Season of Passage, The (11 page)

after every three shots. Its battery was a high-temperature superconductor - especial y designed to provide instant energy to power the laser. The

Hawk carried four such weapons. That was twelve rounds, Lauren thought. She was already counting her ammunition. She wondered if the Martians

moved in packs. The range of the weapon was over a quarter of a mile. Nothing could stand in its path, the president said, and live.

'Very impressive,' Jim muttered, when the film was finished.

'I know you are unhappy, Professor,' the president said, his voice gentle now, 'with al this talk of weapons. We only want you to be able to protect

yourselves.' He stood to leave. 'Let us pray this is al a foolish caution. Now, if there are no more questions...'

'Is the Rover stil operating?' Jim asked, standing, too.

'No,' the president said. 'How could it be?'

'Was it suddenly destroyed?' Jim asked.

'We don't know,' the president said.

'I assumed when you showed us these slides that you believed whatever had made the footprints had tampered with the Rover,' Jim said.

'I never said that,' the president replied. He added, 'Your first landing wil be near the Rover. You'l see for yourself what became of it.'

Jim pointed once more to the slides in the projector. 'May I examine these for a few more minutes?'

'Certainly,' the president said. 'For as long as you like -tonight. Anything else I can do for you, Professor, before I say goodbye?'

Jim smiled, his usual warmth surfacing. 'Tel me what became of Carl Bensk. But I guess I'l have to wait to know that. Forgive my many questions,

Mr President. It's a tiresome habit of mine.'

Jim was one of the quietest people Lauren knew.

'I appreciate your alertness,' the president said pleasantly, perhaps because he was leaving. They al stood to say goodbye, hearing the usual.

Farewel , God bless you, best wishes, and don't get kil ed. Then the president was gone, with Dean trailing behind him.

Lauren took a breath. 'Whew. That was heavy.'

'Martians!' Gary exclaimed. 'What did I tel you?' He patted the laser rifle. 'Would you look at this thing, Doc'

'Just remember, I'm not that brick wal ,' Lauren said. She touched the barrel, and felt the comforting hardness of its cold metal.

'May I turn out the lights?' Jim asked. He stood beside the projector. 'I want to see these footprints before the sand covers them over.'

'Sure,' Gary said. He set down the laser. 'Boy, I have to hand it to you, Jim. You were real y going at him. I think he spil ed a few things he hadn't

intended.'

Jim shook his head and flipped off the lights. The Martian landscape reappeared on the screen. 'The only thing he spil ed was his confusion. He

couldn't have answered any questions if he wanted to.'

The silence they had experienced at their first glimpse returned, as the red world held their attention. Lauren wondered how she had missed the

footprints to begin with. They appeared obvious now, yet stil mysterious, arousing a powerful curiosity in her, seemingly cal ing to her. Come, Lori,

fol ow my trail. I wil lead you to places you never dreamed of. It was difficult to turn away.

'The more you look at them,' Gary said, 'it's weird - the more you see.'

'Yeah,' Lauren whispered. i

'The more you look,' Jim agreed. 'The president must have looked at them for a long time. I'm sure they al did.'

Lauren tore her eyes away and turned to Jim. She studied his ascetic profile in the crimson light. When she had gone to fetch him after wrestling

with Gary, she had found him sitting with his head down on his desk, in the dark. When she had turned on the light, she had found his eyes red.

'What are you thinking, Jim?' she asked now. 'Why were you asking those questions?'

He appeared not to hear her at first, and the mannerism was very much like Jennifer's. He stared at the alien terrain as if he were actual y there,

planting his own feet in each of the footprints, fol owing the beast. At last, however, he sighed and looked away. 'I was only thinking about the

Russians, Lauren. They probably brought lasers with them, too.'

'Oh,' Lauren said. Then the footprints cal ed to her once more, and she looked their way. They were definitely larger than a human's, and the way

they spread at the end, it was hard to think of toes, and not claws. A dark voice crossed her mind, the voice of a nightmare she stil hadn't forgotten.

Come, Lori. Come.

NINE

The space shuttle waited for his woman, three miles away on the launch pad, bathed in the soft glow of the pre-dawn sky and the harsh beams of a

dozen searchlights. It pointed at the sky like a multiheaded spear, and Terry hated the sight of it. Somebody of importance had decided that he and

Jennifer were only to be given a few minutes to say goodbye to Lauren. Since four in the morning he had stood with Jennifer near the entrance to

the isolation complex. It was now five-thirty, half an hour before Lauren would leave the complex and board the shuttle, but two and a half hours

before the shuttle would actual y take off. The excitement was kil ing him, and making him want to kil the people who wouldn't let him inside.

Terry did not feel wel . He had an incredible case of heartburn, which was odd because he hadn't eaten in the last twenty-four hours. The ulcer he

had considered getting for several years was making a strong case for itself this morning. He hugged Jennifer against his chest. They were

surrounded by people, reporters like himself, and important people like his fiancée. Cameras stared at Jennifer and him to record how brave loved

ones could be. It was al bul shit, he felt like crying. Official y, he was on assignment for his paper, but he wasn't taking any notes. A tal fence

separated them from the general public. On the other side, mixed in with the moms and pops and kiddies from across the country, was a group of

hecklers. They were members of a cult Terry was vaguely familiar with - The Paul. Paul himself wasn't around at the moment, but his disciples were

doing their best. They chanted slogans and carried banners questioning the integrity of the mission. Apparently they believed that the world was

about to come to an end; that NASA was purposely inviting the wrath of the cosmos down upon mankind with their expedition to Mars. One banner

read: only servants of the beast do the beasts bidding. Terry was uncertain of The Paul's origin, but their theology seemed to revolve around a

morbid interpretation of Revelations. Had he felt better, they probably would have angered him. As it was, they just made him feel more miserable.

Jennifer pointed at the demonstrators. 'Are they bad people, Terry?' she asked.

Her voice was grave, as was the expression on her face. Those were her first words in a while. Terry hadn't felt much like conversation, either. 'No,'

he said. 'They're just people who have been misled by a man more powerful than themselves.'

'They're saying bad things about what Lauren's doing.'

'Because they're afraid. They don't know that it's good for man to explore new planets. They're afraid of things changing.'

'Would they be afraid if Lauren was going somewhere else beside Mars?' Jennifer asked.

'Yes. It wouldn't matter to them.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' Terry said.

'Positive?'

'Yes.'

Jennifer nodded, but appeared unconvinced. The previous night had been dreadful for her. The rooms Terry had booked had been unavailable

when they arrived in Florida. Cape Canaveral was jammed. Only by begging and bribing a motel manager was he able to get a seedy room in a

place thirty miles away. They had been there a week now. He had slept on the floor while Jennifer tossed and turned on the bed. Her nightmares

had returned in force. Neither of them had told Lauren, although Terry suspected she knew. Sleep was a time of battle for Jennifer. He had never

seen anything like it. She jerked uncontrol ably, mumbled words and phrases in nonsense language, and even had something akin to asthma

attacks. Yet it was seldom she actual y woke up, though morning always found her drained. When he asked her what she dreamed about, she just

shook her head and said she couldn't remember. For some reason, he didn't believe her.

Just prior to meeting Terry, Lauren had taken Jennifer to a psychiatrist in Houston to try to discover the source of her nightmares. It was the doctor's

belief that Jennifer suffered from guilt over her parents' dying so close to the time of her birth, which Terry felt was a stab in the dark. Jennifer had

hardly reached the age when she could talk when her mom and her dad had had their car accident. The psychiatrist had tried hypnotizing Jennifer,

and had been unsuccessful, which had surprised the doctor; children were notoriously easy to hypnotize. In fact, Lauren, who had witnessed the

procedure, had said the psychiatrist ended up accidental y hypnotizing himself.

'He sat right in front of Jenny, using a pendulum and talking real slow and soft, counting down from a hundred to one, making a variety of relaxing

suggestions. He did this for about twenty minutes, trying to put her under, but nothing happened. Jennifer just sat there with her eyes closed and

listened. Final y he asked her to open her eyes. I thought he was giving up. It was then he suddenly jerked in his seat, as if he had been shocked

with electricity. His head fel on his chest and he passed out. For a moment I thought he'd had a heart attack and died. I had a hard time waking him.

I think Jennifer scared him. He didn't want to see us again.'

Terry thought of last night and a shiver ran up his spine. For hours he had lain listening to Jennifer convulse in her sleep, when suddenly she had

grown stil , and her breathing had softened. With relief, he began to doze - he couldn't remember when he had felt so exhausted. But when he was

on the verge of slipping off, he heard Jennifer start to weep, the sound so ful of anguish he could hardly bear it. He got up and sat beside her on the

bed. At first he assumed she must be awake, but when he cal ed her name she didn't answer. For a long time he stayed near her, smoothing her

long hair, wiping off the tears that rol ed over her cheeks. Eventual y she began to quiet, and he moved to lie down again, but she grabbed his arm.

She was stil unconscious, but she gripped him with the strength of a ful -grown man. Then she spoke softly, in a voice total y unlike her own. It had

such depth and resonance to it, it didn't even sound human.

'They wil come,' she said. 'They are waiting. For so long, they have waited.'

Then she released him, and he forgot any idea of waking her. He had hurried back to his spot on the floor and had buried his head under the

blanket.

A couple of hours later they had dressed and come to the isolation complex, where they had been told to wait in the dark. Terry had not asked

Jennifer about who was coming. He was sure she wouldn't remember the nightmare, and he didn't real y want to hear about it, anyway. He was

feeling kind of superstitious these days. He supposed having a fiancée going to Mars could do that to a fel ow.

A man the size of a goril a approached. He was a security officer. There were a lot of them about. 'Are you Terry Hayes and Jennifer Wagner?' he

asked.

'Yeah,' Terry said. 'Can we go in now?'

'Let me see your identification.'

Terry presented the two badges NASA had issued for visiting Lauren. The man inspected them closely.

'Please, sir?' Jennifer whispered.

The man looked down at her for the longest time. Then he thrust back their I.D.'s. 'Come this way,' he said.

Lauren was beginning to despair of ever seeing Jennifer and Terry. The government was taking no chances with the big secret. As if she real y was

going to tel her fiancé and sister about the footprints.

"Hey, Terry, Jenny, guess what the president told us last night?'

Those people - whoever they were - were paranoid. Gary had tried to cal Kathy in California, but had found their outside lines blocked. They weren't

on TV as Gary had envisioned. They were alone in the conference room, wearing white flight suits. The hal on the other side of the glass was

empty, sealed off and guarded by men who looked to be CIA agents - the president's own boys. Gary was disgusted. He had explained to Jim that

he had to cal a girl in California, and Jim had gone to his room and returned with a lunch pail ful of tools. Now he was taking the video phone apart,

with Gary leaning over his shoulder. There was nothing else to do. The time had been earmarked for visiting with friends and relatives. Along with

Jennifer and Terry, Gary's parents were stranded outside. But Jim, it seemed, had no one waiting to say goodbye to him.

Jim had the video phone's guts exposed. Apparently he knew a way to circumvent the main switchboard. There wasn't much that Jim didn't know.

T-minus two hours and twenty-nine minutes,' the voice through the overhead speakers said.

'Half an hour,' Gary said, holding back a circuit board for Jim.

'Probably less,' Jim muttered. He took his soldering gun and picked up a microchip.

Lauren sighed. 'Why don't they let them in?'

Jim glanced up from his operation. 'You'l see them, Lauren, don't worry. You're not going anywhere until you do. I'm not.'

'Damn right,' Gary agreed. 'We'l go on strike.'

Lauren nodded without much hope. 'Thanks.'

Two minutes later Jim sat back from the disemboweled phone. 'I can trip it now,' he said to Gary.

'And then what?' Gary asked, his face feverish.

'You did say you knew her number?' Jim asked.

Gary tapped his head. 'Got it right here.'