by Gini Koch
“So, where are you going with this, Kitty?” Christopher sounded tired.
“I’m wondering if these are entities from your solar system.”
Martini considered this. “They could be. But we didn’t have any invisible beings.”
I had no guesses but was saved from saying so by my phone ringing. I dug it out. “Hello?”
“Leave or you and your boyfriend will both die.”
“Oh, you again. Look, he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Liar!” The caller hung up, but I got the feeling it was a woman, though the voice was still muffled. Interestingly, this call had originated from a different number. I’d see if Kevin could trace it, but after we dealt with the problem at hand.
“My stalker,” I said to the look Martini was giving me.
“I’m not your boyfriend?” He sounded pissed, hurt, and suspicious, all in one. I had a feeling his blocks were down, or shorting out, because I was fairly certain I wasn’t sending any lustful feelings toward anyone other than Martini, Brian in particular.
“No, you are. But I think my stalker is under the impression that Brian and I are an item.” I filled them in on my theory about what I was now considering the least of our three main worries.
“I think you’re reaching,” Martini said.
“I don’t,” Christopher countered. “I could really see it, especially if he’s been mooning about her for weeks.”
“Try years,” Chee interjected. “I mean, no one can discuss relationships without Brian reminiscing about the girl who got away.” He smiled at me. “You’re better looking in person.”
“Geez, what picture of me does he have up?”
“Pictures, plural.” Chee shook his head. “Everything he’s done, according to him, has been to impress you enough that you’d realize you wanted him back.”
I could feel Martini start to go into a slow boil. It was silly—there wasn’t a human man alive who could hope to match Martini in bed, let alone everything else. I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Doesn’t that strike anyone else as just way beyond obsessive?”
Chee shrugged. “Sure, but he’s a good guy. And he does keep trying to find someone he thinks is as great as you.”
“I’m not that great.”
“Yes, you are,” Martini said. He wasn’t saying it as an atta-girl—he was saying it like he was ready to go into the ring and fight Brian for me.
“Jeff, relax. I mean it.” I looked back to Chee. “So, any guesses for who’s threatening to kill me and my boyfriend if I don’t leave? Taking the assumption that this lunatic thinks I’m here for Brian.”
Chee considered. “I don’t think anyone he’s gone out with would want him back.”
“Well, the flattery just keeps on coming.”
Chee laughed. “I mean that they broke up for a reason. Most of his breakups have been amicable. And I don’t think anyone he was with was pining for him back.”
“Including me.” Poor Brian.
“Someone wants him,” Martini snapped. “At least if we take Kitty’s theory to be even close to right.”
“Jeff, trust me. This one I know in my gut, okay?” I did. There was something about the sheer lunacy of it—it screamed woman on the edge to me. “Daniel, are there some seriously unhinged women who work with or around you guys?”
“Could be a man, you know,” Gower said dryly.
I shook my head. “I don’t think it is, and not because Brian’s straight. Argh. I need to make a call.” She was going to be pissed, but oh, well. “Hi, Mom, sorry to bother you.”
“That’s okay, the President feels what’s going on at Kennedy is more important.” I wondered if he would agree that this particular issue fell under that “more important” category and decided not to ask.
“Great. Remember Brian Dwyer?”
“Yes, the nice boy you dumped.” Yep, she and Dad had loved him.
“Yes, him. Guess what? He’s an astronaut and one of the ones in quarantine.”
“He still in love with you?”
“Funny you should ask. In a really John Hinckley kind of way, yes.”
“Well, I don’t know why you’re surprised.”
“Okay, I am surprised. Why aren’t you surprised?”
Mom sighed. “He told you at grad night he was going to go off and do something that would make you proud of him, and then, when he was successful, rich, famous, whatever, he’d come back and convince you that you two were meant to be.”
Oh. Right. I remembered . . . not so much. Okay, it was official—I did attract the really clingy, needy, possessive, stalker types. Then again, if I was going to spend the rest of my life with one, I wanted him to also be so godlike in bed that I didn’t care. Ergo, I was Martini’s, and Brian was out of luck.
“Okay, well, that might explain some of what’s going on.”
“You didn’t remember that?” Mom sounded shocked.
“Um . . . no. I haven’t thought of Brian much in recent years and not at all in the last several months.”
“You were in love with him.”
“I was sixteen. I was also in love with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.”
“You’re still in love with them.”
“Okay, bad example. But, I can’t believe he’s still into me. It’s not like we stayed in touch. Though, he stayed in touch with Sheila apparently in order to keep tabs on me.”
“How sweet.”
“Mom, are you drinking? If this wasn’t your dearly beloved Brian, wouldn’t you think this was freaking insane behavior?”
She sighed. “Yes, probably. But he’s an astronaut.”
“He’s an astronaut with some outer-space entity inside him, so, sorry if I’m not eager to resume the relationship.”
“Fine, fine. Jeff’s probably better suited to deal with you anyway.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She barked a laugh. “So cute. So, why did you call, just to tell me you’ve run into Brian?”
“No.” I filled her in on all the various chaos that we were embroiled in. “So, I want to get rid of my stalker so we can concentrate on the things that actually matter, like staying alive and getting whatever creepy thing’s inside the astronauts out and neutralized.”
“Let me talk to Jeff.”
I handed the phone to Martini. “You’re up.”
He gave me the “what?” look which received the “fake it” gesture from me. He plastered a smile onto his face—I realized if he weren’t so good at what he did, he could have quite the career in telemarketing.
“Hi, Angela, sorry we’re taking up your time. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes. No. Thanks, it’s nice to still be alive. No, I don’t think there are entities within the astronauts just because I don’t like whatshisname. Right, Brian. Got it. You know, Christopher’s still available, too; should I just let the two of them fight it out for her?”
Christopher and I exchanged a look. Yeah, this wasn’t going as planned.
“Yes, that was sarcasm. Yes, as I told my own mother only yesterday, I’ve always been sarcastic, you’ve just never noticed. No, never about Kitty. Yes, I’d like to find out if her mysterious caller is after Brian because it makes it easier to block whatever murderous move they’re going to make against Kitty. Yes, against Kitty. What part of ‘leave Florida or we kill you and your boyfriend’ isn’t coming through clearly?”
Martini shot me a “you’ll pay for this” look. “You know, maybe I should talk to Sol about this. No, I don’t think he has more experience with stalkers. I just don’t think we’re making progress here, and I have several hundred A-Cs in, if we take the signs to be accurate, mortal peril. I have three astronauts with something very alien inside them, which is also inordinately interested in Kitty. And we have some lunatic calling at odd times to tell Kitty to get out of town. If we could just go back to Dulce, believe me, I’d go in half a heartbeat.”
He was quiet while Mom talked. Martini started looking less upset, so I
hoped she was giving him some advice, as opposed to making him more stressed out.
Gower touched my arm. “The visuals are downloaded. I’m going to have all three of them cross-reference who they’ve seen and are seeing with the archives. Only showing them folks who have been in space and are dead, as a first pass.”
“Works for me.” Martini was still listening. I put my arm around his waist. His whole body was tensed. I wanted to rub his back but wasn’t sure if it would hurt him or not. This couldn’t be good for his empathic blocks, though, and I didn’t want to have to give him adrenaline again any time soon.
Finally he spoke. “Okay, sounds good. You want to talk to Kitty? Great, talk to you later.” He handed me the phone and knocked his head gently against the wall.
“Mom, what did you just harangue Jeff about?”
“Nothing. I just gave him some suggestions and told him to make sure you were safe.”
“Nothing my ass.”
“I want your ass protected.”
“Well, did you give him any help in terms of finding my stalker or did you just spend time telling him how great Brian was when we were in freaking high school?”
She sighed. “I gave him a quick course in how to spot the likely stalker, yes. And I didn’t give it to you because it’s unlikely the stalker will identify if you’re looking at him or her. They’re likely to seem friendly to you, in order to lull you into a false sense of security. Or they’ll just attack you without warning.”
Great news. “Can this get any more fun?”
“Probably.” Mom sighed again. “Tell Jeff I’m sorry. The situation in Florida is out of control, and I don’t know how much of this is related to all the discussions of what to do with Centaurion Division or not.”
“I’d guess a lot. I’m not big on the coinkydinks. I think a lot of this is interrelated, but I don’t think my stalker situation is.”
“Wouldn’t that then be a coincidence?” I could swear she was snickering.
“Tell Dad I’m calling him next time.”
“Yes, Jeff mentioned that, too. Give Christopher my love, and I’ll talk to you after your next crisis. Love you, kitten.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
I leaned against Martini. “There are times when I wonder if she’s just pretending to be the head of antiterrorism and is actually giving me advice based on the latest hit soap’s storyline.”
“Nah, that’d be too easy.”
“Jeff, Kitty,” Gower was near Michael’s cell. “I think we’ve got a definitive answer.”
CHAPTER 33
WE TROTTED OVER TO MICHAEL’S CELL. “Every person the astronauts see has been in space, and every one of them is dead.” Gower sounded calmer than I would have expected under the circumstances. He wasn’t all that calm, but at least he wasn’t screaming. I chose to see this as a positive.
“But not every person who’s been in space and has died is in the lineup, right?”
“Right. As Chee told us, the Challenger crew isn’t here. In fact, no one who’s died in an accident or for any other reason while in space is being seen by the astronauts.”
“So, what does that tell us?” Christopher asked. “Are we dealing with a haunting of some kind?”
There was something I knew I needed to remember. “That tenth planet you told me about, Jeff . . . the one that you and a couple of the other races felt were a danger. You removed their ability for space travel.”
“Right, what about them?”
“And you think the entities within the astronauts are here to do something, but they don’t know what?”
“Yes, that’s the best I’ve got. Again, what about it?”
I closed my eyes and tried to figure this out. When we’d met—over a newly formed superbeing I’d killed—Martini had implanted a memory from his aunt, Christopher’s mother, Terry, in my mind. But it wasn’t only a memory, or a prophecy. There was a little bit of Terry still inside me. I never discussed it with Martini or Christopher—Terry had programmed Martini when he was a little boy, but he still felt guilty about the implant, even though it had never upset me; and Christopher wouldn’t be able to deal properly with the idea that a part of his mother was potentially still alive.
Over the past five months, I’d learned to tap into this little essence of Terry. It was difficult, because it wasn’t an active part of her consciousness, but it was helpful when I could achieve a connection, because she was an A-C and therefore knew things intrinsically that I couldn’t. It was a melding of my mind and the sum total of her experiences, and the two didn’t meet all that often. But I really wanted them to meet now.
I leaned against Martini. Terry had been an empath, and sometimes I thought her essence drew some power from my proximity to the most powerful empath on Earth. He wrapped his arms around me, and I relaxed against him.
“Nap time?” Christopher asked.
“Maybe. Why can’t we tell what the entities are?”
“Why are you asking questions that have no relation to each other?” Martini countered. “And, no idea.”
“Why don’t the entities understand what they’re supposed to do?”
“This is fun, Kitty, but not helping.” Gower sounded impatient.
“Why do the entities think they have something to do? And why are they and the ‘ghosts’ more interested in me than in the rest of you?”
“Maybe they think you’re cuter,” Michael said with a laugh.
My eyes opened. “Maybe they think I’m the only woman available.” I looked up at Martini. “The Supreme Fugly wanted me because I was a woman. And you said these things feel similar but not the same.”
He nodded. “But I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
I dug my phone out and dialed. “James, everyone okay?”
“Bored to tears, girlfriend. Alfred turned the sound off, so we’ve been watching the silent movie that’s your so-called interrogation of the astronauts.”
“Why did Alfred turn off the sound?”
“Security issue, in case the feeds have been tampered with.”
“Wise choice, all things considered.”
“Yeah. What’s taking so long?”
“Long story, catch you up later. What’s the most significant thing about the Valiant, other than the fact that her astronauts are in quarantine?”
Reader was quiet for a moment. “I’d have to say it’s that she’s the first viable manned long-range spaceship. I mean, there are other things, but that would be most significant to me.”
“I love you.”
“Yeah, I know, but Jeff’s feeling highly possessive this trip, and I think he can take me, so let’s just keep on pretending I’m gay and uninterested.”
“If we must.” I hung up.“I know what’s in the astronauts.”
“We’re all breathless,” Christopher snarked.
“I mean, I think. Michael, how far out were you when you got hit?”
He shrugged. “Pretty far. Past the moon.”
“Farther than any manned craft have gone before?”
“Check with Daniel, but yeah, I think so.”
We went to Daniel’s cell and asked. “Yes. We’d just gone three hundred thousand miles from Earth. I was just about to mention to the guys that we’d officially gone where no man had gone before when we got hit.”
“That’s it.” I spun around. “We keep on thinking that the only risks to Earth from outer space are the parasites. But that’s not true. For all we know, your home planet, or one of the others from your system, has decided Earth’s likely to be a pain somewhere along the line. I’m betting on your planet—which knows we’re all here—as the brains behind this operation.”
“Why? And what operation?” Gower sounded confused.
“The Valiant passed some outer space fence that was booby-trapped. Daniel just confirmed it—they were farther out, past anything we’ve done before. Whatever was there, the entities, entered the ship and took it back. I t
hink the confusion is they don’t know if it’s Miller Time or not, and they also don’t know if they can or should phone home.”
“More explanation, less Kittyisms,” Christopher said.
“I wasn’t ‘isming’! I’ll talk slower. I think it’s safe to assume there is at least one planet, maybe more, that doesn’t want Earthlings to show up saying, ‘Howdy! Can we move in here?’ One of those is your home planet. You remember them, the lovely folks who exiled your entire race here because you have different religious views and so you’d lure the parasites to Earth?”
“Rings a bell,” Martini said.
“So, let’s use them as our working hypothesis.”
“Ooooh, she brings out the big words,” Christopher said with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes but kept going. “Alpha Centauri doesn’t want us to visit or you all to get back home. So, what’s the best way to ensure that, short of destroying us? They don’t want to destroy us because you’re still luring parasites here, so that means parasites are still knocking over on Alpha Centauri’s ozone shield there. So, they put up a fence, a barrier, a trip wire of some kind, in whatever radius around Earth they felt was appropriate. We won’t see it—if our technology can’t see the cloaking you’ve had here since the nineteen-sixties, I guarantee we can’t spot whatever Alpha Centauri’s put up since then.”
Gower nodded. “It makes sense. Go on.”
“The Valiant tripped the wire. So, the ‘back off’ mechanism went into place. Something entered the ship, took over, and took it back—right back to where it came from, which, as a human living with A-Cs, strikes me as just your race’s kind of efficiency. No human would have or could have done it—a human agency trying to fool someone would have landed the Valiant where it should have been, and no sane human would try to land a rocket ship back sitting on its butt. Nor could we have done it without help, alien-type help.”
“How do we prove it?” Martini asked.
“We talk to your fathers—they should know what was done to hold that warlike planet at bay. I’m betting it’s something like this.”