Cottonwood (21 page)

‘Don’t kill him,’ she’d said. Not that he would have, but…the sound of her cry when he’d kicked Sam open…

She could stand there bleeding and still try to stop him from hurting the very man who had hurt her. It had made him feel ugly and savage—it made him feel like a bug—and so naturally, he’d brought her home and yelled at her. Damn her. And damn him. And damn this whole stinking planet.

Outside, he could hear his son at play, doubtless sprawled happily in this human trash-heap with all his toys—new and old—gathered around him. Today, the familiar growls of his son eternally building and unbuilding roads in the dirt had been broken by a more exciting story; he could hear the quiet skrees and chitters of play-battles as his toys fought and were gradually overwhelmed until: “The
Fortesque Freeship
! Quick, get in! Shhhhhooooom!”

Sanford watched the toy ship bounce past his window once, then twice, and finally come in for a landing.

“Now we’re safe,” said T’aki, somewhat breathless. “Let’s get out of the ship. Oh no! It’s IBI! How did they get here? Did they catch a
cab
?”

Sanford glanced at Sarah. Human expressions were difficult to read even though their faces were so grossly pliant, but he thought she was smiling, just a little. He thought he’d ought to say something to her, but he didn’t know what to say.

Outside, the ferocious battle between empty food cans and a yellow-haired human doll abruptly silenced itself. “Father!” T’aki hissed. “Van! Big van!”

Sarah looked up. Sanford swore and waved her down again before she could rise. Well, here it was. And now, was it worse for her to walk bloodied from his home or for IBI to burst in and find her as if hidden away?
Hell
. Why hadn’t he sent her away?

Sanford looked out the crack of his window, trying to judge the danger, but what he saw was not the white van of IBI’s soldiers, but the black one. The black one.

He sprang up, pulled the door. “Inside!” he ordered. “Hide!”

Sarah stood, as if to obey him herself. Since she was up, hardly able to believe he was trusting her, Sanford shoved back the chair and pulled the rug beneath it, exposing the hatch door. “Down,” he hissed. “Not a sound!”

T’aki went, his toy ship clutched in both hands, and Sanford covered it all up again.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked.

“Population Enforcement is coming.”

Her eyes were clear, uncomprehending. “But he’s legal. He’s licensed.”

“That means nothing to these people!” he spat, and then froze, the fine hairs above his ear quivering.

The engines had stopped and stopped close. Sanford went to the window again, his hands empty, useless. He should never have had a son.
Stupid
man, to bring an innocent boy into this hell. “Now you will see me kill,” he said bleakly, as the black doors opened. “If they don’t find him, when they are gone, take him…take him to someone you trust.”

“What are you—”

“Quiet. They’re coming.”

Three humans came out of the van. Three men with guns. They stood in a loose ring, talking, smoking, laughing. Then they started walking, not to Sanford’s door, but to Baccus’s.

Sarah brushed against him, crouching low even as she peered through the broken pane. “What’s going on?”

“Stay down, damn it! Don’t let them see you.”

They did not knock. They bashed the door in with the butts of their guns and pulled Baccus out. She knew what they’d come for. Kneeling, her hands shaking on her head, Baccus watched the guns and waited.

“Where’s the bacon, bug?” someone asked, and they all laughed. They were playing for now, tapping their muzzles against Baccus’s head while she feigned confusion. Sometimes that worked. It wouldn’t work today. They were having too much fun, and that kind of fun didn’t end without blood. “You must have been hungry last night. You done et it up, bones and all. And yet you still manage to keep that boyish figure.”

“I don’t understand,” Baccus said. “Please—”

And then Sanford’s door was thrown open and Sarah was marching down the causeway, all bloody hair and torn clothing, shouting, “What the hell is going on here?”

She startled them, but they recovered fast, withdrawing their guns from Baccus’s face to aim sullenly at the ground. The leader of the three stepped up to meet her, his face pulling tight with anger. “This don’t concern you, Pollyanna. Turn your ass around and move on.”

She reached Baccus and stepped in front of her, unhesitatingly putting herself between her and the guns. “I want you back in that van and off my road, right now! You can’t go breaking into people’s h—”

He slapped her, his open hand snapping across her mouth lightly, playfully. She staggered and he pointed at her. “No more of that, Pollyanna,” he said. “No more. You don’t know me very well, and I’m in a forgiving mood, but you don’t give me orders. Boys?”

“I’m not finding the door here,” one of the soldiers called, rooting inside Baccus’s house. “But I’m sure smelling it.”

“Get out of this man’s house this minute!” Sarah shouted. And when the other low soldier raised his gun at her, she actually snatched it out of his hands and threw it to one side. Sanford groaned. A second later, she was sprawling beside Baccus.

The leader bent down and hauled her onto her knees by her hair. “Do you see what it says on the van, sweetheart?” he demanded, shaking her. “Huh? Do they still teach dumb hicks like you to read? Population Enforcement, that’s what it says. That means we are working, and you are shutting the fuck up and letting us work.”

“This is an illegal search!” she shouted. “I’m reporting this!”

Laughter, from all but the leader. He stared down at his prisoner with an expression that was almost one of wonder. Sanford felt his heart throb again, sickly certain he was about to witness his first human/human murder. Even Baccus was leaning away as much as she could, trying to take herself out of the line of fire when that gun went off. Only Sarah remained oblivious to her impending death.

“You’re telling, is that what I just heard you say? You’re going to
tell
on us, you little playground snitch? No, sugartits, I’m telling you. Article 89-A of the Alien Control Bylaws ratified by IBI and the United Nations says all I need is a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to enter any bug’s residence, and I got that when this bug—” He gave Baccus a kick to the chest. “—was seen dragging a whole pig home last night and the night before.”

“A pig?”

“Two pigs. In two days. Now the only reason these roaches make off with that much meat is for their little egg farms, which, thanks to Article 89, I am not just allowed to shut down, but ordered to. Got it? Now shut the fuck up. Davis! Did you get lost in there?”

“Hold your water, chief, it’s coming. Get clear!”

The soldiers stepped back as a long section of the back wall of Baccus’s house shuddered, came loose, and dropped with a bang onto the hard ground, kicking up a cloud of rust-red dust and releasing an even greater cloud of black flies and rotten meat stink. The hatchery was not very big, and the sheer number of evenly-spaced eggs packed into it on racks made it seem even smaller. He’d known she was doing this, of course, but he had no idea how many eggs she’d made. How she’d managed to hide the hatchery this long was really the only mystery.

The eggs were black and narrow mouth-pipes protruded from each one; they had molted in the egg already and were nearly due. The first pig was gone, nothing but a heap of bones too big for Baccus to eat. The heat had already done its work on the second pig, which hung bloated and discolored over the hatchery, its head and forelegs already gnawed away and regurgitated. Baccus tended her eggs very well for a hatchery. Every one, shiny and fat and neatly marked to set them apart from the others. Every one, skreeing weakly at daylight. Sanford could see yang’ti gathering in the alleys, but none came too close. No one wanted to be seen here, but some, he knew, were surely the fathers.

Sarah didn’t seem to understand. She gripped the hand that held her hair, staring into the hatchery. Her face in the sunlight was white, save where it had been smeared by blood.

“You never seen one of these, I’m guessing,” said the man who held her. “It’s one of their egg farms. Look at ‘em all. See, this is why we need enforcement, because every one of these buggie fucks can spit out fifty or sixty eggs at a time. If we didn’t do this—”

“They’re alive,” Sarah said hoarsely, still staring at the keening eggs. “You’re scaring them. They’re crying.”

“Not for long. Go ahead, boys.”

The other two soldiers moved into the hatchery, opening crates and cupboards, searching for hidden eggs. The noise was tremendous, terrifying. The unborn yang’ti cried and rocked inside their shells. Two days, and they would have hatched. Two days and they would have been safe. His heart ached.

“What are you doing?” Sarah cried. “Stop it! Stop it, you’re hurting them!”

“That’s the point, Pollyanna.”

“They’re
screaming
!”

And they laughed at her, laughed and started smashing eggs, ending newborn squeals one stomp at a time. Chaw rose in Sanford’s throat; he swallowed it and did not make a sound.

“This is how we control the population, sweetheart,” the lead soldier said. “Remember what your orientation tapes said: They’re not alive until they can jump around.”

Sarah, frantic as no yang’ti could dare to be, lunged to one side, seized a rusted chunk of metal lying in the street, and smashed it with both hands into the man’s leg. Things happened very quickly after that.

He bellowed and drove his boot at her face, knocking her sprawling against Baccus. She jumped up bleeding and ran directly at the eggs, as if anything at all could be done, as if anyone of them could still be saved. A second soldier grabbed at her as she went by; she grappled with him while he laughed at her, then suddenly drove her knee up into his groin and wrenched away from him. She lunged again for the hatchery—

And fell limp as a sack of sand when the third soldier cracked her on the head with his gun. She hit the ground heavy, abruptly silent, and lay motionless in the dust.

The lead soldier limped over and the three of them stood around her, contemplative. Yang’ti shifted in the alleys, peered from the windows. Baccus’s arms minutely lowered.

Sarah did not move.

“Fuck me, did I kill her?”

To determine, the lead soldier kicked her.

No response.

He squatted and gripped at her throat. “She’s breathing now,” he said. “And that’s good enough. Let’s finish up and get out of here before that changes. Bad luck to you, buggies,” he called. “That’s an agent of IBI lying there. She dies in Cottonwood and we get to open up the big cans of Raid.”

All three laughed. They went back to work, smashing the last of the eggs and spraying down the entire hatchery with accelerant. One of the soldiers threw in an incendiary striker. With a muted thumping sound, the flames ignited. Baccus watched her home and eggs burn as the humans retreated. Their leader gave Sarah one more investigative kick before boarding his vehicle. The van roared. They drove away.

Sarah did not move.

Sanford bolted for the door, heard a tattoo of fists on the floor, and paused long enough to let his son out of the cramped lower room. T’aki was out the door ahead of him, flying to the human’s side. Several other yang’ti were there too, clicking and muttering to one another. Baccus had run off already, but oddly, Sam was there, kneeling at her head and feeling at her soft and hideously vulnerable veins, and suddenly that vague familiarity that had always hovered around Sam snapped into place. He’d been a medic. That was how Sanford knew him. He’d been one of the ship’s surgeons.

“She’s alive,” Sam said tersely, probing at the back of Sarah’s head now. “She’s bleeding, but I think they only broke her skin, not her bones. Get her legs. They want to flop. Turn her over with me, and…turn.”

She did want to flop. Too limp. Too white. One eye was partially open. Not a good sign in any species. Sam pried it open all the way, then the other. He clicked judiciously and felt at her throat again. “Pupils are even and reactive. Pulse is…not great, but okay. She’s fine. Lucky she’s so thick-headed.” He glanced up into the burning house. The dead larvae were only smoking husks now, but there was the furniture, still blazing away. “We need to get her away from this before that funny shit on her head catches. Help me get her back to my place.”

“Why? So you can throw her out again?” Sanford snapped, carefully working an arm beneath Sarah’s limp neck, mindful of his spikes.

Sam actually looked surprised for a second, and then annoyed. “Fuck you, I barely touched her! And what are you going to do, change her batteries?”

Sanford stood up, holding Sarah possessively close.

Sam started to speak, glanced down the yet-empty causeway in the direction of the nearest gate, and buzzed rudely instead. “Fine,” he said. “Keep her quiet for at least an hour and don’t let her leave until she’s walking straight. She does anything strange, babbles or slurs or starts puking, send the boy. I’ll stay sober.”

“You’d have to get sober to stay that way.”

Sam’s antennae whipped flat, smacking against the shell of his head. His eyes were clear and furious and for that instant, he was not drunk or dirty or even captive on this world. He stood up fast, towering over Sanford, and said, snapping hard and buzzing under every word, “You take another shot at me and I’ll put you on the fucking ground. Get her out of the fucking sun right now and if she isn’t awake in five minutes, you better send your fucking kid.” He spat chaw on the ground and glared. “I’ll stay sober.”

Sanford kicked dirt over the chaw-stain, already baked dry in this heat, and took Sarah away with him. She began to come around even as he was setting her in the chair, so maybe she wasn’t hurt as badly as she looked. She groaned like rusty hinges, panted twice, and groaned again. It occurred to him only then that he’d never really seen a human in pain for any great length of time. He didn’t even know if these were normal sounds.

She reached up, groping, missed her head and clutched the chair instead. Her eyes, shut, squinted tighter. She uttered a cracked cry, one that was almost as much confusion as pain.