“You know, Mikey,” he said, feeling expansive about it all, and so damn proud of her for not carrying on, “for a woman, you’re pretty damn sensible. I mean that.”
She smiled at him, and he admired the lovely curl of the corners of her lips — he had specified a smile like that, when he was still looking. “Thank you, darling,” she said, pure sugar, pure sweet sugar, not even a pout because he’d called her “Mikey” and she hated that. Hell, it was cute, “Mikey” was! He didn’t mind saying “MiKAYluh” in front of company, he’d humor her about that most of the time, but he liked calling her “Mikey,” it suited her. Thinking about it, he said it again, and reached over to pull the hairpins out of her hair so she’d have to put it up again. She looked distressed, and he chuckled. God she was cute when she was upset… he was a very lucky man, and he’d see to it that she got something really special this time.
“Let me tell you what happened today at the goddam meeting,” he began, watching the swift movements of her fingers repairing the havoc he’d wreaked in the silken hair. “Wait till you hear, sweetheart, it was just about the dumbest goddam piece of puke MetaComp has tried to pull yet, if you know what I mean… and you always do know what I mean, don’t you, sweet lady? Let me tell you — this is a good one. We were all sitting there — ”
He stopped, and he took a long leisurely drag on his cigarette, letting her wait for him to go on, enjoying it. He let the blue streams of smoke curl from his nostrils, grinning at her, holding it, holding it… and then, when he was ready, he went on and told her how it had been. And she listened, with her full attention, just like the way it had been before the baby, not a word about it being three o’clock in the morning or any of that stuff. God, it was good to have his home back again, his home, the way it was meant to be! He felt so good he made it through four glasses of Scotch, and he knew he wasn’t going to be awake for the special Saturday breakfast he always had her order for them. Ham and eggs and waffles and strawberries, bygod, and if the strawberries gave him hives, well they gave him hives. He was entitled. But he wasn’t going to be awake for all that, not this morning.
It didn’t matter. Whenever he decided to wake up, she’d have that breakfast ready for him, no matter what time it was. He could count on her. Life was just purely great.
Michaela was solicitous the next day, bringing him the Null-Alk capsules before he lifted his head from the pillow, and admitting at once that it was her fault he hadn’t taken them before he went to sleep the night before. Sitting there beside him murmuring her sympathy until the pills took hold and he felt like himself again. There were lots of advantages to having a wife that was a trained nurse, besides the money it brought in. When you didn’t feel good, it was gratifying to know there was somebody there that knew what to do, or knew when it was time to call somebody else because it was more than a woman could deal with. It was a comfort.
“I love you, honey,” he said from the pile of pillows she’d fluffed for him. Women liked to hear that. And he felt like indulging her this morning, just knowing that he had the whole day — hell, the whole rest of his life — to look forward to now, without the effing baby.
He was just lying there, beaming at her and getting ready to have her bring him the special breakfast — with double strawberries — when he heard the noise.
“What the hell is that?” he demanded. It sounded like it was coming from his dressingroom.
“What, darling? Do you hear something?”
“Yeah… yeah, there it goes again. Don’t you hear it?”
“Ned, darling,” she said, “you know my ears aren’t sharp like yours are… I don’t hear a thing. It’s a good thing you’re around to take care of me.”
Damn right it was. Ned stubbed out the cigarette and took a swig of the coffee she’d brought him right after the pills, laced with Scotch the way he liked it. “I’ll go check it out,” he said.
“You could just tell me where to look, Ned,” she suggested, but he shook his head and threw back the covers.
“Naah. I’d better go see for myself. Probably a monitor that’s gone bad. I’ll be right back.”
It wasn’t until he was inside his dressingroom and had closed the door behind him that he saw the wasps. Four of them, goddam it, angry ones, furious bastards, buzzing and buzzing in there! He reached behind him for the door, he had to get out of there fast… shit, they were as big as effing hummingbirds! He’d seen them before outside, meant to mention them to Michaela and have her see to them, but how the fuck did they get in here? And it was not until he knew they were going to get to him no matter how carefully he moved that he realized something was wrong with the door, oh jeezus there was something wrong with the door, the plate that you pushed to open it from the inside wasn’t there, there was oh jeezus just an empty fucking space there where it was supposed to be!
He started yelling for Michaela then, thanking god reverently and sincerely that she had never, not once, kept him waiting for anything!
Michaela surprised him. She kept him waiting a very long time. Long enough to be certain. Long enough to put the insects down the vaporizer. Long enough to fix the door assembly so that it opened the way it always had, from either side, and wipe everything clean of her fingerprints. Long enough to see that there were fingerprints of his on everything they should have been on. It was often useful, being a nurse; you had to know lots of things that women weren’t usually taught anything about. Lots of things that were going to come in handy from now on; oh, yes.
Only when she could step back and see nothing out of the ordinary in any way except the body on the floor did she scream for help and faint appropriately across the threshold in the clear view of the security monitor. Carefully, being very sure she did herself no harm. She had to take excellent care of herself now, did Michaela, because she was now the one who had all the big plans.
Chapter Four
I suppose every single one of us that comes here, knowing that his work will mean contact with extraterrestrials, thinks that he will be an exception, that he’ll find a way to make friends with at least some of them. You figure you’ll get the Lingoe to teach you a few words… “Hello! How are you? Nice whatsit you’ve got there!” That kind of thing. You think, we can’t just go on forevermore being strangers, right? But when the time comes, and you get close to an Alien, you understand what the scientists are talking about when they say it isn’t possible. There’s a feeling that comes over you. It’s not just fear, and it’s not just prejudice. It’s something you never felt before, and something you’ll never forget when you’ve felt it once.
You know how you can find things under rocks that will just about go crazy digging in and curling up, trying to get away from the light? That’s how you feel, when you’re close to an Alien, or even when you’re in contact with one by comset for more than a minute or two. You wish you had something to burrow into. Everything goes on red alert, and everything you’ve got to feel with is screaming ALIEN! ALIEN! You’re glad then, let me tell you, you’re very glad then, that you’re not expected to be friendly. Just polite, that’s all, even after all the training they give you here. Just polite.