“What just happened?” Henry said.
Craig grinned. “Welcome to our home.”
“Craig, sweetheart, the new samples are—” The new voice sounded much the same as Craig’s. If anything, it was a little deeper. Barbara?
Craig pressed Henry closer, partially covering Henry’s body with the spines of his chest.
“Before you get angry,” Craig said, “let me explain.”
“Explain… What is that you’re carrying?” she said.
“You know that Earthling I’ve been watching?”
“Yes.” She dragged out the word.
“He was attacked by a bear, so I—”
Barbara let out a sigh deep enough to ruffle Henry’s hair. She must be standing right next to them. Henry tried to crane his neck to look at her, but Craig was holding him too close.
“So you ran to the rescue,” she said. “Why in the name of the Solar Cross did you bring him back to our ship? You’re risking everything.”
“He’s an orphan,” Craig said.
Henry blew the spine-fur out of his mouth so he could speak. “Pheh. Pheh. I am not. I mean, technically, I am, but I’m an adult.”
“He’s cold and he’s hungry and he’s all alone,” Craig said.
Cold and hungry, yes. But not alone. Not since Vay had shown up on his doorstep. But then, Craig probably didn’t know about her. He might not have followed Henry back as far as his cabin while “observing the human in the wild”.
Craig leaned closer to Barbara and lowered his voice, as if he thought he could whisper quietly enough that Henry wouldn’t hear him. “And he’s only twenty-six Earth cycles old.”
“Twenty-six?” There was a catch in Barbara’s voice.
Here we go.
“Twenty-six is considered mature for my species,” Henry insisted.
Barbara brushed Craig’s fur away from Henry’s face, giving him a chance to finally see her. She pretty much looked exactly like Craig, except the fur around her face was much shorter, revealing more of her ears. They were shaped sort of like bat wings. They even moved like wings as she studied him.
“Cool…”
Henry shook himself, gently pushing away from Craig’s chest. Now was not the time to be studying Lyrian physiology.
When his feet were on the floor of what must be their spaceship, he could see an opening behind Craig that led to the forest. Henry had been in this area dozens of times recently and seen nothing out of place.
“Is your ship invisible?” Henry asked.
“Yes.” Craig puffed up his chest and smiled. “Lyrians are at the forefront of cloaking technology. Not that anyone knows, thanks to Sadirians stealing all the credit.”
Barbara’s lips peeled back from her teeth and she hissed at Craig. A second row of teeth protruded from inside her mouth.
“Darling, let’s be civil,” Craig said. “You’re scaring Henry.”
“I’m fine.” Henry did his best to hide his fear—and keep from losing control of any bodily functions—while Barbara calmed down.
Once her teeth were back in a more familiar configuration she exhaled sharply like Craig often did. She glared at Henry, making his palms sweat.
“He looks like a Tau Ceti,” she said.
Craig smiled, as if that was a compliment. Henry tried to follow his lead.
“Thanks?”
The corner of Barbara’s mouth quirked up. He hoped that was a good thing.
She turned back toward the archway where she’d come from. “I knew I should have agreed when you asked to breed more nestlings.”
As soon as she was gone, Craig pulled Henry into a crushing hug while ruffling his hair.
So many arms…
“She likes you,” Craig said.
“Really. How could you tell?”
Craig let Henry go and shrugged. “She didn’t tear off any of your arms.”
“Ha ha.” Henry followed Craig deeper into the ship. “Wait, you were joking, right? Right?”
Chapter Seven
“Stop freaking out.” Vay repeated the words over and over again, not that it was helping.
Henry wasn’t at his cabin. But the energy signature she’d been tracking was.
It was so faint, if she hadn’t known what to look for, she wouldn’t have noticed it. But there were definite traces of energy all over his home. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since she’d left.
She wasn’t sure how or why, but she was certain it was the Scorpiian. For a single, crazy moment, she wondered if maybe it and Henry were one and the same. Disguising itself as a human would be exactly the kind of thing it would do to blend in and get close to its target. But she just couldn’t believe that was true.
Henry was kind and warm. He was loving and gentle.
Scorpiians were cold assassins. She would have picked up on that while they talked, she was certain. At one point, he had even wrapped his arm around her as they sat close on the couch.
No. Henry was human. He was an Earthling.
But the Scorpiian had most likely been in his home. She’d thought through all the angles of why it would be there. There was no reason for it to be interested in Henry. He didn’t have power or influence.
The only thing that she could figure it would be looking for there was her. From her readings, she knew that it had been there after she’d visited with Henry and not before.
If it had managed to find samples of her DNA—which was pretty likely, since she and Henry had eaten a meal together and she’d probably shedded hairs on his couch—the Scorpiian would be able to take on her appearance.
Gaining access to the Department of Homeworld Security would endanger everything they were working for on Earth’s behalf. And if it managed to get aboard the Arbiter, she shuddered to think of what it could accomplish by taking on the form of the right person at the right time.
It had already tried to manage both of those tasks before, but had been stopped by Eric and Sorca. Kira’s team had been on high alert ever since, but had yet to encounter the Scorpiian again—that they knew of.
Vay’s ship was locked down, so it couldn’t gain entry to it. Plus, it would want to eliminate her before taking over her form. She needed to get back to her ship, but had to know that Henry was safe before she called in and told Kira…
Honestly, Vay wasn’t sure what she was going to tell Kira.
But she would make it back to headquarters to tell Kira something. The scans from Vay’s uniform were on maximum power and—
A blip of light appeared on her uniform’s viewscreen. That couldn’t be right.
One moment, there was nothing. The next, there was a human-sized lifeform a few dozen meters away. How had someone appeared so close to Vay without her sensors warning her?
Brendan called their uniforms “silver catsuits”. They weren’t exactly inconspicuous in the woodland setting. And there was no place for her to hide. Apparently, it was a moot point. Whoever it was had spotted her.
He immediately took off running. She wasn’t sure whether she should pursue, but then her target yelled, “Hey, Sadirian. The Tau Ceti started settling down here before you. Find a different planet to exploit for resources.”
A Tau Ceti? Here? She took off in pursuit. The sentient was far ahead of her, leaping over brush and ducking behind trees.
A Scorpiian might be more than she could handle, but a single Tau Ceti…
Wait. Why would a Tau Ceti be alone in a forest with no human prey nearby to feed on?
Vay needed answers, and the only way she would get them would be to catch this…whatever he was. Lucky for her, he didn’t seem very coordinated.
He kept catching his coat sleeves on branches. The long white scarf he wore trailed behind him, snagging on tree limbs. One caught hard, jerking him to a stop. He made a choking noise as his legs kept going forward from his momentum, then he fell onto his back.
A huge amount of snow from the branch above dropped onto him. She reached him just
as he was digging himself out, flailing as he reached the surface. She slid the power level of her wristband to its mid-range, so the blast would only stun a Tau Ceti. She could question him when he revived.
“Pheh. Pheh.” He spat out snow, wiping it from his face. His eyes widened when he saw her, but probably not as wide as hers did behind the screen of her helmet.
Long straight nose, full soft lips, big brown eyes… It was Henry.
By all the stars in the void, how had they managed to run into each other again? Out here?
He looked at her wristband and raised his hands in a gesture she knew indicated surrender.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m an Earthling. Just an Earthling.”
She opened her hands and slowly lowered them to her sides, hoping to calm him down. His chest was heaving, and his lips pulled down in a deep frown.
“How do you know about the Tau Ceti?” she said.
“I…uh… Just made it up.” His gaze darted around, as if he was looking for a way to escape. “Tau Ceti is a close system. I think it’s on the list of the ones who might have habitable planets.”
He turned his attention back to her. “And you... You’re obviously some sort of crazy person dressed up in a shiny silver catsuit. A very flattering catsuit.”
He shook his head and looked away, his frown deepening.
“You called me Sadirian,” Vay said.
Henry shrugged. “Just another nearby system?”
“It’s not that close.”
“I’m a biologist, not an astronomer.” He laughed as if he’d made a joke.
“This is serious, Henry.”
She saw his throat work to swallow beneath the fluffy white scarf, then he let out a foggy breath.
“How do you know my name?”
Her chest felt tight and her eyes burned. If he’d had contact with alien sentients, he would need a mindwipe. Protocol was absolutely clear on this, and to deviate would bring down sanctions from the Coalition.
Since establishing a First Contact committee was such a high priority, Kira wouldn’t risk upsetting the High Council by letting a loose end like Henry wander around Earth.
Who had been talking to him, though?
That was Vay’s opening. They needed to find out what he knew and how he’d learned it. Who better to gather that information than Kira’s cultural programmer? Especially since Vay had a link to Henry.
It would give her time to figure out what to do. How to protect him.
He leaned away from her, as if he was trying to escape through the earth itself. He looked terrified.
“I won’t hurt you.” She extended her arm to him. He stared at it for a moment, but then took it and let her help him up.
As soon as he was on his feet, he dropped her hand and started inching away. “That’s nice of you to say, but it would be a lot more reassuring if I wasn’t staring at my distorted reflection in your very fifties-scifi-movie-looking helmet.”
“Just… Don’t freak out.”
“That is actually a very unsettling thing to hear from…a fellow Earthling dressed as an alien in a remote area of unpopulated forest.”
She laughed and he cocked his head to the side as if she’d surprised him. With a deep breath, she tapped the side of her helmet. Its seams split open, the segments folding up on each other and nestling into the storage compartment built into the neck of her uniform.
His eyes widened. “Vay?”
She smiled and lifted her hand in a half-hearted wave. “Hi, Henry.”
“Hi.” He said the word with wonder, his mouth stretching into the broad smile she was used to seeing from him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood…again?”
“In a skin-tight silver catsuit.” His eyebrows furrowed, but he was still smiling.
Part of her wanted to play it off as a game—to return to the banter they’d shared the day before and when they first met. But the joke was over. It was too late to go back.
“Actually, it’s my uniform.”
He nodded, his smile fading. “Right. Because you actually are an alien. Which is why you didn’t know what birthdays were or Christmas or coffee or fruitcake. Or kisses.”
“I actually knew what kisses were,” she said. “I’d just…never participated in one.”
Which it sounded like he’d noticed. She wondered if she’d done something wrong during their one and only kiss under the mistletoe. She wished that she had kissed him again yesterday, when things were simpler between them.
The wind picked up and her nose started to run. She sniffed, wishing she had some tissues or something. She didn’t relish the thought of wiping her nose on the crinkly fabric of her uniform.
He quickly took off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck. It was incredibly soft and warm.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
His hands lingered on her shoulders. They were standing so close, she would only need to lean in a little bit to kiss him again.
Was it possible that he was okay with her being an alien? She didn’t understand how he wasn’t freaking out.
Something rustled in one of the bushes nearby and Henry jumped. Maybe he was internalizing his reaction. He looked past her before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and urging her to walk in the direction of his cabin.
“It seems we have some things we should probably talk about,” he said. “Let’s get back to the cabin where it’s warmer.”
“Okay.” She tried to look behind them, to see what had spooked him, but didn’t notice anything.
He picked up the pace, making it impossible for her to keep walking without tripping if she didn’t watch where she was going. Her stomach churned with misgiving.
He knew about Sadirians. He knew about the Tau Ceti. What if he knew more? What if he was more? The Scorpiian.
No. There had to be another explanation. And she was going to find out what it was.
Chapter Eight
Life, in general, was weird. Being a biology teacher, Henry was aware of this. He observed it, studied it, and taught others to do the same. But his life? It had become absolutely bizarre.
He’d been adopted by a pair of space-Sasquatches from the Lyra system—who refused to take no for an answer. It was hard to be upset about that, because they were teaching him all kinds of things about the universe. Plus they were making him feel like part of a family again.
And he was walking through the forest with Vay, who had just magically reappeared in his life. And who was also an alien. An evil alien, if Craig and Barbara were to be believed.
“I think somebody needs to pinch me,” he said.
“Why?”
“I just feel like I’m dreaming.”
“I don’t see how pinching you will help with that.”
“It’s an expression we have here on Earth.”
He’d meant it as a joke at first—falling back into their “she’s from another planet” game, but then realized that it was actually a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
He continued in a much more serious tone. “When someone thinks they’re dreaming, they ask to be pinched so that the pain will either wake them up from the dream or prove to them that they aren’t actually sleeping.”
She laughed. “I’m not going to pinch you.”
“It’s probably for the best.” After a brief pause, he said, “But you are Sadirian.”
“Yes.”
He still couldn’t believe it. Not that she was an alien—hanging out with Craig and Barbara for most of the day had accustomed him to the idea of extra-terrestrial sentients walking around on his homeworld. But they had also painted a terrifying picture of Sadirians.
When her helmet had started to open, Henry knew that the person inside would look like a human. But seeing Vay’s face…
Her voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Henry, I have to ask. How do you know about us?”
“Let’s
wait till we’re inside the cabin.”
If Craig happened to be out on a walk and saw them together, Henry didn’t know what would happen. He wasn’t sure he could keep Vay safe, no matter how much his new—very weird—“foster parents” seemed to like him. They hated Sadirians.
Luckily, the cabin wasn’t much farther. He hurried forward when it came into view.
The things they had said about Vay’s people made Henry’s heart ache. They couldn’t be true. At least, not about her. Henry needed to hear her side of things.
Once they were inside, he said, “I’ll start a fire.”
He hurried to the large stone fireplace that made up the entire wall to the left of the front door. Before leaving, he’d set everything up so all he had to do was strike a match and place it in a few strategic places to get the blaze going. He had wanted to be able to focus on Vay and have the cabin comfortable for her as soon as she arrived.
This wasn’t what he’d pictured.
“It smells like coffee in here,” she said.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” After starting the fire in the big fireplace, he headed for the potbelly stove that stood between the kitchen and living room area.
She followed him a little distance behind. “It’s okay. I still like the smell.”
He placed some logs in the stove. Some tea or cocoa would help calm his nerves and maybe help him feel a little more grounded. The match gave him some trouble as he tried to get it to light. Flames burst from it, catching his thumb a little too closely and burning him. The match fell harmlessly onto the stone flooring surrounding the stove.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“What?” He stared up at her, shaking his hand. “Oh, this. It’s nothing. I’m just…trying to get the fire going.” He stepped on the match to make it go out, then picked it up and threw it in with the logs before squatting down and getting out another.
“Let me help.” She knelt next to him, holding up her arm.
Most of her uniform seemed to be made of a flexible fabric, but there were a few places with formed metal sections. The housing for her helmet that ringed her neck was one. Another was the wristband she was pointing at the wood in the stove.
Entry Visa (The Department of Homeworld Security Book 5) Page 4