"I am not here to hurt." It was Stevie's voice, yes, but it was whispery and ethereal as well, the sound of cool wind across reeds. "I chose this one... but not to hurt."

"Chose her?" Rhodes asked. "How?"

"I call-ed this one. This one answer-ed."

"How do you mean, 'called'?"

A hint of frustration pa.s.sed over the face. "I..." She spent a few seconds finding the proper term. "I sang-ed."

Rhodes felt close to p.i.s.sing in his pants. An alien in the skin of a little girl stood before him, and they were talking. My G.o.d! he thought. What secrets she must know! "I'm Colonel Matt Rhodes, United States Air Force." He heard his voice shake. "I want to welcome you to planet Earth." Inwardly he cringed; it was corny as h.e.l.l, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

"Pla-net Earth," she repeated carefully. Blinked. "In-sane forms here, par-don my terms." She motioned toward the TV screen, where a baseball manager had his face right up in an umpire's and was giving him a royal chewing out. "Ques-tion: why are these beings so small?"

Tom realized what she meant. "No, those are just pictures. On TV. The pictures come through the air from a long way."

"From oth-er worlds?"

"No. This one. Just other places."

Her eyes seemed to pierce him. "Are not the pic-tures true?"

"Some of them are," Rhodes said. "Like that baseball game. Some of them are just... playacting. Do you know what that means?"

She thought. "Pre-tend. A false show."

"Right." It had dawned on Rhodes, and the others too, how strange everything must appear to Daufin. Television, taken for granted by humans, would merit explanation, but along the way you'd have to explain about electricity, satellite transmissions, TV studios, news broadcasts, sports, and actors; the subject could be talked about for days, and still Daufin would have more questions.

"Don't you have TV?" Ray asked. "Or somethin' like it?"

"No." Daufin studied him for a few seconds, then looked at Tom. She touched the air around her eyes. "What are these? In-stru-ments?"

"Gla.s.ses." Tom removed his and tapped the lenses. "They help you see."

"See. Gla.s.ses. Yes." She nodded, putting the concepts together. "Not all pre-sent can see?" She motioned to Rhodes and Jessie.

"We don't need gla.s.ses." Again, Rhodes realized that the idea of eyegla.s.ses was a tricky subject involving magnification, the grinding of lenses, optometry, a discussion of visual sense-another day-long conversation. "Some people can see without them."

She frowned, her face briefly taking on the appearance of a nettled little old lady's. She understood absolutes, yet there seemed to be no absolutes here. Something was, and yet it was not. "This is a world of play-act-ing," she observed, and her attention drifted back to the TV set. "Base-ball game," she said, locating the term in her memory. "Play-ed with a bat and ball by two teams on a field with four bases ar-rang-ed in a di-a-mond."

"Hey!" Ray said excitedly. "They must have baseball in outer s.p.a.ce!"

"She's reciting the definition from the dictionary," Rhodes told him. "She must have a memory like a sponge."

Daufin watched another pitch. She couldn't comprehend the purpose of this game, but it seemed to be a contest of angles and velocities based on the planet's physics. She lifted her right arm in imitation of the pitcher's, feeling the strange tug and weight of alien anatomy. What appeared to be a simple motion was more complex than it appeared, she decided. But the game's apparently mathematical basis interested her, and it would merit further thought.

Then she began to walk around the room, her hands occasionally touching the walls or other objects as if making sure they were real and not figments of playacting. Jessie was still balanced on a thin wire, and to fall would be frighteningly easy. Watching a creature wearing Stevie's skin, hair, and face, strolling around the den as if on a Sunday visit to a museum, battered feverishly at her mind. "How do I know my daughter's safe? Tell me!"

Daufin touched a framed photograph of the family that sat on a shelf. "Be-cause," she said, "I pro-tect."

"You protect her? How?"

"I pro-tect," Daufin repeated. "That is all to know." Her interest went to another picture, then she drifted out of the den and into the kitchen.

Rhodes followed her, but Jessie had had enough; she slumped into a chair, mentally exhausted and fighting off fresh tears. Tom stood by her, his hands rubbing her shoulders and trying to get his own mind straight, but Ray hurried after the colonel and Daufin.

The creature stood watching the cat-clock's eyes tick back and forth. Rhodes saw her smile, and she made a sound like a high, clear chime: laughter.

"I think we've got a lot to talk about," Rhodes said, his voice still shaky. "I guess there are quite a few things you'd like to know about us-our civilization, I mean. And of course we'll want to know all about yours. In a few hours we'll be taking a trip. You'll be going to-"

Daufin turned. Her smile was gone, the face serious again. "I de-sire your aid. I de-sire to ex-it this plan-et, poss-i-ble if soon. I shall need a..." She pondered her choice of words. "A ve-hi-cle ca-pa-ble of ex-it-ing this plan-et. Be arrang-ed, can it?"

"A vehicle? You mean... a s.p.a.ceship?"

"Wow," Ray breathed, standing in the doorway.

"s.p.a.ce-ship?" The term was unfamiliar, did not register in her memory. "A ve-hi-cle ca-pa-ble of ex-it-"

"Yes, I know what you mean," Rhodes said. "An interstellar flight vehicle, like the one you came in on." Something occurred to him to ask her. "How did you get out of that vehicle before it crashed?"

"I..." Again, a pause to consider. "I e-ject-ed."

"In the black sphere?"

"My pod," she explained, with a note of resigned patience. "May I ex-pect to ex-it, when?"

Oh, great! Rhodes thought; he saw where this conversation was leading. "I'm sorry, but it won't be possible for you to exit... I mean, leave."

She didn't reply. Just stared holes through him.

"We don't have interstellar flight vehicles here. Not anywhere on our planet. The closest we've got is called a s.p.a.ce shuttle, and that only orbits the planet before it has to come back."

"De-sire to ex-it," she repeated.

"There's no way. We don't have the technology for that kind of vehicle."

She blinked. "No... way?"

"None. I'm sorry."

Her expression changed in an instant; the face contorted with pain and dismay. "Cannot stay! Cannot stay!" she said emphatically. "Cannot stay!" She began to circle the room restlessly, her eyes wide and shocked, her steps halting. "Cannot! Cannot! Cannot!"

"We'll take care of you. We'll make you comfortable. Please, there's no reason to-"

"Cannot! Cannot! Cannot!" she repeated, shaking her head back and forth. Her hands twitched at her sides.

"Please, listen... we'll find a place for you to live. We'll-" Rhodes touched her shoulder, and saw her head swivel toward him and her eyes fierce as lasers. He had time to think: Oh, s.h.i.t- And then he was knocked back, skidding on his heels across the linoleum, a charge of energy pulsing up his arm, searing through his nerves, and making his muscles dance. His brain buzzed as the cells heated up, and he witnessed a nova explode behind his eyeb.a.l.l.s. He went off his feet, crashed into the kitchen table, and scattered the contents of a bowl of fruit everywhere as the table broke beneath his weight. His eyelids fluttered, and his next conscious image was Tom Hammond bending over him.

"She knocked the s.h.i.t out of him!" Ray was saying excitedly. "He just touched her, and he sailed across the room! Is he dead?"

"No, he's coming around." Tom glanced up at Jessie, who stood watching the creature. Daufin had frozen in the center of the room, mouth half open, eyes glazed, as if the ent.i.ty had gone into suspended animation.

"Knocked him on his a.s.s!" Ray babbled on. "Wiped him out!"

A stream of urine came from Stevie's body and ran down the legs to the linoleum.

"What are you?" Jessie shouted at the thing; it remained rock-steady, impa.s.sive.

"Gunny, I want you to get out to the crash site," Rhodes said, trying to sit up. His face was bleached of color, a thread of saliva dangling from his lower lip. Tom saw that his eyes were bloodshot. "I've got two daughters myself. A debriefing, I guess you'd call it. Chose her? How?" His brain was skipping tracks with violent speed. "I want to welcome you to planet Earth. We don't need glas- huh? " He shook himself like a wet dog, his muscles still bunching and writhing like worms under his flesh. The urge to vomit almost overcame him. "What is it? What happened?" He had a headache fit to break his skull, and his legs were twitching with a will of their own.

Jessie saw Daufin come back from wherever she'd been; the face grew expression again, one of urgent concern. "I hurt-ed. I hurt-ed." It was said fretfully, and in a human might have been accompanied by the wringing of hands. "Still friends? Yes?"

"Yeah," Rhodes said; a c.o.c.ked grin hung to his face, which looked moist and a little swollen. "Still friends." He got to his knees and that was all he could do without Tom helping him up.

"Cannot stay," Daufin said. "Must ex-it this plan-et. Must have ve-hi-cle. I de-sire no hurt to come."

"No hurt to come?" Jessie had hold of her senses now. For better or worse, she had to trust this creature. "Come from where? You?"

"No. From..." She shook her head, not finding the proper terms. "If I can not ex-it, there will be great hurt-ing."

"How? Who'll be hurt?"

"Tom. Ray. Rhodes. Jes-sie. Ste-vie. All here." She opened her arms in a motion that seemed to include the entire town. "Dau-fin too." She went to the kitchen window, reached up for the blind's cord as she'd seen Jessie do, and gave a tentative pull, then reeled the blinds up. She squinted, seemed to be scanning the reddening sky. "Soon the hurt-ing will start," she said. "If I cannot ex-it, you must. Go far a-way. Very far. Now." She released the cord, and the blinds clattered back with the sound of dry bones clacking.

"We... we can't," Jessie said, unnerved by Daufin's matter-of-fact warning. "We live here. We can't go."

"Then take me a-way. Now." She looked hopefully at Rhodes.

"We're going to. Like I said, after the crew finishes up at the crash site."

"Now," Daufin repeated forcefully. "If not now..." She trailed off, unable to put into words what she was trying to convey.

"I can't. Not until the helicopter gets back. My flying vehicle. Then we'll get you to the air-force base." He still felt like electricity was jumping through his nerves. Whatever had hit him, it was one h.e.l.l of a concentrated energy bolt, probably a more powerful version of what she'd used to flip through the TV channels.

"It must be now!" Daufin had come close to shouting, her face streaked with red light from the blinds.

"Do you not un-der-stand"-she struggled for a term, found what she needed-"Eng-lish?"

"I'm sorry. We can't leave here until my aide gets back."

Daufin trembled, with either anger or frustration. Jessie thought the creature was going to pitch a fit, just as any child-or elderly woman-might. But in the next second Daufin's face froze again, and then she stood motionlessly, one hand gripped into a fist at her side, the other outstretched toward the window. Five seconds pa.s.sed. Ten. She did not move. Thirty seconds later, she was still in her statue trance.

And she stayed that way.

Maybe that was how she pitched a fit after all, Jessie thought. Or maybe she'd just checked out to do some heavy thinking. In any case, it didn't appear she was coming back for a while.

"Can I touch her and see if she falls over?" Ray asked.

"Go to your room," Jessie said. "Right now. Stay there until you're called for."

"Come on, Mom! I was just foolin'! I wouldn't really-"

"Go to your room," Tom commanded, and Ray's protests ceased. The boy knew that when his father said for him to do something, he'd better do it in a hurry.

"Okay, okay. I don't guess we're going to be eatin' any dinner tonight, huh?" He picked up an apple and an orange from the floor and started for his room.

"Wash those before you eat them!" Jessie told him, and he dutifully went into the bathroom to run water over the fruit before he disappeared, an outcast sentenced to solitary. Daufin, too, remained in solitary confinement.

"I think I need to sit down." Rhodes picked up a chair and eased into it. Even his spine felt bruised. Tom approached the creature and slowly waved his hand in front of her face. The eyes did not blink. He detected the rise and fall of her chest, though, and he started to reach for her pulse, but he thought about Rhodes flying through the air and he checked his motion. She was still alive, of course, and Stevie's bodily functions seemed to be operating just fine. A light sheen of sweat glistened on the cheeks and forehead.

"What did she mean? That about the hurting?" Jessie asked.

"I don't know." Rhodes shook his head. "My ears are still ringing. She just about sent me through the d.a.m.ned wall."

Jessie had to cross in front of Daufin to reach the window; Daufin didn't budge. Jessie pulled the blinds up to peer at the sky. The sun was setting, and to the west the sky had become a blast-furnace scarlet. There were no clouds.

But a movement caught Jessie's eye. She saw them then, and counted their number: at least a dozen vultures, circling Inferno like dark banners. Probably searching for carrion in the desert, she figured. The things could smell impending death several miles off. She did not like the sight, and she let the blinds fall back into place. There was nothing to do now but wait-either for Daufin to return from her isolation, or for Gunniston to come back in the helicopter.

She gently touched her daughter's auburn hair. "Careful!" Tom warned. But there was no shock, no brain-jarring bolt of energy. Just the feel of hair she'd brushed a thousand times under her fingers. Daufin's-Stevie's-eyes stared sightlessly.

Jessie touched the cheek. Cool flesh. Put her index finger against the pulse in the throat. Slow-abnormally slow-but steady. She had no choice; she had to trust that somewhere, somehow, the real Stevie was alive and safe. To consider any other possibility would drive her crazy. She decided then that she was going to be okay. Whatever happened, she and Tom would see it through. "Well," she said, and pulled her hand away from the pulse. "I'm going to make a pot of coffee."

She was amazed she could sound so steady when her guts felt like Jell-O. "That suit everybody?"

"Make it strong, please," Rhodes requested. "The stronger the better."

"Right." And Jessie began to move about her kitchen with a purpose again as the frozen alien gestured toward the window and the cat-clock ticked off the seconds and the vultures silently gathered over Inferno.

18 New Girl in Town

Darkness began to claim the sky, and the sign on the First Texas Bank read 88F. at 8:22. Under the incandescents of the garage stall, Cody had finished his work for the day and was a.s.sembling tools to tune up his motorcycle. Mr. Mendoza would close the station around nine o'clock, and then Cody would be faced with his usual decision: to sleep at home and have to face the old man sometime during the night; to crash at the fortress, which was as rowdy as a fraternity house in h.e.l.l and reeked of marijuana fumes; or sleep atop the Rocking Chair, not the most comfortable roost but surely the most peaceful of his choices.

He leaned over to pull some clean rags from a cardboard box and the little gla.s.s vial fell from his pocket, making a merry tinkling note as it hit the concrete. The vial didn't break, and Cody quickly picked it up, though Mr. Mendoza was in his office reading the newspaper and waiting for the Trailways bus to pull in.

Cody held the vial up and looked at the crystals. He'd tried cocaine once, on a dare from Bobby Clay Clemmons, and once was enough; he didn't like the s.h.i.t, because he understood how people could get hooked on it and feel like they couldn't live without it. He'd seen several 'Gades go off the deep end because of it, like Tank's older brother Mitch, who four years ago had driven his Mustang onto the railroad tracks and crashed into an oncoming train at seventy miles an hour, killing not only himself but two girls and Mayor Brett's son. Cody didn't drink, either; the most he'd do is some low-powered zooming on a weed or two, but never when anybody's life depended on his decisions. It was chickens.h.i.t to let drugs do your thinking for you.

But he knew people who'd give their right arms for an inhale of what those crack crystals would put out. It would be an easy thing to go up to the fortress, cook them over a flame, and toke until his brains turned blue. But he knew they wouldn't help him see the world any clearer; they'd just make him think that Mack Cade was the only way out of Inferno and he ought to jump at the sound of the master's voice.

He set the vial down atop the worktable, pondering the crystals for a moment and what Mr. Mendoza had said about a man being responsible for his actions. Maybe that was tired old bulls.h.i.t, and maybe there was truth to it too.

But he already knew what he'd decided.

He lifted his right hand. In it was a ballpeen hammer. He brought it down on the vial, shattering it to pieces and crushing the yellow crystals. Then he used his left hand to brush the mess off the table and into a garbage pail, where it sank amid greasy rags and empty oil cans. Six hundred dollars a month was not the price of his soul. Cody put aside the hammer and continued gathering the wrenches and sockets he needed for his Honda.

A horn rapped twice: deep ba.s.s hoots. The Trailways bus from Odessa. Cody didn't look up, just kept at his task, and Mr. Mendoza went out to speak to the driver, who was from a town near his own in central Mexico.