by Lakes, Lynde
“The ship actually flies itself,” Cortz said, pouring on the charm. “This little retriever does everything.”
“And if I let you go,” Greg said, smiling for the first time. “You’ll punch a code into that retriever and it’ll zip you back to Uraticus?”
“Right. It’s as simple as punching these coordinates in,” Cortz said, following through as he talked. “Then when I tap the liftoff button, we’ll be out of your life forever.”
“Why should I let you go? I’ll be a hero if I capture an alien.” Greg’s eyes remained steady, but Cortz saw the madman gleam in them.
A knot formed in his stomach. “Look at me, Greg! Listen carefully. You and I are made from the same cloth, both inventors, men of science. Uraticus needs me just as Earth needs you. If the situation were reversed, I’d let you go.”
“Oh yeah?” Greg sneered. “And what do I get out of the deal?”
“Your life back and the satisfaction of knowing you helped a fellow inventor to keep monitoring Earth, keeping it safe.”
“Keep his freedom, you mean.”
Cortz eased toward the door. “Just let me get Darli and we’ll be on our way.” Cortz stuck his head out the door and motioned for Darli to come.
“Wait,” Greg said. “This takes serious thought. I might be passing up something very good here.”
“There’s no time.” Cortz tucked the retriever in his waistband. “We have to get out of here before we’re seen.” He reached down to give Darli a hand upward.
“Yes,” Greg said. “You’re right. And I’ve decided.” In one continuous motion, Greg grabbed the retriever from Cortz’s waistband and shoved him from the spaceship.
Shock pulsed through Cortz as he flew through the air and sprawled on top of Darli.
Greg laughed, danced a little jig and waved the retriever. “You stole my life here on Earth. Now I’ll steal yours on Uraticus.” He stepped back into the shadow of the spaceship. His laughter carried on the breeze. “I’ve never made believe I was an alien before. It’ll be my greatest act of all!” Greg held out the retriever and made a dramatic show of pushing the liftoff button.
“No!” Cortz jumped to his feet, leaving Darli behind. Then he leaped forward, trying to thrust himself inside before the silver door slid completely closed. Failing, he pounded on the metal. “This is crazy. You don’t know what you’re doing!”
****
Darli rose to her feet and stood frozen to the spot. The craft lurched and Cortz fell back against her. He managed to keep them both from falling and put his arm around her. “This is bad,” he said.
“What’s going to happen?”
Cortz kissed her forehead. “Nothing good.”
She watched the spaceship lift off the ground, felt its chilling wind whip her. She moved closer to Cortz. As the silver orb rose into the sky it seemed to shrink. “Why did he do that?”
“His warped idea of justice.” Cortz shaded his eyes as he stared at the sky. “Oh, no. He’s moving too slowly. He has to accelerate now!”
“Why? He’s already going faster than a jet plane.”
“But it’s too slow. He needs more speed. Punch the accelerator button, you crazy fool!”
The spaceship continued its ascent without increasing speed. As it gained altitude, the silver orb appeared to shrink.
Darli clasped her hands, prayer-like. Lord, protect him.
Suddenly, the Uraticean spaceship exploded, filling the sky with a million pieces of metal shards and cascading fire. Debris fell like a rain of death around them. Cortz drew her close, protecting her with his body.
She glanced up at him. “My God, Cortz! What happened?”
“A missile got it.” Cortz’s voice cracked, his shoulders slumped. Tears glistened in his ruby-brown eyes. “Poor Greg. He tried to outwit me. Instead, he outsmarted himself.”
“Oh Cortz.” She felt the blood draining from her face. “If Greg hadn’t stopped us, we would’ve been the ones blown to bits.” She touched the special place where she carried and nourished the precious little being growing within her. Her legs gave way, and she sank to the ground.
Cortz joined her and held her tightly. “We might not have suffered the same fate as Greg. Greater acceleration might have made the difference.”
“But you’re not positive.” She looked up at Cortz, wanting him to somehow ease the horror twisting through her.
“No. And I shouldn’t have considered taking you with me. If anything had happened to you or the baby…” His eyes brimmed with tears. “I knew there would be danger, but I refused to believe we might not make it.” His jaw muscle twitched. “Poor Greg.”
It was obvious that Cortz was fighting the same ache that coursed through her. Feeling dazed, and still cradling her abdomen, she prayed for renewed strength. This was no time to fall apart. “We have to get out of here. In a few minutes the military will swarm this place.”
“Right,” Cortz said. “Let’s go.”
Using the enerplanes they entered the water and headed back to the main shore.
Once there, Cortz hugged her. “You’re one strong woman,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m not strong,” Darli said. “I’m running on adrenaline and a mother’s need to protect her unborn baby.”
“Right. For our baby we must escape. We can debate your strength later. Grab your clothes, and let’s get out of here.”
Without bothering to dry off or dress, she ran to the borrowed car and climbed in. Cortz slid behind the steering wheel, roared the car to life, and drove away like a fire chief, heading for a two-alarm blaze.
Darli glanced back as armed forces pulled into the area. Heavy military trucks shook the earth. Men leaped out of trucks with their rifles drawn.
While Cortz headed up the highway toward Honolulu, Darli prayed they hadn’t been seen. The image of the exploding spaceship played over and over in her mind. Cortz took a hand off the steering wheel and pulled her close. He glanced down at her with eyes glistening with unshed tears. When he returned his gaze to the road, his profile was stone-etched.
It was obvious he was feeling the same ache gnawing at her. Why did Greg have to die? Even though mentally confused and dangerous, he didn’t deserve this. She remembered the icy steel pressed against her neck. Would he have killed her if she’d resisted? Dr. Steina had said he could be dangerous if cornered. Somehow, in spite of the terror he’d inflicted on her, Darli felt a strange kinship to him. He was too much like Cortz to be a bad man. He’d shot Cortz, but that was only because Cortz had jumped him. Now Greg was dead. A tear rolled down her cheek. It was too late for Greg. Now she had to think about what lay ahead for Cortz. For her. For their baby.
When they arrived at the hotel, they went straight to their room. It was cool inside.
She leaned against the door for a moment as if able to bar the world from entering. The drapes were drawn and it was silent, deathly silent. But they were safe. For now.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Darli slept fitfully. In her nightmare, Greg had let them go, and she and Cortz boarded the craft—jubilant, free, and on their way toward a new life. The spaceship lifted off the ground and soared into the sky, higher and higher. Then came the explosion, a searing white light. No! No!
Her silent scream awakened her. She reached for Cortz but the bed was cold, empty. Then she saw him. He stood by the window, staring out into the darkness. She sensed his pain, his turmoil, certain it matched her own. She patted the bed beside her. “Why don’t you lie down and rest a little longer?”
He turned, his expression grim. “I’ve made a decision. I’m on this planet for the rest of my life. I can’t live a life of running and hiding. Even if I ran, I couldn’t stay away from you and our baby. If I tried to come near you or contact you, I’d be caught. I might as well get it over with and turn myself in.”
“No, please don’t,” Darli said softly. “If we stay here a few more days at least we’d be together. It’s i
mpossible to know how long we’ll be separated once they get their hands on you.”
The hard set of Cortz’s jaw revealed that compromise wasn’t in the stars for them. “I have to do this now! While I have the courage. Call the sergeant. Tell him I’m coming in.”
A cold chill of fear slid down Darli’s spine. She jumped at the ear-splitting blare of the Hawaiian civil defense warning siren. Did the warning have something to do with Cortz? She flicked on the television.
“An 8.0 Earthquake in Chile has triggered a Tsunami scheduled to hit our Hawaiian chain in about five hours,” the reporter said. Then he gave instructions to evacuate lowlying areas.
****
Everyone on the island was on Tsunami alert, including those at Naval Headquarters, and Ryker was surprised that Olsen hadn’t canceled their meeting. It seemed the destruction of an alien spaceship remained high priority. He glanced at Fox with pride and then tried not to let Olsen’s troubled eyes bring him down. “It was beautiful, sir. We aimed every missile at it. The first one did the job—a dead center hit. Here are the photographs taken from the moment the spacecraft moved. We only lost sight of it for ten minutes at the most.”
Olsen’s frown deepened. “A lot can happen in ten minutes!”
“Yes, sir. We feared it had landed. Then, we zeroed in on it again, fired a missile and bang—it exploded.”
Olsen inspected the pictures. “Was it manned or unmanned?”
Ryker struggled to remain confident. “Underwater cameras were on it around-the-clock for over a year. No one left or entered. If it was a manned spaceship, the alien or aliens would’ve had to survive without coming out for over a year, which is unlikely.”
Fox furrowed his brow. “May I see those, sir?” He held out his palm.
Olsen handed Fox the pictures without breaking eye contact with Ryker. The commander’s piercing gaze made Ryker feel inept as though, in spite of their success, they hadn’t quite measured up.
“What dislodged the spaceship from the volcanic rock?” Olsen growled. “And who or what operated and controlled it?
Ryker’s stomach knotted. “No one knows, sir. It was as if the ship were held with magnets and was suddenly demagnetized. The UFO zipped through the guarded area and went airborne before we could stop it.
“Then you lost sight of it—for ten long minutes.”
“Yes, sir. But that may not be as significant as it sounds. We’re pretty certain it was merely a research or spy vessel.”
“But now we’ll never know for sure.” Olsen paced the floor. “I don’t like unknowns. Double the patrol forces. If other UFOs come into the area we must know about it. Immediately. We were lucky this time. But there were slip ups. Remember how long it took the frogmen to find it?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” Ryker raised his chin slightly and stuck a finger in his collar to loosen it.
Olson kept looking out their tenth floor office window and Ryker knew the Tsunami heading for the islands like a silent torpedo concerned his commander. But to his credit he stayed on the mark. “We can’t let the public know there was an unidentified spacecraft along our shore for over a year.” Olsen rubbed his thick, dark eyebrows. “Handle the media. Tell them it was a test missile misfire. It would be better to take the heat from that than to alarm the public with an alien scare.”
“What if civilians saw the spacecraft before it exploded?” Ryker compulsively straightened a glass ashtray on his commander’s shiny, clutter-free desk.
“Claim it was part of the test,” Olsen said. “And make it believable.”
“Do you still want to question Gregory Harris?” Fox asked.
Olsen expression went blank. “Who?”
Fox stepped slightly behind the commander, shook his head, and glanced at Ryker with a God-help-us expression. “The guy from California who—”
“Ah yes,” Olsen said, glancing out the window again. “The squirrel from the nut-farm.”
“If you recall,” Fox said, “he claimed to be a space alien.”
Olsen’s chest expanded with self-importance. “If we brought in every mental patient who claimed to be an alien, we wouldn’t have time for anything else. Forget him. Close the investigation. Notify all personnel, including Salvatori.”
Fox thumbed through the photographs again. When he glanced up his eyes were troubled. “This is a big change, sir. May I ask why?”
“We have other emergencies at hand. Besides, we’ve wasted enough time chasing empty leads. What we blew up was a spy vessel.”
After pacing a few steps, Fox turned, his face tight with frustration. “But I still have this strong feeling about Mrs. Harris. I don’t feel satisfied about her.”
“Ryker, what do you think?” Olsen asked.
Ryker thought of his wife and new son at the crowded shelter probably scared out their wits. Suddenly he just wanted to end this meeting and check on them. “No one could’ve survived the missile hit. And we ran a check on Mrs. Harris. She has no espionage connections.” He glanced at Fox. “She’s a looker, isn’t she?”
“Yes, sir. But that’s not it.”
“Get your brains out of your pants, Fox,” Olsen ordered.
Fox’s face flushed. He clenched his fists but remained silent.
Olsen paced a few steps. “The spaceship penetrated our territory. It was by chance that, once it took flight and disappeared, we found it again.”
“It wasn’t by chance, sir. Our men did a hell of a job, and they did destroy it. But we can’t take chances like that again.”
Ryker swallowed and cleared his voice before speaking. “We’ll continue tight patrolling and surveillance, sir. If a UFO comes into our skies again, we’ll know it.”
“We’d better!” Olsen shouted. Then his voice lowered to a more normal tone. “I’ll call Admiral Hindecker and the President and give them a briefing on the destruction of the spacecraft. I want commendations in the file of every person involved with the project.”
****
It was noon and the police station buzzed with personnel handling the tsunami preparedness details, including the huge job of evacuating people from the shorelines and setting up roadblocks. The uniformed woman behind the desk looked up and gave Darli and Cortz a tired smile.
“We’re the Harrises. We have an appointment with Sgt. Kanea.”
“Now? Don’t you realize we’re on tsunami alert?”
“He told us to come in immediately when my husband returned.”
The police officer rolled her eyes and punched her intercom. “Mr. and Mrs. Harris to see you, Sergeant.” She motioned toward the empty wooden bench. “He’ll be with you in a moment.”
Cortz and Darli sat down. They held hands. Neither spoke. There was nothing left to say.
A pale, stringy-haired woman on the other bench held a baby in her arms. When she smiled at the baby, her too thin, troubled face took on a gentle radiance. The infant was as dark as the mother was white. It apparently resembled the father. Would their child be colorless like Cortz had been before his pigment injections? It wouldn’t matter. Just as the woman loved the child cradled in her arms, she would love her baby, fiercely, the same way she loved Cortz.
What would happen to Cortz now? And after her baby was born, would the government want to take it, study it? Panic rose in her. There was still time to leave before it was too late.
Sergeant Kanea came out of his office smiling.
Darli and Cortz stood. Her knees were shaking.
“I meant to call you,” Kanea said, “but I’ve had my hands full with this alert.” He paused and looked at Cortz. “Are you Mr. Harris?”
Cortz nodded and shook the sergeant’s hand.
“I’m sorry I didn’t contact you before you came all the way down here,” Kanea said. “We no longer need to talk to you, Mr. Harris. The Navy officials cancelled the investigation.”
Darli felt confused, disbelieving. “You mean we’re free to go?”
“Yes,” Kanea said. “It
seems it was all a mistake. But how did you get past the roadblocks?”
“The bus is operating. We rode it.” Darli met Cortz’s questioning gaze and shrugged. She released his hand and grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, unable to hold back her grin.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Darli turned off the television after safety officials announced the all clear alert. After the intense fervor, the tsunami fortunately turned out to be low impact. Officials stated that during the zeal of alerting people and moving them to safety, they had learned things that would be helpful in the next emergency. For instance, which things had worked and which ones they could do better. Darli sighed in relief—the islands had lucked out—and so had she and Cortz.
She stepped out onto the deck of their beach house, sat down and watched Cortz pace. “They’ve lifted the tsunami warning,” she said. “The island’s are safe. We are safe.”
“Great,” he said, looking grim.
Why couldn’t he accept their good luck? “Please, Cortz, come sit down.”
“I don’t understand why I’m free.” Solemn worry lines marred his forehead. “Why is the Navy no longer interested in talking to me?”
Darli shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun and looked up at him. “The Navy must think all of the aliens died in the explosion.”
“But why were the California inquiries withdrawn? It can’t be this easy.” He paced a few more steps.
“Darn, You. Now you’ve got me worried. I’m calling Greg’s sister.”
“What will you say?” Cortz asked, following her inside.
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll ask her what’s going on.” Darli sat down on the couch, pulled her long slender legs up under her, and reached for the telephone on the end table. “Pick up the kitchen extension. We both need to hear this.”
Time seemed to stop while they waited for Mona to answer. Darli was about to hang up when she heard Mona’s soft hello.