The Hound banked then slowed to a mere crawl over a quaint small ranch below. A modest white farmhouse, maybe gray, and an adjacent—what appeared to be in the near total darkness—bright-red barn. A dim light emanated from the front window of the house.
“Mr. Gallic, there seems to be ample space for the Hound to set down below.”
“Just make sure you don’t land us on top of a cow or, god forbid, a horse.”
Gallic stood and ran his fingers through his still moist hair. What if she’s not alone? Well, it’s too late now; wasn’t like she didn’t know he was here. Hell, there wasn’t a ranch miles around that didn’t know he was here.
By the time he stepped down from the gangway, the front porch light had come on. A slim woman, wearing loose-fitting sweats and a pink tank top, could be seen leaning against the open door frame. Her exposed tanned arms were crossed over her chest—a chest clearly devoid of a bra.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Lane asked, with a raised, questioning brow.
Gallic took her all in—from her bare feet up to her long hair, now tied into some sort of thing at the top of her head. “Catch you at a bad time?”
“It’s pushing 8:30 . . . this is a working ranch, you know. Up at dawn, to bed after dusk . . .”
“So, I woke you up, then?”
“No . . . but you sure could have. I was getting ready to crawl into bed.”
Gallic came to a stop several paces before her. The porch light behind her made it appear she wore a halo around her head. He could see she’d washed her face. Her skin had that just-scrubbed radiance about it. A scattering of small freckles ran across the bridge of her nose, and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed them before. “You want me to leave?”
Lane pursed her lips, deciding. “You’ve been thinking about me,” she said, more of a statement than a question.
“And you me,” he replied back.
“I told you never again . . . that was it . . . an impulse thing. Do you remember me saying that?”
“That was bullshit. You didn’t mean it. We both know that.”
“Oh, do we now? What I should do, is turn around and shut the door in your face.”
“Yeah, well, that wouldn’t be very neighborly of you.”
She laughed at that. “You’re not my neighbor.”
Gallic shrugged, half-turning toward the Hound, “See that? That’s my place. It’s as big as a house. Bigger. So right now, we are neighbors.”
Lane slowly nodded. “Then I guess I better ask you to come on inside, neighbor.”
“I suppose you should.”
He closed the distance between them in one long stride. Her arms came up and encircled his neck just as their lips came together. They kissed long and hard—the way two people do when their raw attraction for one another is all-consuming, can no longer be denied. Not for a minute—not even a second.
Chapter 22
Frontier Planet, Gorman — Heritage Plains Township.
Gallic did his best not to jostle the bed while he pulled on his left boot.
“Where you going?” Lane murmured in a sleepy voice. “It’s late. I guess I should say it’s early. Why don’t you stay? I’ll make us breakfast in an hour or two.” She leaned forward, holding the bed sheet up to cover her naked chest, and placed a warm hand on his back.
“My mind is doing cartwheels . . . figured I’d get some work done. I can come back. I’m only next door.”
“Oh yeah . . . we’re neighbors, huh? I heard about those new murders . . . the mother and her little girl.”
Gallic, sliding his right boot on, simply shook his head.
“Are you any closer to catching the guy? Did you find any other clues?”
Gallic readjusted his position on the edge of the bed so he could face her. “Maybe. A break in the killer’s routine.”
“What kind of break in routine?”
Gallic didn’t like discussing open cases; knew from experience it was a bad idea. One that could get a detective in hot water with his superiors. But he was no longer the DCI. “Just a rough drawing. Some writing on the wall . . . near the victims.”
“Tell me.”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
“Just tell me,” she urged.
“Two stick figures, maybe representative of the mother and her little girl. Their eyes had lines drawn through them.”
Lane nodded. “And the writing?”
“Keep them blind, keep them blind, only then will we truly see.” Gallic watched as her expression changed. Lane looked away, as if what he’d just shared reminded her of something; something upsetting. Suddenly her eyelids squeezed tightly shut, and her breathing became labored. “Lane . . . what is it?”
Lane began to shake, her eyes rolling back in her head, with only the whites visible. Her body was now convulsing uncontrollably.
Gallic pulled her close into him—wrapping his arms around her. “Lane . . . Lane . . . it’s okay. Easy now . . . just breathe.” Her shuddering slowly diminished, and he heard her mumbling something into his chest. Her voice was different—like a young girl’s.
“The Curz are always watching. They make sure we don’t see. Only they have true sight. I am blind. I am blind. I am most useful when I can’t see.”
Feeling her body go limp in his arms, he leaned her back on the bed and checked her pulse. It was steady and strong. What the hell just happened? He thought about what she said. The Curz? Wasn’t that the name of the alien race that left their ship behind on Mars?
Lane’s eyes opened, and she blinked several times. “I must have fallen asleep. I’m sorry.”
Gallic watched her sit up, appearing both calm and normal, though her movements seemed rather odd. Robot-like.
“I’m glad you came by, Gallic. I’d love to stay up and talk, but I’m tired now. I need . . .” her eyes closed, and her breathing changed over to deep long breaths. She was out.
Gallic continued to stare down at Lane for several minutes, badly wanting to wake her up. Ask her what she meant but she’d completely shut down. She shouldn’t know anything about the writings . . . the stick figures. He felt uneasy, then a door began to rattle violently within the recesses of his mind. He saw movement—something slithering past the gap beneath the door. Gallic abruptly stood, glanced around Lane’s bedroom, then . . .
He stepped out into the night and headed for the Hound. Walking—deep in thought, not really noticing his surroundings—he nearly missed it. Then, gazing up, he caught sight of something high up on the ship’s hull. Squinting into the darkness, he first thought it was graffiti. He could barely make out the lettering—TCW. Spray-painted on, red paint dripped down like long streams of blood.
Gallic wondered how anyone climbed up there since it was easily forty to fifty feet above the ground. Once back inside the Hound, he queried the AI, “Were you asleep, or what?”
“I am not clear on the meaning of your query, Mr. Gallic.”
“Someone, obviously, circumvented the Hound’s security measures. Display video from the portside monitoring feeds now. Start with the last three hours.”
“I assure you, there has been no unauthorized breach of the Hound’s security perimeter. My sensors would have—”
“Just do it!”
Gallic watched the video progression, what appeared to be a non-eventful evening via multiple camera feeds. He could partially make out Lane’s house in two of them. “Fast forward.”
At the two hour mark, something moved. “Normal frame rate,” he ordered. And then there it was, a small hovercraft could be seen approaching. He’d seen them around. They had open-bed and cab areas and were used by ranch hands all over these parts. As the craft moved in closer, Gallic could almost make out the driver. Whoever he was, he was dressed completely in black, with a hoodie covering his head. His face was in shadows, so impossible to make out.
“You’re telling me you didn’t see this guy?” Gallic asked.
“I did see him. I am recalling data now. I was instructed to ignore him.”
Gallic continued to watch the portside feeds. He watched as the little hovercraft moved into position, high up against the hull, then the man in black began to spray paint those three letters. Within moments, the hovercraft was piloted away.
“Who told you to ignore this?”
“You did . . . the command was issued from your ComsBand, Mr. Gallic.”
Gallic looked at his wrist. “You need to update your security protocols. Do it now! You should have deduced it wasn’t something I would sanely do. Spray-painting shit on the side of my own ship? Come on . . . what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I apologize. Perhaps my systems have been tampered with.”
“You think? Fix it. There’s a killer on the loose out there . . .”
* * *
Two hours later, Gallic was seated at his desk. Lane’s words kept replaying in his head, specifically those about the Curz. It took Gallic a few moments to find what he was looking for—a book that chronicled the discovery of the ancient Mars spacecraft. He took a seat at his desk, doing his best to ignore the mental discord going on within him. Thumbing through the pages of the four-inch-wide treatise, seeing the collection of photographs and illustrations, he recalled learning about the staggering Mars event of the previous century. With very few exceptions, it was the most monumental event in the history of mankind. Not only now was there irrefutable proof that beings on Earth were not alone within the universe, the technical advances gained from finding that highly advanced Curz spacecraft changed the trajectory of the human species. It provided man the unquenchable thirst to venture into space and beyond. Today, the findings from that Mars site were still being studied and analyzed. Professor Harkins, among those utterly fascinated by the subject, routinely gave lectures on the subject.
“AI . . . what’s happening with my call to the professor?”
“I have checked back several times. He is currently finishing up a lecture. Would you like me to try again?”
“Please.” A moment later, Gallic heard the distinctive sound of an interstellar CoreNet connection being instigated. Then a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman appeared on the display over his desk.
“Yes, Mr. Gallic, I am Professor Harkins’ assistant, Daniela Richardson. We met some time back. If you could wait a few more moments, he will be available to talk.”
“Yes hello, Daniela, I remember you. Thank you. I’ll wait.”
Less than a minute later, Harkins’ face—topped by wild red hair—appeared. “Ah! It’s my friend, the Galaxy Man! I was just thinking about you just the other day. What was it . . . hmmm . . . I’ll remember eventually.”
“How you doing, Professor? Sorry to interrupt your class.”
“No, no . . . all done with classes for the day. I received your persistent AI’s messages. Sorry . . . it’s been a busy time for me. What is it I can do for you, my friend?”
“I’m working with D-22. Recently, there have been new murders in the frontier worlds. We’re working under the assumption they are copycat homicides . . . of the hammer-and-nails killer,” Gallic said.
Professor Harkins provided an appropriate look of concern, well aware of the first victims of the still-elusive murderer. But Gallic knew the professor was an ardent amateur sleuth—loved the whole process of using his incredible intellect to uncover new clues—thereby helping to solve the unsolvable. Harkins’ private library contained every book written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Rather obvious to anyone that knew Harkins, Sherlock Holmes was his alter ego.
“Specifically, Professor, I wanted to talk to you about some hand-drawn glyphs and writings the assailant drew on the crime scene wall.”
“Is that the attached file I’m seeing?” Harkins asked, knitting his bushy red brows together.
“There’s several images for you to look at,” Gallic said.
“Interesting . . . I take it these markings were written in the victim’s blood?”
“Correct. I was wondering, specifically, if they have something to do with the Mars discovery . . . the alien ship?”
“Uh huh. I know what this is about, at least I believe I do.”
Gallic didn’t outwardly reveal the excitement now building within him. The truth was, there’d never been any real, substantive clues before to go on regarding the hammer-and-nails killer. Lots of evidence, yet no clues that led to anything definitive.
“I believe this crude drawing is related to an ancient civilization . . . one that was anti-female.” The professor, looking somewhat hesitant, then asked, “What do you know about the Curz civilization?”
“Not much.”
The professor lowered his voice, “Is this a secure line, John?”
Gallic, taken aback by the seriousness in the professor’s tone, said, “Yes, it is.”
“A highly secret society, made up of the wealthiest men on Earth, was established after that first mission to Mars. The same men that later financed the far more elaborate second mission, the Explorer Zheng He—the U.S. / Chinese cooperative space exploration venture. The team set out for the red planet then established there a new and larger base. The new site . . . Musk-Horizon . . . wasn’t far from the area known as The Hidden Valley, where in mudstone strata that ancient, incredible, alien spacecraft was first discovered.”
Gallic knew about the second mission, but he let the professor talk on uninterrupted.
“What most people don’t know is that the alien spacecraft was actually discovered on the first Mars mission.”
Gallic let that sink in. It was a startling revelation.
The professor continued, “And nearby that alien ship was a cave . . . more like a converted subterranean habitat. Inside that desolate space, the surviving aliens tried to live for some time. Found inside the cave were intricate elaborate hieroglyphs painted onto the rock walls. Now listen carefully to this, John: the first space mission to Mars from Earth found within that alien spacecraft an electronic message . . . one that had been sent, then recovered, from their home planet . . . from the Curz. It took some time to unravel the message, but when it was deciphered, it told of a world dominated by the female species. One that, over time, systematically wiped out the male population on that planet. A few . . . several hundred of the surviving male Curz, the ones still alive after evading the dominant female gender, fled . . . later crashing onto Mars. On the cave walls were elaborate glyphs that told a story, not boding well for the male species on that world. But the mother-load of information came from a vid-sheet book, if you will, that told of rituals and techniques to be used for mind control. Used to keep the female species at bay . . . either asleep, or submissive. Much of the vid-sheet book, such as it is, was dedicated to providing instructions on how to keep most Curz females blind to that ongoing, female dominated, powers-that-be, agenda.”
“Let me get this straight,” Gallic said, unsure he fully understood what the professor was telling him. “The ship and that cave were actually discovered on the first Mars mission . . . not the second?”
“Correct.”
“And a newly organized secret society of rich men . . . financed that second mission that we all know about.”
“Correct.”
“And what? This wealthy male society took up their alien brother’s female-hating cause as their own?” Gallic laughed out loud at that, at the seeming preposterousness of it all.
But the professor didn’t share in his humor. He stared back at Gallic flatly, waiting for him to quiet down. Harkins said, “This new secret society deemed themselves The Curz Watchers. Their charter was to secretly exist everywhere . . . be a part of everything. Government positions, corporate executives, you name it. The Curz Watchers are now everywhere, and it’s impossible to track them down. We’re talking here about the wealthiest individuals in the known galaxy. Why do you think the proverbial glass ceiling for women in business, or politics, has only gotten worse over the last one hundred
years?”
Though it still sounded ridiculously far-fetched to Gallic, he had to admit he’d come across numerous men, some indeed in positions of power, who clearly had distaste for those of the fairer sex holding key positions of any kind, other than being housewives. Then he thought of his own wife. How Clair, with a PhD in physics, had risen to the very top of her profession within the burgeoning space products industry. Suddenly feeling sick, he wondered if she’d been murdered simply because she was a successful woman and no longer found the new information funny.
Chapter 23
Frontier Planet, Gorman — Heritage Plains Township.
Gallic’s anger began to build, like an impending volcano eruption, taking all his will to keep his raging emotions in check. “You’re a smart guy, professor. Tell me, did you suspect anything . . . at the time of the killings? When my wife and child were murdered?”
Harkins shook his head. “Not at first. Why would I? It was such a horrible crime, a terrible thing that happened. But later . . . as new details of the crime became public, I must admit I had my suspicions. But that’s all they were. I wasn’t about to start making abstract accusations. And you have to understand, John, I have little doubt that I work alongside such members. It’s a cult. They’re extremely powerful. I wish you success. The best of luck with this added information. I truly do. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you. Unfortunately, it will have to be from the sidelines.”
Before Gallic ended the call, he thanked Harkins; assuring the professor he would be discreet should he indeed require more from him. He sat at his desk for a long while and thought about the initials, TCW, carved into each of the vics’ necks by the hammer-and-nails killer. Rubbing his tired eyes, exhaustion had caught up with him. He needed sleep. He got up and only made it as far as the couch before lying down. He briefly considered going through his usual arduous task of closing down the vulnerable access points into his mind but didn’t have the energy for it. Fuck it . . . let them come . . .
Gallic awoke to early morning daylight, streaming in through the Hound’s portside windows. His clothes were saturated with sweat and his breathing labored, as if he had just run a marathon. Clear memory of the night’s bad dream had not stayed with him, and he was thankful for that. Standing, he walked to the window and noticed dust rising into the morning air as a distant lone horseback rider headed off. It was Lane. Even from a distance, he could see her beauty, though perhaps it simply was the lasting impression she’d left on him. He wanted to go after her. He needed to speak to her about last night, about the things she’d said. The connection she had to TCW—whether unconscious, or otherwise. But then she was gone from sight.
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