by Laura Kaighn
“Sorry, Doc. I was just thinking of the consequences.”
“Yes, Dr. Henry,” Cooper broke in. “If it’s not human blood, then what kind is it? Animals don’t leave boot prints.”
Shaking the sample bags of evidence, the woman snapped, “You’ll know as soon as I do.” With that she gathered her investigative team, and they marched back through the woods toward the road.
From his hiding crouch Vesarius shifted his weight. His left leg had begun to ache, and he rubbed annoyingly at the site. Disheveled bangs masked his sight as Vesarius continued to watch the remaining four officers.
“It’s almost like this guy, this alien, dropped out of the sky,” one said. “No landing gear marks, no other sets of footprints. Just these few burn spots on the ground.”
“Maybe he did fall from the sky,” Hawthorne suggested, his gaze following the line of trees to the looming clouds overhead. “His shipmates might have pushed him out of a spacecraft or plane of some sort. He fell and landed here.”
“Pushed him, Hawthorne? Aliens, Barrymore?” Cooper chided his men. “Aren’t you stretching your hypotheses a bit?” The sheriff regarded the last of his young officers. This one was nearly popping out of his boots to speak. “Go ahead, Tomlin.”
“Well, Sir,” the freckled redhead began. “The evidence would suggest that this stranger more probably jumped from his ship as it was crashing in the forest. That would explain the sounds Mr. Brown heard. Perhaps the wrecked ship is somewhere nearby?”
“And how do you expect to prove that?” Cooper challenged. “There certainly isn’t a trail here to follow.”
Tomlin eagerly continued his theory. “A helicopter could look for a recent break in the tree line. One that doesn’t look natural. There’d be wreckage.”
Cooper nodded slowly then stepped to pat the young man on the shoulder. “Son, you keep up the good work, and you’ll make deputy by autumn’s snow.”
The young man beamed. “Thank you, Sir.”
Hawthorne cleared his throat to interrupt. “Sir, this alien – whoever he is – is probably at Dori’s ... I mean Mrs. Tanner’s cottage. Considering her agitation, she may be held there against her wishes.”
“Yes, Dan, I realize that. We’ll get back there, but first we need reinforcements. State Police will be here shortly. And the Feds will probably get involved as well.”
“But Dori’s in danger, Harlan,” Dan insisted. Vesarius watched the younger man’s hand come to rest about the grip of his sidearm. “We have to do something now.”
Abruptly a low hum emanated about the woods. A bluish glow coalesced that revived a vivid memory in Vesarius’ restless mind. The Arch!
“What the hell is that?” Cooper asked. The sheriff covered his eyes at the pulsating disk of light hovering a meter off the ground.
“Vesarius!” a familiar voice called through that opening. Coty. “Sarius, are you there?” The Vesar bolted to his feet. He had to answer his captain. He didn’t know how long the time gate would remain active.
But the police would not leave. Stepping out from behind his hiding place, the Vesar bellowed, “Coty! I am here. Hold the Arch!”
“Whoa!” one officer shouted. The man twisted, stumbled backward and snatched for his gun.
“The alien,” Hawthorne cried as Vesarius strode toward them. Swiftly, four steel barrels were trained on his mahogany frame.
Vesarius raised his hands, palms out. “I am not here to hurt you. I am here purely by accident.” He was now within ten meters of their weapons.
“What are you?” Hawthorne asked his brown eyes wide.
“Vesarius!” Coty called through the time distortion. “They’re coming. I can see the podships. Hurry!”
Vesarius regarded the tensed police officers. “I am going to jump through the portal now.” He steadied his voice to add, “I will be gone, and you will not see me again.”
Cooper shook his weapon threateningly at the taller alien. “How can we believe you? You might have an army ready to attack us on the other side of that ... that whatever-it-is. You’re just here to show them the way through.”
As if on cue, a red bolt of energy shot through the gate’s blue haze. Instinctively, Vesarius ducked when it slammed into a tree trunk, splintering the wood. “Sarius!” his captain called from the future. Coty’s voice was followed by the familiar popping of his multi-phase rifle.
The Vesar’s time had run out. Lowering his arms, Vesarius turned toward the gateway and bolted. There was a loud crack. Something slammed into his right shoulder. Recoiling, the warrior sank to his knees, dazed.
“No!” an anguished cry screamed through the forest. “Don’t kill him! Vesarius!” Another percussive blast echoed among the trees.
Vesarius sensed footsteps rushing toward him as he tried to regain his boots. Someone grabbed his arm and pulled hard. His ears were ringing. The woods were darkening. Vesarius forced his chin up to see who was helping him. Sighing, the Vesar smiled weakly at the now familiar face. “Green Eyes.”
“Your shoulder, Vesarius. Your heart.”
“I know,” the warrior murmured. His legs gave way beneath him. He did not fall, however. Grunting with the effort, Dorinda held him steady.
“Damn it,” she groaned. “Somebody help me. We’ve got to get him home before he bleeds to death.” Dorinda was straining to keep the Vesar warrior erect.
Vesarius felt another set of arms clutch his body. Lifting his groggy head the warrior viewed a nervous Deputy Hawthorne bolstering him toward the gate. “Thank you, Dan,” he mumbled. Then the forest started to fog.
“No you don’t,” Dori urged, her taut voice more scared than authoritative. “Vesar warriors don’t shpleep out, you said.” She kicked his ankle with her hiking boot. “Come on, Vesarius. Coty’s holding the gate open for you. Don’t give up on him. On me.”
Vesarius shook his swinging hair clear of the darkness and smiled at his savior. “Come with me,” he whispered.
More energy bolts exploded from the gate. When the trio halted beside the misty hole hovering in the air, Dorinda jostled the wilting Vesar toward Hawthorne. “Hold him up, Dan. I’ll pull him through from the other side.” She stepped back and gauged her leap.
“Dori, don’t!” Hawthorne gaped as she took a running dive through the vortex and disappeared. “Dori!”
A moment later disembodied appendages poked through the blue glow, Dorinda’s voice following. “Dan, hand me his arms. Then push.”
Casey barked sharply scrambling about the Vesar’s wobbly legs. Vesarius winked at the dog. “She will be right back, girl.” He turned his cheek to see Dorinda’s hands clasp his wrists in a vise grip. With a shove from behind, the smell of rotting leaves and wildflowers vanished.
“Dori!” he heard Hawthorne call again. “Come back!”
“Time to go, Green Eyes,” Vesarius mumbled. He reached for her, but she was gone. Mytok’s desert breeze brushed hair from his face bringing the sounds of battle to his ears. The Vesar was home. He promptly passed out.
Chapter 5: Only the Lonely
Vesarius heard voices in his sleep. They were talking about him in low, cottony sentences. “He’s healing nicely. The bullet lodged just millimeters from his heart. But it shattered his posterior coracoids process, just below the acromion arm of the scapula. Regeneration should be complete in another day, but he’ll need at least a week for the bone to completely re-knit. I expect he’ll be up and in my hair before then.”
“And his other injuries?”
“They’ve nearly healed, but they’ve put a strain on his system. With the shoulder wound, Sarius almost didn’t make it. He’ll recover more slowly this time. I’ll have to keep him off the duty roster for a week or so.”
“When can I talk to him?”
“I’ll call you when he’s awake.”
Vesarius rolled his head and groaned, trying to speak. His captain wanted him.
“Sarius?”
“No, Coty. Leave
him. He needs his rest. Now, out of my sickbay. I have other patients, you know.” At that Vesarius drifted back to sleep.
A heavy panting in the warrior’s ear forced him from his respite some hours later. A crushing weight was on him, a thick tongue lapping his face. Smiling Vesarius opened his eyes. He grabbed Tundra by the scruff of the neck with his free arm. “Sule. How many times have I told you to brush your teeth before coming to bed?” The Alaskan malamute barked deeply and lathered the Vesar’s face some more.
“All right, you two,” a woman’s voice advised. “Keep it down to a dull roar. This is a sickbay not a family reunion picnic.” Sheradon drew up to the bed, a sincere smile on her small lips, her blue eyes twinkling ice. “Good to see you, Sarius. We weren’t sure whether you were still among the living.”
“I almost was not,” the Vesar countered hoarsely. When he tried to sit up, Tundra pushed him back with one massive paw.
Sheradon shrugged. “Kin know best, Mister. Stay where you are. If you’re up to talking, I’ll get the captain.”
“Yes. I also require a pair of scissors.” Vesarius again ruffled the malamute’s mane affectionately.
Sheradon’s eyes rolled. “Why don’t you just shave off all your hair and be done with it?”
“For the trouble Coty went through to return me, I should sacrifice myself to Brahmanii Sule.”
“Your Creator? After all that trouble? Coty’d kill you first with his own, bare hands.” Smiling Sheradon patted Tundra on the head. “He’s happy to have you back. It was touch and go for a while.”
“I assume you kept him tranquilized.”
Sheradon shrugged. “The only way. Coty refused to bond with Tundra until he was sure he couldn’t get you back.”
“I am grateful for your dedication, Doctor. I thank you for Tundra’s sake.”
Sheradon blinked at the compliment. “You really are under the weather, Commander. You’re talking nice to your taskmaster.”
“Nobody wants to hang around a hospital, Yolonda,” another voice interjected. Captain Michael Bear Coty had stridden in through the med-center doors. Drawing up to the bed, he exchanged a greeting nod with his Vesar friend. “He’s talking sweet so you’ll let him sneak out of here.”
“Well, in that case,” Sheradon quipped. “I better pull out my old, black book and review some of those witch’s spells. I know there’s got to be one in there dealing with forked tongues.” Slapping Vesarius’ leg, she added, “See you later, time traveler,” and left them alone.
Watching her go Vesarius ventured, “I suppose that means she is not going to let me up.”
“Nope.” Coty grasped his friend’s left forearm in a brotherly handclasp. “But I’d rather have you down here for a week than not at all. Welcome back, my friend.”
Vesarius was not so sentimental. “A week? I am weary, not dying.”
Coty held up his hand in defense. “Hold on, Sarius.” When the Vesar tried to rise once more, it was Coty who pressed him back against the pillow. “Just hold on. Listen to me. Don’t push Sheradon. She’s had to save the lives of several crewmembers in the last two days. Belarus and Johnston didn’t make it. I’m in trouble for not following orders, and the Orthops almost blasted the Pompeii into oblivion. So take it easy. We’re both tiptoeing on eel eggs.” Coty pulled up a chair and sat beside the Vesar’s bed.
Tundra moaned in protest when Vesarius shoved the malamute aside and wriggled to sit. Grimacing as his sling-encased shoulder ached in response, the Vesar finally maneuvered himself to a quarter vertical. “Was I worth it?” He stretched his shoulder muscles with a wince.
“Yes,” answered Coty, “and that’s what I want to talk to you about.” The captain leaned toward the Vesar. “In order to find out where the Orthops had sent you, Moxland and I first had to scour Vesar databanks for every scratch of the Orthop’s written language on file. Once we’d decoded that, Sam helped us decipher the Mytoki symbols. We discovered a striking similarity.” Coty paused to grin. “It seems the Mytoki were the Orthops’ ancestors. Sam’s busy now translating all of the Mytoki and Orthop texts he can get his hands on. What’s better, we can now communicate with the Orthops, if only in writing.
“Jonas is designing a phonetic translator,” Coty continued. “With the Orthop’s syntax deciphered, we can program it for oral language.” The captain patted his friend on the thigh. “We’ll be able to talk to them. General Chan’s even hoping to end the Orthop conflict. Perhaps strike a truce. The next step would be Alliance citizenship. What do you think of that?”
“So,” Vesarius reasoned wincing to haul himself further up onto the pillows, “my falling through the Arch may have been more a blessing than a curse.”
“Not so fast, Iron Man. It was only Tundra’s quick thinking that got us all back here alive.”
“What?” Vesarius grinned at his Kin and tugged at the dog’s furry mane.
Coty elaborated. “We were all trapped near the Arch when the podships came soaring down over our heads, firing their plasma canons. Tundra grabbed your bloody hulk and dragged you away from the machine. Then he nearly bit my arm in half to get my attention. Tundra stared at me with such intensity, I knew he had something to say. Suddenly there was an image of ducks in my mind, flying over a pond full of decoys. I made the connection, and we all jammed into one transport as the pods were turning to make another pass.”
Vesarius chuckled quietly at his Kin. “You old hound dog. You remembered that trip to the Sierra Mountains.”
Coty nodded. “You had to explain to him what a decoy was. Anyway,” the captain explained, “we piloted the other transports by remote out away from the city, set our own transport on overdrive.” He thrust his arm in illustration. “And shot like a rocket straight into orbit. What a ride!”
“Honors to you, my friend.” The Vesar smacked the malamute on the shoulder blade. “You are a true warrior.” Vesarius glanced over at his captain for shared approval but found his friend frowning, eyes dark and unfocused. “There is more?”
“The big question always was: Why did the Orthops choose that location, that time? I had Zaneta checking historical records for Tloni, even Vesar events that were crucial to Alliance solidarity. We weren’t even close.” Coty leaned back in his chair, sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “Only by learning how to run the Arch did we find a memory bank that listed previous destinations. Otherwise we would’ve been playing twenty million questions. Even then, we weren’t able to get an exact lock on your arrival time on Earth. It was pure luck that got us to you within a few days.”
Vesarius straightened further on the medical platform, groaning with the effort. “Why then? Why New York State in nineteen ninety-nine?” Vesarius swung his legs from the bed while Tundra settled at the foot to rest his furry chin on the Vesar’s lap.
“Well, truth is, you weren’t supposed to end up there. The Mytoki machine was in a state of flux when you fell through. Its final destination was frozen when your body passed the threshold. We were lucky the Arch had an automatic stop and recorded the breach before shutting down.” Coty sighed and confirmed, “We’ve since had time to check Earth history in that region, and we’re pretty sure the Orthops were after Duke Thorton.”
Vesarius closed his eyes thinking. “I recall that name. Something to do with an animal research organization? Was he not a philanthropist at the turn of Earth’s twenty-first century?”
Coty affirmed with a nod. “Founder of a bioengineering firm to be exact. At the time, patents on mice, rabbits, and livestock were the only ones available to genetic engineers. Thorton was the force behind further research into the increased intelligence of higher life forms.”
“Kin Companions,” Vesarius chimed in deeply. “But how is that crucial to the Alliance? No offense, Tundra.”
Coty shrugged in his seat. “Our Kinpanions help us terraform and colonize other planets. Kin assist us in communicating with other species. Without them, we may never have reached this far into space.”
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“So the Orthops could have reached farther ...”
“And cut off our ties to your people,” Coty finished. “And without Vesar knowledge of Orthop physiology and war strategy, the Tloni would never have been able to hold back their advances. They would have been pups to the slaughter.” Now the captain threw up his arms. “Who knows? The Orthops didn’t need to stop there. They could have used the Arch to invade Earth. Period. One big banquet table.”
Frowning at Coty’s implications, Vesarius redirected the conversation. “How do you suppose the Orthops learned of Thorton?”
The captain’s eyebrows jumped in answer. “Only thing we can figure is that they’ve monitored our subspace and microwave transmissions, perhaps for a long time. They didn’t even have to understand our language, just our pictures.
“Orthops don’t use domesticated animals,” Coty reminded. “They don’t even seem to be a part of Orthop culture. So, to them, Kin Companions must seem like lethal weapons. And if at any time they were able to communicate with one of our Kin, Duke Thorton’s face would come up. His picture’s hanging in every Kin training center.” Now the captain lowered his chin and shook it. “Scares me to hell ... to think how close we came.”
“The Orthops are cleverer than my people ever imagined,” Vesarius asserted soberly. “Now the entire Alliance has tasted their cunning.” Vesarius patted his chest. “But we are still here.” Then his eyes narrowed. “You did destroy the Arch, did you not?”
Solemnly Coty straightened in his chair. “As soon as our transport cleared the city, I ordered Sam to hit it with proton shells from the Pompeii. Hardest thing he ever did, like killing his own kid. Sam’s preparing a Mytoki history book with what information he was able to glean from the city hieroglyphs. Pity really, but necessary. Don’t you agree?”
“That it was a pity? Yes. And since I have seen the damage such power evokes, I believe, under the circumstances, we had no other choice.” Vesarius was silent for a moment considering recent events.
