"We all know how freakin' stupid these things are, but I'm surprised that in all your encounters the enemy never has any luck." "I wonder about that myself sometimes," Fly ad- mitted. "I wouldn't bet on my survival in most of these situations, but Arlene and I seem very hard to kill. That's why we're certain to be put back on a strike team." "What helped us that time," I continued, "was that a bunch of pumpkins were in the vanguard of our pursuers." "Oh, yeah," said Mulligan. "Your name for those crazy flying things. I remember your stories about how the pumpkins and hell-princes hate each other." "We learned that on Deimos," Fly contributed. "While the pumpkins and hell-prince wasted each other's time, we prepared the bazooka for the hell- prince. Between the pumpkins and us, we took him down. Which only left us with the problem of being surrounded by half a dozen deadly spheres. Fly and I used another trick that worked on Deimos: we stood back-to-back, and each of us laid down fire in a 270- degree sweep. That created the ingredients for a very large pie." "So then you checked out the contents of the truck." "Like I said, it was gun nut heaven. We did a quick inventory and took what was easiest to get at." Fly remembered a grim moment. "I opened one box expecting to find ammo, but it was a case of books defending the Second Amendment. I even remember the title, Stopping Power by J. Neil Schulman. The stopping power I needed right then could not be provided by book pages." "I had a moment of frustration, too," I said. "I found the shipping form. It showed that the most inaccessible box contained a number of specialized handguns, including one I'd always wanted. There simply wasn't enough time to unload the truck." "What was the specialized gun?" asked Mulligan. "Watch out," Fly warned him, but it was too late. The master gun had asked the question. "It's a Super Blackhawk .357 Magnum caliber sidearm. Looks like an old western six-gun, but there the resemblance ends. The only drawback used to be that it didn't conceal well, with its nine inch barrel. But in today's world that's no problem! Who needs to conceal weapons any longer? Anyway, you can knock something over at a hundred yards with this gun, but it helps to have a scope. Best of all, the Blackhawk has a transfer bar mechanism. If you have a live round under the hammer and strike it with a heavy object, it won't discharge. Isn't that cool? But that's not all--" "Arlene." Distantly I heard Fly's voice. "That's probably enough," "But I haven't told him about the cylinder. It doesn't swing out so as to empty the spent shells. All you have to do is flip open the loading gate, push the ejection rod--" "Arlene." Fly was using one of his very special tones of voice. "Okay, okay," I surrendered. "Where was I? Well, we were checking out our little candy store, but we didn't have much time." "So you hot-wired the truck?" Mulligan guessed. "Hey, who's telling this story? The same good luck that provided us with a UPS weapons shipment left the key in the ignition and enough gas in the tank to get us to the airport. Who knows what happened to the driver? His ID was still on the dashboard--some poor bastard named Tymon. Maybe he was zombified and went looking for work at the post office. Anyway, we hauled ass and made it to the airport in record time." Fly jumped back in. "Where I would have paddled Jill on her posterior, except that Arlene thought that might be misunderstood. Besides, I could only be so angry with someone who had probably saved our lives." "The force field was still down," I continued. "I was surprised. Enough time had passed for them to put it up again, but we were not fighting the greatest brains in the universe. Ken seemed relieved that half his work was done." "Half?" asked my burly audience. "Sure. Ken had been busy while he waited for us to show up. He'd tapped into the system with an idea that turned out to be very helpful." "So what was Jill doing all this time?" he asked. "We took off. She didn't want to wait any longer, especially now that we could see imps and zombies piling into other planes so they could pursue us." "Jesus," said Mulligan. "According to what you told me before, Jill had done okay; but it takes a lot more than not cracking up a plane to survive a dogfight." "Jill was thinking along those lines herself," I said. "I tried to cheer her up by reminding her of the skill levels of the typical imp and zombie. As it turned out, it didn't matter. No sooner was Jill out past the shore than Ken solved the problem he'd been working on. He raised the force field just in time to swat the enemy planes out of the air like flies." "Hey," said my best buddy. "As a bonus, Ken hosed the password file so they wouldn't be able to lower the field and follow us. We realized we could actually relax for a while. Good practice for our time with you, George." "Now, that part I believe," said the master gun. 5 "Outstanding mission," was Mulligan's ver- dict. "You two are a credit to the Corps." "You've done all right yourself," I returned the compliment. "Thanks, Fly," he said. Meanwhile Arlene took a break from our company, and from the extended trip down memory lane. She ran into the surf. I shielded my eyes against the glaring sun to watch her precise movements. Nice to see her using her physical skills for fun instead of taking down demons. The ocean beckoned me, too. Mulligan gave it a pass. As I watched Arlene's trim body darting in and out of the waves like a sleek dolphin, I marveled for the hundredth time that we were alive and together in a setting untouched by doom. After wading in a literal ocean of alien blood, I felt clean again in the cool ocean water. I discovered scratches and cuts and abrasions I didn't even know I had as the salt water caressed my body. Swimming stretched muscles that weren't often used in battle. I felt truly alive. Arlene was as playful as a kid as she waved and challenged me to catch up with her. I obliged. Time for upper body strength and a longer reach to help me in my hour of need. I poured it on and moved so swiftly that my hand found her smooth ankle before she could get away. My buddy, my fellow warrior who was as good a man as any other marine, had delicate little feet! Not like those of any other PFC of my acquaintance. The admiral could have slapped together a World War II poster with Arlene's picture and a caption: "This is what you're fighting for." We were soldiers in what might prove to be the last battle of the human race. But I liked a human face to remind me why I fought. We splashed each other and played so hard that I swallowed a mouthful from Davy Jones's locker. And I kept finding excuses to touch the smooth skin of my buddy. There had been a subtle change between us after Albert came into her life, though. I wasn't going to try to come between them. Just as I had steered clear of Arlene and Dodd, until her boyfriend unwillingly joined the zombie corps-- beast all you can be. She and Albert both deserved whatever chance for happiness they could grab. We were marines. We didn't need to volunteer for the crazy suicide missions. We were assigned to them as a matter of course. This vacation wasn't going to last. Looking toward the beach, I saw that Mulligan had finished his beer and returned to HQ. He wasn't the type to sunbathe on purpose. "What time is it?" asked Arlene, pausing only long enough to spit salt water in my direction. I made a big deal of lifting my left arm to show off my brand-new plastalloy wristwatch, spaceproof and waterproof. I checked the time. "According to the best naval time, it's late afternoon." "Teatime." "Just about," I answered. "You know, it was about this time last week when they took the bandages off Albert's eyes." "He beat them," she said, suddenly very serious, and I was with her all the way. No damned imp with a lucky fireball had succeeded in blinding our big Mormon buddy. I was still pissed that Bill Ritch had been killed in similar circum- stances on Deimos. Well, the bastards didn't have any of Albert. The L.A. mission had turned out to be a mortality-free operation. Hell, we'd even rescued Ken Estes when the man could do nothing to help himself. The docs had him sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas instead of mummy wrappings, and he could talk again. A bona fide miracle. Then it was Albert's turn. "Fly," said Arlene, up close all of a sudden. "Yeah?" "You're a great guy," she said, and kissed me on the cheek. She could always surprise me. "What brought that on?" I asked. "You care about Albert," she said softly. "You care about Jill and Ken, too." I shook my head. "Don't think that way," I told her. "You can't relax into--" She put her hand over my mouth. It was her turn again: "You're not the only marine who can make command decisions. Soon the only people left in the world will have the will to sacrifice their loved ones if that's what it takes to defeat the invaders. Meanwhile, we can care for one another." "You're not describing civilians," I said coldly. She started swimming for the shore, but then turned back, treading water, and completed my edu- cation: "There are no civilians any longer, Fly. Every survivor is a soldier in this war." I gave her that point. After all, she hadn't said everyone was a marine. I could accept the idea that all terrestrial life-forms had volunteered for grunt duty on the front line. The whole planet was the front line. Floating on my back for a moment, I let Arlene's words wash over me. The heat of the sun and the cool of the water threatened me with sleep. We hadn't had very much of that in the past month. I'd always been naturally buoyant, but I wasn't going to risk taking a doze in the ocean. It would be funny if a guy who had survived spider-minds and steam demons drowned a short distance from his best buddy. I swam to shore, where Arlene was waiting for me, pointing to something behind me. I looked around and for a moment thought she was referring to the cloud the admiral had noticed earlier, but it had vanished. She was interested in the black fin a hun- dred yards away from us. "There's someone for your terrestrial army," I said. At the time I thought it was a shark. "Do you think we'll ever get Jill to eat seafood?" she asked. "I doubt it. Speaking of Jill, let's check up on her." I'm lonely. I'm bored. I thought when we got to Hawaii I'd find some kids my own age. Everyone here is either an adult or a little kid. Some of them don't even call me Jill. They call me "the teenager." At first they made a big fuss. The admiral gave me a medal. They were short on the real thing, so he used some old golf ribbon he'd won years ago, but it meant a lot to him, so I was polite. I was uncomfortable at the way everyone looked at me, but it was still kind of nice. The pisser was, no one would get off my age after that. Except for Dr. Forrest Ackerman. He was probably crazy, but he was nice to me. "You're a genius," he kept repeating. "I prefer the company of geniuses." He looked like Vincent Price from an old horror movie, complete with neat little mustache. I might not have remembered that movie except that the doctor considered himself a monster expert. "Let the others call them 'the enemy,'" he said, winking. "They're more comfortable with the old language. 'The enemy' refers to something human. We face principalities and powers. We're monster-fighters." I had no idea what he meant by principalities and powers, but at least he didn't talk down to me. There were a dozen computer jobs I could have taken now that I was a big hero; but I chose to work with Ackerman. For one thing, he'd asked me to. His research was interesting, and there was a lot I could do for him. I didn't mind his interest in me, especially if I was going to be an assistant. But I didn't like the way he kept asking about the others. Albert, Fly, and Arlene had lots of military stuff to keep them busy. Ken was recovering in the hospital; whenever we talked, he tired out quickly. "There is every indication that Ken is also a genius," Ackerman said, smiling. "At least he's unwrapped." "What do you mean?" "I was, uh, making a joke. He looked like a mummy when we rescued him from the train. When I look at him now, I think of a ... mummy." "Yes, yes," he replied. "You and Ken were worth the sacrifices the others made." "They were very brave." "Normal specimens," he said to himself. People who talk to themselves are overheard some- times. "What do you mean?" I asked. He looked up from his clipboard and blinked at me through his heavy black-rimmed glasses. "Sorry. I'm spending too much time in the lab. I only meant that if the human race is going to survive, we must harvest all of our geniuses." I'd been called a genius ever since I was a kid. Sometimes I got tired of it. "What's a genius?" I asked. He had a quick answer. "Anyone who can think better than his neighbor." "There must be a lot of geniuses, then." He smiled. "Don't be a smart aleck or I won't show you my collection." I'd always found it hard to shut up. "How do you know who's so smart?" He placed a fatherly hand on my shoulder. I didn't hold that against him. He had no way of knowing I wasn't looking for a dad. "Jill, the military keeps records. Sometimes I think it's all they're really good at doing. If your military friends had unusually high IQs or other indications of special mental attributes, we'd know." "I thought a lot of records were lost during the invasion." He laughed. It didn't sound as if he was enjoying a joke. "You should be a lawyer." "No, thanks." "This base had thorough documents on military personnel of all the services before Doom Day." "Doom Day?" "That's what we're calling the first day of the invasion. By the way, I notice you're trying to change the subject. You are a genius, Jill. You might find it interesting that your last name, Lovelace, is the same as that of Augusta Ada King Lovelace, an English mathematician who has been called the world's first computer programmer." It was amazing how much trivia Ackerman carried in his head. While we were talking, I followed him into the largest laboratory I'd ever seen: an under- ground warehouse they'd allowed Dr. Ackerman to turn into his private world. Clearance was a cinch: he ran the lab. I wanted to get him off the subject of my friends. The way he talked about them made me uncomfort- able. They'd been sort of ignoring me lately. At least that was how it felt. I didn't want to be disloyal to them when I was already pissed off. I wasn't a rat. Besides, maybe they were purposely giving me time to be alone. Arlene had said I could really be a pill when I was in one of my moods. Well, why shouldn't I be? Albert and Arlene had a thing for each other. When they were like that they didn't want anyone else around, not even Fly. But lately Arlene was spending more time with Fly. They had this really gross brother-sister kind of thing going. When I first met them, I thought there might be something else between them. I quickly learned that was no way. 'Course I thought that might open the door for me to sort of find out if Fly would see me as anything other than a dumb kid or a computer geek. That went nowhere fast. No one can make me feel like a kid quicker than Fly Taggart. "I don't care that civilization has almost col- lapsed," he told me one time when I let him see me dressing, or undressing--I forget which. "I have my own rules," he said. "My own personal code of conduct. A kid your age shouldn't even be thinking about such things. Now cut it out!" He said a lot more, but I tuned him out. Lucky for him that his personal code was exactly the same as that of other adults. He called it the "your actions" principle, or the YA rule for short. Fly was just like all the other adults I'd known, except that he was a better shot. A full-grown man is telling me what I shouldn't be thinking about. Typi- cal! At least Dr. Ackerman didn't do that to me. But I sure didn't want him to pump me about my marine friends. I didn't want to tell him that I think Fly would rather fire a plasma rifle than make love to anyone. My opinion's none of Ackerman's business. I didn't want the doc to know that I'd rather be a scientist than a marine. That's probably no big secret. I don't want ever, ever, ever to be a marine. I hate the haircuts. 6 "You'll find this fascinating, Jill," Dr. Acker- man promised as he led me to a massive table covered by a gigantic plastic sheet. About the only thing missing was an electrical machine buzzing and zap- ping from one of the old movies. "There are too many of them to be defeated by firepower!" He sounded like the president of the Council of Twelve from the Mormon compound. But he didn't go on to talk about the power of prayer. "After what your friends told us, we must face the reality of an unlimited number of these creatures. The bio-vats witnessed by Taggart and Sanders--" "That was before I met them." "Yes, we were briefed, you know. They saw those vats in space--on Deimos, to be exact. The aliens can replace their creatures indefinitely, and they keep improving their models. So . . ." Ackerman had a great sense of the theatrical, playing for an audience that was only me. Reminding me of a stage magician, he reached out with both hands and yanked the big sheet off the thing on the table. Large pieces of steam demon were spread out on a heavy slab. The table had to be very strong to support the weight. "It's not rotting?" I said, blurting out the first words that came into my head. "They don't decay naturally. The zombies decom- pose, of course, because of their original human tissue." He slipped a pair of surgical gloves on and prodded the red side of the big chest lying there all by itself. It looked like the world's biggest piece of partially chewed bubble gum. "There's no smell," I volunteered. "No odor, right. Not with a cyberdemon." "A what?" "I forgot. You call them something else, don't you?" "Steam demons." "Yes, well, we're standardizing the terminology for official government science. Now take the cacode- mons, for instance." "A what?" "You call them pumpkins. I confess I like that name myself, what with the Halloween associations, but it won't do for an official name." "Do you have any cacodemons here?" He shook his head. "They dissolve shortly after the tissues are disrupted. When we try to secure samples for analysis, we're left with only a test tube of liquid and powder. So tell me, Jill, what do you make of the cyber . . . er, the steam demon?" "The name 'cyberdemon' makes sense," I agreed. I didn't tell him what I thought of "cacodemon." "The mechanical parts stick into the body so deep--" "They are not attachments," he corrected. "Look!" He pointed at the portion of the arm that began in flesh and ended in the metal of a rocket launcher. "Neither the arm nor the launcher is complete, but the cross section shows the point of connection be- tween the arm and the weapon. You see it, don't you, Jill? You don't need a microscope." The only other time I'd been this close to a piece of monster was when the foot of a spider-mind almost crushed me on the train when we rescued Ken. I wondered what Ackerman called the spider-minds. Anyway, seeing a cross section of a demon was a new experience. "I don't believe it," I admitted. "Seeing is believing." The red shaded into silver-gray. There was no dividing line. The rocket launcher grew out of the flesh. "That's one for Ripley," he said. "Huh?" "A little before your time. It means it's hard to believe, but the evidence is right before you. When I first started studying these creatures, I was most puzzled about their weapons. Think about it. The imps fire a weapon that's purely organic in nature." "We call them imps, too. Well, sometimes spinies." "Uh-huh. Your pumpkins do the same with their balls of concentrated acid and combustible gas. Why, then, do these larger creatures use weapons similar to the artillery used by humans?" I'd never thought about that. If someone is trying to stab me with a switchblade, I don't wonder how he got it. It was Dr. Ackerman's job to wonder. "All these military weapons seemed inappropriate," he went on. "If they internally create bolts of force and can project them, why develop appendages that require external ammunition?" "I get it," I said, excited. "It's like if you're God- zilla, what do you need with a gun?" "Perfect, Jill. You really are a smart kid." I didn't want compliments. I wanted to keep the discussion moving. "Are you sure they get their bullets and rockets from somewhere else? Maybe they grow them, too?" Ackerman stopped what he was doing--bringing up a computer display showing the monster's autopsy report--and took his glasses off. He pointed at me with them. "Right there you prove yourself worth more than the people I've been working with. You can help me, uh, interface with Ken, too. His doctor says it will be a while before he gets back to normal, but he's been so close to the problem that he understands aspects of their biotechnology that no one else com- prehends." I nodded. "Now I remember. Ken told us how the rockets and guns and stuff were probably first stolen from subject races. So if the gun is a separate thing, then it's not grown by a demon." Ackerman finished my thought: "But if it's at- tached, then it's grown somehow. The original ver- sion of the weapon must have been stolen first. Then they modified it into their biotech." He turned his back to me again and I noticed little red and yellow stains all over it. I didn't want to know what they were. Now he was excited as he said, "What we need is a living specimen of one of the big ones." He grinned. Maybe he really was a mad scientist. I had to ask the obvious question: "Would you be able to control it?" "We already handle the living zombies we have here. That sounds funny, doesn't it? Living zombies." "You have live ones?" I nearly freaked when he said that. Being in combat had turned me into a killer . . . of the undead. "Sure, but they're easy to control. They don't have superhuman strength. You know that from fighting them." "Have you fought them?" "Well, no, but I've studied them." "Trust me on this, Doctor--they're dangerous." "But manageable. That's all I'm saying. If we had a live cyberdemon, then we'd have a problem of con- tainment. The same as if our mancubus was living. I know you call them fatties." "You have a whole fatty?" "Fortunately it's dead. Unlike the specimen here, he seems to be slowly decaying." I laughed. "They smell so bad alive I don't see how they could get any worse." "The stench reminds me of rotting fish, sour grapes, and old locker-room sweat. Come on. I'll show you." He didn't need to take my arm, but I let him. He was like a friendly uncle who wanted to show off his chamber of horrors. We went past sections of flying skulls laid out like bikers' helmets. I'd always wanted a motorcycle. "What do you call the Clydes?" "We don't," he answered quickly. "We think your friends were wrong to think they might be the product of genetic engineering. They're probably the human traitors who were given some kind of treatment to make them tractable." The fatty was behind glass and made me think of a gigantic meat loaf that had been left out in the sun. The metal guns it used for arms had been removed and stacked up next to the monster like giant flash- lights. He looked sort of pathetic without them. "You can't smell it from here, but if you want to step into the room ..." "No, thanks." I turned him down, unsure if he was kidding me. "Let's see the zombies." I wish I hadn't asked. He led me to the end of the warehouse, where I finally saw some other people in white lab coats. For a moment it had seemed as if the whole place belonged to Ackerman and his monsters. We went out into a corridor. I figured the zombies had been given a special place of their own. Like I said, what's great about scientists is the way they refuse to talk down to kids. Ackerman started to lecture, and it was fine with me: "The most interesting part about studying zombies is the residual speech pattern. We have recorded many hours of zombie dialogue. Some of them fixate on the invasion, speaking cryptically about gateways and greater forces that lie behind them. Others pick up a pattern from their own lives, repeating phrases that tell us something about them. A final test group doesn't speak at all. We are attempting to find out if they retain any capacity to reason after the transfor- mation." "No," I said as strongly as I could. "The human part of them is dead." "I understand how you must feel," he said. "It's easier for all of us if we assume we're not killing anyone human on the other end of the gun barrel." I shook my head. "You don't understand," I told him. "I'll kill any skag who betrayed us. The traitors are still human. I wouldn't have any problem pulling the trigger on those creeps in the government who helped the demons." "All right, calm down," he said in a completely different tone of voice. "I was really talking about myself just then. It's easier for me to work on these, er, zombies, if I think there's no humanity left." Arlene keeps saying I can be a real pill, so I decided to be that way on purpose. I asked, "What difference does that make to you, Doctor, if they weren't gen- iuses when they were alive?" He laughed instead of getting mad. "You are smart, Jill. I need to watch my step around you. I hope we'll enjoy working together. We can start now. What's your theory of why a few of the big monsters seem able to reason?" "You mean like the spider-minds?" I didn't need to tell him what that word meant. "Apparently all of them. Then there was the loqua- cious imp whom Corporal Taggart reported encoun- tering on Phobos." He was on one of my favorite subjects. "We won- dered about the smart ones when we were doing the L.A. mission." "What were your conclusions?" I suddenly noticed how long we'd been walking. "How much farther before we reach the zombies?" "Not long. Just don't ask if we're there yet! It'll make me think of you as a kid again." "Is there a rest room I can use?" "Just a few feet beyond the zombie pen." He sounded impatient. "So what did all of you con- clude?" "Whenever a normal, stupid one talks, there must be a smarter one somewhere, sending the words." "Like broadcasting a radio signal. We've been working along the same lines. Do you think the spider-minds do their own thinking?" "Search me." "They could be on the receiving end as well." "So tell me about your zombies." I was truly interested. We'd walked a good distance and still no sight of the corpse-creeps. "Well, we have a total of thirteen. We've run identity checks. You know how impossible it is to destroy information today." "Yeah, the monsters can't rip a big hole in the Net, even with their fat asses." "They've slowed us down, but they can't stop us cold." "We'll stop them cold." "Attagirl! Anyway, one of the zombies was once an editor named Anders Monsen. He repeats phrases from his profession. At least, that's what we think he's doing. One of the women is Michelle DeLude, a blonde. She keeps repeating how she must get to Las Vegas in time for her wedding. Mark Stephens ran a bookstore. Butler Shaffer was a law professor. Tina Karos was a paralegal. She's the brunette. Both the ladies were very attractive in life. Shame to see them monsterized. The other eight were seamen stationed right here in Hawaii. One was a huge man his friends called Big Lee. Don't remember the names of the others." Ackerman could have been a teacher. He made me want to meet his special class of dead people. I was looking forward to it ... until the door marked Maxi- mum Security swung open and a large shape filled the doorway, swinging a meat cleaver with which it hacked off Dr. Ackerman's head. 7 I'll never admit this to Arlene, but for the first time I doubt my faith. I don't want to be Albert the agnostic. I have to write this out of my system. When I'm finished, I'll destroy it and write her a real letter. It might seem stupid to write to someone I could speak to in person, but when I look into her green eyes, I become tongue-tied. The way she arches her right eyebrow and smiles with a smile as hot as her flaming red hair, I just can't talk to her. She offers me herself, and all I can do is tell her about my religion. She was the first sight I beheld after the operation. They did what they could for my face, but I didn't need to look in a mirror to realize I had permanent scars. My face still burns. It will burn forever from the new valleys and ridges etched into my forehead and cheeks and chin. I suppose there is consolation in not being as ugly as an imp. Of course, I'll have a head start if I'm ever turned into a zombie. I know it's wrong to worry about my appearance when I could have been blind for the rest of my life. May God forgive my vanity. Arlene won't let me be sorry for myself. She bent over my hospital bed, smiling like an angel, and kissed up and down the tortured flesh of my disfig- ured face. "You'll always be my Albert," she whis- pered so that only I could hear. We've shared experiences few mortals will ever know. We've faced down the wrath of a spider-mind. We've tasted the brimstone of a fire eater. (I can't figure out why the scientists here call those things arch-viles.) Together we've spilled the slimy guts of pumpkins and princes of hell. I was willing to wade through a sea of blood with this woman. But when she turned her face to me and offered me her high cheekbones to touch and her full mouth to kiss, I pulled away. She must think I'm a fool. A woman who has proved herself in a world of men, she is not squeam- ish about the human body. Women tend to be more matter-of-fact about the body anyway. They already live in the sea of blood so it must seem very strange to watch men deliberately embark upon that crimson ocean. Does a foxhole really compare to childbirth? I was brought up to believe that the highest destiny of a woman is to bring children into the world. The church reinforced these attitudes. I can respect a woman who is a fighter but I can't shake the idea she's shirking her responsibility as a woman. It's like if she dies on a battlefield, she gets off easy. If she's an officer, she exercises a trivial kind of authority compared to what God intends for her to do with her children. So here comes Arlene Sanders with her high-and- tight, tossing back her head as if she had long hair down to her waist, showing off her long neck and firm jaw, and shouldering her piece with as much authority as any man. Yeah, I'll pretend it's the day after Halloween and help her blow away pumpkins. But I won't touch her with my naked hand. Intellectually, I don't doubt the Book of Mormon. History shows that a life of marriage and children is intended for men and women on this earth. When we move away from that, we become miserable. When we do our duty, we know a happiness of which no hedonist can even dream. I guess my problem is that I thought I'd been tempted before. But the women who offered them- selves to me for quick and easy sex were not women I respected. They'd never stood up to devils from the depths of space. They'd never encountered the now- or-never choice of giving up your life for a buddy-- and surviving only because he'd do the same for you. I'd met plenty of women who were into rock, but PFC Arlene Sanders was the first who could really rock and roll! Turning down her offer hurts so much because if a buddy asked for anything else, I'd come through without giving it a second thought. How can she treat the act of love so casually? I know lots of men who'd jump at the chance offered by Arlene, but she proba- bly wouldn't be interested in them. My usual lousy luck--she's attracted to me because she knows I'll say no. Even when I was a jock back in high school, there were cheerleaders after me. Being big and muscular has its advantages. The smart guys thought I was stupid and left me alone. That was probably an advantage also. I want a family. I want a loving wife who will give me children. It's that simple, but I can't make the words come out. Words are fragile tools. When you try to turn them into weapons they often break. I can't write the letter to Arlene today. I don't have the words. I pray that I'll find the words while we're still together. In a world of real demons, there isn't any time to waste. Nor is this a good time to question my faith just because I suddenly discover I cannot govern my passions. I might even have a future in which to raise a family. Once, when I was reading a book in the Mormon library, I came across a line that stayed with me. I don't remember the author, but he said: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhap- py in its own way." I take that to mean that happiness grows out of love. Love is based on your actions. So is faith. How do I tell Arlene that I want all or nothing? Especially when she's already offered me more than I deserve . . . And how can we make a decision for the future in a world like this? My hell on Earth is a world where Arlene is right and I'm wrong. Do we even have a right to try to plan for the future? If we were the last two people in a universe of monsters, there would be a certain legitimacy in trying to make a life together, in however brief a span was allotted to us. But our lives are not our own. There is the Corps. One, two, three, four, she loves the Marine Corps. She loves it more than I do. So does Fly. There is that link between them. We are under orders more severe than any monas- tery could impose. Perversely, I have taken an oath of celibacy that she has not taken. Arlene Sanders is a worldly woman, whether on this planet or off. But I am honest enough to admit that I have no intention of changing. If it were proven to me tomor- row that the Mormon faith is false, I would not become a moral relativist. I would not treat human relations as casual affairs. I take people too seriously for that. I'd still believe in my morality even if no God provided supernatural guidance. I pray that one day Arlene will understand how much faith I have in her. Suddenly I realize that I can't write her a letter. I have to tell her all this in person. Despite all my reservations, I must have the courage of my convictions. I'm going to ask her to marry me. "Arlene, look out!" The little voice in the back of my head just wouldn't shut up about how stupid it was to go anywhere without being armed to the teeth. Arlene and I hadn't felt safe enough to go unarmed since the first day of the Phobos invasion. We even kidded each other about going to the beach without either of us packing a piece. I wouldn't have minded seeing her with a nice Colt .45 strapped to her and leaving its mark on her nearly naked body. She's my buddy, but I still have an imagination. Here we were in a stronghold of humanity. This was one place where we didn't have to feel like the black gang-banger surrounded by white cops in what a police commissioner might refer to as a target-rich environment. Here we could let down our hair--a joke when you have a marine haircut--and go naked, which has nothing to do with clothes and everything to do with being unarmed. Nothing threatened us on the beach, except maybe that lazy shark we'd noticed right before coming in. We didn't have any need of firepower when we went through the security check. We simply needed our big bath towels because the air conditioning was on full blast inside. It was still our day of R&R, and neither of us was in a rush to get back into uniform. I'd never enjoyed wearing civvies more in my life. We weren't expecting trouble as we went looking for Jill. Ackerman's monster lab was a lot closer than Albert, who'd "gone to town," and Arlene figured her beau still needed time alone. It wasn't until we went into the biology research department that the old marine training kicked in. Something just didn't feel right. Maybe it was not seeing more people than we did. But when I noticed the female lab technician from behind, I knew some- thing was wrong. Her long black tresses were a tat- tered mass stained with splotches of green. She had a great figure, and something told me she'd never let her hair go like that. Her lab coat was wrinkled and disgustingly dirty, though I knew the admiral ran a tight ship and wouldn't abide slovenliness. Arlene picked up the pace and started hoofing it over to the technician. As the woman started to turn, I couldn't believe that Arlene wouldn't notice the messy hair and the dirty lab coat. My best buddy wasn't just a great warrior; she was female. No sooner did I shout, "Arlene, look out," than I realized I didn't need to worry about her. She went into a roll that made her a less promising target than I was. Marine, protect your own ass! Turning sideways, I flattened myself against the wall before the female zombie got off her first shot. Arlene made certain she didn't get another. Zombie reflexes suck. Even a woman in good physical condi- tion would have had trouble stopping Arlene coming up from the floor, right arm straight up like the Statue of Liberty, and knocking the gun from the cold leathery hand that was yet to get off a second shot. The next few seconds proved to be the corollary to "Practice Makes Perfect." We'd both become a little rusty. There was no other explanation for Zombie Girl getting away before Arlene could slam her hard against the convenient back wall--providing plenty of time for one of us to retrieve the gun from the floor and pump lead into the leathery blue-gray face of our walking beauty. This zombie lass moved very quickly, though-- faster than any zombie I'd ever seen. She also shouted something very strange about having to get to court. Then she darted through a door to my left before Arlene could reach her from the rear or I could approach her from the front. "Those morons!" Arlene screamed. "What kind of security do they call this?" I was pissed too, but I had more sympathy for a genuine blunder than Arlene did. Watching that bas- tard Weems order the murder of the monks in Kefiri- stan had softened me toward mere incompetence. The science boys had to study everything they could get their hands on. I didn't expect there wouldn't be risks. But whatever had gone wrong, it was now a job for people like Arlene and me. She'd already picked up the piece from the floor, a .38 caliber revolver. I liked the idea of acquiring more artillery as quickly as possible. A scream from the other side of the door brought us back to immediate reality. Reconnoitering was a luxury, and going to the armory was a vacation from the job. We went through the door together, me coming in low and Arlene braced, pointing the gun ahead of us--a beacon of truth with its own special kind of flame. But she didn't fire right away. She was afraid of hitting the woman that the zombie in the lab coat was carving up like a Christmas turkey. The victim stared at us without seeing what was in front of her. The broken beaker in the zombie's hand occupied the woman's full attention. Zombie Girl had already cut her victim around her breasts and arms. The angle made it impossible for us to alter the events of the next few seconds. That was all the time the zombie needed. She drew her makeshift knife in a slashing move- ment across the white throat of the victim. The throat didn't stay white very long. The lifeblood spurted out so fast that it covered the hand holding the broken glass, and it looked as if the zombie had spilled a bucket of red paint over itself. Arlene took a few lithe dancer's steps into the room and placed her gun right up against the Zombie Girl's head. This walking dead might be fast, but the jig was up. Arlene squeezed off a round. Blood, brains, and gore splattered back over the victim, but the poor woman was past caring. She was still twitching, but that didn't count. We couldn't save her. "Too bad none of the scie