J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection (27 page)

He started to speak, but she kept talking. "What's so dangerous? The aliens don't have their weapons anymore, and the camera has a telephoto lens, right? We'll film from a safe distance."

"With them, there
is
no safe distance." Harrison's voice was very soft.

"Bottom line: I go or you don't get in to see Wilson again."

Harrison regarded her stonily; Norton shook his head. "I think you're being jammed, Doc."

"I
know
I am," Harrison replied without taking his eyes off her.

"I can always charter my own helicopter." She took the map from Harrison's hand; he was startled enough to let her take it at first, then tried to grab it back.

"Too late." She smiled at him. "I've memorized the location. Now, shall we save the department some money and charter only one helicopter?"

"Dr. McCullough," Harrison said heavily, emphasizing each word, "if you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you."

While the process of freeing the others continued, Xashron crept up into the dark forest. The process of movement in the weakened host body was still tiring, though the symptoms of radiation sickness had eased due to the ministrations of Rashon, the skilled medic who now inhabited the human physician's body.

While the vegetation in the forest was familiar to his host's eyes, Xashron found it amazing, awe-inspiring. The variety of plant life was the one thing about Earth which impressed him—especially the huge growths called
trees,
living wood and greenery so tall, they stretched into the sky. In the darkness Xashron thought them intimidating. Back home such a living creation would fetch an entire ruling-class family's wealth. Xashron laid a gray, decaying hand on the round trunk and ran it along the rough surface, wincing at the surprise of splinters in his palm. Incredible texture, color, and the smell. . . Xashron gingerly brought his nose to the bark. Astringent, almost m
e
d
ic
inal
and
yet oddly, gloriously fragrant.

He rested against the tree and watched the religious tableau in the valley below him. By the light of three flickering bonfires, those already freed from the hideous metal containers were forming pyramids with their bodies, drawing energy up from the ground to aid them in the struggle ahead, while a handful of soldiers worked to release more of those imprisoned.

The sight of his soldiers emerging into the fire glow from their thirty-five-year sleep filled Xashron with grimly determined pride. They were not dead, the soldiers of Mor-Tax, not defeated after all this time. They would still emerge victorious.

There came the heavy, awkward sound of human footfall, of movement through the underbrush, but Xashron was unafraid. At the sight of Xana in her host body, he drew closer.

"Xashron." Even her human voice, with its curious pitch and timbre, was pleasant to him. His host eyes appreciated her human form as having once been comely. It still had not degenerated as rapidly as the others. "I came to speak with you alone because I know the time is near. Soon, all your soldiers will be set free."

"There is time yet," he answered, wishing only for both of them to be free from these cumbersome bodies, so he could see her once again as she truly was.

In the darkness of the forest, he reached out and did a socially unthinkable thing: he touched her arm. Beneath the fabric, her skin felt warm. She did not pull the arm away as he expected, which gave him great hope: for she was ruling class, and for a soldier such as himself to touch uninvited was to risk severe punishment. And for the act Xashron now contemplated, the penalty was death.

"Things are different here," he told her. "The laws that bound us on Mor-Tax no longer have meaning for us. Who can touch us? Home is almost forty Terran years distant. Here, we can make our own laws." He drew his hand up her arm. The sensation was strangely thrilling.

She focused intently on his eyes and said carefully, "I agree. When will you strike against the Advocacy?"

"When all my soldiers are free. . . and Xeera and Konar have communicated my intent to them. Certainly before daylight comes again."

"Some will refuse to harm the Advocacy. Some will turn against you."

"I expect that," Xashron answered confidently. "But most will feel as I do. They have suffered much at the Advocacy's hands."

"And what of me?"

He moved closer until their host bodies touched. "Have you no faith in the promise I gave you, Xana?"

"I believe you will not harm me." Her fever-bright eyes were hard, defiant. "But will the military respect the voice of only
one
member of the Advocacy?"

"It will. . . if you accept two members of the military to complete the triad. The soldiers will understand it is a necessary emergency action. But you must agree to convince the Council."

She was silent for a moment. "I accept—provided you are one of the members of the triad."

"Agreed." He pressed her to him. Her body was warm, an unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation. "Let us leave these bodies for a time, Xana. Let me see you again as you really are."

She laid her hands on his shoulders and whispered, "But you are a soldier, and I a ruler. If we are found together—and with the added scandal that no carrier is present—we will be killed. Even your own followers would not accept— "

"These are new bodies, Xana, and a new world. "He began the slow, painstaking process of exiting the host without destroying it. When he was free, he let the body fall away. The relief, the surge of strength, was intoxicating. He looked up, pleased to see that Xana had done likewise. As her human form fell away to reveal what lay beneath, Xashron gasped at her dark, shimmering beauty.

The host body twitched as it lay on the ground. "Still alive," Xana explained, following his concerned gaze. "And very spirited. A nuisance, sometimes, but at least she is strong and the body will last longer than if it were dead."

"Xana," he sighed. He pulled her to him, and she did not resist.

Urick woke to find herself in hell.

Total disorientation . . . total agony. Raging fever, chills that locked her muscles in spasm, nausea so intense that she lay on her back retching, though nothing came. She opened her eyes to peer up at a bright full moon shining down through the branches of tall pines. In her delirium she could remember nothing of the past few days, nor understand where she was or how she had come to be there. In the periphery of her vision she saw something—someone lying next to her in a shaft of moonlight. It took a great effort to turn her head toward it.

Finney. She tried to say his name, wanted to ask what had happened to Chambers and the others, but managed to emit only a weak croak. Finney's dull eyes bulged, and there were huge sores covering the gray, waxy skin of his face. As she watched, a fly lit on a sore on his cheek, then walked across the bridge of his nose, down and up again onto the open, staring eye, pausing on the blue-gray iris to clean itself. Finney blinked once, and flinched.

Urick looked away and wept soundlessly, without tears. She was dying in this strange, remote forest. Bits of memories floated back to her . . . Jericho Valley, setting up the transmitter . . . the thrill of fear when they noticed Mossoud was gone, then heard the gunfire. Their message was never broadcast. . .

Though to Lena the cause no longer mattered. There was only pain and suffering—punishment for killing the corporals, her fevered brain told her. All she wished for now was death, an end to misery. She groped weakly at her side, searching for her weapon, but the Uzi was gone. She probably wouldn't have been strong enough to aim and fire it at herself anyway.

Something dark and shapeless stepped into her line of vision, blotting out tree limbs and blue sky. Strange alien forms, the last things she remembered seeing at

Jericho Valley. As one of them reached out for her, Urick opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came except a low moan. At the same time, she hoped—prayed—it would kill her.

She was not to be so fortunate.

NINETEEN

Jimmy Smith, age seventeen, squinted at the small patch of forest illuminated by his and Jake's flashlights. The trees seemed to hover over the two like dark, watchful living things; occasionally, something rustled in the branches to add to the illusion, causing Jake's old hound dog, Emmy Lou, to run ahead and circle with her nose to the ground and her crooked tail wagging. Jimmy wasn't really scared, but there was something creepy about the woods at night. Maybe it was all those times as a Boy Scout (not so long ago) when he'd camped with the troop in the woods, everybody trying to see who could tell the scariest story. There was one Donny Ramirez used to tell about the windigo—the evil spirit that turned humans into hungry cannibals who wept blood instead of tears—that still gave Jimmy the shudders. He sure wasn't gonna start thinking about
that
one now.

"Jake?" Jimmy tried hard not to sound like he
was
tired or complaining, but they'd been at it sincc eleven o'clock last night and it must have been close to three in the morning right about now. Jimmy wanted Jake to like him; Jake was married to Jimmy's oldest sister, Susan, and Jimmy worshipped his brother-in-law. Jake knew everything, like how to hunt deer at night: First you get Emmy Lou to chase it until it was tired out, then you shine the light in its eyes and blind it. That way, all you had to do was take aim, and presto! Venison chops. And Jake had decided it was high time Jimmy bagged his first deer—a young doe, except that after Jake shone the flashlight in its eyes and Jimmy was all set to pull the trigger, the doe turned her head and looked right at Jimmy. Of course, he knew it was just coincidence . . . but she kept staring at him, her ears twitching, her chest heaving, and it seemed to Jimmy she trembled just a little.

He lowered the rifle. Jake got disgusted and tried to pull it from him, but the noise scared the doe and she got away. Jake didn't talk for a while after that—he was real mad, but after a while he got over it and said, "Happens to everybody the first time. What you've gotta remember is you can't think. You've just got to do it. Once you start thinking, you wind up in trouble." And then Jake went back to being cheerful, and Jimmy didn't feel quite so bad.

But now he didn't care if he ever bagged a deer in his life; all he wanted to do was get off his feet for a while. "Jake?" Jimmy whispered again. "I'm beat. How much longer?" Like a fool he'd worn new boots, and they'd rubbed raw spots on the backs of both heels. At this point he was ready to go home.

Jake was a couple paces ahead; he stopped and pulled a flask from the pocket of his down vest. "Been watching you limp the past couple miles now and wondering when you were finally going to say something." He said it nice, so that Jimmy felt like a real fool for not complaining, but Jake smiled and unscrewed the cap on the flask. "Here—for medicinal purposes only. This'll help those blisters. It's only about a half mile, maybe less." He offered Jimmy the flask.

The boy smiled and took it with his free hand. "Good," he said casually, trying to sound grown-up. "If I don't get some rest soon, I won't be able to bag a deer if it walks up and kisses me." He appreciated the fact that Jake always treated him like an adult, which made Jimmy all the more eager to behave like one. He put the bottle to his lips and leaned his head back, taking a big pull. It was whiskey, Jimmy supposed, but it smelled the same as his mother's nail polish remover. He held it in his mouth for a second, then swallowed reluctantly; the liquor burned like battery acid going down, and when it hit his stomach he wheezed noisily, sucking in air. Not too cool . . . but Jake didn't laugh, didn't even grin, just took the flask from him and helped himself to some, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and belched, frankly satisfied.

"Kinda strange," Jake remarked, sweeping the flashlight beam first along the tops of the trees, then along the ground. "You notice how quiet it's been the

past few minutes? Haven't heard a sound not even an owl hoot."

Jimmy wished Jake wouldn't talk spooky like tlwii —but he thought about it and decided his brother-in-law had a point. Maybe that's why the woods had begun to seem so eerie. Even old Emmy Lou had quit her whining and was sticking pretty close to Jake's heels.

"Well, don't matter," Jake said casually, maybe realizing the unsettling effect his words had on his young companion. "We're almost there—the old farm's just on the other side of this rise."

Jimmy didn't much care for the thought of sleeping in an old abandoned building, but he was too tired to argue and certainly too tired to make it back to the jeep without a little shut-eye. He struggled to follow Jake and Emmy Lou up the incline. "You sure nobody'll be there?"

"Been camping there five years now, and haven't run into a soul, except maybe a raccoon or two," Jake answered. Ahead of him, Emmy Lou dashed to the crest and looked down into the little valley.

Whatever she saw wasn't good. The hair on her back rose as she stiffened and growled low in her throat. It was the most evil, vicious noise Jimmy had ever heard her make, and the sound of it sent a chill through him that made him shudder.

"What is it, girl?" Jake crept up next to her and went down on one knee; Jimmy came up cautiously behind the two and looked down into the valley.