Complete Short Fiction, page 474
The gangly orderly ran back out into the waiting area. “Delivery Room 4 is ready.” In a rush, he and Davis wheeled Anthea down the hall. A nurse opened the swinging door, but then she put out a stern hand. “Mr. Stewart, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait out here.”
“I want to be with my wife.” Davis craned his neck to look after her.
“Sorry, sir. Men aren’t allowed inside the delivery room. Go wait with the other nervous fathers. Hand out cigars to each other.”
Anthea saw his deeply disappointed frown. “Don’t worry, Davis. I’ll be fine. I’ll be here.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I love you.”
“You can prove it by changing more than your share of diapers,” she joked. Then the contractions hit again, and she knew the baby was close.
The rest happened in a blur. She was on the delivery table, her feet up in stirrups. The doctor, an older man with owlish eyes behind round spectacles, muttered reassuringly, but the words sounded as if he had memorized them from a script, praises and encouragement that he used many times a week.
The nurses seemed concerned. Even the doctor was tense, no doubt because of the news on the radio. One of the nurses said in a quiet voice as if expecting that Anthea couldn’t hear her, “I don’t know what kind of world that poor baby’s going to be born into. If the slans take over and enslave us all—”
“Enough of that, Nurse! We have our jobs to do. There are no slans here, only this woman and her baby, and I’m determined to see that it’s born healthy—healthy enough to fight for the human race, if it comes to that.” He patted Anthea on the shoulder. “Now don’t you worry, young lady. Just push. I’m going to coach you through this.”
She closed her eyes. She and Davis were both fit and strong. She couldn’t remember the last time either of them had even been sick. Yes, the baby would be just fine.
“Now, push again,” the doctor said.
The nurse leaned closer, encouraging. “Push, honey—as hard as you can.”
Anthea did as she was told. It was what her body wanted to do.
The doctor leaned over. “That’s perfect. Easy, now. I can see the top of the head. You’re almost there.”
Anthea felt a compulsion to press harder, not to let up. The rush of increased pain didn’t matter. She wished Davis could be there holding her hand, but she reassured herself with the knowledge that he was just outside the delivery room door. She pushed and pushed again, and then she knew the baby was coming. Tears streamed through her shut eyes. With a rush of release, she felt it flow out—her son, a new life, a child emerging into the open air.
“That’s it. Here it comes. I have him.” The doctor held up a slick, red infant. She heard the baby start to cry as it gasped its first breath.
“Mrs. Stewart, you have a fine little boy—” The doctor halted in mid-sentence. “Good Lord!”
The nurse began to scream.
“How can this be?” The doctor still held up the baby, but now his face bore a look of disgust. “How can this happen?”
Anthea struggled to sit upright. She felt utterly exhausted and drained; her strawberry-blonde hair was plastered with sweat to her head. “What is it? I want my baby.”
The doctor looked at her with an expression of horror, his mouth open. Anthea glanced up to see the newborn baby.
He had tiny twisting tendrils coming out the back of his head.
CHAPTER 2
The President of Earth, leader of billions, commanded a certain amount of respect. For decades Kier Gray had been a strong and charismatic ruler. He led with a mixture of sternness and compassion, guiding the citizenry along a dangerously narrow path between paranoid terror and complacency.
Now, though, as the secret police dragged him down the stone-walled hall, Gray was no longer treated with much respect. Until now, no one had ever suspected the President’s true heritage as a hidden slan, his actual alliances, the covert work he had done among the surviving slans on Earth. The secret police grabbed him roughly by the arms and pulled him along. Gray knew exactly where they were taking him.
John Petty, the chief of the secret police and notorious slan hunter, waited for his deposed leader inside the primary command-and-control center deep beneath the grand palace. Around him, technicians studied cathode-ray tubes, receiving reports from all their operatives.
“Hail to the President,” Petty said with feigned applause. He had short, dark hair, brows that looked like smudges of soot, and glittering eyes like the buttons on his dark uniform. The chief slan hunter seemed satisfied to see the great Kier Gray so helpless.
The guards shoved the President forward, catching his ankles and knocking him to his knees. Petty looked down at him as if he were no more than a discarded cigarette butt in the rain gutter. “We’ve already rooted out and killed dozens of slans working in the palace. Others have fled like rats in the night. Whatever you were planning, it’s over—and I’m in charge now.”
Gray didn’t curse, didn’t protest his innocence, but simply looked up at the bloodthirsty man who had long been his rival. During his long administration, he had weathered numerous conspiracies, assassination attempts, and back-stabbings. Only hours ago he had watched the guards shoot down three of his trusted advisors—true slans—in a shielded cabinet room. All of his quiet plans had crumbled in less than a day; he’d gone from great hope and optimism to this disaster.
Gray recovered his dignity. “I don’t suppose you have any basis for these treasonous actions, Mr. Petty? Or is the rule of law simply an inconvenience you’d rather not bother with right now?”
“Law? Allow me to cite the Emergency Powers Act: ‘In these times of perpetual crisis, any person suspected of being a slan or in league with slans is to be held for immediate questioning. The due process of law is suspended in such cases for the benefit of national security.”
Gray’s anger flared. His secret organization had worked so hard, been so careful . . . but not careful enough. Over the years, the President had even authorized quiet assassinations of people who posed a threat, advisors who accidentally discovered too much about the slans. He’d had no choice but to replace them with a small band of loyal comrades dedicated to changing the world and ending centuries of unnecessary witch hunts. He had thought his plans were secure . . . .
Petty crossed his arms over his chest. “We caught you meeting with the infamous slan rebel Jommy Cross in your private quarters. We have recordings in your own voice revealing that the slan specimen you kept in your palace, Kathleen Layton, is your own daughter.”
“Where are Kathleen and Cross? Did you just shoot them, like you executed my cabinet members?”
The slan hunter paced inside the command-and-control center. “Oh, we didn’t execute those two—not yet. They’re too valuable. They have been taken to the detention cells in the lower levels of the palace. You need not worry about their welfare.”
If you aren’t careful, John Petty, Gray thought, you may need to worry more about your own welfare. Despite his obsessive fear, he would probably underestimate Jommy and Kathleen. Gray hoped that some of the unobtrusive slans working around the government center had managed to escape and disappear.
When he’d surreptitiously met with young Jommy Cross, Gray had explained the situation among slans and humans. Very few knew that the true danger came from a different group of mutants, slans born without tendrils, who had infiltrated society while preparing to launch their takeover. The tendrilless passionately hated both humans and slans and meant to exterminate both rival races, leaving themselves the sole inheritors of the Earth.
Jommy had infiltrated the main tendrilless base on Mars, where he had found startling information about an imminent invasion. Returning to Earth, he had slipped through the palace’s defenses to warn the President. After they had begun to make plans, Jommy returned with his own highly advanced car and a deadly disintegrator weapon invented by his father. For only one day, President Gray had believed that he and his shadow government—including Jommy and Kathleen—could change the world.
Then the secret police had arrested them all.
“I myself confiscated Cross’s unusual weapons—something he called a disintegrator tube and a ring with an embedded atomic generator. Amazing little things.” Petty’s lips quirked in a smile. He seemed in control of himself, in charge of the situation, but Gray could sense just a hint of uneasiness in his demeanor. “I gave the items to one of my isolated research teams, but as soon as they tampered with the ring, it dissolved. Now my people have strict orders to exercise extreme caution in their investigations of the disintegrator tube. Once we disassemble it, we’ll add it to our own arsenal. My arsenal. Hmm, we might even use it to execute you. That would be quite an irony!”
The deposed President rose to his feet, squared his shoulders, and faced the slan hunter. “I’m surprised that I wasn’t ‘accidentally killed’ resisting arrest. It would save you a great deal of time in your coup d’etat.”
“A coup? I prefer to call it my transition to a new slan-free government.” Petty scratched his blunt chin as he pretended to consider options. “Killing you would waste too much propaganda value. I look forward to hauling you before the world courts, exposing you as a slan, and discrediting all your works, all your supposed peace conferences with the enemy. Somehow, you have had your tendrils removed, or you were born without them—a mutant among mutants!—but I’m positive that genetics tests will reveal slan genes in your DNA.”
Despite their vastly diminished numbers, slans were still feared as bogeymen. During his presidency, Gray himself had been forced to play upon that fear because it was the only way to survive politically, but he had managed to remove the teeth from the most vicious proposals.
Petty had stalked around behind the President, but Gray didn’t turn to follow him. “You have had your theatrics, but you’ll have a far more difficult time proving that any of my actions in office harmed the human race.”
“Prove? Simply existing as a slan is a treasonous act. You knowingly deceived the people of Earth. I, on the other hand, will be held up as a hero of mankind for removing yet another terrible threat. Slans in our own government, in the presidency itself!” He gave another one of his smiles. “Your scheme is over, Gray. From now on, it’s simply a mop-up operation. It will save me a lot of difficulty, and you a lot of pain, if you just confess and reveal how many members of your cabinet are secretly slans.”
“There aren’t any,” Gray insisted.
The slan hunter rolled his eyes. “Your advisors and cabinet members were sound asleep with their wives or mistresses. We rounded them up and found out that several of them had slan tendrils in the backs of their heads, hidden by prosthetics. We’ve already killed them. Next, we’ll dig through the records to find out who cooperated with your most destructive policies. It won’t be difficult to prove collusion and thereby treason against humanity. You see, I have all the angles!”
When more men came into the command center and delivered their reports, Petty seemed upset, ready to strike the messenger. He turned back to the President. “We’ve just uncovered the identity of one of your main co-conspirators. I never would have suspected it.” He scratched his head. “Then again, it makes a certain amount of sense.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gray said.
“Your chief advisor, Jem Lorry, has vanished. He disappeared like a puff of smoke, as if he knew what we were planning.” Petty balled his fists. “Could he read it in our minds? Did you send him a telepathic message?”
Gray did not need to pretend his confusion. He had appointed Jem Lorry years ago, after a particularly close assassination attempt. Lorry had served extremely well ever since, taking a hardline stance against slans. He had even proposed an innovative if preposterous scheme to marry lovely young Kathleen. Lorry wanted to breed with her in (according to him) an attempt to water down the slan genes, to gradually erase them over a few generations. Lorry had been very angry when Kathleen rebuffed his advances, but Gray was personally pleased that the girl managed to get out of the trap.
“Honestly, I had nothing to do with his disappearance.” The President was far more concerned about his own survival and even above that, the survival of his daughter Kathleen and Jommy Cross, the hope of humanity. “You should know that Jommy Cross came to warn me—to warn all of us—of an impending attack on Earth. Another group of slans, tendrilless slans, have built a large base on Mars and recently launched their battle fleet against us. The tendrilless mean to destroy us all.”
“Yes, yes, and you and Jommy Cross are our only hope.” He yawned extravagantly. “I’m not buying it.”
CHAPTER 3
Lying on the table in the hospital delivery room, Anthea struggled to comprehend what she had seen. Her baby had tendrils! Slan tendrils!
Impossible. Completely impossible.
The doctor, seemingly in shock, quickly cut the umbilical cord and tied it off. “Pay attention!” he snapped at the nurse, who stood staring. “Save the mother first. Then we’ll take care of . . . of that abomination.”
“No!” Anthea was weak, but she found the strength to prop herself up on her elbows. “What happened to my baby? Why is—” She tried to make sense of it, but all she could remember was the conversation between the plump receptionist and the man from the secret police. How can they not know that they’re slans?
Two normal people wouldn’t have a slan baby, would they? Anthea couldn’t accept that she herself might have been one of those slans without tendrils, and probably Davis as well. Ridiculous! She had never imagined such a thing. They were both healthy, they both healed swiftly, and the two of them had felt a mutual bond that went beyond anything they shared with other humans. Normal humans. She felt sick.
“Doctor,” she gasped. “What’s going to happen?”
He ignored her question as he set the baby down. When he turned to the nurse, his voice was cold and brittle. “Get me a full syringe of hydroxylex-black.”
“Yes, Doctor.” The nurse looked hardened now, no longer hysterical. “It’s what we have to do.”
Anthea felt a surge of uneasiness within her. “Davis!” she called, but her voice was alarmingly thin.
The gangly orderly assisting with the delivery finally shook himself out of his surprise. “Doctor, the procedure is clear. We have to report this to the secret police.”
“Yes, they’re already here in the building,” the doctor said, his voice shaky. “Alert security. John Petty himself might want to talk with these two. Make sure the father doesn’t leave.” He shot a sidelong glance at Anthea on the operating table, as if she were a particularly nauseating specimen. The doctor no longer seemed to consider her human at all. The nurse handed him a long syringe filled with a dark, oily substance.
“What are you going to do with that?” Anthea demanded, struggling to turn. “Answer me!” She heard a commotion outside the doors to the delivery room.
“Don’t worry,” the doctor said to her with cool reassurance. “This will be quick and painless. Your baby won’t feel a thing.” He bent over where her newborn baby lay helpless on the adjacent operating table, extending the ominous hypodermic needle.
A surge of panic shot through her heart and mind like a fire siren. It wasn’t just her own fear, but something tangible, a wave of panic transmitted by the tendrils of her baby—her slan baby.
The shouts grew louder outside the delivery room, then the swinging doors crashed open. Davis stood there, looking both angry and terrified, his fists clenched. The gangly orderly tried to block him, but Davis knocked him aside with a roundhouse punch. She had never seen him hit anybody before in her life.
“Davis! They’re trying to kill our baby.” Another blast of emotions seemed to be directed at Anthea and at Davis. The newborn infant somehow understood that these two were his parents!
When Davis saw the doctor bending over the baby with the long, wicked syringe, he charged forward. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Screaming again, the nurse tried to throw herself in the way, but Davis knocked her aside as if she were an empty cardboard box. The stunned orderly had gotten to his feet and staggered out of the delivery room, bawling for guards.
Davis fought with the owl-eyed doctor, grabbed the hand that held the poison-filled hypodermic needle and slowly twisted it away. “You’re a doctor. You’re not supposed to kill people! You’re trying to murder a baby!”
“It’s not human.”
When Davis spotted the tendrils on the baby, his baby, he froze. His face became stony and then hardened into a determination that Anthea recognized. When Davis looked like that, no one was ever going to change his mind. “He’s my son.”
Then, with remarkable strength, he bent the doctor’s hand backward, turned the syringe around. The other man gasped and struggled, but Davis easily directed the needle toward him.
Anthea fought to swing her legs over the table, wondering if her husband was using some vestige of . . . slan strength that had just now been unlocked within him. Though she was weak from giving birth, this emergency was making her recover faster. Was something awakening inside her, too? Her heart pounded.
The frantic nurse threw herself upon Davis again, but with a backhand he sent her sprawling into the tray of medical instruments. She and all of the tools fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
“I will not let you kill my son.” With a flood of strength, he pushed the hypodermic needle into the doctor’s throat and depressed the plunger. The doctor’s eyes bulged behind his round spectacles. Judging from his gagging sounds and writhing spasms as he fell to the operating room floor, the poison was not quite as painless as the doctor had promised.
