A Jungle of Stars (1976) (18 page)

Finally, Jennifer reached over to a clock on a bedside table, its faceplate removed so that she could feel the hands.

"It's ten to two," she said. "Hungry?"

"No, not really," he replied. "I should be, but I'm not. And I have to go to work soon. And if things turn out the way I hope, it's better that I don't."

"What do you mean?" she asked, concerned. "Are you going to do something dangerous?"

"I'm going to dive into that lake, I think, and see that thing close up."

"Don't -- don't get killed," she pleaded with him, a tremor in her voice.For the first time, the true irony of that comment struck him. He kissed her again, lightly.

"Believe me, honey," he said enigmatically, "there's absolutely no way for that to happen."

Almost inaudible in the apartment, there came the soft sound of electrical bells, moving away.

4

THE HELICOPTERS STARTED landing at about 3:30, making the area around the lake look like a military invasion.

Savage had dressed and said good-bye to Jenny. She'd wanted to come along, concerned for his safety, but he was very firm: if anything came out of that thing, he wanted her as far away as possible.

The route back down to the lake took him past the diner and along a suburbia-looking little section of town he had not noticed before. This time, he saw the crowd of milling children around the ice cream truck up on a corner about half a block from Mycroft's main drag.

He drove on to the lake.

Two Air Force sargeants were already suiting up for the dive as he approached. A nervous looking major was pacing in front of one of the copters.

Savage identified himself to the man.

"Oh, yeah," the major said. "I got something on you. What do you want to do here?"

"If you've got a spare scuba tank, I'd like to go down with the men."

"Well, we got spares, all right," the major replied slowly, "but. . ."

His gaze fell to Savage's claw.

"Oh, the thing's rustproof, shockproof, waterproof and antimagnetic,"

Savage assured him. "Causes me a little balance problem but nothing serious.

I've dived in worse than this with and without it."

The major threw up his hands. "Okay, then, on your own head be it. We both work for the same boss."

Savage decided to wear only trunks and the basic scuba gear; he didn't want to chance the rubberized suit fouling up his hand mechanism. In a few minutes, they were all ready. The two divers stared at the claw-and-strap arrangement, but made no comment.

"Got any weapons with you?" Savage asked them.

The nearer diver, a young man not more than twenty, raised his eyebrows.

"Why? They dump sharks in this pool?"

"No," Savage laughed. "But we have no idea what the thing is. We know, though, that it appeared to be guided by something. Who knows what. A Russian?

A Martian. . . ?"

"We didn't bring any weapons, mister," replied the diver, "but if anybody's in there, they'll have to come out up here. Let's not worry about it. Ready to go?"

"Ready," Savage assured them.

They walked into the water.

It was extremely clear, the only fouling element their own wakes and air bubbles as they made their way out. After a short time, the lead diver gestured, and they went down.

A small, smashed yellow sports car, upside down, was up ahead. They stopped to look it over. One of the divers attached a line to the car and, using a small canister, inflated a large orange balloon that floated quickly to the surface. The car could now be located by a rig on top and brought up.

But this was not their main objective, and they pushed on.

It loomed ahead of, them: a large black blob settled in the mud.

As they drew up to it, they saw that the exterior looked like a painted surface, or car finish, that had undergone tremendous heat. Little chips came away easily when brushed. Clearly, from its symmetry, it was not a natural object. Someone -- or something -- had definitely built it.

Savage felt his stomach tightening becoming worse. It was the missing enemy ship, no doubt about it.

A diver took out a small pick and chipped away at it. Some of the burn-chips flew off, but be got nowhere with the bulk. Savage and the other diver took off in opposite directions to circle the craft.

About a third of the way around, he found the open hatch.

Savage waited for the other diver. He had no stomach for going in there alone.

Savage gestured to the other man as he approached, then slowly made his way inside the hatch, which, large enough for a small man, he nevertheless had problems squeezing through. Although an airlock, the inner door was also open and underwater. He made his way through to it and broke the surface. The ship was still dry inside: an air pocket had formed due to its twenty-degree lean and the almost bottom location of the hatch.

He had been in The Hunter's ships, and saw that the design here did not differ much, but was more cramped. There were two command chairs forward, and two facing the rear.

Three of them had occupants.

The second, diver broke the surface and looked around, awed. As he started to remove his breathing tube, Savage motioned for him not to. No telling what kind of stuff these things breathed. The third and last diver came through moments later. The two stared, amazed at first; but soon began to film the interior.

Savage walked over to the closest command chair -- a gunner's -- and examined the inhabitant.

It was dead, fortunately. A scaly green lizard, slime oozing from its body in death, eyes open wide. Savage did not recognize the race -- but he had been briefed about the other occupant of the chair. Implanted on the lizard's back, oozing the same ichor, was a small object like a purplish mass of matted hair. The other two occupants of the craft were identical: all dead, all with equally dead Kah'diz on their backs.

The fourth chair was empty.

This was a puzzle, anyway. Why would a fighter have a crew of four? Two could handle it easily; three was the normal complement for insurance. But with a Kah'diz ship, well, who knew what sort of design those parasites might come up with? Or why?

The two divers seemed hypnotized, but they knew what they had.

A spaceship. A real, honest-to-God spaceship.

Savage motioned them back through the lock. Air time was getting low, and he wanted to get the report out of the way.

He saw that the last diver to enter had marked the thing's dimensions outside with four more balloons, and they all started swimming back to the bank. "What did you see?" shouted a little bald map in a gray tweed.

"You're not gonna believe this one. . ." called out one of the divers.

Savage made his report along with the other two, to the growing excitement of the scientists and the growing alarm of the military. He wanted to wrap it up as quickly as possible and report. The divers' films would be pored over for what was in the pictures. The empty chair and the open lock told the really important story.

He was too late. Something was already loose.

"No sign of anything. . . ?" the watch officer asked incredulously. "Not even the host's body? After all, the place war patrolled, and a four-foot green lizard is pretty conspicuous."

"Nothing," Savage replied. "Looks like whatever it was skipped as soon as the mud settled, long before the gendarmes arrived."

"Well, I checked with Data Services and they tell me that, from the description of the other three, the lizard had to be almost as bad -- couldn't have lasted long."

"Yeah. But if so, where's the body?"

"More importantly, where's the Kah'diz?" said the watch officer. "Those things are incredibly adaptable. It could be on a dog -- anything large enough to sustain it for a time."

"What about locomotion?" Savage asked. "If the host body died, how much time would it have?"

"Not much. Ten, fifteen minutes, no more. It would drain as much of the blood from the dead body as possible, then sort of roll itself into a ball and try and claim the first host possible. It can't roll very fast or very far --

but, remember, they have this empathic power. If it got close enough to somebody, say, then that somebody would actually help the thing dig into its neck. The Kah'diz would then slowly expel the old blood externally, and alter its biochemistry for the new host. It has to be adaptable: it's so vulnerable and helpless on its own. Beats me how it swam to shore, though."

Savage thought for a few moments. Then, slowly, he asked, "If you'd never seen a Kah'diz before, would you describe it as, say, a 'little purple haystack'?"

"No," the watch answered, "I wouldn't. But it could be described like that. All I know is what I've seen in the pictures. You saw three of them on the ship. Why do you ask?"

"I think, later, I'm going to see a man about ice cream," Savage said absently, almost to himself. Then: "Who else is out here?"

"Well, Petersen from the D.C. office, good man with a gun; and Della Rosa, out of California, a technical man who's in with the Air Force team.

He's giving us pretty good reports:. They sent a couple more divers down after you left, and he tells us they're going to try to lift the thing."

"Lift it! With what?"

"One or two of the Big Bertha helicopters they use for transporting huge tonnages. Two of them will be in from Meade by tonight."

"Tonight! That means they're going to try it tomorrow morning!"

"You betcha. Be there. Best we figure we can do is let them get it out; then we'll try and destroy it before they start tearing it apart."

"Okay, let the other two stick with that end. I'm going to find our alien," Savage replied, and cleared.

He knew he should try and find that ice cream truck, but he wanted to get back to Jenny first. Despite the gravity of the situation, she remained uppermost in his mind. He cursed himself for it, for letting it interfere with his job, but he couldn't help it.

It's a hell of a shock discovering that you're human, he thought.

She was waiting for Savage when he arrived, and she threw her arms around him. "I was so worried for you," she almost sobbed. "What did you find?"Savage told her of the dive and of the strange creatures.

"And you think one of them's escaped?" she asked. "Yes," he answered honestly. "And, unfortunately, I know what it is." He told her about the Kah'diz.

"But -- but -- how do you know about this thing?" she asked quizzically.

Savage sat down and ran his fingers along the coffee table. Finally he said, "Because I work for the people who shot it down."

She was quiet for a minute, digesting all of this. To her credit, it was not too much for her, but it was like being in a dream -- the whole day was like being in a dream, like being trapped in some kind of Grade B movie script. A sudden love after years of loneliness; a ship from space, monsters of some kind on the prowl; and, she was quite aware, the United States government wasn't going around shooting down flying saucers.

"Are you human, Paul?" she asked. "Are you for real, at all?"

"I'm for real, beautiful," he replied gently, and kissed her. "That's the only thing in this cockeyed mess you can count on absolutely."

They sat silently for a while. Jennifer had a million questions, of course, but asked none. It just didn't seem the right time.

Eventually Savage broke the silence. "It's getting dark and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. Want to get something?"

"I can fix something here." She brightened. "I'm not really a bad cook."

"No," he answered. "You bought, this morning. My turn, now."

He felt much better after dinner, and the menu at the little restaurant she'd suggested was unimaginative but extremely well prepared. He went over to the pay phone next to the cashier and thumbed through the small phone book covering the Mycroft area.

McBride, Jos. F, 1444 Pinevw.

"Want to take a little ride?" he asked her when he returned to the table.He knew he should have left her in town, but the thought of being away from Jenny seemed more and more repugnant to him. There seemed little danger, anyway. It was just a hunch . . .

The ice cream truck was parked in the driveway, making the house easy to spot. The place was dark except for a single dim light in the front room.

Telling Jenny to wait in the car, he went to the door and rang the bell.

There was no response.

He pushed in the bell again, insistently keeping the electric switch in contact. Inside, he saw a formless mass come up to the door.

"What d'ya want?" a nasty-sounding voice snapped at him.

"Mr. McBride. . . ? Paul Savage here. I'm an investigator. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

"Go away!" barked the voice from inside. "I don't want to see anybody!

The cops were up here about Alice Mary this morning, and I don't think I have to talk to you or anybody else about anything!"

"Mr. McBride, I--" Savage began, but the old man cut him off.

"Get the hell out of here, damn it, or I'll get my gun! I have enough grief now. You can only add to it!"

With that, the figure -- never clearly seen through the thick lace curtains on the door -- walked away. Savage peered in, trying to see more, but it was too dark.

McBride was right, of course. If it was McBride. He bad to admit to himself that this was the way he would react in similar circumstances. The Kah'diz were not telepaths, and such normal reactions would be difficult to fake this early in the game.

But why had he taken the truck on the normal run? "It still doesn't fit," he told Jenny as they drove back down the mountain road. "Whoops! Hold it!"

He braked the car to a stop.

"What is it?" she asked apprehensively.

"A trail, I think, leading down the mountain. Yep, it goes all the way down to the lake. Not used much, by the look of it"

Savage got out and inspected the path, seeing that the soft earth had been only recently disturbed after a long time. A little way down he saw where someone, apparently running, had fallen and mashed two or three of the small bushes almost flat. He walked back to the car and started up.