If she didn’t get her mind focused, she was never getting out of here. Wherever here was.
She walked down the hallway, took a left and then went into the door on the right.
There was a rectangle positioned a little low for humans on the right-hand side of the door. Pushing it caused the door to slide to the side, allowing her entrance and then quietly, well mostly quietly, it slid back, closing off the hallway. In this room, there was a round table with a translucent white glass top, and a bed that looked sized for a kid on the right side. This was going to be like sitting in an elementary school classroom. Large enough, but still a little cramped.
She looked around. The room was clean, but the starkly white walls seemed a little plain and made it feel like she was in some sort of hospital. Not her cup of tea.
Sitting down, resting her elbows and cradling her chin in her hands, it was time to sort some stuff out.
“Let’s start with the obvious, is it possible to extract you out of me? I don’t want to rip you apart, kill you dead, and stomp on your grave anymore. Well, not as much, and I believe in another couple of days you will be safe enough.”
Yes and no. It might be possible to do, but not by any science this world has available. It can probably be accomplished on a few of the worlds of the Entarian race; they have some pretty amazing medical technology.
“So, OK, but I have to get a spaceship and fly how far away?”
Well, billions of miles. I don’t remember exactly where they are and I’ve not tried to translate any of my knowledge of the galaxy to what your scientists have labeled those areas in space.
“What was your purpose for coming here?”
I was selected by my race as a vanguard. A scout, if you will, to locate other potentially sapient species and make modifications to your physical beings— so that you would be capable of joining the extra-galaxy war on our side.
“What the hell? There are enough of you bozos out there you have to get into neighborhood fights? I thought scientists had very considered opinions that if a race had attained enough knowledge to travel the universe, it would have surpassed the need to be violent? What happened to that?”
Your scientists are hopelessly naive, unfortunately. It doesn’t matter if a few generations seem pleasant enough. If the genetics for mayhem aren’t stricken from the DNA pool, they come back around with a vengeance, and then most of the race doesn’t have the constitution to fight back and the violent ones win. They take the whole race and make it part of their personal war machine. Those of the race who had any inclination towards violence are able to act on those feelings and it just feeds on itself. Violence is a disease that a race must stamp out else they consume themselves and others.
“What happened to your race? You’ve been gone so long is there anything left?”
My race, Kurtherians, are, unfortunately, most likely still around as we are an offshoot of the most terrifying, meanest, violent race out there. We achieved over twenty-two generations without the violence gene showing itself. This allowed us plenty of time to become masters of science and technology. We became aware of more than the normal dimensions and were able to send out scouts to distant galaxies ourselves.
Thinking ourselves wise and believing we could shepherd other beings into our own enlightenment, we sought to find additional subjects to help. When we realized it was possible to help other races, the political body we formed to help these races move up to a higher level we named shepherds.
Unfortunately, some shepherds were in fact imposing design specifications on growth of the subjected species or manipulating the species’ DNA to create new beings in their own image of perfection. We realized violence is not always physically obvious, but its intent is.
There were twelve shepherd groups, I guess you would call them clans. They started bickering amongst themselves. At first, it was over somewhat harmless philosophical differences of opinion, but then after a handful of generations these disagreements got out of hand. Seven of the twelve broke off and formed an opposing group and worked to bring their races to maturity and to use them to overcome the five remaining. One clan, mine, believed that this internecine war was inimical to the future. We secretly agreed to leave a shell group to struggle with the five as a front, hiding that a lot of us left, looking for a way to overcome destruction by the seven. We weren’t prepared for strife, and frankly we probably aren’t too prepared for strife now as it isn’t in us to be violent. We found, and removed, the genes from our DNA so we weren’t able to return violence for violence. For the group that left, there are two different strategies. One focused on extracting our essence to the ethereal. The feeling is that if we are able to move to that plane, we can’t be attacked through the physical realm. The other was to locate a sapient species far enough away from our location in the universe. One whose evolution we could benefit so they could help themselves and us in a fight against the seven.
There were thirty-four scout ships. None of us shared which direction we were to go looking. That way, if any of our clan left behind were questioned, no one would know the answer. Each ship had enough supplies and each pilot had enough knowledge of the manipulation of the ether to support their own continued existence so long as the ship was capable of travel.
On my third jump through a solar system, I arrived too close to a wormhole and immediately and randomly hit the jump button. Normally, it takes what you would call a few hours to line up the path to jump to a planned destination. However, the gravity from the wormhole was causing my craft to tumble and I hit the button before it broke apart. I came out close to what you call Venus on a trajectory that would take me by this planet. The computational capability of my craft recognized a life-giving world. I needed to check on the structural integrity of my craft so I set course to land here.
I never realized that I had problems until I was too far down in your gravity and it became obvious I had to land or suffer a catastrophic breakdown of the structure of this craft.
Your planet’s gravity is substantially higher than I was accustomed to. It affected my piloting ability and with the issues I was already having the landing was hard enough to break a couple of pieces of equipment required to get back off of the ground. Your technology, at the time, was not sufficient to make any repairs. I could not leave my craft and I took a chance to integrate myself with a sapient member of your race, but I failed to take into account his reactions. Apparently, I had too much hubris of my own, and I’ve now had a thousand of your years to consider my failure.
“You told me that you didn’t have a name, but a long string of numbers. Why is that?”
No, I said my nomenclature was a meaningless string of digits. The true answer is that we refer to ourselves as the answer to a mathematical formula. We see perfection in math, and often will research for personal reasons and strive to solve one formula. Since we tend to get fixated on that formula, others call us by a string of digits that approximate a meaning for the formula.
“Well, while fascinating I’m sure to a math geek, I can’t call you ‘Number One’ or anything. Have you found a name from listening to our television or radio signals that speaks to you?”
I’m familiar with one of your mathematicians, Thales of Miletus, possibly your world’s first true mathematician and someone I can associate with.
“Great, an early Greek mathematician? While I haven’t heard of him, that isn’t a ringing endorsement of my mathematics’ history knowledge. I’m not terribly fond of Thales or Miletus. So, I’ll call you TOM as a shortened version.”
‘Tom’? Isn’t that a short version of ‘Thomas’?
“No, it is an acronym. Taking the first letter of the name you supplied, Thales of Miletus or T.O.M.”
I understand. I can accept TOM as the shorted version.
“OK, so TOM, I’m not trying to be a bitch here, but let’s talk about the Ontarians you mentioned before. Are they part of the seven or part of the five?”
It is
Entarians, and they aren’t in either group. The Entarians are another race that we located in the same neighborhood as the war between the seven and the five. While it is possible they have not been found yet, a lot could have happened in a thousand years.
“Figures. OK, I’ll have to shuffle the whole ‘extract you out of me’ thing for the foreseeable future. But don’t think that I’m OK with what you’ve done here. I’m not just going to accept you jumping aboard, and I will be extremely bitchy about this. You, in fact, are going to become my number one target when my cycle comes each month.”
Are you referencing what your female anatomy goes through during your ovulation cycle? If so, that won’t happen anymore. You won’t have a period or suffer from mood swings.
“Really? Un-fucking-believable! That alone just got you out of the dog house. You may sleep on the couch instead. This is looking up already.”
Bethany Anne, how am I supposed to sleep on a couch without you doing it? It’s your body.
“Figure of speech. It means that while you are still in trouble, it isn’t as bad as it was.”
I’ve heard the term but didn’t realize our relationship was such that it was relevant.
“Yeah, well, you’re here, I’m stuck with you, you don’t pay rent, you want to be carried around and I can’t get rid of you. That’s pretty much the definition of a shitty boyfriend so I think it applies pretty fucking well.”
TOM decided silence was the better part of valor. If he had to make the decision again, he would do it. But he might be a bit more circumspect about how he woke her up.
“All right, TOM, is there anything on this craft we can use, and can it be fixed? I need to get back out into the world and find out what the hell is going on. Michael isn’t back, I don’t know where Carl is, my dad is probably a nut case right now and let’s not even discuss that Martin probably thinks I’ve kicked the bucket.”
This craft is repairable. There are certain parts that need to be replaced or adjusted, but I have the specifications for them in what you would call a computer. We will need to take that along if you want access to that information.
“Sure, I want access. It isn’t too big, is it? Does it require special connections or energy?” Bethany Anne stood up—that chair was too damn small—and she paced the compartment. Five steps forward, turn around at the door, five steps back to the wall and repeat.
No special connections for energy as it predominately uses the host’s body heat as necessary or occasionally pulls on the etheric connection through the host if it is substantially taxed. As to how big it is? It is pretty tiny, well, mostly tiny.
There seemed to be a definable silence to Bethany Anne, as if TOM had suddenly had insight into a situation and his mouth had come to a full stop. She stopped her pacing and thought back to what he had told her. “TOM, you didn’t really explain how I carry the computer. You said no special connection but that it used the host’s body heat. What aren’t you telling me?” Bethany Anne could almost hear a mental sigh between her ears.
The computer has to become a part of the host’s body to communicate. You will have to make a small incision behind your ear and place the device there. I will direct connections to be created between the computer and your mind and heal the wound.
“Are you telling me I’m going to directly connect to yet another voice in my head?” Bethany Anne’s voice started to attain the frosty tone TOM was realizing meant she was angry.
Yes.
Bethany Anne stood still for a few minutes, trying to get her annoyance under control. She wanted to kick something, preferably Michael if he would just show up. The more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to think that Michael had taken a sabbatical. It was possible it was enemy action, but how unlikely was it that Michael found somebody here in his child's area that could truly affect him?
A little self-doubt crept in. If Michael was dead, then she was both figuratively and literally out in the cold, and if anyone was looking for Michael, they would probably off her as well. She knew enough to realize that while all of his children were made by Michael, he brought her to the source, the original creator. Now she had the freaking creator living in her. What a cock-up.
Then again, she knew everyone was either outright afraid of Michael, or had a great respect for his strength and ability to cause untold mayhem.
Well, that and his honor was touchy as hell.
That meant that she wasn’t going to be able to just go out and discover what the hell happened by asking the first non-human she could find. There was no telling who was behind the attacks. Michael hadn’t known before he left and she knew Carl didn’t know. She tried racking her brain for the name of the government connection. Ah, Frank! Well, fat lot of good a name did for her when she couldn’t remember any other contact information.
Besides, how exactly did she find a non-human? She needed more intel. She needed an edge.
Dammit, she was going to need that computer.
Fuck my life, she thought.
14
Brasov, Romania
Nathan left the hotel and decided to walk to the local tavern. While it wasn’t a great plan for finding Michael, it was a great way to get a good beer. Or, considering the cold, something that warmed him a little better.
He stayed on high alert the few blocks he walked to the tavern, a sign out front proclaiming the wide selection of ales available. Nothing triggered his senses.
When he entered a bell rang over his head. About a dozen people were enjoying a late afternoon beer. There were a couple of guys drinking together at the bar at the far end. A pretty bartender caught his eye as he came in and raised an eyebrow. He motioned that he was going to set up at the other end of the bar and she came down with a rag and wiped the area as he sat down. He noticed it didn’t look like it needed a wiping, which was nice.
“What you want?” She had an honest expression, no hint of guile that he could see and remarkably blue eyes. Her voice had a beautiful lilt to it from her Romanian accent. Nathan could have sat for hours and had her read a tax book aloud and he would be just fine.
Having strategically set himself up so he could see who might be coming in the door from the mirror behind the bar, he asked for a local ale, not too dark, and to surprise him. A quick smile and she was off to pull his drink for him.
Not even a minute later she returned, “Not too dark, yeah?” Her smile was too damn pleasant to have been behind the bar for many years. Either that or he’d lucked into a great pub.
He nodded his thanks and asked for a menu. While he could speak Romanian, it wasn’t something generally known and he preferred to keep it that way. He pointed to a picture of a bean paste soup with smoked meat, known as Iahnie de fasole cu afumătură.
Good thing he liked vegetables.
He had just bent to start eating when he caught the first scent of an UnknownWorlder since his arrival. It was some sort of Were creature and freakishly powerful. It wasn’t, for certain, in the building so it was probably on the clothes someone was wearing. He looked around, using the mirror each time his head came up after taking a spoonful of the soup. There were a couple of guys together at a table near the back, with a couple of beers apiece. They seemed to have been there a little while and by their clothes, they had been out in the country.
He caught the attention of the bartender and motioned he was going to the restrooms in the back, she nodded and kept cleaning the bottles behind the bar.
He walked slowly towards the restroom. The smell was stronger back here. He caught a little of the pair’s conversation and was able to understand that they had been fishing up in the mountains for the last few days. Passing them by, he confirmed the smell was on their clothes.
The Were, whatever it was, must have checked them out while they were asleep and decided they weren’t a threat.
Coming back out of the restroom, having washed his hands twice, he picked up a little more. They were discussing tracks near their c
amp, probably a huge brown bear.
Well, that would be about right, Nathan thought. While he didn’t know any werebears himself, he knew there were a couple up near Canada who interacted with the American Council.
If anything happened in this area, Nathan figured this Were would know. How, he considered, was he going to get an introduction to a bear?
Ecaterina was watching the new customer out of the corner of her eye. He was obviously American, and obviously not a typical tourist. His clothes, while not flashy, were high quality and he walked with a grace that suggested a hunter; more than just a game hunter. No, this man hunted other people, evidenced when you watched him carefully keep everyone under surveillance through the mirrors.
She had caught his eye when asking for his drink preference and for a moment his eyes seemed to change, to be more than human. It was disconcerting and by the time she had drawn his ale, she decided that it must have been a reflection off the glass.
Then again, she had seen enough in the mountains nearby to think that maybe the old stories had more truth in them than the new generations wanted to admit.
Her family had been in this area for the last seven generations. They had come from Germany to work. While she was presently tending bar, her real skill, passed down to every member of her family whether male or female, was out in the mountains.
Cali and Alin had just come back from a pretty desolate area and had mentioned seeing the huge tracks of a brown bear. While brown bears were well known in this area most people had not seen really large ones. She knew of one because she often tracked on the mountain it called home.
She loved her family, and loved the mountains but she had a desire to see ‘what was on the other side.’ Some called it a curse, the need that caused unhappiness. But for her, it was a desire to see more, to do more. She was happy enough right now, but she wouldn’t stay here forever.
She had not dated much and never been seriously involved with any guy. She didn’t want any more ties to this area. While she would come back, she knew she wasn’t going to stay. She wondered why she was so interested in this man. What was he to her plans to leave Brasov? Would he be a trap to keep her here?
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 12
