“Nay, Lass, they do not. Not one of my people would take anything of yours.”
Did it fall out? The landing was rough. “I need to swing by the plane. It’s imperative I locate this item.”
Callaghan turned to Donny. “Donald, do ye ken about an item belonging to Alexa?”
Donny moved his eyes from one to the other. “Uh, I don’t think so.”
Callaghan lifted his eyebrows slightly. “All right,” he said, while opening the door, “let’s walk to the Temple for the grand tour. Regarding the aircraft, perhaps we might go by there afterwards? People are nearby, watching over it.”
Alexa started for the door. “Speaking of the plane, the propeller is damaged. Is there technology around here to make a really strong wooden one?”
“I noticed the propeller,” said Callaghan. “And I already have my team printing one.”
It took a few beats for Alexa to understand what he meant. “Oh, you mean 3-D printing. That’s really new. Well, new, at home. My home.” She halted at the threshold. “But I don’t think a plastic propeller would work on the Cessna.”
Callaghan smiled. “You are correct. It would not. There are also metal printers nowadays.”
“Hmmm.” Alexa reluctantly followed him off the porch.
It was difficult to not be distracted by the beautiful morning. Basking in sunlight for the first time in eons, it seemed, she stretched. Flowers of all colors and sizes bloomed large, filling the air with rose and gardenia scents. Morning sun glinted on the ocean. People strolled across the green lawn in front of the temple, between the guesthouses and among a group of more official-looking buildings across the way. Most of the people, every one dressed in either a white toga or a simple white shift, were carrying items as if on errands.
A breeze rustled the leaves and played with Alexa’s hair. A fear had begun tugging at her. “I just want to make sure, this place isn’t, um, Purgatory or Heaven. We didn’t die, did we?”
Strolling along Callaghan laughed, deep and hearty. “Aye, I also wondered that for a bit. But ye can be certain, we are all very much alive.”
A few baskets about twice the size of those under hot air balloons, carrying as many as four or five people, glided toward the big building. She asked, “Are those things hovering on their own?”
“Powered by crystals,” said Callaghan. He stopped to look back and forth along the gravel path. “Which is the reason nobody uses wheels around here, though I tried at first to introduce them.” He glanced out over the ocean. “I’m happy to say they do enjoy sailing.”
Alexa coughed politely. “Considering when you left you are probably not aware that at times, crystals have been all the rage. A family near me filled several rooms with them. I can’t say I ever noticed anything special.”
Callaghan shook his head. “Let me explain about this place.” He stopped and gestured to the large structure above them on a low hill. “This first part of the Temple is where the healers work and where Rachel is.” He moved his hand toward the far side. “On down is an area for people wanting,” he searched for words, “to refine awareness and sensitivity. As in, sensitivity to feelings and thoughts.”
Alexa felt she had a handle on awareness and sensitivity. She’d been meditating long enough. However, Callaghan seemed to be talking about something else. She narrowed her eyes, prompting more explanation.
Callaghan leaned his head to the side. “People here spend a good deal of time with the crystals. Almost everything on this planet works because of crystals. The difference to Earth, is the big one here that boosts all the others”
“How big?” she asked.
He looked up at the temple. “See the dome? About that size.”
Donny whistled. Alexa clarified, “One huge crystal, or a bunch?”
“The one I’m referring to is a single crystal, amazing clarity. There are other smaller ones, both similar and different. Each has a use.” He glanced up and began climbing the steps. “Here we are. Let’s enter.”
The structure was of white granite. Steps spanned the front and at the top was a row of columns, all capped by designs in green, brown and blue that looked to be inlaid stone, not paint. Inside, the walls were decorated with a series of stone mosaics, each twice an adult’s height and about twenty feet long. Callaghan said, “Those portray major historical events.”
Mac loves the mosaics in Turkey. Alexa’s heart plummeted. Mac. She stared forward.
A circular opening to the sky in the middle of the dome over a central cavernous space allowed sunlight to pool on the floor. People milled in and around stalls full of produce and flowers. Many stopped, watching the three of them. All chatter ceased. “Everyone heard about your arrival,” Callaghan whispered.
A tiny man sitting in the sunbeam in the middle of the hall glared at them, clambered up, pointed and began speaking loudly, perhaps in the language Alexa heard yesterday when the Hazmat suits came for Rachel. The man wore a loincloth and could have been Ghandi. He began pacing toward them, swinging a stout stick as long as he was tall.
“It’s the little guy who came up to the plane,” said Donny.
The two looked for guidance to Callaghan, who put up both hands to slow the process. The man continued advancing. He stopped at about fifteen feet and shouted. The man glared at Donny, gesturing first to him then to the outside. He took further steps toward Donny, who began backing up while Callaghan watched carefully and did not interfere. When Donny at last stood on the temple steps, the man stopped, turned around and quietly walked to his spot to sit.
Callaghan motioned for Alexa to follow him. Outside, Donny appeared outraged. “What was that all about?”
Callaghan folded his arms. “Remember I said the crystal increases sensitivity to everything? That means people are aware of the thoughts, intentions and recent activities of others. Including someone in another building, as in a guesthouse.” He waited a moment. “Is there anything ye might want to say to Alexa?”
Donny stopped pacing and spun to face him. “What do you mean, intentions and recent activity?”
“I’m speaking of an activity that would be considered harmful to someone else.”
Donny replied in a haughty tone, “Nothing to do with me.”
Confused, Alexa turned her head back and forth between the two men.
“All right then, since ye won’t fess up I will spell it out,” said Callaghan. “Ye took something that belongs to Alexa. Ye were thinking about it quite clearly yesterday.” Donny appeared dumbstruck, and he did not deny. Alexa studied him more closely. “In your favor,” said Callaghan, “ye seemed to be wondering if ye could return it to her. Nevertheless ye did, in fact, steal it.”
Blood began pounding in Alexa’s temples. “A package wrapped in gold cloth is missing from my handbag. Come to think of it, this whole last week the contents of my luggage at Becky’s house seemed rearranged.” She stepped up to right in front of Donny. “You were searching my stuff!” Her lack of height didn’t matter at the moment since he appeared to feel she towered eight feet tall. “I need the package. Right now.”
Donny glanced at the ground, then peeped up to the temple, switched to gazing off across the ocean, and finally looked at her. He groaned, “It’s only a crystal,” and raised his hands in confusion. “I can’t understand why he wanted me to take it!”
She bore her eyes into his. “He?”
“The man wouldn’t say his name,” said Donny. He jutted out his chin. “Easily traced him though. John Lloyd.”
Alexa nearly fell over. The same man who sat in the room with Brahmaji when she received the package? The man with whom she made an effort to carry on a friendly chat, because he seemed so alone? Though he really didn’t make much of an effort to connect with people at the school.
“He offered me much more than normal for this type of job.”
“You do this all the time?” Alexa shook her head in wonder. “You’re a professional thief!”
“No, no.
Not professional. At least I don’t consider myself that way,” Donny protested. “When I realized it’s a crystal, for god’s sake, I wondered what all the fuss was about.”
“Where is it?” Alexa barked. “What did you do with it?”
“Tried to leave it outside my window.”
“No!”
Donny held up his hands as if to ward her off. “It’s in the kitchen.”
She had to stifle an impulse to shake the guy. She turned to Callaghan. “How long does the light column last, generally?”
Callaghan considered his response. “Somewhere between five and eight minutes.”
Alexa nodded. “I thought so.” She turned to Donny. “And what were you doing, to delay us the extra ten minutes at the airport?”
Donny groused a bit, then whined, “I was calling in to report that I’d be traveling with you.” His words got quieter, to barely audible by the end, “which was part of the agreement.”
Alexa closed her eyes.
“If it helps, he wanted me to avoid hurting you.”
When she spoke, her tone was icy. “So. Avoid hurting me. But no problem with delaying us enough to get us sucked into the light column.” Donny hung his head. “Because of that telephone call, Rachel’s eight-year-old son is wondering where is his mother and my fiancé has no idea as to whether I am even alive. And we are theoretically stuck here forever.” Her tone went acid. “Brilliant.”
As Alexa turned toward the house, Callaghan touched her arm. “Lass, I found it in the kitchen last night and moved it to underneath the third drawer from the window.” Alexa nodded her thanks to him and stomped away.
Before Callaghan turned to leave, he spoke low, “I checked the video and know ye had, Donald, the sense to expose it to sterilization on the first night ye arrived. If ye had not done so and thus put my people at risk, ye would becoming used to the cell that would be your home for the rest of your life. See if you can demonstrate some good sense from now on.”
Chapter 6
From behind a market booth with singing birds, Newcastle watched the interaction on the temple steps. Alexa, that should be her name, did not look happy when she stormed away. He wondered if his contact botched the job. The man appeared absolutely bolloxed.
Thinking the moment would be good, he quietly approached the man from behind. “You are Donny, correct?”
“Yeah, what’s it to you?”
A little upset, are we? “Actually it is of great import to me,” replied Newcastle, stroking the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. “And I believe our interaction will be rather significant to you, since I am to complete a handsome payment for a job well done.”
The Donny person looked at him warily. “What kind of job?”
Newcastle opted to match wary with cagey. “Our family lost a certain item. Some time ago, you agreed to obtain it for us.”
Donny grunted and glanced at the guesthouse. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
Newcastle experienced a momentary impulse to take the guy by his low-class shirt and shake him, which would attract far too much attention, alas. To modulate his emotions, Newcastle conjured thoughts of a particularly lovely lady on TohuMu.
Perhaps a little reminder would assist his memory. “It is fortuitous you made it away, since the police were about to locate you. I think you may not have been aware of that detail.” The man’s attention certainly focused.
“How time flies,” said Donny.
Watching Donny’s retreat, Newcastle smoothed his hand over the back of his head. If only he had listened to his instinct about the engine design, the one that failed after a full production run of it and that specially made craft. If he’d done the right thing then, despite all the time spent on the design, his brother wouldn’t now have the leverage to make such dire threats.
* * *
A quarter of an hour later Alexa sat on her bed, music player in hand and ear buds in place. A shadow momentarily blocked the sun in front of her. When she opened her eyes, Callaghan stood there with a concerned look on his face. She took out the earphones. “I’m listening to a chant. One that always calms me down.” She pursed her lips. “And I probably need some calming.”
Callaghan shrugged. “It’s never pleasant for a friend to betray you.”
Alexa shook her head. “I wouldn’t count Donny as a friend. I barely know him.” She placed the player on the bed. “The question is, why would someone hire him to steal it? I mean, he’s right. It is a crystal. The same as a really beautiful and much bigger one I saw before this trip. But it’s not solid gold.”
“The place ye saw the big one, is that where ye received this one?”
“Yes, at the school of my family’s meditation teacher.” Alexa leaned against the headboard. “In fact, last week a friend told me something about it.” The story had been garbled. She tried to order the details in her head. “Evidently, after a man who introduced himself as the boss of John Lloyd showed up at the school, and maybe threatened some people, Brahmaji sent everyone away that same night.”
“You know this John Lloyd?”
“Kind of,” said Alexa. “We spoke a couple of times. He seemed nice, if a bit stiff.” Out the window, a tiny yellow bird jumped from twig to twig. “The big crystal disappeared from the school at the same time. Probably Brahmaji took it with him.”
She gazed at the crystal in her hands: shorter than a pencil and barely thicker. Smooth and cool. Sun glinted off a metallic sheen on the outside, while inside light refracted into rainbows, like a transparent opal.
She stroked the sides. Brahmaji, bring me home. Hah. As if. “Funny how I mocked the crystals here, and lo and behold, my life was turned upside down because of one.” She studied it. “I have no idea what to do with this thing, other than perhaps wear it on a necklace.”
“Considering someone went to the trouble of hiring a thief, maybe—“
Alexa jumped in, “I should keep it under wraps.” Nodding, she placed it into a pocket on her pants and closed the clasp.
Callaghan changed the subject. “Would ye be interested in visiting Rachel?”
On the path to the temple they met Jesek, the young man who asked the three to wait in the plane. In the daylight, he was obviously Callaghan’s son, and he didn’t seem to hold a grudge about her reaction that night. Before they entered a side entrance to the temple, the young man mentioned something about overseeing a project and departed.
“He looks barely twenty,” commented Alexa, “hardly old enough to be a manager.”
Callaghan watched his son turn the corner. “The crystals keep everyone younger looking than we are used to, and healthier. Which is the reason I am still around.” He opened the door for Alexa. “Besides pilot training, Jesek is also an artist and is teaching people to use the printing press I built for him.”
At the glass window, Alexa could see that her friend lay asleep. I’ve never seen her look so bad.
Rachel wakened after they knocked softly and managed a weak smile, “A.J., you’re okay.” She drew a ragged breath, during which time she closed her eyes. “I was worried.”
Alexa and Callaghan stood in an empty corridor that could be in any hospital at home. The few white-coated men and women busy in nearby rooms echoed the norm a thousand years ago. “I’m fine,” said Alexa. “I understand you will be, too.”
Rachel barely nodded. “Have you been able to call anyone?”
Her friend had no idea as to their whereabouts, or whenabouts. Springing that kind of shock on her at this moment would be cruel. The thought of Rachel not seeing her son again made Alexa feel sick. “It’s tougher than I thought. I’m still trying.”
Rachel did not respond, because she had fallen asleep.
As Callaghan closed the door to the hospital wing, he invited Alexa on a walk. “The park near your guesthouse is in full bloom.”
Perhaps I can obtain some useful information. “Yes, please.”
Chapter 7
The park
included trees and plants similar to those at home on the East Coast, including dogwood, fig, live oaks, a pine grove in the distance and even a stately magnolia. Low gray shrubs mounded here and there. Birds flitted among branches and on the ground, and small animals were probably around, judging by the scurrying sounds.
After a few yards, Callaghan asked, “Are you aware people from almost every settled planet will be arriving soon, for a grand conference at the Temple?”
Alexa almost stumbled. “There are multiple settled planets?” She couldn’t wrap her head around the concept, despite all the science fiction she’d read.
Callaghan chuckled. “Aye. Officially, five more. Though I’ve heard of others. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. None are as crowded as Earth.”
“When did humans come to Adalans?”
“That happened thousands of years ago, through the same light that brought you and me.” Callaghan snagged a fig. “Do you like this fruit?” When Alexa nodded, he handed it to her and snipped another. “Perhaps all those legends about Atlantis breaking up were true, because the story is that due to an emergency, people came here, using the light beam created by the crystals that connect Earth and Adalans. Soon after those people arrived here the light stopped.” He cut the air with his hand. “Perhaps because the crystals on Earth became covered by water and sand.”
Callaghan tossed the fig stem into the brush. “A few years before I showed up, the light began to happen again. Sporadically. Maybe the crystals on Earth are closer to the surface? However it happens, the light generally delivers to Adalans fish, or dolphins, or sea birds. Or coconuts.” He stopped walking. “The reason I asked them to give you coconuts and oatmeal, which I import from Earth, was because those foods were the ones I could be fairly certain you all could handle.”
Alexa said, “We wondered about that.”
“Aye. However, food variety will increase with our visitors arriving.”
After a couple of steps Alexa asked, “Why are these people coming here?”
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