Voyagers II - The Alien Within (16 page)

“Yes, of course,” Stoner said. “But not now.”

The Russian blinked with confusion.

“I’m not ready to meet your leaders in Moscow. Or your scientists. I don’t really want to be dissected just yet—even if it’s just my mind they want to take apart.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you again, Kir. I’ll come to Moscow on my own power. But not tonight.”

Markov raised the pistol to the level of Stoner’s chest. Stoner did nothing, said nothing. If his finger starts to tighten on the trigger, I can knock his hand away, he told himself.

“You can’t get away,” Markov said. “There are—”

“Six of them, I know. And more parked along the access road, if they’re needed.”

Markov’s eyes widened.

“Your scientists are entirely right, Kir. I’m no longer exactly human.”

The gun wavered. Markov took half a step backward, leaning heavily on his cane. Then he raised the hand with the pistol in it and wiped his sleeve over his tearing eyes.

“Can you get away?” he asked.

“I think so.”

Markov let the gun drop to his side. “Then go, if that’s what you want. Go! Quickly!”

“You’ll be all right?”

“Yes.”

“I promise, Kir. I’ll come to you in Moscow.”

The Russian nodded. “I believe you, Keith. I will wait for you.”

Stoner could make out the bulky shapes of six dark-suited men in the drifting fog. Without another word, he turned away from Markov and started walking rapidly toward the corner of the building.

He heard a shout from behind him, but Stoner strode quickly to the corner of the administration building, stepped around it, then flattened himself against the wet brick wall. Rapid footsteps approached, and a burly man ran past him, a gun in his hand just like the one that Markov had failed to use. Another man followed him, dark coat flapping as he ran.

Their footsteps died away in the distance, muffled by the fog. Stoner could hear deep, intense voices arguing in Russian.

“You let him get away!”

“There was nothing I could do,” Markov answered.

Stoner no longer marveled that he could understand their language. Or that he could make himself unnoticed by men whose profession was to hunt down other men.

“It was your task to detain him if he would not come willingly,” one of the Russians was complaining.

“I’m an old man,” Markov replied, “and he’s a black belt karate fighter. Do you have any idea of how easily my bones can be broken?”

Stoner grinned to himself. That sounded more like the old Markov.

“Moscow will not be pleased about this.”

“I know that. There was nothing I could do.”

So Kirill wasn’t being totally honest about how things had changed in Moscow. Stoner debated swiftly about the possibility of snatching Markov from his strong-arm friends. It would be fun having Kirill along, he thought.

But then an overwhelming flood of revulsion engulfed him like a tide of icy cold rolling over his head and drowning him in freezing water. He saw himself and Markov like two little boys playing at the beach, building sand castles that the waves washed away.

No, a voice within him warned. What you must do must be done alone. There is no time to spare. You cannot bring a weak old man with you.

Stoner squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his head back against the wet bricks. No time for human friendship, he told himself. No time for human warmth.

He stood there, alone, in the cold, clammy fog and waited for the Russians to leave the airport. It seemed like hours that they searched through the darkness. Each time Stoner felt the urge to go out and take his old friend by the hand and lead him to safety, the coldly unemotional logic of his situation forced him to remain still.

Finally he heard the engine of Markov’s light plane whine into life. He stepped out from the shelter of the administration building’s wall and watched the plane taxi into the mist, its whirling propeller shredding the fog and sending spinning tendrils back toward him.

No time for friendship, Stoner told himself again. He knew he should feel sad about that, but there was no emotion inside him; nothing except glacial self-control.

Self-control? He smiled grimly. You know better than that. Whatever’s controlling you is not Keith Stoner. But it’s
becoming
Keith Stoner. It’s taking over my mind. It’s becoming a part of me—or maybe I’m becoming a part of it.

He went to the door of the building, footsteps clicking on the wet cement, and stepped into the small, spare waiting room inside. It was bright and warm. And empty. The lone ticket counter was closed for the night, and there was no one else in the room, not even a floor-sweeping robot. Stoner sat in one of the cheap plastic-covered couches to await the morning and the bus that would take him back to Paris. Leaning back in the creaking imitation leather, he desperately wished that he could sleep, close his eyes and drift into peaceful oblivion, forget everything for a little while.

What is it that I’m supposed to do? he asked himself. Why have I been driven to leave Jo and turn my back on Kirill? Where am I heading, and why?

He stared up at the plastic tiles of the ceiling, smudged with gray around the heating ducts, and tried to fathom it out on sheer willpower. Then he remembered that there was something he had been wanting to do. Like a deep-sea diver surfacing after a long time underwater, the memory of his children made its way up to the level of his conscious mind.

Looking around, Stoner saw a single phone booth off in a corner of the waiting room. He went to it, sat on the padded bench, and closed the curved glass door. The phone screen immediately lit up, and a prerecorded Frenchwoman smilingly offered instructions on how to make local and long-distance calls.

He needed a credit number, and there was no way to fool the phone’s computer into allowing him to make the call without one. Unlike human beings, the computer recognized only numbers and voice prints; Stoner could not talk it into doing what he wanted. Reluctantly, he asked the phone to make the call collect, to Mr. Douglas Stoner in Los Angeles, address and phone number unknown.

Almost instantly the screen showed a young man’s face.

“Doug?”

But the man’s image ignored his question and said, with a fixed smile, “The Los Angeles-area directory lists seventy-three Douglas Stoners. Unless you can tell us the address or phone number of the particular Douglas Stoner you are seeking, I am afraid that the system cannot complete your collect call.”

The young man looked nothing like Douglas, Stoner realized. His hair was light brown, his features so smoothly perfect that Stoner realized it was a computer simulation that was talking to him, not a real person.

He stared at the smiling image for several moments, then tapped the key on the phone terminal that ended the connection.

Elly, he thought. Richards told me she was married and living in New Zealand. He pictured the psychiatrist and the conversation they had had about his children. Then he touched the phone’s keyboard again.

“A collect call to Mrs. Eleanor Stoner Thompson, in Christchurch, New Zealand.”

In the flicker of an eye the screen printed:
MESSAGES FOR WALLACE AND ELEANOR THOMPSON MAY BE FORWARDED THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING FORCE REGIONAL OFFICE IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, OR THROUGH IPF HEADQUARTERS IN OSLO, NORWAY
.

His jaw clenched with frustration, Stoner asked the phone to connect him with the Peace Enforcement headquarters in Oslo. After several minutes of talking with computer images, he finally got a dour-looking woman on the screen. Her hair was iron gray, her jaw long and stubborn. But she listened to Stoner’s plight.

“It’s been twenty years since I’ve seen her,” he finished his story, “and now I can’t seem to track her down.”

“Divorced twenty years ago?” the woman said, a glare of disapproval in her stern look.

“That’s right.”

“It took you long enough to decide you wanted to see her.” The woman’s English was excellent, with hardly a trace of Scandinavian twang.

Stoner decided to accept her rebuke and look sheepish, rather than trying to explain. He had not mentioned Elly’s maiden name or his own. He had not told this austere woman that he had not been alive for eighteen of those twenty years. The woman’s expression softened a little, and she glanced down as she worked her computer keyboard.

“Eleanor Thompson,” she read off a screen that was out of Stoner’s view. “Volunteer medical officer. Serving in Tanzania with husband, Major Wallace Thompson, International Peace Force.”

“Tanzania,” Stoner echoed.

“That’s in east Africa,” the woman said.

“Thanks.”

“I’m afraid I can’t put you through to her. These circuits are for IPF calls only, not personal. And she’s probably out in the field somewhere, not at the regional headquarters in Dar es Salaam.”

Nodding, Stoner thanked her again and cut the connection. He stepped out of the phone booth and walked slowly back to the couch where he had been sitting.

Tanzania. The Central African War. It all clicked together. Now he knew where he was going, and what he had to do.

“I don’t trust him,” An Linh said. “I don’t believe a word of what he says.”

Her garment bag was spread across the bed, and she was packing the few bits of clothing she had brought with her from Hilo.

Cliff Baker leaned against the doorjamb, watching her with a worried little smile on his face.

“I don’t trust Madigan, either,” he admitted. “But I don’t see where we have much of a choice in the matter.”

“Well, I do,” An Linh said. “I’m going back home and beg Nillson to give me my job back. It’s only been four days….”

Baker crossed to the bed and sat on its edge. “You can’t do that, pet.”

“Who says I can’t?”

“Everett Nillson,” Baker replied, his voice low, almost as if he were afraid that the room had been bugged.

An Linh thought of her meeting with Nillson and his strange request that she become a surrogate mother for his son. I can deal with that, she told herself. I can work it out with him—especially if he’ll help to revive my mother.

Defiantly, she said to Baker, “Do you expect me to believe that line of organic fertilizer that Madigan handed us?”

“That Nillson’s after your body? Yes, I believe it.”

She tried to scowl at him, but he looked totally serious. He really cares about me, An Linh told herself. He’s really scared for my safety.

“And he’s got the power to take what he wants,” Baker added. “You won’t get your job back unless you give Nillson what he wants. We’re both working for Madigan now, whether we like it or not.”

“You, maybe,” An Linh insisted. “Not me.”

He reached for her wrist. “Will you listen to me? You’re in danger.”

“Nillson’s going to throw me into a dungeon and make me his slave, huh?”

“If he wants to.”

“And Madigan’s protecting me from that?”

Baker nodded.

An Linh pulled her hand away from him. “I don’t trust Archie Madigan,” she said. “Not for a second! And the worst part of this, Cliff, is that you do. You’re going along with him. Do you really believe all his bullshit?”

He made himself grin at her. “Is it so bad?” Sweeping an outstretched arm around the blue-and-white bedroom, he asked, “I mean, even if it is bullshit, it’s a lot better than Hilo. All our bills are being paid, aren’t they? And we’re on the track of the biggest story of the century!”

“While Father Lemoyne is dying in Honolulu.”

“Madigan’s taking care of that. He promised us….”

“Sure he did.”

“We’ll do the documentary for Vanguard and auction it off to the networks.”

“That’s fine for you, Cliff. But what about me?”

“You’ll be part of it! The most important part! You’ll be the on-screen personality, the commentator. It’ll make you internationally famous! We’ll make a fortune!”

She stared hard at him. “Cliff, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think that all you’re after is the money.”

“I’m trying to protect you, love,” he said. “Whether you accept the fact or not, you’re in real danger.”

She shook her head again, but it was more out of stubbornness than conviction. He was utterly serious, and Nillson
had
come across to her as—as what? An Linh asked herself. Threatening? Deviant? Maybe. But what she had seen in Nillson had been something else. Anger. And frustration. The kind of anger that a little boy feels when his mother thwarts him. Rage, that’s what it was. Barely controlled rage. In a man of Nillson’s power, such a passion could be dangerous.

And what of Cliff? she asked herself. What of this man I love? Is he really trying to protect me, or is he so hot to get at the frozen-astronaut story that he’ll use me and Madigan and anyone else who can be manipulated into helping him? No, she told herself. I can’t believe that. I mustn’t. Cliff loves me. He wants to protect me. He’s afraid of Nillson, and he’s playing off Madigan to protect me.

But she heard herself say, “I can’t believe all this, Cliff.”

Baker leaned back and stretched himself out on the rumpled bed. “Then just what do you believe, pet?”

“I don’t know what to believe!” An Linh said. “It’s all been too much, too many things happening all at once….”

His face took on a curious, quizzical expression. Hauling himself up off the bed, he glanced around the room, then held his hand out to her.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s take a walk. The fresh air will do us both some good.”

She saw his brows raised pleadingly and realized that Cliff wanted to be out of the hotel suite, out on the streets where they could not be overheard. With a nod, An Linh took the only jacket she had with her from the garment bag and threw it across her shoulders.

They walked up the Strand to Trafalgar Square, where Nelson’s column stood against the clean blue sky, flanked by proud British lions and thronging crowds of tourists from every corner of the world.

“Remember when kids used to paint graffiti on monuments like that?” Baker asked over the hubbub of street vendors and hissing steam-powered busses.

“I haven’t seen any for years, now that you mention it,” said An Linh. “A passing fad, I guess.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Those new polymer coatings that they spray onto the walls of buildings make it impossible for paint to stick to the surfaces.”

He smiled tightly. “Don’t you believe it! The real truth is that there aren’t so many poor kids running around with nothing better to do.”

“You think so?”

“I know it,” Baker said.

They crossed the square, dodging the steam buses and honking black taxis, then pushed through the crowd sitting on the steps and enjoying the afternoon sunshine. An Linh wanted to sit for a while, too, but Baker insisted that they keep moving. He constantly glanced back over his shoulder as they made their way through the streets toward Piccadilly Circus.

“Are we being followed?” An Linh asked him.

“I don’t think so. Not close enough so they can pick up what we say, at least.”

“And what is it that you want to say, Cliff? What do you want to tell me that couldn’t be said back in the hotel?”

He hesitated, as if trying to form the right words in his mind before speaking.

Finally, “There’s still plenty of graffiti in Africa, An Linh. And India. All through Asia and the poor island countries of the Pacific.”

“In Cambodia, too,” she agreed.

“Yes, in your homeland.”

“France is my home, Cliff. I have no childhood memories of Cambodia.”

“But it’s your real home, An Linh,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “It’s the home of your blood, your ancestry. You can’t stand there and tell me that it means nothing to you.”