Jim Baen's Universe

Serials - parts and parts.

Slan Hunter, Part 1

Written by A. E. van Vogt and Kevin J. Anderson

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

[CHAPTER 1]

The world was already falling apart when her first contractions hit.

"Perfect timing—" Anthea Stewart clenched her teeth to stop a hiss of pain, holding her rounded abdomen.

Beside her, driving recklessly, her husband Davis said, "Don't worry, Anth. I'll get you there in time." He took a hard right so that the wide whitewalled tires squealed on the asphalt. "Plenty of time. Don't you worry about a thing." The hospital was just ahead. He accelerated.

"Why are you telling me not to worry? Because you're doing all the work?"

"I'm doing every bit as much as I can." He flashed her a grin so full of love that she forgot the pain. Then Anthea gripped the handrest as she concentrated on the spasms, the clenching of her muscles, and the restless baby inside her.

She felt a strange, bittersweet anticipation. Soon, the healthy infant she had carried for nine months would emerge into the world. He would no longer be an integral part of her, and their lives would be permanently changed. But Anthea looked forward to it with anticipation as well as trepidation. She would stop being a "pregnant woman" and become a "mother"; they would stop being a "married couple" and become a "family." The thought brought a smile to her lips. So many changes ahead!

The AM radio blared, laced with occasional threads of static, as the edgy-sounding announcer talked about the current crisis. Davis had turned on the car radio as he drove, hoping for some soothing music for his wife, but the emergency broadcasts were not comforting. "Slan attack imminent. Radar images show the possibility of numerous enemy ships approaching."

Anthea wiped sweat from her forehead and turned to look at him. Davis was alarmingly pale, disturbed by the tense news as well as having the jitters of an expectant father. He turned the knob again, trying a different station.

"—President Kier Gray arrested. The world has been rocked to learn that their leader was secretly a slan in disguise. The noted slan hunter John Petty, chief of the secret police, has assumed provisional control of the government after making the arrest himself. Several of the President's cabinet members, also shown to be slans, were killed in the altercation. Gray's arrest raises the uncomfortable question of how many more of the telepathic mutants might be living among us, completely unnoticed."

Davis snapped off the radio in disgust. "I guess we'll just have to hum if we want music." A slow-moving car driven by an old man hunched over the steering wheel swerved out of the way as Davis rushed past.

"How could Kier Gray be a slan?" Anthea said, trying to distract herself. "I thought they all had tendrils coming out the back of their heads. He couldn't possibly have hidden what he was."

"Don't underestimate how devious they can be. They use makeup, prosthetics, hair pieces to cover up their tendrils. It really is a conspiracy." He stared intently ahead as he drove. "I wish we'd just wiped them all out during the Slan Wars."

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to sound conversational despite the spasms, but she failed miserably. "It's not . . . as if . . . we didn't try."

The telepathic humans were physically superior, with great strength and improved healing abilities; they considered themselves a master race. Long ago, the mutant slans had tried to dominate and enslave the rest of humanity. Centuries of warfare ensued as brave humans fought slans, defeated them, and drove the few survivors into hiding.

Though the media was rife with rumors about an expansive underground slan organization and numerous concealed bases, only a few loners were ever caught. Sinister slan ships occasionally flew over the great cities on Earth, sometimes dropping off messages, other times just gathering reconnaissance. Obviously, the slans were building their numbers, gearing up for some sort of concerted attack. No wonder humanity was terrified.

Somehow, though, being with Davis made her feel safe, no matter what the radio news said. Her husband had brown eyes in contrast with her blue ones, dark curly hair as opposed to her straight, strawberry blonde. But Anthea and Davis Stewart were not opposites: They had been soul mates since their first meeting. Some romantics called it "love at first sight"; others talked about chemistry and matching personalities. From the moment she had met Davis, it seemed their very heartbeats had synchronized. They had known they were meant for each other. Now with the coming baby, their love, their family, would be stronger than ever before.

Unbearable affection seeped through the concern on his face like fresh rain washing away a stain. "It won't be long now, Anth. Just hang on."

After riding through another contraction, she gave him a strange smile. "No, Davis . . . no, it won't. But I don't think I can concentrate on politics anymore . . . okay?"

Davis raced toward the tall, brown-brick Centropolis General Hospital, turning into the marked driveway for the emergency room entrance. He wasn't going to let even a planet-sized war get in the way of the medical attention his wife needed. He pulled up to the curb in front of the double doors, then jammed the shift lever into park and opened his door all in one gesture. "Just wait here. I'll get somebody."

Anthea was tempted to walk by herself into the emergency room, but then another contraction hit, harder than the previous ones. "All right," she gasped. "I'll just wait here."

Running into the hospital with his hair mussed, awkwardly waving his arms, Davis looked utterly adorable. She knew she would never forget that sight.

Anthea closed her eyes and counted, trying to time the contractions, though it was merely a trick to occupy her mind. She had always been able to shunt aside pain, to concentrate on her body. Did all mothers feel so connected to their babies? It wanted to come out—he wanted to be born, and she experienced an inexplicable confidence that the delivery would be smooth. She had nothing to worry about.

Davis returned in less than a minute, pushing a wheelchair. A gangly orderly jogged along beside her husband, scolding him and trying to wrest the wheelchair from him, but Davis wanted to do this himself. The two men quickly helped Anthea out of the car and into the emergency room waiting area. The orderly shouted for a nurse, who in turn shouted for a doctor, and they all rushed toward the delivery room.

Anthea looked up just long enough to see several policemen milling about in the emergency room. A grim-looking, dark-suited man wore an armband with the insignia of the secret police, a scarlet hammer across a web. A slan hunter here in the hospital? Her thoughts were fuzzy, but she realized that if the slans were going to attack Centropolis, many casualties would be pouring into this medical center. Slan terrorists probably thought the hospital would be a good place to sabotage. What if one of them took her baby? She had heard of the terrible things slans did to babies. . . .

The man with the armband was scolding a plump woman behind the reception desk. "I must insist, ma'am. The secret police have the legal authority to inspect all of your admissions records. I want your carbon copies."

While halfheartedly clacking away on her manual typewriter, she popped her pink gum with a sound like the shot from a toy gun. "Sir, don't you think that if we found a slan in our treatment rooms we would report it?"

"I need to look at blood tests and any x rays. Their internal organs are different from ours, you know. President Gray was a slan in disguise—we can't trust anyone. We have evidence that there may be a new breed of slans, ones that don't have tendrils."

The receptionist continued typing as she talked. "Surgically removed so that they can infiltrate our society better? I assure you, we would notice such scars."

The man from the secret police scowled. "That is not for you to decide, ma'am. These new mutations may even be born without the tendrils. In fact, some of them might not even know they're slans."

The receptionist chuckled nervously. "Oh, come now! How can they not know?"

With a grim expression, the man simply held out his hand. The plump receptionist heaved a put-upon sigh and turned in her swivel chair. She opened a gray metal filing cabinet and pulled out the curling carbon-copy records of all recent admissions. Her expression made it perfectly clear that she thought the secret policeman was wasting her precious time.

The gangly orderly ran back out into the waiting area. "Delivery Room 4 is ready." In a rush, he and Davis wheeled Anthea down the hall. A nurse opened the swinging door, but then she put out a stern hand. "Mr. Stewart, I'm afraid you'll have to wait out here."

"I want to be with my wife." Davis craned his neck to look after her.

"Sorry, sir. Men aren't allowed inside the delivery room. Go wait with the other nervous fathers. Hand out cigars to each other."

Anthea saw his deeply disappointed frown. "Don't worry, Davis. I'll be fine. I'll be here."

He gave her hand a squeeze. "I love you."

"You can prove it by changing more than your share of diapers," she joked. Then the contractions hit again, and she knew the baby was close.

The rest happened in a blur. She was on the delivery table, her feet up in stirrups. The doctor, an older man with owlish eyes behind round spectacles, muttered reassuringly, but the words sounded as if he had memorized them from a script, praises and encouragement that he used many times a week.

The nurses seemed concerned. Even the doctor was tense, no doubt because of the news on the radio. One of the nurses said in a quiet voice as if expecting that Anthea couldn't hear her, "I don't know what kind of world that poor baby's going to be born into. If the slans take over and enslave us all—"

"Enough of that, Nurse! We have our jobs to do. There are no slans here, only this woman and her baby, and I'm determined to see that it's born healthy—healthy enough to fight for the human race, if it comes to that." He patted Anthea on the shoulder. "Now don't you worry, young lady. Just push. I'm going to coach you through this."

She closed her eyes. She and Davis were both fit and strong. She couldn't remember the last time either of them had even been sick. Yes, the baby would be just fine.

"Now, push again," the doctor said.

The nurse leaned closer, encouraging. "Push, honey—as hard as you can."

Anthea did as she was told. It was what her body wanted to do.

The doctor leaned over. "That's perfect. Easy, now. I can see the top of the head. You're almost there."

Anthea felt a compulsion to press harder, not to let up. The rush of increased pain didn't matter. She wished Davis could be there holding her hand, but she reassured herself with the knowledge that he was just outside the delivery room door. She pushed and pushed again, and then she knew the baby was coming. Tears streamed through her shut eyes. With a rush of release, she felt it flow out—her son, a new life, a child emerging into the open air.

"That's it. Here it comes. I have him." The doctor held up a slick, red infant. She heard the baby start to cry as it gasped its first breath.

"Mrs. Stewart, you have a fine little boy—" The doctor halted in mid-sentence. "Good Lord!"

The nurse began to scream.

"How can this be?" The doctor still held up the baby, but now his face bore a look of disgust. "How can this happen?"

Anthea struggled to sit upright. She felt utterly exhausted and drained; her strawberry-blonde hair was plastered with sweat to her head. "What is it? I want my baby."

The doctor looked at her with an expression of horror, his mouth open. Anthea glanced up to see the newborn baby.

He had tiny twisting tendrils coming out the back of his head.

[CHAPTER 2]

The President of Earth, leader of billions, commanded a certain amount of respect. For decades Kier Gray had been a strong and charismatic ruler. He led with a mixture of sternness and compassion, guiding the citizenry along a dangerously narrow path between paranoid terror and complacency.

Now, though, as the secret police dragged him down the stone-walled hall, Gray was no longer treated with much respect. Until now, no one had ever suspected the President's true heritage as a hidden slan, his actual alliances, the covert work he had done among the surviving slans on Earth. The secret police grabbed him roughly by the arms and pulled him along. Gray knew exactly where they were taking him.

John Petty, the chief of the secret police and notorious slan hunter, waited for his deposed leader inside the primary command-and-control center deep beneath the grand palace. Around him, technicians studied cathode-ray tubes, receiving reports from all their operatives.

"Hail to the President," Petty said with feigned applause. He had short, dark hair, brows that looked like smudges of soot, and glittering eyes like the buttons on his dark uniform. The chief slan hunter seemed satisfied to see the great Kier Gray so helpless.

The guards shoved the President forward, catching his ankles and knocking him to his knees. Petty looked down at him as if he were no more than a discarded cigarette butt in the rain gutter. "We've already rooted out and killed dozens of slans working in the palace. Others have fled like rats in the night. Whatever you were planning, it's over—and I'm in charge now."

Gray didn't curse, didn't protest his innocence, but simply looked up at the bloodthirsty man who had long been his rival. During his long administration, he had weathered numerous conspiracies, assassination attempts, and back-stabbings. Only hours ago he had watched the guards shoot down three of his trusted advisors—true slans—in a shielded cabinet room. All of his quiet plans had crumbled in less than a day; he'd gone from great hope and optimism to this disaster.

Gray recovered his dignity. "I don't suppose you have any basis for these treasonous actions, Mr. Petty? Or is the rule of law simply an inconvenience you'd rather not bother with right now?"

"Law? Allow me to cite the Emergency Powers Act: 'In these times of perpetual crisis, any person suspected of being a slan or in league with slans is to be held for immediate questioning. The due process of law is suspended in such cases for the benefit of national security.'"

Gray's anger flared. His secret organization had worked so hard, been so careful . . . but not careful enough. Over the years, the President had even authorized quiet assassinations of people who posed a threat, advisors who accidentally discovered too much about the slans. He'd had no choice but to replace them with a small band of loyal comrades dedicated to changing the world and ending centuries of unnecessary witch hunts. He had thought his plans were secure. . . .

Petty crossed his arms over his chest. "We caught you meeting with the infamous slan rebel Jommy Cross in your private quarters. We have recordings in your own voice revealing that the slan specimen you kept in your palace, Kathleen Layton, is your own daughter."

"Where are Kathleen and Cross? Did you just shoot them, like you executed my cabinet members?"

The slan hunter paced inside the command-and-control center. "Oh, we didn't execute those two—not yet. They're too valuable. They have been taken to the detention cells in the lower levels of the palace. You need not worry about their welfare."

If you aren't careful, John Petty, Gray thought, you may need to worry more about your own welfare. Despite his obsessive fear, he would probably underestimate Jommy and Kathleen. Gray hoped that some of the unobtrusive slans working around the government center had managed to escape and disappear.

When he'd surreptitiously met with young Jommy Cross, Gray had explained the situation among slans and humans. Very few knew that the true danger came from a different group of mutants, slans born without tendrils, who had infiltrated society while preparing to launch their takeover. The tendrilless passionately hated both humans and slans and meant to exterminate both rival races, leaving themselves the sole inheritors of the Earth.

Jommy had infiltrated the main tendrilless base on Mars, where he had found startling information about an imminent invasion. Returning to Earth, he had slipped through the palace's defenses to warn the President. After they had begun to make plans, Jommy returned with his own highly advanced car and a deadly disintegrator weapon invented by his father. For only one day, President Gray had believed that he and his shadow government—including Jommy and Kathleen—could change the world.

Then the secret police had arrested them all.

"I myself confiscated Cross's unusual weapons—something he called a disintegrator tube and a ring with an embedded atomic generator. Amazing little things." Petty's lips quirked in a smile. He seemed in control of himself, in charge of the situation, but Gray could sense just a hint of uneasiness in his demeanor. "I gave the items to one of my isolated research teams, but as soon as they tampered with the ring, it dissolved. Now my people have strict orders to exercise extreme caution in their investigations of the disintegrator tube. Once we disassemble it, we'll add it to our own arsenal. My arsenal. Hmm, we might even use it to execute you. That would be quite an irony!"

The deposed President rose to his feet, squared his shoulders, and faced the slan hunter. "I'm surprised that I wasn't 'accidentally killed' resisting arrest. It would save you a great deal of time in your coup d'etat."

"A coup? I prefer to call it my transition to a new slan-free government." Petty scratched his blunt chin as he pretended to consider options. "Killing you would waste too much propaganda value. I look forward to hauling you before the world courts, exposing you as a slan, and discrediting all your works, all your supposed peace conferences with the enemy. Somehow, you have had your tendrils removed, or you were born without them—a mutant among mutants!—but I'm positive that genetics tests will reveal slan genes in your DNA."

Despite their vastly diminished numbers, slans were still feared as bogeymen. During his presidency, Gray himself had been forced to play upon that fear because it was the only way to survive politically, but he had managed to remove the teeth from the most vicious proposals.

Petty had stalked around behind the President, but Gray didn't turn to follow him. "You have had your theatrics, but you'll have a far more difficult time proving that any of my actions in office harmed the human race."

"Prove? Simply existing as a slan is a treasonous act. You knowingly deceived the people of Earth. I, on the other hand, will be held up as a hero of mankind for removing yet another terrible threat. Slans in our own government, in the presidency itself!" He gave another one of his smiles. "Your scheme is over, Gray. From now on, it's simply a mop-up operation. It will save me a lot of difficulty, and you a lot of pain, if you just confess and reveal how many members of your cabinet are secretly slans."

"There aren't any," Gray insisted.

The slan hunter rolled his eyes. "Your advisors and cabinet members were sound asleep with their wives or mistresses. We rounded them up and found out that several of them had slan tendrils in the backs of their heads, hidden by prosthetics. We've already killed them. Next, we'll dig through the records to find out who cooperated with your most destructive policies. It won't be difficult to prove collusion and thereby treason against humanity. You see, I have all the angles!"

When more men came into the command center and delivered their reports, Petty seemed upset, ready to strike the messenger. He turned back to the President. "We've just uncovered the identity of one of your main co-conspirators. I never would have suspected it." He scratched his head. "Then again, it makes a certain amount of sense."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gray said.

"Your chief advisor, Jem Lorry, has vanished. He disappeared like a puff of smoke, as if he knew what we were planning." Petty balled his fists. "Could he read it in our minds? Did you send him a telepathic message?"

Gray did not need to pretend his confusion. He had appointed Jem Lorry years ago, after a particularly close assassination attempt. Lorry had served extremely well ever since, taking a hardline stance against slans. He had even proposed an innovative if preposterous scheme to marry lovely young Kathleen. Lorry wanted to breed with her in (according to him) an attempt to water down the slan genes, to gradually erase them over a few generations. Lorry had been very angry when Kathleen rebuffed his advances, but Gray was personally pleased that the girl managed to get out of the trap.

"Honestly, I had nothing to do with his disappearance." The President was far more concerned about his own survival and even above that, the survival of his daughter Kathleen and Jommy Cross, the hope of humanity. "You should know that Jommy Cross came to warn me—to warn all of us—of an impending attack on Earth. Another group of slans, tendrilless slans, have built a large base on Mars and recently launched their battle fleet against us. The tendrilless mean to destroy us all."

"Yes, yes, and you and Jommy Cross are our only hope." He yawned extravagantly. "I'm not buying it."

[CHAPTER 3]

Lying on the table in the hospital delivery room, Anthea struggled to comprehend what she had seen. Her baby had tendrils! Slan tendrils!

Impossible. Completely impossible.

The doctor, seemingly in shock, quickly cut the umbilical cord and tied it off. "Pay attention!" he snapped at the nurse, who stood staring. "Save the mother first. Then we'll take care of . . . of that abomination."

"No!" Anthea was weak, but she found the strength to prop herself up on her elbows. "What happened to my baby? Why is—" She tried to make sense of it, but all she could remember was the conversation between the plump receptionist and the man from the secret police. How can they not know that they're slans?

Two normal people wouldn't have a slan baby, would they? Anthea couldn't accept that she herself might have been one of those slans without tendrils, and probably Davis as well. Ridiculous! She had never imagined such a thing. They were both healthy, they both healed swiftly, and the two of them had felt a mutual bond that went beyond anything they shared with other humans. Normal humans. She felt sick.

"Doctor," she gasped. "What's going to happen?"

He ignored her question as he set the baby down. When he turned to the nurse, his voice was cold and brittle. "Get me a full syringe of hydroxylex-black."

"Yes, Doctor." The nurse looked hardened now, no longer hysterical. "It's what we have to do."

Anthea felt a surge of uneasiness within her. "Davis!" she called, but her voice was alarmingly thin.

The gangly orderly assisting with the delivery finally shook himself out of his surprise. "Doctor, the procedure is clear. We have to report this to the secret police."

"Yes, they're already here in the building," the doctor said, his voice shaky. "Alert security. John Petty himself might want to talk with these two. Make sure the father doesn't leave." He shot a sidelong glance at Anthea on the operating table, as if she were a particularly nauseating specimen. The doctor no longer seemed to consider her human at all. The nurse handed him a long syringe filled with a dark, oily substance.

"What are you going to do with that?" Anthea demanded, struggling to turn. "Answer me!" She heard a commotion outside the doors to the delivery room.

"Don't worry," the doctor said to her with cool reassurance. "This will be quick and painless. Your baby won't feel a thing." He bent over where her newborn baby lay helpless on the adjacent operating table, extending the ominous hypodermic needle.

A surge of panic shot through her heart and mind like a fire siren. It wasn't just her own fear, but something tangible, a wave of panic transmitted by the tendrils of her baby—her slan baby.

The shouts grew louder outside the delivery room, then the swinging doors crashed open. Davis stood there, looking both angry and terrified, his fists clenched. The gangly orderly tried to block him, but Davis knocked him aside with a roundhouse punch. She had never seen him hit anybody before in her life.

"Davis! They're trying to kill our baby." Another blast of emotions seemed to be directed at Anthea and at Davis. The newborn infant somehow understood that these two were his parents!

When Davis saw the doctor bending over the baby with the long, wicked syringe, he charged forward. "What do you think you're doing?"

Screaming again, the nurse tried to throw herself in the way, but Davis knocked her aside as if she were an empty cardboard box. The stunned orderly had gotten to his feet and staggered out of the delivery room, bawling for guards.

Davis fought with the owl-eyed doctor, grabbed the hand that held the poison-filled hypodermic needle and slowly twisted it away. "You're a doctor. You're not supposed to kill people! You're trying to murder a baby!"

"It's not human."

When Davis spotted the tendrils on the baby, his baby, he froze. His face became stony and then hardened into a determination that Anthea recognized. When Davis looked like that, no one was ever going to change his mind. "He's my son."

Then, with remarkable strength, he bent the doctor's hand backward, turned the syringe around. The other man gasped and struggled, but Davis easily directed the needle toward him.

Anthea fought to swing her legs over the table, wondering if her husband was using some vestige of . . . slan strength that had just now been unlocked within him. Though she was weak from giving birth, this emergency was making her recover faster. Was something awakening inside her, too? Her heart pounded.

The frantic nurse threw herself upon Davis again, but with a backhand he sent her sprawling into the tray of medical instruments. She and all of the tools fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

"I will not let you kill my son." With a flood of strength, he pushed the hypodermic needle into the doctor's throat and depressed the plunger. The doctor's eyes bulged behind his round spectacles. Judging from his gagging sounds and writhing spasms as he fell to the operating room floor, the poison was not quite as painless as the doctor had promised.

Davis looked in horror and disbelief at what he had done. The nurse scuttled back to the wall, hiding next to a respirator machine. "Don't kill me! Don't kill me."

Davis helped his wife off the table. "Can you stand? We've got to get out of here."

She clung to his neck for just a second. She wished she could hold him forever, but knew they didn't have the time. "Our baby's a slan, Davis! They're going to kill him."

"He's still our baby." Davis's grim voice was totally inflexible. "I know they want to kill him, and they'll kill us as well. We have no choice." He snatched one of the hospital blankets and quickly wrapped the baby.

Anthea swayed on her feet, found strength miraculously returning to her. She could stand because she had to stand. Her body knew what was required of her. All of her preconceptions and prejudices had changed. She and Davis had never intended to harm anyone. They weren't a threat to human society! And how could their innocent child deserve to die, just because he happened to be born with tendrils?

Anthea had always hated slans because she'd been told to hate them. She'd heard a distorted version of history, and now she wondered how many stories about slan atrocities were merely propaganda spread by people like John Petty.

With each step she seemed to grow stronger. "Let me hold him." She took the blanketed baby in her arms. Just touching the infant seemed to give her more strength. She couldn't tell if it was her imagination or genuine mental feedback from the little child.

Davis quickly led her out through the swinging doors of the delivery room, and they stumbled down the hall. Alarms had begun to sound. A harsh voice over the intercom shouted for security.

A flash of realization went through Davis's head. Anthea saw his expression go from stunned confusion to determination and then resigned anger. "You have to go, Anth." He pushed her sideways to another hall that went in the opposite direction. "Take our baby and run. Hide. Live."

"Davis, come with us!"

"If you don't get away, they'll kill both of you, and I'm sure they'll kill me. I murdered the doctor. I won't get a trial. With all the news about the slans ready to attack, they'll just gun me down and mount my head on the wall of secret police headquarters."

Suddenly, led by the flustered-looking orderly, three uniformed guards came charging toward them with their weapons drawn.

Davis took one glance at her hospital gown, at her weary features and bedraggled hair. He gave her a quick kiss, the most passionate kiss she had ever received. "Go! I'll buy you enough time to find a hiding place. Don't waste it."

"No, there's got to be another way!" In her arms, the baby began to cry.

Without listening to her, Davis ran into the main corridor, shouting at the guards. Anthea moaned, wanting to go to him, wanting to stand beside him, but the baby in her arms was her priority.

She allowed herself only a moment to look at Davis's back as he charged toward the guards, shouting wildly. Though they were armed, the guards were afraid of Davis, as if they expected him to sprout horns from his forehead and call down evil curses upon them. The man from the secret police had joined them. His face was red with anger.

With a hitch in her throat, Anthea ran barefoot away from the delivery room. Steadying herself against the heavily painted cinderblock walls, holding the baby, she worked her way down the side hall, no longer feeling weak—she couldn't afford to feel weak. The infant was calm in her arms, not sapping her strength, not distracting her.

She tried several locked doors and finally found a dark office. Inside, on a coat tree, a doctor had hung a long trench coat, wet from that day's misty rain. At least it would cover her hospital gown.

She pulled on the trench coat and found that it was baggy enough to cover the swell of the baby that she held close. Under his desk, the doctor had a pair of slip-on shoes, comfortable loafers that were too large for her, but she made do. Anthea hoped her disguise would be good enough to get her out of the hospital. Hurrying—but trying not to look like she was hurrying—she rushed down the hall, averting her gaze when nurses ran past her. Everyone looked terrified and confused.

Alarms continued to blare, and the intercoms were filled with overlapping voices that shouted contradictory orders. Security guards scrambled from room to room, as if expecting to find a slan hidden under every bed. Anthea took advantage of the momentary chaos, praying that Davis would delay the guards and the secret police long enough. Somehow, she still fooled herself into believing that he would get away as well.

From behind, she heard shouts, cries of fear, and then the rapid sharp staccato of gunshots. Four shots, a pause, three more . . . then complete silence.

Anthea nearly collapsed. The sounds themselves were like cold, leaden bullets striking her in the back. Part of her heart seemed to die, and she felt an emptiness in her mind. She hadn't realized until now how much Davis had filled her emptiness. Now that feeling was gone. He was gone. The guards and the secret police hadn't questioned him, hadn't sent him to trial; they simply gunned him down because he'd dared to defend his baby and his wife.

She felt as if her soul were torn in half. She wanted to run back, to throw herself upon his attackers, to pick up her husband's body and cradle him. But the warm baby in her arms kept her running toward safety. She had to get away. Davis had sacrificed himself so that she and the child could escape. She wouldn't lose that, for his sake.

Despite the alarms, no one knew where to find her. Police would be converging on the hospital from all quarters of the city. Teams would be scouring block after block, hunting for her. They'd assume Anthea would run as fast and as far from the hospital as she could go.

Biting back tears, she followed the exit signs, picked her way down a flight of stairs, and found a door that opened to a large parking garage, the hospital's motor pool. Several cars filled reserved spaces, expensive new models with large tailfins, extravagant hood ornaments, and white-walled tires. Two ambulance vehicles sat parked and waiting.

She had a sudden idea. If they expected Anthea to panic and run, then the safest thing she could do, the best place to hide, would be to remain here close to the hospital. While the slan hunters ranged far and wide, she crept over to one of the two ambulances and opened the back door.

The dim interior contained a soft pad, a stretcher, emergency medications, first-aid equipment—and plenty of shadows. It was a quiet and undisturbed place for her to hide, and recover, and grieve.

Holding her baby close, Anthea crawled inside, quietly closed the door behind her, and held her newborn baby as she wept silently for her lost husband.

[CHAPTER 4]

The barred door rolled on its tracks and slammed shut, sealing Jommy Cross in an isolated cell deep beneath the grand palace. Trapped, imprisoned—and unable to warn the rest of humanity of the impending attack. He was completely cut off from any hope of escape. Nobody trusted a slan.

With his tendrils, Jommy could sense that the guards' fear of him was greater than their confidence in their weapons. He considered himself lucky that they hadn't just killed him on sight, as the secret police usually did with slans . . . as they had done with President Gray's slan cabinet members.

When he was only nine, slan hunters had murdered Jommy's mother in the streets; she'd sacrificed herself so that her boy could get away and live to reach the potential that his parents knew he had inside him. After his mother's death, young Jommy had lived as a fugitive, first falling in with warped old Granny, who forced him to steal for her. When he'd come of age and discovered the treasures left hidden for him by his dead father, the great slan scientist Peter Cross, Jommy had vowed to discover where the rest of his race had gone into hiding. . . .

From across the hall, just one cell down, he heard Kathleen struggling with the guards. "You have no right to do this! We have the protection of the President himself. We—"

They showed her no kindness. "The President's been arrested. Shut your mouth."

"Better not let her talk at all," said a second guard. "These slans can hypnotize you with a word."

If only that were so . . . If slans were as powerful as people imagined them to be, neither he nor Kathleen would ever have been captured. Jommy was still reeling from the whole swirl of events.

The young girl had been raised in Kier Gray's palace, a slan specimen to be poked and prodded and analyzed so that the secret police could find ways to fight against a slan insurgency. Though she'd been scheduled for execution when she turned the age of eleven, the President had managed to keep her alive under various pretexts.

No one had guessed that Kathleen was actually Gray's own daughter. After discovering records of a hidden slan settlement, Kathleen had escaped from the palace, running for her life. Though the base was abandoned and empty, Kathleen had taken refuge there while Petty and his secret police launched a large manhunt.

Jommy had found her there in the protected redoubt. With the telepathic bonding of true slans, both he and Kathleen had instantly known each other, loved each other. That short time together in the underground hideaway had been the most perfect time of Jommy's life. Everything had seemed possible.

But Petty's slan hunters had attacked the hidden base, and Kathleen was shot in the head. Jommy barely escaped with his own life. Hardened by grief, sure she was dead, he had gone on a determined quest to find other slans, to understand the strange and ruthless "tendrilless" ones who hated both slans and humans, as well as to bring down the hated Petty. When he finally broke into Kier Gray's palace to warn of the imminent tendrilless attack, Jommy was astonished to find that Kathleen had been healed by ultra-advanced slan medical equipment. Alive again!

She and Jommy had spent a tense but glorious day with Gray and his advisors, working out ways to face the coming crisis. When Jommy had first slipped into the palace, he had parked his high-tech armored vehicle in the forest on the other side of the river near the palace, and he had also left his father's disintegrator weapon there.

Once he knew the President accepted his help, Jommy and Kathleen had returned together to his car to retrieve the disintegrator, which would be invaluable during the fight against the tendrilless. He had hardly believed that she was back, that she was with him again. Even with the brooding danger all around them, they had been swept up in each other's presence. Jommy and Kathleen barely had a moment to experience the joy of their reunion before everything crashed around them. . . .

All the while, John Petty had been eavesdropping on Gray, setting up a trap. When Jommy and Kathleen returned, his secret police had charged in, arresting all of them, dragging them away. Petty had confiscated the disintegrator, killed the other slan advisors, and then took over the government. No one would listen to them about the real imminent threat. . . .

As she struggled against the guards trying to push her into the cell, Jommy could tell the thugs were on the verge of violence. "Don't fight them, Kathleen. I don't want you to get hurt again." His voice was quiet and gentle, but it carried clearly in the enclosed corridors of the prison level; he wanted the guards to hear as well. "These men don't matter. We have greater enemies."

After she let them shove her inside, her own cell door rolled shut with a crash. She went to the bars, but their cells were on the same side of the hall, and he couldn't see her. "We will get out of here," Kathleen said. It was a promise.

"That's up to Mr. Petty and the law, Miss," a guard said. "And right now neither one appears to be on your side."

Jommy longed to stretch his arm through the bars to touch her fingers, but the separation was too great. That was a crueler punishment than the imprisonment itself.

The guard captain stood in front of the bars, glaring in at Jommy. "Don't try anything. We'll have two men stationed here on this level, and these cells were designed to hold the worst political criminals."

Jommy sat down on his cot, looking defeated. The secret police probably had hidden cameras somewhere. "Then obviously, it's useless for us to try to escape."

"Glad you figured that out, Cross." The guard walked briskly away, eager to break eye contact.

Jommy had not given up, though. He wished he knew where his disintegrator weapon had been taken. That invention had saved Jommy's life more than once; no doubt the secret police would disassemble it, analyze it, try to figure out how the weapon worked . . . but even Jommy had never been able to decipher his father's intricate invention.

Jommy suspected President Gray was in dire straits of his own right now, facing John Petty. But the arrest of the President wasn't the worst crisis—the attack from the tendrilless slans was imminent. Jommy had risked everything to come to Gray's palace in the first place, to deliver a warning. While humans wasted time and energy hunting down true slans, fearing the wrong enemy, the tendrilless ones moved freely in society, preparing for a complete and violent takeover. The attack would occur very soon. Pleased with his little victory, Petty would not be watching for another danger coming from the skies. Earth would be completely unprepared.

Therefore, he and Kathleen would have to do something about it.

He closed his eyes and felt his golden tendrils move at the back of his head, rising into the air. He concentrated, broadcasting his thoughts like radio signals. Kathleen, can you hear me? He waited, felt a tingle, then a familiar presence.

Yes, Jommy. I'm here. I'm close. But I can't see you or touch you.

Jommy felt the urgency build within him. We've got to get out of here. We have to find President Gray, and we have to alert the Earth defenses about the tendrilless attack.

Kathleen's mind was also in turmoil. We can't do anything trapped in these cells.

Kathleen's presence in his mind strengthened him. He looked around his cell, saw nothing he could use as a weapon. He had only a cot, a sink, and a hygiene station; no mirror, no table, nothing else. Though his body was stronger than an average human's, Jommy could not break his way out. The cell was impregnable. Therefore, the weakest point was the human factor. Jommy would have to "encourage" the two guards to open the door.

He sent a thought message, summarizing what he wanted to do. Kathleen, follow my lead and transmit the same image. It's got to be convincing.

Together, separated by thick block walls, Jommy and Kathleen sent the same thunderous idea. It struck the two already frightened and suspicious guards. It took Jommy a moment to find their muddled centers of thought. The brains of the two guards were so closed off by walls of paranoia that he could barely get inside. But finally he played upon that irrational fear, sending an image of Jommy Cross using slan strength to tear a hole in the cell wall, ready to escape.

The guards came running. "Open the door! We have to stop him."

"I told you slans were dangerous!"

The lock clicked. The two men pulled the rattling bars aside, expecting to see a gaping hole and the prisoner escaping. Before the deceptive image could fade, Jommy launched himself forward like a boulder from a medieval catapult. He was not a brutal fighter, but he did have great physical strength and the element of surprise. He knocked the guards aside. As they squawked and tried to reconcile what they saw with what they'd been sure was happening, Jommy punched them both.

He grabbed one man's arm and yanked him inside the cell. He punched the other guard in the ear and then swung him into a heap atop his partner inside the small cell. Shouting, the two guards tried to disentangle themselves, but Jommy pulled the rattling cell door shut on them, and the lock dutifully clicked home.

He sprinted partway down the corridor. From behind the bars, the guards had pulled out their large-caliber pistols and fired at him, but they could not aim well because of the extreme angle. Out of view, Jommy pressed himself against the bars of Kathleen's cell, and the bullets simply struck the walls, whining and ricocheting. She rushed forward, and he put his hands through the bars to clasp hers.

"I told you I'd get us out of here." Using the outside controls, he worked the simple cell lock, and in moments, Kathleen was free beside him. "Come on. We've got to figure out a way through these levels."

The two began to run, still hugging the walls, out of range of the guards. The locked-up men continued to shout after them, firing their guns several more times, but the bullets hit nothing.

At the end of the hall Jommy and Kathleen found a door that led to a steep set of concrete stairs. Before they could open it, loud alarm klaxons rang out inside the palace, sounding a Level One emergency.

"How could they have discovered we've escaped?" Kathleen said, waiting for another surge of guards to come charging after them. "It's only been a few minutes."

Jommy froze. "The emergency's not because of us. Not us at all." Next, the alarms were accompanied by the bone-grating sound of an air-raid siren. "It's the tendrilless slans. Their attack has begun."

[CHAPTER 5]

Jem Lorry had lived among humans for most of his life, pretending to be one of them. His mind shields were perfect. Strategically placed in the Earth government, working his way up by way of his own intelligence (and the occasional necessary assassination), he became the closest, most influential advisor to Kier Gray. In the sure progress of the tendrilless plans, he should soon have been the President himself.

Now, from Mars, Jem was engineering the downfall of Earth.

Here on the red planet, the tendrilless had created more than just a strategic base and a hideout. The third breed of humanity had forged an entire civilization with outposts, settlements, and industrial complexes ringing the central canyon city of Cimmerium. From where Jem stood inside the large vaulted chamber, the distant sun streamed through the glass ceiling that covered the whole, expansive canyon. A large armored city crowded the habitable flatlands on the edge of the deep gorge, but the highest-ranked and richest tendrilless had built a warren of structures into the stark cliff wall, beneath the transparent canopy.

His people had superior mental capacity to humans, though greatly limited telepathic abilities compared with true slans. No one—not Jem Lorry, not the Tendrilless Authority, probably not even the slans themselves—knew where or how the tendrilless ones had originated. The true slans had turned against them, launching what amounted to a genocide to eradicate their genetic stepbrothers. Jem didn't know why true slans hated them so much, but the feeling was certainly mutual. He didn't need explanations.

Pleased that the full-fledged attack on Earth was finally about to commence, Jem stood before the seven members of the Tendrilless Authority, expecting to receive well-deserved applause. This entire attack had been his brainchild. He had sacrificed much to reach this point, and he intended to get what he had earned. The council members peered down at him with stony faces.

The Authority chamber was like an ancient Roman arena. When all the tendrilless citizens gathered for primary meetings, thousands would sit on ringed seats staring down at the main podium, listening to petitions and plans, watching the Authority issue its judgment.

Today, though, Jem was by himself in the vast room, staring up at the seven men. He would have preferred a cheering audience; after his guaranteed victory, the tendrilless would certainly applaud his dreams and ambitions. They had waited, lurked, and planned for far too long. Only a few, like the stodgy Authority members, bled away that enthusiasm with "caution" and "patience"—thinly disguised words for "cowardice."

"The initial attack has commenced," Jem announced. "Our heavily armed vanguard ships have arrived at Earth in the past hour. At this very moment, our warriors should be bombarding their cities. It is time for us to launch the much larger occupation fleet. All those ships and personnel will require a week to get to Earth. The victory is all but assured."

"Nothing is ever assured, my son, until it has happened," answered Altus Lorry, Jem's father. The old Authority Chief had a head that seemed too large to balance on the wattled stalk of his neck. His hair was shaggy, giving him a leonine appearance. Altus Lorry was a grandiose leader who had spent his lifetime playing politics among the most influential tendrilless in Cimmerium. But he had no real understanding of the human enemy.

Jem struggled to keep his expression neutral. "I urge you to hear my recommendations, Father. Have I not earned it? I lived for years among humans. I know all the systems we have put in place." He could not entirely hide his impatience. "It's no surprise that after years of living comfortably on Mars, you and the other Authority members have grown complacent. You are afraid of things you need not fear and suspicious of that which poses no threat. You give the humans far too much credit."

Altus laughed without humor. "Better safe than sorry, my son, as you well know."

"Actually, I don't! You have always been safe here, but I have never been sorry for what I did or accomplished." Jem sensed an uneasiness among the Authority members, and it made him angry. If they didn't act soon, their swift advantage would begin to trickle away. "While the first stage of the attack shatters the government and breaks their ability to resist, we must launch the main occupation fleet. We need the big ships and our overwhelming ground forces in place to consolidate our hold on Earth."

Not long ago, Jem had watched as hundreds upon hundreds of sleek vanguard warships launched from Mars, kicking up crumbled red dust, spewing clouds of steam and fuel exhaust. They had risen to the sky and out into orbit, streaking across space like sharks scenting blood in the water. The blood of normal humans.

And that was only the first wave of the attack.

The initial volley of devastating bombs would be dropping upon the main cities of Earth right now. At last, Jem would feel vengeance for his people, who had been forced to run here centuries ago and hide. The tendrilless would finally get what they were owed. So why delay the occupation fleet?

"Patience, my son." The old man was unintentionally condescending. "We intend to do so. The occupation fleet will be on its way by tomorrow. Or the day after."

Jem took a deep breath. The Tendrilless Authority had always been a roadblock to his ambitions. Eventually, before he could accomplish anything worthwhile, he would need to replace the old members with a more proactive group. Or, he mused, he might have to do away with the Authority entirely. Who needed a seven-member council when one visionary leader—a king, for lack of a better term—could do the job much more efficiently?

"Another factor makes our timing impeccable." Jem had stopped thinking of himself as a petitioner seeking permission. He fancied himself a great general, and the tendrilless armies were under his control; he was simply delivering a report to the Authority. "Earth itself is in turmoil. President Kier Gray has just been arrested and exposed as a true slan. Even I never suspected it! The power vacuum weakens them even more. They will barely be able to mount a defense, I guarantee it. But only if we move now."

Jem's resentment toward Kier Gray was personal rather than political. He had been in love with Kathleen (or perhaps lust was a better term, though he used the words interchangeably). He had made persuasive arguments to the President, claiming (falsely, as he well knew) that interbreeding with slans would dilute their mutant traits and make their descendants into "real people" again. Instead, Jem knew that slan genetics were dominant, and he intended to bring Kathleen's superior powers directly into the tendrilless breed.

"What about this man named John Petty, the leader of the secret police?" said Altus. "You have described him as a powerful administrator. Perhaps he will rally the survivors."

"He's a thug with a tendency for brutality and excess. The people will never accept him as their leader. After seeing what Petty does, the humans will welcome us with open arms. Ha! I bet they'd prefer to be our slaves rather than live under his boot heel. Launch the occupation fleet, Father, and I will take care of the rest."

Without waiting to be dismissed by the ostensible leaders, Jem turned his back and marched out of the vast, echoing chamber. The Martian sun streaming through the ceiling of glass seemed very bright, very bright indeed.

[CHAPTER 6]

Huddled in the rear of the ambulance, Anthea held the baby close and pulled a reflective emergency blanket over herself. Poor, brave Davis! The infant stirred restlessly, as if he knew he shouldn't cry even though he felt his mother's powerful emotions with his delicate tendrils.

Anthea propped him up and for the first time looked closely at the newborn's face. His bright hazel eyes were wide open, as if the child could see her clearly and recognize her as his mother. Newborns weren't supposed to be capable of that . . . but a normal husband and wife shouldn't have had a baby with slan tendrils, either.

With a curious sense of wonder, Anthea reached out to touch the tiny strands like long threads of nerve fibers, antennae extending from the baby's superior brain. When she stroked the tendrils, they twitched and curled, making both her fingers and her mind tingle. How could she and Davis have had such a potential within them without knowing it? Had her own parents known they were different genetically? Had Davis'?

Anthea couldn't help but feel herself bonding with the infant. He was a blank slate, full of potential but without any experiences, knowledge, or personality. Given the right guidance and inspiration, her son could become a great man. She made a promise to herself, and to the memory of Davis, that she would do everything possible—give up her very life if necessary—to protect this baby so he could grow up and meet his destiny.

She and her husband had never even decided on a name for their son. Anthea remembered a candlelight dinner only a week ago, when they had both proposed names for the baby, alternatives for a boy or a girl. If they had a son, Davis preferred Raymond or maybe William.

"How about Geoffrey with a 'G'?" Anthea had suggested. "Or Elliott? Or Sam?"

"Could you live with Stefan?" Davis asked. "Or how about Leroy? It means 'the king.' "

"No, definitely not Leroy."

The more suggestions they made, the more impossible it seemed to find a name they could both agree to. Finally, at the end of that dinner, Anthea and Davis had set aside the discussion, deciding to wait until she had the baby. When they could actually hold it, look at it, and see its face, they were sure they could choose the perfect name.

Now they would never have that chance. Anthea didn't know how she could bear to choose a name all by herself.

Suddenly, she was startled out of her reverie by shouts and running footsteps in the hospital's garage. "Have you checked everywhere? We can't let the slans escape."

"The one we killed didn't even have tendrils."

"Without tendrils, his head won't make much of a trophy for John Petty's wall. But if he wasn't a slan, then he was a traitor helping them."

Anthea felt the burn of tears, but she drove them back, sitting up just enough so that she could see the round side mirror on the door of the ambulance. In the reflection she could view part of the underground parking garage.

Several uniformed security men spread out, searching, their revolvers drawn. The ominous man with the secret police armband stood at the doorway, looking into the shadows, scanning for any sign of her or the baby. "I will be very disappointed if you allow them to escape."

The methodical security men began to look in the cars. Anthea huddled down, pulling the blanket over her, sending out a desperate thought. We're not here. We're not here. The baby seemed to pick up and amplify the message.

She heard footsteps moving along, reports shouted from one man to another. They were going toward other cars nearer the exit ramp, away from her, without even checking the ambulance. She wondered if her son had actually influenced the guards, or if it was just a fortunate coincidence. Anthea held her breath.

Then the terrifying shrieks of air-raid sirens ratcheted up and down the streets, amplified by broadcast systems in the hospital, drowning out even the normal security alarms. The sounds of chaos outside greatly increased; she heard racing automobiles, squealing tires, then a series of distant explosions.

The searchers in the hospital's motor pool parking lot shouted to each other, then dashed back inside the building. Air raid sirens continued to wail, but now they were blurred by the drone of heavy jet engines. Unfamiliar flying craft cruised overhead approaching the heart of Centropolis. The slan attack! Then came the percussive flurry of anti-aircraft fire, large defensive guns that President Gray had installed on skyscraper roofs.

As the gunfire continued, she heard a thin whistle that grew louder and culminated in an ear-shattering eruption. More bombs dropped from above, smashing into the streets, setting buildings afire. Centuries ago, Earth's greatest cities had been leveled in the Slan Wars. Anthea hoped that the rebuilt skyscrapers had been reinforced to withstand an attack. Or had humanity grown too complacent?

Yet another explosion echoed down the block from the hospital. She heard brisk footsteps and more shouts as two men ran for the ambulance. Anthea cowered back down as two rescue squad techs jumped inside and slammed the doors. The driver started the engine with a roar, and the ambulance began to roll forward as soon as his partner threw himself into the seat.

Huddling in the back, she hoped they wouldn't look behind them to see the emergency blanket she had pulled down to cover her.

Its siren bawling, the medical vehicle shot out of the hospital's parking bay and into the chaos of the war-torn streets. The driver turned right and accelerated down the avenue into the city. Explosions peppered the buildings around them; bricks and shattered glass rained down onto the street. Traffic ground to a halt. Swerving cars smashed into each other, and the ambulance zig-zagged past the wrecks without slowing.

A falling bomb struck a car limping along on a flat tire, and the fuel tank detonated so close to the rushing ambulance that the side panels in the back rattled. Screaming pedestrians were running everywhere, trying to flag down the medical vehicle. The driver just drove past the flaming debris. Anthea wondered exactly which injured people the rescue squad intended to save.

The driver slammed the brakes hard just as half of a building slid down into the street, blocking their way. The violent lurch caused loose supplies to clatter forward from storage bins in the back of the ambulance. Anthea nearly tumbled to the floor of the vehicle, and the infant began to cry as the blankets slid off of her. Before she could shush him, before she could grab the blankets to hide them again, both the driver and his fellow rescue squad tech turned around, staring with saucer-like eyes.

"She's the one the secret police were looking for! She killed Dr. Elton."

With the ambulance blocked in the street, both men scrambled out of their seats and lunged toward the back of the ambulance.

Anthea held the baby defensively against her. She should have been weak and exhausted, barely able to move after giving birth only an hour ago. But her body had healed remarkably, and energy sang through her muscles. The unexpected strength had always been there, but it lay fallow. Now that Anthea knew what she was, now that she had a baby to protect, she could feel it awakening.

"Don't worry, she's trapped in here," said the driver. "There's two of us. We can easily grab her."

"Careful. Slans can wipe your brain."

The driver paused to open a first-aid kit, withdrew a long syringe. "This should knock her out."

His partner blinked. "That's three times the standard dose! It could kill her."

The other man shrugged. "The reward's the same either way, and she'll be a lot less trouble for us."

Anthea understood how animal mothers in the wild fought to protect their young. As the driver came close, looking for an opportunity to jab her with the syringe, Anthea reacted. She didn't think, didn't even understand what her body was capable of doing. She kicked him hard in the chest—and it was as if he'd tried to catch a cannonball. The man flew backward, struck the windshield with so much force that he crashed directly through and onto the hood of the ambulance. He sprawled there, bloody and motionless, most likely dead. Anthea didn't care. He had meant to murder her and the baby.

The other emergency tech recoiled, astonished at what he had seen. He grabbed a bright red fireman's axe mounted on the side panel of the ambulance. "All right. No more playing nice with the slans."

Anthea turned around and, using the same unknowable adrenaline force, she smashed open the back doors. Carrying the baby in one arm, she bounded out into the streets.

The emergency tech shouted curses after her, scrambled to the swinging door of the ambulance. "She's a slan! Stop her! Stop her!"

But the streets were full of blood-streaked people running for shelter, while overhead, strange angular spacecraft swooped low, dropping more bombs. Anthea ran out, disappearing into the frenzied battle zone.

[CHAPTER 7]

Inside Kier Gray's palace (technically, John Petty's palace at the moment) everything was in chaos. Even before the first bombs started dropping, perimeter alert systems and distant early warnings detected the enemies converging in Earth orbit.

"Mr. Petty, sir!" said a wide-eyed officer named Clarke. "There's a full fleet coming in—from space! Unidentified ship designs, definitely military." In the past hour, the chief of secret police had put Clarke in charge of monitoring the defensive systems and scanners in the command-and-control center. With so many dirty slans hidden among the government, Petty didn't trust anyone who wasn't already his own.

The young man bent over his curved screens, flicked toggle switches, and turned knobs to adjust the focus on the cathode-ray tube. Under the sweeping arc of a radar beam, blips showed up. "They're spacecraft, sir, battleships. Backtracking their trajectory . . . it looks as if they've come from Mars."

"Invaders from Mars?" All his career, the great slan hunter had been trying to track down their secret bases. He had uncovered and documented numerous slan redoubts, but knew he could not account for the entire vanished race of mutants. Now it all became clear: They must have fled Earth entirely and gone to Mars, leaving only a few stragglers—or spies—behind.

Since the devastating Slan Wars, human society—pure human society—had developed television and radar, jet aircraft, but only a fragmented space program, a few satellites and pie-in-the-sky plans for rocket ships. A long time ago, human civilization had been much more ambitious, stretching their boundaries and approaching the stars. The Slan Wars had wrecked all that, knocking human civilization back by many centuries.

But the insidious slans must have maintained their superior technology. All these years they had been hiding on Mars, building up their invasion force.

Just like Gray warned us! Before the first slan air strikes, guards had taken the deposed President to a secure holding cell in the interrogation sector. Not wanting to let Gray anywhere close to Jommy Cross, he had kept the President far removed from the other two slans, in a completely different detention level. But Petty hadn't decided what to do next with the prisoners. He had to take care of it himself.

"Mount all of our defenses. Now that we've exposed what Gray really is, the slans must be trying to free him."

"But we only just arrested President Gray," Clarke said. "If these ships came from Mars, they launched days ago—"

"Don't argue fine points with me. Just call out the military."

The technician fiddled with his switches and displayed the incredible oncoming force on the big screen. It took his breath away. "Um, sir—since we've arrested President Gray, and Jem Lorry has disappeared, who has the executive authority necessary? Who's in charge?"

"I'm in charge!" He lifted his chin. "It's about time that someone with common sense, a proven track record, and a hard fist started taking care of things." He sounded as if he were delivering a campaign speech.

Petty paced around the bustling stations in the command-and-control center, ignoring the racket of alarms. "Summon all our troops. Get our aircraft in the skies, put soldiers on the rooftops to man our anti-aircraft guns. Tell them to shoot down anything that moves." He ground his teeth together, then glanced again at the blips on the display. The enemy ships kept coming, as if Mars had an infinite supply.

As the bombs started dropping from the skies, detonating in the streets of Centropolis—possibly all across the world—Petty quickly saw that Earth didn't have a chance against this sort of attack. He would have to take unorthodox action, much as he hated to do so.

His face flushed with frustration, he chose the three largest and most muscular guards. "Follow me back to the President's cell. I'm going to make him see reason. And if I can't manage that, then you three are going to help change his mind." Perhaps they weren't the brightest men, little more than thugs, but Petty would do all the thinking. He just needed someone who could break a few bones, if necessary.

The sheer racket of the alarms probably caused more confusion and fear than the actual attack. Outside, the distant muffled rumble of explosions continued, barely heard over the obnoxious, incessant alarms. The enemy intended a full-fledged invasion, and no doubt they wouldn't stop until most of the city was destroyed.

In the upper levels of the palace, functionaries, staff, and even a few political visitors ran about in a panic. The streets were a stew of chaos. The surveillance cameras and periscope viewers showed much of Centropolis already in flames.

He hurried along brightly lit tunnels and narrow passageways, accompanied by the guards. If John Petty was going to rule the world, he wanted it to last longer than an hour or two.

His guards were armed with blunt-muzzled, large-caliber pistols. One slug fired from such a weapon would tear a hole the size of a grapefruit in a victim; the secret police rarely worried about simply wounding a slan prisoner. Right now, the guards would have to content themselves with using blunt clubs, perhaps even sharp-pointed electrical prods. He needed the "slan President" alive.

The burly guards stopped as Petty faced the other man's holding chamber. Inside, Gray paced and sweated, desperate to get out. Seeing the chief of secret police, he rushed to the bars. "Why didn't you listen to me? You have to let me out."

"I don't have to do anything, but you do. Remember who's holding the cards here."

"You'll just be holding a handful of rubble if we don't solve this."

Grudgingly, Petty gestured for the guards to activate the cell's unlocking mechanism. The barred door rattled aside, and the slan hunter stepped into the chamber with his three guards close behind him. "The slans are bombarding our city. Tell me how we fight against them."

"They aren't true slans. They are our step-brothers, tendrilless slans bred centuries ago to move undetected among humanity. Now they mean to destroy both races." When Petty gave him a skeptical frown, the deposed President insisted, "It is the tendrilless ones you should fear, not us. They have infiltrated your news media, your utility companies, your transportation systems."

"You're trying to make me paranoid."

"You had a head start on that all by yourself."

"Why should slans hate other slans, whether or not they've got tendrils?"

"Many shameful acts have been committed by both sides, and all the while humans were blind to it. Samuel Lann, the father of all slans, would disown every one of us if he were here."

A small-statured mousy man dashed down the hall, panting. He wore the crisp gray uniform and a blue armband of the palace service personnel, a courier. He clutched a scrap of paper in his hand. "Mr. Petty, President Gray . . . uh, whoever's in charge. I have an urgent message! News." He skidded to a stop and heaved great breaths. His face was red from the effort of running.

The three guards glared at the mousy courier. Petty said, "Well, out with it, man!"

"Jommy Cross and Kathleen Layton have escaped. Those two slans are on the loose!"

The President saw his chance. While the others were startled by the announcement, he lunged from the cot and wrapped his hands around Petty's thick neck. The momentum knocked the burly slan hunter back. "You fool, you've brought us all to ruin! We could have set up defenses in time. Now how many thousands, maybe millions, are going to die?"

Two of Petty's thugs grabbed the President's arms, fighting so hard they ripped his shirt, but finally they tore his hands free from the chief's throat. Petty coughed and choked. Thick red marks stood out on his neck. "How . . . dare you!"

"In order to achieve true victory, one must dare a great deal." It was the voice of one of the three brutish guards. He sounded unexpectedly erudite.

Rubbing away his blurred vision, Petty turned to look at the man who now stood in a broad-shouldered fighting stance, his heavy-caliber pistol drawn from its holster. The wide, blunt muzzle pointed directly at John Petty.

"What's going on?" His damaged voicebox allowed no more than a rasp.

The guard continued to act strangely. "Once I kill you and Kier Gray, the humans won't have even a thread of hope. No one can lead them." The pistol never wavered.

"You—you're one of them!" Petty squawked.

"A tendrilless victory is assured."

With an explosive sound, the gunshot echoed in the cell, but the burly guard merely staggered, then stared in astonishment at the wet red hole the size of a grapefruit that had been blown through his chest.

Outside, trembling at the door of the cell, the meek courier held his own gun in shaking hands. The blast seemed to have deafened him, while the recoil had nearly knocking him backward off his feet. "They . . . they said I was supposed to come armed before I delivered my message." The man blinked, not sure who he was supposed to explain himself to.

Petty dropped to his knees, weak and disoriented. "A slan—among my own secret police!"

"Not a slan," Gray insisted. "Don't be an even bigger fool than you already are. He wanted to kill me as well as you. Look at the back of his head. It's one of the tendrilless."

The other two shaken guards grabbed the traitor's head, probed among his bristly dark hair, but could find no prosthetics, no makeup, nothing that covered the telltale signs of a hidden slan.

As the guard lay choking in his own blood, he exhibited great strength, slan healing powers. "You don't have a chance against my people." Then he died.

Petty glared at the remaining two guards, as if afraid they might pull their weapons and open fire, too. He brushed at the droplets of blood that had sprayed on his clean uniform, then whirled toward Gray sitting on his cot. "You were telling the truth." It sounded like an accusation. "You were telling the truth! There are tendrilless slans."

"They are the ones you've always needed to fear," Gray said.

Petty backed out of the cell and gestured to his guards. "Get the body out of there, and lock him in again." He turned to the surprised and meek courier. "All three of you, stay here and guard Gray." This information changed everything. "I have to get back to the command-and-control center. We're going to need new battle plans."

[CHAPTER 8]

Jommy and Kathleen ran. Outside, the attack seemed to be growing worse.

The underground levels of the grand palace were a labyrinth of corridors, subterranean chambers, shielded self-contained rooms like small bank vaults. Ages ago, slan conquerors had designed and constructed the immense structure during their brief reign over humanity. After so many subsequent administrations, Jommy doubted that anyone—even President Gray—knew the extent of all the passageways and secret underground rooms.

He wondered if there were also interrogation rooms and torture chambers down here. How often had Gray himself used these detention cells?

Each of the innumerable underground sectors was accessed by a different security protocol. Even veteran workers could easily get lost in the confusing monumental structure that was as large as a small city. The two escapees used that to their advantage now.

After breaking out of their cells, they ran along, peering around corners, dashing down open stretches, trying doors that were either locked or led to empty rooms or simple offices. Klaxons blared and magenta warning lights flashed in the halls, sounding an evacuation, summoning security, unnecessarily warning of the invasion.

"We have to find President Gray." Kathleen hesitated, then added, "We have to find my father."

"We'll find him." Jommy squeezed her hand. "It may seem an impossible task, but people have always feared slans for our abilities. We may as well give them something to fear."

One large room had windows for walls. Inside, fifteen chairs surrounded a