Stinger

"I know this is an open line," Rhodes said to the duty officer at Webb air Force Base. "I don't have closed comm equipment, and I don't have time, either. My ID is Bluebooker. Look it up." He held on to the phone as the duty officer verified his code. From the den he heard the television channel being changed again: the canned laughter of a sit-com. about six seconds passed, and the channel was changed once more: a baseball-game commentator, and this time the TV was left alone for a little longer.

"Yes sir. I copy you, Bluebooker." The duty officer sounded young and nervous. "What can I do for you, siri" "I need a transport aircraft waiting with a number one priority. I need it fueled for cross-country, and I'll be giving the destination in the air. alert Colonel Buckner that I'm coming in with a package from our incident site. I need videotape equipment on board too. My eTa into Webb will be between two and three hundred hours. Got thati" "Yes sir." "Read it back to me." He heard the channel change: a news broadcast, something about hostages in the Middle east. The duty officer read everything back correctly, and Rhodes said, "Fine. I'm signing off." He hung up the phone and strode into the den.

Daufin sat on the floor - cross-legged this time, as if it had figured out that its crouching posture put strain on a human's knee joints. The creature's face was about twelve inches from the TV screen, watching a news story about floods in arkansas.

"I wish we'd get some of that rain," Gunniston said, drinking from a can of Pepsi.

Daufin reached out and touched the TV screen. The entire picture warped out of shape; there was a crack! and the channels changed: Woody Woodpecker cartoons.

"Neat-o!" Ray was sitting on the floor, not too close to Daufin but not so far away, either. "She's got a remote control in her fingers!" "Probably some kind of electromagnetic pulse," Rhodes told him. "It may be using the electricity in Stevie's body, or maybe it's generating its own." Crack! Now there was a western movie on TV: Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven.

"Man, that's about the coolest thing I've ever - " "Shut up!" Jessie's control had finally snapped, and she could stand it no longer. "You shut up!" Her eyes were bright with tears and anger, and Ray looked stunned. "There's nothing 'cool' about this! Your sister's gone! Don't you understand thati" "I... didn't mean to - " "She's gone!" Jessie advanced on Ray, but Tom quickly stood up from his chair and grasped her arm. She pulled free, her face strained and agonized. "She's gone, and there's just that left!" She pointed at Daufin; the creature still stared at the TV screen, oblivious to what Jessie was saying. "Jesus Christ..." Jessie's voice faltered. She put her hands to her face. "Oh my God... oh God..." She began to sob, and Tom could do nothing but hold her while she wept bitter tears.

Crack! a surfing competition appeared, and Daufin's eyes widened slightly, following the rolling blue waves.

Rhodes turned toward his aide. "Gunny, I want you to get out to the crash site and hurry them up. We need to get out of here as soon as we can." "Right." He finished his drink, dropped the can into the trash, and put on his cap as he went out the door, heading for the helicopter.

Rhodes wished he were anywhere else but here, and his mind drifted to the farm where he lived with his wife and two daughters, near Chamberlain, South Dakota. On clear nights he studied the stars in his small observatory, or made notes for the book he was planning on life beyond earth; he wished he was doing either, right now, because he had no recourse but to take the creature to a research lab, no matter that it wore a little girl's face. "Mrs. Hammond, I know this is tough on you," he said. "I want you to know th - " "Know whati" She was still enraged, her face streaked with tears. "That our daughter's still alivei That she's deadi Know whati" Crack: a "Mork and Mindy" rerun. Crack: a financial news show. Crack: another baseball game.

"That I'm sorry," he went on resolutely. "For what it's worth, I've got two daughters myself. I can imagine what you must be feeling. If anything happened to either of them... well, I don't know what Kelly and I would do. Kelly's my wife. But at least you understand now that she - it - isn't your daughter. When the crew finishes up at the crash site, we'll be leaving. I'll take her - it - Daufin - to Webb, and from there to Virginia. I'm going to ask Gunny to stay with you." "Stay with usi Whyi" Tom asked.

"Just for a short while. a debriefing, I guess you'd call it. We'll want to get statements from all of you, go through the house with a Geiger counter, try to find that black sphere again. and we don't want this information leaking out. We want to control - " "You don't want it leaking out," Tom repeated incredulously. "That's just great!" He gave a short, harsh laugh. "Our daughter's been taken away by some kind of damned alien thing, and you don't want the information leaking out." He felt the blood charge into his face. "What are we supposed to doi Just go on like it never happenedi" Crack: not a channel changing this time, but a bat connecting with a baseball. The crowd roared.

"I know you can't do that, but we're going to try to ease you away from this situation as best we can, with counseling, hypnosis - " "We don't need that!" Jessie snapped. "We need to know where Stevie is! Is she dead, or is she - " "Safe," Daufin interrupted.

Jessie's throat seized up. She looked at the creature. Daufin was staring at the baseball game, where a runner had slid into home plate. The ball was thrown back to the pitcher, and Daufin's eyes followed its trajectory with intense interest.

and then Daufin's head racheted toward Jessie: a slow, halting motion, as if she was still unsure of how the bones fit together. "Safe," she repeated. Her gaze locked on to the woman. "Ste-vie is safe, Jes-sie." She managed a soft exhalation of breath: "Whati" "Safe. Freed from in-ju-ry or risk, al-so se-cure from dan-ger or loss. Is that not a cor-rect in-ter..." Daufin paused, scanning dictionary pages in the massive, perfectly organized library of her memory banks. "In-ter-pre-ta-tioni" "Yes," Rhodes replied quickly. His heart had jumped; this was the first time the creature had spoken for over an hour, since that stuff about "oscillating tympanum." The TV channels had occupied her, and she'd been going through them again and again like a child with a new toy. "That's correct. How is she safei Where is shei" Daufin stood up awkwardly. She touched her chest. "Here." Touched her head. "Somewhere else." Her fingers fluttered in a gesture of distance.

No one spoke. Jessie took a step forward; her little girl's face watched her, eyes shining. "Wherei" Jessie asked. "Please... I've got to know." "Not far. a safe place. Trust mei" "How... can Ii" "I am not here to hurt." It was Stevie's voice, yes, but it was whispery and ethereal as well, the sound of cool wind across reeds. "I chose this one... but not to hurt." "Chose heri" Rhodes asked. "Howi" "I call-ed this one. This one answer-ed." "How do you mean, 'called'i" a hint of frustration passed over the face. "I..." She spent a few seconds finding the proper term. "I sang-ed." Rhodes felt close to pissing in his pants. an alien in the skin of a little girl stood before him, and they were talking. My God! he thought. What secrets she must know! "I'm Colonel Matt Rhodes, United States air Force." He heard his voice shake. "I want to welcome you to planet earth." Inwardly he cringed; it was corny as hell, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

"Pla-net earth," she repeated carefully. Blinked. "In-sane forms here, par-don my terms." She motioned toward the TV screen, where a baseball manager had his face right up in an umpire's and was giving him a royal chewing out. "Ques-tion: why are these beings so smalli" Tom realized what she meant. "No, those are just pictures. On TV. The pictures come through the air from a long way." "From oth-er worldsi" "No. This one. Just other places." Her eyes seemed to pierce him. "are not the pic-tures truei" "Some of them are," Rhodes said. "Like that baseball game. Some of them are just... playacting. Do you know what that meansi" She thought. "Pre-tend. a false show." "Right." It had dawned on Rhodes, and the others too, how strange everything must appear to Daufin. Television, taken for granted by humans, would merit explanation, but along the way you'd have to explain about electricity, satellite transmissions, TV studios, news broadcasts, sports, and actors; the subject could be talked about for days, and still Daufin would have more questions.

"Don't you have TVi" Ray asked. "Or somethin' like iti" "No." Daufin studied him for a few seconds, then looked at Tom. She touched the air around her eyes. "What are thesei In-stru-mentsi" "Glasses." Tom removed his and tapped the lenses. "They help you see." "See. Glasses. Yes." She nodded, putting the concepts together. "Not all pre-sent can seei" She motioned to Rhodes and Jessie.

"We don't need glasses." again, Rhodes realized that the idea of eyeglasses was a tricky subject involving magnification, the grinding of lenses, optometry, a discussion of visual sense - another day-long conversation. "Some people can see without them." She frowned, her face briefly taking on the appearance of a nettled little old lady's. She understood absolutes, yet there seemed to be no absolutes here. Something was, and yet it was not. "This is a world of play-act-ing," she observed, and her attention drifted back to the TV set. "Base-ball game," she said, locating the term in her memory. "Play-ed with a bat and ball by two teams on a field with four bases ar-rang-ed in a di-a-mond." "Hey!" Ray said excitedly. "They must have baseball in outer space!" "She's reciting the definition from the dictionary," Rhodes told him. "She must have a memory like a sponge." Daufin watched another pitch. She couldn't comprehend the purpose of this game, but it seemed to be a contest of angles and velocities based on the planet's physics. She lifted her right arm in imitation of the pitcher's, feeling the strange tug and weight of alien anatomy. What appeared to be a simple motion was more complex than it appeared, she decided. But the game's apparently mathematical basis interested her, and it would merit further thought.

Then she began to walk around the room, her hands occasionally touching the walls or other objects as if making sure they were real and not figments of playacting.

Jessie was still balanced on a thin wire, and to fall would be frighteningly easy. Watching a creature wearing Stevie's skin, hair, and face, strolling around the den as if on a Sunday visit to a museum, battered feverishly at her mind. "How do I know my daughter's safei Tell me!" Daufin touched a framed photograph of the family that sat on a shelf. "Be-cause," she said, "I pro-tect." "You protect heri Howi" "I pro-tect," Daufin repeated. "That is all to know." Her interest went to another picture, then she drifted out of the den and into the kitchen.

Rhodes followed her, but Jessie had had enough; she slumped into a chair, mentally exhausted and fighting off fresh tears. Tom stood by her, his hands rubbing her shoulders and trying to get his own mind straight, but Ray hurried after the colonel and Daufin.

The creature stood watching the cat-clock's eyes tick back and forth. Rhodes saw her smile, and she made a sound like a high, clear chime: laughter.

"I think we've got a lot to talk about," Rhodes said, his voice still shaky. "I guess there are quite a few things you'd like to know about us - our civilization, I mean. and of course we'll want to know all about yours. In a few hours we'll be taking a trip. You'll be going to - " Daufin turned. Her smile was gone, the face serious again. "I de-sire your aid. I de-sire to ex-it this plan-et, poss-i-ble if soon. I shall need a..." She pondered her choice of words. "a ve-hi-cle ca-pa-ble of ex-it-ing this plan-et. Be arrang-ed, can iti" "a vehiclei You mean... a spaceshipi" "Wow," Ray breathed, standing in the doorway.

"Space-shipi" The term was unfamiliar, did not register in her memory. "a ve-hi-cle ca-pa-ble of ex-it - " "Yes, I know what you mean," Rhodes said. "an interstellar flight vehicle, like the one you came in on." Something occurred to him to ask her. "How did you get out of that vehicle before it crashedi" "I..." again, a pause to consider. "I e-ject-ed." "In the black spherei" "My pod," she explained, with a note of resigned patience. "May I ex-pect to ex-it, wheni" Oh, great! Rhodes thought; he saw where this conversation was leading. "I'm sorry, but it won't be possible for you to exit... I mean, leave." She didn't reply. Just stared holes through him.

"We don't have interstellar flight vehicles here. Not anywhere on our planet. The closest we've got is called a space shuttle, and that only orbits the planet before it has to come back." "De-sire to ex-it," she repeated.

"There's no way. We don't have the technology for that kind of vehicle." She blinked. "No... wayi" "None. I'm sorry." Her expression changed in an instant; the face contorted with pain and dismay. "Cannot stay! Cannot stay!" she said emphatically. "Cannot stay!" She began to circle the room restlessly, her eyes wide and shocked, her steps halting. "Cannot! Cannot! Cannot!" "We'll take care of you. We'll make you comfortable. Please, there's no reason to - " "Cannot! Cannot! Cannot!" she repeated, shaking her head back and forth. Her hands twitched at her sides.

"Please, listen... we'll find a place for you to live. We'll - " Rhodes touched her shoulder, and saw her head swivel toward him and her eyes fierce as lasers. He had time to think: Oh, shit -  and then he was knocked back, skidding on his heels across the linoleum, a charge of energy pulsing up his arm, searing through his nerves, and making his muscles dance. His brain buzzed as the cells heated up, and he witnessed a nova explode behind his eyeballs. He went off his feet, crashed into the kitchen table, and scattered the contents of a bowl of fruit everywhere as the table broke beneath his weight. His eyelids fluttered, and his next conscious image was Tom Hammond bending over him.

"She knocked the shit out of him!" Ray was saying excitedly. "He just touched her, and he sailed across the room! Is he deadi" "No, he's coming around." Tom glanced up at Jessie, who stood watching the creature. Daufin had frozen in the center of the room, mouth half open, eyes glazed, as if the entity had gone into suspended animation.

"Knocked him on his ass!" Ray babbled on. "Wiped him out!" a stream of urine came from Stevie's body and ran down the legs to the linoleum.

"What are youi" Jessie shouted at the thing; it remained rock-steady, impassive.

"Gunny, I want you to get out to the crash site," Rhodes said, trying to sit up. His face was bleached of color, a thread of saliva dangling from his lower lip. Tom saw that his eyes were bloodshot. "I've got two daughters myself. a debriefing, I guess you'd call it. Chose heri Howi" His brain was skipping tracks with violent speed. "I want to welcome you to planet earth. We don't need glas - huhi" He shook himself like a wet dog, his muscles still bunching and writhing like worms under his flesh. The urge to vomit almost overcame him. "What is iti What happenedi" He had a headache fit to break his skull, and his legs were twitching with a will of their own.

Jessie saw Daufin come back from wherever she'd been; the face grew expression again, one of urgent concern. "I hurt-ed. I hurt-ed." It was said fretfully, and in a human might have been accompanied by the wringing of hands. "Still friendsi Yesi" "Yeah," Rhodes said; a cocked grin hung to his face, which looked moist and a little swollen. "Still friends." He got to his knees and that was all he could do without Tom helping him up.

"Cannot stay," Daufin said. "Must ex-it this plan-et. Must have ve-hi-cle. I de-sire no hurt to come." "No hurt to comei" Jessie had hold of her senses now. For better or worse, she had to trust this creature. "Come from wherei Youi" "No. From..." She shook her head, not finding the proper terms. "If I can not ex-it, there will be great hurt-ing." "Howi Who'll be hurti" "Tom. Ray. Rhodes. Jes-sie. Ste-vie. all here." She opened her arms in a motion that seemed to include the entire town. "Dau-fin too." She went to the kitchen window, reached up for the blind's cord as she'd seen Jessie do, and gave a tentative pull, then reeled the blinds up. She squinted, seemed to be scanning the reddening sky. "Soon the hurt-ing will start," she said. "If I cannot ex-it, you must. Go far a-way. Very far. Now." She released the cord, and the blinds clattered back with the sound of dry bones clacking.

"We... we can't," Jessie said, unnerved by Daufin's matter-of-fact warning. "We live here. We can't go." "Then take me a-way. Now." She looked hopefully at Rhodes.

"We're going to. Like I said, after the crew finishes up at the crash site." "Now," Daufin repeated forcefully. "If not now..." She trailed off, unable to put into words what she was trying to convey.

"I can't. Not until the helicopter gets back. My flying vehicle. Then we'll get you to the air-force base." He still felt like electricity was jumping through his nerves. Whatever had hit him, it was one hell of a concentrated energy bolt, probably a more powerful version of what she'd used to flip through the TV channels.

"It must be now!" Daufin had come close to shouting, her face streaked with red light from the blinds. "Do you not un-der-stand" - she struggled for a term, found what she needed - "eng-lishi" "I'm sorry. We can't leave here until my aide gets back." Daufin trembled, with either anger or frustration. Jessie thought the creature was going to pitch a fit, just as any child - or elderly woman - might. But in the next second Daufin's face froze again, and then she stood motionlessly, one hand gripped into a fist at her side, the other outstretched toward the window. Five seconds passed. Ten. She did not move. Thirty seconds later, she was still in her statue trance.

and she stayed that way.

Maybe that was how she pitched a fit after all, Jessie thought. Or maybe she'd just checked out to do some heavy thinking. In any case, it didn't appear she was coming back for a while.

"Can I touch her and see if she falls overi" Ray asked.

"Go to your room," Jessie said. "Right now. Stay there until you're called for." "Come on, Mom! I was just foolin'! I wouldn't really - " "Go to your room," Tom commanded, and Ray's protests ceased. The boy knew that when his father said for him to do something, he'd better do it in a hurry.

"Okay, okay. I don't guess we're going to be eatin' any dinner tonight, huhi" He picked up an apple and an orange from the floor and started for his room.

"Wash those before you eat them!" Jessie told him, and he dutifully went into the bathroom to run water over the fruit before he disappeared, an outcast sentenced to solitary.

Daufin, too, remained in solitary confinement.

"I think I need to sit down." Rhodes picked up a chair and eased into it. even his spine felt bruised.

Tom approached the creature and slowly waved his hand in front of her face. The eyes did not blink. He detected the rise and fall of her chest, though, and he started to reach for her pulse, but he thought about Rhodes flying through the air and he checked his motion. She was still alive, of course, and Stevie's bodily functions seemed to be operating just fine. a light sheen of sweat glistened on the cheeks and forehead.

"What did she meani That about the hurtingi" Jessie asked.

"I don't know." Rhodes shook his head. "My ears are still ringing. She just about sent me through the damned wall." Jessie had to cross in front of Daufin to reach the window; Daufin didn't budge. Jessie pulled the blinds up to peer at the sky. The sun was setting, and to the west the sky had become a blast-furnace scarlet. There were no clouds.

But a movement caught Jessie's eye. She saw them then, and counted their number: at least a dozen vultures, circling Inferno like dark banners. Probably searching for carrion in the desert, she figured. The things could smell impending death several miles off. She did not like the sight, and she let the blinds fall back into place. There was nothing to do now but wait - either for Daufin to return from her isolation, or for Gunniston to come back in the helicopter.

She gently touched her daughter's auburn hair. "Careful!" Tom warned. But there was no shock, no brain-jarring bolt of energy. Just the feel of hair she'd brushed a thousand times under her fingers. Daufin's - Stevie's - eyes stared sightlessly.

Jessie touched the cheek. Cool flesh. Put her index finger against the pulse in the throat. Slow - abnormally slow - but steady. She had no choice; she had to trust that somewhere, somehow, the real Stevie was alive and safe. To consider any other possibility would drive her crazy.

She decided then that she was going to be okay. Whatever happened, she and Tom would see it through. "Well," she said, and pulled her hand away from the pulse. "I'm going to make a pot of coffee." She was amazed she could sound so steady when her guts felt like Jell-O. "That suit everybodyi" "Make it strong, please," Rhodes requested. "The stronger the better." "Right." and Jessie began to move about her kitchen with a purpose again as the frozen alien gestured toward the window and the cat-clock ticked off the seconds and the vultures silently gathered over Inferno.