"Wow," gasped Ted when he realized what she was doing; we'd been dropping for several decades, even though my watch insisted it was only two and a half minutes. "Either she's a real hot shot, or somebody wants to see us in an awful hurry."
"Both," she called from up front. She was downchecking the auto-monitor.
Ted looked embarrassed; he hadn't realized she could hear us. She got on the radio then to warn them we were dropping in. "Stapleton, this is Tirelli. Clear the dime-I've got that high-pri cargo and I'm putting it right where I said I would."
A male voice answered immediately. "Negative, Tirelli. Your priority's been double-upped. They need the chopper for some brass. Veer off and drop it next door on Lowry. There's a truck waiting for you on north zero-six."
"Oh, hell," she said. But she began cutting in the jets, firing short bursts to bring us around and slow our descent. The deceleration was sideways. And bumpy.
"By the way," added the radio. "Tag your auto-monitor for inspection. We lost some of our remote metering just before you voiced in."
"Naw, that was me. I was downchecking."
"Damn it, Liz! You're not supposed to do that in the air."
"Relax, Jackie. You had me on your scopes. I saw the beeper. You didn't need the telemetry or the inertial probe anymore. And I'm in a hurry."
"Liz, those systems are for your safety-"
"Right. And worth every penny of it." She grinned. "I can't talk anymore, Jackie. I'm gonna drop this thing." She switched off the voice circuit. The auto-monitor continued to flash.
"Uh," I said, "maybe I don't understand-"
"You're right," she cut me off. "You don't." Without taking her eyes off her controls, she explained, "The excuse I gave him was a blind. What I'm really doing is cutting the control monitors. I don't want him knowing I'm not using noise abatement-it takes too much power from the engines."
"Oh," I said. "But what about the people below?"
"I try not to think about them," she said. And then added, "Would you rather be a considerate spot of red jelly on the runway-or rude and in one piece?"
"I see your point." I shut up.
"Besides," she continued, "anyone who lives that close to an airport deserves it-especially now, when half the city is empty." The copter was caught by a crossdraft then and we slid sideways. For a moment I thought she'd miscalculated and we were going to miss the runway, but she did nothing to correct our descent. Then I caught sight of the truck and realized that she'd even outthought the wind. We were being blown toward our landing spot.
A moment later we touched ground easily. It was the last easy thing in Denver. Even before the jets whined down to a stop, a ramp was slammed into place and the door was being pulled open.
It popped outward with a whoosh of pressurized air and slid sideways. Almost immediately, a hawk-nosed major with red face and beady eyes was barking into the cabin, "All right, Liz, where are the-"
And then he caught sight of me and Ted. "Who're you?" he demanded. He didn't wait for an answer, but snapped at Major Tirelli, "Dammit, Liz, there wasn't supposed to be any deadheading on this flight!" He was wearing a Sony Hear-Muff with wire mike attached. "Hold a minute," he said into it.
"We're not deadheading," Ted said. He blinked at us, annoyed.
Ted poked me. "Show him the orders."
"Orders? What orders?" To the mike: "Stand by. I think we got a foul-up."
I pulled the papers out of my jacket pocket and passed them over. He took them impatiently and scanned them with a growing frown. Behind him, two middle-aged privates, obviously tapped for the job of carrying the specimen cases, peered at us with the usual mixture of curiosity and boredom.
"What the hell," he muttered. "This is a bloody nuisance. Which one are you?"
"I'm McCarthy, that's Jackson."
"Right. McCarthy. I'll remember you." He handed our orders back. "Okay, grab your cases and lug them down to that cruiser." He turned and ducked out. "You two are dismissed. They sent their own flunkies." He had all the charm of a drill press.
Ted and I exchanged a glance, shrugged and reached for the boxes. Major Tirelli finished her power-down, locked the console, and squeezed past us toward the door.
As we stumbled down the ramp after her, I noticed that the two privates had parked themselves in the V.I.P. seats of the wagon, leaving the service seats for us. The major-already I disliked him-was standing by the hood, talking to an unseen someone. "Yeah, that must be it.... Well, find someplace to bed them down until we can figure out what to do with them-I don't care where.... What? ... I don't know. They look like it. Wait, I'll find out for sure." He glowered over at us. "Are you boys fairies?"
"Oh, honey!" Ted gushed at him. "When are you going to learn? The word is faggot! Don't they teach you anything at those fancy eastern schools?" Before I could react or step away, Ted had hooked his arm through mine. "Jimmy, we've got a lot of consciousness-raising to do here."
"Ted!" I jerked away and stared at him angrily.
"Yeah, they are," the major was saying. "Put them somewhere out of the way. Let's not give our Fourth World friends any more ammunition. . . . Right. Out." He looked at the two privates. "Move it! Make room there for Major Tirelli!" To us, he just growled, "Stash those in the back! You'll have to crawl in with them; there's not enough room up front." He planted himself beside a weary-looking driver.
I scrambled in behind Ted and tried to make myself comfortable-Hah! That bus hadn't been designed for comfort. There must have been an army regulation against it. We bounced across the field toward a distant building.
"What was that all about?" I hissed at Ted.
Ted half-shrugged, half-grinned. "I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Not to me!"
Ted reached over and patted my arm affectionately. I glared at him. He said, "Jimbo, take a look around you. It's a beautiful day. And we are back in civilization! Not even the army can spoil that!"
"I'm not a fairy!"
"I know, dear-but the major was looking for a reason to dislike you and I didn't want to disappoint him. Wow! Look at that sky! Welcome to Denver!"
SIXTEEN
OUR FIRST stop was Specimen Section, ET-3. Ted and I pushed the cart down the long disinfectant-smelling hall of the section, while Major Bright-Eyes and his honor guard followed us -glowering.
At one point we passed a heavy steel door with a very tantalizing sign:
LIVE CHTORRAN OBSERVATION
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
I craned my neck as we passed, hoping to peer in through the windows in the doors, but there was nothing to see. And Major Shithead gave me a dirty look for my trouble.
We went all the way to the end of the hall through a pair of double doors marked SUPERVISION. The person in charge of the section was a surprisingly unmilitary little old lady, who peered at us over the tops of her half-frame spectacles. "Well, hello!" She gave us a twinkly-sweet smile. "What did you bring me today?" She took the clipboard from the major and peered at it, smiling and blinking as she did so. "Uh huh, yes ... yes, very good. . . ." She had rosy pink cheeks and shiny white hair piled and curled on top of her head. She was wearing a white lab coat, but where it was open at the neck I could see the collar of a green and blue flowered dress. Her nametag said M. PARTRIDGE, Ph.D.