Starman (17 page)

“You said the nose is different.”

“What?”

“You said.” He hesitated briefly, then repeated her words. Words she’d all but forgotten. His inflection and pacing were identical to her own, but at least he used his Scott-voice now instead of mimicking hers. “Your nose is different cause he broke his twice and there’s something else, I dunno, something spooky about your eyes.”

“Word for word.” She stared at him in wonder. “Do you remember everything you hear like that, word for word?”

“Everything I hear. Everything I see. Everything I—this body—feels. It is my job.” Suddenly a splashing sound made her eyes go wide. She turned and charged for the bathroom, the bedspread flapping like a cape around her half-naked form.

“The tub!”

The door slammed behind her. The starman stared after her, listening to the sound of faucets being hurriedly turned. The distant flow of water ceased. He stared at the door for several moments before turning his attention once again to the flow of two-dimensional images appearing on the front of the video device.

Still the news. Sports now, including slow-motion replay of the conclusion of a bloody prizefight. Football scores, then footage of a hotel fire with brave men rescuing children and old people. The weather, with satellite photos of cloud formations scudding across the continental United States. The starman didn’t move, his eyes never wavered from the screen. And all the time he spent watching he was analyzing as well as storing.

Because his job involved more than the mere acquisition of information. He would be expected to render opinions as well.

Half an hour later Jenny emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in the bedspread, and promptly collapsed on her side of the bed. She crawled under the covers, discarded her temporary covering, and in minutes was sound asleep.

On the TV the news made way for commercials, then a movie. The starman recognized the film as a simulation, rather than a realistic representation of reality. Frequent commercial interruptions further confirmed his initial deduction.

On the screen, two figures were rolling about on an unknown beach. They were entwined in one another’s arms, kissing passionately. Now the starman’s attention shifted back to the sleeping Jenny. Back to the scene unspooling on the TV, then back to Jenny again. Television, bed, television, bed.

The scene concluded, made way for a fat man in a funny hat hawking used cars. He was talking a mile a minute from his perch atop an elephant. The starman noted the elephant for future reference. Then he rose and moved over to the bed, sitting down on the side next to the somnolent Jenny. He ran the scene he’d just watched back through his memory, wanting to be sure of the details. Then he bent toward her.

She turned over in her sleep. He crossed to the other side of the bed, sat down again, and lowered his face toward her.

There was a thunderous knocking at the door. He jumped off the bed and stared at it in alarm.

“Hey there, buddy! You in there?” It was a voice he’d heard before. He recognized the speech pattern and tone of the young human whose cents had been eaten by the red machine.

Jenny was sitting up in bed now, blinking sleepily and clutching the sheet to her chest as the starman crossed to the door.

“Wait—no.” She was trying to will herself awake.

“It is all right. I know who it is.” He opened the door. The letterman stood framed in the portal.

“Listen buddy, it’s none of my business, but if that’s your green Mustang out there in the lot there’s a couple of cops trying to jigger the door.”

Tripp worked the wire through the weather stripping, started easing the loop on the far end toward the door latch.

“Hurry it up.” Dusseau was looking nervously toward the motel.

“Why? What’s the rush? They’ve just checked in. They ain’t going anywhere except maybe to beddy-bye. Take it easy. Everything’s going to work out fine.”

As he finished this there was a loud scraping sound from the vicinity of the motel courtyard which was followed by a tremendous splash.

“What the hell was that?” Dusseau muttered.

“I dunno. Better check it out.” Tripp left the wire dangling through the weather stripping as he followed his partner toward the motel.

The central courtyard was drenched and everything smelled of chlorine. It was Dusseau who spotted the big Coke machine lying on the bottom of the pool, bubbling forlornly. The courtyard was deserted.

From the parking lot came the sound of a big engine turning over. The two men exchanged a glance, then turned as one to race back through the breezeway that led into the motel. They reached the lot just in time to see the green Mustang swing off the pavement and out onto the highway.

“The bastards ran one on us!” Tripp led the rush to their cruiser, threw himself into the driver’s seat. Sirens and lights flashing, they peeled out in pursuit.

Peering into the rearview mirror, the starman detected the trailing lights. “What means?” he asked Jenny.

She turned and looked through the rear window. “Oh, crap! The police are after us. Authorities.”

He nodded and floored the accelerator.

Dusseau picked up his mike, spoke into it as Tripp tried to keep the taillights of their quarry in sight. “Papa Charlie Three. Suspects in green Mustang heading south at high speed on U.S. two-eight-one. We are in pursuit intending to overtake.” He shut off the receiver before anyone could think to order them not to.

Utilizing all his newly learned driving skills the starman wove in and out of traffic expertly. Two more patrols cars manifested themselves in the rearview mirror, joining the chase behind Dusseau and Tripp’s cruiser.

They were nearing the on-ramp leading to Interstate 80. The starman never slowed, squeezing into the southbound lanes barely in front of an eighteen-wheeler.

Jenny covered her eyes. The starman straightened out, just missing the stern end of another big truck, and stepped on the gas again as the police car accelerated to parallel them.

He reached beneath the seat to bring out the forty-five. Tripp saw it immediately.

“Watch it! He’s got a gun.”

As the starman raised it, Jenny looked over and saw what was happening. She knocked his arm down, leaned out her window and screamed, “No!”

Too late. Tripp had the riot gun aimed and let fly. The blast blew a hole through the passenger side of the Mustang, shattering metal and glass and sending splinters flying through the car. Somehow the starman retained control. The door absorbed most of the force of the shot—but not all. Jenny caught the rest. She slumped against the starman. Blood was already starting to stain her blouse.

“Jennyhayden!” Her eyelids fluttered as she stared blankly up at him. She made an attempt to speak but nothing came out. Her mouth moved soundlessly. She looked more surprised than hurt.

As the highway split, the Mustang pulled away from the police cruiser. Dusseau was trying to drive while arguing vociferously with his trigger-happy partner. The eastbound lanes became separated from the westbound by a steep rocky island. The glint of a river was visible far below and pine trees began to forest both sides of the road.

The starman fought the wheel as the highway twisted around a stony bluff, tires screaming. They were speeding uphill now. Both pursued and pursuers were forced to slow as their respective engines labored against the sharp gradient.

Far ahead, atop the crest of the hill where the road leveled off, were six stationary vehicles. The starman saw them, glanced again into the rearview mirror. There were now four police cars on the Mustang’s tail. He made a quick appraisal of the route ahead. Yes, there ought to be room on the side of the road, there between the pavement and the first big boulders.

The Mustang whipped past the first stopped car, cut into the shoulder on the highway’s flank and threw up a huge cloud of dust and gravel. A few of the occupants of the parked vehicles had seen the Mustang coming. One man jumped into its path, waving his arms and trying to stop it before it went over the rise. When it became clear the oncoming Mustang wasn’t going to stop for anything, the would-be samaritan dove for safety. The other drivers gaped at it as it rocketed past.

From above came the sound of a descending helicopter.

Looking down and out, Shermin could see the Mustang nearing the crest of the hill. He was cursing hopelessly. He was too far away, too late, and helpless. Then there was no more time left anyway, no more time at all.

When the Mustang reached the top of the grade it was doing a hundred and fifteen. It left the pavement and sailed into the sky, started downward in a slow, graceful curve. Twenty yards from the crest lay the cause of the lineup of stopped cars. The big gasoline tanker was lying jackknifed across both lanes. Unleaded trickled from a broken valve, running across the highway into a ditch on the far side.

The starman saw it looming ahead of him like a beached whale. As the Mustang descended he reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and grabbed convulsively at one of the gray spheres.

That was all there was time to do before the Mustang smashed into the tanker’s side. As the horrified drivers of the parked cars shielded their eyes, a gigantic fireball erupted toward the heavens. The big tanker spasmed. The chassis of the Mustang was thrown skyward, a flaming pinwheel that soared downhill.

Lemon was leaning over Shermin’s shoulder, all thoughts of chain of command forgotten, peering out the window of the chopper at the inferno below. “Jesus,” he muttered softly.

Sirens fading, lights still spinning, the pursuing police cars slowed to a halt among the stopped vehicles. Troopers piled out of their cars and joined the other spectators in gazing in horror down at the roaring blaze. Tripp stumbled forward until the heat forced him to halt. Then he turned away and started throwing up.

The helicopter circled over the wreck for a minute, illuminating it with its big belly light. Then it descended, touching down dangerously near the flaming tanker and the skeleton of the burning Mustang.

Shermin was first out, putting up a hand to shade his eyes from the intense red-orange glow. Even at a distance the heat was daunting. Anything within fifty feet of the blaze would be incinerated in seconds.

Shermin was certain nothing could be brighter than that gasoline fire, but he was wrong. He knew he was wrong when he saw the three beams of laserlike light pierce the smoke and flame. The light grew brighter as he stared at it, heedless of any danger to his eyes. It exploded outward in rainbow brilliance, punching through the inferno and the smoke-filled night. And it came from the still flaming corpse of the Mustang.

As he squinted through his tears at the conflagration the door on the passenger’s side of the carbonized car fell off its hinges. Something came out. It wasn’t on fire, wasn’t even smoking, and that was impossible, impossible. But it was happening, he was seeing it. It looked like Scott Hayden—or whatever it was that had chosen to adopt the guise of Scott Hayden. In its arms it held the unconscious and apparently unburned body of Jenny Hayden, and both of them were coming out of the flames on a broad beam of light.

Shermin knew it was happening because everyone else saw it, too. Up on the hilltop several of the onlookers turned and fled in panic. One of the state troopers fell to his knees and commenced to pray. The rest just stood there in shock and stared, unable to move. The smoke grew dense around them.

Something surrounded Jenny Hayden and the being who cradled her in his arms. Something different from the ashes and flames. It flickered and pulsed, enclosing them in a protective cocoon of polarized light. It was at once beautiful and terrifying.

The starman was staring hard at his surroundings, and this time the expression on his face wasn’t a mimickry of something seen before. It flowed straight out of the basic, raw human emotion his human frame was heir too. It was not controlled, and it was full of anger.

The light breeze which had sprung up in the wake of the tanker’s explosion now died. Smoke closed in tightly around the impossibility. Police and onlookers alike began coughing and running in search of cleaner air. Shermin stood there, coughing his lungs out, until Lemon came and pulled him bodily back inside the helicopter.

Night closed in and hid what the thick black smoke did not.

The wreckage was still smoldering the following morning when the big truck wrecker finally succeeded in dragging it off to the side of the road. Firemen stood ready nearby and continued to drench the steaming metal frame, alert lest the heat spread fire to the surrounding brush. Tired police began directing the long line of backed-up traffic around the seared splotch of highway. Exhausted drivers, many of whom had spent the night discussing what they thought they’d seen amidst the smoke and confusion, climbed back into their cars and prepared to resumed their interrupted travels.

One cop had been delegated to break the good news to the impatient truckers. “All right, all clear up ahead. Let’s crank ’em up and move ’em out, boys!”

“With pleasure!” replied the first in line. His colleagues readily agreed with him, though they voiced their feelings in more colorful terms as they scattered to their respective rigs.

The growls of big Detroit diesels filled the crisp dawn air, sending foraging birds racing for quieter climes. One at a time the big trucks moved out into the newly opened lanes.

One extra-long flatbed had half a mobile home lashed to it. As he headed for his cab, the driver noticed that one of the bottom flaps of the polyethelene sheet that sealed off the center of the home-to-be had become unfastened. He pulled the loose tab through an eyebolt and tied it securely before climbing into his cab and firing up the engine.

The starman lay motionless on the floor of the mobile home, waiting and listening as the truck started to move. Despite his best attempts to cushion Jenny, the sudden jostling woke her. She cried out in pain and looked up at him without seeing him. Then her eyes glazed over again. Her breathing had become slow and labored. Her right side was covered with dried blood where the blouse had been soaked through.