path to conquest (14 page)

“Well ...”

Donnenfeld hooked her arm through his. “C’mom. Good home-cooked meal? I’ll let you cook anything you’d cook at home.”

He snickered. “Wow, what an offer.”

“You could also help us with this oil mess. You may be just an M.D., but you’ve got a pretty good head for pure science.”

“Flattery, Dr. Donnenfeld, has just netted you a ride home.”

“I thought about being an astronomer for a while,” Sari said as she and Neville walked along Brook Cove’s narrow beach. She turned to look back up the rocky bluff, at the lab complex just visible over the crest. The dark main house stood like a shadowy sentinel outlined against the black sky. There was no moon tonight, and they were far enough from urban clusters of illumination that the stars shone brilliantly. Even the delicate haze of the Milky Way could be seen, looking like a dusty band painted with the most delicate of brush strokes.

“What made you want to be an astronomer?” Neville asked, nuzzling her ear.

She started giggling, and he pulled back. “No, no, don’t stop,” she said.

“I thought I was tickling you.”

“No, I was laughing at what made me want to be an astronomer.”

“And that was?” He nibbled her earlobe again, pushing the high collar of her fisherman’s sweater out of the way and exposing the soft skin of her neck.

“Mr. Spock.”

“The baby fellow? I thought he was a doctor.”

“He is a doctor.
Mister
Spock, from
Star Trek?'
She noticed Neville’s blank gaze. “You know, the TV show, the alien—you should pardon the expression with the pointed ears?”

“Oh, yes, yes. I’ve seen it once or twice. But I still don’t quite get the connection.”

“Well, Spock was from another planet, Vulcan. And I was, let’s see, about twelve years old with skinny legs and a flat chest when I first watched that show. 1 loved science and I was a real tomboy, so the girls didn’t want anything to do with me. But I was still too young for boys. Plus, in seventh grade no self-respecting boy
wants
anything to do with girls. So I felt like I was different from everybody and didn’t fit in, except in my own little world of baseball cards and footballs and chemistry sets and butterfly collections. And then I saw this guy Spock, who didn’t fit in anywhere either because he was a half-breed alien.”

“Is there a punch line to this?”

Sari made a playfully indignant face. “I’m baring my soul to you and you’re being abusive.”

“Sorry. Please go on.”

“The punch line is, this character was cool and in control and never let it get to him that he was different. He was also incredibly sexy—really got my pubescent libido going. So I wanted to become an astronomer and discover where the planet Vulcan was so I could find my very own Mr. Spock.” Neville tilted her chin up and kissed her softly, his tongue probing against hers in a gentle duel. “I’m glad your libido was set free.”

“Me, too. Come on with me.”

She took his hand and trotted down the starlit beach until they reached a ramshackle dock and rough-hewn shed that doubled as a cabana and boathouse. “You’ve got something in mind?” he said.

Her eyes twinkled as she feigned innocence. “Whatever do you mean, sir?” She planted a darting kiss on his nose. “There are blankets and mattress thingies in there. ...”

“Romance and comfort, too. What more could a man ask for?”

“A two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-night hotel suite, but if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.”

* * *

1‘Son-of-a-bitch. I’m buck naked,”
Mitchell Loomis shrilled, juggling simultaneous feelings of embarrassment and chilly exposure. He looked around and found that he was in unfamiliar woods. But to Mitchell, any collection of trees and underbrush looked exactly the same as all others—which is to say they
all
looked unfamiliar. He was lost, he was cold, and the quivering roll of flab around his midsection notwithstanding, he was damned hungry.

“Gotta get home . . . gotta eat. . . He lurched down a path through the trees and began to run. To his great surprise, the stones and twigs he expected would be ripping his feet to shreds weren’t bothering him at all. His feet were the only part of him not undressed. They were clad in electric-blue Nikes.

Then he heard footsteps behind him. He ran faster, chubby legs churning, chest heaving. After a few moments, he could hear only his own raspy breathing, feet pounding, blood rushing in his ears like Niagara Falls. He stopped, and listened. Silence. He looked back over his shoulder. Nothing. He turned—

And screamed. Neville More stood in front of him on the trail, waving his arms like a madman, chortling gleefully. Mitchell couldn’t make his feet move, as if his sneakers had become anchored in muck. More took a step closer, then another, then from out of nowhere the Englishman had a butcher knife in his hand.

Mitchell Loomis’s eyes bulged, terror constricting his throat. The knife blade seemed to grow as More approached, taking an unbelievable amount of time to cover what couldn’t have been more than two yards’ distance. The knife reached the length of a broadsword, gleaming lethally in the half-light.

With an imbecilic yip of near fatal fright, Mitchell leaped right out of his mired footwear and dove sideways, crashing through the foliage like a rogue elephant. From somewhere behind him More gave out a cry.

“Why does he sound like Tarzan?” Mitchell wondered aloud. Impossibly, the jungle yodel kept pace with him, bouncing inside his head as if its source was at his ear. Mitchell kept running, flailing, tripping, scrambling to some unknown haven.
Just ahead . . . just ahead.
. . .

Not far . . . not far. . . .

A greenish glow tinged the forest, getting brighter by degrees as Mitchell plunged forward. There was life-giving, life-preserving warmth there, too. Of that he was certain.

He flung aside one last overhanging branch and saw his heaven. He skidded to a stop, eyes wide with relief.    The jungle cry of his tormentor had ceased—but, no, it was catching up to him, following his path. He had no choice now. To stay here was death. The warm green light was resurrection.

Mitchell pulled himself to his feet again—he’d collapsed to his knees to rest—and flung himself toward the source of the green light.

As his body arced toward it, the house-sized computer screen reached out with color-graphic hands and pressed him to its electronic bosom. He was home.

“Home, home. ...” Mitchell mumbled. “Home . . . safe. . . .’’He leaned forward.

A rude, computerized beep sounded, making him snap to a sitting position, and he found himself in his disheveled pajamas, at the small computer terminal in his bedroom. His armpits and face were drenched with cold sweat. His heart was still pounding.

“Ohh, shit . . . that was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had,” he said to the computer screen. “I can’t believe this. That goddamned Neville More did this to me—but you saved me.” He paused, took a deep breath to calm himself. “However, I
am
talking to a computer screen. Oh, well, you saved me in the dream. I might as well use you to relax a little bit. Let’s see—what was I working on today? Oh, yeah.”

He tapped his access code into the computer, then frowned when the machine told him that file was in use on the main lab terminal, presently closed off from all other users. The embryonic flare of anger he started to feel was shunted aside by curiosity. He peeked at the digital alarm clock on his desk, wondering for a fleeting moment when he’d taken up sleepwalking.

“Who’s using the computer at three o’clock in the morning?”

He moved to slip his toes into the pair of bedroom slippers at bedside, only to find that he did in fact have a pair of Nikes on. His eyes darted nervously from side to side, and as he put his robe on, he quietly sang “The Twilight Zone” theme’s eerie four-note refrain: “Doo-doo-doo-doo . . . doo-doo-doo-doo . .

Taking care to be as close to silent as an overweight computer scientist in robe and sneakers could be, Mitchell padded down the concrete staircase leading to the main computer lab. He tiptoed around a comer and saw that the light in the room was indeed on. He halted forward progress to consider his next action. Should he surprise whoever was in there? Should he make a noise on approach to give the person a bit of polite warning? It was not completely unknown in a community of intelligent and somewhat eccentric professionals like Brook Cove to find someone struck by a late night inspiration that simply would not be deferred until morning.
This could be completely innocent. Then again, it could be Neville More waiting to kill me with a butcher knife the size of Rhode Island. I
could
just go back up and crawl into bed.

No
—
I’ll never get back to sleep wondering. If it’s More and he tries to kill me, I’ll just scream and dive into the computer. It worked once before, why shouldn’t it work again?

He took a first step, and the rest were easier. Among the darkened labs, only the computer room’s door was open. Mitchell crooked his nose and one eye around the door frame, to see Neville More hunched over the console. Fear receded and Mitchell Loomis straightened out of his scuttling crouch.

“Burning the old midnight oil, More?” he said, his voice intentionally sharp and loud.

The Englishman was so startled he nearly fell out of his chair. Mitchell kept his smirk of satisfaction to himself.
But this almost makes up for the nightmare,
he thought. He waited a couple of seconds, until it was obvious that Neville hadn’t yet gathered his wits enough to respond.

This is getting better and better!
Mitchell truly wanted to rub his hands together in glee. Instead, he batted his eyelashes innocuously. “I’m sorry, old boy. Didn’t mean to give you a fright there. I just couldn’t seem to get to sleep, and coming down here relaxes me. Thought 1 might as well use the time to get some work done, but I’ll bet you had the same thought.” “Er—uh, yes, yes, I did.”

“Well, great minds do think alike,” said Mitchell, smiling as guilelessly as he could.

Neville quickly punched in the code to put the computer terminal to sleep for the night, then turned to Mitchell. "Unless you want to use it—old boy?”

“Who, me? No, no—just strolling down here seems to have relaxed me, Neville.” He yawned. “I think I’ll just mosey on back to bed. C’mon, I’ll walk you up to your room.” Neville gave him a grim half smile. “Thanks.”

“After you,” said Mitchell. He waited until More had walked out past him, then clicked off the light switch.
What the hell were you
doing
down here—old boy?

Though he hadn’t planned to, Pete Forsythe wound up spending the entire next day working alongside Donnenfeld and the others at Brook Cove. The underground facilities continued humming with activity right through lunch, with a platter of quickly devoured sandwiches as the only concession to the need for nourishment.

But teatime was a different story. War or not, the three o’clock afternoon break was one amenity Hannah refused to give up. Pete suspected that if the old woman ever found herself on her deathbed, she’d still insist on a civilized pause for refreshment and relaxation. He knew she regretted the decision to board up the main mansion for the duration of the war, but the requirements of security had made that a necessary move. Teatimes used to take place in the gracious drawing room of the old house, with its fireplace and incongruous mixture of comfy couches to one side and lab tables and equipment along the opposite wall.

To duplicate that cozy environment as closely as possible, Hannah had ordered the parlor furniture to be brought down here and arranged in a room set aside as a lounge. Someone had even put a poster of a crackling fireplace on the wall. Just as the mansion’s parlor had been a place for brainstorming sessions and little presentations of project results, so the subterranean lounge had come to serve the same purpose.

The tea break was optional, and with today’s urgent work continuing in all labs, Pete wasn’t surprised that most of the staff pressed on with their labors. He found Hannah in the lounge with only Mitchell, Sari, and Neville More joining her. The genteel tinkling of spoons against china teacups couldn’t cover the fact that Hannah’s face was grim and the silence of her younger companions was anxious.

“Come on in, Peter,” said Donnenfeld. “You better hear this.”

He helped himself to hot water and a couple of home-baked cookies and sat at the end of the couch. “You’ve reached some conclusions?”

Donnenfeld nodded. “I’m certain that this alien gunk is a genetically engineered bacteria, and it was designed to do a whole lot more than simply make people choke and vomit. And there’s something else we’ve learned about it. Once it’s introduced into oil, it gallops through like a runaway herd of horses. It gets nourishment from the oil, and it reproduces as fast as anything I’ve ever seen.”

“That means a little bit can go a long way,” Peter said. “Yep. But I don’t think the Visitors planned to hop from' tank to tank, poisoning our oil piecemeal. Whatever you want to say about Diana, she thinks bigger than that. I think her idea was to put this bacteria right into the ground.”

It only took a second for the impact of Hannah’s statement to sink in. Pete found his words slowly. “You mean poison our crude-oil reserves before we even pump the stuff out? My God, Hannah, the way you say it reproduces, there’d be nothing we could do to stop ’em once they started.”

“Mm-hmm. That would fit in with that drilling platform they’re building in the Persian Gulf. Just pour this stuff in. If this works the way it’s supposed to, by drilling a few holes or taking over a few existing rigs around the world, they could ruin most of the oil on this planet.”

“They
don’t need the oil,” Neville whispered. “They’ve got other power we can’t even fathom. But we’ll
die
without oil, and Diana knows it.”

Mitchell’s face went pale. “Then we’re dead.”

Hannah glared at him. “What kind of talk is that?”