Alien Nation #8 - Cross of Blood Page 17

  “Of course.” Quinn nodded. “In medical and research circles, there had been talk of this for some time now. Nothing was ever made public—the Bureau of Newcomer Affairs kept a pretty tight lid on any such speculations. But the evidence was there, mostly in the areas of genetic mapping and microsurgery. At a fundamental level, humans and Tenctonese share more characteristics than had previously been thought, enough to even suggest that both species are derived from a common genetic stock.”

  “You’re losing me,” said Sikes. “ ‘A common stock’—what’re you talking about? Look, doc, Newcomers and humans don’t even come from the same planet.”

  “Really? And how do we know that for certain? For those of us who were investigating the core material of Tenctonese physiology, the things we discovered forced some fairly radical notions upon us. The alien species that enslaved the Tenctonese may have genetically manipulated the original breeding stock hundreds of thousands of years ago, before the dawn of human history—and that breeding stock may have been taken from the human species or its ancestors here on Earth. Human cultures and the Tenctonese all have ancient myths and legends revolving around a fall and expulsion from a golden, Eden-like primeval state—perhaps those are all derived from ancestral memories of these traumatic events. And if that’s the case, then what has happened to Cathy is not a mutation or adaptation of normal Tenctonese physiology, but a reversion to an original human childbearing capability. What we’re seeing might be an instance of an artificially-derived genetic branch returning to its root stock.”

  “Jeez.” Sikes didn’t know whether he should be appalled or not at the doctor’s blunt scientific language. Somewhere in all this talk of genetics and crossbreeding was the woman he loved. It didn’t matter to him whether she was entirely different from him or somehow part human. “But . . . but you can’t prove all this . . .”

  “You’re right.” The half-smile showed on Quinn’s burn-scarred face again. “Proof, in the scientific rather than the legal sense, is a rare commodity. But as far as this theory goes, there is at least one piece of very compelling evidence. When your and Cathy’s child is born, it will not be the first cross between humans and Newcomers. There’s already been another one.”

  “Oh.” He felt stunned by this news. Another one—what did that mean? “Was it . . . you know . . . born healthy?”

  “Very.” Quinn’s smile grew slightly wider. “A completely healthy little girl. I’ve been following her progress for quite some time. She’s a bit older than you might expect; she was born about a year after the Newcomers’ Day of Descent, the crash-landing of the slave ship here on Earth. The Tenctonese mother of the child isn’t alive, however; she didn’t die of any complications from the birth, but from some long-standing injuries suffered in the ship’s landing. This is why I was so confident when I first talked to Cathy that she would be able to bring her pregnancy full-term and deliver a healthy infant. The process of developing a human-like womb, as well as all the other necessary changes for carrying the fetus, is based upon internal elements that are already present in microscopic form—you might almost say ‘embryonic’—in normal Tenctonese females.”

  “Yeah, but guys like me—human guys, I mean—there’s been quite a few of us sleeping with Newcomer women for a while now. And out of that whole batch, you’ve got what? Two pregnancies? So something else must be going on for Cathy to get knocked up by me. What’s so special about us? Was I taking too many vitamins or something?” A joke, but with a serious intent behind it.

  “I don’t know . . .” Quinn’s expression shifted, his gaze turning toward the dim light seeping through the curtains. “There must have been some kind of trigger—something that kicks in on the biochemical level, with a cascading physiological response, but I haven’t been able to determine what it is. That’s what all my research was oriented toward finding out. So you can see how important Cathy’s pregnancy is; it’s our first opportunity to observe almost the entire process resulting in a human/Tenctonese hybrid birth.” He glanced back over at Sikes. “If I had been able to continue my research—if the clinic hadn’t been destroyed—I might have been able to answer that question for you by now.”

  “That’s the other big question, then, isn’t it?” Sikes knew he was on a roll; a police detective didn’t often get a chance to grill somebody back from the dead. “Like I asked before—who bombed the place if it wasn’t the HDL?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Quinn emitted a bitter laugh. “The Sleemata Romot—the Newcomer businessmen who were funding me—they did it. Not personally, of course; they don’t like to get their hands dirty. But they paid to have the bombing done.”

  “Huh?” Puzzled, Sikes tilted his head to one side. “That doesn’t make any sense. These people bankrolled your research, and then they blew it up? Why would they do that?”

  “They funded my research because they wanted to control it; there were things that they were afraid I would find out, that they wanted to make sure that no one else ever heard of. And when I did in fact discover those things, they pulled the plug on me. I had been aware, of course, that I had to be careful, that some of my preliminary findings had made them uneasy, so I didn’t tell them everything. But somebody on my staff—I still don’t know who—was funnelling them information. And when the time came, when they decided that they had heard enough . . . that was when the Sleemata Romot also decided that I was too dangerous to let live. I had found out too much.”

  “Your research? What the hell could you have found out that they’d wanna make burnt kibble out of you?”

  “I discovered the truth, and I had the data to back it up. And it was what they were afraid all along would turn out to be the truth. That a human/Tenctonese crossbreed is not a true hybrid, with equal genetic material from both parents. Essentially, the resulting child from such a mating is a genetically pure human child with perhaps some minor Newcomer-like physical characteristics. Not just the gestation process, but the resulting infant as well appears to be a reversion to what I’ve theorized is the original human matrix. That’s what happened with the first child who was born to a human/Tenctonese mating, and I believe it will be the same with the child born to you and Cathy.” The doctor leaned forward, his gaze fastening hard upon Sikes’s eyes. “Do you see now why those wealthy Newcomers who were funding me would be afraid of what I had discovered? These are men who are absolutely dedicated to the future of their people—and I had found something that could mean the end of the Tenctonese species. Not by the crude violence of the Purists, the mass murders that Darlene Bryant and her ilk would be only to happy to perform—but by the simple, gradual process of interbreeding between humans and Newcomers. If the biological trigger could be found that allows a viable pregnancy to result from a human/Tenctonese mating, and that trigger became universal, then with every such mating and pregnancy, a small portion of the distinctive Tenctonese genotype would be eliminated. According to my research, the children resulting from such pregnancies would all revert to a basic human genetic makeup. With each generation of such children, the Tenctonese—as a species separate from human—would progressively die out. Given a continuous rate of interbreeding between human and Tenctonese, eventually there would be no Tenctonese left; they would have been completely reabsorbed into the human genetic stock.”

  “I get it,” said Sikes. “And that’s what got the wealthy Newcomers who were funding you so upset. They could deal with the HDL putting a gun to their heads easier than they could with what you had found out.”

  “Exactly. As I said, these men are dedicated to the cause of the Tenctonese people. The forces of innate biology may be slower than what the HDL would prefer, but in the long run they’re surer and even more final. The foundation would have shut me down a long time ago, destroyed all the records of my research, if I hadn’t been holding something else over their heads.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The child,” said Dr. Quinn. “The living result of the fi
rst successful human/Tenctonese mating. A little girl—she’s about seven years old now. The Bureau of Newcomer Affairs doesn’t know where she is . . . but I do.” An expression of grim satisfaction appeared on Quinn’s face. “As a matter of fact, I’m just about the only person who does know where she is.”

  “I see.” A situation like that, Sikes realized, would make a perfect trump card for the doctor. “How’d you pull that off?”

  “Come on; do you really expect me to confess all my slightly illegal actions to you? Let’s just say that I’ve had resources of my own for some time and that I realized early on how valuable this little girl could be. I acquired her—is that a polite enough way of putting it? I prefer it to ‘kidnapping’—and have kept her very safe and very comfortable. She’s probably been safer at the hiding place I created for her than if I had left her in the care of the BNA. Of course, the girl has been useful to me as well: I informed my wealthy Newcomer businessmen that if any attempt was made to shut down the clinic and my research, or if there was any threat against my own life, then the arrangements I had already set into place would reveal the little girl to the world, along with all the data about her nature as a human/Tenctonese hybrid. Everything would be made public about the possibility of crossbreeding between humans and Newcomers. That was my insurance against these men trying to stop my research.”

  “Something must’ve gone wrong. The clinic was bombed anyway.”

  “They were told . . .” Quinn’s face darkened into a scowl. “Someone must have told them—someone I trusted. They were told where the little girl was hidden, and I lost her. When I found out that she was gone, that the hiding place had been broken into and the girl stolen from me, I knew that I didn’t have much time. I was in the midst of making my final arrangements, completing the preparations I had already made, when I was contacted by Cathy’s doctor and told about her pregnancy. That complicated things a great deal. If the news of her pregnancy had been made public, her life wouldn’t have been worth two cents; the men who had been funding my clinic could easily arrange to have her killed. I figured that the only way she could be protected immediately was if I saw her and brought her on-line with the Bureau of Newcomer Affairs; the security the BNA could arrange would be better than nothing. Unfortunately, I had even less time than I had thought: you and Cathy were there at the clinic when I found out that the bomb had already been planted. I just barely managed to hustle you both out and arrange the evidence that would indicate my own death.” Quinn laid his hand against the burn scars on his face. “As you can see, it came close to not being an imposture at all; I imagine your coroner’s office would’ve had a hard time accounting for two sets of body fragments in the clinic’s ruins, each with a artificial knee joint with the same serial number.” He took his hand away, like removing a partial mask. “I crawled out of the flames at the rear of the block while the fire engines were still pulling up out front. I wasn’t in great shape then, but I survived. But being officially dead has definite advantages—no one’s caught up with me yet.”

  “Maybe so, but you’re taking a risk getting hold of me and telling me all this.” Sikes studied the man sitting in front of him. “Why now?”

  Quinn was silent for a moment, rubbing his hands together nervously. “I have reason to believe . . . that my ruse has not been entirely successful. My enemies may already have discovered that I’m not really dead. And if that’s the case, they won’t stop until they’ve rectified the situation.”

  “Okay, so you wanna come into protective custody. You’re talking to the right man.”

  “No!” Quinn’s head snapped back, eyes flaring wide. “That—that’s out of the question! There’s no way I can turn myself over to the authorities. I can trust you—but the others, the rest of the security detail, the BNA forces, they may already have been compromised. My enemies can be anywhere . . .”

  Sikes knew he was hearing the voice of madness, that the doctor’s life on the run had injected a streak of irrationality into his thinking. “Look, you don’t have to worry,” he said as soothingly as possible. “I’ll personally guarantee your safety—”

  “You’re more of a fool than I thought.” A spark of anger showed in Quinn’s eyes. “You still don’t understand how powerful these people are. I didn’t come here for your protection—I came here to warn you. Cathy is still my patient—I was a doctor when she came to me, and I still am; I’m responsible for her well-being. I haven’t lost track of time—I know her baby is due any day now. Better you should worry about her, and your child, than about me. I can take care of myself—I’ve done a pretty good job of it so far—but Cathy and that child will be in far more danger. My enemies will be their enemies, and they’ll know that another human/Tenctonese crossbreed has been born. How long do you think they’ll wait before they come seeking your child’s death?”

  The doctor’s words chilled Sikes’s blood. “We’re already doing everything we can to make sure Cathy’s safe—there’s armed guards all over the hospital we’ve got her at. Whatever hit squad these people send out, they’ll have to get through me and a whole other troop of police and BNA agents before they’d be able to lay a hand on her. And when she pops that kid, it’s going to be inside more security measures than Fort Knox.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Quinn’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “But these people know how to bide their time, then strike. Since the bombing of my clinic, there’ve been months of peace and quiet—long enough to lull you into thinking there’s nothing to be concerned about. If you fall into that trap, you’ll wind up regretting it.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks for the advice.” Sikes pushed himself away from the counter. “But right now, I’m afraid you don’t have any further choice in the matter. You’re a material witness to a whole string of crimes, including the attempt on your own life. If we’re going to shut down the people responsible for this bullshit, we’re going to need you in custody.” He reached down to take Quinn’s arm.

  The doctor scrambled to his feet, knocking the chair over behind himself. “No!” he shouted, face contorted with anger and fear. “I told you!” Quinn grabbed the fallen chair by one of its armrests and swung it in a wide arc, catching Sikes across the chest.

  Caught off-guard by the blow, Sikes fell, landing hard on his shoulder. He pushed himself partway up in time to see Dr. Quinn bursting out of the apartment’s front door and into the building corridor beyond.

  “Stop!” Catching himself against the doorframe, Sikes spotted Quinn climbing out of the window at the end of the corridor, onto the fire escape outside. “Goddamn it, don’t be an idiot!”

  The metal grids of the fire escape racketed beneath Sikes as he pursued Quinn down toward the alley. With a screech of rusting iron, the hinged ladders pulled away from the brick wall with each impact of his and the doctor’s weight.

  He almost had him—the collar of Quinn’s jacket was an inch away from Sikes’s grasp as he swung one-handed around the last grid’s support pole. Quinn hesitated before jumping the few feet down to the litter-strewn asphalt; his eyes widened as he looked back up toward his pursuer . . .

  A red flower blossomed on Quinn’s forehead. That was what it looked like to Sikes, but for only a moment; the sharp report of the rifle shot slammed against his ears as he watched Quinn fall away from him, the stunned and baffled look in the doctor’s eyes already fading. The fire escape grid caught Quinn’s heel, and he dangled upside down for a few seconds, blood forming a pool just inches below his shattered head; then the weight dragged the lifeless foot from the shoe and the corpse fell.

  With one hand on the iron rail, Sikes looked down at Quinn’s crumpled body. Even before he heard the next shot, he had already ducked and rolled against the wall of the building; bits of rust flew, exposing bare metal, as the bullet hit the spot where he had just been crouching.

  Flat on his stomach, he rooted inside his jacket for his own gun, drawing it out as he spotted the car with dark-tinted windows at
the alley’s mouth—whoever was inside it had stationed themselves so they could cover all the exits from the apartment building. Before Sikes could aim and get a shot off, the rifle barrel lying on top of a partly rolled down side window was snatched back inside; the car’s tires smoked and squealed as the unseen driver punched the accelerator. By the time he had hit the ground and run up the alley to the street, the car had swung around the next corner and disappeared.

  He walked back toward the corpse and stood looking down at it. Sirens were already wailing in the distance; a couple of apartment windows had been shoved open, his neighbors checking out the scene below and quickly dialing 911.

  Zepeda was in the first squad car on the scene. With the red gumball lights flashing around the alley walls, she and Sikes watched the other officers holding back the crowd gathering on the street. “Hey, isn’t this what’s-his-name?” She pointed toward the body at their feet. “The doctor that got blown up a while back?”

  “Yeah, it’s him.” Sikes felt disgusted with himself. He’d had another piece of the puzzle in his hands, and had lost it. “The guy’s name was Quinn.”

  “Busy fellow,” said Zepeda with mock admiration. “Not enough to get killed once—he’s gotta do it twice.”

  “I better get back to the station.” Sikes shook his head wearily. “This is gonna take a lot of writing up.”

  “Forget that noise, man. I’ll cover you for a while. You’re not even supposed to be here.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “The dispatcher’s been trying to get hold of you for hours. You got other business to take care of.” Zepeda gave a quick laugh. “Cathy got rolled into the delivery room—and she can’t sit there with her legs crossed forever, waiting for you to show up.”

  He barely heard the last few words. He had already turned away and started running toward the yellow tape sealing off the alley.