J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection (41 page)

"Yes," he replied weakly, but was barely able to raise his head.

There was nothing to be done about it; Xashron turned to Xeera. "Fire."

Xeera complied. "Helicopters destroyed; but instruments indicate that the humans are fleeing by foot in the direction of the forest."

Xashron glanced at his unsteady officer. "Target them, Konar."

Konar struggled to do so. "Targeted, Commander."

"Fire."

Harrison
felt
searing heat skim across the top of his head; for one horrible second he was afraid to open his eyes, afraid of what he would see.

And then he heard Suzanne scream. In front of them a tree exploded in a blaze that faded quickly to blackness. She ran to him, pulled him to his feet, and together they dashed toward safety. Harrison turned to see the targeting eye rotate again, focus on them, and stop as it prepared to fire.

Strong hands grabbed him, pulled him into the protection of the forest behind the cover of a small rise. Suzanne, still fiercely clutching "his hand, was dragged along with him.

"Down!" Ironhorse barked.

Harrison dropped onto his stomach and craned his neck to see over the rise. Their pursuer had stopped; gracefully, the other ships floated out from the hangar to join the first, and the three jockeyed into a triangular formation. Slowly, the deadly triangle made its way toward the humans cowering in the forest.

"Well,
shit,"
Harrison said, bitterly disappointed. It was the only word that summed up the situation, and at the moment he very much understood why on flight recorders recovered from fatal plane crashes the last words of the crew the instant before impact were invariably of the four-letter variety. Now only Norton and poor Clayton would be left to fight the aliens: would they be able to find others to help them?

Harrison glanced over at Suzanne, who lay next to him, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I'm sorry, Suzanne," he said lamely. "And awfully sorry for Debi. I didn't mean for this to happen."

She opened her eyes to look at him, the corner of her mouth quirking with wry resignation in the midst of her fear. "Oh, what the hell." She shrugged cavalierly. "At least it's for a worthy cause. But don't apologize, Harrison. It's hardly your fault. Frankly, I think you're a truly good man."

"I hate to interrupt the love fest," Ironhorse said dryly, "but don't make out your wills just yet. It's just about ten minutes." He glanced from the approaching ships to his watch. "Three ... two . . . one . ..
now?'

Nothing happened.

Konar struggled against unconsciousness. His wounds from the human firearms had been extensive, and he had lost a great deal of bodily fluids, which left him weak. So weak that he was aware of the human host struggling to reclaim the body that Xana had permitted him to use.

He obeyed Xashron's order to target the fleeing humans once more, then slumped over his panel to rest. One arm dangled down and brushed against something unfamiliar, foreign—a lump of malleable material with wires and a small mechanical device stuck to it. He stared curiously at it for a moment, then consulted the host brain—a female named Urick, with an incredibly forceful personality. Urick had some military knowledge, and recognized the substance immediately: plastic explosives.

When Konar digested what this meant, he struggled to lift his head, to cry out a warning to the others.

Urick did not let him.

He was weak and dying, too weak to fight her, and in a sheer burst of will she took ascendancy and held him there, silent, in his position, not even allowing him to bend down and remove the explosive.

Urick, too, was weak and dying, but her determination was strong, and the explosive was her chance for freedom, for an end to her torment, to the twilight half-death she endured.

In her brush with Konar's mind, she realized that the explosive would end more than her torment alone. She knew little of the aliens, but she had glimpsed the destruction envisioned in Konar's dying brain. Perhaps

393

her hopes of revolution had been naive, narrow-minded, unrealistic; perhaps she had failed in what she set out to do in Jericho Valley, but she would not fail now.

There's more than one way to save the world.

"Konar?"

Alien gibberish; deep, harsh, grating sounds, but somehow Urick understood that they were speaking to her.

"Konar— " The one named Xeera leaned forward to peer curiously at her. "Answer. What are the coordinates of our targets?"

Urick laughed silently. Konar was dying; Konar could not give the coordinates if he wanted to, and Urick would not let him if he did. She glanced down at the timer; there were only seconds left.

The other, Xashron, in the body of a strangled young soldier, rose from his post next to her and moved toward her. "Konar—obey your command, or I shall call one of those below to replace you." He leaned over Urick, brushed against the edge of the panel. Something made him glance down, and see the explosive stuck there; the eyes of the dead soldier widened.

"No!" From the terror on his face it was clear the alien understood. He reached forward with human hands to tear it from the panel, to destroy it.

Konar was dead, and Urick was dying now that his alien strength was leaving her. With enormous effort she rose and fell forward onto Xashron, forcing him to stagger backward, away from the panel. She was too weak to stop him, but she could try to slow him down until—

The timer reached zero.

Liberation, my friend.

The world exploded into a painfully beautiful fireball.

Harrison clicked his tongue in disgust. "And
you
said you were an explosives exp—"

The first ship burst into a ball of dazzling light, followed swiftly by two more rapid-fire explosions. The force of the blast made the ground shudder; Harrison covered his head with his arms as debris rained down from the sky.

Bits of metal stung as they pelted his back. Long after the shrapnel stopped falling, he stayed facedown in the grass, arms shielding his head.

Silence. Then someone touched him, gently, on the shoulder. He lifted his head and saw Suzanne. She was sitting up, bits of grass clinging to her dark hair. "Harrison," she said huskily, smiling, but her mouth twitched as if she were holding back tears. "Get up, Harrison. It's all right. It's over."

Harrison, darling, get up—

It's over.

He heard the words without understanding them, and pushed himself to his knees. For a moment he stared at her, then tilted his head back to gaze up at the silent sky. The ships were gone; what was left of them lay scattered in twisted heaps of wreckage for as far as Harrison could see.

The sense of relief was dizzying. He reached for Suzanne and gave her a fierce, grateful squeeze. "You're all right. Thank God. Thank God." He laughed softly at the sudden absence of terror and released her.

Ironhorse gave him a joyful slap on the back that nearly made him pitch forward. "We did it!" The colonel grinned toothily. "Son of a gun, Blackwood! We did it!" He held out a hand and pulled Harrison, then Suzanne, to their feet.

"We did it all right," Harrison said, his joy tempered with the memory of past sorrows as he studied the wreckage littering the field.

"It's all over," Suzanne repeated to herself, gazing back at the hangar entrance. "Thank God it's all over."

He stared at her. She was white-faced, dazed, still in shock. He was overwhelmed with relief that they had not been killed, that they had destroyed the ships before the aliens had recovered them, but his relief darkened as an unwelcome thought began to repeat in his brain:
It's not over. Not over at all. It's barely begun. .. .

EPILOGUE

For the first time in years Harrison went to bed and slept a dreamless eight hours. By the time he was wakened by a knock on the door, sunlight was filtering through the curtains of the bedroom window. He sat up stiffly and blinked at the clock on the nightstand: seven-thirty, but it took him a minute to figure out whether it was morning or evening. He was still dressed in the army uniform; he hadn't even taken his boots off, had just fallen onto the bed without pulling down the covers and gone immediately into a deep sleep.

"Harrison?" Mrs. Pennyworth called softly on the other side of the door.

"Yes?" he croaked. His throat was parched and

sore.

"There is an important telephone call for you. Dr. Jacobi."

"Jacobi—" he muttered, confused. Why on earth would Ephram need to talk to him? And then, with a start, he remembered: Clayton! With the stress and excitement, he had completely forgotten that Clayton should have arrived at the ranch yesterday at the very latest. Something must have happened.

"You only need to pick up the telephone by your bed," Mrs. Pennyworth told him. "I transferred the call for you."

"Thank you," Harrison answered abruptly, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached for the telephone on the nightstand and spoke into the receiver, totally awake and very worried. "Ephram?"

"Harrison," Jacobi said quietly, and something in his tone told Harrison with horrible certainty exactly why he was calling.

Harrison leaned forward on the edge of the bed. "Dear God, Clayton—"

"I'm so sorry, Harrison." Jacobi's voice was gentle and full of sympathy. "I found him day before yesterday. He'd had another heart attack." He paused, and continued with some difficulty. "We rushed him to the hospital, but he never regained consciousness. I was with him when he died early this morning."

"This morning," Harrison repeated, having difficulty making sense of what Ephram was saying.

"I would have called sooner," Ephram continued apologetically, "but I knew you couldn't have come to see him ... and he wouldn't have known you were there anyway. The doctor said there was no chance of his waking."

"It's all right, Ephram," Harrison said blankly, hardly realizing what he was saying. A heavy numbness had settled over him, making it difficult to breathe or think or speak. There was an odd, painful tightness in the back of his throat that made his eyes water. "You're right, I couldn't have come. But thank you for staying with him."

Jacobi was silent for a while. "I want you to know," he said finally, "that I found him in his office, with all those other files he had wanted to give you. I'd spoken to him the night before, and he sounded better than he had in years, like the old Clayton. Being useful was the best medicine of all for him; I know that he was very happy just to be back at the Institute."

"I think so," Harrison whispered.

"I'm taking care of the arrangements. Clayton didn't want any fuss, but I'll call later and let you know. If there's anything else I can do—"

"Nothing. Thank you," Harrison said. "Thank you for everything, Ephram."

He placed the receiver back in its cradle and stared at the telephone for a long time. There was a need to grieve, and he would not deny himself that; yet at the same time, he felt an odd sense of relief. Clayton's suffering was over, and he had died in his office, surrounded by stacks of his precious files.

Remember, he died a long time ago. . . .

He undressed, got into the shower, and wept.

Suzanne poured herself another glass of champagne and settled back in her place on the couch to enjoy the

modest celebration: Mrs. Pennyworth had baked a pie for dessert, which was set out on the coffee table along with a sterling silver coffeepot and a bottle of Piper Heidsieck Kensington had brought up from the wine cellar. Next to her, Debi was stuffing herself on the remains of her second—or was it her third?—piece of apple pie, but Suzanne didn't discourage her. She felt too relieved, too indulgent, and a little giddy from the glass of champagne and the euphoria. Everything was going to be all right. The ships were destroyed ... the aliens were no longer a real threat. All that remained now was a simple clean-up operation, finding the few aliens that remained. And then she and Deb could go home.

In a way, she'd be sorry to leave the ranch—in a way, she'd found a home there—but she also knew she had, like Harrison, found a home at the Institute as well. She glanced over at Harrison, who sat quietly , i at one end of the sofa, holding his flute of champagne. He hadn't touched it, and seemed oddly withdrawn. His wildly fluctuating moods still mystified her. Of all of them, he had the most right to be celebrating now.

"Your apple pie is the best, Mrs. Pennyworth," Debi mumbled with her mouth full.

Mrs. Pennyworth smiled, pleased. "Why, thank you, Deborah. If you like, I can show you how to make one."

A kind offer,
Suzanne thought,
but I doubt we'll be around long enough for you to do it.
She wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to Deb that they'd be

leaving soon—the girl would be heartbroken about leaving Spirit.

Kensington frowned at Debi. He was only feigning displeasure, Suzanne realized in her expansive, generous mood. Underneath his stern exterior, the man had a wry wit and seemed genuinely fond of Debi. "Aren't you going to thank me too, young lady?" Kensington arched a gray brow. "After all, I picked the apples."