Footfall

Wes shook his head in confusion. Aliens in Kansas. “Why were you going to find Carlotta?”

“It’s a long story,” Jeri said. “Look, we were going west, getting out of Los Angeles, when we ran out of gas. I was afraid to stop anyone until I saw Harry Reddington—”

“Hairy Red? You know him?”

“Yes. He tried to help us, and when-when that didn’t do any good, he was trying to go help your wife, and he took us with him, only the aliens landed—”

“All right,” Wes said. “I can get the details later. Is Carlotta all right?’

“I don’t know. Something happened in Kansas. Something bad for the snouts, because first they were happy, and then all of a sudden our guards turned mean.”

“Snouts?”

“That’s what everyone calls them now.”

“Good name.”

He turned to the others. “Didn’t mean to ignore you. You must have a lot of questions?”

“Some,” the man said.

“Reckon the Lord will tell us what we have to know,” the woman added. She put a protective arm around the boy.

“John and Carrie Woodward,” Jeri Wilson said. “From Kansas, but they didn’t see any more of the war than I did. And Gary Capehart. They left his parents behind. We don’t know why. And that’s my daughter Melissa, and her friend there is Alice. What’s going to happen to us?”

“Good question. I wish I knew. What’s wrong with Alice?”

The redhead’s face was pressed tight into the wall padding, and her back was stiff. Jeri said, “She wouldn’t tell us her last name. She said a bomb hit Me

Carrie Woodward sniffed, loudly.

The voice came muffled. “Free wing.”

Wes said, “I beg your pardon?”

The small face turned halfway. “I was on the free wing. No locked doors. You know what that means? I wasn’t one of the really sick ones, okay?”

Wes said, “Pleased to meet you all. I was getting lonely.” He didn’t try to shake hands. None could have spared hand; they were all clinging to the dubious security of the wall rug. “Aren’t there others?”

“We thought so,” Jeri said. “But we haven’t seen any. Are you the only one alive from Kosmograd?”

“No, there are some Russians. The fithp-that’s what they call themselves, and you’ll have to learn their language-the fithp sometimes keep us together and sometimes separate us. There are a pair of them in charge of teaching us.”

“Teachin’ what?” Carrie Woodward asked. Her voice was filled with suspicion.

“Language. Customs. People, they will expect you to suiTender. Formally. Sooner or later Takpusseh or Raztupisp-Minz — one of our fi’ teachers will come here and expect you to roll over on your back, and he’ll put his foot on your chest. Don’t fight. He won’t crush you.”

“They already did that,” Melissa said.

Jeri laughed. “We were scared silly. But really, why would they wait till now? We’d just float away.”

“Once that’s done, they expect you to cooperate. Not just passively.”

“You mean they think we’re one of them now?” Melissa asked.

“Something like that,” Dawson agreed. He pointed casually to the large camera in one corner of the room. “They have no sense of privacy,” he said. “They watch us when they please.”

Jeri Wilson frowned.

John Woodward looked at the camera, then seemed to hunch into himself.

He doesn’t look good. Like Giorge did.

“It isn’t right,” Woodward said. His wife nodded agreement.

“Maybe, but that’s how it is,” Dawson said.

“Okay,” Jeri said. “So we learn to act like snouts—”

“And learn their language. Are you hungry?”

Melissa shook her head. Jeri said, “Hah! No.”

Alice said, “Oh,” and reached into her blouse and pulled out a big vitamin bottle. The pills were big too, and the label was a book’s worth of tiny print, listing thirty-odd vital nutrients and their sources: bee pollen, comfrey, dandelion, fe

“You raided a health food store?”

Alice said, “Yeah. They took me through a grocery and a health food store and made me point at things I thought we’d need. Any objections?”

“Not bloody likely.” He swallowed a fat pill with greenish flecks in it, dry. “There’s some food from the-Soviet station, and the fithp grow some things we can eat if you close your eyes first, but I’ve been worrying about vitamins.”

“What was it like?” Jeri Wilson asked. “You were on the space station—”

He told it long. It didn’t look like anything would interrupt them for a while.

“Your turn,” Dawson said.

Alice wasn’t eager to talk until she got started. “We were in the basement, along the walls. It was just like a tornado scare. They crowd all the patients in, in any order, mixed in with the orderlies. It’s the only time you see the ones on the locked wing.

Anyway, there was a terrific noise and some of the walls fell in. Anyone who could still stand up ran away screaming, even some of the orderlies. I just ran. I got into the zoo next door and hid in the mammal house, but there wasn’t any place to hide, really. James came in and I told him to go away, but he wouldn’t. When the horrors came in I thought some of the zoo animals had got loose.”

The aliens had moved through Topeka, through shattered buildings and corpses begi

“Hell, no, I didn’t get cigarettes either. Bad for you. I got some herb teas, though.” And when Dawson laughed she looked furious.

The images on the video screen faded. Raztupisp-minz continued to stare at it, as if that would bring meaning to what he had seen. Finally he turned. “What do you believe this means?” he asked.

Takpusseh’s digits flared.

“The Herdmaster will not be amused,” Raztupisp-minz hissed. He glanced at the camera in one corner. “Perhaps he has seen already.”

“His a

“Then how do the females control them?” Raztupisp-minz demanded. “It ca

“Much is possible,” Takpusseh sighed, “Forgive me, grandson, but you have seen only life aboard ship. You have never lived on a world rich with life.”

“They eat their own kind! And sing as they do! I do not care to live on such a world.”

“If that is what we saw,” Takpusseh said. “We must ask the prisoners.”

“Does Dawson speak well enough?”

“No. Nor do I know their speech so well. But Tashayamp does. She has been studying.” Takpusseh took a deep breath. Then another.

Raztupisp-minz did likewise. Pheromones filled his lungs. A sweet flavor.

“Grandson, you are my only relative,” Takpusseh said. “Leader of my family, I wish to speak with you.”

Raztupisp-minz backed away slowly, then settled to a crouch. He waited until Takpusseh was similarly postured. “Speak.”

“I wish you to carry winter flowers with me.”

“Ah. I have seen you grow stronger with new domains. I am glad, Takpusseh-but have you not waited overlong? The Time is upon the Sleeper Herd, and you are hardly able to be rational.”

“I know of no unmated Sleeper who would have me to mate. I speak of Tashayamp.”

“Ah. Of acceptable lineage, and competent in her work. Yes.” He let his voice trail to nothing, without a stop.