Earth Has Been Found (17 page)

XXVII.

May was no great month commercially in Abdera Hollow. But it was still a very good time to be there, especially for those folks who liked simply relaxing in the open air.

Thursday, May 3, 1984, was just such a day. On Main Street, the stores opened in the early morning. The rest of Abdera yawned, stretched, and got down to another day.

Up on the ridge the Scotts breakfasted. Jaimie enthused over his wife’s culinary masterpiece, an un-cracked boiled egg. She was pleased, and they clasped hands over the table and kissed. Both dimly recognized her cooking had a long way to go, but that egg represented a distinct advance.

Usually Jaimie walked down to the office, leaving the car for Shane. Invariably they met for lunch in Mom’s diner, a relief for both of them; he would then drive her home, or wherever she wanted to go. But this particular morning, he decided to ride to work; he’d pick her up at noon.

Very probably the decision saved his life.

Mark Freedman got up a lot earlier. He ate a light breakfast and was out of the house by six thirty, walking in the woods. He saw nothing, and everything appeared the same as it did on any other spring morning — until he was on his way back. He could not decide exactly when it dawned on him, for it happened gradually. But there came a moment when he stopped, listening.

Down in Abdera, a tractor started up, a car horn blared, a dog barked. High above, a plane rumbled past, and in the distance, birds chattered and sang. In the
distance
.

For several minutes he remained still, listening with the growing certainty that he was dreadfully alone. Not a single bird sang; there was no sound at all, no movement. He guessed there wasn’t a bird within a hundred yards of him. His presence might have driven some away, but certainly not all. Anyway, if they’d fled at his approach, he’d have heard the alarm calls, and they wouldn’t have gone far; there are few birds that don’t know the exact limits of their territory. The distant racket emphasized the pool of silence in which he stood.

Freedman bit his lip, cursing himself for being such a crazy fool; he swore that if he got out of this alive he’d never do such a stupid thing again. He walked slowly, sweating with fear, scanning the trees. In three minutes, he was back in bird-occupied territory. He stopped, mopping his face, his hand trembling. Exactly what it meant he could not yet know, but he felt certain he had been very close to a Xeno. He’d never noticed this pool of silence during the winter; that could be for several reasons, none having anything to do with Xeno. On the other hand, maybe Xeno had not worried the birds then because it was inactive, whereas now … He shut his front door with considerable relief.

*

He realized just how lucky he’d been an hour later.

It began up on the ridge, not very far from where he had walked. A woman hanging out her washing was the first victim. A nosy neighbor — Abdera had more than its share — was studying the wash with great interest, for a good line of laundry tells an awful lot to a practiced eye. She saw it all.

The attack sent her into screaming hysterics, which brought another neighbor running, and she called the sheriff. He was a slow-moving, slow-witted man, a throwback to the spitoon-marksmen of an earlier age, full of wisdom, hard on the tough guys, yet a soft touch at heart. In fact, handling the town drunk was his forte. He lived in a fantasy world based on a diet of westerns and far too much TV. He had a flair for the dramatic, arriving with siren wailing, his car a galaxy of flashing lights. He listened to the woman’s incoherent babbling, paused to inspect the stretched-out figure, and — for once — did the right thing. He called Freedman.

Mark arrived quickly, guessing the cause. By then the woman had been moved into her house. His cold authority drove the chattering group of neighbors out, ordering them to go home and stay there. The woman was alive. A word from him sent the sheriff scurrying to call an ambulance while he examined her.

He had no doubt the nosy neighbor had saved her. On her neck was a minute blister; on her throat, the marks and a very small, puncture. He made her comfortable, then turned to the neighbor. There was nothing more he could do for the victim; survival depended upon her natural defenses. Maybe the woman’s hair, like his own eyebrow, had absorbed some of the venom’s strength.

The eyewitness, calmed by Freedman’s presence and a stiff slug of rye, told what she had seen.

She happened, she said, to see young Mrs. Kennedy hanging out the wash. Out of the corner of her eye she’d spotted something — exactly what she couldn’t say — on the roof of a nearby house. She had seen it only when it moved. It was about the size of a small bird, she guessed, and it swooped down, very fast, in a straight line for the victim’s back.

There she paused, overcome by the memory. It took another shot of rye to get her going again.

“It was so fast — I can’t tell you! It made a funny kinda noise.” She amended that, “Leastways, I think it did.”

“How big d’you think it was?”

“Gee, doctor, it’s hard to tell.” She tried. “I’d say it was about the size of a thrush, but” — she went on warmly — “it sure as hell wasn’t no thrush! It went like — like an arrow, yet it seemed to pull up short — I’d swear to that — yeah, It pulled up short” — one hand described a loop — “went over like that. It was then she fell straight down, like she’d been hit with a rock. I was so amazed! I couldn’t believe my eyes! One moment — ”

“Okay, okay,” said Mark soothingly, “take it easy. Now, this bird” — he used the word deliberately — “just think back for a moment. What did it look like? You’ve got a pretty sharp pair of eyes,” he said encouragingly. “Can you describe it for me?”

“Well, doctor, I don’t rightly know,” said the woman helplessly. “I can’t say why, but it was like no bird I’ve ever seen. It was after it did this sorta circle” — again the hand described a vertical loop — “that was — ”

Mark cut her short. The rest he could guess, and he felt sure she’d relapse into hysterics telling it. “One thing at a time. Think back; it was on the ridge of this roof. Take it slowly, from there.”

Obediently, she tried. “It took off. There was this funny noise. Yes!” she cried triumphantly, “that’s it! I know why I didn’t think it was a bird! It had short wings — but they didn’t flap, they were kinda stiff. It coulda been a tiny airplane!”

“You’re doing fine,” said Freedman. “Now think hard about that noise. You said it was ‘funny.’ Try to tell me what it sounded like.”

The woman looked at the sheriff, breathing heavily through his open mouth, then at Freedman, pale but collected. “I guess it was a kinda rude noise, but funny,” she said hesitantly.

Freedman could think of only one rude noise. “You mean it sounded like someone breaking wind?”

“Yes.” Eager to retain the doctor’s good opinion of her powers of observation, she took the plunge. “But not what I’d call normal. Sorta high-pitched.”

“Yes, I understand.” His mind, far ahead of any computer, was intensely busy, picking out many disparate factors, oblivious to the sheriff’s grin.

“Okay,” he said at last, “what happened after this thing made the loop?”

“It seemed to fly off to one side, then came in again. It seemed like it hung on her neck. It was brown, light brown.” The memory was too much for her, and she broke into tears. Freedman took her shoulders in his hands.

“Come on. There isn’t much more — is there?”

She lifted her tear-stained face to him. “No. It seemed to hang on her,” she said again. “I opened the window and screamed — I musta been outa my mind! This thing took off like a bat I didn’t see it after that.”

He left her under sedation. What happened to the sheriff he neither knew nor cared. He collected his patient and drove slowly back to the hospital, thinking.

For his money the nosy neighbor was a good observer, which was a lucky break. She said Xeno ended its strike with a loop. Why should it do that? Such a complex action had to be a carry-over from its other world. If the theory that Xeno was no more than a flea of the gods stood up, then why did it do this? Maybe the venom acted as a local anesthetic. A pattern was emerging: two attacks, both from the back. Not only was Xeno wary of humans, it also knew the front from the back. The neighbor’s scream, which had in all probability saved Mrs. Kennedy’s life, gave a clear indication that, like its larval form, the adult Xeno could hear.

What else? Well, it flew; but if the report was correct, and he did not doubt that it was, the method of propulsion was like nothing on earth. No; that wasn’t quite right. Squids used jet propulsion, but certainly no bird.

Rigid wings and that high-pitched noise; yes, it had to be a jet. That strange junction at the base of the lungs noted in the larval form, took on a new significance, as did Jaimie’s comment on, and his own experience with, the creature’s feather weight. The picture was getting clearer, but not clear enough. There was so much more he needed to discover. Before engaging an enemy, know him. Wild swipes in the dark got you nowhere.

Turning onto Main, his wish was granted.

A young construction worker, stripped to the waist, stood at the bottom of a ladder. Across the street, from the shadow of the roofs overhang, a brown shape, faintly iridescent in the sun, shot down, traveling at incredible speed.

Freedman braked hard. The Xeno flattened out, streaking straight and level for the youth’s back. Three meters short it pulled up in a loop. The youth fell like a tree; the Xeno made a sharp banking turn, its wings distinct, raked back, swallow-shaped and gleaming. The wings folded over the fallen figure as Xeno dropped onto the youth’s neck, paused, then shuffled obscenely sideways like a crab, centering itself. Suddenly it was still.

There were few people in the street; those who saw were petrified.

Freedman never knew how much his inaction was due to that same freezing horror, or to his dispassionate desire to understand. He watched, mind and body in slow motion. Eons of time elapsed before he could shift into drive; more passed before his hand hit the horn. The car jolted forward, blaring sound; he stopped short of the body, struck by a new wave of horror. The Xeno did not move. Instantly he realized this had to be the same one that had attacked Mrs. Kennedy: It had learned that mere noise was not harmful.

To his credit, Freedman did not hesitate; flinging the door open, he half fell out of the car, yet with no dear idea of what he should do. The Xeno knew. For the first time a man faced it; it took off. Freedman caught a fleeting glimpse of the creature, saw the body swell explosively to twice its size. It seemed to leap into the air, flashing away. For the first time he heard that unmistakable sound, so accurately described by the woman. The Xeno darted back to a rooftop, a brown, glistening shape.

Freedman stood trembling, facing it. At that distance he could not see detail, but it appeared to change shape; he guessed it was ingesting air. For one heart-stopping moment he thought it would come for him. Then it was gone, flashing low over the housetops, heading for the trees, the sound faint and fading in sharp intermittent bursts.

Freedman’s legs felt like jelly. Slowly he bent over the youth. He had been a lot less lucky than Mrs. Kennedy.

Once he had a grip on himself, Freedman wasted little time. Ignoring the crowd that gathered, he forced his way back to the car. There was nothing he could do. The boy was dead; his duty lay with the living. Waving aside questions, he drove off. In his office he called his wife, telling her to stay indoors and make sure all doors and screens were shut, then shouted the same order to his bewildered staff. He called Malin, but he had scarcely uttered a sentence when Malin shouted him down. A man had been struck dead outside Central Park Zoo: Hundreds had seen the attacking Xeno. Another body had been found in Branch Brook Park in New Jersey. New York City was not in a panic — not yet, that took time. But there were some pretty scared people along Fifth Avenue, and there’d be a helluva lot more, once the news hit radio and TV.

Freedman listened in shocked silence. Until this moment, he’d thought of Xeno as a local problem. Malin gave him no chance to think before going on to another chilling item. There could be no serious doubt that only one Xeno had hatched in the whole of Georgia. But already there had been two attacks within twenty-four hours, and both victims were dead due to loss of blood or embolisms. Freedman hung up, pushed his glasses up to his forehead, and covered his face with his hands. The Georgia item was nasty, really nasty. If the thing fed daily …

His thoughts on the sinister implications of that news were interrupted by Jaimie bursting in. He had been on house calls and was still ignorant of the latest developments. Freedman spelled it out coldly. As Mark ended, Jaimie reached for the phone. Another phone rang and Freedman took the call: a third victim, a male, on the outskirts of town; dead. As he dropped the phone, Jaimie too put down his receiver. His face was white: Shane did not answer.

“Okay,” said Freedman bleakly, “so she doesn’t answer. You want to go chasing off back home? Suppose she’s out — and she may very well be — what then? You think cruising around Abdera is the fastest way to find her? You stay right here, phone around — and don’t forget there are two patients waiting for
you
, and you know as well as I do that neither of them is suffering from athlete’s foot!” His tone softened. “Go on, Jaimie. I know it’s tough, but if we’re going to lick Xeno, we’ll do it with brains, not panic. Get the secretary to phone neighbors, stores — it’ll be a lot faster than tearing around town.”