CHAPTER NINETEEN
I heard the sharp intake of my mother’s breath, but I couldn’t turn away from the television to see her expression. Likewise, my father’s muttered “holy shit” reached my ears, but it seemed to be coming from very far away. Right then, I didn’t think anything could have unglued my attention from the screen, except maybe Raphael appearing in front of me and pressing his mouth to mine.
That didn’t happen, though. Instead, I realized as I watched that the Reptilians weren’t alone, that the six astronauts from the Mars mission were ranged behind them. All of the astronauts wore varying expressions of confusion, as if they weren’t quite sure what was going on.
Well, I totally understood that feeling.
“Sound on!” my father barked at the television, which was still muted.
At once the President’s voice came from the speakers. She sounded just about as strained as she looked, her Boston accent particularly pronounced. “…we must extend the world’s gratitude to these brave visitors, who stepped in when Venture’s life-support systems began to fail. Without them, all of our astronauts would surely have been lost.”
“We could not let our fellow spacefarers perish,” Lir Shalan said in his cold, hissing voice. “But we thank you for your gratitude.”
My attention shifted from Lir Shalan and President O’Donnell to the astronauts, all of whom stood there in silence, not reacting, their expressions still faintly puzzled. “Why aren’t they saying anything?” I demanded. “They know he’s full of bullshit, that his people attacked them back on Mars. Why aren’t they telling the President what really happened?”
“Because they don’t have any recollection of any of that, Callista,” my father replied. His blue-gray eyes glittered with anger and some other emotion I couldn’t quite identify. Frustration? “When Raphael got them back on their ship and sent them home, he made sure they would have no memory of what had actually transpired. All along we’ve had to do everything we could to make sure the people of Earth had no idea there was sentient life beyond this planet.”
“Well, it looks like Lir Shalan has totally blown that out of the water,” I shot back. “Disclosure is here, even if it’s something the Assembly was trying to avoid.”
“I know,” he said. Pausing, he reached over and laid a hand on top of my mother’s where it rested on the table. She was still staring at the TV, face frozen in horror. “You okay, Kirsten?”
She blinked. “Sorry. I mean, yes, I’m all right. I guess it’s just seeing them like that….” The words trailed off, and it seemed as if she had to make a conscious effort to turn away from the television and back toward us.
“You saw them at the base.” My father’s voice was very gentle, with only the slightest hint of a question in it.
“I know. But that all happened so fast. I didn’t really get a good look at them.” She glanced over at me. “You recognize him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, then swallowed. “He was on Penalta when I had to go in front of the Assembly. He’s called Lir Shalan.” That was the first time I’d actually mentioned his name to them. Yes, I’d told them a little about what had happened in that star system so very far from here, and maybe Raphael had filled in some of the blanks. But I really hadn’t wanted to linger on the memory.
“Who’s the other one?” my father asked then. “The one who looks almost human.”
“I don’t know. I never heard any of them say his name. Actually, I never heard him speak at all. I thought he must be some new kind of hybrid.”
“I’ve never seen a hybrid who looked like that.” Judging by his darkening expression, I guessed my father was troubled by the presence of the young man.
“Neither had Raphael.”
For the first time, a flash of anger crossed my father’s features. “And you didn’t think to mention it to any of us?”
“Sorry.” I sounded defensive even to myself. “Things have been sort of crazy lately. I guess I figured if it was really important, Raphael would have mentioned it to you.”
“Raphael wasn’t one for heart-to-heart talks, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
It was probably just a slip, but I hated that my father had referred to Raphael in the past tense, as if he was irretrievably gone. I couldn’t allow myself to think that. I wouldn’t.
I glanced back at the TV, where it looked as if the historic human/alien meet-up had turned into a mutual lovefest. The President must have had to work pretty hard to come up with so many different ways to thank the Reptilians, while Lir Shalan kept going on about how they only wanted to help, and how they’d reached out because the Mars mission had shown his people that Earth and its inhabitants were now ready to join in the culture of the greater galaxy.
If it had been the Pleiadians making such overtures, I would have been thrilled beyond belief. People would realize that those who’d believed in aliens weren’t crazy crackpots after all, and humanity would enter a new golden age complete with faster-than-light drives, endlessly renewable cold-fusion energy, and scientific advances that would forever end hunger and disease.
I kind of doubted the Reptilians planned to offer us anything quite so appealing.
“What is their game, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, we all know they didn’t bring those astronauts home out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“Hardly.” My father looked as if he’d intended to say more, but right then his cell phone went off, followed by my mother’s a few seconds later. He smiled grimly. “So let’s see — I’m guessing that’s Paul calling me and Kara calling you, Kirsten.”
“Probably,” she said, then went over to the kitchen counter where they’d left their phones and handed his to him before putting her own phone to her ear. “Hi, Kara. Yes, we’re seeing it.”
My father mouthed Paul right before he said, “Yes, we already had the TV on. We’re trying to figure out what their game is as well.” He was quiet then, as if listening to what Paul was saying.
In the meantime, my mother seemed to be covering more or less the same ground, although it also sounded as if Kara was trying to convince her to come over for another council of war or whatever they wanted to call it. That was about the last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment, though. I doubted that sitting around and dissecting what Lir Shalan was really up to would help to get Raphael back. If the Reptilian leader was preoccupied with playing kissy-face with the President, then I worried that he probably wouldn’t be expending much energy on whatever leverage he’d intended by kidnapping Raphael in the first place.
I turned back toward the television. The astronauts appeared to have been handed over to a team of scientists and military personnel, probably to determine that they were physically all right. I supposed the confusion they still seemed to be experiencing could be blamed on confronting the reality of extraterrestrial intelligence, but I wondered how long that excuse would fly. After all, they were highly trained scientists and pilots and engineers, not a bunch of teenagers who happened to run into a UFO in a cornfield or something.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think their real memories would ever surface. Raphael had been doing that sort of thing for hundreds of years. Those memories were gone, along with any witnesses to prove that the Reptilians weren’t quite as nicey-nice as they were pretending to be.
“Well, we’ll talk it over and let you know,” my mother said, then ended the call and dropped her phone on the table. Immediately, she glanced over at me, and I shook my head.
“If you all want to head over there, be my guest. I’m staying put.”
“I had a feeling that was what you would say.” She didn’t sound annoyed, though, more like relieved.
Which was somewhat surprising, although maybe she was glad to be able to use me as an excuse for why we wouldn’t all be trooping over to my aunt’s house to try hashing this thing out. My father hung up then as well, looking very tired.
“Paul’s going to monitor the chatter and keep us posted. As you can im
agine, all the UFO and conspiracy-theory forums have more or less exploded.”
I could imagine. And Paul must be feeling a wee bit vindicated right about now. It was far too late for him to get his old job at the university back — and I doubted he’d want it, even if someone decided to make him an offer — but he still had to feel better knowing that no one could ever call him a fraud or a crackpot again.
The TV was now showing the President and Lir Shalan shaking hands. How she managed to touch him without shuddering, I had no idea. She was a politician, though; she was probably used to dealing with some pretty slimy characters. Then the Reptilian leader and his delegation moved off to one side, while the President and her advisor disappeared behind the blue curtains on the opposite side of the platform. Immediately the camera switched over to a shaken-looking reporter, who began spouting some nonsense about what a momentous occasion this was and how the entire world now needed to pause and take a breath, and absorb the realization that we were no longer alone in the universe.
My father let out a disgusted sigh, then said, “TV off.”
The screen went dark, and my mother and I both looked at him expectantly. “Now what?” she said.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s clear that no one from the government made any move to detain the Reptilians. That was always one of our own fears when it came to disclosure — that we’d be held and subjected to all sorts of experiments.”
“Why do you think the Reptilians were allowed to go?”
“I’m not sure, but I know the military has good enough instrumentation to determine that a Reptilian ship has sufficient firepower to reduce Washington, D.C., and the area around it to slag. I have a feeling they simply didn’t want to take the risk.”
Superior firepower did tend to make a good deterrent.
“Why now?” I asked. “The Reptilians could have come forward multiple times before this, but they didn’t. And they have Raphael. I feel like there’s a piece here we’re missing.”
My mother tapped her fingers on the tabletop, eyes narrowing as she considered the conundrum. “You know how we thought earlier that they’d taken him as a bargaining chip?”
“Yes,” I said, fairly sure I wouldn’t like where this conversation was about to go.
“Well, they must know we’d go to some fairly extreme lengths to make sure Raphael was safe. What if they took him to guarantee our silence?”
“Like blackmail?”
“Basically, yes,” my father put in, understanding spreading over his features, although he didn’t look very happy about coming up with a plausible solution to the puzzle. “They couldn’t risk any of us trying to tell the truth of what happened on the Mars base. But with Raphael as their hostage, they know we’ll keep our mouths shut.”
It did make a sort of horrible sense. My spirits sank even further, because if keeping him as a hostage for our continuing silence truly was their game, then I didn’t see how they would ever let him go. Unless…
…unless someone else offered to be their hostage in his place. And I knew who that person needed to be. I couldn’t ask such a sacrifice of anyone else.
I’d have to give myself up to the Reptilians so Raphael would be safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Needless to say, my parents weren’t exactly thrilled when I suggested that I sacrifice myself to save Raphael.
“You don’t know if that will do any good,” my mother argued. “They could take you and keep Raphael as well.”
“Then at least we’d be together,” I said. “You just said it yourself — they need one of us to make sure no one lets the world know what they’re really like. Raphael and I are soul-bonded. It needs to be me. Not anyone else.”
“He would never allow you to make such a sacrifice,” my father said. The finality in his tone only made me grit my teeth.
“That’s not his decision to make,” I retorted. “It’s mine.” In a way, I was almost relieved to have pushed myself to this point. I hadn’t accomplished a lot in my life so far, but I could save Raphael. Maybe that was the whole reason I’d been born — not just to love him, but to make sure he lived and continued with his work.
My parents looked at each other. I didn’t see any lips moving, but I knew they were communicating in silence, sharing a discussion they didn’t want me to hear. By then, I was more or less used to the practice. Even so, I couldn’t keep myself from snapping, “And can you please stop talking about me as if I’m not even here?”
“Callista,” my mother began, then paused, as if trying to gather her thoughts. “I understand how you feel about Raphael. I know, because it’s the same way I feel about your father. But you need to think this through logically. All we’re going on right now are educated guesses. We don’t really know anything. At the very least, I think we should wait a few days — ”
“A few days!” I couldn’t believe she thought I’d be willing to sit around for a few days and twiddle my thumbs when the Reptilians could be doing anything to Raphael. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible,” my father said. “For one thing, we don’t have any way of contacting the Reptilians. I wasn’t allowed to keep any of my tech when I was exiled here, and anything Raphael might have had with him would have been taken when he was.”
Oh. I’d been so fired up about making a swap for Raphael that I hadn’t even stopped to think that getting a hold of the Reptilians wasn’t exactly the same as picking up my cell phone and calling Taryn to see if she wanted to go to the movies. Then a thought struck me. “What about the base?”
My father’s brows drew together. “The base?”
“The abandoned base,” I replied, not bothering to keep the impatience out of my tone. “In Secret Canyon. Wouldn’t there still be communications equipment left behind?”
Once again, my parents exchanged a glance. “Yes,” my father said slowly — and, I thought, reluctantly. “A good deal of it probably has been damaged, but — ”
“But some of it may still work.” Now that I’d seized on a plan, I positively itched to go out there and take a look. “If we head out now — ”
“No,” my mother cut in. “It’s full dark, and that place is creepy enough if you go there in the daytime. We’ll check in the morning.”
Protests rose to my lips, but I could tell from the sober expressions both my parents wore that my arguments probably wouldn’t get me very far. In the first place, I’d never been to the abandoned base, and I couldn’t rely on my instincts to guide me there the way they had Grace. She had hybrid blood in her, whereas I certainly did not.
“First thing in the morning,” I said, and they both looked resigned.
“First thing,” my father agreed, and that seemed to be the end of it.
Until the next morning, of course.
* * *
Being resolved on a course of action wasn’t enough to calm my mind, though. I kept worrying about what was happening to Raphael, and wondering what the Reptilians’ true reason was for revealing themselves now. Of course the story was all over the Internet, all over the news, everywhere I turned. Everyone was talking about how the world would never be the same.
I knew the feeling. My world most definitely wouldn’t be the same if I couldn’t somehow ensure Raphael’s safety. In a way, it would have been nice to be as blissfully ignorant as the rest of the world, to think that the Reptilians were only here to help us out. Oh, probably if I’d had the energy to lurk in some of the conspiracy-theory and UFO forums, I would have found people saying we needed to be careful, that the Reptilians weren’t to be trusted, but those worries would only be dismissed by the general population. After all, everyone already thought the people who believed in Reptilian aliens and conspiracies were crazy. It was only that this time around, people would think they were crazy for an entirely different reason if they tried to warn the world’s governments about being too quick to accept the aliens’ promises.
Then I got a
text from Taryn as I was lying in my old bed and staring up at the ceiling.
You okay?
Mostly, I dictated into my phone. What do you think?
I’m not sure what to think. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
That was Taryn for you. Always careful, always cautious. But I supposed she had to be, considering how much more she knew about what people were thinking, what the future might hold. She probably had to weigh every word she said to avoid letting anything slip that could damage a relationship or cause undue worry.
We’re going to the alien base tomorrow morning, I told her.
Why?
To see if we can communicate directly with the Reptilians. Some of their equipment must still be there.
A long pause. Then, Can I come with you?
That request seemed to come from nowhere. Why?
Because I think I need to be there.
When someone who can see into the future tells you she needs to be in a certain place and time, you don’t really argue. Okay. Can you be here early, like 7:30?
No problem.
See you then.
We ended the exchange, and I put my phone back down on the nightstand. For some reason, I felt obscurely comforted. After all, Taryn had said several times that she wished we could communicate better with the Reptilians. Maybe she’d caught a glimpse of our upcoming confrontation and had realized that things would go a lot more smoothly if she was there to help things along.
Who knows — with her assistance, I might be able to get Raphael back without having to sacrifice myself.
* * *
I had never been a morning person. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed at six-thirty and took a shower and got dressed, then wandered into the kitchen so I could fix myself some tea. The thick scent of coffee filled the room, but I didn’t see either of my parents. The next moment I heard them talking out in the family room, though, so I grabbed a tea bag and a mug, then left my tea to steep while I went out to find them.
sedona files 05 - falling angels Page 24
