"Well, I plan to give a few of the scaly bastards a case of permanent indigestion before they serve me up on a plattei;" Walker said as he started to rise.

  "Don't stand—"

  Walker pushed to his feet. The back of his head rammed into a solid, unyielding ceiling.

  "—up!" Janus's warning came a fraction of a second too late.

  Walker crumpled back to his knees, cursing. His gaze shot about him. The dimness was deceptive. They weren't in a room, as he had first thought, but within what now appeared to be some type of storage compartment with a ceiling no more than four feet high.

  "Why in hell didn't you warn me?" He glared at Janus. "I could have taken off the top of my skull."

  "I did." Janus shrugged. "You were too worried about snake indigestion to listen."

  "If I were you, I'd be worried too." Walker peered about him. The compartment was seamless. If there was an exit, he couldn't find it. "Unless we find a way out of here before they take off, neither one of us will be able to avoid that dinner."

  On his knees, Walker worked his way around the six-foot-deep and five-foot-wide compartment. His fingertips confirmed what his eyes perceived. The walls and the ceiling were without seams. It was as though they had been poured and molded as a single piece of metal—or plastic. Walker was unable to distinguish the alien material.

  "Son of a bitch!" He hammered a fist against a wall in frustration. "How in hell are we supposed to get out of here if we can't find a door?"

  "I do not think the snakes intend for us to get out of here until they're ready for us." Janus shifted to his knees and made a circuit of the cubicle. "Warm or cool?" he asked when he reached the younger man's side.

  "Warm or cool?" Janus repeated. He nodded toward the wall nearest them. "This is warmer than that wall. Which way do you think is out?"

  "If the Visitors are true reptiles, the cold would make them sluggish," Walker answered. "I'd say the interior of the ship is behind the warm wall."

  "So would I if it were not for that news report that made all the networks shortly after the Mother Ships appeared," Janus said as he shifted to face the cooler wall. "Remember? The one about a Visitor saving a chemical plant worker in a vat of liquid nitrogen or oxygen or something?"

  Walker frowned, then nodded vaguely, recalling the incident. Since the alien spacecraft had first arrived, the news had been primarily devoted to the Sirians. It was hard to remember them all, or to distinguish the truth from the overwhelming lies that had deceived a whole planet.

  Janus leaned back on his elbows, lifted his legs, and placed the soles of his shoes flat against the cooler wall. "Here goes nothing."

  His legs jerked back, then shot forward to slam against the wall. He cursed, then kicked at the wall again. On Janus's third attempt, Walker's legs lashed out with him, and the younger man's curses echoed those of his friend. Each thrust of his feet sent fresh waves of pain through his sore body.

  "No good," Janus panted after several minutes and collapsed to his back.

  Even in the dim light, Walker saw the agony his friend tried to conceal. He felt the painful protests of his own body. He could only imagine the torture of a man nearly twice his age. Yet they had to try to escape. They had to!

  "Rest a bit, and we'll give it another go," Walker said, slamming his feet out at the wall one last time.

  His legs shot straight out into empty air, knee joints popping loudly. His boot soles met no resistance.

  Walker jerked up. The wall was gone and he was staring straight into the dark muzzle of an energy rifle!

  "Out!" a female voice ordered from behind the weapon. The rifle jerked to the side, motioning them from the storage compartment. "Both of you crawl out nice and easy. No funny business. I'd hate to lose you after getting you this far."

  This far? What the hell does she mean? Walker's gaze scanned the chamber outside his prison. The diffused light was slightly brighter beyond the compartment. In it stood at least twenty pairs of shiny black shock trooper boots. The muzzles of an equal number of rifles provided an irrefutable argument against trying any "funny business."

  On hands and knees he crawled into the chamber with Janus right behind him. The muzzle of the rifle nodded upward. Without question, he followed the motion and stood. A sinking sensation sent his stomach plummeting. He had underestimated the soldiers lining the chamber. A minimum of fifty uniformed aliens packed the vessel's interior.

  "Lock your hands behind your heads and slowly back against the wall." The reverberating female voice sounded behind the helmet's faceplate again while the muzzle of the trooper's rifle centered on Walker's chest.

  Shrugging helplessly, he complied, as did Janus. A soft hiss drew Walker's attention to the side. The door to the storage compartment lay closed, once more indiscernible from the craft's wall.

  "Ah, our guests have awakened." A male voice came from the left. "I was afraid we would have to carry them into the Mother Ship. Alicia would have been irritated at having to wait for them to regain consciousness."

  The shock troopers pressed back toward the ship's walls, opening a narrow path through their ranks. For an instant Walker glimpsed the blinking lights of what appeared to be a U-shaped control console at the far end of the shuttle. Above the multihued array stretched a wide window. He caught his breath. Beyond that loomed a monstrous oblate spheroid—a Visitor Mother Ship!

  God! We're in space! Walker's stomach dropped another twenty stories with the realization of his total helplessness, llow could there be escape here? Hell, / don't even know where here is!

  A man rose from one of the two chairs at the control console and walked toward the rear of the squad vehicle. He lifted a helmet from his head. Janus gasped.

  "Friend Janus, we meet again." The Visitor pushed a stray strand of blonde hair from his forehead and smiled at the oider captive.

  "Gerald?" Janus's head moved from side to side in disbelief. "You were killed with ten other fifth columnists at Daley Center on V-Day!"

  Gerald chuckled, a wide grin moving across his face. "As you can see I'm very much alive. Another took my place in the city. A necessary ruse, since I led the attack on your resistance headquarters that day. You should have been there, Janus. It would have saved you this little trip."

  "A spy!" Janus spat. "Son of a bitch!"

  Gerald laughed. "You confuse me with the offspring of a mammal. The' comparison leaves something to be desired."

  Walker only half heard the exchange. His gaze focused on the gargantuan craft outside. A rectangular opening appeared amid the rows of lights illuminating the Mother Ship's curved hull. The shuttle nosed toward the gaping mouth of glaring light.

  Inside he saw a scurry of movement over what appeared to be a landing deck. Red-uniformed Visitors darted here and there among line upon line of squad vehicles. Walker could only guess at what force the aliens employed to prevent those within the landing bay area from being sucked out of the open port into the vacuum of space.

  Without another trajectory correction, the shuttle shot within the illuminated port and hovered above a red bull's-eye painted on the white deck. Gently the craft settled atop the concentric circles with no more of a jar than a halting elevator.

  "The antitoxin at headquarters—you and these other snakes took it! That is why you are not dead!" Janus was saying when Walker turned back to the tall, young-looking Visitor called Gerald.

  The blonde, disguised alien only grinned and nodded to the doors that opened in the side of the shuttle. "I wish we could continue this conversation, Janus, but there is someone waiting to talk with you two. It's considered dangerous to keep Alicia waiting."

  The barrel of an energy rifle nudged Walker's ribs. Hands still locked behind the back of his head, he turned and walked from the shuttle. He stumbled awkwardly when his feet touched the white landing deck, shocked by the vastness surrounding him.

  Kilometers rather than mere meters leaped to mind while his eyes attempted to soak in the immensity of the landing bay. It stretched endlessly to his right and left. The ceiling itself rose at least three stories above his head. And the number of shuttles standing at attention atop the white deck? He couldn't even hazard a guess.

  "Through the corridor ahead." Gerald nodded to an oddly shaped tunnel that opened across the bay directly before Walker. He pointed to two shock troopers who took the lead. Another six boxed in the two prisoners as they moved toward the corridor.

  The light dimmed when they entered the angular walkway. Walker blinked, gave his eyes .time to accustom themselves to the dusklike glow, then scanned smooth walls, floor, and ceiling.

  The alien characters neatly stenciled here and there with red arrows pointing their directions provided him no clue to his location. Instead, he tried to memorize the twists and turns his lizard guard made at each tunnel junction. After ten minutes he gave up.

  Even if he managed to escape Gerald and the shock troopers, Walker realized he would be lost in this maze of corridors in a matter of seconds. And if—just if-—he found his way back to the shuttle bay, what then? He was a chopper pilot, not an astronaut. How could he expect to fly an unfamiliar craft through space back to Earth? There was more to space flight than just pointing the nose of a craft at your destination and putting the pedal to the floor.

  Turning to the left at the next tunnel junction, the guards ahead entered a large chamber. They halted before a black-outlined door at the far end of the immense room. Gerald stepped to the door and placed his hand on a green-glowing square inset in the wall. The door slid back.

  Again the vastness of the Visitors' Mother Ship sent Walker's mind spinning. The room on the opposite side of the door was three times the size of the chamber they had exited. Instead of smooth, featureless walls, panels of blinking lights ran from floor to ceiling like some Hollywood set designer's vision of a futuristic computer.

  At the opposite end of the room stretched a far less gaudy appearing control console. Five white-smocked Visitors sat in chairs before the wide console, flicking switches and staring up at a glass-enclosed chamber beyond their position. The center chair swiveled about to reveal an extraordinarily beautiful woman. With a toss of her shoulder-length blonde hair, she stared at the newcomers.

  Perhaps too beautiful, Walker thought while he studied the woman, unable to shake the sensation that there was something wrong, something out of place about the human-disguised blonde. Search as he did, he couldn't put his finger on the flaw, nor could he quiet the nagging at the back of his mind.

  "Bring them closer, Gerald." Her blue eyes narrowed as she spoke.

  "Yes, Alicia." Gerald prodded Walker and Janus forward, stopping them a yard from the seated commander of the Mother Ship.

  Alicia's gaze slowly moved over Walker and then to Janus. She drew a deep breath and shook her head. "These are the two our contact spoke of? Somehow I expected more."

  "They will serve us well, rest assured of that. This one is trusted within the resistance movement." Gerald anxiously pointed to Janus. "And this is the one whose woman we killed. No one in Chicago will even suspect either of being a convert."

  "Convert!" Janus went rigid. His eyes glared at Gerald, then Alicia. "Never! Janus Brodaski will never serve snakes! I will die before I Set you control my mind!"

  Alicia chuckled dryly, without a trace of humor. "Perhaps you will. A few have lacked the strength to endure conversion. However, far more have lived to serve Our Great Leader and his cause. I think you will be among the latter."

  Abruptly Alicia swiveled her chair back to the control console. "We waste time, Gerald. Strip them and place them in the conversion chamber. I've other duties to attend to."

  Eight energy rifles rose, their barrels homing in on the two human captives. Gerald glanced at Janus and Walker. "Remove your clothing."

  "No." Walker forced all the strength he possessed into that single word. Open confrontation, if only verbally, was the last tactic remaining to him. "Go ahead and have your goons pull their triggers. Two dead men will be of no use to

  you."

  Janus sucked at his cheeks and spat directly into Gerald's face. "Better to die than be lizard zombies!"

  The cool gleam of Gerald's blue eyes dropped 50 degrees as he wiped the spittle away. His hand then lashed out and grasped Janus's left wrist. The Visitor jerked the old man's arm out straight, squeezing until the fingers of Janus's hand splayed wide.

  "If it's death you wish, it can be arranged." Gerald's gaze shifted to Walker while unholstering a pistol strapped at his waist. "But I assure you it will not be a quick, clean

  death."

  As Walker stared on, Gerald placed the muzzle of his weapon atop the lower joint of Janus's little finger. A faint click sounded. A blue bolt of energy sizzled.

  Janus screamed. His body shuddered, knees folding beneath him. Two guards grasped him under the armpits to hold his trembling form upright.

  Walker's eyes went wide, shifting between his friend's deathly pale face and the blackened tip of his small finger— a finger that was now short one joint. The sickening smell of burned flesh invaded the younger man's nostrils.

  "The human mind and body can endure an extraordinary amount of agony before it finally accepts the inevitability of death. There are means to extend both the time and the pain required before that decision is reached." Gerald moved the pistol to the next knuckle of Janus's finger. He fired a second time.

  "Nooooo!" Walker's scream mingled with his friend's blood-chilling cry.

  He lurched forward, arms outstretched for Gerald's throat. Before he covered an inch, two guards grabbed him from behind. Like unbreakable bands of steel, those arms encircled him, holding him immobile.

  "Please . . . please ..." Janus panted, his pain-contorted face drenched in sweat.

  Gerald edged the muzzle of his pistol to the last joint of the finger. "The decision isn't mine, Janus, but is with your stubborn friend."

  "Sam." Janus's eyes rolled to Walker. "It hurts . . . please. It hurts so badly."

  The unconquerable Janus Brodaski Walker had come to know during his months of hiding was gone. An old man stood in his stead—an old man suffering as his little finger was burned away joint by joint. Hate filled Walker's dark eyes when they turned to Gerald again.

  The Visitor merely shrugged and pulled the pistol's trigger once again.

  "No more!" Walker shouted, trying to drown out Janus's scream of agony. "No more. I'll do what you want."

  A pleased smile lifted the corners of Gerald's mouth. He nodded to the guards. "Strip them and put them into the chamber."

  Rough, cold hands yanked the turtleneck over Walker's head, then skinned away his boots and pants. Gooseflesh covered his body as the ship's cool air bathed his nakedness. A stray thought pushed into his head—the temperature was too cold for true reptiles—at least terrestrial reptiles.

  "Sam . . ."

  Janus looked at Walker, his lips trembling as though unable to find the words he wanted to say. His eyes then sadly rolled to the floor, his head sagging on his shoulders as four guards led him toward the glass-enclosed chamber. Before Walker could assure his friend that he understood, his own guards shoved him forward.

  Two glowing circles of light appeared on—no, within!— the floor of the conversion cage. The guards positioned

  Janus at the center of the farthest, then Walker atop the other. The moment the lizards' grip loosened, Walker lunged toward the glass plate behind which the Mother Ship's commander sat at the control console. Or tried to lunge. The muscles of his legs and arms refused to move.

  "Struggle is useless." Alicia's voice floated through the chamber. "I now control your body."

  Walker stared while the woman-masked alien pressed a glowing yellow button before her. In spite of the commands his brain screamed to the contrary, his right arm, then his left, lifted and stretched toward Alicia.

  "When you willingly offer me this embrace, you will be mine." Alicia's voice surrounded Walker, pressed inward, and penetrated his skull. She spoke within his mind now. "And you will embrace me with tears of joy, Samuel Walker. I promise you that."

  "Never!" Walker defiantly spat his denial of that promise.

  It was a statement that would have boosted his confidence had he been certain that he actually spoke the words. He heard himself, or thought he heard himself, but his lips did not move. He tried to clamp his eyes closed; they remained open.

  "You will embrace me, Sam. Together we shall share untold pleasures—pleasures undreamed of by man." The hissing reverberation of Alicia's voice faded, leaving a lilting invitation of seduction.

  Beyond the barrier of glass, Alicia pushed from her chair. A knowing smile moved over her red lips. She stepped atop the console with its rows of glowing buttons and switches. With a shrug of her shoulders, the white lab smock she wore fell away. Her arms reached out, and she stepped through the solid wall of glass into the chamber.

  No. It can't be! Walker's brain struggled to reject the matter-defying creature who filled his vision.

  "Embrace me, Sam. Take me into your arms and love me. Love me, and 1 will protect you. Love me, and I will see that no harm comes to you or your friend."

  Even as she spoke, Alicia's red uniform melted from her body. She stood before him-unashamed of her nakedness, delighting as his eyes roved over the firm, high, upthrusted cones of her breasts, the coral-blushed pinkness of her nipples, down the flatness of her stomach to the sensual well of her navel, down to the . . .

  "NO!" Walker's head jerked from side to side. And it did wrench from left to right—he felt it! His eyes rose back to the opulent mounds of her breasts. Before he had the nagging sensation that something was wrong with Alicia. Now he understood. "Lizards don't have breasts! Fake! You're a fake—a snake!"

  The alluring invitation in Alicia's eyes fired to flaming rage. Like hot wax running down a candle, her human disguise melted, dripping away to reveal a face of green scales mottled with patches of black. Slitted eyes of orange and yellow glared where orbs of aquamarine had beckoned him but moments ago. An angry red forked tongue flicked from her mouth.

 

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