V - The Original Miniseries (31 page)

Mike nodded. "And to the people who sympathize with them?"

"Exactly. Yes!" Thinking she was perhaps finally getting through to him, Eleanor took on a softer, more pliant tone. "You and I are in incredibly unique positions, Mike. Don't you realize that?" Her face formed a genuinely charming smile that Mike had seen her use to beguile so many people, particularly men, over the years. "Come on now, why not take advantage of the rare gift that Fate has placed in our hands. Why not?"

He was incredulous, holding the concept with both hands in the air between them as he shouted, "Because I can't survive at the expense of other people! That's not right!"

She stared at him, then breathed a long sad sigh at his bullheadedness. She sipped the last of her cocktail and fiddled with the olive. Donovan gazed at her, his brain a theater of turmoil and dark emotion. He tried to fashion words, but every line of logic, of compassion, of humanity seemed utterly useless. He was hurting deeply.

Finally, very quietly, he spoke. "You know, Mother ... when I was a kid there was a woman who taught me what was right and what was wrong." Eleanor's eyes flicked up to his. She saw from his face that strong emotions were coursing underneath. He looked very young, almost boyish, almost as though he was fighting back tears. At length he spoke very softly through his pain, "I wonder whatever became of her ... ?"

Eleanor grew uneasy under his gaze. She looked away. Mike tried to find more words, but they simply didn't exist. Disheartened to the depths of his soul, her son quietly left the room. Eleanor sat, unmoving, coldly staring straight ahead.

Outside, the thick marine layer had spread up and over the Pacific Palisades. It enshrouded the neoMediterranean Dupres estate that rested comfortably atop a three-hundred-foot bluff facing the ocean, which was now invisible in the foggy darkness. Mike could smell the salt air, though, as he moved carefully past the Greek statuary on the pristine lawn toward the wrought-iron security gate. His heart was heavy from his confrontation with his mother. And from knowing that if the Visitors' plan continued unchecked, in twenty years there would no longer be much sea air to smell.

In spite of that weight upon him, Mike was trying to keep sharply attuned to the moment. He was very well aware that his mother might have already called the authorities to report his presence.

He paused just inside the iron gate that was moist from the vaporous fog. The gate's vertical bars and the corresponding parallel shadows they cast onto his face suggested a fate that Mike definitely wanted to avoid. He peered carefully through the bars. Though he saw nothing amiss on the clean, upscale residential street, he paused yet a moment longer to listen. The blanketing fog had deadened the air. A numb silence prevailed. There was only a slight creak of the gate as he opened it.

Mike kept to the shadows, skirting the hazy illumination from the streetlamps. He moved across the damp street to where he had sequestered his vintage Indian motorcycle within some bushy landscaping. He had just climbed onto its leather seat when a pulse burst ricocheted startlingly off the fender. Mike ducked and snapped around to look behind him.

Across and up the street he glimpsed a uniformed member of the Visitor Youth, whom Diana had recently renamed the Teammates. The excited boy ran across a shadowy lawn, took cover behind a parked car, and again fired his pulse pistol at Mike. He was Daniel Bernstein. He shouted to others off somewhere in the misty darkness behind him, "Teammates! Down here! He's down here!"

Mike could see several more young Teammates, followed by two Visitor troopers, apparitions gaining definition through the swirling fog as they came running toward Daniel's position. Mike pulled his own weapon from a sleeve on the Indian and fired back. His pulse bursts splashed electrically off the car, forcing Daniel to duck. Mike swung a leg over his big bike, kick-started it, and peeled out as a fusillade from the troopers' weapons burst on the pavement around him.

The thick air whipped Mike's hair as he piloted the bike with motocross skills and increasing speed. In his side mirror he spotted through the fog the lights of a Visitor fighter craft banking in over the trees. Even in the heavy fog, it would have a clear shot at him in a few seconds. Mike swerved the heavy bike sharply. He jumped the curb and sped off the road into a wooded arroyo. The sycamore, pine, and eucalyptus foliage was knitted into a thick canopy above him, giving him some cover from the pursuing fighter. Mike killed the bike's lights as he sped on with gritty determination. He dodged between the tree trunks and finally disappeared into the foggy darkness.

THANKS TO THE ANESTHESIA ROBIN WAS NO LONGER FEELING THE birthing pains as intensely, but three or four times a minute she suddenly shivered as unexpected icy waves of nervous tension coursed through her. A clear oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth. Brad sat near her head, monitoring her vital signs, which had stabilized slightly. He spoke toward Juliet, "Still a hundred ten over sixty."

"Good." The young intern nodded. "Let's try to keep it there." Juliet and the others had put on scrubs, masks, and surgical caps. They had moved Robin into the makeshift surgical suite that Juliet had arranged several weeks earlier for emergencies. At the time Elias had put up a hand-lettered sign that read M.A.S.H.

In an attempt to keep the space as sterile as possible, temporary walls of thick plastic sheeting had been hung to create an area about ten feet square. A portable air-conditioning unit provided clean, filtered air. But Juliet was perspiring anyway as she leaned over Robin. She was well along into the operation, "All right, I'm down to the bag of waters now, there's still quite a bit of fluid left in it ..."

Robert sat opposite Brad at Robin's head. He wiped his daughter's brow with a cool cloth, saying, "You're doing great, honey." He tried to keep his voice even, tried to contain the growing dread he felt. He looked toward Robin's abdomen, which had been coated with the blue sterilization fluid and draped so that only her pregnant belly was visible.

Juliet had opened an incision about seven inches long just above the teenager's pubic bone and was now stretching the skin wider. She could see Robin's uterus beneath the incision, and within the sac she could discern the ghostly form of the unborn child. "Hold this clamp, Ysie." The Latina slipped her hand over Juliet's and took possession of the instrument. Juliet nodded. "Good. Wipe, please."

Polly, also in surgical gear, swallowed her own queasiness and reached around to dry Juliet's damp brow.

"Thanks, Polly." Then Juliet looked down into the open incision and took a breath. "Okay ... Here we go . . ." Juliet willed her novice hands not to tremble as her scalpel cut a fine, straight line through the venous membrane of the sac. Bodily fluid instantly pooled around the new incision. Ruby was ready for it. She leaned in from opposite Juliet and suctioned off the excess liquid.

.. I'm into the sac . . ." Juliet said quietly. Everyone attending grew even more tense. They were barely breathing. Robin the least of all.

 

"... I can see one hand," Juliet said, smiling. "Five fingers . . ." Then Juliet's expression clouded slightly.

Ysabel saw the young woman's reaction. She leaned closer, whispering, "What's wrong?" Juliet murmured back, barely audible, not wanting Robin to hear, "Look ... at the fingers ..."

Ysabel leaned closer. She could see the baby's tiny hand protruding out through the uterine sac. The little fingers were tremulous with life. As Ysabel watched, the fingers spread slightly, revealing paperthin membranous webbing stretched between them.

Robin,, sweating and fearful, felt the sudden hush around her. "What is it?"

"Nothing, honey," Juliet lied smoothly, but Robert caught the disquieted look in the intern's eyes and knew something was wrong. Juliet tried to sound confident. "We're doing okay. You're going to feel some pressure now ..." Juliet had been studying the uterine cavity. She could see that the baby's back was presenting. To Juliet's eye the spinal cord seemed slightly more convex and prominent than it should have.

Ruby noticed something else. She whispered, "The skin, Julie. It looks ..." Ysabel finished her thought. ". . . Weird."

Juliet's hands separated the uterine membrane. She carefully eased the little form out. It was covered with birthing fluids that were not entirely pink or red, as would be expected. Instead, they had an odd, sickly yellow tinge. Juliet was very cautious with the umbilical. "Okay, the baby's out ... Clamp the cord, Ysie."

Ysabel nervously applied the clamp. There was a gurgle, then a whimper. Juliet glanced at the baby's bottom, announcing, "It's a girl."

There was positive reaction and relieved laughter from Robert and Brad. But not from Ysabel, Ruby, or Juliet, who were the closest. Juliet slowly turned the infant, which was dripping with the strangely colored birthing fluid, so that she could look full at the baby's face in the light. When she did, Juliet stopped breathing.

Its eyes were squinted closed. It had a normal human facial configuration, nose, mouth, and ears, but where the hairline should've been there were layered rows of infinitesimal scales. The baby's cheeks were flushed as would be expected. But lying flat against either cheek and pointed toward the back of the little head were at least a dozen tiny spikes of what appeared to be cartilage, like those of a blowfish. Juliet saw they were pulsating outward ever so slightly.

Juliet, Ruby, and Ysabel stared at it in stunned disbelief as the newborn emitted a strange squeal and opened its sticky eyes. Juliet inhaled a startled breath and her whole body shuddered as she saw that the eyes were red with vertical yellow irises.

Ysabel choked back a gasp as she crossed herself fearfully, gasping, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Juliet realized that she was holding in her hands the first of a new species. A bizarre comingling of human and reptilian. A macabre half-breed.

Everyone stood dumbstruck. They had all seen it now. All of them except Robin, who was still lying flat and becoming increasingly fearful. "What's wrong?" When no one responded immediately, her voice caught in her throat, "What's wrong?!"

"Nothing, Robin," Juliet said, trying her utmost to sound professional. "I just need to get the cord cut and get you closed up, so that-"

"I want to see my baby!" Brad saw that Robin's respiration rate was ramping up. "In just a few minutes," Juliet insisted. Brad warned Juliet, "BP's jumped to 190 over 110." Robert tried to calm his daughter, saying, "Just lay still, honey, everything's going to be-"

"I want to see her now!" The teenager was nearing panic; she strained against her father to raise herself up. "I want to see her now!"

Brad also reached out to hold her. "Robin, no. Lie back." But the girl's will was too strong. She crunched herself upward, ignoring the stabbing pain it caused her. Juliet tried to turn the child away, but the cord was too short and at that moment the infant also squirmed, twisting around in Juliet's hands so that Robin found herself staring directly at her progeny with its yellow-red eyes glaring at her.

Robin stared as her mouth worked soundlessly. Another dreadful squeal came from the baby's purplegreen lips. And then its ten-inch, forked tongue lashed out.

 

Robin's eyes went wide as her blood turned to ice and her brain short-circuited. She emitted an unearthly shriek.

MANY LIGHT-YEARS ACROSS THE SILENT DARKNESS OF DEEP SPACE, in the direction of the Horse Head Nebula, there was a yellow main sequence star somewhat larger and hotter than Earth's sun. It was part of a binary system. Its sister star was a red dwarf. Six planets of varying size were in orbit around the pair of them.

The fourth planet was half again larger than the Earth. Small patches of blue, which might have been water, reflected the light of its two suns and suggested a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, but the world's overall surface colors were shades of dusty beige and green. It was traced with thin, irregular lines that looked from space like blood vessels. And they seemed to likewise pulsate with flowing movement.

From a position several thousand miles above the planet, someone was looking down at it. He was within a six-footwide viewing port. He looked like a strong and sturdy human male in his mid-forties. He was nude.

His skin appeared to be Caucasian but had an unusual, faint sheen to it. Except for the short hair on his head, which was brushed forward in a style similar to ancient Romans, and a slight dusting around his compact genitals, he was nearly hairless. His nose was also Roman in form. His face had a squareness to it, with a particularly strong jawline. There was an old, thin scar along his right cheek that ran from his ear almost to the tip of his chin. Several other longhealed battle scars were evident on his torso, including a deep, uneven one on the outside of his left thigh about twelve inches in length.

His eyes appeared human, except that the color of his irises was amber. They had a particularly piercing quality befitting the high level of command that he had achieved.

He stood looking out of the bulbous viewing port with his back to what appeared to be a shadowy natural cavern. The walls were as curved and uneven as the inside of a termite mound. They might have been carved or created by insect excretion. The lighting was indirect, phosphorescent, and dim, the atmosphere thick. Three of the commander's aides were sitting sideways on the wall, defying gravity as though the wall was their floor. One of the two males had black skin, and the lone female had skin of a tone that would have been taken for Hispanic on earth. The three were sitting nude at their control stations. Flashes of complex data flickered constantly on illuminated crystalline sections before them.

A female voice spoke to the commander in a language that was not of Earth. "Pardon me, Admiral."

The commander turned to face the woman. She was also nude. Her smooth skin was very black and her features fine. On Earth she might have been taken for an athletic, thirtyyear-old Ethiopian, except that her eyes were a vivid pink and her skin had the peculiar sheen common to all the others in the chamber.

The commander acknowledged her nodded salute. "Yes, what is it?" She held out a small gossamer ribbon and said, "This distress call was picked up by one of our wormhole probes."