The World Security officer dropped them off at the building’s door and drove away with no mention of when, or even if, he’d be returning for them.
Dia grunted under her breath as they walked inside the building to a much cooler interior. Wherever they were in the world, the location outside was hot. While she adjusted to the cool, she wondered what kind of military dog and pony show was about to be put on for their benefit.
A man dressed in a white coat stood alone as he waited for them inside the foyer. He was tall with slightly sallow cheeks and pale skin. The off-white scientist coat he wore only worsened his appearance. He was also very thin with eyes far too large for his face. His demeanor was calm but there was no smile of welcome for them.
Strangely, there were no World Security people with the scientist despite all the military people she’d seen outside. If this was Dr. Sarek, they’d left him alone to contend with the three of them. That didn’t seem normal to Dia who’d spent her life in the military, but she refused to worry about it. This wasn’t her circus, and the pale scientist wasn’t her monkey.
Dia took one step forward and then couldn’t move. Something paralyzed her. She couldn’t look down. Kyra walked on unaware of her issues. She couldn’t move her head or eyes enough to see what was happening to Peyton.
“Greetings, Dr. Winters. I am Sarek. I always suspected we would meet one day. I wish it was for better reasons. You have a very advanced mind for a human.”
Kyra cleared her throat to speak. She habitually looked for Peyton and found him frozen mid-step. So was Dia. Her gaze whipped back to the male in front of her. “What did you do to them?”
“Nothing harmful. They can both still hear us.”
“They look paralyzed,” Kyra accused.
“The effect is temporary. I needed to make my point quickly. Humans are remarkably easy to control. If my people’s intentions were not good, we would have enslaved all the Earth humans many thousands of years ago. When I meet new humans, I find it best to get the fear question out of the way. Yes, I can control you, but I have no wish to do so. This demonstration is merely to save us time.”
“Why didn’t you freeze me as well?” Kyra asked.
“Your intelligence shields you and it would be more challenging. Their military training provides me easy access to their physics. They do not question a circumstance—they jump straight to suspecting foul play. I slip in between their beliefs and they help me manifest the reality of their control. Your mind, on the other hand, is spinning with a hundred questions about how I could do this. It would take me far more time to wait for you to relax enough to be controlled.”
Sarek glanced at Peyton and Dia. “My apologies,” he said, bowing his head to them as they resumed normal action. “I wanted there to be no misunderstanding about why I met you alone. I am pleased you are here. It is rare that humans want to involve themselves in what I am doing. Your species has yet to figure out that diversification is critical to humanity’s ultimate survival as a species.”
Sarek turned and looked at Dia. “I confess to being most intrigued by your appearance. You are not a cyborg, Diana Daniels. Why are you pretending to be one?”
Dia rubbed her hands. They still tingled from whatever he’d done to her. What the hell? “My deceit was not aimed at you. It was to keep my identity secret from the UCN and World Security. They wouldn’t have allowed me to come here if they knew who I really was.”
“Ah, yes. During our first com, Kyra said one of our hybrid volunteers was a relative of yours.”
Dia walked forward to him and raised her chin. “He’s more than a relative. He’s my husband.”
Sarek took a startled step back. “Your husband? Are you telling me my hybrid alpha is your mate?”
Dia swallowed tightly before speaking. He sounded so sincerely shocked. Was she just hearing what she wanted to hear? That this was all some sort of mistake?
“My husband’s name is Ashland Daniels. They converted him into a cyborg to fight in the last World War. I’ve been looking for him for ten years. I thought he was dead. They gave Kyra and Peyton a list of the cyborgs who were donated to your hybridization program. Ash’s name was on that list.”
Sarek clasped his hands in front of him. Dia’s gaze fell to where the long digits of both his hands intertwined. The man looked somewhat human but you could tell he wasn’t. He didn’t look all that scary, but the man had paralyzed her without seeming to exert any effort at all.
“I was not made aware that any program participant had a mate. That information was kept from me,” Sarek said.
“It was kept from me too,” Dia said. “Can I see him?”
Dia fought hard not to squirm as Sarek’s dark gaze looked through her to some place she didn’t know existed inside her body. She’d never felt so vulnerable and exposed.
“Please,” Dia said, the plea slipping out. “I need to see him. I need to know he’s okay.”
“Your presence explains much for me,” Sarek said quietly. He bowed his head to Dia again. “Your mate is well. He is our most successful hybrid. He gravitated naturally into a leadership role. I call him the alpha of the group because they look to him when a group decision must be made. He was the one who sorted out the distribution of females from the volunteers sent from my home planet.”
Dia nodded. Females? Had Ash replaced her? She couldn’t blame him when she’d nearly done the same. Her gaze dropped to floor. She didn’t want Ashland to be alone in his new life. When she raised her face, she’d made peace with her replacement.
“That sounds like Ash, all right. He always was a team player and others responded to that. Several times he was the youngest person in his unit to advance rank.”
“I regret that I cannot return him to you. When I was genetically modified for Earth existence, my mate elected to be changed with me. They do not allow us to reproduce on this planet because we are not here for that purpose. My mate’s sacrifice to be at my side was very large. Aya and I are here until we die. I understand mated relationships and would never willingly divide a pair bond. It would be too cruel to the beings involved.”
Dia lifted a hand. “It’s been ten years since I saw him. I thought my husband was dead. Now I know he is not. I just want to see him. Do you understand?”
Sarek’s head bobbed. “I do. I will ask my mate, Aya, to join us later. She is better at showing sympathy than I am. I feel a need to comfort you.”
“You can skip all that,” Dia said, waving her hand. “Just let me see Ash with my own eyes. I need to know he’s okay. If he’s found a mate, I’m happy for him. We’ve been apart for a long time.”
Sarek lifted a hand to indicate they should walk. “There is no new mate for him. He’s refused all the females I’ve recruited. Now I understand why. For a time, I thought he preferred males which would also be a grave loss. We need him to reproduce.”
“Ash prefer males? No, not Ashland Daniels,” Dia said with a laugh. “Give him time,” she advised nearly having to jog to keep up with Sarek’s strides. “Ash takes a while to decide on what he wants. We have that in common. I haven’t taken another mate either.”
Sarek nodded once. “If he chooses not to create offspring, the mission might fail. They will look to your mate’s child to replace him one day. Where the group is going, it will be important for them to have leadership. At least, he seems to have chosen two betas. These are the males he hunts with. He growls at the females and sends them away.”
Dia lifted a shoulder. “You should have converted a horny astronaut instead of an Army Colonel who loved his wife. Ashland is loyal to a fault or he wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I do not understand your statement.”
“Dia is saying her husband was a one-woman man. Most human males are not so selective about females,” Kyra interjected.
“Ah…” Sarek said with a nod. He stopped in front of the door. “It is early evening in the eco-dome. They’ve eaten and are preparing to slee
p. I can’t promise you that you won’t witness some female attempt to lure him to her shelter.”
“I understand. I just want to see he’s okay,” Dia answered.
When Sarek opened the door, Dia lifted her chin and walked inside. She felt Kyra and Peyton step up beside her as well as Sarek as they stopped in front of the glass viewing wall of the dome.
Despite his green skin and the dots marring the tribal tattoos he’d gotten long before she met him, Ash’s keen gaze and brooding stance instantly drew her gaze. His shoulders looked wider. His jaw looked more tense. But he breathed. Sarek hadn’t lied to her. It was really him. Ashland Daniels truly was alive.
“Ash—I honestly thought you were dead,” Dia whispered as two hot tears slid out of her eyes.
Years of thinking he was dead and wondering how he died rolled away from Dia. Now she knew the truth. Ash had survived one hell to be thrust into another.
She leaned her forehead against the glass and let the grief loose of the chokehold she’d kept on it for so many years. She raised her hands to the glass and closed her eyes.
“I’m so sorry this happened. I couldn’t find you,” she said as she sniffed back more tears threatening to fall.
When she opened her eyes again, Ash was looking around him in mild alarm. Just as Sarek predicted, a green-skinned alien with two breasts approached Ash. She couldn’t hear the sound he made, but whatever it was vibrated the glass wall of the dome and against her hands. It strangely made her laugh.
Another female, braver than the first, came over and put her hand on his arm. His shove to get her off him was neither polite nor kind. It was as mean as he’d been at the officer’s club the day they married.
She’d been leaving for her first off-planet mission. Ash had insisted they make their claim on each other legal before she left. Some drunken Major at the club had thought to pull rank and Ash brandishing his shiny gold band hadn’t gotten the “No” message across. Ash had shoved the Major’s hand off his chest and Dia had swung the Major around to face her. The drunken woman had taken one look at her face and run away. She and Ash had laughed about it afterward and gone home to seal their legal marriage the old-fashioned way.
Dia was so focused on Ash that it took her a moment to realize Sarek was talking to her again.
“The hybridization process doesn’t work the same on all humans. It took me years to remove the cybernetics and grow their limbs back. Much of that time, I put them into comas to stop their perception of time moving forward. They all had to be repaired organically because the planet where they’re going will not be able to support technology for centuries.”
“Are you sending them to Mars?”
“Of course not,” Sarek denied in shock. “Why would I send them back to a planet that humans have already destroyed once? They’re heading to populate the exo-planet you quaintly named Proxima Centauri B and that we call Or’El. Their physical bodies have been designed specifically to withstand its greater gravity and less oxygenated atmosphere. My people will deliver them and see that they have all that is needed to survive for two hundred years. If the solar winds do not deter them, their presence should create enough carbon by-products to grow plant life.”
“Proxima Centauri B—that’s definitely too far out for me to do a shuttle fly by,” Dia said wistfully.
“I read you were a space explorer,” Sarek said.
Dia chuckled. Her fingers curled against the glass. “I fly space shuttles. I deliver supplies to our Moonbases and to the Space Station the Earth created many centuries ago. Like all astronauts, I’ve been told there was no life in the universe but us.”
“They lied to you,” Sarek said.
Dia closed her eyes and nodded. “So I’ve learned… they lied in many different ways,” she whispered.
She jumped back when something hit the other side of the wall. She opened her eyes to see only the glass wall separated her from the man she loved. His snarl revealed a mouth full of sharp and pointed teeth.
Sarek gave a startled sound. “How intriguing. He senses you.”
Dia reached out and put a hand on the barrier. “Ash,” she whispered. Her breath caught when he put his hand exactly over where hers rested.
“Dia,” he hissed, glaring at the glass.
She turned to Sarek. “He can still talk.”
“Yes—of course. We kept speech and many of his sensibilities. Your mate’s mind remains primarily human and his human memories appear to be intact. He has the awareness that we have changed him, but he also sees all the others are like him. To lead under duress is the mark of an alpha on my planet. Most of my people are like those females you saw. They are not like my Aya,” Sarek said.
“If I go in there to see him, will I die?” Dia asked, studying Ash’s enormous hand. It was even larger than Sarek’s.
“Yes,” Sarek said. “The other females would perceive you as a threat and try to kill you. However, the atmosphere would end you first.”
Dia nodded and swallowed. “Okay. Would you at least tell him that I came? I want him to know that I never gave up looking for him. Loyalty meant a lot to both of us.”
“I suggest you tell him yourself,” a woman’s voice said from the doorway. She glided in. “I am Aya—Sarek’s mate. And you are the alpha’s female.”
Dia shrugged. “When he was all human, I was his wife.”
Aya looked at Sarek. “The interlock chamber, Sarek. If she wore an oxygen mask, they could visit there for a brief time. It is the right thing to do for them. They need to speak in person to move on. It is the human way to seek… closure.”
Sarek held up a hand. Aya matched him palm to palm. Sarek looked back at Dia. “He could harm you and I could not prevent it. The alpha is often unpredictable.”
Dia shook her head. “That doesn’t worry me one bit. Alien or not—Ashland Daniels would never hurt me.”
Aya dropped her hand. “Come then, Diana Daniels. I will prepare you to see your mate. Sarek, let him know where to come to see her.”
Dia looked back at Ash glaring at the wall. Her husband was no longer human, but the man she loved was still inside the alien hybrid creature trapped on the other side of the glass wall. She’d bet her life on it and this could be the last chance in her life to interact with him.
Dia pulled a folded piece of paper from her clothing and pushed it into Kyra’s hands. “If anything happens… well, I thought a handwritten note would carry more weight about explaining my disappearance. I’ve left my personal effects and my condo to my parents. I’ve designated the Mankind Redefined program to receive my savings. My attorney assured me it couldn’t be contested since I spent all those years looking for Ash. If anything happens, all I ask is that you make sure the world doesn’t find out that I died at the hands of my alien hybrid husband.”
Kyra sighed and nodded. “I will try to remember. I’m still processing what they’ve done to these men and why.”
“Me too,” Dia said with a laugh. “But if I can talk to Ash one more time, I have to take the chance. I don’t believe he’ll hurt me, but even if he does, it will be worth it to look in his eyes and let him know I never gave up. I will die satisfied that I did all I could for him.”
Dia turned and punched a stunned Peyton in the arm. The cyborg hadn’t spoken a word since Sarek froze them. “Buck up, Marine. In case I don’t get to say it later, thanks for getting me here. You Marines… always being the hero.”
Dia turned and followed Aya out of the door before Peyton could find his voice and warn her about the foolishness of putting herself in danger.
8
Aya inspected the breathing mask. “Sarek uses these when the genetic changes are not complete… or when he needs to enter the sanctuary. They are uncomfortable for those being altered, but we keep the subjects in a comatose state so they are unaware. Because you are human, the time this allows you will be short.”
Dia clipped the mask into place and then released it to show Aya that she
knew how it worked. “I use a mask like this when I pilot space shuttles. The shuttle has to use life support power during certain maneuvers. These are my lifeline.”
Aya stopped checking and stepped back. “Are you concerned about seeing him?”
Dia shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m happy Ash is alive. I’m appalled at what you and Sarek have done to him. It’s all very… shocking.”
“I understand. Your mate was not the one intended for this mission, but he has exceeded all our expectations. He is the perfect hybrid.”
“Who was intended?” Dia asked.
“An astronaut like yourself. We had requested a pilot. Those skills would be most useful for this group. As I recall, the male was not cybernetically altered like your mate. He was supposed to be the first, and we assumed he’d be the leader.”
The little hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. “Do you remember his name?” Dia asked.
“Scott. He was the one who talked your Ashland into volunteering. It did not take him long as I recall.”
“Scott Landry?”
“I believe that is true, but I would have to check to confirm. I find it difficult to remember more than one name. His avocation is my strongest recall of him.”
Dia put a hand in her hair. “He’s my boss. He runs the shuttle program now. He taught me everything I know about flying shuttles.”
Aya’s head tilted to the side. “Yet he kept this secret from you?”
Dia shrugged. “Yes, and I don’t understand why. Scott stood with us at our wedding. No wonder Ash went along with what he said. They were friends. We were all friends… or at least, I thought we were.”
Sarek walked through the door. “The alpha waits for you in the neutral zone.”
“I’m ready,” Dia said as she clipped her mask back into place.
“Remember in Earth’s gravity your mate is very strong. The gravity in the neutral zone will not slow him at all, but it will make your actions sluggish and tired. I regret the disparateness.”
Ashland 297: The Alien Agenda Page 5
