Alan Dean Foster

  "Doesn't mean he's still here. He could've been tipped off, could've split by now."

  "You are worrying unnecessarily, Matt. I do not see how he could have been contacted so quickly."

  "Bad news travels fast, George. George?"

  Francisco didn't reply. His attention was on the upperlevel door that led to the methane section. He pointed. Sykes glanced along the line of his partner's arm and nodded.

  "Yeah, that's O'Neal."

  They managed to get close before the section manager 165

  recognized them. This time he didn't wait to answer questions, didn't come to meet them with his hand outstretched. Maybe it was the expression on the Newcomer's face, maybe something in Sykes's stride, or maybe he'd been warned to keep an eye out for possible trouble. Whatever the reason, as soon as he spotted the two detectives approaching he ducked through the open refrigeration door and started to pull it shut behind him.

  Sykes reacted by accelerating like a halfback taking a quick pitchout. His hand landed on the door handle an instant before O'Neal could latch it from the other side. Despite the technician putting his weight against it, the detective slowly shoved it open. Four O'Neals couldn't have pulled it tight against Sykes that night.

  The technician was backing away from the portal as Sykes entered. The detective grabbed him by the collar, smiling mirthlessly, and unceremoniously hauled him deeper into the deserted chamber. It was soundproofed and solid, and O'Neal couldn't help but wonder if maybe he should've made a run for it instead of trying to lock himself inside.

  Retreat having failed, he tried courage.

  "Hey, what are you, crazy? You can't come in here like this! Hey! Lighten up, will you?" Sykes continued to drag him toward the back of the room.

  A second door stood slightly ajar at the rear of the chamber. Light poured through the opening, illuminating Sykes's path.

  "Where's your authorization? This section of the plant is off-limits to anyone not having proper authorization!"

  "You want authorization?" Sykes's fingers had a death lock on the man's collar. "Read my lips." He mouthed a few choice words. O'Neal did not require elaboration.

  When they finally reached the rear door Sykes gave it a push with his right foot. It swung aside on heavy hinges. He stared at what stood revealed, and grunted with satisfaction.

  "So much for playing it smart."

  O'Neal's feet barely touched the floor as Sykes hauled him inside. The detective kept a firm grip on his prisoner as he studied the racks of tubes and beakers, the carefully

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  hand-welded copper tubing, the stainless steel tankards and reducers and piles of cannibalized plastic plumbing. Funny how certain setups gave off a feel all their own. He knew little about chemistry and nothing about alien organics, but no one would mistake this Tinkertoy setup for anything other than what it was.

  Francisco had followed closely and was now conducting his own inspection.

  Reaching a stainless steel tub, he bent to run a finger along the gleaming interior. Holding it up to the light, he examined the sticky residue he'd recovered. In the dim light it was the color of azurite.

  He stared at his finger, mesmerized. So close to his lips, just a little of it. Not enough to hold for evidence anyway. What a waste it would be to wash it down some human sink. A trace that couldn't punch you in the hearts, just barely enough to tingle, to thrill, to stimulate ...

  Sykes was gazing curiously at the blue stain on his partner's finger. It looked harmless as gel toothpaste.

  "That's it?"

  Francisco gazed a moment longer at his finger, then whirled sharply on his partner, his eyes wide, his expression tense. Turning back to the drug-still, he went a little crazy. Having never seen his partner act under anything less than complete control except for the night when they'd gotten quietly and harmlessly smashed together, Sykes didn't know how to react. So he simply stood off to one side and hung on to the gaping O'Neal.

  The Newcomer swept a rack of equipment off a worktable. Glass shattered against floor and walls. Metal containers flew like grenade fragments.

  Sykes had to duck once.

  It must have finally occurred to Francisco that the drugmanufacturing equipment was evidence as important as the drug itself, because he stopped as abruptly as he'd begun, breathing hard and staring at the still largely intact miniplant before him.

  Then he spun and ripped O'Neal out of Sykes's grasp. One massive fist bunched the hapless technician's shirt front up beneath his chin as he was lifted off the floor. The

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  Newcomer slammed him against the nearest wall, moderating the gesture just in time.

  Sykes came up behind him. "Uh, George."

  Francisco ignored him. His face was very close to O'Neal's, all vestiges of the polite, courteous cop a recent memory now. "Where is the drug? Where have they taken it?"

  O'Neal was gasping and choking, his feet treading air. Both hands wrestled with the detective's wrist, trying to break his grip.

  "What drug?" he wheezed as he tried to suck air through a suddenly narrowed windpipe."This is an oil refinery, you goddamn Slag pig!"

  Sykes's expression turned thoughtful. " 'Slag pig.' That's tight. I like that. I hadn't heard that one."

  Ignoring his partner, Francisco tightened his grip, feeling the man's esophagus beginning to flatten beneath his fingers. "WHERET'

  The bug-eyed technician's voice had been reduced to a pained whisper.

  "You--can't--do-this!"

  Sykes reached up to tap his partner politely on the shoulder. "George, I'm sorry to interrupt your fun, but you're gonna break his little neck bones.

  Not that I care one way or the other." He smiled disarmingly at the panicky O'Neal. "But it wouldn't look good on the report, and I know what a stickler you are for proper procedure. Besides, if you kill him too soon we'll never get an answer out of him. "

  "Stay out of this, Matthew." The Newcomer's eyes burned into O'Neal's. His voice was as cold as a mugger in a rest home. "Tell me where the drug has been taken right now or I will crush your lungs against this wall."

  "You heard him," the technician murmured weakly. "If you kill me you won't learn a damn thing."

  "Then we will ask someone else. It will not matter to you because you will be dead."

  Maybe it was something in the alien's voice, or something O'Neal saw in his eyes. Whatever the reason, he began to feel real fear for the first time.

  "Or maybe I do not have to kill you. " Francisco eased up 168

  on the pressure a little, letting O'Neal breathe. "Perhaps I will just break all of your bones, one at a time."

  Seeing that there was no way he was going to be able to dissuade his partner from his chosen course of inquiry, Sykes decided he might as well back him all the way. Since Francisco had chosen the role of heavy, Sykes figured he ought to play the other. Good-cop bad-cop was no kid's game.

  "Don't piss him off, O'Neal." Sykes adopted his most serious mien. "When he gets like this I can't control him. These Newcomers, they don't get excited real often, but when they come close to the edge like this you can't do anything with 'em short of bringing in a SWAT team. Might as well write off anybody they take a dislike to. I've seen him like this before. Got his adrenaline or whatever the hell they've got inside them all pumped up. I saw him jerk a guy's spine out and show it to him. Nothin' I could do. I hadda go throw up. I mean, it was the most gruesome, sickening thing you'd ever imagine you could. . ."

  Now it was fear and not Francisco's grip that made it difficult for O'Neal to talk.

  "They took the stuff out, all of it, this afternoon."

  "How much?" Francisco demanded to know.

  "Jesus, I can't tell you guys everything. If any of this gets out, I'm a dead man."

  The Newcomer put a little of his great weight behind the arm pinning the technician to the wall. "You may be a dead man anyway."

  "All right, all right!" O'Neal took a deep breath. "About fif
ty kilos." The detective went numb inside. Mistaking his expression, the technician rushed ahead. "Concentrate mostly, some street grade already tubed. You figure it out. Me, I'd guess they had to run up some samples to give the dealers."

  O'Neal would never know how lucky he was at that moment. Francisco came within a hair's breadth of actually breaking the man's neck. Seeing the look that came over his friend's face, Sykes steeled himself for a jump onto his partner's back. But somehow the Newcomer resti-ained himself.

  "Where have they taken it?"

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  "Encoun--Encounters Club."

  Francisco maintained the pressure for another moment, then abruptly let go.

  Gasping for air and clutching his bruised throat, O'Neal slid to the floor.

  Sykes stared down at him.

  "if I were you, chum, I'd find my bank's nearest nightteller and make a big withdrawal. It's definitely overdue vacation time for a certain methane engineer. By the time you come back from wherever you have the good sense to get off to, we'll have this all wrapped and packaged for Christmas and nobody'll remember you had shit to do with it. If anything goes awry I'm gonna assume you blew the whistle on us. Then I'll have my partner here pay you a visit, no matter what beach your ass is on.

  "But I don't think you're that stupid. Guys running this kind of operation don't like employees with big mouths, even if the babbling ain't their fault. You try to wam your Slag friends that we're on to them, all they're gonna think is that you told us how to find them. They'll tell you thanks a mfllion, man. Then one week you'll find yourself swimming off Catalina with a concrete aqualung. Understand?"

  Still coughing and choking, O'Neal managed a feeble nod.

  "That's peachy. Don't forget it. Let's go, George."

  They abandoned the technician inside the refrigeration chamber, still rubbing his damaged throat, the drugmanufacturing apparatus glistening uselessly around him.

  This time Sykes had to run to keep pace with his partner. Eyes locked straight ahead, Francisco was heading for the car, a runaway juggernaut.

  Brain locked too, Sykes thought. Got to try and change that.

  "Don't worry about O'Neal. The guy's no moron. He's not gonna run to the nearest phone and ring up Harcourt and say, 'Hey Bill, a coupla cops were just here and I had to tell I em where you took the junk but don't be sore at me, okayT He'll be on the next plane south."

  "I am not worried about O'Neal." Francisco's gaze did not deviate from the path that led out of the refining complex and back to the loading dock.

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  Sykes found himself having to run for a few yards, then failing back as he walked only to have to jog anew to keep up. "George, c'mon, take it easy. It's a beauty of a case. Don't sweat it. We got him by the short hairs. He ain't gonna make any more of this shit. Nobody is."

  "The fifty kilos, Matthew," Francisco rumbled. "I have to find it. I can't let it get out on the street."

  Sykes was confused. "What's the big goddamn deal? Even if the stuffs already being pushed it can't hurt too many people. There's no more supply if Harcourt and his bunch get put away. And they're going to, for a helluva long time. There's not enough stuff going out to get anybody serious hooked, especially if it's spread around. Hell, if I knew somebody was bringing in fifty kilos of coke paste but that it was the last coke paste in existence I'd escort him over the border myself just to get it over with. Are you listening to me, George? It's no big deal.

  When this batch of junk is gone, it's all gone."

  They reached the loading dock. Francisco easily made the leap to the ground and headed for the car. Sykes had to scramble to follow.

  "George, pay attention. You destroy the fifty kilos, you blow our whole case!" His partner was already sliding behind the wheel. Sykes rushed to put a restraining hand on the Newcomer's shoulder. It calmed him slightly.

  "We've got to have some solid evidence besides O'Neal's word that Harcourt is involved. The stuff that gal at the Bureau dug out for us isn't enough. It's coincidental. Sure we can stop the operation, but we want Harcourt, remember? So we've got to have something linking him to the operation besides hearsay. Otherwise, we got no case. Don't blow the whole thing now by ignoring procedure."

  Francisco leaned out the window as he shook off his partner's palm. "Fuck procedure."

  And to Sykes's shock, he threw the slugmobile into gear and peeled off toward the exit.

  "Hey!" Sykes stood inhaling exhaust and gaping at the receding vehicle.

  The Newcomer accelerated as he approached the plant 171

  Security kiosk. The guard stationed inside glanced up from his magazine. His eyes grew wide as he jumped out, waving his arms and yelling. Francisco ignored him. The slugmobile splintered the yellow-and-black wooden barricade.

  Sykes was racing toward the gate, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  "GEORGF,-GODDAMNIT!"

  He slowed as he reached the shattered barrier. A few splinters were still settling to earth. No partner and now no car. He felt like a complete idiot.

  The sound of an approaching engine turned him to his fight, in time to see a battered pickup truck ambling toward him. Its driver, a lineman just going offshift, saw the obliterated barricade and slowed. As he did so Sykes jumped in front of him, waving his badge in the glare of the headlights. The pickup skidded to a halt inches from the detective's belly.

  Sykes raced around to the driver's side, flashing his badge like a talisman. "Police business, emergency! Get out. I need this thing now." He grabbed the door handle and yanked. "Out!"

  The bewildered occupant of the pickup bailed out, barely missing Sykes as the detective scrambled behind the wheel and threw the truck into drive.

  The transmission howled in protest. Years and miles and plenty of work lay behind it. It was no yuppiernobile and hardly intended for quick pursuit.

  Sykes cursed the lack of horsepower as he floored the accelerator and crawled slowly toward the gate.

  X11

  Cassandra greeted the dealers at the door of the club. They surveyed the darkened interior uneasily, relaxing only slightly as they followed her swaying shape across the deserted dance floor. Two of the visitors were Newcomer, the third human.

  She led them up the stairs to the office, opening the door for them and flashing her best professional smile. Only one of them bothered to acknowledge it. Intent as they were on the business before them, they were not the kind of individuals to allow themselves to be distracted by a pretty face.

  When the last had entered she prepared to follow. A huge hand emerged from the darkness to grab her from behind. It covered her mouth completely. The other hand went around her waist. Wide-eyed and trying to scream, she found herself being hauled backward down the dark hallway.

  Francisco dragged her to the back end. There he turned her around so she could see him while he pinned her against the wall, keeping his hand over her mouth. Only when she recognized her abductor did she cease struggling, slumping against the paint.

  "I am here to take Harcourt," he whispered to her. "We have all the evidence we need to put him and his cronies away permanently. Where is he? I will find him eventually myself, so you have nothing to lose by cooperating with me, and may have much to gain."

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  She hesitated briefly, then nodded toward the office doorway. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth. "You'd hear him anyway. He's in there, with the others."

  He looked to his left as he pulled his service revolver. "How do I know I can trust you?"

  She shrugged tiredly. "Go and look for yourself."

  "Not good enough. You show me."

  She was suddenly scared. "Oh, no. Leave me out of it. They'll kill me."

  The detective showed her the gun. "I came up behind you, silenced you, forced you to talk by pointing this at your head. No one will blame you."

  She studied his face for a long moment, then nodded once and started back down the hall.

 
The introductions being performed in the office were perfunctory.

  Everyone in the room knew his neighbor by name, profession, or both. They had not gathered for small talk.

  Everyone focused on the large black suitcase which Kipling set in the center of the conference table. The visitors eyed it curiously, wondering what it might contain. They'd come because of Harcourt and Harcourt's reputation and so far had been shown nothing. However, it was known that William Harcourt did not waste his time or that of others, so it could be presumed that the luggage sitting so prominently before them held something of interest as well as of value.

  One of the Newcomer visitors spoke up, utilizing English for the benefit of his human colleague and also because he enjoyed showing off his diction.

  "So what's the deal, Bill? Why drag us to this dump in the middle of the night?"

  "I could explain, but it's all self-explanatory, so why waste the time?"

  Harcourt approached the table, Kipling flanking him closely. Quint had stationed himself in the shadows, just in case. Harcourt trusted the three he'd invited as much as he trusted anyone, which was to say not at all.

  Track lighting illuminated the conference room, creating alternating pools of light and darkness. Harcourt now entered the beam which happened to be aimed at the suitcase. His

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  fingers nudged the double combination locks, then flipped the twin latches.

  He opened it slowly, making his audience wait, heightening their curiosity.

  Despite their best attempts to appear indifferent, all three visitors found themselves staring at the black bag.

  The track light shone directly down on fifty carefully arrayed one-kilo glass tubes, each resting in its individual padded slot. Each tube was filled to within a centimeter of its stopper with a deep blue gel.

  Several small plastic containers lay in the bottom of the case, below the ranked tubes. Harcourt removed one of the glass cylinders and held it up to the light, eyeing it like a proud father studying his firstborn. The light shined through the translucent gel, sparkled off the lab-quality glassware.