Episode Four: Fire From Space: A space-suited killer test tests the forensic skills of Dr. Danielle Taylor.
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Fire From Space
California, May, 1956
“To Doc Taylor!” Sgt. Hill said, clinking the glass of bourbon in his long black hand with those of the four privates around the table. “Best damn medic in the whole damn Guard, and probably the damn regular Army!”“But—” Dani Taylor started to protest, but Hill wagged his finger at her. “Sergeant, I didn’t save Baker’s leg! It’s gone!”
“His whole body’d be gone if you hadn’t found the chemicals to kill that—that blob!” Private Pulaski thumped his gin and tonic on the nightclub table for emphasis. “Never seen anything like it, but you kept your cool and stopped it eating my buddy. From now on, anyone says a girl can’t be a medic answers to me!”
“Doc Taylor never loses her cool,” Private Clemente said, gesturing expansively with his cigar. “Look how she saved Roberts when the giant gila monster bit him.”
Not for the first time, Dani wondered what her parents would say if they saw her now. Sitting in a nightclub, dressed in fatigues, a medic like Grandfather. Being one of the guys instead of the ‘damn girl medic’ Col. Ankrum foisted on them. Then she pushed the thought away and raised her scotch. “Just be thankful the blob was only a foot across, a man-sized one would have been a lot harder to kill. And don’t forget, Duggan gave me the idea—where is he, anyway?”
“He has a dame, can you believe it?” Clemente said. The Nine Rings—the house band at the Tower of Mordor nightclub—started singing and he raised his voice. “I told him to bring her along, but she’s his first woman, and I think he’s puss—err, I mean, he decided not to.”
“The medic’s still a lady,” Hill said sternly. “Watch your language.” Dani congratulated herself on having learned not to show any outward shock at the platoon’s cussing. “Hell, she’s also a comic-book super-hero—”
“Strange Adventures isn’t a super-hero comic, sarge,” Pulaski said with infinite patience. “It’s not even science fiction, really, it’s like that ‘space realism’ Heinlein writes.”
“Oh, come on!” Hill said. “Do you honestly think Starship Soldiers is a realistic look at—”
A waitress tapped Dani on the shoulder as the guys began debating Heinlein’s vision of a war in space. “Are you Dr. Taylor, ma’am? I’ve a phone call for you.”
Dani crossed the dimly lit room, weaving between tables packed with soldiers, scientists and TSC agents. The phone was on the far side of the club from the band, which made it possible to hear over them singing that new song about heartbreak at a hotel. “This is Dr. Taylor.”
“Doc, you gotta help me.” It was Duggan’s voice, squeaky as if it had never completely broken. “I’m with my girl at the Gay Songbird—”
“That—passion pit? Duggan!” Silence on the other end of the line; Dani berated herself mentally. “I’m sorry, if you need help you know you have it, just ask.” Why am I saying that? What if she needs an abortion?
“I—I saw a spaceman walk into one of the cabins. He looked human at first, but just for a second, he changed—”
“Into what?”
“A—a guy in a spacesuit—I wanted to investigate but Lil—my girl, she’s hysterical. If you and the guys could come over, help me check it out, and if you could give her something? To calm her down?”
“Which cabin are you in?”
“Seventeen.”
“We’ll be there, don’t worry.” Dani hung up, strode back to the table, heedless of who she shoved past. All she could think about was the alien seed pods down in that one coastal town that had grown into people, replaced the entire population…
None of the guys hesitated when she told them, even though it was the first night off in a week and a half. Pulaski didn’t even joke about the bespectacled, oh-so-serious Duggan winding up at a motor court as notorious as the Gay Songbird. Within two minutes, he and the others, mindful of Eisenhower’s call for saving gas, had joined Dani in her Buick.
Pulaski gave directions, though Dani suspected most of the guys knew. Since the National Guard and the regional TSC branch had set up bases around the small town of Wind Song, the Gay Songbird had become the haven of choice for anyone with a roommate who didn’t want to make love in the back seat of their car. And in the middle of this desert, what the hell else is there to do?
It took less than ten minutes before the two cars screeched to a stop outside Cabin 17. Dani scrambled out and took her medical kit from the trunk. If there was one thing she’d learned from the past few years, it was to always be prepared.
“Oh, thank gosh!” Duggan raced out of the cabin in an undershirt and shorts. “It’s over at 24, I’ll go with you. Doc, Lily’s inside.”
“What did you see, private?” Hill said sharply, towering over the younger man. Dani paused at the doorway to listen. “Well?”
“Guy in—in a business suit.” Duggan swallowed nervously. “I was staring out the window, I saw him go into 24—and just in the doorway, he changed. The businessman disappeared like it was an illusion, there was someone in a—a spacesuit. All metal, like.”
“Too bad our carbines are back at base.” Hill drew his automatic; these days most Guardsmen went armed, even off-duty. “Remember procedure: Don’t assume it’s hostile, don’t act belligerent, but don’t forget, it only took one spaceman in Scotland to take over half the country. Now move!”
Dani opened the door to 17 and stepped inside. A good-looking redhead sat in the bed, sheets pulled up over her body, a cigarette quivering between long fingers with red-painted nails. “Who the hell are you? Where’s Peter?”
“He told you he was getting a doctor? I’m her.” Hearing the barely contained hysteria in the woman’s voice, Dani opened her kit fast and pulled out the tranquilizers, standard issue when the mere sight of a mutant sometimes gave civilians a nervous breakdown. “I’m going to give you something to calm you—”
“He said it was his platoon medic! You’re a woman! Peter! Peter!”
“I’m the first female medic in the National Guard.” Dani crossed to the sink, poured a glass of water for the pill.
“I don’t care who the hell you are, I don’t need any calming, I need to get out of here! My husband—”
“You’re married?” Dani spun around. “Does Duggan know?”
“Of course, he knows! Look, if this gets into the papers, if my husband finds out I’m seeing Peter—” She dropped the sheet, twisting around on the bed to show Dani a horrendous bruise on her ribs. “That’s what he did when I was late for dinner last week.”
“Jesus.” Dani handed the woman the valium and the glass, studying the bruise; it was lucky the blow hadn’t broken her rib. “Is that why Duggan called us and not the cops?”
“He said he could trust his buddies.” The woman’s eyes glanced from Dani to the pill as if deciding whether to trust her, then a yell of alarm rang out from across the motor court. Dani bolted out of the room, grabbing up her kit and drawing her grandfather’s revolver.
She saw lights go on in the other cabins, curtains drawn aside, a blond woman stepping outside number 21. Then she was at 24, forcing her way past Duggan—and stopped, unable to penetrate further into the heat and the smoke within.
The cinderblock back wall was gone, transformed into a pool of congealing slag. The slag had incinerated several pieces of furniture and half-buried the charred corpse that lay at the back of the cabin in the moonlight. Pulaski appeared on the far side of the hole and crouched down, squinting at the body, running a hand over his widow’s peak.
“Is it the alien?” Hill barked.
“I can’t say, sarge. Doesn’t seem to have any armor on, though.” He turned and studied the brush behind him. “Don’t see any sign of a trail, though.”
“We’d better go look,” Hill said. “Duggan, go back to your cabin, call headquarters, report what you saw and what we found. Then call the state police, we’ll probably need to bring them in on it. Doc—”
“Don’t do anything stupid, sergeant,” she said, glancing again at the corpse. “If it uses a heat ray in the scrub around here—”
“We’re not going to engage, just track. Okay soldiers, move it!”
“Doc?” As the men headed around and into the woods, Duggan nervously tapped Dani’s shoulder. “My girl—”
“I gave her a valium, that should be enough.”
“No, if the cops come—doc, I can’t let anyone find out she was here!” He grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging in with panicked strength. “Her—she’s married, and her husband, he’s a drunk and—”
“I saw what he did to her.” Dani pursed her lips. “I’ll take her home, as soon as the guys get back. You can have her wait in my car until then.” She could hear the sounds of cars starting up . “I don’t think anyone will find it strange she’s leaving.”
“Wow!” Dani turned back to the doorway; a well-endowed blonde in slacks, black sweater and cat’s eye glasses stood there staring inside. “What happened here?”
“Aliens, lady!” Dani grabbed her and forced her firmly away. “Stay back—for all we know, the ray weapon that did that was radioactive.”
“Good point.” The woman wasn’t disturbed by the sight of the corpse, but dead bodies weren’t as unfamiliar to Americans as they used to be. “I’ll check the front office, see if the manager knows who was staying here.”
“And I’ll go call the cops,” Duggan said. “I guess I have to stay, right?”
“’fraid so, kid.” Dani lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, staring into the smoke. Pulaski’s right, it doesn’t look like the body’s wearing armor…But if that’s not the spaceman, why would an alien sneak into a motel court in disguise just to murder one man?
(continued on page 2)