Species II (34 page)

“Mr. Gamble, I distinctly remember telling you to lie down in the back.”

Laura and Press turned in time to see a pretty woman in a paramedic’s uniform hurry up to Dennis and tug on his arm. He came out of the seat willingly, but with a decidedly exaggerated limp that made Press roll his eyes. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Right away.” Behind the woman’s back Dennis winked at his two friends, then slipped his arm around her and found a snug hold on her waist as she led him to the rear of the Med Evac.

“Once a letch, always a letch,” Press said wryly.

“Oh, he’s not that bad.” Laura hesitated, then glanced at Press. “Is he?”

“I sure wouldn’t put my money on it,” Press retorted. The chopper’s engine hummed to life and Press and Laura ducked and hurried out from under the blades. A few seconds later it lifted off and they saw Dennis waving happily from the rear window as the chopper flew away into the sky.

Something snapped faintly behind them. Press and Laura turned and saw the flag over by the main house, the red, white and blue rolling proudly in the air currents stirred up by the helicopter’s departure.

EPILOGUE

“I
t’s certainly a funeral befitting a hero,” Laura said.

Press, Laura and Dennis were standing on a hill overlooking Arlington National Cemetery. Their view of the ceremony below was perfect and they could see everything—the full-dress detail for the twenty-one-gun salute, the high-security private box containing the President and First Lady, the rows of dignitaries and military men who’d come to pay their last respects. No doubt the Pentagon Three generals were down there somewhere as well, sitting with hands clasped and bland expressions while their devious little brains cooked up some other nasty trick to play on John Q. Public.

“You sound a little bitter,” Dennis said. He shifted on his crutches, trying to get comfortable. He still wasn’t used to the pressure under his armpits.

Laura stared at the service below. “He murdered a lot of women. He even killed his father.”

“No,” Press said. His voice was sharp, perhaps a bit more than he intended. He put a hand on her arm to take away the sting of his tone. “The alien part of him did those things, not the human part. You taught me that, remember? What’s remembered today is the human part, the man who went up and walked on Mars—”

“—because his country told him to,” Dennis finished for him.

Laura watched the ceremony for a few more seconds, then finally nodded. “You’re right, of course. All this,” she waved a hand around her, “all these people and the graves here—so
many,
it’s all a big . . .
monument
to the things that might have been. When you think about it, it’s just heartbreaking.”

“You’re wrong,” Dennis said quietly. Press and Laura looked at him questioningly. “It’s
necessary.
Just like
we’re
necessary. There are people like Patrick, who get noticed and commended for their bravery, and there are people like all the rest of the men and women in these graves who don’t. People like
us.
This monument, as you called it, is for all of us, whether we’re seen or not—because we’re the ones who give our all to keep our country, and sometimes the world, safe.”

Press’s hand found Laura’s and he squeezed it as Dennis’s dark gaze paused on them before he lifted his face to the sun, and the sky, and all the unseen things beyond.

“No matter where the attackers come from.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Y
VONNE
N
AVARRO
lives in a western suburb of Chicago and is the author of the original
Species
novelization. Since her first published story in 1984, her short fiction has appeared in over fifty publications.
Species II
is her sixth novel, with the most recent two being
Final Impact
and
Aliens: Music of the Spears.
Other past projects include the novels
deadrush
and
AfterAge
and the reference work
The First Name Reverse Dictionary. Red Shadows,
a follow-up to
Final Impact,
will be published in November 1998. She yearns for heat and sun, and plans to fix this problem by relocating to Arizona.