V - The Original Miniseries (16 page)

Robert put the car in gear and backed it out. His tension was reflected in the squeal of the tires as he gunned the motor. Kathleen recognized a figure watching them from across the street, leaning on a rake, and waved sadly. The man waved back. Robert glanced over at her. "Who was that?"

"Sancho Gomez. He came around a couple of months ago looking for gardening work, and I hired him for a couple of hours a week, on Fridays. He worked for a couple of families on this street ... did a really good job with the roses ..."

Robert frowned. "But I was just noticing that our roses really needed cutting back."

"They do ... did." Kathleen brushed distractedly at her hair. "Sancho told me a couple of weeks ago that he couldn't work for me anymore-that his other customers, among them Eleanor Dupres, had told him if he kept working for us, he couldn't work for them anymore. What could he do? The guy's got a wife and kids ..."

Maxwell nodded tightly. They drove in silence for nearly twenty minutes, until they reached the outskirts of L.A., and topped a small hill. Suddenly Polly pointed. "Look, Dad! It's a police roadblock!"

Kathleen made a tiny sound in her throat as she stared down the street to the Visitor squad vehicle that had landed across the highway, blocking all but one lane. A line of traffic sat waiting, bumper-tobumper. Two police black-and-whites sat on the side of the road, lights flashing red-blue-red-bluered ... A helmeted Visitor shock trooper stood by the nose of the squad vehicle, his stun rifle carried muzzle-up. His helmet swung back and forth as he watched the L.A.P.D. officers check cars, two at a time.

Maxwell's fingers tightened on the wheel of his car, and he didn't dare look at his family, afraid they'd see the naked fear in his eyes. Without a word he swung the station wagon off the road, put on his blinker, then, as other oncoming vehicles slowed to take in the scene below, swung the wheel savagely in a U-turn.

They can't have blocked every road, his mind argued against his growing panic. One of the smaller secondary ones...

 

Ten minutes later they pulled over to the side of the road, staring in dismay at the roadblock ahead of them. "Another one," Kathleen said tightly.

 

"Daddy, why don't you just drive through?" Robin asked. "You haven't done anything-"

Polly gave her sister a withering look. "Boy, Robin, you sure are stupid. Were you born that way, or did you have to study?" Robin stared at her sister in shock, then flared angrily. "God, Polly, how can you be so totally-" "Shut up," Robert commanded without raising his voice. "I have to think." "How come they want to keep us in the city, Mom?" Polly asked. "Makes it easier to find us," Kathleen said. "Why do they want to be able to find us-and people like us?" "We don't know, Poll." Kathleen cast a quick, frightened look at Robert.

Shouts broke the silence, and they watched a man leap out of the back of one of the cars stopped at the roadblock, running frantically down the road toward them. Horrified, they watched as the Visitor trooper sighted carefully at the fleeing man's back, then fired. A pulse of sound filled the air with a brief flash of blue electricity, then the smell of ozone. The man staggered on a few steps, then fell against Robert's door, his anguished face pressing briefly against the glass, then slid bonelessly down to the road, leaving a trail of saliva and mucus on the window.

The Maxwells sat frozen with shock, unable to move or think, as the Visitor shock trooper and the two police officers ran up to the fallen man. The Visitor got there first. Without a glance at the horrified Maxwells, he pushed the man's face brutally against the pavement. The first cop came up with the handcuffs. They heard the man whimper as they dragged his arms behind him, wrenching his back where a black burn showed the impact of the alien weapon.

Sickened, Maxwell recognized that oily blackness of charred cloth and singed meat-and knew, with a terrible certainty, what had happened to Arch Quinton. The other police officer approached, stood looking down at the injured man, his face expressionless, but something flickering in his eyes that might have been pity. "Another scientist?" he asked.

"No," answered the officer with the handcuffs. "He was helping one try and run the roadblock. So that makes him one of 'em, in my book. On your feet, pal!" He dragged brutally at the now sobbing man.

"Easy, Bob-" the first officer remonstrated. "He's wounded." "That's his fault, Randy. He wants to break the new laws, he's gotta take the consequences."

Randy gave a quick glance over at the Visitor trooper, who was walking back toward the squad vehicle, to make sure the alien was out of earshot. "Come on, Bob! This is different!" "No it ain't!" The man glared at his partner. "A crook's a crook, and don't you forget it. Ain't nothing different except the guys who give the orders."

Without a backward glance, he dragged the barely conscious man away. The officer named Randy looked after him, then back at the Maxwells, obviously troubled. "You folks coming down the road?" he asked, indicating the roadblock.

"Uh ... no," answered Robert, thinking fast, pasting a fatuous grin on his face. "The ... uh ... little woman forgot her grocery list, can you believe it? We're gonna have to go back and get it." Heart threatening to erupt from his chest, he put the car in reverse.

The officer looked at him a moment, then nodded sadly. "Yeah, okay. Prices what they are today, you can't shop without a list, all right." He glanced back at the roadblock, then at Maxwell. "You all take care, now."

Robert backed up and turned the car around, and they started back toward town. Kathleen gave a choked, hysterical laugh. "Little woman! Oh, God, Bob, what are we-"

 

"Don't start, Kathy! Or we'll all be doing it!" Maxwell swallowed.

"Where're we going to go? Who's going to help us?" Robin wailed plaintively. Maxwell felt a strong urge to spank-or slap-her, but repressed it. It's not her fault-this whole thing is as far outside her experience as it is yours, he thought.

"I don't know, Binna," he said as gently as he could. Kathleen suddenly straightened beside him. "I do. Head back for the house, Robert."

He looked curiously at her, but obeyed, turning on the blinker and swinging the car back onto the crosstown freeway, toward the house that, until this morning, had been his home.
11

JULIET PARRISH PEERED CAREFULLY THROUGH A CRACK IN THE VEnetian blinds. A few blocks away, a police siren shrieked, but as Juliet listened and watched, the sound began to diminish. She dropped the slat back into place with a sigh of relief. "It's all right, I think."

The others in the dry-cleaning shop also relaxed perceptibly. Ben Taylor, sitting beside a steampressing machine, made an exaggerated gesture of wiping his forehead, producing a few wry grins. Then, sobering, he began to speak. "All right. We know what's happening: censorship, suppression of the truth-the whole United States ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship under martial law. The military are apparently under arrest, or else they've made them disappear-"

"Talk about paranoia," a dark-haired woman in her forties broke in, "all the scientists I know are scared to death. With good reason."

"Yeah, they're still disappearing," said Brad, a young police officer with curly brown hair and worried eyes. "Like my partner and all the other cops who wouldn't go along with their 'requests'-that's how they phrase it. A real joke, huh?"

Nobody laughed. The dark-haired woman-Juliet couldn't remember her name-twisted her hands together. "Yesterday they took another family from my building. He was a doctor..."

Ben Taylor looked over at Juliet. "Why do you think they're so hot to arrest scientists? Especially life science researchers, anthropologists, and physicians? They haven't paid nearly the same kind of attention to theoretical physicists, for example, or astronomers."

Juliet nodded agreement, thinking. "They must think we're a threat. That people with expertise in the life sciences might ... find out something about them-" She shrugged, her mind groping for an answer.

"Like maybe how to stop them?" Ben asked.
Juliet chuckled dryly. "I only hope we turn out to be as big a threat as they seem to worry we'll be!"

One of the women, a black receptionist who had announced that she worked for the telephone company, shook her head. "There's no way we're going to stop them ... There's too many of 'em."

"No!" Ben glared at her. "There has to be a way!"
"There is." Juliet tried to sound positive. Her bluff was called when they all turned to her, their eyes hopeful. She thought faster than she ever had in her life. "We ... organize," she said, feeling her way into the idea as she talked. "Look, any complex biological structure-our bodies, for instance-starts with individual cells. The cells will reproduce-expand themselvesjoin with others-"

Brad snorted. "That's great for a biology lesson, Julie, but-"

Juliet whirled on him. "Listen, Brad-" She took a deep breath, then started over. "Sorry. Look, I know we're embryonic. There are only a handful of us here in this shop. But you can be sure we're not the only ones who are meeting in darkened rooms at this moment! We can't be the only ones who have come up with the idea of fighting this thing!"

Mumbled agreements came from all quarters. Juliet nodded. "Now what we've got to do is find those others, and still more after that. Then we'll need equipment-"

"Weapons," said Brad. "Supplies," said the dark-haired woman. "A headquarters," said Ben.

"Yes," Juliet agreed. "We're going to need all those things. But I was especially thinking about laboratory equipment and medicines-microscopes, culture dishes-all scientific stuff. That way we can work on trying to figure out why the Visitors want to eliminate the scientists first. We're a threat to them, and we've got to discover that threat!"

"Right!" "Yeah!" "Good thinking, Julie!" they all chorused. The former med student paused, waiting for some of the others to make contributions, but nothing was forthcoming. She began thinking fast again. "We ought to also figure out who is closest to the Visitors, and try to see if they'll join us. That way we'd be able to keep an eye on their actions."

The black woman nodded. "Like that reporter-what's her name? Kristine-" "Walsh," Ben supplied. "Sure as hell, she's on the inside."

"Maybe too much on the inside," Brad said glumly. "Think we could trust her? Maybe she's a hundred percent in favor of what they're doing."

"How could she be?" Ben asked grimly. "If she is, she's the worst traitor since-I dunno-" "Judas?" suggested the dark-haired woman.

"I agree with Ben," said Juliet. "We ought to at least watch her, see if she seems like the sort of person we should risk contacting. Then, if the group agrees that she's okay, we'll ask her for her help."

She waited, but nobody volunteered. Juliet decided that leadership definitely wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and stood up. "I'll find her, and watch her. See if she's someone we can trust. Why don't we meet back here ... uh ... Thursday night. Eight sharp?"

"Okay by me," said Brad, who was the only one in the group assigned to work nights. The rest agreed.

 

"And everybody has to bring at least-" Juliet thought rapidly, "four other people with them. How about that? Agreed?"

 

"Agreed," they echoed. "Good," Juliet said. "Guess that's it for now."

She stood in the dimness, the smell of cleaning fluid and steam all around her, watching them file out of the shop and into the alley, warily, one-by-one, exhibiting a caution none of them (with the possible exception of Brad) had ever needed before-and tears filled Juliet's eyes. It's not fair, she thought. We shouldn't have to do this. It's not fair at all ...

MIKE DONOVAN DROPPED COINS INTO THE SLOT OF A PAY PHONE, then dialed the number scrawled on the back of a crumpled dollar bill. He. counted rings, then, when it was picked up on the twelfth, sighed with relief. Anything but the twelfth ring, and he wouldn't have spoken. "Hello?" said Tony's voice. "Is that you, Uncle Pedro?"

"Uncle Pedro?" Donovan frowned, trying to remember if this was one of their old code responses. He didn't recognize it.

"Ah, it is you, Uncle Pedro! iBuenas noches!" "Tony, cut the-" Donovan stopped suddenly as another thought occurred to him.

"We've been having trouble with the phone. You com- prende? Uncle Pedro? Trouble with the phone."

 

"Yeah?" said Donovan heavily. "Pobrecito ... you must be all tapped out, eh?"

He could almost see Tony's careful nod. "You got it, Uncle. The 'repairmen' even came to check things out-a lot of 'em-and they smelled your cooking all around here. Boy, they sure would like to get their hands on your burrito-"

"Yeah, I'm sure they would." "But I like Italian food even better than your Mexican cooking, Uncle ... remember?"

Donovan grinned. "Yeah, I remember. You still owe me a steak, do you remember? A twelve ounce one. Pay up, amigo."

 

"Right, Uncle. Well, don't let me keep you standing thereI know you have to run. Good luck. . . " The phone clicked off.

 

Donovan started to hang up when suddenly, with no warning siren, a police car skidded around the corner, two wheels on the sidewalk, heading straight for him.

Mike took off, heading down the opposite street-but a squad vehicle swooped down, firing! Donovan zigged, and the powerful electric blasts rocked a nearby car. Donovan threw himself away from it just in time-it exploded, spraying deadly edged metal all over the street.

Donovan dashed down the nearest alley, one too narrow for the squad vehicle to enter. More and more sirens sounded like they were converging on the area. At the end of the alley was a board fence. This is getting monotonous, Mike thought, leaping to scramble over it. / haven't had to get over so many obstacles since Basic

He hit the ground on the other side, and dashed away, grinning. At least he'd been able to reach Tony ... the first thing he was going to do following their twelve o'clock meeting tomorrow was buy some new clothes and a bath-then for a real meal ... '

His mind filled with visions of steak, Donovan crouched behind a garbage-filled Dumpster, waiting for the onset of darkness, and safety.

 

SHADOWS LENGTHENED ON THE LAWN OF THE BERNSTEINS' HOUSE, but there was still a good hour of daylight left. Not that you could tell here in the pool house, Kathleen thought. Off to her right a broken barbecue leaned drunkenly against a wall, and the place was filled with old lawn furniture. Abraham Bernstein nodded at her reassuringly. "Lynn and Stanley never use this old cabana-it's just for storage. Nobody comes here. You will be safe."