“I think it’s a girl!” Tony replied as he brushed hunks of snow from the interlocked form and discovered long hair, encrusted with ice.
“Kirrina! She expected this!” Konig shook his head, recalling the foreknowledge she had displayed by her advice during their hasty preparation for the search, as the hangar loomed into view through the storm, where the hangar doors would start to open in moments. “How does she do it?”
Tony was too worried about the motionless girl to respond.
Chapter Seven
Getting down to the truth
“Walt and Tony… one great pilot, one smart kid, and together an unbeatable rescue team. No worries there! But while they’re gone, we have a lot of catch-up to do,” Kirrina explained to the NUIT team as soon as the air stopped rushing around and the warmth being pumped out by the hangar heaters started to raise the temperature once more. “We’ll do that as we show you ‘the basement’. But first of all, we want to explain something that you might find hard to believe.” Karen took her winter jacket off and passed it to Penny-Lee, grateful that this GAF member was always looking for ways to be helpful, then she looked at her husband, certain that his contribution to this ‘education’ would be priceless, though she had not had time to learn from him exactly what he had in mind.
Richard nodded, shucking off his own coat but merely slinging it over his shoulder, aware that Kirrina wanted to give the NUIT team an unshakable conviction of the trustworthiness of their shipmate, Paranak, and that this somehow had to be achieved before they learned about his existence and most certainly before they were introduced to him. And the only way to do this is by mind-to-mind contact. Both of them knew that Baynes in particular was likely to baulk at this idea. The thoughtful Mister Fletcher had an ‘ace’ up his sleeve, however, that he felt would get their minds working, especially the rather intractable Chief himself. His message to initiate this plan had been sent a scant few minutes earlier, via the Fepnine tech. link between the subterranean facility and the Hawk house, and he glanced behind, expecting that it would pay off at any moment.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Richard announced as he noticed a shimmering as a running figure appeared a short distance behind their loose grouping. Excellent timing, dear Enid! After her Restoration, Richard had arranged for his aunt to live in what had been the ‘Fletcher room’ in the Hawk’s house, (she had chosen to bed-down on the floor with a mini-Medic produced padded sleeping bag and had left the queen-size bed to the parents of a family of five with whom she shared the – fortunately – large room) and she had soon taken over the Hawk kitchen, organising the feeding of the forty or so temporary inhabitants. In his brief message, Richard had asked her to come to the hangar, and had reminded her to use the Matrix Modules in the six mile-long tunnel so she would arrive as quickly as possible. (In the past couple of days, she had taken to running the entire length at every available opportunity, motivated by a kind of ‘I climbed it because it was there’ approach to her new life, one that reminded her with every muscle movement and pounding pedestrian impact that she was not only cured of every debilitating disease that had ailed her for so many years and, more recently, had almost finished her off, but was as fit as an Olympic athlete).
He waved, and she waved back and ran over.
Richard could see that she was in her recently favoured athletic style of clothing: bright turquoise pants with white stripes down the outside of each leg, a close-fitting, wide-necked tee-shirt of the same colour, and some kind of black, vaguely oval-shaped pendant on a silver chain around her neck, emphasizing her youthful curves by virtue of how and where it hung. She slowed up as she drew nearer and curved her route around so as to come up beside him. A slightly elevated rate of breathing indicated that she had indeed run hard between the eight Matrix Modules in the tunnel. (Even a nigh-on perfectly Restored female with an estimated equivalent age of twenty-nine could not do the six miles unaided by technology in the scant few minutes since he had called her. Enid typically covered the distance in a few seconds more than twenty five minutes, when she pushed herself.)
“Oh, Richard! I came as quick as I could; I had to get someone else to take over the cooking for me first, though – I did that and made the whole trip in a minute and forty-two seconds!” She threw back her thick mass of curly brown hair and slumped over Richard’s shoulder, kissing him on the cheek as she did so. She turned her attention to the platinum blonde at his side. “Hi, Karen – Dear! You look gorgeous today!”
Richard was surprised to see his wife blush at this and realised she already had figured out that he had not suggested that particular wording as a part of the script for the much older lady’s dramatic entrance.
Naturally, Judy, Leroy and Ed had turned to see her and it was obvious that she had made a very positive impression on the group, and especially the two men. Before Richard could make the introductions (and exactly as he had asked her) the apparently young and obviously vigorous, healthy lady spoke her part:
“Well, well, it’s that ‘Chief’ again, Edward Baynes, isn’t it?” She took his hand and shook it with an exaggerated enthusiasm. “Are you here to ask me more questions about my nephew?” She then stared at him, as if to challenge him to remember her.
There was absolute silence from the confused Ed, and Richard grinned as his aunt caught his eye. “You’d think he’d remember a pretty face?” Enid sounded tragically disappointed and introduced herself to Judy and Leroy as Richard’s big sister, leaving the thoroughly confused NUIT chief to puzzle out her identity!
Finally, the penny dropped. Baynes muttered a few unintelligible words, stopped in mid-sentence, or mid ‘gabble’, and tried again: “Enid Schroder? Enid Schroder!”
“You really don’t look too good, Edward.” Enid turned to Richard and Kirrina again. “Haven’t you told him about the Medic yet?”
Kirrina had reached a full appreciation of Richard’s ploy at this point and sent a mental message to her husband, congratulating him on his approach. She smiled knowingly as she listened to him continuing the tactics suggested by the appearance of his aunt.
“Oh Enid! I wanted to, and a whole lot more, but he has such a distrustful, suspicious approach to others that I don’t think he would consider it.” Richard sounded saddened, but was trying hard not to mock. “Especially as we don’t have time to give a play-by-play account to him, or a forty page executive summary, and so we need to get him and his team to allow my beautiful wife to give them the information mind-to-mind, a process that you, from personal, recent experience, know only takes a few seconds.”
“Yup…” Enid agreed. “That’s how it was when I arrived here, and I looked much worse than he does, if you can believe it!” Here she winked at Judy, who had to cover her face to hold in the guffaw that threatened to erupt at this outrageous comment. “Ten minutes later, and…” She spun around on the balls of her feet and curtsied to Leroy, something that came across as quite startling, clothed as she was in a very ‘un-dressy’, sporty style outfit. “Presto! New me!”
Richard laughed at her craziness and was pleased to hear the NUIT threesome laughing too. He looked over at his wife again and saw her dimples very much in evidence, her eyes sparkling their bluest of blue shade.
“This is too much to take in.” Baynes stepped forward and spread his arms out in a gesture of apology, surrender and acceptance. “I will admit what I should already have realised, or accepted – I am… we all are… in your hands.”
“Try not to worry. It won’t hurt.” Now we are getting somewhere! Kirrina reached out her right hand and placed it against his cheek. Before he changes his mind! Leroy and Judy watched a little tensely, remembering the controlling power that this deceptively fragile-looking beauty wielded.
Ed’s expression became distant, his focus on things not to be found within the confines of the massive hangar.
In less than a minute, Karen took her hand away again and stepped back with a sigh and a subtle shake of h
er head.
Baynes continued to stare at the far end of the hangar for a few more moments, then his gaze dropped to a point near his feet and his expression became almost tragic.
Kirrina turned to Judy next: “Are you ready?”
Judy glanced briefly at her boss and saw him nod, his expression telling her that the process was sobering but perfectly safe.
Kirrina reached out her hand again and laid it gently against Judy’s cheek. The surveillance expert closed her eyes and tried to relax, and Karen did the same. Both seemed to freeze in position, until Richard was reminded of waxworks he had seen on a European trip with his brother and parents three years earlier. A full two minutes passed before his wife pulled her hand away, then reached back and wiped a tear from Judy’s right cheek. She looked deep into the sad blue eyes that now seemed wise, so indicative of the newly planted knowledge behind them.
“We’ll go together,” Karen stated simply as the blue flooded back into her own irises, her comment a continuation of some unspoken discussion from their mental linkage. She waited to see Brisson’s nod and the nervous pulling in of her lower lip, and then turned to the big black Fraser, putting her ultra-pale hand against his rough skin.
He looked at her, saw her eyes flicker with a hint of grey, and his tension faded away. All the participants of this remarkable tableau remained still once again.
As Kirrina moved her hand away about a minute later, he turned his head slightly and kissed her palm. She smiled as if to say: ‘That’s more like it!’
“Well, I can’t stop; I’m getting back to the cooking!” Enid declared, satisfied that she had done what her nephew had wanted. I can run the whole way and still get there before that pie will be ready! “Enjoy the basement!” I wish I could see their faces – especially Judy’s – when they meet Paranak!
There were hasty responses, smiles and handshakes from the NUIT members; Richard and Karen nodded to each other knowingly as they both concluded from Enid’s expression that she would do the return trip unaided by technology.
The wildly varied clutch of people walked towards the centre of the hangar in unspoken agreement. Enid vanished unnoticed not far behind them as she returned to the tunnel at a truly medal-worthy speed. Richard took Judy’s hand in his, his wife took a hand-hold on each man, and a few seconds later they shimmered down ‘below,’ with both men feeling an unfamiliar sense of gradual depletion from the contact with the temporarily low-powered Empowered One.
Richard and Karen stepped aside to let the NUIT threesome have an unhindered view of the construction zone from near the centre of the great chamber that they were now inside.
Wide eyes and more than one hasty intake of breath – Judy looked like she still needed Richard’s hand to reassure her, whilst Ed and Leroy seemed more focused on the impressive revelation of softly gleaming, curved, cathedral dome-like walls, details fading into darkness high overhead. They looked next at the wide-curving row of grey hulks, the two ebony-black completed vessels, both with an additional sphere at the end nearest them, and the strange collection of partly assembled components and devices which seemed to fill almost all the space between them. They noticed that the floor was bronze-like, too. Then, between some equipment, they saw the dark, rather blocky body of the alien that they now understood was their best ally. Paranak was working alongside, or, more accurately, from a foot or so behind an outlandishly-dressed oriental girl.
Jane was wearing a mini-skirted, bib-fronted, pale blue denim dress over a sleeveless, spaghetti-strapped, silky turquoise top, her feet sported short fluorescent yellow socks and lime green plimsolls. The kneeling, naked Narlav was making adjustments with his incredibly long arms to switches and settings on equipment on either side of her as she tweaked the red and black spiral-decorated floating Hoist sphere in front of her.
Baynes headed over to this interesting scene, his subordinates and the Fletcher couple following close behind. Once past some intervening structures, he saw that a large, crate-like cube was floating in the air a few feet in front of the incongruous pair. Jane noticed the approaching delegation with her periphery vision a moment later and pushed the control sphere downwards until the box settled onto the floor again. She twisted around and whispered rapidly to Paranak.
“Hello, destroyers!” The alien voice boomed forth as the Narlav rose with startling ease from his backwards-kneeling position and turned towards the approaching group. He looked at the three new humans with unconcealed unease, Jane holding on to his left arm as she tried to anticipate and pacify the anger that was embedded in these simple words. The NUIT three seemed completely overawed, despite the mental preparation that Kirrina had given them, just minutes before.
“I am Paranak, a Narlav warrior from Craklav, previously known as Shoona, one of many former human colony worlds conquered by my people. I am the only known Narlav friend to humanity. And you? You are friends to humanity? Are you friends to your own?”
Chapter Eight
Rods, rings and pivots
“This is too incredible! You – a friend to Man? How can that be?” Leroy questioned, still struggling to assimilate the knowledge that had been gifted to him so intimately and missing the question posed so pointedly... and with subtle sarcasm.
“How can you still doubt, after my blood sister has spoken to your mind?”
Fraser’s gaze dropped.
“We-we’ve been preparing to fight the Narlavs for so long and now we find that the secret, undercover team we thought of as the greatest danger on Earth is in fact our ally, but the leadership of that team includes one of the enemy! What do you expect?” Baynes forced himself to step closer, finding himself seriously intimidated by the sheer bulk of the alien form, despite Paranak’s significantly shorter stature.
“You must search your mind. Kirrina will have given you more than you can imagine, more than you can possibly comprehend without much contemplation and that will take time that you do not have at this point, but I must remind you that it would have been a simple matter for me to eliminate your entire attack team, and Kirrina and Richard, a few minutes ago from the mighty Patrol Craft you previously knew as Citadel.”
“You were piloting that ship?” Baynes stopped at what appeared to be a safe distance from those long arms. He seemed to find this revelation hard to take.
“Kirrina took the ship out.” Paranak’s eye space wrinkled as he corrected the NUIT Chief’s partly erroneous conclusion. “I kept it on station above your forces as she went down to take control and finish the battle with her superior mind. I had all the atmospheric weapons standing by, trained on each one of your warriors, yes, even the ones who had made it inside the hangar. It would have been over in less than thirty of your seconds. You already know the power of Quantum Lasers.”
“I don’t know about you two, but that’s good enough for me!” Judy put a brave smile on her face, walked a little hesitantly up to the Narlav and reached out, almost touching his upper arms as she observed the double elbows and the great length which the upper, middle and forearms together comprised. Arms more like a gorilla, than… a gorilla!
“Ah!” Paranak regarded her with his wide-spaced eyes. “You find this form superior – I can see it in your face.” He looked at Kirrina and nodded, turning back to the widening mouth with appreciation. “And you are a fierce female, too!”
Judy grinned, inadvertently stretching her mouth even further, unsure whether to take this declaration as a compliment, but aware that something has passed between this blocky creature and the stunning young human that had gifted Judy’s mind with a wider view of the Galaxy and its intelligent inhabitants.
A sudden gust of air took her gaze upwards and she observed the sleek yellow and black striped shape of Seagull, which, having dropped obliquely from the centre of the chamber was now nearing the black bulk of the Citadel – Patrol Craft One combination. Her eyes widened as the Aircar shimmered and disappeared just before it would have hit the much larger ship.
&nb
sp; “Yes, your team is now reassembled.” Kirrina nodded as she noted the three NUIT representatives had each tentatively grasped this conclusion, with varying degrees of relief and confidence. “They will experience the Medic before you do – their need is immediate.”
“They?” Baynes caught the implication, then swayed as his forgotten conversation with Amber came back to him, aided perhaps by Karen’s subtle ‘touch’. “THEY!”
“You’d better get in there with Ed.” Richard knew his wife understood what needed to be done, but spoke aloud for the benefit of the ungifted others present. “I’ll continue here with Leroy, Judy, Jane and Paranak.”
Judy and Leroy watched, puzzled at the idea that someone else was rescued with Eric, as their boss ran towards the smooth, curved mass that was known as Citadel with Karen right beside him. The shorter of the two runners reached for the other’s hand as they neared their destination.
Richard waited until his wife and the Chief of NUIT shimmered out of sight, then explained:
“It seems your Ed had vaguely offered to spend part of last weekend visiting with his niece, and that she thought he really meant it. Your Eric was bringing her with him when the storm struck. Fortunately…” The young Fletcher paused, as he recalled the sad experiences Doctor Hawk had been through recently, with bodies too far gone even for the vaunted Arshonnan technology to repair.
Kirrina’s welcome communication came through very quickly and Richard released the breath he had been unconsciously holding.
“Fortunately, our Medic has restored her; she’ll be fine.”
Jane, seeing how worried Judy had become, left her position next to Paranak and stepped up in front of the slightly older woman, taking hold of her arms just above the elbows and looking up somewhat with her startlingly black eyes as she began to reveal the painful portion of her past, a part that still overshadowed her existence:
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