sedona files 06 - enemy mine

by Christine Pope

  We did pass a number of crew members once we emerged from the elevator, and it was on this upper deck that I got my first glimpse of the “Greys,” the aliens that had haunted popular culture for the past seventy-five years. Because of what Martin Jones had told all of us about how they functioned, I now knew that they weren’t truly aliens at all, but rather biological robots the Reptilians used to avoid detection by humans. Even so, I had to keep myself from shivering when they passed by, their huge, blank eyes settling on me for just a second or two before moving on to something they considered more interesting.

  Their unnerving regard was still better than dealing with the Reptilians themselves. While none of them said anything, I could feel them staring even after Gideon and I had moved ahead. I still wasn’t quite sure what his status was here. Yes, his father commanded this ship, apparently, but I didn’t know what that meant for Gideon himself. Was he being groomed as the heir apparent? Would the other Reptilians even take orders from someone who was half human?

  It seemed like every time I thought of one question, approximately ten more popped up to complicate things.

  I couldn’t help feeling relieved when Gideon stopped at a door, one that appeared exactly like every other one we’d passed on our way here. He laid his hand on the panel, then said, “Please go in,” after the door slipped out of the way and into the wall.

  Glad to be out of the hallway and safe from the stares of the Reptilians, I went inside. This apartment — because that was what it seemed to be, far bigger than the room I’d been given to stay in — was furnished much the same as the one I’d seen when I was astral-walking earlier, and at first appeared so identical that I had to stop and take another look around to reassure myself that we were not in Lir Shalan’s chambers.

  The biggest difference I could see here, though, was that the far wall provided another one of those dizzying views of Earth. Just as on the observation deck, that wall was composed entirely of whatever clear material the Reptilians used to keep out the vacuum and yet remain as clear as plate glass.

  “That’s incredible,” I said, moving toward the enormous window/wall. In that moment, I’d forgotten about my hunger, or my anxiety about being alone here with Gideon. It was enough to see the gibbous blue-green shape of the world where I’d been born, to know that everyone I loved and cared about was down there somewhere.

  Worrying about me, probably, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. I didn’t think Gideon would oblige me by sending a message to let my family know that I was — so far — safe and unharmed.

  “It is a good thing to wake up to every day,” he agreed. He came farther into the apartment and stopped a few feet away from me. “Or rather, every day we’re in orbit. When the Eclipse is journeying between the stars, a barrier comes down to protect the window, since the material it’s made of is not strong enough to resist the forces of superluminal travel.”

  Faster than light. I knew both my father and my brother Michael would be flipping out to hear something that had always been declared theoretically impossible discussed so casually, as if Gideon didn’t think much more of breaking the light barrier than he would of going faster than seventy-five on the highway.

  “That’s how you move between the stars?” I asked. “Is it like a warp drive, or do you use mini black holes, or — ”

  He smiled. No, actually, he grinned. The expression was so completely human that I could almost forget the greenish skin, or the deep ruby of his eyes. “You study these things?”

  “Well, I don’t,” I replied. “That’s really my father’s thing…and my brother’s. He’s getting his doctorate in astronomy.” I paused then and gave Gideon a very direct look. “But you probably knew that already.”

  He didn’t glance away, but met my gaze squarely enough. I realized then that making eye contact in such a way probably wasn’t a very good idea. The oddest little shiver went through me as I stared at him, and it seemed that we were standing much closer than we really needed to.

  His lips parted. I found it hard to focus on anything except his mouth, which was crazy. Yes, it was a nice mouth, and if it had been on someone else, I might have spent at least a little time wondering what it would be like to feel those lips against mine, but not with Gideon. That way lay madness.

  He looked away from me so he could gaze down at Earth. We were crossing over North America right then, and I had to keep myself from reaching out and trying to spread my hand over that little corner of the globe called Arizona.

  “It is true that we know something of your family, and your associates. How couldn’t we? They’re responsible for the deaths of many of my people.”

  The words had been spoken so neutrally that at first I didn’t quite grasp what he was saying. Then comprehension rushed in, and I crossed my arms and glared up at him. “Um, last time I checked, those deaths happened because your ‘people’ were trying to meddle in human affairs. There’s a little something called self-defense, you know.”

  It was hard to believe that the stony face staring down at me was the same one that had worn such a grin of delight only a moment earlier. “Of course you would see it that way.”

  “What other way is there to see it? My brother is named after a man your people killed!” It was true; my parents had given Michael his name in honor of Michael Lightfoot, who’d died helping to protect Kirsten Jones so she could call on her powers to drive the Reptilians out of Sedona forever.

  Only it hadn’t been forever. Twenty-five years was a decent span of time to get some breathing room, but it hadn’t been enough.

  “Because they had no other choice.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.” I turned away from him, thinking this had been a huge mistake and that I needed to get back to my room before I wasted any more time arguing with him. The smartest thing for me to do would be to spend as little time in his company as possible so we could avoid any further conflicts. He might look far more human than he did Reptilian, but it was clear to me right then that his thought processes were purely alien.

  I didn’t get very far, though, because I’d only taken a step before his fingers were wrapping around my bicep, pulling me back toward him. Never in my life had anyone put their hand on me without my permission, and I acted without thinking, jerking my arm out of his grip as I snapped, “Don’t you touch me!”

  He let go, and again I felt one of those same strange flares of guilt before it faded away just as quickly as it had come. His jaw set, but I could see a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Taryn, I did not mean to do that. I acted without thinking.”

  That I could believe, especially when I stopped to consider who had raised him. Lir Shalan hadn’t wasted a second thought on taking the human woman his underlings had brought to him and using her for his own ends, and so I supposed I should be glad that all Gideon had done was grab me by the arm. It still throbbed where he’d gripped me, though; clearly, he was very strong.

  I wouldn’t say that it was okay, because it wasn’t. But he was watching me, expression troubled, and I knew then that he wouldn’t do anything like that again. How exactly I knew, I couldn’t say for sure, except Gideon was half human, and therefore not as hopelessly opaque to me as one of the Reptilians might be. I didn’t want to pry too much, because even in my current situation I hated the idea of going into someone’s mind without permission. But I wouldn’t put up my barriers, either. My best hope of surviving my tenure here — however long that might turn out to be — was to allow those flickers and flashes in so I wouldn’t be struggling quite so blindly in the dark.

  “Don’t do it again,” was all I said, but he nodded.

  “Would you come with me to the food synthesizer?”

  It was an olive branch, one I’d have to take. He was the closest thing to an ally I had in this place. We couldn’t be at odds all the time.

  “Sure,” I said, and somehow managed to smile. “I could do with another burger.”

  Actually, that m
eal wasn’t as awkward as I feared it would be. We both requested burgers, somewhat to my surprise; I’d sort of figured he would have chosen something from his own home world. In fact, Gideon got creative and asked for some potatoes on the side. They were mashed, not french fries, but I was surprised by how good they tasted, the kind of potatoes where you could tell no one had skimped on the butter.

  “I still don’t really understand how it works, though,” I said, after washing down a bite of burger with some of that sweet mineral water. “How does the synthesizer know what a burger is supposed to taste like, or a mound of mashed potatoes, for that matter?”

  He’d been chewing as well, so he had to wait until he was done with his mouthful of potatoes before he could reply. “My mother taught it.”

  “Your mother?” He’d made an oblique reference earlier to someone training the machine to make human food, but I just hadn’t put two and two together.

  “Yes. The easiest way to train the synthesizer is to give it an actual sample to analyze. She had my father collect samples of Earth food, and then she fed them all into the processing unit.”

  I have to admit that my head swam a little at that revelation. From the very little Gideon had said about his mother, I’d just assumed that she’d spent her time locked up and hadn’t really interacted with Lir Shalan much, except for the time when her son had been conceived.

  “She had him — you mean, she asked him to do something, and he actually did it?”

  “Yes,” Gideon replied. The ruby-toned eyes glinted at me. “This surprises you?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “He could tell her health was suffering because she had a difficult time digesting the food she was provided. The logical thing to do was to give her the things she needed to stay healthy.”

  “Burgers and mashed potatoes?” I asked. “That’s really not a very healthy diet.”

  “True. But also fruits and vegetables. Processed grains were more difficult for the food synthesizer to manage.”

  “Which is why the bun-less burger?”

  “Precisely.”

  The question I wanted to ask then was whether Lir Shalan had done these things out of the goodness of his heart, or whether he needed to do whatever was necessary to make sure that Gideon’s mother would make a productive little baby factory for him. But I knew Gideon wouldn’t give me a straight answer to that kind of inquiry. I didn’t know whether he’d answer the question I planned to ask next, but I had to know.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  His face took on that closed expression I’d begun to dislike intensely. It meant he was sitting there and weighing what he should or shouldn’t say, and deciding how much he thought would be wise to tell me. But then he replied, “No. There were other attempts, but I was the only successful result of that pairing.”

  Attempts. Did that mean his mother had gotten pregnant multiple times, but had only carried one child successfully to term? Or maybe that Lir Shalan had repeatedly forced himself on her, but she’d only gotten pregnant once?

  I couldn’t ask Gideon that. He was trying to make himself as closed off as possible, but I knew somehow that he missed his mother, even though she’d been gone for years. As much as I desperately wanted to find out more about exactly what had happened to her, I couldn’t ask those sorts of blunt personal questions. Not yet, anyway. Maybe at some point he’d feel comfortable enough to confide in me, but I wasn’t about to hold my breath.

  Silence descended as we both returned to our food, but it was a quiet that was anything but easy. A moment or so later, Gideon said, “Your own mother has talents like yours, correct?”

  I wanted to point out that I was pretty sure he knew the answer to that question already, since she’d been the one to blast the aliens out of Sedona on the first go-round. But that kind of reply would only start another argument, and I was trying to be on my best behavior. I might have been prolonging the inevitable, but I was going to do everything in my power to keep Lir Shalan from using me as his next-generation eugenics experiment.

  Would that be so bad? a traitorous part of my mind thought at me, visualizing the sensual curves of Gideon’s mouth, the strength in those shoulders. Having to be with the alien leader himself was the stuff of nightmares, but his son….

  No. No way. If he’d approached me as a friendly alien, like Martin had with Kirsten or Raphael had with Callista, then…maybe. I wouldn’t bother to deny that I found Gideon attractive in some ways, despite his strange coloring. But I wouldn’t give Lir Shalan the satisfaction of succumbing to his son’s charms.

  “Sort of like mine,” I said, then sipped my water. “We’re both clairvoyant to some extent, and clairsentient as well. That means knowing things without knowing how we know them.”

  “That must be unsettling.”

  He sounded almost sympathetic, but I told myself he was probably trying to act as if he understood in order to soften me up. Wasn’t going to happen, though. “But I’m more of a pure psychic than she is.”

  “You read minds.”

  It wasn’t a question. “Yes. The talent isn’t infallible, of course, and I don’t go into other people’s thoughts without their permission.”

  He’d been holding a cup of water, but set it down then. “So can you read my mind?”

  “No.” Well, that was only a partial lie. I really couldn’t directly read his thoughts, even if I could pick up traces of his emotions from time to time. “I only seem to be able to do it with other humans.”

  I couldn’t tell if the barb about “other humans” had sunk in. He gave a nod, then said, “Interesting that you’re more powerful than your mother. Where else do you think the gift might have come from?”

  Gift. That was how my mother always referred to it, although there were days when I thought it was far more of a curse. I’d lost count of all the times I’d wished I was as blessedly normal and popular as Kelsey Rinehart.

  I shrugged. “My father says his great-great-grandmother was reputed to have the second sight — which is a folksy way of saying psychic powers, I suppose. But he also says no one in his family took those rumors too seriously. He never knew her, of course, since she died long before he was born. So I don’t really know if it’s just a family legend, or whether I might have inherited something from that side of the family as well.”

  Gideon was quiet then, apparently musing over what I had just told him. Did the possibility that I’d inherited not just one, but two psychic strains make me more or less desirable as breeding stock? I didn’t know.

  If that was even the reason why I’d been brought here. I still had the impression that something else was going on, but unless I was suddenly able to start delving into his mind, I doubted I’d ever find out.

  “Was it difficult?” he asked then, out of the blue.

  “Was what difficult?”

  “Possessing these powers when no one else around you — except your mother — did?”

  I might have mentioned that Kirsten and Callista and Martin had their own sets of powers, but I could tell that wasn’t what Gideon had asked. To him, they didn’t really count, because they were extraterrestrial in origin. But I — I was an anomaly, a human with powers she really shouldn’t have had.

  His expression was curious, one eyebrow lifted slightly as he waited for my answer. Honestly, I didn’t know what to tell him. I doubted he wanted a recitation of my problems of feeling like an outcast. Yes, I’d had Michael to defend me, and Callista and Kelsey had been my friends, but that was about it. Even in a place like Sedona, a lot of girls really didn’t want to hang out with someone who supposedly could read minds. I’d had one really good friend in high school besides Callista and Kelsey, Lisette Marquez, but she’d gotten a full scholarship to Stanford and was gone, never to return. How could I blame her for that? If I’d had the chance to escape to California, I probably wouldn’t have come back, either.

  “A little,” I said, figuring I could skirt close to
the truth even if I wasn’t about to give him my whole sob story about feeling like an outsider for most of my life. “It wasn’t as if I talked about it much, but word still got around. My mother already had a reputation as a psychic, although she had her own practice and didn’t work in the shops like I do.”

  “Why didn’t you do as she did, instead of working with the public?” He seemed genuinely curious, head tilted to one side as he watched me.

  Damn it. Gideon probably had no idea how appealing he looked when he did that. Once again I wondered how many of his mannerisms he’d unconsciously picked up from his mother. He definitely didn’t act like an alien…at least, not all the time.

  I picked up my own cup of water and drank some. “It’s an easy way to make good part-time money. I wasn’t really ready to settle down with a practice, especially since I was just about to — ”

  The words broke off then, and I couldn’t look at him. I’d been planning to transfer to NAU in August, since there wasn’t anything more I could do at the local community college, and both my parents had made it pretty clear that being a full-time psychic without a college degree was not in the cards — no pun intended — when it came to my future.

  Now, though? I didn’t even know what the next day held for me, but I was pretty sure it didn’t involve heading up to NAU to make sure all my transcripts had been received and that I would be ready to go for the next school year.

  “What is it?” His tone was gentle — too gentle. I didn’t want him to be nice to me. I was already fighting something I didn’t quite understand.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “The part-time work was good to fit in around my college schedule. Anyway, working at the shops is good practice.”

  “Oh.” Gideon didn’t say anything for a moment. He probably could tell I was leaving something out but wasn’t going to push it. “So you were treated differently because of your gifts?”

  “Of course. That is, no one ever came out and really talked about it, but….” I stopped there. No point in going into that one humiliating incident in my sophomore year of high school when I thought Tyler Lewis, one of the best-looking guys in school and someone who should have been completely out of my league, started to take an interest in me. I’d been over the moon from his attention — until it turned out he was only interested because he’d heard I was a psychic, and he was flunking English and wanted me to get the answers to the class’s midterm test so he wouldn’t get kicked off the football team.