The Loranth (Star Sojourner Book 1) (16 page)

I gripped the armrests.

“After many harrowing experiences, the two intrepid survivors managed, through courage and perseverance, and the help of our Lord, to reach Cape Leone safely last night in a battered landslider, as most of you already know from our exclusive special report.”

The camera panned to Christine and Thad sitting at a table, smiling into the camera. Two glasses of untouched water were set before them.

“Oh shit.” I jumped up. “Hallarin! Do you know what this means?”

“You tell me. You're the one with the convoluted stories.”

“Yes,” Christine said and smiled demurely at Thad. “It was a terribly frightening experience. If it hadn't been for Thad…Mister Denning, I imagine I would have died out there in the desert. But the Good Lord sent him to find me.”

Thad smiled back and patted her hand on the table.

“Jesus ChristLotus,” I muttered. “I don't fucking believe this!”

“Find another means of expressing your doubt,” Hallarin said. “You're in my home, Rammis.”

I coughed on the dragon breath of smoke he blew my way.

“Christine, was there any time you gave up hope?” the host asked with thick paternal concern.

She furrowed brows. “No, John, I always believed the Lord would provide and give my life purpose.” She looked directly at the camera. There was a bandage over the cut on her cheek. “If you just follow the Loranth's - excuse me.” She shook her head. “The Lord's will, He will provide.”

“Did you hear what she just said?” I asked Hallarin. For Christ's sake, those two are Kor's zombies!”

“I told you to watch your mouth.”

I slammed the armrest and jumped out of the chair. “They're Infiltrators. God knows what they did to Jack.”

Hallarin stared at me with his winter look, deciding, I'm sure, whether or not I was crazy or just lying to save my ass.

“Kor sent them here,” I told him. “Don't you see? He sent them here to refute my story and put the town off guard while he executed his plan to send the town on a lemming march to the sea!” I paced the room and glanced at Christine and Thad. They had to be stopped! “Or worse yet,” I told Hallarin and paused. “Worse yet.”

Great Mind. Was Kor controlling them with tel power from his lair? Or did they willingly bring their own supply of pond water? Maybe Kor was closer than I knew. Maybe… Hallarin was watching me. Maybe he was lurking in a sunken river right underneath Leone. “Or worse yet,” I repeated.

“What?”

“I'm not sure.” I stared at the holo figures.

“And Thad,” the host said warmly, “tell us how you knew where to look for Christine. Your journalist's intuition? After all, the police department and the Institute's special corps couldn't find a trace of her in two months of searching.” He chuckled at the camera.

Hallarin shifted in his chair and muttered something.

“Well, John,” Thad carefully folded his hands, “as Ms. Saynes said, the Lord guided my steps.”

“Rammis, what's worse?” Hallarin asked on a demanding note.

I licked my lips but couldn't put aside the feeling that Kor was listening. “Maybe sabotage,” I whispered. “He said we'd all pay. All!” I stared at Christine and Thad's benevolent faces, the untouched glasses of water. I took an unsteady breath. “Can't you see it in their blank looks? They're
zombies
.” I paced the soft carpet. “They might have brought their own supply of pond water to contaminate Leone's reservoir. “Yes. That's it! Hallarin. Get up! That's Sye Kor's plan.” My hand shook as I pointed to the stage. “You've got to confine those two. Jail, the hospital, anywhere! We're going to need help from Interstel. We're going…” I dropped my hand. “What if they already did it?”

Hallarin's expression remained skeptical.

“You want proof of what I'm saying? Go down to the station, and as soon as this circus is over, ask those two to take a drink of water, coffee, bru, anything. Sounds easy? They won't do it. Then search their quarters for skins of milky liquid. When you find them, and you will, have the liquid analyzed.”

He ground out the cigar and exhaled from the side of his mouth. “Let me get this straight.”

“Do it, Hallarin! You'll have your proof. And goddammit, send out search and rescue for Jack.”

“Let me get this straight,” he repeated. “You want the police chief to show up at the station and ask these two heroes to drink a glass of water to prove they're not terrorists sent by some alien no one but you has ever seen. Then, if they're not thirsty, you want the police chief to call on the Interstel Colonization Force. Is that about right?” He squinted at me. “You find a new weed out there in the wilds, Rammis?”

“Then where's Jack? And Stan?”

“On vacation! Who the hell's Stan?”

“Croteshit he's on vacation! Call Annie.”

“And scare the hell out of her? Denning was out there alone looking for the woman. I believe the fruit pie. Who's Stan? What's his last name?”

“I don't know. It's all a goddamn lie!” I paced, stopped. “If you don't follow through on what I've told you, it's going to be the biggest mistake in your career. I promise you that. You'll pay for it and so will everyone else on Tartarus. Maybe the aliens in Leone too. Not all the safety plaques in all the worlds are going to wipe out this one.”

For the first time his face showed some real expression besides
smug
. He pointed the dead cigar. “I don't give a mudlumper's shriveled ass what you think about my safety plaques. Your whole life hasn't been worth glotshit!” He got up, went to the bar and poured himself a drink. He looked at the family portraits while he stirred it. “Your whole generation thinks life's a cloudwalk to the pot of gold.” He sipped the drink and studied me like the proverbial fly. “You been reading up on diversionary tactics?”

“What diversionary -“

“You were out there looking for Christine, all right.” He jabbed the glass in my direction. “And the more you looked the more you couldn't find her, so you started thinking about spending the next twenty years under an asteroid dome.” He swirled the drink, gulped it.

I had a sinking feeling.

“It's nice and quiet out there in the wilds, isn't it?”

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Gives a tag time to think, doesn't it?” He glanced off to the side and smirked, as though sharing a private joke with someone. For a moment I thought he might also be a Kor zombie. But no, his zombiehood had different origins.

“So when you found out Christine was back, you concocted a story that would save your ass.” He chuckled, went back and sat down. “I'll tell you what, Rammis, you sure came up with a winner this time.”

I put aside the fear that made my throat ache. “You're gambling an awful lot on that theory.”

“Go home! Take your cloudweaving ass off my planet and go back to Earth. I got a low bullshit tolerance level. You just crawled over the top of it.” He rubbed his forehead, bunching freckles in loose skin. “I'll close the McGrath case when you're gone.” He looked tired, I suddenly realized. And his hand shook.

“How come?” I asked.

“Because I said so!” He shut off the holo with his remote and stared at the empty stage. “Last goddamn thing I need is a jungle juicer scaring the glot out of the residents with Halloween stories.” He nodded toward the door. “Go on. There's a shuttle leaving at eleven thirty. Be on it!”

I had a thought. “I'm not one of your kids, Chief. So don't lay that generation shit on me.”

He glared. “Get out, Rammis, before I change my mind about the McGrath case.”

I sat down. “You know something, Hallarin? I never liked you.”

“But you respected me. Now get the hell out of my house!”

“You had a certain crude sense of loyalty to Cape Leone. And I've always admired pit-bulls.” I stared at the empty stage too. “I don't know, maybe the scientists at the institute didn't show you enough respect.”

He slammed his drink on the end table and stood up.

I stood too, and went to the door.

The only sound was the holo flickering to life as he sat back down and turned it on. Christine and Thad were still talking, still smiling, still nodding.

“It's been fun knowing you,” I told him, left his study, nodded to Mrs. H, who'd been listening at the door and looked even more sour, and let myself out.

I went directly to Stol's automated window, bought yet another stingler, fully charged.

Big Al's Landmobile Rentals was down the street. The sign over his lot bragged that Al had vehicles modified for all peoples currently inhabiting The Tar Pits. His name for Tartarus. Funny, Al, but not true. Where are the ammonia and methane filled submarines for the Altairians?

The all-terrain motorcycle I rented was comp-equipped with AI, a radar collision unit, dynamic ride control, entertainment/communications package and intoxication/drug/brainstims/abnormal body functions detector. All I wanted to do was follow a car, and stay off the road, if necessary. Big Al said it would get me where I was heading, which gave me food for thought.

“You have one that's not so flashy?” I asked, grimacing at the red, green, and gold bike he pointed out.

He gave me a suspicious look. “Most people want to be seen on a motorcycle, friend. It's safer.'

Not always.

I couldn't start the damn thing. I'd ridden as a kid, but that seemed like ages.

“More throttle,” Al called over a sil of beer. “And…and Chrissake! Don't lean on the starter.”

I twisted open the throttle grip. The bike reared into a wheelie, slammed down and steadied itself.

“Slow 'er down!” he yelled and ambled over, scratching his crotch. “Bike like this needs tender, loving care. You ever ride before, tag?”

“Yeah, I just have to get reacquainted.”

Idling, the motorcycle was so smooth the only way I knew it was running was by lit gauges. The motor emitted a strong whir that promised a surge of power. This could be fun, under different circumstances.

Circumstances being what they were, I paid Big Al with Jack's credcard, and rode through town.

When I get back to Earth,
I thought,
I'll notify Interstel about the Loranths. They'll know what to do.

Sure.

And Chief Hallarin will inform them that one Jules Rammis is an aberrant jungle juicer who prefers wild reptiles to people, and a thatched hut in the desolate high plains to Cape Leone. I rode to a public tel-link and called the Institute for lab results on the animals' medical specimens.

Negative on the fluid and fecal specimens, I was told, but the blood tests showed that the animals were producing antibodies.

Against what?

They were obtaining permission to pass the results on to pathology. Call back in two weeks, they advised.

Two weeks! I remembered why I preferred field work.

I rode to the pond and sat under the same peach tree. The park was a piece of transplanted Earth, Terrans having been Tartarus' first colonists. A family of white and cream-colored Vegans loped by, fur rippling, tails held high.
A handsome race,
I thought, and wondered if they were also on Kor's list for extermination.

I settled back against the trunk and opened a packet of chicken breast. I squeezed it and watched sauce ooze out and coat the mockmeat. As I ate, I gazed at the reflection of trees on the water's rippling surface and thought of Kor's pond. Did I have some suicidal attraction to small bodies of water? I didn't think so. There was a time back on Earth when scuba diving off the Grand Caymens was my favorite winter vacation. And after all, here there were only ducks, and a good vantage point for watching the main entrance of the Cape Leone holo station on Jarvis Street, across the park.

I chewed the spicy mock and thought on things. Could I prove on my own that Christine and Thad were infiltrators? A sample from their water skins was all I needed. Charlie, a tag I'd worked with at the Institute, would analyze it for me, even on Sunday. I'd take the results directly to Cape Leone's Administrator. Then the big H would have to send out search and rescue to look for jack, and I'd catch a shuttle.
Return to your homeworld,
Kor had said, I will be waiting.

Was it a bluff?” Could I gamble with Althea and Lisa's lives that it was? What if Kor took out his revenge on them? I stared at the red imported flowers.

Questions and decisions. Big ones. That's what I had left.

Althea…

I couldn't picture her married to that tag, making love to him! Nothing's sacred.

Croteshit!

And it seemed a shame to leave Tartarus without having proven my mammal pattern theory. I suppose I could be remembered for Loranths. The Saynes-Rammis…no, the Rammis-Saynes Loranth, the greatest evolutionary leap in all the known worlds. Hopefully indigenous only to Tartarus. I could possibly be spat upon too for the discovery.

There they were!

I'd know Christine's walk anywhere, and the blonde tag with her was Thad. He had a fairly unique gait too. I went to the bike, swung a leg over and watched them get into a red, green and gold rental car. The helmet was better than a mask for anonymity as I rode down Scobie Drive, paralleling their route on Jarvis across the narrow park. A Vegan weaved his vehicle so close we almost hit. I swerved onto gravel by the roadside to avoid him. The bike compensated for a parked car ahead and veered back into the lane.

“You dumbass!” I yelled at the driver. Vegans should never have been given licenses to drive. Their eyes were set too far apart for stereoscopic vision. Still, on their homeworld of Kresthaven, they were hunters and fishers.

The intoxication detector flashed on. Air was sucked through a small grid as the unit tested my breath. The light went off.

I almost missed seeing Christine and Thad's car turn onto Onizuka Drive. I followed and kept my distance as it headed out of town. I had an idea of its destination anyway.

The sky was layered with pink-streaked clouds and the buffeting air was warm fingers massaging my face. Terran and alien families talked and ate at tree-shaded picnic tables by the slow river that followed the road. How could the town appear so normal and be so threatened?