“I can’t believe my ears.” Michael’s eyes were wide. “They’re going to give in?”
Lifting his shoulders in a sign of helplessness, Calbert said, “The economy was tenuous when you left; now, it’s reaching a critical point. The war exhausted everyone’s reserves. People are tired of fighting.”
“Well,” Michael said, his voice upset, “people better get un-tired. The Kulsat are going to find us, and when they do, we’ll be wiped out.”
With a half-smile, Calbert said, “It would be easier to convince the government to swallow the Moon, than to swallow that story.”
“And you?” He looked at Calbert through the corner of his eye. “What do you believe?”
Taking a long time to answer, he finally said, “I believe that if your story is true, then we’re all in very serious trouble.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.” Michael held his breath.
Finally, Calbert nodded, “We are all in very serious trouble.”
Though Michael felt a surge of relief when he heard that—at least someone in the entire world didn’t think he was either a complete moron or a traitor—he knew his situation was far from optimistic.
“To break it down,” he said, pulling at his lip, “we’ve got two problems: Emperor Chow Yin, and the Kulsat Consortium. I hate to say it, but Yin is the lesser of the two evils. He wants to rule Sol System; the Kulsat want to decimate it.”
“What do you suggest?”
Michael scratched an eyebrow. “Do we have the technology to weaponize Kinemet?”
“Before Quantum Resources was shut down, we bandied a few theories about. The first problem is, we don’t have any Kinemet stockpile to test the theories. Second, even if we did, those theories can’t be tested planet-side. Unfortunately, Chow Yin has all the marbles, and he’s not sharing.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince me that making a deal with Chow Yin is the sensible option.” He gave Calbert a sharp look.
“The devil you know…”
Shaking his head, Michael sighed. “I can’t believe that option is on the table.”
Then he noticed Calbert looking at him oddly.
“What?”
A smile crept into Calbert’s lips. “You realize that, not once in this conversation did you ask about what’s going to happen to you?”
Tilting his head, Michael let out a hollow laugh. “I thought it was a foregone conclusion. I figure I’m the administration’s worst nightmare. If they reveal I’m back, the newsvids will investigate. The moment they find out about an alien invasion, there’d be mass panic. If they prosecute me, they’ll have to disclose certain facts to the public, and hide others. Anything they hide will come back to bite them later; a cover-up is a sensational scandal.”
With a bittersweet smile, he said, “If I were them, I’d keep pushing the paperwork from office to office indefinitely, or just bury it. Put me in a hole somewhere and forget where they hid the key.”
Calbert gave him a hard look. “You’re not wrong about that. It’s taken a lot of fast-talking to keep knowledge of your return limited to the oversight committee. At this point, there are only about twenty people in the world who know you’re still alive.”
“Well,” Michael said, trying to keep the defeat out of his voice, “no matter what happens, I appreciate you taking the time to come down here in person.”
“I wanted to come down here,” he said, “but not just because I consider you a friend.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to ask you about Yaxche.”
“He’s a good man.” Michael leaned forward. “I hope you realize that he had nothing to do with anything. He just came along to help save Alex.”
Calbert put up his hands. “There are no worries on that part. We’ve actually contacted the Honduran Departmental and arranged for his return to his village.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, Michael said, “That’s good.”
Slowly, Calbert said, “I’m glad you vouched for him.”
Michael narrowed his eyes. “I never knew you for someone to beat around the bush.”
Calbert laughed. “Normally, I’m not. I guess this last year of glad-handing politicians and captains of industry has made me more circumspect.”
“Just you and I here,” Michael said. “Spit it out.”
“All right.” The minister took a moment, as if to sort out what he was going to say. “I spoke with Yaxche in private yesterday. He remembers me from when we met at Quantum Resources—just a few weeks ago from his perspective, but over four years ago for me.” He held Michael’s eye. “At first, he didn’t want to talk to me, but when I reassured him I only wanted the best for you, and I believed your story about what happened in Centauri, he relented and said something I wasn’t sure how to take.
“He said the Kulsat were once the favored of the Grace, and that they’re trying to find the legacy of the Grace.”
Nodding, Michael said, “That’s what the Gliesans told Alex. I have no idea what it really means. We didn’t really have a lot of time to talk about it before the Kulsat blew up our ship.”
“Right.” Calbert scratched his jaw. “Yaxche said he believes the Grace could be the gods in the Mayan pantheon.”
Michael frowned. “He never mentioned that to anyone.”
“And he said he might know how to find the old gods’ legacy.”
“How to find—?” Michael gaped. “You mean it might actually be here, on Earth?”
Calbert made an uncertain face. “He says it might be somewhere near his village.”
“No wonder he didn’t want to say anything. Chow Yin’s agents could have been listening the whole time.” He stood up. “You need to send someone with Yaxche. If you can find this legacy, it might just be the thing we need to deal with the Kulsat.”
“It might be a long shot—no, it’s definitely a long shot—but I agree it’s worth exploring,” Calbert said. “But, since we don’t want to leak anything to the public about this, we need to send someone with Yaxche who we can trust, and who can get the job done.”
Michael searched his memory for someone who would fit the bill. Then he noticed Calbert looking at him oddly again, but this time with a playful smile on his face.
“What?”
“How’d you like to go back to Honduras?”
Stunned, Michael opened and closed his mouth without saying anything. When he finally recovered his senses, he asked, “Me? How?”
“First of all,” Calbert said, pulling a folded letter out from inside the breast of his jacket, “I need you to sign this affidavit stating that you have been operating undercover as an agent of the Canadian government for the past four years under direct authority of the Prime Minister.”
Signing that would immediately exonerate Michael of any charges the Department of Defense had on him.
“As long as you agree to a full retraction of your earlier statement, we’ve prepared a replacement statement detailing how you’ve spent the last four years infiltrating Chow Yin’s empire.”
Michael couldn’t believe it. “How did you get Prime Minister Dolbeau to agree to that?”
Calbert’s smile widened. “I didn’t. I got Prime Minister Rainier to agree to it.”
“Alliras? But I thought you said—?”
“I just said he was no longer the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.”
Michael pointed a finger at him. “You damned trickster.”
Laughing out loud, Calbert said, “Just sign the affidavit so we can get you on a skybus to Honduras.”
13
Kulsat Ship :
Centauri System :
A pounding headache woke Justine. After she regained consciousness, she decided it was most likely an aftereffect of the sleep agent the Kulsat had introduced into her tank.
She pushed herself up on one arm, but the motion made her stomach heave, and she let herself lie back down until the queasiness faded.
Dark
ness filled her awareness. The minute amount of Kinemetic radiation she’d absorbed from the presence of the Kulsat science leader was gone and her sight with it.
Two conflicting emotions warred inside her: if the Kulsat returned, she would absorb enough of the radiation to see again; but that meant the interrogation would resume. Justine was running out of tricks to delay the science leader.
Her situation was looking more and more hopeless.
“Is it true?”
Justine jerked at the sound of the mechanical voice. She couldn’t see anyone—or anything—but someone had obviously used the linguistic computer to communicate with her.
She made a guess. “You’re not the science leader.”
“He is undertaking other tasks, and will not return for some time.”
“Who are you?” Justine asked.
There was a long pause, and for a moment, she thought the newcomer might have gone away.
The mechanical voice said, “I am being the cleaner of floors and walls.”
“What is your name?” Justine asked, but only a long silence answered her. “Do you have a name?”
“I have an identifier. There is no corresponding sound.”
Perhaps the computer needed a frame of reference. “My name is Justine.”
A moment later, the mechanical voice replied, “The computer does not have a corresponding motion for that word.”
“It means ‘just’ or ‘fair’. What does your name mean?” she asked the newcomer.
“I have a circle-shaped red spot above my left eye.”
“Is that how you identify each other,” Justine asked, “by distinguishing marks?”
“Yes, you have knowledge now.”
“May I call you ‘Red Spot’ for short?”
“The computer is using the correct motion for my name, Justine. What is your station?”
“I’m…” For a moment, Justine was going to say she was a retired major, but she didn’t know whether the language computer could interpret rank. “I am the pilot of our ship.”
“You are the transportation leader?”
“I guess you could call it that.” A moment later, she asked, “Does your science leader have a name?”
“He has a pattern of three dark crescents on the webbing of one limb.”
“Three Crescents?” Justine said.
“Yes. He is one of the oldest Risen in the Consortium.”
Justine felt a kernel of hope growing inside her. The newcomer seemed curious, and was much more communicative than the science leader. Then a thought hit her: maybe the Kulsat were employing a psychological trick. The science leader was the bad cop; Red Spot was the good cop.
“Are you a Risen?” Justine asked, testing to see if the alien would lie. “Or a Deficient?”
“I have not been offered the Gift,” Red Spot said. “I am not of suitable station yet to attempt to Rise.”
“Are you not supposed to be here?”
The mechanical voice spoke. “The science laboratory is for the science leader and his servants. This room is restricted from Potentials. It is an offense to disobey rules. You will report my offense?”
“I won’t say anything.” Justine shook her head. “If it is against the rules, why did you take the risk to talk to me?”
The mechanical voice spoke. “I need to know if it is true.”
“If what is true?”
“We were told you are a scout for a barbarian army that wishes the expiration of our kind.”
“That’s not true,” Justine said. “For the most part, our people are explorers.”
“Then you practice deception?”
Shocked at the accusation, Justine asked, “What makes you say that?”
“You related a history of your conduct. There is violence. There is atrocity. There is abduction. You are no different than the other races.”
Gasping, Justine realized that the Kulsat must have analyzed the story she’d recited for the translation computer, Peter Pan, and thought she was talking about something that had happened in her past. Without a cultural reference, the story must have sounded terrible to an alien species.
“That was a fantasy,” she said. “For entertainment.”
“You do not practice atrocity? You do not cut off the limbs of your enemies and feed them to animals?”
Justine let out a huff. “Not as a rule, no.” Then she thought that if she told Red Spot a truth, she might engender trust. “It is true that there are some individuals from our world who break our laws, but we have a system in place to punish the offenders and to protect the innocent, and to protect those who do not have power.”
“Your system protects those with no value?”
“Red Spot,” she said, “our kind believes all beings have value.”
There was a long silence, and for a moment, Justine thought Red Spot might have left, but then the mechanical voice came through.
“Green Stripe Over One Eye shared time with me. He was assisting me to increase my station so that one day I may attempt to Rise. He provided companionship. He had value … to me. Now he is expired.”
At first, Justine didn’t know what Red Spot was trying to tell her, but then she understood. Green Stripe must have been the Deficient who the science leader had killed. She guessed the two of them had some kind of intimate relationship—though Justine really didn’t have a basis to understand what that would entail. In her mind, she began to think of Red Spot as female.
“I must go,” Red Spot said via the mechanical voice. “I will be discovered.”
“No, wait!” Justine cried out, but then she smelled the familiar scent of the tranquilizer agent, and before she had a chance to protest, she fell back to the floor, unconscious.
∞
The headache was worse the next time she woke. At least some of her sight had been restored. Of course, that meant one thing: Three Crescents was back.
Justine struggled to a sitting position and used her sight to look around. The science leader was not alone. There was another Kulsat in the room, floating a few meters away from Three Crescents. The Kinemetic radiation in him was much stronger than that in the science leader.
Three Crescents typed. “You have completed your sleep cycle. Cooperation will resume now.”
“Good morning,” Justine said, and watched as the two Kulsat signed to each other.
Three Crescents turned back to the computer. “Irrelevant information. We require specifications of your home system. Population. Location. Technology level. Describe your understanding of the Gift. Do you possess the final component?”
When Justine didn’t reply right away, the Kulsat typed again. “Cooperation was assured.”
“You didn’t even introduce me to your new friend.” She got to her feet and gave the other Kulsat a nod. “My name is Justine,” she said.
All eight of Three Crescents’ tentacles twitched. “Your name is a deception.”
“It’s just a name,” she said. “Something to call each other. Certainly, no harm will come from sharing our names.”
Three Crescents turned to the other Kulsat. Whatever it was they were discussing, it seemed to be a heated debate. By the end of the conversation, Three Crescents was quivering. Justine guessed it was in frustration.
He moved away from the control panel, and the other Kulsat approached.
“I am Ship Leader Long Fingers On Two Of His Limbs. We have analyzed your confession. You are the shadow form. You are to be using stealth techniques to capture our spawn. We are familiar with this purpose. You wish to examine our biology, and develop a means to destroy us.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Justine said, wishing she’d never picked Peter Pan to recite. “I had no intention of kidnapping anyone. It was you who abducted me, remember?”
“All aliens that encroach on our territory wish to destroy us. Your confession has confirmed this fact. We are validated to collect you.”
“It wasn’t a confession.” J
ustine had to restrain herself from slapping the glass; that would only demonstrate that she was capable of violence, and it was imperative that she be as diplomatic and politic as she could. “It was a story. If you’ll let me explain, I’m sure we can come to an understanding—”
Long Fingers typed. “It is apparent your kind practice deception. Any information you provide may be false. You attempt to conceal the final component of the Gift. We will attempt to search for other specimens of your kind, should they exist in this system, and extract biological information.”
The ship leader turned from the computer and signed something to Three Crescents. Justine didn’t need a translation program to interpret its meaning.
As Long Fingers swam out of the room, and Three Crescents turned to one of his other computers, Justine’s frustration boiled over.
“I said I would cooperate. I’m not lying. I’ll talk to you, if you’ll just listen to me. This is all a big misunderstanding.”
When the science leader continued working on his machine, ignoring Justine, she slapped the glass to get his attention, not caring how it looked to them.
“Three Crescents,” she said. “I’m talking to you.”
He turned around, and a ripple went through his body as he stared at Justine with those large eyes of his. Finally, he propelled himself to the translation control panel and typed.
“I have never offered my identifier. How did you acquire this knowledge?”
Cursing herself for the slip, Justine said, “It was a guess. I see the three dark crescents on the web between your tentacles. You name yourself after distinguishing marks, don’t you?”
Three Crescents seemed to consider her answer. “You are practicing additional deception.” He went to another computer station and typed on the control panel. For the first time, Justine could see one of their displays, but the information on it was meaningless to her. It looked like a series of squiggles and dashes—obviously their written language—but there was no way she could interpret them.
Turning back to the translation computer, Three Crescents typed to her. “There has been unauthorized access to this laboratory. We have a traitor. Did you promise information of final component to gain assistance from the defector? Reveal the conspirator, and there will be no discomfort in your expiry. Refuse cooperation and I will apply continuous discomfort.”
Worlds Away (The Interstellar Age Book 3) Page 9
