The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson

Author:G. C. Edmondson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-10-27T01:44:04+00:00

CHAPTER 9

How, he wondered, had he ever imagined Lillith attractive?

"Well," she said briskly, "we've got to get rid of a body."

"With the house bugged and infra-red cameras every time we open the door?"

"It does present a problem." Lillith wiggled her fingers until Rudolf realized she wanted a typewriter.

He got his portable out of its battered case.

"Camper may be bugged too," she typed while Rudolf and Flaherty peered over her shoulder .

"Help carry things. Act like they're heavy."

They followed her out into the dark and began emptying cameras and recording equipment out of a trunk-sized chest. Grunting and heaving, they got the empty chest inside the house. Ten minutes later they carried it out again, grunting in earnest this time. "I'll see how these come out," Lillith said loudly. "If I need more I'll be back in the morning." They watched her drive away.

Back inside the house Rudolf began having fidgety second thoughts as he reviewed how easily Lillith had insinuated herself into their operation. And she had disarmed their "bodyguard" with much less flap than he and Flaherty had managed, doing the same job. Could she and the bodyguard be… That, Rudolf guessed, didn't make sense unless the golden horde's own employees were expendable too. But… He wondered if the whole thing had been a charade to get her in their house and in their confidence. After an hour he typed, "Is she on our side?"

Flaherty shrugged. Rudolf took the note and the one Lillith had written and shredded them. He looked for some place to dispose of the shreds and found none. Dithering about with a handful of shredded paper he remembered something else he had neglected to do. He stuffed the paper in his pocket and got a broom. With Flaherty behind him, he went upstairs and poked the broom cautiously through the bathroom door.

"Tuchi," he called, "are you there?" He advanced another step, waving the broom in front of him.

Whatever had cut the would-be bandit in two didn't chop up the broom. Rudolf wished he knew something about Tuchi's weapon. Maybe it only affected living matter.

There was no alien in the bathroom. Nor was there any blood. But Rudolf suspected it would be a long time before he sat on anything connected with a sewer system again. Tuchi had fit inside that bathtub-sized hole Flaherty had excavated around the spring. But with an infinitely stretchable body…

He wondered if the alien could stretch thread-thin and miles-long to monitor them both here and at the gravel pit. There was no sewer out there but there was a sometime creek that flowed down the valley toward town and only the gods and the country board of supervisors knew what cross connections might exist.

How, Rudolf wondered, had the alien found them? The incubator must be emitting some signal.

Rudolf suddenly had a new worry. If the incubator was transmitting on any recognizable frequency, the FCC snoopers would soon be out to see what was polluting the airwaves. Downstairs again, he typed out his worries to Flaherty.

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