“I wish I knew.”
“Sounds to me like he knew all about your shortwave and set a neat little trap.”
“That’s the way I read it.”
“And you have no idea how he knew?”
Eleanore glanced at the hybrid. “I told you I don’t. Why do you keep asking?”
“No reason.”
“Liar. You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Sure I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
Again the peculiar odor tantalized Lynx’s nostrils, and he cocked his head, his nose flaring, stumped. What in the world was it? He vaguely recalled having encountered such a scent before.
“Is something wrong?” Eleanore asked, gazing nervously at the forest.
“No.”
“Then why were you smelling the air like that?”
“I like to exercise my nose once an hour whether it needs the workout or not.”
“Come on. Be honest with me.”
“Why should I buck the trend?”
Eleanore clenched her fists, then nodded to herself. “I knew you didn’t believe me. Well, screw you. I’m not telling you another damn thing.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll do my best to survive the shock.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a smart-ass?”
“Nope. No one.”
“There you go lying again. How does your wife put up with you? She must have the patience of a saint.” Lynx abruptly halted and turned.
“Keep your mouth off of my squeeze, lady. She’s got more brass than any ten broads I know.”
The fiery passion in the hybrid’s eyes subdued Eleanore’s anger.
“Sorry,” she blurted out. “I wasn’t trying to insult your woman.”
“You’d better not,” Lynx warned, and resumed hiking to the west. “And technically speaking, she’s not exactly a woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“Melody is a hybrid like me. We were bred in test tubes by sons of bitches who were tryin’ to play God.”
“I never heard of such a thing. What’s a test tube?”
“A little glass container shaped like your finger.”
“Are you putting me on?”
“Look at me, stupid. Do you think I hatched from an egg? Or came from Mars?”
“I know you didn’t come from Mars,” Eleanore stated.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I talked to an oldster once who told me all about this book that his grandfather had told him about. It was all about the war between Earth and Mars.”
Lynx stopped again, his brow creased in confusion. “What are you babbling about?”
“So you don’t know everything, huh? I’m surprised you haven’t heard about the war. It took place a couple of hundred years ago. Started in a country called England.”
“Mars and the Earth never fought a war, you dingbat.”
“Says you. I prefer to believe the oldster. He supplied all the details he remembered. How the Martians came to Earth in these cylinders that resembled meteors, and how they landed in England and wiped out thousands of people with their death rays. They built these huge machines and roamed the land wiping out the population. According to the old man, the Martians nearly ruled the world.”
“Do you expect me to buy this fairy tale of yours?”
“I didn’t invent the story. The old man heard the details from his grandfather,” Eleanore reiterated.
“The old man must have been stoned out of his gourd.”
“He was sober.”
“Idiot,” Lynx muttered, and kept going.
“Listen to the history expert. How many books on history have you read?”
“None, but—” Lynx began.
“Then how do you know it’s not the truth?”
“If it was, you’d think more folks would know about a war between us and some geeks from Mars. How come I haven’t heard about this great war before?”
“No one talks about it much anymore. Why should they? Everyone with half a brain knows it happened.”
“Bet me.”
“And they weren’t geeks from Mars. They were octopuses from Mars.”
“Octopuses!” Lynx exploded in exasperation, and inadvertently released her wrist. “You mean those things in the ocean with all the tentacles?”
“Yep.”
“Let me tell you something, sister. That old man saw you coming a mile off and decided to jerk your G-string. You almost had me believing you until now. Octopuses from Mars!” Lynx snorted contemptuously, grabbed her arm, and stalked in the direction of the treeline.
“Check with somebody else if you don’t believe me.”
“If you think I’m going to waltz up to someone else and ask them if this planet was ever invaded by a bunch of geek octopuses from Mars, you’re crazy.”
“Find the book. Then you’ll know I told you the truth.”
Lynx thought of the enormous Family library with its hundreds of thousands of volumes stocked by the Founder of the Home, Kurt Carpenter, and speculated on whether the book she mentioned might be included. Carpenter had accumulated half a million books, shelf after shelf of reference books, history books, geography books, books on military tactics, books on gardening, hunting, and fishing. Blade had told Lynx that the library contained the greatest collection in existence, including all the classics, humorous books, scientific tomes, photographic volumes, and many, many more. He had taken the giant’s word for it. Lynx wasn’t much of a reader, primarily because he could seldom sit still long enough to finish an entire book.
“And here I thought you were Mr. Know-It-All,” Eleanore remarked scornfully.
“Not that I believe your garbage for a second, but you’ve got me curious. Whatever happened to all these invader octopuses? There’s none around now.”
“They were all killed off by germs.”
“Great. Here we go again.”
“I’m serious. Do you know how when you have a cold and you cough, you spread all these tiny germs in the air?”
“I know you’ve got a germ for a brain.”
“Look do you want to know the answer or not?”
Lynx sighed. “Sure. Why not? I’ve listened to this much B.S. Why not give me the rest of it?”
“Okay. The old man told me that the germs in our atmosphere killed the Martians because they don’t have the same kind of germs on their planet as we do on ours. So germs that would just affect you and me with a sore throat or a runny nose will wipe out a Martian.”
“That’s some imagination you’ve got there, sweetcheeks. One of these days you should write a book of your own. Call it War of the Geeks.”
“What’s with you and geeks?” Eleanore asked, men did a double take.
“Hey. What did you just call me?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes you do. You called me sweetcheeks.”
“Don’t take it personally. I call chipmunks sweetcheeks, too,” Lynx told her. They were now 20 feet from the woods, and for the third time his sensitive nose registered the unknown scent. Only this time the odor sparked a memory. “Do you have pigs in Louisiana?”
“Wild pigs, you mean?”
“I smell pig,” Lynx declared. “I don’t know if it’s wild or tame.”
“There wouldn’t be any domestic pigs here,” Eleanore stated, and suddenly her visage reflected budding shock. “Oh, no!”
Lynx drew up short and glanced at her. “Oh no, what?”
“Boars . A lot of wild boars have spread across the bayous since the war.”
A flash of chilling insight electrified the hybrid, and he looked at the gloomy forest just as a 400-pound mass of primal fury hurtled from the undergrowth directly at them, its nine-inch upswept tusks glinting wickedly in the bright sunlight.