“I didn’t realize you were still working here. I thought you were at Cape Canaveral,” Michael said.
“I did a brief stint there a few years ago, but it was just a short-term project I consulted on. I thought you were in California,” she said, with her hand extended.
He caught it and drew her in for a polite hug.
“I was, but I got reassigned about three years ago.”
“What brings you to Houston?”
“Here to renew my grant,” he said.
Her brow lifted as she tucked a honey-blonde curl behind her ear. Kitty Donovan remained just as pretty as she’d been when they dated in college. She had a glow that could light up any room. “What are you working on?”
“Oh,” he said. “It’s a dreadfully long story.”
“Your credentials, Dr. Grayson.” The security officer came back to the desk and handed him the ID badge he would need to access the facility. It accompanied paperwork on rules and training he would need before his appointment. “The Southern Texas Area Safety Council is your best bet for the required training.” He pointed to one of the papers. “If you go online this afternoon you might be able to get into the classes you need tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks,” Michael said, turning back to Kitty. “In addition to renewing our project’s grant application,” he said. “I also hoped someone might be able to get me access to the radio telescope on Hubble.”
Kitty’s brow lifted. “Hubble?” she all but stuttered it. “But, you could have done that from anywhere,” she said, with a curl in her cheeks. “Why come to Houston?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. As much as he wanted to tell her everything – well, everything that he could – he needed sleep.
“I’m free for dinner if you want to tell me the whole story.”
“I just spent the last thirty-four hours in transit.” Michael blushed, running a hand over his weary brow. “Tomorrow night maybe? When I’m not so travel-worn?” It wasn’t exactly the truth. The long lay-over in Boston had been sufficient to allow him to get a hotel and spend the night in a real bed. This morning, he’d gotten up early and been back at the airport in time for his 8:15 flight. Another layover in Dallas had given him a chance to have lunch, before the final leg of his trip into Houston.
“Why don’t you call me when you finish your classes tomorrow morning?” She reached into her suitcoat, then took a step closer. Gently snaking her hand beneath his jacket, she tucked her business card into the pocket of his white dress shirt. The touch sent sparks through him, and he all but shivered. She paused a moment to straighten his tie. The message in her eyes suggested if he called her, she might do him the great favor of un-straightening it.
There had been this amazing chemistry between the two of them back in college, the kind of chemistry that spontaneously combusted. It had burned hot and fast. Clearly the flames still flickered.
“I’ll call you first thing,” Michael said.
Kitty beamed and her tongue ran over her perfectly straight, incredibly white teeth.
“Promise?” she said coyly. Kitty flirted overtly.
“I cross my heart.” He ran his finger across his tie as he leaned in and bowed.
“You’ll break my heart if you don’t,” she said, her tone softening. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes, you will.”
She gave him a sly wink as she passed, her high heels clicking on the tile floors.
Michael paused, watching the kick pleat of her skirt swaying as she went.
“Dr. Grayson.” The security guard cleared his throat aggressively, practically scolding him.
Michael turned back, blushing. “Sorry.” He cringed. “We dated in college.”
“Uh huh,” the guard grunted flatly, pushing the papers towards him.
Michael took them, then clipped the ID badge onto his lapel. He picked up his suitcase and turned. Walking out to the circle drive in front of the large office building, he left thoughts of Kitty for a later time. He reminded himself that he had another woman he hadn’t talked to in twenty years that he needed to find.
Taking his cell phone out of his pocket, flipping it open, Michael called for a cab to take him to the hotel. He found a bench and sat his bag down, peeling out of his suit jacket. He folded it and lay it over his bag.
He hadn’t been in the US for several years, and he didn’t even know how to go about finding his sister. If anyone would know where to find her, Michael thought perhaps their oldest brother, George, might. It was a start. As he sat down beside his things, he glanced at his phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Hey George. It’s Michael,” he said when his brother answered. “I’m actually in Houston. Yeah. At NASA. I’m working on renewing my grant, but ... that’s not why I’m calling. By any chance, do you know how to get a hold of Lauren?”
* * *
Michael held the chair out for Kitty. The floral perfume she always wore brought back old memories as he leaned over her hair and breathed her in. When they had parted ways after college, he certainly never thought he’d be sitting here having dinner with her. In fact, he hadn’t thought of her in years. Once, he thought they’d have a future together, but life took them in different directions. He went on to MIT to work on his PhD. She came back to Texas to study at Baylor.
The waiter arrived a moment later with the wine list. “Do you prefer red or white?” Michael asked.
“Scotch, on the rocks,” she said crisply.
Michael handed the menu back to the waiter. “Make that two.” He held Kitty’s gaze appreciatively. “Macallen 12, if you have it.”
Kitty’s eyes widened. “You have excellent taste in Scotch, Dr. Grayson.”
“So glad to find you’re not one of those pretentious snobs who only drinks an oaky Cabernet or Sauvignon Blanc.” He over-accentuated the French pronunciations.
“Oh I am a pretentious snob,” Kitty said. “But I happen to like Scotch.”
That made Michael brighten as he sat back in his chair. Her grin mirrored his own, even as she sat stone straight in her chair. She wore a fitted green dress, just a shade darker than her eyes. It had a halter cut, with rhinestone chains connecting the front to the back. Her shoulders were bare. She’d pinned her hair up and a single curl fell over a perfectly chiseled eyebrow. “You look great, Mike. What have you been doing? It’s like you haven’t aged a day.”
“Me? What about you? You look fantastic.”
“Yoga and chocolate ice cream.” Her gaze turned back to the waiter as he returned with their glasses. “More yoga than ice cream, I’ll add.” She lifted her eyes as she picked up her glass. “Sláinte.”
“God bless you,” he said, lifting his glass in salute to her beauty.
The liquor was strong but smooth, perfect for sipping. It had a comforting burn that ran down the tongue and warmed the hollow of his stomach. The way she looked at him burned in his cheeks. God! What a rare woman.
“So, what are you working on these days?” she asked, leaning one arm on the edge of the table as she ran her finger over the top of her glass. It hummed a B flat.
“I’m a radio-telescope engineer.” He simplified his title. At this point, the fewer details he could provide the better, especially in public. One never knew who might be listening in. “I design radio telescopes.”
“Are you working on SETI?” She lifted a curious brow in his direction.
“No,” Michael said. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
Michael could tell she wanted more details. He leaned in, mirroring her. “I could tell you ...” he hesitated, looking around. “But then ... I’d have to kill you.”
A bemused expression passed over her as she shook her head and sipped her Scotch. “You wouldn’t kill me,” she said. “I’m too pretty to kill.”
Michael couldn’t believe the audacity. But then again, it was the truth. She was pretty; gorgeous even. “So what have you been working on?” He chan
ged the subject.
“I’m on the Hubble project.”
Michael felt a wave of professional jealousy wash over him. “Damn! Who’s a guy gotta sleep with to get access to Hubble?”
“Me.” Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight as she smirked over her glass of Scotch.
Was she offering? Michael wondered, sitting back in his chair, eyeing her over his glass.
The flesh was willing, that was for certain. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry ... not for food anyway.
* * *
“The Hubble telescope launched on April 24, 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery,” Kitty said, as they walked the halls of NASA’s Johnson Space Center the next morning. “It’s 43.5 feet long and weighed about 24,000 pounds at launch. It remains in low earth orbit at an altitude of about 340 miles and completes an orbit every 95 minutes. It travels at a speed of approximately 27,300 kilometers per hour.”
Kitty wasn’t telling Michael anything he didn’t already know. Her honey-sweet drawl made her a pleasure just to listen to. He could listen to her read the phonebook, just to be near her. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave his side either. “Did you know that the Hubble transmits about 150 gigabytes of raw data every week?”
“I didn’t,” Michael said. “What’s its energy source?”
“Primarily, the sun. It has two 25-foot solar panels.”
“Is it true that the Hubble has no thrusters?” Michael knew the answer, of course, but he couldn’t help asking, just to hear her sweet Texas drawl. “How does it navigate? Surely it needs to make minor course corrections from time to time?”
“It uses Newton’s Third Law.” She grinned brightly. “It spins its gyroscopic wheels in the opposite direction. It’s time consuming, but it works. It takes about fifteen minutes to turn ninety degrees.”
“I thought Hubble was controlled at Goddard,” Michael said.
“It is, primarily,” Kitty said. “I have access remotely to support my human spaceflight research project. We’re working on early plans for the next manned space missions.”
“I thought the shuttle program had been shuttered.” Michael scratched his chin.
“It’s a partnership with private industry,” she said, pausing at a scale model of the Challenger that sat in the middle of the wide tiled walkway in a glass case. “Commercial space flight will happen in our lifetime, you know.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” he said.
Kitty motioned for him to follow. “Come on. I know you’re anxious to get your hands on it.” She turned over her shoulder and winked overtly, and memories of the night before made his stomach flutter and the heat rise in his core. But thoughts of getting access to Hubble did almost the same thing.
* * *
Kitty’s office was on the third floor of one of the ten buildings on the campus. She had a corner office with large windows. The blinds were open, giving Michael his first view of the large hanger where several aircraft were parked. He was disappointed there were no shuttles or top-secret space craft where he could see them.
“Michael?”
He turned, drawn to her computer. She had four large screens that arched around her desk. She pulled up a chair for him before she took a seat. He tried not to imagine the strain her hips were putting on the seams of her pencil skirt as she booted up her computer, inserting her security card into a scanner on the hard drive. His eyes floated up to the gossamer sheer white blouse she had on. He could see the outline of her pushup bra against her skin. He shivered, remembering peeling her out of the black lace lingerie she’d had on the night before.
“It takes a moment for the system to boot up,” she said, noticing she had a stack of messages on her desk. She picked them up and shuffled through the thin sheets of paper. “So tell me about your project? What are you working on?”
“My project?”
“The one you’re here to renew your grant for,” she said.
“Oh, well, it’s not exciting. Not like the Hubble.”
“What’s up with that?” Kitty asked.
“I am working on developing a new type of radio telescope.”
“A new type?”
“It’s not much different than what we have now already,” Michael said with a weak shrug.
“Well I’m sure it’s nothing like Hubble.” Kitty turned to her computer, changing the subject. “This is the greatest piece of modern technology known to man, in my humble opinion. So, what would you like to see first?” The images of a distant planet came into view. It looked as if it were just a few thousand miles away. The image had been enhanced to paint a colorful picture of a dulcet orb against a black backdrop. “Here’s Uranus.”
A titter of laughter escaped Michael’s throat. “Seriously?”
“I always like to start with that one.” Kitty chortled. “Get the joke out of the way.”
“Too bad we can’t see the Southern Cross from here,” Michael said.
A bright smile crossed Kitty’s sweet face. “Hubble isn’t over Houston at the moment,” she said, keying in some information. It took several minutes for the image to change and the aperture to bring the new image into focus. Her beautifully manicured fingernail pointed to the screen. “There’s Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri.” Her finger scanned sideways across the screen. “See the dark area of space? That’s the Coalsack.”
“The Coalsack.” He smirked devilishly.
Kitty laughed, as she considered him a moment. “It’s like you’re five,” she said. “It’s a dark nebula, and just above the dark spot, you’ll see a bright star, that’s Crux, the Southern Cross. But crux isn’t just one star, it’s five.” She zoomed in.
“Alpha Crucis,” Michael found the lowest of the stars in the pattern. “321 light years from Earth.”
“And up from there is Gacrux, and then Delta Crucis and then across the way, Mimosa.” She finished. She scrolled over and zoomed in on a fuzzy area just below Mimosa. “This is the Jewel Box. It’s an open cluster of stars.”
“Wow.” Michael examined the images before sitting back. “I’ve never seen them with such ... clarity.”
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
“You could say that.” Michael’s voice went misty as he leaned in to study the image. “Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend...”
“Neil Gaiman?” she asked.
“One of my favorite authors,” Michael mused.
“Do the stars gaze back? Now, that's a question...” she quoted back. The reflection of the image from the Hubble telescope sparkled in Kitty’s eyes. He couldn’t resist and leaned in to kiss her.
“Yes, they do ...” He sighed.
Chapter 3
“Lauren?” Bahati found her by the pool at the hotel, overlooking Coronado Island. She had found a secluded area to nurse the baby; sitting with a dreamy expression on her face. She glanced up when her friend approached.
“Hi,” she said. “Did Rowan tell you about our new assignment?”
“There’s a problem,” Bahati said nervously.
“Come sit with me.” Lauren patted the empty chair beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“Jean-René just got a call from his mother,” she began. “His father is sick.”
“Oh no,” Lauren reached for her hand. “What’s going on?” Lauren could tell it was bad, just by the grave expression on her friend’s face.
“It’s not good news.”
“What? What is it?”
“He’s been diagnosed with cancer. Stage 3 ... pancreatic.”
“Oh no.” Lauren’s hand went to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“He decided it’s time to tell them about us,” she said.
“Wait. What? His parents don’t know you got married?”
She shrugged. “We eloped,” she said. “They live half a world away, and it just never
seemed like a good time to call.”
Lauren nodded. “I know what that’s like.” She did, too. Hawaii had been a convenient way to avoid her family. Just like every other trip they’d taken. Every assignment gave her an excuse not to go back to Oklahoma. Now it appeared to be unavoidable.
“His dad is having surgery tomorrow, and his mother is beside herself.” Bahati shifted in her chair. “He wants to go see them.”
“So go,” Lauren said.
“I hate to go off and leave you and Rowan,” Bahati said.
“You don’t have to worry about us.” Lauren lifted her hand in a dismissive wave. “Rowan knows how to operate a camera. I don’t have a lot of hope for finding much of interest. The sooner the genealogist realizes that, the sooner we can move on to Rowan’s family tree.”
“We were thinking that we’d look into Jean-René’s family history while we’re there. If you want us to,” she said. “Maybe we could get some video for him. You said the Network meant to do an episode on each of us.”
“Oh, Bahati! That’s a great idea,” Lauren said. “Yes. Please do. I’m confident your families are far more interesting than mine.” Lauren felt the sting at the very thought of what they would face in their investigation.
“I’m sorry we won’t be able to go with you to see George,” Bahati said.
“We can manage,” Lauren said. “You need to go take care of his father.”
“We’ll meet up with you when we get back,” Bahati said. “Maybe a week or two at most.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Have you called your brother yet?”
“No.” Lauren shook her head, looking down. “George is easy enough to talk too, but ... it’s true what they say about going back home.”
“That’s a load of BS and you know it,” Bahati clipped. “You’re being a coward, and that is not the Lauren Pierce I know. Where is your phone?”
The Alien Accord Page 3