Homeworld: Beacon 3

by Valerie Parv

  *

  Guy and Amelia were huddled over the desk, discussing Adam’s research. Garrett resumed pacing the office. As a watcher, Elaine shouldn’t have been able to hear him at all. But their recent adventures had forged a mental link between them bordering on telepathy. He didn’t care much what they called it, as long as it worked in their favor. “She didn’t believe me,” he said to the air.

  Amelia was the first to look up. “You contacted Elaine? Is she all right?”

  “No,” he said, resenting Guy’s apparent unconcern. The man was as bad as Adam, getting totally absorbed in work and forgetting that people were what mattered. “When she was being taken to the Kelek ship, she suffered from lack of oxygen. She doesn’t remember who she is.”

  Amelia moved around to Garrett’s side of the desk. “But she talked to you?”

  “She thinks I’m a hallucination.” He’d heard Elaine muttering to herself before she’d drifted off to sleep.

  “There were times when I thought the same thing.”

  Amelia was trying to make him feel better but he knew his smile showed effort. “As long as she has no memory of being a beacon, she’s safe from the Kelek. I don’t think they’ll risk losing the advantage of capturing her.”

  Some of the color washed out of Amelia’s face. “That’s a big assumption and no reason to leave her in their hands.”

  “How do we reach her? Or convince her to come with us when she thinks we’re an illusion?” He scraped his fingers through his hair. “But there is one benefit to come out of this.”

  “What?”

  “What happened to Elaine rattled the Kelek captain enough that she won’t risk picking up Adam or me by the same method.”

  “Are you sure? I know you had to turn off the dampening field to contact Elaine, but leaving it off is a big risk.”

  “I heard Zael talking to the adept on her ship. She agreed to find another way to get to us.”

  Amelia put her hands on her hips. “Impressive talents you three have.”

  “When it works,” Garrett agreed. He looked around. “Where’s Timo?”

  “Taking stock of the shuttle infrastructure.”

  “When did he go?”

  “A few minutes after you made contact with Elaine.”

  Alarm bells rang in Garrett’s head. “Did he hear my side of the conversation?”

  “I think so, why?”

  “He could be doing more than fact finding.”

  Amelia caught on swiftly. “You think he has some idea of going after her?”

  Garrett felt his jaw tighten. “I’d put money on it.”

  Chapter 18

  After returning to the old mission control from his survey, Timo had little encouraging to say about his findings. On the drive back to the city, his face was set as he quizzed Garrett about Elaine.

  “Who’s taking care of her? Tell me it isn’t that alien butcher who dragged her up there and put her in this condition?”

  “Their medic is treating her. She’s okay for the time being.”

  “A medic? Elaine needs a doctor, not some alien meatball surgeon.”

  The road had been cleared somewhat but avoiding the remaining obstacles took most of Garrett’s attention. “She’s called a medic. I don’t know her qualifications but from what I heard, she knows what she’s doing.”

  “How can she know the first thing about a human woman? Hell’s teeth, Luken, this isn’t your fiancée being held hostage.”

  Garrett’s hands tightened around the wheel. He’d assumed Elaine intended to marry the man, but she’d made no decision that he knew about. There was one thing he could be sure of. “Remember, Elaine and I are not human, at least not fully.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “It’s supposed to remind you that Elaine, Adam and I are different. If you can’t deal with that, you’re not the man for her.”

  “And you are?”

  In the rear seat, Guy and Amelia were poring over copies of Adam’s notations on their iPads. In the rear-view mirror, Garrett saw Amelia’s glance flicker their way. Her lips tightened but she kept quiet.

  “I’m her friend. As to the rest, she’s made her choice clear.”

  Timo shifted side-on and skewered Garrett with a look. “Yes, she has. And she trusted me to keep her safe.”

  Wondering again how much the diplomat knew – or suspected – about Elaine’s relationship with Garrett, he pulled in a breath and released it. “I know what you’re going through. It’s hell to feel this helpless.”

  “I’m not helpless, damn it. I will get her back.”

  “We will get her back,” Garrett corrected. “This involves all of us. Not just in this car, but everybody in the Kelek captain’s gun sights. As a former UN official, you should know that.”

  “I don’t need reminding of my priorities.”

  “Good. For a minute, I thought this was getting personal.”

  “I want Elaine back, that makes it personal. But that doesn’t preclude dealing with the Kelek on their own terms.”

  His tone defused some of Garrett’s rising anger. “Do you have a plan?”

  “More of a possibility. I’ll need to talk to Governor Akers before I know if there’s any chance my idea will work.”

  For all that the man rubbed him up the wrong way, Garrett respected the diplomat’s brain power. Coupled with his considerable resources and contacts, he wasn’t to be taken lightly. His driving force might be getting Elaine back, and Garrett wanted that as much as any of them, but if Timo had a way to deal with the Kelek, Garrett would stand at his side and do whatever was needed.

  He angled his wrist to read his watch in the fading daylight. “We’ll be at the governor’s office in half an hour. Will you have anything new for her, Guy?”

  The scientist didn’t look up. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

  “Amelia?”

  “I’ve reached my limit for now. I understand some of what Adam was working on, a way to allow one beacon to access the flux on their own, but that’s about it.”

  The defeat in her tone struck Garrett as unusual. When it came to pursuing a story, she was known for her Rottweiler tendencies. “That will have to do for now. At least we’re forewarned against letting the Kelek capture any one of us.”

  “They already have,” came Timo’s surly interjection.

  “They don’t know what that means yet. Neither does Elaine. Even if her memory returns, she can’t tell them what she doesn’t know.”

  “Won’t she get the information from you?”

  Garrett grunted with annoyance. “We’re not mind readers.” What they were now, Garrett couldn’t label with any accuracy.

  Timo wasn’t his rival, Garrett reminded himself. The diplomat hadn’t taken anything from the beacon that he could resent. Despite making love to Elaine while suffering the aftermath of ESIN’s torture, he wasn’t the right man for her and both of them knew it. If anything, the experience had underlined what they already suspected, that two members of a beacon triad made poor bedfellows.

  All the same he was jealous. Not of Elaine but of what she and Timo shared. Garrett was thirty-one next birthday, with no-one in his life he cared about the way Timo cared about Elaine.

  The admission caught him by surprise and he swerved, almost running them into a ditch before he wrestled the car back onto the road.

  “Want me to drive for a bit?” Amelia asked over his shoulder. “Does this listener thing take it out of you?”

  “Not in a physical sense,” Garrett said. The stress of Elaine’s capture and her condition made communicating with her harder than usual, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not, but that’s okay,” she said. “I’m happy to drive any time.”

  It was more than he’d gotten from Timo, who was accustomed to having drivers and hadn’t thought to suggest taking a turn. “Thanks.”

  “Have you heard anythi
ng more from Elaine or the people holding her?”

  “She’s still asleep. The medic checks on her regularly and I heard her discussing Elaine’s condition with a colleague.” He didn’t add that the colleague had been the adept called Kam.

  What that meant for Elaine’s safety, Garrett didn’t know. He didn’t even know if the adept was following Garrett himself right now. Several times, he’d sensed a faint contact, as if the adept had touched his mind. He’d reacted automatically, shoving the touch away with savage mental energy, and feeling the contact retreat.

  One thing was certain: Kam possessed extraordinary mental power. The first Kelek ship had also carried an adept capable of tracking down the beacons, but Garrett had sensed nothing like the force of Kam’s mind touch. He shivered slightly and for the first time, felt afraid to reach out in case the mind he contacted wasn’t Elaine’s.

  *

  “The governor is expecting you,” Shana’s aide, Jules, told them when they reached Government House. They weren’t shown into the governor’s office, as Garrett had expected, but into a large reception room where tea and coffee had been set out.

  “Ms. Akers will join you as soon as she can,” Jules said. “In the meantime, please help yourself to refreshments. There are bathrooms across the hall where you can freshen up. Use anything you need.”

  All mod cons, Garrett thought, welcoming the chance to clean up. He felt grimy from the time at Black Tree and let the man show him to one of the facilities. He could have used a change of clothes, but a quick shower and shave was a start. By the time he was done, he felt human again. Well, as human as a beacon could.

  Amelia had done the same, he saw when he returned to the reception room. Her hair was damp and her skin glowed. Obviously she thrived on the chaos and Garrett wished he could say the same for himself. On the drive back he’d noticed the city was slowly getting back to normal. He wondered if he’d ever feel normal again and found himself looking to the TV journalist to steady his jangled nerves.

  He joined her at the table and poured a cup of coffee. “Feeling better?”

  “Better than you look,” she said with characteristic frankness. “I called my studio. Jules is letting me set up in the governor’s well-equipped media room so I can do a live update from here.”

  He added cream to his coffee and balanced a couple of bite-sized éclairs on the saucer, trying to remember how long it had been since he’d eaten. Too long, he decided as he bit into the pastry. “What will you put in the update?” he asked after he’d swallowed a cream-filled mouthful.

  “Nothing about you people or the Kelek yet,” she said. “I’m not bound to follow the governor’s lead on this, but I’m not stupid either. I won’t say anything that might make the situation worse.”

  Garrett crooked a finger and wiped away a spot of cream from the corner of his mouth. You people. It stung. He didn’t like the way the words put her across a divide from him, and didn’t want to examine his reasons too closely.

  “Looks like Guy has disappeared again,” he said, glancing around. The man was as slippery as an eel. He hadn’t explained how he’d come to be at Black Tree. Not by car, clearly, because he’d accepted the offer of a ride back to the city in Amelia’s car.

  While pretending to focus on the coffee, Garrett carefully extended his hearing to try to locate the scientist. Nothing. Either Guy had his own equivalent of the dampening field or Garrett’s alien hearing was letting him down.

  He refused to accept that. After the attack on the first Kelek ship, Garrett had lost his beacon hearing for a short time after he’d landed, and had started to resign himself to hearing like an ordinary human. The sense had returned very quickly, but he hadn’t forgotten how isolated he’d felt being walled off inside his own skull. He didn’t have that feeling now. So where the hell was Guy Voland?

  Timo was also missing, he noticed belatedly. Amelia had drifted off to talk to Jules, presumably about her broadcast. Garrett tried again, this time concentrating on the diplomat. He was with Shana in her office, and talking about Elaine. Garrett had no qualms about listening in.

  “I would trust Garrett on this,” the governor was saying. “His hearing is different from ours.”

  “Tell me about it.” Garrett heard the other man prowling around Shana’s office. “We Hawai’ians have our own kinds of mysticism. I have no problem dealing with his. What I can’t deal with is Elaine, injured and alone up there at the mercy of that Zael creature.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate Elaine,” Shana said. “I saw her under pressure when the first Kelek ship came. She’s stronger than you know.”

  “She’s not unbreakable.”

  The tremor in the diplomat’s voice shook Garrett, although he shouldn’t be surprised. Powerful though Timo might be, he was still entirely human and he cared a great deal about Elaine.

  “No, she’s not,” Shana agreed. Unconsciously she echoed Garrett: “We will get her back.”

  “So Luken keeps telling me. I accept your word that these people are on our side, but none of you is very forthcoming about how we can rescue Elaine.”

  Garrett imagined Shana’s taut smile. “But you have some ideas of your own.” Before Timo could launch into his plans, she added, “I’ve been in touch with the American president. He has a project called HAARP that’s involved in weather technology.”

  “I’ve heard of it, operating in Alaska?”

  “Yes. There are dozens of rumors about exactly what they’re doing there. Some of it is true and may be of use to us.”

  Timo stopped pacing and Garrett heard him plant his hands on Shana’s desk. “The part about HAARP being involved in weaponized weather?”

  “You’re well informed.”

  “I make a point of it. Go on.”

  Garrett wondered if Shana sensed the power shift taking place. She’d started out telling Timo what was happening. Somehow the conversation had shifted until Timo was the one setting the pace. A man to be reckoned with, indeed. But possibly the only man – the only human, anyway – who could get them out of this mess.

  Maybe Shana knew that, too, and was deliberately letting Timo make the running. Garrett had known her long enough not to underestimate her, either. And with Adam missing, she had her own reasons for wanting answers.

  “Garrett?”

  At first he thought Shana had used his name, until he pulled himself back to the reception room. Amelia stood in front of him, studying him intently.

  “Sorry, I was daydreaming.” He took a swallow of coffee, realized it had gone cold in his hands, and put the cup down.

  “You were listening,” she said, her tone cool.

  He gave her a calculated smile but any charm he possessed was wasted on her. He felt oddly pleased that he couldn’t sway her as easily as a roomful of avid readers. “I was.”

  “Did you hear anything I should know about?”

  “I’m not a human bugging device,” he said.

  “You’re not a human anything.” It was said not as an accusation, but as a statement of fact. “I want you to do the broadcast with me.”

  He wanted to get back to learning more about what Timo and Shana were planning, but Amelia wore a look he was starting to recognize. “What would I talk about?”

  “Nothing classified,” she assured him, showing him some hastily scribbled notes. “This is a news broadcast, short and to the point. We’ll discuss our experiences of the weather phenomena, and you can suggest what you think is behind it.”

  “I damned well know what’s behind it, and so do you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “But my audience doesn’t, and we don’t want to create panic. We talk only about what’s known, and what’s being done about it, the rescue efforts, the damage at Black Tree. I don’t have footage but the network can use file stuff for the before, and whatever they shot during their last flyover of the area for the after.”

  Once more, he had to admire her capacity for thinking on her feet. Done right
, the broadcast would serve to reassure the people of Atai that they had no need to panic, while not sugar-coating what had actually happened.

  He drew in a breath and let it out. “All right, I’ll do what I can to help.”

  Chapter 19

  Shana held up the carafe of coffee to Timo. He shook his head. She topped off her cup and returned to the desk, taking a seat in front of it. “If Project HAARP is half what it’s rumored to be, we might have a chance of meeting the Kelek captain on her own turf.”

  He nodded. “Fighting fire with fire.”

  “Aptly put.” Absently she rubbed the dressing covering her burned forearm.

  He saw the gesture and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been better. That fire tornado was no picnic.”

  “I don’t only mean the fire, though Jules can’t say enough about your heroism, pulling your security chief out from under a fallen tree. I mean with Adam missing.”

  She put her cup on the desk and linked her hands in her lap. “That’s a tougher call. The saying about not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone seems to fit.”

  His sigh huffed between them. “When Garrett said I was feeling helpless, I nearly chewed his head off, but he could be right. I’m in over my head this time, Shana.”

  She gave a barely there smile. “Join the club. I never thought I’d fall for a man capable of the things Adam can do, and I don’t mean in astrophysics.”

  “I feel the same about Elaine.” Timo dropped into the other visitor’s chair in front of the desk and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. “How do you deal with what he is? I pride myself on being open-minded but this whole alien thing is doing my head in.”

  “I try to deal with the alien thing, as you call it, as I would any other characteristic.” She hadn’t told Timo about invoking the spirits of her ancestors to help Adam get in touch with the Prana. She did so now, her language deliberately matter-of-fact.

  When she finished, Timo had paled a little but his expression was determined. “I suspected something of the kind. I’ve been with Elaine when she goes off into her own space, as she did when Garrett was kidnapped by ESIN.”