Sput-phwut.

It had blinked. The sound was made by its sphincter-like eyelids, irising closed and open again. Sput-phwut. It was looking right at me. Studying dispa.s.sionately.

I didn't answer her. I couldn't speak. It was like looking into the eyes of death.

"Don't worry. He can't see you. I think. I mean, we're pretty sure he can't."

"It seems awfully interested." The Chtorran was still reared up and peering. Its tiny antennae were waving back and forth curiously. They were set just behind the eyes. Its body rocked slightly too. I wished I had a closer view-something about the eyes; they weren't mounted in a head, but seemed instead to be on swiveled stalks inside the skin. They were held high above the body and gimbaled independently of each other. Occasionally one eye would angle backward for a moment, then click forward again. The creature was constantly alert.

The Chtorran lowered suddenly and slid across the floor, right up to the wall below us and halfway up it, bringing its face within a meter of the gla.s.s. I got my wish-a closer look. It angled its eyes upward, bringing them even closer. Its mandibles --sinuous like an underwater plant-waved and clicked around its mouth. Its eyes opened as wide as they could. Sput-phwut. "Too interested. You sure it can't see us?"

"Oh, he tries that almost every night," called the guy on the end with the funny-smelling cigarette. Laced with dream dust? Probably. "It's our voices he hears. Through the gla.s.s. He's trying to find out where the sound is coming from. Don't worry, he can't reach up here. He has to keep at least half his length on the ground to support himself when he rears up. Of course, if he keeps growing-as we think he will-we'll have to move him to a bigger lab. There might come a day when he won't wait for Smitty. He'll just come right up here and help himself."

The women shuddered. Not Jillanna, just the women. They moved instinctively closer to their dates. "You're kidding," the redheaded one said plaintively. "Aren't you?"

"Nope. It could happen. Not tonight, though-but eventually, if we don't get him into a bigger tank."

The Chtorran unfolded its arms then, like a bird flapping its wings once to settle them, but instead of refolding, the arms began to open slowly. They came away from the hump on the back and now I could see exactly how the shoulders were anch.o.r.ed, and the curve of that bony structure beneath the fur, how the skin slid over it as the muscles stretched, how the arms were mounted in their sockets like two incredible gimbaled cranes. The arms were covered with leathery black skin and bristly black fur. They were long and insect-like. How long and thin they were, and so peculiarly double-jointed. There were two elbows at the joint! And now the arms came reaching upward slowly toward us. The hands-they were claws, three-p.r.o.nged and almost ebony-came tapping on the gla.s.s, sliding and skittering up and down it, seeking purchase, leaving faint smudges where they touched. There were soft fingers within those claws. I could see them pressing gently against the gla.s.s.

The eyes stared emotionlessly, swiveling this way and thatand then both of them locked on me. Sput-phwut. It blinked. And kept on staring.

I was terrified before it. I couldn't move! It's face-it didn't have a face!-was searching mine! If I had stretched, I could have touched it. I could see how narrow its neck was-a shaft of corded muscle terminating in those two huge, frightening eyes. I couldn't look away! I was caught like a bird before a snake-its eyes were dark and dispa.s.sionate and deadly. What kind of G.o.d could make a thing like this?

And then the moment broke. I realized that Jillanna was beside me, breathing heavily.

One more sput-phwut and the Chtorran began sinking back down to the floor. It slid away from the wall and began roving around the room again, sometimes humping like a worm, other times seeming to flow. It left a swept trail through the scattered straw and sawdust. There were several bales of it against one wall. It stopped to pull at one of them, did something with its mandibles and mouth, then left behind a small mound of weak-looking foam.

"Building instinct," Jillanna said.

"It doesn't seem very intelligent," the redhead whispered to her date.

"It isn't. None of them are," the man whispered back. "Whatever kind of invaders these Chtorrans are, they don't seem to be very smart. They don't respond to any kind of language-or any attempts at communication. Then again, maybe these are just the infantry. Infantry doesn't have to be very smart, just strong."

I realized then that we were all whispering. As if it could hear us.

Well, it could, couldn't it?

"Look at the way his arms fold up when he's not using them," Jillanna pointed. "It's like they're retractable. They're not bones you know, just muscle and some kind of cartilage. Very flexible -and almost impossible to break. You'll see them in action when he's fed--0h, here we go now."

A slit of light appeared at the base of the left wall; it slid upward to become a door, revealing a closet-shaped cubicle. The Chtorran arced around quickly-amazing, how fast the thing could move. Its eyes rotated forward, up and down, in an eerie disjointed way. The sliding door was completely open now. A Great Dane stood uneasily in the lit cubicle before the Chtorran. I thought of horses-Great Danes, with their lumbering huge paws, long legs and heavy bodies, always made me think of horses. I could just barely hear a low rumbling growl coming from the dog.

For a moment, everything was still: the Chtorran, the dog, the watchers at the gla.s.s. Below, in the glow of light reflected from the cubicle, I could see a dark window just across from us. It looked as if there were someone behind the gla.s.s, watching.

The moment stretched-and broke. The Chtorran's arms came slightly out from its body. I thought of a bird getting ready to fly. It was a gesture of readiness, the way they were poisedthe claws open, ready to grab.

The Chtorran slid forward. The dog jumped sideways -and was caught. One of the arms reached out at an impossible angle and s.n.a.t.c.hed the dog in mid-leap, knocked it to the ground on its back. The Chtorran bent sideways in mid-flowas if the dog in its claw was a pivot and it was pulling itself around. The other arm came around. The Chtorran flowed. Its great black jaw was a vertical open hole that split the front of its crimson body. The dog was pinned by both arms now-I could see how the claws dug into its flesh like pincers. It thrashed and kicked and snapped and bit. The red beast raised and stretched and arcedand came down upon the hapless Dane almost too fast to follow. There was a thrash and slash and flurry-and then stillness. The back half of the Dane protruded from the Chtorran maw.

Was that it? The Chtorran was holding the dog like a snake with a mouse, frozen in lidless contemplation before commencing the long process of swallowing. Its mandibles were barely moving, just a slight ready trembling barely visible against the Dane's side. The Chtorran held the dog between its claws; its mouth was stretched impossibly around it. Its eyes stared impa.s.sively off, as if thinking-or savoring.

Then something awful happened. One of the dog's hind legs kicked.

It must have been a reflex reaction-the poor animal couldn't have been still alive It kicked again.

As if it had been waiting for just that thing, the Chtorran came to life and began to chew its way forward. Its mandibles flashed shiny and red, slashing and cutting and grinding. The kicking leg and tail were the last parts of the dog to disappear.

Blood poured onto the floor from the Chtorran mouth. The mandibles continued to work with a dreadful wet crunching. Something that looked like long sausages drooled out, dripped on the floor. The Chtorran sucked it back in. Casually. A child with a strand of spaghetti.

"Wow!" said someone. It was one of the women, an unafraid one. The blonde. The redhead had hidden her eyes the moment the door slid open to reveal the dog.

"He'll take a moment to digest," said the guy at the end, the one who would bet his grandmother. His name, I found out later, was Vinnie. "He could eat another one without waiting, but it's better to give him a moment or two. Once he ate too fast and threw up everything. Jee-zus, what a mess that was. It would have been h.e.l.l to clean up, but he ate it again almost immediately."

The cubicle door dropped closed and the dim figure in the window across from us disappeared into the deepness behind it. Two more people came in silently behind us, both men, both smelling of alcohol. They nodded at Jillanna; they obviously knew her. "Hi, Vinnie. Did we start yet?"

"Only a Great Dane, but it wasn't much. The Saint Bernard will be better."

"You hope," said his friend, the man he'd made the bet with. Vinnie won the bet. The St. Bernard did put up a better fight than the Dane. At least, that's what the sounds coming from the speaker suggested. I was looking at my shoes.

"Well, that's it," said Vinnie. "Let's go pay the man and finish getting drunk."

"Hold it," said the speaker. Smitty? Probably. "I've got one more. Dessert."

"I thought you only got two from the pound."

"I did-but we caught this one digging in the garbage, been turning over cans for weeks. Finally trapped him this evening. We were gonna send him down to the shelter. But why bother? Let them save the gas."

When the door slid open this time, there was a hound-sized mutt standing there, his nose working unhappily. He was s.h.a.ggy with matted pinkish-looking fur, stringy and dirty-as if he'd been hand-knit by a beginner. He was all the beat-up old mutts in the world rolled into one. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't stop-he was too much the kind of dog I would have cared about, if ... the kind of dog that goes with summer and skinny-dipping.

The Chtorran was lying flat in the center of the room. Engorged and uninterested. His eyes opened and closed lazily. Sput ... phwut.

The dog edged out of the cubicle-he hadn't seen the Chtorran yet. Sniffing intensely, he took a step forward -and then every hair on his back stood up. With a yow of surprise, the dog leaped backward into the nearest wall. Something about the Chtorran lying there in a pool of dark red blood smelled very bad to this poor creature. He cowered along the wall, slunk toward the s.p.a.ce behind a bale of hay-but it smelled even worse there; he froze indecisively, then began backing away uncertainly.

The Chtorran half-turned to watch him move. Twitched. One arm scratched lazily.

The dog nearly left his skin behind. He scrambled toward the only escape he knew, the tiny lit cubicle. But Smitty had closed it. The dog sniffed at it and scratched. And scratched. Frantically, with both front legs working like pedals, he clawed at the unyielding door. He whined, he whimpered, he pleaded with terrible urgency for impossible escape.

"Get him out of there!" It wasn't me who said it-I wish it had been-it was the redhead.

"How?" said Vinnie.

"I don't know-but do something. Please!" No one answered her.

The dog was wild. He turned and bared his teeth at the Chtorran, growling, warning it to keep back; then almost immediately he was working at the door again, trying to get one foot under it, trying to lift it up again The Chtorran moved. Almost casually. The front half of it curled up into the air, then came down again, making an arch; the back half barely moved forward. It looked like a toppled red question mark, the mouth flush against the floor where the dog had been.

The Chtorran stayed in that position, its face directly against the straw-matted concrete. Blood seeped outward across the dirty stained surface.

There hadn't even been time for a yelp. "That's it?" asked Vinnie.

"Yep. That's it till tomorrow," replied the loudspeaker. "Don't forget to tell your friends about us. A new show every night." Smitty's voice had a strange quality to it. But then, so did Vinnie's. And Jillanna's.

The Chtorran stretched out again. It looked like it was asleep. No, not yet. It rolled slightly to one side and directed a stream of dark viscous fluid against a stained wall, where it flowed into a trough of running water.

"That's all that's left of last night's heifer," snickered Vinnie. I didn't like him.

Jillanna led me downstairs and introduced me to Smitty. He looked like an ice-cream man. Clean-scrubbed. The kind who was a compulsive masturbator in private. Very fair skin. Wisps of sandy hair. Thick gla.s.ses. An eager expression, but haunted. I did not shake hands with him.

"Jillanna, did you tell him?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Jim?" She turned to me and went all coquettish, twisting two fingers into the material of my shirt. She twinkled up at me-a grotesque imitation of a woman, this creature who was s.e.xually aroused by the death of three dogs to a giant day-glow caterpillar. She lowered her voice. "Uh, Jim. . . will you give Smitty fifty caseys?"

"Huh?"

"It's for ... you know." She c.o.c.ked her head toward the other side of the wall where something pink was trilling softly to itself. I was so startled that I was already reaching for my wallet. "Fifty caseys?"

Smitty seemed apologetic. "It's for ... well, protection. I mean, you know, we're not supposed to let unauthorized personnel in here-and especially not when we're feeding it. I'm doing you a favor letting you be here."

Jillanna solved it by plucking my wallet out of my hand and peeling a crisp blue note from it. "Here, Smitty-buy yourself a new rubber doll."

"You should talk," he said, but not very strongly. He pocketed the bill.

I took my wallet back from Jillanna and we left. There was a dark pressure at the back of my skull. Jillanna squeezed my hand and the pressure grew darker and heavier. I felt like a man walking toward the gallows.

I stopped her before we reached the floater. I didn't want to say it, but I didn't want to continue with this horror one moment more.

I tried to be polite. "Uh, well-thanks for showing me," I said. "I uh, think I'll call it a night."

It didn't work.

"What about us?" she asked. She demanded. She started to reach for me.

I held her back. I said, "I guess I'm ... too tired."

She toyed with the hairs on my arm. "I have some dream dust. . . ." she said. Her fingers tiptoed toward my elbow.

"Uh-I don't think so. That just makes me sleepy. Listen, I can walk back to my barracks from here-"

"Jimmy? Please stay with me-?" For just a moment, she looked like a lost puppy, and I hesitated. "Please . . .? I need someone."

It was the word need that got me. It felt like a knife in my gut. "I-I can't, Jillanna. Really. I can't. It's not you. It's me. I'm sorry."

She looked at me curiously, one beautiful eyebrow curling upward like a question mark.

"It's, uh-that Chtorran," I said. "I wouldn't be able to concentrate."

"You mean you didn't find him s.e.xy?"

"s.e.xy-? My G.o.d, it was horrible! That poor dog was frantic!"

"It was just an old mutt, Jim-the Chtorrans are something magnificent. They really are. You have to look at them with new eyes. I used to think it was awful too, but then I stopped anthropomorphizing-stopped identifying with the dogs and started looking at the Chtorrans objectively. The strength, the independence -I wish humans had that kind of power. I want to do it like that. Please, Jim, stay with me tonight. Do it to me!" She was plucking at my jacket, at my shirt, at my neck.

"Thanks-" I said, remembering something my father used to say. Something about knowing what you're getting into. I disengaged myself from her hands. "-But, no thanks." I wanted to say something else, but a vestigial sense of tact prevented me from telling Jillanna what I really thought of her. Perhaps the Chtorran had no choice in being what it was. She did. I began to pull away "You are some kind of queer, aren't you?"

To h.e.l.l with tact. "Are you the alternative?" And then I turned and walked away from her.

She didn't say a thing until I was halfway across the lot. Then she hollered, "f.a.ggot!" I turned around to look, but she was already roaring off in the floater.

s.h.i.t.

By the time I found my way back to my barracks, I was chilled. But I wasn't trembling anymore, and I wasn't angry anymore. I was only ... sick. And tired. I wanted to be young again, so I could cry into my father's lap. I was feeling very, very much alone.

My bed was like an empty grave and I lay in it shivering, trying to feel compa.s.sionate, trying to understand-trying to be mature. But I couldn't be mature-not when I was surrounded by idiots and a.s.sholes, blind and selfish and wallowing in their own sick games and fetishes and power ploys. What I really wanted to do was. .h.i.t and kick and burn and smash and destroy. I wanted to pound and pound and pound. I wanted to grab these people and shake them up and down so hard their eyes would rattle in their heads.

I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel that someone, somewhere-anywhere-knew what he was doing. But right now, I didn't think that anyone in the world knew what he was doing, not even me.

Were they all that blind or sick-or stupid?

Why couldn't they see the truth in front of them? Sut-Phwut.

Why couldn't they see it?

Show Low, Arizona, was no hoax!

NINETEEN.

TED STAGGERED in at six in the morning, slamming into the room, switching on the lights and banging and clattering his way from wall to wall to bathroom.

"Hooboy!" he shouted. "I am going to be limp for a week-and walk funny for two." The rest of it was lost under the sound of running water.

An axe would be too messy, I decided. It would have to be a gun.

"Hey, Jim! You awake?"

"I am now," I grunted. No, the gun would be too quick. I wanted it to be painful. I'd use my bare hands.

He lurched into the room, grinning. "Hey-you getting up?" What was left of his makeup was smeared.

"Yeah. I've got something I want to do."

"Well, let it wait. This is more important. You're lucky I had to come back for clean clothes. You can ride back with me-but hurry up!"

I sat up on the edge of the bed, "Ride back where?"