Shadow: Alien Castaways 4 (Intergalactic Dating Agency)

by Cara Bristol

  “Have you seen any aliens yet?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I have. A couple of them. We chatted for a bit.” She wished she could confide in her son, but she couldn’t betray Shadow’s confidences. It was an interesting coincidence how quickly she had encountered the ’Topians and become involved in their lives, beginning with the vision of Kevanne and Chameleon, then Inferno and Geneva, and ending with Shadow’s life-and-death request.

  “How are things going with you?” she asked before her intuitive, perceptive son delved any further into her life.

  “Awesome. I sold a painting and picked up another commission.”

  “That’s wonderful, Shane!” Her talented, up-and-coming artist son showed his mixed media in several galleries. He didn’t yet sell enough to support himself on art alone, but one day he would. She knew it—not because the spirits had revealed it but because she was a mother and believed in him. In the meantime, he waited tables. The tips were good, but he counted the days until he could quit and paint full-time.

  “One of the galleries is hosting a show for me next month.”

  “Text me where and when, and I’ll be there.”

  “You just moved and opened a new store. Are you sure you can get away?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. If I have to, I’ll close the shop.”

  “Well, then, great!” he said, and she could tell he was pleased. “Dad will be there, too.”

  “I’ll look forward to seeing him.” She and her ex would agree raising Shane had been their shining accomplishment. She and Lance never married, and the relationship had fizzled while Shane was young, but they’d remained friends and had co-parented. When the shit had hit the fan and Jack had bailed on her, Lance offered her his place to hide out until the storm blew over. She hadn’t wanted to come between him and his new wife, so she’d declined, but she’d appreciated the offer. She was fortunate to have good, caring people in her life.

  Things happened for a reason, and people came into your life when you needed them. In her bones, she’d always sensed she and Lance weren’t meant to be forever mates, but that the universe had brought them together to produce their son.

  She and Shane talked for a while longer, and, when they hung up, her mood had lifted. She felt, if not positive, then less negative. To invite insight, she had to be receptive. A vessel filled with despair couldn’t be filled with wisdom. It was a bit of an oversimplification, but a person did draw what he or she emitted. If you put out good, good came back to you. Karma was a boomerang.

  I just wish I could be his mate! Regret crept in, but she shooed it away. This situation wasn’t about her and her desires but about saving a man’s life. She picked up the timepiece and slipped it on her wrist. Maybe a vision would come to her in a dream. That often happened.

  She washed her mug, doused the lights, and went to bed.

  * * * *

  “Oh, you’re back!” Tigre entered the kitchen as Shadow brewed a pot of tea.

  “I got home a little while ago. Would you like a cup?”

  Tigre’s whiskers twitched. “Is that the same stuff you’ve been drinking?”

  “Yes, Mandy provided me with more.”

  “Then, no. That stuff is foul.”

  “I thought so at first, too, but I’ve kind of gotten used to it.” He poured himself a cup and added a large spoonful of honey. He rather liked the tea now and drank it every day.

  Tigre grabbed a beer from the fridge, and they went into the living room, each of them claiming a recliner.

  “So, how did it go with Mandy?” Tigre asked.

  “I gave her my father’s chronometer. She’ll let me know if she comes up with anything. We had dinner at the Whitetail.” He rubbed his eyes. “I had another sublimation episode. Mandy saw.”

  Tigre’s mouth formed a grim line. “I’m sorry.”

  They didn’t speak for the longest time.

  “You ever have sex?” Shadow broke the silence. He and Tigre were the last two unmated castaways. Inferno had yet to connect with Geneva, but the Luciferan’s future was settled.

  “You taking a poll?”

  “Just curious.”

  “I was with a few a Saberians. Why?”

  “The way I think of Mandy is how I imagined I’d feel for my genmate, but I keep checking, and there’s not even a slight glandular reaction.” He rubbed his throat. “I almost kissed her tonight,” he confessed.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s not my genmate.”

  “So?”

  “Kissing her would be disloyal.” Wouldn’t it?

  “To the woman you haven’t met yet? To the one who may not exist?” Tigre said gently. “No one would fault you for taking whatever pleasure you can find when you find it.” His brother’s words echoed what Shadow had told Mandy. “If you are attracted to her, you should take advantage of that. You’re entitled to have friends, relationships.”

  “What happens if she locates my genmate? What do I do then?”

  “Nothing. Genetics will bind you, and you’ll forget all about Mandy. You will no longer desire her, only your mate.”

  His gut tightened at the depressing idea his feelings for Mandy could sublimate like his body. A wonderful woman, she deserved to be remembered for all her fine qualities. He hated that he might forget her. And if she didn’t find him a match, he would be forced to depart Earth, never to see her again. There didn’t seem to be any good outcome here.

  Chapter Ten

  “I expected a much smaller ship.” Shadow peered up at the vessel in the hangar at Mysk Industries. The Star Crossed resembled a huge winged bullet. He’d been expecting a one-to-two seater space pod.

  “It has sleeping capacity for twenty and comes equipped with an artificial gravity simulator, an organic matter scanner, and an AI which will be updated with a personality chip,” Mysk explained. “Are there any other features you’d like me to include?”

  “I can’t think of anything,” he said, stunned by the attention to detail.

  “The Star Crossed is more advanced than the Castaway,” exclaimed Tigre, who’d captained their ship during the escape from ’Topia.

  “Definitely,” Chameleon agreed.

  Concerned about him traveling the 300-plus miles from Argent to Seattle, his brothers had insisted on accompanying him. The fact he hadn’t sublimated in four days meant another episode was imminent. Fearing he could have one on the highway, Chameleon had driven them in the Lavender Bliss Farm van.

  “The Star Crossed is one of our newer prototypes,” Mysk said.

  “Are you sure you can spare it?” he asked.

  “We’re rooting for you. We want to ensure you succeed,” the Verital tech magnate replied. “You might have to hit quite a few planets, and you need a ship that can go the distance. I intend to give you every advantage. When you find your genmate, we hope you’ll bring her to Earth—and who knows? Maybe some ’Topians will choose to return with you.”

  He noticed how Mysk said when. In reality, he faced a whole bunch of ifs: if he managed to locate any ’Topians, if one of them turned out to be a match, if he didn’t die before getting to one of the haven planets.

  No matter how much advanced tech the Star Crossed carried, his chance for survival was infinitesimally slim, and he would be flying blind with no idea where to search, but he was moved by the effort the Verital had gone to on his behalf.

  “Come aboard. I’ll give you a tour.” Mysk started up the gangway.

  “As you can see, the cockpit seats three,” Mysk pointed out as the four of them stood on the bridge, peering through the wide-view windows at the factory floor. Dozens of other ships were in various stages of construction.

  “Star Crossed flies itself, but you can switch to manual. However, I recommend you plot the coordinates and use the autopilot. While you’re in orbit, the ship will scan the planet’s surface for ’Topian life-f
orms, and the AI will alert you if any are found.”

  After the bridge, Mysk took him to inspect the sleeping cabins: five port side, five starboard, each one with two berths. “Cleansing unit is here.” The Verital gestured to the midship head before leading them to the stern. “The Star Crossed has a full galley, and the food replicator will be stocked to provide meals for an entire year.”

  He hadn’t thought about food. “That’s way more than I’m going to need.” From the frequency of the sublimation and the increasing difficulty solidifying, Shadow guessed he had a few months left at best, maybe only weeks.

  “On the way home, there will be two of you,” Mysk said, ever the optimist.

  Lastly, he showed them engineering and the launch bay, briefing him on the use of the lifepod in the event of an emergency.

  “The lifepod is programmed to take you to the nearest habitable planet—but you can do a manual or AI override. When we’re finished installing the AI on the ship, it will be networked to the lifepod, so it will go with you should you eject in an emergency. As I mentioned, it will have a personality chip to provide more companionable conversation on the journey. Would you prefer a male or female personality?”

  “Male,” he answered. Female might remind him too much of how he’d left Mandy behind. “You’ve thought of everything. Thank you.”

  As they disembarked, Tigre commented, “I don’t recall seeing a med pod.”

  “I won’t need medical care,” Shadow said.

  “You might. You don’t know what you’ll encounter on the planets you visit. You could pick up a contagion,” Mysk said. “The entire vessel is programmed to scan, decontaminate, diagnose, and treat. Every time you board, you will be scanned, and any anomalies will be treated.”

  “So the entire ship is a med pod,” Chameleon said.

  “Among other things. While we’re on the subject of scans…” Mysk rubbed the legs of his faded jeans, the gesture at odds with his previous confidence. “Your state of being will be monitored. If you permanently sublimate, the ship is programmed to return to Earth.”

  Mysk’s interjection of his problem didn’t sit well with Tigre and Chameleon who glowered. The Saberian even bared his fangs. Shadow touched his shoulder. “It’s all right. We all know what the situation is, as much as we’d like to hope otherwise.” He could leave Earth, but he couldn’t escape reality.

  “I wish I could shorten the journey for you, give you more time,” Mysk lamented. “It’s unfortunate we don’t know where the other ’Topians were sent.”

  “If we had access to that information, so would the Xenos,” Shadow said.

  “I didn’t save it for that reason,” Chameleon explained. “Over the years, I’d surveyed thousands of planets, coming up with a shortlist of potential habitable havens, mostly dwarf planets unlikely to attract attention. I coded them and encrypted the coordinates. When Shadow and I evacuated the ’Topians, even they didn’t know where they were going, to avoid putting the planets in jeopardy if the refugees were captured, and their ship boarded. When I discovered the bombardment was imminent, I wiped the database.”

  Mysk’s brows pulled in close, and he cocked his head. “But you created the database and inputted the codes and coordinates yourself, did you not?”

  Chameleon nodded. “I didn’t trust it to anybody else.”

  “Then you know what and where the planets are!”

  “I wish I did, but I reviewed too many to remember. Many hadn’t been named; they were identified by their sector coordinates. I can’t remember which codes went to which coordinates.”

  The odds were worse than he’d feared. Locating a habitable planet would be next to impossible, never mind finding one of the ten harboring the ’Topians. His low expectations sank further.

  But a wide grin spread across Mysk’s face, and he tapped his temple. “You don’t consciously remember, but since you saw the data, coded it, entered it, the information is still in your subconscious. With your permission, I might be able to extract it.”

  “You can do that?” Shadow jerked, exchanging a glance with Chameleon and Tigre. Knowing where to go would make a huge difference.

  “Xenos are hard to read, but with Chameleon’s cooperation, I should be able to access the information.”

  “You have my full cooperation!” Chameleon said.

  “Excellent. Let’s go to my office, where it’s quieter, and I’ll do the reading. I can have the coordinates plotted in the ship, ready when you leave.”

  “Is there a way to prioritize where he goes? Search the planets with the biggest population of Vaporians first?” Tigre asked.

  “It will depend on the information I can extract from Chameleon.”

  “There needs to be a failsafe,” Shadow said. “If I encounter the Xeno Consortium, I would hate for them to get their hands on the data.”

  “I’ll have the AI erase the Star Crossed database if the ship is hijacked, boarded, or hacked,” Mysk said.

  * * * *

  “He’s taking a long time.” Shadow paced outside the closed office where the Verital attempted to access Chameleon’s subconscious.

  “You heard him—Xenos are harder to read. Besides, it’s only been fifteen minutes,” Tigre said. “Relax.”

  “Look who’s talking,” he shot back. “Your tail has been twitching since they got started.”

  Fangs flashed in a sheepish grin. “Guilty. This could be a game-changer for you. If you can pinpoint where to go, the odds of success will increase exponentially.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “No, I am.” He raked his hands through his hair. “But it feels like every positive is tainted by a negative. Finding my genmate means leaving all of you.” It meant leaving Mandy. That pained him the most.

  “You still have a week to locate your genmate.”

  “It’s already been a week, and Mandy hasn’t seen anything. She sensed Inferno’s right away.”

  Tigre chuckled. “For all the good it’s doing him.”

  “Geneva still won’t see him?”

  “Nope. And the swelling of his mating glands is getting quite painful. But he’s in great spirits.”

  As any of them would be. “My gut keeps telling me that if I had a genmate on Earth, Mandy would have sensed her already.” He touched his quartz pendant. He never took it off.

  Tigre lifted the one he wore. “Do you think a rock has any special power?”

  Shadow shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “When did you speak to Mandy last?”

  “She called me yesterday morning to report she’d been meditating but hadn’t come up with anything yet.” In a contrary way, her lack of progress came as a relief. He wanted her, not some nameless, faceless woman he’d never met. Could his secret desires be blocking her psychic energy? Was he inadvertently sabotaging the search?

  If he died, he’d lose Mandy. If he found his genmate, he’d lose Mandy. Success and failure led to the same depressing outcome.

  Chameleon and Mysk emerged from the office. The Xeno appeared unfazed, but smudges darkened the Verital’s squinted eyes as if he had a headache.

  “Well?” Shadow held his breath.

  Mysk’s tired face broke into a big grin. “I got coordinates for all the planets!”

  * * * *

  “Thank you for the purchase. Have a wonderful day,” Mandy said to the customer. After the grand opening four days ago, business had increased as word had spread. It was too soon to predict, but if the trend continued, she might need to hire a part-time clerk. She’d wait a few weeks and evaluate.

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be back. I love this store!” The woman stuck her nose in the bag of aromatherapy infusers. “Everything smells so good!”

  She left, and, after ringing up a purchase for somebody else, Mandy approached a customer examining some prayer beads. The woman’s sunny yellow aura was streaked with gray.

  “Check the neighbor’s g
arage,” Mandy said, surprising the customer—and herself. The words popped out of her mouth at the same time she saw a cat prowling in a closed garage. Why could she see the cat so clearly yet be so blank when it came to Shadow?

  “I’m sorry, what?” The woman squinted at her.

  Mandy faked a chuckle. “Sorry. I talk to myself. My cat didn’t come home last night,” she lied. It wasn’t necessary or prudent to reveal her clairvoyance to everyone she encountered.

  “Your cat, too?” The woman confirmed the accuracy of the vision.

  Mandy continued, “I had a brainstorm that maybe she snuck into the neighbor’s garage and got locked in.”

  “My neighbor worked in his garage yesterday! He had the door open. Cookie could be in there!” The customer plunked down the prayer beads and swept from the store.

  “Well, that’s a good way to run off customers!” Mandy groused without meaning it. She was happy she’d been able to help the lady.

  Every day before and after work, she’d meditate while holding the chronometer. Even when not meditating, she wore it. She’d gotten nada, zippo, zilch—with respect to Shadow. However, floodgates to the spirit world had opened up, and she’d been barraged by images, sounds, smells, and emotions for other people.

  Aware he’d be anxious, she’d called yesterday to report she had nothing to report, but she’d keep trying. Why wouldn’t the universe cooperate? If he had a genmate—reveal her! If he didn’t, then show that, too! But no. She got readings for everyone, except him. She was glad the lady would find her lost kitty, but that couldn’t equate to saving a man’s life.

  She hoped her ambivalence wasn’t undermining her second sight and had prayed to the universe to ignore her attraction to Shadow and her secret fervent wish that he could be hers. Please help Shadow. Please ignore my selfishness.

  A middle-aged woman surrounded by a bright-blue aura pushed through the door. The color usually signified a protective, caring nature. Not only had the number and clarity of visions increased, so had her ability to see auras. Nearly everyone radiated vibrant color—except Shadow, and herself. She’d never been able to see her own aura, but the fact that she couldn’t see his worried her. What if it was an indication his life spark had already dimmed?