Catch the Lightning (7 page)

He blinked at me. “I hope not.”

“Althor, it was nice tonight.”

“It is not done by my people, that an adult take a child to bed.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Why you say nothing? I would never have done this had I known.”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“You sound older.” He shook his head. “When I saw that you had a young appearance, I thought you looked this way because you are small. It seemed charming that every now and then you sounded young. Now I find it is not you sounding young then, but remarkably mature the rest of the time.”

I blinked. “Thanks.”

He pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry. Next time I will go slower.”

Next time. Relief washed over me. So I hadn’t scared him off.

After that we lay quiet. I drowsed next to him, listening to his breathing as it deepened into the rhythms of sleep.

After my shower, I stood in front of the kitchen window, combing my hair. Water splattered out, cooling my skin and making dark spots on the glass. The sun had just risen and long shadows stretched across the vacant lot next door. The smog wasn’t bad yet; the day had a freshness to it, still new. Mounds of rubble cluttered the lot, which was strewn with boards the kids upstairs played with. An old Mustang rumbled by on the road, and a homely dog ran along the sidewalk barking at the dawn.

Turning, I saw Althor sleeping on his back, one leg hanging over the bed so that his foot rested on the ground. The pillow covered his head, leaving his mouth and nose visible. I laughed, not only because he looked funny but also because it was wonderful to wake up with him here.

I eased the strap of my blouse into place. It was my favorite outfit, worn especially for Althor, lacy, with patterns of roses and leaves. The skirt was rose hued, what Manuel had called “the color of a giggling white girl’s ass after you slapped it.” When I’d asked how he knew that about giggling white girls, and what was she giggling about with him anyway, and how come it was all right for him to do things that he would have threatened to put me in a convent for if I even thought them, he told me to go do my homework.

The electricity was still off, so I made two mugs of hot chocolate on the Sterno plate and carried them to the bed. I pulled the pillow away from Althor’s head. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

He grunted and pulled the pillow back.

I laughed, tugging it away again. “You have to wake up. I have an early shift today.”

He made a noise of protest. His eyes opened, leaving behind a gold shimmer.

“Hey,” I said. “Your eyes are doing that again.”

“Hmmm?” As he sat up, the gold retracted, showing his real eyes. “I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep.”

“You. konked out like a log.”

“A log?” He peered at the mugs. “That smells good.”

I gave him one. “Why does that gold cover your eyes?”

“It’s an inner lid. I don’t really need it.” He cradled the mug in his hands. “The sun on a planet my ancestors colonized was too bright, so they engineered the extra lid to protect their eyes. It comes down when I’m asleep. Or if I feel threatened.”

“How come you speak English better now?”

“I do?” When I nodded, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe it took a while to adapt to this archaic form.”

“Archaic?”

He smiled. “To me, what we’re speaking is archaic English. Perhaps my language mods integrated better with my other systems while I slept.”

I shifted my weight on the bed. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk about yourself as if you’re a computer.”

“I am a computer.” He took a swallow of chocolate. “With such an extensive biomech web, technically I’m not considered homo sapiens. Not human.”

I thought of the previous night. “You feel like a man to me.” When his expression warmed, it made me wish we could spend the morning in bed. To distract my thoughts, I said, “What does biomech web mean?”

He described the system he carried in his body. He had computer chips in his spinal cord, ones that worked on optics rather than electronics. Fiberoptic threads linked them to his sockets so he could jack into exterior systems like his ship. Other threads connected them to electrodes in his brain cells, letting the chips “talk” to his brain: send 1 and the neuron fired; send 0 and it didn’t. It worked in reverse, too, translating his thoughts into binary for his chips. Bioshells around the electrodes protected his neurons, and neurotrophic chemicals policed them, preventing and repairing damage.

A hydraulic system with motors and joint supports, all made from high-pressure bioplastics, enhanced his skeletal and muscular systems. It gave him two to three times the speed and strength of a normal human. A microfusion reactor powered it and his metal-alloy skin helped dump excess heat. The reactor was only a few kilowatts, though; his body couldn’t take the strain of anything more powerful.

“Sometimes, in combat mode, my natural brain does almost nothing,” Althor said. “Reflex libraries control my actions while my brain ‘watches.’” After a moment he added, “It can be unsettling.”

“It sounds so strange,” I said.

He smiled. Then he “moved.”

All he did was touch my shoulder. But it happened so fast I almost dropped the tray. His motion was smooth, but unnatural, as if a puppeteer tugged his arm. He tapped my skin, then drew his arm back to his side, all in a fraction of a second."

“Hey!” I grinned. “That’s cool. Do it again.”

Zip! In and out, he touched my shoulder.

I laughed. “Can all of you move that fast?”

“Yes. But it strains my natural skeleton. What I have of a natural skeleton.” A cloud passed over his emotions. He shook his head. “I try not to overuse the enhanced modes. They’re mainly for hand-to-hand combat.”

“You’re a gadget.” I let my gaze rove over his beautiful body. “I like gadgets.”

Althor laughed. “I’m glad.”

“But I don’t get it. Why not just put your brain in a machine, one that doesn’t mind a reactor with more power?”

“Who wants to be a brain in a robot?” He grimaced. “Can you see me walking into a diplomatic reception as an armored machine?”

I had to admit, it didn’t make for a reassuring image. “Won’t they wonder why you never showed up at that party?”

“No one knew I had leave from my squad. It came through after the delegation left. I never did find out what held it up.” He swung his legs off the bed. “The Allied president gave the reception in honor of my mother’s visit to Earth”

“The what president?”

“Allied. The President of the Allied Worlds of Earth.”

“There is no Allied Worlds of Earth. This is America.”

Drily he said, “Not the one I was expecting.” He picked up his wrist guards from the floor. “Is there a world government here?”

“The United Nations. But they aren’t really a government, not like in the FSA.”

“FSA?” He fastened a guard around his wrist, attaching it to his socket. “What is that?”

“Federated States of America.”

“Federated? Not United?”

“I never heard anyone call it that.”

He scooped his pants off the floor, then stood up and pulled them on. “Is LAX operating here? I might be able to get more information there.”

“Sure. We’ve got a lot of airports.”

“I meant the Los Angeles Interstellar Spaceport.”

I spread my hands. “Sorry. No spaceports.”

“Has your Earth colonized Mars yet? The moon?”

“No.”

He sat next to me. “And this is the twenty-fourth century?”

“Well, no. Today is April 23, 1987.”

“According to the Jag’s reckoning, it’s April 23, 2328.”

The overhead lamp suddenly came on, and the TV blared out the news. Jumping to his feet, Althor whipped a knife out of his boot. The blade flashed like lightning, throwing sparks of light over the walls.

“
¡Oiga!
” I jumped up and grabbed his arm. “It’s all right. The electricity just came on.”

When I touched him, he spun around and raised his knife, moving so fast the motion blurred. But he caught up with his reflexes before I had a chance to be frightened. For a moment he stood there, holding the knife over my head. Then he lowered his arift and turned to the TV where a weatherwoman was telling us today would be sunny, hot, and hazy.

“You okay?” I asked.

“When did you start this picture box?”

“I bumped it last night while I was getting the flashlight.” I went over and turned off the sound, leaving the picture. “I guess I hit the ‘on’ button.”

Althor slid his knife back into his boot. “I need to get back to my ship.”

I could guess what that meant. Despite what he had said about a next time, I doubted he would hang around. With his looks and connections, I figured he could have most any woman he wanted. I had no idea then just how true that was, but I would have had to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to realize at least part of it.

After being with Althor, I understood what my mother had meant when she said my father and she were the same. She told me his inner soul was as sweet as maize, that it brushed across her like the breath of an owl. She knew him by that touch the first time she saw him. She called it the
ch’ulel
and
chanul
, his inner soul and its animal spirit companion; Althor used words like neuroscience and quantum wave functions. Whatever names they gave it, I knew it was the same.

But my father had never come back.

In Nabenchauk, people lived in large families; elders, young people, married couples with children—all together in houses made from logs, saplings, and thatch, built much the way we had built houses for thousand of years, to withstand hurricanes and heat, grief and joy. But my family shrank over the generations, bleached of fertility for reasons none of us knew. I was the last, the sole survivor of a dying lineage. Usually I managed to suppress the loneliness, but after the previous night I knew it would be much worse if Althor left “Tina, I’ll come back.” He pulled me into his arms. “I just have to figure out what’s going on.”

I laid my head against his chest and slid my arms around his waist, seeking his mind. He was a rush of emotions: worry for his situation, desire for me, memories from a life more privileged than anything I had ever imagined. He was older than he looked, almost fifty. His loneliness made hollows, like empty aqueducts in the desert, so long dry that their sides were parched and cracked. Many women pursued him, but he rarely responded with more than casual interest. It wasn’t because he didn’t want more. His lovers left him with the same emptiness I had felt with my old boyfriend Jake. He wanted someone who could answer the touch of his mind. Someone like him.

Althor pulled me closer, murmuring in another language. We stood that way for a while, just holding each other.

Suddenly he went rigid. “That’s my ship!”

I pulled back. “What?”

“My ship.” He was staring at the television. It showed a blurry shot of what looked like an aircraft, though it was impossible to make out details.

Althor strode to the table and dropped to his knees, then poked until he found the volume control. A newscaster’s voice filled the room. “…craft found in orbit early this morning. The Anglo-Australian telescope took this picture when observers detected a change,in the scheduled operations of the space shuttle Challenger. The shuttle loaded the craft into its cargo bay and brought it into Yeager Military Flight Test Center in California. An unconfirmed source claims it is a hypersonic test plane with orbital capability that malfunctioned and had to be retrieved.”

“What the hell?” Althor grabbed at his side, at the waist—and pulled out part of his body.

I almost screamed. For an instant, I thought he had ripped his own flesh. But the rounded cube he held was solidifying into his transcom. On his right side, above the hip, a membrane was closing over a large socket.

“Oh, God,” I said. I had almost reached saturation for his strangeness.

He didn’t hear me. He was jabbing at the transcom, making , lights blink. “I can’t reach my Jag.”

“You think that plane they found is your ship?”

He looked at me. “They must know it’s no plane. They probably recognized its extraterrestrial nature right away.” He grimaced. “Gods know what they think. A Jag carries enough artillery to wipe out Los Angeles in a second.”

“Why would you bring a ship like that here?”

“I told you. I was going to a party.”

“You need a warship to cruise a party?”

“It’s part of me. I can’t just leave it home.”

“I thought it was hidden.”

“It is. Was.” He stood up. “It must be damaged worse than my tests detected. Otherwise it could easily have evaded capture by such primitive forces. But how could my diagnostics miss damage that serious? Only if it were deliberately hid—” He stopped and scowled. “It’s probably scared the holy hell out of your military. For all they know, I’m the advance scout of a hostile force.”

“You haven’t done anything hostile.”

“I left an armed warcraft spying on your planet.” He shook his ' head. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with.”

“What do you mean?”

“Worst-case scenario? They tamper too much with it and the ship detonates. Given the weapons and antimatter onboard, it could take a good chunk of California with it.”

I stared at him. “There must be something it can do.”

He paced across the room. “I’m hoping it was at least able to disguise itself. It could pass as a planetary shuttle without interstellar capability. Your military probably doesn’t yet realize how advanced it is.”

“What if you contact the base? Convince them you aren’t hostile.”

He stopped pacing. “The only way they’ll let me near the Jag is if I cooperate with everything they want.”

“Can’t you do that?”

“I would never willingly divulge information to your military or anyone else. Besides, they still wouldn’t let me go. They have no reason to trust me. Why should they?

I watched him uneasily. “What do you think they’ll do?”

“Move it to a more secure installation? But that would draw unwanted attention.” He considered. “Right now they’re probably searching for a mother ship. The longer it takes them to figure out no one is looking for me, the better.” He ran his hand through his hair. “If I were in charge at that base, I would make sure we learned everything we could about the Jag, as fast as possible. Capturing the pilot would be a top priority.