Chapter 82

 

Jared

 

 

The sun had set by the time they got home; the days were growing shorter. Willis had his car pulled into the drive and the Hardesty house was cheerfully lighted. Ollie and Mutai were sitting on the roof of their house by the chimney with Numum, drinking Bahtan wine; they waved cheerfully as their across-the-street neighbors came out of their car port. Clyde had a light in his living room, and there was a faint sound of music from a vid player. Ann's house was dark, although her car was there. She was probably at the Hardesty house. The D'ubian car was not there.

Neither was Sofi's car, and the house was dark.

"I should go see if Willis fixed the car," said Gina, looking uneasily at Issio's dark house, and he caught her hand firmly and held on.

"We go look for messages," he said. "Or bodies. Whichever we find first."

"I have something I have to do," said Chazaerte, backing away.

"We'll all go," said Cara, ignoring her brother, holding on to Jared's arm with one hand and gripping Maud's elbow with the other, and Chazaerte didn't leave.

But the house was as quiet as it was dark; they walked through the rooms, lights coming on as they passed the sensors, and found no pools of blood or piles of ripped-out body hair. Gina's bed was rumpled. The crib and the little chest of drawers had changed places; the mobile intended to hang over the crib was on the floor, but not damaged. The diaper chute attachment had been taken out of its factory packaging and placed on a pastel pink crib blanket on the window sill. The crib blanket had a large rip, as if someone had tried to tear it into two pieces.

Cara found a noter on the breakfast bar, propped up against an empty coffee cup. "Gone shopping. Nursery items. Return soon. Love, Sofi," she read.

Jared hauled Issio and Gina both back to his house. Gina could safely take refuge here or at the Hardesty house, of course, and so could Issio.

"We must go," said Maud, standing on Jared's front porch but she hesitated, deep in thought, her eyes on the house across the street where the mouse enjoyed her romantic vids in the basement.

"Out of curiosity," said Jared, "how would our Its fare in your places, Maud? I suppose their vehicles wouldn't make it for long."

"For awhile," she said, "but not as long as they will here. Not that it matters," she added, with a smile. "I don't suppose any of us wish them a long and prosperous life. But of course, once the vehicles die, they are free to do – whatever they do. We would have to devise ways to control them."

"Can we kill them?" inquired Issio. "They do not seem to have physical bodies as we understand them. They are energy. Energy could be disrupted; even we have weapons to do that."

"Energy from this plane," said Jared. "I don't know about energy from other planes."

"Willis would know," said Gina. "Or he'd have an idea."

"That's a good thought," said Jared.

"Taking them to our places," said Maud, "is also a good thought. Not a welcome thought, but a good thought. Unless they can use the power we have, in which case it is counterproductive. Let me talk with Lalia about it. She might have an idea."

"What power do you have?" said Jared, with the sense that she spoke of some external power, something separate from the people he knew, generated or maintained apart, but she gripped her pendant and vanished as though she had not heard him. When he looked around, he found that Chazaerte had gone also

"Someday," said Issio, touching his own pendant, "I must remember to inquire how that is done."

A car came around the corner, headlights brightening the street; it pulled into the car port next door, and the occupants emerged. There was a rustle of bags and the sound of conversation at a reasonable and even friendly volume. Car doors slammed. Sofi appeared, holding two large bags, and Zarei followed with a box and three smaller bags. "The music box," said Zarei as they reached the porch steps. "Is it still in the car?"

"I have it with the quilt and the curtains," said Sofi. "Did you bring the sheets?"

"I have also the snowsuit," said Zarei, pausing behind Sofi as Sofi juggled her packages and applied her thumb to the pad.

"It will be too big," said Sofi. "Shamri will be small."

"Shamri will grow," said Zarei, and the two women vanished into Sofi's house. Lights came on. Through the undarkened windows they could be seen, piling packages on the breakfast bar, talking with animation. Zarei pulled something bright red out of one of her bags, and Sofi inspected it critically, apparently measuring the size. It looked like a tiny sweater.

"Unbelievable," said Issio.

Jared opened his own door and ushered the group into his house. "There's beer in the keeper," he said, "if you people didn't drink it all this afternoon."

 

"I didn't want to bother you," said Cara, sitting on the end of the bed as she took off her sandals. It was cooling down at night now; they had the windows open, with repellers, and Jared could just hear the distant notes of music from the D'ubian house. Terry was still playing his guitar. Phyllis said they should try to get him used to more conventional hours before school started, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, instead of the reversed schedule of the D'ubians into which he had drifted this summer.

But he was so happy with his music – and the neighborhood was so peaceful while he was occupied with it – that no one interfered; so tonight he was still playing while around him the more traditional species slept. The Bahtans were quiet; the threesome on the roof had climbed down an hour ago. Gina, with the tact of a psychic child, had gone back to visit the Hardesty house for the night, and Issio and Sofi were very quiet in their darkened house, alone with their unborn daughter.

"You didn't bother me," he said. "I love you. I can't fix your headaches, but at least I can be with you when you have them. I don't know if it helps, but I want to be there."

"It does help," she admitted, "but I can manage by myself. I have the pills, and I guess, if all of you are right about it, I have other defenses. Do you mind about that? You didn't plan on coping with thing flying around in the air."

"Do you mind," he asked, "about my Ears? Because that wasn't something you bargained on having to deal with either."

"Well, no, it's just you," she said, "and I love you."

"And I feel the same way. In fact, I'm kind of relieved you have a weapon you can use, if you have to. I wish it were better under your control, so you could use it on purpose, when you want it. But even as it is, it's a good thing to have."

"So anyway I can handle it; you shouldn't feel you have to come and hold my hand."

"What if I want to?"

"I just don't want to be one of those clinging dependent females," she said. "I'm not that fragile." And he remembered Dr. Lindstrom and her views about developing dependencies; Cara had been trained early to lean on no one, and it scared her a little, he realized, to find herself leaning on him.

He sat down beside her and took her left hand and laid it beside his, their rings glinting in the lamplight side by side. "It's been important to me," he said, "to know the people I love can depend on me. Gram, when she was sick, before she died; I could help with little things. Fetch and carry. But I couldn't give her any real help; I couldn't do anything about her illness. And there was Ava. I tried, but I couldn't do what she needed; I couldn't save her."

"You were just a little boy when your grandmother died," said Cara, "and I don't think, from what you've told me, anyone could have saved your mother,"

"I know. This is true. But it's still in the back of my mind that I failed. It doesn't have to be rational," he pointed out. "So it's been important to me that I take care of the people I love now, that they can count on me. My family, out there." He nodded toward the street, the neighbors, his people. "The children. Maud. Not that she needed to lean," he continued with a shrug, "but –"

"Of course she did," said Cara. "We've actually talked, she and I. She wants me to know," she explained, with a little smile, "that she isn't a rival."

"Sweetheart, you don't need Maud to tell you that."

"Yes. But it's good to know how she's thinking, too," said Cara. "And you were always there for her, she said, even when she couldn't tell you why she needed you. And I think, even now, if she needed you, you'd still be there." She smiled at his wary glance. "That's a good thing," she told him, twining her fingers into his. "I like that."

So she no longer felt so seriously threatened by Maud, which was a relief, since Maud was undoubtedly going to be part of their lives whether they wanted her or not. "I'm glad she felt she could depend on me." he said. "And that's what I wanted you to know, right from the beginning, that you could trust me. Depend on me."

"I do," she said, holding his hand. "I depend too much. That's what I was saying."

"But I've found out something," he said, "during these months with you. The very strange life we seem to be leading. I never thought about it before, never considered it, never realized I needed it. I was, I guess, thinking about only one side of it. But Monday night, when Lalia and Issio and I were in Mimi's head, when we weren't sure how to find the way out again – it was your hand that I found. You were the one that I followed to get out of Mimi's mind. I can depend on you. I can lean on you; I can trust you."

"Of course. I love you."

"It's just," he said, "that I never thought about it this way before."

She leaned her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her, and they sat for awhile on the foot of the bed, leaning against each other, smiling.

 

Jared was ripped out of a dream of peace and springtime by the sound of some raucous machine springing into action at the end of the street. The day was just beginning to think of dawn; there was a faint lightness to the sky, and the sound, which was of something grinding and cutting, slashed through the slumber of the neighborhood.

He grabbed his jeans from the floor and yanked them on as he went into the living room, conscious that Cara was running after him barefoot, pulling one of those housecoats over her head as she ran. Balancing on one foot, he pulled on his shoe as he looked out the window and saw, by the Hardesty house, a strange car parked at an angle in front. "Someone's there," he said, jamming his foot into the second shoe, and Issio sprang from his own porch to the lawn; lights were coming on in the Bahtan house.

"It looks like that crazy woman's car," said Cara, looking over his shoulder.

As Jared reached the street, Clena and Wundra and Numum came charging out of the Bahtan house and Clyde's front door slammed as he rushed out waving his one-handled rolling pin, and reached the street to be engulfed by a mob of brown-robed persons waving silver axes, Terry in the middle of them.

There was no one visible outside the front of the house, although there were lights coming on upstairs and Jared could hear Lillian and Willis shouting at each other, and Ann calling for Gina, and some sort of a wail from Patterson. Issio headed around the south side of the house and Jared went for the north side, through the garden. The Bahtans came after him, crashing through bushes, dodging corn stalks and bindro vines; Clyde and the D'ubians seemed to be following Issio.

As Jared reached the back of the house, Patterson's bike alarms went off, splitting the air like the D'ubians' silver axes. Someone from inside flung open the back door, letting out a splash of light, and Phyllis and Al burst out onto the back step, where Ione Patterson was sawing her way through Patterson's bike. Gina's bike and Terry's bike, left there sometime yesterday, were already in pieces and the railing by the steps was laid out in neat segments on the ground.

Ione Patterson looked up and saw Issio heading for her, backed by Clyde and his rolling pin and the D'ubian army, and she gave a great echoing screech and reared back, waving her power saw at them. "Perverts!" she screamed. "All perverts!"

Numum and Jared leaped on her from the back at about the same moment; Jared was able to get hold of one of her arms but he couldn't knock her down, as he had intended. He might as well have tried to knock down a tree, heavy with centuries of growth. Luckily Numum was stronger; he wrapped his large hands around her other arm and slammed his elbow against her back and she folded. The power saw went flying; Issio and Clyde and the D'ubians ducked it as it sailed past them, still roaring, and hit the ground and vibrated its way across the back yard.

"My bike!" said Gina, from the back door. "She cut up my bike!"

"Our Terry's bike too," said Durakal, and he stomped over to the woman on the ground, with Numum and Jared and now Wundra all sitting on her, and he waved his ax at her nose. "Why do you do this?" he demanded. "Our Terry does nothing to hurt you. His sister does nothing."

Willis got himself down the steps and went to turn off the power saw. Ione Patterson gave a great heave that nearly unseated Wundra, and Clena sat down on her legs as Issio grabbed her left arm and put his weight on her shoulder. "Perhaps we should call police," Wundra panted.

"Absolutely," said Lillian, back in the kitchen. "Hang on to her out there!"

She bucked again, and Jared hung on, just barely. Issio nearly fell off her back; he growled and tightened his grip on her left bicep. His hands by no means reached all the way around, but he had his claws out; Jared heard her give a little yelp. "Lie still," he advised her. "We want you healthy for the police."

Jared glanced back at the door. Al and Phyllis were picking up pieces of the bikes. Ann had Gina; behind her he could see Lillian pacing, talking into her phone. And framed in the doorway was the lanky form of Patterson, staring at his unfortunately not-yet-ex-wife on the ground, struggling with five people sitting on her.

Sofi, in a loose robe with the twitching tip of her tail just visible at the hem, came around the south side of the house, gazing at the woman on the ground. "Ione Patterson," said Cara from behind Jared; she had, of course, followed him, and he risked a glance at her, as their captive made another lunge for freedom and they all held on. Cara was holding what looked like a hammer; she lifted it for general inspection. "She left this on the top of her car," she said.

"Police are coming," said Lillian over Patterson's shoulder.

"Perverts!" screamed Ione Patterson, and she jerked her legs upward, unseating Clena.

"Ione, you stupid bitch!" yelled Patterson, and she let out another scream and got her knees up under herself, knocking Wundra off her back, and her great biceps bulged as she ripped away from Jared and Issio and got up on hands and knees, Numum hanging on around her neck like a child riding piggyback. Wundra made a dive for her legs and she kicked, driving both Wundra and Clena into a pile among the bike pieces. Issio, all claws out, pounced upon her left arm and she shook him off as if he had been no stronger than that little white mouse in Ann's basement; his claws left trails of blood on her arm, which she ignored. Jared wrapped both of his arms around her other arm, and she pulled free without even glancing at him and staggered to her feet, Numum still clinging desperately to her massive shoulders.

She gave a great shake; Numum yelled and landed on his back on the ground, and Ione Patterson took off; she thundered down the little walkway around the house like a supertrain on its charged tracks, and Sofi, who had squared off as if intending to block her, sprang to the side an instant before the woman reached her, waving her huge hands to clear away the opposition. Numum and Clena and Wundra scrambled to their feet, and Issio clawed his way up, and Jared struggled upright, and they ran after her around the south side of the house, but she could move remarkably quickly, considering her bulk. By the time they got around the back corner of the house she was pounding around to the front, and by the time they reached the front of the house, she was in her car and the motor was starting.

Her car cleared the top of the trees behind Issio's house and was out of sight when the police car, lights flashing, came down the street and stopped in front of the Hardesty house. Two policemen emerged, holding their noters and looking inquiringly at the small army in the Hardesty yard. "Someone here called about a disturbance?" said the shorter one. "So what's the story?"

 

The sunrise was painting the eastern sky as the residents returned to their homes; it was pretty, Jared thought, and he would have appreciated it more if he had had some sleep. He had bruised his elbow, too, and scraped a hole in the knee of his jeans. And Ione Patterson was still loose on the town. The police, armed with signed complaints, assured them that they would be looking for her, but Jared suspected that their search would be less than wholehearted. The name "Patterson" was no doubt acquiring a certain notoriety at the police station. They had been very polite, but Jared had not been unaware of the sound of muffled snickers when they got back into the police car.

Patterson was alternately raging and weeping, pacing through the Hardesty downstairs, and Phyllis and Ann were pacing after him, trying to console him. Willis was in the shed trying to figure which part belonged with which bike, and if he could weld them back together. Jared thought that was a lost cause. Issio and Sofi and the D'ubians were already discussing what kind of new bikes their children needed.

They didn't even try to go back to sleep; there didn't seem to be that much point in it. Jared pulled on his shirt and Cara started the coffee and collected her own clothes. The sky was clear and metallic blue and already held the promise of a hot late-summer day. They took their coffee out on the porch, and waved at Issio, who was sitting on his steps with his own cup.

"What in the galaxy is that woman thinking?" said Cara, sitting close beside Jared, shoulders touching. "

The front door of the Hardesty house blasted a trumpet fanfare and Ann came down the street, heading for her own house; she waved at Issio and at Jared and Cara. "Thought since I was up I'd go feed the mouse," she said.

"Change her vids," Jared advised her, and she laughed.

"I got a whole stack of vids for kids at the library," she said. "Classic stuff. Like Bambi, and Cinderella."

"The mouse is going to turn homicidal," Jared predicted, watching Ann swing into her front door.

"She already is," said Cara, laughing.

"Zamuaon drama," Issio called from his front porch. "Our classics. Revenge, and bloodshed. This will give her something new to think about."

Their laughter was interrupted by Ann's scream from inside her house. "The mouse!" she screamed. "She killed the mouse!"