Homeworld: Beacon 3

by Valerie Parv

  He wasn’t going to win the argument, and she suspected the doctor knew it. She appreciated being fussed over up to a point, but held no fears for her baby. Elaine’s existence – and that of her fellow beacon, Garrett – proved that a mix of human and Prana genes worked. No reason they shouldn’t for their daughter. Or that the child wouldn’t inherit her mother’s watcher abilities.

  A pang of regret gripped Elaine. Her mother had passed away only a few months before, and would never know her granddaughter. Nerine had trained Elaine to appreciate and use her alien skills, unlike Garrett, who’d had no help from his father, the original listener on her mother’s beacon team.

  Elaine slid her palms over her stomach although her bump was barely visible yet. Taking a steadying breath, she let herself look, and felt the same breath catch at the sheer wonder of what was happening inside her.

  Beacon skills usually manifested in early teens, occasionally earlier, as they had with Garrett. Elaine was fairly sure her child couldn’t see into her world yet, but she imagined the baby basking in the attention as – truth to tell – Elaine basked in the fame her so-called psychic abilities had brought her. Carrying Timo’s child still felt astonishing. At this stage, their daughter was all of a few millimeters long but her heart was already forming and she had dimples where her eyes and ears would be, not to mention the most perfect translucent skin and limb buds.

  No medical test would reveal that she was a girl yet, but Elaine’s alien vision had seen the two X chromosomes that told their own story. While fully human in every way that mattered, the baby also had tiny chromosomal additions that wouldn’t show up under the most powerful electron microscopes. They hinted at beacon abilities, and would become invisible by the time she was born.

  Elaine rationed herself to one peek a day, lest she become too fixated on the biological miracle. Her mother had done the same. Nerine had assured Elaine that their unique sight didn’t harm the gestating child. Being able to see clear across the galaxy or inside her own womb was a treasure at a time like this. How did human mothers connect with their babies, without being able to see them other than on a screen in a doctor’s office?

  Hearing a disturbance in her own office, Elaine returned her gaze to her physical surroundings.

  “Finished working for the day?” Timo asked, his words as much gentle hint as question.

  “Just about.” She closed the program she’d been working on, answering astrology questions from all over the world. Too many poured in for Elaine to answer personally, but her team knew which ones to send directly to her, and which to handle on her website.

  They also dealt with the majority of her social media, although Elaine kept an eye on what was being said, adding personal insights when warranted. She still wrote her own columns and blogs. Ego, Garrett insisted, although he was one to talk. His science fiction novels were huge bestsellers, and he had no help with the writing, only his agent, Linda Tate, managing the business side from her base in Sydney.

  Pushing her chair back from the desk, Elaine stretched with the elegance of a cat and saw Timo watching her almost hungrily. He did that a lot, she thought with a thrill of pleasure. Not only since the baby, but from their first meeting at a diplomatic function in Carramer.

  A pang gripped her as she thought of the island kingdom. She’d heard no more from Garrett since Adam’s disappearance. With nothing she could do to help, she’d buried herself in work as a distraction. Now the dread came rushing back.

  She could use her alien sight to check, and Timo was remarkably tolerant of her drifts into what he called “Elaine space”, but she was careful not to push her luck. She had a feeling he’d already pieced much of the puzzle together. If he didn’t know she was an actual alien, he had to suspect her of being different. A talk they’d need to have before the baby came. Resilient as Timo was, he’d be challenged by her revelations, she knew. Anybody would, and Timo was still only human. Another reason she’d held off on marriage, in case what he learned changed his mind about their future together. The pain this caused her didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Any news from Carramer?” she asked.

  As a former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Timo had access to formidable resources. “Nothing good. The quake triggered a tsunami that’s due to hit the coast of Atai very soon. They’ve evacuated Reve city, but it’s more likely the wave will touch land close to Black Tree Beach.”

  Adam, was Elaine’s first panicked thought. Rosie Granger had taken over management of the space center, but he was still involved as a consultant, based in the old mission control at Black Tree. As their group’s messenger, he was the vital link between the beacons and their parents’ homeworld of Prana, where Adam had been born.

  “Are you all right?” Timo asked, watching her keenly. “You just went several shades paler.”

  “I’m worried about Adam and Garrett,” she said.

  “Is Garrett still at that spectacular house Adam built for himself?”

  She nodded, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “He’s there. We – spoke – this morning. After the quake, he was going to hunker down in the shelter Adam had the sense to build.”

  “Then they should be fine.”

  She shook her head. “Garrett can’t contact Adam. We don’t know where he is.”

  Timo didn’t try to jolly her out of her worries. From his previous job and the consulting he did with world leaders now, he knew as well as anyone that the world was anything but a safe place. Being cousin to the monarch of Carramer, Timo was one of the few people who knew the truth about the Kelek, rather than the asteroid cover story. “Do you think something’s happened to Adam?” he asked.

  “We don’t know. He’s been off the air for hours.”

  Timo came around the desk and kissed the top of Elaine’s head. “You know Adam. If some line of research caught his attention, he wouldn’t think to check in with anyone.”

  This was true as far as human contact went. But his very existence had drawn her and Garrett to Carramer to witness the launch of the country’s first shuttle. The contact had grown stronger until they were almost never out of touch with each other. Now wasn’t the time to explain to Timo the psychic connection between the beacons. And any attempt would involve explaining about their heritage. She couldn’t put that off much longer, she accepted, wishing she’d found the courage a lot sooner. She cupped her belly protectively.

  Timo placed his hand over hers. “You really are worried, aren’t you, ma amouvere?”

  His use of the Carramer endearment brought a ghost of a smile. “I wish there was something I could do, but flights to Atai are suspended for the time being.” She’d checked.

  “Rank has its privileges,” he reminded her.

  She looked up at him, feeling her eyes widen. “Your plane?”

  “The Global is fueled and standing by. Once we know the situation with the tsunami, we can be there in a matter of hours. And we won’t travel light. I’ve told Mac and Pali to fill every available space with food, water and medical supplies, depending on what’s needed.”

  His automatic sharing of her problem made her blink hard. Her hand curled around his. “You’re amazing.” While she’d been going crazy worrying about Garrett and Adam, her prince had turned his attention to practical matters.

  He tilted her face up and kissed her again, a slow, lingering kiss filled with promise. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  How well she knew that. She made herself focus on the present. “Any news on the tsunami?”

  “That’s why I came to get you. I’ve arranged a satellite link-up to keep us posted. Come and take a look.”

  Chapter 6

  “I’m not sure I want a front-row seat at a disaster.”

  But Elaine followed Timo into his office down the hall from hers. An aide was setting out a tray on a low table. Peppermint tea for her and Kona coffee for Timo, with a selection of sandwiches and cakes. The repast would have
been more appealing if not for the seriousness of the occasion. Two new screens had been set up opposite the sofa, dwarfing the inbuilt array that kept Timo in touch with world affairs day to day.

  She took a seat and watched as the aide poured the tea for Elaine, handed Timo his coffee, then quietly left them alone.

  Peppermint was good for settling nerves, although she’d need something a lot stronger to have any effect on her growing anxiety as she looked at the screens. Since her pregnancy precluded that, she took a sip of tea and made herself watch. Her alien sight only allowed her to see what was happening in real time. Despite her carefully crafted reputation as a psychic, she had no insight into the past or future. The charts and graphs that accompanied the satellite images, however, told her more, projecting where the wave was expected to hit.

  Black Tree Beach, she recognized from the satellite views. According to the reports, the space center would bear the brunt of the wave’s force. Seven meters, it was predicted, sufficient to cause a lot of damage and loss of life.

  Her hands twisted together as she prayed that Adam was safe, wherever he was. Inside the flux, perhaps. Alive this time, she hoped, repressing a shudder. While Timo brooded over his coffee, she felt safe to turn her vision to Adam’s house and found Garrett in the games room designed as a shelter from the worst the weather could throw at them. He sat on a sofa, working on an iPad. Occasionally his hand strayed to pet the orange-colored cat snuggled up beside him. Lurid, Elaine remembered. Well named, and one of the few beings Adam had allowed into his life before he got involved with Shana.

  At the sight of the man with them, so like Adam, her heartbeat picked up speed. Knowing it was Guy didn’t stop the similarity confusing her senses. What was he doing at Adam’s house? If Timo hadn’t been within earshot, she’d have asked Garrett.

  Anger that Guy should be there when Adam was not threatened to boil over, but she calmed herself. Guy’s presence didn’t mean he had anything to do with Adam’s disappearance. She thought distractedly of the wooden weather houses sold as souvenirs in Atai markets: two carved figures represented good or bad weather, and only one could be seen outside the house at a time.

  Uneasily, she remembered her last talk with Garrett. Carramer’s location in the Ring of Fire made the country vulnerable to quakes and tsunamis, although they’d experienced neither for more than a century. Having both occur at the same time as they’d sensed the Kelek’s arrival sharpened her suspicions. From their brief contact with the Prana, she knew the Kelek took slaves, selling them to finance their campaigns. If they could also use quakes and tidal waves as weapons of terror, Earth was in greater danger than the beacons had suspected.

  The very fact that she couldn’t see the far side of the moon suggested the Kelek could be hiding there, able to block their ship from her and Garrett using the same dampening technology ESIN had stolen from Garrett’s father.

  Garrett must have felt her scanning him, because his head came up. “No news, sorry,” she read as his lips moved. Garrett must have spoken softly because Guy didn’t react. “We’re safe for now. If anything changes, I’m sure we’ll know.”

  She had to be content with that, and withdrew her gaze to focus on the screens, seeing Timo lean forward, arms resting on his knees. The graphs and projections had given way to real-time satellite photos of the Atai coast near Black Tree. She dragged in a breath at the sight of the ocean appearing to drain away from the shoreline as if a plug had been pulled. What seemed only seconds later, a gigantic wave rushed into shore, swamping everything in its path.

  Towering trees bent double then snapped like matchsticks in the path of the waves. Small buildings broke apart, swamped by dark gray water. A few foolhardy people had climbed trees to watch, believing they were safe. Plucked from their perches by the wave’s giant hand, they were carried inland by the rushing water. Feeling her eyes brim, Elaine followed their progress until the bobbing heads disappeared. The water seemed to be moving at the speed of a jet plane as it inundated everything within a few miles of the shoreline.

  The satellite view showed the shuttle launch pad. The orbiter had been moved inland to safety but the pad structure couldn’t be protected. She heard steel girders groan, and the massive xenon light fixtures buckled like toys.

  She only realized she’d switched from the screen view to her own vision when she found herself looking inside the main building of the space center. The tiered levels of the control center were deserted, of course. She hadn’t really expected to find Adam there, but the hope lingered. She ducked instinctively as giant waves battered the windows, her reaction prompting a faint smile. What was the saying about the next best thing to being there? Best was relative, but her unique vision gave her that sensation. She released a breath when the main building held up, although a mass of debris swirled around it, the remains of less robust structures.

  Outside the old mission control where Adam had his office, vintage rockets and other space vehicles on display snapped their heavy chains and toppled from concrete bases.

  A cell phone rang and Timo answered. “I have to take this,” he said and she nodded, only dimly aware of him leaving the office. The events on her mental viewscreen were too demanding.

  Something about the tsunami felt wrong. The destruction was only part of the reason. Alone in the office, she reached out to Garrett.

  “Do you sense something wrong about all this?”

  “Everything’s wrong,” she read on his lips. Since teaming up with Adam, their communication verged on psychic, until she wasn’t sure whether she read Garrett’s lips or heard him in her head. Having it work was what mattered.

  “No, I mean about the wave itself. Look at the pattern.” What was she thinking? Garrett could only hear the roar of the tsunami. She was blessed – cursed sometimes – with being able to see the devastation. “Before all this began, did you hear explosions at sea?”

  “I heard something that could have been a series of explosions, now I think about it.”

  Like her, he’d learned to tamp down his alien senses to avoid being overwhelmed by too much input. If needed, they could pull in important sights and sounds. Sometimes they were drawn to them, as had happened when they’d felt compelled to be in Carramer for the shuttle launch. The trigger had been Adam.

  “Explosions at sea,” she repeated. “What does that tell you?”

  She saw him get up and prowl the room, Guy watching curiously. He would know what Garrett was doing, and wouldn’t interrupt.

  Garrett stopped and pounded a fist into his open palm. “Damn it, I wrote this into a book. Why didn’t I make the connection?”

  “Worry about Adam,” she suggested, letting him know he wasn’t the only one. “And it was a few books ago.”

  Frustration clouded his expression. “All the same, bombs capable of triggering a tsunami were exploded off the coast of New Zealand in the nineteen-forties. They got the science right, but not the results. The project was abandoned in favor of nuclear research.”

  “You told me the scientists created tidal waves, what we call tsunamis now, but too small to do real damage.”

  “Maybe they gave up too soon.”

  “And the Kelek didn’t.”

  An ironic smile tugged at his mouth. “Unless we’re as bad as the conspiracy theorists, seeing plots where none exist.”

  “You don’t believe that.” She told him about the satellite images on Timo’s screens. “No natural tsunami is this precisely targeted. I intend to take a look.”

  “Be careful,” he cautioned. “We don’t know what else the Kelek can do.”

  Steal Adam, she thought, not surprised when Garrett’s agreement whispered through her mind. She switched her alien vision to the oceans around Carramer. Not sure what she was searching for, she looked anyway. The sea was calm, the tsunami spending its fury on the coast of Atai.

  The seabed told a different story. Recently she’d discovered she could see down to the molecular level if she c
hose. And now she chose, finding signs of as many as ten explosions written into the blasted ocean floor, the disturbed undersea forest and the dead and dying sea life.

  The Kelek may or may not have caused the quake, but they sure as hell caused the wave that followed. If Adam could have seen this, he’d have calculated angles and sources, identified traces and theorized exactly how the effect was produced. She wasn’t Adam and her science was limited, but she trusted her watcher skills. The Kelek were letting the beacons know they were here, and what they were capable of doing.

  She slammed a hand down on the coffee table, making the tea things rattle. Damn it, this wasn’t the Wild West. Shoot first and ask questions later didn’t apply. Unless you were Kelek, evidently. The damage caused by the explosions made her heart ache. And those people she’d seen fighting a losing battle with the first wave. How many more humans would die in the onslaught? If the Kelek wanted the beacons, why not come after them and leave the innocents alone?

  It wasn’t their way, as Garrett had learned when he’d been co-opted to fly the sole survivor of the first Kelek ship to Black Tree. The Kelek man had demanded to be put aboard the shuttle so he could access the flux, the only known means of reaching Prana.

  To get his way, the Kelek – Ryn Zael – had sabotaged an energy project on the slopes of Mount Ekin, intending to cause the long-dormant volcano to erupt. If he’d succeeded, the disaster could have rivaled Indonesia’s Sidoarjo mud flow, thought to have started by the blowout of a natural gas well. Many years on, that volcano was still discharging thousands of square meters of mud a day and could keep going for another twenty years.

  Obviously using natural resources as weapons wasn’t unusual for Zael’s people, who didn’t seem to care how many innocents they killed.

  Elaine was unaware that Timo had rejoined her until he spoke. “That was Prince Lorne. He believes the tsunami was artificially caused.”

  She pulled her vision back to the screens, which were split between real-time updates and scientific analysis. “He’s right. Look at the pattern of the wave. It’s too narrow, too controlled.”