“Vortex!” Takayasu called. “You’re missing out over here.”
The Lieutenant’s call got his attention, but did not shake his latest curiosity. Pointing, he called back, “Shining Star! What does that do?”
Callin, who had been conversing with Larr and Powerhouse, turned his way. He glanced to where Steve indicated, but then shook his head as he walked toward him. “Are you pointing to the split in the upper ridge of the hull? That’s one of our sensor housing—”
“No, not the ridge. Further toward the prow of your ship. The light.”
Again, Shining Star shook his head, this time forgetting to do it like a human. “Light?”
“Oh, sorry, you probably can’t see it. I’m talking about your ultraviolet emitter, or whatever it is. The one that’s pulsing.”
Shining Star came alongside him, and the others were starting to follow. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.”
Steve again pointed to the source of the UV light. “Right there. You’ve got something sending out a pulse of light deep in the ultraviolet spectrum.”
“ ‘Ultraviolet?’ ” Naltin repeated, sounding confused, as the group reassembled around Vortex. “We shouldn’t have anything working in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prime field— Wait ...” He turned to Larr and started speaking in their native language.
“English, please,” Callin reminded them, but his attention was directed toward the area in question.
Bowing his head in apology, Naltin continued for the benefit of their guests, “No one bleeds ultraviolet anymore, do they? Not since the Daluvanians shared their prime regulators?”
Larr’s attention was also turned upward. “No,” he answered, and he did not sound pleased. “It could interfere with our veil.”
Naltin asked Steve, “How were you able to spot something using ultraviolet?”
Steve opened his mouth, but Shockwave answered for him. “This guy can see all kindsa stuff.”
Powerhouse was just as quick to respond. “If he says something’s up there, it’s up there.”
Naltin was somewhat taken aback. “It was not my intention to question his integrity ...”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Steve assured him. “But they’re right. Whatever it is, I can see it, bright as day. Could you guys maybe have a malfunction or something?” He glanced back toward the smaller spacecraft. “Whatever it is, it’s only on this one ship.”
“No malfunction should result in ultraviolet radiation,” Callin answered. “Are the pulses regular?”
Steve tapped one finger in time with the flashes. After a few seconds, he said, “Pretty much, yeah.”
Sounding increasingly concerned, Callin asked, “Naltin, can we nail it down with instrumentation?”
“Of course, but it might take a few minutes. I can’t remember the last time I had to tune into the ultraviolet — not regarding our own ships, anyway. No one uses it anymore.”
Shining Star was silent for a moment, then he looked to Steve. “Vortex, would you be opposed to my flying you up there?”
“No problem. I’ll take you right to it.”
Steve bunched his cape up in one hand at the small of his back so that Callin could slip his hands under his armpits. A second later, Callin’s energy sheath rose to minimal levels, and Steve’s stomach dropped as he soared into the air, courtesy of Shining Star.
“A little more forward,” he told Callin, who adjusted. “A little more. Here, right here.”
Callin set Steve down gently, facing the prow of the ship, his feet straddling the pinnacle of the ship’s upper ridge — a little awkward, but no more so than when he would climb up onto the roof of his house as a kid (not that his mom ever saw it that way!). This close, the pulse was bright enough in his UV vision that he was grateful for his eyes’ filtration.
“Where is it coming from, exactly?” Callin asked.
Steve crouched. “Right here.”
Standing across from him, also straddling the ridge but facing aft rather than forward, Callin crouched with him. “Where?”
Steve put his finger right on the spot — the UV light was so intense that his arm failed to cast a significant shadow. “Right here.”
Callin frowned even more than he already was. “There’s nothing there. I mean, this should just be a part of the hull. No engineering or equipment of any significance.”
“So much for a malfunction.” Steve glanced behind himself, then craned his neck to look past Callin. “Is the circular part here just, like, a space-age rivet or something?”
“What circular part?”
They looked at one another, then down to where Steve’s finger still rested. Steve flipped back to normal vision for a second, and sure enough, not only did the pulse vanish, but the circular shape he was touching was no longer visible, either. Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big — barely an inch tall from the hull, and maybe six inches in diameter.
“How do you want to handle this?” Steve asked. “Should we remove it?”
“Larr and Naltin would probably advise against that without knowing what we’re dealing with ...”
As if on cue, Larr called up from below. “Callin?! What have you found?!”
Callin ignored the old man, so Steve asked, “What do you think?”
Callin looked up at him again. “Whatever this is, I want it off my ship. Right now.”
Nodding his understanding and agreement, Steve reached down with both hands to run his fingers around the rim of the circular object. Finding the edges, he could get just enough purchase to try—
“Wait.”
Steve froze. “What?”
“I’ll pull it off. If the result is explosive, I’m less likely to get hurt.” Then he added, “I mean no offense.”
“None taken whatsoever. Put your fingers where mine are ...”
As if passing a heavy weight from one person to another, they swapped their hands, Callin grunting in mild surprise upon feeling the object that was still invisible to him. Steve stood and retreated a few steps, then grabbed one edge of his protective cape and pulled it in front of his body — just to be safe.
As it turned out, the reaction when Shining Star yanked the object from the hull was not terribly dynamic, but it did send out a few sparks that Steve was glad to have ducked. The pulse flashed once more in its usual pattern, then twice more in rapid succession, then ...
“The light’s gone,” Steve informed Callin as he stepped forward.
“I still can’t see it,” Callin commented, “but I can feel it. I think it was attached to our ship magnetically, a very strong connection. I suspect only I or Powerhouse could’ve gotten it off.”
“Callin!” Larr shouted again. “What are you doing up there?!”
Callin asked Steve, “It’s still visible to you?”
“Yeah.”
Callin pushed the device forward. “Please hold on to it while I take us down ...”
In less time than it had taken to mount the ship, they were back on the ground, with humans and Taalu alike all huddled around the device in Steve’s gloved hands, the device which only his UV vision could see. Shockwave almost called bullshit until he poked it with a finger, then he shut the hell up.
“Can you describe it to us?” Naltin asked.
To his fellow humans, Steve said, “Honestly, it just looks like a sleek smoke detector.” But he knew this meant little to the Taalu, so he described the device as best he could, its dimensions and its markings, or lack thereof on the latter.
Sighing, Naltin said to Callin, “I’m sorry, Grand Lord, but I have no idea what this might be. But I can tell you, it is not a part of the ship’s original design.”
“I think I know what it is,” Larr growled in a low voice. Everyone looked up at him, but he had eyes only for Shining Star. “Magnetic attachment, ultraviolet pulse, and what amounts to a miniature, damned perfect veil? This is a tracking beacon.”
Naltin looked down into Steve’s seemingly empty h
ands once more. “If that’s what it is, it was added sometime after we left Taal-ceky. But how?”
Larr said, “The ‘how’ doesn’t matter so much as the ‘when,’ as in how long ago?” He looked at Callin once more. “A beacon this size, emitting a UV signal as powerful as your friend described ... whatever its power source, it can’t have been with us for long. We’ve been in orbit here for how many days now? And with all of our attention fixed on the surface of this planet — especially since we learned of the escaping converts. Callin, we’ve had all eyes down here.”
Naltin spoke up again. “It can’t be the Verauns, can it? We destroyed their strike force, stranded the Cargaun—”
“It doesn’t have to be the Verauns. This sort of tech isn’t really their method, anyway.” Larr released a deep, rumbling sigh. “No, this is underworld work. Bounty hunter work.”
“Sooo ...” Steve asked with reluctance, “what would that mean?”
Callin exchanged glances with his fellow Taalu, then looked around the expectant humans before turning his gaze to Steve.
“If Larr is right ...” Callin’s jaw clenched in very human-looking frustration before he finally stated, “We are not alone.”
TAKAYASU, SHOCKWAVE, AND COOPER
Lieutenant Michael Takayasu and partner Shockwave, the message from Captain Brunn on his and Mark’s phones had read. You are to report immediately to the Paranormal Correctional Facility in your home region for prisoner negotiation. They will expect your arrival ASAP.
“Prisoner negotiation?” What the hell did that mean?
Just minutes after the unnerving discovery atop the Taalu ship — the landing of which already constituted (no hyperbole here) one of the biggest events in human history — Lieutenant Takayasu and Shockwave were summoned all the way back home to the rogue pit.
Timing. Unbelievable timing. You’d think Mark and I were the only damn agents in the PCA!
Mark, true to form, had launched into an incensed tirade of swearing at his phone, and even Michael had seriously considered a curt reply that his current assignment was too important to interrupt, after which he would turn off the damned phone. Hell, he even debated just sending Ensign Pendler as his proxy, except that the guy had barely made a peep since the Taalu ships touched down, and Michael was reluctant to disturb the man’s quiet anxiety.
And now that they were here, driving up to the pit’s main entrance way too early in the morning, Michael was exhausted — it was barely even on his radar that he was so close to Christine again. He’d tried to rest on the flight back down here, but he’d never been good at sleeping on planes, and the private jet currently at their disposal was fast enough that it would’ve made for a disappointing nap, anyway. He just wanted to get this over with ... whatever the hell “this” was ... so he could return to his apartment for a few hours of sleep before heading back to Montana. No, to hell with that; they’d return to Montana immediately, and find a way to get some sleep up there.
Extraterrestrials! We were greeting more visitors from outer space, for Christ’s sake! What the hell is Brunn thinking?
But ... since Brunn was one of few human beings on the whole planet who knew what was really going on in Montana, Michael grudgingly admitted to himself and the others that this must truly be something critical.
Swallowing a yawn, Michael walked with Mark through the front gate of the rogue pit and waited as the guards on duty (which had doubled in number since their last visit) placed some rushed calls. In very little time, Lieutenant Commander Falkenberg, the pit’s warden, hurried out to meet them in the yard.
“Thank you,” Falkenberg said, somewhat out of breath, “thank you for coming so quickly. Thank you so much.” He was an older, overweight desk jockey, who nevertheless possessed a youthful face and an endearing smile that soothed some of Michael’s irritation. If Michael recalled, Falkenberg had been drafted directly from the norm penal system; his prisoners were far more dangerous now, but otherwise, Michael imagined that his daily routine had changed very little from the old days.
“You coulda thanked us inside, ya know,” Mark complained, unaffected by the man’s gratitude and inherent charm. “We’re both draggin’ ass and the sun’s too damn bright this morning.”
“Yes, yes, I imagine,” Falkenberg agreed with a nod, though he had no way of knowing how long they’d been up or where they’d come from to be here. “I wanted an opportunity to explain the situation to you before we reach the prisoner’s, well, holding area.”
Michael perked up a bit. Requests for additional information from Brunn had been either deflected or ignored, so Michael had guessed they were maintaining the same electronic-silence as before. After all, since precious few people knew that the Taalu had now made formal contact, they had to maintain the same professional paranoia as they had leading up to the “Arthian” synod.
To Falkenberg, Michael said, “Any information at all would be appreciated. We really don’t know anything except that this is a ‘prisoner negotiation,’ which is not something PCA field agents would usually handle.”
“You’re right, of course,” said the warden. He turned and guided them back toward the main building, but at a slow pace. “And we did begin the proceedings with representatives from the DA’s office. But the prisoner, well, he’s made a few unusual requests, and one of them,” he gestured to Michael, “was to request you. We don’t make it a habit of giving in to prisoner ultimatums, but some of his claims got the attention of the higher-ups. You know how that goes.”
“Any idea why this prisoner wanted me?” Michael asked. “Did I arrest him?”
“The first time, yes. You see, he’s one of our escapees.”
Michael and Mark exchanged a look. No shit? To the warden, Michael asked, “Are we talking about Perry Cooper here?”
Falkenberg nodded. “We are indeed. He was recaptured two nights ago. He attacked a PCA way station, if you can believe that. They thought he was trying to help free a rogue they had just arrested, but once he recovered, he started saying a lot of, well, strange things, making a lot of odd demands — all hush-hush like.” He glanced at Michael. “I don’t just mean we’re keeping it hush-hush, I mean he wants it hush-hush.”
As they reached the building, a pair of guards opened the doors for them. Then another guard immediately inside opened a side door, which led into a narrow, concrete service hallway with small windows running along at ceiling height. It struck Michael as odd that they weren’t heading toward the prisoner cells.
Falkenberg noticed the confusion on his face. “This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. Cooper demanded not to be kept with the other prisoners, not even in the solitary confinement wing in the basement. He wanted us to lock him up in the smallest space possible, a space tight enough that no one else could get in there with him without his knowing it, just him and that force field of his. Really paranoid. So we ended up putting him, well, in a utility closet.”
They rounded the corner, heading deeper into the building, which put an end to the high windows; now the bleak hallway was lit only by banks of sickly fluorescent lights. About fifty yards down, Michael spotted another pair of guards and a lot of standalone equipment stationed outside one of the periodic doors.
Falkenberg again read Michael’s expression. “Yes, that’s all we had time to put together on such short notice. We can’t do much about his force field itself without keeping a psi-jammer on him — one of the first demands he made when he woke up was our taking that off — but he can’t build up any momentum in there. And to be honest, it hasn’t been a problem so far. He’s made no attempts to escape, this time around.”
Mark spoke up. “Why’re you guys puttin’ up with any of this shit? He’s a rogue, he’s been busted twice. Why don’t ya just shove the dumbass in a cell and be done with him?”
Falkenberg shrugged. “That would’ve been my first choice, believe me. But, well, he claims that he can tell us how all the rogues have been escaping.”
Michael came to an abrupt halt about ten yards short of the door in question. “No shit.”
Falkenberg shrugged again. “So he claims. Now I’m sure you can see what all the fuss is about. I don’t know why we should believe him, but, well, we can’t really afford to dismiss him, either. I, for one, would love an explanation for what’s been happening.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m a pretty easygoing fellow, but I don’t appreciate the sort of blight these prisonbreaks are leaving on my record. If Cooper can tell us what’s going on, well, it was no skin off my nose to keep him in a broom closet until you boys got here.” To Mark, he said, “Believe me, if you two decide that he’s full of it, he’ll get no further special treatment from me. That’s a promise.”
Michael nodded, taking it all in. “Unless you have anything else to add, sir?” Falkenberg shook his head. “Then I suggest we get on with it and see where it takes us. I’ve got a nap with my name on it.”
Mark rubbed the heals of his palms against his eye sockets. “Ain’t that the truth ...”
Falkenberg gave them both a sympathetic look — Michael had not previously considered that, under such unusual circumstances, maybe the warden, too, had been up all night — and led them the rest of the way to the utility closet door. Waving the guards back a step, he rapped his knuckles on the door once, twice more, then a pause, then one final rap.
From behind the door came Cooper’s muffled voice. “That you, warden?”
“It is, Mister Cooper. I have the PCA agent you asked for, Lieutenant Takayasu. He’s standing here with me now.” Cooper did not reply right away, but Michael heard an odd creak! from within. Falkenberg said to him in a low voice, “He just turned on his force field. That was one of the side walls complaining. It doesn’t quite fit the width of the room.”
“Okay,” Cooper said. “Okay, open the door. But nobody else better come in.”
The warden nodded to one of the guards, who stepped forward to swipe a pass key through the lock. The instant the door swung slightly ajar, Cooper cried out from inside, “Okay, back! Everyone get back! Tell them, warden!”
Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone Page 25
