Alan Dean Foster (12 page)

Francisco replied in a low whisper as he gestured with his right hand. "At the end of the bar."

Nodding, Sykes headed in that direction. "My name's Sykes. Detective Sergeant Sykes. I'm with the L.A. . . ."

An alien voice interrupted, rich with disbelief. -Ss'ai k'ss ? "

The individual roared with laughter. It spread like a wave through the bar as the information was passed from table to booth. Too late, Sykes remembered what his name translated into in the alien tongue. His face was burning, but it was probably too dark even for the damn Slags to note the change. Most likely none of them would recognize the significance of heightened skin color among a human anyway.

He was having plenty of trouble focusing on the distant 80

speaker, so it wasn't surprising he missed the size-16 work boot that emerged from one of the booths to trip him. He stumbled but didn't go down, spinning to confront the offender. But the booth was suddenly filled only with lavender-tinged shadows. Laughter taunted him, accompanied by soft alien admonitions.

A new voice reached him, leavened with amusement. "Careful, ss'loka'. You might hurt yourself."

More laughter, but this time Sykes spotted the speaker. He stared hard, then calmed himself as he resumed his march to the end of the bar. True to his word, Francisco kept his mouth shut, trailing silently behind.

The Newcomer Sykes found himself confronting was as big as any he'd seen.

He wore greasy, stained coveralls. Beneath the hapless overdose of cologne he stank to high heaven. If possible, his boots were larger than the one which had just tripped the detective.

But Sykes abruptly found himself much more interested in the smaller Newcomer seated on the last stool. He was dressed and coiffured in postpunk style. Unlike his oversized neighbor, he was making obvious efforts to render himself inconspicuous. Sykes smiled tightly to himself.

The Newcomers made lousy poker players. Their emotions always showed in their posture and expressions.

Sykes kept staring without speaking. Sure enough, the Newcomer couldn't keep himself from turning to catch a glimpse of the two cops staring back at him. His expression underwent a drastic shift when he spotted Francisco, but the alien detective was looking elsewhere at the time and missed it.

Sykes's attention kept shifting between the two Newcomers. Just because the punk wore a guilty air didn't mean he was the one they were looking for. Frankly, the big guy seated next to him appeared a much more likely candidate for serious antisocial behavior,

"You Porter?" Sykes said to the broad back.

The Newcomer ignored him, sipping at his mug. It was half full of sour milk. Sykes didn't waste time, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and spun him round. Given the alien's

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bulk it wasn't an easy move, but he managed it. Practice compensated somewhat for his lesser mass.

The Newcomer flicked the detective's fingers from his shoulder. He slid off the stool and stood up. Kept standing up, locking eyes with Sykes.

Meanwhile the punker who'd been seated nearby was edging off his seat.

Francisco grabbed him before he'd made it to the end of the bar, speaking for the first time since they'd entered. "No, Matthew. I believe this is the one you want." As he spun the younger alien around, the detective got his first good look at him. It confirmed his initial suspicions.

Sykes favored the big alien with a final warning look, then gratefully stepped past the giant to rejoin his partner. He turned his frustration on the punk.

"Your name wouldn't happen to be Porter, would it?"

"Uh, Matt, if I may . . .-

Sykes snapped at his colleague. "Back off, George."

"But I . . .-

"I'll handle it. Just do as you're told." Francisco reluctantly let go of the punk's shirt and stepped back.

The youth wasn't nearly as big as the millworker Sykes had just confronted, but he was still plenty impressive. Sykes made a show of his frustration.

"Geez, are these questions too tough for you? I know some of you guys are slow, but it's not like the music's drowning me out, right?" He sighed melodramatically. "Let's try it one more time." He framed the words with his lips. ' 'Is . . . your . . . name . . . Porter?''

The punker replied in a monotone. -Ss'kya'ta.-

Sykes made a face, glanced at Francisco. "What's that?"

"Screw you," his partner informed him without batting an eye.

"Screw me? That can't be right," he said amiably.

Having warmed to his subject, Porter became positively voluble. "Ss'kya'ta ss'loka. Sss'troyka ss'lato 'na'!"

Sykes's voice dropped dangerously. "What's all that mean?"

Francisco sounded nonplussed. "You don't want to know."

"Tell me."

"Matt, really, I'd rather not bother with. .

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"Tell me, damnit."

The detective swallowed, said rapidly and without pause, "Your mother mates out of season."

Sykes relaxed, smiling appreciatively. "That's very colorful. However, it doesn't mean zip to a human. We mate all the time, see?"

"I know. That's precisely the point."

"He can make all the points he wants about my love life. But see, now I've got a problem. I don't seem to be getting much cooperation from you, Porter. So I guess we're gonna have to take this little session down to my office, ya know? Everybody down there mates out of season, in case you're interested, and when they haven't mated for a while they get mean and nasty and impolite. Does that translate into anything worthwhile, George?"

"It makes a point."

"I'm glad something does,"

He could tell Porter was getting ready to run. Sykes wasn't utterly ignorant of Newcomer characteristics. He dug in his pocket for a plastic tube. Not the Casull, but a flashlight with a high-intensity krypton bulb. As Porter tensed to break, he flipped on the light. The Newcomer let out a cry and turned away in obvious distress. So did every alien within range of the white light. Even Francisco, half expecting Sykes to do something, was taken by surprise and had to flinch.

Being able to see better in the dark, Sykes reflected grimly, also came with disadvantages.

By the time Porter knew what had hit him, Sykes had the alien pinned up against the bar and was working with his cuffs. But it was hard to manipulate flashlight and handcuffs simultaneously. As the light waved around, Porter got a hand free and grabbed the end of the tube. Massive fingers convulsed and the plastic splintered, smashing down into the fragile bulb. Blood trickled from the punker's hand, but the light was out.

Sykes cursed himself for not bringing a regulation aluminum flash, but he'd decided the Casull was enough extra weight to lug around. Now it might cost him. Darkness

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regained the room and Sykes's sense of satisfaction vanished with the light.

Porter hurled him onto a table, shrugging him off easily. Sykes hit hard, winced, and scrambled back onto his feet. Francisco was moving.

"Matt, you don't have to do this."

The detective was shrugging off the pain in his sacrum. "Stay back! I'm okay. I told you I'd handle this." Looking doubtful, Francisco retreated.

Taking a deep breath, Sykes charged Porter, brandishing the broken flashlight like a club. The punker took a shot to the face which drew blood but didn't put him down. He worked at parrying the detective's punches.

Sykes was faster, the alien far stronger. The longer the fight lasted, the more Porter's confidence grew.

It didn't do any good to land blows on your opponent if they had no effect, Sykes realized tiredly. Aware he was doing nothing except getting good and winded, he made another rush, feinting high with the light, then bringing his knee up sharply into the alien's groin. Porter doubled, and almost as quickly straightened. He was smiling. That was not the expression Sykes expected him to be wearing.

"Don't they teach you anything about us in cop school, little ss'loka'?"

Porter grabbed Sykes by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground preparatory to delivering a final crushing blow. Another arm flashed through the darkness to block the punch. Porter looked over in surprise.

Francisco was glaring at him. "Enough."

The punker stared back. "Ss'tangya T'ssorentsa. You're a cop. " He didn't try to conceal the contempt in his voice. "It fits you. "

Francisco replied in the alien tongue. Porter eyed him for a long moment, then slumped slightly as he let loose of Sykes and shambled toward the rear of the bar. Sykes pulled himself together, straightening his clothing and his composure. The laughter in the bar had died down. The show was over, and normal conversation echoed from tables and 87

booths. The patrons now chose to ignore the detectives, which was fine with the shaken Sykes.

"You know the guy?"

Francisco nodded. "From quarantine, from when we first arrived on your world. You may recall that we were grouped randomlv, with no attempt at preserving family groups or friends." He nodded in Porter's direction.

"He and I were housed together. "

Sykes frowned. "How could a straight-arrow like you ever pick a roommate like him?"

"In the camps we were lodged four to a room. You must remember that the processing was overseen by the military. It was all done very arbitrarily and in considerable haste. We were simply told which room to go to after we had been issued bedding, identification cards, and toiletry articles-and new names."

He passed Sykes, moving toward the bar's back exit. Sykes looked after him, then followed, careful to watch where he put his feet.

The alley looked like any big-city alley. The Newcomers had not had time to build housing to their liking, and they left human structures pretty much alone, adapting to them without extensive modification. They hadn't had much choice. It was easier to rent than to build, especially in a city as expensive as Los Angeles. A few attempts to build specifically to Newcomer needs had been made by entrepreneurs like William Harcourt, but their projects were isolated and few.

To make it worse, wealthy humans drawn to anything new and different outbid those few aliens with money enough to buy a house for the slightly alien structures Harcourt and his partners built.

Porter was leaning against the far wall of the alley, hands jammed in his pockets and looking sullen. His accent was thick and liberally laced with a weird mixture of human and alien street slang. It hadn't taken the younger Newcomers long to learn that there was mre than one kind of English.

Francisco confronted him, keeping out of easy reach. "You don't know what your father and these two men who came to visit him that day were arguing about?"

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" I told you. " Porter spoke without looking at the big detective. "I was in the back of the store. I just heard muffled voices. I had the box on and I couldn't hear any words. Just talking sounds, like."

Francisco sounded doubtful. "You didn't try to listen in, maybe learn something useful? A deep-holed ss'yuti' like yourself?"

"I told you, I didn't hear nothin'!" Porter responded defensively. "I didn't give a damn about the old man and his friends. He had a lot of visitors. I always figured it was just business, so I stayed out of it.

That kind of ss'loka crap never interested me. "

"Didn't it?" said Sykes. "Why do I have this tight feeling inside that you're not telling us the truth?" When Porter didn't comment he tried a different tack. "One of the two men was named Hubley, right?"

"What if it was?"

Sykes ignored the challenge. "What about the other one? Did you see him?"

S) kes leaned in close so that the punker couldn't avoid his eyes. "You're not being helpful enough, Porter. It would please me if you were a I ittle more helpful."

The younger man shifted uneasily against the wall. "Okay, what of it? Yeah, I seen him around. Highroller dude named Strader. Joshua Strader. Runs a club on the West Side. 'Encounters,' I think it's called."

Sykes was nodding to himself. "Yeah, I heard of it." He spat in the direction of the X-Bar's exit. "Caesar's Palace compared to this rathole.

"

"That's all I know." Porter was shifting nervously from one foot to the other, like a cat that's been too long in a box on its way to the vet. "You want to know anything more, you ask somebody else."

He turned and waited expectantly. After a long look, Francisco moved aside to let him pass. As the punker mooched through the doorway leading back into the bar, the Newcomer detective had a final word for him.

"I am sorry about your father."

Porter threw him a last, inconclusive look. Then he was gone, swallowed back up by the alien hissing and ultravio-89

lets. Sykes and Francisco headed up the alley toward the main street.

Francisco paused once they'd reached the slugmobile. "If I may make a suggestion, Matt?"

Sykes looked across at him, the door open and his hand on the handle.

"Like what?"

"We have different weak spots than you do. If you intend in the future to try extracting information from one of us by the use of physical force, you should know exactly how to go about it." He raised his right arm and pointed. "There are sensitive nerve centers here, beneath each arm. A blow to this spot will produce the effect I think you were looking for, "

"Yeah, sure." Sykes didn't look at his partner as he climbed into the car. "I knew that all the time. I just never got the opening, that's all."

Francisco's face was expressionless as he slid in alongside his partner.

"Of course. . ."

Sykes studied the menu mounted above the serving counter. It was late and the burger stand wasn't crowded. The menu was in both English and the alien language. To the detective the Newcomer hieroglyphs looked like the scribbles Kristin used to bring home from kindergarten.

Teenage humans and aliens mixed freely behind the counter, working together to produce both varieties of fast food. Sykes envied thern their easy camaraderie. It just proved what everyone knew all along: if you put any group of kids together and kept 'ern away from the adults, they'd get along fine. It took experienced grown-ups to really screw things up.