Matthew Reilly - Area 7

He saw Selexin duck inside it, and then the policeman

appeared in the doorway, his hand outstretched.

"Come on!" he was yelling.

Swain heard the creature slide around the corner behind

him.

He kept running, kept holding Holly to his chest. He

was breathing very fast now. He was sure he was running too

slowly. He could hear the creature's snorting grunts close

behind him. Any second now it would be all over him, ready

to pluck his daughter--the only family he had left--right from his very arms ...

"Come on!" Hawkins called again.

Behind him, Swain heard the creature's tail slam

against a bookcase, heard the sound of books crashing to the

floor. Then suddenly, he was at the door and he reached for

Hawkins' outstretched arms and Hawkins grabbed his hand

and hurled him and Holly inside the stairwell just as Selexin

slammed the big door shut behind them.

Selexin turned, breathless, exhilarated. "We made it--"

Bang!

The door behind him shuddered violently.

Swain lifted himself up from the floor, gasping for air.

"Come on."

They were a whole floor up the stairwell when they

heard the door to the Stack bang open with a loud bone-jarring crack!

INCOMPLETE--6

Swain frowned at the wristband. He'd missed the arrival of

the last two contestants. Now there was no knowing where

the next--and last--contestant would enter the library.

No knowing when the Presidian would begin.

The group had left the stairwell and were now hiding in an office on the Lower Ground Floor--a partially underground half-floor which on days opened via a side entrance onto 42nd Street. Like all the other offices around it, this one was partitioned by waist-high wood paneling with glass reaching the rest of the way up to the ceiling. Everyone was careful to stay low, out of sight, below

the glass.

Swain had found a directory of the library attached to

the wall of the stairwell and wrenched it free. He was looking

at it now while Selexin sat behind the desk, quietly explaining

their situation to Hawkins. Holly was sitting on the

floor nestled up to Swain, holding him tightly, sucking her

thumb. She was still a little shell-shocked by their close encounter

with the big creature downstairs.

The directory showed a cross-section of the library. Five

floors--three above ground, two below--each a different

color. The two sub-levels below the Ground Floor were both

shaded gray and stamped with the label no public access.

The others were brightly colored:

THIRD FLOOR --MAIN READING ROOM,

EDNA BARNES SALOMON ROOM

SECOND FLOOR --ORIENTAL DIVISION

SLAVIC & BACK DIVISION

GROUND FLOOR --ASTOR HALL ST. AVE ENTRANCE

Matthew Reilly

LOWER GROUND FLOOR

COAT CHECK

LIBRARY SHOP; EXHIBIT--FORUM CONVENTION CENTER

LIBRARY OFFICES, 42ND ST. ENTRANCE

Swain remembered the enormous Reading Room up on

the top floor with its sea of desks. He tried to memorize the

rest. Small blue squares picturing a stick-man and woman

indicated toilets on every other floor. Another blue square,

with a car pictured in it, filled one half of the Lower Ground

Floor. The parking lot.

He checked his wristband again.

INCOMPLETE--6

Still 6." Good.

He looked over at Selexin and the policeman, and shook

his head in wonder.

That young cop was lucky to be alive. It had been only

blind luck that had led Swain to his rescue--an instant when

he, Holly and Selexin had been descending the main stairwell

and seen a long shadow stretch out onto the landing below

them.

They had watched from the shadows above as the creature --Selexin said its name was Reese--stepped slowly into view, accompanied by its guide. It stopped on the landing, seemed to examine the floor with its snub dinosaurlike snout, and then peered down the stairwell.

Then it had slithered quickly down the stairs.

Something had caught its attention.

Curious, they had followed it down into the Stack and

seen it weave purposefully in and out of the bookshelves for

several minutes--stalking something, leading it on. It was

only at the last moment that Swain had ventured out into the

furthermost aisle to actually see Reese's quarry--a lone policeman,

trapped in the corner.

Contest 503

He'd moved instantly--stopping only for a piece of last-minute advice from Selexin: avoid all eye contact with Reese's antennae.

And so they had met Hawkins.

Swain turned to Selexin. "Tell me more about Reese."

"Reese," Selexin said. "Well, for one thing, Reese is, in

human terms, female. Her tail tapers sharply to a point, like

a spear. Males of her species possess only blunted tails. This

is because in their clans, the female is the hunter, and her

chief weapon is her sharp pointed tail.

"Did you see, when Reese was moving in on your new friend here," Selexin nodded to Hawkins, "that her tail was

poised high over her body, in a large arc, pointing forward?

And he couldn't move an inch.

"That is why I told you not to make prolonged eye contact

with her antennae. Any extended visual contact with them will cause instant paralysis. Just like it did with him."

Selexin gave Hawkins a look. "That is how Reese hunts. You

look at her antennae for too long and you suffer hypnotic

paralysis, and--bang!--before you know it, she's got you

with that tail. Right through the brain."

The little man smiled. "I would say she bears a rather

strong resemblance to the female of your own species, aggressive and instinctive. Wouldn't you say?"

"fey," Holly said.

Swain ignored the remark. "Tell me more about her

hunting methods. Her stalking methods."

Selexin took a breath. "Well, as you no doubt observed,

Reese has no eyes. For the simple reason that she

does not need them. She comes from a planet surrounded

by opaque, inert gases. Light cannot enter their atmosphere,

and the inert gases are impervious to any chemical

change. Her race has simply adapted over time to utilize

and enhance their other senses: increased auditory acuity,

sensitive ampullae for detecting the distressed heartbeat of

frightened or wounded prey, and, most of all, a highly

evolved scent detection mechanism. In fact, I would say that

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Matthew Reilly

her sense of smell is her most well-developed hunting tool."

"Wait a second," Swain said, alarmed, "she can smell us?"

"Not now. Reese's sense of smell has a very limited

range. No farther than, say, a couple of feet."

Swain breathed in relief. Hawkins did, too.

"But within that range," Selexin went on, "her sense of

smell is incredibly astute."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Selexin said, "that the manner by which she

detected him,"--Selexin pointed roughly at Hawkins--"was

by his scent."

"But I thought you said her range wasn't that good.

How could--"

Swain cut himself off. Selexin was waiting for him

again, giving him an expectant "are-you-finished?" look.

"That is correct," Selexin said, "in a way. You see,

Reese didn't smell him. What she smelled was the scent he

left behind. Do you remember when Reese first came into

our view in the stairwell? She bent low and sniffed the

floor?"

Swain frowned. "Yeah ..."

"Footprints," Selexin said. "A trail not long cold. With

any fresh trail like that, Reese doesn't need to smell anything

beyond two feet, because she just follows the scent of

the trail itself."

"Oh," Swain said.