“To revolution!” Markov shouted.
“The Copernican Revolution,” said Stoner.
“The Revolution of Nineteen-Five,” Markov countered.
“Whatever.”
They drank.
“What we need,” Markov said, slapping his emptied glass down, “is an orchestra. We should be playing Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eighteen-twelve Overture.’ ”
“Not revolutionary enough,” Stoner argued. “How about ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’?”
“Counterrevolutionary!”
“It is not!”
“What about ‘Me and Bobby McGee’?” Jo suggested.
They both stared at her blankly.
“Janis Joplin,” she explained. “She was a revolutionary singer in the…oh, forget it!”
Stoner hunched over the table and the other two leaned toward him. “There’s got to be some way,” he said quietly, “of getting Big Mac to agree to a rendezvous mission. We’ve got to find a way.”
“True revolutionaries are not discouraged by the stubborn opposition of reactionary elements,” Markov said with perfect diction. Then he burped.
“We’ve got to find a way,” Stoner repeated.
“Or make one,” said Jo.
“Perhaps when they shine the laser on the alien,” Markov mused, “that will tickle him to react.”
“Him,” Jo said. “You still think of the alien as a male.”
“It,” Stoner compromised. “What did you mean, ‘Make one’?”
“Huh?”
“I said we’ve got to find a way to get Big Mac off his ass, and you said, ‘Or make one.’ What d’you have in mind?”
Jo blinked at him. “Nothing. I was just…talking.”
But Stoner’s mind was churning through the alcoholic haze. “Suppose…Kirill, listen…suppose we started to get a response from one of the radio telescopes. Nothing definite…just a few clicks and scratches…”
Markov looked at him blearily. “You are suggesting that we fake such a response?”
Stoner waved one hand slowly in the air. “Let’s say we…improve on the return signal a little. Just a teeny little bit.”
“Very dangerous,” Markov said, shaking his head. “Very unscientific.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“But would it work?” the Russian went on. “Could you fool your Big Hamburger?”
“If we had somebody at the radio telescope who knew how to do the trick,” Stoner said.
“And,” Markov added with an upraised finger, “if he knew how to keep his mouth shut.”
A slow smile spread across Jo’s face. “What about Dr. Thompson? I think maybe I could get on his good side.”
Maria Markova was sitting on her bed, drumming her stubby fingers on the lid of the suitcase. Kirill will be out for hours, she knew. As long as there is a bar open or a pretty girl to chase, he will be busy.
That gave her the better part of the night to interrogate Cavendish. She had to find some way to use the Englishman to stop the Americans, to prevent Stoner from going through with his plan to rendezvous with the alien spacecraft.
Stoner, she thought. It all focuses on him. If I can put him out of the way, I will have accomplished my assignment.
Jaw clenched, she unsnapped the locks on the suitcase and opened its lid. The unit was powered by its own tiny radioisotope source, and the baleful red light that showed it was working glared back at her.
Maria reached for the transmitter knob and turned it to beam out a hotter, more painful signal. But the face she visualized as she sent the agony on its way was not Cavendish’s. It was her husband’s.
Chapter 29
8 OF 56 WP/JNL 1978-8-24 1531494/IDN WASHINGTON (DC) HAS BECOME FOCAL POINT FOR FEDERAL CRACKDOWN ON MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF PHENCYCLIDINE (PCP): FEDERAL AGENTS HAVE UNCOVERED 10 PCP LABORATORIES AND SEIZED MANUFACTURED MATERIALS WITH STREET VALUE OF ABOUT $2 MILLION SINCE JAN/78; SPECIAL AGENT DAVID CANADAY INDICATES MORE PCP HAS BEEN UNCOVERED IN DC THAN IN ANY OTHER US CITY; NOTES PCP ABUSE IS CONCENTRATED ON EAST COAST (M).
9 OF 56 LAT/JNL 1978-8-20 1545492/IDN THREE LOS ANGELES TIMES ARTICLES DISCUSS EFFECTS OF THE USE OF SYNTHESIZED DRUG PCP, COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS “ANGEL DUST,” ON USERS, HEALTH AND LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL, AND CHEMICAL COMPANIES; PCP CAUSES UNUSUAL BODY STRENGTH AND IMMUNITY TO PAIN. OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY BIZARRE AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR, MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR POLICE TO USE TRADITIONAL RESTRAINT METHODS; HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE NOT ESTABLISHED STANDARD REGIMEN OF TREATMENT BECAUSE VERY LITTLE IS KNOWN OF HOW PCP WORKS; PCP IS INEXPENSIVE AND MADE FROM LEGALLY AVAILABLE CHEMICALS…
Reynaud sat on the edge of Schmidt’s bed, tense as a crackle of electricity, staring at the young astronomer.
For more than an hour now, Schmidt had been sitting on the floor in a corner of his room in the BOQ, arms hanging slackly from his shoulders, hands limp on the bare wooden flooring, eyes glazed and staring at nothing.
He looked dead, except for the rapid, panting rise and fall of his chest and the puffing, almost wheezing breath from his open mouth.
Reynaud had tried to talk to the youngster, tried cold water, even slapped his face. Schmidt just sat there and stared, glassy-eyed.
If I call for medical help they’ll lock him up, Reynaud thought. God knows where he’s gotten the drugs. What if he doesn’t pull out of this? What if he dies?
For the hundredth time, Reynaud got up and went as far as the door. Perhaps there is a doctor who would treat him without letting the authorities know, he told himself.
But his hand refused to turn the doorknob.
As he turned back toward the astronomer, Schmidt’s hands slowly clenched into white-knuckled fists.
“I can see it,” he said, his voice hoarse from the dryness of his throat.
Thank God, Reynaud thought. He’s coming out of it.
“It’s coming,” Schmidt croaked. “Oh, Jesus God, it’s coming right at me! It’s coming!”
He scrambled to his feet. Reynaud went toward him, feeling small and helpless next to the youngster.
“It’s coming at me!” Schmidt screamed. “The colors…” He flung an arm across his eyes. “The pain!”
“No, no, you’ll be all right,” Reynaud said, reaching for the younger man’s other hand.
But Schmidt flung him backward with a wild sweep of his arm. Reynaud hit the bed with the back of his legs and tumbled across it, landing with a painful thump on the floor on the other side.
“I can’t stand it!” Schmidt screamed.
He lifted the entire bed completely off the floor, raising it over his head. Reynaud knew he was going to die. He couldn’t move. For a terrifying instant Schmidt loomed over him like an Aztec priest ready to rip the heart out of his chest.
Then the young man, face twisted into an agonized mask of primeval fury, swung around and threw the bed as easily as a child throws a stick. The metal frame crashed against the wall, splintering the dresser and chair, smashing the plasterboard like a bomb.
Schmidt raced for the door, flung it open and disappeared down the hallway, leaving Reynaud on the floor, white-faced with pain and shock, one arm twisted under his body grotesquely.
“It will never work,” Markov was saying.
“Sure it will,” Stoner insisted.
They were still at their booth in the Officers’ Club, drinking coffee now. Stoner’s head thundered. Markov looked bleary, gloomy, exhausted.
Jo had gone to the cafeteria before it had closed and brought them back soggy sandwiches. Now, sitting beside Stoner, she said:
“I think it could work. Dr. Thompson would help us, I’m sure.”
Markov shook his head, just once; the obvious pain made him stop and close his eyes.