by Gini Koch
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
Teaser chapter
“MY FATHER FIGURES THERE’S SOME KIND OF ISSUE WITH SUCCESSION BACK ON THE HOME WORLD.”
“How so?” White asked. “There were plenty of other children and grandchildren.”
“When you left. Maybe not now.” Martini managed a weak grin in my direction. “You wouldn’t like the succession rules.”
“Male lines, male children only, right?”
“Right.”
“Similar to Earth, Jeff.”
“Only, on Earth, if there is no male child, they’ll allow a female to rule.”
“Not so on the old home world?” I asked White.
“Not so far as we know.”
“And since Christopher’s male, there’s a chance he could be involved in the succession issues.” Martini was so upset he could barely talk. “So they’re coming here. But it’s not to attend the wedding, most likely. At least, that’s not the main goal.”
I got a funny feeling. “What are they coming for, then, Jeff?”
He looked straight at me, and I could tell how much he hated what he had to say to me. “To pass judgment on whether or not you’re appropriate royal marriage material.”
“This delightful romp has many interesting twists and turns as it glances at racism, politics, and religion en route. It will have fanciers of cinematic sf parodies referencing Men in Black, Ghostbusters, and X-Men.”
—Booklist (starred review)
DAW Books Presents GINI KOCH’s Alien Novels:
TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN
ALIEN TANGO
ALIEN IN THE FAMILY
ALIEN PROLIFERATION
(coming in December 2011)
Copyright © 2011 by Jeanne Cook.
All Rights Reserved.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1545.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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First Printing, April 2011
eISBN : 978-1-101-51354-5
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HECHO EN U.S.A.
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http://us.penguingroup.com
To Mom & Dad and Mumsy & Daddy,
for proving there really are people out there
who mate for life; and to Steve, who made sure
there are two more of us who do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks and many “I am not worthies” to Sheila Gilbert for always saying those magic words every author dreams of hearing from her editor and continuously helping make my writing stronger and better, and to Cherry Weiner for still being the best there is—agent, friend, sounding-board, and shoulder.
To Lisa Dovichi, Crit Partner Extraordinaire, and to Mary Fiore, Beta Reader to the Stars, I say what I’ve been saying all along: Still couldn’t do it without you.
Many thanks to The Galaxy Express, the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, 1st Turning Point, and Desert Rose RWA for tons of support and promotion. Same again to everyone at Haggard Chiropractic, Hand & Stone Paradise Valley, and Innerlooks Salon for continuous support and promotion, even though books are not your businesses. Much love and many shout outs to the awesome book review bloggers out there—there’s too many to list here (though you’re all on my Blog Roll), but you all do more to keep books alive and going strong than any others, and you have the love and thanks of this grateful alien nation.
Extra shout outs to: Gabrielle Weber for being my biggest little fan; author Amber Scott for continuous cheering, support, and enthusiasm; artist Daniel Dos Santos whose brilliant, beautiful covers make my books come alive; and Danny and Akiko, for insisting I practice reading aloud to them before hitting the con circuit (and thereby saving me from sounding like a speed-reading squirrel on amphetamines).
Thanks again to everyone I thanked the last times, anyone I might have missed at any time, and everyone else added into the “family” and the Big Dawg Pack along the way, for all you do and keep on doing—you know who you are and why I love and appreciate you. (If you’re saying, but does she mean me, the answer is yes, yes I do.)
Extra special thanks to Team Gini, all those on Hook Me Up!, and all Alien Collective Members in Very Good Standing around the globe—you’re the best fans EVER and each and every one of you totally rock my world.
Finally, as before and always, the biggest thanks and all my love to Steve and Veronica—I couldn’t have created a better husband and daughter than you are in real life.
IN SPRINGTIME A YOUNG ALIEN’S THOUGHTS turn to love. And marriage. And, as fast as possible, the baby carriage.
Dating anyone from a different culture can be hard. Try dating one from a different planet. Oh, and working with him, too. Every day. Every single day.
I like being a superbeing exterminator. The hours are kind of random, but the benefits are great, especially the benefit of getting to live and work with the most gorgeous people on Earth. Sure,
they have two hearts, can run at hyperspeed, and actually come from Alpha Centauri. But, hey, they’re just regular folks, for the most part.
On the other hand, planning a wedding with one of them is not the easiest fish to fry. Not, realistically, that frying fish is all that hard. Not that I would, personally, know, either, since I avoid active participation in all kitchens except under extreme duress. Okay, fish fry equals bad example.
But mixing wedding planning along with protecting the Earth from all the threats, internal and extremely external, that plague it on a daily freaking basis is not a piece of cake. Particularly when you already come from a religiously mixed family and are mixing in a third one. That you can’t tell your family about. No worries, been lying to them about my career change for almost a year, not like telling the grandparents another whopper will kill them. Right?
I’ll just keep them distracted with lots of doublespeak and focus their attention on things like flowers and seating arrangements. Before they know it, the wedding will be over, and they’ll all go back to their lives, none the wiser.
Yeah, I know. It’s one of my plans. It’ll go all Dog Day Afternoon somewhere along the line. But a girl can dream, can’t she?
CHAPTER 1
“WHY ARE WE WAITING OUT HERE in the middle of the night?” Martini asked for what, by my count, was the tenth time in less than an hour.
“Because Chuckie said there was something here we needed to see, Jeff. You know, like I’ve said for the past, oh, hours?”
“Why do you insist on calling him Chuckie?” Martini was really in a mood. Possibly because we’d been interrupted in the middle of a very romantic dinner by Chuckie’s phone call. To me, not to Martini.
“Because that’s what I’ve called him since ninth grade, and calling him Mister Reynolds seems sort of stupid, calling him Charles sounds like I think he’s my uncle, and if I’m going to call him Chuck, then I’m going to add on the ‘e.’ ” Of course, I knew the real reason Martini wasn’t happy. But I wasn’t going to bring it up. We’d had the jealousy chat months ago, and he was supposed to be working on dealing with the fact that other men occasionally found me attractive and trying not to be a jerk about it. Tonight he wasn’t doing so well.
“Jeff, you know you could go on back to the Science Center and let me and Kitty handle it.” Reader winked at me where Martini couldn’t see.
“Right, thanks for the offer, James. But just how would the two of you get out of here if there were any problems?”
Martini had a point. We were perched on the top of Animas Peak in New Mexico, staring at pretty much nothing. Reader and I, being human, would have a hard time getting anywhere fast if Martini or another Alpha Centaurion wasn’t with us. On the other hand, we could drive and fly because our reflexes weren’t so good that they destroyed Earth machinery. So we had that going for us.
On the other hand, we’d gotten to this point via a gate, which was alien technology that let you move hundreds or thousands of miles in seconds and had the added advantage of making you completely nauseated. On the other hand, because we weren’t aliens, neither Reader nor I could actually see the gate that had deposited us here, on top of a really high mountain, in the middle of the night. (Yeah, I know, that’s a lot of hands.) I thought about the drop and sidled a little closer to Martini.
My walkie chirped. “Kitty, you there?”
“Hi, Christopher. How goes it at your location?”
“Dull, dark, and boring. You sure the C.I.A.’s not trying to kill us or freeze us to death?”
“Somewhat positive. We’re supposed to see something. Soon.”
“I’m seeing my bed. It’s nowhere near me, but I can see it.”
“Hilarious. How’s Tim doing?”
“He’s as bored as I am. So’s Paul, should you care to know. ACE, however, seems fascinated.”
“Glad one of you, or at least part of one of you, isn’t sitting around complaining like an old lady.” ACE was a superconsciousness I’d managed to channel into Paul Gower a few months back so it couldn’t accidentally destroy the entire world. ACE usually did its best to hang in the background, but whenever Paul was bored, it tended to show up a little more.
“At least it’s stopped asking about our sex life,” Reader muttered.
“ACE is just interested in things.”
“Girlfriend, I don’t even want to get into how totally unromantic you get when you have to clinically explain kissing, let alone any other sexual act, to an entity that didn’t have a body for most of its existence.”
I thought about it. “Um, ick.”
“In a word, yeah.” Reader had been the top international male supermodel for several years running. Then he’d joined up with the boys from Alpha Centauri, or A-Cs as they called themselves. He’d been an agent longer than I had, but he had somehow become my best friend in my new life. We had a lot in common, including being in love with an alien. Reader and Gower had been a couple longer than I’d known them, which was going on a year. In that time, they’d fought all of once. I’d been with Martini almost a year, and in that time we’d fought . . . a lot more than once.
I could tell Martini picked up my emotions, because he reached out and pulled me to him. As he was the most powerful empath on Earth, this wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t go insane from all the myriad emotions batting around everywhere and from everyone because of the blocks and other empathic-protection goodies the A-Cs knew how to install in their brains and use. Martini didn’t have blocks up against my emotions. Sometimes I wondered if that was a wise choice on his part.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m just tired and tired of waiting. And you’re freezing.”
“A little.” Okay, a lot. I just didn’t want to complain. I was in the standard-issue clothing for working female A-Cs—white Oxford button-down, black slim skirt, and a long, black trench coat, all Armani. I was also in Aerosole pumps because the A-Cs believed in looking good while feeling comfortable. But we were on top of a high mountain, and while the guys were in their standard black Armani suits with their white Armani shirts and their long black trench coats, they seemed to shove off the cold better, even the human guys.
Martini opened his coat, pulled me against him, and wrapped it around me. “Better?”
I snuggled up and leaned my head against his chest. “Mmmm, yeah.” He was warm, and I always found his body heat and double heartbeats soothing.
“Baby? Wake up.”
“I was awake.”
“You don’t snore when you’re awake.”
“I wasn’t snoring!”
Reader coughed. “Um, yeah, yeah, you were.”
Martini’s walkie crackled. “Yeah, we could hear you snoring over here.” I could tell Christopher was snickering.
“You played my snoring for them?”
Martini shrugged. “I wanted to make sure they were awake. Not my fault you were sort of loud. You coming down with a cold?”
“No, I am not. Though if we’re here much longer, I might.”
“Blame good ol’ Conspiracy Chuck. I’m not the one who suggested a romantic rendezvous out here.”
“You know I don’t call him that. Only people who weren’t his friends called him that.”
“Which is why I feel great calling him that.”
I let it pass. I mean, I didn’t want to head into one of Martini’s favorite complaints, which was that I was far too willing to take Chuckie’s calls. “Besides, this isn’t a date.”
“I know. I’m really clear that this is not how I planned to end the evening.”
I pulled my walkie out of my purse. “Jerry, you guys okay?”
“Yeah, but why is it we got stuck on the coldest ridge?” Jerry Tucker was one of the Navy Top Gun pilots assigned to Centaurion Division in general and to my Airborne team in specific. He was on Chiricahua Peak in Arizona. Christopher’s team was on Big Hatchet in New Mexico. All high, all cold at this time of year, all lacking a C.I.A. operative.
“Thanks. You know, Matt, Chip, and I all outrank you, James.”
“Only in the Navy. Around here, experience and longevity count more.” Reader was trying not to laugh.
“Then how is it Kitty’s in charge of Airborne?” Tim Crawford, also part of my team, was laughing. Like Reader, Tim lived to be a smartass.
“Oh, shut up.”
“It’s worse over here,” Christopher snapped. “We’re on the edge of a knife. The rest of you at least have something to stand on.”
“That’s why it’s two A-Cs to one human over there. Stop whining. Jerry, anything over there? At all?”
“No, but I’m really glad you guys let Michael come with us.” Michael Gower was Paul’s younger brother and was visiting us while on vacation from NASA. He was also an astronaut, but I doubted this was why Jerry was glad he was there. The idea of not having an A-C with you while on a scary high mountain had dawned on me already. “You know, Cochise’s ghost is supposed to haunt these mountains.”
“A ghost would at least be something interesting,” Reader offered.
We waited a few more minutes, then I heard something different. It sounded as though a very muted sprinkler system had just started up. “Chuckie’s here.”
The sleek, black helicopter set down far enough away from us that we weren’t too windblown. A tall man bundled up in a long overcoat got out and sauntered over to us. I attempted to move out of Martini’s arms, but they were locked around me. I was cold enough I decided not to argue.
“Took you long enough, Reynolds,” Martini snapped as Chuckie got near enough to hear him.
Chuckie shook his head. “Always a pleasure, Martini. Kitty, how’re you doing?”
“Fine. Cold and bored, but fine.”
Chuckie nodded his head toward Reader. “Good to see you.”
“Damn, but you lie well,” Reader said with a smile. No one but me seemed to like Chuckie. Oh, well. He didn’t seem to mind.
