thickening. Her breasts had begun to look like a single unit instead of two separate things. It made Gardener think of guys who pumped iron.
'Not very. One or two nips and I passed out. No hangover this morning. And no bug bites.' He raised his arms, darkly tanned on top, white and strangely vulnerable beneath. 'Any other summer, you'd wake up the next morning so bug-bit you couldn't open your eyes. But now they're gone. Along with the birds. And the beasts. In fact, Roberta, it seems to repel everything but fools like us.'
'Have you changed your mind, Gard?'
'You keep asking me that, have you noticed?'
Bobbi didn't reply.
'Did you hear the news on the radio yesterday?' He knew she hadn't. Bobbi didn't see, hear, or think about anything now but the ship. Her headshake was no surprise. 'Troops massing in Libya. More fighting in Lebanon. American troop movements. The Russians getting louder and louder about SDI. We're all still sitting on the powderkeg. That hasn't changed a bit since 1945 or so. Then you discover a deus ex machina in your back yard, and now you keep wanting to know if I've changed my mind about using it.'
'Have you?'
'No,' Gardener said, not sure if he was lying or not - but he was very glad Bobbi couldn't read him.
Oh, can't she? I think she can. Not much, but more than she could a month ago ... more and more each day. Because you're 'becoming' now, too. Changed your mind? That's a laugh; you can't fucking make up your mind!
Bobbi dismissed it, or appeared to do so. She turned toward the pile of hand-tools stacked on the corner of the porch. She had missed making up a spot just below her right ear, Gardener saw - it was the same spot many men miss when they are shaving. He realized with a sickish lack of surprise that he could see into Bobbi -her skin had changed, had become some kind of semi-transparent jelly. Bobbi had grown thicker, shorter over the last two days - and the change was accelerating.
God, he thought, horrified and bitterly amused, is that what happens when you turn into a Tommyknocker? You start looking like someone who got caught in a great big messy atomic meltdown?
Bobbi, who had been bending over the tools and gathering them up in her arms, turned quickly to look at Gardener, her face wary.
'What?'
I said let's get moving, you lazy juggins, Gardener sent clearly, and that wary, puzzled expression became a reluctant smile.
'Okay. Help me with these, then.'
No, of course victims of high-gamma radiation didn't turn transparent, like Claude Raines in The Invisible Man. They didn't start to lose inches as their bodies twisted and thickened. But, yes, they were apt to lose teeth, their hair was apt to fall out - in other words, there was a kind of physical 'becoming' in both cases.
He thought again: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Bobbi was looking narrowly at him again.
I'm running out of maneuvering room, all right. And fast.
'What did you say, Gard?'
'I said "let's go, boss."'
After a long moment, Bobbi nodded. 'Yeah,' she said, 'daylight's wasting.'
3
They rode out to the dig on the Tomcat. It did not fly the way the little boy's bike had flown in E.T.; Bobbi's tractor would never soar cinematically in front of the moon, hundreds of feet above the rooftops. But it did cruise silently and handily eighteen inches above the ground, large wheels spinning slowly like dying propellers. It smoothed the ride out a whole hell of a lot. Gard was driving, Bobbi standing behind him on the yoke.
'Your sister left?' Gard said. There was no need to yell. The Tomcat's engine was a faint, distant purr.
'That's right,' Bobbi said. 'She left.'
You still can't lie worth shit, Bobbi. And I think - I really do - that I heard her scream. Just before I hit the patch going into the woods, I think I heard her scream. How much would it take to make a high-stepping, pure-d, ball-cutting bitch like Sissy let out a howl? How bad would it have to be?
The answer to that one was easy. Very bad.
'She was never the type to exit gracefully,' Bobbi said. 'Or to let anyone be graceful, if she could help it. She came to bring me home, you know ... watch that stump, Gard, it's a high one.'
Gardener shoved the gear lever all the way up. The Tomcat rose another three inches, skimming over