76

“What was that?” Julie asked.

“Just somebody knocking at the door,” Stan said.

It came again: a heavy booming sound. Stan noted that the aliens had gotten over the top of the force field, scrambling up on each other's shoulders and toppling over. Now they were pounding and tearing at the entry port to the harvester. Stan could hear the metal start to buckle under their blows.

“It's very loud,” Julie said dreamily.

“I think our friends are becoming agitated,” Stan said. “It won't be long now.”

“Is there any more of that royal jelly left?” Julie asked.

“Let me just see…. Yes, my dear, we have another two ampoules. Here, let me uncork that and hold it for you…. That's better, eh?”

“Much better,” Julie smiled as Stan swallowed his ampoule.

The radio squawked into life. “Doctor! What in hell is going on! Potter's ship …”

It was Hoban. Stan said, his voice very low, “It was nice, eh, Captain?”

“What did you say, Doctor?”

“Gill made a satisfactory explosion, didn't he?” Stan said. “Gill did his part very well. How close are you, Captain?”

“Another five minutes.”

“I'm afraid I don't have that long,” Stan said. “I hope I won't be alive to see the last act. Hoban, it's been a pleasure knowing you. I hope you have no trouble clearing your name on Earth and going on with your brilliant career. Tell them on Earth …”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Oh, tell them anything,” Stan said, suddenly testy. “Over and out.” He shut off the radio, then turned to Julie. “Good-bye, sweetheart.”

“See you again soon,” Julie said.

They kissed. And they were still kissing when the entry port shattered and the aliens came into the harvester.

77

Stan thought that was all. But it wasn't, not quite. There was a long blank stretch. He was vaguely aware that Julie was dead. All the others were dead, too, of course. Ari? He didn't know what had happened to Ari. And as for himself, he was surprised to find he was looking down on a corridor floor. He realized that the aliens had suspended him to the wall. He was in no pain. The royal jelly was still working. But something was growing inside him. He could feel it.

He was about to give birth. And die.

Now Stan summoned up all his courage and all his remaining strength. He opened his mouth and yelled. It was a long, hard, satisfactory yell. He could feel his body vibrating as he yelled. And a poem came to his mind….

I would have mourned the loss of my life

If I had not been already dead.

And then he felt the chestburster come crashing through his chest, its expressionless face already questing for food. And then there was only darkness, and it was warm, like Julie's kiss.

When Captain Hoban finally brought the Dolomite down to AR-32's surface, he found the remnants of Potter's crew. Julie was still alive, and Badger was missing, but everyone else was dead. Along with Julie, only Ari, the cybernetic ant, was left.

Once he was back in the ship, Hoban wasted no time trying to read the ant's memory files. But they were locked with an unbreakable molecular combination. Only Stan knew the combination, and Stan had forgotten to unlock the files to permit the final details of his story to be known.

Hoban's Afterword

That was the end of it, all except for cleaning up what was left. When Gill blew himself up, he disabled the Lancet's control system. It took several days for Potter and his remaining men — those who hadn't been killed, in the blast — to repair it. It gave me the time to bring the Dolomite down to the harvester, where Stan and Julie had made their last stand.

We had a brisk firefight with the two aliens we found inside. But we managed to put them down without further loss of human life. They were carrying containers of royal jelly. All the rest of the aliens were gone.

We didn't know at first where they had disappeared to, or why.

It took us a while to figure it out. First we had to get Julie in the ship and into emergency medical. We did that, and she finally came through it all right. She was nearly well when we got back to Earth. I don't know what she's doing now; we lost touch.

I did see Badger again. He came to visit me one day shortly after I bought my new house on the Pacific Palisades. I had been reinstated, and I was doing well again as a spaceship captain. I owe it all to Stan. It wouldn't have happened if he hadn't stolen that ship, which brought the whole thing to the attention of the authorities and resulted in the reopening of my old case. This time a jury found for me, and against Bio-Pharm.

Badger arrived when I was between flights. He just wanted to say hello. We talked a while. Potter had brought him back to Earth in the Lancet, after he'd fixed the damage Gill caused.

“He didn't like me,” Badger said cheerfully, “but he couldn't very well kick me out. I was the one who'd tipped him off to you and the doctor.”

“And got Stan killed,” I pointed out.

“He did his best to get me killed,” Badger said.

“That was not intentional.”

“No? Well, neither was my blowing the whistle on you to Potter. I was just trying to save my own life.”

I didn't know what to say to that.

Badger was curious about one thing. When we'd gone back to get Stan and Julie, why had we only found two aliens, instead of the hordes that had been swarming over the harvester? And why hadn't they gotten to Julie?

“That bothers me, too,” I said. “No one will ever really know. But I've got a theory.”

“I'd like to hear it,” Badger said.

“I figure there'd be communication of some sort between the aliens and their queen. I think she sent them an order that overrode everything else they were doing.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You know all that royal jelly that Potter's men had packed into the harvester? It was gone, all of it. I think the queen told them the first thing to do was to recover all the stolen royal jelly and bring it back to the hive. Then they could go back and finish off whatever humans were left. But we had come and gone by then. I can never prove it, but that's what I think happened.”

Badger stared at me, taking it in. I began to laugh. Badger said, “What's so funny?”

“It's not really funny,” I said. “But it is ironic. That the royal jelly that was ultimately responsible for Stan's death should also be responsible for saving Julie's life.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROBERT SHECKLEY is the author of over fifty books in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. His novel Immorality, Inc. was recently made into the movie Freejack. The cult classic The Tenth Victim was made from his original short story. Mr. Sheckley is a New Yorker currently residing in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.