Stinger Part 9

"We both agree that there's been a transference."

Tom just stared at him.

"A mental transference," Rhodes said. "Your daughter... isn't who she appears to be. She still looks like a little girl, but she's not. Whatever's in your den, Mr. Hammond, is not human."

"Oh," Tom said softly, as if the wind had been punched out of him.

"We think the transference was caused by the black sphere. Why that happened, or how, we don't know. We're dealing with things here that are pretty d.a.m.ned strange-which I guess is the understatement of the year, huh?" He smiled tensely. Tom's expression remained blank. "There's a reason I'm here," the colonel continued. "When the object started coming down, and the tracking computer verified that it wasn't a meteor or a malfunctioning satellite, I was called onto special duty. I've worked for over six years with the Bluebook Project-investigating UFO sightings, talking to witnesses, going to close-encounter sites all over the country. So I've had experience with UFO phenomena."

Tom took his gla.s.ses off and cleaned the lenses on his s.h.i.+rt. It seemed very important to him that the lenses be spotless. Jessie was still lost in her thoughts, but Ray suddenly broke out of his own trance and said, "You mean... you've seen a real flying saucer? Like from another planet?"

"Yes, I have," Rhodes answered without hesitation; this whole incident was going to be a new chapter in the security procedures book anyway, so he figured he might as well tell the truth. "Ninety percent of what's reported are meteor fragments, ball lightning, pranks, that kind of thing. But the ten percent is something else entirely. An ETV-extraterrestrial vehicle-crashed in Vermont three years ago. We got samples of the metal and parts of alien bodies. Another one came down in Georgia last summer-but it was a totally different design, and the pilot was a different life form from the Vermont incident." I'm revealing national secrets to a kid with orange spikes in his hair! he realized. But Ray was paying rapt attention, while Tom had mentally checked out and was still scrubbing his gla.s.ses. "So, considering all the sightings of differently shaped ETVs, we've concluded that Earth is near... well, a superhighway in s.p.a.ce. A corridor from one part of the galaxy to another, maybe. Some of the ETVs, like our cars, they break down; they get sucked into Earth's atmosphere, and they crash."

"Wow," Ray whispered, his eyes huge behind his gla.s.ses.

For revealing that information without authority, Rhodes knew he could get life in prison, but the circ.u.mstances warranted explanation and-besides-n.o.body ever believed such stories anyway unless they'd had a personal close encounter. He returned his gaze to Tom. "My crew is cleaning up the crash site. We'll be ready to leave around midnight. And... I'm going to have to take the creature with me."

"She's my daughter." Jessie's voice was weak, but gaining strength again. "She's not a creature! "

Rhodes sighed; they'd already been over this several agonizing times. "We have no choice but to take the creature to Webb, and from there to a research lab in Virginia. There's no way we can let such a thing run loose; we don't know what its intentions are, or anything about its biology, chemistry, or-"

"Psychology," Tom finished for him; he put his gla.s.ses back on with trembling fingers. His wits had clicked back into gear, though everything still seemed hazy and dreamlike.

"Right. That too. So far, she-I mean, it-has been nonthreatening, but you never know what might set it off."

"Gnarly, man!" Ray said. "My sister the alien!"

"Ray!" Jessie snapped, and the boy's grin faded. "Colonel Rhodes, we're not going to let you take Stevie." Her voice cracked. "She's still our daughter."

"Still looks like your daughter."

"Okay! So whatever's in her might leave! If her body's fine, then her mind might come back-"

"Colonel!" Gunniston appeared in the doorway between the living room and den. His freckled face had paled even more, and he looked like what he was: a scared twenty-three-year-old kid in an air-force uniform. "She's on the last volume."

"We'll talk about this later," Rhodes told Jessie, and stood up. He hurried into the den, with Ray at his heels. Tom put his arm around Jessie and they followed.

But Tom stopped as if he'd been struck when he came through the door. Ray stood and stared, openmouthed.

The volumes of their encyclopedia lay all over the room. The Webster's Dictionary, World Atlas, Roget's Thesaurus, and other reference books lay on the floor as well, and right in the center of the disarray sat Stevie, holding the WXYZ volume of the Britannica between her hands. She sat on her haunches, perched forward like a bird. As Tom watched, his daughter opened the book and began to turn the pages at a rate of about one every two seconds.

"She's already gone through the dictionary and the thesaurus," Rhodes said. Call it an alien, or a creature, he reminded himself-but she looked like a little girl in blue jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, and those cold terms didn't seem right. Her eyes were no longer lifeless; they were sparkling and intense, directed at the pages with all-consuming concentration. "It took her about thirty minutes to figure out our alphabet. After that, it was open season on your bookcase."

"My G.o.d... this morning she could barely read," Tom said. "I mean... she's not even in the first grade yet!"

"That was this morning. I think she's about ready for college by now."

The pages continued to turn. There was a dripping noise, and Tom saw liquid soak into the carpet beneath his daughter.

"Evidently the body's still carrying out its normal functions," Rhodes told him. "So we know that at least one portion of a human brain's at work, if just unconsciously."

Jessie grasped her husband's arm and held on tightly; she'd seen him waver, and was afraid he was about to pitch onto his face. Stevie was still totally absorbed by the book, and the turning of the pages was getting faster, becoming almost a blur.

"She's goin' into overdrive!" Ray said. "Man, look at that!" He stepped forward, but the colonel caught his s.h.i.+rt and prevented him from going any closer. "Hey, Stevie! It's me, Ray!"

The child's head lifted. Swiveled toward him. The eyes stared, curious and penetrating.

"Ray!" he repeated, and thumped himself on the chest.

Her head c.o.c.ked. She blinked slowly. Then: "Ray," the voice said, and she thumped her own chest. Returned to her reading.

"Well," Rhodes observed, "maybe she's not ready for college just yet, but she's learning."

Tom looked at all the books scattered about. "If... she's really not Stevie anymore... if she's something different, then how does she know about books?"

Jessie said, "She found them and must have figured out what they were. After she went through the alphabet, she walked around the house, examining things. A lamp seemed to fascinate her. And a mirror too-she kept trying to reach into it." She heard herself talking and realized she was sounding detached, like Rhodes. "That is our daughter. It is." But as she watched the encyclopedia's pages turning, she knew that wherever Stevie was-and what made Stevie? Her mind? Her soul?-it was no longer inside the body that crouched before them, absorbing information over a puddle of urine. The last page was reached. The volume was closed and set gently, almost reverently aside. Tom now truly knew it wasn't Stevie; their daughter flung things instead of carefully putting them down. The creature stood up, with a smooth and controlled motion, no longer unsteady on her feet. It was as if she'd gotten accustomed to the weight of gravity. She looked at the five people who stared back at her, her gaze carefully examining their faces. She lifted her hands and studied them, comparing their size to those on the arms of the others. Particularly intrigued by the gla.s.ses both Tom and Ray wore, she touched her own face as if she expected to find a pair there.

"She's got the alphabet, a dictionary and thesaurus, a world atlas, and a set of encyclopedias in her head," Rhodes said quietly. "I think she's trying to learn as much about us as she can." The creature watched his mouth moving and touched her own lips. "I guess this is as good a time as any, huh?" He took a step toward her, then stopped, so as not to get too close and scare her. "Your name," he said, trying to enunciate as clearly as possible. His heart was fluttering like a caged bird. "What is your name?"

"Your name," she answered. "What is your name?"

"Your name." He pointed at her. "Tell us yours."

She seemed to be thinking, her eyes fixed on him. She glanced at Ray and pointed. "Ray."

"Jeez!" the boy shouted. "An alien knows my name!"

"Hus.h.!.+" Jessie almost pinched a plug out of his arm.

Rhodes nodded. "Right. That's Ray. What's your name?"

The creature swiveled around and walked with a graceful gliding gait to the hallway. She halted, turned toward them again. "Name," she said, and walked on into the hall. Jessie's heart jumped. "I think she wants us to follow."

They did. The creature was waiting in Stevie's room. Her arm was lifted, her index finger pointing to something.

"Your name," Rhodes repeated, not understanding. "Tell us what we can call you."

She answered: "Dau-fin."

And all of them saw that her finger was aimed at the picture of a dolphin on Stevie's bulletin board.

"Double gnarly!" Ray exclaimed. "She's Flipper!"

"Dau-fin." It was said with the inflections of a child. Her arm stretched up; the fingers touched the picture, moved over the aquamarine water. "Dau-fin."

Rhodes was unsure if she actually meant the dolphin or the ocean. In any case he was certain the creature before them was much more than a dolphin in human skin: much, much more. Her eyes asked if he understood, and he nodded; her fingers lingered for a few seconds on the picture, making a gentle wavelike motion. Then her interest drifted to another picture, and Rhodes saw her flinch.

"Sting-er," she said, like she had tasted something nasty. She touched the scorpion, drew her fingers quickly back as if afraid she might be stung.

"It's just a picture." Rhodes tapped it. "It's not real."

She studied it for a moment longer-then she removed the little colored pins that fastened the picture to the cork and looked at it closely, her finger traveling the length of the segmented tail. Finally, her hands began to work at the paper. Folding it, Rhodes realized. Making it into a different shape. Jessie's hand gripped Tom's. She watched as Stevie-or Daufin, or whatever-folded the paper and folded it again, the fingers now fast and supple. It took the creature only a few seconds to produce a paper pyramid; she twirled the pyramid away, and it flew across the room and bounced against the wall. Gunniston picked it up. It was the d.a.m.nedest paper airplane he'd ever seen. The creature faced them; there was expectation in her eyes, and a questioning, but no one knew what the question might be.

She took a step toward Jessie, who in turn retreated a pace. Ray backed against the wall. Daufin lifted her hand, placed it to Stevie's chest. "Yours," she said. Jessie knew what the creature was asking. "Yes. My daughter. Our daughter." Her grip was about to break Tom's fingers.

"Daugh-ter," Daufin repeated carefully. "A fe-male offspring of hu-man be-ings."

"Straight from Webster's," Gunniston muttered. "Think she knows what it means?"

"Quiet!" Rhodes told him. Daufin glided to the window, her chin uptilted. She stayed that way without budging for over a minute, and Jessie realized she was entranced by a sliver of blue sky through the drawn blinds. Jessie got her legs unfrozen and went to the window, pulling the blinds up by their cord. The afternoon sunlight streaming over the sill held a hint of gold, and the cloudless sky was brilliantly azure.

Daufin stood staring. She reached up with both hands and stood on tiptoes, the entire body straining for the sky. Jessie saw a change come over the face: it was no longer a blank, emotionless mask. In it was a yearning, a mingled joy and sadness that was beyond Jessie's emotions to comprehend. The face was at once Stevie's, with its innocence and fresh curiosity, and at the same time it was an ancient face-the face, perhaps, of an old woman, careworn and dreaming of what might have been. The little hands stretched for the gla.s.s, but Stevie's body was way too short to get there. Daufin gave a snort of impatience, glided past Jessie, and dragged the chair over from Stevie's desk; she climbed up on it, leaned toward the window, and immediately smacked her forehead against the gla.s.s. Her fingers probed at the invisible barrier, pattering like moths trying to get through a screen. Finally, Daufin's arms lowered, the hands hanging limply at her sides.

"I..." Daufin said. "I... de-sire..."

"What'd she say?" Gunniston asked, but Rhodes put a finger to his lips.

"I de-sire. To." Daufin's head turned, and the eyes-something ancient behind them, something in dire need-found Jessie's. "I de-sire to o-rate your aur-i-cles."

No one spoke. Daufin blinked, awaiting a reply.

"I think she wants to be taken to our leader," Ray said, and Tom elbowed him none too gently in the shoulder.

Daufin tried again: "Os-cill-ate your tym-pan-um."

Jessie thought she understood. "You mean... talk to us?"

Daufin frowned, mulling over what she'd heard. She made a little chirping, weirdly musical noise, climbed down off the chair, glided past Jessie and out of the room. Rhodes and Gunniston hurried after her.

And by the time Jessie, Tom, and Ray got to the den, Daufin was crouched on the floor intent on rereading the dictionary from cover to cover.

15 Dark Karma

At the moment Daufin was trying to learn the nuances of English, Cody Lockett was operating the hydraulic lift in a garage stall of Xavier Mendoza's gas station, cranking up a Ford that needed new brake drums. He was wearing old, faded jeans and an olive-green works.h.i.+rt that had his name beneath the Texaco star; his hands were greasy, his face streaked with grime, and he knew he was a long way from resembling the well-scrubbed gas jockeys in TV commercials, but staying clean didn't get the job done. In the last hour, he'd changed the oil in two cars and the spark plugs and points in a third. The garage was his territory, its tools hanging in orderly rows on the walls and gleaming like surgical instruments, a rack of tires giving off the smell of fresh rubber and an a.s.sortment of cables, radiator belts, and hoses hanging from the metal beams overhead. The garage door had been hoisted up and a big box fan kept the air circulating, but it was still plenty hot anywhere chrome reflected the sunlight and engines were continually turned over.

Cody got the lift as high as he wanted and locked it in place. He plugged in the electric gun that unscrewed lug nuts and began to take the tires off. Working here helped him forget about the old man. There was more than enough to keep him busy today-including hoisting out the destroyed engine of that sea-green pickup in the next stall-and sometime this afternoon he wanted to find time to tinker with his motorcycle's carb and smooth out the kinks.

The signal bell rang as a car pulled up to the pumps outside, but he knew Mr. Mendoza would take care of the gas customers. Sonny Crowfield had knocked off just before Cody came in for work-which was just as well, since Cody couldn't stand him; Crowfield, in Cody's opinion, was a crazy half-breed and a Rattler to boot, always talking s.h.i.+t about how he was going to someday stomp Jurado and become president. From what Cody heard, even the Rattlers didn't have much to do with Crowfield, who lived on the edge of the autoyard, all alone except for a collection of animal skeletons-and where and how he got those bones, no one knew.

A car horn honked. Cody looked up from his work.

At the pumps sat a silver-blue Mercedes convertible, its paint glossed to a high s.h.i.+ne. Behind the wheel was a man wearing sungla.s.ses and a straw Panama hat. He lifted a hand in a brown leather driving glove, motioning for Cody to come out. In the seat beside him was a husky Doberman, and another one crouched in the backseat. Mendoza emerged from his office and went around to speak to the driver. Cody returned to his job-but the Mercedes's horn rapped out an impatient tattoo. Mack Cade was as persistent as a tick. Cody knew what he wanted. The horn honked again, though Mendoza was standing right there trying to tell Cade that Cody had work to do. Mack Cade was paying him zero attention. Cody said, "s.h.i.+t!" under his breath, put aside the lug-nut gun, and wiped his hands off on a rag, taking his time about it; then he walked out into the glary sunlight.

"Fill 'er up, Cody!" Mack Cade said. "You know what she drinks."

"You've got garage work to do, Cody!" Mr. Mendoza told him, trying his best to cover for the boy-because he, too, knew Cade's game. "You don't have to come out and pump the gas!" His eyes were black and fearsome, and with his silver hair and bushy silver mustache he resembled an aged grizzly ready for a final tooth-and-claw battle; if those d.a.m.ned dogs weren't there he might have s.n.a.t.c.hed Cade out of that fancy car and beaten him b.l.o.o.d.y.

"Hey, I'm particular about who touches my car." Cade's voice was a silky-smooth drawl; he was used to being obeyed. He smiled at Mendoza, showing a line of small white teeth in his deeply burnished face. "Bad vibes round here, man. You've got a real dark karma."

"I don't need your business, or your bulls.h.i.+t either!" Mendoza's shout made Typhoid, the dog in the pa.s.senger seat, stiffen and snarl. The dog in the rear, whose name was Lockjaw, was frozen and staring, his single ear laid back along his skull; that and the fact that Typhoid was a little larger through the shoulders was the only difference between the two animals.

"You sure about that? I can bring in my own gas trucks, if you want."

"Yeah, maybe that'd be just fi-"

"Hold it," Cody interrupted. "You don't need to be my watchdog," he said to Mendoza. "I can look out for myself." He walked to the diesel pump, withdrew the hose, and primed the numbers back to zero.

"Let's give peace a chance, Mendoza," Cade said as Cody started feeding the fuel in. "Okay?"

Mendoza snorted angrily and glanced at Cody; the boy nodded that everything was under control. Mendoza said, "I'll be in my office. You don't take no s.h.i.+t from him, understand?" He turned on his heel and strode away, and Cade revved up the volume on his tape deck. Tina Turner's raspy voice thundered, "Better be good to me! "

"You can clean the winds.h.i.+eld, too," Cade told Cody as soon as Mendoza was in the office. Cody went to work with the squeegee; he could see a distorted image of himself in the reflective lenses of the man's sungla.s.ses. Cade's hat was held on by a leather chinstrap, he wore a silk short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt the color of sangria, and tie-dyed jeans. Around his neck dangled a few golden chains, among them one with an old peace sign on it, and one of those small gold ingots with foreign words. On his left wrist was a Rolex watch with diamonds set in its dial, and on the right was a gold bracelet with "Mack" engraved in it. Both of the Dobermans were watching with keen interest as Cody's squeegee went back and forth over the gla.s.s.

Cade lowered the music. "Guess you heard about the meteor. Far out, huh?"

Cody didn't reply. Of course he'd seen the helicopter sitting in Preston Park, but he hadn't known what was going on until Mr. Mendoza had told him. If Mr. Hammond had heard his wife's truck had been hit by a meteor, Cody mused, he sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't have d.i.c.ked around school so long after the bell rang.

"Yeah, I hear the meteor's hot too. Radioactive. That's supposed to be a secret, but I heard it from Whale Tail at the Brandin' Iron, and she heard it from the deputy. Seems to me a little radiation might spark this d.a.m.ned town up some, huh?"

Cody concentrated on getting the guts of a smashed moth off the winds.h.i.+eld.

"I'm picking up some more bad vibes, Cody. There's a real purple haze around this place today, man."

"You're buyin' gas, not talk."

"Whoa! The stone face speaks!" Cade rubbed Typhoid's skull and watched the boy work. He was thirty-three years old, with a soft, cherubic face-but beneath the sungla.s.ses his eyes were cold blue and cunning. Cody had seen them before, and they made him think of the hard steel of rabbit traps. Under his Panama hat, Cade's hair was pale blond and thinning, combed back from a high, unlined forehead. Two diamond studs glittered in his left earlobe. "Tomorrow's your last schoolday," he said; the shuck-and-jive had dropped from his voice. "Big day for you, man. Important day." He scratched beneath Typhoid's muzzle. "I guess you've been thinking about your future. About money too."

Don't answer him! Cody thought. Don't fall for it!

"How's your father doing? I missed him last time I stopped in for a doughnut."

Cody finished the winds.h.i.+eld and glanced at the diesel pump. The numbers were still clicking.

"Hope he's okay. You know, with the town shutting down and all, it probably won't be too long before the bakery goes under. What's he going to do when that happens, Cody?"

Cody walked over to stand by the pump. Mack Cade's head turned to follow him, the smile as white as a scar. "I've got an opening for a mechanic," he said. "A good, fast mechanic. The opening won't last but for a week or so. Pay starts at six hundred a month. Do you know anybody who could use the money?"

Cody was silent, watching the numbers change. But inside his head six hundred a month kept repeating itself, gaining power with every repet.i.tion. G.o.d A'mighty! he thought. What I couldn't do with that kind of money!

"But it's not just the money," Cade pressed on, smelling blood in the boy's silence. "It's the benefits too, man. I can get you a car just like this one. Or a Porsche, if you want. Any color. How about a red Porsche, five on the floor, top speed a hundred and twenty? You name the options, you got them."

The numbers stopped. Cade's tank was full. Cody unhooked the nozzle, closed the gas port, and returned the hose to the diesel pump. Six hundred a month, he was thinking. A red Porsche... top speed a hundred and twenty...

"It's night work," Cade said. "The hours depend on what's in the yard, and I'll expect you to work sixteen hours straight if there's a rush on. My connections pay high green for quality work, Cody-and I think you can deliver it."