Alan Dean Foster (20 page)

Seeing what he was doing, Francisco read the letters and frowned. "E.T.P.D.

What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Forget it. A bad joke. It doesn't have anything to do with you.

"

"Oh." Francisco straightened and peered down toward the parking lot.

"Detective Fedorchuk and Alterez are approaching. "

"Swell." Sykes leaned harder into his work.

Fedorchuk slowed his car and leaned out to yell at the Newcomer. "Well, if it isn't Detective Francisco. How come you didn't join the party down there? You forget your hip waders, big guy?"

Sykes glanced up from his job. "Lay off, asshole."

Fedorchuk grinned down at him. "I may be an asshole, but at least I'm a real detective, not some outer space shit thing who got rank because he looks good in somebody's PR brochure. "

His expression neutral, Sykes put the rag carefully aside and sauntered over to Fedorchuk's side of the car. "Yeah? You mean you're a real honest-to-God detective?"

Reaching in, he grabbed the back of Fedorchuk's head and slammed it into the steering wheel. It bounced nicely, but he was sorry he'd done it because he hurt his hand again. He turned away, wincing and holding his wrist.

"Damn! Should've used the other one." He shook the reinjured member while reaching into the car. Before a startled Alterez could react, Sykes yanked out the keys.

Turning, he used his good hand to hurl the keys over the side of the bluff below the access road. They landed somewhere in the dense ground cover.

142

" Detect these!

Holding his bloody nose, Fedorchuk recovered just in time to see the keys go sailing out in a high arc to vanish somewhere far below. Francisco had just climbed into the slugmobile when the keys were launched. He observed the rest of the inexplicable episode in silence, wondering what strange manifestation of human behavior it signified.

Fedorchuk was leaning out his window, trying to open the door, and hold his nose together while simultaneously hurling epithets at Sykes. Alterez had to hang on to his partner to keep him in the car.

"You son-of-a-bitch, Sykes! You're dead meat, you understand? You hear me, Sykes? I don't give a shit what the Captain says. The next time I catch you alone you're mine! "

"I always knew you had the hots for me, Chuckie." Sykes slid behind the wheel of the slugmobile and slammed the door, flinched as his aching hand locked on the wheel. Clutching it gingerly, he threw the car in gear and roostertailed dirt as he roared up the road toward the highway. Francisco turned for a last look in the direction of the still hysterical Fedorchuk before eyeing his partner curiously.

"What was all that about?"

"Nothing," Sykes snapped, embarrassed and confused over what he'd done.

"A lot of violence for nothing."

"You think that was violence? You oughta be in the squad room some day when Warner's passing out commendations and some paper-pusher from upstairs walks off with all the brownie points.

"Detective Fedorchuk appeared extremely distressed with you. I I

"Fedorchuk was born distressed. Don't sweat it."

Francisco would have continued save for the fact that something in his partner's tone suggested that this was not the best time to analyze this particular sociology lesson. The Newcomer squared himself to the windshield, looking thoughtfully as Sykes goosed the slugmobile back toward L.A.

They ate at a different burger stand that night, though the 140

menu was little different from the other. Only the cutesy-pie names had been changed to protect the copyright. Dead meat was still dead meat.

Sykes reminded himself repeatedly that fast-food burgers were actually wholesome meals, if you discounted the fact that most of them were fried.

A burger with everything contained protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, vegetable bulk and fats. It was also tasty when it wasn't dried out.

The night was mellow and the two detectives sat across from each other as they dined. A young couple smooched nearby, shakes and fries languishing amidst whispers and sly little kisses. The kid looked to be about twenty-three, the girl a year or so younger. He kept trying to slip his hand between her thighs and she kept giggling and trapping his fingers, which was what he had in mind in the first place. It was all so innocent.

Hell, Sykes thought suddenly. You start thinking of a guy of twenty-three as a kid, that's a sure sign you're getting old. You start watching kids feeling each other up, that's a sure sign you've been alone too long.

Tough to go from being married to waking up by yourself in an empty bed.

Shit.

Francisco was demolishing his mole strips with unabashed gusto. This time Sykes knew what to expect and didn't let the sight bother him. He'd been on the force a lot of years, seen a lot of street scenes as gruesome as the one on the beach this morning, and dead mole shouldn't make him queasy. Hadn't he known a guy who used to tell a favorite 'Nam story about surviving in the jungle on rats and snakes? Better to eat a mole than a snake. What did moles eat, anyway?

And what did it matter? He'd eaten shark plenty of times, found it delicious, and sharks were the garbage scows of the sea. Since the Newcomer couldn't handle saltwater, he found himself wondering if they could eat saltwater fish. Would they want to? He could've asked his partner, but found his mind turning back to business.

You accumulate enough seemingly unrelated facts, he I"

mused, and toss 'em all in the pot together, and pretty soon they start matching up out of sheer number.

"So we've got three guys dead," he heard himself saying thoughtfully.

"All Newcomers, all killed the same way. Execution style. Unless you want to give credence to the theory that Strader went nuts and decided to take a latenight swim."

"There are neater ways of conirnitting suicide," Francisco assured him.

"Even an insane Newcomer would retain enough sense to keep clear of the ocean."

"All murdered, then. What else we got?"

"Not a great deal, I should say." Francisco ticked off what they knew on his thick fingers. "Warren Hubley was in middle management at a refinery, Joshua Strader was the prosperous operator of a bar and nightclub. . ."

"And Porter ran a piece-of-shit mom-and-pop minimart.

Sykes swallowed chocolate shake. "What the hell's our connection?"

"I do not know and cannot imagine." Francisco looked discouraged. "I fear I am not a very good detective. "

Sykes was instantly sympathetic. "The hell you ain't. We put puzzles together, that's all. Any such thing as an alien crystal ball?"

"A what?" his partner wondered curiously.

"Guess not. Too bad." The detective masticated a mouthful of burger. "You know, when you guys first landed here everyone expected extraordinary things from you. Supersecrets of the stars, and all that crap."

"Unreasonable expectations." Francisco daintily ticked a loose fragment of mole into the comer of his mouth.

"No shit. Imagine the disappointment when everybody realized you were just a bunch of dumb joes stuck on a one-way barge you didn't even know how to operate. I hear it's gonna take decades, maybe-centuries for our scientists to even start to figure out how the engine on your ship works.

"

"None of us knows," Francisco explained unnecessarily. Newcomer ignorance of their own science was common knowledge. "We were only passengers. When you get on a plane all you have to know how to do to reach your 145

destination is how to buy a ticket. No one expects you to fuel the plane, check it for damage, and navigate it."

"Yeah. Still, I suppose that U.N. team tearing the guts out of your strip will get a few money-making patents out of it sooner or later. Hey," he said brightly, "maybe it's a good thing you folks weren't any better than you turned out to be, hubT'

"That is probably the truth," Francisco said carefully.

V

jV

Except for Winter the pathology lab was deserted. He was seated behind his desk, demolishing cold takeout chicken and avidly scanning a very peculiar magazine when Sykes and Francisco entered without knocking. He hurriedly slid the magazine into an open desk drawer and smiled up at them, his mouth full of cholesterol.

Sykes didn't waste time. "You guys finished the postmortem on Strader yet?"

Winter mumbled around his chicken. "You mean the Blob'? They're finishing up now."

Francisco was staring past Winter, at the open door leading to the main lab and beyond. "Is Bentner here? I must speak with him."

"He went home early," Winter informed him. "His kid was sick, so I told him to take some time off. Slow day anyhow. All the excitement was Strader, and when we finished with that, no new business came in. So I'm not missing him."

The Newcomer frowned, at which point Winter put down his chicken. "Hang on, though. He left something for you."

Wiping his greasy fingers on a napkin, he searched the top of his crowded desk until he found what he was looking for. Francisco took the envelope and tore it open, scanned the alien script as Winter watched him closely.

"Does this have something to do with the test he ran that 146

147

he wouldn't tell me about? I mean, he doesn't have to tell me everything he does. Nobody here does. We all do our own work and try to stay out of the other guy's way, but there isn't a whole lot of call for privacy when you're working on somebody's insides."

Francisco ignored the technician as he read on, his expression turning stricken as he neared the end. Sykes was watching all the time, finally turned back to Winter.

"What kind of test?"

Winter shrugged. "Looking for some foreign compound in the blood of that alien you dropped the other day."

"Did he find anything?"

The lab tech shrugged again, nodding toward the message Francisco was perusing so intently. Sykes held off until he couldn't stand it any longer.

"Well?"

His partner glanced sharply at him, then folded the paper and placed it in his coat pocket. Seeing that Sykes was still staring at him, he hastened to look elsewhere.

"Answer me, man."

"It is nothing." The Newcomer detective turned to depart. "It is useless to remain here where nothing further may be learned." He headed rapidly up the hall.

"Thanks, Winter," Sykes said quickly.

"Hey, no problem." The tech returned to his chicken, frowned at a new thought. "You'll let me know if Bentner found anything out, won't you?"

But Sykes didn't hear him.

Francisco was moving fast and Sykes had to hurry to catch him at the elevators. The Newcomer jabbed one of the buttons with his thumb, made a show of following the indicator arrows as the car descended. Anything to avoid meeting Sykes's gaze.

His partner came right around in front of him. "Now what's this 'nothing'

shit? It wasn't nothing yesterday when you asked this guy Bentner to run that test and he looked like he was about to shit peach pits, and it's not nothing now. Don't lie to me, George, you're bad at it."

146

" All right." Francisco's voice was quiet. "There was something. "

Sykes relaxed slightly. "That's more like it. So tell me what it was.

Anything important?"

The Newcomer sounded very far away, as though by whispering he could put space between himself and his partner. "You must leave me alone on this, Matt. It is not something you would understand."

"Try me. I'm a good listener."

"No. I cannot explain."

The elevator stopped at their floor and he entered. Sykes followed, waited while his companion hit the button that would take them down to the parking level.

"You still don't understand how this works, do you, George? You don't ask me to leave you alone, I don't leave you alone. I'm your partner. I don't work that way. Tug didn't work that way. I don't care what kind of alien crapola your buddy Bentner dug out of that thug. If it has anything to do with what we're working on, I need to know. Whatever it is won't shake me. I've been on the street too long, and believe me, nothing from another world can shake me any worse than some of the stuff I've had to deal with downtown or over in Hollywood."

Francisco did not reply, concentrated instead with singleminded intensity on the colored green light that was illuminating one floor after another.

They were nearly at bottom when a frustrated Sykes slammed his palm against the red emergency stop button. Both men stumbled as the car lurched to a halt between floors. Sykes turned angrily on the baffled Francisco.

"No secrets, goddamnit! You don't hold back from me. Whatever is going on, you're gonna tell me now!" He reached up and grabbed the Newcomer by the lapels, an action more significant as a gesture than a real threat.

His partner could have dislodged him easily.

This time Francisco's voice was agonized. He refused to meet Sykes's eyes. "No. I cannot involve you. This is not your concern. "

"The hell it isn't, when somebody wires up enough C-4

149

to my car to turn me into pink mist!" His expression narrowed as he shoved his face closer to his partner's. "That Slag was on something, and no sour milk, either. Am I right? Go on, tell me I've got it all wrong." By now he'd backed the Newcomer up against the back wall of the elevator cab.

"Tell me! What is it?"

Francisco sighed deeply. It was an acknowledgment of resignation, and Sykes promptly let loose of his partner's suit, took a step backward.

"It is called ss'jabroka'. To us it is a potent narcotic."

Sykes felt vindicated. "About time. See, I ain't comin' apart at the seams from the shock. How potent?"

"It is difficult to draw anything like an exact analogy because of the differences in our physiological makeup. We react to ss'jabroka' much the same as you do to your cocaine, but the manner in which our systems deal with the combination of molecules involved is very different. To all outward appearances the effect may seem similar, but internally our bodies are doing different things."

"Sounds like strong stuff."

"it is precisely that. The 'high' lasts for several hours, varying according to the tolerance of the individual. But no one is immune to the effects. We would receive small amounts of it as a reward for our labor, for good behavior, for a number of reasons. It was a reward we could have done without, for it was a means for keeping us under control as well as satisfied."