Quozl (37 page)

“I've also seen their artwork.”

XVIII.

C
HAD MADE IT
to the cabin and back in record time. Mindy greeted her brother's return with unabashed relief despite all the bravado she'd displayed prior to his departure from the colony.

The four travelers left immediately, escorted partway by members of the surface studies staff including Short-key-Leaps. When the latter had gone as far as planned, they exchanged ritual farewells with Runs and Seams. So little visible emotion was involved that it was hard to believe the team members were consigning their fate and that of the entire colony to one young renegade and his comparatively youthful female companion.

From the point of farewell it was an additional five days' hike to the outskirts of the tiny mountain community called Bonanza. There Chad and his sister promptly battled over which of them was to remain behind with the two Quozl and who would walk into town to try and hitch a ride into Boise to rent a vehicle. Chad insisted he should be the one because he had more stamina, but Mindy argued vociferously that it would be far easier for an attractive young woman traveling alone to get a lift than it would for a bedraggled, luggageless young man. Condemned by his own traditional devotion to reason, Chad conceded her victory.

The following days were not easy for him. What, he found himself wondering, if his sister decided to abandon the entire plan and instead catch a plane out of Boise to rejoin her fiancé? If so, he could do nothing about it.

Several times he and his friends had to hide from passing hikers. Then the day came when the climber they were fleeing turned out to be Mindy. She hadn't been gone many days. Chad felt embarrassed by his earlier thoughts.

“It's parked on the north end of town.” Mindy looked back the way she'd come. “I came as far up the last road as I dared.”

Chad studied the dirt track that ran below their camping site. “A van could come up that.”

“A van, maybe, but I rented us a motor home instead.” At his surprised look, she added, “Why not? We'll travel just as fast and there'll be plenty of room for our friends to move around and still stay out of sight.”

When informed of what she'd done, Runs-red-Talking and Seams-with-Metal were pleased.

Chad had to admit when he saw the big motor home that his sister had driven it as far as possible up the dirt road leading out of town. It was a twenty-four-footer, brand-new and loaded with extras. Though Runs and Seams had both studied images of such machines they were still intrigued enough to poke at every button. The bathroom elicited an endless string of amused ear gestures.

Their interest had waned by the end of the second day. Runs was contentedly occupying himself with the reassembly of the microwave oven, which he had dismantled the evening before. Chad watched him manipulate the delicate, tiny electronic components as deftly as a jeweler setting a pavé diamond. Seams settled on a small side window and spent hours staring at the passing scenery.

Before returning to pick them up, Mindy had done some hasty shopping. The back of the motor home was piled high with clothing hastily gleaned from the teens' departments of half a dozen stores. Additional humor was generated as Runs and Seams tried on ill-matched but adequate covering. The results would fool a casual observer for a crucial moment or two, provided neither Quozl stepped outside the motor home. Ears could be tucked into caps, but Runs-red-Talking's feet might be disguised only in ski season.

Seams selected a thin raincoat with matching hood which concealed everything except her face. Thus hidden she was able to sit closer to her window while watching the landscape flee by at sixty miles an hour.

Not that they ran much risk of being seen, since the highway they were driving was one of the least traveled in America. They took 95 all the way down through southern Idaho and into southeastern Oregon, then across to the wilderness of northern Nevada. Avoiding Reno and Carson City, they eventually cut back into California to connect up with state route 395 near the mountain community of Bishop. Hundreds of miles had been safely traversed without trouble.

Now they found themselves in country barren to human and Quozl alike, though their guests were impressed by the gray ramparts of the eastern Sierra Nevada. As Runs explained, the records indicated Quozlene was a world of hills and valleys, geologically ancient, too tired for tectonic dramatics. Its mountains were ground down and its canyons filled in. Not so Shiraz.

“Maybe someday I can see Quozlene,” Chad said dreamily. “No, come to think of it your ships don't travel fast enough to make that practical, do they?”

“Generations live and die to accomplish the shortest journey.” Runs spoke from his position on the bed in the back of the motor home. Clad in cap and coat, Seams occupied the passenger seat next to Mindy, her huge feet tucked up beneath the dash. They had left the Sierra foothills for the blasted expanse of the Mojave Desert.

“Shiraz is our world now.”

Chad sat up to stare out the back window. “There's something you've never told me, Runs. Why you did it. Why you broke all the laws and made your way illegally to the surface.”

“I wanted to see my world,” he said simply. “The Burrows are comfortable but they're also throwbacks to ancient Quozl history. I wanted to feel soil beneath my feet, smell fresh air, listen to the singing of the little mammals that fly. I wanted to hear the hum of insects. Most of all I wanted to smell the trees, to feel growing bark and living wood.”

Chad was nodding to himself. “I remember you spending a whole evening talking about nothing but the grain of a particular wood.”

“There is truth in trees,” Runs informed him firmly. “All the wonders of nature and the natural order are subsumed in wood. To study a tree is to study the universe. If it were possible we would make everything we use or own out of wood.” He gestured out the window with an ear.

“Wider contact with humans would mean easier access to wood. You know of the law which bars study teams from bringing back to the colony anything but wood gleaned from fallen or dead trees.”

“I remember all the wood I brought you over the years.” Not only local pine and spruce, he mused, but the little pieces of dogwood and purpleheart and buckeye and redwood he'd ordered from specialty dealers in L.A.

“It is a way of keeping touch with one's world, be it Shiraz or Quozlene or Azel or any other. For us the tree stands for life. If a world is home to trees it can be home to us.”

Chad remembered the linked rings that Runs had almost given him years ago. The Quozl were not simple carpenters and their wood not simple wood. Was he missing something important here? Were the trees of Quozlene more evolved than those of Earth, or merely different? The Quozl had achieved travel between the stars. What had the trees of Quozlene achieved?

Runs-red-Talking hoped for wider contact, though perhaps not the kind that almost occurred at the Exxon station in Independence. Mindy had gone to the ladies' room while Chad supervised the endless flow of dollars into the motor home's vast double tanks. Only when he removed the nozzle from the fill tube did he notice the little girl of about seven standing with her hands behind her back staring up at the side of the motor home. Carefully putting the hose nozzle back in its slot, he leaned out to try and follow her gaze.

Before he could, she turned and ran toward a mini-van parked at the inside island, yelling at the top of her immature lungs.

“Mommy, Mommy! Come an' see the big rabbit!”

Chad's body temperature fell a degree. He rushed to pay for the gas, ignoring the attendant's puzzled stare. Looking toward the motor home he could see nothing, but there was no doubt whom the little girl had seen through the tinted glass.

Fortunately she was utterly unable to interest her exhausted mother. Before she could, the travelers had fled the station for the safety of the highway.

Seams-with-Metal confirmed his fears. “Yes, the little one saw me. I am always interested in the refueling process and I grew careless.”

“What harm in that?” Runs wanted to know. “Is not the purpose of this journey to reveal ourselves to humans?”

“Not in a haphazard manner.”

The two fell to arguing. Chad understood them fluently and Mindy well enough. Like all Quozl debates this one was interminable, the subject under discussion often being lost completely as each participant sought to acquire status by out-apologizing the other. They had to avoid even the appearance of fighting. He wondered how they would handle possibly hostile human questions.

Runs had made a point. How were they going to announce themselves to the rest of the world? By calling up the local stations? “Pardon me, but my name's Chad Collins and my sister and I have a couple of alien visitors staying with us who'd be willing to do an interview. You'll send someone right over, won't you?”

Indeed they would. Interviewers in white coats wearing solemn expressions.

The truth of it was that neither human nor Quozl had given much thought to the matter. Now that they were nearing Los Angeles, it was time to do so.

Chad was out of his depth and realized it. He intended to leave the mechanics of any confrontation to his sister. As head writer for a popular television show she'd probably been interviewed numerous times. She would know how to set things up, how to advise Runs and Seams.

The Quozl made excited sounds as the motor home turned off I-5 onto the 405, sliding down the interstate into the ocean of lights that marked the outer limits of the San Fernando Valley. It was after midnight and traffic was as light as it ever got in L.A. They attracted no curious stares.

“Are there any cities this big on Quozlene?” Mindy asked curiously.

“Oh yes.” Runs measured his reply carefully. “Or so the recordings indicate. I have never seen them for myself.”

Mindy eased into the slow lane after letting an eighteen-wheeler rumble past. “That's right. I keep forgetting.”

She took the third exit after the Pass, winding through foothills among expensive new developments. At least she had a house, Chad reflected. They wouldn't have to try and hide the Quozl in his apartment.

It was a spacious tile-roofed two-story, much bigger than his sister needed but in keeping with her position and income. The extensive landscaping shielded the place on three sides. The lot was large enough to offer a modicum of privacy.

Which did not matter because the house was not empty.

“Hiya, sweets!” The brash hello greeted them as they followed Mindy into the tiled entry hall. “Where ya been? I expected you weeks ago.”

Mindy strode purposefully into her den. “How did you get in here?”

Arlo uncoiled from the couch. “You gave me a key. We're engaged, remember?”

“I'm trying not to,” she replied frostily.

“Now, sweets.” His words were as reassuring as WD-40 to a cranky hinge. “No need to panic. I know what I'm doing. It's all for the best, believe me.”

“You lied to me. You said you'd keep the secret. You promised, Arlo.”

He looked past her. “Can't keep secrets very long if you're going to truck 'em all over the country. The one on the left I know.” He nodded at Runs-red-Talking. “The female I don't recognize.”

As Chad hurriedly shut the front door behind them, Arlo walked up to Seams-with-Metal and reached for her face with his right hand. The clumsy effort to mimic the traditional Quozl greeting was somehow endearing in its awkwardness. Though Chad wasn't prepared to credit the agent with so refined an emotion, another person might have called the attempt a sign of sensitivity.

Seams-with-Metal started to respond, then caught herself. “Who is this person?”

Walking past her into the den, Chad gestured derisively at the agent. “That's my sister's boyfriend, the one who provoked this trip. The one who's caused all the concern. Arlo, meet Seams-with-Metal.”

“Charmed, pleased, delighted.” The agent offered the familiar honorifics without artfulness. More with artifice, Chad thought angrily as he searched the den and the room immediately adjacent.

“Where are the reporters? Where's your hidden camera crew?”

“No reporters. That's not the way to do this. Not yet. I didn't want to go out on my own. I thought we'd all do it together, cooperate like.”

“Like hell,” Chad shot back.

“Don't be that way, man.” Arlo turned to Runs-red-Talking. “I know that you see what I'm talking about. You can't keep hidden forever. Sooner or later somebody's gonna stumble on your place, wherever it is.” Chad thought the argument was familiar. With a shock he recalled using it himself, when trying to explain things to Runs.

“It'd be much better to reveal yourselves at your own speed. Well, at our own speed. Because there's too much at stake here for me to just forget about it. So your speed and my speed are going to have to be our speed. But I've got your best interests at heart, believe me.”

“What heart?” Mindy wanted to know.

Arlo looked pained. “Sweets, let's not forget who's made herself a nice little nest egg off our Quozl friends, shall we? All I want is a tiny slice of the action. And I'll do better by them than some Pulitzer-hungry reporter would, because I really do like the little guys. But this business of trying to hide in the ground for the next couple of hundred years is idiotico. Now's the time to stand up and say howdy, because of all the goodwill
your
show has generated.” He was watching Seams-with-Metal.

“I didn't expect to do anything right away. I wanted to talk it over with you and your brother first. The Quozl too.”

“You expect us to believe that?”

Arlo shrugged. “Kind of hard to, now. But yeah, I did. What I didn't expect was for you to bring company.”

“I think Arlo is right.” Everyone turned to Runs-red-Talking.