Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (3 page)

Caught, Matt grumbled in earnest. “All right, fine, so I’m here for Cathy. I admit it. Happy now?”

“Cathy’s happy. That’s what matters.”

The notion secretly pleased Matt, but he sidestepped it gruffly. “Women are always happy when they get to educate men. I’m sure Cathy thinks the experience’ll be good for me. She says this play by that Ibsen character is seminal or something.”

George’s brows created a furrow on his Tenctonese forehead, he assumed his pontificator’s expression, and Matt regretted his words instantly. “Well, strictly speaking,” George corrected, “it is more the playwright than the play, as he was the progenitor of the modern well-made drama.”

“Well made.” In dead tones, so George couldn’t miss his disinterest.

Didn’t help.

“Yes,” George continued, “so-called because of the way in which plot elements and themes are introduced, developed, resolved.”

“Uh huh.” Starting to feel intimidated now.

“However, the play
is,
in fact, notable as the first serious dramatic treatment of the subject of women’s rights. Although, ironically, Ibsen himself would never have claimed to be a feminist.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Jesus, does
everybody
know this play except me?”

George shrugged apologetically. “Pretty famous drama, Matthew.”

“Isn’t it enough I’m stupid about
your
culture? I have to be a boob about
my
culture too?”

George pursed his lips. “You do not
have
to be, Matthew. It’s just that you are so
good
at it.” And then he grinned mischievously.

Matt threatened to deliver a mock slap, growled in his best Moe-the-Stooge voice, “Why, you, I oughtta—”

—and Cathy shouted, “I’ve
got
them!”

Turning to see her, Matt had to admit (strictly to himself) that it was sorta kinda worth everything if only for this moment. Cathy was almost skipping back from the box office, holding the two pairs of tickets aloft like some cherished prize, the soft, small features of her delicately boned face so radiant that—the thought leapt to his brain unbidden, and it was all he could do not to give it voice, lest George misunderstand—she looked like a beautiful light bulb.

She and Susan huddled over the tickets, cooing over the excellent location. In a trice, each had her respective man by the arm, George strolling forthrightly with Susan, Matt allowing himself to be pulled into the theatre. As they merged with the crowd, squeezing together the better to funnel past the ticket taker, George cautioned Matt, “Remember, this is a legitimate theatre, not a movie house, there is no
popcorn
to be had here.” Matt groped for an appropriately cutting reply, it didn’t come to him fast enough, and then they were inside.

As they took their seats, Matt picked up on the buzz in the auditorium, the excited chatter of the patrons, the sound of program pages being riffled, and people reading tidbits from artists’ bios.

He noted too, with apprehension, how close he was to the stage. Third row center, too close for comfort. It threatened his space.

“Matt?” said Cathy.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Just thinking. They’re really going to be on our noses, aren’t they?”

“I know. Isn’t it exciting?”

The houselights started to dim.

“No popcorn, huh?” Matt muttered to himself.

The play began.

She entered as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Noras had entered before her, a flurry of excitement, atwitter with Christmas packages to present to her finicky, judgmental husband, Torvald . . . but the yearning for approval she brought with her was as palpable, as substantial, a thing as any of the gift-wrapped packages. And because of it, you wanted to hold her. Tell her everything would be all right. Protect her.

At first, Matt had to admit that, like everyone else in that theatre, he was experiencing the thrill of discovery.

The thrill faded quickly, though, and was quickly,
unnervingly,
supplanted by a stronger emotion. Like many a star—and though she wasn’t a star yet, she was clearly on the come—Fran Delaney had a strong, welcome personality that would wear well with familiarity. At first, Matt chalked up his reaction to the spontaneous comfort he felt watching her, even slight infatuation, and a subsequent, entirely natural, sense of
déjà vu.
But his reaction persisted. It persisted so strongly that he discounted
déjà vu
and went to the next logical question—where have I seen her before? On television? The movies? No, couldn’t be, she was supposed to be some kind of “find,” previously altogether unknown, knocking around in obscurity until this, her first break . . .

And that left one possibility.

I’ve more than seen her. I
know
her.

But from where? Dammit
where?

The familiarity was not so comfortable now. Now it assailed him, irritated him, like a word on the tip of the tongue, like a crucial thought inexplicably lost, like that where-the-hell-did-I-misplace-my-car-keys? kind of feeling. He had
lost touch with a part of himself—
the machinery. And he was a
cop
for God’s sake, an officer of the
—

Click. Into cop mode.

Did I meet her in my capacity as a cop?

Perpetrator? Suspect? Vic, maybe? Put her in different clothes, his mind commanded, and his imagination complied, running through possibilities. Give her a different hair style, came command number two, and in his mind’s eye he took the full-bodied, shoulder-length, enticing brown hair and brutally cut it, cut it, first to a shag, then to a pageboy, no, no, still not it, then to a crewcut, then to . . .

Nothing. Then to nothing.

And now he had it.
Thought
he had it, heart pounding, because if he had it, it was too fantastic. His program had slipped off his thighs to the floor, where it was too dark to root around for it, so he rudely plucked Cathy’s, whispering a cursory “sorry” and flipped through the pages, flipped, flipped, flipped to the cast list, and there it was.

Nora Helmer ............. FRAN DELANEY

The name was too close, like a bad alias. And, of course, it was, a bad alias for an even worse name, but it was the name by which he had known her, and now that he had the name to go with the face
—

—he had the memory.

And it played in the back of his mind, every bit as live and real as the play in front of him.

She had the gun aimed between his eyes and her hysteria was bone-chilling.

“Stay away! Just stay the hell away from me and stay away from the bedroom!”

Matt Sikes, newly turned detective, his best copside manner at work, had his arms out straight, palms down, pushing gently at the air, trying to calm her.

“Ms. Delancey . . . we just want to see are your children all right, that’s all. After that . . . we can talk. It’s all negotiable.”

“Sure. Right. Placate the dumb slag. I put this gun down and negotiation’s over.”

“Not if nobody’s hurt.”

“You don’t touch my children!”
The words lashed out as sharply and suddenly as a slap, causing Matt’s partner, Bill Tuggle, to cock his department-issue revolver.

“Tug, no!”
Matt implored the muscular black man, and Tuggle’s eyes shifted uneasily in his direction.

“Matt, you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.
I’m sure, put it down.”

“Down!?”

“Down! On the floor!”

“Matt . . .”

“Just
do
it.”

Releasing a deep, apprehensive breath through his nose, Tuggle shifted his wrist to hold the gun flat, parallel with the floor and slowly, reluctantly, bent at the knees, down, down—

Matt never took his eyes off the woman, but he heard the sound of metal clicking against tile, sensed Tuggle rising again, knew the gun was down, and said, “There. Negotiations have just opened.” His words measured, soothing, like honey. “What do you say?”

The gun never moved, but her gaze seemed to go elsewhere, mere
degrees
elsewhere, it could snap focus back to him at any time, and her voice became something distant, abstracted.

“My children are in Celine’s cradle, watched over by Andarko. Nothing can hurt them now.”

Matt struggled to keep his anger down. This was a twist he hadn’t expected. Celine and Andarko were the female and male Tenctonese gods. Saying her children were with them was like an Earthwoman saying her children were with Jesus. Gone home to the Lord. Freed of their mortal coil. Oh, man . . .

Matt said nothing. Getting his bearings.

Just as abstractedly, the Delancey woman asked, “Don’t you want to know if I sent them there?”

“Let’s jump over ‘if,’ ” Matt chanced, voice husky and low. “What’ll help is ‘why?’ . . .”

“Help . . . ?”

“All negotiable. Like I said.” A beat. Eyes frozen on her, he gestured almost imperceptibly with his chin toward one of the kitchen chairs. “Mind if I sit?” Hoping to get in close. Get in, get under. Grab the gun. That was permissible, if you could manage it. All the while talking like a friend.

“Sure.” Small, remote.

He moved the chair out from under the table with his fingertips, hardly scraping the scuffed tile beneath, lowered himself into it but was dismayed to find that she was ready for him, moving the gun inwards, crooking her elbows, maintaining her potential target.

“Talk to me,” he entreated.

“Right. ‘Why.’ I think you wanted to know why. I believe you said it would help.”

“Couldn’t hurt.” Wondering if the old vaudeville response would elicit a slight smile; wondering if she’d even get it, if her slag sense of humor extended to Earth idioms.

“Because they were becoming aliens to
me!
Because I couldn’t see them anymore for all of Earth’s corruption. The slave ship was awful, but at least we had our place, knew who we were, knew what Andarko and Celine expected us to be. Here we know nothing. Nothing. And no one wants to teach us. It’s worse than the ship. On the ship we were at least slaves. Here we’re non-people. No culture. No purpose.”

“And your children . . . ?”

“. . . they were growing ears . . .”

Oh, God,
thought Sikes. “Ears,” he repeated.

“Hair, too, I think. I couldn’t see them anymore.”

Tuggle spoke quietly from behind. “They were assimilating.”

It was as if she didn’t hear. Not that it mattered. The comment had been for Sikes, who took in its import.

“Neither Celine nor Andarko would want them in that state,” the Delancey woman said. “I had to keep them . . . from being damned.”

“Ms. Delancey—”

“My name is Zho’pah. And in saving my children, I have damned myself.”

So casually and smoothly she might have been lifting a spoon, the Newcomer lifted the gun to the underside of her chin, it happened in a blink, once again leaving Matt totally unprepared.

“Don’t,” he croaked, and then, regaining slightly fuller use of his vocal chords, added, “Don’t. Wait.”

She pressed the barrel deep into the soft flesh beneath her jaw.

“Now
you
talk to
me
. . . Why?”

The voice no longer abstracted. Purposeful as hell now.

“Uhh . . . Because . . .”

“Yes?”

“Because . . . the gods . . . will forgive you.”

For a moment she stopped breathing. Then with the hopefulness of a child . . . “You think?” The gun lowering but still pointed at its target. Matt aware of the pink ring it left in her flesh.

“Oh, yeah,” he assured her. “Absolutely.”

The tension drained out of her body.

Matt relaxed.

Tuggle relaxed.

“Nice to know,” she breathed.

Then she pulled the trigger.

The hammer hit the chamber with a soft click. And that was all. But the sound, because of what it represented, was just as profound as a gunshot. More devastating still, though, were her next words.

“That’s it. I’m dead.”

Matt slapped the table, rocketed up, knocking his chair back.
“Goddammit, that’s not fair!”

She was utterly unperturbed, maddeningly unimpressed. “You had the case histories to study. I was right on point.”

“Aw, bull
shit,
you were makin’ up the rules as you went along!”

Bill Tuggle’s hand fell on Matt’s shoulder. “Easy, Matt,” his partner said, but easy was not in Matt’s repertoire, not right at this moment, and he shrugged the hand off in favor of drilling the Newcomer woman more viciously still.

“Pleased with yourself? Put on a nice little performance, did you?”

And now Delancey was on her feet as well, just as pluperfectly pissed as Matt, drilling back with full force. “You arrogant
kakstu
, don’t you blame me because
you
didn’t do your homework—!”

“—I don’t need to be told what my homework is by some, some—”

“—some
what,
some
what
—”

“—just never you mind what—”

“—‘slag broad,’
is
that
what you were going to say?—”

“—if the spots fit, lady—”