Copulation Explosion, page 11
part #14 of Lady From L.U.S.T. Series
Delirium!
I got out of the bunk fast and ran to him. My palm on his forehead felt the fever in his great body. I looked around the cabin helplessly. I know a little first aid, we L.U.S.T. agents are taught it; but my knowledge was far too little to help him.
I looked at his wounds, folding back the bandages. The flesh had an unclean look. They were festering, I told myself weakly. I had to get him to a doctor, and that meant turning him over to the law.
For the police would put him behind steel bars that even his great strength would be unable to bend or break, and there he would stay a prisoner until the Andothalans poisoned the atmosphere. Then he would die like the rest of us.
There had to be a way!
I made a platter of scrambled eggs and some bacon that had been in the knapsack and I ate them and drank the coffee perking merrily over the red-hot fire wood amid the dancing blue flames. The Un-human would not eat but only tossed and turned restlessly in his delirium. I thought as I ate, and when I was done, I knew what I had to do.
The Un-human must go to the Institute.
Doctors and nurses would be there to care for him, and I could call The General and tell him what the beast-man had told me. The General could call off the police.
I tore up two of the blankets and made a broad band to fit over my forehead and longer strips to fit about my shoulders and under my armpits. To these I tied the blankets in which the Un-human was wrapped.
The travois was very crude, but after I had put it on, and dragged the beast-man across the floor and out of the cabin, I knew it would work. It was very slow going; I was dragging six hundred pounds of dead weight along, and I very definitely do not possess the build of a Russian girl shot-putter. The going was all downhill, or I never would have made it. I was exhausted long before we reached the road.
So I sat on a rock and wept.
About two hours later Joe Morton found us. He came creeping between the trees so that I wasn't really sure who it was until he finally stepped out into full view. He had his ten-gauger in a hand, and was ready to use it.
"Save your ammo," I told him. "He's dead."
His face fell a mile. He put the shotgun down and said a few cuss words. I grinned at him, and he flushed, bit a lip and then smiled ruefully. "I coulda used the money,” he admitted.
My cue to fumble in my shoulder bag and yanked out a handful of bills. "Here, take these. Oh, go on, I'll chalk them up to expenses."
"Didn't earn it. I couldn't.”
“Then earn it. Help me get this body into my car." When he got a suspicious look on his face, I added, "The Institute wants to do an autopsy on him. They think they'll learn what went wrong."
Morton scratched his head and allowed that he might be able to give me a hand, especially for all that money. So he and I started to drag the travois down the slope. I crossed my fingers, hoping that the Un-human wouldn't come out of his fever-induced coma.
Fortunately, the beast-man was out cold.
We got him to my car. I opened the trunk and we shoved most of his golden bulk inside. It seemed to my untrained eyes that half of him was hanging out, but I didn't have too far to go, and I figured I could make it without his tumbling out.
Joe Morton said when the job was done, “Guess I'd better get back, pass the word along. Lot of boys out hunting for you two."
"Oh? You were lucky to find us."
He grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Not re ally. Knew 'bout where I'd seen you before. Came here. That simple.”
“Well, my thanks, Joe.”
"Any time, lady."
The trunk lid raised high, I drove off toward the Institute.
Half a dozen burly guards and interns came running when I arrived. They got the Un-human up on a table with a small derrick they borrowed from an auto repair shop and trundled him into the compound.
Malcolm Newmann was there to greet me when I followed the wheeled table inside the doors. He hurried me off along the corridor to his office, rubbing his hands together and looking very pleased.
“You've done the country a wonderful service, Miss Drum,” he enthused. “Now your job is done, I imagine you'll be wanting to rush off and get back to Washington."
“No. It isn't finished. I want to stay on and make sure Kenneth Frost is out of danger. May I stay and watch the bullets being taken out of him? I have to make my report, you know.”
He hesitated slightly, then waved a hand. "But of course. No reason why you can't. We have an operating arena where visiting doctors and our interns may look down and watch the more delicate operations. We train our medical personnel this way, you see, so in case of illnesses among our staff doctors we can always put a finger on a substitute."
He brought me to the arena door and let me in, promising that he would have the beast-man under the operation lights within half an hour. “They'll be making a preliminary study of his wounds right now. I'll go hurry them along."
It took only twenty minutes before they wheeled him in, covered with a sheet. The Un-human was so big they could not lift him onto the regular operating table, so they made do with what they could, shoving the regular table out of the way and substituting the table on which they had brought him into the compound. Much of those twenty minutes, I assumed, had been spent in sterilizing the table.
The team went to work. The anesthesiologist prepared his anesthesia and administered it; then he stationed himself before the machine that fed in the anesthesia and controlled the ventilator. The surgeon and his assistant moved into place while the scrub nurse. joined them. "Scalpel!”
I watched them, but I didn't understand what it was all about. They were getting the bullets out, cutting away the possibly gangrenous skin, cleaning and sterilizing the wounds. It took them twenty minutes, all told.
The orderlies wheeled the beast-man out of the Operating Room. I sighed and stood up, relaxing, realizing how tense I had been for the past half hour. From the floor below, Malcolm Newmann turned and waved a hand at me, smiling upward. He had served as the observer.
I gathered that Kenneth Frost would live. On dancing feet I moved down the corridor toward Dr. Newmann's office. The Un-human would live! he would be well cared for; my job with him was almost done.
I had to get back to The General now. We had to reach those aliens, arrest or kill them. And, somehow or other, prevent that silver spaceship from giving off the poisonous gases that would kill every human on Earth. I was so busy thinking about what I was going to do, I forgot what I was doing.
I ran smack into Rhea Parker, so that the two of us came close to falling down. We grabbed whatever we could of each other and began laughing.
"I'm on my way to check him," she gasped. "I wasn't looking."
"Neither was I," I said. "Could I take a peek at him?"
She led the way to a room at the far end of the hall. One of its outside walls was covered with a lot of gadgetry, chrome levers and steel switches, plus gauges and a lot of dials. There was a big picture window there, and through the window, we saw the beast-man covered by a sheet, lying quietly.
"He'll be all right,” said Rhea.
“That's a relief, I'm free to admit.” My eyes ran over the gauges and the switches. "What's this thing?"
"A variation on the anesthesia machine, only this feeds gases into that room. We do a mock-up of gases known to be on various planets in there and test mice and rats inside. We're trying to find a simple answer to the problem of keeping our astronauts alive if and when we get them to places like Venus, Jupiter, and Mars."
"Kind of ahead of schedule, aren't you?”
“Well, we do all kinds of space research here. That's just one of them. But Ken will be okay in there. It's the only room we have available where that receiving table will fit comfortably.
"He'll be well taken care of, don't worry."
I went back to thank Doctor Newmann, then headed for my Thunderbird. I wanted to call The General and let him know what had happened. I got caught in the traffic of men and women leaving the compound. It was past five, and the day shift was going home.
I had to wait while a dozen cars eased out of the rather crowded parking lot, then I followed them. I drove slowly. There was something nagging me in the back of my head. I let the cars pass me. They went whizzing by and I didn't blame them; if I'd been going home to a hot dinner and a relaxing evening I'd have stepped on the gas, too.
What was in my head that bothered me?
I kept seeing the people leaving the Institute. I guess there would be night personnel to watch over the Un-human, but I wasn't sure. That was it, of course. I was still worried about him.
If he needed medicine in the night, a nurse could bring it. A telephone call would alert the doctors to return and work on him. I was being a silly goop.
Just the same...
The nagging doubt still lingered. I found myself wondering if the news media would be told about his capture. I switched on a station that was just beginning its broadcast: I listened to the latest Arab-Israeli clash; I heard about some new Viet Nam problems; I got briefed on what the police were doing at another university. The broadcaster finished and music came on.
And then it hit me. Nobody had said a word about the Un-human!
Now this was odd, considering how the news of his escape from the Institute had been given to the radio stations and the newspapers, back at the beginning of all this trouble. Somebody was laying down on the job.
And—hey! How about Pamela Frost? She'd learned about the beast-man just as soon as the radio stations knew about him. Even better, she got the real name of the Un-human.
My feminine intuition was up and pawing the air.
My foot jammed the brake. I glanced in that rear view mirror, saw a clear road behind me, and swung into a U-turn. I drove my foot down hard on the accelerator.
There was a leak at the Institute. There had to be! Somebody in the know had tipped off Pamela Frost about her so-called husband. Why? To get to claim his effects, as his pretended wife? Or to alert her to the fact that the Un-human had to be killed? I recalled the thin metal rod he'd had. He could only have gotten a weapon like that from one of those aliens!
Had Pamela Frost been an alien? More important, were there any aliens at the Institute now, posing as members of the staff? The same alien who had called Pamela Frost and told her to get into action-fast! My blood ran cold.
The gas chamber where he'd been put! A few care less twists of the dials in that atmosphere-maker, and the beast-man would die from the gases fed into the chamber where he was still under sedation.
The Un-human was the one thing the Andothalans had to fear. They could talk their way around me and The General. The beast-man didn't convince that easily, because he didn't have to confront the higher-ups who run the country.
I was hitting eighty, moving along the mountain road. Right now somebody could be at those dials and switches killing Kenneth Frost. The Thunderbird went into the parking lot on two wheels. I slammed the brakes.
I slid out and ran.
My hand went into my shoulder bag and yanked out the Belgian Bulldog. I hit the glass door with my other hand and raced across the reception room. The girl was not at the desk; it was after visiting hours; only the night emergency staff would be on hand.
I went into the corridors and ran like crazy.
It seemed to take forever, but I finally made it. I turned the corner of the corridor and the special chamber lay before me. There was a man standing at the dials and controls of the machine, turning the dials and pulling the levers. And a faint white mist was seeping into the chamber room where the Un-human lay.
"Doctor Newmann—hold it!" I yelled.
He whirled and I thought he'd faint. His face went white. His hand clawed at his pocket but he made no further move. His eyes were big as saucers as he looked at me and at my Belgian Bulldog.
"Just hold it, Doctor,” I warned.
"Miss Drum, what's the meaning of this?” he choked.
"You know. You're killing Ken Frost.”
He laughed, visibly relaxing. "Oh, please! I'm making sure he gets the medication he needs.”
"Shut it off until I get another doctor to say the same thing."
His hand came out of the pocket. It held the same thin rod that the beast-man had used to destroy the nuclear power plant.
My finger tightened on the trigger. My bullet caught him smack in the middle of his chest, driving him back and over the machine. Surprise made his eyes grow big. I guess he figured I wouldn't be alarmed, seeing that thin metal rod. I would stand there, ignorant of its use, while he blasted me to powder.
It didn't work out that way.
He sagged, dying. I stared at him in horror, because his human outlines were changing, altering to...
“Good God!” I breathed.
I was looking at a shimmering body, oddly shrunken inside the suit Malcolm Newmann had been wearing. The shimmering stopped and now I found myself staring at a bald head with eyes like marbles at the end of fleshy stalks. A thin covering of hair was all over his face, and his mouth was a small round hole.
I would have given a lot for a camera. I'd have snapped his picture and shoved it under The General's nose as proof that...
I lifted the Bulldog. I fired again and again.
Somebody here ought to have a camera. Feet pounded. A couple of orderlies and guards came running. "Get me a camera," I yelled. “This thing was Doctor Newmann. He's an alien and he was trying to kill Ken Frost."
One of the orderlies sprang to the machine, shut it off. Then he picked up a couple of gas masks hanging beside the door and he and two other men went into the chamber and brought the Un-human out.
By this time Rhea Parker was at my side, explaining that she had stayed to finish an experiment. She looked a little sick when she saw what lay on the floor. She was a big help, though, despite the fact that I was afraid she was going to up-chuck at any moment.
She got me the camera; she told the orderlies to take the alien's body into a cold storage vault.
"Why didn't we find Pamela Frost like this if she was an alien, too?" she wondered as I clued her in on the whole case.
"Probably because Newmann disposed of her body when he found her dead in the car wreckage. She and Newmann must have been working pretty closely, hand in glove stuff. He knew she killed poor Adrian Trent, and that she was going to try and kill you."
I thought a moment, then added, "And me, as well. It must have been a great shock to him to find her dead body inside that smashed-up red Camaro she was driving. He probably disintegrated it with his own rod gun."
I walked beside the table with the Un-human. It was wheeled to a room where Rhea pumped out any of the lethal gases that might have gotten into his lungs. She fed him good, clean oxygen.
She said, "He's okay. He didn't breathe enough of the stuff to really bother him. Another ten minutes, though..."
Her shoulders shrugged. She turned to me and said, "Come home with me, Eve. I'm off duty now. I only stayed on for that experiment. We can eat and get cozy..."
"Love to, honey. But I've got to call The General and tell him what happened here. I want those negatives developed, too. I'll need those pictures as proof of what Newmann turned into when he died."
Rhea sighed and batted her eyelashes at me. Any other time I might have taken her up on her offer, but I honest to God did have to stop that silver spaceship from emitting those poisonous gases.
"You can phone from here,” she suggested hopefully.
We went down the hall and into what had been Malcolm Newmann's office. I dialed L.U.S.T. headquarters and was told The General had gone for the day. I dialed his home.
He didn't believe me at first.
So I yelled, "Well, goddamn it to hell! I've got pictures. So there! And the body's in the cold storage vault. How do you like them apples?”
"It's not proof that the aliens are going to poison the atmosphere," he protested, but in a weak voice.
"Then get some pollution experts down to that silver spaceship and see what they learn with their gadgets. If you don't, General—the whole damn world is going kopfluey!”
I hung up on him.
I guess there were tears of frustration in my eyes, because Rhea put an arm about me and whispered her understanding of what I was going through. “Nobody's ever a prophet in his own country, Eve. You and Ken—you're both fighting a lonely battle.”
"Yeah, but I can do something he can't.”
"Oh? What's that?”
"I can walk into the Madison where those aliens are staying and pump lead into their humanoid bodies. When the General sees 'em change right under his eyes, maybe he'll change his mind, as well."
"You wouldn't really do that, would you?”
She looked horrified, and I didn't blame her. After all, she was a bionics babe, not a secret agent. She had never killed as I had. She had never been tortured as I had. Hers was an entirely different way of life.
I put my arm around her, hugging her. Her big brown eyes, that had been about to spill over with tears, shone brightly with happiness.
“I knew you were only joking,” she whispered. Something inside me said I was in grim earnest.
CHAPTER TEN
He lay in blackness through which an ebbing pain still stabbed. He remembered the men in the blue suits who had fired at him, hitting his body with their bullets. He did not blame them, curiously enough. They were doing their duty.
In their eyes, he was a shaggy, golden monster.
He thought in the blackness that would not go away. It was as if he lay cradled in dark cotton, swatched in warmth. He was remembering something else. The face of the woman with the gold hair, who had...
What had she done?
Yes. She had nursed him back to life, there in the cabin. His memory dwelt on her shapely body in the firelight; he saw again how the flames had tinted her pale skin with moving tints of redness, and how his own body had reacted to the sight of her nakedness.
Perhaps he was not a monster after all. In fact, he was very human. His man-flesh had risen in reaction to her nude body. She had seen the evidence of his passion and she had not covered herself. She had posed there for him with a faint, dreaming smile upon her lips, as though she considered the mating act with him.
