by Tanya Allan
Whispers in the Mind
By
Tanya Allan
Whispers in the Mind: Book 0ne
Copyright 2004 Tanya J. Allan
Second edition Copyright 2011 Tanya J. Allan
By Tanya Allan
All rights reserved.
This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – for example, electronic, photocopy, data recording, etc… – without the prior written permission of the author or unless paid for through sales channels authorised and approved by the author. The only exception is brief quotation in printed reviews.
Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited.
This work is fictitious, and any similarities to any persons, alive or dead, are purely coincidental. Mention is made of persons in public life only for the purposes of realism and for that reason alone. Certain licence is taken in respect of medical procedures, terms and conditions, and the author does not claim to be the fount of all knowledge.
The author accepts the right of the individual to hold his/her (or whatever) own political, religious and social views, and there is no intention to deliberately offend anyone.
Also by Tanya Allan on Amazon Kindle:
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A FAIRY’S TALE
AMBER ALERT
BEHIND THE ENEMY
EMMA
EVERY LITTLE GIRL’S DREAM
FLIGHT OR FIGHT
FORTUNE’S SOLDIER
GRUESOME TUESDAY
IN PLAIN SIGHT
MARINE 1
MODERN MASQUERADE
MONIQUE
QUEEN OF HEARTS
RING THE CHANGE
SHIT HAPPENS, SO DO MIRACLES
TANGO GOLF: COP WITH A DIFFERENCE
THE CANDY CANE CLUB
THE HARD WAY
THE OTHER SIDE OF DREAMS
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A SUPER HERO
THE SUMMER JOB & OTHER STORIES
TO FIGHT FOR A DREAM
TWISTED DREAMS
WEIRD WEDNESDAY
WHEN FORTUNE SMILES
WHISPERS IN THE MIND
1.
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The Captain sat in the command chair, while the bridge officers sat at the crescent shaped console in front. There were eight of them on the bridge and, had a human been there, he or she would not have been able to tell them apart. The lighting on the bridge was dim, but the controls were sufficiently illuminated for the job at hand.
The Captain, as were they all, was a hairless biped with a large domed head. With skin the colour of an elephant and of a similar texture, leathery grey, with a basic humanoid form, these beings were definitely not from earth.
They had two arms, two legs, with feet and hands with four digits on each. They were quite puny looking by human standards, with slight muscle development on the limbs and a narrow torso. All were between 4’6” and 5’ in height, and the size of furniture and room was proportionate.
The strength of these creatures was not physical, but mental. For in the large cranium lay a brain that was three times more efficient than the human brain, and as the entire previous conversation took place in silence, one would understand that they were telepathic beings.
They had facial features that might not necessarily be considered ugly by Earth standards. Not human, but the large dark eyes were actually hypnotically attractive. There was a vestige of a nose, and a small thin mouth, used solely for eating. Two small ears were where they should be, but as these creatures never used spoken language, their vocal chords and hearing abilities were severely restricted.
The race was an old one, belonging to a system many parsecs beyond the far rim, thousands of light years from earth. Their sun had gone Nova several thousand generations ago, so the race was scattered amongst the stars in vast mother ships.
Now doomed to search out suitable planets for colonisation, this planet, called ‘Earth’ by the inhabitants, seemed quite promising when first discovered two centuries ago.
The race were omni-sexual, in that for much of the time they were neuter, but at will the individual could assume the gender of their choice depending upon the situation they were currently experiencing. This was a development of assisted-evolution, as their survival factors were vastly increased by such a characteristic.
Offspring were nurtured in co-operative units, allowing parents only the responsibility of conception, pregnancy and birth. Any individual could lactate at will, allowing those who were skilled in childcare to undertake the task, thus allowing others to continue with their specialised tasks unimpeded by children.
Theirs was a race on the edge of extinction.
Their life expectancy was in the region of four or five times that of an Earth human, but their fertility was about one eighth.
It took an individual twenty Earth-years to reach maturity and become fertile. It took another twelve years to reach basic optimum mental operating capacity, and to be able to function efficiently. Each individual hoped to have four offspring during their lifetime, but recently, the reality was two or three at best, with the majority infertile and unable to carry a child full-term.
The Captain of this scout ship was two hundred Earth-years old, so was exceptionally experienced at the task in hand. This task was to identify a suitable location whereby a small colony could be seeded away from the indigenous population, in order to create a living cell that could exist apart from the rest of the race, thereby increasing the chances of their race’s survival.
Such colonies were seeded on hundreds of planets across thousands of systems, and they were bound by strict rules.
• No contact was permitted with the indigenous people for a minimum period of one hundred local years, and only thereafter if full knowledge and acceptance had been achieved.
• Should accidental contact be made, then no harm was permitted to be affected against the locals, and steps must be taken to eradicate any memories of the contact.
Thus they managed to co-exist without any awareness by their hosts, and by using their incredibly powerful mental skills, this co-existence was assured.
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The ship assumed a hover, and at no time did it come into contact with the ground. As the technician responsible for maintaining the attitude of the craft adjusted the final hover, for a split second, the screen flickered as power was diverted into the anti-gravity device.
The Science team exited down a ramp, where briefly, the glow of the internal section of the ship escaped into the New Mexico desert. Then darkness and stillness returned, as the team of fifteen dispersed into the still night.
Each was clad in a black, one-piece suit. The term chameleon would be a good one, as the suits were designed to take on the characteristics of the local terrain, both in colour and in tex
ture. Clothing was rarely worn, and only for specific purposes, such as this.
They rarely carried weapons, as they knew their mental powers were so sophisticated, so that there was no need for anything as crudely destructive as a weapon.
They wore hoods and facemasks, not because the atmosphere was poisonous to them, but as a precaution against local germs and bacteria, and so as not to import theirs to the planet. They were seeking to ascertain whether this remote part of North America could sustain another underground colony. They had already tested the soil, the vegetation and the local fauna. Humans were a known risk, so this part of the desert was as safe as they could find.
They needed to know whether their digging machines would be able to operate effectively here, and so tests were necessary to ascertain the strata and formation of the rock to a depth of a thousand metres. Their machines were so effective that, with the right conditions, a complete system of tunnels and chambers could be constructed in a thousand time gronks. This would be suitable for a colony of five hundred individuals.
There were already eight colonies of this size on Earth, and the Captain of the Mother ship was hoping to double the numbers over the next twelve months.
The New Mexico desert was cool and the night air was still. The stars were displaying their glory against the inky black sky, and small creatures scuttled about on the dirt.
The highway stretched like a black piece of elastic, stretched in a straight line across the flat plain, the white lines merging with the edges in the distance. A pair of headlights approached the small bridge over a small dry gully, and the 4x4 police truck pulled over onto the hard shoulder just before the bridge. The driver switched the engine off, and the silence resumed. The voice of the police dispatcher punctured the peace, so Sergeant Mike Dunwoody turned off the set.
Mike frowned, easing off his seat belt. He felt a tightness across his chest, and had been feeling rough for a few days. Carol, his wife, had told him to see old Doc Henry, but Mike thought he was just having a spell of indigestion.
With twenty-five years in law enforcement, which was after seven years with the Air Force Security Police, he had completed fifteen years with the NYPD. Then he and Carol had brought the family out to New Mexico, where he had joined the local Sheriff’s department. Stillswood was a sleepy town, but he liked it. Mike was eligible for retirement and, now his kids were both employed, he knew that he would be silly not to go for it soon. In truth, he loved the job and would miss it like crazy.
He was glad to have left New York, as it was getting manic there. He was grateful that he had left before 9/11, as his life-style here was much more laid-back.
He reclined the seat a couple of notches and looked at his watch, - 3 a.m.. He was waiting for the Tucker boys, and he knew they were due to come this way at around 03.30 in their super-charged pickups. Their races were the talk of the town, so much so that several thousand dollars rode on the outcome of the next race. It was time to put an end to their games before someone died, and Mike planned to do just that.
He had a spike strip that he would deploy across the road, and then he would book the sons of bitches.
He settled down to wait, absently looking out across the desert at the mountains to the West.
Movement caught his eye and he frowned. It was hard to tell what the movement was, or how near it was to him. At first, he thought it was an aircraft, but then it seemed to be on the ground. He lost it for a moment, but then came a brief pulse of light, which vanished as quickly as it came.
He opened the box in the back of the truck, taking out the night vision head set. He then started the truck, driving down into the dry gully towards where he thought he had seen the flash.
There were rumours of drug smugglers flying choppers into the desert and meeting fast trucks that took the drugs to Las Vegas. If he could go out with a big drug bust, then he’d be made for life. There may even be a movie made of him. He smiled at the thought.
He was a big man, six-three and 238 lbs. He had been a hard muscled man a few years ago, but now he was fifty, most of it was fat. A lack of exercise and too much of the wrong food was the cause, and he kept meaning to change - tomorrow.
He drove slowly and very carefully. There had been a lot of rain in the mountains recently, so this gully could become a torrent in no time. Such was the dryness that the torrent would come and go, yet the gully would be dry again within twelve hours.
Several times he stopped, listening through the open windows. There was nothing to hear, except the usual night sounds of the desert. He was about to give up and return to catch the Tuckers when he heard a roar.
He smiled, knowing that sound, so, wasting no time, he immediately drove up the bank onto the desert floor.
Sure enough, within a couple of minutes a wall of raging water surged past his truck, heading for the bridge some two miles away now.
Mike got out of his truck, watching the swirling water. He was amazed as he saw what he thought was a child being swept along, with arms and legs flailing.
Taking off the head-set, he immediately trained the searchlight onto the figure, driving the truck along the edge of the gully as the beam locked onto the unfortunate individual.
He drove fast, overtaking the figure and heading for a bend in the gully. He parked, got out, unclipped the winch hawser and clipped it onto his duty rig. He watched as the water swirled past, and then he caught sight of the child.
They must have been camping up stream. Damn kids, he thought.
On wading into the water, he almost lost his footing several times as the power of the water was so forceful. As he waited in the middle for the child, a log hit him on the chest.
Winded and unsteady, he caught sight of the figure, so as it approached, he grabbed, holding onto a leg.
Activating the remote unit for the winch, he just held his casualty, allowing the truck to pull them both to the safety of the bank. He felt the tightness in his chest return, but this time, it hurt, a heck of a lot more than before.
He felt his feet touch the bank, so managed to scrabble up onto dry land. He pulled the bedraggled figure to safety, falling forward onto his hands and knees. He was gasping for breath, so he thought that the log must have hit him harder than he had thought, maybe cracking his ribs.
He unclipped the winch, and turned the kid over onto his back. He blinked a couple of times as he looked at the child’s face.
While frowning, the heart attack caused him to pass out.
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The science officer paused. It was well known that, unusually, this particular casualty was the offspring of the Captain, and was some twenty years old. It was a young science student attached to the ship. The Captain had only ever had one child as a female, so was particularly attached to it, having carried and given birth. This was not usual practice, but certain eccentricities were accepted, particularly in one so respected.
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The science team made its way cautiously yet rapidly in the direction the flood had taken their companion. The technician, who arrived first, saw the unconscious human and the now spluttering student lying side by side.
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The large ship gently floated towards the scene, coming to rest yards away from the parked police vehicle. The winch cable was lying on the ground where Mike had dropped it. The door of the truck was still open, and the small internal light gave off a bright glow in the otherwise inky dark.
The science team assisted Ruma back to consciousness, and were ready to transfer the half-drowned student to the sick bay on the craft.
The police officer was lying unconscious where he had fallen, his breath coming short and rapid, while his pulse was weakening and sporadic.
Within moments, both casualties were onboard, so the craft left as silently as it had arrived.
When a safe distance from Earth, the craft simply stopped, and the Captain made its way to the medical unit.
It stood looking at the still figure of the human, while three medics were working hard to save his life.
Ruma was in a cubicle to the left, so the Captain went to see it.
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