The Stranded Ones Page 5

  As the truck merged with traffic and vanished, Lew crouched behind a stop sign, where he slipped on his shoes then carefully expended two charges, blasting the hinges on each of the handcuffs in turn, the metal bracelets falling soundlessly into the damp weeds at his feet. He stood for a moment, panting, rain falling on blistering wrists. His thigh had started to seize up, and his feet were freezing.

  He jogged unsteadily in the direction of the taxi zone outside the nearest hotel. I’ll be a bloody cripple before this is over.

  Yet, somehow, his luck was holding. A single AutoCab sat unattended. In a few seconds he had disabled the passenger identity recorder and overrode the auto-direct. He keyed in the address of a safe-house in the commercial aviation section of the airport. His safe-house was within walking distance of the air freight terminals. As the cab pulled into the stream of traffic, Lew sat as low in the seat as possible, watching warily at the passing cars and trucks for signs of the agents he had eluded.

  The small cab took an unlighted exit and slowly made its way across several private access roads, then turned past a darkened parking lot. Springer stopped the cab there. In a minute, he had erased the destination program and re-routed the car to police headquarters downtown. He left a note: “Borrowed by Agent Peter Reilly #956042”.

  The little AutoCab whined away. The sleet had stopped. Lew’s clothes were soaked and he was beginning to tremble uncontrollably. His bare feet were almost frozen. Beyond the car lot loomed a five story metal shed. On the nearest side glowed the green words “Eastern Aero-Engineering Division.” It was one of McCahan’s and Springer’s safe-houses. All were maintained by regular customers who shared an interest in strict secrecy.

  Moments later Lew was alone in an austere but well heated office.

  Lew turned up the heat and stripped, rubbing himself with a towel from the tiny bathroom, taking care to avoid the new blisters on his wrists and the bloody bandage on his thigh. Then he opened the medicine kit on the sink. First an anti-shock. He pressed the gas-syringe against his left arm and triggered a single dose. Then he repeated the procedure with a broadband antibiotic.

  He sat on the toilet stool and gripped the bandages on this thigh. At the count of three he ripped them off. I’ll be damned, Lendall’s stitches held. He daubed the blood with a damp cloth then sprayed the area with a topical antiseptic. He sprayed a burn inhibitor on each wrist in turn and applied fresh bandages everywhere needed. Lew then stopped to take pain pills. Finally, with swift, practiced movements, he repeated the operation for the shoulder wound.

  From a locker in the main room, he pulled down some fresh coveralls, marked with a company logo, and put them on; he slipped on dry socks and boots. His feet tingled. Finally, Lew drew a cup of hot coffee from the universal dispenser in the wall, sat down at the desk and keyed in series of numbers.

  “Who is this?” It was Hugh.

  “Blimey, Hugh,” Lew said, “I’m tired of this. You go first next time.”

  “Lew. You had me worried there. Agreed. Me first, next time. What’s up?”

  “I hope you have all the data, because I’m very hot at the moment.”

  “We’ve earned our fee. Gael has the received the data in his Quebec residence, and Big Bird has our backup. I understand that after your getaway they blew the entire building.”

  “Cretins…”

  “Don’t compliment them. How badly are you hurt?

  “I made it to Doctor Lendall’s office. She released me.”

  “She’d release a cardiac patient with an open chest if you asked her. Are you okay?”

  “I was until I was arrested at the airport.”

  “Obviously you got away. Just how secure are you?”

  “Secure enough for two hours here. For longer? Not very.”

  “Time to execute plan alpha.”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  “Got it. We meet back home.”

  “Wish me good luck, mate.”

  CHAPTER FIVE - THE ORPHAN LITTLE ONES

  Patagonia Region, Argentina About the same time

  McCahan and Springer were regrouping in North America. The Little Ones were safe in Professor Tamati’s care in New Zealand. But in the Argentinean Andes…

  “Belief Keeper” was an alien far from home. Still, he found joy in the brilliant, blue sky of this new world on the sunniest days and in the very highest places, when he and his younger pod mates, “Cherish,” “Funny,” “Joy,” and “Winsome,” had been allowed to climb beyond the tree line. There he could imagine they had somehow come home. Of course, their ship had crashed on the blue world below and their pod, possibly one of only two to reach land, had safely brought them to a marginal existence in a truly alien environment. But life was to be savored…always.

  “Carlos, the Shepherd,” the human assigned to watch over them, was a kind being, not at all like the one he worked for, the evil one called “El Diablo.” It was Carlos who had persuaded the latter to allow these outings under his supervision. “Where could they go?” he had said to Diablo.

  Indeed, Belief Keeper thought, Where can we go? We are stranded here forever.

  It was on one of those climbs that Belief Keeper and his pod mates conspired to win their freedom. “This Diablo is clever in the way that the lower predators are cunning,” Belief Keeper said. “He can be fooled.”

  The five Little Ones were captives of a local drug dealer, aptly named Diablo, and kept alive for their usefulness only. Ironically, Diablo had diversified in a benign direction, discovering late in his life-of-crime that the sale of technology secrets was more profitable than selling controlled substances to stupid rich tourists. And the Little Ones, a truly serendipitous discovery, were a gold mine of marketable information. Belief Keeper, an adult male and the pod leader, had been careful to ration their knowledge, releasing a minor innovation here, an incremental improvement there, and Diablo had seemed satisfied, if not entirely patient. Belief Keeper knew that their latest gift to the humans, an immensely profitable carbon polymer chain process, one capable of producing strands of unprecedented tensile strength, should prove valuable enough to win their freedom, even from their idiot captor…but only if the matter were handled with finesse. So the alien had conspired to give only a little information, then hold back and bargain. First, one of the pod would be a necessary consultant on the job site - probably Winsome - then they would bargain for more. They all had agreed to the plan.

  It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

  Carlos called his five little charges his “walking piñatas.” It was a term of endearment. The tragic irony was completely unintended.

  Elvis Emilio Estes Dias, otherwise known as “El Diablo,” was feeling very frustrated. Just as his career as an Argentinean drug baron had profitably “diversified,” his hopes soaring, his schemes had run into a shit hole. When Diablo had first discovered the Little Ones, surely now, he had thought I will be a major player. In fact, he had almost become a dealer in the most important of contraband commodities of the moment: technological secrets. Now his frustration was acute. His promising new career was in jeopardy because those damn Little Ones had betrayed him.

  Diablo disconnected the Sat Phone he kept on the huge desk in his alpine Argentinean compound and turned to Hector Majore Von Baax, his young associate. “The Japs won’t fucking pay,” he said in English. The two men were in a well fortified warehouse, rusting and shabby only on the outside, on an unmapped dirt road a few kilometers from a small village in the Patagonian high country of Argentina. English was the lingua franca of commerce and both spoke it fluently. “El Diablo” was a cadaverous man with bony limbs and hollow eyes. He had served fifteen years in the Argentinean Special Forces, where his gratuitous cruelty had earned him a scar under his right eye, and his nickname. He cultivated both.

  “But that Tokyo crowd still owes us at least part of the billion,” Hector said. He was an overweight blond man, the third or fourth generation descendant of some obs
cure Nazi expatriate. His ample, undisciplined form filled the cheap office chair. He held a clipboard in this lap with both hands.

  Diablo stared at Hector. The drug baron’s clear brown eyes, face and upper body were still as the old bronze statue of Lenin. “No they don’t owe us,” he said.

  “Didn’t the process work exactly as promised?”

  “No. Not ‘exactly as promised.’ I need a better lawyer. Their terms were very clear. We were to earn payment only when we demonstrated a workable process to manufacture the ultra high tensile carbon polymer cable in large quantities. The product is only valuable if it can be manufactured fairly cheaply and marketed at a large profit margin. We sold them a laboratory curiosity requiring billions and billions of dollars of further development. As you know, that sort of operation becomes far too visible. It would surely attract the attention of authorities like Commissioner Torque who would then take everything.”

  “I am sorry, sir. I was assured that we delivered. I was told that the process made some testable strands. And that these strands met the specifications fully. And that it could be easily manufactured. I don’t understand the problem.”

  “It seems that the Little Ones were holding back. Their plans covered a one-time demonstration, something that can’t be repeated without their help.”

  Hector frowned. “Do you think our little friends want a piece of the action?”

  “Yes, Hector. Of course they do. But they have betrayed me.”

  “What do they want?”

  “The Little Ones want to provide ongoing consultation. They say one of them has to be on scene at all times. Clever little shits…I give them credit.”

  “Maybe we should allow that, just this once? After all it’s a great deal of money…”

  “Let even one of these creatures out of our hands? Even for a moment? Creatures that don’t officially even exist? Think, Hector! If anyone finds out about the Little Ones, we’ll have every animal rights organization in the world in our laps. Maybe the human right groups, too. Who knows what else? A circus for sure. There is no way that works out for us. And sure as your great, great grandfather knew Hitler, some fool will try to liberate our little charges. Then you and I will go to prison…if we are lucky…”

  “But we are paying off the government.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, my friend. We are buying forbearance of a few local officials who will turn on us in a heartbeat. If the Little Ones are discovered, it will be over for us. Even the national government doesn’t know why they’re being paid off.”

  “What should we do, then?”

  “The Little Ones have obviously been stringing us along. You tell them I said so. Tell them I said they must cooperate fully and without reservation, or you will kill one of them.”

  “…Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Give them a short time to discuss it. Not more than an hour. Then kill one.”

  “But if they agree to cooperate?”

  “Kill one anyway. There must be a penalty for treachery. Always. Four will remain and they will cooperate.”

  “If not?”

  “Keep killing. The remaining three will cooperate.”

  The next day, Hector carried out the execution in the anteroom they used for feeding the Little Ones. As Diablo ordered, he did it in front of the other four. It was very simple, really. The leader of the pod, a giant, colorful toy-like form, a bright red and gold tangle of segmented legs, tendrils and a bulbous gray brain case, stood bravely in front of its comrades. He stood at his full height, just under one meter.

  “Missstake,” he said. “We will disssscusss….” The sound came from a small speaker dangling from a brightly colored abdomen. These were the creature’s last words.

  Hector had brought down the sledgehammer with all the force he could summon. His aim was dead on, and the little creature’s brain case cracked like a melon, spattering crimson and green-black slime around the metal walled room. Brilliant red gore trickled down Hector’s coveralls. The other four creatures set up a horrible, high-pitched keening. The unexpected, piercing sound drove Hector from the room. He dropped the bloody hammer just outside the door and threw the dead bolt behind him.

  Diablo was staring at him closely. “They’ll get over it,” he said.

  “I need to wash my hands,” Hector said. He was shaking.

  “Clean up inside the box first.”

  “Now?”

  “Now,” Diablo said flatly.

  Hector shivered, and began to unlock the door, wondering which was the greater horror, the carnage and grief inside or the murderous gaze of his boss. Then he turned to plead. “This is a job for Carlos…The Little Ones trust him.”

  Diablo stared at Hector with renewed contempt. Finally, he relented. “Very, well…I suppose he is good with them.”

  But Carlos was away at the village picking up supplies. When he returned an hour later, Hector was waiting at the edge of the compound. “We had a sort of incident,” Hector said.

  Carlos was a head shorter than Hector but much stockier. He stood back so that he wouldn’t be looking up as he studied Hector’s fat face. Carlos noticed the blood spatters on Hector’s coveralls, and kept his own face impassive. Carlos had immediately recognized the color. The Little Ones bled a brilliant red, with subtle green overtones due to the copper. His contempt for Hector deepened. “What happened?” Carlos made his tone conversational, his expression almost bored.

  “Diablo found out they had tricked him. At his direction, I smashed one.”

  The lunatics! Carlos thought. “Are they still together?” he asked, forcing a calm he did not feel.

  “In the anteroom. Follow me.”

  Carlos unbolted the door and pulled it toward him, releasing a blaze of light, while Hector stood back. “Go on,” Carlos said. He waited until Hector, the “Nazi-boy”, stepped back into the shadows.

  Belief Keeper was splayed on the floor, head crushed, spatter marks radiating from the point of impact, as if a ceramic jar of bright red paint had dropped from a great height. Cherish, Funny, and Winsome were huddled as far from the corpse as the small room permitted. Joy was trembling near the body. The intense blue flood lamps overhead filled the scene with an exaggerated reality. “I said, fucking go away!” Carlos had shouted at Hector, while fighting his own nausea. He turned to the “Nazi-boy”, his eyes flashing. “Now!” Hector still hesitated, looking confused. “I will take care of this. Leave the area. You will only upset them further.” Carlos turned his back on Hector. Seconds later he heard the sound of the door closing.

  Carlos remembered his first briefing by Diablo’s hired expert, “Dr. X”. When Carlos had been hired to tend the Little Ones, Dr. X was his tutor: “They are Oxygen breathers. Adults weigh about 80 pounds. They like a partial pressure equivalent to about 10,000 feet, tolerating pressures down to about 5,200. But they don’t handle high humidity for very long. See the resemblance to crustaceans? Under that armor, they are vertebrates, with a bony brain case, imbedded in a central lens shaped body, covered in folds of tough skin that is photochromic from black to mirror silver. There are nine chitinous pseudopodia, in groups of three. Both genders are brightly colored, but the brilliant multicolored limbs indicate the adult male.”

  This was how Carlos had identified Belief Keeper, the only male in the group. Diablo’s hired expert had also described the Little Ones’ dexterity. “On top of the three main appendages, you can see three very fine multi-segmented digits with very sensitive inner surfaces…like long, delicate fingers.”

  Now Carlos was overcome with curiosity. He reached down and gently probed the tiny digits on Belief Keeper’s nearest “appendage.” Each of the tiny pseudo-fingers emerged from an enlarged root. The bump held a fully retractable eyestalk.

  Belief Keeper had died with his eyes tightly retracted.

  Such a marvel, really, Carlos thought. How they can observe close up what their little fingers are doing. As if God set out to design th
e perfect nano-artisans. Then Carlos felt the sting of tears. He stood slowly and looked around.

  The anteroom opened directly into the larger shed where Hector and Diablo had met a few minutes earlier, but it also opened on the other side into the Little One’s quarters. Carlos could see that the door to their quarters was locked. He looked over his shoulder. Yes, Hector really had left the shed. And Diablo was also gone. “We’re alone, now,” Carlos said. He knelt next to Belief Keeper’s shattered head, making the sign of a cross and mumbling the last rites.

  He stood again, sighing, a deep, rasping sound. “This was an evil, evil thing Hector did, and I am ashamed.” Carlos always spoke in English to the Little Ones, but they seemed to understand Spanish, too. “You know I will never hurt you,” he said. “Now listen very carefully. We are in danger. I need you to gather all your things. We will go together to the high mountains. Quickly. Do you understand?”

  “Yessss,” Winsome said. She was now the pod leader.

  Carlos reached around her and unlocked the door. “Hurry then. I will gather up Belief Keeper’s remains. May I bring them with us?”

  “Yesss,” Winsome said.

  It was dusk when Carlos led the four Little Ones out of the shed. He carried Belief Keeper’s body in a black garbage bag. He had been careful to leave nothing behind. Even the cleaning rags were stuffed into the body bag he carried. An antique 45-caliber pistol was strapped to his belt. He carried water, flashlights and a borrowed SatCom.

  The Little Ones made faint clacking noises on the pavement. Like miniature ponies, Carlos thought. He saw that the kitchen light was on in Diablo’s residence, about a hundred meters from the mail gate. Carlos could just make out the back of the drug baron’s bald head inside; he was apparently talking to someone out of view. Quietly, Carlos laid Belief Keeper’s remains down by the battered pickup he had parked just inside the gate. It was still full of the provisions he’d gone to retrieve from the market. Carlos pushed aside the shopping bags in the truck bed to make room, then quickly helped the Little Ones into the back, one by one. Finally he pulled a tarp over them; they huddled together under the cab window, like four animated toys.