out the knife.
“Stand back, sir.”
The cucumber had started to break down further, and the light and heat were now so intense that Jack had to shield his eyes. Then an arc of soft blue liquid shot from the wound on Ashley’s chest, and with a rapid flickering and a tearing noise, the light in the cucumber began to flash and dance as Ashley’s liquid insides reacted with the subatomic tumult within the cucumber’s core. The light faltered, brightened, flashed, then went out, and all the cucumbers rapidly began to melt under the destructive power of Ashley’s aqueous innards. But it didn’t stop there. The neutron-absorbing cascade of rambosia vitae dissolved not only the cucumbers but the chassis of the van containing them and the concrete floor beneath, making a strange hissing and bubbling noise and giving off a smell like toffee apples.
Ashley had squeezed every last drop from himself and finally fell back empty like a deflated balloon, his once-snug uniform falling off him. Jack cradled Ashley’s now-flattened head in his arms, but he wasn’t yet dead. His eyes flickered open.
“My mind is going,” he said in a soft voice. “I can feel it. All that I am. Tell… tell… What was her name again?”
“Mary?”
“Right. Tell Mary I… would pluck the stars from the sky… 100… her… 10010101… 10… 1.”
“Tell her yourself, Ash. Ash?”
But it was no good. Ashley had gone. The liquid center that had so successfully quenched the thermocuclear device also carried the memories and experience that made him the alien that he was. Without them he was nothing but a deflated blue bag. In a very real sense, he had forgotten himself for the benefit of others.
The van collapsed in the middle as the rambosia vitae ate through the chassis. There was now a smoking hole in the concrete floor revealing the next level down, and a car that had the misfortune to be directly below was also being dissolved, albeit a bit more slowly as Ash’s vitae ran out of power.
“Ash,” said Jack to the light blue membrane that was draped across his hands like a silk scarf, “I’ll get them, don’t you worry.”
The small alien had traveled 18 light-years to find out more about our sitcoms and ended up saving half of Reading. It was an odd state of affairs, even by Ashley’s standards, but Jack had no time to dwell upon such matters—the inquiry had not yet run its course. NS-4 and QuangTech still had a lot to answer for, and the fourth bear was still out there somewhere. Jack looked up as he heard the sound of feet running down the entrance ramp.
The first on the scene was Briggs, with Copperfield and several other officers close behind. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Jack and the shriveled blue transparent bag that had once been Ashley.
“Where’s this ‘thermonuclear device,’ then?” asked Briggs.
“In the van,” replied Jack as the back axle finally dissolved to nothing and the Ford transit collapsed. They looked inside. It was empty, of course. The vitae had eaten through everything.
“It
“I was right,” said Briggs. “You’re stark, staring mad.”
“I can explain. NS-4 and the Quangle-Wangle—”
“Drop the knife, Jack.”
Jack looked down. He was still holding the penknife.
“You killed the alien!” said someone at the back.
“No, no—I can explain.”
“I think you’d better come with us,” said Briggs. “You’re under arrest.”
“On what charge?”
“Almost everything I can think of—but we’ll just have ‘murder of a serving police officer’ to begin with.”
Before Jack could protest, two officers had disarmed him, pushed him facedown on the floor and begun to caution him.
“Briggs!” yelled Jack in desperation. “It’s not over!”
“For you it most certainly is,” Briggs replied, kneeling down to speak to Jack, who had his head pressed against the concrete. “A plea of insanity is about the best defense you have—and from what I’ve seen and heard over the past few days, it will be enthusiastically and gratefully accepted.”
“Give your brain a chance, Briggs,” growled Jack. “Ash just stopped an explosion from devastating most of Reading. We need to arrest Bisky-Batt, the Quangle-Wangle and the fourth bear.”
“And let me guess,” said Briggs. “The Easter Bunny as well?”
“No,” replied Jack with a grunt as someone grabbed his wrist and pulled it up behind him, “she had nothing to do with it.”
“I hope you’ve got a good lawy—”
Briggs stopped as a group of large bears walked into the underground garage from the stairwell. Jack, who was facing the other way, couldn’t see who it was at first.
“Relinquish Spratt to my custody,” came a deep voice.
“Don’t push it, Craps,” replied Briggs. “Threatening a police officer and obstruction are serious offenses, Ursidae immunity or not.”
Jack rolled over so that he could see what was going on. The small party of human officers was being faced down by an even larger contingent of bears, Vinnie Craps at their head. They didn’t look too happy either, and they were all males.
“I’m not going to argue, Briggs,” said Vinnie. “Spratt is a Friend to Bears, and bears look after their friends.”
“Like you look after Bartholomew? Harboring murderers isn’t being friendly and will land you in the clink, Boo-Boo.”
Craps walked up to Briggs, towered over him and placed a single pointed claw on the knot of his tie. “If you call me Boo-Boo again,” he said in a low, threatening growl, “it’ll be the last thing you do.” He raised a lip to reveal a shiny white canine. “Last chance: Leave the Bob Southey right now.”
“No way,” replied Briggs, who was showing a degree of courage that he’d forgotten he possessed. “And if you don’t surrender Barth—”
Suddenly the underground garage was full of noise. Directionless and powerful, it seemed to well up from the earth and reverberate right inside one’s skull. Jack wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from until he saw Vinnie with his mouth wide open. The roar was a deafening bellow that seemed to surge forth from within and expel itself at furious speed; it was a deep, guttural cry that spoke volumes about territory, outrage, anger and dominance.
Everyone jumped about a foot in the air. Briggs was almost knocked off his feet, and the sound set the car alarms going. The noise was brutal, and in a sort of primordial way, the kind of noise that makes anyone who hears it just leg it for the nearest cave or high tree. It also spoke of unpredictable danger. Even Jack, who was now a Friend to Bears, had an awful feeling that even
“Hey!” said Briggs, suddenly regaining his composure.
Vinnie stopped and took a threatening pace toward them, and they all took a hasty step back.
“Leave now,” repeated Vinnie, and they did.
35. Ursula
Highest ursine decoration: Anthropomorphized bears have a peculiar and byzantine system of merits, honors and awards that number almost three hundred. Only two of these, however, are conferred
