Illegal Alien

'And?'

'And I interviewed all of the Tosoks today. But one of them looked different from any of the ones I’d seen on TV. You know they all had blue or gray hides, right?'

Ajax nodded.

'Well, this one had a silver-white hide.'

'Like it had bleached itself clean?'

'More than that,' said Perez. 'I’m told it had shed its skin.'

'Like a bloody snake, eh?'

'Yes, sir. Like a bloody snake.'

The DA considered. 'You know,' he said slowly, 'there is another possibility.'

'What’s that?'

'A frame-up.' Ajax paused. 'Not everybody liked Calhoun.'

'If it is a frame-up, it would have to be someone who is part of the entourage traveling with the Tosoks. No one else could get into the USC dorm.'

Ajax nodded. 'True. Better check into their backgrounds.' A pause. 'Start with Smathers.'

'Smathers?'

'I saw Calhoun show him up on national TV. That’s got to sting.'

'Will do.'

'Be thorough, Perez. If I’m going to have to lay charges against an alien, I want to be dead certain we’re right.'

Frank was walking across the USC campus, passing by the Von KleinSmid Center. He looked up briefly at the one-hundred-and-seventy-six-foot tower visible through the portico; the tower was crowned by a five-thousand-pound gridwork globe, like a world picked clean.

Frank knew all about being picked clean; he had been divorced for five years, and his twelve-year-old daughter was with his ex-wife in Maryland.

It was the day before Christmas; the campus was almost deserted. Frank was used to it being cold at Christmas; he’d grown up in Canandaigua, New York, where winters were marked by bitter temperatures and hip-deep snow. But the path he was on was lined with palm trees, and Frank was more than warm enough in his black nylon windbreaker with the NASA logo on its back.

Christmases were the worst; Frank never got Maria at Christmas. He’d actually been looking forward to this one — Clete had no family, either, and so they’d planned to mark the day together. They’d even been planning to exchange presents; Frank had bought Clete a trio of pewter starships from the Franklin Mint — a classic Enterprise, an original Klingon battle ship, and a Romulan Bird of Prey. Together, they’d cost six hundred dollars; far too much, really, but it had made Frank feel good to order them.

And now—

He made it a few more paces before he realized what was happening. If this had been upstate New York — if this had been proper Christmas weather — his breath might have escaped in great shuddering clouds, but here, in this warmth, palm trees obscenely decorated with Christmas lights, his sobs were escaping invisibly.

Clete and Frank had met in grad school; they’d been friends for twenty years.

God, how he’d miss him.

Frank found a bench beneath a palm, and lowered himself on to it, cutting his face in his hands.

Merry Christmas, he thought.

And cried some more.

Three hours later Perez returned to DA Ajax’s office. 'Okay, I’ve got the scoop on Smathers.'

'Go.'

'When PBS was contemplating making a new astronomy series, they wanted someone who could fill Carl Sagan’s shoes. Their first choices were Cletus Calhoun… and Packwood Smathers.'

'Why’d they go with Calhoun?'

'It depends who you ask. One executive I spoke to there said it was his just-plain-folks image: PBS was under a lot of fire from Congress, you know. They were calling it an elitist service. The network was doing everything it could to appear more populist, in hopes of not getting its appropriation slashed further.'

'Makes sense,' said Ajax. 'Heck, even I watched Great Balls of Fire!, and science always turned me off. But Calhoun was entertaining as hell.'

'Right. But the other guy I talked to said they’d heard Smathers was difficult to work with, and that there were some improprieties in his research. He’d been a little too liberal, supposedly, with taking credit for work done not just by his grad students — which is par for the course, apparently — but also by other professors. They were afraid that might come out. Great Balls of Fire! was a coproduction with NHK — the Japanese television network. You know how the Japanese are about personal honor; they’d never be able to broadcast the show if there were a scandal about the host.'

'Okay. So?'

'So the executive I spoke to at PBS said the source of the information about Smathers was Calhoun himself.'

'Are the allegations true?'

'Apparently so. And if Smathers had learned that it was Calhoun who made PBS aware of them, costing him the host’s job—'

'All right,' said Ajax. 'Let’s bring Smathers in for questioning.'

Parker Center was a large beige building two blocks from the Criminal Courts Building. Out front there was a black granite fountain dedicated to all the officers who had died in the line of duty. Part of the building was held up by a series of columns; behind these columns the main entrance was constantly guarded by armed cops.

The interrogation room was windowless, small, and dimly lit. Perez stood with one foot up on a chair. He took a sip of coffee. 'I understand you had reason to dislike Cletus Calhoun,' he said.

Packwood Smathers’s white eyebrows went up. He considered for several seconds before responding. Finally, no longer looking at Perez, he said, 'I object to all this, you know. I’m a Canadian citizen. If you’ll just call the consulate—'

Perez moved into Smathers’s field of view. 'Professor, this won’t take long if you cooperate. Simply tell me what you had against Calhoun.'

'Nothing at all.'

'There was some thinking that perhaps he had done an end run around you to get the PBS hosting job.'

Smathers was quiet, sliding his lower teeth across his upper lip. Finally, he did meet Perez’s gaze. 'I think I’d like legal counsel.'

'Why? You haven’t been charged with anything.'

Smathers rose to his feet. 'Well, either do charge me and get me a lawyer, or I’m walking out that door.'

Perez spread his arms. 'Why the hostility, Professor?'

Smathers’s tone was harsh. 'You’re implying I killed Cletus Calhoun. I suspect even the implication of that is actionable. Look — you’re right. I didn’t like that snot-nosed hick. He may be more personable than me, and he’s got all that hillbilly charm, but he’s not half the astronomer I am. He’s just a personality, nothing but a popularizer. He dared to suggest that my work wasn’t wholly original? Christ, he hadn’t done dick on his own for years. But if you think I killed him, you’re crazy. And if you want to question me about such an offensive suggestion, you’ll do so with my lawyer present.'

*8*

Jesus Perez returned to Monty Ajax’s office. 'I don’t think Smathers did it.'

Ajax looked up. 'Does he have an alibi?'

'Not really. The ME says the murder took place around nine P.M., apparently. Most of the entourage and six of the Tosoks were attending an evening lecture at USC — Stephen Jay Gould was in L.A., promoting his newest essay collection. After Gould’s talk, there was a big reception. They weren’t home until after two. But Hask had begged off — to molt, he says now. And Calhoun and Smathers both stayed behind, too; Smathers didn’t like Gould, apparently — he seems to have a thorn in his side about successful science popularizers. And Calhoun said he needed the time to work on his script for his next episode of Great Balls of Fire! But the criminalists have found no evidence at all that Smathers or any other human as involved. And a team at UCLA has confirmed that the substance on the rib is not of — what was the phrase? —‘not of terrestrial origin.’ '

'So it is likely Tosok blood — or, God help us, Tosok semen or something like that,' said Ajax. 'Could it have been planted?'

'As far as we’ve been able to determine, the Tosoks have given up no tissue samples of any kind to human scientists. This apparently is a taboo with them: they consider the inner workings of the body extremely private. Apparently they were offered books on human anatomy early on, but reacted as it they had been offered copies of Hustler. Given their approach to such things, it seems highly unlikely that Smathers had access to Tosok blood.'

Ajax exhaled noisily. 'So a Tosok did it?'

'Apparently.'

'And you suspect Hask?'

'Yes. The shed skin makes it damned convenient, obviously. And we’ve had the bloody footprint blown up. It almost certainly wasn’t made by Kelkad, and we’ve eliminated one of the other Tosoks — a female named Dodnaskak — because she has feet that are much too large.'

'That still leaves five other possibilities, including Hask.'

'But Hask had a bluish-gray hide.'

'Had is right.'

'And the criminalists found this inside Calhoun’s room,' said Perez, putting a tiny Ziploc pouch on Ajax’s desk. Inside were three diamond-shaped flakes of blue-gray material. Perez was quiet for a moment while Ajax held the sample up to the light. 'If Hask was about to molt,' said Perez, 'he could have been dropping scales all day.'

Ajax put the pouch down and rubbed his temples.

Lieutenant Perez entered the sixth-floor lounge at Valcour Hall, accompanied by four uniformed police officers, each at least a head taller than him. The Tosoks Kelkad and Ged, as well as Frank Nobilio, were there, talking. Frank rose. 'What is it, Lieutenant?'

'Come with me, Doctor,' said Perez. 'Which one is Hask’s room?'

'It’s on the second floor.'