Нэнси Кресс - Tomorrow's Kin

Dr. Ahmed Rafat, geneticist. On staff at GlaxoSmithKline in London.

Penelope Hodgson, lab assistant. Housewife in Tempe, Arizona.

Dr. Ann Potter, physician. Retired from practice, living in Washington, DC.

Robert Chavez, lab assistant, working at the University of California at Berkeley.

Lisa Guiterrez, genetics counselor, changed her name to Lisa Garland, living and working in Chicago. She deeply regrets her involvement with the aliens, saying—

Marianne skipped to the last paragraphs.

Dr. Harrison Rice, immunologist and Nobel Laureate, living in New York City and working at Columbia University, reportedly on brain anomalies in mice.

Dr. Marianne Jenner, evolutionary geneticist whose son Noah was allegedly kidnapped by aliens, living in Barnsville, Ontario, Canada. She creates content for the JS Network, owned by Jonah Stubbins, which feeds pro-Deneb programs and speeches and scientific statistics to American television and the Internet around the globe.

How had they found her? And how much danger was she in now? God, she’d thought that was all over and done with. She hadn’t seen her children or grandchildren in two years, settling for Skype “visits” so that she didn’t lead murderous nut jobs to Elizabeth or Ryan or the kids. She lived in Canada with a false passport and visa, both courtesy of Stubbins’s huge and faintly illegal empire.

Maybe she needed yet another name, another passport, another place to live. Maybe she should leave the house right now and check into a motel. The article hadn’t included her alias. But maybe the motel clerk would recognize her picture. Maybe she was being incredibly paranoid.

No. Sissy was dead because Marianne had not been paranoid enough. If she hadn’t given those speeches for the foundation… No. No use thinking that way. It didn’t help.

She picked up her cell to call Jonah Stubbins. Ordinarily they had very little contact; working for the same goal had not made his fake-folksy persona any less grating. This, however, was not “ordinarily.” At least, over the phone she did not have to wonder if he was wearing any of his pheromone products, or if they were affecting her.

Before the call could go through, someone pounded on her door. “Marianne? Open up—I know you’re in there!”

Something was wrong with Daddy. Jason said so, but Colin knew it even before that. He didn’t need Jason to tell him everything! He wasn’t a baby.

“Daddy?” Jason said. Daddy sat in his big red chair with the tall back, Colin standing on one side of him and Jason on the other. Daddy hadn’t moved all morning, and when Colin had gone to bed last night, Daddy had been sitting in the chair just like that. He smelled bad. He looked straight at the wall so Colin looked at it, too, to see if maybe there was a spider on it. There wasn’t.

“Daddy!” Jason said again. Daddy didn’t look at him, even though Jason said it loud. Jason shook his arm, and then Daddy did look at him. “It’s lunchtime now.”

“Yes,” Daddy said.

Colin said helpfully, “We had cereal for breakfast.”

Jason put his face right up close to Daddy’s. “You have to make lunch now. We want soup. I’m not allowed to turn on the stove, remember?”

“Yes,” Daddy said, but at first he didn’t get up. Then, slowly, he pushed himself out of the chair and walked into the kitchen. He walked really slow, picking up his feet only a little bit.

Colin scampered after him. “Daddy, are you sick? You should go to bed if you’re sick.”

Daddy started to cry. He did it with no noise at all, just big fat tears rolling down his face. He still smelled bad. Colin got scared. But Jason said sharply, “Daddy! Lunch!”

Daddy heated the soup. Colin wasn’t very hungry, after all.

Marianne flung open the door to her bungalow; there was no mistaking that voice. Tim Saunders stood on the porch.

Marianne had not seen him since Albuquerque. Absolved of all charges, Tim had disappeared. He had not even thanked her or Stubbins for the high-priced lawyer or the car registered to one of Stubbins’s corporations. Stubbins had grunted, “Ungrateful bastard. And abandoning you—he’s interested mostly in keeping his own hide safe from the rest of them hate-mongers.” Marianne knew better. Tim had known that Marianne was safe under Stubbins’s professional protection, and the lack of thank-yous had not been ingratitude. Tim had disappeared into his grief for Sissy, and even the sight of Marianne would have been too much to bear.

Two and a half years had not changed him much. The long lean body stood in that same relaxed-alert way; the eyes in his tanned face burned just as blue. He was—what, now? Forty? Faint wrinkles at the corners of those amazing eyes, but only faint. “Marianne,” he said, and his voice had that same gravelly depth.

“How did you find me?”

“ Time magazine. The bastards. Are you okay? Can I come in?”

“I’m okay,” she lied.

“Uh-huh.” He shut and locked the door, prowled around the living room trying windows, glanced down the hallway of the little bungalow. “You can’t stay here.”

“Why? What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything, if you mean anything definite. But this place is about as secure as a gazebo.” He pronounced it “gays-bo,” and Marianne didn’t correct him. “You work for Stubbins, right? Why didn’t he give you a safer house?”

“I didn’t want a fortress. I don’t use my own name. We thought—Tim, do you really think those people who… that group from Albuquerque will come after me?”

“Well, four of them went to prison. But no, I don’t think they will. Might have trouble getting into Canada, anyway. But there are plenty of other alien-hate groups, even here. NCWAK is getting stronger all the time.

No Contact with Alien Killers. They were the one that had blown up Branson’s partly built spaceship.

Tim said, “You’re outed now and Stubbins ought to take better care of you.”

“I was just going to call him when you showed up.”

“And I’m the first to find you?”

“You are.”

He gave her his old grin, and something turned over in Marianne’s chest. No, God no, not after all this time.

Tim said, “You’re going to hire me for your bodyguard again. Or Stubbins is. I see the old son of a bitch brought out another perfume. Makes you want to like strangers.”

“Not exactly. But Tim, about the bodyguard issue—I don’t think—”

“You got any coffee, Marianne? I could use some coffee. I been driving up here fast and furious.”

Her cell rang: Stubbins. At the same time, a TV van pulled into the driveway. Instantly Tim was at the window, pulling the blinds closed, checking his holster.

“Marianne?” Stubbins said on the phone. “I just saw this damn article, and somebody’s head is going to roll ’cause I didn’t know about it before now. Looks like we need to move you again. And I think a bodyguard would be a good idea.”

Marianne closed her eyes. “Let’s talk about it, Jonah. But first, there’s something else I want you to do.”

“What’s that?”

She glanced at Tim. He was pulling open cupboards in the kitchenette, presumably looking for coffee, but Marianne knew he heard every word.

She said into the phone, “It isn’t just me who was named in that article. I want you to put a bodyguard on Harrison Rice, too. He won’t allow it, but you can get one to just sort of follow him around, right? He not only worked with the Denebs right up till the end, but he’s working now at Columbia on the hearing impairment in children. That’s a double reason for…” For what? Would someone really harm Harrison because he was trying to understand what had happened to a generation of kids? No. She was being paranoid. People’s thinking wasn’t that twisted.