Stinger

"Don't you be scared now, Scooter. I'm not gonna let anythin' bad happen to you, no siree!" Sarge Dennison patted Scooter's head, and the invisible animal curled up against his leg. "Don't you worry. Ol' Sarge'll protect you." He was sitting on the edge of the bandstand in the middle of Preston Park, and had just witnessed the helicopter take off with the pilot and two men aboard. The aircraft reached a height of sixty feet and zoomed to the east, the chatter of its rotors rapidly fading.

Sarge watched it go, until its blinking lights were lost to sight. The bell of the Catholic church across the river was tolling, and a few people stood out on Celeste Street and Cobre Road, looking at the black pyramid and talking, but most had retreated to their homes. He observed the column of violet light, rotating slowly around and around; it reminded him, more than anything, of a barbershop pole. The top of the purple grid was lost in motionless clouds of ebony smoke, and the air smelled burnt. It was a smell he didn't like, because it made dark things in his mind start to move again.

Scooter whimpered. "Uh-uh, don't you cry." Sarge's voice was soothing, his fingers gentle as they stroked the air. "I'm not leavin' you." There was a movement beneath him, and suddenly he was looking down at a little girl's face, washed with violet light, her auburn hair full of dust. She had poked her head out from the small crawlspace underneath the bandstand, and now watched him with eyes full of puzzlement.

"Howdy," Sarge said. He recognized the child. "You're Mr. Hammond's daughter. Stevie." She said nothing.

"You know me, don't youi Sarge Dennisoni Your mama brought you to school one afternoon. Rememberi" "No," Daufin said tentatively, ready to draw herself back into the protection of the shell she'd found.

"Well, I surely do. Guess it was last year, though. How old are you nowi" Daufin pondered. "Old," she said.

She's got a funny voice, he thought. Kinda raspy, or whispery, or somethin'. Sounds like she could use a cough drop. "What're you doin' under therei" again, no answer. "Why don't you come on up and say hello to Scooteri I 'member he liked you." She hesitated. This creature didn't seem threatening, and there was a pleasant... what was it termedi a pleasant smile on his cliff of features. Wasn't that a symbol of nonaggressioni and she was curious as well; she'd seen him approach, heard him sit on the surface above her head. He'd been solitary; why was it, then, that he was communicating with an entity he kept referring to as Scooteri

Daufin crawled out. Sarge saw that her clothes were covered with dust, her hands and arms dirty, her sneaker laces untied and dragging. "Your mama's gonna tan your hide!" he told her. "You're a walkin' dustball!" "I thought I was a daugh-ter," Daufin said, newly puzzled.

"Well... yeah, you are. I just meant... aw, forget it." He touched the whitewashed plank at his side. "Take a seat." Daufin didn't fully understand what he meant, since she saw no chair, bench, or stool for the purpose of resting the rump of the human body, so she simply decided he was inviting her to imitate his position. She started to sit down.

"Hold it! Don't sit on Scooter!" "Scoot-eri" she inquired.

"Sure! He's right here! Scooter, move your butt and give the little girl room. You 'member her, don't youi Stevie Hammondi" Daufin tracked Sarge's line of sight, saw he was talking to what she perceived as empty space.

"There y'go," Sarge said. "He's moved now." "I pre-fer to..." What was the termi "To take the up-right po-si-tion." "Huhi" Sarge frowned. "What kinda talk is thati" "Web-ster," came the reply.

Sarge laughed, scratched his head. His fingers made a grainy noise in the stubble of his hair. "You're a card, Stevie!" She watched the fingers move across his skull, then she plucked up a bit of her own hair and examined the difference. Whatever these life forms called human beings were composed of, they certainly had very few common characteristics. "So why are you hidin' under the bandstandi" Sarge asked, his right hand rubbing Scooter's muzzle; Daufin's eyes followed the wavelike movements. He took her silence as sullen. "Oh. Did'ja run away from homei" No reply.

He went on. "ain't much to run to when you run away from home around here, is therei Bet your folks are kinda worried about you, huhi 'Specially with that big booger sittin' over therei" Daufin gave the towering object a quick, cold glance, and a shudder passed through her host body. "Is that what you call iti" she asked. "a big..." This term was not in Webster language. "Boo-geri" "Sure is, ain't iti" He grunted, shook his head. "Never seen the like. Scooter ain't either. You could just about put the whole town inside that thing and still have room left over, I'll bet." "Why would youi" she asked him.

"Why would I whati" She was patient, sensing that she was dealing with a life form with minimal capabilities. "Why would you want to put the whole town in-side that big boo-geri" "I didn't mean really. I just meant... y'know, for instance." He regarded the skygrid. "I saw a plane hit up there and blow - boom! - just like that and gone. Sittin' on my porch, I saw it happen. Talkin' to the reverend a little while ago. The reverend says it's like a glass bowl turned upside down over Inferno. Says nothin' can get in, and nothin' can get out. Says it's somethin' from..." He motioned with a wave of his hand toward the night. "Out there, a long ways off." His hand reached back to touch Scooter. "But me and Scooter'll make out all right. Yessir. We've been together a long time. We'll make out all right." De-lu-sion, she thought. a persistent belief in something false (opposite of true) typical of some mental (of or relating to the mind) disorders. "What is Scoot-eri" she asked.

He looked up at her, as if startled by the question. His mouth opened; for a few seconds his face seemed to sag on the bones, and his eyes glazed over. He stayed that way as she waited for an answer. Finally: "My friend," he said. "My best friend." There was a growl, a noise of a kind Daufin had never experienced before. It seemed to gain volume, a harsh rolling and tumbling of tones that she could feel at her very center.

"You must be hungry." Sarge's eyes had cleared. He was smiling again. "Your stomach's talkin'." "My... sto-machi" This was a new and astounding revelation. "What mes-sage does it sendi" "You need food, that's what! You sure talk funny! Don't she, Scooteri" He stood up. "Better get on home now. Your folks'll be huntin' you." "Home," Daufin repeated. That concept was clear. "My home is..." She searched the sky. The grid and the smoke clouds blocked off her reference points, and she could not see the star corridor. "Out there, a long way off." She mimicked his gesture, because it seemed an appropriate way to demonstrate great distance.

"aw, you're joshin' me now!" he chided her. "Your house is just up the street. Come on, I'll walk you home." His intention was to escort her back to the box where Stevie, Jessie, Tom, and Ray dwelled, she realized. There was no reason to hide anymore; there was no exiting this planet. The next move was not hers. She stood up on stalks that still felt gangly and precarious, and began to follow this creature across a fantasy landscape. Nothing in her deepest dreams had prepared her for the sights on this planet: rows of insanely built boxes brooding on either side of a flat, brutally hard surface; towering, ugly-hued growths studded with fearsome-looking daggers; the people's means of conveyance smaller boxes that jarred along the hard surfaces with sickening gravitational pressures and made noises like the destruction of worlds. She knew the terms - houses, cactus, automobiles - from that nightmarish collection called Britannica, but absorbing the written descriptions and flat images was far less disturbing than the realities. as they walked along and Daufin struggled with gravity, she heard the Sarge Dennison creature talking: "Come on, Scooter! Don't run off and get all dirty, now! No, I ain't gonna throw you a stick!" She wondered if there was a dimension here of which she was unaware - another world, hidden beyond the one she saw. Oh, there was much here to study and contemplate, but there was no time.

Her head swiveled back over her shoulder. The pain of unyielding structures stopped her head from a full rotation. Bones, she knew they were termed. The bones of her host body's arms and legs still throbbed from her contortions. She understood that bones were the framework of these creatures, and she recognized them as marvels of engineering to withstand this gravity and absorb the stunning punishment that came with "walking." These creatures, she mused, must have a deep kinship with pain, because it was ever-present. Surely they were a hardy species, to endure such tortures as "automobiles" and "streets" and "sneakers." She stared for a moment at the big booger and the violet grid, and if Sarge Dennison had seen the angle of her neck, he would've thought, correctly, that it was on the verge of snapping. The trap is set, she thought in her language of chimes. already there had been hurting. Soon the trap would spring, and here in this lifepod called In-fer-no there would be extinction. Much extinction.

In her chest there was a crushed sensation, more painful than even the gravity. These human beings were primitive and innocent, and they did not know what was ahead.

Daufin's steps faltered. It will happen because of me, she thought. Because I came here, to this small planet on the edge of the star corridor - a young civilization, still a distance away from the technology to take them into deep space where a million worlds and cultures yearned for freedom.

She'd hoped to learn their language, stay long enough to tell them about herself and why she was racing along the star corridor, and leave long before this; it had never occurred to her that they wouldn't have interstellar vehicles, since most of the civilizations she was familiar with did. The trap is about to spring, she thought - but I must not throw myself into it. Not yet, not until there is no more chance. She had promised this daughter would be safe, and she kept her promises.

Her head swiveled away from the skygrid and the black pyramid, but they remained as ugly as open wounds behind her eyes.

They reached the Hammond house. Sarge knocked at the door, waited, knocked again when there was no response. "Nobody to home," he said. "Think they're out lookin' for youi" "I am here," she answered, not fully understanding. This Sarge creature was a disrupter of language.

"I know you're here, and Scooter knows you're here, but... little lady, you sure know how to throw a curveball, don't youi" "Curve-balli" "Yeah. Y'know. Fastball, curveball, spitball - baseball." "ah." a smile of recognition skittered across her mouth. She remembered the spectacle on the teeah-veeah. "Safe!" "Right." Sarge tried the doorknob, and the door opened. "Looky here! They must've left in a mighty big hurry!" He poked his head in. "Hey, it's Sarge Dennison! anybody to homei" He didn't figure there was going to be a reply, and there was none. He closed the door and looked up and down the street. Candles flickered in a few windows. There was no telling where the Hammonds might be, with all the confusion of the last hour. "You want to go lookin' for your folksi" he asked her. "Maybe we can track 'em do - " His voice was drowned out by the rotors of the helicopter as it flashed past overhead, going west, sixty or seventy feet off the ground. The noise shot Daufin off her feet and propelled her forward. She clamped both hands to one of Sarge's and stood close, her body shivering.

Child's scared to death, Sarge thought. Skin's cold too, and... Lord, she's got a strong grip for a kid! He could feel his fingers prickling with a needles-and-pins sensation, as if his hand was snared by a low-voltage electric cable. The feeling wasn't unpleasant, just strange. He saw Scooter running around in circles, also spooked by the 'copter's passage. "ain't nothin' to be scared of. Just a machine," he said. "Your folks oughta be home pretty soon." Daufin hung on to his hand. The electric tingling was moving up Sarge's forearm. He heard her stomach growl again, and he asked, "You had any dinneri" She was still too skittish to speak. "I don't live too far from here. Just up Brazos Street a ways. Got some pork 'n beans and some 'tater chips." The tingling had advanced to his elbow. She wouldn't let go. "You want to have a bowl of pork 'n beansi Then I'll bring you back here and we'll wait for your folksi" He couldn't tell if that was okay by her or not, but he took the first step and she did too. "anybody ever tell you you walk funnyi" he asked.

They continued toward Brazos, Daufin's hands latched to Sarge's. The steady pulse of energy she emitted continued through Sarge Dennison's nerves, into his shoulder and neck, along his spine, and up into his cerebral cortex. He had a mild headache; the steel plate's playin' its tune again, he thought.

Scooter trotted alongside. Sarge said to the animal, "You're a mighty prancy thing, ain't - " There was a pain in his head. Just a little one, as if a spark plug had fired.

Scooter vanished.

"Uh-uh-uh..." Sarge muttered; the spark plug short-circuited.

and there was Scooter again. a mighty prancy thing.

Sarge's face was sweating. Something had happened; he didn't know what, but something. The child's hand clung tight, and his head was hurting. Scooter ran ahead, to wait on the front porch, pink tongue hanging out.

The door was unlocked; it always was. Sarge let Scooter in first, and then Daufin finally released his hand as he searched for an oil lamp and matches. But the spark plug kept sputtering in his brain, and one side of his body - the side she'd been standing on - was full of prickly fire. Sarge got the lamp lit, and the glow chased some of the shadows away - but they were tricky shadows, and sometimes Scooter was there and the next second he wasn't.

"Little lady," he said as he sank into a chair in the immaculate room with its swept and mopped floor, "I'm... not feelin' so good." Scooter jumped into his lap and licked his face. He put his arms around Scooter. The little girl was watching him, standing just at the edge of the lamplight. "Lord... my head. Really beatin' the band in - " He blinked.

His arms were enfolded around nothing.

His brain sizzled. Cold sweat trickled down his face. "Scooteri" he whispered. His voice cracked, went haywire; his face contorted. "Scooteri Oh Jesus... oh Jesus... don't bring the stick." His eyelids fluttered. "Don't bring the stick. Don't bring the stick!" Daufin stood at his side. She realized he was seeing into that dimension that she could not, and she said, very softly, "Tell me. What is Scoot-eri" He moaned. The spark plug fired, sputtered, fired; ghostly images of Scooter faded in and out on his lap, like scenes caught in a strobe light. His hands clutched at empty air. "Oh dear God... don't... don't bring the stick," he pleaded.

"Tell me," she said.

His head turned. Saw her there. Scooter. Where was Scooteri The dark things in his mind were lurching toward the light.

Tears burned his eyes. "Scooter... brought the stick," he said - and then he began to tell her the rest of it.