es does not pass muster as a scientific sampling, but Hidalgo didn't help matters by the way he started off. "One thing you both need to know about me up front," he barked out. "I don't fraternize. I insist upon military discipline and grooming. I demand that uniforms be kept polished and in good repair." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was as if the past year had just evaporated. Never mind that the human race was facing the possibility of extinction. We had rules to follow. Throughout history there have been examples of this crap. If an outnumbered army starts to have success, it is essential that the high command assigns a by-the-book officer to remind the blooded combat veterans that victory is only a secon- dary goal. Respect for the command structure is what's sacred. I could feel Hooker's eyes on me, watching every muscle quiver. Maybe the whole thing was a test. Fighting hell-princes was a walk in the park, obvi- ously. Defeating the ultimate enemy could go to a fellow's head and make him forget the important things in life, like keeping his shoes spit-polished. I could just imagine us in the kind of nonstop jeopardy Arlene and I had barely lived through on Phobos and Deimos while Captain Hidalgo worried about the buttons on our uniforms. "I've studied your combat records," he said. "Ex- emplary. Both of you. A word for you, Sergeant Taggart. On Phobos and Deimos, you almost made up for your insubordination in Kefiristan." Why was Hooker doing this? I wanted to rip off Hidalgo's neat Errol Flynn mustache and shove it down his throat. But I took a page from Arlene's book and arranged my face into an impassive mask equal to anything in a museum. Hooker scrutinized me throughout this ordeal. So did Arlene. Finally hell in Hawaii ended, and we were dis- missed. We had a lot to do before the final briefing. We had to go rustle up Albert and Jill. Turned out she could be part of the first phase of our new mission, if she wanted to be. She was a civilian and a kid, though, so no one was going to order her. And I was certain we would all want to say our good-byes to Ken. Mulligan, too. I insisted that Arlene and I take the long way around to finding our buds. It may only be residual paranoia from my school days, but I felt better about discussing the teacher outdoors. They don't bug the palm trees this side of James Bond movies. "So how do you feel about our promotions?" Ar- lene asked. "Every silver lining has a cloud," I replied. "I could feel how tense you were in there about our new boss." "You weren't exactly mellow about Albert." "Mixed feelings, Fly. I'm weighing never seeing him again against his joining us on another suicide mission." "If Hidalgo has anything to say about it--" "Let's talk, Fly. I know you as well as I know myself, and I think you're overreacting. Just because the man is a stickler for the rules doesn't make him another Lieutenant Weems. Remember, Weems broke the rules when he ordered his men to open fire on the monks." She had a point there. Arlene had been on my side from the start of the endlessly postponed court- martial of Corporal Flynn Taggart. My turn: "There's nothing we can do if this officer is a butthead." I'd never liked officers, but I followed orders. It annoyed me a little that Arlene got along so well with officers. "I'll tell you exactly what we're going to do," she said, and I could tell she'd given the problem consid- erable thought. "You are too concerned over the details, Fly. I don't care if Hidalgo wants my uniform crisp so long as it's possible to accommodate such a request without endangering the mission. All I care about is that the captain knows what he's doing." "Fair enough, but I'll need a lot of convincing." Arlene chuckled softly. "You know, Fly, there are some people who would think we're bad marines. Some people only approve of the regulation types." "We saw how well those types did on Phobos." "Exactly." "Now we're going back. So stop holding out on me. You were gonna say something about Captain Hi- dalgo." She frowned. "Simple. While he's deciding if we measure up to his standards, we'll be deciding if he measures up to ours. This is the most serious war in the history of the human race. The survival of the species is at stake. My first oath of allegiance is to homo sapiens. That comes before loyalty to the corps. We can't afford to make any mistakes. We won't." I got her general drift, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What if Hidalgo doesn't measure up to our standards?" We'd been walking slowly around the perimeter of the building. She stopped and eyeballed me. "First we must reach the Gates on Phobos. We weren't the greatest space pilots when we brought that shoebox from Deimos to Earth. You may be the finest jet pilot breathing, but we can learn a few things about being space cadets. We're just extra baggage until we're back on our own turf. That's when we'll really become acquainted with Captain Hidalgo." "God, who would've thought there'd come a day when we'd think of that hell moon as our turf!" She gave me her patented raised-eyebrow look. "Fly, we're the only veterans of the Phobos-Deimos War. And the only experts." She was keeping something from me. I wasn't going to let this conversation terminate until she fessed up. "Agreed. So what do we do about Hidalgo if he doesn't measure up?" "Simple," she said. "We'll space his ass right out the airlock." "You don't have to go to Phobos, Jill." I appreciated Ken telling me that. "I want to go. Arlene and Fly wouldn't know what to do without me. Besides, they couldn't have saved me without you." "That's true," said Fly. Ken was sitting up in bed. He'd wanted to see us off from his wheelchair, but he'd been working hard and had tired himself. His face was a healthy coffee color again. When he was first unwrapped, his skin had been pale and sickly. They unwrapped him in stages so for a while he had stripes like a zebra as his color returned. Now he looked like himself again, except for the knobs and wire things that they hadn't taken out of his head yet. "I'm grateful to all of you," he said. "Especially you, Jill," he added, taking my hand. "But you're so young. You've been in so much danger already. Why not stay here where it's safe?" "Safe?" echoed Albert. "I should say safer," said Ken. Arlene brought up a subject that Albert and I had avoided: "Before we left Salt Lake City, there were people who thought it would be better for Jill to stay there." Ken coughed. He sounded really bad. I brought him a glass of water. "I feel so helpless," he said. "You only need Jill's computer assistance on the first leg of the mission. If only there were some way I could help by long-distance." "You've put your finger on the problem," Fly told him. "We can't anticipate everything we're going to need. Too bad Jill is the best troubleshooter for this job." "Just like before," I reminded everyone. "You should take me to space with you, too." "That's not part of the deal," said Arlene, sounding like a mother. "We should be grateful for this time together," Albert pointed out. He was right. The only people with Ken were Fly, Arlene, Albert, and me. The mission would start tomorrow morning. "If only they had launch capability in the islands here," Ken complained. "They should have been better prepared." "We're fortunate they have as much as they do," argued Arlene. "There's everything here except the kitchen sink." "The kitchen sink is what we need, and it's at Point Mugu," said Fly. "Thanks to Ken, we have a launch window." "I never thought I'd do windows," Ken rasped between fits of coughing. "I always say that when you take off for a body in space it's a good idea for your destination to be there when you arrive! It's also nice to have a crew to fly the ship. The primary plan to return Fly and Arlene to Phobos has all the elegance of a Rube Goldberg contraption." "I don't even feel homesick," said Arlene. Every- one laughed. Ken had paid us back big time for saving him from the spider-mind. He was smarter than I was about lots of things. I also realized he cared about me; but I don't think he realized how much I wanted to go with the others. "There's a fallback plan?" Albert asked. Ken smiled. "The less said about that the better, at least by me. Before you depart, I want to talk to Jill some more. I have some suggestions for her return trip." "I want to go to Phobos," I said. Every time I said that, Arlene repeated the same word: "No." Fly sounded like a father when he said, "Believe me, if there were any other way, I'd never dream of taking Jill back into danger . . . well, greater danger, anyhow. We do need her for this." "We're all needed," said Ken in a sad voice. "We'll all be needed for the rest of our lives, however short they may be." He looked at me again. "But I agree with you about one thing." "What?" "It's important to fight to the end. Sometimes I forget that." "After what you've been through--" Arlene began, but he wouldn't let her finish. "No excuses," he said. "I've been too ready to give up. But then I think about the terrible things these monsters have done to us, and it makes me angry. We will fight. So long as there are Jills, the human race has a chance." I saw a tear in his eye. I was going to say something, but I suddenly couldn't remember what. Instead I went over to Ken and hugged him. He held me and kissed me on the forehead. "You know, as long as we're all together again, there's a question I've been meaning to ask," Fly threw out. "Shoot," said Albert. "Bad choice of words around marines," said Ken. "Civilians," said Arlene. She made it sound like a bad word. Fly asked his question: "I keep meaning to ask one of the old hands around here: why are the master- minds behind the monsters called Freds?" "I know, I know," I piped up. "I heard that sergeant gun guy talking about it." "Master gun, hon," Arlene corrected. When she didn't sound like a mom she sure came off like a teacher. I finished up: "Anyway, that man said a marine named Armogida started calling them Freds after he took a date to a horror movie." "I wonder what movie it was," wondered Arlene. "Well, maybe we should start calling our heroic young people Jills," Ken brought the subject back to me. "I can't change anyone's mind, so let me say I hope your mission goes well." As I said, I appreciated Ken worrying about me. He just didn't understand how important it was to me that I go along. Fly promised I'd get to ride a surfboard. 12 The last thing I needed was a brand-new monster, fresh off the assembly line. For this, Fly, Albert, Jill, Captain Hidalgo, and I had traveled all the way to the mainland? For this, we'd taken a voyage in a cramped submarine meant for half the number of personnel aboard? (Of course, the sub seemed like spacious accommodations after the shut- tle we'd built on Deimos.) I mean, I was all set to encounter new cosmic horrors when we returned to the great black yonder. Arlene, astrogator and monster-slayer--I'm available for the job at reason- able rates! But none of us were prepared for what awaited us in the shallows off good old California. The military airfield at Point Mugu is about five miles south of Oxnard. When we passed the Channel Islands, Captain Ellison told us we'd be offshore--as close to land as the sub dared--in about thirty minutes. Of course he used naval time. After spending years in uniform, I'm surprised I prefer thinking in civilian terms for time, distances, and holidays. The trip had been uneventful, except for Jill has- sling me about what a great asset she would be to the mission if we took her to Phobos. I finally got tired of her and suggested she bug Captain Hidalgo. After all, he was in charge. Too much of Jill and I thought our marine officer might be willing to space himself. Hidalgo handled Jill very well. He simply told her that her part of the mission would be finished at the base. He also reminded her that Ken had gone to a lot of trouble to work out a plan for her return trip, and she didn't want to let him down, did she? Then he wouldn't listen to her anymore. In some respects Hidalgo was more qualified to be a father than Fly was. But that didn't prove that he had what it took to save the universe from galactic meanies. That was sort of a specialized field. I'd never been aboard a submarine before. I dis- liked the odor. In working hard to eliminate the men's-locker-room aroma, they had come up with something a lot worse, something indescribable--at least by me. The captain of the sub was a good officer. Ellison was plenty tough and well qualified for the job. He was almost apologetic when he explained how we were expected to go ashore. "You're kidding," said Albert. "Surfboards," repeated Captain Ellison. "We have four long boards for the adults and a boogie board for the . . ." He saw Jill glaring at him and choked off the word he was about to say. "The smaller board is for Jill. It was especially designed for her body size." "Neat," said Jill, mollified. "It's just like Fly prom- ised." "Why are we going in by surfboard?" I heard myself ask. Fly shrugged. He'd found out about it before Jill or I had. That didn't mean he approved. Hidalgo had a ready answer. "So the enemy won't find a raft or other evidence of a commando raid." I should have kept my mouth shut. I was the one telling Fly to hold off on passing judgment. But I didn't seem able to keep certain words from coming out: "You think these demons can make fine distinc- tions like that, the same as a human enemy in a human war?" Captain Hidalgo believed in dealing with insubor- dination right away. "First, this is a decision from above, Lance Corporal. We will follow orders. Sec- ond, there are human traitors, in case you don't remember. They might be able to make these distinc- tions. Third, we will not take any unnecessary chances. Fourth, I refer you to my first point. Got it?" "Yes, sir." I said it with sincerity. He did have a point, or two. When Jill got me alone--not an easy thing to do on a sub--she said, "Hooray. We get to surf!" "Have you ever ridden a board?" I asked. "Well, no," she admitted, "but I've been to the beach plenty of times and seen how it's done." Oh, great, I thought. "Have you?" she asked. "As a matter of fact, I have. We've just left the ideal place to learn. Hawaii. They have real waves there. You can get a large enough wave to shoot the curl." "Huh?" This was looking less and less promising. I ex- plained: "The really large waves create a semi-tunnel that you can sort of skim through. You've seen it in movies." "Oh, sure. But we won't have waves that large off L.A., will we?" She was a smart kid. "No, we shouldn't. We'll be dropped near a beach north of L.A. This time of the year, with no storms, the waves should be gentle." Jill wasn't through with me. "How hard can it be to hang on to our boards and just let the waves take us in?" She had me there. It wasn't as if we needed to show perfect form and win prizes. We simply had to make it to the beach. The equipment and provisions were in watertight compartments. They'd float better than we would. Each of us would be responsible for specific items, and they'd be attached to us. All in all, getting to shore should be a relatively simple matter. Only trouble was that none of us had counted on the appearance of a brand-new monster. Actually, there had been intimations of this new critter on the last day Fly and I had spent on the beach at Oahu. When the admiral noticed the lone cloud drifting in, there was no reason to doubt that we were looking at a cloud. Later, when Fly and I noticed the black triangle cutting through the water, we naturally assumed it was a shark. We didn't pay any attention to the sky. If we had, we would have noticed that the cloud had disappeared. We might have wondered about that. When the sub surfaced as close to shore as Ellison was willing to go, the Big Four gathered for our last adventure. It was a strange feeling that Jill was not going all the way. Hidalgo would replace her when we reached the spacecraft. I didn't want Jill to accompany us on a journey that might be a suicide mission. On the other hand, I didn't like the idea of leaving her behind in California doom. Hidalgo had assured Big Daddy Fly and me that the plan for Jill's return to Hawaii was foolproof. Ken would never have said that, though the plan was his. Guarantees like that are offered by fools. The plan, however, hadn't taken into account the fluffy white cloud descending toward the water as we paddled around on our fiberglass boards. We were outfitted in our wet suits, floundering around in the calm area, waiting for some wave action. Fly was first to notice the cloud coming right down to the surface and then sort of seeping into the water. Not vanish- ing. Not evaporating. "Seeping" was the only way to describe the cloud as its color changed to a vague green and it sort of flowed into the water. "What the hell was that?" asked Fly. "It's right in front of us," observed Hidalgo. "That's unnatural," shouted the sub's captain from the conning tower. He was too decent a man to submerge again until he knew we were all right. "Maybe it's weird weather," suggested Jill quite reasonably. I could believe that. So much radiation and crap had been bombarding Mother Earth that she might have some surprises of her own. But after fighting the alien denizens of hell, I was suspicious of anything unusual. When I saw a shark fin appear right where the cloud had joined with the ocean, I became a lot more suspicious. By then Hidalgo and Albert had caught the first wave. They were on their bellies, on their boards, paddling with their hands. I'd told everyone to go all the way in to shore without standing up. The boards would keep even a natural landlubber afloat. The rest of us caught the next gentle swell that would take us toward the beach. That was when I saw three fins circling the spot where the cloud had gone into the water. Naturally, I thought they were sharks. That was adequate cause to worry. The fin of a surfboard and its white underbelly looks like a fish. The paddling hands and kicking feet attract attention, too. It wasn't as if our team was made up of people who could surf their way out of danger; and the waves weren't provid- ing anything to write about. "Shark!" I shouted. The others started repeating the call. We would have continued thinking the fins belonged to separate creatures if they didn't start rising out of the water. What appeared to be long black ropes writhed up out of the sea. Hidalgo and Albert paddled furiously to change direction, but the current continued drawing them toward the thing. As the huge creature continued to rise, I expected to make out more details. But it seemed to bring a fog with it. The mantle surrounding the thing was the same white as the cloud. Within the mist, I could see fragments of recogniz- able objects. A slight breeze was blowing in toward the shore, but the fog didn't dissipate. The stuff hung on like sticky cotton; but gaps did open up where I could see more. A claw. An eye. A large glistening red opening in a larger dark surface that seemed to open and close. Could this be a mouth? None of us needed to know that answer all that badly. The entity constantly shifted. I got a headache from trying to focus on it. One moment the black surface seemed to have a metallic sheen. The next moment the surface rippled as only a living thing could do. All through my attempt to see what we were fighting, the mist re- mained a problem, changing in density but never going away. Most of our weapons were secured in the water- proof packages, but Fly had put a gun in a plastic bag and zipped it inside his suit. He got it out with admirable speed and started firing at the whatsit. He'd picked out a nice little customized Ruger pistol for this part of the mission. He could be like a kid in the candy store when let loose in a decent armory; and Hawaii currently had a lot more in its arsenal than ornate war clubs, He felt better after he'd fired off a few rounds. I felt better, too. Near as I could tell, the horrible inexplica- ble thing from the sky felt absolutely nothing. Fly demonstrated his skill, again, for what it was worth. Although he was behind Albert and Hidalgo, his bullets came nowhere near hitting them. Every shot went right into the center of the roiling mass--and probably out the other side if the monster had the power to discorporate, which I was ready to believe. Fly got off all his shots while lying on his belly and hanging on to his board. He really is very good at what he does. Suddenly someone got off a shot that made a difference. A sound of thunder from behind, a whistling-screaming over our heads, and an explosion that knocked all of us off our boards. Ellison had the largest gun and he wasn't afraid to use it. The shell struck the creature at dead center. I wasn't sure this monster could be killed, but the submarine captain's quick thinking made the new menace go away. Jill literally whooped for joy. She waved back at the submarine, but I doubt they saw her. I barely saw her. We were surrounded by mist from the explosion. So much water turned into steam that I wondered if the shell had set off something combustible in the mon- ster. Maybe we were receiving residue from the sticky cloud-fog stuff. One thing was certain: we wouldn't be doing any scientific analysis out here. Hidalgo performed his duty: "Everyone sing out! Let me hear you." "Sanders!" I shouted back at him. "Taggart!" "Gallatin!" "I'm here," Jill finished the roster. "Name!" Hidalgo insisted, and then took a mo- ment to cough up some water. "I'm Jill. Sheesh." "Last name!" Hidalgo insisted. "Lovelace," she finally relented. Meanwhile, the sun was climbing in the morning sky. I was getting hot inside my wet suit. The sub was now far enough behind us that it counted as history. Before us was the future, where the breaking surf became white spray to cover the white droppings of seagulls. I'd never been so happy to see those scaveng- er birds. Some things on the home planet were still normal. 13 "What do you mean you hate zero-g?" Ar- lene asked with genuine surprise. "Just do," I said. "You never told me that." "You never asked." Arlene was not an easy person to surprise. I wasn't sure why the subject had never come up. I wasn't deliberately holding out on her. Jill laughed--the little eavesdropper. "You never cease to amaze me, Fly Taggart," Ar- lene continued. "Here we've traveled half the solar system together." "Now, that's an exaggeration," I pointed out, un- willing to let her get away with-- "Hyperbole," she explained, showing that she'd been an English major once upon a time. "Yeah, right," I said. "We've only done the hop from Earth to Mars and back again." "Some hop," Albert replied good-naturedly. "Please, Albert." Arlene put her foot down. "This is a private conversation." "Private?" Jill echoed. "Inside here?" "Here" was the cockpit of a DCX-2004. It had been christened the Bova. From the outside, it looked like a nose cone that someone had stretched and then added fins along the bottom. But when you got closer and saw it outlined against the night sky, you realized it was a big mother of a ship. Even so, it was cramped for four of us in a space designed only for the pilot and copilot. Hidalgo was outside the craft, taking the first watch. He'd warn us if a certain large hell-prince woke up. He would also let us know if anyone showed up who could fly this baby. Plan A had worked fine so far. We were all alive. We were in the right place. So what if the others--people we'd never seen--were late? So what that they were supposed to be here ahead of us? Plan A still beat the hell out of plan B. We figured it was only right to let Jill see the inside of her first spaceship. She hadn't stopped hinting she wanted to come along. We weren't going to lie to her about having calculated the weight of our crew to the last ounce. The ship's mass factor could accommo- date Jill. There was even room if we didn't mind being very crowded instead of only really crowded. (Elbow room was already out of the question.) Of course, all this would be academic if we didn't get our navy crew. None of us could fly this tub. Whether the crew showed up or not didn't change one fact: Jill wasn't invited on the trip. It was as simple as that. One advantage to showing her the interior of the ship was that she could see for herself that there was absolutely nowhere for a stowaway to hide. At times like this I was grateful the bad guys hadn't figured out how to manufacture itty-bitty demons. The pumpkins were as small as they got. So if a guy was in close quarters he didn't have to worry about Tinker Bell with mini-rockets. Life was good. The Bova was a lot bigger than the submarine. That didn't mean we had any space to waste inside. Looked to me as if the primary function of the ship was to transport tanks and fuel. Human beings would be allowed to tag along if they didn't get in the way. Anyway, Albert had a ready answer to Jill's chal- lenge about the lack of privacy: "When the CO is away," he told her, "the men can shoot the shit." I never thought I'd hear Albert talk like that, but then I realized what a decent thing he'd done. This could be the last time any of us saw Jill. Albert was treating her like one of the men. She knew how religious he was. For him to use that kind of language in front of her meant something special. Jill smiled at Albert. He returned the smile. They'd connected. "Look, Arlene," I said, attempting to wrap up our pointless conversation. "When they advertise the honeymoon suites in free fall, I'm not the target audience. I wouldn't try to make love in one of those for free. On Phobos, whenever I went outside the artificial gravity area, I had a tougher time from that than anything the imps did to me. If the ones I encountered in zero-g had known about my weakness, it would have been another weapon on their side. Hey, I don't like bleeding to death, either. That doesn't stop me from fighting the bastards." "No, Fly, it doesn't," said Arlene, touching my arm. I noticed Albert noticing. He wasn't very obvi- ous about it. I don't think it was any kind of jealousy when Arlene was physical with another person. Al- bert's affection for her was so great that he couldn't help being protective. "I never mentioned the weightless thing before," I went on, more bugged than I'd realized, "because I didn't want to give you cause for concern." She switched from the tone of voice she used for kidding around to the steady, serious tone she used with a comrade. "I never would have known if you hadn't told me," she said. "You're a true warrior, Fly. Your hang-ups are none of my business unless you decide to make them my business." We sat there in close quarters, sizing each other up as we had so many times before. She was quite a gal, Arlene Sanders. "What's it like?" Jill asked. "What?" I threw back, a little dense all of a sudden. "Being weightless," Jill piped in. She thought we were still on that subject. Can't blame her for not realizing we'd moved on to grown-up stuff. Arlene returned to teacher mode. "Well, it's like at the amusement parks when you ride a roller coaster and you go over the top, and you feel the dip in the pit of your stomach." "Like on the parachute ride," Jill spoke from obvious experience. "Or when you fall. That's why it's called--what did Fly call it?" "Free fall," I repeated. "I don't mind that for a little bit," Jill admitted. "But how can you stand it for--" "Weeks and weeks?" Arlene finished helpfully. Jill bit her bottom lip, something she did only when she was thinking hard. Right now you could see the thought right on her face: Do I really want to go into space? "You become used to it," Arlene told her. "Yeah," said Jill, not really looking at us. Like most brilliant people, she thought out loud some of the time. She was staring at the bulkhead, probably imagining herself conquering the spaceways. "I can get used to anything." Then she looked at each of us in turn. First Arlene, then Albert, then me. Finally the reality sank in. We were going to separate, probably forever. "You can't leave me," she whispered, but all of us heard her. "We don't have any choice," Albert replied almost as softly. "But you told me people always have a choice," Jill wailed at the man she'd known longer than any other adult. "You're always talking about free will and stuff." "I don't want to split up," said Albert. "I'm wor- ried about you, but I know you can take care of yourself." "I don't want to take care of myself," she almost screamed. The ship was soundproof, so she could make all the noise she wanted to without waking the demons. But as I saw her face grow red in anguish, I wished Arlene and I were still arguing about zero-g. Anything but this. "You can't fool me," she said, addressing all of us. If looks could have killed, we would've been splat- tered over the acceleration couches like yesterday's pumpkins. Then she let us have it with both barrels: "You don't love me!" It's not fair. After everything we've done together, they want to get rid of me. I'm a problem to them. They won't admit it. They'll say they want to protect me. I'll bet everything in the world that's what they'll say next. It's for my own good, and they don't want me going into danger again. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What can we run into in space that's any scarier than the sea monster that almost got us when we were surfing in to shore? What could be more dangerous than when I was almost crushed like a bug when I helped save Ken from the spider-mind and the steam demon on the train? Or when I was driving the truck and the two missiles from the bony almost got me? (Poor Dr. Ackerman called those things revenants. Boy, he sure came up with some weird names. He said all the creatures were like monsters from the id. I wonder what he meant.) It's not just about danger. Everywhere is dangerous now. Who says I'll make it back to Hawaii alive? Even if everything goes according to plan, the return trip will take weeks. I might be safer going into space with them. But grown-ups don't want to have a kid around, 'specially not a teenager, so they lie, lie, lie. They won't even admit how much they need me. After we reached shore, we didn't simply walk to the rocket field. I helped a lot. When it looked as if we might not get in, Arlene reminded everyone of Plan B. Ken was right. Plan B is a joke. Plan B called for them to get on one of the alien rockets as stowaways. I threw a fit when I heard about that. They thought I was upset because they wouldn't let me come along. And they think I'm a dumb kid! I pointed out they could never stay hidden all the way to Mars on something as small as a rocket. Phobos and Deimos are very small moons, but they are a lot larger than an alien rocket. Fly and Arlene hadn't even managed to stay hidden on the Martian moons. They'd told us about their adventures so many times I could recite the stories backwards. If they couldn't avoid the demons on Deimos and the former humans on Phobos, they wouldn't be able to stay hidden on a spaceship all the way to Mars--and Arlene has the nerve to tell me not to think about stowing away on this ship? She must think I'm really dense. I wonder if they're mad because Captain Hidalgo agreed with me that stowing away on an alien ship was stupid. He prefers taking his chances on one of our own ships to "climbing into bed with the devil," even if we have to fly it ourselves. But then it was Fly's turn to point out that without the navy guys, we can't even try to take this ship up. He's done so many impossible things already that I guess he knows what a real impossibility looks like. Maybe I'm better off without them. If they don't want me, they don't have to bother with me any longer. Getting here wasn't easy. Getting inside was even harder. Who was it that jammed computer systems and electronic devices? The person I saw reflected in a window sure looked a lot like me! We hardly ran into any monsters until we entered the base. (Maybe they were all on vacation.) The ones inside seemed to be asleep. I'd never seen them sleep before. I didn't know they slept at all. Poor Fly and Arlene were all set to shoot 'em up, but they didn't have any moving targets this time. Poor Fly. Poor Arlene. I won't pick on Albert about this. He's not as much a nonstop marine as they are. But I didn't think Albert would ever leave me. Until now I was sure he'd figure out some way for them to take me along. How can he abandon me? We've been together since Salt Lake City. I guess none of us expected to be alive this long. Now I'm supposed to go back to Hawaii. I always wanted to see Maui. I wish they'd just tell me they don't like me anymore, or that they never liked me. I never wanted a family. I didn't mind being an orphan. But now I feel what it's like to have a family. We've had some of it. I don't want it to end. I'm so angry I don't know what I want. They won't see me cry, though. I won't let them see me cry. I knew it would come to this. It would be my job because I'm the woman, the adult woman. Fly be- came so much like a real father to Jill that he couldn't put his foot down. All he could do was spoil his darling little girl, the apple of his eye. So I have the thrill of playing Mom. Jill was born difficult. It was completely against her nature to make this kind of situation easy. "We are leaving you here," I told her, "because we do love you. It's time you have a reality check. You are not a child. You are not a little girl anymore. You have proved yourself to all of us. We know it. You know it. This is no time to start acting like a little girl." "Then why--" "Shut up!" I cut her off. This was no time to be diplomatic, either. "Don't say one word until I've finished. You were right about not trying to stow away on an alien ship when we have other options. But we wouldn't have let you join us in sneaking aboard an enemy craft, and we won't let you come with us now because we will be in combat sooner or later." She stared at me with the kind of fixed concentra- tion that meant only one thing. She was trying to hold back tears. "You can do anything you want, Jill," I said, trying my best to sound like a friend instead of Mommy. "You're a woman. You can marry, have babies, take up arms, join what's left of the real marines--the ones on our side--and fight the traitors. Society has been destroyed, Jill. You'll have a hand in shaping the new society. You're staying behind on Earth. The rest of us may never see home again. You're probably more important to the future of mankind than we are. But hear this: you cannot come with us! Do you understand?" She looked me in the eye for several seconds. I thought she wanted to kill me. Then she said very slowly, "I understand." I believed her. 14 I can see clearly in the moonlight, and I wish for darkness. If I can see them, they can see me. As I stare into the face of the minotaur, I remember how my wife died: one of these things killed her. Our families were so sympathetic. We had a big funeral. The neighborhood we lived in wasn't a war zone yet. She'd been caught outside in no-man's-land. For her, it was no-Mrs.-Hidalgo-land. We hadn't told our families we were getting a divorce. We both came from strong Catholic families. So we put off telling them, and then one of the demons made our wedding vows come true--the part about till death do us part. She hated me at the end, with the kind of hatred that comes only from spoiled love. It became so bad I couldn't even look at her anymore. I was standing outside the DCX-2004, waiting for our navy space crew, so this seemed like a good time to be honest with myself. Colonel Hooker didn't know what went on between my wife and me. I never told him I was suicidal for a while. It wasn't something I was proud of: I was suicidal before the minotaur slaughtered her; I wasn't suicidal afterward. Everyone was at the funeral, assuming a grief I didn't feel; all of them assumed I'd devote the rest of my life to avenging the woman I loved. A marine is supposed to be at home in a world of hurt. There's no personal problem that can't be solved by picking up an M92 and doing your part for Uncle Sam. Right. Si. But my military operational specialty was killing an enemy that could shoot back. I wasn't prepared to find out that my wife had aborted our child. Until that moment, I had no idea how much she detested being married to a marine. She said my loyalty to the Corps came before my love for her and I'd treat our son the same way I'd treated her. I didn't know I had a son until after the abortion. Then I looked at her with a hatred I'd never felt for any human enemy, and a hatred I've yet to feel for these devils from space. At that moment I felt like apologizing to all the opponents I'd ever wasted. I thought about killing her. I even started to formu- late a plan. Then the monsters came, and our personal problems went on the back burner for a while. I was off fighting the war to begin all wars, and she was safe at home, just waiting for a big red minotaur to turn her into a taco with special sauce. The timing on all this was interesting. If she'd had the abortion after the invasion and said she couldn't bear to bring up our child in a hell on Earth, I would have been pissed but I might have been able to forgive her. No, the timing was lousy ... for her. I was called up right away, so I wasn't around for her to realize how much I'd turned against her. I was only a little suicidal on the mission against the arachnotrons. Leave it to the military to come up with a name like that. We called them spider-babies. We called ourselves the Orkin squad. We did a fine job of exterminating them. When I returned home and finally had it out with my wife, the marital battlefield seemed like a restful picnic. She gave me a bunch of feminist crap. I told her she was a spoiled brat who obviously hadn't been punished enough when she was growing up. I was mad. She didn't like my attitude. Then I saw a side of her that completely surprised me. After you've been married to someone for years, you'd think you'd pick up on the important aspects of that person's character. I'd never had a clue that she felt the way she did until she accused me of always sucking up to the Anglos! She insisted that I was a bad Latino. In her mind, I suppose that made her a wonderful Latina. I'd never thought about my ethnic identity all that much, even when I was growing up. I tried not to pay attention to it. Sometimes it struck me funny the way the American media always presented the problems of the cities as black versus white, as though all the colors in between didn't matter. Now we have new colors to worry us--the bright colors of the scales and leathery hides of the invaders. The devils. Of course I had experienced my fair share of prejudice. I first came to America as an illegal immi- grant. I wasn't here for the welfare, but I wasn't willing to wait in line forever. I came to America for the dream. I came to work and go to college. I met a young lawyer who was sympathetic to what I was trying to do. Pat Hoin was her name, my first Anglo friend. She encouraged me to take advantage of one of the periodic amnesties when illegals could become legal. I did just that. She thought I might have a bit too much pride for my own good. There was truth in that. Although I'd grown up in Mexico, I came from a very proud Spanish family. My father was so intent that I marry "someone worthy" that he helped drive me away from home. How ironic the way things turned out. He finally accepted my wife. Then she turned out to be treacherous. The last time I saw Rita, we argued about anything and everything. Nothing was too trivial. After she exhausted the subject of my emotional failings, there remained the cosmic threat of my snoring. She failed to convince me that my snoring was on a scale wit