Homeworld: Beacon 3

by Valerie Parv

  “Do you deal in premonitions now?”

  “I state only the facts as I understand them.”

  “You forget one fact.”

  When his gaze met hers, she said, “I am not Captain Zimon.”

  To the helm, she said, “Set controls for station keeping at the waypoint.” She levered herself away from her console and gathered Kam up with a look. “You and I have work to do.”

  *

  When Adam’s doorbell pealed, Garrett was annoyed with himself for hoping Amelia had come back. Before stalking out this morning, she’d looked ready to take his head off – or some other part of his anatomy. Even so, he’d have enjoyed working with her to try to locate Adam. All Garrett’s attempts to connect with the messenger were proving fruitless. Elaine had also used her watcher skills without result. For the time being, Adam was as lost to them as if he’d never existed.

  At the door, Garrett glanced at the video monitor and felt a chill surge through him. “Adam?” he said as he opened the door.

  Instantly he knew the man on the doorstep wasn’t Adam. He had Adam’s tall, lean build, the same dark brown eyes and thick, black hair, but something was missing. The connection between them, Garrett decided: this man was as psychically absent to Garrett as any other human being.

  “You’re Guy Voland,” he said. Adam’s genetic twin had appeared out of nowhere a couple of months ago. Spawned by the flux, Adam had concluded with Guy’s reluctant agreement, although neither could explain how or why the duplicate had suddenly appeared.

  Garrett had been in America on a book tour at the time, only later learning from Rosie Granger, the current head of the Black Tree facility, how the men’s too-similar minds and bodies had resonated to a point where their ability to function as individuals was under threat. Guy had chosen to be exiled to a research station on Pepper Cay, one of Atai’s outer islands, a sacrifice Garrett wasn’t sure he’d have been willing to make if he’d been in Guy’s shoes. Adam hadn’t wanted to talk about Guy at all but Rosie had become a frequent visitor to the isolated coral cay and, Garrett suspected, more than a visitor to Guy himself.

  Their activities were none of his concern, he reminded himself, but couldn’t suppress a fresh twinge of jealousy at being on his own when even a man like Guy – with no past – had found his match.

  Guy nodded. “Can I come in?”

  It was odd to be shaking hands with a duplicate of the man Garrett had known so well, and yet know him to be a stranger. As Guy stepped inside, Garrett belatedly noticed the slightly longer hair, darker tan and harder muscles island life had given Guy.

  “You know about Adam?” he said as he led the way to the living room.

  “I felt him go.”

  More than Garrett had been able to do. Motioning Guy to a seat, Garrett said, “Do you know where?”

  Guy sat down with the air of someone out of place. Not just in Adam’s house, but in this life. He frowned. “Into the flux, I think.”

  “You aren’t sure?”

  “Our genetic make-up is all we have in common now. Living alone, I’ve had enough experiences of my own not to be Adam’s exact duplicate any longer. You’re just as likely to find him as I am.”

  “You knew enough to come here.”

  “Call it intuition – a last trace of the resonance between us. Evidently we’re still sufficiently linked that I knew something had happened to Adam, without knowing what. Luckily the supply helicopter was due this morning and the pilot let me hitch a ride back to the capital.”

  Guy listened intently as Garrett filled him in. Whatever briefing Adam had given his twin hadn’t included the whole story about the beacons. Now the other man shifted restively, looking as if he’d prefer to pace than sit. Another quality Guy shared with Adam, who was also unable to stay still for long.

  “He told me about the flux and its connection with the Prana homeworld, but not that you are also aliens,” Guy observed. “But you are, aren’t you?”

  “Only Adam, Elaine and me – and possibly you.” As well as Garrett’s niece, Cate Rossi. He’d only learned of the girl’s existence when her mother, Lena Rossi, had had him kidnapped and tortured by ESIN, the covert anti-alien group she headed. Lena had revealed herself to be his sister. Far from feeling kinship with him, she’d set out to kill him, wrongly blaming Garrett for denying her the happy family life she’d seen as her due.

  From Lena, he’d learned that Cate was already showing listener abilities, but he hadn’t wanted to get into that with the girl herself. If she was a listener, she’d need guidance, but Garrett was far from confident he was the person to provide it. Given his father’s pathetic excuse for parenting and his mother’s abandonment, Garrett had no role model or experience for the job. The best he’d been able to do was fly Cate from her home in Washington DC to Carramer to be with her mother when she died.

  “Make that definitely me,” Guy said. “I check out as human, but as far as I know, I was born on the day I found myself in the jungle with no idea how I got there.”

  An idea struck Garrett. “Could the flux have taken Adam, mistaking him for you?”

  “He and I believe I came from there. I’ve always thought the flux would want me back at some point.” He gave Adam’s slightly crooked smile, the one capable of charming every woman for miles. “Before that, I’d hoped to find out why I was put here in the first place.”

  “When we find Adam, we may find your answers as well.”

  “Trouble is, he’s the one most likely to find them.”

  “True.” Adam possessed a steel-trap mind, figuring out answers while others struggled to get a fix on the problem. “You have Adam’s intellect,” Garrett pointed out.

  “Maybe the reason I felt driven to come, to help you figure this out.”

  Garrett stood but didn’t give in to the urge to pace. “Let’s hope so, although I have a feeling we won’t like the solution.”

  Guy inclined his head in agreement. “I’ll need Adam’s computer.”

  Before Garrett could show the way to his friend’s office, Guy was already heading in the right direction. “How close are you two?” he asked as he followed.

  “We communicate,” Guy said over his shoulder.

  Garrett was the last person to find this unusual. Using their alien skills, he and Elaine had done the same for so long, it felt more normal to him than not. The explosion he’d detonated beside the Kelek ship had also damaged his preternatural hearing temporarily. He’d been able to hear within the normal human range, and his alien ability had returned within a short time, but the experience of feeling trapped inside his own skull had lingered, making him wonder how humans stood being so isolated all the time.

  “I thought the idea was for you to be out of range of each other,” he said to Guy.

  Opening the door into Adam’s office, Guy turned. “It proved not to be possible.”

  “Because of your genetic similarity?”

  “Apparently.”

  Guy was no more talkative than his counterpart, Garrett thought in frustration, watching the other man head for Adam’s desk. He hadn’t even stopped to take in the impressive set-up Adam had designed for himself, suggesting the two had been in contact throughout the design and building process. Yet Adam hadn’t mentioned Guy at all. Had he taken the contact for granted, or was there something more sinister in their connection? If Adam had felt threatened by Guy, surely he’d have told Shana at least, yet the governor’s shock at her partner’s disappearance didn’t make this likely.

  For now, Guy was the beacons’ only link to Adam. They would soon find out where his loyalties lay.

  Watching the other man play Adam’s computer like a musical instrument, Garrett felt irritated, in spite of himself. The beacon equivalent of sibling rivalry, he asked himself? Garrett didn’t think he was small-minded enough to resent Guy simply for muscling in on the beacons’ turf. God knew, he’d absorbed enough shocks in his lifetime, from finding out the truth of his alien
powers, to taking on the Kelek. Guy was merely one more piece of the puzzle of the beacons’ role on Earth, and their connection with the Prana homeworld.

  Yet Garrett did feel resentment toward the newcomer. Guy was no substitute for Adam, but he was all they had for the moment – as alien as the beacons, and possibly a part of their team they had yet to figure out. Or their enemy.

  “You don’t trust me, do you?” Guy asked, his long fingers deft on Adam’s customized keyboards.

  Garrett felt a stab of guilt, as if his thoughts had betrayed him. “Does it matter?”

  “If it helps, I don’t trust myself much, either. I’m a misfit, an Adam, but not quite. I didn’t ask to be brought here.”

  Slightly mollified, Garrett went to the desk and looked at the screens. If he wasn’t Adam, he was every bit as skilled around a computer. A lot of the astrometric details went over Garrett’s head, but he recognized the area of space around the flux, the part of the house where Adam had been seconds before he vanished, and—

  “The Moon?” Garrett asked, his tone reflecting his puzzlement. “Do you think Adam could be there?”

  Guy shook his head. “I don’t know, but I sense a connection.”

  Garrett had as well, he admitted. “Both Elaine and I get a feeling of anxiety from the Moon. It has to be related to the Kelek.”

  Punching up new angles on the multiple screens, Guy nodded. “The Lagrangian points on the far side would make a perfect hiding place for an alien ship.”

  Garrett stared at the screens as if he could penetrate the Moon and see what was behind it. “Elaine,” he said in a conversational tone. She’d left him when Amelia Takei had stormed into Adam’s kitchen demanding answers, but he would bet she hadn’t gone far. “Can you take a look at the Moon’s far side?”

  “Already tried,” she responded. “Something’s blocking me.”

  “Probably the same something stopping me from hearing anything from back there.”

  “The Kelek,” she said grimly.

  “Then how were we able to see and hear the first Kelek ship?”

  The silence crackled, until she said, “Perhaps this one has something the other ship didn’t have, something capable of shutting us out.”

  “Like the dampening field.”

  As a young boy, Garrett’s father, Trey, had shown him a credit card–sized object that had meant nothing to him until many years later, when Lena’s organization had kidnapped him. ESIN had stolen the card – in reality, a field projector designed to allow the beacons to communicate with each other securely. ESIN had used it to keep Garrett and Elaine from contacting each other. Only the strength of Garrett’s suffering under torture had broken through the field, enabling Elaine to track him down. When they recovered the card, her unique vision had let her scan it down to the molecular level, finding codes on it that Adam had used to reopen the flux.

  “If they have such a field, we’re in a lot of trouble,” Elaine said.

  “She’s right,” Guy said.

  Garrett stared at him. “You followed our conversation?”

  Guy nodded. “I heard Elaine speak to you, and got a hazy glimpse of you through her eyes.”

  Not sure how comfortable he was with this new development, Garrett frowned. “Nobody’s ever been able to do that, not even Adam.”

  “I’m not sure how I managed it, only that I was there with you both.”

  No secrets, Garrett thought, disturbed on a level he would have to examine more closely when he was alone. “Can you read our thoughts?”

  “What I experience isn’t telepathy, exactly. I’m only with you when you use your beacon powers.”

  That was something at least. “What happens with Adam?”

  “A whole different story,” Guy admitted. “Sometimes the resonance is strong enough that I can practically live his life with him.”

  “And the rest of the time?”

  “We can tune each other out and function as individuals.”

  If they hadn’t been able to, they would have gone mad, Garrett surmised. “What do you sense from him now?” he asked.

  For the first time, Guy’s hands faltered on the keyboards. “Nothing. If the Kelek are behind Adam’s disappearance, they can block us from ever finding him.”

  Or ever again functioning as beacons. Garrett had felt helpless in the hands of ESIN, but it was nothing compared to the fear swamping him now. He heard Elaine gasp for breath like someone drowning, and knew she shared his horror. Without being able to harness their Prana powers, they couldn’t resist the Kelek. They were as helpless as any ordinary humans.

  “To hell with that,” he snapped, pulling himself out of the shock before it overwhelmed him. His tours of duty in the Middle East had shown him what extraordinary feats ordinary humans could achieve under pressure. Half of him was human and if his alien half failed him, he’d damned well use his human resources to fill the gap.

  There was also the question of what abilities Guy could bring to the table. Medically, he checked out as human, but so did the rest of them; it was how they and their parents had survived on Earth undetected. But Guy was unique. He had neither Prana nor human pedigree. He could be anyone or anything, even a Kelek plant.

  “I’m not Kelek,” he said now, his long fingers again caressing the keyboards.

  Annoyed at finding Guy inside his head again, Garrett slammed a hand down on the desk. “Even you can’t be sure.”

  “Perhaps not,” Guy said in Adam’s deceptively mild voice. “But if your abilities are impaired, we have no choice but to trust mine.”

  “Whatever they are,” Garrett snarled.

  “Whatever they are.”

  The other man pulled up a new screen and paused as a demand for a password came up. He tried a couple of options and was in.

  “How did you do that?” Garrett asked, impressed. Adam’s access codes should have been unbreakable.

  Guy kept working. “A product of our synchronicity. He uses the passwords I’d use.”

  If Guy was a Kelek construct, he was Adam gone rogue, Garrett reflected. Guy knew much of what Adam knew about astrophysics and computers. At times, Adam had made Garrett feel as evolved as a slug. But Adam’s towering intellect meant he did that to everybody without meaning to, and Garrett hadn’t resented him for it; Adam was just being Adam. Getting the same deal from Guy, Garrett resented it big time. He pushed the feeling aside, reminding himself again that Guy might be their only link with Adam, for the moment.

  He braced himself for Guy to notice the hostility gripping him, but the other man either chose not to comment, or wasn’t able to tap Garrett’s thoughts all the time. Maybe Garrett had his own kind of dampening field. He hoped it wasn’t wishful thinking.

  He pulled a chair up to a corner of Adam’s desk, watching the screens. “What are you looking for?”

  “Adam’s research on the flux. He hoped to establish a connection with the life form inside it.”

  “Communicate with the flux?” The enormity of the task took Garrett’s breath away. “To what purpose?”

  “To prove his theories.”

  “Beyond the flux being a conduit linking Prana space with Earth?”

  Guy smiled thinly. “The flux is far too complex merely to be a highway through space.”

  “Perhaps Adam got too close to the truth and whatever lives in the flux retaliated.”

  “Someone or something did,” Guy agreed, his fingers busy. “He told me he was close to a breakthrough. And here,” he said with some satisfaction, “is what he meant.”

  Before he could show Garrett his discovery, Guy’s head jerked up as if he sensed something beyond their surroundings. “We have to get out of here now.”

  Garrett felt the disturbance, too. “Earthquake.”

  Guy rammed a memory stick into Adam’s computer and fired off commands to retrieve whatever he’d found.

  Garrett grabbed his arm and pulled. “There’s no time.”

  The floor w
as already shifting beneath their feet. As far as possible, Adam had earthquake-proofed the house but there wasn’t a lot he could do about the cliff. Guy resisted and Garrett saw the screens start to dance on the desktop.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  Towing the other man, Garrett plunged for the double-story entry, hearing crashing sounds behind him as he got the two of them outside.

  Chapter 4

  Aboard Storm, Kam regarded Akia with disapproval. “Shouldn’t you give the humans some warning, give them a chance to surrender?”

  She didn’t look up from her instruments. Many were of her own design and more complex than anything Kam had seen in the best geoengineering labs on Kelek. He recognized systems for creating drought or famine designed to disable an enemy. Others could make battlefield conditions more favorable to their side in a war. Akia could create or switch off cloud formations to enable or confound the use of laser-guided weapons. But just as many of the systems were a mystery to Kam.

  After completing her computations, the captain shot him a scathing look. “You know how I work. First a demonstration so they’re in no doubt that I will carry out any threat. Then our terms of surrender.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” he cautioned, knowing she was unlikely to listen. “This is a fragile planet.”

  She prided herself that her way of waging war was cleaner than the slave trade her peers preferred. But was it? Her hands might not get dirty, but the suffering she inflicted on her victims was no less terrifying. Kam imagined the panic already setting in on the planet below. She’d confined her aim to the area where he’d found the listener, so the damage would be localized, but did it make her methods any less cruel?

  Akia reached across a console and fine-tuned a control. Above it was an image of the space center, where he sensed the beacons of Earth concentrated their activities. Another screen showed the effect her work was having: the volcano where Kam had located the listener was shaking fit to break apart.

  Before the quake reached that point, he saw Akia key in a program to trigger what the humans called a tsunami. Preparing for this mission, Kam had learned that some Earthers had experimented with the technology themselves during one of their major conflagrations. Their attempts had failed to generate waves anywhere near the size Akia could achieve.