path to conquest (20 page)

Lauren pursed her lips. “Well, we’re not going to trust you, and Pete has to examine Hannah. That leaves me. Hurry up, guys.”

At her last word, Pete was already inside the security chamber, leaning over Hannah. Neville waited behind him. “Hannah,” Pete said urgently.

Her eyelids fluttered open, but her expression remained blank, unfocused. Then, with obvious strain, she lifted her right hand off the bed’s metallic covering, made a fist, and gave a weak thumbs-up sign.

Pete grinned down at her, then turned to the life-function monitor screen. “Dammit—I wish I knew what this was saying.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. I’d really like to know if moving her is going to kill her.”

“Not
moving her is the surest way to kill her, eh, mate?” Pete’s lips tightened into a thin line. Neville’s comment required no reply, and he busied himseif with measuring Hannah’s vitals as best he could. He took her pulse, laid a hand on her forehead to gauge body temperature, bent over to place an ear on her chest, listening for fluid in her lungs, and gingerly touched her limbs and joints to ascertain if anything had been broken.

“Can you hear me, Hannah?” he asked. “Just squeeze my hand if you understand me. Once for yes, twice for no. Don’t try to talk. Understand?”

One squeeze, very weak.

“Okay, we’re going to try to get you out of here. The only way we can do it is to sneak you out as a corpse. Understand?” One squeeze, about the same. Pete wished she had more strength but didn’t expect miracles.

“Neville, get that gurney over here. Hannah, once you’re on that table, you’re dead as an overcooked steak. Got it? We’re going to wrap you in one of their body bags. You’ll look like E.T. when they„carted him away from Elliot.”

A squeeze, much firmer this time. Pete smiled broadly, then took a hypo out of his medical belt pouch.

“Okay—I’m going to give you a shot. It’s a muscle relaxant combined with a tranquilizer. Once it takes effect, only a doctor could tell you were alive. You ready?”

The old woman’s cracked lips parted. “Ready, Dr. Frankenstein.” Thumbs up again.

Rolling up her sleeve, Pete swabbed a spot with an alcohol pad, then pressed the plunger. “Sweet dreams, Hannah.” Neville had the body shroud and the gumey ready. The cart had glowing antigrav pods where its four wheels should have been.

“Now that’s a good idea,” Pete approved. “If you want to get rich again, Neville, market these things to hospitals.” “Is she going to get through this?”

Pete gave Neville a searching look, then decided against asking if he really cared. “I wish I knew.” He removed the IV tubes. The needles into her flesh were so fine they left no marks, but he placed tiny bandages over the spots anyway, just to be on the safe side. “Ready, set,
lift.”

In perfect unison, they swung Hannah’s frail body onto the gurney, which settled slightly on the antigrav supports. After a moment, Pete folded the two sides of the shroud over her face and fastened it, leaving just an inch open for some air. He saw Neville’s concern. “She won’t suffocate. She’s barely breathing anyway. Now it’s your turn. Program in whatever authorization we need to get off the ship with her.”

There was a desk with a larger computer terminal across the chamber, and Neville approached it, trepidation slowing his step.

“Something wrong?” Pete asked.

More clasped his hands and cracked his knuckles. “Not a thing.” He started to turn away when a sound snagged his ear.

It was Pete, cocking a compact automatic pistol that he’d hidden in his medical pouch. “Just a little reminder, Neville. If you’re setting us up, the first thing I’ll do is shoot you.”

“Not to worry, Forsythe, not to worry,” said Neville, summoning up a suave half smile. Then he got to work. Pete glanced nervously from the computer screen in front of Neville, upon which he couldn’t read a word, to Hannah’s deathly still form, to Lauren’s head, just visible in the window. Though it seemed like hours, Neville was done in just over two minutes.

“Let’s go, Forsythe, old boy. We’ve got a shuttle to catch.” He tapped on the glass and Lauren spun around. She then slid the heavy door open and sucked her breath in at the sight of Hannah’s body.

“My God, she does look dead.”

“Her name is no longer Donnenfeld,” Neville announced, producing a small plastic card with a silver strip across it. “This is Sylvia Newton, a human of no great consequence who expired while in Visitor custody. She’s being returned to the Medical Experimentation Center in San Diego for cellular-preservation experiments. Always on the lookout for better ways of storing food, we’re part of a team which is testing a new technique. Poor Mrs. Newton has been injected with a special solution to stimulate her edible cells, even though her heart and brain have stopped. Such treatment is to be done in the field wherever human bodies may be found, increasing the time available to get dead humans to storage. If this works, we’ll no longer have to keep humans who are bound for eventual consumption alive in order to store them.” Neville completed his speech with a pleased grin.

“Are they really working on that?” Lauren asked in horror.

“As we speak, Miss Stewart.”

“And that’s what you programmed in as authorization?”

“Exactly. And this is Mrs. Newton’s ID card,” he said, brandishing the square plastic. “This means we’re in a bloody big hurry, because we must get the late Mrs. Newton back to the San Diego center in order to measure any unwanted deterioration of tissues.”

“Fine,” Pete said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh, one last thing,” Neville said, his finger jabbing the wall intercom. “Nurse Bridget, Nurse Bridget, please report to the biopsy lab immediately.”

Then he craned around the comer into the main ward. The nurse was already heading out into the corridor.

“Now,"
Neville ordered. Pete took the rear end of the cart, Lauren the front, and Neville led the way, striding authoritatively past the two injured Visitors and out of the wardroom. As the door slid closed behind them, he leaned over to Lauren.

“The key is to look like you know what you’re doing,” he muttered.

Whatever might happen later, Pete was amazed that they’d made it almost to the hangar level without being stopped. He swore to himself that it would be impossible to be inconspicuous bearing a body through the entire starship. But Neville More was a man obviously accustomed to bluffing his way out of dangerous situations. He made no attempt to be furtive and not a single Visitor raised any questions about who they were or what they were doing.

Until they reached the docking bay.

The doors parted and Neville strolled through. Lauren and Pete had no choice but to follow with Hannah’s inert body. Pete looked around—there was a fair amount of activity on the hangar deck, with crews working over several skyfighters and cargo shuttles.

“Captain, sir,” a voice called.

Neville gave no notice, but Pete saw the reptilian lieutenant they’d dealt with when they came aboard trotting directly toward them. He intercepted them a few yards from their ship, waving his black cap and revealing the spiny crest atop his head. He was shorter than Neville, but stockier, and he planted himself between them and the shuttle, determined not to be ignored.

Pete wondered fleetingly if Neville’s lack of respect for the lieutenant was a miscalculation. He’d demonstrated a knack for buttering up occupants of the pecking order’s lower rungs, but at this key junction he’d chosen not to bother.
Should I say something?
Neville had gotten them this far, but this far wasn’t far enough.
Could still be a trap. . . .

Pete opted for silence, but his hand slipped discreetly into the medical pouch and tightened around the pistol stock.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Neville’s tone displayed carefully modulated annoyance.

“Uh, you know I need to see authorization for any humans being removed from the Mother Ship.”

“This is a corpse.” Neville bit off each word. “I am a medical officer attached to the San Diego Experimentation Center, and every second you delay me endangers this very important study of food preservation.”

“I’m sorry about that, Captain, but regulations are regulations. I have to confirm your authorization. May I see your card?”

Neville licked his lips. “Uh, card?”

The lieutenant crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, sir.” He unclipped a palm-sized holoreader from his belt. “I can’t let you go without it.”

Peter’s heart rate accelerated as he saw Neville’s air of superiority dissolve.

“Um, Lieutenant,” he demanded of Pete, “do
you
have the card?”

At first instinct, Pete bridled at the accusative edge in Neville’s accent. Then he realized it was a last-ditch effort to carry on the act—blame the subordinates. Gamely, Pete played his part, adopting the guilty appearance of a third baseman who’d just booted an easy grounder and possibly blown the pennant. “Uh, no, sir. I don’t have any card. I didn’t think I, uh—”

“Captain,” the reptilian officer added helpfully, “it’s a new regulation and I really have to follow it if I—”

“A new regulation?” Neville said sharply.

Pete mentally crossed his fingers, hoping this was the opening they needed.

“Nobody told me about a new regulation. Here I am working my fingers to the scales down on that bloody awful planet and nobody bothers to tell me about a new regulation. I’ll have somebody’s head for this if their stupidity causes the ruination of this stage of the experiment,” he stormed. “/ know who it was. It was that
nurse,
what’s her name? Bridget! As soon as I come back aboard, I’m going to report her to Diana myself.”

“I can take care of that, sir,” said the lieutenant.

“No, no, I want to do this myself. I can’t stand incompetence.”

Pete stepped forward. “Captain, sir, since it is a new regulation, maybe she shouldn’t be treated so harshly. I really don’t think the delay is going to disrupt the experiment. At least, not as long as we get going immediately.”

“Well, maybe you’re right, Peter,” said Neville, his jaw jutting like a Churchillian bulldog. “Let’s just let the lieutenant here check the main authorization file and then, with his permission, we’ll be on our way. Eh, Lieutenant?”

“Oh,
yes sir.
” The Visitor went to the computer terminal on a nearby bulkhead and tapped in his query. In a few seconds several sentences and numbers marched across the screen.

His lipless mouth spread into what Pete guessed to be a smile, needle-sharp teeth just visible.

“Yes, yes, of course, Captain
Neville.
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t recall your name. Everything’s right here. You’re cleared to go. Sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”

More raised one eyebrow menacingly. “Inconvenience? If this delay ruins six weeks’ worth of research before we get our results, I’ll be back to have a word with Diana about idiotic rules that interfere with the war effort. You can be sure of that.”

The alien snapped a salute. “
Yessir!”

Arm frozen in position, he watched them place the litter and body into the small shuttle. Only when the hatch had closed did he scurry off to attend to other duties.

Pete strapped himself into the pilot’s seat while Neville and Lauren secured Hannah in the aft compartment.

“Hey, Neville, I have to give you credit for that performance. You are one slippery bastard.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to it, Forsythe. In working with the Visitors, I’ve learned they’re not so very different from the flower of Mother Earth. Lizards don’t like to admit they don’t know what they’re doing any more than we do.”

Pete chuckled as he started the engines. “Everybody strapped in? Okay, here we go. . . .”

The shuttle rocked gently as Pete eased the throttle ahead to takeoff speed. Collectively, they held their breath until they’d cleared the rim of the docking port. But the oppressive shadow of the mammoth spaceship still loomed over them. Kissing caution good-bye, Pete jammed the throttle to full power and they rocketed out into crystal-blue skies. With a neatly executed roll, Pete steered northeast toward home.

Bridget heard the doors to her ward hiss open and saw Diana enter with Dr. Stavros. She started to rise and salute, but the superior officers bustled past without even acknowledging her presence.

“Diana, it’s too soon,” Stavros insisted, a plaintive note in his voice. He hurried to keep up with the commander’s long strides.

But the quick-paced clicking of Diana’s heels on the deck didn’t slow. “The decision is mine. We need that information.” They reached the security chamber around the comer from the main ward. “Open the door,” she ordered.

With a subservient incline of the head, Stavros obeyed. Diana stepped in first and instantly spat a curse in her native language. The doctor darted past her and stared at the empty diagnostic bed, IV tubes hanging uselessly from their fluid containers.

Diana phrased her next words with stiletto sharpness. “Your patient seems to be missing, Stavros. Find her—or you may be very sorry you were transferred to my ship.”

They returned Hannah Donnenfeld to Brook Cove without incident. Lauren called her father away from his Harlem office and medical school duties to take care of his old friend while she and Pete escorted Neville More into New York City to meet with the President in his Hyatt suite.

“I’d like to spit in your eye,” William Brent Morrow said with the brittle calm of a parent driven to the brink of temper’s control, “but Peter and Lauren think I shouldn’t.”

More seemed to cower slightly in his chair as Morrow stood over him. The President had cowboy boots on, adding three inches to his normally imposing stature. Pete had always marveled how well the man made use of his intimidating bulk, and this was an appropriate occasion.

With a pale ghost of his charming smile, Neville gestured in uncharacteristic humility. “Ah, yes. My cheering section over there.”

Nestled comfortably in the deep padding of the living room couch, Pete and Lauren remained silent, letting Morrow conduct the session.