Second Contact

“Ha!” the customs man said. “Everyone who smuggles ginger, he says he’s a tourist.” If he thought he could rattle the Americans, he was barking up the wrong tree. Pe

Then the customs man whistled shrilly. Up came one of his pals, leading a female German shepherd on a leash. The dog sniffed all around the automobile. Auerbach’s breath came short-but then, it always did. Pe

When the dog didn’t start barking its head off, its handler led it away. The customs man waved the Ford forward. As soon as they were out of earshot, Pe

“Takes one bitch to outfox another,” Rance said. Pe

Ciudad Camargo was a pleasant little town nestled in a green valley. Lots of cattle and a few sheep grazed in that green valley. The town itself smelled powerfully of manure. The road paralleled the Rio Grande till it got past San Miguel, then went inland. Away from the river, the countryside stopped being pleasant and green and turned into a sun-blasted desert.

“No wonder the Lizards like it here,” Rance said, sweat pouring off him. “Christ, it’s worse than Fort Worth, and I didn’t reckon anything could be.”

“It’s hot, all right,” Pe

“Just don’t let the car boil over,” Auerbach said. “I haven’t seen any other traffic on this miserable road. If we get stuck here, buzzards are liable to pick our bones.” He looked up into the bake oven of the sky. Sure as hell, several broad-winged black shapes floated on the currents of hot air rising from the ground. They didn’t have to work very hard to stay airborne, not in this weather.

“Don’t worry about it,” Pe

Smoking one cigarette after another, she drove south with assurance. Every so often, the Ford would go past a farm where a family tried to scratch out a living without enough land, water, or livestock. Back in the States, hardly anyone plowed with mules any more. Here, even having a mule looked to be a mark of some prosperity. Children stared at the battered old Ford as it went by. It was almost as alien to them as one of the Lizard’s starships would have been.

A drunkenly leaning sign marked the border between the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. The road ran into a bigger, better one ru

On the western bank of the San Juan sat a Lizard town, tiny and neat and clean, the buildings sharp-edged and perfectly white, the streets all paved, everything in perfect order. The Lizards went about whatever business they had. A couple of them might have turned an eye turret toward the American car. Most paid no attention to it whatever.

“That’s new,” Pe

“Yeah,” Rance said harshly. “They’d be doing that on the other side of the Rio Grande, too, if we hadn’t fought ’em to a standstill.” Peering back over his shoulder hurt, but he did it anyhow. “Wonder if they’ve brought any crops from their planet that’ll grow around these parts. Too early to tell; they haven’t even been here a year yet.”

Pe

“That’s a sensible thing to wonder,” Auerbach said. “I’m full of moonshine, that’s all. You could have stopped and found out.”

He wasn’t serious. Luckily for him, Pe

“Okay,” Auerbach said. “I’m just along for the company.” He slid closer to Pe

She laughed. “If a gal did that to a guy, he’d drive right off the damn road. We’ll have plenty of time for games later, all right?” She sounded almost like a mother trying to keep a rambunctious little boy in line.

The Lizard air base and antiaircraft missile station sat in the desert about halfway between China and Monterrey. Unlike the new colonists’ center, it had been there a long time; planes from it had undoubtedly flown against the United States during the fighting. The buildings were still neat and clean, but they’d lost something of that razor-edged look newer ones had. The comparison was easy to make, because some buildings close by were new.

“Colonists here, too.” Now Pe

She pulled the Ford to a stop next to one of the shanties of the little human hamlet that had grown up to serve the Lizards and the people who labored for them. When she got out, Auerbach did, too. The fellow behind the battered bar of what turned out to be a tavern looked up and addressed Pe

“I greet you, Esteban,” Pe

“It shall be done,” Esteban said, one phrase in the Lizards’ language almost everyone understood. He shouted in Spanish. When a teenage kid stuck his head in the door, he sent him off. Then, to Rance’s relief, he turned out to speak some English: “You want beers?”

“Oh, Christ, yes!” Rance exclaimed. He sucked down a blood-temperature Dos Equis as if it were the nectar of the gods.

Before too long, the teenager came back, a Lizard in tow. “I greet you, Kahanass,” Pe

Kahanass wore the body paint of a radar operator. “Truth?” he asked, another Lizard word with broad currency among humans. “I did not expect you to come back here with things for me to see, but I will look at them. If I like them, I may have things to give you.” He swung an eye turret toward Auerbach. “Who is this Tosevite? Have I seen him before? I do not think so. Can I trust him?”

“You can trust him,” Pe

“It is good,” Kahanass said. “Bring me these things, then, so I may look at them. If I like them…” His voice trailed away. People who bought and sold ginger spoke in circumlocutions. If someone was listening, if someone was recording, that made proving what they were up to harder.

“It shall be done.” Pe

Kahanass recoiled from them. “Phew! What is that horrible stink?”

“Lighter fluid,” she answered in English. The Lizard evidently understood, for he didn’t ask her to explain. She went on, “It keeps the animals from smelling whatever else is inside. None of it got on whatever else is inside.” She opened a suitcase. “You can tell that for yourself, if you like.”