Once everything was put away, she settled herself on the couch with her laptop and began by searching the web for any stories related to the appearance of the craft. She found a few more accounts of the same story that Eli had told her, including an official statement from police that basically said they didn't know what was happening, but they didn't believe it was some kind of prank or that there was anything for people to be worried about.
Those two statements were too contradictory for Vivian's liking, and she closed out of that page and continued her search, bringing up older stories that were too similar to be coincidence.
Even as far back as seventy years ago there were reports of the same things happening. It wasn't just limited to the area around the city, either. All over the world, there were reports of crafts showing up one minute and then disappearing the next.
Some of them were clearly not true and some were the general crop circle, little green men propaganda, but it was very easy to tell the difference between them, and the more she read about the stories that seemed similar, the more she was convinced that there was something going on.
"Now, I just have to figure out where the crafts are going," she muttered under her breath.
It would make sense to assume that they had simply flown back up to wherever they came from, but there were a few holes in that logic. And there were too many other options available for her to just decide that that was what happened. There could be invisibility cloakers or stealth modes at work here. Maybe the crafts had never gone anywhere, they were just hidden.
The men who had reported seeing them had described the crafts as being "smaller than an airplane but bigger than a car" , which didn't do a lot to narrow it down, but definitely made it seem more plausible that someone would have noticed something like that taking off again. Even if it was in the middle of a field.
Vivian's mind was made up. There was no way she could let something like this pass her by. Not when she could discover something that had clearly been stumping people for longer than she had been alive.
Most likely she wouldn't even find anything, and that was okay. At least she would be able to say that she'd tried, right? There was no harm in going to the scene and trying to see what she could find.
When she glanced at the clock and found that it was a good four hours since she'd sat down and already well after midnight, she stifled a yawn with one hand and closed her computer, heading to bed and hoping she could get some sleep with the excitement that was fluttering in her stomach the whole time.
Chapter 4: Displaced
Earth was certainly the last place Carver had ever expected to find himself. It was considered a last resort by his people, somewhere they would flee to only if there was no other safe haven to be found. Of course, that was a very real possibility with the amount of fighting that tended to go on in their galaxy. Entire clans were wiped out every few years and the clans that wiped them out could be next in the blink of an eye.
Resources were scarce at times, and that was actually the number one reason for why there was so much fighting. Holding down fertile land with access to minerals and water and food was harder than it looked, and the Des'kos seemed determined to wipe out the clans that had the best access.
It was one of the reasons why they were at war with them, and Carver shuddered to think what their home would look like if it turned out that they did have to flee to Earth.
Earth, he was rapidly discovering, was not a very hospitable place. Oh, it was fine to support life, but what was the quality of that life? Everything felt dirty and the air was thick and heavy with pollution. Even with the amount of technology that was needed to get through a single day in his home, they managed to keep their air clean and fresh by filtering out anything that was considered a pollutant and only using things that burned clean to power their tech. When burning was necessary at all, that was.
It was considered old tech to use things that needed combustion, and now they worked on cleaner, stone powered fuel, harnessing the inherent energy in gemstones and natural minerals.
But clearly Earth was a few hundred years behind when it came to that kind of advance, and Carver could smell gasoline and fossil fuels in the air.
He shuddered in earnest as he looked out the window of the little cabin he had found and sighed.
According to his father, it had been Kithairin, his grandfather, who had put the plans to move to Earth if necessary into motion. There had been several scouting missions to this planet to see just how well it could sustain them if they needed to flee there, and while the results of those missions and had been dismal at best (Earthlings seemed to barely have enough resources to support themselves, let alone whichever clans were left to flee there), there weren't enough life supporting planets in the universe that they could rule it out.
Kithairin had led a team on a five month trip to Earth after that and had set up any number of safe houses, small, nondescript cabin like structures, layered with cloaking devices and tucked out of the way of the usual paths for humans that they could return to if necessary.
Each house was stocked with dried food and information about the area, the plan being that from the houses, they could figure out how best to blend themselves into society.
Considering the fact that some of the Sitheri had horns, scales, and other protrusions and other clans were worse, Carver thought that was a bit ambitious. But then, it was a last resort for a reason, he supposed.
The first thing he had done was check the cabin out. It was definitely small with three rooms. A big one that served as both the kitchen and sitting area and two smaller ones, one with a bed and dresser and the other which was obviously a bathroom, though a terribly outdated one.
A thick layer of dust and grime covered everything, and Carver had yet to find the solar powered cleaning sensors that should have been built into the walls. Those at least should have still been working, but there was no real way to tell until he found them. It had only been a few hours, but he was already tired of this.
It was not going to be easy to live here for however long it took, but then his landing on Earth had been anything but smooth, so he supposed it fit the theme of this bizarre and unwanted trip. Whoever had programmed the transport hadn't thought to calculate for the greater atmospheric pressure on Earth, and the fuel system had been dangerously low so there wasn't enough power for the ship to compensate. Luckily, he'd crashed down in a field and not in the middle of the ocean or something.
Angen had made sure that his children had a working knowledge of the other major planets that could sustain life, so Carver knew about Earth, but this. This was different from anything he had read or studied.
There were standard procedures for what to do when your transport needed repair and who to talk to, but the problem was that Earth didn't have those people as far as he knew. It was so far a last resort that they had yet to station their own kind there to help and act as a buffer.
On other planets, Sitheri had been living there for decades, ready to assist any of their kind who ended up there.
But Earth hadn't made it to that level yet, and it was proving to be quite the hindrance. Carver had managed to cloak his transport and get it shrunken down and dragged out of the way, but he was fairly certain that it had already been seen. He knew from old news reports that people of Earth thought seeing people from other planets was some kind of phenomenon, so he wanted to do his best to make sure that no one had any reason to ask him more questions than necessary.
If at all possible, he wanted to get back home without engaging any of the native people here, but that might have been a long shot.
Especially considering the fact that there was no tech at all in the cabin.
It made sense, he supposed. Left untouched for decades, the tech would be out of date and in desperate need of charging by now, but still.
He had to get back home.
Carver had a terrible feeling about what Ithril's reasons were for sending him awa
y, and he didn't want to wait and see if they would be confirmed. Ithril was a gifted liar, Carver knew that much, and he also knew that his brother was well versed in holding a grudge. While he didn't believe that Ithril bore him any ill will, he was not so foolish as to think that his brother wouldn't fight him if he tried to stand between him and his goal.
And that was exactly what Carver was going to have to do.
Ithril was constantly underestimating the Des'kos and the threat they posed to not only the Sitheri, but to all the other clans in the area as well. There was a reason why clans tended to make deals and surrender when they could rather than fighting them, and Ithril didn't seem to be aware of that.
He would run their people to ruin if allowed to continue on his path of vengeance for their mother, and Carver had to do something to stop it.
Of course, he couldn't exactly do that from Earth, now could he?
Luckily, moping wasn't really one of those things that Carver did well. He allowed himself to wallow until night fell and then he got to work. Until he figured out a way to power his transporter, he was stuck here. That meant he was going to need to make the best of what he had.
There was dried food in the kitchen area of the cabin, but it didn't look particularly appetizing. Each transport was stocked with food regularly, enough to last a week or so as standard procedure, so he wouldn't starve for the time being. Stars only knew how long it was going to take him to get back, though, so he would more than likely have to venture out into the human territories in search of more resources.
Quite frankly, the idea terrified him.
Carver had never met a human before. He'd seen them on the screens and tablets back home and had heard about how they made sport of killing each other. From what he had learned of their wars and conflicts, there were like the Des'kos with different weapons and more organization.
The thought of having to go among them, armed with possibly outdated information of how they operated was not a nice one, and he put that out of his head for the time being.
For now there were other things to focus on.
It wasn't easy to find the cleaning sensors as they had been covered with dust and dirt sometime in the last twenty years. He cleaned them by hand and then found the panel that activated them, stepping back and watching as the dust and buildup that coated every surface of the cabin was disintegrated. It took several passes of the nano-lasers, but finally the overpowering smell of age and neglect was gone.
Carver breathed easier. He brought the food in from the transporter and put it away once he had set out a small meal for himself. The last time he had eaten, his father had been alive, so he was long overdue. But he didn't know when he was going to have a chance to restock his supplies or what he would be able to restock them with, so he needed to ration out his portions.
Once he was fed and had drank some of the cool, horrible tasting water—was there nothing on this planet that was actually clean—from the tap, Carver set out to explore the area around the cabin.
It was mostly field from what he could tell, though what was planted in the field was anyone's guess. The sound of running water in the hundred or so feet behind the cabin led him to a stream. It seemed serviceable enough, and he made a mental note to compare the pollution levels in the stream water with the levels of the water from the tap. If the stream was cleaner, then he would not be suffering through trying to drink that swill from the sink.
There was a heavily wooded area to the left of the cabin, and Carver walked into it for about a half mile, looking around and keeping his ears open.
From what he could tell, there was nothing but animal life in the trees, but he'd need a bio sensor to be sure. At least he'd be able to hunt if he needed to, though the idea of regressing that far back was almost painful.
By the time he had explored several hundred feet in each direction around the cabin, the sun had risen and he was tired. The bed in the cabin had looked much more comfortable than the cot in his transport, so he was actually looking forward to lying down for a while. He could make more preparations once he had slept.
As he settled in, he spared a thought for his sister.
E'lira had lost so much family, and now he had been taken from her as well. He'd had plans to sit down and speak with her, to discuss what path she might want her life to take. She was the only woman left in their family now, and she had so many options to choose from. So much potential.
Carver could only hope that Ithril didn't plan to neglect her. E'lira was like a flower. She needed light and attention or she tended to wilt into herself. He knew that Ithril cared for her, so he hoped that would be enough.
Enough to keep them both going until he got back and could make things right. If Ithril faltered…
That didn't bear thinking about. The Sitheri had never been left without a leader before, and the Council was there to help run things, but without a leader they would fall into chaos. It was a leader's job to pull them all together, after all, and Ithril was more selfish than any of them seemed to realize.
It was hard to sleep with all of that swirling around his head, even when he was as tired as he was. The heavier air on this planet seemed to weigh him down more than he was used to, and he forcibly put his worries aside and practiced the deep breathing and relaxing techniques that his mother had taught him when he was younger.
Slowly he willed each muscle in his body to relax, and he dropped off to sleep gradually.
Carver couldn't be sure how much later it was when he woke up, and he had that disoriented feeling like something had woken him up and he was confused about what it was. Lying still, he listened, body tensing when he heard rustling the field outside. The cabin was still cloaked, but that didn't mean that there wasn't someone out there poking around.
He recalled that his transport had been seen, and it made perfect sense that someone would have come back to follow up on where it had gone. Things didn't just disappear into thin air, and it seemed that the humans were smart enough to be aware of that.
Carefully he got out of the bed and crept to one of the windows, looking out. The sun was low in the sky, but on the other side from where it had risen, and Carver realized with a jolt that he must have slept for most of the day. That was incredibly unlike him, and he cursed Ithril for whatever he'd put in his drink that was obviously still working its way through his system.
At least it was still daylight out, so he could see what was going on.
At first there was nothing to see, but then a figure made itself visible in the distance. Carver squinted, trying to see if he could identify what sort of person or animal it might be.
As the figure moved closer, it became apparent that it was a human and a female at that. She was much shorter than Sitheri females, and she moved like she was searching for something. Carver was certain he knew what she was searching for.
She held something in her hand that intrigued him, though. It looked to be the right size and shape to be a bio sensor, though he knew there was no way that it could be one since humans didn't seem to have that kind of tech yet. Whatever it was, the woman seemed adept at using it, her finger poised over the screen and her eyes sharp as she looked down at the device and then scanned the area around her.
As best he could tell, the readings she was getting weren't matching up with what she was seeing, and Carver couldn't help but smile. When Sitheri wanted to hide something, it stayed hidden. All she would be seeing right then was a large empty space and the moldering foundation of the cabin sitting right in the middle of what appeared to be a filthy swamp. Unless she actually found the door of the cabin, she wouldn't even be able to get close to it.
She looked frustrated, and Carver could understand that. For whatever reason, she seemed determined to find something, and the thought that she was trying to find him made him blink for a second.
Presumably the people who had seen the transport had told others. But the question was if she was working alone or for someone who wi
shed him and his people harm.
From what he knew, only some humans believed in the possibility of life on other planets besides theirs, and Khaosali was so far from Earth that there was no way that any human had even really heard of it before. But there were exceptions to every rule, and it didn't make sense that no humans would be aware of the fact that there were others out there. And some of them probably even meant them harm.
Somehow Carver didn't think that was the case with this one. She seemed like she was in search of knowledge, information, even though he had no idea how he knew that or what led him to believe that was the case.
Maybe it was something in the set of her face. It reminded him of himself when he had poured through the archives looking for some obscure piece of information to report back to his father while he had been learning how to be a leader.
The smart thing to do would be to remain hidden and wait for her to give up as she inevitably would once she didn't find anything. But…
But he couldn't deny the fact that he was going to need help.
Carver was essentially alone for now. Until he could get the communications going on his transporter, he was cut off from his own people and pretty much at the mercy of the humans if they found him.
There was no way he'd be able to get back to Khaosali by hiding the whole time he was here. He knew nothing of human tech or if there was something they had that could help him.
He'd always been a big believer in listening to his instincts, and right now there were telling him that this woman might be his chance to get home.
Cursing himself for probably being an idiot, Carver moved through the cabin, wishing he had some kind of weapon or something handy. She didn't look like she was armed or even very much of a threat, but the destructive nature of humans had been impressed upon him from a young age.
Hopefully if it came down to that, his size would be an advantage, since he seemed to be nearly a foot taller than she was from what he could tell.
Alien Soulmate (Paranormal Romance Aliens) Page 4
