Larry Niven - Footfall

Dawson waited for more, but there was no more. He rolled Side, convulsively, groaning with the pain of damaged ribs.

“Now you belong to the Traveler Herd,” Takpusseh said in his own speech. He saw Dawson take it in and relax somewhat. Dawson moved to join the other prisoners. “Is the black one dead?” Takpusseh asked. “What killed him?”

The one called Dmitri answered in the fithp speech. “Fear you. Fear foot make dead. Take him out?”

Takpusseh summoned the warriors. Two came down and moved the black man onto the platform. It rose. It descended to take the fithp up one by one. Takpusseh went last.

The house had belonged to Carlotta’s grandmother. Trujillo had married Castro had married de Alvarez, families whose names were respected when the Lowells and Cabots were field hands. Carlotta’s sister Juana had inherited the house. She married a man with the unlikely name of David Morgan.

Of course Dawson wasn’t exactly in our conquistador heritage either. Carlotta lay in the exact center of the big four-poster and tried to count the spots on the ceiling. Thoughts came unbidden.

Her superb imagination showed her a torn puffball of a corpse, dry and brittle, falling through vacuum and the savage sunlight of space. A dissection table with monstrous shapes around it. A carved corpse, the parts arrayed on a silver platter, surrounded by cooked plants of unearthly shape; voices chittering or booming as the banquet began.

No! She leaped from the bed. The floor creaked as she scurried across the room to the door. The house was old, begun as a ranch house before the Civil War, added to as family required and money enabled. It had been built in clumps, and not all the additions fitted well together, although Carlotta rather liked the general effect. Now it had only four inhabitants, Carlotta, David, Juana, and an ancient housekeeper from Xuahaca who called herself Lucy. Juana’s children had long moved away.

And Sharon is in Peterborough , New Hampshire . Will I ever see her again? Thank God the telephones worked long enough for me to tell her to stay there. How could she travel?

Bright sunlight flooded the ball outside her bedroom, and when she reached the kitchen the windup clock said it was midafternoon. Lucy had put away the gin bottle. Or did I finish it to get to sleep? There should be some left in it. She went to the cabinet, but she felt Lucy’s disapproving stare.

“Desayuno, Senora?”

“Gracias, no. Por favor, solamente cafe.” And damned right I’m going to sit on the patio in my housecoat. Who’s going to see me, or care if they do?

The patio was too large. When Carlotta had visited as a child, the gardens were famous through the state. Pumpkins, melons, vegetables-all won prizes at county and state fairs. Now there was a big flagstone patio where the melon patch had been, and a field of sweet peas where celery and chard had grown. No gardeners. Plenty of people unemployed, but no one wants to raise vegetables for a retired professor and his wife. But it does make a nice patio. She sat at the big wrought-iron table. Lucy was setting the coffee down when the thunder began.

Thunder from a clear sky was not unheard of in Kansas , but this didn’t come in claps and die away. It rolled in and stayed, renewed itself, grew louder and faded and grew louder still.

Then brilliant points were drawing straight white lines across the sky, sowing clouds of dots that drifted away to west and south. Lucy whimpered in terror, and the need to reassure the older woman kept Carlotta calm. Invasion. Parachutes. What came for Wes has come for me. But nothing showed directly overhead. Not here. Not yet, anyway.

“Carla,” a voice spoke from behind her.

“Yes, Juana?”

“What is happening?” The noise had brought her sister outside. Juana Morgan held a small transistor radio that poured out static as she frantically turned the tuning knob this way and that.

For once you will not look disapprovingly at me in my housecoat in mid-afternoon. “Vapor trails, I think, Perhaps the professor will know.”

“He went to town to buy newspapers.” Juana paused. “And more gin.”

“Ah.” Carlotta shrugged, and glanced significantly at Lucy. “They’re not coming here,” she said. “Miles away. Not to Dighton, either.”

“Are you sure?” Juana demanded.

“Yes.” How the hell can I be sure? And what could we do about it if they were coming here, or to Dighton? It’s ten miles to Dighton, and David has the only damned car—

“David didn’t think they’d come, either,” Juana said. “But his

National Guard colonel wanted to mobilize. Maybe that’s where David is! With the Guard.”

“Could be.” What good is that? Bunch of old men with worn out equipment… Wes always voted for bigger appropriations for the Guard, but nobody was really pushing it.

“Lucy, perhaps it would be well to get out the candles and the storm lanterns,” Juana said.

“Si.” Lucy shuffled away, still glancing up at the sky and looking away in fear.

“Give her something to do and she bears up well,” Carlotta said. She stared at the open work of the tabletop. “I wish I had something to do.”

“So do I.”

Carlotta nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t approve of me as a houseguest either.”

“It’s as much your house as mine,” Juana said. “I haven’t forgotten how much you and Wes loaned us.” She sat across from Carlotta. “Hell, get smashed every night if that’s what it takes. You really loved the guy, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Still do.”

“Sorry—”

“You don’t know he’s dead.”

“No.” There was another peal of thunder. Juana shuddered. “I wish it had happened to me.”

Carlotta frowned.

“I mean, that it had been David up there. Instead of Wes. Damn. That sounds horrible. I mean-well, you’re really in love with Wes. It’s breaking you up. I’d miss David; we’re very comfortable together, but-well, I wouldn’t be like you. I hate to see you like this, Carla. You were always the strong one—”

“Yeah. I sure look it, don’t I. Oh damn, Juana, damn, damn, damn, what am I going to do?”

Juana looked up at the dot-filled skies and shuddered.

The motorcycle was intact. Harry looked around furtively. No sign of the enemy. He lifted the motorcycle and stood it on its stand.

The saddlebags with his gear had vanished. They’d taken them along with Jeri and Melissa—

God damn the bastards! Harry cursed steadily until he had control of himself. Then he felt ashamed. Cursing wouldn’t change the situation. He’d lost two women he was supposed to protect. The fact that he couldn’t have done anything about it didn’t help much.

He felt a lump in his pocket. The little .25 Beretta was still there. They hadn’t bothered to search him. He thought about that for a moment, then began to search the wheat field. Sure enough, a blue-gray object was just visible in the wheat. The .45 automatic, with dirt in the barrel. One of the invaders must have flung it aside.

Why the saddlebags, then? Clothes? Jeri’s and Melissa’s clothing. Which means they’ll be keeping the girls. Why take them and not me? But there was no answer to that.

The motorcycle started easily enough. It hadn’t been damaged at all. He heard noises ahead. The Invaders were still in Logan . Harry cleaned out the barrel while he felt something stir in his guts, but then he shook his head. It would be pointless. The Invaders wore body armor. His pistol hadn’t done him any good at all when there were only a few of them. Charging into Logan to rescue Jeri wouldn’t do Jeri any good. She might not even be there any longer.