Alan Dean Foster (8 page)

Winter shrugged. "So far he's a John Doe. Or a Sam Slag, if you prefer."

Francisco smiled politely, his expression noncommital. Winter read on.

"No ID on him, andwell, you know. No fingerprints. So it could be tough.

Your buddies went through the mug book this morning but couldn't make a facial match."

Successful adaptation, Sykes mused. Hardly here long enough to learn the language and already the Newcomers had their very own mug book.

"I'll bet they looked real hard," he sniffed sourly. "But that doesn't mean a damn thing. Fedorchuk couldn't find his ass with both hands in his back pockets."

While he and Winter chatted amiably, Francisco studied the alien body.

That suited Sykes fine. The Newcomer detective wouldn't inhibit the discussion with the Deputy Examiner.

Winter finally broke off the small talk long enough to indicate the alien corpse. "You took this guy out too, didn't you?"

"Yeah.-

"Lucky for you, you got him in both of his-well, what we loosely refer to as 'hearts."' Winter shook his head in amazement. "They look a lot less like us on the inside, you know. Basically humanoid, though sometimes I wish I could

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specialize. It's fascinating stuff. I try to keep up, what with L.A. being home to most of them. Some of the stuff that's out in the literature would blow your mind, Sykes. They have a kind of group shyness about their internal workings, so it's tough to find things out, but we're learning.

The double heart setup isn't the half of it, and they aren't really hearts as we understand them. They move the blood, all right, but they're not the same size or shape, and instead of chambering they've got the damndest most complicated ventricular setup you ever. . ."

Sykes was bored by the first sentence. "You think I was lucky? Lucky my ass. I had to empty my damn gun into him. I thought he was down for the count after my first shot and started to check him out. If I hadn't watched my step it'd be me you'd be lecturing George about."

"That's the way these people are." Winter was studying the body, still obviously intrigued by what he didn't know. "They're so damn big and dense that if you don't hit both pumps or the brain you just piss them off. Maybe one of these days we'll have a Newcomer on the staff to help us with explanations, but right now we don't know what half the goop inside them is even for."

"Me, I don't want to know. Mind if I see that?" Sykes reached hopefully for the report.

The Examiner hesitated, his gaze taking in the unlocked door. They were still alone in the morgue. "Okay, but just here. No copies."

Sykes smiled thinly. "Yeah, right. Just here."

Francisco was making a detailed examination of the body, starting with the feet and working his way up. As he reached the right hand he absently turned it over to check the palm--and frowned. Something on the skin made him lean closer. He studied the dead flesh the way a counterfeiter would examine a batch of freshly printed fifty-dollar bills.

Letting the hand fall back, he reached up and carefully peeled back the dead alien's upper lip. What he saw made him frown anew, but neither the busily reading Sykes nor the indifferent Winter glanced in his direction.

Finally he removed his fingers from the breathless mouth and straightened.

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Three lab assistants had entered a few moments earlier and were busy at their respective tasks. One bulked much larger than his companions. A glance showed that Sykes was going to be occupied for a while yet. Making his way across the floor between tables empty and full, he introduced himself to the alien lab assistant. They began conversing softly in their own tongue. The other pair of lab workers ignored them.

Eventually Sykes returned the folder. "Thanks, Winter. Do you a favor sometime."

"You know what they say. Silence is golden."

"Not where I work it ain't. You got anything else?"

"You've seen it all. Oh, wait." Winter fumbled with the folder's back pocket. "Since you're so interested, here's an extra head shot if you want one." He passed an 8 X 10 Polaroid of the dead Newcomer's face to the grateful detective.

"Sure you won't miss this?"

"No problem with photos. It's the synopses and analyses the boss gets touchy about passing around." He nodded in the direction of the corpse.

"We're just about to start cuffing in. You're welcome to stick around and watch if you want. I guarantee you'll learn a lot. Every time we open one of these guys up there's a new surprise."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Sykes had what he'd come for. Sliding the photo into his own folder he scanned the morgue in search of his partner, found him deep in conversation with the Newcomer lab worker.

"Take it easy, Sykes." Winter offered a final smile.

"Easy as I can." But he wasn't paying attention to the Deputy Examiner anymore.

His first impulse was to go gather up his Newcomer, and get moving, but he hesitated. If he strained his hearing he could make out snatches and bits of alien conversation. The lab assistant appeared by turns to be animated, sullen, and unsettled as he responded to Francisco's questioning. Then he was nodding as if agreeing with something the detective had said-or like someone who'd just agreed to do something for someone else.

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Unable to stand it any longer, Sykes walked over and stared straight into his partner's face.

"What's this, what's going on?" At his intrusion the lab worker melted silently back among the work benches.

Francisco replied as blandly as usual. "Going on? Why, nothing. "

Sykes's brows crinkled. "Nothing?"

The Newcomer's gaze rose to the table across the room that held Raincoat.

"We have examined the two bodies and obtained what information we could.

Shouldn't we now examine their personal effects? They could be revealing."

He headed for the door.

Sykes glared at the retreating back for a long moment, then followed, his thoughts churning.

OTtiz was pretty enough. Sykes had no serious interest in her, though. She was too young for him, and busy working her way through college. Smart women made him uneasy. Not that he felt intellectually inadequate in their presence, whether he was or not, but Edie had done the college bit.

Anything associated with his ex-wife's likes and dislikes made him uneasy.

She glanced up from her homework and recognized him. "Sykes, isn't it?" He nodded. "Been a while. You not working homicide much these days?"

"Naw. Just got back from six months in the Bahamas. What do you think?" He smiled to indicate his sarcasm wasn't serious.

She rose and went behind the property counter. "What do you need?"

"A tall blonde, a Tesstarossa, six figures in the bank, and a new face. "

She grinned playfully. "No got. What else?"

He sighed elaborately. "Effects of two stiffs named Hubley and John Doe.

The latter's an alien, gunshot, brought in in a black vinyl raincoat. I doubt you've got more than one of those. "

She shook her head. "Only the one is right. Wait here."

A few minutes later she was back with the requested materials. Young, yeah, but efficient. College, he thought,

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and dismissed the thought irritably. Everybody had different abilities, and his weren't measurable by quarter-end tests and weekly quizzes.

The pair of regulation-issue storage packets she unceremoniously dumped on the counter were both filled. Sykes went through the effects of the dead alien while Francisco studied Hubley's. Ortiz watched for a while, then returned to her homework. She'd seen it all a hundred times before.

Francisco paused with a small foil packet, held it up to the light before confessing his confusion to his partner, 'What is this?"

Sykes looked over. "A rubber." When Francisco failed to react he added,

"You know. A condom. Coney Island whitefish?" The Newcomer detective still looked dubious. "Me"uman males, put them on their, uh, penises to protect against having babies. "

It was clear that his new buddy was having a tough time with something that was clear as crystal to Sykes. He glanced back at Ortiz.

"You need this?" he asked her, indicating the packet.

She looked up from her books. "Nope. Anything you guys don't use gets shoved back in storage."

Sykes nodded, turned to Francisco with his hand outstretched. The alien obediently passed over the foil packet. Ripping it open, Sykes unrolled the contents and dangled the condom before the Newcomer's curious gaze.

"Get the picture now? Or should we stop by a bookstore on the way out and buy you a manual?"

Francisco frowned at the pale membrane. "And that fits?"

It wasn't exactly the response Sykes expected. "Well, yeah. It's rubber.

It stretches."

"And still it fits?"

The detective stared hard at his partner for a long moment, but Francisco's expression was utterly serious. Finally he tossed the condom and empty packet back on the counter and continued probing the dead Newcomer's effects. Francisco returned to his examination of Hubley's pile. The subject of birth control was not mentioned again.

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Sykes started in on Raincoat's clothes. The heavy workboots the alien had been wearing came last and he handled them gingerly. They were still coated on the sides and sole with some thick, viscous black material. He took a tentative sniff of the stuff and was gratified it wasn't what it might have been. Sticky, but not tar or asphalt. Either of those would have dried to rock hardness by now from their time in storage.

The stuff was still malleable enough to come off on your fingers, though, as Sykes quickly discovered. Looking disgusted, he hunted for something to wipe his hand. Francisco looked over.

"Problerns?"

"There's some kind of goo all over these boots." He held out his sticky fingers for examination. "What is this stuff?"

Francisco studied his partner's outstretched hand. "If I am not mistaken, it is a resin."

Sykes stopped hunting for a loose rag or towel and looked up in surprise.

"Oh. A resin. Well sure, I mean, that's obvious, isn't it?"

Francisco wasn't finished. "Newcomers working with methane at oil refineries must paint it on their boots to protect against sparks that could set off an explosion."

The detective's jaw fell slightly. "How the hell do you know that?"

As it turned out, there was a perfectly good reason. Francisco was knowledgeable, if no genius.

"A large number of my people were hired by refineries in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area because the methane fumes that are produced as a byproduct of certain refining processes are not harmful to us. Our lungs can tolerate a number of different gases which humans would find harmful and sometimes even lethal. This fact is widely known." Sykes bridled only slightly at the implied criticism. "My spouse's brother is one such worker."

"I see. And you saw the stuff on his boots one day and asked him what it was." Francisco nodded.

"We frequently exchange information. It is the only way we can learn about the world in which we find ourselves."

Sykes's thoughts were racing. "So the Slag they're cut-56

ting into upstairs worked at a refinery. Just like Hubley worked at a refinery." He glanced significantly up at his partner. "That suggest anything to you, George?"

"I am not unaware of the line of thought you are following, Matt. -

Sykes was nodding to himself, obviously pleased. "I'd say that 'possible'

connection between the two cases just got a hell of a lot more possible.

Okay, next step." He was silent for a moment, gazing at the far wall.

Then he blinked and turned back to the silently waiting Francisco. "I gotta go talk to the wife of the Slag storeowner who got blown away last night."

"I believe I should be the one to interview the widow."

"Yeah, sure, you can be there too. Probably need you, if her English ain't too good. Might even be a question or two you'd think to ask that wouldn't occur to me."

"You do not understand. I am saying that I think I should interview her alone. By myself, yes?"

"Yes-I mean, no! Why the hell ... T'

He stopped himself. Francisco wasn't smiling knowingly, but he might as well have been. Sykes was among the first to recognize that his bedside manner at such times could be less than sympathetic to the victim of a recent tragedy. Interviewees tended to shrink from him when they ought to be spilling information. Relatives of homicide victims were the worst.

It made no difference that the subject of their visit was going to be Newcomer. Where those kinds of emotions were concerned there was no difference between species.

Sykes had his pride, but he wasn't dumb. He wanted information, not ego boosting. "Great, fine," he muttered. "You talk to the wife."

Francisco looked pleased, but had the courtesy not to comment.

V

The last time they'd seen the minimart it had been aflame with police lights and noise and activity. Now it was silent, the shattered windows boarded over with three-quarter-inch plywood. After several rings the door was opened with obvious reluctance by an elderly Newcomer woman taller than Sykes. He stood behind Francisco, letting his partner do all the talking in the softly hissing Newcomer language.

My day to play chauffeur, he mused as he strolled through the empty store.

The shelves were empty now, the stock having been sold or given away. A For Rent sign was already stapled to one of the plywood panels out front. Empty and deserted, the minimart didn't look Re much.

There were a few isolated goods left on the back shelves. Some he recognized, others he didn't. American manufacturers were still trying to adapt, some with far more success than others, to an entirely new group of consumers unexpectedly dumped in their midst. In their place alien entrepreneurs had stepped in, repackaging old goods to appeal to their own kind, creating new products out of what was available. The Newcomers often acted silly and slow, and deserved many of the jokes told about them, but they weren't all shambling stupes. They had their share of brains, even if it seemed much of the time that they weren't evenly distributed.