Creature

Chapter One

The alarm went off with a soft buzz, and Mark Tanner lazily reached over to turn it off. He wasn't asleep-hadn't been for at least ten minutes. Rather, he'd been lying awake in bed, gazing out his window at the gulls wheeling slowly over San Francisco Bay. Now, as the alarm fell silent but Mark still made no move to get up, the big golden retriever that lay next to the bed stretched, got to his feet, nuzzled gently at the boy's neck, lapped at his cheek. Finally, Mark threw the covers back and sat up.

"Okay,Chivas," he said softly, taking the dog's big head in his hands and scratching him roughly behind the ears. "I know what time it is, and I know I have to get up, and I know I have to go to school. But just because I know it doesn't mean I have to like it!"

Chivas'slips seemed to twist into an almost human grin and his tail thumped heavily on the floor. As Mark stood up, he heard his mother calling from the hall.

"Breakfast in ten minutes. And no bathrobes at the table!"

Mark rolled his eyes atChivas, who once more wagged his tail. Then the boy stripped off his pajamas, tossed them into the corner of his room, and pulled on a clean pair of underwear. He went to his closet and, ignoring the clothes his mother had purchased for him only two days earlier, fished a pair of worn jeans out of the pile of dirty clothes that covered the closet floor. He pulled them on, and as he did almost every morning, glumly surveyed his image in the mirror inside the closet door.

And, as always, he told himself that it wasn't his fault he was so much smaller than everyone else. The rheumatic fever that had kept him in bed for almost a year when he was seven seemed to have stopped his growth at the five-foot mark.

Sixteen years old, and barely over five feet tall.

And not only that, but with a narrow chest and thin arms.

Wiry.

That's what his mother always told him he was, but he knew it wasn't true-he wasn't wiry at all, he was just plain skinny.

Skinny, and short.

His mother always told him it didn't matter, but Mark knew it did-he could see it in his father's eyes every time Blake Tanner looked at him.

Or looked down on him, which was not only the way Mark always felt, but was the absolute physical truth as well, for his father was six-feet-four and had been that tall since he was Mark's age. In case his father forgot to mention it-and it seemed to Mark he never did-the proof was all over the house, especially in the den, where the walls were covered with pictures of Blake Tanner in his football uniforms-first in high school, then in college-and well-polished trophies gleamed in a glass display case.

Most Valuable Player three years in high school and two in college.

All-Conference Quarterback his senior year in high school, again repeated in college.

As Mark pulled on a long-sleeved denim shirt and shoved his feet into his sneakers, he could picture the trophies lined up in the case and see the empty shelf at the top, which his father always said was being saved for Mark's own trophies.

Except, as both he and his father very well knew, he wasn't going to win any silver cups.

The deep secret-the secret he'd never told his father but suspected his mother knew-was that he didn't care. Though he'd done his best to get interested in football, had even spent all the preceding summer dutifully practicing his kicking-a skill his father insisted didn't require size, but only coordination -he'd somehow never managed to figure out what the big deal was. So what if a bunch of oversize jerks went charging down a field at each other? What did it mean?

Nothing, as far as he could tell.

He glanced once more at himself in the mirror and swung the closet door shut. WithChivas trailing after him, he left his bedroom, went down the hall to the family room, then slid the glass door open and stepped out into the backyard. He paused for a moment, breathing in fresh morning air that wasn't yet made acrid by the smog that sometimes threatened completely to choke the area around San Jose. The wind was coming off the bay this morning, and there was a tang to the air that seemed to cut right through Mark's dark mood. Suddenly he grinned, andChivas, knowing the morning routine, trotted ahead and disappeared around the corner of the garage. When Mark caught up with him a moment later, the big dog was already sniffing at the cage full of Angora rabbits. Mark had been caring for them ever since he was twelve. It was another bone of contention between him and his father.

"If it wasn't for those damned rabbits," he'd heard his father telling his mother several months before, "maybe he'd start getting some exercise and build himself up a little."

"He gets plenty of exercise," Sharon Tanner had replied mildly. "And you know perfectly well his size doesn't have anything to do with how much exercise he gets. He's never going to be as big as you, and he's never going to be a jock. So stop worrying about it."

"Ohcom'on!" his father had groused. "Rabbits?"

"Maybe he'll be a vet," his mother had suggested. "There's nothing wrong with that."

And maybe he would be a vet, Mark thought now as he opened the big plastic trash barrel that held the rabbit food and scooped out enough to fill the dish inside the hutch. He hadn't really thought much about it before, but since he'd overheard that conversation, he'd been thinking about it a lot. And the more he considered it, the more he liked the idea. It wasn't just the rabbits, andChivas. It was the birds out in the flats by the bay, too. As long as he could remember, he'd liked to go out there by himself, to wander around the marsh and watch the birds. Every year he'd waited patiently for the migrations, then watched as some of the flocks passed by while others came down to nest in the marshes and tidal flats, raising their young during the summer, then moving on again.

A couple of years ago his mother had given him a camera for Christmas, and soon he'd begun photographing the birds. Once, while he'd been stalking the birds, searching for a perfect shot, he'd come across one that was injured and rescued it, bringing it home to nurse it back to health before taking it back to the marshes and releasing it once more. To watch the small creature take flight had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life. The more he thought about it, the more his mother's suggestion to his father seemed to make sense to him.

He opened the rabbit hutch andChivas tensed, his eyes fixed on the little animals within. As Mark bent down and reached in to pour the food into the feeding dish, one of the rabbits saw its chance and slipped out of the hutch, hopping madly across the lawn toward the fence that separated the Tanners' house from the house next door.

"Bring him back,Chivas," Mark called out, though his words were unnecessary since the big dog was already bounding across the yard after the fleeing rabbit.

With the scoop of rabbit food still in his hand, Mark stood up to watch. The chase was over in less than a minute. As always, the rabbit reached the fence a few yards ahead of the dog, froze for a moment, then began frantically running along the fence, searching for a way to get through.Chivas caught up and, reaching out with one of his large forepaws, pinned the rabbit to the ground. The rabbit squealed in protest, but the retriever ignored the squeak, picked the wriggling creature up by the scruff of its neck, then proudly carried it back to the hutch. His tail wagging furiously,Chivas waited while Mark opened the cage door and dropped the rabbit inside. The white-furred animal, unharmed as always, scuttled away, then turned and stared dumbly at the dog, almost as if it couldn't understand why it was still alive.

"Good dog," Mark murmured. He pattedChivas's flanks, then filled the rabbits' bowl with food. He changed their water, slid the tray that caught their droppings out from under the hutch, hosed it out and replaced it. Just as he was finishing the job, he heard his mother calling out to him from the back door.

"Come and get it, or I'll throw it away!"

Smiling fondly at the half-dozen rabbits who were now gathered around their dish, Mark lingered for a moment, then reluctantly turned and started toward the house. Sensing his master's change of mood,Chivas paced beside him, his tail curving downward.

As soon as he came into the kitchen and seated himself at the table, Mark felt his father staring at him with silent disapprobation.

"Is that the way you dress for school on the first day?" Blake Tanner asked, his low voice edged with sarcasm.

Mark tried to ignore the tone. "Everybody wears jeans," he countered, and shot a warning look at his nine-year-old sister, who was grinning wickedly at him, obviously hoping he was going to get into trouble.

"If everybody wears jeans," Blake replied, leaning back in his chair, and folding his arms across the massive expanse of his chest in a gesture that invariably presaged his intention to demolish Mark's arguments with cool logic, "then why did your mother spend nearly two hundred dollars to buy you new clothes?"

Mark shrugged, and concentrated on cutting the segments loose from the half grapefruit that sat on the table. He could feel his father's eyes still on him. Even before Blake spoke, he knew what was coming next.

"Joe Melendez likes the guys on the team to look good," Blake said, as if on cue. "He thinks the team should set a good example for everyone else."

Mark took a deep breath and met his father's eyes. "I'm not on the team," he said.

"You might be after this afternoon," Blake reminded him. "You're a better place kicker than I was."

"I was a better place kicker than you were," Sharon Tanner interrupted, sliding her husband's invariable stack of pancakes in front of him and wondering yet again why they never seemed to affect his athletic figure. "And Mark's right-everybody wears jeans to school. I knew that perfectly well when I bought him those clothes." She winked at her son, and Mark felt himself blush, embarrassed that his mother thought she had to defend him.

"It doesn't matter how good you say I am, Dad. I'm not any good, and even if I were, it wouldn't make any difference. I'm too small for the team."

"Kickers don't have to be big," Blake began, but Mark shook his head.

"We don't have kickers, Dad," he said. "This isn't a pro team-it's only San Marcos High School. And Mr. Melendez is only going to take the big guys who can do a lot more than kick. Besides, I can't be on the team and take pictures at the same time," he added, the idea that had been forming in the back of his mind surfacing before he'd fully thought it out.

His father looked at him in confusion. "Take pictures?" he echoed. "What are you talking about?"

"For the school paper," Mark said, his words coming faster now that he'd broached the idea. "I'm good with a camera-Mr.Hemmerling said I was better than almost anyone else last year. If I shoot the games for the paper, how can I be on the team? Anyway, isn't it better if I'm at least on the field doing something instead of just sitting on the bench?"

Blake's eyes narrowed darkly, but before he could say anything, Sharon spoke again. "Before you get into an argument, you might want to look at the clock."

Seizing his opportunity, Mark finished off the grapefruit, gulped down his cup of cocoa, and scuttled out of the kitchen. Only when Kelly, too, had gone, her face falling when the fight she'd been looking forward to didn't develop, did Blake turn his attention to his wife.

"We already decided," he said. "He was going out for the team this year. We talked about it all summer."

Sharon shook her head. "Youtalkedabout it all summer," she corrected him. "You've been talking about it ever since he was born. But it isn't going to happen, Blake." Her voice turned gentle. "I know how much it meant to you, darling. But Mark isn't you, and he never will be. Maybe if he hadn't gotten sick…" She fell silent, her eyes clouding at the memory of the illness that had nearly killed her son and destroyed all Blake's dreams that Mark would repeat his own glory on the football field. Then she took a deep breath, and finished the thought. "Maybe if he hadn't gotten sick, things would have been different. But they might not have been. Mark just isn't cut out for football. It's not just his size-it's his temperament, too. Can't you see it?"

Blake Tanner's face darkened as he lumbered to his feet. "I can see a lot, Sharon. I can see that I've got a son that's a wimp and a misfit, who has a mother who lets him get away with it. Christ! Spending all his time with a camera and a bunch of rabbits and half-dead birds! If I'd been that way when I was his age-"

"-your father would have whipped you!" Sharon made no attempt to keep the anger out of her voice as she finished the familiar litany. "And your father was a drunk who whipped you and your mother for anything he could think of, and a lot of things he couldn't! Is that what you want for Mark? To take out all his anger on the football field, like you did?"

"That wasn't it at all," Blake protested. But of course that was exactly it, and he knew it as well as Sharon did.

Indeed, it had been Sharon who understood it from the very beginning, when they'd first met in high school, and he'd fallen in love with her. And from then on, whenever things got too bad with his father, she'd always encouraged him not to fight back, not to make things any worse at home than they already were.

"There's the field," she'd told him over and over again. "Go put on your uniform and get out there and keep at it till you're not mad anymore. Because if you don't do something about it now, you'll turn out just like your dad, and I'll never marry a man like that." And so he'd done what she'd told him, and it had worked. All the fury he'd felt toward his father had been directed to the game instead, and in the end the skills he'd gained on the field had paid his way through college.

He wasn't like his father and never would be.

Except… Except that deep inside he still nurtured the hope that his son would be just like him; that through Mark he could relive the days of his youth, when he'd heard the crowds cheering him from the grandstand, felt the thrill of completing a sixty-yard pass, felt the flush of exultation that came with every touchdown he'd scored. It didn't matter that Sharon was certain it would never happen, for deep in his heart he was certain that it would.

Mark, after all, was only a sophomore this year. He'd lost a year when he was sick, so now he was the oldest in his class. He could still begin to grow-the doctors had said when he was sick that though he'd probably never grow as large as Blake himself, there was no reason to think he'd be less than average. So this year-or next summer-he could still begin shooting up the way Blake had the year he was fifteen. And when he did…

But Blake said nothing of his hopes, for Sharon, who read his mind so perfectly after all their years together, knew his thoughts almost as well as he did himself. Instead, he simply gave her a hug and a kiss, then left the kitchen to pick up his briefcase. Before he got to the door, however, she stopped him.

"He's a good boy, Blake," she said. "He's not you, and he might never be. But he's still our son, and we could have done a lot worse."

Blake flashed a grin back over his shoulder. "Didn't say he wasn't," he agreed. "All I want for him is the best. And there isn't any reason why he shouldn't have it."

Then he left for the office and Sharon was alone in the house. She began doing the breakfast dishes. With Mark gone for the day,Chivas shifted his attention to her, nuzzling at her hand until she reached down and scratched his ears.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it,Chivas? Bet you thought there was going to be a big fight and you were going to have to protect Mark from his dad, didn't you? Well, you were wrong. Blake loves Mark just as much as you do." She smiled sadly. "He just doesn't understand him quite as well, that's all."

Almost as if he understood her words,Chivas trotted out of the kitchen and curled up on the floor at Mark's bedroom door, where he would wait patiently for the rest of the day.

It was nearly four o'clock that afternoon when Blake's secretary, Rosalie Adams, appeared in the doorway of his office. "All set for the big meeting?"

Blake shrugged. He and Rosalie had been trying to figure out what was going on all day, but so far neither of them had come up with an answer as to why Ted Thornton might want to talk to Blake. Thornton, after all, was the CEO ofTarrenTech, and though Blake's own position as Marketing Manager of the Digital Division was hardly low on the totem pole, everything atTarrenTech was done according to the chain of command. If John Ripley, who was Blake's immediate superior, was in trouble, it would have been Ripley's boss-the Executive Vice President of the division-who would have summoned Blake to tell him he was replacing John. But as far as both Blake and Rosalie could determine (and Rosalie had spent most of the morning on the secretaries network, gathering gossip), John Ripley was in no trouble at all. Besides, since it was Thornton himself who wanted to see Blake, the "poor old Ripley's out" scenario had never really made much sense. There were a lot of other people Thornton would have informed long before getting down the chain as far as Blake Tanner.

"No late bulletins?" Blake asked Rosalie as he got up and straightened his tie. He almost reached for his briefcase, but stopped himself in time, remembering that there had been no instructions for him to bring any files with him.

That, too, seemed unusual.

"Nothing," Rosalie replied. "Nobody seems to be in trouble, and if you've been a bad boy, either what you did was so awful no one's telling me, or you covered your tracks so well you haven't been caught. So go on in, and take good notes-I want to hear every detail of what the great man has to say."

And "great man," Blake reflected as he walked toward the large suite of offices at the far end of the corridor that housed Ted Thornton and his staff, was precisely the phrase that applied toTarrenTech's Chief Executive Officer. For it was Thornton who had begun the company a little more than a decade ago, and built it from a minor supplier of computer software into the giant high-tech conglomerate it had become. Though software was still one ofTarrenTech's major product lines, Thornton had recognized the volatility of the computer industry and launched a program of expansion and diversification. NowTarrenTech produced all kinds of electronics- from television sets to abstruse gadgets involved in the space program-and had gone into consumer goods and services as well.

When Thornton had decided the company needed its own fleet of airplanes, he had simply bought an airline, then another and another. That had led to hotels, car rentals, and a string of other travel-related companies.

Next, as Thornton had recognized the aging population of America, came the hospitals, nursing homes, and pharmaceutical companies. By now the Digital Division had become only a minor cog in the whole great machine, but Ted Thornton, partly out of a sense of nostalgia, and partly as a way of appearing a lot more humble than he was, still kept his offices in what had once been the entire space occupied by the beginnings of his vast conglomerate.

"Go right in, Blake," AnneLeverette told him from her guard post outside Thornton's door. "He's expecting you." Her smile alone made Blake relax, for it was well known that if Thornton was chopping off someone's head, Anne never smiled personally at the victim. Her loyalty to Thornton was legendary, and she was known to resent anyone she assumed had caused trouble for her boss.

Blake stepped through the double doors into the immense corner office and found Ted Thornton sitting behind a bare, black marble desk, a telephone cradled against his ear. Thornton signaled him to take a chair, then quickly wrapped up his phone call. As soon as he'd hung up, he stood, offering Blake his hand and asking if he wanted a drink.

Blake relaxed even more-the offer of a drink invariably signaled good news, and was not meant to be turned down.

"Chivasand water," Blake replied, and Thornton smiled.

"Never settle for less than the best," he said, pouring each of them a generous shot over a single ice cube. He grinned as he handed Blake one of the glasses. "It's a cliché, but then, your best moment has become one, too, hasn't it?" He held his glass up toward a large, framed mosaic on the wall. On a cobalt-blue background, the stylized white letters spelled out the slogan that Blake had dreamed up seven years before.

IF ITS HI-TECH, IT'S TARRENTECH

"I guess you could say so," Blake agreed, raising his own glass slightly, then taking a sip of the whiskey. Surely, at this late date, there was a more important reason for this meeting than for Thornton merely to acknowledge the slogan that had, indeed, become a cliché over the years? He wondered what Thornton was leading up to as he watched the CEO seat himself behind his desk again and regard him appraisingly.

"Ever heard of Silverdale, Colorado?" he asked, and Blake's heart skipped a beat. This was something neither he nor Rosalie had thought about.

"Is there anyone atTarrenTech who hasn't?" he countered.

"Oh, I'm sure there are a few." Thornton chuckled. "I'm not sure most of the people in the Travel Division even know about Research and Development, much less care."

Blake permitted himself a small smile. "I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you," he suggested. "After all, Tom Stevens runs Travel, and his last post was Silverdale." He didn't feel it necessary to add that it wasn't merely the Travel Division's chief officer who had once been posted in Silverdale, but virtually every senior man in theTarrenTech hierarchy. A posting in Silverdale, as nearly everyone in the company knew, meant that you were in line for the top jobs. As far as Blake knew, however, no one from Marketing had ever been sent there before.

"True enough," Thornton mused, then fell silent for a few moments as his gray eyes seemed slowly to assess Blake. "Jerry Harris has an opening out there, and he's asked for you."

Blake tried not to let his astonishment show. Until two years ago Jerry had run the Digital Division, and though he'd been several rungs above Blake on the corporate ladder, the two men had become good friends, largely due to the influence of their wives, neither of whom seemed to give a rap for Ted Thornton's general disapproval of his managers becoming too friendly with men they might someday have to fire.

As if reading his thoughts, Thornton spoke again. "If you'd been working for him here, of course, I wouldn't entertain the idea for a moment-I've never believed in letting people build empires within my own company. But you didn't work for Harris here, at least not directly, and he's a good man. If I trust him to run R and D, I have to trust him to choose his staff. Therefore, you'll be moving."

It wasn't a question, it was a command. Blake understood instantly that he wasn't being offered a new job; he was being informed that he had one. Not that he would have considered turning it down, he reflected, even for a moment. Aside from the fact that to refuse would have meant the end of his career atTarrenTech, he was as aware as anyone that being sent to Silverdale meant that, at the age of thirty-eight, he was already marked for a top position in the company. And top positions didn't come much larger than they did atTarrenTech.

He instinctively knew it would have been a mistake to ask just what the job in Silverdale would be. There was only one question that was relevant, so he asked it.

"When do I leave?"

Thornton stood up. "You report to Harris two weeks from today, so you'll want to get there by the end of next week. The arrangements have all been made. A house is waiting for you, and the movers will be at your place in San Marcos next week to do the packing."

Blake swallowed, his head suddenly spinning. What would Sharon think? Shouldn't he at least discuss it with her? But of course she knew howTarrenTech worked as well as he did, and he wouldn't be the first executive to be transferred on short notice. He stood up.

"Thank you, Mr. Thornton," he said. "I appreciate your confidence in me, and I won't disappoint you."

Thornton's brows arched slightly, and when he spoke, his voice held an acerbic note. "It's Jerry Harris I have confidence in," he said. "And it is Jerry you won't disappoint." Then he flashed a smile and extended his hand. "And call me Ted," he added.

The interview was over. Everything in Blake Tanner's life, and the lives of his family, had just changed.