Alien Nation #4 - The Change Page 10

“I see. Yes.” George nodded. “Thank you, Matt.” He looked past his partner at Dr. Rivers. “Doctor? I am so sorry for my behavior in there. I can’t imagine what’s going on with me.”

  “Perhaps I can help clear things up for you.” The intern pulled up a chair, sat down facing Francisco, and opened a file folder in his hand. “Detective, I have some good news and some bad news.”

  “No, not good-news bad-news jokes,” George protested as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  A puzzled expression settled upon Dr. Rivers’s face as he looked at Sikes. “The tests are completed and I have both good news and bad news for your partner. What I don’t have is all day to deliver it. You might recall I did these tests as a favor. It’s not like either of you or anyone else is paying for the extra work.”

  “Okay, okay, Doc. You’re a saint,” said Sikes. “What’s the bad news?”

  Rivers turned and looked at George, a note of true compassion entering his voice. “You are going through riana, Detective Francisco. Your child-conception-and-bearing years are over. I’m sorry.”

  “Impossible!” George protested. “I’m much too young. In Earth time I’d have to be in my eighties or nineties before having to be concerned about riana. I’m not even sixty. I’m much too young.”

  “Nonetheless. I did both blood and saliva tests, Detective.” He held out the file folder. “The findings on both tests were positive.”

  George shook his head, “Impossible. Absolutely impossible. You must’ve mixed up my results with someone else’s tests.”

  “With someone else’s tests? If I’d done that, Detective Francisco, the only thing these results would’ve shown is that you’re dead.” Rivers held out a hand as the sarcasm in his voice sharpened. “If you cast your mind back, you’ll recall the general condition of most of our patients here at Graveside Memorial. Mmmm?”

  Matt turned and faced Dr. Rivers. “Are you saying that George is going through some kind of Tenctonese menopause?”

  “That’s one way of putting it. At least he is doing so in a biological sense. There are other changes, mental changes, with which I have little experience.”

  George shook his head and fixed Dr. Rivers with another red-eyed look. “No! You cannot possibly be certain of this. You don’t even work with the living.”

  Arthur Rivers returned George’s look with a steady gaze devoid of emotion. “Back on the ship, one of my tasks was to perform these very tests to identify those slaves past child-bearing years so that the Overseers could cull them out. My own existence and the lives of thousands depended upon me never being wrong. About this. Detective Francisco, I am never wrong. You are undergoing riana, and all that is left to consider is whether you accept it and get the help you need. Do you know a Hila?” He glanced at Sikes. “An Elder,” he explained.

  “What’s he need an Elder for?” Matt asked.

  “Simple, really. Elders have been through it, have studied it, and are now living on the other side. They are an important resource for those undergoing riana.”

  George stared blankly at the floor as he slowly shook his head. “None personally.” He thought of Uncle Moodri and the few other Elders he had known. He frowned as old memories filled blank frames. On the ship those who went through riana were always taken away. Almost all of them simply disappeared. Riana, then you die.

  Sikes shrugged and held out his hands. “Doc, if it was part of your job to identify those going through the change, how come you don’t know anything about the mental changes, and what happens after? And Elders? You must know dozens or hundreds. How about an address?”

  “Riana, then you die,” Dr. Rivers repeated. “The only ones who lived long enough to become Elders were those who had a necessary mental skill that was in short supply. We are speaking here of very few individuals. There were those and Overseers, of course. That’s why there’s such resistance on your partner’s part about accepting the biological facts. When my time comes, I’m certain my instinctive reaction will be the same.”

  Matt looked from Dr. Rivers down at George, then back at the intern. “You said you had good news.”

  “Yes, I did.” Rivers faced George. “The good news, Detective, is that the changing is almost over. The symptoms you’ve been experiencing thus far, nightmares, forgetfulness, audio and visual hallucinations, increased mental clarity, mood swings, light-headedness, fainting, that’s just about finished. There may be other symptoms beyond those, but I never came in contact with anyone undergoing late stage riana. By the time any of my subjects reached late stage, they were either dead or had been taken away.”

  Dr. Rivers closed the file and got to his feet. “If you don’t know a Hila, I suppose you can put a notice in the newspapers. According to the immigration records, there should be close to a hundred or more of them scattered among the population. As far as the actual changes go, it doesn’t matter whether you seek the advice of an Overseer or former slave. Physiologically and mentally, riana is the same for either, and either kind of Hila can give you the information you need.”

  “An Overseer?” George said. “Impossible.”

  “Everyone has the capacity to change, Detective. Even the Overseers. In any event, you need a Hila.”

  George frowned as he thought. “There was something my son said to me a few weeks ago; an idle comment concerning some kind of school he might want to look into. He said something about Elders.” He looked up at Arthur Rivers. “Are you certain there can be no mistake?”

  “I’m certain,” he answered as he smiled sheepishly. “Just as certain as I was that the mark above the left eye on Thomas Rand meant nothing. We took the head series you suggested and found a very crude neural transmitter implanted in the parietal lobe of the left hemisphere. A very crude instrument must’ve been used. There were several bone splinters in the brain tissue along the insertion path.” The doctor turned his head toward Matt. “Captain Grazer called a few minutes ago. He said to tell you that you were right about Detective Diaz’s eye. There was a puncture wound—”

  “Diaz?” George looked at his partner. “What about Mark?”

  Matt glanced at the intern and gently cocked his head toward the door. “Then, I’ll be going now,” Dr. Rivers said.

  Looking away from the intern’s departure, Sikes leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and let his hand fall into his lap. “He’s dead, George. Mark Diaz is dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “First, George, understand that Susan and the two girls are okay.”

  George sat bolt upright. “Susan?”

  “I said they’re okay. Look, George, they found Sing Fangan dead in a motel along with one of the motel customers. It looks like Maanka Dak killed both of them. The customer had a computer, and it looks like Dak’s gotten hold of every bit of information possible about you, your family, and everyone who ever worked with you or knew you. Because of that, Grazer sent Diaz over to Susan’s office to help her round up the kids and find a safe place. He didn’t know you’d already called her.”

  “But what happened?”

  Sikes bit at the skin on the inside of his lower lip. “Somehow, between the station and Susan’s office, Maanka Dak caught up with Diaz and jammed one of those controllers into his brain. Mark showed up at Susan’s office and pulled a McBeaver’s freakout. He killed or wounded everyone there. Then he killed himself.”

  “Celine’s mercy,” whispered George. He swayed as he got to his feet. “Susan and the children. Where are they?”

  “They’re okay, George. The captain has them in a safe house under enough security to fill out a couple of pro football teams—”

  “But if Dak accessed the police computer—”

  “Grazer’s thought of that. The safe house is recorded nowhere. It appears in no records, official or otherwise. The officers have special instructions, and there’s a complete communications blackout. Everything is controlled out of a command center that’s swept for bugs every fifteen minut
es, and Grazer is sitting on top of it personally. There is no way Dak is going to find Susan and your kids before we find him.”

  “I must speak with Susan and Emily. I need to—”

  “Use some of your new smarts, George. If you, or anyone else, called the safe house, suddenly there’s a big fat electrical trail to Susan, Emily, and Vessna. Is that what you want?”

  “No. Of course not. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You can’t call her anyway, George. The safe house doesn’t have a phone. No phone, no record of a phone. The house doesn’t even appear on any tax records.”

  “What about Buck?”

  “We haven’t been able to track him down yet. There was a double killing at his campus.” Matt held up his hands. “It wasn’t Buck. A campus security guard got it and one of Buck’s classmates, a Newcomer named Roger Dillon. It looks like the victim was sitting in Buck’s place when he was smoked by the campus cop. The accounts are pretty confused, but it sounds like the campus cop offed himself after killing the student. They’re checking now to see if the cop has a controller stuck in his brain.”

  “We already know how that investigation is going to turn out.” George frowned and looked up at Matt. “It’s been weeks since Buck’s been to classes.”

  “That’s something that wasn’t on any computer, partner. Several of the students there said they saw Buck at the scene, though.”

  “There?”

  “Hold it, George. After the shooting, he rabbited. Anyway, it might not be Buck. All the witnesses were humans, and they all—”

  “They all look alike.”

  “Yeah. Grazer’s got an APB out on Buck, and all that can be done to find him is being done.”

  “We have to find him, Matt. The vikah ta cannot be completed if any of my children are left alive.” His eyes widened. “Albert!”

  “Albert?” Matt repeated.

  “Yes, Albert. You know, Albert in maintenance? Our friend? The binnaum to my children?”

  “Yeah, of course. Look, no sweat, George. Albert’s been stashed too.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. You don’t look very relieved, George.”

  “Buck. I’m still worried about Buck.”

  Matt shrugged and held out his hands. “Well, George, as insensitive as it sounds, Buck might be off the hook if Dak still doesn’t know he juked the wrong kid.” Sikes pointed at George. “As far as you’re concerned, the captain wants me to take you to the safe house to join Susan, Emily, and Vessna. As soon as we track down Buck—”

  “No. I’m going to stay at my own home. That’s where Buck will look for me.”

  Matt smacked himself in the head. “Now why didn’t I think of that? Come to think about it, why didn’t Maanka Dak think of that? Do you think that little thing might just occur to Maanka Dak? Possible, George?”

  George Francisco stood and began stumbling toward the door. “Susan and the girls are safe. Buck is out there. He needs me to be at home.”

  “Look, George, Buck’s a smart kid. He wouldn’t’ve taken off if he hadn’t put two and two together. He knows going home will just put him right in the middle of a target.”

  “Buck needs me to be at home,” George repeated. “We’ll arrange with the captain for security on the way.” He leveled his gaze at his partner. “Matt, I’m the best piece of bait the department has right now. If we deny Maanka Dak access to me, he’ll only shift his focus on the men and women who know me and my family. That’s dozens, hundreds, of potential victims. I’m going home and that’s all there is to it.”

  Sikes followed his partner out the door of the staff lounge, waving his arms in the air. “Great! Terrific! It sure sounds like a plan to me. You think we ought to spray paint a ‘Follow Me’ sign in Tenctonese on the car just in case we’ve read it all wrong and Dak is really as stupid as you are? How about that, George? Should we take out an ad? Does that sound like a program to you?” Matt paused in the hallway outside the lounge and looked toward the double doors leading to the burger palace. Mark Diaz would be in there soon. Matt shut his mouth and ignored the tears on his cheeks as he thrust his hands into his pockets and stormed toward the parking lot.

  C H A P T E R 1 4

  “THREE-A-FOURTEEN, DUNCAN AND Kavit,” called out the watch commander. Lieutenant Yuker looked up from his clipboard and surveyed the academy-fresh Newcomer officers sitting at the tables for mid-afternoon watch roll call. The clock above his head said that it was three-forty in the afternoon. “Is that how you pronounce that?”

  “You pronounce it ‘Duncan,’ like a doughnut,” growled a rough voice from the old-timer tables at the back. A brief wave of laughter crossed the room.

  “I was asking your new probie,” said the watch officer.

  “Kah-veeth, sir,” said Ruma Kavit, trying to keep her voice strong.

  “Okay, Kah-veeth,” said the lieutenant. “You two roll in Fourteen. That’th Bill Duncan’th perthonal mobile polithe univerthity.”

  More laughter, and as Ruma turned toward old-timer’s row to see a hard-eyed cop with steel-gray hair and a thorough pot gut nod back, she heard another Newcomer probie, one of her former classmates named Louis Louis, mutter, “Better you than me.”

  As the watch commander continued reading off the black-and-white assignments, Ruma Kavit turned to her right. In a low voice she asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  Louis muttered, “Duncan’s a slagraker. Heard about him from some of the others in the locker room. He got transferred to University Division because of an incident.” Ruma’s former classmate raised his eyebrows and sadly shook his head. “Watch your back. I think he hates women cops more than he does Newcomers.”

  Ruma glanced once more at Bill Duncan. He had four service stripes on his sleeve, which meant he already had in his twenty. The veteran officer was talking to another old-timer, his eyes still on Ruma. His mouth was laughing but his eyes were narrowed and cold. She returned her gaze to the watch commander. Unless she made her own boundaries clear to the slagraker, the watch would be hell. She wasn’t physically afraid of Duncan. If it came down to it, she could probably take him. Duncan was not only human, he was in his fifties, overweight, and was a smoker. But Ruma wanted to succeed as a police officer, and that meant being accepted. She also wanted to stay alive, and that meant being able to trust your partner.

  The watch commander went into the crimes, and the officers at the tables turned to fresh pages to take notes. The lieutenant looked up and said, “Before we wade through who’s who, the Black Slayer is still looking for a few good men. Same as yesterday, even though it looks like he’s only after blacks, the boy gets confused now and then. So, don’t separate, wait for your backups. The slayer gets his man alone, so stay cozy and don’t be alone.” The officers laughed, and the watch commander turned to a red slip of paper.

  “Duncan.”

  “Yo.”

  “Duncan, we got a I’m-gonna-git-you-sucka flag on you. A couple of Tencts, Maanka Dak and Sing Fangan, escaped from China Lake last night. Nobody has a clue where they are, but when they went over the wall, they had the warden with them. That’s the same guy who emptied a sporting goods store in Van Nuys and juked all those customers at the Bucky McBeaver’s this morning. So keep a sharp eye. For the rest of you, there’re mug shots of Dak and Fangan on your boards. Next . . .”

  Later in the small parking lot, Ruma Kavit walked alongside Duncan as the veteran talked around the chewed stub of a cigar, ticking off the law: “Okay, Kavit, I drive. You handle the radio and you do the paperwork.”

  In a clipped voice, Ruma asked, “Do I ride the clipboard because I’m a Newcomer, or because I’m a woman?” She stopped, turned her head, and looked up at Duncan.

  “Spunky, huh?” Bill Duncan’s eyes never changed as he plucked the cigar from his mouth and used it to point at Ruma. “I hate Newcomers, Kavit. I don’t like how they look, how they sound, how they smell, and I especially hate their stupid names. I d
on’t like tits on cops neither. I hate ’em all, Kavit: Newcomers, women, blacks, Asians, hippies, intellectuals, Italians, nerds, Native Americans, Republicans, jocks, Mexicans, college graduates, Libertarians, green Irish, Jews, cornpone southerners, opera buffs, rich kids, Yankee flatheads, and snot-nosed assholes from Virginia give me an extra super pain right between the cheeks. I hate ’em all and I’ve run ’em all through my car and made damned good cops out of ’em. Every goddamned one of ’em handled the radio and did the books while I drove, because every goddamned one of ’em was a slick-sleeved fuzzy-shirted probationer who couldn’t find his, her, or its own ass without a mirror, both hands, and a goddamned pack of bleedhounds.” He jammed the cigar back into his mouth.

  “Now, listen up with those supersharp ear folds, Kavit. Cops is serious business. I’m gonna teach you cops and you’re gonna learn cops. Rule number one is to come home alive. Rule number two is never forget rule number one. You’re gonna watch out for my fat ass like it was your own, and when you know the streets, scams, places, and players as good as me, I’ll still be driving and not doing the books because by then you’ll’ve figured out how to ask for a new partner and I’ll be stuck teaching cops to some other piece of punk-bald space crud fresh from the academy. Now, was there anything else your assertiveness counselor wanted you to say to me?”

  “Yes.” Ruma Kavit folded her arms across her chest. “Are you on drugs?”

  Duncan’s eyebrows went up a notch. “Drugs?”

  “If you aren’t, you ought to be.”

  Despite himself, the veteran grinned, then pulled out his baton and pointed toward the black-and-white. “Let’s roll, space bunny.”

  They put their hats and flashlights in the backseat and thrust their batons between the seat cushions, leaving the handles sticking out for easy access. “Three-A-Fourteen, night watch, clear,” Ruma said into the mike as Duncan pulled out onto Jefferson. Ruma hung up the mike, put the new hot sheet on her clipboard, and flipped down the sun visor against the glare of the afternoon sun. “Duncan, tell me about the flag. Dak and Fangan.”