of course, with the Grants, that was nothing new.

They drank so much at the New Town bar, the old man went ahead and bought it to minimize expenditures. Daniel Grant had to convince his father that the loan was a good business investment by sharing several bottles of cognac with the man. Over multiple ounces of the gut-searing stuff, Grant had pointed out that the alien-torn Earth, now in reconstruction, was ripe for business opportunities. A man who had vision there could have immense power. Old Man Grant wasn’t so sure of the financial soundness of his son’s plan, but he did have money. Money that he wasn’t sure what to do with. Lend me some of that money, Pop, said Daniel Grant, and let me show you what I can do.

Daniel Grant had the money transferred to an Earth bank before his father sobered up, and then followed immediately thereafter, by a slower route.

The New Earth was violent and exciting and dynamic, a phoenix rising from ashes. World governments bent over backward to encourage growth. Restrictions were cut. Regulations either forgotten, ignored, or repealed. It was the freest market imaginable, and Grant studied it. He decided that what Earth people really needed—and would always need—were pharmaceuticals. Aspirin for headaches. Harder drugs for those harder-to-deal-with biochemical problems. Euphorics. Other mood-alterers. And with a crack team of scientists at his bidding, he could map out new directions of biochemical technology.

So he bought the Pharm.

Since Neo-Pharm was one of the few drug companies still operating, under the helm of Grant’s cunning and ruthlessness, unbounded by law or ethics, it burgeoned. Cash and credit flow were astounding. Grant expanded, buying out other companies, building himself an empire. Real estate, retail, hotels, space shuttles—even gambling casinos. Daniel Grant wanted to make a strong, swift impression.

Unfortunately, his first buy remained his best. None of the other companies did anywhere near as well as Neo-Pharm—and often he found himself dipping into N-P’s black ink to try to neutralize the other companies’ red ink.

If something happened to Neo-Pharm, some financial disaster like a successful class-action suit or (shudder) having to shut down production of Fire, their most popular product, then the whole card castle would crumple.

And he wouldn’t be able to make certain personal payments.

Failure would not mean just bankruptcy.

His ass was on the line.

Dammit, he thought as the doors shut behind him. He’d paid back the old man. He’d pay his other debts. And he’d still have his cake and eat it, too… even if it choked him!

The door whispered open before him, and the familiar subdued colors throbbed over him. The acidic smells of the lab assaulted his nostrils.

As always, he could almost taste the freaking bugs down here. At first, he thought the taste was sweet, because it tasted like money. Now, Daniel Grant wasn’t so sure.

He stalked across the catwalk that spanned a pit where biochem workers in silvery suits worked over tables and tanks. Along the walls were aquariums filled with pickled bugs—whole bugs, half bugs, bits and pieces of bugs.

And the hellish bug juice—their acid blood—was carefully controlled, the vicious stuff. That was why the technicians worked in the specially lined pit. Anything that got loose, you could sluice it away, and it couldn’t get into where it would damage things—or kill people.

“Mr. Grant!” called an alarmed technician from the floor below. “You’re not wearing your suit!”

“Well just don’t squirt me, guys,” said Grant sarcastically. “Is Wyckoff in?”

“Yes, sir. He’s in his office.”

“Great. What about the doctor’s blood? Does that stuff burn through human flesh?”

“Not that we know of, sir.”

“Good. I won’t need a suit with him, then.”

Helmeted heads swiveled and hooded looks exchanged.

Grant grinned to himself. Let ’em talk. Kept them on their toes.

He finished crossing the pit and entered the bank of offices belonging to the scientists of the firm. Here the air was tinged with a sweetener to clear out the bug stench—but still the stuff hovered.

A door labeled DR. PATRICK WYCHOFF loomed. Grant opened it, not bothering to knock.

The little gnome of a man was huddled among a stack of paper. Paper, paper, everywhere—even covering his computer. Wyckoff liked to figure and doodle on paper. He was a whiz with computers, but for some reason the man far preferred a number two pencil and cheap bond to scratch and fiddle with than one of these overpriced wangdoodles he nevertheless insisted was vital to his operation. Wyckoff was so immersed in what he was doing, the shiny-headed, cobalt-nosed little munchkin didn’t notice his chief coming in the door.

“Wyckoff! Hey! Look alive. I could be a bug!” he growled in his big, booming I’m-pissed-off voice. Worse, I’m your rampaging boss!

The little man did a double take. His round, Coke-bottle glasses flashed in the indirect lighting. Jaw dropped, he stared at Grant for a moment, then recovered his aplomb.

“Good morning, Mr. Grant. I hadn’t expected you so early,” said the man in a nasal twang.

Grant loped over and slapped a plastic news sheet from his home News Service machine on the desk, featuring a highlighted article about the latest Fire boo-boo. “But you did expect me, didn’t you, Wyckoff?”

“Ye… ye… Yes, sir. I knew you’d at least call. The truth is, I thought I’d hear from you yesterday or the day before—”

“Maybe I just trusted my employees to do their job… To deal with this ridiculous matter. I didn’t realize that I’d have a microphone shoved up my nose as soon as I’d stepped out of my car, and be hounded by news of the lethalness of Xeno-Zip.”

Wyckoff shook his head sorrowfully. “No, sir, Xeno-Zip’s perfectly fine.”

It was Grant’s turn for a double take. He blinked, twisted his head around, and examined his scientist from another angle, as though to make sure he wasn’t seeing some one-dimensional projection. “People seem to be reacting rather poorly to it for it to be perfectly fine, Wyckoff!”

“That’s just it, sir. As soon as I heard the reports, I did a complete check of our supply. You may not have noticed, but your PR people have been doing their jobs…” Wyckoff seemed to be back in control now, though he still was clearly intimidated by his ranting and raving employer. “They’ve put out the notification that these are counterfeit bottles of Xeno-Zip that are affecting people poorly. Meanwhile, we’re exploring the possibilities, and I believe we know now what the problem is.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me, instead of mincing words and hemming and hawing.”

“Sir, it’s the active ingredient.”

“Regal jam, you mean?”

“Um… Royal jelly. Anyway, that’s what we call it—there are so many equivalencies to the aliens and their nest/hives and the Earthly insect kingdom. Our supply is obtained by freelance mercenaries who destroy the many hives still around the world. We pay them to take the royal jelly first before they destroy the hive and pass it along to us.”

“Yes, yes, I know that—”

“As I said, our main supply of Xeno-Zip is perfectly all right. The effect of a tiny amount of regular royal jelly combined with precipitant molecules of queen mother royal jelly ingested by a human being within the proper biochemical suspension is a safe serotonin booster and nonabrasive stimulant, improving perception and performance in nerve relay. Part of our work here is to either synthesize both or genetically create creatures that will manufacture both types of royal jelly without the less… benevolent aspects of the aliens. We have introduced synthesized regular royal jelly already into the market. Even with the precipitant Q-M molecules it, alas, effects a percentage of users negatively. Why, we’re not sure yet.”

“Because you’re a bunch of morons, that’s why!”

Wyckoff looked chagrined. A pained expression was etched on his face, and he sighed. “There is a possibility that these effects can be controlled by a higher Q-M jelly content. However, doing that would rapidly deplete our supply. Perhaps someone else can explain this to you better.” He leaned over and thumbed a toggle. “Dr. Begalli—would you mind coming into my office, and bring some of those charts you showed me earlier. Mr. Grant desires the full scoop.”

“Begalli?” said Grant.

“Yes, sir. The researcher you bribed to jump ship from MedTech.”

Grant grinned, remembering his coup. “Oh, yes—that bug expert. Cost me a pretty penny… but it was worth it, knowing I stomped on Foxnall’s nose!”

“You did indeed, and believe me, sir—he’s worth it. He not only has the best handle on the genetic makeup of the things, he’s got unparalleled field experience and a grasp on the behavior of the things like I’ve never encountered before. As soon as he heard about this—ah—little problem, he started an amazing amount of work in conjunction with our computers and the other scientists.”

Grant, who had felt a tantrum coming on, was intrigued.

He found himself flopping into a formafit chair and allowing himself to be served some soothing medicinal tea concocted by Neo-Pharm—thankfully not derived from anything alien. The scientist who Wyckoff had summoned showed up with surprising speed, not even allowing Grant an edge of impatience.

Dr. Amos Begalli slouched in, as though burdened by the computer-generated charts and diagrams he carried under one arm.

“Morning,” he whispered in a hoarse voice to Grant, almost seeming to bow in obeisance. If he didn’t have the charts in his hands, Grant suspected that the man might rub his hands together in the manner of Uriah Heep.

Grant grunted and leaned back, the expression on his face clearing communicating “Show me.”

Begalli’s eyes flicked over to the pot of tea that Wyckoff had just brewed. “Might I trouble you for a cup of that tea?” he said. He coughed, in an annoying phlegmy fashion.

But then, just about everything was annoying about Dr. Amos Begalli. Grant had always found him an unctuous, queasy worm, and would never have hired him at all but for his expertise—and the extreme harm it did to MedTech. He was a dark-complected man with limp black hair that looked greasy even when clean. It dropped down over a sloping forehead in ridiculous bangs, emphasizing an almost Neanderthal brow. Dark rings underlined dark, bloodshot eyes. Only in the center of those eyes could intelligence be discerned—intelligence of a searing, sneering variety that even thick-skinned Grant found a little unnerving.

A weak mouth below a long, hooked nose twitched, showing a flash of eellike teeth as he spoke.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the steaming brew. He pulled out a small bottle of Xeno-Zip and took out a tablet, which he washed down with a gulp of tea. “Marvelous stuff, Mr. Grant. I would not be able to perform at peak mental ability for such long hours without it.”

“Good to see you putting some of the money I give you back into the firm,” said Grant. “But I’m a busy man, Begalli. You want to get on with this show-and-tell?”

Begalli put the tea down and began to prop his charts up on an easel. He spoke in a hoarse, low but audible voice as he did so.

“Mr. Grant, I believe you are aware of my background and many other important things. But I do not believe you are aware of the amazing number of secrets comprised in the genetic makeup of these marvelous xenotropic creatures, so interwound with human experience.”

“I’m a businessman. You’re a scientist. I have the money, you have your work.”

“Indeed, indeed, but you have to understand something of what’s going on here in order to have a grasp on not only the essence, but the cutting edge of this business.” Slender, snaky fingers were tapping on a chart, which looked like some modern art collage of the alphabet connected by lines and squiggles and the incomprehensible. Grant recognized it as an incredible tangle of genetic code, with some new symbols that had been invented just for the silicon-based segments of the alien creature’s makeup. Begalli gazed at it for a moment, absorbed and fascinated.

He snapped out of it just before Grant was about to get mad. “This is the closest we can get to an actual chart of typical alien DNA. There’s so much we do not understand—so much to learn.” Eagerness and awe crept into his voice. “So much opportunity… But look what I have discovered, Mr. Grant!”

His eyes widened and he tapped the edge, where the code performed a curious curlicue.

“A goddamned crossword puzzle?”

Begalli laughed an oily laugh. “The whole DNA is a puzzle, sir—but what this is, is nothing less than a recessive gene!”

Grant did not pretend to understand. “Look, talk in English, will you?”

“Mr. Grant, when we first started getting reports of the hyperactive results of some doses of Xeno-Zip, I was among the batch of scientists who immediately investigated the biochemical reasons. The reason that some people have been reacting in this fashion to the drug is that their biochemistries are sensitive to the unique properties of the synthesized regular alien jelly.”

“Yes, dammit, but what else are we going to use? We’re running out of the natural stuff, right. We’ve got to synthesize the jam or jelly or whatever.”

“Yes, sir, but if you’ll allow me, there’s more. Apparently the berserker antics were the result of a batch of Xeno-Zip in which too much of the precipitant was introduced.”

“What a waste!”

“Indeed. Nonetheless, normal amounts still affect a portion of the populace negatively.”

“So. What are we going to do?”

Begalli shrugged. “I for one would like to study the possibilities in this recessive gene.”

“What does that have to do with our problem?”

“Mr. Grant, you’re going to have to face up to facts. We need more royal jelly, and we need more queen mother royal jelly. At the moment, our understanding of the genetic makeup of the aliens is not sufficiently advanced to clone either. We need to go to the source. I have reason to believe that the DNA avenues I have been exploring could result in drug breakthroughs far beyond mere Xeno-Zip. At the very least, we could obtain a source of the active ingredient in the cornerstone of your drug empire that would allow you to manufacture safe batches for a long, long time. And I have the feeling that the answer to my questions could lie at the source of what we need.”

The man nodded significantly as though Grant was supposed to catch the significance from these words alone.

Grant shook his head, jumped to his feet, and let the frustration out, full volume.

“Look, goddammit! I’m staring at the possibility of lawsuits buggering me from now till kingdom come… I’m going to hear from sales as soon as those spineless assholes get up the courage… and you know what I’m going to hear? A drop-off of sales for Fire. That will kill the cash flow, which will kill Neo-Pharm… And I’m in hock for everything else!” He stalked nearer to the cowed scientists. “And you’re telling me I ought to give a rat’s ass about a blip in a weird ladder? You’re telling me that I’ve got to spend more money than God owns for a trip to an alien planet?”

Begalli blinked and smiled uneasily “In every seeming disaster, there is incredible opportunity. And this particular discovery… well, sir, it simply reeks of it!”

“What, because it makes people as crazy as aliens? I just don’t get you guys! I’m running a business here, not a nonprofit research group. I’m in desperate straits! I need help, not homilies! I need—”

The vid-phone chimed. Wyckoff jumped for it, as though for a lifeline to pull himself from the storm.

Curiosity and deep respect for that demigod of the business world, the telephone, caused Grant to stop mid-spew. Begalli watched the proceedings, engaged but more than a bit bemused.

“Yes?” said Wyckoff. His eyes swung toward his employer, still wary and more than a bit relieved by the interruption. “Yes, he’s here, but this is a—” He blinked. “Oh. Oh, I see. Well, very well, I suppose… Yes. Right away.” Wyckoff turned to Grant and handed him the receiver. “It’s General Burroughs of the United States Army, sir. Vital communication.”

As Daniel Grant reached for the vid-phone volume button, he saw Begalli’s lips tilt up into a half smile, as though he’d expected something like this all the while.

5

There was only one thing worse than the nightmares.

The nightmares, plus a hangover.

When the phone kicked Colonel Alexandra Kozlowski out of sleep at 0600 hours in the morning, she was experiencing both.

“Yeah?” she said, fumbling with the vid-phone control. She was covered in a snarl of sheets. She was still dressed in the civvies from last night. From what, for where? Her pounding brain came up empty.

First things first.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“Colonel?” Unfamiliar face.

“That’s right.” Inventory. All her limbs seemed intact and still attached. No empty bottle of whiskey on the counter. Even better, no naked body beside her. That limited the possible damage of last night. Shreds of memory and the dinner tray in front of the vid told the story.

Too much video, too much vino.

She hadn’t raised hell outside, she’d just raised it inside. Much more discreet. Far more destructive.

“Colonel, this is Burroughs. General Delmore Burroughs.” She sat up, ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry to bother you this early in the morning, but we’ve got an important meeting today in Washington. I’m going to have to ask that you get on a jump-skip.”

“Yes, sir.” Civility and duty won over surliness. Why the hell had she stayed in this stinking profession anyway? Why was she taking this bullshit?

“Good. There will be a plane ready for you at eight hundred hours. The meeting is scheduled for eleven hundred hours, sharp.”

“Yes, sir.” She struggled for the proper words. “Begging your pardon, sir… but could I inquire about the nature of this meeting?”

“I’m afraid not, Colonel. Top secret. Priority one. You’ll know soon enough.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And, Colonel. Wear your dress uniform. Wear your medals… and some kick-ass boots.”

“Yes, sir.”

She disconnected. Well, it wasn’t any problem getting to the transport. She was living on base at the moment. All she had to do was call up her adjutant and get him to wheel her all of two miles to the airfield.

The trouble was going to be getting out of bed.

Dammit! she thought, groaning. I wait around for months for something important to happen, and it happens on my day off, hours after I’ve had a snootful. The karmic balances of the universe were just getting far too hair-trigger for Alex Kozlowski’s taste. The stupid Eastern theories were immediately banished for the colder, more mechanistic, and less vengeful rules of Western science. You drink too much, you get sick. Moreover, if you’re a career officer, you took it all like a good soldier.

Groaning, she heaved her compact, muscular body out of bed, wishing she’d been working out more lately. Cripes, she felt like a pair of hips with a torso and limbs tacked on as afterthought. She peeled off her clothes, then walked (no, Koz, she admonished, more like waddled) to the shower stall, avoiding the mirror. She turned on the water, hard and hot, held her breath, and jumped in. The pounding heat against her neck and shoulders immediately improved things. Suddenly she had an afterthought head, too.

It wasn’t like she was an alchy or anything. She’d go for weeks with just a glass of wine or a shot of bourbon and beer with the gang now and then. Every once in a while, though, when she started thinking about Peter too much, she found herself motoring for a jug of wine, gallon size, and just going apeshit.

Peter. Peter Michaels. Lieutenant Peter Michaels.

There had been men since him, just as there had been men before him. Hell, soldiers in foxholes and all that stuff. Nothing like sex to ease the tension. But there had never been anyone like Peter ever again. No one she cared about. No one she could love.

Had it been love with Michaels? Hard to say. She just knew that she didn’t have much in the way of tender emotions anymore. They had got eaten up with that alien acid. All that was left was guilt and nightmare—and a large sturdy pile of grit that was the essential stuff of Alexandra Kozlowski.

The grit. The iron. The hard stuff. That was why she was a colonel now.

After that nasty business with the Hollywood nest, she transferred to the Marines. They took her in a shot. She found herself immersed in space and the vessels that traversed it. It was a way to get her brain out of the acid. She was a top student and her rank just increased and increased. She was on Camp Kennedy base now, doing some prelims on a possible space cruise, but it looked as though her superiors had something different in mind for her, which was just hunky-dory.

Busy. That was what she needed. To be busy, to immerse herself in work. When she worked hard, she slept hard. When she slept hard, she didn’t have nightmares.

When she didn’t have nightmares, she didn’t see Peter’s dissolving face again.

Dammit! Just shut up! she told herself, pounding the tile of the shower stall, letting the hot water sluice down her face. Just shut up! It wasn’t your fault, why are you torturing yourself? It was Peter who’d been getting weird, who had to show his independence. If he hadn’t demanded to go up to that bulb, if he had listened to her, he might still be alive.

After his death, they’d cleaned the nest out. It was as though all her men had become an extension of her need for revenge. There wasn’t much alien jelly They’d taken the piddling amount out. Not worth the bother, certainly. But no alien bodies, no DNA samples. They slagged all that. It was like a dementia. It was like nothing that Alex had ever experienced before. If the bugs had had half a brain between them, they would have run, because there’d seldom been a killing machine like her and her men, taking revenge for that sneaky little alien trap. Somehow they’d all made it through alive, too, which was a wonder. They’d used part of their extra leave for a wake for Peter Michaels. It should have been enough for her, it really should have.

But it didn’t bring back Peter.

The thing about it was that they’d both known that something like that could happen. They’d promised each other that if it did, they’d get on with their lives, not cling to memories and hope. But it had happened and now Alex had to live with that and somehow there were always other lands of pain she’d rather have.

She dried herself off. She put herself together. She made herself some coffee. Then she called her adjutant to pick her up. She found her good uniform, she put on her pants—one leg at a time, as usual. She combed her hair and she had another cup of coffee.

The pounding in her head had subsided, but she still felt weak and weary.

She looked at the clock. Five more minutes to pickup time.

She looked at her hands. They were trembling.

Damn and double damn! What was happening to her? She wasn’t nervous, yet she couldn’t function. She’d never been like this after drinking.

She took a deep breath, but it didn’t calm her. She sighed. Then, wearily, she went to her medicine cabinet. She took out one of the bottles there, opened it, and tapped a pill into her hand.

She took it with a gulp of coffee, and almost immediately began to feel better.

Damn this stuff, she thought. Damn it to hell.

She tucked the bottle of Fire into her carry-bag, and put her face into her hands.

* * *

Daniel Grant smiled.

He felt the room lighting up around him from the effects of that wonderful smile, and he reveled in its power.

“Gentlemen, all I ask for are three things.” He turned the smile wattage up just a tad higher. “Guns. Grunts. And a gondola. Send my team of specialists and scientists on a little voyage, and I promise to bring back happiness and satisfaction for us all.”

The meeting place was a high-level war room, streamlined angles, all polished wood and chrome and underlit attitude. It smelled of after-shave and leather, and was about five degrees cooler than it had to be. Architecture and technology contrived to create a crib of spare power, with acoustics that made the most of monosyllabic speeches.

There was enough brass in the room to supply knuckles for an army of hoodlums. They sat around a black oval table, bracketed by uniform high-backed black chairs, still and forbidding as monuments in a nighttime cemetery.

“To the alien homeworld for God’s sake?” said Admiral Niles. The old man moved forward in his chair. He was a good-looking man, with a shock of gray hair and a slash of a mustache below an aquiline nose. His face was lined with weariness, but his eyes were sharp as a hawk’s.

“Not homeworld, sir,” a supernumery corrected. “Hiveworld.”

“The source of all the aliens that have been encountered in this quadrant of the galaxy, from all signs. The source of the queen mother that was brought to Earth—not of the race,” tendered another expert.

The extent of the spread of the xenos had not yet fully been determined. So far they had been found only on isolated planets; all the clues pointed back to this so-called Hiveworld. The Hiveworld had been the source of the Alien-Earth War.

However, naturally, there was great concern. Any newly discovered planet had the potential of being infected. And no one knew if any eggs had been illegally exported from Earth.

Admiral Niles grunted. “Whatever. This place must be hell. I know that the xenos are comparatively well contained here on Earth.” He looked at Grant, and it felt like those coal-black eyes were boring into him. “In some ways, perhaps, even farmed. But on their own turf, surely—”

Grant snapped his fingers.

The AV portion of this morning’s DC festivities.

A holotank eased down into its moorings and lights flickered. Three-D film flashed of brave soldiers and mercenaries in the latest getup, carrying the most modern weapons, slamming through the ranks of an alien nest. He would have enjoyed splicing in some martial John Philip Sousa, but his PR people had talked him out of it.

“Not bad, huh? And lots of these folks are yours. Just crack teams! Crack! And I even understand you’ve got a real handle on the alien-blood-in-battle problem. Wonderful!” Grant was all enthusiasm.

“I know those films!” said the admiral. “They’re from the North Carolina campaign earlier this year. A piece of cake, true—but we’re talking about a place where aliens have total sway.”

“Not necessarily, sir,” an expert’s nasal voice twanged. “The Hiveworld may also be inhabited by the alien homeworld original predators—or corollary predators. There’s got to be a similar ecology to some extent for them to have developed there the way they have.”

“Hmm. So you’re saying an expedition there is feasible, and not overly risky,” said the admiral, settling back in his seat.

“Any environment containing these critters is going to have an element of risk, sir,” said Grant. “But then… I know your people can handle it! And the rewards would be spectacular!” He leaned forward confidently. “I mean, it was General Burroughs here who approached me on the subject. And I found it to be not only a fascinating concept—but a mutually rewarding alliance. An expedition into the adventure of free enterprise and the onward evolution of the American soldier! General Burroughs? Would you care to elaborate?”

The black general glared at Grant through slitted eyes. “The admiral has been thoroughly briefed on the benefits of the royal jelly you can supply.” The man was playing poker here, and that was okay, because Daniel Grant appreciated a good negotiator.

It brought out the best in him.

“Yes, but before me I see intelligent eyes, questioning eyes!” Grant stood and gestured outward at the assemblage of frowning brass. “And as I am the pitchman here, and you’ve granted me time—please allow me to properly present my pitch!”

Again, a snap of fingers.

The moving pictures flickered into a different round.

The Baghdad Goodwill Games. Oriander’s world record, and his unfortunate demise.

Ratty videos of the horrible slaughter at Quantico.

He heard the sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sure you’re aware of these tragedies and others like them that have caused a huge number of lawsuits to be leveled at my company,” Grant said gravely, deep into presentation mode.

Then: soldiers, looking noticeably calmer, performing tasks and exercises with sharp precision and sharp eyes.

“Here we have a group of men who have just taken small doses of regular Xeno-Zip… which I shall call Fire from now on. This, as I hope you know, is derived from normal alien royal jelly. My company Neo-Pharm has patented the proper methodology of transforming normal alien royal jelly utilizing molecules of queen mother royal jelly so that tiny doses will perk up a normal human’s day—and enhance any soldier’s performance. A little costly, perhaps—but worth it.

“However, as you no doubt are aware, the supply of normal royal jelly has been dwindling. We have synthesized the jelly… with mixed results… however we need not go into that right now. What is significant is that a batch of the synthesized jelly Xeno-Zip was accidentally spiked with extra queen mother royal jelly. In a marked percentage of those who ingested it, the result was quite incredible. Properly modulated, the results of this new drug will create nothing less than a supersoldier.”

Another picture appeared on the screen. A gladiator soldier, hammering away at robots with sword and machine gun—but under control. A berserker without a doubt, but with orders and a plan.

“The good general here is already at work experimenting with this new kind of jelly. However, our supplies of queen mother jelly are reaching depletion. And may I also add, we’re still not exactly well stocked in regular royal jelly, either, which is our own bread and butter, far preferable to us than our synthesized sort.”

He waved away the audiovisuals, and motioned for normal light. He leaned forward emphatically on the table.

“It’s very simple. My company needs more regular royal jelly as well as Q-M royal jelly—and a way to get a regular supply of both. Your company—I mean, your armed forces—already staggering under heavy opposition and funding cuts—need to make maximum use of every soldier in conflict. I have the scientists and the talent—you’ve got intergalactic vessels, pilots, and soldiers. My scientists predict the certain existence of what we both need on the Hiveworld.” He smiled. He held his hands up in an eloquent shrugging gesture. “So some of my kiddies go, some of your kiddies go. We get what we want. We make a little pact. You help me, I help you. You scratch my back—I save your butt.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Grant…” chided the admiral, shaking his head a moment as though to clear it. “Just a moment. I thought it was your company that was inundated with civil suits.”

“We’ve got a few legal problems, sure. So sue us!” Grant chuckled. “Besides, I’m sure a few military words in the attorney general’s ear will go a long way toward helping the company you’ll be climbing into bed with.”

“Mr. Grant! This is a lawful assembly,” said the general, but with a hint of irony to his deep tones.

“Absolutely. Without a doubt. Unquestionably. But my association with a powerful legal force isn’t going to do my legal standing any harm. And by the time people understand why we’re doing what we’re doing—by the time they see the benefits of our research… They will surely not be so vehement in our pursuit.” Again, a shrug. “But only time will tell. In the meantime, no skin off your noses, eh?”

He could tell his spiel was getting to them. Everyone loved a rascal, especially when what he was coming up with could do big time good. He might as well get out the victory cigar in his vest pocket and start smoking it.

A new voice sounded from the assemblage. “Pardon me, Mr. Grant, but are you planning on accompanying this proposed mission?”

Grant blinked. “Hell, no!” He looked over at the originator of the suggestion. A woman. Short hair, nice chin, scars. She would have been pretty if she wore makeup. Now she was merely… handsome. “I’ve got an important business to run here!”

The woman leaned forward, clasping her hands together. “Mr. Grant, with all due respect, have you ever put on a suit and gone into a hive?”

“Well, no… but what difference does that make?” He looked over at the general as though for help. The black man’s eyes twinkled with amusement. Let’s see how you wriggle off this hook, those eyes said.

“We’re apparently talking about a whole world filled with bugs, Mr. Grant. Glib as your words may be, this assignment would not be simple. In fact, I’m willing to bet that stochastic prophecy would predict losses,” said the woman.

“Not the ones projected by our figures!” Grant said. Who the hell was this woman? What was she trying to do—scuttle his boat?

The woman swiveled her head back and forth, catching each of the assembly eye to eye for just an instant of seriousness.

“Let me tell you all. I have been in alien hives. Miracle weapons or no miracle weapons… there will be losses. Are you willing to be responsible for that?” said the woman intensely, teeth gritted as though she were in some land of pain.

Some of the upper brass began to hem and haw. This was entering touchy territory.

“Aw, goddammit,” said Grant. “Give us a break. Is there not a war on? Is this not directly and indirectly a mission against the enemy? Casualties are always a possibility. But who’s to say they’re a certainty?”

He stared at the woman defiantly.

Her eyes were ice. She wasn’t giving an inch. “I just wanted to ask a question, Mr. Grant. And state a fact that you seem to be trying to avoid. That’s all.” The lips curled into a private smile. “As for me, the idea of going to this Hiveworld and killing bugs and stealing their life’s stuff is… rather appealing.”

Christ Almighty! Who was this bitch?

The general and the admiral leaned over and privately conferred. The admiral looked over to his other officers and met merely nods and encouraging eyes.

“Well, Mr. Grant,” said the admiral. “It seems as though your intriguing proposal has made the first hurtle. I believe we can work something out.”

Grant could not suppress an ear-to-ear grin. His muscles unknotted. “Glad to hear it, Admiral. Glad to hear it!” He put out an impulsive hand, pumped away at the plump paw he’d grabbed. He nodded at the others. “My companies have had a long and prosperous liaison with you fine folks in uniform. I’m glad it’s taking off for other worlds!”

There were a few embarrassed coughs, and a couple of members of the meeting made excuses and scurried off into labyrinthine Washington hallways. Grant just mentally shrugged it off. He was used to stepping on boot toes in this business, almost reveled in it. He’d never much liked military people, and secretly resented having to work so much with them, particularly in harvesting the precious royal jelly, far preferring to encourage the mercenaries in the business. Money was something that Daniel Grant could understand when it was the bottom line. When you got into the halls of politics, sex, personality, and power, things got a whole lot murkier.

“Now then,” said the admiral, “I believe we have the necessary deep-space tactical vessel at our disposal. It will take some time to prepare it for this special journey. And of course we’ll want a staff other than the people that Mr. Grant is supplying.”

Grant sat back down. “Of course, you’ll get me the best men for the job.”

“Naturally, Mr. Grant. Naturally. We have some fine veterans and pilots who would be perfect,” the admiral said. “What the expedition needs most is a commanding officer with the right feel both for leading troops and dealing with the quite unpredictable alien bugs.”

“That’s your call,” said Grant. “I’ll leave that one totally up to you.”

The general and admiral conferred for a moment in whispers and then the general spoke. “We anticipated the need for such a commander, Mr. Grant. So we invited a certain colonel along to this meeting. The youngest holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor, specifically for a pivotal role in the final cleaning up of the aliens in North America… and with special training for further work in space, dealing with infestations on other planets and colonies…”

“Sounds good to me. When do I get to meet the man?” said Grant.

The general turned to the small, coal-eyed woman. “You’ve already met. The question is, will the colonel agree to such an assignment?”

The intense, scarred young woman leaned over, showing small pearly white teeth in a smile.

“I’d relish such an assignment, sir. Thank you.”

It was the general’s turn to smile. “Excellent. I cannot commend your expedition into better hands, Mr. Grant. May I formally introduce you to Colonel Alexandra Kozlowski, your commanding officer.”

Grant’s jaw dropped. He was glad he hadn’t lit up a cigar. It would have fallen right onto his expensive Italian suit, spilled embarrassing ashes all over the place. He recovered quickly, converted his surprise into a laugh. “Well, well, well! How marvelous. And I thought you were the one who hated the bugs.”

“I do,” said Colonel Kozlowski. “I want to see every last one of them either cindered… or perhaps even harmless, if that’s possible. That’s why I’m in this business, Mr. Grant. That’s why I’m here today.” She leaned forward and tapped the table. “Make no mistake, though. I don’t believe in the Devil, Mr. Grant—but if there was a Devil, I doubt if even he would be evil enough to invent these bugs. This is not going to be a field trip to an ant farm. Tell your people that.”

Those smoldering eyes again.

There was something else in those eyes… something that looked at him in a peculiar way that bothered Grant. Bothered him intensely He shrugged it off, turned to the men in charge.

“Well, seems like a fine choice to me. I like a woman with intestinal fortitude.” He pulled out a handful of cigars from his breast pocket. “A celebration seems to be called for. Anybody care to join me?” He flashed a handful.

The general took one.

The admiral accepted one.

“Me,” said Colonel Kozlowski, holding out a hand.

Grant had one passed down.

He watched as the petite but hard-looking woman accepted the cigar, examined it, sniffed it, then pocketed it.

“You’re not going to smoke it with us?” Daniel Grant said, slightly miffed but playful nonetheless.

“Mr. Grant,” said Colonel Alex Kozlowski. “Celebration is hardly in order yet. I’ll smoke it when the mission is over and my rear is seated safe and sound back in this chair for a debriefing.”

The woman asked for and obtained permission to leave from her superiors.

“Well, what do you think of our choice for your commander?” said the general, an eyebrow raised.

Grant let out a gust of smoke.

“I’d say, I feel damned sorry for those Hiveworld bugs!”

6

“Nice-looking boat, huh?”

Daniel Grant flashed the cube-shot to his date sitting in the restaurant booth next to him. She was a hot, big-busted brunette with her spangled dress spray-painted on. Long hair, delicious perfume, and foreign territory for the old Skyscraper Man to plumb. He was impressing her with this nightclub, black and white and dazzle all around—and now, for what reason he knew not, he was impressing her with his power that extended Yea! even to the ends of the Universe!

Her name was Mabel.

“Weird! What kinda thing is that?” Mabel spoke with a New Jersey accent, which gave her flamboyant body a certain earthy charm.

“That’s a spaceship, babes. That’s my spaceship. Pretty, huh?”

“Pretty strange. What you want a spaceship for, Mr. Grant?”

“I told you, you can call me Daniel, sweetheart, just as long as your pretty fingers aren’t anywhere near a keyboard.”

“You’re so kind to take me out tonight, Mr. Grant!” Mabel batted long thick mascara at him. “And me, hardly having worked for two days at your offices. And I don’t care what the other temps have said—you’re such a gentleman! Such a scrumptious meal, such delicious champagne—and you haven’t laid a hand on me!”

Grant mimed a kiss at her. “I know, and it’s damned hard, too, make no mistake about it. But Mrs. Grant brought her little boy up right, I guess.”

Truth was, you get enough bubbly percolating in those pea brains, display enough dazzle, and blow enough pheromones in their faces, and women touched you. A little trick Daniel Grant had learned early on which kept him out of trouble. Oh, well. He had his share of trouble all right, what with letting all those women touch him that wanted to, while he was still married to old Iron Drawers and building his companies. But you tread a fine line, and trouble that came your way tended to be the fun kind of trouble, the thrilling trouble, the trouble that made you feel like you were dashing down a ski slope on a power sled, not a garbage-can lid.

“Anyway, really—what do you think of it?”

The picture was of the U.S.S. Razzia, hovering in parking orbit above Earth. Right now, it was getting loaded up with supplies, weapons, men, and whatnot for the expedition to the alien Hiveworld. A trip that would bring back royal jelly, preserved DNA, and other treasures that would spell not only full financial recovery and put paid to any lost lawsuits—but place him, Darnel Marcus Grant, squarely back into the pure honey of wealth.

“I don’t know. It’s… well, it’s kind of ugly.”

They’d had more than a few glasses of champagne, so things were kind of blurry. Grant examined the picture again.

There it was, a whale of a ship, bubbles and glassine protuberances making it look like some kind of colorful exotic beetle that had been pumped up with gas to the point of bursting. Aesthetically, it did look rather odd. Kind of like a strange cross between the jewelry kind of carbuncles and the flesh-bump kind. Of course, that wasn’t the way Grant saw it. He saw it as his beautiful, thrilling hope for riches beyond avarice.

“What is it?” said Mabel.

“Never mind,” said Grant, tucking the photo back into his jacket pocket. “Just a little business venture of mine. Let’s talk about you!”

“Oh, but, Mr. Grant! Daniel! I’m fascinated by business ventures!”

“Stick with Grant Industries, kiddo! We’ve got our share of businesses. Maybe we’ll set you up as a special secretary for one of our branches.”

The eyes went wide. A slender hand touched his knee. “Oh, but, Mr. Grant! That would be wonderful. I’d have to prove my skills to you first—”

Grant plucked up the bottle of Dom Fauxgnon from the ice bucket and poured some more champagne into her glass. “I’m sure you will, my dear.” He winked at her. “And I for one am looking forward to the fruits of your official labors!”

They clinked glasses.

Feeling positively ebullient, Grant tippled.

This fake stuff sure wasn’t classic—but it tingled and did the trick.

He was just finishing off the glass when a booming voice almost made him choke.

“Careful! Careful there, my dear, dear chum!” A dim form moved out of the swirling, milling shadows of the hip night spot and clapped him on the back. Grant sputtered, struggled, and recovered, watery eyes blinking.

“Foxnall!” he said, working hard to keep his voice neutral. “What portal of Hades did you pop from?”

“Ah, believe it or not, dear boy,” said the cultured voice from the thin and wiry man with affected square spectacles and billowing silk clothing, “I have not come here to torment you. In fact, if you ask any bartender or regular here tonight, they’ll assure you that I am not a stranger to Flickers. But this is a treat, especially with you in the company of such a charming young lady. Are you going to be a selfish cad and refuse to introduce us?”

Grant felt a distinct leveling of spirits.

However, everything was still well within control.

“Mabel, this is Lardner Foxnall. Principal stockholder and CEO of MedTech. Lardner, this is Mabel Planer, an employee and… ah, new friend.”

“My pleasure.” Foxnall kissed the woman’s hand to her obvious delight.

“MedTech! Why, they make Wonder Diet! I use that all—” Suddenly aware of her diplomatic error, Mabel cringed. “Oh, dear. I mean… ”

“No problem, Mabel,” said Grant. “MedTech makes a quite reputable line of pharmaceuticals. This is a free enterprise system in which we work—and yes, Neo-Pharm has quite worthy competitors and we value them. After all, if there were no other companies, who could we constantly out-perform?”

A muscle in Lardner Foxnall’s jaw flinched. However, his eyes remained amused. “Yes—quite. And this new enterprise of yours… this journey…”

Grant felt a thrill of alarm. “Ah, you must mean—” He began groping for some fake enterprise, to put Foxnall off course.

“Oh, you mean the spaceship! Yes, isn’t it exciting?” Mabel fairly jounced with elation. She looked over for approval from her boss, her gentleman date—and found cold eyes instead.

She shut up immediately, to her credit.

“Indeed, Neo-Pharm is looking toward colonial expansion… but then what Earth drug company worth its salt isn’t?” said Grant aggressively.

An artificial tic of a smile from Foxnall. “Absolutely. And may we all prosper!” He winked. “But some, more than others!” A tip of an imaginary hat. “By the way, Ms. Planer. We’re always in need of good help at MedTech. Whenever you care for a free supply of Wonder Diet, please remember us!”

“Quite unlikely!” called Grant after him, barely hanging on to his temper.

He waved for a waiter, and a photosensitive robot promptly smoothed up. “What’s riffraff like that doing in a reputable club like Flickers?”

“Pardon, honored guest—but Mr. Foxnall is the new owner.” Lights blinked obsequiously.

Grant started, did a double take, then smiled. “Then that must be why the fellow ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon for the young lady here!” He scratched his nose. “And the caviar and crackers for me, come to think of it!”

“I will see to it immediately.”

“He did?” said Mabel as the robo-waiter trundled off.

“Oh, yes. A tradition between pharmaceutical rivals, my dear.”

“Oh, Mr. Grant. I’m so sorry if I said anything wrong. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“Well, let’s drink this next bottle of champagne and eat our caviar and have a serious discussion on the matter.”

The caviar was cold and quite good, and the Dom Perignon turned out to be far superior to the Dom Fauxgnon. However the conversation in the next half hour grew sour in Grant’s mouth and ears, unspiked by sensual desire and the urge for sexual conquest.

Dammit!

Could Lardner Foxnall have gotten wind of what he was up to? Could he possibly know the destination of the U.S.S. Razzia and the reason for the trip?

If so, that could mean many things, none of them particularly good, several of them very bad.

His mood seemed to grow fouler as he helped the increasingly drunk secretary finish their late night treats among the wistful smells and pulsing sounds of Flickers nightclub.

“Mr. Grant!” she said, giggling at some stupid sarcastic statement he’d made about some politico. “You are so funny!”

“I think we’ve had a little too much champagne, Mabel.”

“But not too much caviar. I never could have believed that I ever would like fish eggs, but this stuff is just delish! I really am enjoying myself.”

“I hope you’ve saved some for friends,” said a cold voice from the darkness. A swath of mist swirled away, and there stood a husky man with a scar riding along his bald pate like a bolt of lightning. He wore good clothes and he smelled of good cologne.

“Gee! Another competitor, Mr. Grant?”

Grant froze. “Not exactly.”

Fisk. Morton Fisk.

What was this, old home night for demons from hell?

“Good evening, Grant.” The man did not even look at Mabel. His piercing eyes just hooked on to Grant and hung on. “I don’t usually visit people personally. However I do have a tradition. I like to make sure that my face is branded on the retinas of dying men.”

“Fisk. What are you talking about?”

Grant had a suspicion, but he didn’t even want to think about the possibility.

“Who is this guy, Mr. Grant? What’s going on?” said Mabel.

“I told you, Grant, when you got me to bail you out, that I was a patient man—until I wasn’t patient.” The scar on the head seemed to glow a livid pink. Pulsing with contained rage. “And I haven’t been. You’re months overdue, and you haven’t even had the dignity to send partial payments. I am truly offended.”

“Fisk! I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You’ve been getting regular installments!”

A big fist grabbed a handful of his shirt, lifted him up so that Grant began to gasp for air. “Lie! He lies to my face! You well know that I haven’t gotten a penny for months.”

Indeed, Grant did know.

All too well.

In the scrabble for solidity and power after the Alien-Earth War, not all of the fortresses of fiduciary control were entirely legal. And often as not, to get the leverage you needed for truly inspired buy-outs, you had to go to these underground people for liquid assets.

Unfortunately, they were criminals.

Violent criminals.

Self-confidence was always the antigrav stuff for Daniel Grant, the by-your-bootstraps talent that hoisted him above the rest. Unfortunately, self-confidence could also be a blindfold. He well knew that he personally owed millions to Fisk and company, but since for Daniel Grant mañana was always golden—well, he’d pay them mañana, when he had the money.

Alas, he saw no mañana in Morton Fisk’s eyes.

“Look, Morty. Sit down, pull up a glass of the warm south, get to know this delightful creature… and for heaven’s sake, let’s jaw awhile, huh?” Grant patted a comfortable cushion.

“Sorry.”

The big man spun on his heel, and was swallowed up by the stylish mists and the nightclub gloom.

“Mr. Grant… Daniel…” said Mabel. “What kind of gorilla was that?”

“Not the gorilla of my dreams!” said Grant, scooting over to the end of the booth. “Look, I’ll be right back, Mabel. Got to visit the little boys’ room!”

What had happened here? Had Foxnall tipped Fisk off to his presence here? That bastard! That must have been what had happened.

Geez! There were such sharks in business these days!

He was at the edge of the booth, when he heard a click. Instinctively he dived for the floor.

An explosion of bullets whacked over the top of him like lateral hail. He could feel their heat. He hit the floor and rolled, the sound of the machine gun echoing in his ear, the scream of his secretary joining in.

He got a glimpse of the poor brunette, jerking amid the passion of the bullets, blood yanked from that sweet body, making a mess of her dress. Glass and champagne and caviar spattered every which way, in a fantasmagoric slow-mo fountain.

The will to live turned Grant away from this death dance, and he scrambled away, like a rat from a pack of cats.

7

A month of her life, just getting this show on the road.

Colonel Alex Kozlowski took a swig of her coffee, and watched as the last batch of supplies got loaded into the shuttle. She managed to get down to a quarter capsule a day of Fire, but she’d already taken that now, and damned herself for wanting more. The stuff wasn’t like booze, you didn’t see creepy crawlies if you went dry. It was like cigarettes. And just as hard to kick. She wanted to kick it, to show her own superiority to herself. Which was why she felt bad now, wanting another hit.

In just a few hours they’d be boosted up to the Razzia, stored away with the rest of the stuff Daniel Grant and his scientists wanted on this mission—along of course with the rest of the marines, her own hard ass included.

Alex Kozlowski was sitting on the apron of the ramp, the lip of which sided a wing of the shuttle that would soon trundle out of the hangar and wing up through the atmosphere. To the other side of her was a warehouse-sized security checkpoint and storage room. Dawn had just shouldered through a cloudy horizon.

She slouched in the chair, watching the crates being loaded.

Hell of a lot of stuff going up there.

She’d been in charge of everything her crew was going to need. She’d wanted to be in charge of the whole shebang. Unfortunately, that was not in the cards.

A bored-looking deliveryman walked over and handed her a piece of paper on a clipboard. “Sign please, Colonel.”

Alex took the clipboard.

SUPPLIES, said the checklist. That was all.

“How can I check ‘em in, if I don’t know what they are?”

“Look, Colonel,” said the man, “I’m just doing my job. I’d like it a lot if you could just take a crow-bar and prize open a couple and have yourself a gander. I’m afraid, though, that it’s all pretty insulated and locked up and you’d be pretty hard-pressed to lock the stuffing back in.”

The guy was a civvie, probably worked for the government. Kozlowski could tell by his attitude. She didn’t like any man she couldn’t give orders to, or take orders from, and the man annoyed her. What could she do, though? Make him clean the latrines? He was the equivalent of a third-rate, truck-driving, trolley-pushing bureaucrat.

It hit her then: what was important to bureaucrats?

“Ooops!” she said, and tore the papers she had to sign into shreds.

The man looked at her, stunned. “Colonel. I’m going to have to go and get another form now! Why…?”

“File a complaint, toad-breath,” she said. “But have some respect next time you give a lady a form to sign… ”

The man went off, cursing under his breath, to get another form. Kozlowski went off to sniff around the crates.

TOP SECRET, they read.

THIS SIDE UP.

HIGHLY FRAGILE.

One was even fitted with elaborate refrigeration equipment.

“Oh, well,” she said, drumming her fingers against a crate. “You can bet I’m going to find out what’s going on when we’re light-years away.”

She was almost sorry she’d signed up for this gig.

Not that she minded going long distance in interstellar space. That would be fun. And the idea of blowing away xenos en masse still tickled her pink. However, all the mystery and bullshit attendant to her duties had not exactly thrilled her, to say the least. She thought that she was in charge of this mission—but over the weeks, the fact had gradually seeped through her thick skull that she was only in charge of the military aspects. Neo-Pharm’s other operations on the Razzia—and there was plenty of extra room for that, which was doubtless why the ugly scow had been chosen—was strictly out of her control.

Which was one of the reasons they’d probably chosen her.

She could hear the old uniformed farts now, gassing. “Kozlowski! Yeah—she’s tough, good, but she’s a woman. She’s got some give to her.”

Alex Kozlowski smiled to herself. The preparations were only part of the whole story. She’d taken the shit dished to her, fried it up nice, and put some ketchup on it. When the Neo-Pharm boys were out there among the stars and planets and xenos, they had better just hope they’d brought some condiments along to stomach what they were going to get from her.

Yep. This was going to be an R and R trip for her; if it killed them and her, along with those bugs.

It would be nice to get away from the planet where Peter had died. Maybe, just maybe, she’d find the kind of peace—or war—she was looking for.

She was just sauntering back for another pour of coffee when a man whirled through the door. At first she thought it was Mr. Mover, pissed off and running back with that form to sign.

However, it was not the bottom-level bureaucrat at all.

It was Daniel Grant.

He didn’t see her. He ran toward the gangplank of the loading car for the shuttle, looking as though he wanted to climb on along with the baggage. He looked really bad, too, fancy duds all tattered and torn, shoes scuffed, and fancy haircut all frazzled.

“Yo!” she called out.

He swirled around, and the first thing that Kozlowski noticed was how bloodshot his eyes were, how baggy. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept much last night… only worse.

“Look, soldier. Tell me where I get on the shuttle?”

“Grant?” She went closer, eyeing him suspiciously. What, was the Drug King flying high or something?

“That’s right, soldier. You want to help me out? I’m in charge of this mission.”

“Colonel Kozlowski here, Grant—and the last I heard you were going to keep your oxfords firmly hugging ground.” Unfortunately, she was a bit too astonished to be properly sarcastic.

“Oh, yes… Colonel… of course. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough evening.” He sighed, looking back at the access room as though half expecting something to be following him. For a moment he looked lost and vulnerable, and quite a different human being entirely than how she’d seen him before. Something troubled her deeply about him… There was an aspect here that reminded her…

“Rough evening?” But the sun was rising…

“Er—yes.”

He seemed uncharacteristically at a loss for words. He kept on looking behind him.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Grant. Whoever’s chasing you can’t get through the base’s security unless they nuke the perimeter.”

“Chasing?” He seemed to shake something off. “Nothing of the sort… I just couldn’t sleep last night… That’s all… Got a little groggy, fell down a couple times—”

“Shouldn’t you see a doctor then?”

“No. No, Colonel, I’ll be just fine.”

Before her eyes, he seemed to be putting himself back together again. An amazing act of will. Somatic repair: straightening of poise, sucking in of stomach, stiffening of upper lip. Psychological repair: the psychic armor erected. The eyes recovered, and the willpower returned, the arrogance.

“I made a monumental decision last night, Colonel.”

“Did you.”

“Yes. This mission is far too important to my companies—to me—to allow… I mean, not to contribute my presence. I called both the admiral and the general last night and made arrangements. I’ll be going along with you, Colonel Kozlowski, to help oversee and participate in the effort.” He took in another breath, looking stronger by the moment.

“Are you.” Oh, this was just peachy keen.

“Yes. Specific orders are even now being sent over. Now, if you’d kindly drive me to the passenger portion of the shuttle?”

“No bags, Mr. Grant?”

“Er—uh—no. The decision was so abrupt, I did not have time to pack. I’ll use whatever’s on-board. However, the admiral assured me that there are communications facilities available aboard the shuttle that I can use to let my people know what’s happening—and dub someone to take my place while I’m gone.”

“That’s going to be a long time, Mr. Grant. Four months at least. A lot can happen to your company while you’re gone.”

“I trust my officers here… just as I trust you and your people on the Razzia. I’m not dealing with amateurs in either case.”

“No, of course not. But don’t be mistaken. It’s going to be plenty dangerous out there.”

Whatever danger was “out there” did not seem to faze Daniel Grant. He seemed far too preoccupied with whatever he was running away from here.

However, there would be plenty of time to find out exactly what that was later.

“Fine. We’ll put you on the shuttle with your boxes and the last group of marines going up.”

“Excellent, Colonel. I’m looking forward to working with you.” He could not seem to help himself, looking furtively around. “Ah—perhaps you could bring me some of that coffee and one of your military style donuts… oh, and an Alka-Seltzer. That would help a lot.”

Kozlowski stepped forward and poked him on the shoulder.

“Look, Grant. You’re in my territory now. I’m not your slave.” She pointed, cringing a bit. God, he smelled of alcohol. “There’s stuff over there in the office. Get it yourself.”

Then she stomped off to get on with her work… and check on the promised electro-dispatches. Only way she was going to allow Grant on the Razzia was if she was ordered to do so.

This little wrinkle in the future did not bode well.

8

When Grant closed his eyes, he could see Fisk’s face, grinning at him.

But he was tired. So tired.

He sat in a corner grav-couch of the shuttle, dimmest part, telling himself he was safe, telling himself it was okay, that he was in charge again.

Rest. He needed some rest.

He was alive, that was the important thing, he told himself. Miserable, but alive. Why had he ever gone out last night? He knew that he hadn’t made the payments to Fisk. He knew that Fisk’s temper got out of control sometimes.

A mistake. A goof. A snafu. It wouldn’t happen again, that was for sure. Of course, he had a few months to get the opportunity to high-life it again. By then, hopefully, the money due to Neo-Pharm and thus Grant Industries and thus Grant himself—the financial entity in direst need—would have arrived. He’d just called his CEOs and ordered them to pay Fisk what they could of his blood money…

Deal with the whole disaster, weep with poor Mabel Planer’s family, and make sure the insurance company paid off as though it had been on company time the girl had been shot…

And, above all, do what Grant was doing.

Survive.

He’d come damned close to falling off the edge of that state last night.

Even now he wasn’t quite sure how he’d done it. When those blasts had ripped through the booth and Mabel, some auxiliary mode in his musculature must have kicked in, because he’d never scrambled and dodged and ducked so well in his life. Some survival node in his brain must have clicked on as well. He’d done exactly the right thing, headed right on down to the dance floor. The wrigglers and flailers there, doubtless thinking that the explosions above were part of the show, were still going at it to the heavy localized pounding. He hadn’t dared to stop for the slightest moment. He’d dived to the exit, skipped his limo, sprinted blocks and blocks, falling down a few times, until he felt safe enough hailing a cab.

And still the chase had not been over. He’d spent most of the night hiding behind cans of garbage in an alley, waiting for one of his aides to come and pick him up. Then he’d directed him on a Toad’s Wild Ride to the launchport—and thus, he’d made it to the base, after a sleepless night, grateful to be alive.

In the comparative safety of the shuttle, strapped in above the equivalent of thousands of tonnes of GeligNuke®, Daniel Grant shuddered at the thought. No, he didn’t want to think about it… not for a while, anyway.

Sleep. Some blessed sleep… that was what he needed. Fisk’s ugly mug or no…

“Hey there. That seat by you taken?”

Grant’s eyes snapped open.

There, looming over him, was a Nordic god.

Thor with a haircut.

Well, not exactly. He was big and strapping, with blond hair and blue eyes and a smile above his square-cut chin. He looked not only damned competent, but perfectly content in that state, and perfectly comfortable in the fatigues that snugly fit his muscular limbs and torso.

Now this guy, thought Grant, looked like a leader.

“Ah—no. No… please, be my guest.”

The blond god secured a carryall bag in a storage bin, and then slid into the couch, not yet buckling himself in. “Name’s Henrikson. Corporal Lars Henrikson.” They shook hands. “You must be one of the Neo-Pharm fellows.”

“Yes. I’m Daniel Grant. I own Neo-Pharm.”

Henrikson did not react immediately He took the information in thoughtfully. “Ah, I had been told that you would not actually be on our expedition, Mr. Grant.”

“A last-minute decision.”

Henrikson assimilated this information and nodded, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.

“I see. Well, good, I say… with all respect. It’s good to see bosses take a personal interest in important tasks.” A slight bend of the mouth. “Get their hands a little dirty, you know.”

Grant smiled, the first time for what seemed like millennia. “Maybe I’m just trying to turn over a new leaf, Corporal Henrikson.”

He closed his eyes, hoping to give the man a clue that he’d like a little privacy inside his own head, maybe rest his bloodshot eyes.

Henrikson wasn’t the clue-taking kind.

“This is a special mission,” he said. “I can feel it in my bones. Nine times out of ten a group of marines head out into space, all they come back with are handfuls of boredom. I’ve had some of that out there, let me tell you. Soon as I got wind of this mission though, special duty entailing a beachhead on the alien Hiveworld… Well, I just jumped at the chance. Jumped.”

“Couldn’t get your fill of bug duty on Earth?”

Henrikson shrugged. “I’ve killed some bugs. Europe, mostly Special services. That’s probably why I got this gig—the experience. No, that’s not it though, sir—you see, I’ve got this feeling that the human race is destined for great things in this universe. Destined. And I’d like to do my bit to make that possible. And I guess I’m vain enough to think I’m a talented enough guy to deal with the kind of situation we’ve got lined up for us.”

Granted expected an inner groan of cynicism to echo in his head. Instead, he found the words oddly striking a sympathetic chord within him.

“That’s a compellingly homocentric view of the universe, soldier.”

Henrikson nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry… I’ve had people tell me that men are just accidents in the scheme of things. I don’t think so… Why… Because we’re men. We stand for something, goddammit. We’ve got values and order and… hell… purpose to bring to what amounts to a lot of godless space.”

“Indeed. Indeed! That kind of feeling would be a wonderful rabble-rouser… I mean, that would go a long way to heal the wounded spirit of humanity!”

“I know, sir. I know.” Henrikson nodded gravely. “And that’s why I’m here.”

“Excellent. Well, you know, Corporal, I think we’re going to have lots of time to discuss pertinent applications of that philosophy while we’re on our mission. In the meantime, I think I’d like to take a little time to compose myself before the blast-off of this shuttle. You know… for meditation… a little cat nap, perhaps…”

Henrikson looked over at Grant. “Ah. Yes, you do look a little tired. How thoughtless of me. Please, close your eyes. Relax. Snooze. I have my own inner warrior’s form of meditation. We shall meditate together.”

With that, the corporal’s eyes trained onto the front of his couch, and focused.

Well, so much for that. Rest and meditation was even valuable to big boy here. He should have tried that tactic before.

Oh, well. He knew he’d have someone of interest to talk to on the mission. He just wished now he’d brought along one of his PR men to jot all these golden thoughts down.

Grant let his heavy eyelids close.

He found peace for perhaps thirty seconds, before he heard the clamor of feet boarding the boat, closets opening, packs being stored, voices jabbering among one another.

“… look, chum. I’m telling you, that was the way it was… the music was the soul of the beats! The hot, cool black music of the streets, man. That’s where the streaming ice lava of the poetry came from to begin with!” The voice was annoyingly adenoidal and high-pitched.

“Look, Jastrow! I make one single comment the other day that I enjoyed reading the old free verse of the twentieth century… and you think I’m talking about the beat poets! I’m talking about a number of writers, including William Carlos Williams…”

Grant cracked his weary eyelids.

Couple of privates in fatigues and caps. White boy, black boy. White boy was the one carping on the literary and music themes. Unfortunate, but he could tune them out.

“Williams! But Williams was John the Baptist to Allen Ginsberg!”

“Sorry. Never heard of him.”

“‘Howl’? You read twentieth-century free verse, and you’ve never read ‘Howl’?”

“Well, come to think of it… Perhaps I have… but I still don’t see the connection between free verse poetry and jazz.”

“Sheesh. Not just jazz, budz. Be-bop! Here, let me show you.”

The conversation had become detached, as though Grant were listening to it through a tin-can telephone as he drifted into exhausted sleep.

Blaaaaat…!

High-pitched, running hell-for-leather up some spidery octave.

Bleeet… BLEEEEET…!

The sounds were fingernails and Grant’s brain had turned to chalkboard.

He jumped up, awake and disoriented. He hit his head on a low overhang and flopped back onto the couch.

Honk… honk HONNKKKKK!

He looked over. Sitting on the edge of a grav-couch was a black man wearing glasses and a grimace. His hands were over his ears. Opposite him was another bespectacled guy with a pocket-protector face. His thin lips were clamped on the mouthpiece of a big baritone saxophone.

Both had boot-camp bodies, but faces innocent of the heart of war.

Blat… blat… Blat!

“Can’t you hear it, Ellis?” he said, unclamping. “I have seen the finest minds of my generation—”

The natural force that was Corporal Henrikson reared up like a vengeful statue. “You guys want to give the rest of us in here some peace?”

His muscular hovering said it all. The salt-and-pepper twins blinked, flinching back.

“Gee—sorry, Corporal.”

“Just playing a little Bird, man.”

Henrikson stood rock-hard. “Well, I’m clipping your wings! This is not a place for that thing. Now over your head… maybe.”

Ellis looked as though he agreed, but Jastrow got a hurt-little-boy expression on his face as he put his musical instrument away in its case.

“I could use a few Z’s anyway, Jazz,” said Ellis.

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. We’ll continue this conversation later, though, huh?”

“Whatever.” The man sounded resigned.

Henrikson bent over Grant. “You okay, sir?”

“Sure. My ears are still ringing and I’m wide awake. But I’m okay.”

“We got a good fifteen before formal boarding, so maybe you should use them.”

“I’ll try, Corporal. Believe me, I’ll try.”

Henrikson shot one more warning look at the newly arrived duo and then resumed his grav-couch. Grant found Ellis and Jastrow peering at him curiously, obviously wondering who he was.

Grant could feel it even through his closed eyelids.

“Name’s Grant. The reason you’re on this mission,” he said. “Mind if we meet formally later? I’m trying to get a little rest.”

“Oh!”

“Oh, sure, sir. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Right. We’ll be real quiet.” Whisper. “Sheesh. That’s Daniel Grant, man! And you had to squeal that sax in his ear.”

“How could I know? I didn’t even see him!”

The whispers died into uneasy silence and once again Grant found himself slipping into an uneasy coma.

Which ended all too soon.

He’d been having a dream about his parents, and he hated to dream about his parents, so it was just as well. Still, it was all a little annoying.

The clump-clump of steps didn’t wake him. He barely heard it: background noise.

The shifting of bags, the snap of storage cases. No problem.

However, when a body fell directly onto him—that woke him up.

“Ooophhh!” he said.

“Gahhh. Oh, dear… damned floor! All these knobs and braces. Sorry!”

That the person was prominently female mitigated the hurt and shock somewhat, and not just because of the softer bits. She looked good and she smelled good, even in fatigues. She was a busty brunette with hair about as long as the Marines would let you wear it if you weren’t male, and rich dark eyes that now looked thoroughly repentant.

“That’s all right,” said Grant, flashing on the immediate lady smile. “I was hoping to get some rest before takeoff, but these things happen.”

She pushed herself off of him with ease and a great deal more grace than she’d shown in tripping onto him. “I do better in faux grav, for some reason. And null grav? I’m a swan.” She shrugged. “I’m just a space babe, that’s all there is to it, and I’ll be glad to lift off this—” She batted those splendid doe eyes. “Say. Haven’t I seen you… My God! You’re Daniel Grant, the big tycoon! I’ve seen you on the vids!”

“That’s me.”

“You look awfu—I mean, I guess you could use some rest.” She hobbled over to an empty grav-couch, and Grant, despite his weariness, was unable to take his attention off her delightfully swiveling hips. She turned. “I’d heard you were somewhere behind this mission. I didn’t think I’d get to really meet you though!”

“Well, get used to it, Private,” said Henrikson. “He’s coming along with us for the voyage.”

“No kidding! Well, isn’t that… Isn’t that news.” She swiveled back over, unconsciously smoothing her hair, and gave him her hand and a markedly breathier delivery. “My name is Edie Mahone. Private First Class—but I’m still young, and I really think I have quite a bright future with the Colonial Marines.”

Grant felt a little nonplussed and couldn’t help automatically turning on the charm—and wondering at the same time what this particular woman was doing in the Marines… and on this mission in particular. As he studied her though, he got an impression of strength beneath the apparent ditziness. The oh-gosh business was just an act. Beneath it, Grant could tell, was strength, and it turned him on. It challenged him.

“You have an interest in xeno development then?” said Grant.

“The bugs? Oh, no.” She shook her head, shuddered. “Hate ‘em. But then, who doesn’t? I can see your question coming. What’s a nice girl doing in a place like this?” She shrugged. “I’m just a space natural, I guess, Mr. Grant. I wasn’t fooling you… And on top of that, I’m a tactical weapons specialist.”

“Weapons specialist?”

“Yes, sir. Top scores.” A mischievous playfulness shaded her voice.

“I’m just glad you weren’t carrying any grenades when you fell over me.”

“Hmmm? Oh, yes… yes, of course. Mr. Grant, I really am sorry, and it’s such a surprise… maybe this mission isn’t going to be such a grim business after all.”

“I certainly hope not. Now, Private Mahone—I hope you’ll come to my cabin sometime for drinks and we’ll have a nice long chat. In the meantime, my sanity could really use a little rest before it gets rattled by takeoff.”

“Of course. Of course, Mr. Grant… sir. I’ll just hop into a couch over here and leave you alone… And—” She did a double take. “Drinks? Did you say drinks with a tycoon! Of course, Mr. Grant. I’d love to! I’m a regular media hound and I watch you all the time. I even bought that unauthorized paperback about you—is it true that your wife divorced you when she found you in your marriage bed with four naked women?”

Grant chuckled mischievously. “And a parrot. Don’t forget the parrot, Private Mahone.”

He was pleased the legend lingered.

The starstruck private shook her head and rapturously wandered back to her couch. Was it an act? He didn’t know. And he didn’t care.

Drinks with an attractive private who would probably be disappointed if he didn’t make a pass at her. After that tragic debacle last night, he was hardly in the mood for romance right now. But weeks into a space cruise with a bunch of scientists and hardened soldiers? The dominant Grant hormones would doubtless trot themselves out into quest-and-conquer mode. A willing female partner with the requisite assets was something that cheered him immensely.

Now, though, to sleep for just a brief sweet moment.

Grant let his head flop down into the cushion, gratified at the silence that the cabin had cloaked itself in. Respectful silence.

This wasn’t so bad, shipping out on a boat heading light-years away from Earth with a bunch of scientists and marines. It was his mission, after all… And he seemed to be getting the appropriate obeisance from his people.

This was good. This was very good. A kind of calm descended upon Daniel Grant. His knotted muscles unwound, and a sense of control of his environment began to knit itself around him. Yes, yes, perhaps it would work out for the best that he was coming along to supervise, to oversee… no, to control. The boys in the office knew well enough how he ran things by now. They could do exactly what he would do, whatever the situation. He didn’t have to be around. Instead, he should be doing exactly what he was doing. Heading for parts unknown, spreading his influence, his dominion.

Daniel Grant… a great man, destined for the stars.

The cadences of his self-congratulations lullabied him into that blessed relaxed land just short of slumber, where not even his mother was waiting to natter at him.

Ah…!

Sweet, gentle peace…

WOOOOOOONK!

WOONNNNNNNK!

The Klaxon rang like hell’s own trumpet.

“That’s the fire alarm!” cried Jastrow.

“Shit! Something’s wrong with the shuttle. We gotta get out of here, Mr. Grant!”

“Please,” murmured Grant. “Just let me lie here awhile. I’ll die if need be. Just let me sleep.”

“No can do, Mr. G!”

Grant felt himself being pulled up out of the couch, and physically carried down the ramp.

The cooler air outside was like a slap across the chops. He blinked, felt himself being jounced…

And then suddenly stop still.

“Let me down!” he demanded.

“Do what the man says, turkey! Now!”

Henrikson dropped him onto hard sheetcrete.

“Ow!” Groggily he scrambled up to his feet…

And found himself staring into the bores of 10mm blasters.

Connected to those blasters were Colonel Alex Kozlowski and a group of marines, travel sacks at their backs.

“Belay arms,” said Kozlowski, striding up to them, arms on hips. “If we were a group of bugs, you dopes would be bug food now! Emergencies demand emergency measures!” A toothpick stuck out from the side of her mouth. She worked it all the way to the other side of a scowl. “Isn’t that right, soldiers!”

The marines, who somewhere in the midst of all this had managed to effect uncomfortable poses of attention, immediately responded.

“Yes, sir!”

Kozlowski worked the toothpick.

“Besides, I haven’t assigned seats yet, have I?”

“No, sir!”

Kozlowski walked over to Grant, and stooped down beside him. “Welcome to your mission, Mr. Grant…” She spat the toothpick.

It stuck into the loose fabric of his pants.

“Welcome to my command.”

Grant sighed and closed his eyes again.

This sheetcrete was actually rather comfortable…

9

Darkness.

Darkness and dreams.

Dream logic tangled in its own shreds and chips of reality and magic.

For six weeks, Daniel Grant dreamed or didn’t dream, but in the overpowering darkness, the dreams were all he knew.

Moebius strips of dreams. Jump cuts. Swirls of victory and laughter and glory.

The depths of the past, into secret and overpowering fears.

Mostly, though, it seemed a short sleep, for the dreams were only brief releases of hypersleep to allow brain function and REM.

In the glass-case cubicle, embedded like a fly in amber, when the mechanism and gas mix slowly began to gently pry him from his slumber, Daniel Grant only vaguely sensed the springing of the lock mechanism of his case. He clung to his dreams, clung to the darkness, a sleeper drunk on sleep.

“Mr. Grant?”

A gentle female voice. Whose? It was sweet and kind and understanding. The kind of voice his ex-wife used to use, in their early love, when he gave himself only to her.

She seemed very real now, very much a part of reality in this darkness.

“Daniel?”

Martha. He’d been dating a lot back then, back in the halcyon days of Neo-Pharm, when he’d first bought it and was working on the beginnings of his empire. She was a model his ad company had hired for commercials. He’d swooped down and never come back up… not for a long time, anyway. Still, to this day, he was not sure why there had been others, years down the road. Old bad habits? Part of the lifestyle he’d loved? Pure stoking of an overblown ego?

He wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t troubled about it.

Except for moments like these, upon waking, when he doubted himself when he felt vulnerable.

“It’s time to wake up, Mr. Grant.”

Wake up? Where was he?

“We’ve got a lot to do.”

That voice. It certainly wasn’t Martha’s. He realized that now.

“So hop to it.”

It was a hard voice now, a voice used to being obeyed.

Grant realized that he was cold. He felt quite naked. Shivering, he raised himself.

He pried open his eyes.

Peripherally, he saw the overhanging cables and cold metal of the hypersleep chamber.

In front of him, crouching, was a good eight feet worth of talons, bony notched spars and open, angry jaws.

An alien!

He screamed.

He cringed.

Then he scrabbled back, instinctively throwing up his arms in a helpless gesture to protect him from this, the deadliest creature in the known universe.

Even as he squirmed, trying to grapple over the side of his hypersleep cubicle, what shreds of his rational mind that still operated realized something.

The thing wasn’t moving.

It was just hovering there, a few feet away.

And come to think of it, couldn’t he barely see a bulkhead through the murky black of its articulated body?

A shudder, a zwip! of light passed through it.

It wasn’t real… It was a…

From the left a woman in khaki fatigues stepped, holding a modular control unit.

Colonel Kozlowski.

The beast before him was just a hologram.

“Thought you might need to get your juices flowing.” She tapped a control, and moved the hologram away. “Welcome to the U.S.S. Razzia, Phase II.”

“God damn you, Colonel!”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “You want to be a part of the gang, don’t you, Grant? Just consider this a very mild hazing. You’re a member of the fraternity now!”

He wasn’t groggy at all. The adrenaline had managed to kick weeks’ worth of sleepdirt out of his head. Still, his heart was racing and he was damned angry.

And, what with only a pair of briefs between himself and nakedness, damned near naked!

He hopped out of his cubicle, one of ten spiraled around a central control and supply center. All the duraplas casings were lifted now, like translucent insect wings.

They had obviously let him snooze awhile longer than normal. All the other cubicles were empty.

“Why am I the last to wake?” he said, getting up and out of the thing, steadying himself on the side.

“You seemed real tired when we left, Grant. We all thought you could use a little extra sleep.”

“How far are we from our destination?”

“The gravitonic engines are cut off. We’ve got to use regular impulse engines to cruise among planets. We’ll be in orbit around the Hiveworld in four days.” She smiled. “Are you ready for some action, Mr. Grant?”

“It would appear I’ve already gotten some, Colonel.”

“What. From Black Fang here?” She smiled. “Just a training hologram. No reason to be embarrassed. Some younger recruits have soiled their skivvies because of Black Fang. Looks like you pretty much did okay.”

Grant snorted. “You have quite a warped sense of humor, Kozlowski. I guess we’re going to have to talk about that, and some other things in a few hours. Right now, I’d like to get some pants on.”

“Too bad. You look so cute that way.” She laughed and started walking away. “Come, boy! Come! Fun’s over. We’ve got some work to do.”

The holoprojection ghosted along beside her as she walked away toward wherever.

Grant shuddered. He took a deep breath, got his bearings, and headed off in the direction of the locker room where he’d left his clothing.

* * *

In the few days aboard the U.S.S. Razzia before he was tucked away in hypersleep, Daniel Grant had had very little time to familiarize himself with the full extent of this very large ship. He’d spent some time overseeing the operations of his scientists and he’d spent time getting some natural sleep. That was about it.

However, he did make sure he remembered where he put his clothes.

He wasn’t crazy about the immense and metallic coldness of the ship. The liner he’d taken from his home planet had at least catered to some human amenities. It gave some feeling of warmth and sociability. Here, aboard the Razzia, it was just a pure case of military utilitarianism. There was about as much decor inside the ship as on the outside.

All in all, Grant was just as happy to snore the time away.

What the hell was going on back on Earth now? he wondered. He’d warned his officers to stay inside, to hire security, and to reinforce measures. He’d even had them tender a small payment to Fisk’s “company.” Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but wonder. Still, whatever was going on, there was absolutely nothing he could do out here, light-years distant in some godforsaken quadrant of the half-known galaxy.

The locker room was down a narrow corridor.

Showers, toilets, benches.

It looked, smelled, tasted, felt like something out of his high school sports hero’s days. Funky, but somehow homey. Oddly comforting.

A tall blond man was in the corner, buckling the belt of his pants. Oddly enough, he was wearing dark glasses. They made him look more like the MacArthur school of officer than a corporal.

“Henrikson? You just get out of cold sleep, too, buddy?”

The corporal turned and looked at him. “Early this morning. Just finished exercising, sir.”

“Just kicked my butt out of bed now. Wonder why they kept me down so long?”

“Maybe they just wanted things spick-and-span for you, sir.”

“You have a first name?”

“As I told you before, sir. It’s Lars.”

“Oh, right. That’s it. Lars. Tell you what. You can call me Dan.”

The corporal nodded. “Thanks… Dan.”

Grant found his locker. Racked his brain. His memory coughed up the combination. He twirled the dial back and forth. The lock snapped open. Inside were the civvie scientist grays they’d provided him with, since he hadn’t brought along any of his own clothes, and the duds he’d come in with were pretty shredded.

He put his pants on.

“You know,” said the corporal, “times like these make me wish I could pop a tab or two of that Xeno-Zip you make. Unfortunately, tests have determined that chances are pretty good I’d go berserk even on the regular stuff. Damned skittish metabolism.”

“Oh, well,” said Grant paternally. “I’m sure you’re a damn fine soldier without it.” He grew thoughtful. “I’ll tell you, Lars. You must be pretty sick of that colonel of yours.”

“Colonel Kozlowski. Our commanding officer.”

“She had a bug holo waiting for me when I woke up.”

“No kidding. She must like you then.”

“Like me? Scared hell out of me. Said it was some sort of hazing.”

“Tough. She’s pretty tough all right, the colonel is.”

Grant was surprised. “C’mon. We’re friends. You don’t have to pull that loyalty crap with me. Tell me the truth… you’ve hated her for months, right?”

In a we-men-gotta-stick-together tone.

Henrikson’s face was peculiarly immobile. Behind those shades, his eyes were unreadable.

“Mr. Grant. I guess you could say I feel like I’ve taken you under my wing. You don’t know much about the military… and here you are on a military craft. There are things you have to understand about the military… and I guess it’s not that much different from business life. Maybe even simpler.”

Grant smiled. “Right! I knew we could be chums.” He continued Velcroing his suit. Damned thing! It sure as hell chafed!

“I’m a corporal. I haven’t been in the Colonial Marine Corps that long. But I have previous military experience.”

“Exterminating bugs?”

“That’s not all the military does in this universe, Mr. Grant… Sorry. Dan. Sir.” He sighed. “Whatever. At any rate, my point is that it’s dog-eat-dog, here. Domination, but in a codified, respectful fashion. I’ve only served under the colonel since she culled me from the ranks to be on this mission. She’s earned my respect.”

“Oh. But she seems to have some kind of chip on her shoulder. Think she’s just trying to make up for not having one between her legs?”

“Like I said, Dan. You’ve got things to learn. There are codes and games. Just like everything in life. You learn the ropes…” He shrugged. “Maybe these little attitude snits… Well, I guess you’ve pulled a few in your time at Grant Industries.”

Daniel Grant considered. “I suppose I have. In my own charming way. Good point.”

“The colonel is totally in command. And she treats every one as an equal. And if she chooses to dump a little extra shit on your ears…” A brusque shrug. “Well, then like I said, Dan. She must like you.”

Grant thought about that a moment.

“Fair enough, Henrikson. That doesn’t mean I have to like her, does it?”

Henrikson put a hand on his new friend’s shoulder.

“Any woman ever treat you like this before?”

Grant considered. “Yes. My wife!”

“And what did you do about it?”

“I divorced the bitch!”

Henrikson smiled. “Well, you’ll have to marry the colonel to do that! I reckon the captain of the ship’s got the legal right to do that.”

“Marry… Henrikson, I wonder who’s got the more warped sense of humor. You or me!”

“From what you tell me, sounds like the colonel does. I’ll watch for that little holo trick. She hasn’t done that number on me—yet.”

“She must not like you, Henrikson.”

“No, I guess not.” The corporal gave a farewell nod and started leaving the locker room.

“You’re a lucky man, Lars.”

“We’ll see, Dan. We’ll see.”

The big man was gone.

Grant sighed. He Velcroed his ship shoes, and made a pit stop at the head.

Next stop: his scientists, and his little secret project.

That should make him feel back in the saddle again!

10

“How we doing, Pilot?” asked Colonel Kozlowski.

The man was bent over away from her, obscuring the motions of his hands. Around him ranged a convex field of lights. LCD screens played spectacular spectrum games. Lume-points glittered, waiting for computer input. From this angle, she could see his bald spot, like the top of a hairy egg.

“Fine, Colonel,” he said in a monotone. “Almost finished.”

His elbow swiveled. His head nodded.

One last telemetry check?

The culmination of a final primary diagnostic of the Razzia’s sys/ops and structural integrity after its long cruise through sub-Einsteinian planes of warped mathematics?

One more little flourish of his hand and he turned to her. “What’s up, Colonel?” He’d turned so that now Kozlowski could see that his hand was nowhere near any of the controls. He held a pencil and a book of crossword puzzles. The blocks in the puzzle were all filled now.

“An interesting form of duty report, Captain,” said Kozlowski coldly.

The man’s lined, pale face remained impassive. He shut the book, slipped the pencil behind a large, hairy ear, and folded his arms together. “You forget, Colonel. You got a nice long snooze. I got to wake up for a few weeks, to check on things. Part of my job. Got to keep something going to prevent the ennui from driving me nuts. Little diversion of mine.” He tapped the book. “Got a whole library of them. After twenty-six years in the Marines, I got lots filled, too. Next year I retire. Bought a nice little chicken ranch on the Ulna colony. And then, I don’t want to see the inside of another freakin’ interstellar vessel… or for that matter the inside of another crossword puzzle book again.”

“Just the inside of chickens.”

The pilot-captain’s name was Hastings. Phillip Hastings.

Hastings shrugged. “The ancient Greeks used to study bird entrails to predict the future. Wonder what a split-open one would tell us now.”

“A few tomorrows of many spilled bug guts, hopefully. I take it by your inaction that everything is functional, we’re on course, minor things like that.”

“We got navigators and copilots and engineers to take care of that garbage, Colonel. I just oversee and coordinate.” Hastings looked like a good soldier gone to seed. Beer belly. Slack skin that had that waxen look that toned muscular bodies get when they don’t get exercised for a few years. He had thinning brown hair and a network of burst capillaries in his nose. From the look of him, he wasn’t just going to raise chickens upon retirement. He was going to do some serious drinking.

Nonetheless, she—and doubtless Daniel Grant as well—had been assured that he was the best in the business. That he was a burnout did not seem to be important.

“What can I do for you, Colonel?”

“I’m briefing the troops. I thought you might like to join us.”

“I’m not going down to that hellhole. Why should I?”

“I thought you might find it educational. These bugs have popped up all over the universe—and they spread via ships, as you know. Thought you might like to know some tactics against them.”

The captain sucked a lip. “Thanks, Colonel. You going to tape the meeting?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll watch it some other time.”

“Miles and miles of crossword puzzles to do before you sleep?”

Hastings scratched his nose. “Something like that.”

“I am in command, Captain. I can order you to be at that meeting.”

“Then you already would have, wouldn’t you? You gave me an option and I’m exercising that option.” He leaned forward and tapped LCD displays. “Besides, we’re in a planetary system now. A strange system can have all kinds of phenomena waiting. Gravity wells, black holes… as well as the usual meteor showers, comets, asteroids… I like to ride close shotgun at times like this.” He tapped his book. “Besides, I’ve got some more puzzles to do.”

She was ticked off at the guy, but he’d rummaged up a good excuse, so she really couldn’t pull rank.

She just wished the admiral had given her someone with a better attitude, that was all.

“Just make sure we don’t crash into any moons, Captain.”

Captain Hastings turned to his left where a miniature holotank filled with blips and sparks and readings hung. “No moons in our immediate future.”

He opened his puzzle book and went back to work.

Kozlowski turned and stomped away.

* * *

She stopped at her cabin first. She went inside and splashed some water into her face. Had she done the right thing? Should she have made Hastings go to the meeting?

He was right about not really having to, but his lack of interest, his insolence, annoyed her. She had the command here. He should be doing not only what she told him—but what she suggested as well.

Kozlowski wiped her face with a towel, looked into a mirror.

She had a lost look to her eyes.

Light-years from home.

She’d fought for her planet a very long time. She’d learned the basics of space travel so that she could carry the battle against these creatures to their home. Now, though, like some mythological being, she felt cut off from a source of her power.

Nonsense, of course. Foolishness. All just knots and complexes of neural patterns, easy enough to blast apart. She was a fighting machine and she was just taking a ferry to another part of the battle.

Still, why did she feel so homesick?

She’d popped out of hypersleep a full two days before the others, so she could do some work with the tactical computers as well as knock some of the stasis sleep out of her brain. Wrapped up in maps and facts, figures and projections, inventorying weapons and supplies, and rebriefing herself on the armor, she’d been in her own little world.

Now, though, with a day full of the troops waking up, the whole thing was starting to get to her.

Thirty troops were going to jump down right into the thick of thousands, maybe even millions of creatures that could give even biblical demons a scare, with only some half-proven experimental weapons to do the job.

Okay, girlie, she told herself. Just knock that look right off your repertoire. Either that, or get it out of your system, here and now.

There was no reason for this kind of doubt. The Hiveworld had been raided before. True, there had been casualties. However, there had been survivors. She’d studied their reports. Wilks. Billie whatshername. Nasty stuff, but compelling.

Kozlowski had no illusions.

You deal card hands from the bug decks, you came up holding some casualties. Now, though, here on her first big extra-Earth mission, she’d watched the troops get up today, stretch and go through their metaphorical thawing, and when she saw the vulnerability in their eyes, that moment of terror, that oh-shit-here-we-are expression, she felt what they felt.

Even with that asshole Grant.

Ever since what had happened with Peter Michaels, maybe she was just getting soft…

Of course there was a reason she’d pulled the holostunt with Grant. He’d been making noises before sleepytime that he wanted to jump down with them for the mission, to see it firsthand. She was just trying to discourage him, that was all.

Maybe, just maybe the meeting would rattle him. When she thought deeply enough about all the implications, it sure as hell rattled her.

She closed her eyes, did some inner self-composure exercises. What came up wasn’t calm and a deep peace, though. What came up was Daniel Grant. She didn’t feel good about him being here. Not good at all. For complex reasons she didn’t care to deal with just right now.

Even though she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to do it, she went to her bag and pulled out a medicine bottle full of the reason Daniel Grant bothered her.

She cut a tablet of Fire in half. She’d tried to give it up, no go. Maybe after this fracas was over.

She washed the half-tablet down with a glass of water.

Then she finished getting ready for the briefing.

11

The bug wavered, capered, lunged.

Drool cascaded down its mouth into the shadows.

Its exoskeleton seemed to glow with evil, spikes sticking out of its back erecting.

The thing looked like a dinosaur attempting to shapeshift into the Devil.

“Yum yum,” squawked a reptilian voice. “Fee fie fo fum. I smell the blood of a bunch of bums!”

Uneasy laughter rippled among the assemblage.

“Any of you sweethearts want a date with my ovipositors?” it snarled. “Looks like we’d have a wonderful party. You all look like absolutely splendid hosts.”

Groans.

Colonel Kozlowski twirled the dial of the holo-projector, and the bug program faded. She let her voice assume its normal timbre as she looked out at the group of amused, anxious marines.

“Okay, listen up, people. I promise you right now, this is going to be no party. But we didn’t come all these light-years to party, did we? We came to help make this galaxy safe for peaceful, sentient life. As long as these things infest any of our planets or ships or space colonies anywhere in an uncontrolled and above all misunderstood fashion, the future of humanity is threatened.”

The briefing room felt like the interior of a metal egg, subtly lit in the curved corners. All of the soldiers assigned for planetfall sat in rows of comfortable, slanted chairs, as though in some military theater. They sat at a kind of alert attention. Professionals. Damned good people all of them, and Kozlowski should know. She had helped to select every single one of them.

In the front of the room, alongside her podium, was a table where the big shots in the mission sat, ready to support her in her explanations. Grant. A few of his scientists. Some crew members.

“These killers, these reprehensible aliens, have just got their claws and their blood and their teeth and their incredible powers of survival as weapons…” She paused for impact. “Our ignorance is their primary weapon, and I hope to diffuse a little more of that with you today.”

The soldiers all looked entranced. Hanging on her words. These people had been briefed on xenos before, but now they greedily lapped up the information she was presenting. She was familiar with the phenomenon. When you were a soldier, you could act as macho and as confident as you wanted to—but if you didn’t listen and absorb every ounce of information handed to you, you could find yourself dead. Smart soldiers learned to listen. These grunts were smart and capable. Quirky, maybe, but she’d gone through the choices with the command herself, and not one of these people didn’t belong here.

Too bad about people like the captain, Grant, and his castle of Frankenstein scientists. But then, if she had control over everything, pfft! The aliens would be instant slag, and Peter Michaels would be back.

Anyway, she had some interesting information here.

Her theatrics at the beginning had probably not been necessary, but she liked to put a little pizzazz into the proceedings.

She began with the parameters of the mission.

“Quite simply, people, as much as I’d like to say all this is perfect and noble in our mission, it’s not. We’re going to a planet which is the origin of the xenos in this sector of the galaxy. We’ll be using a specially fitted lander. People, we’ve got the latest in technology at our disposal. Basically, we’re going in to do a robbery. Now, ultimately I have no doubt this will be in humanity’s best interest so take whatever nobility you can from your participation here. However, what we’re up to here is the biggest heist of queen mother jelly in history.”

Jastrow waved an excited hand. “Why?”

“Officially, I can’t tell you. You’re just supposed to do what you’re ordered to do. Unofficially, though, I don’t give a shit.” She grinned. “Xeno-Zip.”

An excited buzz sounded in the meeting room.

“That’s why Daniel Grant is here,” someone whispered.

“Heck, I use that stuff,” another said. “It’s great.”

“That’s right, people,” said Kozlowski. “We’re on a glorified drug run. Take my word for it, though. I’m personally assured that it will make someone a great deal of money—”

Laughter.

“And maybe even help the human cause as well. In any case, be assured. We’re taking the Alien-Earth War to the source, and we’ll most certainly kill lots of xenos in the process. Call it hard-core vengeance if you like. Call it just another job. In any event, we’re here together so I can provide you with some information and equipment designed to preserve your sorry lives.”

Quickly she rattled off some of the basics about the xenos, their behavior, their attack patterns, individually and in groups. She summarized what was known about the Hiveworld, and what the main hive itself looked like, from the information provided by the previous expedition. It was all like a mantra, and she ticked off the info, point by point.

“Now then. As for the interior of the hive…” She thumbed the projector to a prepared setting, kicking in the holotank in the corner.

Like some magician she conjured up a vision from the depths of Hades.

Here was the familiar bowellike tomb, ropey with intestoid projections and ridged with tubing, bumps, and alien growths, organic in the very worst and most frightening sense. All hellishly lit in orange and yellow. In the central portion of this chilly sight squatted a huge bulblike protuberance, like a half-planted flower bulb. However, instead of bright and colorful plumage, from its pustulelike side it sprouted tubings that connected to other, slightly smaller bulbs.

And from its top, like Mephistopheles happily squatted atop a pile of his own excrement, rose a gently swaying royal giantess.

An alien queen mother.

“All right.” She snapped on a cursor-blip pointer and guided it over to the central sack. “What we have here is a quite realistic computer animation suggesting what we might find in the alien central chamber, once we locate it.

“This is where we’ll find that royal jelly that Mr. Daniel Grant has sent us after,” she said.

Grant, seated at the table in a position similar enough to the chairman-of-the-board’s attitude to make him comfortable, leaned back, hands behind the back of his neck. “That’s right. And if you can trap a queen mother, that would be okay by me.”

“Trap?” said Private Jastrow, a little dubiously.

“It’s been done before,” assured Private Ellis.

“Sounds awfully dangerous!” piped Private Mahone, looking quite doubtful about the whole enterprise.

“Private—this whole trip is dangerous. You knew that when you volunteered. Anything involving these things is dangerous…” Kozlowski stepped up the magnification threefold, focusing in upon the queen. “Alice in Wonderland time, people. Listen up. We’re going in the hive, and pulling this stuff out. Along the way, we will not be delicate. In any event, be assured… we’ve by no means come here to preserve the species. Kill all the creatures you want,” she said brightly.

Easy laughter.

“So then, let’s cook up a little preliminary strategy on how you pry open a bug hive, shall we?”

With the aid of more prepared graphics, she delineated the technology, science, and tactics that would allow a group of marines to storm a nest of the nastiest monsters in the universe.

“So… basically—guns, guts, and lots of luck!” she said. She paused for a moment as her people tried to assimilate her words.

She let them twist in the wind for a moment as a parade of aliens wilted before the onslaught of cartoon marines. The blasts from the heavy millimeter carbines tore through the heads and carapaces, splashing splinters of alien exoskeleton hither and thither along with gobs of alien blood that fell upon the marines and the scene like cancerous amoebas.

Kozlowski froze the animation.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

Jastrow raised a tentative hand. “Wishful thinking?”

“Yes. Fantasy, perhaps. Only showing the aliens eating marines wouldn’t exactly be the best way to raise your morale, would it?”

“Not particularly, no,” mumbled Ellis.

“Wait a minute,” said Henrikson. “All that alien blood on the troops. It doesn’t seem to faze them. That stuff makes toxic waste look like cotton candy.”

Kozlowski snapped her fingers. “My man! Exactly!”

“What about the acid blood?” said Edie Mahone. “Can you tell us something about that?”

“Some good news for you all there. We do have something special for you. Something that’s going to buck your morale right up.” She smiled. “But first, let me remind you it’s still very important that at close distance you try and avoid the torso. The splatter potential is quite bad. It’s best to go for the knees.” The cursor in the air flew to one of the strong and knobby alien lower joints. “As many of you have already discovered, a shot to the knee will not only hamper the alien’s mobility… but such a wound also minimizes bleeding and spatter potential. A discreet coup de grace to the head at that point is made possible. But then, of course, if you haven’t actually been in battle with the things, you’ve at least had simulation chamber experience… save perhaps for Mr. Grant.”

“I’m hardly going to exactly participate in the mayhem, now am I, Colonel?” said Grant.

“As you’ve never handled a gun before, I hope not…” said Kozlowski dismissively. “Now then… I’ve kept you all waiting long enough…” She pulled out a com unit. “Thank you, Doctor, for waiting in the wings. You may come out now, and by all means bring your assistant with you.”

She turned to the audience, most of whom were on the edge of their seats with suspense.

Kozlowski turned quite serious.

…Michaels, his head molten and sizzling, skin sliding from naked skull…

She suppressed the memory.

“I know the blood issue is of great concern to all of you, so I’m happy to present an innovation that should all but do away with your fears.”

Yeah. Right.

Pep talk. Maybe that’s what she’d given too much of to poor Peter. Maybe if he’d been properly scared shitless and quaking in his sweatsocks, he wouldn’t have had to act like the Big Man and gone to that trap.

She swallowed down a dry throat, resumed.

“For more on that, I turn you over to Dr. Zato.”

Dr. Zato, one of Grant’s squids.

The man waltzed into the room like a stand-up comedian just called on to do his act. He was a toady little guy, who blinked as though the light was too much. Receding hairline. High IQ dandruff.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a high, munchkin voice, “I give you your next best friend—”

The assistant walked into the room slowly, clearly a little weighted down by what he wore, but not uncomfortably so.

Armor.

“Here it is, folks. The Z-110 Acid-Neutralizing Combat Wardrobe.”

The assistant wore a streamlined, snazzy-looking jumble of plates, silver and blue in hue. A combination of insect and tortoiseshell. On the back was a compact storage unit. A narrow-visored helmet fitted snugly over his head. An antenna angled out of the back.

Kozlowski had seen it before, but the sight of it still impressed her.

And if it could do what Doc Z. claimed—well, all the better!

“Efforts to produce an armor resistant to the intense acidity of the alien blood have proved impractical.”

Ellis waved his hand, got called upon. “Yeah. I always wondered about that. We’ve got the chemical composition of the alien’s exoskeleton down cold. That isn’t eaten up by alien blood, clearly. And it’s light enough. How come its elements aren’t used for armor?”

“Well, that would be all very good, Private, if you’d care to be encased in a toxic suit.”

“You can’t make an alloy… or have that stuff as the uppermost layer?” insisted Ellis.

“Incompatible. What we have here in the aliens is a different kind of chemistry. Part carbon-based, part silicon-based—and maybe something else.”

“But we’re starting to learn to use their DNA.”

“Fooling around with genes and chromosomes doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve got everything solved, Private. These things are still mysteries wrapped in enigmas. Believe me, your suggestions have been tried.” He shook his head patronizingly. “Just doesn’t work.”

“So there was some kind of armor that wasn’t affected by the alien blood?” said Mahone.

“That’s right. But it was too heavy. Now if we were working in low-gee environments, maybe. Such is not the case on the Hiveworld. These suits were already in the works when this mission was established. We tailored the batch we brought along just for this occasion—with all your specific measurements in mind.”

“No chance to return these, huh?” said Jastrow.

“That won’t be necessary, I assure you. What we’ve got here is a new process, but we’ve been testing it for years, and we’ve got it down exactly.”

He went over to the suit and poked the side of the arm.

The surface gave.

“What we have here is a light, effective armor, covered with a permeable membrane controlled by a mechanism in the back of the suit. It’s kind of like having the whole suit engulfed by a friendly jellyfish that will grow back immediately if hit. Its function is quite useful.

“Before, the suits that worked were too heavy. Therefore what we have here is a self-contained osmotic demi-atmospheric suit that does not resist, but extirpates.

He poked the suit again.

“The moment alien blood touches this wardrobe, the threat is eliminated altogether.”

He took a vial marked ACID from his pants pocket, twirled it open, and poured drops onto the shoulder of the suit.

The top layer frizzled, bubbling.

Kozlowski had to make herself watch.

The bubbling was only for a moment, though.

Fluid welled, swallowing the acid.

The membrane closed up the hole within moments, and it was as though the acid had never been.

“Yeah, but how tough is that stuff?”

“It’s a form of plastic, and it can be cut… but it’s even better than skin… it naturally re-forms into its previous mode within seconds, and chemically rebonds itself. A healing process, if you will.”

“What about inside. I mean, we haven’t exactly been trained in those sort of suits,” said another man.

“That’s one of the beauties of the things. In all details, the interior, the articulation, and the booster servos of the suits are identical to what you all have been trained to use. The other aspects are self-regulating. Maintenance will be needed, of course, but only after an encounter with the enemy. I should emphasize that this armor isn’t perfect. It will wear out, though it should stand up during battle. Nonetheless try and avoid any alien blood you can. Don’t go wading in it.” He nodded to his assistant. “Go ahead. Let them have a close look.”

The man strode around the room.

The soldiers poked and prodded the model.

“Goddamn. I’m going to feel like rubber-boy!” said Ellis.

“This is going to give a whole new twist of the saying ‘Bouncing back!’ ” suggested Jastrow.

“Okay,” said Kozlowski, after giving them a couple of minutes to handle the merchandise. “You’ll all have the opportunity to get used to these suits in special exercises we have planned every day for the remainder of the journey. But for now, listen up! ‘Cause this is how we’re going to use these things.”

And she told them.

12

One drink down.

Two more to go.

“Another glass of bubbly, my dear?” said Daniel Grant, pulling the bottle out of the thermo-adjuster and tilting it even as he asked the question.

“It is awfully delicious—but…” said Edie Mahone, holding out her hand.

Glug glug glug.

The quite large glass filled with bright, dazzlingly effervescent fluid.

“Of course you will. You’re off duty, you need to relax, and we’ve got three whole days before your mission,” said Daniel Grant. “Our mission!”

He refilled his own glass with the double-strength champagne. Damned good thing he was feeling generous with his team on the Razzia. He’d fitted them out with his own concept of hardship supplies. Hell, if they had to go to the other side of nowhere to suck some bug juice from some godforsaken planet, at least they should do so in style. Now, he was reaping the rewards of his own munificence.

“Well, if you insist. I know your time is valuable and I hate to take it up by asking you really silly questions. But I have been following your career, and I do have more questions.”

Somehow the alcohol seemed to have unlocked this woman’s pheromones. She smelled good, damned good, and Daniel Grant breathed her scent in greedily. Of course she wore no perfume—a ridiculous and foolish luxury for a person on a highly un-glamorous journey in a tin can through space with a bunch of males. That didn’t make any difference. Hell, he was tired of perfume. What he had here before him was the dangling, rounded hair and breasts and lovely limbs of a full-blooded woman.

His last date had hardly been fulfilling. And the gritty details attendant to moving the Razzia and himself toward hyperdrive and hypersleep had pretty much put a hold on his appetites. But as soon as the sleep-rheum drained from his head, he immediately became aware of how horny he was. The incident on the shuttle made him naturally think of Private Edie Mahone. After Colonel Kozlowski’s briefing, he’d suggested that after evening mess she might like to stop by for that promised drink. He always enjoyed talking to fans about his career, and he was quite upset about the gross inaccuracies of that trashy book about him, and wanted to set some things straight—

…uhm, so to speak.

Two to go.

He’d sized her up. She was a three-drink girl. In two drinks she’d be pliable. Three she’d sit closer, lean those dark eyes toward him, let that sweet, fresh, scrubbed scent of her dart in for a kiss.

Then snap! Like a patient angler fish, he’d swallow her up for a delicious hour or so, and then spit her back out. They’d both be happy, sated, and better able to deal with the grim realities before them.

She brought the topped-off glass up to those full, moist lips and drank half the glass in a couple swallows. He was impressed and gleeful at this. “My, but this is wonderful stuff.”

“My own special vintage!” said Grant. “You’re one of the few people who’ve actually tasted it.”

“Goodness! Then I shouldn’t be so shy, should I? I don’t want to be impolite when I’m so privileged!” With that, and a down-the-hatch determination to her face, she took the large glass and swallowed the rest of it.

That had been a very large portion. This, perhaps, would be very short work!

“Yes, right.” In a moment she’d probably have to step off to his private toilet and he’d slip the last bit of liquor into her glass. He had to play it cool though now. “You were asking me about my youth?”

Edie Mahone had an odd expression on her face. She seemed not to be listening to him, just in a kind of trance.

“Edie? Edie… are you all right?”

“Mr. Grant…”

“Daniel…” he said. “I told you, you can call me Daniel.”

She got quiet. She closed her eyes.

Hmm, thought Daniel Grant.

Maybe two glasses of the old id-tickler was all that was necessary!

He scooted closer.

“You know, Edie… We’re basically just two people… a man and a woman with needs… out in the middle of nowhere… We should comfort one another, the way that normal human males and females do…”

Edie Mahone snorted. She sniffed, and the straight line described by her lips crumpled into misery. Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, Daniel…” she mewled, and then dissolved into a quivering mess onto him, arms wrapped protectively over her abdomen. “I don’t know what I’m going to do…”

“Uhmm… Edie… what’s wrong?”

“I made a terrible mistake. I never should have come along on this mission. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I just wanted to be light-years away. Light-years from him.”

“Him?”

“Chuck!”

Chuck. Oh, yes. A boyfriend. The usual story.

Grant began to stroke her back comfortingly. He could feel her muscles relax. Oh, yes, this was going to be soooooo easy!

“Tell me about him?”

“What’s to tell?” she said in a monotone voice. “Love with the wrong guy. He was in my troop. Started sleeping with our lieutenant. No way to compete. Only thing to do is to ship out. Chuck wasn’t going to. So I’d tested high in all necessary categories, I’ve got the skill and the experience. And now the reason. But now that I wake up here… Now that I see those pictures, I remember what it was like, the one actual nest experience I had.” Grant could feel her shudder. “It’s worse than cold and forbidding out here. And those things. They’re worse than devils.”

“There, there, dear. I know how you feel.” She was wearing a green fatigue shirt with buttons down the front. He slowly unbuttoned the top one.

“I know you do. I can feel it. You’re really a sympathetic man, a good man… beneath that hard, caustic surface. I could tell that… even in the book.”

Another button.

“You’re a very special woman, Edie… You deserve comforting.” Another button. He could see a fleshy swell of bare bosom, held in check by a tan bra. Out here in the harsh and cold of space, it struck him as one of the most erotic sights he’d witnessed.

He slipped his hand inside her shirt. Soft, warm, pliable.

Ah!

She said nothing. She hardly seemed to notice, wrapped up in her own misery.

Maybe she didn’t really want this. Maybe she’d just let him have his way, like a trusting lamb, helpless before the slaughter. Maybe he really shouldn’t take advantage of this vulnerable soul this way…

Bullshit, he thought, remembering his personal philosophy Plunder while the plunder’s available.

“You know, Edie, I can’t think of anything more soothing than if we gave each other hot oil massages. You’ll feel much better. Now let me just help you off with this scratchy old uniform and then—”

There was a pounding on the door.

Private Edie Mahone jumped about a foot in the air, eyes going wide. “Who’s that?” she said, pulling away from his embrace.

“No one! I’ll get rid of them!”

She stuffed herself back into bra and fatigues, sobering up in record time.

“Grant!” called a too-familiar voice. “I know you’re in there. Answer the damned door. There’s something wrong with your comm unit.”

“Colonel Kozlowski!” said Mahone, jumping up and away from Grant’s grasp for her. Quickly she ran into his toilet to straighten herself out. She turned back and gave Grant a harsh you’re-just-like-the-book-says-you-are look. Then, in a rush of indignation and alarm, she was gone.

Pound. Pound. “Grant. We need to talk.”

Daniel Grant had to take a deep breath and straighten his pants as much as possible. Calm yourself. The bitch doesn’t need any kind of salute from you.

Then he got up and hit the door hydraulics. It slid open, and characteristically Colonel Kozlowski just stormed on in. “You know, with only three days to go, you can’t expect to just hole yourself up.”

“I was having a conference. Getting to know our troops,” said Grant, rearing up to every inch of six feet two.

She glared at him, not buying his attempt at dominance for a moment. “Troops?”

“Private Edie Mahone. She’s in the bathroom. She was having a few doubts about the mission.”

Kozlowski raised her eyebrow. “Oh, yeah—?”

Edie Mahone came out of the head, looking perfectly composed and professional. “Thank you, Mr. Grant. You’ve been a real gentleman, but I have to go now…”

“Mahone. Why aren’t you studying…?”

“Free time, sir. I can use it according to my discretion. Permission to leave, sir?”

“Permission granted,” said Kozlowski in a disgusted tone. She didn’t even watch as the private departed, a study of healing wounded dignity.

Grant felt mightily vexed.

Sexual frustration piled upon a direct intrusion upon his privacy by a woman wearing confrontation over her head like a storm cloud.

Back on Earth, had this situation arisen, so might have the infamous Daniel Grant temper. A rant, a rave, a metaphorical chomping off of the head. Employee or associate, pressman or president, it would make no difference. Grant would have made mincemeat of them.

He could feel it burbling up, steaming through his capillaries. One little vent was all it would take, and the explosion would blast.

However something gave him pause.

Something odd aglint in this feistmeister of a woman’s eye. She did present a fetching figure in those skintight duds she wore. And if you got past the cropped, patchy hair, the defiant lack of softening makeup, and those scars she wore like medals…

If you turned down the lights a bit and smudged a little with mind and imagination, this Kozlowski bitch was really quite the looker.

He looked at her. He looked at the unopened bottle of champagne in its cooler slot. He looked back at her, suddenly oily with cordiality.

“Well, Colonel. As long as you’re here—”

* * *

The gall!

She looked at him as though he’d just opened his zipper and wagged his privates at her.

The unmitigated gall!

“No, Mr. Grant. I will not have a glass of champagne with you!”

Daniel Grant stepped back as though she’d blasted a breath of fire at him. “You don’t drink.”

“I drink. That’s not what I came here for, though.”

“You don’t like champagne. I promise you, you’ll not taste better. Besides, Colonel… We’re three days away from Death leering at us. Carpe diem. Seize the day!”

She wasn’t sure why she was so annoyed at his offer. He was right. She’d pretty much finished most of her tasks for the day anyway, and the Colonial Marines were unfortunately not a military navy force known for packing away kegs of rum onboard for the officers.

She’d been working hard for three days. Her mouth was dry. And here was some high-quality, rich man’s champagne being offered to her. She hadn’t had a drink in weeks, and she could feel her tastebuds and her nerves, falling to their knees and begging her to accept the offer.

She told them to go screw themselves.

“I’m here, Grant, to officially request that you allow me to tour the levels assigned to your scientists on this mission. In the interests of the success of our journey, I feel the need to know everything going on in this ship.”

Grant nodded. “Ah. I see. This, despite what your superiors told you. To wit: that is not your territory of concern.”

“Yes. I have given it a great deal of thought. Any ignorance on my part could spell a danger to my troops and this vessel.”

“I thought the captain was in charge of the actual vessel. He doesn’t seem to care much what’s going on on Decks E and F.”

“The captain? He’s a burnout. He does just the minimum to get by, counting things out by crossword. I honestly wonder why he was given this particular duty.”

“He seems quite competent to me…”

Nonetheless, Grant did not say no.

Instead, he pushed a button that depressurized the seal on the champagne. He tagged another switch. Armatures extended and made short work of the cork.

Pop!

Kozlowski jumped despite herself. A brief spurt of white stuff ran down the upright thing. She licked her lips, a sudden tingling running down her spine.

Coolly, Grant went to a cabinet, pulled out two glasses. He poured these glasses full of the drink, and then carefully slipped the bottle back into its frigid place.

“I’ll tell you what, Colonel Alex. Have a drink with me, I’ll give you the Grand Tour.”

He tapped the side of the glass closest to her. Ting! The liquid effervesced delightfully.

She made her decision. It was an easy one. She took the glass and drank a swallow, letting it drift through her teeth a moment. It was strong, but it was the lightest, tastiest champagne she’d ever experienced. Fruit vapor, dancing pirouettes on her tongue.

She glowered. A thought occurred to her. “You bastard. You were going to show me anyway, weren’t you?”

He picked his own glass up, sipped it. “You’ll never know now, will you?”

“Damn you.” She couldn’t help but sip the glass again. If anything, it tasted better on the second go.

“But here—I happen to have some pate. Crackers, too. French and English, respectively.” His hand motioned toward a tray of condiments. “So why don’t you have a seat.”

She finished the glass of champagne in one guzzle.

Heaven.

Her toes seemed to curl.

“Okay! If you pour us both another!”

“Absolutely!” He poured. “So nice to have company.”

She sat and she sipped. She sampled the crackers and pate. After what seemed like a lifetime of reconstituted Marine chow, it tasted like ambrosia. More champagne. Ah. Ambrosia and nectar.

“So then,” she said, “I have two questions.

“Number one. What the hell is going on down on those decks? I saw some of the strangest apparatus being boosted off for the Razzia”

“You’re just going to have to wait until tomorrow for the answer to that,” Grant said. “Then, though, I promise that all will be explained.”

“Fair enough. Question two—” She drained her glass of champagne. It exploded inside her like a depth charge of flowers. “Have you got another bottle of this stuff around? This is the best alcohol I’ve ever had!”

Grant grinned widely. “I think that can be arranged!”

* * *

Daniel Grant listed. His eyes were half-closed, and his face was mashed against a cushion of the couch.

A half-filled glass of champagne wobbled in his hand.

“… I should have never let her go,” he mumbled.

Clear-eyed and feeling very good indeed, glass balanced on a raised knee, Alex Kozlowski regarded the scene. Totally in charge. Grant had extra champagne, all right. He’d had it trotted on up to his cabin, no problem. A strategy meeting, she’d explained to the surprised ensign sent to deliver it. A tumbled line of dead soldiers lay on the floor.

“Your wife?”

“Yeah. She was… she was the only person I ever really loved.” He sighed.

An interesting evening.

Halfway through the second bottle of champagne, he’d put a hand on her left breast.

She’d cold-cocked him.

He’d flown across the room and landed on the couch fortunately, then lay semi-conscious for a few minutes, while Kozlowski thoughtfully nibbled at crackers and sipped the champagne, enjoying the silence and the boost to her ego. It had been a while since a man had been arrogant enough to make a pass at her, much less trespass her body. She enjoyed it.

She got some ice, wrapped it up in a cloth, and gave it to him. He thanked her and asked for another glass of champagne. The pain seemed to have leeched the randiness out of him, and the champagne helped with his sore jaw. He apologized and they drank more. Kozlowski finished off the pate and crackers. Grant just sipped.

She wasn’t going to be able to drink any more before the mission. Drinking now was stretching things. But she figured she might as well enjoy it—and enjoy this first-class liquor—while she could. Might as well have some sound effects while she did so, she’d told herself—so she pried Daniel Grant’s life story out of him. Easy, since he was really getting snookered.

Pretty queasy stuff.

Cold mother. Distant father. Money the end-all be-all in the family. No love and affection. A football team approach to sex and affection as conquest. Massive insecurities covered over by efforts and dominance, arrogance and control.

All in all, fairly predictable. Textbook even, she’d imagine. She’d not read much psychology. Hell, most books and computer information had been destroyed.

She’d more or less drunken him under the table. Either that, or her fist had knocked something loose in his brain. Unlikely. Grant looked like he had a pretty hard head.

She’d lifted the rock up and found a mass of worms and nightcrawlers.

The great man wasn’t much different, deep down, from her. A few less nightmares, a little more civilized on the surface. But deep down—the usual writhing stew of human troubles.

“So,” slurred Grant. “Your full name is Alexandra Lee Kozlowski.”

“You did your homework. Yes. My parents named me after two famous generals.”

“Grant and Lee. No wonder the antipathy. Hope we can smooth things out.”

She shrugged. “We both want the mission to succeed.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “This trip succeeds, my company succeeds. I’m in the black, debts are paid off, I’m competing effectively against MedTech again, the mob gets paid off, and I get free of their contract—”

“Which you presume you’re safe from out here.”

He’d spilled the beans on that one under her probing questions, proving her suspicions correct. He’d come along on the mission because it was a convenient way to get off Earth, away from certain deadly factions. Now she knew why. Simple enough and understandable.

Only she honestly wondered if Grant knew that he’d jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. And there were a lot of nasty bugs in that fire, you betcha.

Grant didn’t seem to hear her last comment. He was just rambling on. “I get things on track,” he was saying. “God, the world is my oyster, I just got to get through the shell. When I get straight with everyone… I’ll ask her back. I swear I will. That’s what I’m pushing for… Can’t live the life I’ve been living so long… So empty… So useless…”

“Fast track. Candle at both ends. Strive, strive, strive so you can build yourself a fancy coffin. Dominance and dominoes—both falling-down games.”

“Gotta stay on top. Gotta flash the smile. Gotta work, gotta survive,” Grant mumbled.

“Gotta drink the best champagne,” said Kozlowski. “Eat the best pate.” She downed the last bit of stuff in her glass, clapped it back on the table, and stood up. “I guess that’s as good a goal as any. Thanks, Grant. I had a good time. Tell you what. We get back to Earth, we have a little party. You supply the champagne and eats, and we’ll have a good time.”

He looked up, bleary eyes startled. “Don’t go!”

“Right. I’m gonna tippy-toe out of your place in the wee hours… or worse, at the beginning of first shift. Won’t that amuse the troops?”

“None of… their business…”

“True, but it’s also a good excuse to slip the noose here, Grant.”

“I just… I just don’t want to be alone.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that one before.” She found herself angry for no explicable reason. “Take a snooze, guy. Let your dreams keep you company.”

She half expected him to suddenly jump up and run in front of her, begging her to stop. She made a fist. Yeah. Just let the lecher try.

But he didn’t. She stopped at the door and listened.

Peaceful, content snores.

She opened the door and stormed out.

Now she knew why she was ticked off, and it absolutely annoyed the hell out of her.

She was attracted to the jerk, dammit.

13

Daniel Grant didn’t look so good.

He was sipping at what passed for coffee when Kozlowski found him on the observation deck, looking out at the specks of stars and planets in the vast blackness of space as though searching for dawn.

“Hey there,” she said. “Captain told me I’d find you here.”

“I’m trying to soak my head in the Big Dipper,” said Grant, gazing out into the vastness.

“I’m here for my tour.”

“So you are. So you are, Colonel Kozlowski.”

She considered telling him to call her by her first name. He looked so… lost and vulnerable, a wisp of steam winding up from his coffee and misting a piece of the view. She decided against it. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

Silence slid between them, which surprised her for a moment. Silence didn’t seem in Grant’s lexicon of communication devices.

She coughed encouragingly.

Nothing.

Finally, she said, “I did earn my tour, Grant.”

“So you did, Colonel. However, I wish you’d said you had a hollow leg.”

She shrugged. “You were drinking before I got there. Head start. Besides, I really don’t care for your sexual preying before a mission.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“Foxhole love. I’ve had some of that, nice if you like watching your partner in the deed die the next day.”

Grant nodded. Managed a smile. “You’re far too dramatic, Colonel.” He shrugged. “Severe hangovers have a way of putting things in perspective. I guess I’m a bit of the predator. I apologize.”

“How’s your jaw?”

He rubbed it gingerly. “I can still speak and I can still think. However, I believe you’ve actually improved my looks.”

“You’ve lost me on that one, Grant.”

“I think my face was a little irregular before. You appear to have whacked it back into proper symmetry. Doubtless hundreds of nubile young ladies will come to thank you.”

“You know, Grant, if I didn’t detect a little self-mockery in your tone, I think I’d deck you again.”

A flash of alarm in his face. That immediately retreated into an accepting nod. “I’m an energetic son of a bitch, aren’t I?”

“I guess there’s a reason you got where you got. But now we’re just short of our destination, a par-sec and some change from home. And I need to see some more of exactly why we’re here.”

“Very well. Let me scrape some of my brain off my throat and reassimilate.” He sipped some coffee.

She had a notion. “Here you go. I think I’ve got something that will help.” She fished a small container from a pocket.

“Oh. How do you know?”

“Believe it or not, I’ve had a hangover or two lately.” She did not get specific. She just snapped open the top and displayed the pills, neatly cut into halves and thirds and quarters.

“Pills? What are they?”

“Fire, Grant. Your own poison. Works damned well in this kind of situation. Check it out.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I never touch my own stuff. But please… don’t let me stop you.”

She’d been thinking of taking a quarter but now, instead, she snapped the container shut and stuck it back in her pocket, feeling annoyed, feeling like a junkie getting the brush-off by the pusher himself.

“Just show me those decks, Grant.”

“This way, Colonel.”

* * *

Corporal Lars Henrikson waited for them at the turbolift.

Kozlowski was taken aback. “Henrikson? What are you doing here?”

Henrikson remained stoic. “Mr. Grant called. He asked me to meet him here. I’m here.”

Grant put a hand on the big guy’s shoulder. Patted. “My kind of man, Colonel. Henrikson here’s going to get a look at what we’ve got inside, too. Why? I’m glad you asked that question. Henrikson’s probably wondering, too.” He punched the button for the lift. The door slid open, and they all stepped inside. Whir of lights, compression, off for another level. “I’m not an elitist. I want to show what we’ve got here, to give you an understanding of what’s going on. That knowledge on your part may come in handy later on. Helps us a lot. It also gives you a better idea of what we’re going to need down on Hiveworld.”

Kozlowski was a bit irked. First, because from the sounds of it, Grant had always intended to show her what was going on here. Second, because of Henrikson. He was a first-class soldier. During training, he’d come up as number one at all levels. His abilities were unquestionable. Plenty of references, and one of the troops she’d had no problem at all deciding should go on this mission. However, now it seemed as though Grant had taken him under his corporate wing—a corporal!—and was squiring him about, giving him the treatment that she as the commander alone deserved. True, Grant claimed that of all the regular troops Henrikson had the most actual combat time with the xenos. But still…

Basically, she felt a tad jealous, as though this selection of Henrikson was a male thing, some off-handed way of slapping the fact that she was a female.

“One little condition,” said Grant as they walked along the catwalk on Deck E, approaching doors that looked like the entrance to a bank vault. “What I’m about to show you two is strictly hush-hush. I don’t want anyone to know about this, especially not the other men—or women. That’s why I’m just showing it to you two. I feel as though you can handle it.”

Without further explanation, Grant cycled open the door and led them through. The lights were more muted here; it had almost a submarine quality. Aquas and red and shadows. As her eyes adjusted, Kozlowski immediately noticed the equipment.

Banks of it, spread along the ways. Tubing and bulking computers and flanges. Cables and glass and blinking lights. A number of men were clustered at the far end in front of a window that looked like something out of an aquarium. Grant’s scientists, doing their geeky scientist thing, mystery wrapped in machinery and mundanity.

It smelled in here. Acidic. Oil, electricity, coffee… and something more.

Something that made Kozlowski’s hackles rise.

She recognized it. Faint, but there.

Bugs.

No, she told herself. That can’t be right. What would bugs be doing down here?

“Isn’t this supposed to be a storage chamber?” she said lamely, trying to get Grant to talk, trying to get the creepy feeling out of the pit of her stomach.

“Oh, yes,” said Grant, leading them down some stairs. “And in a way, it still is. But the cargo! That’s what’s a little unusual.”

The steps clanged and echoed.

“So, Grant,” said Henrikson. “Why all the secrecy? Why just us?”

Nice of him to echo her own thoughts.

They were walking forward, and through the murky light in the glassed tank she was able to pick out a few details.

Cables, dangling equipment.

Something bulky and organic in the very middle.

And by it…

An egg sack.

And the discarded shell of a face hugger.

She walked up to the window in a haze, astonished, looking in upon the gruesome scene enclosed in metal and glass.

“Well, Corporal, I know most marines have come to really hate the aliens,” said Grant. “I’m afraid that what we’ve got down here would really hinder the morale necessary for the operation.”

A thickset man with a boyish face and a cowlick in his mass of blondish hair scuttled up to Grant, lab coat swaying about his ankles. In whispers they conferred together in the corner. The man produced a clipboarded chart that Grant nodded at and then pushed away. He took the scientist gently by the arm and pulled him over to meet his guests.

“This is Dr. Murray Friel. He’s in charge of this project down here—the science part, anyway.”

“Yes—I’ve met the commander, but not the corporal,” said the doctor.

Kozlowski remembered now. There had been introductions and handshakes on Earth, and then the batch of docs, including Friel here, had been swallowed up on these decks. Brief glimpses in other parts of the ship—that was all. She’d met a lot of men like Friel. Plump red-cheeked guys, smart, but with no real experience. They all seemed to have the same arrogance as Friel here had. He was in his own little world—and owned every corner of it.

But it wasn’t Dr. Friel that preoccupied her now.

She was looking at something else.

It looked like a misshapen excuse for a body, but with limbs and head cut off and lengths of esophagus and intestine connecting it with organic machines nearby.

Liquids pulsed through these, feeding it.

“What is that thing?” said Kozlowski, recovering her aplomb, overcoming her initial horror.

“Friel… care to do the honors?” suggested Grant.

“Certainly. It certainly isn’t very attractive… but then, neither would your interior bits, awkwardly displayed. You must excuse me, but I feel rather proprietary toward it. You see, in a way, it’s a part of me.” He stepped forward, a pudgy palm placed up against the glass. He gazed at it with an odd kind of pride. “You see, it’s a donor clone, DNA clamped so that it would grow simply the torso, no brain, limited nervous system. A machine regulates it. These things are usually produced for the purpose of organ and tissue donation.” His fingers drummed on the glass thoughtfully and then he turned back to look at her. “I’ll admit, it isn’t the most attractive creature, but it’s proved useful.” He tapped his arm. “I’m proud to say its cells of origination were retrieved from my wrist.”

The odd, smirky fellow who had been introduced before to her as Dr. Amos Begalli sidled up. “We had a little coin toss. We all wanted to be the one… Dr. Friel won. He’s like a proud father now, waiting for a son to be born.”

Friel shrugged. “It’s an interesting experience, I must say.”

Kozlowski shook her head. She was finally allowing herself to assimilate the evidence presented here to her. She turned to Grant. “I’ve seen this before,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’re breeding one of those damn things!”

“Take it easy, kiddo!” said Grant. “First, everything is quite secure here. The torso is in special suspended animation. It can’t blow until the right switches are hit. There are reinforced windows. Special alloy cages. Alarms and an automatic laser lattice should something unforeseen happen.”

“But that thing in there… it’s living…”

“Only on the crudest terms,” said Dr. Friel. “It doesn’t feel any pain. It doesn’t think. It’s just basically a mass of tissue that serves a purpose.”

“But if a xeno gets loose on this ship…”

“Colonel, Colonel—the dangers are well known and plenty of precautionary measures have been built into the fail-safe system, I promise you!” said Grant. “Believe me, at Neo-Pharm we’ve been doing this kind of thing for years… And that woman Ripley did it years ago successfully. Our technology is far superior now. We know how to deal with it.”

“But why are you bringing along something like this when we’re going to a planet full of them?”

“An experiment,” said Dr. Friel. “Naturally we’d like to come back with necessary alien DNA and queen mother royal jelly to create our own colony for purposes I’ve been told you are acquainted with. Also perhaps even captured eggs. But we want to work with the product of our own DNA manipulation. To create our own kind of queen, utilizing the necessary royal jelly from what you good soldiers are going to retrieve for us. We’d like to work with some different material than we’ve had on Earth.”

Dr. Begalli beamed. “Yes! You see we’ve got everything thoroughly regulated here… Metabolic control. We’ve got it set up so that baby won’t pop until we’ve got the jelly we need available for her queening.”

“Lovely,” said Kozlowski, “just lovely.”

“In addition, of course, on these decks we’ve got the necessary tanks and holding pens for the jelly and captured eggs, refrigerated alien DNA… Oh, all manner of good stuff, Colonel. But you can see why your troops might be a little upset.”

Friel shook his head. “It’s understandable why people are so afraid of these things. However, with the proper applied measures of science, Neo-Pharm is proving that what has up till now appeared to be a threat to humanity—can in fact be a great help. We’ve just begun our work in the area of drugs and medicine… Heaven alone knows how our understanding of the alien DNA will help us in the future.” He sighed happily “And to think… I’m to be like a father to a whole aspect of what may be the most significant advance in human evolution. Its chemical interaction with xenobiology! Who knows what wonderful new vistas await us!”

“Try horrible pain. Try death. Try species extinction!” said Kozlowski.

Dr. Friel flinched with the intensity of Kozlowski’s response. “I don’t think, Colonel, you appreciate the beauties and intricacies of the alien genetic gifts.”

“I don’t think, Doctor, you appreciate the threat these things are—” She paused, calmed herself down, took a gulp of air.

Grant seemed taken aback. “Colonel… Alex. You were there at the initial meeting. I saw you there… you heard everything. You’re aware of our ultimate goal. You know what you’re here for.”

She swung on him, outthrust finger just short of his nose. “Make no mistake, Grant. I may be here to head up this mission to facilitate your personal and professional goals. That’s secondary to my duty to the armed forces I serve—and my own purpose. Which is, quite simply, to do everything I can to make sure these bugs are either rendered into a threat equivalent to cosmic cockroaches—or thoroughly exterminated.” She lowered the finger. “Any bugs crushed underfoot along the way are all the better.”

With that, she turned and stalked the hell away from this charnel house in the belly of a starship.

14

Everyone knew that service chow sucked.

You didn’t join the Colonial Marines for gourmet food, that was for certain.

Still, as Kozlowski accepted the food dumped unceremoniously on her plate at the cafeteria line, her stomach cringed at the lumps of colorless, reconstituted whatsits her meal comprised. She well knew that all the food groups were represented, that this was vitamin and nutrient rich stuff. There just wasn’t much taste or appeal to it, that was all.

Still, the gig was two days away.

Gotta carb up!

She stepped over to push a button that would put a dollop of what the machine claimed was mashed potatoes on her plate. She positioned the plate under the nozzle, still not quite there… She’d been a bit preoccupied ever since she’d seen that cloned torso down on Grant’s deck. The merging of alien and human to her had always been the height of obscenity. Eradicating that threat had been what her life had been about now for over twenty years. Her use of Fire she’d rationalized as an exercise of dominance over the aliens… Now, though, she wasn’t so sure. Unfortunately, she suspected she was hooked on the stuff. She’d been okay this morning, no bad champagne headache, just a chemical pall of gloom riding her. A quarter pill wouldn’t banish it. A half pill didn’t give her the buzz she realized she wanted to get through the day. She’d taken what amounted to an entire pill, something that she’d only done before in battle exercises and war itself.

And the stuff had unwound in her, like the talons of a bug, zapping her neurons…

She shuddered, tried to forget about it. When this mission was over, she was going to throw her pills in the garbage. Clean up her act. Live clean and healthy. But she knew that she needed the Xeno-Zip to deal with what was coming up in her life—and it pissed her off. Especially with her conflicted feelings about Daniel Grant. Especially after what she’d seen down there.

She tried to tune out the chatter in her head, to focus on getting some of this food down, despite her lack of appetite. She took her tray and sat down, alone, at the side of an unoccupied table.

In another corner of the room, Jastrow was noodling on his saxophone. The man didn’t play well, but he didn’t play badly either. At least, if it wasn’t exactly melodious, it wasn’t that grating either. However, his buddy, who was sitting beside him as usual, didn’t seem to appreciate it.

“Could you give it a rest, Jastrow?”

“What’s wrong, Ellis? I thought you liked music.”

“I like music fine. But not blaring in my ear while I’m eating.”

Kozlowski listened to them bicker. Better than concentrating on this crap that she was stuffing into her face. Jastrow stopped playing and they talked. They talked about Henrikson, who had just come in, walked through the cafeteria, taken his food, and was walking out again.

“Hey. Check it out,” said Jastrow. “Henrikson’s doing it again. He’s taking his food to the room. Oh, man, the bet’s still on here… I say he’s a synthetic!”

“Gimme a break,” said Ellis. “They make models that eat, you know.”

“It’s not just that. He won’t shower with us. I’ve never seen him shave… And from the way he talks in briefings, I’d guess he’s never seen combat.”

“Yeah. That is odd.”

“I say he’s a company plant. And I don’t like it. Bad things happen to Marine ships with synthetics on-board!”

The next thing Kozlowski knew, Henrikson was by the table.

“Jastrow. Why don’t you just say what you’ve got on your mind—to my face.”

He lifted the private off the chair. The sax banged onto the floor.

Kozlowski shot up to put a stop to this.

“Shit, man! Let me go!”

“Sure.” The big corporal threw the private across the room.

“Henrikson!” screamed Kozlowski.

Henrikson froze. He turned around and looked at his commander, his face impassive. “Sorry.”

Ellis was leaning over, attending to his buddy, who seemed okay, just dazed.

“We’re all under pressure here, Henrikson,” snarled Kozlowski. “Take it out on the bugs.” She swiveled on the privates. “And that means you two. We’re all working together on this. No divisiveness.”

“You know, Corporal,” a voice said behind her. “I admire a man who doesn’t take any crap. I honestly do.” Grant’s voice. He came up to them, and his easy-going arrogance seemed to cut through the tension. “But the truth is I need every last one of these troops for this operation.” He looked over to the fallen Jastrow, who was just getting up. “You don’t have to kiss and make up, but please don’t mash his skull, okay? Thanks.”

Henrikson nodded. Kozlowski dismissed him. He took his food and went off again toward his quarters.

Kozlowski turned to the others. “All right. Back to the chow. I don’t want any energy-deficient troops when we get down to work.” As an example, she went back to her own plate, which had gone cold. Nonetheless, she began to stuff it in her face.

Grant came over to her.

“Colonel,” he said in a low voice. “Can we talk a moment, please. Alone?”

“Pull up some vittles, Dan. If I’ve got to work my way through this stuff, so do you.”

He didn’t even try to argue. He went off, got a minimum order of gruelish reconstituted stew, and spooned it down, trying to look cheerful as they made chitchat. The sucker looked much better now. Probably had himself a cocktail and a nap and a good hot bath. He even smelled good. Oddly, Kozlowski enjoyed the small talk. She was still annoyed at her attraction to the asshole, but she didn’t have to let him know about it—and she could enjoy the warped sex appeal he presented on her own terms. He probably sprayed on pheromones, the conscienceless bastard.

Finally, when she was satisfied the last morsel was gone from his plate, she agreed to go with him to somewhere they couldn’t be overheard—but a meeting room, not his room.

“Look,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d react the way you did down there. Corporal Henrikson took it well. He’s even volunteering to double-check security. I just want to make sure I’m still getting the best out of you on our mission, Colonel.”

“There was never any doubt of that, chum. You asked for the best, you got the best—but I want to tell you, I’m not real crazy about your methods.”

“What I’m doing is for the benefit of mankind!”

She laughed in his face. “You don’t have to try and pull that one on me. You’re doing this for the money.”

“Ultimately, it will save lives.”

“What are you talking about? You’re risking good Marine lives for this damned jelly and what-all… For profit, pure and simple. You’re a ruthless bastard. At least my superiors honestly believe they’re doing what’s right.”

“I’m risking my own life here, too, remember.”

“Only because you’re too scared to face up to a souped-up loan shark back home.”

He cringed. “Ah. I told you that, eh?”

“You bet. I’d pretty much guessed something along those lines anyway.”

“Nonetheless. We figure a source for this—a safe controlled source—we can finance a full erasure of the aliens on planet Earth. Studying them, we’ll be able to know how to deal with them when we encounter them on other worlds.”

“All sounds good. Doesn’t change anything about what I think about you though.”

“You’ll honor my concerns about the others, though… Not letting them know.”

“You think I want to undermine their morale by letting them know that a xeno’s going to be prowling in some cage below them while they’re helpless in hypersleep? They’re my people, and I’ll take care of them… You watch out for your own crew. Understand?”

“I’m glad we’re clear on this, Colonel. I really don’t quite understand your hostility, though… I think it’s best for both our sakes if we got along much better.”

“Don’t push it, Grant. And most of all—don’t push me.”

She got up, and she got away from him.

If she hung around the handsome goon much longer she didn’t know what she’d do—kiss him or kill him.

She wasn’t sure which she’d enjoy more.

* * *

In the dim lights of the Cargo Bay Nine, shadows moved.

Padding past open doors, feet paced over to controls. Fingers pushed, pulled, tapped. Status quo alarms were turned off. Serums were released and rheostats adjusted.

Inside the ghost-lit tank, the hanging torso jerked.

Satisfied that the necessary measures had been taken, the figure hurried back out of the room, door shushing closed behind it.

In the tank, the hanging torso jerked again.

In the hanging torso, the alien embryo, already formed and at full term, but previously kept dormant by electronic and biochemical means, shivered into full life over a matter of mere minutes.

It shook. It gasped. Sparked by the energies that had been shot through it, and the instincts that had been ignited, it flailed in its seating.

Membranes tore, muscles were yanked from their mooring.

Still it was not yet free.

Instinct activated.

With a preternatural power, it pushed up against the diaphragm, up through the tangle of lungs and heart and arteries.

Up against the rib cage.

Then, with its hard equipment prepared for just this moment, and every bit of its energy, it plunged through the bones, through the skin into the freedom of gaseous atmosphere.

The torso exploded.

Blood spattered. Bronchial tissue splattered up like the eruption of a volcano. Bits of broken bone sponged against metal and glass.

Like a worm with a head of all teeth, the alien chest-burster reared up above the carcass of its birth, weaving in a sensory dance. Sensing no danger, it began to scuttle for the darkness of a corner.

The hands that had nudged the obscene delivery forward had not removed the precautions against just such an event.

Delicate motion detectors reacted to the scuttling, heat-seeking alien. Spectrographic readings determined its nature, double-checked, and then implemented the next step. Should the thing be born in unsupervised circumstances, there was no other alternatives.

Servomotors hummed as coaxial cables controlled three separate particle beam weapons, aiming toward the source and form causing the spectrographic abnormalities.

Had it not had to pause for a moment to attempt to get through the glass of the tank, the alien might have survived longer, rendering the mission an entirely different affair.

However, it did pause.

And the weapons did fire.

The beams converged into a fulcrum of energy.

The alien blew apart, adding its gore to that of the torso it had already scattered. The force lifted its little head up and off and through the hole it had smacked in the glass, followed by charred bits of its tail.

The teeth gnashed. The tail twitched.

Then both stilled, surrendering their last signs of survival to the alarm that blared to life.

15

When she reached the cargo bay of Deck D, and she successfully convinced the flustered scientist by the door that she had Daniel Grant’s permission for access (a little determined pushing helped greatly), she found the cause of the alarm waiting for her, bathed in emergency light.

Hovered over the dead infant alien, wearing their acid suits, were the science team.

Daniel Grant paced beyond the reach of any acid, punching the air and cursing. “Goddammit. Goddammit! What the hell went wrong! I’m looking at a million-dollar loss here, minimum!”

He did not notice Kozlowski come up behind him until she put a calming, restraining hand on his arm. He jumped away from her, looking startled, then sighed and folded his arms. “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”

Dr. Friel knelt the closest to the wreckage. Tears were streaming from his eyes. He looked as though he would have liked to have gathered the bits and pieces of the alien baby and cradled them in his arms. Acid-neutralizing liquid had automatically been splashed, but there were still pocks and holes in the floor.

Dr. Begalli stepped up beside Grant and Kozlowski.

“Looks like someone diddled with the equipment. Took off the safeguards. The baby bug popped early. The good news is no alien running amok in the sewage pipes. Bad news: damage, no alien baby on hand to queenify… and a little heartbreak, it would seem.”

“Christ,” said Grant. His face was white. “A saboteur.”

“Who would do such a thing?” sobbed Dr. Friel. “So young… so very young… And she didn’t even get to see me!”

“Uh—I trust you checked your doctors’ psychological profiles,” said Kozlowski. “Friel looks a bit on the edge here.”

“He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine,” muttered Grant. “Just a little too wrapped up in his work.”

“No wife, no kids…” said Begalli. “Looks like Friel wanted to be a daddy. Bad.”

The stricken scientist spun on the assemblage. He swung an arc with an accusing finger. “Which one of you monsters was it?” Tears runneled down his cheeks. “Which one of you killed my baby?” The finger stopped on Kozlowski. “Was it you, Colonel? You despised it the moment you saw what was going on here—I could tell!”

“No, it wasn’t me, you fool,” she spat back. “Would someone get a shot of something for this hysteric? Something strong? And maybe a straitjacket.” She motioned to the wreckage. “And douse this stuff in some more acid neutralizer fast, in case the blood wants to eat through the deck anymore.”

“I trust you’ll help me establish better security here for the return trip,” said Grant.

“Of course,” she said. She spun around and started away.

Grant caught up with her. “Colonel… Alex… Could I ask for a moment of your time? Alone.”

She was going to spit back a curt no, but his eyes implored her. They looked frightened and haunted. The part of Daniel Grant that she’d seen when he was drunk was there, and she was startled by its humanity.

“Meeting room. Five minutes. I’ll brew the tea,” she said.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

* * *

The meeting room was secured, peripheral sound dampers down, communications off.

The two sat across from one another, sipping a soothing herb tea.

“So,” said Kozlowski, breaking the grim silence. “Who do you think it is? An emissary of the organized crime boys you owe money to. Or one of your drug company rivals, like MedTech.”

“I don’t get it,” said Grant, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I overlooked this possibility. Everyone knows that if this mission fails, I’m history.”

“If you ask me, it’s better this way,” said Kozlowski. “Something tells me you would have gotten more than you bargained for with Dr. Friel in control of a queen alien.”

Grant sighed. “You’re probably right, but that isn’t the point. This sabotage will continue, and a lot more than money could be lost next time.”

Kozlowski shrugged. “It’s hard for me to be frightened of a corporate spy or even of the mob when I’ve been fighting drooling monsters for years.”

“Yes, but how often have you run into infiltration? Don’t you see? You and your soldiers have always been united against an obvious threat. Take it from someone who knows—nothing is deadlier than the enemy within.”

“You have any suggestions?”

“That’s why I asked you here. Have you any clue as to who the saboteur could be?”

“You didn’t set up your systems to safeguard against one or to detect the activity of one, I suggest you do so now. I haven’t the vaguest. I can only tell you… it isn’t me.”

“No. You think I’d be talking to you if I thought it was you? No, Colonel. We’ll take precautions. But we’ll have to take precautions and remain vigilant. If you note unusual activity in any of your people, please report it to me.”

“I could say the same about your people.”

“Oh, you can be sure I’m going to check them all out.” He sipped his tea. “Nonetheless, this is going to be one hell of a mission…”

“It’s already that, Grant. But then, I’ve been to hell before, so I’ll put in a good word with Beelzebub.”

“Thanks, Colonel.”

“Strikes me that you’re getting awfully self-involved here. We’re all in this mission together, and we’re committed to its success. Remember that, Grant. The mission comes first. Everything else, later, including your narcissistic moans.”

“That’s all well and good, Colonel. Just pop a couple of pills and all your troubles go away.”

“Bastard.”

She got up to go, then had a second thought. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a medicine bottle. “Just a warning, Grant.” She tossed it to him. “That’s my supply of the shit that you make. I’m swearing off, so I’m going to be in a pretty bitchy mood.”

Grant looked down at the bottle. “Okay, Colonel.” He stuck it in his own pocket. “Maybe I’ll take it along myself. A dose of my own medicine might be in order.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” she said, turning away so she wouldn’t grab it back. She regretted the gesture already, but she’d see the bastard in true hell before she took his poison anymore.

She did, however, take the tea.

* * *

The U.S.S. Razzia locked into orbit around the planet dubbed Hiveworld.

Hiveworld, of course, was not its official name. That would be G-435, for obscure classification purposes. It was the fourth of ten planets orbiting Achilles Two, a GO star. It was a class M planet, with a great deal of seismic activity that rendered it generally flat and comparatively barren.

Huge banks of clouds obscured the surface, but analysis sensors had already scouted out the geographic area that was known to be the location of the alien hive visited previously.

Zero hour approached.

The mothership, naturally, would not descend.

A class 9 lander would perform that duty, bearing with it the complement of marines who embarked upon the mission. The marines all knew their jobs, but there was a palpable pall of tension and dread in the lander’s interior as the soldiers, already garbed in their special acid-neutralizing suits, began to file in and strap into their grav-chairs.

They all carried their carbines and the array of other special weapons in which they specialized.

Private Jastrow carried something a little extra.

His saxophone.

“So what are you going to do, Jastrow?” said Mahone, attempting a smile. “Scare the crickets off with free-form? A little late Coltrane?”

“Shut up, Mahone,” said Jastrow. “You never know when I’m going to need to unwind.”

“Yow! Just having a little joke! Gimme a break!”

“Cool it, Edie,” said Ellis. “We’re all a little on edge, huh? These suits don’t douse acid words.”

Edie Mahone nodded. “Sorry, guys. I’ll get off your case. How about some knock-knock jokes?”

Ellis grinned. “As long as they’re dirty.”

Nervous titters.

Dr. Amos Begalli walked in, and slouched onto a chair, looking a little preoccupied.

Ellis nudged his friend. “Hey, Jazz. I didn’t know that old Big Nozzle was taking the plunge.”

Jastrow shrugged. “I don’t know. Something big went on down in Mysteryville Deck. Nobody got killed or hurt. I’ve been keeping track and I’ve seen them all. But from what I saw on the down list, that Dr. Friel guy was supposed to take the plunge. Looked a bit forlorn yesterday. Freaked out, I guess. Couldn’t deal with it.”

“Probably smart.”

“That’s okay. That Begalli seems to know his stuff.”

“Yeah, but I get the creeps from him.”

“You get the creeps when I play Sun Ra tunes.”

Jastrow lifted his horn up to blow a few notes, but Ellis stopped him. “Look. These guys are all hyped up to kill things, Jazz. Don’t make them practice on you.”

“Okay, okay. So where’s Grant and the colonel?” He looked at his chronometer, featuring dials and sensors capable of all manner of odd things.

“Humpin’, you think?”

“Come on… I think dear Koz dug her gonads outta herself with a rusty spoon.”

“I don’t know, man. I feel some heavy vibes between them.”

“Yeah. Hostility. Just be glad she’s directing it at someone else and not us.”

Jastrow shook his head. “You know, I’ve trained for this. I’ve killed bugs. I know everything by heart. They say I’m about as ready as a marine can be mentally and physically. Spiritually though?” He shook his head. “I ain’t ready.”

“Who is, buddy?” Ellis said. He shuddered. “Who is?” He looked around and saw his shudder echoed in the eyes of his fellow troops.

* * *

Colonel Alex Kozlowski entered the ship.

She’d already stowed her personal weapons and supplies in the appropriate cubicle earlier that day, just before she ran through the checklist of the Mark Nine Planetary Surface Lander, dubbed U.S.S. Anteater by some wag. Now she carried a large steaming cup of coffee and a grim smile.

“Ready to waste some bugs, folks?”

A roar of approval greeted her words.

“Good. But remember, that’s incidental to our mission. Our priorities are inside that nest… our appointment with the queen mother!” She sipped at the strong black coffee. The caffeine helped her cope with the downer she was experiencing from withdrawal from Fire. She’d put some regulation pills into her suit, things her system was used to. She didn’t want to jeopardize the troops or the mission by lack of performance. She did not, however, want to fall back on Fire. Although the decision put her on edge, the boost in spirit and self-determination more than made up for it.

“Anybody see Daniel Grant around?” she asked.

“Last I saw him, he was talking to Hastings about something,” said Corporal Henrikson.

“He’d better get his tail down here, or it’s going to get left on the Razzia… and no big loss.” She ambled over to Fitzwilliam and Tanarez, the lieutenants who’d been pegged as pilots for this boat. They were huddled over their banks of controls, doing final diagnostics of their system arrays. “How’s it doing, guys?”

Fitzwilliam grinned at her. “I’m telling you, Colonel. We’ve got one mean machine here. Backup systems galore… Lovely and elegant.”

“Yeah,” said Tanarez, not looking up from a screen he was reading. “War with the xenos has given us a boost in technology. We’ve got some pretty stuff in here. Gives me a huge boost of confidence, I’ll tell you that.”

“Too bad this thing can’t just do the dirty work,” said Fitzwilliam.

“What… robot-controlled? And miss all the fun?”

Laughter from the troops. A good sign. Ever since she’d shown them the acid-neutralizing suits, they’d seemed to perk up quite a bit. Without the big threat of the alien blood eating through you, this was a much less dangerous mission, and the troops seemed to realize that.

As though he’d taken it as a cue, the last passenger hurried on, lugging a sack closed by a zipper. He quickly stowed it where the other stuff had been placed.

“All right, people,” Daniel Grant said. “You can close the access port.”

The door closed behind him after a touch of a pilot’s finger.

“Thank you. I just want to say quickly that this is the most exciting day of my life,” he said, in a voice that had been clearly exercised much at after banquet speeches. “Down there,” he said, pointing out a port toward the pearl and cerulean clouds swirling above a continental mass. “Down on this strange world are the secrets that will strengthen our country… Perhaps even point us all toward a better future. Down there are the brethren of the creatures that not only are a threat to humanity—but who devastated our beloved homeworld.” He paused for dramatic impact. “It’s in our hands now. In our power. Let’s do our mission and do it well.”

A roar of approval arose from the ranks.

Grant, smiling like a politician, took his grav-chair and belted himself in.

Kozlowski gave him the thumbs-up signal.

Well, Grant you goat, she thought, get ready for the panty raid of your life.

16

Docking struts released, the half-million-ton lander first parted from the mothership Razzia on retros. When it was at a safe distance, its powerful impulse thrusters in, pushing it down and away, deeper into the hold of the Hiveworld’s gravity.

The U.S.S. Anteater descended.

This was still the part of space travel that Kozlowski had never gotten used to: planetfall.

She remembered when she was a little girl, before the aliens came, she had taken a ride on a roller coaster at an amusement park. She’d thought for sure, despite the strong and reassuring presence of her father, when the coaster took a long angled dip that she was going to fall out. Now, as the lander tilted down and began its powered descent, as her heart filled her throat, that was the way she felt here.

Only if she fell, she knew it would be forever.

She desperately wanted a tab of Fire. Maybe she was going to need it, she thought. Maybe Kozlowski now, without her drug, would be a crippled foot to the mission.

Later, she told herself. She’d make that decision later.

Initially, parted from the faux gravity of the Razzia, there had been the heady feeling of null gravity. But then, as the ship descended, she felt the butterflies flutter into her stomach and then chute up the back door to climb her spine.

Then the gees started kicking in.

The retros roared, slowing them down. Ablation reddened the hull slightly before a force shield kicked in. Landers went down much too quickly for Kozlowski’s taste. She much preferred the mollycoddling you got on a passenger shuttle. A slow, smooth descent. Friggin’ Marine landers, though, acted like sperm charging out of the gate for an appointment with a pretty egg.

They were still well above the clouds, but the atmosphere started buffeting the lander, shaking it like a toy. Kozlowski gritted her teeth. She looked over. The other troops looked intent. Some just had their eyes closed. Daniel Grant looked a bit green at the gills. Kozlowski suspected that she didn’t look all that great herself but there was no place to powder her nose now.

The suits had temp controls, but they were open now and the air-conditioning wasn’t on. The cabin’s air control wasn’t working well, and it was a bit hot and humid. Kozlowski could smell her own sweat. It was a comforting smell. What she didn’t like much was the sweat from the others.

“Turbulence!” called Fitzwilliam, up in the pilot blister, with the best view. She’d chosen Lenny Fitzwilliam herself. He was a top expert at this kind of planetfall, a ranging muscular guy with a Texas accent who could have been the reincarnation of one of those crazy pilots who broke the barrier between Earth and space back in the twentieth century. His wife had just died, and this was his way of getting back some life in himself, in what he knew best.

“No shit, Sherlock!” said Tank Tanarez. He flipped on the PA. “No smoking. No trips to the can. Fasten seat belts. All that stuff. It’s going to be a rocky one.”

“Going to be?” said Grant weakly. Tanarez never exaggerated. He was a short, stocky guy with a buzz cut and a two-dimensional way of looking at the universe which made him a gem in this kind of piloting situation. With his fierce concentration branded in those dark eyes of his below that sloping brow, he cut straight through problems to the solutions. He could drink everyone under the table but herself. Kozlowski knew. He’d tried. He had a mordant sense of humor that was just what Kozlowski needed to hear now.

“I’m reading some pretty fierce mid-atmospheric activity. This place ain’t exactly paradise.”

The lander began to rock and jerk violently.

This continued for some minutes. Kozlowski suspected that there were going to be some gouges in the armrests after this from the digging in of fingers. Including hers. Nobody puked though. That was something.

The twirling lengths of gray cottony clouds seemed to reach up like an ocean of mist and absorb them. The rattling and rocking continued, and then calmed down.

“Okeydokey, folks,” said Fitzwilliam. “We’re through the worst of it. We should be done in about thirty-five minutes. So sit back and enjoy the flight.” Fitz was clearly from the Chuck Yeager school of pilots. Fly by the seat of your pants, but even if your wings had sheared off and your elector was jammed, at no time abandon your laid-back Texas accent.

Kozlowski took a luxurious breath of bad air. It tasted good through slightly less constricted lungs.

“Can’t see a goddamned thing,” said Argento, the dark-haired mustached sergeant who sat behind her. Argento’s brooding eyes and bushy eyebrows and bushier mustache made Tanarez look like the Blue Boy. He was like a Neanderthal with all that hair and stolid attitude. But there wasn’t a man in the Corps who knew his way around artillery, light or heavy, better. Kozlowski had worked with Argento the year before, and when the possibility of his coming along arose, she grabbed it. He had a rich, deep voice that inspired confidence in him from the git go. He was a man’s man and a fine poker player, too.

“Do you really want to?” said Jastrow, suddenly talkative. “If ignorance is bliss, let’s enjoy it for another half hour, huh? Me, I’m just going to rest my eyes.”

That seemed like a good idea to Kozlowski. Unfortunately, she was too high-strung to give herself even that much of a treat. She had to see it all. Somewhere, in this hellish cloud cover, might be something she needed. In the first break, when she got the lay of the land—that might make a change in her strategy that might save lives, might give this mission the edge it needed for a thorough success.

So, for long minutes she watched as the lander pierced the cloud cover.

Occasional comments arose from the troops, but generally there was silence.

Finally, the cloud cover started to break up.

Kozlowski peered out through the port.

As far as she could tell, they were still a couple miles up, but she could make out some of the landscape below. She’d seen pictures of it before of course in her studies of this godforsaken planet.

Like Mars, the report had said. A few mountains, lots of volcanoes, but for the most part flat and peeked. More atmosphere than Mars. Breathable even. Not nice, though. Not nice at all.

The pictures had clued her in to the starkness, the hellish wasteland quality this place had. There was something stricken about it, something unholy. Kozlowski wasn’t a religious person, but that was the first word that came to her mind.

Unholy.

Damned, was the second.

Shakespeare could have used it for his “blasted heath” in the play Macbeth.

“Still can’t see much down there through the cloud cover,” Fitzwilliam was saying.

“Anything coming through the telemetry topography scan?” said Tanarez.

“Hey. What do you know? Calculations totally correct. The sucker’s down there!”

A thrill of elation filled Kozlowski.

The moment the Razzia had entered parking orbit, its heavy-duty sensors, on full power, had gotten to work. The coordinates of the original alien hive were known. And sure enough, it didn’t take long to locate the ugly hive, poking up from the flat land like a huge unlanced boil.

“What the hell is this?”

“What?”

“Just take a look, will you!”

Begalli’s eyes grew bright with excitement. “I suspected as much!”

About a hundred miles away from the original hive, there was another hive. A hive shaped differently from the original, according to the sensors.

Sure enough, up close, the sensors were showing it was indeed an alien hive. So far so good. Now they just had to determine if it was the flavor alien they wanted.

The misty clouds swirled away from the ship, and they got a better view.

Somehow, even from way up here, Kozlowski could tell that things weren’t quite right.

“Jeez,” she heard Tanarez say. “This unit checks out. So this reading must be correct.”

“Yeah? So what’s it say?” Fitzwilliam shot back.

“Well, judging from the surface activity.” She could hear the slight gulp in Tanarez’s voice, breaking up that Yeager effect. “There’s some kind of war going on down there!”

* * *

“Let me look!”

Grant’s eyes were suddenly open and eager. He strained forward on his belt, his hands frantically scrabbling at the catches.

“Grant!” she barked at him. “We haven’t landed. Keep your goddamned butt parked. We don’t want your brains all over the ceiling.”

Grant halted his efforts to release himself. Nonetheless, his desire to see what was going on down there had not diminished. “What’s going on? Begalli! Talk to me! How does this work into your high-flown theories?”

Begalli was wearing a shit-eating grin. “Couldn’t be sweeter, boss.”

“We’re looking at aliens swarming like ants around a hive and that’s supposed to be sweet?” said Grant.

Kozlowski wasn’t too worried. They had the technology to deal with this. Just a detail. The brass were going to like this—they were going to be able to check out how well the new stuff worked.

“You bet. You ever hear of the xenos fighting among themselves wholesaler Colonel?”

“Nope. Not the batch that came to Earth.”

“Exactly. Because they were all the same breed, the same race. They smelled the same to each other. They worked together. The fact that there’s conflict down there tends to prove that what we suspected would happen, has.”

“Like what?” demanded Jastrow, eyes round and a little protruding with fear.

Kozlowski didn’t blame him. Looked like a goddamned African ant war down there. Hundreds and thousands of the bastards, swarming, swarming…

“Okay, okay. Classified material. Sorry. Shouldn’t have brought it up in front of the troops,” said Grant.

That pissed Kozlowski off, but she didn’t say anything. Wouldn’t do the soldiers any good anyway Would just take their minds off the job at hand. Nonetheless, she knew what Begalli was talking about, and dammit, it did make sense. She just hoped it wouldn’t complicate things, mucking over the mission beyond redemption.

The theory was, of course, that aliens without a controlling queen would branch off into different packs. Breeding might (and apparently did) give rise to bugs with recessive traits. If these bugs were allowed to continue to breed, the result would be a new race… and hurry over to start up a new hive, complete with a new queen.

This was a new hive here.

Call them the Democrats.

But apparently, the old fart bugs had gotten things together and spawned a new queen mother—and millions of workers. And although the new Democrat hive was a long way away, eventually they’d located it. Their queen mother had sent off her armies to destroy the interlopers into the genetic xeno broth.

Call them the Republicans.

She looked out at the troops. There were naked questions beside the fear and misgiving in their eyes.

“What are you assholes looking at! Plan C takes this kind of situation into account.” She smiled grimly. “Just look at it this way… We’re going to be able to kill more bugs.”

“Pardon us, Commander…” said Fitzwilliam. “Plan C starts the same way they all do… Land as close to the hive as possible. There are thousands of aliens down there now.”

Colonel Kozlowski grinned. “And hopefully there will be thousands there when we land—only burnt aliens.”

Grant shook his head. “Well, I guess those bugs aren’t the only specialists in genocide.”

They continued their descent.

17

When they were a mile above the hive, the mist had cleared enough to use optical magnifiers to good effect.

Sure enough, there was a war going on down there. As vicious a war as Alex Kozlowski could imagine. Thousands of struggling bugs going at each other.

Fangs and talons.

The ruddy landscape was running with alien parts, alien blood, spasming monsters.

How long had this been going on?

Kozlowski’s best guess, offhand, was that this was just the latest of many attacks. She saw alien skeletons littering the landscape. One more battle.

That wasn’t all the crew of the Anteater saw, though.

“Run this over with me again, Begalli,” said Grant.

“Very quickly, sir, the creatures have had a freak genetic offshoot. Normally a queen mother would stamp this out immediately. With no queen mother, though, another colony has been allowed to take root and thrive. As for the possible difference caused by the recessive gene theory… we’ll just have to examine them closer, won’t we.”

The most important thing the magnified view on the screen pointed out was that Begalli’s theories were entirely correct.

One set of bugs had a vague reddish cast. The rest—the defenders, it could be seen, because they were the ones streaming from the portals of the huge hive below—were the usual dark color that Kozlowski was accustomed to.

Begalli whooped. “What did I tell you. And ten to one, they’ve got unpredictable internal differences. I can’t wait to find out. There’s also got to be other kinds of life on this planet that have learned to survive the xenos. If possible, I’d like to check on them.”

“Celebrations later, fella. For what I’m not sure. They all look nasty as ever. And as for other forms of life—yeah, I guess the critters have got to eat something. But that’s not why we’re here, is it?” Kozlowski unhooked her belt and hurried up to a place beside the pilots. “Okay, fellows. I’ve got this wonderful idea. You usually use force impellers as well as a few retros to land, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Anything to stop us from using the thrusters to land? That should cook a lot of them pretty good.”

“Sure. Lots of fuel consumption though,” said Fitzwilliam.

“We just need enough to get back.”

“We’ve got plenty to spare for that,” said Tanarez. “I could do a configuration of the primaries and tertiaries that would do the trick.”

“Good. Then do it. Burn the bastards, and make sure they’re well done.”

“Okay. That looks like the main entrance to the hive. Not as close as we’d like, but it’s the only option,” said Fitzwilliam.

“That’ll be just fine,” Kozlowski said after studying the computer schematics that the pilot had called up on the screen to illustrate the lay of the land.

“You’d better sit back down, Colonel, and buckle that seat belt. Rockets are a little bit rougher than force impellers…” suggested Fitzwilliam.

“So I’ve noticed.”

The craft was rumbling and rocking like a son of a bitch. Kozlowski stumble-walked back to her chair, strapped herself in again, and watched the action, eyes gleaming.

The Anteater slowed down.

There was a mighty wrenching as the rockets cut in. Fitzwilliam was right. It felt like they were riding a jackhammer down. She had to clench her teeth to keep them from rattling.

She looked up to the magnification screen. The bugs had stopped fighting. Some were waving their heads, as though attempting to look up, to make out the source of the terrible rumbling in the sky with their primitive photosensors.

“I hope the bastards don’t have the sense to run,” she said under her breath.

“Unfortunately, the instinct for survival is paramount in the creatures,” said Begalli, above the roar. “They’re disoriented, but as soon as they sense the presence of the ship, they’ll start to scatter. Fortunately, there are enough of them clustered that they can’t scatter fast.”

“Can we go down quicker?” said Kozlowski, excited.

“Not and get the effect you want!” screamed Fitzwilliam.

“Besides, we want ‘em good and crisp! We don’t want any of that blood eating away at the hull or support struts,” said Tanarez.

True. Very true. C’mon, Koz. Use your head… not your hate and bloodlust.

She looked up again at the screen.

The shadow of the craft showed now, spread like a blot on the land and the mass of aliens.

Who began to scurry.

The shadow narrowed, darkened.

“Shit!” cried Tanarez. “That outcropping over there!”

“Yeah. I see it,” said the other pilot. “I’ll take her another twenty-five meters away. Tight fit, but I can land this baby on a dime.”

The confidence in Fitzwilliam’s voice encouraged her.

She could feel the shift of the ship. It slewed sideways, and started down again.

Catching a bunch of the bugs by surprise.

The tongues of intense puce and orange and ochre shot down to the ground, licking across the arid ground.

Lapping at the creatures.

Unable to take her eyes off the scene, she watched as the rocket flames covered and consumed hundreds of the beasts. Hundreds more not directly in the fires nonetheless burst into incandescence at the horrible heat.

Fried.

“Incredible,” she whispered.

She watched as long as she was able as the aliens were immolated. A black swath of alien ash… lovely. The Anteater, in just a minute, had wiped out enough to fill a couple of nests back home.

Unfortunately, it looked like there were plenty left to take their place.

“Hold a moment. Scorch the ground a little more before we land,” said Fitzwilllam. “We’ve got about all we can. I just want to make sure these below are properly cooked.”

“Sure.”

The craft jerked, and hung for just a few seconds.

Smoke was curling up now past the viewports, obscuring the scene. Kozlowski closed her eyes. Afterimages of the skeletal demons torching up flickered across her vision.

Then the ship descended again, this time landing on its struts with a wobbling jolt. It swayed, then stilled.

A red light shifted on.

“All right, grunts!” snapped Kozlowski. “We’ve got ourselves an emergency combat landing on our hands. It’s showtime!”

Now everything was in the hands of an Irishman named Seamus O’Connor—and the marvelous new technology at his fingertips. O’Connor was a guy she didn’t know that well. He was a technician who’d helped develop the procedure he was about to use, a sandy-haired gentleman with a soft voice and a twinkle to his eyes in social situations, but a rock-solid attitude of concentration during briefings and exercise. He looked like the kind of person who got a job done, and then went off to the pub to play pipes and whistles and have a few pints.

She looked out at the heaving mass of aliens, outlines in the soot. And if that didn’t work, they might as well just take off again out of here!

* * *

“All right, O’Connor,” Fitzwilliam’s voice crackled through the ’lobephone. “I’ve cut the engines. The smoke is pretty much dissipated. Do your duty before any of the things put on their boots and stomp back in.”

“Roger, Skipper.”

Corporal Seamus O’Connor scratched his beard. He adjusted his grav-chair for a better view of the control panel. He’d been training for this moment for months in virtual reality sims. Unfortunately, somehow it wasn’t quite the same here. He’d never had xenos crawling all over the place before. He’d never had a field of dismembered and burnt bugs to negotiate before.

What O’Connor operated were the PEHs—the Perimeter Extension Harpoons. The marines had learned pretty damned quick that in dealing with hostile life forms—i.e., bugs—force fields were quite useful. They’d been in use to a certain extent in the routine humdrum of company galactic life, but as soon as the nasty things with a penchant for destruction were discovered, necessity became the mother of invention yet again. Power was increased, but in landings like this one it was rapidly discovered that the fields could only be beamed out a short circumference around the ship. In situations involving the need for expanded territory, their reach had to be expanded.

Some kind of fence had to be constructed, utilizing force-field generating devices. However, in a theoretical hostile situation, neither men nor robots could be expected to trundle out and erect these posts.

Hence the harpoons.

They’d been tested before in the field, of course. Out in deserts and plains, among rocks and what have you. You just played Moby Dick, and shot them out to likely-looking spots. When they thunked in properly, you pressed a button for remote control and—ZAP. You had yourself a wide but snug little force-field cap within which to work.

O’Connor’s job now was to get those harpoons out.

He touched a button and the ports opened.

He did a quick analysis, adjusted the aim, said a prayer…

And fired.

Four harpoons—each seven meters tall and two thick—burst from their ports, sailed out into the alien atmosphere, trailing their power cables like baited hooks tossed from fishing rods.

They sailed majestically and gorgeously.

C’mon you beauties, thought O’Connor.

Hit your marks.

The sharp points, capable of boring into rock, struck the surface of the alien planet and—marvel of marvels—stuck.

“Bull’s-eye!” O’Connor cried.

The radio crackled. “No time to rest on your laurels. Looks like those bugs haven’t been discouraged much. They’re coming back in!”

“No problem!”

O’Connor leaned over and pulled the switch.

The posts sparked. A shimmer of power traveled down the lines, and then spread like electric coloring in water, connecting the posts, the cables, and swirling along the ground.

“Outwall activation has been initiated,” O’Connor reported, a note of triumph in his voice.

Dozens of aliens caught in the power grid were simply sheered in half. Others heading back in toward the lander simply bounced off the field, limbs and heads bent or smoking.

O’Connor grinned to himself, and put the field on automatic. He’d done his job.

Now the troops were going to have to do theirs.

* * *

This was why they had worn their suits:

So they could go into action at a moment’s notice.

“We’ve got some cleaning up to do, people,” said Kozlowski, motioning for the troops to hurry along into the hangar deck. “This is what we came to do.”

The rest of the crew already had their helmets on, so she couldn’t see what their faces registered.

“It’s why we’re drawing a salary.”

She put her own helmet on, tongued on communications.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I do believe we’re ready.”

“Roger, Colonel. Hatchway opening initiated.”

The carbines, plasma rifles, and other automatic weapons of the assembled rattled upward, positioning themselves for firing.

No depressurization was necessary. However the PSIs were not the same, so there was a distinct escape of air as the hatchway opened. A chiaroscuro of dark colors and smoke wavered between them and distant jagged rotten-tooth mountains. Before her oxygen-rich mix started to whisper through her suit’s ducts, she fancied she smelled the land beyond.

Burnt carbon.

Burnt silicon.

Alien acid.

Never-ending death beneath an eldritch, evil sun.

She had a regulation upper-pill in her hand, ready to take it. Looking out, though, she realized she didn’t really need it. She threw it away.

A surge of victory ran through her.

“C’mon, people,” she snapped through her microphone, staccato calling of a parade into a battle on shores not made for humans. “Let’s earn some money.”

18

The operation was basically a clean-up proposition.

The landing had cindered hundreds of the bugs. The force-field perimeter had locked out the remainder. Only about twenty-five of the aliens had made it past the harpoons before the field crackled on.

These were the current targets.

These were the bugs that had to be crushed.

Vague colorings or internal differences didn’t seem to matter. From the way these things acted, all were every centimeter the crazed berserkers their cousins were.

The lip of the ramp had not been touched down, and one of them leapt on it, scuttling up toward them, slavering and tearing away at the air.

“Simultaneous!” she cried and lifted her own rifle and fired.

The blast of weapons was so strong converging on the bug that the force lifted the thing up a good meter and slammed it back another ten. Damned good thing, too. It disintegrated into a splatter of parts and blood in midair.

“Keep that shit off the hull!” Kozlowski cried. “Okay now, move it!”

As practiced before, the troops moved out, plasma weapons first. A robo-wagon trundled out after them, bearing extra weapons, supplies, and automatic support keyed from the Anteater. As soon as the first four marines cleared the bottom of the ramp, they started blasting. A wave of fire, like a manic flamethrower on amphetamines, roared out, whacking into a group of five bugs scampering into the melee.

They all fell apart in the hellish fire.

Kozlowski and the others were out in a flash, bringing up the rear and selecting targets. Kozlowski felt as though she’d just downed a couple tabs of Xeno-Zip. Adrenaline? Yes, and bliss, too. It had been a long time since she’d fought real xenos, and there was nothing like the satisfaction of the prospect of one’s slugs putting out the lights on a bug to get a gal’s heart to thumpin’.

“Fire at will!” she said.

She jumped off the ramp and swiveled over to cover the underside of the lander. A space of about seven meters existed between the base of the lander and the ground. All in shadow. Unlikely that any had scuttled under here, but you never knew.

She nudged the correct com switch. “Turn on the bottom lights, Control!”

“Roger.”

The lights started to blink on, but even before they were up, through the heightened “ears” of the suit, she heard the telltale hissing.

“Damn!”

One was coming toward her.

* * *

They had descended to Mission Control, to stand and watch beside Corporal Seamus O’Connor as the monitors flashed the frenetic details of the conflict.

Daniel Grant felt giddy victory turn his skin to goosebumps.

What a spectacle!

Whatever doubts he’d ever felt about the competency of this batch of marines disappeared within seconds as the group fanned out in perfect formation, their weapons efficiently blasting away. Out in the open, the alien strategy seemed simple: charge and destroy. The Marine strategy seemed equally simple: blast the things to bits.

The marines acted like precision-sensored robots. Their aims were deadly. Like a phalanx of destruction, they performed this grisly, pyrotechnic ballet. Grant suddenly wished for some appropriate music. Sturm und drang!

O’Connor was clearly equally impressed. “Wow.” He turned to Dr. Begalli. “Those suits you produced are working great. Used to be, you couldn’t fight these things in such close quarters.”

Indeed, Grant noted.

As the radium bullets, the plasma blasts, and the tossed explosives struck the aliens, rupturing the chitinous material of their exoskeletons, they tended to burst apart like ripe tomatoes atop M-80s. Their “blood”—a viscous green ichor—hurled every which way, slapping across the white armor and helmets the marines wore.

The skin of the suit ruptured, fluid leaked out, instantly neutralizing the horrible full-bore effects of the acid. Then the skin “healed.” And voila—no harm done to the marine. Nonetheless, the troops seemed to be trying for the knees and the heads, as Colonel Kozlowski had instructed them, waiting till the aliens were prone before they blasted the torso apart.

Whatever they were doing, whatever the plan had been, it seemed to be working just fine. True, the alien blood was leaving pocks and craters in the ground, but the soldiers were trained to deal with them.

Particularly impressive in his efforts was Corporal Henrikson. Like some military juggernaut he moved over the battlescape with fierce speed and agility, his plasma rifle snuffing out aliens and putting them to fiery deaths in what seemed like speeded-up film.

“Man,” said Grant. “Look at Henrikson go!”

“Quite something,” said Begalli. “He’s a regular one-man army.”

“I’ve heard rumors. Some of the troops think he’s a synthetic,” said O’Connor.

“What the hell does it matter?” said Grant. “He’s doing his job and damned well!”

Dr. Begalli shook his head. “True. True. With soldiers like that, we’re going to get into the nest.”

Grant looked up just in time to see an odd look pass over Begalli’s face. A squinting feral look, like a rat considering the implications of a maze—and looking forward as much to shitting in the passageways as to getting to the cheese at the other end.

But then, Begalli had always struck him as one odd customer, and so he just set the observance aside and turned back to this marvelous bloody sport up there on the screen.

All he needed now was a beer and some peanuts.

* * *

It was a big one.

The alien under the lander scrabbled for Kozlowski like some frenetic dinosaur closing in for the kill on what it considered a soft-bellied mammal.

“Just try, asshole,” said Kozlowski, whipping her gun up.

The lights came on full bore, stopping the thing not one stride, but illuminating it thoroughly.

She fired.

The burst of bullets from her semiautomatic rifle fanned out perfectly. Textbook. The explosive slugs caught the thing in the kneecaps, exploding them. The beast went down, snarling and hissing, scrabbling for her without missing a beat.

She drew a bead on its bananalike head and squeezed off another burst. The thrill of competency seized her as the head burst apart. The blast kicked back a dollop of blood onto her suit.

Her reaction was knee-jerk terror. Experience had taught her that a burst of xeno blood on armor meant trouble.

Then her brain kicked in, salving her trained reaction with reality: this was a special suit.

Time to see if it worked. The guinea pig: herself.

The junk immediately sizzled and bubbled through the plastic lining. Like oozing pus, the neutralizing agent flowed out, and swallowed the acid.

Sizzle.

Bubble.

The plastic shell moved back over the hole and the suit was whole again.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of time to feel good about it. Already three more aliens were running her way underneath the lander. She picked off the right one. Knees. Head. Torso. The weapons these days were so good. The shells just cut through that damned exoskeleton like it was the thinnest of tin. So satisfying just seeing them burst like that.

Overripe gourds in a shooting gallery!

Another soldier was beside her.

The nametag read MAHONE.

No discussion. Just quick efficient drawing of a bead, and then her gun coughed off, dealing amazing damage to the beast to their left.

They swiveled as one, and their fire converged on the central alien, only five yards away now.

The strength of their blasting shattered the thing, and its blood blew back as well, among the tumble and tatters of its wasted body.

“He looked like my last boyfriend!” said Mahone over the radio, her voice sounding immensely satisfied.

“No,” said Kozlowski. “Seems to me the others look more like boyfriends.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right. Let’s waste ’em!”

Mahone’s grin showed through her faceplate.

However, before they could go and look for any more, a voice crackled over Kozlowski’s radio. “Colonel. We got one on the ship!”

“Damn,” said Kozlowski. “Not good!” She turned to Mahone. “Stay here and cover me. I have to check this out.”

“Roger.”

She turned and started running for the other side of the ramp to gain a vantage point on the situation.

Intellectually she’d been aware that the gravity here was only .9 of Earth Standard. However, she was shocked at how quickly she was able to move. True, these suits were a little lighter than she was used to…

She didn’t complain at all. She just had to adjust herself accordingly.

“Okay, hotshots,” she said to a soldier she immediately recognized as Jastrow. “What’s going on?”

Things looked pretty well contained. The rest of the bunch were killing either the last standing alien, or raking their weapons across the remains of ones already shot down, making sure they were dead.

Jastrow pointed. Sweat dripped down his temples and forehead despite his suit’s air-conditioning. Kozlowski followed the direction of his forefinger.

The xeno had somehow leapt up to one of the gemlike pilot blisters. Its talons were scratching along the structural spokes and its tail whipped hard against the material, attempting to break through.

Even as she stood, considering, Private Ellis puffed up, raising his rifle.

“Hold on, soldier,” said Kozlowski, holding out a halting hand. “Shoot the thing with that, we’ll have bug blood all over the hull.”

Bang! Bang! The tail whipped the blister. Probably giving the pilots fits.

“Jastrow! Haul the wagon over here,” she commanded.

Speedily, the private obeyed, grabbing hold of the robo-wagon. Kozlowski punched open a latch, lifted the lid, looked.

Selected what she needed.

The thing was like a squarish grenade launcher, with various tangly things extruding. She picked it up, put it up against her shoulder aimed at the offending alien, and fired.

The projectile that shot out progressed half the distance in a blur, but then at the top of its trajectory bloomed out into a net drawn by three guided bolos. Expertly directed, they whacked past the bug, scooped it up in the net.

Electricity arced and zapped.

The bug was pried off its hold, and carried off meters away to bounce hard upon the land. It rolled, and lay there, just a faint hiss and crackle emerging.

“Dead?” asked Jastrow.

“No way,” Kozlowski said. “I doubt it. The electrical charge in the mesh is probably just enough to stun it.”

“What should we do?”

Kozlowski considered.

Her first inclination was to just kill it. Quick. However, she well knew that Grant was watching the proceedings, and may want to imprison it with a force field in order that his scientist could examine it. She tongued her comm unit, hating having to do it.

However, like a bolt out of the blue, before she could do a damned thing, a plasma blast fried the bug and the net.

She swung around to see the perpetrator of this, wondering whether to chew the soldier out or thank him.

Standing there, looking totally competent and unfazed, was Corporal Henrikson.

“It looked like it was about to break free, Colonel,” the man said.

The colonel shrugged. “Yeah. Next time, though, check with me.”

“Sure.”

She looked around the field of devastation.

The bugs were squashed here, totally.

She took her helmet off and sniffed.

“Ah. What a stench,” she said. “Nothing like it in the universe.”

19

Soldiers, still helmeted and suited up, were carrying burnt and destroyed bodies of the enemy to collect them in a single pile. A vehicle was building a border of dirt around this pile, to prevent any possible spread of lingering acid.

Although he wore no suit, Daniel Grant had taken the precaution of donning acid-neutralizing boots. What with the lower gravity, though, he did not notice the extra weight or bulk.

On alien soil.

Grant had been born on a colony, but his own homeworld had not been that much different from Earth. His years on Earth had made him feel like a native. So it was an odd sensation indeed to actually be walking on ground so far from home, and so distinctly different in taste, touch, smell, and general atmosphere. Too, there could be no doubt that he was walking over a battlefield now.

Or that another war entirely was going on beyond the background buzz of the force-field perimeter.

Tune that out for now, man, he told himself. Take it a step at a time. Right now you’re a lot safer here than you were back on Earth with that gangster Fisk breathing down your neck!

A couple of the troops were standing by the edge of the encampment, looking out past the clear shimmer of the force field to the events beyond.

Swarms of bugs were moving, dodging and sparring, occasionally dashing out and tearing one another to bits. Not exactly a melee, and the oddest battle that Daniel Grant had ever witnessed. Flashes of green and black. Fillips of splashed blood. Limbs flying and occasionally crackling into the field, bouncing back off in a spray of sparks, singed.

“Sun’s up. Clouds are off,” said Private Jastrow. “Feels good.”

“What, you’re enjoying a nice sunbath?” said Private Ellis, sarcastic. “God knows what kind of deadly radiation is coming down from that sun!”

“Like this whole planet is a health spa! Look, Ellis. You take your pleasure where you can get it! I’m taking mine here! Right now!” He held his arms outstretched. “Ah! Wonderful! I may come back with a tan.”

“Just be happy if you come back.”

“Actually, Ellis, I gotta tell you. I’m feeling relief. Great relief.”

“Heaven’s sake, why?”

“Everything is working great. That last bit wasn’t so bad. Not too bad at all.” Jastrow smiled. “Hell, this operation’s going to be a cinch.”

Ellis looked out at the mass of bugs, the hive, the stricken panorama. “Yeah… right.”

Grant stepped up to them. “Hello, gentlemen. I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your work today.”

They spun around, slightly alarmed. “Mr. Grant!” said Jastrow.

“Sorry to creep up on you like that. I didn’t mean to, really, I just want to personally congratulate you. I was watching you guys. All of you. On the screens. You operated like a well-oiled, absolutely brilliant machine. It’s good to be working with such fine people like you.”

The two could not help but break out into broad smiles. “Thanks, Mr. Grant,” said Jastrow.

“You know, you two may not be in the Marines all your lives. Whenever you’re out, Grant Industries is probably going to have positions for guys like you.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“So just keep up the good work!”

He moved away, to go have a look at what was going on at the side of the Anteater. That little speech should help boost the morale. Those two would probably spread it among the others, and he would be happy to repeat it. It wasn’t bullshit, either. He really meant it. He’d be happy to hire all of these people.

First thing he’d do was set them on that maniac Fisk.

On the side of the lander, a huge portion of metal had flipped down on hinges, exposing a bank of gleaming guns. A regular arsenal.

Grant felt a lilt to his step, a bounce to his walk as he approached.

In the command control area behind this array of weaponry, Sergeant Argento was doing a double check to systems.

“Looks like some mean machines here, Sarge,” said Grant.

“That they are, Mr. Grant!” Argento said from beneath his drooping black mustache.

“What’s the plan?”

“Pretty simple. We’ve got about seventy more yards to go before we can start thinking about getting into the hive entrance. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of activity going on out there, what with alien species war going on.”

“So I’ve noticed. Lovely to see them going at each other, instead of at us.”

“Yes, sir. Well, we synchronize openings in the field to allow for explosive discharges. Then we bomb the territory between us and the top of the entrance, to clear off as many bugs as possible. Once the things are either dead or scattered, we blow out another PEH. Sink it in, turn it on—extend the force-field perimeter. Little trickier on this kind of rock but nothing harder than what we’ve just accomplished, really.”

“And then we go for the gold.”

“Exactly.”

The silvery weaponry gleamed in the alien sun, sparkling with promise.

Grant gave the sergeant a thumbs-up sign.

“Here’s to a campaign without a hitch.”

“Yes, sir.” Argento returned the gesture. “Without a hitch and then back home for the biggest party in one of your best casinos.”

“You’ve been to one of my casinos, Argento?”

“Yes, sir. The Beach Blossom, last year. Lost my shirt, but I had the time of my life!” Argento was grinning, showing even, white teeth.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that, my friend. Yes, an excellent concept. A party for you all… At my casino, the Beach Blossom at New Atlantic City!”

“Without a hitch!”

“That’s right, soldier! That’s pretty much what I promised your commanders before we started this trip—and now, thanks to the wonderful technology here, look where we are!”

He walked over and stood just meters away from a red and a black alien, slashing at each other.

It was like watching a movie.

He felt totally safe.

He put his hands on his hips and laughed.

Piece of cake!

* * *

They were playing horseshoes outside the lander.

Alex Kozlowski wasn’t quite sure where they’d gotten the stuff. Probably fashioned it in the metal shop on-board the Razzia for just such a possibility, and then stashed the stuff on the Anteater.

Clang!

Private Ellis’s throw was a ringer, twirling around the post.

“Good shot!” said Jastrow.

Cheers arose from the audience.

Those two! What a pair! When they’d asked permission to set up the game, Kozlowski’s first inclination was to say no. However, the pressures were so much that she not only assented, but went the next step.

Why not a picnic? The clouds had cleared and there was a sun shining through. They’d done the first part of the mission extremely well, and there was still a few hours till the rest of the operation could be properly set up.

So, instead of making her marines eat their meal inside the cold and antiseptic Anteater, she’d allowed the sandwiches and sodas to be set up on a folding table just outside the ramp. You had to be a little careful—if something went wrong with those force fields, you wanted to be able to make it back into the hold of the lander ASAP.

Jastrow finished his game, then moved to stand by the force field of the perimeter with his saxophone. He serenaded the aliens with John Coltrane-like free form squawking, with an occasionally more melodic passage thrown in for fun.

She was eating a tasteless sandwich layered with energy-rich Vit-C sauce for a boost, listening to Jastrow’s jazz, and along with some heavily carbed macro-drink, when Daniel Grant sidled up, chomping confidently on his sandwich.

“Regular holiday.”

“A bit bizarre, I agree,” she said. “They need it though. There’s worse ahead. Much worse.”

“What? Things are going great.”

“Grant. This is a war. Already we weren’t quite expecting conflict on this level. Me, I would have preferred to wait until these things killed each other, then moved in.”

Grant shook his head. “Not in the schedule. Things like fuel involved… money… time… Most especially time.” His jaws worked thoughtfully around a mouthful of sandwich. “I don’t have much time, back on Earth. Can’t waste any hovering above this Hiveworld. Wonder what’s going on back there, anyway.”

“Maybe you better concentrate on this particular hellhole.”

“Yeah right. But I came here because I need to talk to you a moment.”

“You are talking to me.”

“Alone, I mean. Not in earshot of the troops.”

“Ah.” She examined her wristwatch. She was out of her suit, taking the opportunity for a little bit of freedom. She didn’t know how long she was going to be in next time she donned the thing. Probably too long. “How about inside the ship?” She wasn’t that crazy about it out here now, anyway. Sun or no sun. Those bugs crawling and lumbering and fighting out there bothered her, dammit.

“That will be just fine.”

She took another bite, another sip, nonchalantly gestured for him to follow.

Even as she walked into the locker room, she felt a little better. There was the smell of B.O. and gym shorts, sure, but at least it was human and familiar. The whiff of those bugs out there triggered all her inner alarms.

She spun on him, slapping her fingers clear of crumbs. “What’s up, Grant?”

He sat down on a bench. “These troops… they’re good.”

“You’re telling me something I don’t know?”

“I’m sure they’re going to pull this mission off, just fine.”

“I sure as hell hope so. You dragged me in here to tell me that?”

Grant got up and began to pace.

“I don’t know. That sabotage thing has got me worried.”

“Consider yourself reassured. I think if they were going to strike, it would have been by now. Besides, think about this one, Grant. Right now, the numbers are down. They’re in the same boat we are. We sink, they sink.” She shrugged. “Besides, if there is a saboteur, I’d be happy to lay odds that it’s one of your scientist bozos. Now there is a collection of premium losers.”

“We do have a scientist along, remember. Begalli.”

“Rat-face. Yeah. I’m watching him, don’t worry. I’m watching everybody. But take it from me. I’m watching my own ass most of all.”

“Me, too. It is a nice one.”

She laughed out loud. “You’re a hard case. Even while you’re sober, and I smell like a horse after the Derby.”

“You smell fine.”

She nodded. “That’s what Michaels used to say.”

“Michaels?”

“Peter Michaels. Old lover. We used to fight together. Hell, we used to waste those bug hives, he and I. What a team.” She shook her head. “God, we got into this incredible habit. After a gig, we’d come back. We’d be so hot, we didn’t even bother to shower. We just stripped our suits and screwed. Sheesh. Couple of crazy horny kids.”

She looked over at him. His face had turned a bright pink.

“Something wrong, Grant.”

“Nothing. Nothing, Alex. Only…” He smiled. “I know women. Sorry about the old drunken stupor the other night, but you know, you’re not badlooking… And you’re pretty damned tough and not exactly the most feminine creature I’ve ever encountered… I like you. Moreover… I think you like me. I can sense these kinds of things, kiddo. So I was wondering, once this is all over…”

“You touch me, you asshole, and I’ll cut your genitals off and stick them up your nose.”

He shrugged. “Just thought I’d try.” He got up to go. “Well, off to my possible death.”

She stepped over, spun him around, yanked his head down, and devoured his mouth with hers.

Just as the surprise wore off and Grant warmed up to the osculation, she pushed him away so hard he almost tumbled over the bench.

“God!” he said, catching his balance. “What was that all about?”

“Just don’t let it go to your head, okay?” She smoothed her mussed hair and stormed from the room. enormously upset at herself.

She’d liked that a lot, dammit.

20

The troops were lined up and ready, their helmets back on and properly secured, their weapons cocked, primed, fully loaded and hungry for action.

A silence descended upon the troops, bordered by the buzz of the force fields and the snarling tumult of the fighting aliens between them and the entrance to the blacks’ monolithic hive.

Kozlowski could feel their tension.

Or was it just her own tension, multiplied by twenty-five? This was going to be the make-or-break of the mission.

Thankfully, the ranks of the bugs had thinned somewhat. Whether many of them had simply been killed or crawled into holes somewhere she didn’t know. She just hoped they hadn’t gone into the hive.

She tongued her comm. “Troops ready.”

The bounce-back from Control Central. “All set here.” O’Connor’s brogue. “Sergeant Argento?”

She looked back to where the sergeant sat, behind his banks of big weapons.

“Guns are sighted and ready,” said Argento, fingers playing expertly across the controls. “I don’t see a more optimum time.”

Kozlowski looked up. She could have wished for a little more light. The clouds had closed back up, tight.

Oh, well, it didn’t really matter that much. They had a good five hours till darkness. That would be more than enough time.

“Right,” came O’Connor’s voice. “Opening force-field apertures.”

Kozlowski looked up toward the top of the force field. The field looked like a thin wavering skein of gray normally. It would open just—

There!

A wide hole sphinctered, and Argento wasted no time.

The big guns thundered.

The many millimetered shells sailed out perfectly, hammering onto the landscape. Whole clusters of bugs were destroyed, even more thrown back in the explosions.

More shells, differently directed, hammered out of the guns, exploded on the landscape.

When the smoke cleared, Kozlowski saw that a wide swath had been cleared. A trail of craters lay in the valley that led up to the opening of the hive.

“Harpoon away!” called O’Connor.

The appropriately aimed gun on the side of the lander thumped. Amid an explosion of gases, the harpoon launched. It sailed over their heads swiftly and majestically, trailing its cable like a kite caught in a gale. It threaded the hole in the force field easily and whooshed toward its target.

Even back here, many meters away, Kozlowski could hear the large harpoon thunk into place, burying itself in the ground right on target.

A hearty “Hurrah” sounded from the troops.

“We have a successful landing!” chirped O’Connor’s voice. “Prepare for perimeter extension.”

The troops grew quiet. Kozlowski braced herself, getting her rifle ready. Theoretically, when O’Connor pushed the right combination of switches and levers, the force field would move out like an arcing gate—only expanding as it did so.

Whacking all bugs en route.

However, in the activity, there was always the possibility that one of the aliens would slip through unharmed. That alien would have to be dealt with, immediately, hence the preparedness of the troops.

She could see the force field flicker erratically as it moved.

“Take it a little slower,” she instructed.

“Can’t,” replied O’Connor.

With a whoosh, the force field was patterning out and then—snap!—was in place.

Leaving behind a scattered handful of aliens, in various states of disrepair and shock.

“Kill ‘em,” said Kozlowski.

The troops moved forward, bullets and plasma leaping out to smack into the survivors. It was all over in a matter of moments, bug pieces scattered to the winds of destruction.

And the force fields were buzzing away, the tunnel within easy striking distance.

“Yes!” Private Ellis’s fist smote the air.

Cheers broke out among them all as they broke ranks and several broke out and headed deeper into the newly taken territory.

“Wait a minute, you assholes!” screeched Kozlowski. “I didn’t order you…”

The force field wavered.

The troops all stopped in their tracks.

Kozlowski could feel something wrong before she saw anything.

But when she saw it, what was wrong was pretty obvious.

The newly planted harpoon was starting to list.

“What the hell—”

“Shit, what’s going on—?”

“Oh, my God! We couldn’t see it when it struck…”

“The thing landed on a couple of intact bugs.”

That was the only explanation, and the veracity of it, and its implications swept through Kozlowski like electricity.

“Fall back!” she cried.

The alien acid must be eating through the base…

The upright harpoon shifted more, and the force field flickered again.

Then the thing toppled, its extended antenna breaking up.

The southern force field went down.

For a terrible moment she felt like an EVA astronaut with her suit ripped off.

“Get back to the original lines!” she screamed.

At first the surrounding bugs didn’t seem to notice. But then, with the damnable speed of their breed, they perceived that the strange almost-invisible wall that had kept them from new prey had evaporated.

A few tentatively began to straggle toward the troops.

The soldiers who had gone the farthest out turned to run back. The aliens coming through seemed to sense their fear. They loped forward in the attack.

“Cover them!” screamed Kozlowski. She fired a volley as close to the troops as she dared, catching a couple of the bugs in their thoraxes, stopping them cold.

But others took their places.

“Okay!” she said after chinning her com. “They’re past the original wall. Get that back up.”

“Trying,” said O’Connor. ““Something’s short-circuited!”

“Do it, dammit!”

“Argento!” said O’Connor. “Get that other harpoon off. That will do the trick.”

By this time, Kozlowski had her hands too full to make commands, let alone comments.

The bugs were starting to come in.

Not the whole horde, thank God, or they’d be as good as dead.

She started blasting, just hoping her people had the sense to come in out of the storm.

* * *

“Shit!” said Daniel Grant. He pounded his hand hard against a bulkhead. “Shit shit shit!”

“Steady, Mr. Grant,” said Dr. Begalli. “I’m sure they’ve got alternative plans.”

O’Connor was leaning forward, stabbing at the controls. “Goddammit, Argento. Fire the thing! Manually!”

A voice crackled over the radio. “Can’t. Can’t find an opening. The things are swarming back into the crater.”

“Then make an opening!” said O’Connor. “That’s what you’ve got the starboard guns for. Blow ‘em off!”

Grant watched disbelievingly.

Without a hitch.

Falling apart. Right before his eyes. If those troopers came out of this one without a casualty, it would be a miracle.

The point man—the one the farthest out—had to turn and blast with his weapons.

Grant watched with helpless horror as a bug scuttled up the backs of two of its fellows and leapt high into the air, landing directly on the man’s back.

The soldier fought.

Grant had never seen such a fight.

Even though suddenly the aliens were all around him, like ants around a lump of sugar, they quaked and blew apart from the plasma blaster.

Then the havoc there stilled, and Grant could see the things scrabbling away, carrying bloody bits of suit, and pieces of the soldier, like trophies.

He had to turn away.

Without a hitch.

He’d never before seen his optimism turn to sewage, right before his eyes. His stomach turned, and he felt as though he was going to throw up. He contained himself, though. He reached down deep for strength, found it.

“Hell with the perimeter. Just have him blast those things! Cover the retreat!”

“I’m sure Argento is doing what he can.”

“Look, can you get at least a partial up. Use what you got, man! Give them some time!”

He’d come light-years with these people, eaten with them, come to respect them in an odd but compelling way. And now they were being torn apart before his eyes.

O’Connor nodded. “I can try, sir. I can try.”

* * *

Sergeant Argento cursed.

How the hell was he going to kill all these bugs alone? Should he start blasting, like O’Connor seemed to want—or should he clear out a crater and send off a harpoon?

He decided to do both. He blasted away with all the guns, making sure he didn’t hit any of the troops. The shells streaked out, scattering whole swaths of bugs, and making craters.

Not exactly as far as they would like, not as close to the entrance of the hive as they needed—

But it would have to do.

He sent off another volley.

Excellent! It was giving the troops a fighting chance.

He swiveled the guns slightly to the right, concentrated on aiming—

And then heard the hissing.

Damn!

He reached down for his hand weapon and spun around, but it was too late. The bug jumped down from the hull of the Anteater like a spider pouncing on its prey.

Its secondary set of jaws rammed through Argento’s neck, speckling his guns with rich arterial blood.

* * *

They were moving back.

She’d watched Rodriguez go down. Go down bravely and well, taking a lot of bugs with him and maybe giving them a second or two extra to retreat. No time to grieve now, Kozlowski knew.

It was time to fight.

And she’d never fought quite like this before in her life.

Her rifle was discharging so quickly she could feel the heat come off the thing even through the gloves of her suit. With skill and precision she didn’t know she had, she slammed away at the monsters, blowing them apart as fast as they came at her.

The thing was, she didn’t have to think about what she was doing, it was all coming automatically. Because of these suits, the acid-splatter factor was not significant. She didn’t have to aim at the knees, and then finish with their heads. She could just keep the rifle level and rip off fire at precisely the moment her instincts and skill dictated.

All the rest of the soldiers seemed to be doing equally well. The aliens were going down in huge numbers. The problem was that their numbers kept on getting replenished.

Sensing something on her peripheral vision, she wheeled around and found one of the bugs almost on top of her, its gooey saliva dripping as though in preparation for a feast.

She fed it a blast of plasma.

The thing’s head lifted up off its neck in the gout of fire and flipped back like some obscene rocket aborting in its takeoff. She ripped off another round of fire to give herself some breathing room, and then took stock of the situation.

They’d all made it back to within the original perimeter… all but one.

Private Jastrow was just outside the area, his rifle blasting away.

“Jastrow!” she said. “Step back, dammit! Step back so we can put the field on!”

The man’s radio apparently was not working. He did not respond. He just kept firing away at the things.

She was going to have to go out there and drag him back in, dammit. She started wading through the pile-up of dead bugs, firing away, then stopped dead as she looked back in the direction she was going.

The bugs covered Jastrow.

One was blasted away, but another took its place.

The radio screeched. “Ellis! Ellis, I need some backup! Ellis!” There was a muffled scream, signaling the end of a jazzman’s military career.

“Argento! Start pounding the perimeter wall!” Kozlowski radioed.

No response.

What had happened to the guns, dammit! What was going on!

“Argento! Push them back with the guns!”

Another voice on the radio: “Argento’s down, Colonel. There’s a bug up there!”

Shit. Only one recourse now.

“O’Connor! Reactivate the southern wall! ASAP!”

Another bug charged her, dripping with human blood.

* * *

For some reason, Daniel Grant could not take his eyes off the gory demise of Private Jastrow.

He was stricken by grief, an unfamiliar emotion. He’d actually liked Jastrow, he suddenly realized. He hadn’t realized before that he could like anybody. That concept just didn’t seem appropriate to the kind of businessman he was.

He felt helpless. If only he could do something!

Then he heard Colonel Kozlowski’s command come in.

At least she was still alive.

“Will do, Colonel,” said O’Connor. “I’ve got the thing rerouted, and I think it’s possible.”

No more from the colonel. Grant watched as she swiveled and her plasma rifle shredded an approaching alien.

O’Connor leaned forward, hand outstretched toward the switch that would effect the renewal of the force field.

Dr. Begalli reached forward and stopped him. “Wait!” he said.

“Wait my ass! What’s going on?” said Grant. “More and more of those things are starting to notice the breech. You’ve got to close it up. Lives are being lost down there!”

O’Connor reached for the switch again.

Begalli said, “No!”

Grant stood up and pulled Begalli back. “What are you trying to do, Doctor?”

But O’Connor paused as well. “He’s right!”

“Right? What are you talking about?”

“Marines!” said O’Connor through his headset. “Get someone up on those guns!”

“What are you doing?” demanded Grant.

“Dr. Begalli’s right, Mr. Grant. There are too many of those bastards down there. Only thing that’s going to kick them out is that gun array. First off, there’s going to have to be someplace to go to. Second place, using those guns with the force field up full is damned dangerous to the lander. That’s what Dr. Begalli means.”

Begalli looked furtive about the whole thing. “Uhm… Yes, of course. That’s what I mean.”

“Does the colonel know that?”

“Yes, sir,” said O’Connor. “They all know that.”

* * *

When she killed the alien that almost got her, Kozlowski didn’t have time to enjoy its death throes.

“Get that bug off those guns! Get ’em going again, dammit, or we’re cooked,” she said, surveying the situation. “Private Mahone! You’re the closest. Do it, dammit!”

“But, sir—”

Mahone was on one knee, spraying charging bugs, keeping them at bay.

“We’ll keep them at bay. Do it—”

A pause… and then Private Mahone was up. She sidled on, and Kozlowski got a look at her face through the mottled faceplate. She looked uncertain and scared.

“Mahone. That xeno squatting up there by the guns. Looks an awful lot like that old boyfriend of yours, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, sir. He kinda does.”

Immediately the private began to hustle. She moved up the steps on the side of the lander. The alien hunkered over the remains of Argento. It hissed at her, wobbling like a spider guarding its prey.

“Don’t let it bleed on the guns, Private.”

Two steps forward.

The private dropped to the steps, avoiding a lunge from the alien. Brought her plasma rifle up at just the right angle.

Fired.

The force of the fiery discharge impacted on the thing’s torso, pushing it over the edge even as the blast cindered it. The thing wilted to the ground and dropped, a flaming husk, not even giving a good heartfelt spasm.

“Good show, Mahone. Now, you think you can fire those guns?”

“Yes, sir.” The private clambered up the stairs and over the body of Argento. “They’re all starting to look like somebody’s boyfriend.’”

She jumped into the seat.

Immediately the guns started to swivel, pointing downward at the bugs already inside the force field, and those still crawling through.

They spoke.

The shells came hot and heavy… and well placed.

“Okay, guys. Let’s get out of the rain, before we get blown up as well,” said the colonel, motioning an ally-alley-in-come-free.

The troops seemed all too happy to obey, retreating and contributing their own fire.

The result was a rout. Between their concentrated wall of blasts and the powerful guns above them, those aliens not smart enough to retreat through the opening of the force field were obliterated.

Soon, all that moved among their ruins was smoke.

“Okay, O’Connor. Give it a try now.”

The force field shimmered back into place.

“Okay, people,” Kozlowski said. “Fan out and finish off any still alive!” She sighed. “Then we can count our dead.”

21

The task was grisly, and it took a while, but the remains of the dead were placed in body bags, zipped tight, and then lined outside the ramp to the Anteater. All it would take was the okay from Kozlowski and they would be carted back into the freezer inside the lander.

When the bags lay in a row beside the lander, Colonel Kozlowski called for a moment of silence for the dead. When that was over, she spoke.

“I’d better say something now, because I might be the next one to go into one of these things. These were good people. There will be plenty of time to honor them properly and grieve later. They gave their all to the mission. Others may not recognize their contribution later. But we always will. Argento, Jastrow, Rodriguez, McCoy, Lantern, Chang. Their shells may be zipped up, but their spirits are still with us, and will be as long as we do our jobs with dedication and sincerity.”

She bowed her head and observed her own moment of silence. In her mind, she heard a sweet snatch of some tune that Jastrow had played once. It sounded like hope, even now.

“Okay,” she said, keeping herself stern and businesslike.

The bags were put on a wagon and taken up the ramp.

A raucous squawking made Kozlowski jump.

She turned around, hand going to the sidearm she was wearing.

Sitting on the edge of a folding chair that had been used for lunch was Private Ellis, lips around the end of Jastrow’s saxophone. He moved the mouthpiece. “Sorry, Colonel.”

“That’s all right, Private. I’m just a bit on edge.”

“Think I can ever learn to play this thing?”

“Why would you want to?”

“Jastrow. He always wanted me to try. I always told him I had no musical ability and besides, there was spit all over it.” He sighed. “That part doesn’t seem that important anymore.”

“Sorry about your friend.”

“Yeah. I figure we’ve gotten about a thousand or so bugs for every man killed here.”

“It’s not worth it, is it?”

“No. It’s not.”

She felt someone looking at her. Turned.

Daniel Grant was walking down the ramp. She was about to get on her soapbox and rant at him, but then she noticed his face. It was white. In his eyes were the beginnings of tears.

She turned away and let him come up to her. Let him start the conversation, if he wanted to.

“I want you and your people to know how sorry I am,” he said finally, after a long silence. “I guess when you see life turning into death so abruptly, it puts things in perspective.”

“Some business we’re in here, eh, Grant?” she said.

“Some business.” He nodded thoughtfully. “My problems… they can’t compare with this.” He sighed. “We can’t quit now, though, can we?”

“No. My country sent me here to accomplish something. It’s my duty to do that. You’ll get what you came here to get, Grant.”

“And maybe more than I bargained for.”

“Definitely.”

“Colonel. There’s going to be a linkup with the Razzia in ten minutes. We’re going to confer on the situation and decide a course of action. Naturally I want you to be there.”

“Yes. I’ll be right there.”

She turned and continued to do what she could in the time remaining to her to give her the confidence and grit that she herself felt rapidly escaping from her.

* * *

It was a makeshift conference table at best, but it would have to do.

“I’ve just finished a full transmission to Captain Hastings of the events that have just occurred here,” said Corporal O’Connor. He swiveled and turned a switch. “He’s waiting to join the conference. Permission to let him in?”

Grant nodded.

“Permission granted,” said Kozlowski. “We’ll need all the input we can get.”

Captain Hastings bid his regrets at the turn of events. His voice sounded even more subdued than usual.

“Now then,” said Grant. “We’ve got a situation on our hands. I’d like to say, why don’t we just give it another try with the perimeter extension harpoon. However, after what we’ve just been through, I don’t think so.”

“It’s possible we’re going to have to,” said Kozlowski. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t explore other possibilities. Dr. Begalli… you seem to be the resident expert on the present situation with the aliens. What’s your prognosis?”

“Clearly our projections were quite accurate,” said the man, after scratching his large nose. “There is a genetic offshoot of the aliens, and the originals are attempting to eradicate them. Only we never anticipated this kind of scale… Or that it would hinder our actions to this degree.”

“Not quite true,” said Kozlowski. “We’ve got the technology. It’s just not working as well as we would like.”

Begalli’s ferretlike eyes flicked back and forth over those assembled. “Despite our feelings of loss and frustration, I cannot forget just how correct my projections were about the recessive gene. Something that was quite unlikely. Naturally we’re sorry for the loss… But after years and years, my science seems to be correct.” He tapped his finger emphatically. “What we all want is in that hive. It’s the answer to our dreams… Maybe, ultimately even to the whole alien conflict.”

“Why would you say that?” said Henrikson.

“We came here to get the queen mother royal jelly and we’ve got to do that. Do you know how much we’ve been working with in these last two decades? About two hundred gallons’ worth, that’s all. Our tank here can go up to well over two thousand gallons, and I’m sure we can fill it. With that amount to work with, all kinds of possibilities will open up.

“We can learn something, I suppose, from this red and black alien business. Still it’s all academic curiosity. There are no practical applications yet. With the jelly, those applications may be possible.”

“Oh, like what?”

“The key to the genetic control of the aliens! It could be in the queen down there and her royal jelly! Sorry, Mr. Grant, but there’s a lot more at stake here than money for your company, and hyperspeed for the armed forces.” He tapped the table emphatically. “Why do you think the red aliens are attempting genocide on the blacks?”

“Isn’t it the same old story? They’re different?”

Begalli shook his head. “You’ve got to have a certain amount of intelligence to be bigoted. The xenos aren’t that smart. No. It’s because on a very real level, the existence of difference threatens each other.

“Eradication is programmed into the species. I would daresay that in hives every once in a while red eggs are laid—and immediately destroyed by the queen or the queen’s guards. When we removed the queen from the black hive and killed her guards, it probably allowed time for these freakish red eggs already laid to develop and grow… And then escape and build their own hive.”

“Look, this is all very interesting,” said Kozlowski. “But how is it going to get us past the war going on down there, and into the hive, where we can do our job? And get out with our butts intact, I might add!”

“Yes,” said Grant ruminatively. “A definite priority.”

“Let’s look at it this way then,” said Begalli. “What we have here is warfare on a grand scale. Each of these alien races would like to eradicate the other. Annihilate. This mission is deeply embedded in their chromosomal structure.” He shrugged. “Now if we just tilt that warfare in the favor of the blacks, that would be to our definite advantage. We don’t want mutant jelly. We want the black jelly, the stuff we know something about and can use.”

Hastings’s voice crackled over the radio. “I got lots of great weapons up here, folks. If you want, we can just nuke the red hive.”

Begalli nodded. “Excellent! That might just work.”

“How?” Grant asked.

Kozlowski nodded. “Well, it would kill off the red queen mother for one thing and with her any psychic control of her drones. Which would send the red army into disarray.”

“More than that,” said Begalli. “Without that control, instinctively the red army would retreat toward their hive. Equally instinctively the black army would pursue!”

Grant snapped his fingers. “Leaving the black hive wide open!”

“That would be the theory, yes… It’s the best choice, in my opinion,” said Begalli. “We’d still have to deal with the black guards, and they will be bigger and fiercer. But they would be limited in number. What we’re facing out there is a problem of sheer oppressive volume.”

Grant smacked the table. “Yes. We’re going to have to do it, I think! Opinion, Colonel?”

“Sure. Why not. At the very least we’re going to kill a lot of bugs!”

“Captain. How soon can you have those war-heads ready?” said Grant.

“Couple of hours,” came the voice.

“Excellent. We can accomplish this well before nightfall,” said Kozlowski. “Get started, Captain. We can always postpone till morning if necessary.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Hastings. “I’ll get right to it.”

Grant was nodding, his face intent. “One more thing, Colonel. I’d like to come with you when you go into that hive.”

“What for?” said Kozlowski. “You’re a civilian. You’re not trained for this kind of work.”

“I feel responsible here. I feel a moral obligation. You need extra people. I can aim a gun and shoot it. I—”

“Okay,” she said.

“I want—” He blinked. “What?”

“I said you can go. There’s a spare suit about your size down in the holding tank in the locker room. We’ll go over the situation here in a few minutes, I’ll brief you on a few things you’ll have to know… And then you can suit up.”

Grant’s mouth flapped for a moment like a fish out of water.

“It’ll be good to have you along, Grant!”

Henrikson and Begalli excused themselves to start preparations for the next assault.

“All right, people,” announced Kozlowski. “Now that we’ve got a plan, let’s chew over some details.”

She felt charged again.

Those bugs were going to pay.

Big time.

* * *

Kozlowski was letting him go along!

A few minutes after the hour-long meeting, Daniel Grant was making his way down to the locker room, brain buzzing with the “briefing” that he’d just received. He felt beat up with facts and instructions, as though somehow Kozlowski had put him through a brief but intense boot camp under the whip of Drill Instructor Koz herself. Not fun!

Not that he wasn’t sincere about wanting to go along.

He just hadn’t really expected for her to agree to his volunteering.

Well, nothing for it now, old man. You’re in for the full nine yards now. Play it out, do your job, and this will turn out fine! Just fine!

He entered the familiar smell of the locker, particularly ripe now from the recent press of ripe bodies that had just passed through.

Where was it that Kozlowski had said the spare suit was? Oh, yes, over in the cabinet yonder.

No lock, no latch.

Sabotage was the last thing on Grant’s mind, he was so preoccupied with the lessons he’d learned about alien killing.

He opened the door and saw the suit, and reached for it. What he did not see was the alien egg pod sitting in the shadows.

22

The thing stood like an obscene, fleshy orchid bulb.

Grant smelled it before he saw it.

That now-familiar, intense acidic blast of stench.

As he reached for the suit, his foot stubbed against the growth. It gave like a stink cabbage.

He looked down.

At first, he didn’t want to believe his eyes.

Then he saw the tangle of talons, wiggling at the opening of the bulb, like the beginnings of a sand crab, emerging from its shell.

He froze.

He’d seen alien larvae before, of course. He’d seen them prey on test animals plenty of times. Only they had been behind thick glass at the time… Now this one was mere inches from his face.

It hissed at him and began to come out faster, bending the petals of its deadly flower as it came.

“Screeeee!”

It launched.

Directly for his face.

Sheer desperation somehow prized the freeze lock off his muscles. Off to his right was a hanging suit. He reached out, grabbed it, and pulled it between himself and the face-hugger.

It bounced off it and flopped onto the floor.

Grant had just enough time to let off a yelp and take a step away from the thing before it animated again, leaping up toward him as though its legs were spring-loaded. As though his face were metal and the thing were a magnet, it headed straight for his eyes.

He reached out and caught it.

The talonlike claws tore at his skin. The pain shot up his arm, causing him to throw the thing down. It hit the floor, but it had clearly discovered its mission. It jumped around and was about to leap back up at him, when a blur flashed off to the left and a suited foot kicked it square in its crabby ass.

The thing hit the wall like a hockey puck smacking the sidelines, sluiced along the floor.

A rifle went up, tracked, sighted.

Energy sizzled out.

The blast smacked it like the finger of God, smushing a demon. Some of its acid came out, bubbling a small hole in the floor… But most was consumed in the incendiary blast.

He stepped back, his legs hit a stool, he sat down hard.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Just my job,” the person said, with bite.

He looked over to his savior.

It was Colonel Kozlowski.

“Looks like one of your pets wandered off the beaten track,” she said, already going for a bucket.

She put it in a shower stall, started filling it with water. “I’m losing count of the screwups in your ‘harmless’ project, Grant.”

Grant shook his head. “I don’t understand. I only authorized one creature for incubation.” He drew in a breath, savoring it. “Take a look in the armory closet there!”

“In a moment.”

She took the bucket and sluiced the water in the small crater. Hissing steam rose up, and that was that.

“The closet.”

Grant nodded. “That’s where the thing came from.”

She looked and grunted. “Yep. You got yourself a pod here, Grant.”

“I was the only one not armored, so it’s obvious this thing was planted to get me when I came back here.” He smacked a fist into a palm. “It’s got to be Begalli. He must still be working for those scumbags at MedTech. I want you to put that bastard under arrest—hang him… keelhaul him… something.”

“Yo! Rein yourself in. Grant. Then come here and take a look at this.”

Grant walked over reluctantly. He looked in the closet. Kozlowski was pulling something off the side of the pod.

She pulled it into view.

“You know what this is, right?”

In her hand she held some kind of metal clamp, attached to a bottle-shaped thing.

“Of course,” said Grant. “It’s a timer clamp. It’s used to hold the lips of an egg shut to ensure the creature can’t escape during transportation.”

“And it automatically falls off when the timer expires,” she continued for him. “The planter is nowhere near the eggs when it activates. Looks like it’s got a motion sensor on it, too. Anyone could have walked into this trap.”

“So.”

“So anyone could have planted this egg.” She stood up. “Even me.”

“This is just a regular chestburster. I did not authorize this to be shipped out. Just that larvae queen.” He shook his head. “I still don’t feel good about that guy Begalli. He’s been acting strangely.”

Kozlowski sighed. “He seems clean to me. Anyway, he’s the only alien expert in the landing party, and he’s been giving us good information, by my lights.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you don’t know this, but all radio signals are scrambled by the content of the shell in those hives. Once inside, we’ll have no communication with the lander. We’re going to need that bastard in there more than any other crew member. Without him, this operation is dead in the water. You still want me to bust him?”

Grant thought about this.

He didn’t like it, not at all. MedTech could very well be behind this whole sabotage business, and most certainly Begalli had been purchased from MedTech.

Had they purchased him back?

Was Foxnall back on Earth rubbing his hands with glee, waiting for the news of the demise of this mission, the death of Grant… Or would they just act when the mission got back? How could they possibly hope to pull off something like that?

At the same time, he well knew that Kozlowski was right.

Begalli knew his stuff, and they needed someone with knowledge of the inner workings of the alien queen’s chambers, and what any change in the norm might mean.

“No. I guess you’re right.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re agreed on that.” She started out of the room. “I’m going to get the team ready for our push. Take a break, have a cup of tea—but if you’re coming with us, I want to see you out there in an hour. Capisce?”

“Yes. And Colonel Kozlowski… Alex.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Again, thanks.”

She stopped and turned around. “Mr. Grant… Daniel…”

“Yes?”

“This isn’t exactly the kind of mission you had in mind, is it? I know your type. The enduring optimist under fire. The sturdy campaigner who uses ignorance as a positive. Overconfidence, Grant. That’s what I think it’s called.”

“Sounds like a defect, Kozlowski. Why are you letting it into that hive?”

“Because it’s also called ‘spirit,’ Danny boy. It’s infectious and it might just put us over the top here in a very ticklish situation.” She winked at him. “Besides, it turns me on like hell, and your goddamned Fire has got absolutely nothing on good old-fashioned hormones to get me in the mood for action.”

Grant found a grin coming to his face. “You going to save some of those hormones for me, Alex?”

“Sure, Danny. Next time I get PMS”

She turned and strutted away.

Grant shook his head.

What a woman. He wasn’t sure if he could handle her.

But he sure would like to try.

23

The tactical nuclear weapon struck the red alien hive dead on.

Kozlowski watched the event inside the lander on the screen from the Razzia’s perspective. These tactical strikes had an extremely limited radius of effect, with minimal fallout and radiation, but nonetheless they had carefully ascertained the weather conditions beforehand. Everything had been perfect for the strike. The execution had been precise and professional.

“Good shooting!” she told Hastings.

Then she went outside where the troops were waiting for her.

They’d heard the news on their radios and were cheering.

“Just the start, people,” she said as she strode into their midst. “The uphill road is ahead.” She’d already noticed that the ranks of the battling aliens had thinned out somewhat. “What’s going on out there?”

“Just seconds after detonation the reds just kind of stopped whatever they were doing and started spasming. Lots got killed, I think, and lots more are starting to take off,” reported Mahone.

“Whatever psychic link they had with their queen mother must have been broken when the bitch got wasted,” said Henrikson, nodding.

Kozlowski visualized that moment of intense destruction, the impact as that multimegaton nuke tore through the chambers of the reds, decimating all in it, shrieking caroming nuclear wind.

Had queenie gotten off one final scream of agony, one bitter nasty farewell to her evil crew?

Kozlowski hoped so. She hoped that bitch knew who’d been responsible. She was only sorry the thing didn’t have a little picture of her to take down to bug hell with her.

Kozlowski turned to where Grant stood, looking uncomfortable and anxious in his suit. Doubtless, he was regretting his volunteering for the move into the hive. He’d be okay, though. He had the stuff.

“There it is!” said Henrikson, putting down the pair of binoculars and pointing. “You don’t need glasses to see that baby.”

Sure enough, off to the east, she could see the telltale mushroom cloud, rising up past the horizon of this flat, bleak landscape.

Black and poisonous.

“They’re taking off in droves!” someone shouted.

Kozlowski swiveled. Sure enough, the reds seemed totally disinterested in the conflict now. They were taking off in waves. Racing away back toward their blasted hive.

Why? Instinct? Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t do them much good. Still, Kozlowski was pleased. They wouldn’t be hanging around here.

The blacks hung back for a moment, perplexed.

Then, as though the thunderbolt of realization had hit them, they started after the enemy who had attempted to destroy them.

Totally ignoring the interlopers behind the shielded vessel from another planet.

“Yes!” said Kozlowski, stamping the ground with unalloyed glee.

Just as planned.

“It worked,” she said. “The reds are retreating to the other hive. This one should be clear in a few minutes.”

Grant was fidgeting. He clearly wanted this all to be over. “Then let’s get moving! Who’s going in?”

“Everyone but the technical crew,” said Kozlowski. “And Ellis.”

“Makes sense,” said Grant. “He’s taking Jastrow’s death pretty hard.”

“Yeah,” said Mahone. “They grew up together, joined the Corps together, and fought for years in the same unit.”

“He’s a good marine,” said Kozlowski. “He’ll be okay in a few days. But I’d rather not have him in close combat right now. Besides, someone has to man the guns.” She walked over to the bank of guns poking out the side of the lander. “How are you doing up there, Private?”

“All set, Colonel.”

Luckily they’d trained all the troops to use these things.

“Right. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” She turned back and walked toward Grant. “How about you? You sure you want to do this.”

“No. But I’m going to.”

“Good. It’ll be good to have you along.

“All right then, helmets on.” She fitted her own on above her suit, clicked in the radio, waited for the rest of the troops to check in. When they did, when it was all finished, she chinned her radio again. “Okay, O’Connor.” The troops lifted their guns, released the safeties. “Drop the southern border.”

* * *

They moved out.

There were still a few red aliens lingering about, and these charged in when they got a whiff of the intruders.

But this was the kind of operation that the marines had expected, that they had trained for. The blasts of their rifles easily dealt with the charging aliens. It was like a shooting gallery.

Meanwhile, Ellis and O’Connor were doing damned fine work with the PEHs. They spiked a few home to either side of the hive’s opening and moments later the marines had a nice tunnel of force field to make their way through, cleaning up the couple of xenos left over and not having to worry about the ones who’d been excluded from the party.

Kozlowski turned to see how Grant was doing. She’d put him in the back, to guard the rear so he wouldn’t shoot any of the troops.

He was doing a damned good job of blasting apart the fallen aliens, making sure they stayed down.

When they reached the opening of the hive, Kozlowski put a hand up, halting the party.

“What’s the reading say, O’Connor?” she asked through the radio.

“Sensors show they’re still on the run. No party’s coming back.”

“Good news.” She turned to the group. “I don’t know how long we’ve got in there before the three bears come home… but I do know we’re going to go in there and get us some porridge.”

Laughter. Cheers.

“However, let’s be quick about it, okay? No sightseeing, no rubbernecking. We picked up enough DNA from dead reds already, so we don’t have to pack anything in ice. Moreover, we don’t have to take ‘em back alive. Now as we discussed before, what we’re going to be up against in there are some pretty nasty bugs, bigger and smarter. Take this into account.”

“Kozlowski!”

She turned and found herself helmet to red face with Grant. He’d undone his top and was holding it at his side, getting himself a breath of fresh air. “Well, Colonel!” His eyes were gleaming with excitement. He looked like a Boy Scout who’d just fired his first BB gun. “Were my combat skills satisfactory?”

Kozlowski granted him a patronizing scowl. “Pat yourself on the back later, Grant. And put that damn helmet back on!”

She got back on the radio.

“O’Connor. Send up the cargo drone.”

That was what they were going to be using to carry the royal jelly back up with.

“When it gets up here, we’ll drop the southern border and head out. We all ready?”

She surveyed the covered faces, knowing already they were about as ready as they were ever going to be.

* * *

“This is the last radio contact till we get back out,” said Kozlowski. “Open her up, O’Connor. Over and out.”

The skein of force frizzled off.

Perfect.

O’Connor was getting really good in his manipulations. The tunnel of the force field that led from the rounded entrance of the hive back to the bubble around the Razzia was still intact.

There weren’t too many of the blacks left out there, but they couldn’t get in.

Unless, of course, there were other entrances…

Likely, but the things didn’t seem particularly interested. They seemed more interested in the cargo drone that had crawled up the slight incline. It was an automatically controlled vehicle with eight thick wheels. Omni-terrain. One of the marines took over the controls when it reached them.

They started down.

The tunnels were recognizably of alien origin. Kozlowski had seen plenty of hive tunnels, that was for certain. Nonetheless, these were a little larger than usual, with a different consistency of building material.

“I’ve never seen an alien nest so empty before,” said one of the soldiers.

“I have,” said Kozlowski grimly. “And it was a trap.”

The nest on Hollywood and Vine.

It was flashing back on her.

The walls, like inside a tumorous colon…

The prickly fear, the sick-in-the-stomach…

Having people with her she respected, cared for… smack dab in the vat of trouble and fear… Along with someone special, for whom she feared the most.

She remembered her feelings for Michaels. It welled up inside of her, and she had to push it back down, along with her fear.

This time would be different, she told herself.

She shut out the memory and went into her automatic “competent” mode.

Nonetheless, she could feel the memories crowding in on her.

About forty meters down it became apparent that things were different in other ways as well.

There was a convergence of tunnels.

Three separate ways to go.

“Okay, Dr. Begalli. Get your butt and that machine up front.”

Dr. Begalli shuttled forward. In his hand he held a device with a pair of green sensor extensions. A pheromone detector. Begalli tapped a few buttons and pointed the device in each of the directions in turn, scrutinizing the results carefully.

“Well, Doctor,” said Kozlowski. “Which way to the buried treasure?”

The helmeted head bobbed eagerly. “Well, the pheromone readings seem to jibe with what I expected.” He pointed to the left. “Let’s try that way.”

They started down the corridor.

“This is why we need Begalli,” she told Grant. “The tunnels of this hive are much more mazelike than any I’ve encountered on Earth. Without him, it might take a long time to find the queen mother.”

Grant shook his head. “If you say so, Colonel. But I’m still keeping my eye on him.”

“That’s it, Grant. I’ve found the perfect job for you. Begalli watch. Sounds wonderfully exotic,” she said.

“Sure. That’s what I’ll do.” Grant’s helmet turreted back and forth. “Where is the little creep, anyway?”

“You’re not doing your job… But don’t worry, there’s a curve just up ahead. He just went around that. We’ve just lost sight—”

“Colonel,” said Private Mahone. “The motion detectors show significant and sudden activity up ahead.”

“Begalli!” Kozlowski yelled. “Get your ass back here!”

Just then, the suited Dr. Begalli returned around the bend where he’d disappeared.

Kozlowski could hear him screaming without benefit of the radio.

24

She didn’t know the little guy could move that fast—let alone that fast with the hindering weight of a full battle suit on.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaa!” screamed Dr. Begalli as he ran for all he was worth around the corner. He ran past them, toward the cover of the cargo drone carrier.

“Begalli!” said Grant. “What the hell is it?”

Kozlowski didn’t have to ask.

She could pretty much guess.

“Arms!” she yelled.

She needn’t have bothered. The others were ready, angling their weapons down.

However, ready as they were, all the preparations were pretty much in vain.

The first of the queen’s guard came around the corner and Kozlowski had to stop herself from gasping.

It was big and it was fast, and it was mean.

The blasts caught it full in the chest, and it kept on coming for what seemed like a full second before it was lifted up and slammed against the wall. It tried to scrabble back up and tackle them again, before a final plasma stream knocked its head apart.

“There’s more,” yelled the point man. “There’s—”

The next one was even bigger, and even faster.

Before they could swing their weapons away from the first and onto the new arrival, it was on the first soldier.

Horrible claws tore the man’s chest apart.

“Jesus!” cried Private Mahone as she was sprayed with blood. She swung her gun around and let off a spurt of plasma, but missed. The beast was incredibly fast. It finished one more ripping shake of the point man and then leapt toward the rest.

Lesser soldiers might have lost it right then, so horrific was the sight. But they kept their cool, aimed their weapons, and let the thing have it.

Two more “guards” attacked.

Another soldier was torn apart before the guards were subdued, blasted to pieces.

In all her time fighting inside hives, Kozlowski had never seen such an intense battle conflagration. The queen’s guards were incredibly quick and agile, almost imbued, it seemed, with superpowers. Fortunately, this crew was also the best she’d worked with, and they’d half expected something like this.

Within violent minutes, four aliens and two humans lay smoking and quite dead upon the ground.

“God,” was all that Private Mahone could say, lying slumped against the wall, gasping for air and still grasping her weapon, ready if another bug should care to call.

“No, I don’t think God’s around here,” said Henrikson. “This is more like the Other Place.”

For her own part, Kozlowski was just numb.

“Okay, we’ll pick the bodies up on the way back. Take a quick moment for a breather, because that’s all the time we’ve got if any of us wants to get out of here.”

Two more dead. She couldn’t believe it, even when she looked down at their twisted and torn remains. This wasn’t worth it. But she had her orders, and she had her duty, and she knew nothing more than that she had to complete this mission, or their lives and the lives lost earlier and the months spent on this project would have been for naught.

A suited figure peeked around the corner of the cargo drone. “Is… is everyone all right?”

Dr. Begalli. Apparently, his head had been well stuffed in the sand.

Daniel Grant, who had been leaning on the side wall, exhausted, pushed himself off and walked over to the man. “No. Two more dead You couldn’t have warned us this would happen?”

“We knew about the guards. What we didn’t know was that they’d come charging up at us like that,” said Kozlowski. She got her second wind, went over to have a look at the only xeno head that had survived the mauling. “Ever see anything quite like this, Doctor?”

Begalli gave the angry and suspicious Grant a wide berth in coming around to look. “Oh, heaven, what a mess—No, Colonel, I had no idea… Loathsome beasts. I don’t recall the report from the last visit here giving them full justice. We knew they were bigger, but not this nasty. This is fascinating.” He looked up from the dead beast. He took a small piece of blasted “skin” in a bottle. “I’ll have to do a genetic workup when I get back. The queen mother may equip her guards to continue to evolve.” He shook his head, mystified. “Or could the things have devolved rather than evolved. What a fascinating mystery! So much is down here!”

“Let’s get a roll on.”

“Yeah, Begalli. And you go first,” said Grant. “Let’s see a little courage for a change.”

Begalli nodded, picked up his pheromone meter, and they were off again toward the depths of the alien hive.

* * *

“The queen’s chambers should be down there,” said Begalli.

The electric torches stabbed down into the darkness—but beyond their reach, Kozlowski saw the beginnings of what appeared to be some kind of bioluminescence.

“Okay,” she said. “This place has had a few surprises that we weren’t prepared for. There still might be more. Dr. Begalli, Corporal Henrikson, Daniel Grant, and myself will head on down to the chamber. Dicer, Clapton, and Mahone, stay here and guard our backs. I don’t expect the radios to work, so let’s just say if we’re not back in an hour, get back to the lander and get out of here.”

Private Dicer was a skinny guy with big eyes that seemed about to pop out of his head. He’d put on an excellent display of bug killing, but clearly the pressure was getting to him. Sweat pasted his long stringy hair down over his forehead. Private Clapton was a little more poised. He was a thickset easy-come, easy-go sort with a ready humor that he’d somehow lost now. Private Mahone looked as though she simply could not even believe she was here. But they were all good soldiers. They’d been good soldiers up above and they’d be good soldiers down here.

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

Kozlowski took the controls of the drone from a trooper and motioned the party onward.

It took another ten minutes to get down to a place where the lamps were necessary to see. Still, Kozlowski kept the side lights of her suit on, just in case things suddenly went dark.

The tunnel went around a bend.

Suddenly opened up.

It was the biggest chamber that Kozlowski had ever seen.

Eerily lit by the bioluminescence was the scene that the scientists had more or less predicted.

The four huge pods, radiating around a larger pod, above which the queen towered, a true giant, like a devil tilted atop her evil throne.

Only the sketchy holograms could never have hinted at the textures or the colors, the bizarre organic geometry here that threatened to drive a mind mad if concentrated on too closely.

The queen’s pod glistened and oozed with what Kozlowski knew to be royal jelly.

The stuff that would make Grant an incredibly rich man, that would give the armed forces what they wanted, that would spell a success to this bloody campaign.

“Incredible,” said Grant.

However, his eyes did not glow with avarice.

“Amazing,” said Kozlowski. “We’ve hit the motherlode of royal jelly here.” She looked at Grant. “You’re going to get your tank filled, I think.”

She patted the metal, and it echoed hollowly.

“Little problem,” said Grant. “What about queenie?”

The gigantic creature perched atop the center mound did not even seem to notice they were there. Its attention seemed focused off into space, as though it were meditating.

“I’m sure it’s psychically directing the rout of the reds,” said Begalli. “Must be. It’s so absorbed, it didn’t even notice the death of its guards.” He quickly scanned the room again. “Four pods. Four guards. Excellent correspondence. Looks like we’ve got this place all to ourselves. All we have to do is to deal with the queenie, and she’s just a sitting duck!” He smiled broadly, skipping a little closer to the gleaming, gooey treasure hoard. “Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Ah, what wonders that stuff must hold. I can’t wait…” He cut himself off suddenly and looked furtive.

“Can’t wait?” said Grant. “This is my expedition. What exactly can’t you wait for?”

“Uhhmmm. Nothing. Nothing, sir…” He drifted closer to the pod. “Look at it all. I never thought I’d see this much up close. God, it’s beautiful.”

The queen mother was as still as a statue. As still as death.

Beautiful? Was fear beautiful? Dread? Terror? All the primitive juices battled now at Alex Kozlowski’s barrier.

Michaels’s beautiful head boiling apart with acid.

His scream.

Her guilt.

She wanted to turn and run from this place. It was worse than she had ever imagined it. The dead body of her lover seemed superimposed over everything.

She calmed herself. She’d known that she would never get the trauma of that dreadful Hollywood day off her mind, that she’d have to live it all over again in her head.

She just never realized she’d have to live it over again in reality.

And this time it could be her skin bubbling off, to expose the grinning skull beneath.

“Beautiful?” said Grant. “I’m not so sure anymore. People have died for this stuff. I feel… responsible.”

“No time for self-remonstration,” said Kozlowski. “Glad to hear you’ve got a conscience, but we really should finish this mission up. Begalli, get away from there. We can’t take any chances. I want that thing up there dead, and I’m going to do it myself, right—-”

Grant, though, was on a jag. Apparently the deaths of the other three soldiers, so close, had really shaken him up.

“I don’t know,” said Grant. “I just don’t know.”

“Mr. Grant! You started this whole thing rolling.”

“Yeah, and I’m going to have to live with it for the rest of my life, too. I’m paying for my ignorance. But you, Begalli—” He brought his gun up. “You’ve been sabotaging this mission from day one, haven’t you?”

“What?” said Begalli, turning back to him.

“Come off it! I’ve been watching you, Begalli, and I know damn well you’re up to something,” said Grant. “You’re still working for MedTech, aren’t you?”

“Okay, sure… I have been up to something.” He took a breath. “I’m doing research, independent of Neo-Pharm. I’d planned to publish articles on my findings.”

“Articles?”

“A new kind of alien. I’d go down in history. I’d be famous… forever!”

“Articles?” repeated Grant.

“I’ve got more than enough money, Grant. And I always hated MedTech—what I want is to be acknowledged for my scientific efforts. That’s why I wanted to come down here. Maybe I’ll even write a book… Yes, a bestseller!”

“You heard it, Grant,” said Kozlowski. “The only thing he’s guilty of is scientific greed. Now back off…”

“So how do you know he isn’t lying…?” Grant started to say, before a sudden hissing shriek froze his sentence.

Without warning, the queen mother jumped.

It sailed through the air, and it landed just short of Dr. Begalli. Stunned and disbelieving, Begalli tried to turn.

A long set of secondary jaws streaked out from the alien’s mouth, slicing and hammering into the back of the scientist’s head, boring through and pushing his eyes out of their sockets like red Jell-O being squeezed through cookie cutters.

Kozlowski was stunned. The thing wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. Wasn’t its ovipositor fastened to the pod? But then wasn’t that just something else they didn’t know about these aliens?

Only a flicker of a second of thought, though. Already her rifle was going up, aiming, squeezing off a round.

Henrikson fired at the exact same moment.

Their fire converged upon the exact same spot on the queen. It hissed and wailed, a hole blown in its thorax. Its blood rained down upon Begalli’s head and boiled his face away. The alien started toward them, forelimbs clutching and seeking.

Kozlowski lifted her rifle and aimed at its head.

It still came forward.

Henrikson’s blasts joined hers, and the thing’s head burst asunder like a ripe melon.

They backpedaled to avoid the spurting acid, and the great queen mother writhed and spasmed in its death throes.

Kozlowski stepped forward, looking down at the massive thing.

Fortunately it had come far enough that it hadn’t spoiled its own jelly.

“Right,” she said. “Too bad about Begalli. Let’s get this tank loaded out of here, quick.”

She jumped over to the vehicle and pulled out the vacuum tap. This bit was going to be the easy part.

* * *

Only when the cargo drone’s tank was topped off, did Kozlowski pull the tap out of the membrane. There was lots more jelly, but they just couldn’t take it.

“I hope this will be enough,” she said sardonically.

“Yes,” said Grant. “Yes. It will have to do, I suppose.”

“Something wrong, Grant?”

“I think you know what’s troubling me.” The man sighed deeply. “Besides, I don’t get it. Only a few people knew about the alien incubation project. If Begalli didn’t sabotage it, who did?”

* * *

Casually, Alex Kozlowski grabbed ahold of her rifle. She’d been thinking about that very same thing.

And she didn’t care for what was floating up on her mental screen.

She was about to turn when Henrikson’s voice sounded behind them.

“Thank you, folks. That looks just fine,” he said. “Please drop your weapons. This close, one blast of this rifle can deal with you both.”

25

“Henrikson?” said Grant. He knelt and put his rifle down behind him. “You?”

“That’s right, Grant. MedTech pays a lot better than the Marines. Damned interesting ride, too. Been enjoying myself.” He motioned with the tip of his rifle. “Come on, Colonel—sir. Get that pretty finger off the trigger and set your gun down.”

She obeyed. “You’re going to kill us and leave us here, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. And no one will be the wiser. And by the time we get back to Earth, a goodly part of this royal jelly will be siphoned off—and some of the DNA samples will be gone as well. Just in case… I daresay, once it’s been announced you’ve been killed in action, your creaky empire will be up for grabs. And the Neo-Pharm scientists will pretty much disperse… The best ones bought up by MedTech.”

“I checked your credentials, dammit. They were spotless!” said Kozlowski. She knew there was somebody giving them trouble, but she’d always felt that she could contain any problems. She thought she’d read this guy, that he was straight as an arrow. He’d given absolutely no previous sign of disloyalty.

“Hey! You’ve got an eminently corruptible bunch you’re working for, Kozlowski.” The man was grinning maliciously now, savoring his victory.

“What! Are you really a synth, Henrikson?” said Grant, clearly just as shocked as Kozlowski at this turn of events. And no wonder. Henrikson had been Grant’s main man, his apple polisher. He’d brought him down to show him the alien incubation. There’d been a trustworthiness about the guy. A big brotherness.

Why hadn’t they seen through him, dammit, she thought.

“C’mon. I’m no synth! If I were a synth, I could have taken those Xeno-Zips with absolutely no effect!” He nodded over to the royal jelly. “I avoid the crap.”

“But… but I trusted you,” said Grant. “I’ve got such a good nose for this kind of thing.”

The grin got broader. “There’s where MedTech has got your company beat all to hell, Grant. Every day I douse myself in a special pheromone, designed specifically for leader types to sniff. Makes you trust me, gives type A’s like you confidence in big guys like me. That’s why the other grunts didn’t care for me… they weren’t the kind that like this pheromone. You guys bought it!”

“But you’ve risked your life with all the rest of us… You’ve been a damned good soldier!” said Grant.

“Yes, I have, and I’ve had a good time, too, folks, let me tell you. I am a soldier. A soldier of fortune. I raid alien nests with buddies for money. I’m an in-dependent and damned good at it. Only there’s more money in this for me than I’d ever dreamed of—and I get to see the stars, too.” He shrugged. “Don’t look for anything deeper here. That’s all there is.”

“But the death of the alien baby… that pod… the sabotage… it just doesn’t add up.”

“Sure it does, Grant. I caused confusion. I hurt the program, and I pretty much framed poor old Begalli. Fact, when I get back with this liquid gold here, that’s what I think I’m going to tell them. Yeah. ‘It was Begalli, guys. He’s dead now, though, along with poor old Grant and Kozlowski. Boo hoo. Mission complete. Now let’s get the hell out of here.’ You see. Piece of cake.”

He started laughing.

Unless she acted, they’d be dead within seconds.

However, since they’d all taken off their helmets, there might be a shred of hope here.

Without a further thought, Kozlowski dived for her rifle. She scooped it up, put her finger under the trigger.

And was blasted by the quadruple barrels of Henrikson’s weapon.

* * *

Grant watched in horror as the blast hit Kozlowski’s left thigh. She spun around and fell hard onto the ground.

The next thing Grant knew, he was on top of Henrikson. The man had been swerving his rifle for the coup de grace—but Grant’s fist sailed into the man’s bare face with a solid impact before he could pull the trigger again.

Where that had come from, Grant didn’t know. But it felt so good that he found himself doing it again.

The attack surprised Henrikson so much he clearly wasn’t sure what to do. To defend himself at close quarters he’d have to drop the rifle. But Kozlowski wasn’t dead yet, and to give up the weapon meant certain defeat. He lifted his other arm—but Grant countered.

And nailed him with another punch.

Thank God he’d worked out regularly! He hadn’t done it for fights. He’d done it for his self-confidence and for the ladies. But his reflexes were good, and it had all paid off.

The blows had opened up Henrikson’s face. He bled from the nose and from the mouth, and he went down like a fighting suit full of potatoes.

Grant kicked the rifle away from him, and then booted him in the head again. Hard.

“Unnnh!”

The lights in those bright blue eyes dimmed.

“You don’t smell so good to me anymore, Henrikson!”

A groan from behind him. He picked up Henrikson’s weapon, and then went over to Colonel Kozlowski.

“Ooooh,” she said. “I think my hip is broken.”

Indeed, there was a smoking hole in the overplating of the hip area of the suit, exposing underpart beneath.

“Yes,” said Grant. “The underplating of this armor is designed to withstand severe concussions. Still, you’re probably right about that hip. You’re going to need some help.”

He helped her up. “Yeah. Thanks.” She cringed. “I’ll make it.”

“Good.”

“Looks like you did a number on Henrikson there. Surprised you didn’t take his rifle and blast him.”

“Don’t think the thought didn’t enter my mind. No, if we can get him back, I’ll be able to use him to string MedTech up by its dangling prescriptions.”

“Sounds good. We go now?”

“We go.”

* * *

They revived Henrikson with a few slaps across the chops, and then they made sure that he knew which direction their rifles were pointing.

Grant propped Kozlowski up on the sideboard of the drone. She could walk, sort of, but he figured he’d better save that for later.

The suit was getting too heavy for him, so he took off the top.

“Helmets?” she said.

“Forget the helmets. We’ve got enough weight to slow us down as it is.”

“At least stick them up here on the drone, dammit.”

“Yes, sir.”

He had Henrikson do that. The traitorous corporal performed the task grudgingly, without comment.

“The creatures should be miles from here,” said Grant.

They started trudging back the way they’d come, with him keeping a bead on Henrikson while Kozlowski controlled the cargo drone.

They were just at the tunnel opening at the end of the chamber when they heard the rumbling.

“What the hell…” said Henrikson, looking behind. “It’s coming from that other tunnel, on the opposite end of the chamber.”

“Oh, shit,” said Kozlowski.

Grant watched, disbelieving, as an alien ran into view in the dimly illuminated distance.

Followed by another.

Followed by three… four…

A clot of the monsters burst out of the tunnel.

“They must be coming back through another entrance!” said Kozlowski. “They must have sensed the death of their queen, dammit, and started to head back.”

“And took a short cut! Well, let’s get a move on here. I—”

He’d taken his attention off of Henrikson for one moment—one short moment!—and had been rewarded by the big man, big time.

Henrikson’s body plowed into his, knocking Grant down, bashing the rifle from his hands. It clunked down beside him, and Grant grabbed it up again.

Henrikson jumped on top of him and they wrestled for the gun. They were on the other side of the cargo drone, away from any chance of Colonel Kozlowski interceding immediately.

“For chrissake, you asshole,” said Grant. “They’re almost on top of us.”

“I’m gonna make it out of here, Grant,” said the big man. “I’m going to be the only one who does.”

As they struggled, the bottle of Xeno-Zip fell out of Grant’s pocket, cracking open on the alien floor beside him, spilling its contents.

Henrikson was distracted.

Grant used it.

He wrenched the rifle away from the man’s hands and whacked the butt across the man’s chin.

Stunned, the man fell back.

Kozlowski was limping around at that point, holding a rifle. “Stand back, Grant. I’m going to kill him!” she said, nostrils flaring with anger.

Grant took a look at the groaning Henrikson and the fallen bottle of Xeno-Zip and then at the approaching aliens.

“No,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

He scooped up a handful of the pills, and he stuffed them into Henrikson’s mouth, holding his hands over the man’s lips so he was forced to automatically swallow them.

“Get yourself on the front of that drone, and let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

“What…?”

“Let’s just say that it’s a far, far nobler thing that Corporal Henrikson is going to do today than he’s ever done before.”

Grant put the rifle down between the Corporal’s arms and then he grabbed Kozlowski’s arm and helped her over to the lander.

* * *

The man’s eyes popped open.

Inside he felt as though an atom bomb had just gone off in his brain.

He rolled his head, and saw, just meters away, a horde of charging, hissing aliens.

In his arms was a rifle.

Fire raged through his bloodstream and nervous system. He felt the familiar flight-or-fight response, only flight didn’t seem necessary.

Henrikson, after all, was God!

And in his hands was a fistful of lightning bolts.

Grinning, he got up as the aliens approached.

“C’mon, you bastards!” he screamed. “Let’s play!”

He’d kill them all.

Then he’d go back up and nail that bastard Grant and that bitch Kozlowski.

Yeah!

The gun in his hand started blazing.

* * *

Something was going on down there. Something huge. The motion detectors were going nuts in Private Mahone’s hands. And her own internal warning system, her instincts, told her that it was danger, pure and simple.

“Cripes,” said Private Dicer, his eyes bulging, a tic working at his mouth. “I can even feel it in my feet!”

Sweat had broken out on the brow of Private Clapton. “Shit, man. What are we going to do?”

“Colonel says if they’re not back, we should cut and run. I say we obey orders.”

Every cell in Mahone’s body agreed. She wanted to run and hide. She was exhausted in every respect but for the terror that had filled her from the very first. This mission was worse than she’d ever imagined.

Something deep inside her though surged up. Something strong inside of her took ahold of her, and she realized that it was as much her as her fear.

“No.”

“Say what?” said Clapton.

The rumbling was building.

“Shit, Private, those idiots down there are probably getting torn to pieces. We wait here, and that’s just what’s going to happen to us,” said Dicer.

Dicer started moving away toward the exit, eyes rolling with terror. Clapton started following him.

“You assholes move one more step, I’m going to blast you,” she said.

Dicer kept moving and she put a blast a yard short of him, and then aimed in a fashion that they well knew could take them both out with a simple tug of the trigger.

“Jeez, Mahone? Are you crazy? Our asses are in a sling here!” whined Clapton.

“Well then rock in ‘em, guys. We’re going to stay right here and give aid and succor.” Her eyes blazed. “And you know what! I’ve half a mind to go in after the others.”

“You’re nuts!”

“I’m looking at my watch here. We’ve got a good ten minutes to wait this out. I’m just following orders.” She grinned. “Just doing my job.”

Sweating and fidgeting, the others stopped.

Private Mahone smiled to herself. She was getting something out of this crazy jellybean hunt. She was getting her soul back.

She just hoped she was going to have a future to use it in.

* * *

“What happened?” said Mahone. “What the hell’s going on down there?”

The three soldiers were still waiting for them patiently where Kozlowski had placed them. Seeing them there was a great relief, a testament to her ability to judge people.

“No time to explain,” said Grant. “We’ve just got to get out of here. There’s a batch of aliens coming up through the tunnel.”

That was all it took.

The cargo van kept going, rolling along with a few more guards.

Behind them, she could still hear the echoes of Henrikson’s blazing gun.

Then it stopped, and there was a shriek the likes of which she’d never heard before.

“If we’re lucky, enough of the dead things piled up that they’re going to have to clear them out first,” said Grant. “C’mon, can’t we get this beast to move faster?”

“It’s flat out,” she said.

Running speed. It would have to do.

It seemed to take forever, but finally they saw the lip of the tunnel’s entrance.

They rolled out, and there, like a delightful promise, was the Anteater patiently waiting for them.

With her excitement, Kozlowski could almost ignore the pounding pain in her hip.

She chinned her radio on. “O’Connor! Drop all walls of the perimeter and tell Fitzwilliam to start the engines!” she gasped a breath. “Prepare for an emergency lift-off!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Ellis. Get those guns ready. We’re going to have some visitors coming out of that hole too damned quickly. Try and stop them, if you can!”

“Yes, sir.”

They hightailed it.

* * *

They were halfway there when the aliens started gushing out of the tunnel.

“Now, Ellis!”

“Roger.”

The private started blasting. The shells devastated whole sections of the emerging aliens. One blasted the side of the hive, sending down clumps of stuff to crush a few.

But there were so many of the things that they just kept on coming, regardless.

And coming too damned fast.

“Hurry it up!” called Grant.

Fortunately they hit a decline, and gained some speed.

They were almost there.

The ramp had been lowered for them. All they had to do, thought Kozlowski, was make that ramp. Roll up. Get in, and nip off.

That was all.

Grant was running alongside her. “Alex… how’s the thigh?”

“Better. Why?”

“I think we can run faster than this drone. We might have to abandon it.”

Kozlowski shook her head. “No freaking way, Grant. We came all the way to get this stuff. We’re taking it back with us. Do you hear? I for one want to see you take a bath in the shit!”

Grant grunted. “Only in the nude, and only if you’ll join me.”

“If we’re both lucky, Grant. If we’re both lucky.”

* * *

Somehow, they made it to the ramp.

The drone rolled up like a champ.

“Fold up shop!” cried Kozlowski. “Ellis, get your butt in here.”

The hydraulic struts of the ramp started squealing up, hauling up the platform.

Through another door Private Ellis raced in, still clutching his dead friend’s saxophone.

“Closing up the guns.”

“Damn. We’ve got nothing to shoot them with now,” said Kozlowski, hopping off the cargo drone, letting the side serve as her crutch.

“Engines firing.”

“The damned hatch has got to close first!” she cried.

Then, a flicker of nightmare:

Talons, scrambling for a hold on the ramp, coming up now like a castle drawbridge in the face of vandals.

The too-familiar banana-shaped head, the drooling fangs…

A hissing insinuated through the sound of the hydraulics.

Guns raised to shoot the alien scrabbling in.

“No!” cried Kozlowski. “The blood will eat through the door. We won’t be able to lift—”

“Hell,” said Ellis. “I can’t play the stupid thing anyway.”

With all his might he threw the saxophone.

Its metal base bashed directly into the alien’s head.

Bonk!

The creature was knocked off the door, and it closed, tightly and firmly, no alien blood acid eating through it.

The lander rumbled and throbbed, and Kozlowski could feel its rockets kicking off this foul planet’s dust with fiery disgust.

Epilogue

She was lying in bed, with a beautiful view of the stars through a viewport window.

She was safe and sound, and a few simple, nonaddictive drugs were running through her system, killing the pain of the fractured thigh.

She was off the Fire. The mission was complete. The Corps was going to be happy, and maybe she’d even get a promotion. She felt the loss of her troops heavily, but then she’d lost people before. Old hat. The emptiness went away. Eventually.

She felt no imminent sense of danger. She had some books to read, and some vids to watch.

Why, then, Colonel Alexandra Kozlowski asked herself, did she feel so bored and antsy?

This should be a time to celebrate.

After they’d gotten the Anteater safely back on the Razzia, and off-loaded the tank, they realized they had twenty-five hundred gallons of the stuff. Grant’s scientists were totally blissed. It was enough to work with, and absolutely top quality, no sign of that red strain whatsoever. There was a good chance now they could even create their own queen mother.

They’d nuked the black hive as a parting shot.

There were probably xenos left on the planet. But it would take a long, long time to regroup. Kozlowski imagined one playing a soulful sax as its hive burned.

Yeah!

Turned out, according to Friel and others, this whole “red aliens” thing was a fluke. The queen mother and the queens were dead now, and all their eggs. They’d never come scratching on their door again.

The generic brand though…

They’d be around. They were the universe’s cockroaches, with a vengeance.

And she’d helped step on her share.

A time for rest and relaxation and recuperation. A time for peace and meditation and—

Whatever.

So it was that when Daniel Grant came to see her later that day, she was overjoyed at his visit—though she’d be damned if she’d let him know how much.

“Hello, Colonel. How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Not an extreme fracture. The machine set it, and it should heal while I’m in hypersleep. A little physical therapy on Earth, and I’ll be right as rain.”

“Good. I’m pleased. Very pleased.” His eyes seemed to drift toward the stars and into abstraction.

“You come here to talk about something?”

“Nothing in particular. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. Nothing more?”

“Well, everyone seems to be on the emotional mend. Lot of people are just sleeping… I guess in reaction to all that stress.”

“And you. What are you doing? Taking any baths in your royal jelly yet?”

“No. No… Waiting for you.” He laughed. “The scientists are just tickled pink. They’ve already started to work on it, along with the samples of the red alien DNA. They say maybe they really have got something here.”

“I hope so. We had to dole out a few lives for it.”

“I’m going to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain, Alex.” He looked down at the bed, smoothing the linen thoughtfully. “Actually, you know, maybe there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Shoot. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I was impressed by your work here. When we get back, I’m probably going to need someone to head up a security team for Grant Industries. The job is yours, if you want it.”

She laughed. “And leave the Marines? No way. I’ve got a mission in life, Grant. And it’s not to guard your butt.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand, Alex. How much longer can you do things like this mission? How long do you think you can survive?”

“I don’t know any other kind of life… except…”

“Except what?”

“Except for maybe when I was a little girl. Yeah. I had a real good life when I was a kid, Grant. Perfect. And then a bunch of monsters came down and destroyed that life and destroyed a lot of lives.”

She shook her head. “Think about it, Grant. Think about it while you’re sitting up there in your ivory tower when you get back. This may seem like hell to you. It’s pretty rough, sure… That mission was one of the roughest. But chew on this—most wars get fought between people arguing over some relatively silly matter… usually involving money or land or possessions. People kill people. It’s stupid, senseless, and a waste. History is drowned in the shed blood of martyrs for meaningless causes.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m even going to make any history books, Grant. But I do know that whatever I accomplish against… against this plague against decent life… this evil that has infected the galaxy… It’s not meaningless.” She took a deep breath. “Now how many people can be positive… absolutely feel-it-to-their-toes sure… That their lives mean something. That as full as foibles as they are, they’re living and fighting for something good.”

Grant seemed to consider that for a moment.

“I can’t argue much about that, Alex.” He slapped his knees and stood up. “But we can’t all be Joan of Arc. Somebody’s got to get the engines of commerce running. And somebody’s got to be in charge of those engines.”

“Well, maybe you’ve got a different view of things now that you’ve looked at life through the jaws of one of the monsters coming at you?”

“Sure. Sure. Of course, now I’ve got to figure out how to look at life without worrying about mobsters or MedTech.”

She laughed. “I’m sure the generals and admiral back home will be so pleased, you’ll have no problem, Grant.”

“I don’t know… I just hope that what we’ve done on this journey does make a difference.”

She smiled. “I’ve been watching you, Grant. I think it already has, jelly or no jelly.”

“Thanks. I guess maybe you’re right.” He started to leave, then paused and turned.

“Alex?”

“Daniel?”

“If you won’t work for me… Maybe you’d like to have a little bubbly, a little caviar, a little gourmet dinner with me sometime?”

“Hell, no!”

He sighed, nodded, and turned to go.

“But if you want a beer and some pretzels sometime, Daniel—I keep my larder well stocked with those.”

He seemed confused for a moment, looked at her.

She winked at him.

His face flushed and he laughed.

“Count on it, Colonel. Count on it.”

He blew a kiss at her and turned.

“Oh. And, Danny boy,” she called after him.

He turned. “Yes?”

She’d pulled out the cigar he’d given her, along with a lighter. She puffed the thing alight. “Thanks for the smoke.”

“Anytime, Colonel. Anytime.”

He left.

She looked back out at the stars.

She hadn’t seen stars as beautiful as these, she thought, as filled with wonder and awe—

Well, since she was just a kid.

Suddenly, unaccountably, she found herself craving pretzels and beer as she blew thick puffs of smoke at the bright points of light.

To my wife, Gail, with all my love

CAPTAIN HOBAN’S PROLOGUE

I was in the middle of the whole thing with Stan and Julie. I guess almost everybody on Earth knows how it ended. But they don’t know how it began. I’ve been putting together everything I know about it. I figure it started the morning Stan got the summons.

1

That morning Stan had to go downtown to the Colonial Mercantile Building on Vesey Street. The day before there had been a ring at his doorbell. Stan hadn’t been doing much when it came. He had several experiments going in his cellar laboratory. The lab took up most of the space in the old frame house on Gramercy Park that he had inherited from his father. Stan hadn’t been feeling well lately, and although he tried to tell himself it wasn’t anything, some little voice within him kept on intruding, telling him, “This could be very serious…”

He had been avoiding his doctor for a while, but now he called up and made an appointment with Dr. Johnston at the Fifty-ninth Street clinic for the next day. That was when the doorbell rang.

The man standing outside was tall and thin, and dressed in a badly pressed gray business suit.

“Are you Professor Myakovsky?”

“I am,” Stan replied.

“Are you the Stanley Myakovsky who wrote the book about Ari the ant?”

“Yes, I am,” Stan repeated. He was starting to feel a little better. This guy seemed to be someone who had read his book, was probably a fan, maybe even wanted an autograph. “What can I do for you?”

“I got a summons for you,” the man said, taking a folded paper out of his pocket and slapping it briskly into Stan’s hand. “You are served. Have a nice day, Doctor.” He turned and left.

Stan went back inside and looked over the summons. He had no idea what it was about and the document itself didn’t enlighten him. It simply said he was to appear in Courtroom B at 311 Vesey Street the following day, or face the consequences.

Have a nice day.

What a laugh.

It had been so long since Stan had had a nice day, he couldn’t remember what one looked like.

* * *

The next day he left early for Vesey Street. The Broadway trolley was running again, rumbling past the newly restored buildings of midtown. It was a bright day outside, and despite his depression, Stan started to feel just the slightest lift to his spirits.

That lasted until he got to Vesey Street.

Vesey Street was filled with city and federal buildings, some of them quite old, dating from before the time of the aliens, miraculously unburned during the anarchic days when the aliens ruled. Some of the buildings in this area were brand-spanking-new. There had been a lot of rebuilding since those days. Stan would have liked to have been part of the first days after humans reoccupied their own planet. It must have been exhilarating, reoccupying your own country, having a future again on your own planet. Now, of course, it was business as usual…More or less…

Times were pretty good. America was experiencing a boom. Business was strong. A lot of people were making a lot of money. Some people, of course, were losing a lot of money. It had to come from somewhere. So it came from people like Stan.

He mounted the stone steps of the Criminal Courts Building. Within, he found a clerk who checked his summons and directed him up a flight of stairs to the correct courtroom.

He walked in. It was a small room with a half-dozen chairs facing a raised desk. The sign on the door had said Judge Jacob Lessner, presiding. Behind the desk sat a small man in black robes. He said, “Dr. Stanley Myakovsky?”

“Yes,” Stan replied.

“Come in. I suppose you know what this is about?”

“No, I don’t.”

Judge Lessner frowned. “Your lawyer really should keep you better informed.”

Stan nodded, although he knew very well he hadn’t been answering his lawyer’s calls over the last few days.

“Well, this is a pretty simple matter.” The judge searched among the papers on his desk until he found what he was looking for. “This is a government order seizing your spaceship.”

“The Dolomite?” Stan asked.

The judge searched his paper until he found it. “Yes, of course, that’s the name of your ship. You may no longer go aboard.”

“But why?”

“You were sent a notice a month ago advising you of the government’s decision to take action against your unpaid bills.”

Stan thought the paper must be somewhere among the unopened mail on his desk. He had been too depressed of late to open any of it. Most of the letters had something bad to say: how this investment or that was sliding to hell on him, or how his patents weren’t earning as expected. And even more papers about all his back taxes.

He felt a wave of hopelessness engulf him. He tried to struggle out of it. “They are not allowed to do that. My spaceship is one of the few ways I have of conducting business. If they take that, how am I supposed to pay them what they say I owe?”

“That is not my concern,” the judge stated flatly. “You should have taken that into consideration when you fell so deeply into arrears. In any event, I am hereby notifying you of the government’s decision to take your ship. If you have any difficulty with this, you or your lawyer can file a complaint with the clerk down the hall.”

“Thanks a lot,” Stan said bitterly, and left the court room. A few blocks away he found a park bench to sit on. He needed to collect himself. His heart was beating wildly and he was sweating, though it was a mild day. At least, he thought, maybe my bad news for the day is over. I’ve had my share.

That was before his doctor’s appointment, of course.

* * *

Dr. Johnston of the Fifty-ninth Street clinic came to the dressing room just as Stan finished knotting his tie.

“How did my tests work out?” Stan asked.

The doctor looked uncomfortable. “Not so good, I’m afraid.”

“But I was here a year ago; you said I was fine!”

“A lot can happen in a year,” the doctor said.

Stan wanted to say, Sure, tell me about it, but he held back.

“Exactly what is the matter?” he asked.

Dr. Johnston answered, “I might as well give it to you straight, Dr. Myakovsky. You were correct in your surmise about those black marks on your chest and back. They are indeed cancers.”

Stan sat down. He needed a moment to think about this. He couldn’t believe what he had heard. And yet he had suspected it for months.

Finally he asked, “Is my condition terminal?”

“Yes.” The doctor nodded gravely. “In fact, you don’t have much time left. A matter of months. I’m sorry, but it’s best to give you the news straight. The condition, as I’m sure you know, is incurable. But its progress can be slowed, and we can ease some of the symptoms. I’ve already made out a prescription for the medicine we prescribe for such cases.” He handed Stan a folded slip of paper. “And there is also this.”

The doctor held out a small plastic box. Within it, packed in foam rubber, were a dozen ampoules of a bluish liquid.

“This is Xeno-Zip. Have you heard of it?”

Stan nodded. “If memory serves, it is produced from the royal jelly of alien females.”

“That is correct,” Dr. Johnston said. “I must tell you it’s no cure for what you have. But it should relieve the symptoms. The stuff’s illegal and I shouldn’t be giving you this… but it could be just what you’re looking for.”

“Does it have much in the way of side effects?” Stan asked.

The doctor smiled grimly. “It has indeed. That’s why it hasn’t received government approval yet, though many people still use it. Indeed, it has become the most-sought-after consciousness-altering substance in existence. Although the effect is not invariable, it does give most people an intense feeling of well-being and competence. Others experience levels of their own being not normally perceived. Still others have an orgasm that seems to go on forever.”

“At least I’m going to die happy.” Stan wasn’t smiling as he spoke.

2

It was cold that night. Wind demons seemed to chase up and down the streets of New York, wailing at the high-flying moon like all of the banshees of Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

The block that Stan’s house stood upon had once been genteel, a part of Gramercy Park. Now, armed citizens patrolled the streets night and day. Insurrection and disorder were rife all over the city, brought on by the breakdown of law and order since the troubles with the aliens. Some people could remember the coming of the aliens, and the many deaths that had resulted from their macabre practices. Their effect on New York had been to make it seem a much older city than it in fact was, one of those ancient cities like Baghdad or Babylon. Now, after the aliens, the city felt like it had seen unimaginable evil, and was resting, a little exhausted, waiting for the good life to start up again.

After making himself a light dinner from an InstaPac protein ration, Stan went to the living room and started a fire in the fireplace. He sat down in a rocking chair and stared morosely into the flames, listening to the wind whistling outside the window and thinking of how little time he had left.

It was strange how, upon hearing that your life had an imminent termination date, you began to think of suicide. Stan had never before understood Schopenhauer’s saying that he got through many a long night with thoughts of suicide, but now it made sense. To kill himself might even be a triumph; it would rob the cancer of its victory. No longer would he dance to death’s tune. No longer could the pain curl him up and make him beg for relief. He could get out of it, laugh at it all, and, as Hamlet had said, “Make his quietus with a bare bodkin.”

From the plate of apples near his chair he picked up a short, keenly edged knife and looked at it like he’d never seen one before. Where in his body should he put it in? Should it be done hara-kiri style? Or was there another manner more appropriate for a Westerner?

And yet, tempting as the thoughts of suicide were, they were mainly interesting when considered in the abstract. He didn’t really want to kill himself. He wanted to do something. But he didn’t know what it was.

These were long, sad winter thoughts he was thinking, and he was startled out of his reverie when he heard the front door chimes.

Stan looked up in surprise. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He was a lonely man as he had been a lonely boy. He had gotten used to his solitary condition early in life, and had learned there was no sense struggling against it. He felt that it was written somewhere that he should be alone. This was his fate. He had no girlfriends—in fact, no real friends at all. No one came to take him to the movies or a concert, or for an evening’s drinking. Since his parents’ death four years ago in a traffic accident, he had become even less sociable. Sometimes he talked with colleagues at the laboratory, but even among people who should have been his own kind, his macabre and ironic sense of humor kept him apart. Stan lived alone in the house. He had set up a laboratory in the basement, and as far as possible, he did his experiments, wrote his papers, and lived his life at home, in solitude, among familiar things.

It was here that he had written Cyberantics, his children’s book about a cybernetic ant named Ari, based on an ant he had actually constructed himself. In fact, Ari was in the room with him now, perched on a small box on the mantel. The ant could see Stan as he hesitated a moment at the door.

The chimes rang again. He arose and went to answer the summons. The front door creaked in his hand, almost as if it were reluctant to open. Stan peered out, his nearsighted eyes blinking behind his thick glasses.

A young woman stood under the porch light and the first thing Stan noticed was the sheen of copper on her dark chestnut-red hair. She was tall and slender, and had masses of hair pushed back and tied behind her neck with a white ribbon. She wore a dark belted trench coat, severely cut, but not severe enough to hide the fact that she had a very good figure. Her face was oval and attractive, lightly made up. An old scar, now almost completely faded but visible even in the darkness of the porch, ran from the outside corner of her left eye to the corner of her full lips. It looked like an old dueling scar, such as they had once sported in places like Heidelberg some centuries earlier. Could it really be a dueling scar? Did people still fight duels? Some accident, perhaps. But then why hadn’t she had it surgically removed? One thing was certain; the scar seemed to enhance her beauty, just as ancient people believed that scarification increased a woman’s charm.

“Dr. Myakovsky?” the woman said. “I am Julie Lish. I have a matter of considerable importance to discuss with you. May I come in?”

Stan had been staring at her hard, as if she were a lab specimen. Now he came back to himself with a start.

“Oh certainly; please. Come in.”

He escorted Julie Lish inside and led her through the gloomy hallway to the well-lighted room where he had been staring into the flames of a dying fire. He picked up a poker now and stirred the fire up, then indicated a pair of matching armchairs just a comfortable distance from the flames. She took one and he seated himself in the other, then quickly got up again.

“May I get you something to drink?”

She smiled at him, amused by his bumbling eagerness. “You don’t even know what I’ve come for.”

“It doesn’t really matter… I mean, whatever it is, you are a guest in my house. Perhaps I could bring you a fruit drink? I’m afraid I have no alcohol to mix with it. Alcohol has an adverse effect on my can—my condition.”

“A glass of fruit juice would be nice,” Julie said. “I am well aware that you do not drink, Dr. Myakovsky.”

Stan had already begun pouring from a pitcher on a sideboard near the two armchairs. He looked up.

“Well aware? Why?”

“I’ve made it a point to find out about you,” Julie said. “I am always careful to research my future partners.”

Stan stared at her, his lips slightly parted, trying to make sense out of all this. Was she laughing at him? Girls were such unfathomable creatures! Although he was fascinated by them, Stan had always kept his distance, conscious that he was not the athletic, glib, casual sort of man that women liked. And here was this beautiful and exotic creature already talking about becoming partners with him?

“Please explain,” Stan said, with what he hoped was dignity. “You say you’ve studied me?”

“Probably better than you’ve studied yourself,” Julie stated. “For example, I know about your first date. You were fifteen.”

“Do you know what was special about it?” Stan asked.

“I do indeed,” Julie replied. “You never showed up for it. You got cold feet at the last moment. And that, Doctor, could be said to characterize all your dealings with the opposite sex.”

Stan remembered the incident. He wondered if he had revealed it in some memoir he might have published at the invitation of a computer magazine. How else could she have found out? And what did she want to know that sort of thing for, anyhow?

“I don’t get this.” Stan looked at her. “What have you come here for? What do you want?”

“Stan,” Julie said, “I’ll make it short and sweet. I’m a thief. A good one. No, I’m a lot better than just good. I’m one of the best who ever lived. Unfortunately I can’t bring you press clippings. Really good thieves don’t get written up. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“All right, let’s say I accept it,” Stan said. “So?”

“I’ve made a lot of money in some of my enterprises,” Julie went on, “but not as much as I’d have liked. Stan, I want to be rich.”

Stan laughed without humor. “I suppose a lot of people want that.”

“Certainly, but they don’t have my qualifications. Or my desire.”

Stan acknowledged this. “I take it you have some ideas on how to realize that goal?”

She nodded. “I have thought of a way you and I could make a fortune.”

“A fortune,” Stan mused. “How much is that in dollars?”

“Don’t laugh at me,” Julie said. “I don’t know exactly how much it would be. But it would come to millions of dollars, perhaps even billions, and we’d neither of us lack for anything ever again.”

“Nothing?” Stan asked, looking at her and thinking how pretty she was.

“We’d have it all,” she told him. “That’s worth something, isn’t it?”

She slipped off the severe trench coat. Beneath it she wore a nylon, military-style jumpsuit. The tight-fitting clothes set off her well-shaped bosom and fine shoulders to advantage. Stan thought she looked great. He wondered if Julie was one of the things he’d also have if he made a deal with her. He liked the idea but kept that thought to himself as well. Although he was extremely susceptible to beauty, he had cultivated a brusque manner around women so they would never think he was coming on to them and then reject him. He had had a lot of rejection in his life, and he wasn’t going to have any more if he could avoid it.

“Tell me your idea,” he said.

Julie reached into a small purse she carried, took out a package, and handed it to him.

Stan looked at her questioningly.

“Do you know what this is? Open it and find out.”

The package was wrapped in thick manila paper and was held together with tape. He tried to pull the paper off, but there was no place for his fingers to take hold. He went to his desk and found the paper knife, and managed to saw through the tape. Then he slit the paper carefully and opened the package. Within was a plastic box. Inside it, padded with foam rubber, was a stoppered test tube.

Stan held it up to the light. It was a heavy viscous liquid, with bluish lights in it. He unstopped the tube and sniffed. The aroma was unmistakable.

“Royal jelly,” he said.

She nodded. “Do you know what this stuff is worth?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. It is one of the most valuable substances in the galaxy.”

She nodded. “And the stuff is in even shorter supply now that we’ve got the aliens on the run. That’s part of what makes it so expensive. And it’s a monopoly. The big bionational research companies have it all tied up. They’ve got places out on other planets where they get the stuff from the aliens. It’s all a closed transaction.”

“Which is all well-known,” Stan said. “Tell me something new.”

“Suppose I tell you that I know where we can lay our hands on an entire shipload of the stuff. At least a hundred tons. What about that?”

“Who does it belong to?”

“Whoever gets it.”

“Who did it used to belong to?”

“A freelance honey-collecting expedition. But it came up lost, and has never been heard of again.”

“So what makes you think they struck it rich?”

“Before vanishing, they sent out one signal by subspace radio. It was intercepted by a certain Bio-Pharm official. He never got around to using it. I guess he was going to take it to the grave with him, but I persuaded him otherwise.”

Stan didn’t ask her how she had managed this. At that moment her face looked quite sinister. But it was no less beautiful because of that.

“So you know where it is?”

“I know approximately.”

Stan studied her for a while and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Then he said, “And you think it’s as simple as walking in and taking it?”

“Flying in,” she corrected.

“There might be objections to our appropriating this cargo,” Stan said.

“So what? It’s not illegal. Salvage rights belong to whoever gets them. The stuff’s ours if we can get it.”

“And we’re dead if we don’t.”

Julie shrugged. “It’s a lot of money, so there’s going to be a lot of risk. I don’t know about you, Stan, but I’m tired of being small-time. Just once I want to go for all the marbles. Don’t you feel that way sometimes?”

Stan could feel the pains of his condition eating away at him through the haze of the medication. He knew he was sick as hell.

But he also knew he was still alive.

“I think I’m ready for a big one, too,” he said slowly. “But there’s still a difficulty. Where there’s royal jelly, there’ll be aliens. How are we going to get through them?”

“The same way your ant, Ari, got through the enemy ant nest, Stan. That’s how.”

Stan stared at her. “You know about Ari?”

“Of course. I told you I researched you. And I read Cyberantics.”

“You think I could make a cybernetic or robotic alien and he could get through an alien ant nest?”

“I know you’ve been working on such a robot,” Julie said. “Why don’t we find out if it works?”

She looked at him challengingly, and Stan felt his heart lift. At last something was happening to him, an adventure with a beautiful woman.

“Then there’s the question of a ship,” he said.

“You have one.”

“Had. The government just seized it.”

She looked at him levelly. “Let’s worry about getting the ship later. What we need even worse is a spaceship pilot who’s willing to do something illegal.”

“I can think of one man…”

“Who’s that?”

“Just someone I know. Julie, you flatter me by coming to me with this partnership offer. But evidently you don’t know my full situation.”

“I don’t? Tell me, then.”

“Julie, I used to be quite a wealthy man. One of the youngest millionaires on the Forbes list. I have several key patents in bioengineering, and the plans for my cybernetic ant, Ari, are a standard for the field of medical miniaturization.”

“I know all this, Stan.”

“Sure. But did you also know that all that has changed? Did you know the government has put a lien on my assets? It seems that Bio-Pharm, one of the biggest of the international pharmaceutical houses, has filed suit against me for patent infringement. What a laugh. They stole most of their processes from me! But it’s not easy to prove, and in the meantime they’ve got me on the run. I don’t own a damned thing anymore—nothing except this house and Ari.” He lifted up the cybernetic ant to show to Julie. “I even have to beg my grocer to extend me credit so I can go on eating!”

Julie looked at him without sympathy. “I know all that, Stan. It’s tough, isn’t it?”

He thought he detected a tone of irony in her voice. “You’re damned right it’s tough!”

“Granted. But so what?”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Did you actually come here to insult me?”

“There’s nothing insulting in what I’m saying. I came here to make a deal with you. What I find is you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. I’m offering you something you can do about it.”

“It’s not just that I’m broke,” Stan said. “There’s also… my condition.”

“Tell me about it,” Julie said.

Stan shrugged. “There’s not much to say. Melanoma. I’ve got six months. Maybe a little longer if I want to lie in a hospital bed and breath pure oxygen.”

“You look like you’re moving around pretty good just now,” Julie said.

“Oh yeah, sure. But that’s just now. This stuff is the only thing that keeps me going.” He took out a vial of Xeno-Zip and showed it to her.

“I know all about that stuff,” Julie said. “It’s my job to keep track of precious substances that come in small packages. And this is the only stuff that does you any good?”

“That’s right,” Stan said. “It’s expensive even for a rich man. For someone whose assets have been seized… Well, I’ll run out soon, and I don’t know what happens then.”

“Tough,” Julie said, with no pity in her voice. “So this stuff won’t cure you?”

Stan shook his head. “Some doctors have theorized that if I could obtain absolute unadulterated royal jelly fresh from an alien hive, before any by-products were added, and before it had time to lose any of its potency, it might buy me more time. But it’s impossible to get.”

“Except by going to the source,” Julie said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Stan repeated slowly. “Except by going to the source. To a place where the aliens actually produce it.”

“That’s the sort of place I had in mind for us to go,” Julie said. “Like I told you, I know where there’s a shipload of the stuff.”

He stared at her, his eyebrows raised. Then his head slumped and he looked sad and worn. “No, no. It’s quite impossible. Even if you knew of such a place—”

“That’s exactly what I do know,” Julie said.

“You know a place where an alien queen produces royal jelly?”

She patted the sleek leather pouch that she carried at her side. “I’ve got the coordinates right in here, Stan. They’re a part of my contribution to this venture.”

“Where’d you get that information?”

She smiled. She was so lovely when she smiled. “Like I told you, I was good friends with a Bio-Pharm executive. We were a little more than good friends, actually. Well, when he died—he was quite old, you understand—when he died, he decided that that particular secret shouldn’t go to the grave with him.”

“So what is your idea?” Stan asked. “Do you think we can just go there and get it?”

“That’s about what I had in mind,” Julie said.

“The Bio-Pharm people might have something to say about it.”

“I figured we could sneak in, grab the shipload, and get out before they spotted us.”

“You think it would be as easy as that?”

She shook her head. “I never said it would be easy.”

“Or within the law.”

She shrugged impatiently. “There’s nothing illegal about salvage. Why don’t you think of it as your counterclaim to their lawsuit?”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re suing you for patent infringement. Wrongly, you say. Well, prove you mean it. Go in there and take what is yours—then take them to court the way they’re taking you.”

Stan thought for a long while, then he began to smile. “You know, I think I’d like that.”

“Now you’re talking!”

“But wait a minute, there are still a lot of problems. We don’t have a ship. My alien robot has never had a field test. And I don’t have any money.”

“We can do something about all that,” Julie said. “But there really isn’t much time. Not for you and not for me. If we’re going to do this, we’ll have to start real soon. And once we begin, there’s no turning back.”

“I understand,” Stan said.

Julie leaned forward and took Stan’s face in her cool hands. He felt something like an electric shock pass through him. Looking at her, he thought he’d never seen anyone so beautiful and so brave. Yes, and maybe a little crazy, too, but what did that matter?

“I want you to think about it, Stan,” Julie said. “Give me your answer tomorrow night over dinner. If you don’t want to do it, fine, no hard feelings. But if you do—listen to me carefully.”

“I’m listening,” Stan said. In fact, he was barely breathing.

“If you do decide to do it, then no more crap about something being difficult or you being sick or any of that. If you’re going to do it, simply decide to do it, and we’ll go on from there.”

“That sounds pretty good to me,” Stan said. “Julie, where’d you learn all this stuff?”

“From my teacher, Shen Hui.”

“He must have been a pretty wise old egg.”

“It didn’t prevent him from dying,” Julie said. “But while he lived, he really lived. Till tomorrow, Stan.”

“Where are you going?” Stan said in alarm as she stood up.

“I’m sure you’ve got a spare bedroom here,” Julie said. “I’m going to take a shower and change, and then look over your library and lab. Then I want to get some sleep.”

“Oh, fine. I was afraid you were leaving.”

She shook her head. “Play your cards right and I’ll never leave again.”

3

Julie had always been unusual. She’d never known her parents. Her earliest memories were of an international orphanage in Shanghai. This was the place from which Shen Hui bought her, when she was still a very little girl. He had been very good to her, treating her like a favored child rather than a slave. But she was still a slave and she knew it, and it rankled. Shen Hui taught her independence of spirit as well as how to be a good thief. It was inevitable that she would try out her need for liberty on him, the one who was holding her.

She was devious about it, just as he had taught her. She put aside money from jobs she did for him. And she studied and learned so she would know all she needed when she was ready to cut loose from him. And then came the question of finding the right time. It seemed to take forever, and the right moment never seemed to come.

At last they traveled together to Europe. Shen Hui had it in mind to relieve some of the largest art galleries on the continent of some of their smaller and most prized possessions: miniature paintings, small sculpture, carved objects. They went to Zurich first.

The first night Julie excused herself in the lobby of the Grand Basle Hotel, went to the ladies’ room, and never returned.

She had planned well. From the powder room, with a small fortune and a forged passport secreted on her person, she made her way to the airport, and then to Madrid, Lisbon, and London. She made the trail difficult for Shen Hui to follow. And she prepared something else.

He came after her, as she had known he would. He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. He had invested a lot of money in her, and besides, his feelings were hurt. He had thought she loved him. He had forgotten his own advice—never trust a slave. His love was replaced by hatred, all the more powerful because it was based on his own guilt and ignorance in being duped by the illusion he had created and named Julie.

They met up almost a year later. He came upon her in one of the public squares in Paris, near the Seine. Julie was wearing a black sealskin coat and a chinchilla hat. Shen Hui noted sardonically that it hadn’t taken her long to outfit herself. He added that she had been silly to expose herself to him in this way.

“What do you mean?” she’d asked.

“I mean if you had any brains, you wouldn’t have let me catch up with you. Do you realize how easily I could kill you? And you could do nothing about it, not even with all the skills I taught you.”

“I know that,” Julie said. “And I wasn’t careless. I chose to let you find me.”

“What are you up to?”

“I don’t choose to spend my life running,” Julie said. “I am extremely grateful to you, Shen Hui. You have taught me respect for the deeper law that underlies appearances. I appeal to that law now. Although you legally own me, your investment has been repaid many times and it is time that I went free. I served you well and you know it. I would like to shake hands and have us part friends.”

Shen Hui stared at her. His skin had aged incredibly, with a yellow cast to it like parchment that has been dried too long in the sun. She had never seen him looking so old. Even his thin mustache, which dropped down on either side of his face, seemed lifeless. And his eyes were brown and opaque.

She wasn’t sure what he would say. She knew that her life hung in the balance. Old as he was, and apparently unarmed, she had no doubt he could kill her anytime he chose.

“You are my greatest creation,” he said at last. “How could I kill you? Who would I have left to hate?”

Her life had really begun at that point. She spent several years on her own, accomplishing unbelievable feats of thievery in Europe and America. She made money easily, and spent it easily. Her life was rich and pleasurable, but she began to sense a loss of purpose, a slackness that was beginning to alarm her. It was a question of motivation. Shen Hui had taught her too well for her to be content with mediocre motives. Why was she doing what she was doing? What was she living for?

The only thing she could think to do with her life was to get rich. It wasn’t enough, she knew, but it was a start. After she accomplished that, she’d take the next step.

For the present she was here with Stan, and Stan was as good as hooked, if she had any knowledge of men.

* * *

For dinner that night Stan had ordered a special Moroccan feast catered by a North African couple he knew. Although it was short notice, he had told them to go all out, and he served the meal himself using his best china and silverware. There were game birds roasted on spits, half a sheep braised in many exotic spices and served with rough tasty Arab bread, platters of fruits and vegetables, several different wines. The Moroccan couple followed instructions, delivering the feast and then leaving. Stan paid for it with almost the last of the cash he had on hand. One way or another, no matter what decision he made tonight, it was going to be a new life for him tomorrow.

Stan hadn’t thought about what he was going to say. He didn’t need to. He was suffused with a knowledge that he couldn’t articulate yet. That would have to come later. For now it was enough to sit across the table from Julie while the strains of a Monteverdi madrigal tinkled in the background.

Julie had found an old ballroom dress upstairs, one of his grandmother’s, neatly folded in a fragrant cedar drawer. It fit perfectly, and she had worn it down to dinner with a set of large pearl earrings that had once belonged to Stan’s mother.

Stan, noting her preparations, had taken out the tuxedo he had worn to his recent college reunion. He put in the cat’s-eye opal cuff links and the diamond pin in the buttonhole. He felt tall and graceful in this outfit, and a little ironic. It was playacting, of course, and he knew that; but it was also in some strange sense real. And Stan knew that there were many costumes he could have worn that night. He wouldn’t have felt out of place in the golden mantle of Alexander the Great. Because just like the famous Macedonian, he was on the verge of new worlds to conquer. He was also up against a sea of trouble and pain, and he suspected he was doomed to die gloriously and young as well.

At dinner that evening Julie was radiant in the antique gown, Stan looking handsome in his tuxedo. He had saved a bottle of wine for a long time, waiting for an occasion like this. The bottle had been handed down to him by his parents—a rare St-Emilion, the great vintage of thirty-seven years earlier. Stan had taken good care of the bottle, storing it on its side in the temperature-controlled basement, making sure the cork was properly intact. He brought it up now and opened it with care, pouring a little into a fluted glass and tasting it.

“Just on the verge of turning,” he said. “But still superb. We’ve caught the St-Emilion at its peak, Julie. This is probably the last bottle of this stuff in the world.”

She tasted the ruby-red liquid he had poured for her. “It’s marvelous, Stan. But what are we celebrating?”

“Need you ask?”

“I think not,” she said, “but I would like to hear it anyhow.”

“And hear it you shall.” Stan smiled. Never had he felt so at peace with himself. He didn’t know where this course of action was going to take him, but he was satisfied to follow it.

“We’re going to go with your plan, Julie. And we’re going to follow it all the way. We both know the risks. We discussed them yesterday. We both know the odds are against us. But no more talk about that. I’ve decided, and I know that you have, too. We’ll start in the morning.”

She reached across the snowy tablecloth and held his hand tightly. “Why tomorrow morning?”

“Because that’s when my bank opens,” Stan said. “I’m ready for whatever we have to do.”

“I’m ready, too, Stan.”

“Well,” he said, half as a joke and half seriously, “I guess we’ve taken care of everything except what to name our alien.”

“What would you suggest?”

“What about Norbert, after the great Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, the science that gave it birth?”

“Sounds good to me,” Julie said. “I guess that just about covers it, Stan. Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

She leaned close to him. He felt dizzy with her face so close to his. She bent closer. Her lips were partially open. He was fascinated by her teeth, all perfect except one small one to the left, an eyetooth. It was a little crooked.

And then he stopped thinking as she kissed him, and Ari the cybernetic ant stood in his box on the mantel and watched, and the flames of the fire lifted and died away, and Stan watched Ari watching and watched himself kissing Julie, not knowing that Ari was watching, and all this from within his frozen moment in time and all of it stained in the blue light of the royal jelly of memory.

4

Next morning he had a chance to show Julie around his house. She admired the fine old silverware he had inherited from his grandparents, and looked with something approaching awe at the portraits of his ancestors that hung on the great staircase that led to the upper rooms. There were dozens of somber oil paintings in ornate gilt frames, showing stern-faced men—some with side-whiskers and some clean-shaven—and proper-looking ladies in starched black bombazine and stiff Dutch lace. Stan had been lucky that this stuff still remained after the great destruction.

“It’s wonderful, Stan,” Julie said. “I never knew who my parents were. They sold me before I knew them.”

“I’ve got more than enough relatives,” Stan said. “You can have some of mine.”

“Can I? I’d like that. I’ll take that fat one with the smile for my mother.”

“That’s Aunt Emilia. You’ve picked well. She was the best of the bunch.”

There were other treasures upstairs. Eiderdowns whose cases were heavy with intricate embroidery; gaudy antique jewelry; massive furniture cut from gigantic tropical trees whose species had become extinct.

“This is such beautiful stuff,” Julie said. “I could look at it forever. How do you ever pull yourself away?”

“You know, it’s funny,” Stan said. “I never liked any of this before. But since you’ve come here… Well, it looks pretty nice to me now.”

* * *

The next day Stan was pleased when it was the time for action. He felt like his life was just beginning. He was very pleased with this notion, although he also dreaded it, because if his life was beginning, it was also drawing to a close. Which would come first, he wondered, victory or death? Or would they arrive simultaneously?

He refused to think about it. What was important was that he and Julie were in this together. He was no longer alone.

He dressed with special care that morning, humming to himself as he shaved. He selected an Italian silk suit and a colorful Brazilian imported shirt made of a light cotton. He wore his tasseled loafers, even going so far as to buff them up to a high polish. He usually laughed at people who took pains over their dress and appearance, but for this morning, at least, he was one of them. It was a way of reminding himself that he was making a fresh start.

He had been thinking a lot about fate and chance, and how they were influenced by the human will. He had come to the conclusion that what he wanted very badly was going to happen, as long as he willed it hard enough. It seemed to him that he was allied to a universal spirit that determined the course of things. As long as he wanted what the universal spirit wanted for him, he couldn’t go wrong.

Although these were exhilarating thoughts, Stan also had some doubts. He wondered if the fire caused by the Xeno-Zip might be affecting his mind. Was he getting a little… grandiose? Did he really think he had found a way to cheat death?

Sometimes it seemed obvious to him that death was what was really happening to him. This was the real meaning of the disease rotting out his insides. There were too many details of his everyday life to remind him; the spitting and spewing into basins; the many pills he was continually taking, and their many strange effects.

He knew he was a very sick man. But he thought it represented some ultimate courage in himself that he was refusing to face the facts. He decided that if people really faced the facts, they’d all be licked before they could start.

He was determined to go on. It was not yet time to give up and let go. That would come later, when he found his doom; for Stan sensed a horrible fate awaiting him, one that was presently without a name or a face. Then he shook his head angrily and put those thoughts out of his mind.

He found a fresh daisy from the garden for his buttonhole. It was a bright crisp day outside, a day that seemed filled with infinite promise. He could hear Julie humming from the kitchen. She had come down after her shower and was making breakfast. He went in. She was wearing his long fluffy bathrobe. Her hair was tied up in a Donald Duck towel. Her face sparkled, and she looked very young, ingenuous. It was a nice thing to see, though he knew it was an illusion, and only a temporary one at that.

They had bacon and eggs over easy, toast, coffee. A simple breaking of the fast. And now they were ready to discuss plans.

“The first thing we need,” Stan said, “is operating capital. I’ve got a lot of ideas for how to get this project of ours going. But it’s going to take some money. Have you any thoughts on how we could acquire a cash flow?”

“I do,” Julie said. “Raising money at short notice is what a thief does best, Stan. And I’m the best thief that ever was. How much do we need?”

Stan made some calculations. “A hundred thousand, anyway.”

“And how much money do you have right now?”

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “A couple hundred, I suppose, maybe a thousand in savings.”

“That’s not enough, is it?” Julie asked.

“Nowhere near. We need fifty thousand anyway.”

“As much as that?” Julie said. “Are you sure we need so much?”

“I’m afraid so,” Stan said. “We’ll have a lot of expenses to set up what we need in order to get a ship, put Norbert into final working shape, get the equipment we need, and get on with our plan.”

“All right, Stan,” Julie said. “I think I can be of some use here. Give me what you’ve got. I’ll double it.”

“How will you do that?”

“Watch and see.”

“Will you use your skills as a thief?”

“Not immediately,” Julie said. “There’s an intermediate step I need to take.”

“Could you be a little clearer?”

“I’m talking about gambling.”

“I didn’t know you were a gambler as well as a thief,” Stan said.

“My real profession is thief, but I’m a gambler also because everyone needs a second line of work. The fact is, I’m lucky at certain games. Like Whorgle. I’ve been told that I’ve got latent psychokinetic abilities. I can affect the fall of dice sometimes. But they don’t play dice at Callahan’s, only card games. Well, Whorgle is a new game that depends on hand-eye coordination. I’ve got that, and I’ve also got something else. A certain X-factor that sometimes does the trick.”

“Well, I guess you know what you’re doing,” Stan said. “Although I’ve been wanting to see some of this thieving of yours in action.”

“Being a good thief costs money, Stan.”

“That’s a funny thing to say. I thought you were supposed to make money that way.”

“That’s the result, of course. But when you work in the upper echelon of crime, you don’t go in and hold up a candy store. And you don’t knock off a bank, either. Those are not what I was trained for. You never asked what kind of thief I was, Stan. Well, I’m telling you now. I’m a high-society jewelry thief. I knock off only the best people. I work at political conventions, movie openings, awards ceremonies, great sports events, things that bring together crowds of people with lots of money. But that requires a setup. Otherwise I’d have to spend too long just trying to dope out how to do it. I buy a ready-made plan from an expert in the field. It comes high. But it’s guaranteed to bring me to large amounts of money and jewelry.”

“How much does a plan like that cost?”

“If you buy one from an expert like Gibberman, it can cost plenty. I’m going to use your money to win more money so I can pay Gibberman to give me one of his great plans. It may sound like a roundabout way to you, but name me any other profession where you can go from a thousand dollars to around a million in less than three days.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Stan. “Can I come along?”

“Well, of course you can, at least for some of it, but you have to be real cool. You mustn’t even act like you’re with me. You see, gambling is hard work. I’m going to have to give it all my attention. Then, assuming I win, there’s the next part of the operation, which calls for even more attention.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“That’s walking out of the gambling place with your money, Stan.”

5

At first Stan didn’t want to show his robot alien to Julie. On the one hand, he thought it was the best piece of work he had ever done. But would she realize that? What would her reaction be?

It didn’t matter what she thought, of course, Stan told himself logically. Yet all the time he knew it did matter, very much. He realized he wanted Julie to think well of him. He had been alone too long, and he had hidden from everyone, including himself, just how lonely and desperate he had been. It would have been too much to have realized that earlier. But now that Julie had come into his life, he could no longer bear being without her. He wanted to make sure that never happened.

He didn’t know what was going to happen. He was scared. But he was also strangely happy. Over the last few days the individual moments of his life felt better than they had for a long time. Maybe he’d never felt so good.

He was thinking about this while he showered and put on clothes fresh from the dry cleaners. He shaved with special care, and he laughed at himself for doing all this, but that didn’t stop him. He saw Julie over breakfast. She was looking radiant, her hair sparkling in the sunshine.

After breakfast, Stan showed her his lab.

After that, it was time to show off his robot alien.

He kept it in a special temperature-controlled room behind a locked door. The door was to keep people out, not to keep the robot in, he told Julie. It stood perfectly immobile, since it was not presently activated. Its black, heavily muscled body seemed ready to lunge. Yet Julie did not hesitate when Stan took her hand and peeled back the robot’s lips to show its gleaming rows of needle-sharp fangs.

“Your pet looks like evil incarnate,” Julie said.

“As a matter of fact, he’s surprisingly gentle. I hope I haven’t made a mistake in the circuitry. He may need to be trained to fight.”

“I can be of some help there,” Julie said.

6

In Jersey City, lying on a rank bed with a filthy mattress, Thomas Hoban stirred uneasily in his sleep. The dreams didn’t come so often, but they still came. And always the same…

Captain Thomas Hoban was seated in the big command chair, viewscreens above him, clear-steel glass canopy in front. Not that you get to see much in space, not even in the Asteroid Belt. But even the biggest spaceship is small in terms of space for humans, and you get to appreciate even a view of nothingness. It’s better than being sealed up in a duralloy cocoon without any vision except for what the TV monitors can offer.

The Dolomite—a good ship with an old but reliable atomic drive, but also recently fitted with tachyonic gear for multiparsec jumps—was currently on a local run within the solar system, tooling around doing a job here, a job there, trying to pick up some money for the owners. Then they got the signal that took them to Lea II in the asteroids.

Lea was a fueling base, owned by Universal Obsidian but open to all ships. It was a refueling spot. It even had a kind of café, only a dozen seats and a menu like you’d expect at a place that hired their cooks by how little they would steal and cut costs by never bringing in fresh provisions. Not that fresh produce comes easy in the asteroids. It costs too much to make special runs with your iceberg lettuce.

After leaving Lea, Hoban had taken the Dolomite to Position A23 in the asteroids. That was the location for the Ayngell Works, a refinery on its own slab of rock, where a robot work crew purified metals and rare earths mined elsewhere in the asteroids. A23 was located in one of the densest parts of the cluster. You had to navigate at slow speeds and with care, but who didn’t know that? And Hoban was a careful man. He didn’t let his second-in-command do the job for him. Even though Gill was an android and a top pilot and navigator, Hoban did it himself, and he did it well. In any event, no one had any complaints about him before he came to A23.

His job on A23 was to take a big metals hopper into tow and bring it to the Luna Reclamations Facility. Taking it up was no small job. It was a big mother, too big to fit into the Dolomite’s hold. But of course the asteroid it was perched on had negligible gravity, so there was no difficulty in pulling the hopper away from the surface once the magnetic clamps that held it to its massive base plate were released. Hoban’s crew, by all accounts, were trained men; it should have been a piece of cake.

The trouble was, they weren’t really a trained crew. There were three Malays aboard who spoke no English and only understood the simplest commands. That usually worked out all right, but not this time. It had never been proven, but one of those Malays must have gotten confused working in the lowest bay. Somehow he or someone had missed the towline entirely and had locked a fuel-line feeder into the coupling winch. The next thing Hoban knew, the feeding mechanism had been jerked out of the atomic pile, which had shut down automatically, leaving him floating in space without main power.

This wasn’t the first time a spacecraft had lost a main engine. Gill estimated six hours to repair it. Meantime the backup accumulators and the steering jets would provide enough propulsion to get back to A23 so they could pick up the five crewmen who had gone down to manhandle the cargo ties into position.

At least that’s what should have happened, or so it was claimed in the court inquiry later.

Instead, Hoban had turned the ship toward Luna and got away as fast as he could. He claimed afterward that there was a lot more wrong than just losing an engine. Down on A23, an inexperienced crew member had accidentally pulled the interlocks on the atomic pile that kept A23 running. The damned thing was going critical and there was no time to do anything but run for it…

Leaving the five crewmen on A23 to their fate.

Hoban had had to make a quick decision. He calculated that the pile was going to blow up in three minutes. If he stayed around or moved in closer, the blast would take him with it. Even a class-four duralloy hull wasn’t built for that kind of treatment. And anyhow, nonmilitary spacecraft were usually built of lighter gauge metal than the fighting ships.

It was pandemonium aboard the Dolomite. There was a crew of twenty aboard, and five of them were down at A23 with the blast coming up on them in minutes. Half of the remaining crew had wanted the captain to ignore the lapsed-time indicator, ignore the risk, and go back to pick up the men; the other half wanted him to blow off what remained of battery power and get out of there as fast as his jets would take him.

The crew had burst into the control room, hysterical and entirely out of order, and they had begun to come to blows right there while Hoban was trying to con the ship and Gill into attending to the navigation. Letting those men in there had been the captain’s first mistake.

Crewmen were not allowed in officer country except by specific invitation. When a crewman trespasses, shipboard code says he should be punished immediately. If Hoban had ordered Gill to seize the first man to come in and put him into the crowded little locker belowdecks that served as jail space, the others might have had second thoughts. Crews obey strong leadership, and Hoban’s leadership at this point was decidedly weak.

It was in the middle of that shouting writhing mass of people that Hoban had come to his decision.

“Open the accumulators! Get us out of here, Mr. Gill!”

That had shut everybody up, since the acceleration alarm had gone off and they had to get back to their own part of the ship and strap down while the faux gravity was still in operation. It was Hoban’s hesitation that had almost set off the men, but once he’d made up his mind, things were better.

The question was, had he made the right choice? The jury decided there was reason enough to believe that Hoban had panicked, had not thought through his position, had not properly calculated the risk. The jury’s report said that he had had more than enough time and could have gone in for the men without undue risk to the ship. It would have been cutting it a little fine, but in the atmosphere of the trial, men didn’t think about that. They didn’t really ask themselves what they would have done in Hoban’s shoes. They just knew that five crewmen were dead, and the company was liable.

But the question was, under which clause of the insurance contract was the company liable? If what had happened was beyond anyone’s power to change, that was one thing. But if it was due to pilot error or poor judgment, then the company had less direct liability. Guess which the jury went for?

Spaceship pilots were important men, like star athletes, and most of them had, in addition to solid abilities, good-to-excellent connections. Hoban didn’t have any of that. Just top marks in his class throughout the university and Space School after that. He was the corps’ token poor boy; proof that anyone could make it in the corps if he was smart and diligent. But when it came right down to it, after the accident, the company didn’t want to pay out on the higher figure of the insurance and Hoban didn’t have any friends in high places to keep a watch over his interests. Juries had been known to be bribed, and Bio-Pharm had been known to bribe them.

The case had faded quickly from the news. There were lots of other things to get excited about. No one was even interested in doing a vid special on the Hoban case. But if they’d looked into it, they might have been surprised.

7

Callahan’s Sporting Club near Delancey Street was an illegal club. The authorities were always closing it down, but Callahan’s always managed to open again in a day or two. Many city mayors and police commissioners had sworn to close the place once and for all, but somehow they never got around to it. Too much money changed hands. It was nice to know that some things, like the power of bribery, never changed.

A panel slid open in a reinforced door, and a face looked out. “Whaddyaa want?”

“I want to gamble,” Julie said.

“Who do you know?”

“Luigi.”

“Then come on in.”

After they were inside, Stan whispered to her, “Who’s Luigi?”

“I have no idea,” Julie said. “In a place like this, looking like you know someone is worth almost as much as really knowing.”

Callahan’s was filled with well-dressed, prosperous-looking people, most of them crowded three deep around the horseshoe-shaped bar. The general depression and malaise that seemed to grip so much of America didn’t operate here. Here, things were booming. Stan could see people sitting in the adjoining dining room, eating as though there were no food shortages. It looked like they were eating real steaks, too. From beyond the dining room he could hear the excited sounds of people betting. The gaming rooms would be right down there, and that was where Julie led him.

“What game are you going to play?” he asked.

“I’ll try Whorgle,” she said.

She pushed her way into the circle, and they made way for her. There were a dozen men and three women betting on the action. They waited while she set out her cash. Then the game went on.

Stan found he couldn’t figure out how Whorgle was played. There were cards, of course, and a small ivory marker, and something made it spin and jump between the numbers painted on the table. How long it resided in a square seemed to decide who won, but the cards had something to do with it, too. There were also disk-shaped markers with odd symbols on one side. The money, thrown down on the painted stake lines, passed back and forth too quickly for Stan to figure out what was happening. He knew he could work it all out if he just applied his mind, but right now he was feeling light-headed. It had been quite a while since his last shot of Xeno-Zip. The artificial fire that had enlivened his nerves and dulled his senses was fading out of his system. He was beginning to feel very bad. The pain was simply too hard to handle without something to help it like essence of royal jelly.

At last the pain became too much for him. He had to go into a nearby room and lie down on a couch.

After a while he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of grinning skulls dancing and bobbing in front of him.

After a while Julie came and woke him. She was smiling.

“How did you do?” Stan asked her.

“Nobody beats me at Whorgle,” she said, riffling through a stack of greenbacks. “Let’s go home and get some sleep. Then I need to see Gibberman.”

8

Gibberman was a small man who wore a tweed cap pulled low on his forehead and crouched behind his Plexiglas-protected desk in his Canal Street pawnbroker’s office, looking for all the world like an inflated toad. He wore a jeweler’s loupe on a black ribbon around his neck and spoke with some indefinable Eastern European accent.

“Julie! Good to see you, darling.”

“I told you I’d come,” Julie said. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.”

“Delighted,” said Gibberman. “But no names, please.” He shook Stan’s hand, then offered Julie a drink from a half-empty bottle of bourbon beside him.

“No, nothing,” she said. “Look, I’m going to get right to the point. I need plans for a job, and I need them quickly.”

“Everybody’s always in a hurry,” Gibberman said.

“I’ve got places to go and things to do,” Julie said.

“Rushing around is the curse of this modem age.”

“Sure,” Julie said. “You got anything for me or not?”

Gibberman smiled. “A good job is going to cost, you know.”

“Of course,” Julie said. “Here, check this out.”

She took an envelope from her purse and put it down on the desk in front of Gibberman. He opened it, looked inside, riffled the bills, then closed the envelope again.

“You got it there, Julie. All you’ve got, that’s the price.”

“Fine,” Julie said. “Now what do you have?”

“A piece of luck for you,” Gibberman said. “Not only have I got a first-class job, probably worth a million or more, but you could do it tonight if you want to move that fast.”

“Fast is just what I want,” Julie said. “You’re sure this is a good one?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Gibberman said. “There’s an element of risk in all these matters, as you well know. But with your well-known talents, you should have no particular difficulty.”

Gibberman twirled around in his chair and pushed a wall painting out of the way. Behind it was a small safe set into the wall. He twirled the combination, blocking Julie and Stan’s view with his body. Reaching in, he pulled out half a dozen envelopes, looked through them rapidly, selected one, put the rest back, then closed the safe.

“Here’s the job, my dear. Set for New York, and on a street not too far from where we are just now.”

“This had better be good,” Julie said. “That’s every cent we’ve got in the world.”

“You know how reliable I am,” Gibberman said. “Together with my accuracy goes my well-known discretion.”

9

“What is this?” Stan asked. They had gone back home and had opened the manila envelope that Gibberman had given her. Inside was a map, a floor plan of an apartment, several keys, and a half-dozen pages of notes neatly printed in a tiny handwriting.

“This, my dear, is what any successful thief needs—a plan.”

“That’s what you got from Gibberman?”

“I’ve used his plans for several years,” Julie said. “He’s very thorough.”

“So who are you going to rob?” Stan asked.

“A wealthy Saudi oilman named Khalil. He arrived in New York two days ago. He’s going to the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow night to watch a special performance of The Desert Song. While he’s away I’ll relieve him of certain items he usually keeps in his apartment.”

“Where is this to take place?”

“He’s staying at the Plaza.”

“Wow,” Stan said. “I never thought I’d be doing this.”

“You’re not,” Julie said. “I am. You’ll have to wait for me at home. I always work alone.”

“But we’re partners now. We do everything together.” He looked so crestfallen that Julie felt a pang of sorrow for him.

“Stan,” she said, “you know that robot you’ve built? Would you trust me to do micro-soldering on his interior circuits?”

“Of course not,” Stan said. “You haven’t had the training… Oh, I see what you mean. But it’s not really the same thing.”

“It’s the exact same thing,” Julie said.

“I just hate to see you going into this alone.”

“Don’t worry about me. Nothing ever goes wrong with my plans. And if it does, I can take care of it.”

10

The Plaza Hotel had suffered some damage during the recent time of the aliens, but had since regained at least a semblance of its former elegance. Julie went there that evening wearing a stunning red cocktail dress. She looked, if not exactly like a celebrity, then definitely like a celebrity’s girlfriend. The doorman opened the door for her, bowing deeply. She entered the big, brilliantly lit lobby. The reception desk was straight ahead. She didn’t want to get too close to it yet. She glanced at her watch as if she was expecting to meet somebody. All the time she was taking in the details.

People were very well dressed. This was a place where money was in very good supply.

To one side a small orchestra was playing a quaint song from olden times called “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” People were coming in and out of the bar with its glowing mahogany paneling and its soft indirect lighting. She would have liked a drink now, but she had an unbreakable rule: no alcohol or any other kind of drug while she was on a job.

She looked around the bar and then the lobby. Her practiced eye picked out the security men, two of them near the potted palms. She could always tell who they were. They just didn’t look like the guests, no matter how well they dressed. She counted five of them. They gave her admiring glances but there was nothing suspicious in their looks. So far so good.

The big hotel was in full swing. There were lights everywhere, and elegant people, and the accouterments of success. You could smell it in the five-dollar cigars and the expensive perfume on the white shoulders of the women; in the aroma of roast beef, the real thing, wafting out from under silver servers as black-coated waiters brought the well-laden plates around; in the very carpet, permeated with expensive preservatives and subtle-smelling oils.

Julie went to the elevators. One was reserved for the penthouse suites. There was a man standing near it, rocking back and forth on his heels as he surveyed the passing crowds. Julie made him for a plainclothes cop, maybe somebody’s bodyguard. She walked on past and went through a set of corridors back into the main lobby. She was pretty sure the guy at the penthouse elevator hadn’t noticed her. She was also sure a frontal assault on the apartment wasn’t the best idea.

Gibberman had taken this possibility into account. Next door to the Plaza was the Hotel Van Dyke. Khalil’s apartment was a penthouse in the Plaza. If, for any reason, Julie didn’t want to use the elevator, Gibberman had indicated an ingenious alternate way of gaining entry. It involved swinging from an unoccupied top-floor apartment in the Van Dyke, and going in through Khalil’s window. A cat-burglar act, but that was one of Julie’s specialties. She wished Stan could be here to watch her. But it wouldn’t be safe, and it might distract her.

She had no trouble slipping into the Van Dyke with a group of people going to the top-floor restaurant. When they got off at the top floor, Julie got out with them, but instead of entering the restaurant, she ducked into the short flight of service stairs that led to the roof. From there she had a fine view of upper Manhattan, with the dark mass of Central Park directly in front of her and traffic crawling by a long way below on the street. A cutting wind blew her hair around, and she slipped on a knit cap to hold it in place. “Here we go!” she said aloud.

She fixed her ropes and swung over to the roof of the Plaza. From there she tied her rope to a cornice and, taking a deep breath, swung out again into space, bracing herself with one foot so as not to spin. The stars and the street seemed equally distant as she lowered herself to the level of the apartment windows.

They were open, saving her from having to cut through them with a vibrator tool.

She swung in through the billowing white curtains, landed soundlessly inside the darkened apartment, and rolled to her feet. She could see pretty well with the infrared-enhanced goggles she now snapped on. Her feet were set in a defensive pose, but there was no one there. She gave the rope a snap and it came free from the cornice. She wound it around her waist. Now there was no evidence of her means of entry.

She looked around the apartment. It was large, with a drawing room and a separate bedroom. She checked out the kitchen. The refrigerator was filled with a very good brand of champagne, and there were tins of caviar in the pantry. This Khalil seemed to live on the rarest of fare. The question now was where did he keep the jewelry?

She knew that Gibberman had chosen this mark carefully. Ahmed Khalil was renowned as an international playboy. He loved to give expensive gifts to his ladies of the evening. But where did he keep the trinkets? She had already learned from inside sources that he didn’t entrust them to hotel safes. He wanted them close at hand for the moment when he chose to reward his current lady.

She moved quickly around the apartment. Although the place was big, it was still only a hotel suite. The stuff has to be here somewhere…

And then, suddenly, the lights came on.

“Good evening, my dear,” a deep, resonant voice said.

Julie saw a tall, very thin, dark-faced man leaning negligently against the wall. He was wearing a checked headdress. He had a short beard and luxuriant mustache. His face was narrow, and he had a hawk’s nose with a large mole in the left corner. Standing beside him was another man, also an Arab, but large—in fact, huge—with a full head of fuzzy black hair and so much facial hair that his features were all but obscured. Julie, however, had no trouble seeing the knife he held in his right hand.

“What are you doing here?” Julie asked. “You’re supposed to be seeing an opera.”

Khalil, the tall thin man, smiled. “Your information is reliable, but so was my counterintelligence service. We always keep an eye on Gibberman when we come to New York. He’s stung us before. We knew when you visited him to set up the job. Didn’t we, Sfat?”

The giant smiled and touched the point of his dagger with the ball of his thumb.

Khalil said, “Gibberman was happy to tell us what he had set up for this evening.”

Julie nodded. Talk about luck.

“You mustn’t hold it against Gibberman for talking,” Khalil said. “When Sfat takes the knife to somebody, secrets are shouted from the rooftops. His skill is better than a surgeon’s. With that knife he can lay bare a single nerve, in the arm, for example, and play on it as if it were the string on a violin. It is an unforgettable experience, my dear, and one I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss.”

Julie thought of how she had told Stan that nothing ever went wrong. What a laugh! Of course, it was all bad luck. How could she have guessed that Khalil would find out about Gibberman? She had discounted the efficiency of the counterintelligence corps these rich Arabs employed.

“Well, Khalil,” Julie said, “looks like I’m foiled and caught in the act. Have your man step away from the door and I’ll leave quietly.”

Khalil smiled. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be so easy, my dear.”

“You’re going to turn me over to the police?”

“Eventually. If there’s enough left of you. First, however, it will be necessary to teach you a lesson. Sfat!”

The big man took a slow step toward her.

Julie said, “I thought it would be like that. Thanks, Khalil.”

“For what?”

“For freeing me of any scruples. If I ever had any, you’ve put them completely out of my mind.”

She turned to face Sfat, and took two steps toward him while Khalil folded his arms and waited for the fun to begin, a small smile on his lips.

Sfat lifted his arms, hands formed into blades. He bent his knees, feet pointed outward, and Julie recognized the typical fighting stance of a Saudi karate fighter. It was a technique that had its limitations. Sfat advanced, mincingly for so large a man, and his bearded face was set in a mask of cruelty. As he came within range his left hand darted out, the fingers shaped like a hawk’s head.

She was ready for it, had been anticipating it. She ducked under the swooping blow and, with a short, economical kick, connected with Sfat’s left kneecap. He had been turning as she kicked, and some of the force of the blow was lost. Nevertheless, it was enough to take his feet out from under him. He fell heavily, and Julie pounced.

But this time he caught her unawares. Sfat’s clumsy fall had been feigned, and as she came leaping at him his arms and legs were drawn up cat fashion, and he lashed out, expecting to catch her in the solar plexus. She had seen her danger a moment before his counterstroke, however, and turning in midair, managed to avoid his flailing limbs. Her stiffened elbow caught him in the pit of the stomach, knocking the air out of him, and in the second it took him to recover, she rolled away and regained her feet.

Khalil had been watching all this dumbfounded. Now, belatedly, he stirred into action. He stepped forward, crouching in a classic knife fighter’s pose. The weapon he carried in his right hand and low against his body was a yata, a traditional Yemeni dagger, about eight inches long, slightly curved, and sharpened to a razor edge. It was made from a Swedish saw blade, and fitted with an elaborate rhino-horn handle. Arabic letters were engraved on the blade. Julie’s eyes widened when she saw the weapon.

“You do well to fear the yata,” Khalil said, advancing, light twinkling off the point like the gaze of a one-eyed basilisk.

“Oh, I wasn’t exactly afraid of it,” Julie said. “Just surprised to see it. Rhino horn is not legally traded. Is it genuine?”

“Of course,” Khalil said, feinting and then making a lightning stab at her. “I always kill with the genuine article.”

“I’m sure glad to hear that,” Julie said. “That makes that knife extremely valuable!”

The blade darted toward her midsection. Julie spun, and the thing passed harmlessly along her left side. As it passed, her arm snapped down, trapping the weapon. Khalil began a long and elaborate Arabic curse in the guttural dialect of Omdurman, but got out no more than a couple of syllables before Julie’s left elbow crashed with piledriver force into the middle of his face.

Blood streaming from his nose and mouth, Khalil stumbled backward, losing his grip on the knife that was still clamped under Julie’s left arm.

“I’ll just keep this for you,” Julie said, slipping the knife into her belt. “It might reduce its value if we got blood all over it.”

A feint to the midsection drew down Khalil’s guard. Fingers folded in protectively, Julie snapped a blow. The heel of her hand caught Khalil where the upper lip meets the nose. Four of his front teeth cracked off clean at the gum line.

“You ought to thank me,” Julie said. “I’ve corrected your overbite and haven’t even charged you for it.”

Khalil fell down screaming. He rolled on the floor clutching his head and whimpering. Bloody foam splattered from his mouth. Julie watched him critically for a moment, then muttered, “That ought to keep you occupied for a while.”

She turned to Sfat. He had regained his feet, and although his balance was just the slightest bit off-kilter, he was still formidable. If rage could kill, then Julie would be dead ten times over. He came toward her on the attack. He was about twice the weight of the slender girl and he was containing his fury now as he backed her into an angle of the wall, just to one side of an indifferent copy of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. There seemed no way she could get out of this one. Shouting an oath in street Arabic, Sfat launched his attack.

Julie had had long preparation for moments like this. Shen Hui’s instructions in self-defense had covered all the basics of unarmed combat. He had not been satisfied with that, however, since he accounted himself no expert in the finer points of self-defense. So he had apprenticed her to Olla Khan, a fat-faced master fighter from Isfahan in central Asia. Khan, beguiled by her beauty, had said, “My arrangement with your master is that you will stay with me and serve me in all particulars until you can beat me at unarmed combat. That might take more than a lifetime, my pet.”

In fact it took just five months, and Olla Khan ended up in a hospital for his presumption.

And so, now, with Sfat launching his impetuous and ill-considered attack, Julie’s problem was not how to cope with it, but which of several different methods to choose. She also had to decide to what extent she wished to incapacitate him, and this in turn depended on her estimation of his value to her alive. In the split of a second she decided that this gross hairy-faced man with the bad breath was of no value to her, and indeed could serve her better dead as a message to his master, Khalil, to stop resisting and start cooperating.

She didn’t think all that through consciously. Instead, she opposed his charge with a sword hand, fingers stiffened. Sfat crashed into her hand and was stopped abruptly as the fingers took him high between the eyes, shutting down his pineal gland and then going on to break his neck. His eyes rolled up, showing the white, and he crashed to the floor like two hundred pounds of dead mutton.

She turned from him to Khalil. “Ready to go another round?” she asked.

Khalil, his teeth scattered over the floor, had had enough. He mumbled through a bloodstained hand. “Don’t hurt me anymore. I’m a dilettante, not a fighter. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Julie said. She took a pillow from a nearby bed and stripped off the pillowcase.

“Fill it with good stuff for me,” she said. “Don’t put in any worthless crap or I’ll have something to say about it.”

Khalil, totally unnerved, couldn’t even dream of resistance. His collapse was absolute. He opened a compartment concealed in the wall behind the bed and picked several precious bracelets, two handfuls of magnificent unmounted gems in a white chamois bag, and a string of glorious baroque pearls, each the size of a pigeon’s egg and no two alike. Soon the pillowcase was bulging. Khalil had other objects he wanted to give her, but she stopped him.

“One bagful is enough. I’m not greedy. Besides, I’d need an extra pair of hands to carry it all.”

Khalil recovered sufficiently to say, “If you’re finished, then get out!”

“Okay,” Julie said. “This is goodbye, then.” She moved close to him.

He stared at her. The whites of his eyes went a dirty yellow as she advanced on him. He stumbled away, found himself with his back to a bureau. “What are you going to do?” he asked in a shaking voice.

“Just give you a couple hours’ sleep. So I can walk out of here like a lady.” She touched a nerve in his neck. He slumped to the floor unconscious.

“Be sure to have a dentist look at those stumps,” she said. He couldn’t hear her, of course, but she was sure he’d remember anyway.

Julie went to the dressing-room mirror and checked her clothing and makeup. She repaired her lipstick, which had been smeared in the combat, and found an ugly red stain on the shoulder of her red dress.

Luckily, Khalil had a really smart ermine jacket in his closet. It covered the stain nicely. She left by the penthouse elevator. No one stopped her as she walked out, passed through the lobby, and exited the revolving front door onto Central Park South, where she called a taxi.

11

“How did it go tonight?” Stan asked when she got back to the brownstone.

“Not bad,” she said, dumping her loot into the bed. “A dream night for a thief. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near enough to buy a spaceship with.”

“We don’t need to buy one,” Stan said. “I’ve got a plan that ought to work now that we have some money to play around with. The first thing we’re going to need is a spaceship driver.”

“I’d love to talk about it,” Julie said. “But first I need a bath. And I’m famished! Sometimes stealing can be hard work. Oh, by the way, here’s a present.” She tossed the dagger onto the bed.

Stan picked it up and admired the gleaming narrow blade and the rhino handle. “Where’d you get this?”

“Just a little trinket I picked up during the evening.”

12

Over the next two weeks, Julie converted the loot from Khalil’s apartment to cash, and Stan lost no time putting it to work. There was information to buy, people to bribe, and round-the-clock work by hired technicians to put Norbert into full working condition.

Two weeks to the day after Julie’s theft at the Plaza, she met Stan for lunch at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Since it wasn’t a workday for her, she permitted herself a cocktail.

Stan was looking pretty well. A shade paler than usual, but still not bad for a man dying of cancer and sustaining himself on heavy doses of the most addicting narcotic substance known to man. His eyes were a little dreamy, but his voice was firm enough as he said, “Julie, we’re ready to make our move.”

“Today?”

“That’s right. Are you ready?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Of course. You really don’t have to ask me that.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Her voice softened. “No, I’m sorry, Stan. I don’t mean to snap at you. It’s the waiting. It’s hard on my nerves.”

“Well,” Stan said, “it’ll soon be over. If this plan works, we’ll have ourselves a pilot.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“We could be dead.”

“Fair enough. Where are we going?”

“To look up an old friend of mine and make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

13

Jersey City, even in its best days, had been a city many people found objectionable. It hadn’t improved much since the days before the Human-Alien Wars and the human reoccupation. On the day Stan and Julie went there, half of the streets downtown were awash due to a burst water main from a week before, and the city’s repair crews still hadn’t gotten around to capping it.

Ragged, mean-looking men and women hung around every street corner. They looked like down-and-outers, but there was something sly and dangerous about them, too. There were soup kitchens set up here and there, and the buildings looked old and dilapidated. Even the newly built sections of the city were starting to show wear, their poor construction materials already crumbling. Packs of wild dogs slinked in and out of back alleys; nobody had gotten around to getting rid of them yet.

“It’s pretty bad,” Stan said, like he was apologizing for it.

“Hey, I’ve seen worse,” Julie said. “Not that I want to hang around this place…”

At Central Station, Stan found them a motorized pedicab. The driver was a gnarled old brute, dressed nearly in rags, with a shapeless felt hat on which, incongruously, was the glittering bright medallion that let him legally operate a for-hire vehicle.

Stan peered inside the three-wheel pedicab. Some of these drivers had been known to hide accomplices inside, the better to rob the customers, or so it was said. Stan didn’t really know what to expect. He hadn’t been outside New York City in years.

He gave the driver the address, and the man grunted. “You sure you want to go there, mister?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

“You’re going to the heart of the old Gaslight District. Where the space derelicts and the chemheads hang out.”

“Yes, I know.”

“No place for a lady, either.”

“Shut your face and get moving,” Julie said.

“Long as you know what you’re getting into.” The pedicab operator started up the hand-cranked washing-machine motor that ran his little vehicle. Stan and Julie settled back.

Once the driver got up to speed, he gave them a dashing ride. He wove in and out of traffic on Jersey City’s wide boulevards, the pedicab dodging in and out of the debris that the striking garbage collectors would get around to picking up once they settled their contract with the city. The street was like an obstacle course, filled with boxes, packing cases, mattresses, wrecked vehicles, even the carcass of a horse. There were also plenty of vehicles, driven by kamikaze drivers who were hell-bent on getting somewhere, anywhere, rushing around and dodging in and out of each other’s way like rules of the road were no more than memories. There was a dirty gray sky overhead, the sun concealed behind dark-edged clouds. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that the day was so rotten, but you felt like blaming someone anyhow. Looking around, Stan thought, To paraphrase Robert Browning, anything so ugly had to be evil.

“How do you like it?” the driver asked, turning back to fix Stan with a hard look.

“The city? It looks like it’s fallen on hard times.”

“Buddy, you can say that again. This has always been a bad-luck city. Gutted during the Alien Wars. That happened to a lot of cities. Gave them a chance to rebuild. Only crappier.”

“Well, things are tough all over,” Stan said, wishing the driver would turn around and pay attention to the traffic.

The driver acted like he had eyes in the back of his head. Cars came shrieking at him from every direction; and somehow they always missed and he kept right on talking.

“You’re from New York, right? I can always tell. You people didn’t get the Pulsing Plague like we got it here in Jersey. Turned whole neighborhoods into madhouses filled with raving lunatics before it did them the favor of killing them. But not all of them, worse luck. There are some plague people still alive, you know. They were infected, but it didn’t kill them. But it can kill you if they touch you.”

“I’ve been inoculated against plague,” Stan said.

“Sure. But what good will an inoculation do you against the new berserkers you get around here? They’re mostly people who recovered from the Pulser, but with something missing. It was like some center of control in their heads just vanished. Berserkers can get into a frenzy over the smallest thing, over nothing at all. And then watch out for them because they start killing and don’t stop until somebody stops them.”

“I’ll watch out for them,” Stan said, feeling very uncomfortable. What was he getting himself and Julie into?

“You wanta good restaurant?” the driver said suddenly. “Try Toy’s Oriental Palace over on Ogden. They got a way with soypro you’d never believe. They use real spices in their sauces, too.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that,” Stan said. “Are we close now?”

“You can smell it, can’t you?” the driver said, grinning. “Yep, we’re just about there.”

The driver slowed down and looked for an opening in the traffic, found one that was too small, and decided to make it larger. He propelled the little pedicab into it, suffering no more than a bruised bumper, ducked into a narrow street off the boulevard, took a couple of turns, and pulled up to the curb.

* * *

Stan and Julie got out. Stan saw they were in an evil-looking neighborhood, which was just about what he’d expected. Above him, rising above the buildings, he saw a landmark: the spire of the Commercial Services Landing Field, a local service facility where non-stellar spaceships took off and landed. There had been a lot of discussion about it in the newly formed city council. Too close to the city, some said. It could be a source of danger. If one of those things goes down… Some people still didn’t trust spacecrafts. It was a point, but the other side had the answer. “It’ll bring jobs into the city. We’ll be the closest full-facility field within a hundred-mile radius of New York. A lot closer than the Montauk Point facility. The business will flock to us.” And in Jersey City, where business is king and corruption is its adviser, there was no answer to that.

The spaceport’s spire was several miles away, Stan figured. He was in a neighborhood of small ramshackle buildings built against the bulwark of several skyscrapers. He was standing in front of Gabrielli’s Meat Market, advertising fresh pork today in addition to the usual soypro steaks and turkeytofu butterballs, and the place stank of blood and chemicals. Next to it was a small newsstand, and what looked like a betting parlor beside that. Betting was legal in the state of New Jersey, an important source of revenue. Most of the state legislature didn’t approve of gambling, but money was hard to find these days, even with the giant Bio-Pharm plant recently opened in nearby Hoboken and with MBSW—the Mercedes-Benz Spaceship Works—sprawled out in Lodi.

A young woman, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, came up to Stan. She was slender and tall, and she wore a new motorcycle jacket.

Ignoring Julie, she said, “Can I help you, mister?”

Stan shook his head. “I’m not interested today, thank you.”

She glared at him. “You think I’m selling sex? Forget it, stupid. I can see you got a lady with you. And besides, you don’t have enough to buy me.”

“What are you offering, then?” Stan said.

“Advice. Guidance.”

Stan couldn’t help laughing. “Thanks, but we can do without it.”

“Can you really? You people from around here?”

“No, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s pretty clear. You want to walk out of here alive? You’d better buy a pass.”

Stan looked around. There seemed to be nothing much happening on the street. It all looked safe enough. Yet something about her tone of voice chilled him, and he said, “Just out of curiosity, what happens if we don’t take a pass?”

She shrugged. “What usually happens to people who stray onto other people’s turf?”

“But I’m standing in a public street!”

“It’s turf all the same. You’re in the territory of the Red Kings. I can sell you a pass that’ll keep you out of trouble, or you can take your chances.”

Julie had been standing by, listening, letting Stan handle it, but she was getting impatient. “For heaven’s sake, Stan, give her something and let’s get on with it!”

“I guess I’ll take two passes,” Stan said. “How much are they?”

Her price of ten dollars didn’t seem too bad. Stan paid with a twenty and waited for change.

“For the other ten I’ll sell you some advice,” the woman said.

Stan hesitated, then decided not to argue. “Okay. What’s your advice?”

“When you go into the soup kitchen,” she said, “don’t forget your pail.” And then she turned and walked away.

Stan looked at the pass in his hand. It was a playing card, the five of diamonds. Turning it over, he saw a fine looping scrawl in red Magic Marker. He couldn’t read it, but it looked just like graffiti.

“Hey, kin I help?” a voice asked.

It was a vagrant in a shapeless graycloth hat who had spoken to them. He looked fat and stupid and evil.

Julie said to him, “Buzz off, buster.”

The man looked for an instant as though he was prepared to take umbrage at the remark. Then, warned perhaps by a sixth sense that told him when he was outmatched, he mumbled something and walked on.

“I should be doing the protecting,” Stan said.

“Don’t get all bent out of shape over it,” Julie said. “I can take care of bums and wise guys, but I don’t know how to build robots. It all evens out in the end.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Stan said. “Here we are.”

They walked up the crumbling steps of a rotting tenement. An odor of roach repellent fought with the smell of crushed roaches. There was not much to choose between them. Dim yellow light bulbs burned overhead as they climbed to the third floor.

Stan found the right door and knocked. No answer. He knocked again, louder.

Julie said, “Maybe we should have phoned.”

“No telephone.” Stan hammered on the door. “I know he’s in there. There’s a light on under the door. And I can hear the TV.”

“Maybe he’s shy,” Julie said. “I think we can fix that.” With one well-placed kick, she shattered the lock. The door swung inward.

Within, there was a dismal-looking apartment that might have been pretty nice along around the time Rome was founded. It was a hideous place of ancient wallpaper and mildew, and the sound of a toilet running. The smell of frying kelp patties from other apartments overlaid the basic odors. There was an overflowing garbage pail, with two cardboard cartons of garbage beside it.

For furniture, there was an old wooden kitchen table. Sitting at it in a straight-backed chair was a strongly made, sad-faced, middle-aged man with iron-gray hair.

This man looked up as they came in. He seemed startled by what he saw, yet uncaring, as if it didn’t matter what the world threw at him next. There was a small black-and-white TV on the table, and he turned it off.

“Hello, Captain Hoban,” Stan said.

Hoban took his time about answering. He seemed to be reorienting himself in the real world, after a long trip to some unimaginable place, perhaps to the time of his trouble in the asteroids.

At last he said, “It is you, isn’t it? Why, hello, Stan.”

“Hi,” Stan said. “I want you to meet my friend Julie.”

Hoban nodded, then looked around. He seemed aware for the first time of the apartment’s appearance.

“Please, sit down, miss. You, too, Stan. I’ll get you some tea… No, I’m sorry, there isn’t any left. No extra chairs, either. If I’d known you were coming, Stan…”

“I know, you would have had lunch catered,” Stan said.

“Lunch? I can fry you a kelp patty…”

“No, sorry, just kidding, Captain. We’re not staying. We’re getting out of here, and so are you.”

Hoban looked surprised. “But where are we going?”

“There’s got to be a café near here,” Stan said. “Someplace we can talk.”

Hoban looked around again, grinned sheepishly. “I guess this place isn’t too conducive to conversation.”

“Especially not a business talk,” Stan said. “Have you got a coat? Let’s go!”

14

Danziger’s was a Ukrainian café on the next block. It had big glass windows, always misty with steam. There were vats of water perpetually at the boil for the pirogies in ersatz flour gravy that were the specialty of the place. Stan, Julie, and Hoban took a small booth in the rear. They drank big mugs of black coffee and talked in low voices.

Stan was concerned about Hoban’s condition. It had been a while since he had last seen the captain, back when Hoban had been captain of the Dolomite and Stan had bought the ship. Stan had liked the taciturn, serious-minded captain and had kept him in charge.

Hoban was one of the old breed, a straight-shooting captain, always serious and controlled, whose interests were exclusively in intergalactic navigation and exploration, and who could be counted on to follow orders. Stan had bought the Dolomite during his flush period, when the royalties were rolling in from his various patents, before his troubles with Bio-Pharm and the government. In those golden days, it had looked like the sky was the limit.

After the asteroid incident, when Hoban had lost his license, Stan had pulled some strings and managed to get him a temporary captain’s ticket. They had all been quite close then, Stan and Hoban and Gill, the android, who was second-in-command. But then Stan’s problems with Bio-Therm had begun, and the lawsuits had started flocking in like flies to a flayed cow.

A hostile holding company had taken over the Dolomite, and their first act had been to dismiss Hoban, who was known for his loyalty to Stan. They accused the captain of various peccadilloes. That was really a laugh, with a man of Hoban’s known probity, but mud sticks when you fling enough of it hard enough, and the licensing board had lifted Hoban’s temporary ticket pending an investigation.

The captain had taken it hard. He was reduced in the course of one terrible day from a man who commanded his own little empire to a penniless derelict who couldn’t find any work better than washing dishes.

Now they sat together in a Ukrainian café, with the late-afternoon sun streaming in through the windows, and Stan said, “I’m going back into space, Captain, and I want you with me.”

“It’s good of you to say so,” Hoban said. “But no employer would have me without a license.”

“I still want you,” Stan said. “As for your license, we’ll claim it’s still in force.”

“But it won’t be,” Hoban said.

“You can’t be sure of that,” Stan said. “Money talks. I think the courts will find for you, if it comes to an actual trial. And I’ll get your case reopened after this trip.”

“Can you really do that?” Hoban asked. A ray of hope lightened his heavy features for a moment, then his expression darkened again. “But I have no ship, Dr. Myakovsky. Or do you want me to pilot something other than the Dolomite?”

“No, we’re going on the good old Dolomite,” Stan said.

“But, Doctor, you no longer own it! And even if you did, I am no longer allowed to pilot it.”

“Possession is nine tenths of the law,” Stan said. “Once we’re aboard and under way, they’ll have to argue with us in court. Their lawyers against ours.”

“I don’t know,” Hoban said, slumping down and shaking his head.

“Money talks,” Stan pointed out again. “We’ll win your case. After this trip, we’ll all have it good.”

“Yes, sir. Back into space again… Excuse me for asking, sir, but do you have any money for this venture?”

“Enough for what we need. And a way to get a lot more.”

“Where do you want to go?” Hoban asked.

“Let’s get into that later,” Stan said. “You don’t mind if it’s dangerous, do you?”

Hoban smiled sadly and shrugged. “Anything’s better than rotting here, with nothing to hope for.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Stan said. “This is Miss Julie Lish, my partner. You’ll be seeing a lot of her on this expedition.”

Hoban shook Julie’s extended hand. “But wait,” he said. “I’m sorry, Stan, you had me dreaming for a moment. I’m afraid it’s impossible.”

“Why do you say that?” Stan asked.

“For one thing, no crew.”

“Okay. And what else?”

“The Dolomite’s in geosynchronous orbit above Earth, ready to go on a mining trip in a few days.”

“We’ll have to act quickly. Who’s running the Dolomite?”

“Gill, until the replacement captain comes aboard.”

“Excellent!”

“I don’t think so, Stan. You know Gill. He’s programmed to follow the rules. Gill always obeys orders.”

“Not to worry,” Stan said. “Are you sure the new captain’s not aboard yet?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then it’s simple. We’ll go aboard and take off at once.”

“Yes, sir… But it won’t work, sir. You and I are both proscribed from boarding the Dolomite. There are guards. They’ll read our retinal prints, turn us back…”

“No,” Stan said. “They’ll call Gill to make a judgment. He’s in charge now.”

“But what can Gill do? Androids are very simpleminded, Dr. Myakovsky. They obey orders. Their loyalties are built-in, hardwired.”

“Like a dog,” Stan suggested.

“Yes, sir. Very much like.”

“There’s still a chance. Since he was animated, Gill has only worked with you.”

“That’s right. But it’s been a while since we’ve been together. And anyhow, when they changed his orders, they will have changed his loyalties, too.”

“They will have tried,” Stan said. “Actually, it isn’t quite so simple. Loyalty in an android is formed by long association with a particular human. I think Gill will lean in your favor when it comes to a showdown between following your orders or those of the new owners.”

Hoban considered it and shook his head doubtfully. “Android conditioning is not supposed to work that way, sir. And if you’re wrong… It’ll be instant prison for all three of us.”

“Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” Stan said. “Of course it’s not dead simple. What is? The thing is, it’s a chance for us all. What do you say, Hoban? Are you with us or not?”

Hoban looked up and down, uncertain, frowning. Then he looked at Julie. “Do you know what kind of a chance you’re taking here, miss?”

“It’s better than sitting around listening to yourself breathe,” Julie said.

“This venture of yours, Doctor—I suspect it’s not entirely legal.”

“That’s correct,” Stan said. “It’s illegal and it’s dangerous. But it’s a chance to rehabilitate yourself. What do you say?”

Hoban’s mouth quirked. His face twisted in an agony of indecision. Then he suddenly drove his fist down on the table, causing the coffee mugs to jump.

“I’ll do it, Dr. Myakovsky. Anything’s better than this!”

The three shook hands. Stan said, “Let’s get moving. There’s no time to waste.”

“There’s just one problem,” Hoban said.

“What’s that?” Stan asked.

“We don’t have a crew.”

Stan’s shoulders slumped and he sat down again.

Julie asked, “How do you usually get a crew?”

“There’s no time to get them on the open market,” Hoban said, “and we’d have a hard time getting people for a dangerous mission. In circumstances like this, we requisition them from the government.”

“What does the government have to do with it?” Julie wanted to know.

“They allow convicts to put in for hazardous duty in space, in return for reduced time on their sentences.”

Stan said, “But this time it wouldn’t work. The government won’t release any of the cons to me now that I’ve been barred from my own ship.”

“Of course they will,” Julie said. “Government is slow, Stan, and one part of it never knows what some other part of itself is doing. Just go in and ask the way you usually do. You’re a legitimate owner, you’ve hired crews before. They have to serve you.”

“But what if they do know my ship has been seized?”

“First of all, so what? People have property seized every day. It doesn’t put them out of business. They have a suit against you, but you’re still innocent until proven guilty. And besides, the people who actually give you prisoners, the guards and clerks, what do you think they know about that? They don’t know and don’t care. They do what they have to do.”

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “I’ll be too nervous.”

“It will work.”

“Maybe. But I don’t feel confident about this.”

“Stan, if you want to succeed in what you and I are getting into, you’re going to have to learn how to fake self-confidence. Have you ever acted in a play?”

“Sure, in college. I was pretty good.”

“Well, that’s what you’re going to do now. Act the part of Dr. Myakovsky, brilliant young scientist and upcoming entrepreneur.”

“Acting a part,” Stan mused. “What a novel idea! But I believe I could do that.”

Julie nodded. “I knew right away you had it in you to play the Big Con. Stan, if you weren’t already a scientist, I think you could make a great thief.”

It was the nicest compliment Stan had ever been paid.

“And as for you, Captain Hoban…” Julie continued.

“Yes, miss?” Hoban said.

“You’re going to have to get that hangdog look off of your face. You’re a spaceship captain again, not a washed-up drunk who did something wrong once in his life and is making himself pay for it the rest of his life.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Hoban said.

15

Morning came early to the federal penitentiary at Goose Lake, New York. Almost two thirds of the great gray concrete structure was underground, buried under one of the Catskills. What showed above was a windowless dome, gray as a ghost in sunlight, unrelievedly ugly despite the rows of quick-growing trees that had been planted around its perimeter in an attempt to dress it up. A ten-foot-high electrified fence surrounded the facility, but it was pretty much window dressing. No convict had gotten as far as the fence yet. The prison had its ways of keeping the prisoners docile.

Within the windowless pile, artificial light shone night and day. It was part of standard policy to keep the prisoners disoriented, and therefore less aggressive. Inside, there were the usual sections of prison cells, with catwalks outside them where the guards walked. There were workshops, food and laundry facilities, and a separate room where the inmates did state-approved work and earned a dollar or so a day for it.

It was free time now. All the men not doing solitary were walking around the grounds, exercising, talking.

A loud voice came from the prison loudspeaker. “All men whose names are on the Alpha Volunteer list, report to the auditorium on the second level.”

The Alpha Volunteer List contained the names of those prisoners with space experience who were willing to volunteer for a hazardous assignment in return for a reduction of their sentences. It had been a while since the call went out for crew. The prisoners were well aware of the good things this early release could do for them. And anyway, it was easier to escape from a spaceship than from a federal prison.

It was not easy getting on the Alpha list, because only a limited number were permitted even to apply. You had to bribe a guard to have any chance at all. And you were likely to have problems with other prisoners who wanted to take your place.

Red Badger had been waiting for this chance a long time. Now he got up, smoothed down his unruly red hair, checked his shoes, and started for the auditorium.

He was stopped by an inmate named Big Ed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Big Ed asked.

“I’m on the list,” Badger said.

“You got it wrong,” Big Ed said. “That last place is mine.”

“No,” Red insisted, “it’s mine.”

“Sure. But you’re going to give it to me, aren’t you?”

“No way,” said Red Badger. “Now, if you’ll just let me get past…”

Big Ed stood in the middle of the corridor, blocking Badger’s way. “Do like I say,” he threatened, “or else.”

Red Badger knew he was being challenged, knew that Big Ed had been waiting for this moment a long time, yet he also knew that Big Ed had picked him figuring he was the easiest guy on the Alpha list to intimidate. Badger already knew what he was going to do about it.

* * *

He was known as Red Badger because of his shock of coarse red hair. He had the light, easily sunburned skin that went with red hair, and narrow blue-green eyes that blinked at you from behind sandy eyelashes. He was a big man, heavy in the chest. He wore his leather waistcoat open to show his chest with its grizzled mass of hair. He had large square teeth and a nasty smile.

Badger was an alumnus of many prisons. He had gotten his nickname at Raiford Prison in Florida, and as an act of defiance had taken it for his own. Badger was doing time for armed robbery and assault. He had a criminal record that went back a long way. Quick with his fists, he was also quick with his tongue and was always looking for a chance to cause trouble. “Trouble is my real middle name,” he liked to say. “Let me show you how I spell it.” And then he’d punctuate his remark for you with his fists. Like the badger, his namesake, he was most dangerous when cornered.

* * *

The fight was to be held according to the accepted prison rules: just the two of them, having it out in one of the washrooms. Whoever was still standing after it was over would go to the auditorium. The two combatants went there silently.

Both men knew it did no good to be brawling in the corridors. There were stingray projectors with motion-indicator finders mounted in all the corridors, turning steadily and scanning in all directions. The stingers weren’t fatal, but they hurt like hell and could be counted upon to whip recalcitrant prisoners into line. There were no projectors mounted in the washrooms.

Although it was never talked about, the prisoners figured the authorities wanted to leave them places where they could have things out for themselves, establishing who was top dog and who was underdog. Several of them, noticing where Badger and Ed were going, followed along to watch the fun. It had been known for some time that Big Ed was going to try to take Red’s place on the Alpha List.

Big Ed was a seven-foot freak from Opalatchee, Florida. A bodybuilder, he looked like a model for Hercules, all gleaming muscle as he stripped off his shirt. Red Badger, on the other hand, was a solid man, but his musculature was well padded with fat. He looked slow, not formidable.

Stripping off his shirt, he stood in the middle of the shower space, looking fat and sleepy, his hands loose and open at his sides, waiting for Ed to make the first move.

“You sure you want this?” Big Ed asked, moving forward slowly, hands raised like an old-fashioned bare-knuckle fighter. “Ain’t going to be much left of you when I get through.” He looked at the spectators and laughed. “I’m gonna skin me a badger today, boys.”

The men laughed dutifully. Big Ed suddenly lunged forward, and Badger responded.

People said later they’d never seen a big fat man like Badger move so fast. One moment he was standing right there, practically under Big Ed’s fists. But when Big Ed attacked, Badger was already out of the way, dancing back. He easily eluded a roundhouse right, and, taking his time, delivered a blow to Big Ed’s neck, catching him at a nerve junction on the right side.

Big Ed bellowed and moved back. His right arm was dangling awkwardly at his side. He strained to lift it, but could get no sensation into it. He wasn’t hurt; not really. It was just that his right arm wouldn’t lift.

“Where’d you learn that stunt?” he demanded.

Badger smiled but didn’t answer. What good would it do to tell Big Ed that his most recent cell mate, Tommy Tashimoto, had taught him the fine art of nerve strikes—getting him to practice for hours, hitting over and over again from all angles until he could strike half a dozen targets unerringly where the nerve bundles were near the surface or rode over bone.

Red Badger hadn’t been one for formal education. But when he got a chance to learn how to incapacitate a larger, stronger opponent, all the doggedness of his character came out, and he had worked until he knew what he was doing.

Now he circled around Big Ed’s right, hitting him quick hard blows to the face and ribs, coming in over the dangling and useless right arm. Big Ed tried to launch himself at Badger. If he could just get his hands on him, even one-handed, he’d tear the smaller man apart. But Red had a strategy to offset that. He hit again and again at the nerve junction in Ed’s neck, and soon the numbness was replaced by a galloping pain that traveled up and down Ed’s shoulder, from his face to his groin, filling him with an agony so painful as to be exquisite.

At least Badger thought it was exquisite, because he saw he had his man where he wanted him, helpless but still on his feet. A hunk of meat to which he could mete out punishment.

Badger hit and hit, using the heel and sides of his hands. He knew he had this fight won; he just had to guard now against injuring himself. It wouldn’t do to be incapacitated for this spaceship call. Big Ed turned and twisted and floundered, but he couldn’t defend himself. A shrewd kick on the elbow brought down his left arm. He stood there, his face a mask of blood, while Badger hammered away at him like a man driving nails into a tough piece of wood. He hit and he hit, and Big Ed groaned with pain but wouldn’t go down.

“Hell, I got no more time to waste on this,” Badger said. He stepped back and, measuring his man carefully, delivered a kick with his steel-capped work shoe right to the point of Big Ed’s jaw. The men watching the fight winced as Big Ed’s front teeth came flying out like a spray of broken china, and Ed himself crashed face-first to the floor. Badger turned on a tap and cleaned himself quickly but thoroughly. It wouldn’t do to be all sweaty for his interview. He checked himself in the big mirror before he left the washroom to make sure he didn’t have any of Big Ed’s face hanging on his clothes.

16

“Hi, I’m Stan Myakovsky,” Stan said. “These are my associates. I telephoned ahead. I need a spaceship crew for a hazardous mission.”

If the guard at the front window of the entry gate was impressed, she didn’t show it. She was a squarely built woman with short bristly hair. She put down her biker magazine and said, “What company you with?”

“Sonnegard Acceptance Corporation,” Stan said, and showed his credentials.

Back before his troubles began, Stan had taken over the Dolomite by buying the controlling shares in Sonnegard, a spaceship holding company. The company was the real owner of the ship, not Stan, who had never bothered to have the ship reregistered in his own name. In fact, he had decided not to; that way, if the ship got into any trouble, he wouldn’t be liable.

“You’ll find my name on the list,” Stan said. He was hoping that the government hadn’t gotten around to proscribing his company and red-flagging it on the computer. It was unlikely. As Julie had pointed out, it took government forever to bring their records up to date. The inefficiency wasn’t strictly government’s fault. There was neither the time nor the personnel available to record all the crimes, arrests, and dispositions that were taking place around the clock in an America more lawless than it had ever been in all its lawless history. Sonnegard Acceptance Corporation would probably be a legal entity for months to come.

The guard punched the name up on her computer. “Yeah, you’re on the list. Go on through.” She buzzed open the heavy metal door leading to the prison.

“So far, so good,” Julie said.

Stan, accompanied by Julie and Hoban, went through into a long, brightly lit corridor.

“Oh, I didn’t expect much trouble getting in,” Stan said. “It’s the getting out that concerns me.”

“You worry too much,” she said. “Doesn’t he, Captain Hoban?”

“He’s worrying about the wrong things,” Hoban said. “What he should be thinking about is what if one of those men recognizes me?”

“You’re not exactly a cover girl,” Julie said. “I don’t think you need to worry.”

Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they went down the long corridor, following the flashing arrows that took visitors to the recruitment center.

There was a door at the end of the corridor. It buzzed open for them.

Within was a large office, plenty of plain metal desks and chairs, and a guard seated at a bigger desk in front of a computer.

“Come on in, Dr. Myakovsky,” the guard said. “I’ve got all the volunteers in a holding tank just behind this room. There are twenty of them. That is as you requested, is it not?”

“It’s fine,” Stan said. “I’d like you to meet Miss Lish, my associate, and Thomas Hoban, my captain. He’ll be doing the actual selection in my name.”

“As you know,” the guard said, “we have already made the preselection for you, giving you the top-twenty men on our Alpha List. You may reject any of them, and you do not have to give a reason. If you’re ready, I’ll have the people sent in.”

Stan nodded. The guard pressed a button. A panel slid up smoothly in the steel wall. There was a sound of moving feet, and then the prisoners came marching out in single file. Following the guard’s commands, they formed a line across the room, stopped, and turned to face Stan and his party.

Captain Hoban walked up to the men. He paced up and down the line, peering into their faces. He came to one, hesitated, stopped, and stared.

Red Badger stared back.

Hoban said, “Do I know you? Have we ever met?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Red Badger said. “But of course I’ve got a lousy memory.”

Hoban kept on staring at him. Badger said, “I’m a good spaceman, sir. I just want a chance to rehabilitate myself.”

Hoban pursed his lips, frowned, then turned away.

“Anything wrong, Mr. Hoban?” Stan asked.

“No, everything is fine,” Hoban said.

“Do the men look all right to you?”

“Yes, they look fine.”

Stan could see that something was bothering Hoban, but now was obviously not the time to ask him about it. Maybe, he thought, the captain was just nervous.

Stan turned to the guard. “I’ll accept this lot. I’m posting money to send them out to their ship.”

“Okay with me,” the guard said. “What ship is that?”

“The Dolomite,” Stan said, and waited.

The guard bent over the computer. “How do you spell it?” she asked, and Stan knew everything was going to be all right.

17

They were transporting the prisoners to Facility 12, where they would take the shuttle to the Dolomite, their new ship.

Hoban was thinking, Damn it, I know I’ve seen that man before. He knew who I was, I’m sure of it. So why did I pick him? Because I could tell from his look, if I didn’t take him, he was going to tell everyone who I was. It’s not just my imagination, I knew what that bastard was going to do. I should never have gotten myself into this in the first place…

Unexpectedly, Hoban found himself regretting his decision to go in with Stan. Some people might have thought it was crazy, but people just didn’t understand. He was grateful for this chance to redeem himself, get back on top, prove himself a winner. But another side of his character knew himself for a loser and just wanted a soft place to lie down. Funny to think of Jersey City as a soft place, but it was. Somehow he always got fed, always had a roof over his head. And best of all, nobody expected anything of him. He could relax, take a drink or two, take a lot of drinks… He knew that wasn’t how he ought to feel.

It was like there were a couple of Hobans, and at least one of them was working actively to undermine him. He tried to remind himself that good things lay ahead: he’d soon be piloting his own ship again. You couldn’t do better than that. But somehow, it didn’t have quite the savor it ought to. And Captain Thomas Hoban became aware that he faced a greater danger than whatever Stan was getting them into. You can guard against murder, but how do you guard against your own thoughts of suicide?

18

There was one way to get aboard a spaceship without having to produce a pass or wait for a computer check. You could go aboard as part of a tour party. It was Julie’s idea. They waited a few hours to give the authorities enough time to deliver the prisoners to the Dolomite. Then they came to the Staten Island launch site.

All ships picked up extra income by letting sightseeing parties aboard while they were in port, lifting them up to the ship’s orbit in a chemical launching craft. Touring the spaceships was a popular entertainment, as in a bygone year people had gone into New York Harbor to visit battleships when the fleet was in. Spaceships were still novel enough that people paid just to walk aboard one.

With the passengers aboard, the little craft lifted lightly and soon was high above Jersey City. Julie looked through a viewport and saw the earth below looking like a swirly blue-white basketball. Passengers ate hot dogs and talked with each other until the lander arrived at the Dolomite’s geosynchronous orbit and locked onto one of the ship’s entry ports.

Hoban, with Stan and Julie, came aboard the Dolomite with a group of eight other people, just a few of the hundreds who came up here every day from the Staten Island Spaceport. Accompanying them was a guide. He was giving his standard spiel about thruster jets and diosynchronous interrupter-type impellers and standard warp capacities.

“Right this way, folks,” the tour guide was saying. He was a large man with pale blond hair, and wore a white vest with lavender polka dots under a crimson blazer. “Right this way you’ll find the refreshment stand and, just beyond it, the souvenir booth. They carry official ship’s souvenirs. Folks, these items are not sold in stores in the city. You can only get them here. There’s a hall of diorama views of approaches to various planets. There’s even a snack bar featuring delicacies from this world and many others. Right this way—”

The guide broke off his spiel when he noticed something unusual happening.

“Excuse me, you people there!”

He was talking to three people, two men and a woman, who had moved in the opposite direction from the crowd and now were about to open a door marked NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL in five different languages.

“Did you mean us?” one of the men said. He was short and plump and wore glasses. The woman beside him was a handsome creature, slim and with magnificent chestnut-red hair. She was beautiful even with the livid scar that ran down one cheek. The other man, somewhat older than the first two, looked dazed.

“Yes, you,” the guide said. “Can’t you read the sign on the door?”

“Of course we can,” Stan replied. “It doesn’t pertain to us.”

“You’re not trying to tell me you’re ship’s crew?”

“Certainly not,” Stan said. “I’m the new owner.”

“Impossible! I would have been told.”

“I’m telling you right now. We’re going aboard.” Stan pushed at the door. The guide moved to stop him, then stopped abruptly when he felt a hand on his shoulder. The young woman had seized him, and she had a grip of steel.

“Madame, unhand me!” the guide said, trying to make a joke out of it, because people from the tour were staring. He tried to shake free, but Julie’s fingers didn’t budge.

“I’ll be happy to let you go,” she said. “Just don’t interfere with the new owner.”

“I have no proof that he’s the new owner!” the guide said.

Julie shrugged. “What difference does it make to you, anyhow, who runs the ship? You’ve got your concession. You’re selling your tickets and your hot dogs. You’re doing all right.”

The guide considered. He didn’t want any trouble, life was hard enough, why stir up trouble with people who were probably nutcases? The woman with the strong hands was right, what difference did it make to him?

“Do whatever you want,” he said, stepping back as Julie released his shoulder.

Stan pushed open the door that led into the Dolomite proper. As it opened, an alarm went off deep inside the ship. The lights in the corridor behind the door began to flash. There was a sound of heavy running feet, and then two men in brown security-guard uniforms came hurrying up with carbines at port arms.

“What’s going on?” one of the guards asked. “Halt, you people! No one is allowed here.”

“We’re authorized personnel,” Stan said. “I’m the new owner and these are my associates. Kindly escort us to your commanding officer.”

“Back off at once or I’ll fire,” the guard said. “This weapon is set for immediate paralysis. The company is not responsible for any broken limbs or other injuries suffered while resisting authorized orders.”

Julie said, “I warn you not to fire that thing.” Her body tensed. She seemed ready to throw herself at the guards.

There was a moment of impasse. The guards weren’t sure what to do. The situation wasn’t quite serious enough to warrant firing. Not yet. On the other hand, what were they supposed to do? They knew they could get into a lot of trouble if they didn’t handle this right.

A tall man in officer’s uniform came from a doorway inside the ship. “What is going on here?” he asked.

The senior guard said, “These people are trying to break in, Mr. Gill.”

Gill had a long, dark, mournful face. His features were small. His typical expression, in common with those of many androids, was impassive and a little melancholy. He stared at the new arrivals unbelievingly. At last he said, “Captain Hoban? Dr. Myakovsky?”

“And I am Julie Lish,” Julie said, holding out her hand.

Gill hesitated, then shook Julie’s hand.

One of the guards asked, “Do you know these people, sir?”

“Yes,” Gill said. “Stand back and let me handle this.”

The guards saluted and moved back against a wall.

“What is going on, Captain?” Gill asked.

Hoban looked unsure of himself, but his voice was firm enough as he answered, “Mr. Gill, I have decided to take command of the Dolomite again.”

“But, sir,” Gill protested, “a duly appointed court stripped you of this command and gave it to me to hold until the new captain arrives.”

“They had no right to relieve me of command,” Hoban said.

“Are you sure of that, sir?”

“Of course I’m sure, and I am taking over the ship again pending a formal hearing.”

“Perhaps you have that right, sir. I wouldn’t know. But meantime there is a legal decision against you, and to the best of my knowledge that has not been rescinded.”

Hoban looked confused. Stan put in, “We are going to appeal that ruling. A higher court can be counted on to reverse the decision.”

“I sincerely hope so, sir. But in the meantime—”

“In the meantime,” Hoban interrupted, showing a firmness that Stan had not been sure he possessed, “things return to where they were before. I will retain command of this ship until the higher court rules.”

“Unfortunately, sir, I am bound by the lower court’s decree.”

“Your first loyalty,” Hoban said, “is to me.”

Gill looked doubtful. “That is not how my orders read, sir.”

“Hang your orders!” Hoban cried. “I am giving you a direct command.”

Gill looked puzzled, worried. “My orders are to fire on you or anyone else who tries to board this ship.”

“I don’t believe you’ll do that, Gill.” Hoban started to walk toward the entry leading to the interior of the ship.

“Guards!” Gill called sharply. “Switch to killing mode.”

There was a double click as the guards switched their pulse rifles to killing mode.

Hoban smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel and walked toward the entry.

Gill cried, “Stop!”

Stan and Julie fell into step beside Hoban, who continued to advance.

Gill stared at them. There was something like despair on his face. He said, “I must do what I must.”

“And what is that, Gill?” Stan asked him.

Gill said, “Guards!”

The guards snapped to attention.

“Meet your new commander.”

The guards saluted Hoban, who returned the salute.

“Now turn off your weapons”—another double click—“and attend to the incoming crew. They should be arriving any minute. Then you are dismissed.”

“Yes, sir!” Both guards saluted, turned on their heels, and marched off.

“Welcome aboard, Commander,” Gill said.

“Thank you, Gill,” Hoban said. “I knew I could count on your loyalty.”

“It’s my conditioning that turned things your way, sir,” Gill said. “I could not fire on you, nor ask the guards to do so. After our many tours of duty together, you and I have developed too many bonds. But I still think what you are doing is illegal.”

“I know you feel that way,” Hoban said. “You may leave when the guards return to Earth, and no hard feelings.” He held out his hand.

Gill looked at it for a moment, then shook it. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to come along.”

“But why, if you think this is illegal?”

“I don’t care if it’s illegal or not,” Gill said. “I was just stating a fact. Since I couldn’t fire on you, my conditioning in favor of government authority is canceled. I’m your man again, Captain, if you’ll have me.”

“It’s likely to be dangerous,” Hoban said.

“That is a matter of indifference to me.”

“Then I’ll be pleased to have you, Mr. Gill.” Captain Hoban smiled.

“If you two are finished waltzing,” Julie said sarcastically, “do you think we could get on with it?”

* * *

They accompanied Gill into the ship and to the control room.

Julie said to Gill, “How did you know what decision to make?”

“I didn’t know,” Gill muttered. “Androids don’t have to make decisions. We just follow our conditioning.”

“Lucky androids,” Julie said.

“Gill, we’re having some baggage lifted up from the space station,” Stan put in. “With it there will be a large packing case. Please see that it is handled gently.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When they arrive, get the crew bundled down in hypersleep. And get all the tourists off this ship. I want us ready to depart an hour after the crew is aboard and bedded down.”

Gill looked at Captain Hoban.

The captain nodded. “Accept his orders as if they were mine.”

* * *

The volunteers for the voyage of the Dolomite marched in single file under the watchful eyes of armed guards. They left the olive-drab prison lander and marched into the short connecting tube that led into the ship proper. As soon as they were aboard, they all burst into a cheer. The guards gave them hard looks, but put away their weapons and returned to the lander, accompanied by the two guards from the Dolomite. Their job was to see that the prisoners got aboard the ship; once aboard, they were no longer prisoners, though not quite free men, either. The arrangement was that they’d report to the proper authorities after returning from their voyage, and show their good-conduct papers signed by the captain, and receive either a commutation of sentence or a complete amnesty. In practice, many of them never bothered to return, and their names went on a wanted list, to which the authorities gave only minor attention. There were always plenty of new criminals to deal with; no one had any time for the older ones.

They followed the signs that had been set up to guide them to their quarter. But Walter Glint, a short, dark-haired barrel-chested man from Natchez who was Badger’s closest friend aboard, noticed that Red Badger wasn’t even bothering to look where he was going.

“Hey, Red! You been on this ship before?”

“You bet I have,” Red Badger said. “I know her layout like the back of my hand.”

“How come you never said anything about it when that Hoban guy asked if you’d met before?”

Badger shrugged. “If he didn’t remember, I wasn’t going to remind him. It was a pretty bad time for him. I’ll tell you about it later.”

They went into the crew’s quarters. There was plenty of room. The Dolomite normally carried a crew of thirty-five, but Hoban had pared it down to the bare minimum after consulting with Stan. There was no trouble finding berths. Badger and Glint claimed their own corner, and were joined by their best friends from the federal facility. One of these, Connie Mindanao, was a diminutive woman, brown-skinned and black-haired and fierce looking, her features showing evidence of her mixed ancestry. She was the unlikely combination of a Moro from the Philippines and a Mohawk from New York’s Iroquois Confederation. The only thing the two peoples had had in common was a history of head-hunting. Of the other two, one was a big black man from California named Andy Groggins, and the second was a taciturn Laotian hill woman who didn’t say much but whose actions were direct and sudden, and apt to be lethal; her name was Min Dwin.

There were others who were friendly with Badger, and some who downright hated him. They sorted out their sleeping arrangements accordingly.

Badger was used to being the center of attention.

A voice came over the loudspeaker. “All crew! Put away your gear and strip for hypersleep. Everybody must be on his acceleration couch in five minutes.”

Badger called out, “What’s our destination?”

His voice was picked up by a wall monitor. “There’ll be a full briefing immediately upon your awakening,” the loudspeaker voice replied.

“How long we going to sleep this time?” Badger asked.

“That information will be fed into the hypersleep machinery. No more questions, people! Get ready.”

Connie Mindanao said, “What are they trying to pull on us? I don’t know if I’m going to stand still for this.” She looked at Badger. “What do you think, Red?”

“Relax,” Badger told her. “Nothing much we can do about it just now. The ship’s sealed, and anyhow, the guards are still outside. We’ve got no chance of making a run for it.”

They all settled down onto their hypersleep couches. The lights dimmed.

19

The Dolomite left its geosynchronous orbit and proceeded slowly to jump point: a position in space well enough beyond Earth’s orbit to permit subspace operation without peril to others. From there Hoban radioed for permission to disembark, and shortly thereafter received an okay from the Coast Guard monitoring station at L6.

Stan and his party strapped down. Hoban looked them over and asked, “All ready, Dr. Myakovsky?”

“Ready,” Stan said.

“All right,” Hoban said. “Mr. Gill—get us out of here!”

Gill’s hands moved across the switches. The lights dimmed in response to the sudden power surge as the tachyonic converters whirled into action, compressing time and space, tighter, tighter, until—

—the Dolomite suddenly vanished from normal space. The voyage had begun.

20

Julie was used to the dark. It was friendly and warm, and she felt safe in it. Only in the dark had she found security and safety, shielded away from men’s eyes and their motives. The dark was the place where she had trained, so many years ago, when she had learned those matters of stealth and suddenness that were her protection and her trademark. It was then that she learned to make the darkness her own.

And so it had been for all her young life. But it was different now. This darkness that surrounded her now felt sinister, evil. Maybe that was because she knew something lurked within it, something that was trying to get her.

She stopped for a moment in midstep, trying to get her bearings. Her hearing extended itself through the darkness, searching. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she made out vast shapes on either side of her. They were machines, made of dark, glistening metal, and they towered above her. Spots of white light from some unknown source winked off metallic surfaces, and reflected from coils and condensers. They didn’t even look like objects. They were like the ghosts of objects because their shapes were indistinct, ambiguous, swathed in a darkness that had gradation and depth, and was textured with the layers of silence.

A voice crackled in the tiny radio bug implanted in her ear.

“Julie? Do you see him yet?” It was Stan Myakovsky, calling from the Dolomite’s central control room. He wasn’t far away, as distances go, but he could have been in another galaxy for all the good he could do her now.

“Not yet,” she answered. “But I know he’s in here somewhere.”

“Be careful, huh?” Stan said. “I still think we should have delayed this run. I’m still not entirely satisfied with Norbert’s control system.”

Now was a hell of a time to tell her that. She decided to ignore it. Stan sounded agitated. Was he getting cold feet? Or was he just having an ordinary attack of nerves?

She snapped on a tiny flashlight. Ahead of her, picked up in the thin beam, she could see more profound glooms, silent caves of blackness where awful things might lurk. Some of these horrors were caused by the power of her imagination, but she was afraid that some were not.

It was not imagination that told her something in this great dark place was tracking her. She knew it was there. But where was it? She strained her senses to the utmost, trying to pick up some clue. Nothing. But she could tell it was out there. She had a sense of presence, almost like a sixth sense. It was what a successful thief needed above all else, and Julie was an extremely successful thief.

She thought back now on her years of training with Shen Hui, the old Chinese master criminal. She first met him when she was a little girl, the youngest one in the Shanghai slave market that morning. She remembered peering at the crowd that had come to attend the auction, trying to catch a final glimpse of her mother. But she had already left, unwilling to watch her only daughter being sold on the open market. The men started bidding, men from different countries. Then one old man had outbid the rest, and had paid the auctioneer in taels of gold. That was Shen Hui.

He brought her to his house and raised her like his own flesh and blood. Shen Hui was a master thief, a master of the zen of thievery. He had taught her to develop her latent senses so that she could register things without literally seeing or hearing them. That ability came to her rescue now.

Yes, it was not just imagination. There was something near, and it was situated right over… there!

She whirled as a great looming thing detached itself from the deep knot of shadows near a gigantic machine that lay shrouded in its own dust. She found it fascinating, the way the shadows moved and grew, like something not human, the way they resolved into one, and that shadow suddenly turned solid and launched itself at her with an explosive hiss.

“Julie! Watch out!” Stan’s voice rang in her ears. He had picked up the sudden movement. But late. Stan was always late. What good could his warning do for her now? He never seemed to realize it. Not that she had expected anything more. She was responsible for herself. And Julie was already in motion as the thing came at her.

Her long legs, clad in skintight black plastic, pumped smoothly as she sprinted down the central aisle of the Dolomite’s great central cargo hold. The creature, three times her height, colored an unremitting black, with jaws filled with long closely packed fanglike teeth, came after her. Feeling herself being overtaken, Julie dodged and swerved around the faintly delineated center line of the hold. This one narrow strip had been set for twenty percent less of the faux gravity that so much resembled the real thing. Running on the light-gravity strip made her feel as though she had wings, so rapidly did she move, dodging fixed objects as they came up to smear her, vaulting over smaller obstacles, always moving, the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears.

The creature came running after her, and a ray of light from a globe in the ceiling picked it up for a moment. It appeared to be a full-size alien, with the typical backward-sloping cranium of its kind.

The thing was as startling as an apparition from hell. Its claws, with their doubled fingers, reached for her. Julie turned and fled down the narrow confines of the hold.

The area she ran in widened, and the creature managed to gain a few steps on her.

Stan, watching the action on a monitor in the control room, yelped in alarm as the creature loomed over her. He asked himself why he had ever agreed to let Julie take this training run. Thinking about it now, he could see that it had been an unnecessary risk. If anything went wrong, it could jeopardize the whole operation.

And aside from that, if Julie got hurt… But he couldn’t let himself think about that.

Julie and the alien dodged around enormous packing cases, cubes of plastic ten feet on a side. There were a dozen or so of them, and they were scattered randomly on the floor, part of the clutter that accumulates in any spaceship. Julie ran her fingers over the edge of a box. With a quick look aided by her flashlight, she had fixed its location. A memory of the placement of the other boxes was burned into her short-term memory. In her mind she could see the zig-zag path she would have to follow to get to the next bulkhead. After that, a sally port served as a midpoint connection to the next part of the ship’s hold.

She ran full out, counting off step by step. Crossing a crowded room in darkness with speed and silence is one of a thief’s most useful accomplishments. Julie continued across the hold, her senses on red alert, trying once again to locate the creature that was stalking her. Norbert was good, he was very quiet, she had to give him that. He had learned how to muffle his body movements, and even to quiet the sounds of his body functions. Good as he was, she still was aware of him, but it was an awareness that flickered in and out of existence.

After the midpoint sally exit, she came to the platform that blocked the way to the farthest exit. It was a prestressed antimagnetic steel plate approximately twenty feet wide by two hundred feet long, and five inches deep. She climbed up onto it. It was drilled with many large, irregularly spaced holes ranging in diameter from two to five feet, where components would be fitted later. Running the length of the plate left you vulnerable to stepping into a hole and breaking a leg, or falling through an unshielded ventilator shaft to the deck below.

She had to slow down to make it across. Julie went down the length of the platform at a half-speed sprint, unable visually to detect the openings in the darkness, relying on memory. Norbert came loping along steadily after her. She noticed that he, too, must have memorized the locations of the holes, because he was moving confidently and quickly. She forced herself to go a little faster, even though it increased her chances of a fall.

She reached the far end and hopped off. Norbert had gained several steps on her. She hoped to make it up in the next stage.

Just ahead were the spare firing tubes, big cylinders of cold-rolled steel, eighteen of them, each a hundred and eighty feet long. Moving by touch, Julie located a pipe with an aperture that would just permit her to squeeze in. Norbert, with his greater size, wouldn’t be able to follow, would be forced to walk on top of the slippery pipes, thus giving Julie a brief breathing spell. A good escape could be composed of moments like these.

That, at least, was how it was supposed to work. Norbert stopped and looked at the pipe, started to go around it, then came back and managed somehow to collapse his shoulders and crawl into the pipe after her. She could hear the tortured metal-to-metal squealing as he pushed himself through the pipe.

Then she realized that not only was he in the pipe behind her, he was gaining, collapsing himself down to half his usual size and scuttling along like a giant malevolent insect. A sudden sense of claustrophobia came over Julie as she imagined Norbert’s big clawed hand closing over her foot.

She forced herself to remain calm. “You won’t go any faster in a panic,” she reminded herself. One of the first lessons Shen Hui had taught her was to be extra cool in the face of a crisis, to force herself to slow down just when her senses were shrieking at her to speed up. This lesson stood her in good stead now. Suddenly the darkness came to an end and she was out of the pipe and running, a fraction of a second ahead of the alien.

She dodged instinctively as Norbert’s arm reached out for her. In a moment’s inattention, she slammed into a precariously balanced cart containing machine parts and ball bearings. Metal objects flew in all directions and clattered against the sides of the hold. Julie came down on a bearing in midstride and both her feet shot out from under her. Catlike, she turned in midair, throwing up a protective forearm before she went crashing to the floor on her face.

As she sprawled Norbert loomed above her, arms spread wide, jaws open in a terrifying grimace. Through his open jaws the little inner jaws came flickering out, more malevolent than a crazed pit viper.

Norbert lunged at her, and she was momentarily unable to do anything to protect herself. He was almost on her…

She had an instant to wonder what he was programmed to do if he caught her… or did he make up that part as he went along?

And then Norbert slipped on the bearings and lost his balance.

His taloned feet raked the metal floor as he tried to gain purchase. He crashed to the deck with a bone-smattering sound.

For a moment Norbert sprawled there. His resemblance to a giant insect was now apparent as his arms and legs twitched and vibrated, trying to find something to hold. Then he righted himself and was up again and towering over her.

Unable to do anything, Stan had to watch. His fingernails were already ragged, for he had been chewing at bloody cuticles while monitoring Julie’s progress. He leaned forward, intent.

Julie, at the last possible moment, slipped through the alien’s claws and disappeared through the horizontally closing metal slabs at the end of the hold. The creature yowled in rage as the door shut in his face and Julie shot the lock.

Immediately Norbert began wrenching at the door, then, having no luck with the lock, turned his attention to the hinges.

Julie meanwhile was streaking through the cluttered compartment, sprinting at full stride and managing somehow to avoid the clutter of machines and packing cases that turned the place into an obstacle course filled with cutting edges.

Stan was able to track her progress on his monitor against a schematic of the ship’s hold.

He watched a tiny silver dot, representing Julie, dodge around objects ahead of a longer blue-black streak that represented her pursuer.

“Come on, Julie,” Stan muttered to himself. “You don’t have to run it this close! Pull the plug! Bail out!”

But Julie kept running. She seemed to be going for some kind of a record. Never had she been so graceful, so light on her feet. She had reached the far end of the compartment. The egress port was dogged down tight. Norbert was less than five feet behind her now. He reached for her with taloned claws, ending in dagger-sharp tips. Julie stood her ground, and Stan couldn’t help but admire the game quality of her courage. Then she ducked down and scuttled between the creature’s legs, catching it by surprise, and escaping with nothing more than a shallow scratch on her right shoulder.

She was up to her full speed in two bounds, and for a moment she thought she had gained on it. But Norbert had learned something, too. He ignored her dodging run and came galloping up alongside her. His mouth, impossibly crowded with needle-tipped teeth, snarled and opened wide. From his jaw, and protruding through his mouth, came the hateful small replica of these jaws, composed of a small rectangular body part like a tongue, which ended in a mouth filled with white sharp teeth.

This was it. There was no place to go.

The creature moved in for the kill.

“Julie!” Stan screamed. “For God’s sake!”

At that final moment Julie screamed at the creature, “Cancel predation functions!”

Norbert froze in midmovement. His feeding tube withdrew into his mouth. His jaws closed.

Julie then said, “Return to standard program.”

She turned away from the creature, who stood frozen in position, and walked through the connecting passageway to Stan, who was still in the control room, sitting numbly in the big command chair near the computer.

21

In the control room, where he had been watching her progress on a TV monitor, Stan heaved a sigh of relief. He knew Julie would join him soon, after she had showered and changed. He just had time to check the condition of the men in hypersleep, and then he and Julie would be able to go over their plans.

He walked through a dilating door, down a short corridor, and into the long gray egg-shaped room that was devoted to hypersleep. The lights were low, leaving the place in an eternal twilight. The only sound Stan heard was the occasional short click of a circuit breaker.

The men lay in rows in what looked like large coffins with glass tops. Pipes and electrical lines connected all of the coffins and ran to power boxes on the walls. All this maze of equipment was run through instruments that measured output and indicated sudden anomalous changes, checking for heart rate, respiration, and for the electrical brain activity. Every hour, samples were taken of the sleepers’ blood and stomach contents. Trace chemicals could set up strange chain reactions. It was necessary to keep the crew’s internal environments very stable. Other meters on the wall showed dream activity; it was important for the crew members to dream as they slept. Dreaming too long suppressed can lead to psychosis.

For now, all was well. The men lay in their gray coffins. Most had their hands at their sides, some had crossed them on their chests. In one or two cases, the fingers pulled at each other. This was not abnormal. Events were occurring on deep levels of the brain that the dials and gauges couldn’t read.

It was to be a journey of almost two weeks’ duration. Not a long one, as space trips go. The men could have stayed awake throughout without harm. But it was policy on most ships to put the crew into hypersleep for anything longer than a week. For one thing, it saved on food and water—critical things on a spaceship. For another, it kept the men out of mischief. There was little to do on the outward leg of a deep-space voyage. The ship shuttled noiselessly through space, and time seemed to flow like invisible treacle.

Stan was pleased that there was no crew to contend with at the moment. He was somewhat less pleased that Captain Hoban had elected to take the hypersleep with his men. Stan would have enjoyed conversations with Hoban on the long outward journey.

“I’d like it, too,” Hoban had said. “But frankly, I need the sleep. I’m badly in need of reintegration.”

Hoban had come under severe pressure after being relieved of his ship’s command. The charge that he had been drunk while on duty, though untrue, had been tough to fight. Even with all the recording instruments that were continuously running on the ship, it was unclear exactly how drunk he had been, or if indeed he had been drunk at all. There were matters of individual alcohol tolerance to consider. Even witnesses, the ship’s officers, had been of two minds about what had really happened and to what extent Hoban bore responsibility.

If all this was upsetting to the investigating authorities, it was even more so to Hoban. He didn’t know exactly himself what had happened in that fateful hour when the accident had occurred. His own defense mechanisms blocked his memory, preventing him from seeing a truth that might be damaging to him.

Hoban knew that, and so he couldn’t help but wonder what his defenses were trying to block.

The hypersleep was known to enhance psychic integration. It gave you a chance to drop out of the world of actions and judgments, into a timeless place beyond questions of morality. Hoban had welcomed that.

Now Stan looked forward to resuscitating Hoban. It was a little limiting for him, having only Julie and Gill to talk to. Julie was a darling, of course, and he was absolutely mad about her. At the same time he couldn’t help but recognize her limitations.

Although abundantly educated in the school of hard knocks, she had little formal training in the sciences. Worse, she had little interest in the arts and humanities. She tended to assume that material things were always the most desirable ones. This was an error in Stan’s judgment, for how do you price a sunset or a mountain at dawn? How much for the song of the swallow? Still, he realized that he himself was no doubt guilty of the typical human error of overvaluing what he liked and undervaluing what others liked.

Talking with Gill was also limiting. Gill had formidable training in the sciences and knew a great deal about history and philosophy. This didn’t give him judgment and compassion, however. For Gill, the proposition that the unexamined life was not worth living had no more relevance than E=mc^2. He wasn’t equipped to examine the emotional dimension, though Stan thought he saw signs of promise.

After showering and changing, Julie fluffed her hair and rejoined Stan in the main control room. “How’d I do, Stan?” she asked.

Stan pulled himself together. In a voice that strove to be casual he said, “Quite well, Julie. You shaved fifteen seconds off yesterday’s time. Keep on like this and you’ll soon break your old mark of three minutes in the hold with Norbert.”

“Norbert’s getting too good,” Julie said. “He’s learning faster than I am. I’m sure he’s smarter than the real thing.”

The real thing, in this case, was the aliens Norbert so resembled, and who had caused such strange and deadly events on Earth.

Despite his appearance, however, Norbert was not an alien. He was a perfectly simulated robot model of an alien, equipped with a number of computer-driven programs, among which was the predator mode that Julie had been testing out. At the moment Norbert was in the control room with them, showing no sign of his former ferocity.

“How are you, Norbert?” Stan asked.

“I am fine, Doctor, as always.”

“That was quite a little run you gave Julie. Did you think you were going to catch her this time?”

“I do not anticipate such things,” Norbert replied.

“What would you have done if you had caught her?”

“What my programming told me to do,” Norbert said.

“You would have killed her?”

“I cannot anticipate. I would have done what I had to do. Without feeling, I might add. But let me further add, if remorse were possible for a creature like myself, I would have felt it. Is there an analogue of remorse that does not involve feeling?”

“You have a complicated way of expressing yourself,” Stan said.

Norbert nodded. “These matters require considerable thought and recalculation. And when they are expressed in words, they sometimes come out differently from what was intended.”

“I’ve noticed that myself,” Stan said.

Just at that moment a large brown dog came racing into the hold from a corridor. Stan had named him Mac. No one was quite sure how he had gotten aboard, but no one had gotten around to putting him off and now he was taking the voyage with them.

Mac ran to Norbert’s feet and released a blue rubber ball he was holding in his jaws. The ball bounced three times and came to a rest at the monster’s instep.

Stan and Julie watched to see what Norbert would do. The robot alien bent down and his long black arm, which somehow resembled an ant’s chitinous appendage, brushed past the dog and picked up the ball. The monster’s arm came back, then forward, and he threw the ball through the open door into the corridor. Barking furiously, the dog went chasing after it.

“All right, Norbert,” Myakovsky said, “you’ve had your fun. Go to the laboratory. I’ll want to scan some of your response codes. And get Mac to shut up. The crew is still in hypersleep.”

“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky,” Norbert said, and walked quietly out of the room.

22

A door slid open and Captain Hoban walked through. He had a dazed look in his eyes, and Stan knew he could not have been awake for long.

“You’re early out of the hypersleep, Captain.”

“Yes, sir. I had my dial set to get me up before the crew so I could pull myself together and have a talk with you.”

“I suppose it is time we had that,” Stan said. “I want to thank you again for throwing in your lot with me. I don’t know where this will end up, but I’m glad to be on this adventure with you.”

“Yes, sir. Could you tell me what it is exactly we are going to tell the crew?”

Julie, seated nearby, said, “Yes, Stan, I’d like to know myself.”

Stan nodded. “We’ll give a slightly altered version of what’s going on.”

“Are we on course, then?” Hoban asked.

“Yes. I fed the coordinates for AR-32 into the navigational computer.”

“AR-32? I think I’ve heard of the place,” Hoban said. “Wasn’t there some trouble there a while back?”

“There was.”

“Then why are we going there, sir?”

“We’re pretty sure there’s an alien super-hive on that planet, which apparently won’t support anything else. A Bio-Pharm ship has been in orbit around AR-32, and my information is that they have been illegally harvesting royal jelly.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. But what does that have to do with us?”

“I have a right to my share in that matter,” Stan said. “Julie and I are going to relieve them of some of their plunder. Royal jelly is like pirate’s gold, Hoban. It belongs to whoever takes it.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t have much trouble with that concept, though Gill might. But what bothers me, sir, is, does that mean we’ll have to kill bugs?”

“It could come to that,” Stan said, “though it is not the primary intention of our expedition.”

“And might it not involve killing Bio-Pharm people, if we have to?”

Stan stared at him. “Yes, it could come to that. I don’t expect them to be too happy about our taking what they have come to regard as their own, but frankly, I don’t much care what they feel. No one gives up pirate’s gold easily. If they insist on making a fight of it… Well, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

Hoban nodded, though he didn’t look happy. “I suppose that follows, sir. But I wish you had told me all this beforehand.”

“Would you not have come?” Stan said. “Would you seriously have preferred to stay down-and-out in that crummy boardinghouse I found you in?”

“No, I don’t wish to be back there,” Hoban said. “I’m just considering the situation.”

“Then think about this,” Stan said. “This situation could make you rich. Julie and I intend to share our profits with you and the crew. They’ll get a small percentage for the dangers they’ll run. It won’t be much out of our shares, but it’ll be more money than they ever saw before.”

“Sounds good, sir,” Hoban said. But he was still worried. What good was it to be rich if you were also dead?

The time was nearing to wake the crew from hypersleep. The flight was almost at an end. Their destination, the planet AR-32, was coming up on the screens, a glowing dot in the dark sky. Julie knew this would be her last time alone with Stan for a long time.

There was a lot to do, a lot of last-minute details to attend to, and she didn’t know when she and Stan would get some quiet time alone. Maybe not until they had finished the expedition—or to call it by its true name, their raid. And that could take time. And if everything didn’t go just right…

Julie shook her head irritably. There was no sense thinking about failure. Hadn’t Shen Hui instilled that much in her?

23

When Julie came into the control room, Stan was still seated in the big, padded command chair. He had taken an ampoule of royal jelly from a dozen that were nested in the padded box on the nearby worktable. He was holding the ampoule up to one of the arc lights, twirling it between his fingers and admiring its bluish glow in the light.

As usual, Julie was both attracted and repelled by the liquid and what it could do to Stan. Yet she had been hoping they could spend this evening together, doing things together instead of thinking about them. Sometimes she thought Stan allowed himself to have real experiences only for the pleasure of reliving them later, as he was able to do with the royal jelly.

Why did he love that stuff so much? She knew it eased the pain of his disease. But it was more than just a remedy: he was using it as a drug. And Julie didn’t approve of taking drugs.

She hadn’t tried the stuff herself. A well-trained thief allows nothing to dull her senses. Shen Hui and life itself had taught her this lesson. And yet, much as she missed him when he launched himself into the unknown regions that the drug brought him to, a part of her went with him, because she knew how Stan felt about her.

Returning the ampoule to its case, Stan asked, “What did you think about Norbert’s performance?”

“He’s ready,” she said. “You’ve done an amazing thing, Stan. Created a robot alien good enough to fool the real ones.”

“Except for the pheromones,” Stan pointed out.

“You’ve taken care of that, too. With the short-range zeta fields you’ve developed, plus the pheromone-altering qualities of the royal jelly, the aliens will think Norbert is one of them.”

Stan nodded. “Just like it was with Ari.” Stan was referring to how his cybernetic ant, Ari, had been programmed to enter the colony of a similar-looking ant species, where the other ants accepted him as the real thing.

“How close are we now, Stan?” Julie asked.

Stan punched up the computer screen in front of him. Numbers flowed across it, and lines weaved in and out and then held firm.

“We’re nearing the vicinity of AR-32,” Stan told her. “It’s time to get the crew out of hypersleep.”

“The adventure begins,” Julie said softly.

“That’s right.” Stan took out the ampoule of royal jelly again. “We need a lot more of this stuff, and AR-32 has it for us. It’s funny how a single substance can be both more valuable than diamonds and more necessary for life than water. More necessary for my life, anyhow.”

He swirled the little glass tube and watched the liquid flow. Then he looked at Julie.

“You look very lovely tonight.”

She smiled back mockingly. “Pretty as a shot glass, as they’d say in the Old West.”

“No, I really mean it,” Stan said. “You know how I feel about you, don’t you?”

“Maybe I do,” Julie said. “But it’s not because you ever talk about it.”

“I’ve always been shy,” Stan said. Abruptly he swallowed the ampoule. “I’m going to go lie down now, Julie. Let’s talk more later.”

Without waiting for her answer, Stan shambled off to his small office just to the right of the main control-room entrance. Within it a folding cot was built into the wall. He lay down on it now, without bothering to take off his glasses.

With Xeno-Zip there was no habituation. Each time was like the first. It always amazed him just how quickly the stuff took effect. It was like no other drug he had ever tried, neither medicinal nor recreational, and Stan had tried them all. Alien royal jelly was neither a stimulant nor a soporific, though it had effects similar to both. Primarily it was a way of gaining instant access to all parts of your own brain, a royal road to your own dreams and memories. With royal jelly you could zoom in on your past like a skilled photographer zooming in on a detail, readjusting focus to bring up those images that had faded out. You could freeze the frame on what seemed like reality. You could see what you wanted to see, as often as you liked, and then step outside the frame and watch yourself in the act of seeing. Nor was that all it did. Royal jelly was a painkiller, too, relieving the throb of the cancer that was shattering his life.

The vial dropped from his fingers. It fell to the floor, taking no more than a fraction of a second to shatter on the deck. And in that microsecond, Stan watched it all happen again.

24

First came the rush. It seemed to move along his arteries, and Stan pictured himself, a tiny man in a canoe adrift on the great red waters of his bloodstream. The vision exploded into a thousand fragments, and in each fragment the scene was repeated. The fragments of his vision came together, like millions of diamond particles striving to become a diamond, and then exploded outward again like firework displays arcing in all directions. He could hear a sound that was accompanying this, and he couldn’t tell what it was at first, a deep-throated roar that could have come from no human source. At first he thought it was the gods singing, great choruses of ancient gods wearing strange headdresses, some with the heads of ducks and turtles, some jaguars, some foxes. And near them, suspended in shining space, were other choirs of women-gods, full-breasted Brunhildes and slender Naiads, and their song was full of sorrow and promise.

* * *

As the ampoule fell to the floor, Stan was already dozing fitfully. Tiny muscles in his eyelids jerked and twitched: REM sleep, but of a previously unheard-of intensity. Dream sleep, but with awareness. Blue-green lights played across his face. It was a broad face, with the beginning of a double chin. Light glinted off his glasses and threw a shadow on his small chin. He looked far younger than his twenty-eight years; like a schoolboy again, coming back to the big old house where he had lived with his parents before the devastation wrought by the aliens. Again he saw his stern father, the scholar, always with an ironic little Greek or Latin phrase on his lips; and his mother, with her high forehead, flinty gray eyes, and hastily pinned-up mass of dark blond hair.

Then he seemed to be walking down a long corridor. On either side, standing in niches like statues, were replicas of his parents at every age and in every mood. Stan could, in his imagination, freeze the frame, stop his parents in midtrack, and walk around them, inspecting them from every angle, and then start the tape of memory running again. All this while the ampoule was in midair.

The ampoule was still falling from his hand, and he could segue instantly from where he was to another memory, himself after class in high school, walking along beside the little brook that ran behind his home, thinking about everything under the sun except his homework assignments. Stan looked down on the work given him by his teachers. He thought it was beneath his intellectual level, unworthy of his efforts. So disdainful was he of school that his parents feared he would not graduate. But he did graduate—there he was at his own graduation, wearing an English schoolboy’s suit his parents had bought him while they were attending a seminar in London. He had always hated that suit; he had looked damned silly next to the casual attire of the other boys.

There were many scenes like that, ready for him to step into, but Stan wasn’t in the mood for childhood memories. There were other things he wanted to look at. Other times. Other people, places, things.

And so he moved, the ampoule still falling, moved as a spiritual presence, down the spiraling, faintly glowing corridors of the years. And now he was a man, in his twenties, already a well-known scientist, and he was in the doctor’s office, buttoning his shirt, listening dumbly as Dr. Johnston said, “I might as well give it to you straight, Dr. Myakovsky. You were correct in your surmise about those black marks on your chest and back. They are indeed cancers.”

“Is my condition terminal?”

“Yes.” The doctor nodded gravely. “In fact, you don’t have much time left. The condition, as I’m sure you know, is incurable. But its progress can be slowed, and we can ease some of the symptoms. You already have the medicine we prescribe for such cases. And there is also this.”

The doctor held out a small plastic box. Within it, packed in foam rubber, were a dozen ampoules of a bluish liquid.

“This is royal jelly. Have you heard of it?”

Stan nodded. “If memory serves, it is produced by the aliens.”

“That is correct,” Dr. Johnston said. “I must tell you it’s no cure. But it should relieve the symptoms. It could be just what you’re looking for.”

“Does it have much in the way of side effects?”

The doctor smiled grimly. “It has indeed. That’s why it hasn’t received government approval yet, though many people use it. Indeed, it has become the most-sought-after consciousness-altering substance in existence. It gives some an intense feeling of well-being and competence. Others experience levels of their own being not normally perceived. Still others have an orgasm that seems to go on forever.”

“At least I’m going to die happy,” Stan said.

* * *

But of course there were also the bad side effects. Some people had been known to go berserk on the drug, or to undergo personality changes so great that their own families didn’t recognize them. Could that be happening in his case?

And then he forgot his concern as the images swept him up again. There was so much to look at! So many memories, all nicely staged and lighted, waiting for him, the sole audience, to put them into motion. It was like owning all of the theaters in the world, and in each of them a different movie was playing, and each movie starred himself, Stan Myakovsky, in all the scenes of his life. He glided past them, a ghostly presence in his own memories.

25

Red Badger was one of the first crewmen revived from hypersleep. He stretched and yawned, then carefully unplugged the leads that connected him to the central sleep inducer. He looked around. The rest of the crew was starting to revive. Cheerful music was playing over the PA system. There were sounds of coughing and spitting as men cleared their throats for the first time in almost a month.

Coffee was available at a little table. Crew were always given coffee mixed with a new amphetamine upon first awakening. It was needed to help them throw off the effects of hypersleep.

Badger sipped at a black sweetened cup of coffee and felt his head clear.

“You okay, Red?” It was Walter Glint, his sidekick.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Min?”

The Laotian hill woman grunted her assent.

“Connie?”

“I’m great, Badger,” Connie Mindanao said. “You figure this might be a bonus run?”

“For extra-hazardous duty? They haven’t said yet.”

“I hope so.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got a ranch house in Bangio I’m trying to pay off.”

“There just might be easier ways,” Badger said. He looked around. “That’s funny.”

“What’s that, Red?”

“They usually post the ship’s destination in the crew quarters. But look for yourself—the board’s empty.”

“Yeah, that is funny,” Glint said. “But there’s a notice there.”

Badger said, “I can see it, dummy. General assembly in twenty minutes. The captain and the owner’s gonna talk to us.”

Glint said, “You’ve been on these ships longer than I have. That’s not the way they usually do it, is it, Red?”

“Nope.” Badger scratched his jaw. “I’ll bet they’re up to something. This might be interesting, Glint.”

The loudspeaker said, “All crew! Assemble at once in the main theater.”

* * *

Stan and Julie walked out onto the raised stage. The crewmen looked up attentively when he rapped a pointer on the lectern to get their attention.

“Our destination is not far away now,” Stan said. “It is a small O-type star named AR-32 in the standard catalog. Around it revolves a single planet, with several good-sized moons to keep it company. These moons create violent and unpredictable weather currents on the planet, which has been named Vista. Captain Hoban, do you know anything about this planet?”

Hoban had been sitting to one side of the stage. He cleared his throat now and said, “I have heard of the place, sir. They used to call it the Festerhole, back when there were still a lot of pirates and privateers operating in the space lanes. There was once a jelly-gathering operation there involving one of the bionationals. That was some years ago. To the best of my knowledge it has been deserted since.”

Stan thought, Good old honest Hoban telling the crew more than they need to know! Still, they’d have to find out sometime what this mission really involved.

The crew stirred and looked at each other. This talk of the Festerhole was making them uneasy. What was this assignment, anyhow? What was it the powers wanted them to do this time? No one had spoken about a bug-hunting expedition. That called for extra pay!

There was a rising murmur of protest from the crew. The greatest menace of recent times were the aliens, those big black monsters who had been pushed off Earth with difficulty, and elsewhere continued to show their murderous abilities in the face of everything Earth had been able to throw against them.

Badger rose to his feet and said, “Sir, this wouldn’t by any chance be a bug-hunting expedition, would it?”

“Not exactly,” Stan said.

“Then what exactly is it… sir?”

Stan ignored the red-haired crewman’s insolent tone. “This is basically a salvage operation,” he said. “We’ll be taking a load of royal jelly off a wrecked freighter.”

“Yes, sir,” Badger said. “And aren’t the bugs going to have something to say about that?”

“Our information is that there are no bugs on the wreck. We’ll go in fast, take what we need, and be out of there again. There’s also the possibility we’ll find an abandoned hive on the planet. The jelly in that could be worth millions.”

Walter Glint said, “Nothing was said about bugs when we volunteered, sir.”

“Of course not,” Stan said. “My information is secret. If I told you back on Earth, half the freelance salvagers from Earth and the colonies would be there now.”

“Bugs can be dangerous,” Glint said.

“Not when you take precautions,” Stan quickly put in. “You were warned that this was hazardous duty. You’re not getting time off your sentences for sitting around in some holiday spot. And remember, there’s bonus pay in this for all of you. It could come to quite a lot, if the salvage is as rich as I think it is.”

“How much?” Badger asked.

“That’s impossible to calculate before we have it,” Stan said. “Don’t worry, there is a standard formula for crew shares. I intend to double it.”

The men cheered. Even Badger smiled and sat down. This was interesting, he thought. He wondered what would come next.

26

Stan rapped for attention. But before he could get started again, a door opened and a man came in. He moved rapidly and with a strange grace, a cross between a glide and a lope. His face was expressionless. Although all of his individual features were human, the total result was not human at all. The crew knew at once, even before the introduction, that this man was a synthetic. Captain Hoban’s introduction clinched the matter.

“People, this is Gill, an artificial man from the Valparaiso People Factory. He’s the second-in-command.”

“Sorry to be late, Dr. Myakovsky,” Gill said. “I just finished the energy readings.”

“No problem, Mr. Gill. Take a seat.”

Gill sat down by himself in the back of the room.

Gill was a solitary. In recent years the People Factory in Valparaiso, Chile, where many of the better synthetics were produced, had been doing an improved job on skin colors and texturing. Gone was that old look of damp putty that had once characterized synthetic people and had provided a basis for so many jokes by bad comedians. Now the only reliable visual gauge for detection of an android was the speed of their comprehension responses. That and a certain mechanical jerkiness to their movements, since the final stage of fairing the input levels and ranges of the synthetics’ operating systems was a slow, expensive process, and many employers didn’t care if a synthetic’s hand trembled as long as he didn’t drop the test tube or light stylus—or whatever.

Despite their artificial origins, synthetic men were full-fledged members of human society, with voting rights and a sexual program.

Stan was about to go on. But just at that moment, from an outer corridor, Mac the dog came trotting into the room. He had a bright blue rubber ball in his mouth, and he looked around expectantly.

Someone in the crew laughed. “Fetch it here, boy!”

And then something else came into the room behind the dog.

It came loping in on all fours, and at first glance it looked like a beetle the size of a rhinoceros. It was colored a shiny, unrelieved black. Its skull was very long and curved back over its shoulders. It was toothed like a fiend and taloned like the devil itself. It was Norbert. And he looked like he had just come from hell.

There was silence for one long straining moment.

And then pandemonium broke loose.

The crew scrambled to their feet and started running for the exits. Their work boots clattered on the metal deck as they surged toward the exit door, trying to push each other out of the way.

Stan grabbed the microphone and shouted, “Just stay where you are! Do not make any aggressive movements! Norbert will not harm you, but he is programmed to resist aggression. Just stay calm!”

It was not a calm-making situation. Yet even now catastrophe could have been averted. The crew was quieting down, coming out of its panic, starting to make jokes. Norbert was just standing there, making no sign that he was going to attack anyone. And then he was bending, slowly picking up the dog’s rubber ball, throwing it back to him.

It could have ended right there. But there was always a wise guy around, someone who had to push things a little too far.

This time it was a crewman known as Steroid Johnny, an overmuscled hunk in a skimpy T-shirt, tight jeans, and lineman’s boots, who carried an unlicensed pressor rod in his boot and liked to cause trouble.

Steroid Johnny saw his chance now. “Come on, Harris,” he said to a lean, grinning blond man lounging beside him. “Let’s take this sucker down. Shouldn’t be no aliens here anyhow.”

The two men advanced on the motionless robot alien. Steroid Johnny winked at Harris, who went slinking around to the right, picking up a crowbar from a toolbox as he went. The robot’s head swiveled, keeping both men under surveillance. Johnny feinted to his left, then went straight in at Norbert. Five feet away he stopped and turned on his pressor beam. He directed it at Norbert’s back-sloping head.

Norbert was pushed back hard—for a moment.

Then the big robot shrugged his way around the pressor beam, ducked under it, and was moving toward Johnny. Johnny backed up and tried to get the pressor beam into a blocking position, but Norbert moved faster, lunged forward, his jaws opened, the inner jaws shooting out of his mouth. The pressor beam fell to the deck. Johnny tried to get out of the way, but Norbert already had one big hooked claw clamped on his left shoulder.

Johnny screamed as he was lifted straight into the air by the skin of his shoulder. He hung there in Norbert’s grip, screaming, struggling to break free. Norbert’s inner jaws, impelled with all the energy of his powerful crysteel-mesh throat muscles, drove through Johnny’s chest, splitting him like a side of beef. Norbert dropped the red dripping thing to the deck and turned, ready for the next one.

Harris, seeing the way things were going as he ran to attack Norbert, tried to pull up in midstride. Too late. Norbert swung around like a grotesque yet graceful ballet dancer and struck out with one of his taloned feet. The blow landed high on Harris’s sternum. Norbert’s talons made an audible hissing sound as they cut through the air, driven by the force of his heavy shoulder muscles. The talons ripped Harris apart from the left shoulder blade to his right hipbone. Harris opened his mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. His lungs had been punctured in the blow. He made an ugly squishing sound as he fell to the deck.

The rest of the crew took this in and froze in position. They had never seen anything move as fast as Norbert, when he was aroused.

Norbert halted, looking around. He seemed about to attack again. Just in time, Stan shouted out the shutdown order: “Priority override! Code Myrmidon!”

Norbert froze in position, awaiting further orders.

It was a moment of balanced possibilities. The crew seemed on the verge of panic, ready to run out of the control room screaming.

Captain Hoban gulped hard and felt nausea at the back of his throat, but he knew he had to control the men. He got hold of himself and said coldly, “Two of you there, get pails and mops and clean up that mess. See what comes of not following orders? This didn’t have to happen. Now get a move on…”

There was an awkward, sullen moment, and then the crew obeyed. And the ship Dolomite hurtled on toward its rendezvous with AR-32.

27

Subdued, the crew returned to their quarters. The men seemed dazed, unsure of what to think. All of them except Min Dwin, the Laotian hill woman. She went directly to her bunk and pulled out her spacebag. From it she took out a long object in a flat leather sheath. She pulled it free. It was a machete, sharpened to a razor edge.

Badger said, “What are you up to, Min?”

“Those bastards killed Johnny,” Min said. “I’m going to get me some officer meat.”

“With that? They’ll cut you down before you get within ten feet of them.”

“Maybe I can pick up a gun. One of those that fires the softslugs. I’d like to see that weird doctor with the glasses take one in the gut.” She started toward the passageway leading back to the main ship’s stations.

“Hold on a minute, Min,” Badger said.

She stopped and turned. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Johnny was your man, huh?”

“Yeah. It was a recent thing. Now it’s over. What about it?”

“Come over here and sit down,” Badger said. Reluctantly she complied, sitting on a locker with the machete balanced on her knees.

“Min, I understand you’re plenty pissed off. I am, too. I wasn’t all that fond of Steroid Johnny, or his friend Harris, but I wouldn’t have wanted what happened to them.”

“Right. So?”

“So this. It was Johnny’s own fault, Min.”

“It would never have happened if that professor guy hadn’t brought that thing along.”

“Sure. That thing he calls Norbert is obviously dangerous. But so what? We work around dangerous stuff all the time. That’s what we volunteered for.”

“I know. But Johnny—”

“Johnny disobeyed a direct order. He thought he knew better. I hate to say it, Min, but him and Harris got what they deserved.”

“I never thought I’d hear you saying this, Red,” Min said. “Who’s side you on, anyhow? You suddenly turned into a company man?”

“I’m just telling it like it is,” Badger said. “It’s like somebody told Johnny not to stick his hand into a buzz saw, and he went and did it anyway. Who would you kill then?”

Min twisted her fingers together in an agony of indecision. “I don’t know, Red. It doesn’t seem right just to leave it.”

“You’re right about that,” Badger said. “But now’s not the time to do anything about it. You go walking out of here with that machete, they’ll put you down fast and ask questions later.”

“Aren’t we going to do anything?”

“Sure we are. But not now.”

“When, then?”

“Look,” Badger said, “don’t push it with me. I know you’re sad over Johnny. You’ll get over it soon and find someone else. As for what we’re going to do, we’re going to wait and see how things develop. When we make a move—if we do—they won’t be expecting it. Is that fair enough?”

“Yeah,” Min said. “I guess it is. You got any drugs on you, Red?”

“Walter here takes care of my supply. What have you got, Glint?”

Glint had a first-rate stock of assorted chemicals. He was the crew’s supplier and he always had plenty to sell.

“Try this one,” he said, taking a pillbox out of his spacebag and shaking out two into his hand. “This’ll make you forget Johnny ever existed. If you like them, I’ll make you a good price for a hundred. But these two are on the house.”

“Thanks, Walter,” she said.

“Hey, what are friends for?” said Walter Glint.

28

Gill sat at the control board, his fingers playing sensitively over the buttons. A telltale above his head gave a readout on orbit and showed a digital display of gravity vectors. Another telltale showed electromagnetic activity. AR-32, the planet itself, had come up rapidly and now filled most of another larger screen.

The planet was colored a dusty yellow and gray, with occasional black and purple markings indicating barren mountain ranges. Large livid splotches showed dead seabeds. A faint shadow darkened the upper right hand corner of the screen; it was cast by Ingo, second largest moon of AR-32, made of nearly seventy-percent telluric iron.

While Gill set up the orbiting procedure, Captain Hoban slid into a control chair beside him and ran up a readout on electrical and solar phenomena on the planet’s surface. His sad face creased into a puzzled frown.

“I’m getting some strange signals,” he told Stan.

“Where are they coming from?”

“That’s what’s strange. I can’t get a fix. They keep on shifting.”

“Can you derive any information as to their production?” Stan asked.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Is someone making these signals, or are they natural phenomena?”

“At this stage I can’t tell,” Hoban said. “We have no definite data on any other ships in the area.”

“There’s a lot of solar debris around, though,” Stan said. “No telling yet what it might be.”

Gill punched up another set of numbers. “The weather down there on the surface is even worse than you expected, Dr. Myakovsky.”

Julie came into the control room. She had already changed into a plasteel landing outfit. The cobalt-blue plastic formfitting clothing with its orange flashes looked stunning on her. Stan’s heart was in his mouth as he watched her.

“Are we ready to go down?” Julie asked.

Captain Hoban said, “I wouldn’t recommend it, Miss Lish. The surface phenomena are worse than we were led to believe. Perhaps if we give the weather time to settle down a little…”

Julie shook her head impatiently. “There’s no time for that. If our worst peril is from the weather, Captain, we’re doing very well indeed!”

“I suppose that’s true,” Hoban said. He turned to Gill. “Are you ready to accompany the party, Gill?”

“I am, of course, ready,” the synthetic man said. “I have taken the liberty of asking for volunteers for this. There are five of them, and they are waiting for your orders.”

He stood up from the control panel. He was tall, and even with his mismatched features, he was good-looking. If he had been a true man, you would have said there was something haunted about his expression. Since he was only a synthetic, you had to figure there’d been something amiss with his facial mold.

“Captain Hoban,” said Stan, “can you show us our target in more detail?”

Hoban nodded and fine-tuned the controls. AR-32’s surface sprang up into high magnification. Fractal-mapped shapes blew up in size and complexity. Hoban adjusted the magnification again. A tiny dot on the landscape grew quickly, until, at extreme magnification, it turned into a low dark earthen dome that rose up from the flat plain, showing up well against the rugged landscape.

“That’s the hive,” Hoban said. “Not easy to miss it. It’s the biggest thing in this part of the planet.”

“Looks pretty quiet,” Stan mused.

“We’re still a long way from the surface,” Gill reminded him. Things could change by the time we get there.”

“True enough,” Stan said. “But what the hell, this is what we’ve come for. Julie? Are you ready?”

“Ready, Stan,” Julie said. “It’s going to be a walk in the park.”

Stan wished he shared her confidence.

“Why are you going to the surface?” Hoban asked. “I thought we were coming to look for an orbiting wreck.”

“All in good time,” Stan said. “Right now we’ve got the hive below us and no sign of life around it. If we can get a load of royal jelly from there, we can take care of the freighter later.”

“Right on,” Julie said. “Let’s go for all the marbles.”

Stan felt encouraged by the beautiful thief’s cheerfulness and determination. Maybe this thing was going to go all right, after all.

29

The number-one lander was in its own bay, stacked parallel to the backup lander, just behind the big hold where Julie had made her last training run with Norbert. Now Norbert walked behind Stan and Julie, holding Mac the dog in his arms. There was something doglike about the robot’s posture; in a sense he was a mechanical watchdog, ferocious when challenged, utterly loyal to his master, Stan. Behind Norbert, and keeping their distance, were the five volunteers for the landing party. They had been promised a sufficient bonus for this undertaking, enough for avarice to overcome common sense. But, of course, if they’d had common sense, they wouldn’t have been in space on the Dolomite in the first place.

Captain Hoban, who was already at the number-one lander waiting for them, initiated the hatch-opening procedure. The lander, nestled in its bay, was almost a hundred feet long. It contained a miniature laboratory and was fully equipped with the telemetry needed for the mission.

Norbert was proceeding to the hatch when Mac the dog came streaking out of the corridor, the rubber ball in his jaws. He raced into the lander just ahead of Norbert.

“We’d better get that dog out of there,” Hoban said.

“Let him stay,” said Stan. “He may be of some use accompanying Norbert once we’re on the surface.”

“Just as you wish, sir,” Hoban said. “I wish I were going with you.”

“I wish you were, too,” said Stan. “But we need you here on the Dolomite. If anything goes wrong, we’re absolutely dependent on you for backup.”

“Don’t worry, Stan, nothing’s going to go wrong,” Julie said. Her smile was brilliant. “Don’t you agree, Gill?”

“Optimism has not been factored into me,” Gill said. “I am constructed to understand situations, not to have feelings about them.”

“You’re missing the best part,” Julie said. “Having feelings about stuff is what it’s all about.”

“I’ve often wondered about that,” Gill said.

“Maybe someday you’ll find out. Are we ready?”

“After you,” Stan said.

She made a mocking little salute and stepped into the lander. The others followed. Captain Hoban waited until he heard Stan report on the voice channel that the lander was well sealed and all systems were on-line. Then he returned to the control room and initiated the takeoff procedure.

The lander fell away from the Dolomite’s hull and dropped toward the swirling surface of AR-32. Stan adjusted his restraining harness and called out, “Everybody secure?”

The five volunteers from the crew were strapped down in the forward cabin. They were carrying weapons that had been issued to them by Gill: pulse rifles and vibrators. All had been given suppressors. These state-of-the-art electronic machines, about a meter long and weighing less than a pound, were clipped to their belts. The suppressors emitted a complex waveform that confused an alien’s vision, rendering the wearer invisible.

Julie and Gill were lying on deceleration couches in the main cabin behind Stan. Norbert was crouched all the way in the rear, holding a stanchion in one clawed hand and cuddling Mac with the other. There was no seat aboard the lander large enough to hold the big robot alien. But his strength was such that it was likelier the stanchion would move than his grip be torn loose.

Then Captain Hoban’s face appeared on the screen. “Dr. Myakovsky, are you ready for release?”

“Ready, Captain,” Stan said. “Open up and turn us loose.”

There was a powerful humming noise from the Dolomite’s interior motors, a noise that could be felt inside the lander as vibration. The Dolomite’s bay doors slid open revealing the star-studded sky as seen from AR-32’s upper atmosphere. There was a click as the doors locked in the open position. Then a bright green telltale on Stan’s control board came to life.

“You’ve got control, Stan.”

Stan felt his stomach turn over as the lander pulled away from the Dolomite. G-forces twisted at his gut. Sudden sharp flashes of pain went through his chest. A haze of pinkish red enclosed his vision, with blackness beginning to form on the edges.

“Stan!” Julie called out. “We’re coming down pretty fast.”

Gill said, “Hull ionization is beginning to be a factor.”

Stan got himself under control. His fingers danced on the controls. “Okay, I’ve got it. Gill, give me a landing vector.”

They were deep into AR-32’s atmosphere. Long, thin, ragged yellow clouds, twisting and turning into fantastic shapes, whipped past the Perspex viewing window. There was a rattle of hailstones striking the hull as they passed through a temperature inversion layer in the atmosphere.

The image of Captain Hoban jumped in and out of focus on the screen. But his voice was steady as he said, “Dr. Myakovsky, this planet has a heavy radiation belt. Better kick on through it at best speed.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Stan gritted. “Sightseeing?”

“Are you all right, Doctor?” Hoban asked. “You don’t look so good.”

“I feel great,” Stan said through gritted teeth. Black dots were swimming behind his eyes as he fought to hang on to consciousness. His chest burned with a familiar agony. He could feel the straps of the restraining harness tug at his shoulders as he cut down power and started to bring up the ship’s nose. The atmosphere lightened and darkened as they went through more cloud layers. On the computer screen, the flight path for their landing came in glowing amber.

Gill said, “We’re on the final approach now. Good going, Stan.”

Stan forced himself to concentrate, though he was none too sure he could remain conscious. The g-forces eased as he pulled the lander into position for its landing run.

There was more visibility near the ground. In the tawny yellow light Stan could see house-sized boulders strewn across a tilted plain. They were fast approaching an old riverbed, wide and level, and that seemed a good place to make the final landing.

Stan adjusted the trim tabs and began the landing procedure. The lander put her nose up and steadied. Wind gusts shook the ship just as it touched down. There was a crunch as they smacked the ground, then a bad moment as the lander soared into the air again. Then it came down again, hard, and this time it stayed down.

When the lander had come completely to a stop, Julie looked around and said, “Welcome to AR-32, everyone. It may not look like much, but this planet is going to make us rich.”

“Or dead,” Stan muttered, but to himself.

30

Back on the Dolomite, Captain Hoban watched the lander spin away on the viewscreen. He felt hollow, useless. There was nothing for him to do at the moment. Gloomy thoughts began to invade his mind.

Captain Hoban had continued to think about suicide. This didn’t surprise him. He only found it strange that he hadn’t thought of it before, during all the bad days of the trial.

He shook his head. Back then, something had buoyed his spirits, some belief that he was going to come out of this all right. And then his opportunity had seemed to arrive when Stan visited him in Jersey City and made his offer, and here he was in space again. But he had a bad feeling about it. His thoughts were full of foreboding images, and the men torn apart by Norbert hadn’t helped his mood any. He suspected there would be a lot more deaths ahead, maybe even his own. Maybe he wouldn’t have to commit suicide after all.

On the other hand, he could do it now. Gill could handle the ship all right. Stan and Julie didn’t really need him…

Somewhere in his mind, Hoban knew this was a crazy line of thinking. He was a valuable person with reasons for living. He had nothing to be ashamed of. And yet the shame was there, constantly bubbling up from the depths of his mind, a seemingly automatic process that he couldn’t shut off.

It obsessed him that he had been dismissed from his own ship. He still burned with shame when he remembered how the authorities had revoked his license. It was all so terrible, and so unfair. Probably there was no hope of real reinstatement. He had let Stan talk him into joining this crazy venture without thinking it through. When he got back to Earth—if he got back—the authorities would be merciless with him. Maybe he’d gone far enough.

He was preoccupied with his thoughts, and so was not pleased when he heard a crisp knock at the door of his stateroom. Now that the lander was away, he’d been hoping for a few minutes alone so he could get caught up on writing the ship’s log.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Crewman Badger, sir.”

Hoban sighed. He still didn’t know why he hadn’t rejected Badger at the prison, when he had the chance. He had finally remembered where he’d seen him. Badger had been one of the crew of the Dolomite when he’d had his accident in the asteroids, one of the men who had witnessed his disgrace.

Damn, damn, damn.

He didn’t like Badger, thought he was sly and untrustworthy. But he had to admit, the man hadn’t given him any trouble before. He did know Badger’s type. Hoban had looked over the comment sheets on the crew, sheets compiled by other captains on other flights. The word on Badger was that he was cunning, insubordinate, and a troublemaker. There was no specific charge against him on the evaluation sheets, but the implication was clear enough. “Come in, Crewman Badger. What do you want?”

“I have the latest report on the debris in this area of space, sir.”

“Why didn’t you just put it on the computer, as usual?”

“I thought you’d want to see this one before it was opened for general access, sir.”

“Why? Is there something unusual about it?”

“I’d say so, sir. Our new radar overlays show there’s more than just space junk out there in orbit, Captain. I’m pretty sure there’s a wreck in orbit near us.”

“A wreck? Are you sure?”

“Can’t be absolutely sure at this range, sir,” Badger said. “But the pictures show smooth metal surfaces that must have been machined. It looks to me like a Q-class freighter, sir. Or the remains of one.”

Hoban took the radar printouts from Badger’s hand and carried them over to his desk. He studied them under infrared light, then, using a grease pencil, outlined an area.

“You mean this bit right here?”

“That’s it, sir.”

Hoban studied the readouts more closely. He had to admit that Badger had a good eye for this sort of thing. It appeared to be a ship’s remains, floating out there in an orbit around AR-32, along with a lot of other stuff, mostly stellar debris.

This, he decided, might be the wreck that Stan Myakovsky had been looking for. Hoban decided to find out and have the information for Stan when he returned.

“We’re going to have to check it out,” he said. “Badger, I want you to take one man, suit up, and go to the wreck’s location. See if you can find its flight indicator.”

“Yes, sir!” said Badger.

“And don’t go talking about this with the rest of the crew. That wreck has probably been there a very long time. No need for them to get excited too soon.”

“Right, sir. No reason to alarm the crew over something like this.”

Hoban nodded, but he didn’t like agreeing with Badger. It seemed more natural that he should be on the opposite side of anything Badger felt. But he decided that perhaps he was being unfair. All that anyone had against Badger were rumors, and the man’s unfortunate personality. No charge against him had ever stuck. And his decision to bring the wreck immediately to Hoban’s attention had been quite correct.

Badger went back to the crew quarters. His sidekick Glint was drinking a cup of coffee at one of the wardroom tables. He looked up quizzically when Badger came in.

“Come on,” Badger told him. “We got a job to do.”

Glint swallowed the rest of his coffee and stood up. “What sort of a job?”

“There’s a wreck out there. It’s going to take spacesuits.”

“Yeah? What’s up, Red?”

“I’ll tell you about it as we go,” Badger said.

31

Stan had brought down the lander within viewing distance of the humped-up mound that was the alien hive, which he was able to inspect closely through the viewscreen magnifier. Gill and Julie stood behind him as he manipulated the views.

The hive was not only the largest non-natural feature on this planet; it was also larger than any natural feature Stan had yet seen there. Even the mountains were no more than a few hundred meters in height. The hive, standing over a thousand meters above the windswept plain, was huge, imposing, with a dark majesty. The winds scoured it, grinding it down, and there was constant activity from the aliens, who stood out as little black dots at this distance, building the hive up again like ants repairing an anthill.

Aliens, so soon! But, he reminded himself, he had been expecting them… hadn’t he?

“I hope you’re taking note, Ari,” Stan said, holding the cybernetic ant on his fingertip so it could get a good view.

“I don’t know if Ari is,” Julie said, “but I sure am. I didn’t know the hive would be so big. And I didn’t know we’d run into aliens so soon.”

“We’ve got the suppressors,” Stan reminded her.

“Sure,” Julie said. “But are they reliable? It’s pretty new technology.” She sighed and looked out across the plain again. “That’s one big hive.”

“This one could probably be classified a superhive,” said Gill. “It’s far bigger than any other recorded in the literature on the aliens.”

“Why do you suppose?” Stan asked.

“This is only a conjecture, of course, but it seems to me the odds against survival on this planet are so great that the aliens had to concentrate their forces, keep one big hive going rather than a lot of smaller ones.”

“Saves us from having to make a lot of choices about which hive we plunder,” Julie said. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

Gill shook his head. “I advise you to wait until the storm activity on the surface has abated somewhat.”

Outside, through the Plexiglas, they could see the raging gale that was the usual weather on this planet. The wind had whipped itself into new heights of frenzy. Sand and small stones were blown across the plain like exploding shrapnel. Larger rocks, swept from the low crags in the distance, tumbled across the plain like steamrollers gone berserk. Lightning forked and crashed in vivid streamers of electric blue.

Beneath the lander, the ground shook and heaved in a nausea-inducing motion. Stan thought: Volcanic activity, just what we need. But he wasn’t really worried. He had taken an ampoule of Xeno-Zip before leaving the Dolomite. He felt strong and confident, and the pain was gone.

There was a burst of high-pitched static from the speaker, and then Captain Hoban’s voice came on.

“Dr. Myakovsky? Are you reading me?”

“Loud and clear, Captain,” said Stan. “What do you have to report?”

“We spotted some debris in orbit near us,” Hoban said. “Upon further inspection, I have found the wreck of a space freighter, just as you predicted. It’s broken into several pieces, but there’s a main section that could even contain human life. I doubt that’ll be the case, however. This wreck looks like it’s been there a long time.”

“Do you have any identification on it yet?” Stan asked.

“I’ve sent two men over to check it out,” Hoban said. “With a little luck well pick up a flight recorder and find out what happened.”

“Contact me as soon as you have it,” Stan said. “That could be very important information.”

“I’m well aware of that, sir. I’ll let you know first thing. Sir, ship’s telemetry and remote survey equipment tells me you’ve put down the lander on potentially unstable ground.”

“Everything around here is unstable,” Stan said. “Except for the rock outcropping the hive stands on. You wouldn’t want me to put down right beside the hive, would you, Captain?”

“Of course not, sir. I was just pointing out…”

“I know, I know,” Stan snapped. He took a deep breath and tried to get control of himself. He was getting weird flashes now from the drug. It seemed to be taking him on an elevator ride; one second his mood was up, the next minute down. And too soon, the pain was coming back. Take it easy, he told himself.

Still, his breath sobbed in his throat as he said, “I’m going to sign off now, Captain. We have to wait until the storm calms down before we can carry out the next step. I will use that time to get a little rest.”

“Yes, sir. Over and out.”

Captain Hoban’s face faded from the screen. Stan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Julie and Gill were both standing nearby, watching him. Stan felt a sudden shame at his own weakness, and at the pain that was mounting in intensity throughout his throat and chest. At a moment like this the only thing he could think of was the next ampoule of Xeno-Zip, nested in its padded box with the few others he had brought along.

He shook his head irritably. It was too early for another ampoule. He hadn’t planned to take one just yet, he didn’t know what it would do to him, but the pains were getting very bad, perhaps even affecting his judgment.

“I’ll see you both later,” Stan said. Even before they turned to leave the control room, Stan’s fingers were at the table drawer where he kept the box of royal jelly ampoules.

32

Julie and Gill returned to the aftercabin. They were alone except for Norbert, who stood silently against the curving wall like a futuristic basilisk, with Mac the dog asleep in his arms.

“Well, Gill,” Julie said, “what do you think of all this?”

Gill looked up from his inspection of the armament they had brought. His expression was mild, quizzical. “To what, specifically, do you refer?”

“Stan and his mad trip for royal jelly. This planet. Me.”

Gill took his time before answering. “I do not ask myself that sort of question, Miss Lish. And if I did…”

“Yes?”

“If I did, my conclusions would have no value. I am not like you humans. I am a synthetic.”

“How do you differ from real people?”

Gill looked disturbed, but managed to smile. “No soul, for one thing. Or so they say.”

“And for another?”

“No feelings.”

“None at all, Gill? Yet you look like a man.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Don’t you even find me attractive?” Julie asked.

Again there was a long pause. Then Gill said, “There is an old saying of your people. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ I would advise that here.”

“Why is that?”

“Because synthetic people with feelings are something the human race wants no part of.”

“That must be some other race,” Julie said. “Maybe I’m not part of it. I wouldn’t mind it at all if you had feelings. You could tell me about yours and I’d tell you about mine.”

“Our feelings would be nothing alike,” Gill said.

“Are you so sure?” Julie said. “Sometimes I’ve felt that I’ve been set up to follow some program written by someone else. ‘The Beautiful Thief,’ this one is called. I sometimes wish I could just rewrite my programming. Do you ever wish that?”

“Yes,” Gill said. “I know what you mean.” Then he shook his head irritably. “Excuse me, Miss Lish, but I must go finish checking out these weapons. Dr. Myakovsky is going to need us at any time.”

“Do what you have to do,” Julie said. She walked away, and Gill watched her go.

33

Starlight glittered on his space armor as Red Badger left the Dolomite’s air lock and soared weightlessly toward the freighter wreck. Behind him came his backup man, Glint, illuminating the wreck with a powerful duolite beam.

Badger gestured, though their destination was plain enough: the gray mass of the wreck, tying in several distinct parts, blocking the stars.

Getting there was simple: both men, on a signal from Badger, opened squirt cans that propelled them across the intervening space.

Badger said into his helmet radio, “You reading me okay, Glint?”

“Loud and clear,” Glint said.

They landed on the hulk’s largest section with a clank of magnetic boots. Badger’s power wrench opened the airtight door that led into the ship.

A lot of the freighter’s metal covering had been peeled back by strong explosions. It was no trouble at all, once they were past the external armor, to slip in between two structural girders and make their way to the interior.

The searchlight picked out the bodies of men, trapped in the sudden inrushing vacuum when the ship’s side had been pierced. Exploded bodies lay across girders and floated unsupported in the zero gravity.

Badger and Glint moved slowly, clumsy in their airtight space armor, their searchlights throwing brilliant swords of light through the gloom. A corpse, hanging over a loop of high-pressure hose, seemed to reach out and touch Badger’s helmet, lightly, as if just saying hello…

The redheaded spaceman laughed and pushed the thing aside. The body floated slowly across the shattered compartment, its arms held out loosely in front of it like a swimmer doing the dead man’s float.

They reached the flight deck. Here there were more bodies, some terribly mangled by the pieces of flying machinery that had taken on the power of exploding shrapnel as the ship had come apart, others looking strangely peaceful, as if they’d never known what hit them. Death had had a busy few moments here before the eternal silence of space had entombed them all.

“Here’s the control section,” Glint said over the little space-helmet radio that connected the two men.

“Good enough,” said Badger. “Let’s find what we came for and get the hell out of here.”

They floated past an operations console that looked as good as new. The ship’s name was still stenciled on the bulkhead, and the paint looked almost new.

”Valparaiso Queen,” Glint spelled out. “She won’t be going Earthside no more.”

“Tough luck for her,” Badger said, his tone flat and unemotional. “Here’s what we’re looking for.”

Under the command console was a panel with three fingertip-sized indentations. Badger pressed them in counterclockwise order, starting at twelve o’clock. The panel slid away. Badger directed Glint to shine the searchlight inside. Using wire cutters from the tool kit strapped to his waist, Badger cut the leads inside and withdrew a small heavy box made of a metalized plastic substance.

“This is what we came for. Now let’s get out of here.”

34

Back aboard the Dolomite, Badger and Glint passed through the air lock and removed their suits. Glint started walking toward the elevator that led to the ship’s command territory. He stopped when he saw that Badger was not following him.

“What’s up, Red? Aren’t we going to give this to the captain?”

“Of course we are,” Badger said. “But not just yet.” He led the way down a passageway to a door marked WORKSHOP D—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Glint followed him.

“What’re you doin’?” Glint asked. “You going to fix that gizmo?”

Badger stopped and looked scornful. “You really are some kind of a moron. No, I’m not going to fix the gizmo. Why do you think I volunteered us for this job?”

“I was wondering about that,” Glint said.

“I want to get a look at what’s on this flight recorder before I give it to the captain. Fat chance Hoban would ever tell us.”

Glint looked admiringly at his partner, then hurried to catch up as Badger pressed the stud that operated the door to Workshop D.

35

The lander was too small to have separate staterooms. There was a cubbyhole in the rear with a deceleration couch that pulled down from the wall. Stan had lain down there. When Julie came in he was asleep, his glasses still on, his round face momentarily untroubled. Julie bent over to shake him, then hesitated. Stan looked so peaceful there. His large face was calm, and quiet handsome. She noticed what long eyelashes he had, and what delicate skin, fine-pored like a young boy’s.

The most recent ingestion of Xeno-Zip had taken Stan’s spirit far away, into the limitless perspectives that were the psychic environment of the drug. He was traveling through a place of pure light and color, and he smiled at the friendly shapes around him.

Julie stared at him almost in awe. She knew that Stan was moving down the visionary trail in some impossible dreamtime, walking down a hall of memory filled with all the images of everything that had ever been or would be. And these images were melting like wax in the warmth of the soul’s embrace. Stan was a sorcerer forcing time itself to stand still and be accountable to the moment. He had found eternity in an instant, and he was balancing it on a needlepoint.

He was in his own time now, a time that had no duration and no limit. He was in a place she could never get to. But, she wondered, out here in the world of solid objects and fiery forces, how much time did he have left? How much time was at Julie’s disposal, for that matter? Could Stan see their time lines in that strange place where he was?

“Stan,” she whispered to him, “what are you dreaming about? Am I in the dream with you? Are we happy?”

Stan mumbled something but she couldn’t catch the words. She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. His eyes snapped open, as if he had been waiting for this signal. She watched his face tense as pain returned to his consciousness. Then he had himself under control and said, “Julie… What is it?”

“Captain Hoban wants to speak to you again. He’s pulled a flight recorder from that wreck.”

“Okay, fine.” Stan sat up, then got somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Julie’s slender, hard arm was around him, supporting him, her warm fragrant hair was at his shoulder, and he breathed her fragrance gratefully.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Hey, don’t mention it. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

He looked at her. Her eyes were enormous, brilliant, with dark pools at the center. He felt himself melting into them. A wave of emotion came over him.

“Julie…”

“Yes, Stan, what is it?”

“If you’re doing this for my sake… please don’t stop.”

36

The voices on the flight recorder were very clear.

“What ship is that?”

“This is the Valparaiso Queen, Captain Kuhn commanding, thirty-seven days out of Santiago de Chile. To whom am I speaking?”

”This is Potter of the Bio-Pharm ship Lancet. Do you realize you are trespassing?”

”I think you exaggerate, Captain. There’s no trace of your claim in the recent issues of StarSwap.”

“We haven’t chosen to go public with it just yet. But there are electronic warnings posted at the beginning of the quadrant. Surely you intercepted those warnings?”

“Oh, those!” Captain Kuhn laughed. “An electronic warning hardly constitutes a legal claim! No, Captain Potter, unless you publish your intent with the federal Department of Interplanetary Claims, it can’t be said to exist. I have as much right here as you.”

Potter’s voice was low, and hoarse with menace. “Captain Kuhn, I am a man of little patience. You have already used up my entire store. You have about one second to go into retrofire and get your ship out of there.”

Kuhn replied, “I do not take kindly to peremptory orders, Captain, especially from one who has no legal right to give them. I will leave this vicinity in my own time, when I’m good and ready. And you may be sure I will file a complaint with InterBureau over your attitude.”

“You will have more to complain about than an attitude, Captain Kuhn, but I doubt you will ever file that report.”

“Do not try to intimidate me!”

“The time for words is past. The torpedo that puts paid to your pretensions is now coming toward you at a speed well below that of light, but fast enough, I think you’ll find.”

“Torpedo? How dare you, sir! Number two! Full power to the screens! Take evasive action!”

And then Badger had to turn down the volume as the recorded sound of the explosion shook the walls of Workshop D.

37

“What’s the latest on the storm?” Stan asked.

Gill looked up, his long melancholy face half in a green glow from the ready lights on his control panel. On the screen above him, data waves danced in long wavering lines, the numbers changing with a rapidity that would defy the computational abilities of any but a synthetic man with a math coprocessor built into his positronic brain. Gill was such a man, and his computational abilities were enhanced by the rock-steadiness of his mind, which was not subject to the neurotic claims of love, duty, family, or country. Yet he was not completely emotionless. It had been found that intelligence of the highest order presupposes and is built upon certain fundamental emotional bases, of which the desire to survive and continue is the most fundamental of all. The designers of artificial men would have liked to have stopped there. But the uncertain nature of the materials they were using—in which minute differences in atomic structures eventually spelled big differences in output, as well as the inherent instability of colloidal structures—made this impossible. Gill was standard within his design parameters, but those parameters expressed only one part of him.

“The storm is abating,” Gill said. “There’s been a twenty-percent diminution in the last half hour. Given the conditions here, I think that’s about the best we’re going to get. In fact, it’s apt to get a lot worse before it gets better.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Stan said. He turned to Norbert, the big robot alien, who still crouched patiently in a corner of the lander. Mac the dog, growing impatient, whined to be put down, and Norbert obliged. The dog investigated the corners of the little lander and, finding nothing of interest, returned to curl up at Norbert’s taloned feet.

“You ready, Norbert?”

“Of course, Dr. Myakovsky. Being robotic, I am always ready.”

“And Mac?”

“He is a dog, and so he is always ready, too.”

Stan laughed, and remarked to Julie, “I wish now I’d had more time to talk with Norbert. His horrible appearance belies his keen intelligence.”

“You are responsible for my appearance, Dr. Myakovsky,” Norbert said.

“I think you’re beautiful,” Stan said. “Don’t you think so, Julie?”

“I think you’re both pretty cute,” she said.

38

In the forward cabin of the lander, the five volunteer crew members were sitting as comfortably as they were able in the cramped confines. Morrison, big and blond, an Iowa farmboy, had unwrapped an energy bar and was nibbling at it. Beside him, Skysky, fat and balding with a walrus mustache, decided to eat an energy bar of his own and fumbled it out of his pocket. Eka Nu, a flat-faced Burmese with skin a shade lighter than burned umber, was mumbling over the wooden beads of his Buddhist rosary. Styson, his long face as mournful as ever, was playing his harmonica, monotonously repeating one phrase over and over. And Larrimer, a city boy from New York’s south Bronx, was doing nothing at all except licking his dry lips and brushing his long lank hair out of his eyes.

They had been excited when they volunteered. It was a chance for some action, after the confines of the ship. They’d heard stories about the aliens, of course, but none of them had seen one. They hadn’t even been born at the time of the alien occupation of Earth. Aliens now seemed an exotic menace, a weird kind of big bug that would fall easily to their guns.

Morrison was fiddling with his carbine. He decided to insert a new feed ramp. He stripped the receiver and replaced the ramp, then snapped the connector into place. The ramp toggled through a diagnostic code and then clicked into place. He shoved a magazine into the carbine, touched the bolt control, and cycled a round into the firing chamber. The magazine’s counter showed an even one hundred antipersonnel rounds ready to go.

“Hey, farm boy,” Skysky said, “you planning to shoot something?”

“If I get the chance,” Morrison said, “I’m going to bag me one of them aliens and bring home his horns.”

Eka Nu looked up from his rosary. “Aliens no got horns.”

“Well, whatever they got, I want to bring a piece of it home. A piece of skull maybe. Wouldn’t that look good mounted over the mantel?”

Styson said, “You better just hope one of them critters doesn’t nail your hide up over the mantel.”

“What’re you talking about?” Morrison asked. “Them creatures ain’t civilized. They ain’t got mantels.”

Just then Stan’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “You men! Get ready to embark into a pod. Check your weapons.”

“Okay,” Morrison said, getting to his feet. “Time we had ourselves a little hunting.”

The men were all on their feet, checking their weapons and talking excitedly. They were clumsy, some of them seeing modem weaponry for the first time. Morrison—who was their natural leader due to his size and self-confidence, though he was of the same rank as the rest of them—had to show Styson how to release the safeties. He was beginning to wonder if the guys would be all right, but he figured as long as they knew which end to point and what to pull, they’d be fine. What creature could stand up against military caseless ammunition?

39

The number-one lander had three escape pods. These were used for close-up maneuvering, in order not to jeopardize the lander itself by piloting it around poorly mapped ground features. This standard-model pod was shaped like an enormous truck tire. Its circular form allowed for the miles of complex wiring that took up most of its interior and allowed it to ride the planet’s electromagnetic currents with some success.

Norbert fitted himself in, and Mac nestled up to his chest.

“Comfortable?” Stan asked, peering in.

“The question has no relevance for me,” Norbert replied. “When your body is electronically operated, one posture is as good as another. But Mac is fine, Dr. Myakovsky.”

“Glad to hear it,” Stan said. “Good luck, Norbert. I’ll be sending down the five crew volunteers in a separate pod. This moment brings us to the whole point of this operation—getting you and Mac and the men to the surface of AK-32 near the alien hive. Have you got all the stuff you’ll need? Did you remember to check the charge in the inhibitors?”

“Of course, Dr. Myakovsky. They should give me enough time to do what I have to do.”

“Okay,” Stan said. “Goodbye, Mac. You’re a nice little dog. I hope I see you again one of these days.”

“Not likely, Doctor,” said Norbert.

Suddenly Stan was furious.

“Just get the hell out of here!” he said, slamming the pod’s hatch shut. “I don’t need your comments. Did you hear that, Julie?”

“Take it easy, Stan,” Julie said. “Norbert didn’t mean anything. He only states facts. Anyway, what’s the big deal?”

Norbert’s voice came over the radio. “I am ready for the descent, Dr. Myakovsky.”

Stan turned to Gill. “Cut the pod loose. And then get the volunteers into their own pod.”

Gill, seated at the control panel, turned a switch. The pod came loose from the landing platform with a soft explosive sigh of power. It ejected straight into the air, dipped for a moment, then its electromagnetic receptors came up to full and the pod darted across the stormy landscape of AR-32 toward the distant hive.

40

Badger and Glint left the workshop and entered crew country from the corridor into the crew’s commissary. A wave of sound and smell hit them. The sound was of fifteen men and women, mostly young, celebrating their arrival at AR-32 with song and booze, hamburgers and pizza (these latter accounting for the smell), and a level of noise that had to be heard to be believed.

Celebrating landfall was an old custom among ship’s crews. Columbus’s men had celebrated in the same way, their arrival in the New World offering them a good excuse for a spree. That’s what the arrival at AR-32 meant to the crew of the Dolomite, too: a chance to cut loose and tie one on in the secure surroundings of the commissariat, where officers were not permitted and where scanning procedures were prohibited by the strong Spacemen’s Union.

Here the men could say what they wanted, and there were no ship’s officers nearby or at the end of an electronic listening device ready to take their names and report them for summary discipline. The union wouldn’t allow it, and Red Badger had counted on that when he made his entry.

Long Meg, a wiper third class from Sacramento back on Earth, slapped Badger on the back and pushed a bulb of beer into his face. “Where you been, Red? Not like you to miss a spree!”

“I been out to the wreck,” Red said.

“What wreck? They didn’t tell us about no wreck.”

“No, they didn’t,” Red said. “That’s very like them, isn’t it?”

Meg pushed her face close to Badger’s. “None of your bullshit. What wreck are you talking about?”

Badger grinned at her easily. “That’s what the captain sent me and Glint here to investigate. It showed up on the radar and he sent me to get the flight recorder.”

“Oh. Is that all?” Meg asked. “I guess the captain will tell us what was on it all in good time.”

“I don’t think so,” Badger said. “If we knew what was on that recorder, it might change our minds about a few things.”

“Come out with it, Red! What are you talking about?”

“Suppose that flight recorder showed a freighter just like ours, poking around here just like we are, then being blasted to hell by someone who didn’t want them here? What about that, huh?”

“That would be serious,” Meg admitted, and several other crewmen nodded agreement. “Are you saying that’s what it said?”

“I’m not saying nothing,” Badger said. “You can decide for yourselves.”

“You took the flight indicator?”

“I listened to it in the workshop. And now I’m going to play it for you. Once you’ve heard it, you can come to your own conclusions.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Red,” Meg said. “I’m sure the captain is expecting you to give that to him immediately.”

“Don’t worry,” Badger said. “The message on it is pretty short.”

41

The pod, with Norbert and Mac aboard, was dancing around like a leaf in a storm. Norbert had lost contact with the other pod containing the five volunteers. Wind force threw his pod up into the air, and crosscurrents spun it like a top. Mac howled, and Norbert just clung tight.

“Hang on, boy!” Norbert called. Mac, cradled in his arms, was whimpering, his eyes rolling, in a paroxysm of fear.

Norbert had brought along some extra equipment in case of distress to the dog. The trouble was getting to it. Norbert was practically compressed into the space of the pod, and his size made him take up more room than an Earthman. The little ship was swinging around violently, but Norbert did not suffer from vertigo. He managed to reverse one of his wrist joints and grabbed a large piece of felt he had brought along. He managed to wrap this around Mac, cushioning him. The dog gave a little yelp as the cloth came around him, but he seemed to appreciate it. His spastic movement became calmer, and he began to adjust to the violent movements.

The pod, descending on automatic, danced and veered in the wind. Norbert was tempted to manually override the pod’s controls and see if he could ease out the movements. But he decided against it. The pod’s autopilot had been designed with a program that softened out its jerks and slides. He couldn’t hope to do better. He concentrated instead upon providing a firm platform for Mac and keeping the felt wrapped around the shivering beast without smothering him. Norbert himself didn’t breathe, and he had to remind himself that all other creatures did.

The ground was coming up fast now to meet them. Wind shear, this close to the ground, added another factor to the dangerous uncertainties of the descent. (The pod’s own pulsar beams had to slow them and absorb the shock as the ground rushed up to meet them.) Then they were bouncing across it, and finally, spinning, they came to a halt.

Then Dr. Myakovsky’s voice: “Norbert, are you all right?”

“Perfectly all right, Doctor. And so is Mac.”

“Was the landing very difficult?”

Norbert had something new in his vocabulary, learned from Julie, and he hastened to use it now. “A piece of cake, Doctor. A walk in the park.”

“Hurry up and get the job done,” Stan said. “We want to get rich and get out of here.”

42

After Badger played the recorder for the crew, there was an utter silence for a brief moment. Spaceship crews, with their volatile mix of people from all walks of life, tend to have low boiling points. The crew of the Dolomite was no exception, particularly since it included a high percentage of criminals.

“What the hell does it mean?” Meg asked.

“It means that a ship like ours was fired upon and destroyed. If they did it to them, then why not to us?”

“Wait a minute!” one of the crew said. “They aren’t allowed to do that!”

“What does it matter what they’re allowed?” Badger said. “People with power do what they please.”

The crew began quarreling among themselves. Badger waited for them to sort it out. He was pretty sure what conclusion they’d come to. And if, by a remote chance, they didn’t, he’d steer them toward it.

He knew that cons were always open to the charge that they were being exploited, a supposition that had proven true too many times in the past. The crew had listened to the flight recorder from the Valparaiso Queen and, aided by Badger’s comments, came to their own conclusions.

It was obvious that there was danger out there. Danger that Captain Hoban would soon know about. Danger that impinged directly on the lives of the crew. So what would Hoban do about it?

After a while the first babble of talk died down, and Walter Glint said to Badger, “Captain Hoban will see this soon. What do you think he’s going to do about it?”

“I’ll tell you what he’ll do,” Badger said. “Nothing, that’s what he’ll do! Hoban is paid by the crazy doctor. The one who’s always zonked out on fire. The one who’s got the robot alien that killed two of our shipmates. Hoban will do what the crazy doctor tells him to do, because he’s gettin’ paid plenty to take the risks. But what risks are you being paid to take? Tell me that, huh?”

It was easy to get a spaceship crew angry, less so to drive them to action. Excited and desperate though they were, it still required work to goad them into taking the law into their own hands. But they were halfway there, Red thought.

Badger was starting a rebellion, but he didn’t know quite what he would do next. The quirks of his own mind had perplexed him since childhood. Although he was starting this revolt, paradoxically he felt a strong sympathy for Captain Hoban. At one time he had thought he was going to help him. After all, Hoban had gotten him out of prison. But that was before he saw the tapes, before he realized the extent of the danger they were running, before he decided to do what he could to prevent it.

It’s necessary to get them moving, Badger thought. Before there are more deaths.

43

“Dr. Myakovsky? This is Captain Hoban. Do you read me?”

“The atmospherics are difficult, Captain, but I am able to understand you. Please note that just a few minutes ago we launched the pods containing Norbert and Mac and the volunteers. We have them now in distant visual range.”

“Excellent, Doctor. I’m glad that part of the operation is going according to plan.”

With his sharpened senses, Stan caught the note of uncertainty in his captain’s voice. “Is something the matter, Captain?”

“I’m afraid it is, sir. It concerns the flight recorder that we salvaged from the wreck I reported to you about. Before saying any more, let me play it for you, sir.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Stan said.

44

Stan, Julie, and Gill listened in attentive silence as the tape ran. They heard the exchange between Kuhn of the Valparaiso Queen and Potter of the Lancet. Although they knew the tape was going to reveal some kind of trouble, they were unprepared for the explosion of the Valparaiso Queen as she received the Lancet’s torpedo amidships.

“Let me just make sure I’ve got this straight,” Stan said, when the tape ended. “The recorder shows that Lancet blew up Valparaiso Queen?”

“There seems no doubt about that, sir,” Hoban said.

“Well, so what?” Stan said.

“There seems good reason to believe that Lancet is still in the vicinity.”

“And you think we are in danger?”

“Given Potter’s record of violence, it is entirely possible, sir. Even likely.”

“Let me point out, Captain, that we are not a defenseless freighter. We have the normal armament against piracy. If Lancet should attempt anything against us…”

“I will point that out, sir.”

“To whom?”

“The representative from the crew. They are sending him to ask what I intend doing about this situation.”

“Are you telling me that you played the tape for the crew?” Stan asked.

“No, sir. They took the liberty of listening to it before turning it over to me.”

“Well, damn their presumption.” Stan turned to Gill. “Have you ever heard anything like it?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Gill said. “The annals of space exploration are full of accounts of insubordinate crews.”

Stan said to Hoban, “You must point out to them that Lancet’s action was illegal and exceptional. Our situation is not more hazardous because an overzealous captain performed an illegal deed. Nevertheless, I think that in view of the men’s feelings we propose a special bonus to them.”

“I agree, Doctor,” Hoban said. “I was going to make the suggestion myself.”

“Do what you can with them, Captain. We’ll talk again later.” Stan signed off.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Julie asked.

Gill said, “Obviously there’s trouble. But I’m sure Captain Hoban can handle it.”

“I hope so,” Stan said. “We have a few problems of our own to take care of down here.”

He turned back to the screen. The others looked now, too. They were viewing the landscape of AR-32 through Norbert’s visual receptors. Norbert’s head was turning, checking out the landscape as he walked forward. Ahead of him, Mac suddenly started barking and ran toward a little hill. They heard Norbert say, “Come back, Mac. Wait for me!”

Then the view began to shake as Norbert broke into a run. For a moment they could see nothing but jagged brown-and-yellow lines. Norbert was watching the uneven ground, struggling to keep his balance. Then he went over a little rise. There was a sudden red-yellow explosion and his screen went into a wild array of colors and test patterns.

“Just what we needed,” Julie said. “Stan, can you clear up that view?”

“I’m working on it.” Stan turned the controls. “Gill, you got any ideas?”

“Let me just try this,” Gill said. His hand probed the front controls on the computer. “I think that’s getting it, sir. The view is beginning to come back…”

* * *

The confrontation on-board ship flared up suddenly. One moment Captain Hoban was talking with the crewmen and apparently getting somewhere, then the whole thing blew up.

Badger had rapped at the door to the control room. “Sir. Permission to speak to you about a grievance.”

“Now is not a very convenient time, Mr. Badger.”

“No, sir. But the union laws state that grievances of a serious nature are to be settled on the spot.”

“And who determines whether they’re serious?”

“A duly authorized ship steward, sir. Me.”

“All right,” Hoban said. “Come in. Let’s get this over with quickly.”

Badger entered the control room followed by Glint and four other members of the crew. They looked ill at ease in the officers’ area, with its soft lighting and flickering wall scanners. The helmsman stood alone in a little fenced-off enclosure to one side, scanning the ship. Two engine-room officers were also present. None of the officers was wearing sidearms. In the inquiry that later followed, Captain Hoban was faulted for this omission.

“What seems to be the problem?” Hoban asked.

“As you know, we took the liberty of viewing the ship’s log that I brought back from the rest. You’ve seen it, sir?”

“Of course,” Hoban said.

“What did you think, sir?”

“They caught Valparaiso Queen napping. They won’t find us so easy.”

“Yes, sir. But what has that got to do with us? We’re not soldiers, sir.”

“We are going about our peaceful and lawful business,” Hoban said, hoping it was true. “We aren’t out looking for trouble. But if it comes, they’ll find us ready. That is a perfectly normal situation in space, Mr. Badger.”

“Sure, a crew has to be ready for trouble. But it doesn’t have to go out of its way to find it.”

“We don’t have to run from it, either,” Hoban said. “But it is an unusual situation and additional compensation would not be out of order. I will make an announcement shortly, granting the crew extra hazard pay.”

“That’s not good enough,” Badger said. “We want some assurances now that this Potter isn’t going to blow us out of space.”

Hoban knew it was time to be firm. “I don’t care what you want, Mr. Badger. You’re a troublemaker. This situation will be resolved and we will let you know what our disposition of it is.”

“That is not good enough, Captain.”

“Well, it’s just going to have to be good enough! You are all dismissed.”

One of the engineers tugged at Captain Hoban’s sleeve, trying to get his attention. Hoban turned, and saw that Glint had sneaked over to the weapons locker and helped himself to some of its contents. He had pulled out a Gauss needler. This weapon, with its big side magazine of steel slivers, had not been allotted in the standard issue, where favor was given to primitive slug throwers and the newer beam weapons. Glint may just have been fascinated by the handgun’s deadly lines, and by the bulbous housing that contained the magnetic impulse equipment.

“What do you think you are doing?” Hoban shouted. “Put that down!”

One of the engineers reached for the weapon. Glint fired, perhaps by reflex. Steel splinters drove through the engineer’s left shoulder. There was a moment of shocked silence. And then all hell broke loose.

The second engineer was diving for the weapons locker even as the first was going down. The first thing his hand encountered was a Wilton tangler. He swung it at Glint and pressed the release stud.

Glint managed to duck out of the way. The tangler bolt, with its rapidly expanding core of sticky plastic, soared over his head like a gray bat and wrapped itself around one of the crewmen behind him.

The man screamed and tried to tear the stuff away from himself. The tangler held him tight and began to contract.

He fell, still inextricably caught in the mess.

Suddenly it seemed that everybody in the control room had picked up a weapon. Threads of light from beam throwers glanced off metallic surfaces and glowed against the Perspex windows. Solid projectile loads ricocheted off the ship’s walls, darting around like angry hornets. Explosions rocked the control room, sending up dense, greasy clouds of acrid smoke.

The second engineering officer had the presence of mind to bar the entry port, thus stopping any reinforcements coming from crew country.

Hoban ducked down behind a spare-parts case bolted to the floor. The crewmen found shelter in various parts of the control room. The officers were dug in at various locations. Most of them had managed to pick up arms.

For a while there was a strenuous exchange of small-arms fire, its intensity in that confined space enormous. Hoban thought it was like being inside a snare drum that some madman was attempting to play.

45

“It’s gettin’ too close for comfort!” Badger cried as his refuge in a corner of the room was zapped with blue-white flame.

“You can say that again,” Glint said. “We better get out of here!”

“I’m thinking about it,” Badger said. “We might need to regroup, reorganize…”

Machine-gun bullets stitched across the ship’s walls above their heads, showering them with fragments of metal. There was more noise as a concussion grenade, thrown by Hoban, landed just outside of effective range.

“Okay,” Badger said. “Time we got out of here.”

The normal egress port was barred, but an elevator to other areas stood with its doors open. Badger and Glint and the remaining crewmen beat a hasty retreat, and managed to shut the doors and get the elevator moving.

Captain Hoban, wounded in the arm by a beam weapon, refused medical attention and led the pursuit.

Most of the crew had not joined the rebellion. Those who had been wavering now decided they’d had enough.

Only Badger and Glint and their close friends, Connie Mindanao, Andy Groggins, and Min Dwin, were irrevocably committed.

All together now, they moved down one of the corridors, maintaining a rolling fire to keep the pursuing officers at a distance.

Glint was saying, “Where we going, Red? What we going to do now?”

“Shaddap,” Badger said. “I’ve got it all doped out.” He led them through the now deserted commissary and out to the rear hold. “Where we goin’?” Glint asked.

Badger didn’t answer.

“There’s no place to go!” Glint said.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” Badger said. “We’re going to get out of here.”

“Out of here?” Glint looked puzzled.

“Off this ship,” Badger said. “We’ll take one of the escape pods and leave this death ship behind. We’ll go down to AR-32.”

“Yeah, okay,” Glint said. Then he thought of something. “But where’ll we go after that, Red? There’s no civilization down there!”

“We’ll then make contact with Lancet.”

Glint turned it over in his mind. Lancet? Dimly he remembered that that was the name of the Bio-Pharm ship that had nuked the other ship, the Valparaiso something. The one they had gotten the flight recorder from.

“Red, are you sure we want to do that? Those people are killers!”

“Of course I’m sure. We’re on their side now. They’ll give us good money for turning our information over to them. They’re going to be very interested to hear about Captain Hoban and the doctor and what they’re up to. We’ll be heroes.”

“I don’t know,” Glint said.

“Trust me,” Badger said. “Anyhow, what else can you do?”

“I guess you’re right,” Glint said. You could tell from his voice that it was a load off his mind, letting Badger make the decisions for both of them.

The others in the party weren’t interested in asking questions. They wanted to be led, to be told what to do, and that was what Badger liked to do, lead people. It made him feel strong and good, until something went wrong, which, unfortunately, it did all too often. But not this time. This time he knew what he was doing.

“Come on,” Badger said. “We’ve got to get the spare lander.”

Andy Groggins said, “They’re apt to be waiting for us there, Red.”

“If they are,” Badger said, “then so much the worse for them."

46

Stan sat in the lander and watched through Norbert’s viewing screen as the robot’s view of AR-32 swayed precipitously and began to slide off the screen. The lander was still vibrating after its bobsled descent through AR-32’s turbulent atmosphere. Stan felt battered and bruised: sitting at the controls trying to steer all that liveliness and power to a safe landing was like going fifteen rounds with the Jolly Green Giant. Stan still wasn’t sure which had won.

He fine-tuned the knobs on the viewing screen, trying to focus on the images Norbert was sending back from the surface of AR-32. The picture lurched with each of the robot’s footsteps, and jumped in and out of focus.

Stan hated out-of-sync pictures like that. They seemed to trigger some long-dormant primeval receptor in his brain stem. He found the oscillations of the picture upsetting his own psychic balance.

He tried consciously to steady himself. He didn’t want to go freaking out now, but the way that picture jumped was going to do it to him yet, and they’d have to scrape him off the wall.

Then the picture stabilized and the focus locked in. Stan was looking at a pile of wind-polished boulders in various shades of orange and pink. When Norbert raised his head, Stan could see ahead of him a narrow valley of stone and gravel. The swirling clouds of dust made visibility difficult after about fifty feet.

“Look at this place,” Stan remarked to Julie. “We haven’t seen a green thing since we got here. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this place has no natural vegetation. None on the surface, anyhow.”

“If plants won’t grow here,” Julie remarked, “how are the aliens able to sustain themselves?”

“I said there was no vegetation on the surface,” Stan said. “Belowground it could be a very different story. There’s an ant species that practices underground gardening. The aliens might have followed the same course of evolution.”

“This isn’t their homeworld, is it?” Julie asked.

“I doubt it very much. It’s extremely unlikely that they evolved here. No one knows the location of their original home planet.”

“So how’d they get here?”

“I have no idea. But however they did, they must have brought their culture with them. And their nasty habits.”

Norbert’s picture began to bounce again.

“He’s going uphill,” Stan said. “Have you spotted Mac yet?”

“He ran on ahead,” Julie said. “He’s out of the picture now.”

Gill said, “There’s something in the viewer’s top right quadrant.”

Stan studied it. “Yes, there is. Norbert, magnify that quadrant.”

Norbert did so. The object sharpened, resolving from a black dot to a blocky shape of lines and angles.

Gill said, “It looks like a cow skeleton, Doctor.”

Norbert walked over to it. Up close, it did turn out to be a cow skeleton, though the head was missing. Norbert panned the remains. Mac had found it, too, and had pulled loose a thighbone. The animal’s rib cage had been exploded outward under great pressure from something inside.

“What could have done that?” Julie asked.

“Probably a chestburster,” Stan said, alluding to the young of the alien species.

“I doubt that cow creature came here naturally,” Gill put in.

“Of course it didn’t,” Stan agreed. “If those bones could speak, I think we’d find that cow and a lot of her sisters were brought to this planet from Earth.”

“As hosts for the alien young?” Julie asked.

“No doubt. That’s what Neo-Pharm was up to back in those days. And as T-bone steaks for the crew of the Lancet.”

“Speaking of Lancet,” Julie said, “I wonder when we’re going to run into them?”

“Soon enough, no doubt,” Stan said. He studied the image Norbert was sending. “Hello, what’s that? Another cow skeleton?”

“Lower left quadrant, Norbert,” Julie said, spotting it.

Norbert turned obediently and walked over. Within twenty yards he came across the body of an alien.

It lay facedown in the gravel, its long black form alternately concealed and revealed by the windows of dust that blew incessantly across the valley floor.

At Stan’s instruction, Norbert viewed it through an infrared scanner, and then an ultraviolet, to make sure the body wasn’t booby-trapped.

It appeared to be free of danger. He approached and bent over it, with Mac—hair bristling and teeth bared—coming along at his heels.

“What can you see?” Stan asked.

“It is an alien,” Norbert replied. “There is no doubt of that. It is perfectly motionless, but not dead. There is no sign of life, but also no sign of damage or decay. It looks almost as if it could be asleep. I’m switching to ultrasonic scanner to conduct a survey of the internal organs.”

After a short delay Norbert reported again. “It’s internal organs are functioning, but at a very slow rate. It’s like it’s asleep or unconscious. There are several more tests I could try—”

Whatever Norbert had in mind, it didn’t happen, because Mac chose that moment to sense movement on the other side of a nearby hill and ran there, barking. Norbert got up and followed.

When he reached the crest of the hill and looked over, the first thing he noticed was the small, fatbellied little spaceship, resting on its supports, nose pointed skyward, ready for takeoff.

The second thing he noticed was the aliens, a dozen or so of them, lying motionless on the ground, just like the one he had left.

And the third thing he noticed were the humans, three of them, bending over the unconscious aliens.

47

For the men from Potter’s ship, the Lancet, it had begun as a normal day’s harvesting operation. This three-man work crew had been down on the surface of AR-32 for half of their five-hour shift.

After relieving the previous crew, their first task had been to inspect the suppressor gun. It was mounted on top of the spaceship, where it could be powered by the ship’s batteries.

It was a jury-rigged contraption, thrown together by a clever engineer from Potter’s ship, a man with a knack for coming up with useful inventions on the spur of the moment.

Suppressors were a new technology in the continuing war against the aliens. They had resulted so far in small modules worn on a man’s person. But Potter’s engineer had taken the suppressor principle one step farther. He had theorized that the aliens would be susceptible to a stunning effect from certain vibratory impulses if they were narrow-band broadcast at sufficient intensity. He based this hunch on his study of alien anatomy. It seemed to him that the aliens had developed a great sensitivity to electrical cycling pulses. These could excite or stupefy them, depending on the velocity and amplitude of the waves broadcast. He experimented with electromagnetic bombardment.

Now, from its mount on top of the spaceship, his cannon turned like a radar dish, blasting electronic impulses that kept the aliens stupefied while the crew of the Lancet milked them of their royal jelly.

It was not difficult duty, as Des Thomas had remarked to Skippy Holmes, with whom he was working. “I mean, if you forget they’re aliens, it’s much the same as taking honey from bees.”

“Big bees,” Skippy said.

“Yeah, very big bees, but it’s the same thing. Hey, Slotz!” Thomas called to the third man of their crew, who was on top of the spaceship, working with the bracing that held the suppressor in place. No matter how well you put those things up, the incessant wind eventually worried them loose.

“What is it?” Slotz said, pausing with power wrench in hand.

“You almost finished up there?”

“I need some more bracing material. A flying rock tore some of the support away.”

“We’ll radio it to the ship. The next shift can bring the stuff out. We’re nearly out of here.”

Slotz turned back to his work. Holmes and Thomas took up positions around the recumbent alien. Together they heaved the big creature over on his side. Arnold took up the scraper, working quickly around a leg joint. He packed the sticky, light blue residue into a canvas bag. From here, it would be transferred to a glass container within the potbellied little harvester ship. As Des Thomas finished milking his alien he heard a barking sound and looked up. He was amazed to see a large brownish-red dog running over the top of the hill. Given the circumstances, he couldn’t have been more amazed if it had been an elephant or a whale.

“Come here, boy,” he called. “I wonder where your—”

It was at that instant that Norbert came striding over the crest of the hill and down into the harvesting area.

There was a brief tableau: three human crewmen frozen like dummies, Norbert striding forward like a fury from the deepest hell, and Mac, all innocence, barking and capering along like he was on an outing.

Holmes came unfrozen first. “One of them’s come awake!” he shouted. “Get that sucker!”

Slotz got off the top of the spaceship rapidly. The three men dived for their weapons. These were always kept handy because, although no alien had woken up suddenly like this before, no one really trusted the new suppressor technology—especially when you took into account how goofy looking its inventor was.

Holmes got his hands on the carbine he had propped against a rock outcropping. He slipped off the safety, aimed hastily, and pulled the trigger. A stream of caseless forty-caliber slugs streaked toward Norbert, who was no longer there to receive them.

The threat toward him instantly pushed Norbert into predator mode. You could almost hear the new program click into place.

Softslugs bouncing off his carapace, Norbert slid under the fusillade of projectiles from Des’s Gauss needler. A fragmentation grenade bounced off his chest and exploded as it was bouncing away. Norbert was showered with white-hot fragments of metal, but they didn’t have the force to penetrate his metallized hide.

Although he wasn’t hurt, Norbert was not pleased. Skippy Holmes was the closest, and the crewman just had time to scream as Norbert hooked his face at the temples with two curved talons and tore it off in one economical move.

It was a moment of gratuitous horror, though Norbert didn’t view it that way. Just doin’ my job, sir.

Skippy buried the raw meat of his face in his hands and fell to the ground, gurgling, blood bubbling from his shattered skin. He didn’t suffer for long; Norbert’s spurred foot hooked out the man’s stomach and a good selection of his internal organs.

Seeing this, Chuck Slotz gagged and took to his heels, sprinting toward the harvester’s open entry port, closely followed by Des.

Norbert came racing after them, and almost made the entry port. It closed in his face, and Norbert slammed into it with a force that shook the harvester on its six slender legs and caused the radarlike suppressor apparatus on its roof to topple over and fall to the ground in a crackle of sparks.

Slowly, very slowly at first, the aliens lying on the ground began to stir.

48

Gill gasped as the scene of carnage was played over Norbert’s visual receptors and relayed to the screen aboard the Dolomite’s lander.

Norbert, standing in front of the harvester’s sealed door, was saying, “I am awaiting further orders, Dr. Myakovsky.”

“Yes,” Stan said. “Just stand by for a moment.” He turned to Gill. “What’s the matter? Why are you looking that way?”

“I—I wasn’t prepared for the violence, Doctor. I had no idea Norbert was programmed to kill.”

“How could you have thought otherwise? What do you think we’re out here for? A sightseeing trip? Gill, we’re all programmed to kill.”

“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky. If you say so.”

“You, too, are programmed to kill, are you not?”

“In defense of human lives, yes, I suppose I am. It is just that I didn’t know we were going to exercise that option so… lightly.”

“We’re here to get rich,” Stan said. “Whatever it takes. Right, Julie?”

“That’s right, Stan,” Julie said, then turned to the artificial man. “You’ll share in the money we get, too. Even an artificial man can use money, right?”

“All sentient beings need money,” Gill said dryly.

“That’s right,” Julie said. “Anyhow, we’re in it now, and it’s us or them. You know what Potter will do if he finds us? The same thing he did to the Valparaiso Queen.”

Gill nodded but didn’t answer.

“Think about it, Gill,” Stan said. “Don’t get humanitarian on us too soon.” He paused, then added, “If it’s really against your principles, perhaps you’d like to wait in the back bay until this phase of the operation is over? I wouldn’t want you to do anything foolish.”

“Do not worry about me, sir,” Gill said. “I have no sentiment about matters of killing. Sentiment was not programmed into me. I was surprised, that is all, but now I understand. I am ready to do whatever is necessary to protect you and Miss Julie.”

“Glad to hear it.” Stan wiped his forehead. He looked like he himself was having a little trouble getting used to killing. Only Julie showed no signs of upset.

Gill hesitated. “Sir, we have no visual contact with the crew volunteers.”

“Damn it!” Stan said. “Does everything have to go wrong at the same time? Norbert! Can you get into the harvester?”

“The door is locked, Doctor,” Norbert said.

“I doubt it’s a very advanced locking mechanism. Give me a close-up of the lock.”

Norbert leaned forward, focused on the locking mechanism and switched to the X-ray mode.

Stan studied the picture for a moment “It looks like pretty standard stuff. Tell you what, just rip off the keypad and you’ll be able to turn the handle manually.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Better hurry up about it. It would be best to prevent those guys from getting in touch with Potter.”

49

Inside the harvester, Slotz and Thomas fell over each other getting to the radio. Thomas got there first and flipped the transmission switch.

“Lancet? Come in, Lancet!”

Slotz, standing just behind Thomas, heard a banging sound on the entry port and made sure he had his carbine.

“Hurry up, Thomas! I don’t know if the door will hold him!”

“I’m trying,” Thomas said. “But I’ve come up with nothing so far.”

“The antenna!” Slotz said. “It came down with the suppressor gun when the alien slammed into the ship.”

“That’s just great,” Thomas said. “So we can’t transmit. And it’s two hours before the next shift comes down.”

“Maybe we can hold out.” Slotz found a fresh magazine in his pocket, ejected the spent one from his carbine, and snapped the new one into place.

The hammering suddenly stopped. The men heard a sound of metal ripping.

“He’s tearing off the lock cover!” Slotz cried.

“Nobody can do that,” Thomas said.

“Trust me,” Slotz muttered. “He’s doing it.”

There was silence for a moment. Then a clicking sound.

“He’s through the cover! He’s working the unlocking mechanism!” Slotz shouted.

“Whaddaya want me to do about it?” Thomas said. Into the radio’s dead transmitter he shouted, “Mayday, Mayday!”

Then the door slammed open with great force and Norbert was coming in, a towering black fury. Slotz tried to level the carbine, managed to get off one round that glanced off Norbert’s shoulder and ricocheted around the cabin like an angry bee. Then Norbert was on him. The robot alien caught the back of Slotz’s head, leaned forward, mouth open, second jaws extending through his slavering mouth. Slotz, eyes wide and wild, tried to pull himself out of the way, but there was no budging Norbert’s grip. The second jaws shot out like a piston and smashed through Slotz’s open mouth and continued through, snapping the man’s spine like a dry stick.

Seeing what had happened, Thomas scrambled away from the radio. He had a pulse rifle in his hand and he triggered it. A tongue of brilliant light licked out against Norbert’s chest. It had no apparent effect on the robot, but at that close range the heat was reflected back into Thomas’s face. He shrieked as his hair caught fire. And then Norbert was on him, two taloned hands on his shoulders, hind legs raking the man’s middle with razor-sharp claws. Simultaneously fried and eviscerated, Thomas fell to the floor, dead before he landed.

In the ensuing silence, Mac came trotting into the harvester, looked around, seemed unimpressed by the blood and gore that coated the walls, and trotted up to Norbert.

The robot alien patted him once on the head, then said, “That’s all for now, Mac. I have to report.”

* * *

The interior of the harvester was a shambles. There were bits and pieces of crewmen scattered all over the struts and inner bracing members. Bright arterial blood lay in puddles on the metal floor. Blood lapped at the corners of the room, and the self-cleaning units were clogged with it.

Mac sniffed around, whimpered, then barked excitedly. He was getting a lot of mixed signals. Finally he decided something was wrong, but he’d have to let somebody else figure it out. He found a corner and lay down with his muzzle on his paws. Norbert came along behind him, stopped, and surveyed the damage he had caused.

Stan, back on the lander, was following visually. His voice was low. He was coaching Norbert.

“You’re doing fine, Norbert. We want to check out the whole ship for possible damage. You’re really quite violent once you get started, aren’t you?”

“Not intentionally, Doctor.”

Julie leaned over Stan’s shoulder. “What’s that in the background, Stan?”

“I’m not sure… Norbert, make a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and do a slow pan. That’s it. Now freeze. And magnify. Okay, freeze it right there. And correct the color. Good!”

Julie said, “Plastic storage units. Each of them would hold—what? Five liters?”

“More like seven,” said Gill.

“There are hundreds of them stacked there,” Stan said. “More on the other side of the hold.”

“Are they royal jelly?” Julie asked. “Can we be absolutely sure of that?”

Stan replied, “There really seems no doubt. What else would they be filled with? Cloverleaf honey? The harvester is packed with the stuff. They must have been just about ready to take off back to Lancet.”

“Good thing we got here when we did.” Julie laughed. “They’ve done our work for us, Stan. We’re rich!”

Stan grinned. “We’d better not start trying to spend it just yet. Norbert, have you completed your assessment of the damage yet?”

“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.”

“Any problems?”

“I’m afraid that in the fight this unit here was destroyed.” Norbert indicated the interior suppressor gear, which was strewn around the cabin, most of it broken into fragments of crystal and plastic.

“Ah well,” Stan said, “Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, as some famous man once remarked. Do you know who said that, Gill?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Gill said.

“And here I thought you knew everything. Well, well…” Unexpectedly he began to giggle.

“Stan,” Julie said, “what’s the matter?”

Stan pulled himself together. “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. I don’t suppose you know who said that, either. Well, never mind. Of all the stuff you could have destroyed, Norbert, I’m afraid you picked the worst. I think that’s the interior equipment for the ultrasonic suppressor.”

“Are you certain?” Julie asked. “How can we know for sure?”

“There ought to be a serial number here somewhere.” Stan examined the bits of twisted metal. “Yes, as I thought. Now we need to go to the next step.”

“Is that difficult?” Julie asked.

“Easy enough… Norbert, give me a picture through one of the portholes.”

Outside, Stan could see a yellowish-brown haze with dark shapes moving through it. Half the aliens were up, the others were reviving swiftly. They moved sluggishly at first, then with increasing vigor, toward the harvester.

“Clear up the focus,” Stan snapped.

“Sorry, Doctor…” With the focus cleared, Stan could see the distinct dark alien shapes milling around outside the ship.

“Okay,” Stan said. “The suppressor is kaput and the aliens are awake. That’s okay. Basically, our job is over. We’ve got the harvester. It was a little messy, but we got it. We need only pilot it up to the Dolomite and get out of here. Norbert, check the controls.”

The robot alien moved to the control panel. After a moment he said, “I’m afraid we’ve got trouble, Doctor.”

Stan could see for himself through Norbert’s visual receptors. The battle inside the harvester had wrecked some of the controls.

“Oh, Stan,” Julie said, “can Norbert fly that thing out of there?”

“Sure, if conditions were right,” Stan said. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be as easy as that. The controls are all screwed up.”

“Can’t he fix them?”

Stan shook his head. “Sure, given time, but we don’t have much of that. First we’re going to have to get into communication with the Dolomite again. Gill, have you had any luck in raising Captain Hoban?”

“I haven’t gotten him yet, sir,” Gill said. “Something serious seems to have happened to the Dolomite.”

“That’s just great,” Stan said. “I wish he’d call.”

“He will,” Gill affirmed. “I know Captain Hoban. He would make contacting us his first priority.”

“Well, it gives us a little time. A chance to do something I’ve long wanted to do.”

Julie looked at him. “Stan, what are you talking about?”

“I want to take a look inside that hive.” He looked hard at Gill, as if daring him to challenge him. Gill felt momentarily uncomfortable and glanced at Julie, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Gill reminded himself that it was difficult to assess the situation and impossible to pass judgment on humans.

“Just as you say, sir,” Gill said at last. “Norbert, are you standing by?” Stan demanded. “I am, Dr. Myakovsky.”

“Okay. I take it all your systems are functioning properly?”

“All my readings are in the green,” Norbert reported.

“Is your suppressor working properly?”

Norbert checked. “It is, sir.”

“And Mac’s?”

Norbert bent over the dog. “It is functioning correctly.”

“Then turn it off and open the harvester port.”

“Sir?”

“Norbert, are you having synapse failure? Didn’t you hear me?”

“It is such an unusual order, Doctor, that I wanted to be certain I understood it correctly. When I turn off Mac’s collar, that will render him visible to the aliens.”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Stan said. “We’re going to make the aliens a little present of Mac.”

“Give him to the aliens?”

“That’s right. You aren’t going soft on me, are you, Norbert?”

“No, sir. But is it necessary?”

“Of course it is. They’ll probably take Mac directly to the queen. They give the queen all the best stuff first, don’t they?”

“I think so, sir. So it is reported in the literature.”

“That’s right,” Stan said, with a laugh. “For a moment I forgot you weren’t one yourself.”

Gill and Julie looked at each other. Gill frowned slightly and looked away. Julie pursed her lips. She didn’t much like what was happening. But what the hell, it was no business of hers.

Stan explained. “Mac will represent food to them. A tasty little morsel fit for a king. Only in this case it’s a queen. That’s who they’ll take Mac to. And you, my dear robotic friend, will follow them. Protected by your own suppressor, they won’t even see you. Without suspecting a thing, they’ll lead you through the labyrinth to the royal birthing chamber. Through your eyes I’ll get the first pictures ever taken of the queen of this hive. I’ll be doing a unique service to science. That’s worth any number of little dogs like Mac. He’s just a common mutt. But you, Norbert, are unique.”

Stan turned to face Julie and Gill. Light glinted off his glasses. His face was drawn. His voice, high and strained, rose as he asked, “Does anyone here have any objections?”

Gill looked away and didn’t answer. Julie looked faintly annoyed as she said, “Give them Mac or a kennelful of mutts, it makes no difference to me. But would you mind telling me, just to satisfy my own curiosity, why are you doing this?”

“It’s the only way I can be sure of getting Norbert into the hive quickly without him having to spend God knows how long looking for a way in. The outside of the nest is sealed against the weather, as you might have noticed. Did you check that out? The aliens must have a whole system of tunnels for getting in or out. There must be a hundred miles of tunnel in something that big. This way I’ll have Norbert lay down an electronic path.”

Gill said, “What purpose will that serve, Doctor?”

“Two at least,” Stan said. “First, with Norbert videotaping as he goes, we’ll provide science with an invaluable record of life inside an alien hive. And second, we can come back here whenever we like to collect more jelly.”

“Now you’re talking, Stan,” Julie said. “I knew you weren’t just antidog.”

“Of course not. As a matter of fact, I’ll have Norbert try to rescue Mac when they’ve reached the queen’s chamber.”

“That might not be possible,” Gill said.

Stan shrugged. “Let’s get going. Norbert, do it!”

50

“Nope,” Morrison said. “I can’t get a reading.”

“Let me try,” said Larrimer. He fiddled with the controls. But it showed no trace of the first pod, the one with Norbert and Mac aboard.

Almost as soon as the five volunteers from the crew had entered the second pod, they lost visual contact with the first, and found themselves flying blind into a whirling sandstorm. Overhead, purple-black ranks of clouds had formed, and soon their visibility was further cut by heavy, driving rain. After the rain let up, the ground below steamed, and a thick mist arose from the land.

Definitely not flying weather. But the pod was equipped with autopilot and a landing program. Their direction finder was slaved to the first pod’s beacon. All they had to do was sit tight and the pod would take them to Norbert.

In theory.

In practice, the autopilot was unable to compensate for the driving wind, a wind that roared loudly enough to be heard inside the pod. The autopilot’s little computer had all it could do to keep them from piling up on the ground below. It brought them down safely, then the comedy of errors began.

First Larrimer, who had been entrusted with the radio, found out that it would not transmit or receive. Not enough power, maybe, or maybe interference from the electrical storm overhead. Maybe it had even taken one bang too many during their hectic descent.

“Well,” Morrison said, “they can probably find us even if we can’t find them.”

“Are you sure of that?” Skysky rubbed his bald head nervously.

“Sure I’m sure.” Morrison spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel. They’d want to retrieve the pod, anyhow. Those things cost money.”

Eka Nu looked up. “No,” he said. “Pods are considered expendable. So are crew, sometimes.”

Not a cheering thought.

“Anyhow,” Morrison said, “all we have to do is find Norbert. The professor is not about to abandon his favorite toy.”

That cheered them up a little. Morrison brought out an electron detector and tried to tune it to the trail Norbert was supposed to leave. The little machine buzzed steadily, but showed no sign of a direction. Morrison turned it in every direction. It still didn’t indicate anything.

“Maybe the hull shielding is stopping the signal,” Morrison said. “We’ve got to go outside anyway, so maybe it’ll be better there.”

“Go outside in this?” Larrimer asked, jerking his thumb at the mist that rolled in a slow wave across the plain.

“We can’t stay here,” Morrison said. “If they did try to find us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Our only hope is to find Norbert and await pickup with him and the dog.”

“Great,” Styson exclaimed. “What about if we run into aliens?”

“We’ve got our weapons,” Morrison said, “and we have suppressors. What more could you ask for?”

The others grumbled, but it was obvious that they had to make a move. First Morrison told them to check their weapons, and there was a clatter of metal on metal as they shoved magazines into their carbines and set the plasma burners on standby.

“Ready?” Morrison asked. “Okay, here we go.”

He cracked the hatch. It opened smoothly, and they stepped out one by one onto the plain.

The first thing they discovered was that they couldn’t see worth shit. It wasn’t quite as bad as that, actually. About three feet visibility, Styson estimated.

Cautiously they stepped out of the pod and tested out the land. It was solid underfoot. Moving only a few feet away from the pod, they formed a circle around the electron detector and tried to get a reading. The thing buzzed, and the needle swooped erratically, but there was no definite and unambiguous signal. At last Morrison decided to follow the biggest needle deflection and hope for the best.

“It’s this way,” he stated. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew they had to go somewhere. He was beginning to think this volunteering hadn’t been such a good idea. The bonus had sounded good, but you don’t get to spend it if you’re dead.

* * *

In single file, staying close to each other, the volunteers moved across the plain. All five men had weapons at the alert. The mist billowed around them like white waves in a sea of clouds, sometimes covering them completely, which was like walking through a sort of impalpable white cotton candy. Sometimes the mist would begin to dissipate, and then the men could see each other’s heads and shoulders, rising ghostlike out of the whiteness, with wisps of mist clinging to them. But then the mist rose again and buried them. Morrison, in the lead, was following a compass course he had set after taking his best guess as to what the electron detector was indicating. It didn’t occur to him that it might not mean anything at all. That would be too unfair.

Styson, bringing up the rear, kept on turning around and trying to look behind him. He was sure something big and terrible was going to materialize out of the mist and snap him up. It was a crazy, kid’s sort of thinking—he knew that—but he couldn’t control his fear. His hands tightened on his carbine. He wished he was holding his harmonica. That always gave him confidence. But it was in his pocket, because he needed both hands to hold his carbine. Now his fingers tightened on the weapon, and he checked to make sure all safeties were off. He missed his harmonica, but he knew it was a lot more important to hold on to the weapon. Stood to reason…

And then the mists closed down again and the men lost all visibility—Styson staggered along, carbine held out in front of him like a blindman’s cane, trying to peer into the numbingly white world in which he found himself. What a rotten job this had turned into!

And then he bumped into something.

Styson stumbled, then regained his balance. Larrimer had been next in line. He called out, “Larrimer, is that you?”

There was no answer. Whoever was ahead of him was just becoming visible, a dark shadow in the pale glimmer of the surrounding mist.

“Whoever it is, try to keep the pace up,” Styson said. “We need to get out of here… Who is that, anyway?”

He reached out and poked what he thought was Larrimer on what he thought was Larrimer’s shoulder. There was a movement, and the shape ahead of him turned. The mists started to dissipate, and Styson saw something too tall to be Larrimer or any other man, something so tall that he had to crane his neck back to see it.

No mistaking what it was now. It was an alien, and there was something about its quick, questing movements that decided Styson that this was not Norbert. This was the real thing.

He tried to get his carbine up, but the sling had somehow gotten tangled around his left arm. And the massive creature was too close to him, anyhow. He closed his eyes and made a quick, fervent prayer.

Moments later he opened his eyes. The alien had walked right past him, brushing against him as it did so. It continued to move away, still looking around as if seeking something.

“Hey, fellas!” Styson called out. “We got company!”

The men ahead of him were aware of this. They had spotted aliens before Styson did, but had kept quiet in order not to alert the creatures. Aliens were primarily visual hunters, but no one knew to what extent they could also use their hearing. This didn’t seem the time to find out. Now, as Styson caught up with them, they shushed him into silence.

Morrison continued to lead. The mist thinned, and soon they could see black shapes moving through white cotton. Aliens, moving in the same general direction the men were going, walking singly or in small groups. They passed the men and paid no apparent attention to them. One went by within a foot of Morrison and never turned its head. Morrison was starting to feel a modest confidence… And then it happened.

The mist closed down again. The men fumbled their way forward, fighting to keep their balance, and then there was a loud gurgling sound followed by silence.

“What was that?” Morrison asked.

“Damned if I know,” Larrimer replied.

“Is anyone missing? Call out your names, but not too loud.”

Three men responded to Morrison’s request, but the fourth, Skysky, did not answer.

Morrison risked shouting. “Skysky? Are you there, Skysky?”

Nothing.

“Watch yourselves, boys,” Morrison said. “I think we got trouble.”

It made no sense, Morrison thought, but it seemed like an alien must have grabbed Skysky, broken his neck before he could do any more than gurgle, and taken his body away.

The suppressors were supposed to hide them from the aliens.

But Skysky was definitely gone.

So, one of two things. Either Skysky’s suppressor had failed, or he had walked right into an alien, and that close, it had been able to figure out what Skysky was.

A six-foot breeding organism.

Don’t think about that.

“You gotta really watch hard,” Morrison said, as if the men needed to be told. “Skysky must have gotten careless. The mist is lifting again. Maybe we can find someplace to hide.”

The mist dissipated swiftly. The men could see about fifty yards on all sides of them. The visibility continued to improve, and Morrison told them to fan out. The men complied and, following Morrison’s lead, continued to move steadily toward something that looked like a brown breast on the horizon.

They were passing groups of aliens, but now were able to keep a better distance. The aliens continued to ignore them.

Until one alien stopped ignoring them.

It stopped in midstride, swiveled, turning its huge head slowly, and then locked in on something. It turned toward it and began to run.

When Styson looked to his left, he saw an alien coming straight for him—not for anyone else in the group, but him. He threw up his rifle and fired. The caseless round broke through the alien’s shoulder, almost severing the arm at the shoulder joint. It just seemed to make the creature angrier than it already was. Aliens start out angry and build from there.

Ignoring the arm dangling from its side, it grabbed Styson around the waist with its good arm. Styson screamed and tried to get the carbine into line. The alien opened its jaws. The secondary jaws looked out for a moment, then rammed into Styson’s face.

Styson had tried to duck at the last instant, so the secondary jaw caught him in the left eye rather than the mouth. The tooth-lined mouth punched through to Styson’s brain, and when it withdrew, it took a fair amount of gray matter along with it.

And then the alien turned away from Styson and revolved its head again.

The other four men had frozen into position, not daring to move while the alien was prowling around Styson, unable to shoot without hitting their comrade.

It turned out that shooting wasn’t necessary. Not at that moment, anyhow. The alien turned and loped away, rejoining the group it had left earlier.

Morrison got the men moving again.

51

Their breathing space was short. Aliens continued to stream past the three crewmen. But now, some of those closest to the humans were slowing down, turning their heads this way and that. Morrison prayed that they had stiff necks or something. But no such luck. Two of the aliens turned away from the stream and started toward the group. After a moment a third one joined them.

“Shit!” Morrison said. There was no doubt where that bunch were going. Straight at him. He started firing when they were still thirty yards off, then pushed the selector and fired a grenade. In fact, he fired off all his grenades, something he hadn’t meant to do, but he wasn’t used to these weapons, which were military style. The grenades went lobbing in the air, and most of them came down behind the aliens. Morrison’s last one hit an alien in the chest and, a moment later, exploded in its face. The alien was thrown backward by the force of the explosion. He picked himself up, but his face, such as it was, was ruined. His mouth was gaping open, and through his jaws protruded the smaller secondary jaws. They hung limp at the end of their muscular tube. The tube appeared to have been bitten through. The alien was not out of it yet, though. Shaking its head, it moved again toward Morrison, limping but still deadly.

Morrison didn’t have time for that one yet. The two closer ones were coming up fast. He took the one to his left, blasting caseless projectiles into its chest. He could hear firing near him. It was Eka Nu, who had moved up to join him. Farther away, Larrimer tried to join them, but a long black arm came out of nowhere and caught him in midstride. He jerked around like a trout on a hook as the alien brought him close to his face. Then it released the facehugger, and Larrimer fell to the ground, moaning and twitching. The alien hoisted him to his shoulder. Larrimer knew he was going to have the worst death he could have imagined, hanging just barely alive from a wall in the hive while a newborn grew within him, getting ready to eat its way out.

Morrison and Eka Nu had their hands full with the two aliens, who were coming at them at a full charge. Morrison saw his projectiles slam into the alien, and still it kept coming. He fired until the magazine was empty. He fired the last rounds with his eyes closed. When he opened them, the alien was dead at his feet. Eka Nu hadn’t been so lucky, however. The alien on his side had kept on coming on all fours, had grabbed Eka Nu around the shoulders, hugged the crewman to him, then turned him. The two stared face-to-face for a moment, then the facehugger hit and Eka Nu knew no more.

Morrison found himself alone. He was panting, exhausted, trembling. The guys were all gone. He looked around. He didn’t see any aliens. Maybe they had left Maybe he could still find…

Then something moved on the ground. It was the alien he had winged. He was still coming, crawling. And behind him, half a dozen others were starting over.

Yes, Morrison thought, I guess you could say the suppressors had failed. No other explanation.

I did the best I could, he thought as he turned the carbine so its muzzle faced him. He preferred a slug in the mouth to a facehugger.

* * *

The harvester’s entry lock gave way under repeated blows from the outside. The door flew open. Big-bodied, ghastly, and weird, three aliens crowded into it, their eager, evil faces turning at all angles on short powerful necks, checking out the place, alert for danger. They ignored Norbert, protected by his suppressor. The dead crewmen from the harvester required no attention.

Stan, watching from the lander, said, “All right, Norbert. Do it now.”

Norbert lifted Mac, removed his collar into which a suppressor was built, and handed him to one of the aliens. The alien showed no surprise, quietly accepted Mac from Norbert’s arms.

Handling the dog carefully, the alien turned, left the ship, and joined the others outside. Then, as if in response to an inaudible signal, they all started marching across the plain. Stan, Gill, and Julie watched on their screen as Norbert fell into line behind the group of aliens carrying Mac. Watching from the lander through Norbert’s vision sensors was uncannily like being within the robot alien himself, feeling his body sway and move as it negotiated the uneven ground. Stan had to adjust the audio because the wind out there on AR-32’s plain had risen swiftly after the mist dissipated and now was shrieking like a banshee, pushing and pulling against the line of aliens, slowing but not stopping them as sand was alternately pushed into mounds in front of them and then suddenly scoured away.

They were moving toward the hive, which was now and then revealed as Norbert changed the angle of his vision from the ground immediately in front of him to the hazy horizon line. The hive was still quite a long way away, perhaps a hundred yards, when the aliens stopped and began looking around.

Stan leaned close to the screen and stared but he couldn’t tell what they were looking for. A specially coded pheromone signal, perhaps, because they fanned out and continued searching, their heads turning back and forth like hounds following a scent.

At last one of them found something. A silent signal seemed to pass between him and the others, and they all moved together to a piece of ground that looked no different to Stan’s eyes than any other. Rooting in the soil, the leading alien dislodged a large flat piece of stone, revealing a shallow tunnel leading into the earth.

The tunnel sloped downward for perhaps twenty feet, then leveled out. It had been made with some care. The light, friable soil was held in by flat rocks, some of which were highly phosphorescent.

“Look at how the roof is shored up,” Stan remarked to Gill.

“That’s more technical skill than we ever gave the aliens credit for.”

“It is possible, sir,” said Gill, “that their tunnel-building abilities are genetic, as is the case with the ants you have studied.”

“Yes,” Stan said. “Can you see what they’re doing, Ari?” He lifted the cybernetic ant on his fingertip and moved his hand toward the screen. “These are like big cousins of yours, aren’t they?”

Ari raised his head, but it was impossible to tell whether or not he was thinking anything.

Down in the tunnel, Norbert was reporting that the passageway was widening as they moved closer to the hive. Soon other branchings appeared as the aliens moved; as if by instinct, making their way through the increasingly complex maze without hesitation.

“Norbert, you’ve been laying down an electronic trail, haven’t you?” Stan asked.

“Yes, Doctor. Ever since we were on the outside of this tunnel. But I’m not completely sure the job is getting done.”

“I hope it is. It could come in handy. Don’t you think so, Julie?”

“Sure, Stan,” Julie concurred. “But I don’t understand why you’re sending Norbert in there. We’ve already got what we came for.”

“You mean the harvester full of royal jelly? Yes, that was the purpose of our mission, and we have accomplished it. But we still have some time on our hands until Captain Hoban gets back into communication. So why not choose this moment for the advancement of science? It will profit all of mankind to know what the inside of a hive really looks like.”

“That’s true enough, Stan,” Julie said. “I didn’t know you cared that much about science, though.”

“Julie, there’s a lot I care for that I don’t put into words. You ought to know that.”

“I guess I do, Stan. You’re not really interested in getting rich from this mission, are you?”

“Not as interested as you, my dear. But that is because I may not have much tiempo para gastarlo, as the Spanish say. But doing this is better than staying home trying to argue the doctors into giving me a better prognosis. At least here I can be with you, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

Stan coughed, self-conscious for a moment, then glanced again at the screen. “Norbert is getting deeper into the hive and we still haven’t heard from Captain Hoban. I think this might be a good moment for me to take a brief nap.” Without further ado, he got up and went to the cot in the lander’s rearmost living area.

Julie and Gill watched for a while in silence as Norbert, on the screen, continued to penetrate deeper into the hive. At last Julie said, “What did it mean, that thing he said in Spanish?”

”Tiempo para gastarlo,” said Gill. “It means time to enjoy it.”

Julie shook her head. “Stan’s got a lot of knowledge.”

“Yes,” Gill said. “But perhaps not much time.”

* * *

There were four crew members with Red Badger as he set up his next plan. Walter Glint was there, of course, and Connie Mindanao, limping from a beamer scorch in the side, and Andy Groggins and Min Dwin, both unwounded. That was a pretty good force to match against the five or six loyal men Captain Hoban probably had available.

That was the good news. On the bad side, they had been forced back to a rear area of the ship. It would be difficult to mount an attack through the corridors, with Hoban and his officers now armed and ready for them. And probably the rest of the crew would come in on Hoban’s side, now that the first attempt at a takeover had failed. Things might have been different if Hoban hadn’t responded so quickly. Badger, who had thought the captain to be a burned-out case, had to reevaluate the situation now.

Red was annoyed that his first plan hadn’t succeeded. His people hadn’t moved fast enough, and Hoban had been unexpectedly decisive. Now the best move was to get off the Dolomite and plan to contact Potter on the Lancet. Trouble was, getting off the ship wasn’t going to be quite as simple as he’d like it to be.

There was just one lander left, the backup, now that Myakovsky and his people had gone to the surface of AR-32. It was sure to be guarded. Captain Hoban would have radioed the crew guarding the rear facilities, putting them on the alert. How many were there? Two or three, including the sergeant of the guards? Badger knew they’d have to get around or through them somehow.

“When we reach the storage bay, no firing until I say so,” Badger told the others. “I’ve got a little plan that just might work.”

“Whatever you say, Red,” said Glint.

Badger led them down the gleaming aluminum corridor, over deep-piled carpeting that seemed to soak up sound, past flickering lighting fixtures. The everpresent hum of the ship’s machinery sounded in the walls like somnolent wasps. The only thing that told of the recent action was a faint smell of propellant and burned insulation in the otherwise antiseptic air, that and the labored sound of Connie Mindanao’s breathing as she waited for the antipain shot to take effect.

At last they reached the transverse corridor that led to the pod bay. A faint hum warned Badger that all was not well here. He looked carefully and noted the violet-edged nimbus that extended from the walls.

“They’ve turned on the beam restraints,” Badger said.

Glint came up from the rear and examined the situation. “They sure did, Red, but they don’t have them on full.”

Badger looked again. “You’re right, Walt. They must not be running full power through the ship’s net. Probably because of the damage we caused in the control room. Those beams should be visible to a distance of six inches from the side of the wall.”

Min Dwin looked the situation over and reported, “Their circle of interdiction will extend beyond their visible range.”

“Sure it will,” Badger said. “But there’ll still be a hole we can get through.”

The entrance to the corridor was like a tall O. The violet flame burned on all sides of it, surrounding it entirely, but leaving the middle of the hole open.

“We’ll have to dive through,” Glint said. “Make sure not to touch the sides or the bottom.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Badger said.

“Maybe not for you,” Connie Mindanao said. “But I’ve been wounded. How am I going to take a good jump through?”

A cruel little light glittered in Red Badger’s eyes. “We’ll take care of it for you, won’t we, Glint? Grab her other arm.”

Although she protested, the two big crewmen grabbed Connie. They swung her back and forth and, on the command from Badger, threw her headfirst through the corridor. Connie gave a shriek of protest as her foot trailed in the violet glow, but landed safe on the far side.

“Now the rest of us,” Badger said. “The lander is just around the next bend. We’re almost there!”

52

“Do you ever get sick of us so-called real people?” Julie asked suddenly.

Gill looked up, startled. He had been intent on the screen, watching as Norbert followed the group of aliens through the tunnels. Gill wanted to be ready to report to Dr. Myakovsky when the doctor awoke from his nap. But Julie’s question seemed worthy of serious thought and he gave it, though not taking his eyes off the screen that showed Norbert’s progress.

“I’m afraid,” Gill said at last, “that I do not understand the question. It implies a precondition: that there is something in human behavior that I might get sick of. To what are you referring, Julie?”

“Wow!” Julie laughed. “I didn’t expect to get that much out of you. But it isn’t an answer.”

“I am asking you to define your question, Miss Lish.”

“You know very well what I mean,” Julie said.

Gill found himself caught up and bewildered by the complexities of human thinking. It seemed to him that Julie was saying one thing and meaning another. The technical semanticists who had programmed his response bank had not given sufficient attention to the problem of ambiguity. Perhaps they couldn’t solve it.

Gill and Julie looked at each other for a few moments in silence. Then Gill spoke. “You are referring, perhaps, to the fact that human actions are not always logical in terms of advantage? That they sometimes appear to be downright self-defeating?”

“Okay, that’s one way of saying it,” Julie said. “What do you think of that?”

Again Gill paused before answering. “I can only believe that illogic is essential to being human, since it is the one thing we synthetics are not capable of.”

“You can’t go against logic and programming, is that it?”

“It is, Miss Lish.”

Julie didn’t answer at once. Presently she reached out and took Gill’s hand. Startled, the synthetic man let it go limp. Julie held it like she had never seen a hand before. She studied it, turning it slowly this way and that.

“What an amazing piece of construction this is.” She marveled. “How perfectly the skin has been rendered and textured. It’s hard to believe that anything as cunning as this could belong to someone not human.”

“Yet so it is,” Gill said.

“Is it? Or are you just being modest? A very human trait, I assure you.”

“I don’t know,” Gill muttered. “One thing I do know is, Dr. Myakovsky loves you very much.”

“Yes,” Julie said, “I think he does. It’s why he’s here, isn’t it?”

“I believe it is, Miss Lish.”

“But why then am I here?”

“I do not know,” Gill said. He hesitated. “It is a difficult way to get rich.”

“Do you know of any easy ways?” Julie asked. “Do you know any better ways to pass your time on Earth than doing what I’m doing now?”

Gill shook his head. “I know nothing about these things.”

Julie frowned and let his hand drop. “I like you, Gill, though you’re very naive about some things. Look, Norbert seems to have reached the queen’s chamber.”

“You’re right,” Gill said. “I’ll go wake up Dr. Myakovsky.”

* * *

“I appear to be in an anteroom deep in the middle of the hive,” Norbert reported. “I can see the queen’s chamber just beyond. These surfaces and angles resemble nothing in my memory bank, Doctor. They seem to have been constructed according to a completely alien system. But that would stand to reason, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re doing fine,” Stan said over the radio. “I just woke up and I’m pleased to see your progress. None of the aliens has sensed yet that you’re not one of them?”

“No, Doctor. Though their examinations grow more stringent the deeper we go into the hive.”

“I think we have them foxed,” Stan said, sounding very pleased with himself. “This anteroom you’re in appears to be an interesting place. Can you fix the focus? I can’t make out what’s on the walls.”

“They are large containers,” Norbert said. “They appear to be made from a waxy substance similar in molecular makeup to royal jelly. They appear to be filling those containers with jelly.”

“Might they be storing water?” Stan asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Norbert said. “The containers seem to be holding liquids of slightly different colors and densities. The aliens grow quite excited when they go near these containers. They have to be urged by what I take to be the guards to move on. I think that these containers hold royal jelly deposited by certain especially potent queens or queen types. These may be more efficacious than the common run of the jelly, and be prized by the queen accordingly.”

“With your equipment,” Stan asked, “can you ascertain which is the purest?”

“There’s no difficulty in that, Doctor.”

“Then draw me off a sample. This sounds like the pure royal jelly I need.”

After a moment Norbert said, “It is done.”

“Good,” Stan returned. “We’ll meet up soon. Bring the sample with you. What are they doing with Mac?”

“The alien holding him has brought him into the queen’s chamber. He is offering him to the queen.”

“That is the queen ahead? The image is not distinct.”

“There is a diffracting vapor in this room, Doctor. It is difficult to make out anything clearly. Take it easy, Mac!”

Stan said, “Why did you speak to the dog?”

“To get him to be quiet, sir. We don’t want to mar matters as he is presented to the queen. She is receiving him now. Although I am not expert in alien physiognomy, I’d say she finds pleasure in the gift. She’s holding him up to her olfactory receptors—”

“You should have killed him first,” Julie interrupted.

“I was not instructed to do so,” Norbert said. “No matter. He is beyond pain now. Doctor, one of the guards is coming over to me. It is to be another inspection.”

“Well, you’ve passed them before.”

“Yes, sir. But there are three guards interested in me this time. It must be because I came so close to the queen. Or maybe it was when I took the sample. I am stepping up my production of pheromones.”

“Good idea,” said Stan. “Is it helping any?”

“It doesn’t seem to be doing much good. They are making odd head movements. I do not know what it means.”

“What the hell has gone wrong?” Stan asked urgently. “What are they doing now?”

“They seem suspicious. They have seized me. What do you want me to do, Doctor?”

“Damn it,” Stan spat. “I should have gotten you out of there before this! Norbert! Break free and get out!”

“Yes, sir,” Norbert said. The big robot whirled, tearing himself free from the aliens’ hooked claws. Then, dropping to all fours, he began scuttling down the corridor.

A reverse sensor in the back of Norbert’s head clicked on and showed the view: the long winding tunnel curving behind, the three aliens scurrying on all fours after him.

Norbert was running full out. Stan had never seen him go so fast before. A thrill of pride went through him as he witnessed his creation in action. With speed like that, surely…

Stan could tell from the jarring movement of his sensor lens when the alien guard landed on Norbert’s back. Stan winced as though the blow had landed on him. How could the guard be that fast? he wondered.

To Norbert he said, “Fight him off! Get out of there!”

“I’m trying, Dr. Myakovsky. But there are three of them—”

Abruptly the screen went blank.

Stan cried, “Norbert! Can you hear me? Come in!”

“Nothing,” Gill said. He touched a dial, shook his head. “He’s off the air.”

“He’s dead!” Julie cried.

“I didn’t want this to happen,” Stan screamed. “Not Norbert! Not Norbert!”

Julie said urgently, “Stan, get a hold of yourself.”

Stan shuddered and let out a deep breath. He seemed calmer. “Can you get Captain Hoban?” he asked.

“Not yet, sir,” Gill said.

Julie had stepped out of the control area for a moment. Now she was back, and her hair was flowing around her head like a network of electrical sparks had gotten into it.

“Stan,” she said. “I just checked the short-range weather forecaster in the rear cabin. It’s going haywire!”

“Just what we need,” Stan groaned.

53

“There’s the Bay port, just ahead,” Andy Groggins said. He had run ahead of Badger and the rest of the party. He had a slug-thrower with telescopic wire stuck under his arm. Strapped to his waist was a Gauss needler. He’d tied a bit of cloth around his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes.

“We’ll just ease our way in it,” Red Badger said. His synthide shirt was torn, revealing his hairy freckled chest and prominent paunch. His small eyes gleamed as he pressed forward. He had a Krag beamer under his arm, its selector pointing to rapid intermittent.

The corridor widened at this point. There were separate passageways leading to “stores” in one direction and to “power” in the other.

As they came out into the wide opened area between corridors, a voice called out, “Freeze, you!”

Badger stood motionless. The others, coming along behind him, managed to slink into the shadows. But Red Badger felt very exposed. He didn’t let his apprehension show, however.

He took two casual steps forward and said, “It’s all right, the captain sent us.”

“He didn’t tell me nothin’ about that,” the voice said.

Badger had it located now. It was coming from a paint locker on the far side of the corridor. The guard who was stationed here must have taken refuge when the trouble began elsewhere in the ship. But where was his partner?

“I don’t blame you for being cautious,” Badger said. “But I’m telling you it’s all right. We’re here to relieve you.”

As he talked he peered ahead, trying to figure out how long it would take him to blast through the paint locker and kill the man inside. Too long, he decided. The guard could get him in a single well-placed burst first.

“Stop right there and drop your weapons,” the guard called out.

“You’re making a mistake,” Badger said, and kept on coming. “Captain Hoban told us to secure this area as quickly as possible. Damn it, man, this is serious!”

“Stop right now, or—”

At that moment there was a double burst of slugthrower fire as Glint and Connie opened up almost simultaneously from opposite sides of the corridor. They held down their fire while the paint locker rattled up and down and bounced against the corridor wall, finally letting up only after blowing the door off the hinges and seeing the single guard inside fall out onto the deck.

“Let’s go,” Badger said, leading the way to the pod. “We’re getting out of here.”

54

“It’s Badger and his men,” one of the engineers remarked, reading the terse information that flowed to the TV screen from all parts of the ship. “He’s killed the guard.”

“Damn it!” Captain Hoban said. “Can you see what they’re doing now?”

“They’ve just entered the pod.”

“Seal the ports!” Hoban ordered.

“Too late. They’ve already opened them.”

“Close them again!”

The engineer punched buttons then shook his head. “They’ve locked them into place. They’re blasting off.”

Hoban watched on the screen as a schematic came up, showing the Dolomite’s landing pod lifting out of its bay and maneuvering away from the ship’s side.

“I can still pull them back with the short-range tractors,” the engineer said, his fingers poised on the controls.

Captain Hoban hesitated. At this range, he knew that the tractors would pull the pod apart. Badger and the others wouldn’t stand a chance. He didn’t want to go that far. There would be a court of inquiry over this. He needed to keep his record clean.

“Book their departure in the ship’s log,” he ordered.

“I don’t know that they’ll make it,” the engineering officer said. “The weather’s really bad out there.”

Hoban looked and saw that an entire weather front had moved in while they were dealing with Badger. Long ragged clouds covered the planet’s surface, clouds that were whipped and torn apart by the wind’s violent action. Lightning flashed, huge jagged blue-violet bolts, several miles long, lancing out of the black-bellied clouds into the naked land below. Although the Dolomite was well above it, Hoban gave an involuntary shudder at the size of the storm.

“Try Dr. Myakovsky again,” he ordered. “We have to warn him.”

“I’m trying, sir,” the officer said. “But no luck so far.”

55

“I’m getting something,” Gill reported.

“Thank God,” said Julie.

“Is it Hoban?” Stan asked.

“Yes, I think it is.”

Stan swung around in his big command chair and took the microphone from Gill’s hand. “Hoban? What’s going on there?”

“Sorry for the delay in transmission, sir,” Hoban said, his voice echoing eerily around the lander’s cabin. “We’ve had a revolt on-board. It’s in hand now, but a group of crewmen have seized a pod and are on their way to the surface.”

“Nothing much they can do to us,” Stan said. “Listen, Captain, something really important has happened here. We’ve lost Norbert.”

“Your robot alien? I’m sorry to hear it, sir, though I was never that fond of him.”

“At least he died doing what he was built to do,” Stan said.

“What about the dog?” Hoban asked.

“Yes, the dog’s gone, too,” Stan said brusquely. “Why is everyone so upset about the dog? The dog’s not important. We’ve got troubles of our own.”

There was no reaction to that. Stan cleared his throat and wondered how soon he could take another ampoule. Then he brought his attention back to present matters.

“Captain Hoban, we’ve found what we were looking for. The beekeepers have done our job for us. Norbert took over a Bio-Pharm harvester ship. It’s packed full of royal jelly. We’re rich, Captain.”

“Yes, sir. If we can just get out of here now. Can you get up to our orbit?”

“Negative,” Stan said. “We’re still in the lander, which is barely maneuverable in this weather. Taking shelter in the harvester is our best bet, but it’s going to take some doing to get there.”

“Yes, sir,” Hoban said. “I copy.”

“Secondly, preliminary visual inspection shows the flight controls of the harvester were badly damaged in the fighting. I doubt it’ll fly, but it’ll provide more refuge than the lander. You’ll have to come down to us.”

“Yes, sir,” Hoban said, without enthusiasm. “What about the volunteers?”

“We’ve lost touch with them,” Stan answered. “As soon as we get ourselves out of here, they’ll be our first order of business.”

Hoban didn’t like it, but it didn’t seem the time or place to voice a disagreement.

“It ought to be simple enough,” Stan said. “What you need to do, as soon as the weather stabilizes a little, is send the backup lander down here to pick us up. Our situation here is none too stable.”

“We can’t send the backup lander,” Hoban said. “I told you, sir, Badger and his men took it. Can you maneuver at all in your lander, Dr. Myakovsky?”

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “They weren’t made for that sort of thing. And the weather down here is getting pretty severe.”

“It’s a major storm,” Captain Hoban told him. “The worst of it is heading your way.”

“Damn!” Stan spat. “You can’t maneuver the Dolomite to pick us up, can you?”

“Not in this weather. None of us would stand a chance.”

“All right.” Stan paused. “Just a minute, let me think.”

It was then that the storm front burst in all its fury upon the lander and the unprotected splinter of land it rested upon. Despite its weight, the lander was rocked to its foundations. The earth beneath it rippled and swayed. Lights went out and were replaced by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. Julie screamed as another motion of the storm shot her legs out from under her. Gill caught her before she was slammed into a support.

“Into the pod!” Stan shouted, referring to the small escape vehicle that the lander carried. “Gill, get in there and get power up.”

Gill paused for a moment, looking at the five-point steel door separating them from the lander’s rear compartment. “Maybe I should stay and try to help the crew?”

“They don’t have a chance,” Stan said. “We need your help to keep us alive! Now move!”

The three of them, Stan, Gill, and Julie, struggled back to the pod and, during a brief lull, got in. Stan slammed home the hatch and Julie dogged it into place. Gill waited until they were all strapped in, then blew open the lander’s exit doors. The storm swept in.

Gill took the pod out under full acceleration. There was a moment of intoxicating freedom as the pod pulled away from the ship, then the full fury of the storm caught the little craft.

Stan just had time to secure himself into a command chair by magnetic clamps, then the pod was launched into the air like a rocket from a launcher. As it turned, Stan could see the land beneath the lander collapse, throwing the vehicle into a deep pit that suddenly yawned beneath it.

Glancing around, he saw that Julie was secured on a deceleration couch. A moment later the internal lighting went out.

The storm blazed at the pod’s windows. There were long, stunning lines of force, outlined by a driving rain, lashing in at them. The pod spun around, its automatic stabilizers working hard to keep it on an even keel. The ground came up sickeningly below them, and the pod’s jets blazed, avoiding the collision. They were airborne, and the sky through which they tore was colored ocher and purple. It was a world without stability, a place where titanic forces battled as though it were the beginning of time.

“Can’t you get her down, Gill?” Stan called out above the deafening clatter.

“I’m trying, Doctor,” Gill said, busy over the controls.

“You can do it, Gill!” Julie cried.

“We hope,” Stan said.

Gill’s long fingers played across the controls. The pod seemed to flutter and skitter like a crazed bat in the luridly lit space between the harsh ground below and the beetling thunderheads above. The little craft spun like a leaf driven by a storm. Julie had to shut her eyes tightly to control the vertigo and nausea that racked her as the pod trembled and shook and rattled like a riveting machine gone berserk.

For Stan the pain was almost unbearable as his tortured lungs strove to replace the air that the violent motions of the storm were driving out of him. He had never known such pain. And yet, paradoxically, he was also experiencing a moment of great exhilaration, a feeling of himself as a conquistador of the new age, persevering through pain and hardship as a new world and new opportunities came into sight.

Yes, he thought, it has all been worth it. The pain reminds me that I’m alive. This is the way to go. But I do wish it would stop!

And then, abruptly, they entered a space of quiet air and Gill was able to maneuver the controls. Suddenly the pod dropped thirty feet and hovered for a moment on its jets, bare inches above the ground. Then, with an almost grudging sigh—as though the insensate machine had enjoyed its experience of being airborne in the midst of fury—it settled to the ground.

Gill set the clamping system that secured the ship to the bedrock it had settled upon.

He said, “Last stop, Grand Central Station. All passengers prepare to detrain.”

Stan unbuckled himself shakily. “Why, Gill, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“I don’t,” Gill said. “My words were for the purpose of helping you and the others keep your spirits up.”

“Commendable,” Stan said. He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the blessed relief of relative silence and no motion. Then he asked, “Everyone okay? Then let’s take stock.”

56

Red Badger and his people sat together on the semicircular couches that almost filled the main section of the pod. Red had remembered to bring aboard a carton of emergency rations, each in a self-heating aluminoplex container. He passed these around now. Walter Glint had a half-full canteen of raisin wine he’d brewed himself in the ship’s locker room, before the hypersleep procedure, using copper tubing he’d liberated from the heat circulation system. He passed around the brew, and Min Dwin came up with some narcosmoke cigarettes. In a little while they were quite a cheerful bunch. If only they’d been able to raise some dance music! It was one hell of a party shaping up.

Badger liked to party as well as anyone. But the unfamiliar duties of command distracted him from really letting go. He turned to the little all-wave radio receiver tucked away in one of the pod’s storage compartments. He needed to keep his people content, because he was counting on them to see him safely through this.

Although he wouldn’t let on to the others, Badger was more than a little disturbed by how things had gone so far. He had counted on seizing the Dolomite in his first attempt, when surprise had been in his favor. Back then, taking the initiative had seemed the thing to do.

That was not how matters had worked out, however. Now they were alone, isolated on a savage planet that favored no life except alien. Badger had been thinking furiously, trying to find a way to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat.

Then he thought he had it.

He set the sweep alarm on the radio to wide scanning and began searching the radio waves. It required no master radio operator to find a signal in a place as barren of radio activity as this one. Red locked onto the signal and began transmitting.

57

Adams, the Lancet’s radio operator, was a tall gangling youth with red hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. He came into the main control room without knocking, because Captain Potter had posted standing orders that messages of urgency were to be transmitted at once and without the usual protocol that prevailed on the interstellar ships.

“Yes, what is it, Adams?” Potter snapped. The captain was tall and strongly constructed. His features were handsome and coarse, from the big knife of a nose to the heavy tufted eyebrows that gave his face a sinister character. He wore a midnight-blue uniform with gold flash marks on the sleeves, showing his years of service in the Interspace Mariners’ Association. His voice was low-pitched, harsh, and resonant, the sort of voice you paid attention to the first time you heard it.

“Radio signal, sir,” Adams said.

“Is it from the people on the harvester?”

“No, sir. We still haven’t been able to establish contact with them. Their radio doesn’t respond. I don’t think it looks good, sir.”

“Nobody gives a damn what you think,” Potter said, his voice dropping to a sawmill rasp. “Who’s the message from?”

“A man who calls himself Red Badger,” Adams said. “He says he’s a crewman from the Dolomite.”

”Dolomite? Never heard of it. What location did they give?”

“They’re descending to the surface of AR-32, sir.”

Potter stared at the crewman, eyes narrowed, dark brows creased. “That’s quite impossible,” he said at last. “This planet is our exclusive preserve.”

Adams was about to reply, but perceived just in time that Potter was talking aloud to himself.

“I’ll speak to him,” Potter said. “Put it through for me.”

Adams went to the console and made the necessary adjustments. Badger’s voice came through on the loudspeaker.

“Captain Potter? Sir, this is Crewman Badger from the ship Dolomite. Sir, a situation has arisen which I would like to acquaint you with.”

“Go ahead,” Potter said, and listened carefully as Badger told about the revolt he had led on the Dolomite.

“We didn’t think it was fair, sir, Captain Hoban taking us into an area that was under the exclusive control of Bio-Pharm. The men asked me to speak for them. I talked with Captain Hoban, sir, in fair and reasonable terms, asking him to get a ruling from Bio-Pharm before taking us into this area. Can’t say more reasonable than that, can I, sir? But Captain Hoban didn’t see it that way. He ordered me and my men put into irons and held to face criminal charges back on Earth. We didn’t agree, there was a fight, and me and some of the men came down to the planet.”

“You’re on the surface of AR-32 now?” Potter asked.

“Yes, sir. And we’re not the only ones. There’s a Dr. Myakovsky down here, too, in his own pod, sir. He’s come to this place to steal your royal jelly. He and Hoban are criminals, and they want to put us on charges!”

“That’s very interesting,” Potter said. “Do you happen to have their exact location?”

“I’m afraid not, sir, since me and my mates had to leave ship in a hurry, so to speak. But I’ll bet anything they’re heading for the hive, where they sent that robot of theirs.”

“What robot are you referring to?”

“The one they call Norbert. Looks just like an alien, sir, only it’s not a real one. There’s a law against that, isn’t there? The damned thing already killed some of my shipmates.”

“There’s a law against it, all right,” Potter muttered. “My law, if no other!”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Never mind. What is this robot supposed to do?”

“Collect royal jelly, sir. And leave an electronic trail showing Myakovsky where to go.”

“Damn it!” Potter sputtered. “They could get what they came for and be out of here before we could stop them.”

“No, sir,” Badger said. “I’ve heard them talking to Captain Hoban on the radio. They plan to get through the hive by following an electronic signal that their robot is to lay down for them. But if me and my mates was to wipe out that electronic trail…”

“I like the idea of that,” Potter said slowly. “Can you do it? You would be rendering me a valuable service.”

“Indeed we can, sir. We’re hoping it’ll be taken into consideration when you pick us up. You are going to rescue us, aren’t you, sir?”

“You can count on it,” Potter said. “There could be a reward in this for you. Does that sound good, Mr. Badger? Get in there and wipe out that trail. Then come to coordinates 546Y by 23X. We’ll rendezvous with you there. You men will be rewarded for your good work.”

“Thank you, sir! You’ll be hearing from us soon.”

The transmission ended. Potter turned to Adams. “Well, what are you standing around for? Get back to the radio room! And not a word of this to the crew, or I’ll have your hide!”

“Yes, sir!” Adams saluted smartly and backed out of the room.

Potter waited until he was gone, then looked around the control room. The only ones present were his chief engineering officer, Ollins, and the helmsman, Driscoll.

“Driscoll,” Potter snapped.

“Sir?”

“You’ve heard nothing of this.”

“No, sir!”

“You can take a break now, mister. Ollins and I will finish out your watch.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Driscoll saluted and left the control room.

Lieutenant Ollins was a grizzled old veteran of many space flights who had served with Potter before. In fact, the two men came from the same town in Tennessee. Ollins relaxed when Driscoll was away from the control room. Potter afforded him great privileges when none of the men were around. When they were, it was spit and polish and punctilio all the way, because that was the sort of man Potter was.

“Well, Tom,” Potter said. “Seems we’ve got a bit of a situation on our hands.”

“Seems so, sir,” Ollins said. “But unless I miss my guess…”

“Yes? Go ahead, Tom.”

“Unless I miss my guess, sir, you’ve thought up an interesting way to take care of it.”

Potter permitted himself a smile. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘interesting,’ Mr. Ollins. But ‘thorough’… Yes, I think you’ll find my way very thorough.”

58

Rain hammered against the pod’s hatch like shot from a battery of shotguns. The pod quivered and shook as the storm shrieked and swore to itself, its voice falling to a whisper then rising to a banshee wail. Stan and the others were suited up in all-weather outfits that would give them some protection against the elements, though not much against the aliens. It was time to go.

“Okay,” Stan said. “Julie, you feel up to this?”

“I’m perfectly ready for a stroll,” Julie said airily. “It’s just about sunset, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Gill said. “I’ve checked out the hive on remote sensing. The activity is reaching a peak.”

“A perfect time for us to drop in,” Julie said.

Stan felt a warm glow go through him when he looked at her. She was young, beautiful, and very brave. They were in about as difficult a situation as he could imagine, but she wasn’t giving in a bit to it.

He turned to Gill. “What weapons do we have?”

Gill opened a locker and showed what he had brought. “Five chemical slugthrowers with fifty slug clips. These are somewhat old-fashioned weapons, but they are reliable. And their fifty-caliber slugs pack a wallop. I brought three Gauss needlers. They’re recoilless, and their steel slivers ought to have a good effect against the aliens. I was only able to bring one Gyroc, and a bandolier of point seventy-five-caliber spin-stabilized rockets. Two high-impulse laser rifles, both fully charged, and that completes the arsenal, except for half a dozen concussion grenades. I would have liked a greater selection, but that was all that was available at the moment.”

“You have done admirably,” Stan said. “That’s quite an array.”

“And, of course, I also have the light tracker, a heavy-duty communicator. As well as the suppressors to get us past the aliens undetected.”

“Very important, that last,” Stan said. “What range do the inhibitors have?”

“They’ll dampen at close to one-hundred-percent strength for approximately three meters in all directions.”

“And how long will they last?”

“That’s the bad part,” Gill said. “They may be good for half an hour at full strength, but it could be less.”

“Well, we’ll just have to move quickly and hope we have some luck. Julie, have you reached Captain Hoban yet?”

“Just getting him now.” Julie spoke into her wrist enunciator. “Can you hear me, Hoban?”

“Loud and clear,” Hoban’s voice came back to them. “I was beginning to worry. What happened to you people?”

“Nothing good,” Julie said. “But we’re on AR-32 and we’re still alive and in one piece. Three pieces, I should say.”

“What are your plans?” Hoban asked.

Julie turned to Stan. He said, “We have to get out of the pod, Captain. The storm is shaking it to pieces. What news do you have about your mutiny?”

“The mutineers grabbed our backup lander and took off for AR-32. It’ll be a miracle if they weren’t destroyed on their way down.”

“A miracle for us if they were,” Stan said. “Captain, we have our suppressors and there’s only one thing we can try that’ll bring this off. We’re going to go through the hive, following Norbert’s trail. That’ll get us out of the storm, which will destroy us otherwise. We should be able to follow Norbert’s trail to the far side, where the harvester is. We’ll board that and come up to you. You, meanwhile, will take geosynchronous orbit at the harvester’s coordinates. I’m transmitting those coordinates digitally. Please acknowledge.”

Stan’s fingers flew over the computer’s keys. Soon he heard Captain Hoban’s acknowledgment. “I’ve got it, Dr. Myakovsky.”

“Good. What do you think of the plan, Captain?”

“It seems to me the best, given the circumstances. Does Gill concur?”

The android nodded. “There’s really nothing else to do,” he added in a quiet voice.

“It’s perfect,” Julie said. “What have we got to lose but our lives?”

“Signing off, then, Captain,” Stan said. “See you in an hour or so, I hope.”

He turned to Gill. “Have you any objections?”

“As I said, Doctor, given the circumstances, there’s nothing else to do.”

“But you wouldn’t have gotten us into this fix in the first place. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.”

“You didn’t have to.” Stan looked out the port at the lurid sunset that had just begun flaming behind the upthrust bulk of the hive. He reached into an inner pocket and brought out a small aluminum case, like a cigar case only slightly larger. Opening it, he extracted an ampoule of royal jelly.

“Well,” he said, “time for a little ride down the street of dreams, eh?” He looked at Gill and Julie, who were watching him. “I need it,” he said defensively. “It’s the pain…” Abruptly he pulled himself together. He returned the ampoule to the case and put the case back in his pocket.

“No, I’ll do it straight,” Stan said. “That ought to be ever so much more amusing. Ready, then? Gill, crack the port!”

Gil undogged the hatch. It took his and Julie’s combined strength to push it all the way open against the wind pressure. And then it was done, and the three of them staggered out into the raging storm.

59

There was no easy way to hold a conversation as Stan, Julie, and Gill made their painful march across the wind-whipped plain toward the great rounded mound of the hive. Behind it the sunset flared, sending streamers and columns of radiance around the basalt-blue solid-looking clouds that seemed to march across the plain like giants.

Julie looked at the sunset in awe. She did not consider herself a nature lover, yet this kindling of shapes and colors that seemed too intense to be natural almost brought tears to her eyes. The display touched off a memory.

She was a little girl in the high, carven house of Shen Hui. It was one of his holiday houses in Shan Lin Province, and there was a pool in the garden in which golden carp moved back and forth, and a wind chime in a nearby temple sent forth a sad melody that seemed to speak of ancient days and old-fashioned manners.

It was only then that Julie thought of her mother, whom she had never known, but who visited her almost nightly in dreams whose memory she lost upon awakening.

They walked for a long time, bent into the driving wind, and came at last to the base of the hive. Looking up at the great, pitted, gray-brown surfaces covered with branchlike vines, Stan saw that it resembled some exotic plant. It was pockmarked with puckered holes, many of which were large enough to admit a man. Stan wondered if the hive might not be an organism in its own right, symbiotically connected to the aliens, coexisting with its own weird life-forms.

It was an interesting fancy, but Stan thought it was more logical to assume that the aliens had constructed the hive, following instinctual instructions laid down in their DNA eons past.

Still, it pleased his fancy to imagine that the hive and the aliens were two different types of living matter. What a startling possibility! He could see the headlines now, heralding his discovery…

He smiled wryly and reminded himself that his only job now was to stay alive, to keep on going until he could find the pure and unadulterated royal jelly that might extend his life—if there was any truth to his conjectures.

He and Julie walked around the hive until they found an opening. It loomed ahead of them, a dark and ragged hole that plunged into the depths of the hive.

“Are you ready for this?” Stan asked.

Gill didn’t answer. Julie said, “If that’s where you want to go, I’ll go with you.”

60

There seemed no way into the hive. They found what looked like a pathway that spiraled up its side.

They climbed up the long, narrow ramp that looked to be part roadway, part vine. It went up the side of the hive in long sloping curves, and there were rough-barked vinelike things along the side that served as handholds, and other things that looked like snapped-off tree limbs and might have provided footholds for taloned feet.

Using these as handholds, they half hiked, half climbed, up the side of the hive. The storm was still buffeting them, its wind gusts swirling in from all directions. The slanted rain made the footing slick and unsafe. When Julie was able to spare a glance to the side, she saw the great plain of AR-32 spread out below, all bathed in strange red-and-violet sunset colors, cut through here and there with deep, black fissures.

She was leading the way, with Stan in the middle and Gill bringing up the rear. Stan was short of breath already, and Julie, listening to him labor as he walked, decided it didn’t augur well for the future.

She was worried about Stan, but he had gotten them into this situation. She just hoped he was well enough and sane enough to get them out of it.

Then they reached an opening camouflaged against the side of the hive by a dense growth of vines. They pushed inside and found a broad roadway that curved inward and upward.

The spiraling roadway terminated in a wide opening that seemed to lead deeper into the hive. Julie was less than ten feet away from the opening when something within it, a darkness against the darkness, stirred and moved.

She whispered, “Oh, shit,” and froze.

Stan noticed that she had stopped and also halted.

Gill stopped, too, peering upward, trying to make out what was the matter.

As Julie waited, barely breathing, an ugly dark head with a long backward-sloping cranium poked out of the hole above her. Its fangs were clearly visible, gleaming white, impossibly sharp and packed together, dripping with green matter.

Then the alien’s muscular body came out slowly, foot by foot, and its claws grasped the spiraling track on which Julie and the others were standing. The alien began to descend, moving directly into their path.

“I think it can’t see me,” Julie said, praying that it was true. The indicator on her suppressor showed less than half an hour left in the batteries.

Well, she thought, half an hour is a long time. But then she wondered, What if the gauge is simply stuck at the half-hour mark?

The alien came right up to her, so close she could smell the acrid tang of its hide.

Julie moved to the far edge of the narrow pathway. Taking a grip on one of the vines at the side, she leaned far over, giving the creature room to pass.

Its ferocious blind-looking face passed within inches of her, its hard black flank brushed her side, and then it was past, descending toward the ground.

Stan and Gill, below her, moved to give it room.

Julie slipped into the opening at the top of the hive, the others following close behind. The passageway widened out to a tube about ten feet in diameter. It curved downward and to the left, and soon there was only a ghostly memory of light for them to see their way by.

About twenty feet down, the tunnel widened into a cave. It was difficult to make out its dimensions in that shadow-infested place, perhaps fifty yards long by twenty wide, but it could have been twice that, the remaining dimensions lost in the gloom.

There were things growing between the floor of the cave and its low ceiling. Then they moved into a wider area, where they could stand upright.

Stan and his party paused here to redistribute their loads, make a final check of their weapons, take a drink of water, and have a last conference before plunging deeper into the hive.

Stan was disturbed that Norbert had been unable to lay down an electronic trail. But he was too tired to worry about it much.

He lay down on the uneven ground. He needed a moment to catch his breath. It was tough going, there was no doubt about that. His chest burned incessantly. It had been a long time since he’d had a dose of royal jelly. The case with the ampoules was still in his pocket; it felt comforting there. He wanted one now, badly. Anything to get out of this incessant pain, which seemed to radiate out from his chest and course down his arms and legs, following the pathways of his arteries and veins.

He pulled out an ampoule and hastily swallowed its contents. And then he had to scramble to his feet as he heard sounds from somewhere in the tunnel.

They had to depend on searchlights now to find their way, for the last of the natural light was cut off as they rounded another turn.

And came face-to-face with another alien.

It was moving toward them on all fours, its ugly head questing right and left, seeming to be sniffing the stale, earth-flavored air. It was clear that it had picked up a scent or cue, but apparently it couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The creature slid past them like liquid black iron, and they moved on in silence.

There was a sort of grim interminability about that nightmare journey into the hive. Julie felt that time itself was standing still as they proceeded into the silence of that awesome construction. She felt she was on a dream descent into depths that corresponded in some way that she didn’t understand to the depths of her own being.

Abruptly she came back to attention. Her searchlight picked out incomprehensible shapes as she moved ahead. There seemed to be huge things with tall stooped shoulders and folded wings towering above them. There were oval things scattered here and there, like ostrich eggs, only with a strange cross-hatched texture of fine lines. There were plants with wide, white faces, and they turned toward the searchlight beam as if it reminded them of something they had once known a very long time ago.

Stan said, “This is some weird place, huh, Gill?”

Gill shrugged. “I suppose this hive has been in existence for a long time. Centuries, maybe. It stands to reason that a lot of different life-forms would have tried to establish themselves here. It’s one of the few places on this planet that’s out of the wind.”

“I wish I could get a videotape of this,” Stan said.

“You planning to do a TV special?” Julie asked.

“It would be a first. What’s that up ahead?”

By the light of Stan’s searchlight, he saw that the floor of the cave abruptly declined and became a large hole. Stan approached it cautiously and played his light along it. The sides sloped down sharply for about five feet, revealing that the interior of the hole was filled with a mixture of substances. Stan’s flashlight picked out bones and body parts, vegetables in advanced stages of rot or desiccation, bits of wood and rock, and other kinds of debris he couldn’t make out.

“What is it, Stan?” Julie asked.

“It appears to be a midden. A garbage dump.”

“Ugh!” Julie said.

“No, it’s really very interesting,” Stan said. “A midden can tell you all about the life of the hive. Look at all that stuff! Isn’t that a cow carcass down there? And what’s that over there…?”

He focused the searchlight beam and looked again.

“It looks like a dog collar,” he said at last.

The three of them were silent for a moment. The memory of Mac the dog hung in the air like something evil, something they would have preferred to forget.

“I suppose this is where they threw Mac when the queen was through with him,” Stan said. “That’s certainly his collar with the suppressor attached. We can use that for ourselves.”

He leaned over the pit to pick up the collar. Suddenly the ground crumbled beneath him. Stan scrambled for footing, fell backward, his arms windmilling wildly. Julie lunged for him and almost managed to grab his ankle, but lost her grip as Stan pitched over the edge with a bloodcurdling yell.

For Stan, that moment of falling into the aliens’ garbage pit was so intensely terrifying as to be almost pleasurable. In the split second a million things flashed in front of his eyes like high-speed movie images. Some residue of the royal jelly in his veins kicked in, and he had a moment of pure illusion.

He dreamed in that instant that he was on a mountaintop, and on all sides of him were birds and beasts, waiting to hear what he had to tell them. Mac was there in his dream, sitting up on his hind paws begging, his tongue lolling out. Stan himself seemed to be wearing a robe made out of a luminous golden material, and he was not entirely surprised to find a golden halo circling his brow, casting a mellow light of its own. He was about to address all of the birds and beasts, tell them it was all right, when he struck the bottom of the pit with a resounding jar.

“Stan!” Julie cried. “Can you hear me?”

Gill came up beside her. “Is he alive?”

“I don’t know yet, Stan!”

Stan stirred, then fell back.

“Stan! Call out if you can hear me,” Julie cried.

Stan didn’t answer, but something else did. Something that spoke in a sibilant hiss, with many overtones. It was not a single voice. It was many voices. The hissing voices were like the tumultuous waves of an acid sea. Julie tried to direct her light. Gill was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. Suddenly his grip tightened.

“What is it?” she said, and then she saw it, too.

There were passageways into the lower part of the midden. From them, heads peered; the characteristic heads of aliens. This was apparently a shortcut into a lower level of the hive. The aliens must have heard the noise Stan made while he was falling.

The aliens had come out to investigate. It was like before when they had met the alien coming into the hive. Only this time something had changed. It took Julie a moment to figure out what it was. Then she shuddered in horror.

“Gill, my God!” she said. “The suppressor must have quit. They can see him!”

61

When Stan recovered consciousness, he had one delicious moment of thinking he was ten years old and had just awakened from a particularly terrifying dream. How grateful he was to find himself in his own bed! There, just across from him, was his computer, a good one, which his parents had bought for his last birthday. His floppy-eared toy puppy was there, though of course he was too old to play with it. Still, Mr. Muggs watched while Stan did his experiments.

Now Stan stretched luxuriously and tried to think how he’d spend his day. There were some spiderwebs down near the brook that he wanted to investigate…

His outstretched fingers touched something wet and sticky. He recoiled, turned his head, looked. It was Mac, dead. He had pushed his fingers into the sticky wound in Mac’s throat. What he had thought was his computer was actually the skeleton of a cow. And there were aliens glaring at him, seeing him, and starting toward him…

“Gill!” Julie screamed. “Start shooting! But for God’s sake don’t hit Stan!”

Julie was firing as she spoke. She had unslung the plasma rifle she had been carrying by its strap over her shoulder. Red-orange flame lanced out from its muzzle, painting the garbage pit in lurid colors and huge dancing shadows.

The concentrated fury of the plasma blast danced around the aliens, who had begun advancing on Stan from a passageway that led into the midden. Red, acetylenelike cutting flames poked and probed at them, lancing through their bodies, stabbing into arms and legs. Gill was firing simultaneously, caseless carbine rounds that blew the aliens off their feet, sending them halfway up the pit, to tumble back again in a welter of severed arms and heads.

The plasma fire and the caseless rounds wove a dance of death around Stan’s recumbent body. The fire approached him and then, almost delicately, backed away again.

Julie ran around the circumference of the pit, firing to keep the aliens from coming up on Stan from behind. Gill held his position, blasting a way clear for Stan, who finally stumbled to his feet and made his way to the side of the pit. He tried feebly to climb back out.

“Can you hold them, Gill?” Julie asked.

“I think so,” Gill muttered.

Julie slung her plasma rifle and reached out for Stan’s hand. Their fingers touched and clasped. No sooner did Julie have a good grip than she heaved, putting into it every ounce of strength in her slender body. Stan seemed to fly into the air, landing on the edge of the pit.

While he tried to catch his breath, Gill finished off the last of the aliens, scattering arms and legs everywhere. Then he turned to help Stan. Stan tried to get to his feet, then slumped again to the ground. Before anyone could grab him, he slid again into the pit.

“Oh, no!” Julie said. “Hold my ankle, Gill, I’ll get him.”

They tried, but couldn’t reach. Stan appeared to be on the edge of unconsciousness. His eyelids fluttered briefly behind his thick glasses, which miraculously had not been knocked off. His fingers clawed at the debris-strewn surface. From behind him, there was another hissing sound. An alien suddenly appeared, two others behind it.

“Kill it!” Julie cried.

“I can’t!” Gill said. “Stan’s in the way!”

“He’s in my way, too!” Julie began to run around the side of the pit, trying to get a clear shot.

The leading alien looked somehow different to her from the others. But at first she couldn’t determine how. Then Gill threw a phosphorus flare and she saw that the alien had half his shoulder chewed off. There was also damage to his midsection and head.

But what she wasn’t prepared for was the look of those wounds. Instead of flesh and blood, there appeared to be cable and metal fittings in the wound, and small humming servos.

For a moment she couldn’t process this information. Then she understood.

“Norbert!”

62

Since they pulled him out of the midden, Stan had drifted into a different place. He seemed to be in a spaceless space and a timeless time. It was a world filled with little blue-and-pink clouds. There were stars in the background, and pools of water. He was not surprised to see Norbert standing in front of him. Nothing could be strange to Stan any longer. He had passed beyond weirdness, into a place where all effects were the same, all part of the great symphony of death, whose opening notes he could hear as though coming to him from a great distance, but getting louder, louder.

This couldn’t have been an illusion because it answered him.

Norbert said, “Yes, I am here, Dr. Myakovsky. I am functioning at only twenty-seven percent of capacity.”

Stan blinked and his vision cleared. He was in the alien garbage midden, lying on his back on mounds of refuge. In front of him, bending over, was Norbert.

“It must have been quite a fight,” Stan said, surveying the robot.

“I would say so, Doctor. I killed three of them in a running battle through the hive. Unfortunately, they did damage to me that I fear will prove terminal.”

“Are you afraid?” Stan asked.

“Not in the personal sense, Doctor. By fear, I meant regret that I will no longer be able to serve you as you designed me.”

“Can’t you turn on your self-repair circuits?” Stan asked.

“I tried that, Doctor. They are down. And you did not equip me with self-repair units for the self-repair units.”

“In the future we’ll have infinite backups for all systems,” Stan said. “Including human ones, I hope. Including mine.”

“Are you all right, Doctor?”

“I’ve definitely had better days,” Stan said. “My self-repair circuits aren’t working right, either.” He felt something in his hand and held it up. “Look here! Mac’s collar! I’ve got it!”

“That’s fine, Doctor,” Norbert said. “I have something, too.”

“What is it?” Stan asked.

“This.” Norbert reached into the gaping wound in his shoulder and drew out a gooey mass the color of honey.

“What is it?” Stan asked.

“Royal jelly from the queen’s birthing chamber,” Norbert said. “I was unable to provide a proper container. I’m afraid it’s gotten some oil on it, and some blood.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Stan said. He reached out and took the mass. It had a waxy consistency. He put it in his mouth, made himself chew and swallow it. He experienced no immediate effect.

“Great work!” Stan said.

Behind him he heard big objects move and slide around as something came from the interior of the hive.

“Better get going, Doctor,” Norbert said. “They’re coming. I’ll cover your retreat as well as I can.”

“I don’t see how,” Stan grumbled.

“I improvised a weapon. I hope it will suffice.”

Stan pulled himself onto his hands and knees and worked his way toward the edge of the pit. Behind him he could hear sizzling energy beams as Norbert and the others fought off the aliens. Norbert was buying him time.

Stan tried to pull himself up the side of the pit, but the crumbling structure gave way under him and he fell to the bottom again. Pain washed over him in great uncontrollable waves, and in each one he thought he might drown, only to come back again and again, each time more feebly, to the surface of consciousness.

He felt Julie’s hand in his, and then Gill’s hand. He was lifted into the air. Below him he heard Norbert’s battle still raging, and the shrill screaming sounds that the aliens made as they died in the violet-edged bolts that Norbert’s impromptu weapon cast. But the aliens kept on coming, and as Julie and Gill pulled Stan out of the pit and beat a hasty retreat down a tunnel, they heard the sounds of Norbert being pulled down and torn apart.

63

Glint asked, “Is this the place?”

Badger checked the crude map he had drawn following Potter’s instructions. Yes, there were the two fan-shaped rocks, and over there was the fissure cut like a curly S.

“We’re at the spot all right.”

“Okay,” Glint said. “But where is he? Where’s the rescue pod?”

They were standing on a wide flat rock shelf. It stood practically under the shadow of the hive. The wind had died down for a moment. They could look out over the nearly featureless landscape. Toward the west there was a line of lime-green haze, possibly sent up by some natural circumstance. So much about a place like AR-32 was simply incomprehensible.

Yet, even on Earth, despite his thousands of years of occupation, despite his long acquaintance with bird, fish, and fowl, things could still surprise man as well. Strange animals turned up every year. Mysteries abounded. Even the status of ghosts was still uncertain. No one had ascertained for sure whether or not the Yeti or the Jersey Devil really existed. Were there such things as werewolves and vampires?

But on AR-32, the anomalous and the unexpected happened all the time.

You tended to think of such things on a planet like AR-32. Mankind had known of the place for less than ten years. No genuinely scientific expedition had ever visited it. Only commercial vessels called, and for the sole purpose of stealing (though they called it collecting) the aliens’ jelly. The men who went on such expeditions were as hard-bitten a lot as conquistadores of old Spain. Like them, they cared little for what lay below them or what it might mean in the scheme of things.

It was not unusual that Badger and his men, who were as much of the conquistador type as the crewmen on the Lancet, were surprised but not absolutely astonished when a creature raised its head from behind a rock and looked at them.

“What in hell is that?” Meg asked.

Badger and the others turned. The creature was sitting there looking at them. It had a large head somewhat the size and shape of a hogshead. Eight little skinny legs came down from its sides, terminating in blunt claws. Something about the creature was reminiscent of a pig, right down to the way it snuffled and oinked at the crewmen. It had a small curly tail. It was colored pink, and it had a black saddle marking in the middle of its back.

“What do you suppose that thing is?” Glint asked.

Badger said, “It’s some critter indigenous to this planet, I think. Boys, I’ll bet we’re the first ones ever to look at this thing.”

“G’wan!” Meg said. “One of the Lancet people might have seen it first.”

“No way to prove that,” Badger said. “But this thing could be rare, and never take to hanging around the places where humans live and work. Like the bobcat and the wolverine on Earth. If there’s animals like that on Earth, why not here?”

“Here, fella,” Meg called. “Why’ncha come over here?”

The piglike thing lifted its little triangular ears and stared at them with bulbous blue eyes. It lifted a forepaw and pawed the ground. Then it trotted over to Meg.

“Hey, ain’t that nice?” said Meg. She reached over and scratched the creature above its ears. It made a high-pitched grunting sound that had about it a tone of approval. No mistaking that sound for a cry of pain.

The others crowded around. “Cute, ain’t it?” said Glint, who had raised hogs in Arkansas.

Meg said, “I wonder why it came to us?”

“Can’t tell about alien life-forms,” Badger said. “I wonder if we should take this fellow along with us. Back on Earth sell him to a circus, make a lot of money off’n him. I wonder what he eats?”

“I’m sure he’d tell us if he could,” Meg said, scratching the creature’s back. “Where do you come from, fellow?”

The creature cocked its head at them as if it were trying to understand. It seemed to be listening to something. Or for something. It was hard to tell which.

Badger listened, too. And after a few moments he heard a high-pitched buzzing sound, like locusts, only heavier somehow, meaner. As he listened the sound changed. It turned into a heavy thumping, as if a thousand bass drums were advancing up the ridge. Then Badger realized that the two noises were going on simultaneously. He wondered what it could be, and suddenly he didn’t want to know.

“Lock and load!” he shouted to the men. “I don’t like the sound of this!”

The creatures came over the top of the little hill, a couple dozen of them, though of course that was only the first wave. They were different from the creatures they had seen before. They were the size of large dogs, and their heads were big and shaped like raptor birds. They had no feathers, however, just two tails apiece, and those tails appeared to be barbed. Their mouths were filled with long sharp teeth—that seemed to be a rule here on this planet—and they were making a buzzing sound as they came.

Behind them came another group of creatures, a little smaller than the others, about the size and general shape of woodchucks, and colored a lime green with bluish features. They all had mustaches, like walruses. They made a booming sound as they walked, but Badger couldn’t see how they produced it.

They came on, all of them, and they didn’t look friendly.

“Hit ’em with it!” Red shouted, and he and his three buddies began to pour in fire. They had the caseless carbines going so fast that the firing mechanisms began to grow hot, but they ignored the pain and kept on firing.

One thing was plain from the first: these creatures were hard to hit. They weren’t coming on fast, but their dodging and swerving made them difficult targets. Nevertheless, Red scored a hit, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the woodchuck blow up like an overinflated beach ball.

Meg scored, and then Glint, who shouted in triumph.

Then one of the raptor-headed creatures got under the line of his fire and grabbed his foot. It bit, twisted.

Glint’s foot came off at the ankle. He stared at the stump, too surprised to feel pain yet, and tried to take a step away. But he toppled over and they were on him, a dozen of them, biting and tearing. One longnecked creature buried his head in Glint’s belly. Glint screamed and tried to tear it away, but the bird-thing was stronger. It got its head deep inside Glint’s belly, and then pulled the rest of itself in. Lying on the ground, Glint went into convulsions.

Badger dropped his empty carbine and picked up a plasma rifle. He turned it to full fire and sprayed the area. He caught Meg, out on the periphery, with his blast and saw her wither and collapse before he could turn it off her.

“Damn it, sorry, Meg!” he shouted. It was just the sort of unfortunate thing that happens sometimes in combat.

Meanwhile, Min Dwin, firing from the hip, was seized from behind by an alien. It caught her by her long hair, and she turned, still firing, and put four rounds into the creature’s head, had the satisfaction of seeing it blow apart. But it still held her hair in its dying claw, and from its ruined head a gout of acid sprayed, catching her full in the face.

“My eyes!” she screamed, and fell to the ground, clawing at her face. She writhed for a moment, then lay still. The acid had penetrated to her brain.

Andy Groggins tried to turn his carbine to face an alien that had just come up on his side. His feet were yanked from under him. An alien had him by the ankles, another seized his arms. They tugged in opposite directions, and Andy triggered off his entire magazine, spraying the area and nearly catching Badger, who had to dive to escape the blasts. Then Andy roared as his left leg was ripped off at the hip.

The alien who had been pulling his feet fell backward. The other caught its balance and came at him. Badger triggered off a burst and blew the creature away. Groggins was dead before the carbine’s reverberations died away.

Looking around, Badger saw that he was alone. The others were dead. The original beast, the barrel-shaped thing, was nearby, sitting on its haunches and watching expectantly.

“Damn you, you Judas goat!” Badger said, and blew it away with a short burst.

The area was a shambles of blood and gore. All Badger’s people were dead, and he expected to go next, but the attack had ended. There were no aliens in sight now except dead ones, and no other creatures, either.

Badger stood there, sobbing with fatigue and anguish, and saw a shadow appear as if from nowhere. He looked up.

There it was, Potter’s ship, the Lancet, and he had a chance to get out of this. “Drop a line! Pick me up!”

They were down level with him, and he saw four of the crew watching him from one of the big glassite windows. He screamed at them, and finally they opened a hatch and threw out a rope ladder. Badger scrambled up with his remaining strength and collapsed inside the ship.

“Did you get all that on tape?” Potter asked.

“Yes, sir,” the second-in-command said.

“The scientists will be interested in these creatures,” Potter commented.

“Yes, sir,” the second-in-command said. “But the killing of all those men was a little gruesome, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, edit that part out,” Potter scoffed. “And mark it in the log that we didn’t reach the surface in time to save the rest of the mutineers.” He turned to go, then stroked his chin. “Not that one ever really wants to rescue mutineers. They set a bad example for the rest of the crew. But don’t put that in.”

“Yes, sir.” The second-in-command saluted and began to walk off. “We did pull one of them out.”

“Take him to the medics,” Potter said. “We’ll get his story later.”

“Yes, sir.” The second saluted and left the control room.

“And now, Dr. Myakovsky,” Potter said to himself, “It is time to deal with you.”

64

Stan and his group went through a maze of pathways. They found no sign of Norbert’s electronic trail. No sign of Norbert, either. He had dropped behind, after making a gallant stand against the aliens. Stan had last seen him submerged under a writhing mound of black alien bodies.

Stan’s breathing was labored, he could hardly drag himself along. When was the royal jelly going to kick in? Julie and Gill helped him all they could, but they needed to keep their hands free to use their weapons. Because now more and more aliens were appearing, coming out of different turnings in the tunnels. They came in ones and twos, no mass attack yet, but it was probably only a matter of time.

It was clear that the suppressors were no longer doing their job. Stan, Julie, and Gill had to be constantly on the alert, because the creatures were attacking silently, suddenly springing out of the shadows.

Julie was leading the way. Her searchlight beam probed ahead into the profound darkness. She thought she had never seen such darkness before. Even the darkness she saw when she closed her eyes was not as deep as this. This was the darkness of evil, the darkness that cloaked a place where unspeakable creatures performed horrifying rituals. This was the darkness of childhood terrors. This was the darkness out of which monsters swarmed, the place where they tortured little children, and ate them, and then spit them up to make them live again so they could kill them anew.

Glancing back, Julie saw Gill falling back to help Stan, fighting half turned around to keep the aliens from running up their backs. He showed no expression when the searchlight beams occasionally illuminated his long, serious face. The android did his work methodically, but then he wasn’t really human, it was all the same to him, he had no feelings, not really. He’d act just the same if he were on an assembly line screwing down machine parts. He’s lucky, Julie thought, because it’s not all the same to me, no matter how hard I try to make it so.

And Stan? In a way he was lucky, too. Too exhausted to care any longer, and in too much pain, to judge from his twisted features and the sweat that dripped from his face. She felt so sorry for him, and yet, in a way, she envied him. He was too far gone to feel the terror that engulfed her mind and turned her legs to jelly.

Gill plodded along, an efficient machine doing what it was supposed to do. His peripheral vision was enormously extended, and when he caught movement at the outer edges, he wheeled and fired in a single economical movement. When a group of three or more aliens came at him, he switched to the small thermite bombs he carried in a pouch on his left side, setting the proximity fuse with his thumb just before he let them go.

It was like a dance—turn, swing, fire—the only dance he had ever done. Turn, wheel, extend the arm. Boom! Blam! Turn again, gracefully duck, turn, fire, fire again, then go forward…

He heard Stan gasp and slip. Gill scooped him up and put him back on his feet. “Can you go on?”

“Yes. Thanks…” Stan was saving his breath.

Gill was worried about the doctor. That dose of pure royal jelly hadn’t seemed to help any. He knew how much Stan had been expecting to find some sort of divine elixir that would cure his cancer. Gill had no particular hope that this would happen. It was illogical. The royal jelly was not a cure; it served merely to diminish the pain. Why should a pure strain do more than the other, adulterated strains?

He knew that humans liked to entertain far-fetched notions. All of the humans, in a way, were like those Spanish conquistadores he had learned about during his hypnopaedic learning sessions, those men in armor who had painfully trekked across the American plains, searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola, imaginary places that had never existed outside the dreams of mythographers.

Stan’s belief in a cure for his disease was like that. It was forlorn, even silly. No android would be capable of such folly. Yet Gill didn’t think that made him better than Stan. Quite the contrary, it made him subhuman, because he could not participate in the delusions, both the pathetic and the sublime, that made the human race what it was.

The aliens were massing behind them. Gill had to slow down more and more to flight rearguard actions.

Julie pressed on ahead, hoping that the turns she took were leading them toward the outside of the hive rather than deeper into it.

Gill switched the plasma rifle to automatic fire and laid down a sheet of flame as half a dozen aliens came crawling out of a pit and, rearing to their feet, loped toward him.

Stan stumbled and fell, and lay still. Gill scooped him up and draped him over one shoulder, leaving one arm free to aim and fire the heavy plasma rifle.

By now the aliens were coming from side turnings as well as from behind. The little party wasn’t surrounded yet, but it looked imminent. Gill threw his last thermite grenade, shifted Stan higher onto his shoulder, and noted that the charge in the plasma rifle was almost depleted. He turned, ready to fight to the end.

Then Julie cried, “There’s light ahead! We’re almost out of it!”

Gill turned and saw the faintest glimmer of grayness penetrating the profound gloom of the hive. He let go of the depleted plasma rifle and pulled a chemical slugthrower out of a side pouch. Four quick shots blasted a close-packed group of aliens with high explosives. Then Gill turned and ran, with Stan on his shoulder, toward the light.

His feet slid on the hard-packed clay of the tunnel’s floor, and then suddenly he was out of the hive and into the sepulchral gray light of AR-32.

Behind him he heard Julie say, “Get out of the way, Gill.”

He managed to stagger a few steps farther. This gave Julie a chance to reset her plasma gun to full heat. She held it steadily, hosing the entrance to the hive through which they had come.

It took Gill a moment to understand what she was doing. Then he put Stan down, rummaged in his pouch, and found a plasma-rifle refill. He reloaded and swept the spot where Julie was beaming.

The beams glittered and coruscated on the hive face. The aliens were forced back, deeper into the cave, to wait until the noise and heat died down.

But Julie had something else in mind. She kept on firing until, with a sudden thunderous roar, the cave mouth collapsed. A cloud of dust and smoke arose, and then it was quiet.

Julie turned off her weapon, as did Gill.

“That’ll do it for a little while,” she said.

“Until they find another exit from the hive,” Stan said.

“Well, it’s better than nothing. Now, where in hell are we?”

Stan pointed. “You’ve done a great job, Julie. Look down there.”

Julie looked, and saw, less than a hundred yards away, the squat hull of the harvester.

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” she said. “We just have to get aboard.”

“Yes,” said Gill. “But there’s a difficulty.” He pointed again.

It took Julie a moment to see it. But then she saw the small black dots moving at the base of the hive. She could finally make them out: aliens! They had found another exit from the hive sooner than she expected. And they were blocking the way to the harvester.

She asked, “What now, Stan?” But Stan was unconscious again.

Julie and Gill looked at each other, then glanced up as a shadow crossed them.

It was a ship. For one moment Julie’s hopes flared. But then she took in the ship’s markings and design, and a great despondency came over her. That was not the Dolomite. That was the Lancet, commanded by Potter, the Bio-Pharm man. It hovered in the air, and nothing about it stirred. It seemed obvious to Julie that Potter was going to let them die here, watching and maybe videotaping their final agonies.

Stan revived and sat up. “The harvester, did you say?”

“It’s right down there.” Julie pointed.

Stan looked and nodded. He struggled to his feet. “We’ve got to get there. From there, something may be possible.”

“There are quite a few aliens in the way,” Gill pointed out.

“So I see,” Stan said. “Have you ever heard of the old American Indian stunt of running the gauntlet?”

“I don’t believe so,” Gill said.

“You’re about to learn history in a very practical way,” Stan announced. “Load what’s left of the ammo and we’ll be on our way.”

Despite the mortal danger of their position, Julie could have kissed him at that moment.

65

Stan gave the signal and they were off, trotting down the rocky path that led from the edge of the hive to the plain. Fifty yards away, more or less, was the harvester. In the sky above them, the Lancet hovered, silent, watching.

And then the aliens came.

They came singly and in pairs, and then in threes. They seemed to crawl out from under rocks and to appear out of holes. They came in silent ferocity, fangs bared, talons extended, forming a rough line between the hive and the harvester. Stan and the others ran through the line, blasting as they went. They had all shifted now to rapid-fire weapons. Never did Julie display better hand-eye coordination. She managed to move at full stride, at the same time keeping a look on all sides of her and releasing sizzling bolts of energy at anything that moved. The rocks turned white-hot under the glancing energy beams. The aliens surged forward, and died. Julie and Gill were doing fine…

And then Stan collapsed.

He had been doing very well, for a man in his condition. But his illness and general debilitation were not to be denied forever. Pain coursed through his chest like a sea of fire. He gritted his teeth and tried to continue, but now everything was turning dark before his eyes. He couldn’t see where he was going. His feet stumbled on the rocky surface, a pebble turned under his foot. He felt himself falling, and a black pit seemed to yawn in front of him. He threw his arms wide as he fell, but before he hit, Gill scooped him up.

“Don’t stop for me!” Stan said.

“Order denied,” Gill said, setting him on his shoulder and running again.

They cut their way through the ranks of the aliens. Flesh, blood, and bile spilled in all directions. It was like a free-for-all in a slaughterhouse. Julie hadn’t imagined there was that much gore in the whole world. Scattered parts of aliens lay everywhere, arms and legs, long ugly tails, heads with the teeth still snapping. And still they came on. Julie thought that every alien on the planet must be here, or on its way.

She was firing two weapons now, cutting a path for herself through a growing mound of living matter—the locked bodies of aliens, still trying to get at them. Gill, running along hard on Julie’s heels, with Stan bouncing up and down on his shoulder, was cutting wide swaths in the clustered aliens. Julie saw her left-hand weapon flare and die. Firing right-handed, she snatched a vibraknife from her waist pouch to set it on high. The blade had to make physical contact to do any harm, but it had come to that now with the aliens pressing ever closer. It seemed to her that this was the end; aliens pressed in and she had no idea where she was. And then Gill was shouting, “The harvester, Julie!”

They were there. Gill raced up the landing platform and dumped Stan inside through the entry port. Then he turned, feet braced, firing a bazooka-style weapon that gave out great gouts of green flame. Julie ducked into the harvester under his arm.

She saw Stan, lying on the floor, unconscious again. Something big and black and many-toothed was bending over him. It was an alien, damn it! The harvester was filled with the creatures—two, no three of them. She cut them down. “Gill!” she screamed. “Get inside so we can close the door!”

Gill cut and slashed and backed through the door. Julie cut down an alien and now there was one left. It stood in the doorway, towering over her, and just at that instant her gun began to fail.

She must have screamed, because Gill slung a handgun across the harvester to her. She caught it, aimed, and triggered it in one rapid moment. The alien was in her face, but she had no choice: at extreme close range she blasted him.

The alien’s throat exploded. One wildly waving claw came completely off. His forelimb, severed at the wrist, waved wildly in the air. The milky white acidic substance that was the blood of the alien spewed forth in a stream.

Some of the acid hit Julie. She screamed and went down, and it seemed to her that she could hear Gill yelling something, too, and then she didn’t know anything anymore.

66

Stan returned to consciousness angry that the dose of pure royal jelly hadn’t done anything for him. Luckily he still had some of the older product left. He’d take some of that soon.

He was not really surprised that the pure royal jelly hadn’t helped him. He had always suspected that it was too good to be true, the idea that some other form of the jelly would cure him in some miraculous way. It just doesn’t work like that, he told himself.

His mind raced back to earlier days. He thought of all the work he had done, all his accomplishments. He’d had a lot of chances in the poker game that was his life. Could he have played his cards some other way? He didn’t really think so. And it was strange, but he knew that for some strange reason there was no place he’d rather be than here, right here, at the end of a glorious venture, with Julie and Gill, his friends.

Gill was at the other side of the harvester, looking after Julie. There really wasn’t much he could do for her. Just see that she was comfortable. Most of the acid had missed her, but some drops had fallen along the side of her neck and penetrated deep under the skin. Her face was ashen, her breathing labored. Her vital signs were diminishing.

Gill found himself struggling with new emotions, things he had never felt before. He realized that there was a comfort in being a synthetic man. The trouble with android status was that nothing ever felt very good. There was no joy, no exultation. But the advantage was that nothing ever felt very bad, either.

Strange, though. Now he was filled with unaccustomed emotions: pity for Julie, and something else, some tender feeling that he couldn’t quite identify, couldn’t quite find a name for. He touched the vein on the side of her neck. It pulsed, but not strongly. He reached over to make Julie more comfortable and only became aware then that his left arm was missing a hand and half its forearm. He had been too busy to notice when the hand went off-line. It was that advantage, again, of being a synthetic: you felt no pain. Now, looking back, he could reconstruct how it happened. The harvester’s hatch had been closing, and he had just managed to get inside. But not quite all of him had made it. One hand had still been outside as the alien’s big claw closed over his wrist. Stan had pulled, and the alien had pulled back.

There had been a deadly tug-of-war, with the alien pulling one way and Gill the other, sawing his arm back and forth along the door frame. None of the others had been in a position or condition to help. Stan had been out cold, and Julie, staggered by her acid bath, was out of action, too.

Gill and the alien had fought their deadly game. Gill hadn’t been exactly sure what happened next. Presumably the door edge had severed some of the cables that controlled his arm movements. Or the combined pulls of Stan and the alien had pulled the skin welds on his arm apart. Suddenly, and with an audible pop, his arm had let go several inches below the elbow. Cracks had appeared in the tough synthetic skin, and had immediately widened. Fine-control cables had come under tension, pulled taut until they sang, and then snapped.

Cables and wires had coiled around Gill’s wrist, then pulled free when Gill pulled what was left of his arm the rest of the way inside the ship and the hatch slammed shut. It had been a good sound, that sound of the hatch closing. After that, Gill had been too busy looking after Julie and ascertaining Stan’s condition to pay much attention to his own condition. He looked to himself now.

He could see that there was no way of fixing himself. He could have tried a jury-rig if he’d had spare cables with him. But in the close confines of the pod he hadn’t brought along the repair and spare parts kit that every synthetic tried to keep with him at all times. And even if he’d had the cables, he was still lacking several transistors and capacitors. Reluctantly he took the arm off-line. He had no motion in it at all. From the shoulder down, it was as dead as a hundred-year-old Ford.

“Gave you a little trouble, did they?” Stan’s voice came from over his shoulder.

Stan had revived, calling on reserves he never knew he had. He had even gotten to his feet. He was filled with a strange knowledge; that he was both a dead man and a living one. The two sides of himself were warring now, each trying to establish dominance. Stan thought he knew who was going to win.

Somewhat unsteadily he crossed the harvester and gazed at Gill’s wound.

“Pulled it right off, did they?”

“Yes, sir. Or perhaps I did.”

“Comes to the same thing,” Stan said. “Doesn’t give you any pain, does it?”

“No, Doctor, none at all. I register the loss of my arm solely as an analogue of loss, not as the real thing.”

“It’s abstract for you, is that it?”

“I suppose you could say that, sir.” And yet, Gill knew it wasn’t quite true. No human could really imagine what it was like to be a synthetic. And to be a synthetic suffering loss—that was really beyond their scope. Except, he thought, maybe Julie could understand it.

67

“Well, Gill,” Stan said, “I think it’ll be best if you look after Julie for the time being. I have some work to do on the radio.”

“I don’t think much can be done for her, sir. Not without regular medical facilities.”

“No, I suppose not,” Stan said. “Maybe there’s not much that can be done for any of us. Still, we must avail ourselves of every twist and turn. That’s what it’s like being a human, Gill. You avail yourself of every little opportunity. You assume you’re not dead until you can no longer move. I hope you’re taking note of all this.”

“Indeed I am, Doctor,” Gill said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Stan said. “Unless you happened to bring along a replacement body. No? I didn’t think so. But the royal jelly is finally starting to take effect. I’m all washed up, Gill, but I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.”

“Thanks. We’ll talk more later, Gill.”

Stan turned to the radio. Gill watched him, and he was disturbed. It seemed to him that Dr. Myakovsky was in some sort of shock. He was hardly registering his grief at Julie’s condition. Was it a callousness about him that Gill had missed? Gill thought it was something else. He had noticed that humans from time to time went into a condition they called shock. It was when something terrible happened, either to them or to someone close to them. It was how humans shut down when they experienced overload. But synthetics could never shut down.

68

As Stan turned to the radio it suddenly burst into life. An unfamiliar voice said, “Hello? Is there someone aboard the harvester?”

Stan sat down at the instrument panel. “Yes, there is someone here.”

“I thought as much. This is Potter, captain of the Bio-Pharm ship Lancet. You are trespassing on Bio-Pharm territory. Identify yourself at once!”

“I am Dr. Stanley Myakovsky,” Stan said. “There are only three of us here—myself, a woman, and an android. We are all that is left of a survey expedition sent to inspect the hive on AR-32.”

“I knew you were here, Doctor,” Potter said. “That says it all, I think.”

“Maybe you don’t know everything, Captain,” Stan said. “Our ship was damaged during the recent storm. We require help badly.”

“I understand,” Potter said. “I am sending men to pick you up. Be prepared to leave the harvester. That is all for now.”

Stan put down the microphone and turned to Gill. “He says he’s sending help. I suppose you can guess what kind of help Potter is going to offer.”

Gill didn’t answer. He was watching through one of the view panels as the Lancet’s primaries flared briefly and the great ship dropped slowly and majestically down through the sky in a shining glitter of landing jets. The big ship settled effortlessly on AR-32’s plain. Soon after the landing, there was a sparkle of bright lines along the ground, and then something almost transparent that looked like the ghost of a wall erected itself around the Lancet.

“I see you have your force field up,” Stan said. “A wise precaution, I can assure you.”

“We’re able to throw some protection around your ship, too,” Potter said. “My men are coming now.”

A bay door in the Lancet’s side cracked open, then let down to the ground, forming a landing ramp. Stan watched a dozen men come running down the ramp. Carrying bulky weapons, they were masked and shielded, and wearing full space armor.

“You waste no time, do you, Captain?” Stan said.

“You’re damned right,” Potter said. “The sooner I get you people out of the harvester the better.”

“One way or another,” Stan said mildly.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing,” Stan muttered. “But it looks to me like your men are running into a little difficulty.”

69

The armed men were moving across the corridors between the force fields that lay between Potter’s ship and the harvester. The force fields shimmered faintly in the pelting rain. Low, flat lighting, grim and without shadows, illuminated the scene, and this was aided by the search beam from the Lancet, which flooded different areas with its sulfurous, yellow light. The men moved at a brisk trot, helmet shields up so they could communicate better.

Their troubles began slowly and built fast. The first man to scream was hardly noticed, so rapidly were the others moving. But then the squad leader became aware that something was amiss.

His name was Blake and he was from Los Angeles. He was used to skulking around smoking ruins and walking down ruined streets. So he wasn’t entirely surprised when he saw one of the men throw his arms in the air as something long and black snaked out from seemingly nowhere and grabbed him around the neck. But what had it been? Blake wasn’t sure. He stared, gaped. Another man screamed, and was dragged away shrieking. Then Blake realized that somehow the aliens had gotten into the uninterdicted corridors between the force fields, and were grabbing soldiers as they crossed from one field to another.

Seeing this, Blake shouted some orders. His little squadron was already cut in half. He ordered the remaining soldiers to fight back-to-back. They were closer to the harvester than to the Lancet, so he ordered them to continue.

You could see that the men didn’t want to go. What had begun as a nice little bug fight had turned into a slaughter of humans. It wasn’t fair! But there was no one to complain to.

They fought, their weapons flashing and flaming, and they caught a group of aliens as they were preparing to charge, caught them dead on and blew them to hell and back. The air rained black body parts. The acid from the aliens’ wounds sprayed far and wide, and the ground sizzled beneath them. Luckily the soldiers were in acid-proof armor, or the acid would have made short work of them.

The sun came out as the slaughter continued, and the men seemed to be holding their own. Then the aliens got around the other side of the force field, and the soldiers were caught between two attacking alien groups.

They continued fighting, falling one after another. The lucky ones were dead when they hit the ground. Some of the others, wounded but not yet dead, weren’t so lucky. Aliens draped them over their shoulders and retreated to the hive. These soldiers would make fine hosts, just what the queen needed.

Seeing this, Blake fought hard to keep his composure. It was unnerving, seeing friend after friend pulled apart, torn to bits, or dragged away unconscious to be glued to the wall of the hive with something small and deadly growing inside him, after the facehugger had done its work.

Blake turned back. It was all happening too fast. When he looked around, he saw the last of his men collapse, scream, and get dragged off. Blake saw his chance and sprinted to the harvester. He got there before the aliens, but just barely. He pounded at the door. “Let me in! Please, please, let me in!”

Stan’s mild-mannered face peered back at him through the viewport. His lips moved. Blake couldn’t hear the words, but Stan was saying, “Sorry, I can’t open the door. I don’t have the strength to close it again.”

Blake pounded again, and then the aliens were on him. A claw came around his shoulder and grabbed his face at the forehead. It pulled, tearing the skin right off. Blake felt his nose pull away, felt his lips leave his mouth, felt all this, and then another claw had seized him by the neck, it was pulling out the tendons of his neck! And then Blake felt no more.

70

Potter was shouting, his voice grating on the speaker. “Damn you! What have you done to my men?”

“Not a thing, Captain,” Myakovsky said. “They brought it on themselves. Nothing I could do for them. Can you get us out of here, Captain?”

“It seems scarcely worth my time,” Potter grumbled. “I ought to nuke all of you.”

“But then you’d lose the contents of the harvester,” Stan said.

“True enough. But I could always come back for it, after things have cooled down.”

“I have a better plan,” Stan said. “Something that will be of use to us all.”

“Hurry up and tell me what it is,” Potter said. “I don’t like leaving my ship down here.”

“It’s too complicated to explain over radio,” Stan said. “But I think you will like it. Listen, I have an android here who has been damaged in recent fighting. I could send him over to you. He’d explain the whole thing.”

“I don’t know if I should even bother.” Potter was obviously thinking aloud.

“I think you’ll be interested in my scheme,” Stan continued. “And after all, it won’t take very long.”

“All right,” Potter said. “Send him over. This better be good.”

“It’ll be very good,” Stan affirmed.

“How are you going to get him through the aliens? If my own men couldn’t make it, how do you expect your android to get here?”

“Modern technology is a wonderful thing,” Stan said evasively. “He’ll be right over, Captain. Signing off.”

71

“Julie,” Gill said. “Can you hear me?”

Julie’s eyelids fluttered. Pain contorted her face. She gave a long shudder and then looked around. “Oh my God, is this where I am? I was having such a nice dream, Gill. There’s this lake I know of. I went there just once when I was a little girl. I remember fields of spring flowers, a little lake. There was a rowboat. I was drifting in the rowboat, and there were willows hanging down over the boat. Oh, Gill, it was so pretty!”

“I’m sure it was,” Gill said.

“Have you ever had a dream like that?” Julie asked.

“No, I have not,” Gill replied. “I do not dream.”

“Well, you can have half of mine,” Julie said sleepily. “It wasn’t really a little lake, I don’t need it all… Where’s Stan?”

“He’s right over there,” Gill said. “He’s trying to save you.”

Julie grimaced. “I’m afraid he’s cut it a little too fine this time. Poor Stan. He has such great ideas. But I’m glad I came, anyhow. He’s not long for this world, you know.”

“I know,” Gill said.

“It’s too bad. He’s such a brilliant man. But they’ve done nothing but crowd him. He hasn’t had a chance. Except this one. And I think this wasn’t much of a chance.”

“I suppose not,” Gill said.

She looked at him. “Your arm! What happened?”

“Ran into a little trouble,” Gill said.

“You’re using understatement, just like a human.”

“I suppose it rubs off,” Gill said. “A lot of things do. I feel…”

“Yes?”

“I feel like I understand a lot more about humans now,” Gill said. “It’s… interesting, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is,” Julie said. “Are you all right, Gill? You’ve got a very strange expression on your face.”

“I’m fine,” Gill muttered. “It’s just that… well, even an android can run out of time.”

Suddenly Stan’s voice came from across the cabin. “Gill? What are you doing?”

“Just looking after Julie, sir.”

“That’s good. But she needs to rest now. Come over here. I have some instructions for you.”

“Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.” He turned to Julie. “Julie…”

“What is it, Gill?”

“Try not to forget me.” Gill stood up and crossed the room.

Stan Myakovsky was huddled up in the control chair. He appeared to be experiencing no pain for the moment. But he had changed. Gill noticed that the doctor seemed to have shrunk inside his own skin, to be falling in on himself.

“Now pay attention,” Stan said. “Forget about Julie for a moment. I have work for you to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are going over to the Lancet to parlay with Captain Potter.”

“To what end, sir?”

“Ah, yes,” Stan said. “Negotiations usually have a point, don’t they? Ours will be different. There’s no point at all.”

“But what do you want me to accomplish, sir?”

“Oh, that I can easily tell you,” Stan said. “I want Potter to take his ship away from here. I will retain the harvester. I will find some way to make rendezvous with Captain Hoban, and we will go back home with our ill-gotten gains. How does that sound to you?”

“Wonderful, sir. But I’m afraid—”

“Yes, I am, too,” Stan said. “The captain is not going to like it at all. That’s why I have something else in mind. Come over here to the workbench, Gill. I have a modification I must make in you.”

Gill hesitated. “A modification, sir?”

“You heard me. What is the matter with you?”

“I wouldn’t want to change my thinking on certain issues.”

Stan looked at Gill then glanced over at Julie, who was resting with eyes closed. “I think I understand. You’ve undergone quite a little course in humanization, have you not?”

“I don’t know what to call it, but I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

“I won’t change any of those qualities you call emotional, Gill. They are rare and special, I agree with you on that, and sometimes they are a long time coming to men—and to androids, never. Or just about never. No, it’s your command structure I need to modify. And something I need to wire into you. It will make it easier for you to do what you will have to do, unless things go a lot better than I imagine they will.”

“I wish you’d explain a little more,” Gill said, letting Stan take him by his remaining hand and lead him over to the workbench.

Stan checked out his instruments. “Better not to explain too much,” he said, fitting magnifying lenses over his glasses. “I’ll know what to do when the time comes. And so will you.”

72

There were heavy ground mists when Gill left the harvester and started his trek to the Lancet. The ship loomed eerily in the mounting mists. Gill walked between the force fields. There were aliens out there, and he walked past them. The aliens were searching, but they didn’t seem to know what they were looking for.

Gill knew that he had a certain amount of natural immunity, since androids did not smell like men. But to be on the safe side he had taken the last suppressor. Gill touched it on his wrist for luck. He wasn’t superstitious, but he knew that men were, and of late he had been seeking to emulate them in every way.

The suppressor was working. It had been Mac’s, but that was quite a while ago and now Mac was a bundle of wet fur on a garbage heap in an alien hive.

Gill knew he had to keep his mind on business. Usually, this was no problem for an android. Artificial men weren’t bothered by random thoughts, stray insights, weasel realizations that came to them like thieves in the night. Not usually. But this time was different.

Gill found that his attention was divided. Part of him was observing the terrain he passed over, noting the presence and position of the aliens, watching as he drew nearer to the Lancet. But with another part of his mind he was thinking of Julie, seeing her as she had been just a day ago, vibrant and laughing, filled with life. He had felt something special for her then.

What was it? Was it what the humans called love? How could he find out? No human had been able to explain love to him. Even Stan grew embarrassed and turned away when Gill had asked him to explain the concept and give it a quantifiable value.

Humans were so strange, so filled with odd compunctions that covertly ruled their behavior. And now he had the most understanding of them he would ever have. It all came from stray thoughts, he told himself, and he worked hard to banish Julie’s image from his mind as he approached the entry port of the Lancet.

73

Two of Potter’s crew, heavily armed, were waiting for him in the entryway.

“I don’t know how the hell you got through,” one of them said.

“I’ve got a pass,” Gill told them. They just stared at him. Gill decided that his first attempt at that key human quality, humor, hadn’t been a success. But he reminded himself that he was new at it. Perhaps he would get better as he went along.

The two guards looked through the port visor. They could see the aliens, slowly drifting toward the ship, forming up against the almost invisible walls of the force field. They didn’t do anything. Just stood there, their heads facing the ship, and it was as though some great power of attraction held them there. They were surrounding the force field that protected the harvester, too, more and more of them, and the sight of them was singularly uncanny and disquieting.

“We better tell the captain about this,” one of the guards said. To Gill he said, “Come on, you. Raise your arms. We’re going to search you.”

Gill did as he was told. “I carry no weapons,” he told them.

“Sure. But we’ll just check you anyhow. What happened to your arm?”

“I lost it at the movies,” Gill said. Again, the guards did not laugh. They just stared at him like he was crazy. Gill wondered what he was doing wrong. This humor thing was going to take some studying.

74

“Julie, can you hear me?”

Julie had been lying on the deck of the harvester near one of the heaters. Stan had found a blanket in one of the back bays and wrapped it around her. She looked better than she had since the accident.

“Stan?” she said. “I’m very cold.”

“Let me see if I can find another blanket,” Stan said. “I already have these heaters going full blast.”

He stood up to go, but Julie reached out and grabbed his arm. “No, don’t leave me, Stan. We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”

“To one way of thinking, yes, we are. But to another, we’re in no trouble at all. We’re together, and we’re going to stay that way. Here, Julie, I have something for you. For us both, actually.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the little case containing the Xeno-Zip ampoules. There were six of them. He uncapped one and lifted Julie’s head so she could drink. When she took down the first ampoule, he matched her with one, then uncorked another.

“We aren’t supposed to take more than one, are we?”

“I’ve got a special dispensation,” Stan said. “Don’t worry, it’ll do us no harm.”

Julie swallowed the contents of a second ampoule. She shuddered, then laughed. “You were right, Stan. I feel a lot better.”

“Me, too,” Stan said, sitting down on the deck beside her and holding her close to share the warmth. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

“It’s very nice, Stan,” Julie said. “We never found much time for this before, did we?”

“Unfortunately not. Sometimes it takes a long time to realize what a good thing is.”

“As long as it happens sometime,” Julie said.

“Don’t worry, Julie. We’re going to get out of this.”

“I’m sure we are,” Julie told him. “One way or the other.” She could feel the pain leaving her body. How miraculous the Xeno-Zip was! What a pleasure it was to be free of pain.

She knew it had to be the same way for Stan. For the moment they were both young and strong and were going to live forever. This could only last a little while. But perhaps, she thought, it’ll be long enough.

The radio kicked into life. “Dr. Myakovsky! Are you there?” It was Captain Hoban from the Dolomite.

“I have to issue a few last-minute instructions,” Stan said to Julie. “Excuse me, my dear, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

75

On the Dolomite, Hoban had been working hard to keep the location of his ship a secret. He had no doubt what Potter would do if he knew there was another ship in the area, and where it was situated. He had no intention of sharing the fate of the Valparaiso Queen, the wreck that silently circled the planet. He hadn’t known quite what to do. But then Stan’s message had come to him, and he had no choice but to make contact.

“Sir,” Hoban said, “I need to tell you, by radioing me, you have compromised this ship’s position. You shouldn’t have done that, sir.”

“Now, now,” Stan said. “I have a plan whereby Potter and his crew will be neutralized. There will be nothing to prevent you from making rendezvous with us at these coordinates as soon as possible.”

“I understand, sir,” Hoban said. “But there is a problem. From your present location, it is going to take me at least twenty minutes to get to you.”

“As long as that?” Stan exclaimed. From where he sat, he could see through one of the viewports as the aliens massed in front of the force field, not trying to get through it—that would have been impossible—but coming together in ever-growing numbers, those behind pushing away those in front. They were crowded as close to each other as they could get and some of them were mounting on the back of others, and others were climbing on top of those.

Stan saw at once what was going to happen. They were going to keep on piling themselves up until they were able to topple over the rim of the force field, which was only about twelve feet high. Then they’d come for him and Julie.

He didn’t want to think about it, so he took refuge in analysis.

This swarming behavior was probably some sort of instinctual mechanism for getting them over barriers that were otherwise impassable. It was really very interesting. Ari had to see this.

Stan took out the cybernetic ant, poised him on a fingertip, and lifted his hand so Ari could see through the viewport.

“See what’s happening, Ari? Are you taking it all in? Future generations are going to be very interested in what we have done today.”

The little creature gave no sign that he was listening, yet he showed a certain alertness.

Stan continued, “You’ve been a good companion, Ari. Silent and uncomplaining. Who could ask for anything more? I only wish Norbert were here, too. You’ll have to tell them how it was with us, Ari. If you get out of this, that is.”

Ari, as usual, was silent.

“Stan!” Julie called.

“I’ll be right over,” Stan answered. He broke the connection with Hoban and changed frequencies. In a moment the sullen face of Captain Potter appeared on the viewscreen.

“About time you called, Myakovsky. I don’t have much patience.”

“Not much more is required,” said Stan.

“I will listen now to your offer.”

“Yes, Captain. What I suggest is that you forget all about this matter and take your ship some distance from here. While you are gone I will take this harvester ship and get away. You needn’t worry about losing the royal jelly aboard. There’s plenty of it down here for you. You can easily milk yourself another harvester load.”

“That’s great,” Potter said. “And just why should I do that?”

“Because I have a legal claim to this stuff which is every bit as good as Bio-Pharm’s claim. And because I want you to.”

“I think you’ve flipped out.”

“You’re not going to do it? No harm in asking, was there?”

“You’re wasting my time,” Potter spat. “There’s no deal, Myakovsky. I don’t need to negotiate with you. I’m taking what I want.”

“Right,” Stan said. “Gill?”

Gill’s face appeared in the viewscreen. “Yes, Doctor?”

“Activate Subroutine Diogenes,” Stan said. “Signing off, Captain Potter.”

* * *

“That doctor of yours is really crazy,” Potter said to Gill. “He must think he still swings some weight. You can just forget any order he gave you. Things are going to be a little different now.”

“Yes, they are,” said Gill. The time was finally at hand.

He put his remaining hand to his mouth and popped in one finger. With a single wrench, he tore the finger off.

“What are you doing?” Potter said. “Stop that!”

“Subroutine Diogenes is beginning,” Gill said, tearing off a second finger. “You know the old story about the rich man’s house?”

“What are you talking about?”

Off came another finger. “In the rich man’s house,” Gill said, “a guest has a problem if he wants to spit.” Off came the fourth finger.

“You’re crazy,” Potter said. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

“In the rich man’s house,” Gill said, “there’s no place to spit but in his face.” The fifth and last finger came off. There was a frozen moment in the control room of the Lancet. Then Gill blew up. Literally.

The explosion of the artificial man enclosed the Lancet in a rosy glow shot through with yellow diamonds.

76

“What was that?” Julie asked.

“Just somebody knocking at the door,” Stan said.

It came again: a heavy booming sound. Stan noted that the aliens had gotten over the top of the force field, scrambling up on each other’s shoulders and toppling over. Now they were pounding and tearing at the entry port to the harvester. Stan could hear the metal start to buckle under their blows.

“It’s very loud,” Julie said dreamily.

“I think our friends are becoming agitated,” Stan said. “It won’t be long now.”

“Is there any more of that royal jelly left?” Julie asked.

“Let me just see… Yes, my dear, we have another two ampoules. Here, let me uncork that and hold it for you… That’s better, eh?”

“Much better,” Julie smiled as Stan swallowed his ampoule.

The radio squawked into life. “Doctor! What in hell is going on! Potter’s ship…”

It was Hoban. Stan said, his voice very low, “It was nice, eh, Captain?”

“What did you say, Doctor?”

“Gill made a satisfactory explosion, didn’t he?” Stan said. “Gill did his part very well. How close are you, Captain?”

“Another five minutes.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have that long,” Stan said. “I hope I won’t be alive to see the last act. Hoban, it’s been a pleasure knowing you. I hope you have no trouble clearing your name on Earth and going on with your brilliant career. Tell them on Earth…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Oh, tell them anything,” Stan said, suddenly testy. “Over and out.” He shut off the radio, then turned to Julie. “Goodbye, sweetheart.”

“See you again soon,” Julie said.

They kissed. And they were still kissing when the entry port shattered and the aliens came into the harvester.

77

Stan thought that was all. But it wasn’t, not quite. There was a long blank stretch. He was vaguely aware that Julie was dead. All the others were dead, too, of course. Ari? He didn’t know what had happened to Ari. And as for himself, he was surprised to find he was looking down on a corridor floor. He realized that the aliens had suspended him to the wall. He was in no pain. The royal jelly was still working. But something was growing inside him. He could feel it.

He was about to give birth. And die.

Now Stan summoned up all his courage and all his remaining strength. He opened his mouth and yelled. It was a long, hard, satisfactory yell. He could feel his body vibrating as he yelled. And a poem came to his mind…

I would have mourned the loss of my life

If I had not been already dead.

And then he felt the chestburster come crashing through his chest, its expressionless face already questing for food. And then there was only darkness, and it was warm, like Julie’s kiss.

* * *

When Captain Hoban finally brought the Dolomite down to AR-32’s surface, he found the remnants of Potter’s crew. Julie was still alive, and Badger was missing, but everyone else was dead. Along with Julie, only Ari, the cybernetic ant, was left.

Once he was back in the ship, Hoban wasted no time trying to read the ant’s memory files. But they were locked with an unbreakable molecular combination. Only Stan knew the combination, and Stan had forgotten to unlock the files to permit the final details of his story to be known.

HOBAN’S AFTERWORD

That was the end of it, all except for cleaning up what was left. When Gill blew himself up, he disabled the Lancet’s control system. It took several days for Potter and his remaining men—those who hadn’t been killed in the blast—to repair it. It gave me the time to bring the Dolomite down to the harvester, where Stan and Julie had made their last stand.

We had a brisk firefight with the two aliens we found inside. But we managed to put them down without further loss of human life. They were carrying containers of royal jelly. All the rest of the aliens were gone.

We didn’t know at first where they had disappeared to, or why.

It took us a while to figure it out. First we had to get Julie in the ship and into emergency medical. We did that, and she finally came through it all right. She was nearly well when we got back to Earth. I don’t know what she’s doing now; we lost touch.

I did see Badger again. He came to visit me one day shortly after I bought my new house on the Pacific Palisades. I had been reinstated, and I was doing well again as a spaceship captain. I owe it all to Stan. It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t stolen that ship, which brought the whole thing to the attention of the authorities and resulted in the reopening of my old case. This time a jury found for me, and against Bio-Pharm.

Badger arrived when I was between flights. He just wanted to say hello. We talked a while. Potter had brought him back to Earth in the Lancet, after he’d fixed the damage Gill caused.

“He didn’t like me,” Badger said cheerfully, “but he couldn’t very well kick me out. I was the one who’d tipped him off to you and the doctor.”

“And got Stan killed,” I pointed out.

“He did his best to get me killed,” Badger said.

“That was not intentional.”

“No? Well, neither was my blowing the whistle on you to Potter. I was just trying to save my own life.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

* * *

Badger was curious about one thing. When we’d gone back to get Stan and Julie, why had we only found two aliens, instead of the hordes that had been swarming over the harvester? And why hadn’t they gotten to Julie?

“That bothers me, too,” I said. “No one will ever really know. But I’ve got a theory.”

“I’d like to hear it,” Badger said.

“I figure there’d be communication of some sort between the aliens and their queen. I think she sent them an order that overrode everything else they were doing.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You know all that royal jelly that Potter’s men had packed into the harvester? It was gone, all of it. I think the queen told them the first thing to do was to recover all the stolen royal jelly and bring it back to the hive. Then they could go back and finish off whatever humans were left. But we had come and gone by then. I can never prove it, but that’s what I think happened.”

Badger stared at me, taking it in.

I began to laugh. Badger said, “What’s so funny?”

“It’s not really funny,” I said. “But it is ironic. That the royal jelly that was ultimately responsible for Stan’s death should also be responsible for saving Julie’s life.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David Bischoff is the author of forty novels spanning almost every genre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, YA, and mystery. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Star Trek: The Next Generation—Grounded. The scripts he’s written for television include two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Robert Sheckley is the author of over fifty books in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. His novel Immorality, Inc. was made into the movie Freejack. The cult classic The Tenth Victim was made from his original short story. Mr. Sheckley is a New Yorker currently residing in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.

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