Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1)

by Rusty Williamson

  She looked down at the anthill in surprise—an anthill was not something you usually saw at Hideaway. Instinctively, she walked over and bent down for a closer look, “At least they’re not the red ones that bite.” When she stood, she found herself very close to Adamarus.

  They looked at each other and Adamarus felt something pass between them. Then they both blinked and looked away and the moment was gone. They both stepped back awkwardly and looked away from each other.

  After a few seconds, Adamarus said, “Look,” and pointed upwards. Through the trees and rising mists, they could see a rainbow stretching from one side of the atrium to the other. Spellbound, they watched it.

  Suddenly the background sounds of the birds surged to the foreground and dozens exploded from the trees and rose into the air. They flew upwards towards the shimmering colored arch and then seemed to fly around and through the misty bands of color.

  A second later, the reason for the commotion appeared—Leewood and Harrington were walking quickly towards them. Adamarus and Evelyn set out and met them halfway.

  Leewood and Harrington did not look well. Both were pale and Harrington’s eyes were red and puffy from crying. They seemed to pause awkwardly, look at Evelyn and then at each other. Evelyn was about to ask them what was going on when Leewood said, “Secretary of Defense Thornton has committed suicide.”

  ---

  That evening, Wicker had recovered as much as possible from the ordeal and sat alone in his office. He had finally dealt with all the security people, the police, the interviews, the required written statements, the concerned friends, staff members, and aides.

  Fortunately, Thornton had never married and his only living relative was a sister. Wicker had personally called and notified her.

  They had found Lance Thornton’s final correspondence on his desk in a blank unsealed envelope. Now Wicker settled back for his second reading of the suicide note.

  “My worst nightmare as a child…the thing I feared most when I was growing up…was this: I imagined that if the ocean somehow drained, the empty chasm it would leave behind would be too immense to look into. More than anything else, I had always feared looking into such an abyss. Now I find myself standing at the edge of an infinite cosmic rift more enormous, vaster, than anything I could ever imagine and my terror is absolute.”

  “I have pledged to guard and protect the people of our world and settlements, an oath that meant everything to me. But I can see now that my failure is complete. Forgive me, but I cannot continue on with the weight of this failure while balancing myself at the edge of an abyss so vast that I cannot even think about it, let alone face it.”

  Secretary of State Thornton had penned the note in a very shaky hand and then signed it. Wicker read it over again, then whispered, “I forgive you, Lance,” and he did.

  He set the note down and used his com unit to summon a meeting with everyone else who had attended this morning’s gathering. The summons read, “Right now.”

  ---

  “We can’t find Dr. Van Loader anywhere,” Leewood told the President.

  “I am very concerned about him.” Dr. Donnelly added.

  Wicker resisted the urge to rub his temples. He resisted the urge to even look down. He looked Leewood in the eye with all the confidence he could muster. Right now they deserved no less from him. “Admiral, let’s get every asset involved with the search, but…let’s also try to keep it as low key as possible. We don’t want to get too many people asking the kind of questions that might lead to this morning’s meeting.”

  “Understood,” Leewood replied.

  “Does anyone else…” Wicker backtracked, “does anyone feel that they need…help? We need each other right now more than ever and our civilization needs each of us even more. Forgive my bluntness, but I don’t want anyone else taking their life. If you are worried about someone else, let me know so we can get him or her help. Please, people, we need to get through this.” He looked at Bugs who had said nothing so far. He fully expected Bugs to say, “I warned you,” and its continued silence was almost worse.

  Adamarus sat silently, haunted by the feeling that something important had happened, but he could not put his finger on it. He was haunted also by his encounter with Evelyn.

  Finally, President Wicker got each person to promise him that if they had suicidal feelings or a depression that they could not handle, they would let him or Leewood know immediately. He told each of them that he would do his best to be available to each of them at any time, day or night. After this, he dismissed them.

  ---

  At the center of the domed atrium’s ceiling, there was a ring of large air vents. Within this ring was a small hole six feet in diameter. Inside the hole, a walkway ran around the perimeter of the hole and there was a five-foot railing providing protection from falling to the floor 1000 feet below.

  Access to this small area was very hard to find—you had to crawl underneath a walkway and one of the fifteen-foot air ducts. Although the small hole was visible from the floor below, the small area was next to useless, and most of the maintenance crew did not even know of its existence.

  Night came and the lights were dimmed in the atrium so only a dim ghostly light shone through the hole and illuminated the walkway and railing. All through the long night, a haunted whimpering filled the small area. The huge air ducts surrounding the small area carried the mournful sound down through the walls.

  ---

  The next morning, Leewood checked with the security section leaders whose crews had spent the night searching for Van Loader. They had not found him.

  Leewood frowned and asked for ideas. No one seemed to have any, but one of the security men looked like he wanted to say something. Leewood looked at him, “You have something?” he asked.

  The section leader looked uncertain, but spoke up anyway. “My crew searched the super structure in the atrium and…well…all night we thought we heard…” he waved his hands searching for the right words.

  “What?” Leewood prompted.

  “Well, the air passing through the air ducts makes it hard to hear anything but…all night my people claimed to hear something. I heard it, too, but, it seemed to come from everywhere. Truth be told, it spooked the hell out of us. It was like some God-awful moaning or whimpering. It was just barely audible and might have just been the sound of the air passing through the air ducts. Except…”

  “Except what?” Leewood prompted again.

  “Well, it seemed to go away around, oh, say 4:00 a.m.” He rubbed his tired eyes. “I just don’t know. It was weird as hell.”

  Leewood put his hands on his hips and frowned. “Shit,” he said, nodding. It was probably Van Loader. Those conduits and ducts will carry sound. “All of you, get into that superstructure again and do a systematic search. He’s in there.”

  ---

  The atrium was dry and back to normal and the Council of War started again right on time.

  Van Loader’s empty seat at the conference table and Thornton’s empty screen were very conspicuous. Everyone had heard about Thornton by now, but so far, no one said anything about the missing Van Loader.

  Leewood gave Harrington a quick reassuring look, then called the meeting to order. “Picking up with yesterday’s agenda, first we’ll hear from Mr. Wendell Warren on the overall…”

  “Naaaaooooooo!” The ratchet sounding scream sounded like it had come from a great distance, its echo made it come from every direction. “First…you’ll hear from me!”

  Everyone was looking around for the source of the interruption. One of the observers from the bleachers screamed, “Oh my God!” and suddenly half a dozen of the observers were looking upward and pointing.

  The voice continued, “I have done the calculations. I have researched sources from around the universe. There can be no doubt! What comes in that ship…is not a mere life form from another star. What comes in that ship…what comes in that ship…”

  Finally seeing t
he pointing arms in the bleachers, Leewood followed their gazes upward. Then he saw someone standing behind a railing within a small circular opening at the very center of the dome’s arcing ceiling. However, a closer look showed that the person was standing on the outside of the railing!

  The speaker’s voice had risen to a scream. “What comes in that ship…is…God!”

  Leewood’s eyes were confused. Suddenly something was dropping from the ceiling, drawing his eyes away from the opening. He forced his eyes back to the railing…the person was gone.

  “It’s God!”

  Leewood reacquired the falling object, and unbelievably, he recognized the tucked-in form used by expert skydivers and realized it was a person that was falling and he did not have a parachute! “Dear God!” he muttered.

  With expert skill, the skydiver aligned himself and took aim. An anguished scream could be heard as the form increased speed and hurtled downward. In mere seconds, before anyone could react, Dr. Van Loader smashed head first into the middle of the circular conference table.

  Falling from a height of 1000 feet, Van Loader had picked up enormous speed. The conference table was made of thick strips of varnished redwood and had no give to it at all. Van Loader hit and his body simply burst apart upon impact, showering everyone at the table with blood. After striking the table, the unrecognizable remains rocketed across the table in the blink of an eye, sliding in its own blood and gore. Two people at the end of the table seemed to simply vanish as the mound of gore shot off the table and directly into the pit where the aides sat. Suddenly, what had been three bodies became six bodies, some chairs and small office equipment. They all had hit the back of the recessed area and rocketed into the air, arcing into the bleachers and coming down on the stunned and frozen observers.

  The entire event had happened so fast that people could not process it. They sat there as they had, coffee cup half raised to the mouth, fingers poised over their PDAs. From hitting the table to mangled bodies arcing onto the bleachers had taken exactly one second. Most of the attendees had not seen the person falling from the ceiling—they had heard a voice speaking, then saw “something” hitting the table and flying into the bleachers. For a moment, everyone at the meeting just sat there frozen in shocked silence. Everyone at the central conference table sat frozen in the last position they had been in, only now they were covered with blood and gore.

  Then…utter pandemonium broke out with people running, yelling, screaming, throwing up and fainting.

  ---

  Leewood had wiped the blood from his face, but drips and splotches of blood remained on his clothes as he stood in his office reporting to President Wicker.

  Medical teams had cleared away the fatalities and those obviously injured, checked others for minor injuries, identified those in shock, and then evacuated all in need of medical attention.

  Security had then cleared the atrium of everyone else, confining everyone to their quarters.

  With Leewood were the Edens, Harrington, Adamarus, Woodworth and Jan. The President was on a small teleconferencing screen, his head bowed in one hand.

  Leewood continued, “Besides Dr. Van Loader, there were two other fatalities and two seriously injured.” He glanced down at his PDA, “Six other people sustained minor injuries. That’s about it.”

  Wicker didn’t move and the group silently waited for almost a full minute. At length, Wicker looked up. “We will shut down these meetings and conclude them in a second session here on Amular in a month or two. We got most of the main issues resolved and I doubt that we can carry on out there at Hideaway after…this. Let’s get everyone home and lick our wounds.”

  ---

  The black hole made its way through the stars towards the galaxy’s center. In the dream, Adamarus watched it enter the event horizon of the central black hole. He watched as the center exploded and the Slayer's Blackship jetted from the side of the plasma jet towards the next galactic cluster. In exactly the same manner as they had 12 billion years ago, the black holes moved through the universe, repeating their ghastly serenade of galactic-wide slaughter.

  As before, the enormous gas giant with the swirling red spot appeared. And as before, he joined someone at the center of the red spot and watched as the uncountable black spheres were drawn towards them. However, this time Adamarus simply awoke as the first Blackship struck. He did not see who was there with him, but he knew…

  …nor did he see her face after the dream ended, and he found himself in his cabin sitting up in bed soaked with sweat.

  He was sure that it had been her standing there with him at the end of the dream. He realized that he missed her presence…in the dream as well as now that he was awake.

  He shook off the feeling and reached for the picture of Grace and Nero on the end table, looked at it, and slowly a smile formed on his face. He replaced the picture and took a deep breath—he needed to put everything out of his mind except what he had to do today. He needed to focus on that and only that, for this time, he knew what the important element of his dream was.

  ---

  It was 10:30 a.m. when Adamarus’ com unit buzzed. He was in his cabin packing; his departure with the Loud ship was scheduled for that afternoon.

  “Hello.”

  “Adamarus,” it was Evelyn, “we need to talk. Do you have time right now?”

  “Yes, I guess so,” he answered tentatively.

  “Good. Please meet me in shuttle bay one in ten minutes,” she disconnected.

  Adamarus stood there looking at his com unit for several seconds. This was not good. This was not what he needed. At the same time, he wanted to see her and he hated himself for it.

  She was waiting for him just outside the double doors to the shuttle bay—they were closed. She did not look like herself. Her face seemed frozen, her eyes subdued.

  She held up her hand, “Just a moment.” She walked to the side of the shuttle bay door where a view port looked out over the shuttle bay.

  Adamarus just stood by the doors watching her. He was liking this less and less. He saw her shake her head and take a deep breath. Then she leaned forward, watching something for a moment, then quickly returned to the doors, “Please follow me and don’t say anything.”

  Adamarus blinked at this, but didn’t have time to say anything. She went quickly through the doors and he just barely had time to keep up with her. He heard power tools going at the other end of the large room, but whatever was going on was blocked by the two shuttles to the right.

  Evelyn turned to the left, walking quickly. There were two more shuttles on this side of the bay and she led Adamarus to the far shuttle, opened the hatch and motioned Adamarus inside, followed him in, then closed and locked the door after them.

  There were rows of double seats on each side of the shuttle. She pointed to the right side and said, “Sit.” She then sat opposite him on the left side. She took a deep breath, then looked at him. Her expression was completely neutral. “Three days ago, you made arrangements with two Master Sergeants,” her voice rose, “my people, who have been with me for thirty years and, at the end of the day, are more loyal to me than to you. You ‘ordered’ them to do something behind everyone’s back, including mine, and put them in very difficult positions… Are you tracking me here, Admiral? On this installation, you do not outrank me.” She then shocked Adamarus even more than he already was by visibly losing it for a second, and only with extreme effort, held back tears and regained control. She stared Adamarus in the eyes the whole time, seemingly not caring whether he saw this or not. “This will never happen again! Are we clear?”

  Adamarus’ heart was pounding in his chest, “On a personal level, I am very sorry about that, but I was under orders as well.”

  She blinked. She was absolutely furious and having a lot of trouble maintaining control. She tried to speak, but started to lose it again and averted her eyes.

  Adamarus held up his hands palms forward in a gesture that said, “Take it easy,” a
nd spoke softly. “Evelyn, please… I had no choice.”

  She exploded, “You had them sabotage the meeting that day so you…” her voice rose higher as a tear trickled down her cheek as she counted off each person on her fingers, “… Leewood, Harrington, Radin, Bugs, Dr. Donnelly, Dr. Van Loader, President Wicker, and Secretary Thornton could have a secret meeting without Brandon or myself!”

  The thought of denying her accusation passed through his mind. She seemed to read his thoughts and she fumbled for a remote control that she took out of her pocket and pointed it at the closest of the small overhead video screens. Adamarus hadn’t noticed that the screens were in their lowered position until now.

  The screen lit up and a video started playing. It showed all of them entering the conference room for the start of the meeting. In the lower right-hand corner was the date and time.

  Her voice was shaking, “When did you stop trusting us? How long has this been going on? I thought we were a team! I thought we all had the same security clearance…and by the way, why does it still show that Brandon and I still have Red Raven clearance if we don’t!”

  Adamarus remained seated calmly, looking at her without giving away the hurt, shame and guilt that was running through him. In a firm voice, he asked, “Do you have recordings of what went on inside that room?”

  This took her by surprise, “What if I do?” she yelled.

  “If you do, you need to turn them over to me. You do not have clearance for them.”

  She looked away, tears running down her cheeks, “So our clearance has been revoked?”

  “No, it has not. What went on within that room has a new and higher security clearance. I’ll ask you again: Do you have recordings of what went on within that room?”

  Evelyn was looking at him now with confusion on her face. “A new higher security clearance?”

  “I will ask you again…”

  “No! I don’t have recordings of went on in there.” She pointed at the video screen which now only showed the closed doors. “Why doesn’t anyone trust us anymore?” There was so much hurt in her voice that Adamarus leaned back and closed his eyes as if he’d been struck. “What did we do?”