Isham came through the hole behind Nohar and went to the valve on the cone, shut it off. She was talking to herself. '... cave dwellers, lots of heat vents and volcanic activity. Dim red-yellow sun, thick atmosphere, probably high gravity. They could survive very FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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heavy acceleration. Could have ridden in on a nuclear rocket not much more advanced than our own. Gems are probably synthetic ...'
Nohar hadn't realized how tightly he was holding the shotgun until he tried to drop it. His hands didn't want to move. 'Damn it, Isham. Where did you come from, and what took you so long?'
Isham squatted and was looking at one of the quivering mounds of alien flesh. She poked it with the end of an air rifle she was carrying. The white flesh rippled like a water balloon. 'We were staked out at Midwest Lapidary 'headquarters.' NuFood seemed too small to rate notice. Our team got word from
the DEA. Mc-Intyre and Conrad have been two steps behind the Zip-perheads all night, ever since the rats jumped a cabbie at the airport. They radioed your message, and my team had to scramble all the way from downtown. I was point, got here about two minutes after you did—'
'What?' Nohar had spoken too loudly. He was suddenly out of breath and felt faint.
She activated her throat-mike. 'Aerie, this is Bald Eagle—nest is clear, send the Vultures in with the cleanup. We need a local ambulance, with our own medics. Out.'
She stood up and looked into one of the niches in the wall. She reached in and took out a diamond. It glinted red facets of light.
'I had to tape them just in case the drug killed them. Otherwise, their rapid decomposition would be hard to explain to Washington—'
'You were there.' Nohar was fighting alternating waves of pain and nausea.
'All that time?'
She tapped a lens hanging off her belt with the diamond and dropped the gem back in the niche. 'Two meters behind you. All the way through the building.' Nohar sighed.
'That D ammo acid information was vital. But you threw the tac-squad for a loop. We had stunners, but we wanted the 'franks' alive. And because of you, we
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discovered the trank we were using wouldn't have worked right on their biology—'
Nohar looked at the pulsing forms of the aliens. 'What'dyouuse?'
'The only thing I had access to, flush. It's a symmetrical molecule. Probably use the same stuff, wherever they come from.'
Talk about poetic justice. 'What happens now?'
'The cleanup crew'll be here in about three minutes. They'll pack these things up. The Fed will take over the processing plant here, keep them alive. If we're lucky, these will lead us to any more covert cells these guys have set up in the country. You do understand this is a national security matter. These are not aliens. This didn't happen.'
The Fed and its passion for secrets. It was becoming difficult to remain conscious. 'What about the Zip- heads, and the politicians?'
'The DEA has the Zipperheads, They can have them. The MLI plot was designed to unravel, so we'll let it unravel. WeVe done extensive computer searches into MLI's background, much more thorough than your hacker friend. These things seeded a money trail that leads back to the CIA. It's going to look to the vids, and everyone else, like this was just another rogue Agency operation—' Nohar sucked in a breath. 'You're not really FBI, are you?'
Isham smiled. It didn't look like a grimace this time. 'Only on loan.'
'Just let the CIA take the heat for this?'
'That's what it's for. The CIA's designed to take the heat for the NSA, the NRO, and a half-dozen other organizations in the intelligence community. We'll gladly let them fall to the wolves to keep this bottled up. Justice will prosecute a good percentage of Congress, Congress gets to flay open the CIA. Executive hits Legislative, Legislative gets back at the Executive—'
Nohar leaned back on the curved concrete, ignoring the sudden dagger of pain that erupted from his leg. it was just too much effort to stay upright.
'Checks and balances, right?'
'The way it works in practice anyway.'
'What about NASA's deep-probe project?'
'Congress will scuttle them. The NSA will black-budget them, launch, and eventually, we'll find out where these things come from.'
Nohar closed his eyes. It felt like he was losing consciousness. 'We're going to do the same thing to them, aren't we?' 'Not my decision ... '
Figured . . .
Nohar slipped into darkness.
It was Friday, the 26th of August, and the weather was deigning to cool down a little. That, and it looked to be the first week of August with no rainfall. Nohar had just closed the deal on Manny's house, and he was feeling emotionally exhausted.
He sat down on a box in the center of the empty living room and looked at the comm. He wanted to call Stephie, ask her to go with him. However, he couldn't muster the courage—he'd been avoiding her ever since he made the decision to leave this burg. He knew if she said no, he wouldn't leave. And staying in this town would kill him. Too many memories.
He sat on the box in the middle of Manny's living room, realizing he was going to do to Stephie the same thing Maria had done to him. That decided it. He was going to call her.
He had just reached for the comm when someone at the front door rang the call button.
Their timing sucked.
Nohar grabbed a crutch and hoisted himself up to his feet. He was getting good at maneuvering with the cast. He managed to get all the way to the door with-
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out bashing it into anything. He didn't bother with the intercom. He just threw the door open.
There she was, carrying a huge handbag, smelling of roses and wood smoke.
Nohar fell into the cliche' before he could stop himself. 'I was just about to call you.'
There was a half-smile on her face. 'Oh, you were? IVe been looking for you ever since you left the hospital. You moved out of your apartment—' 'Transferred the lease to Angel—'
Stephie nodded and patted him on the shoulder—the left one where the fur had come back in white. 'You going to let me in?'
Nohar stepped aside and let her through. She surveyed the empty living room and sighed. It echoed through the house. 'So you're moving out of here, too—how is Angel, anyway?'
'She's lucky rabbits are common. They had skin cultures to match her. The fur on her legs is white now, but she can walk. She got a job.'
The concept seemed to shock Stephie. 'As what?'
'Cocktail waitress at the Watership Down. A bar on Coventry—'
She pulled up a box and they sat down, facing each other.
'So how are you taking things?'
Nohar slapped his cast. 'They had to weave some carbon fiber into the tendons, but the cast comes off in a month, and with a few months of exercise—'
She shook her head. 'That's not what I mean and you know it. You're still blaming yourself for Manny, aren't you?'
That hit home. 'If—'
Stephie put her finger on his lips. 'I talked to Manny a lot about you. He was your father for five years, and
