Touched by an Alien

by Gini Koch

  Dad didn’t try to touch it, he just leaned over my shoulder to stare. “It’s all columns and rows, like a spreadsheet. Did you read it right to left, left to right, up to down or down to up?”

  “We tried all of them,” Beverly replied. She was still monotonal, and I was glad I felt reasonably rested.

  “Which one worked?” Dad sounded as if he were vibrating behind me.

  “None of them. It was an algorithm.” Beverly sounded annoyed.

  “Even or uneven?” Dad leaned on me now, trying to get as close to the text as he could.

  “Uneven,” Beverly admitted. “It was very odd. We had to run a huge number of variations through the computer to come up with anything coherent.”

  Dad stopped leaning on me. “Thought so.” He bent down now. “If you’re going where I think you are, chances are good you’re right. You want to suggest it or shall I?” he whispered.

  I thought about it. “Let me. If I’m wrong, you mop up,” I whispered back.

  He patted my shoulder. “I’m betting on genetics.”

  I cleared my throat and sat up straight. No time like the present to insult your hosts, after all. “I think your translation’s wrong.”

  CHAPTER 26

  BEDLAM’S AN INTERESTING WORD. I would have said the superbeing sprouting killer wings caused bedlam. But that was before I’d shared my hunch with the A-C crew in the room.

  Every one of them, from White and Beverly all the way to Claudia and Lorraine, was talking, trying to speak over each other, countering my statement with a great deal of hyperbole.

  Dad patted my shoulder. “That’s my girl,” he said in my ear.

  I looked around, waiting for the crowd to calm down. Only two of them weren’t freaking out—Martini and Christopher. They were both looking at me, and they both looked curious but not upset.

  The room wasn’t quieting, and I wondered if it was because no one actually wanted to hear my theory. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Christopher looked around, and I saw his eyes narrow. “Everyone, shut up,” he snarled. I wouldn’t have thought they could hear him, but to a person the mouths snapped closed. Nasty seemed to have its benefits. He looked at me. “Please explain what you mean.”

  I waited until they were all looking at me. “It’s not a textbook or a how to stop the invasion manual. It’s a religious text.”

  “Oh, come on,” Gower said with a laugh. “They came to warn us, Kitty. It’s a manual about the threat and how to protect ourselves from it.”

  I shook my head. “No. They came to convert us. They were missionaries. And that’s their version of the Bible.” I stood—it made me feel more like I could escape if they all jumped me. “It’s an understandable mistake. Your religion doesn’t think like theirs. But ours do.”

  I looked at Martini. “You don’t believe in Hell, right?” He nodded. “And you also believe in evolution, not a creation story, right?” Another nod. I saw other heads in the room nodding as well. “And a computer is only as good as what gets programmed into it. I’m sure no one, A-C or human, thought to include the Bible in the computer’s data banks for this. After all, this was a scientific threat, not a religious one.”

  I scrolled back to the first part of the text that had stopped me. “This talks about an explosion, a big bang. You interpreted it as a supernova—as the literal death of a star.” I looked over to Dad. “But I interpret this as the Ancients’ version of either the beginning of the universe or, more likely, the Garden of Eden.”

  He smiled at me. “An uneven algorithm creates challenges because you can get an algorithm that’s close, but not perfect. Just as they did here.” He pointed to the open book. “The problem with breaking a code is that you need to find the commonalities. Those are easier to identify the more text you have. But it’s a common mistake to go with the first translation that finally makes sense. You did a good job,” he added. “It’s just not perfect.”

  “I’m sure you could perfect it,” Beverly said, and her voice finally had a tone to it—deep sarcasm.

  “Probably,” Dad said with a shrug. “You’ve done the hard part. The next iterations would be the fine-tuning. That you didn’t do.”

  “We double-checked,” Beverly said hotly.

  “I’m sure you did. But you checked only against your original idea of what the book was.” Dad had his lecture mode on, I could tell. “In order to be completely accurate, you’d have to go in with no preconceived notions.”

  Mom must have picked up the likelihood of an impending lecture as well. “Sol, you want to let Kitty finish?”

  “Oh, sure.” Dad looked at me sheepishly. “Go ahead.”

  I scrolled to the text that had really stopped me. “I’m going to read this out loud, with some word substitutions. ‘They were stripped apart, and the souls were freed. These sailed through space, searching for Eden. But because of their evilness they could not find it and so began to search for another place to live.’ Sound familiar?”

  “Adam and Eve being cast out of paradise,” Reader said. “The fall of man.”

  “You could substitute Heaven for Eden, and Hell for another place to live. Same idea.” I looked around. “Our world has flood stories in every culture, so Noah’s Ark has a basis in reality. Almost all our Biblical stories are rooted in some fact. I’m guessing there really was a big bang, a supernova, if you will, that caused this story. The parasites are real, that’s for sure. I think they’re sentient, and they believe they’re in Hell.”

  “Flying through space alone for millennia, no company, no warmth, nothing familiar. Yeah, that would be Hell,” Martini said quietly.

  “And your religion doesn’t believe in a Hell, so your translators weren’t thinking that way. You do believe in souls and that they can be redeemed, but you don’t have the creation stories we do; you all believe in evolution.”

  “Our world’s creation story is based on our double suns,” Christopher interjected. “But the view is they created life together, not that they destroyed anything to bring it about. It’s not scientifically logical, though, at least not in the way it’s described. Which is part of why we don’t agree with the theory.”

  “Alpha Centauri’s is an affirmative story. Most of our Earth religions’ creation stories are similar—a God-being created us, we showed up, fully evolved, from the get-go. None of our religions deal with evolution, and it’s only science that gave us the big bang theory.” I saw where this was headed, and it made my body feel ice cold. “We know the parasites are real. So the probability of the Ancients’ religious text being accurate increases.”

  “Which means their suggestions for how to overcome the parasites are accurate as well,” Beverly said, still sounding outraged.

  “True. But no one’s paid attention to the key thing. James has,” I nodded toward Reader. “But you all ignore him because he’s a human male who happens to be both handsome and not a rocket scientist.”

  Hit that one right, based on reactions around the room, from the women in particular. Reader cocked his head at me, though. “What do you mean, Kitty?”

  “Rage. They talk over and over again about what to do to avoid the parasites. Put up defensive shields, yes, but most of those shields are based on being a good little girl or boy. That the A-C ozone shield actually worked against the parasites would reinforce their attention on physically preventing exposure. But you can have a moral shield, and anyone can do that.”

  I scrolled through again. “The first chapter in this book deals with the creation story, their Garden of Eden. The next one deals with the aftermath of this version of original sin, and details how to avoid becoming an outcast by ensuring one of these lost souls can’t join with yours. And more than any other instruction, keeping your calm, not getting angry, is the one mentioned over and over again.”

  “I count twenty times just on this one page alone,” Dad added.

  “You all know they’re attracted to rage; you’
ve told me so yourselves. But you’ve been on this planet for decades, and you’ve never once mentioned that any A-C has been a target of a parasite.”

  “They aren’t attracted to us,” Gower said.

  “Because James said you don’t get as angry as humans do. You don’t have the capacity for it, as a whole. I’m sure individuals can, but I’ve noticed you all really keep it under control, even when you’re really angry with each other.” I looked at Christopher. “You control it the least. Because you’re not a scientist or an agent, you’re an artist. And there are too many similarities between our races for me to doubt this one—artists tend to feel things more, and differently, from the average person.”

  I looked at Martini. “You’re similar, but to stay sane you and the other empaths put up emotional and mental blocks. Meaning you can’t get all that angry unless the blocks are down.” I turned to Gower. “I’d also venture to guess that most of the A-C emotional activity happens here, or at Home Base, or somewhere else safe and secured and, above all, reinforced with whatever it is you brought with you that prevents most Earth governments from knowing you exist.”

  Gower nodded. “We have a variety of shields up, all of them based on the ozone shield or the invisibility cloaking.”

  “This is the second time it’s been mentioned. You have an ozone shield?” I’d been wondering when Dad was going to go eco-friendly in the middle of this. Now was the time.

  “Dad, yes, they do. Bigger issues than saving the whales right now, okay?” I sounded like Mom. I hoped this was a good thing.

  “Oh, fine. Carry on.” He looked mildly annoyed but not enough for me to worry about.

  “Thanks. So the odds are in favor of no parasite ever catching an A-C with their emotions out of control, because most of that happens in the safety of your shielded fortresses. But we don’t have an epidemic of superbeings. Why not?”

  “The incidents are increasing, exponentially in the last twenty years,” Beverly supplied.

  The next connection waved merrily at me. “Twenty years. Exactly as long as Mephistopheles has been around, right?”

  “Right. So?” Beverly was really taking this personally. I wondered how involved in the original translations she’d been and figured pretty close. Oh, well, she and Christopher could start the We Hate Kitty club.

  “Think about it. He turns into a freaking devil.”

  “He’s found his version of Hell and wants to populate it with his own kind,” Reader said softly.

  “Yes. I think he’s calling them here. I don’t know how, but it’s at least a strong possibility.” I took a deep breath. This was the part I was really dreading. “And he’s figured out how to repopulate, because if we take this text to be an actual account, he probably helped create most of his race and was the reason they were cast out in the first place.”

  “How do you get that?” Gower asked.

  “Missionaries tend to go out in waves.”

  “Mind explaining that?” White asked with a laugh.

  “We have a lot of legends from Biblical times of angels coming to help us. I’m going to bet your planet does too. Every inhabited planet probably does. The Ancients were doing their best, after all. And if a missionary team didn’t return home, well, they were going out to the boondocks of the galaxy, right? The next team was probably just told to find them if they were able or report back if they weren’t.”

  “We told you, they couldn’t survive on our worlds,” Gower protested.

  “Maybe they couldn’t survive when they came in modern times because we’ve poisoned the air in both our worlds. You had to put up an ozone shield and we need one. Maybe our air or atmosphere was different several thousand years ago.”

  “Makes sense,” Martini said slowly. “Pollution is something our races have had time to adapt to gradually. The Ancients might not have given it thought, could have been past it in their world, too, so it wouldn’t occur to them.”

  “I’m back to how does this relate to Mephistopheles and Kitty’s theory that he’s the center of the Garden story?” Gower didn’t sound angry, just confused.

  “It’s in our religious texts. Maybe it’s in yours, too, maybe not. But the general Judeo-Christian opinion is that Lucifer fought with God for the throne and was cast out, along with his followers. Sent to Hell because of his hubris.”

  “So?” Beverly remained unimpressed, but I could see Martini’s face, and I figured he was following my train of thought because his face had drained of color.

  “One of the other names for Lucifer is the Morningstar. A star that was destroyed and sent away from Heaven, whether you consult the Earth Bible or the Ancients’ text.” I felt my throat go dry, but I pushed on. “Lucifer, now called Mephistopheles, considers that he has been sent here, to Hell—to rule over all its inhabitants in an eternity of torment and pain.”

  CHAPTER 27

  NO BEDLAM THIS TIME, just silence. All the aliens were thinking. What a relief, someone else could take over that chore for a while.

  I sank back into my chair, and Dad patted my shoulder again. Claudia and Lorraine each took a hand and squeezed. It was nice to know they didn’t hate me.

  Interestingly, it was a human who broke the silence. “Why are you the catalyst?” Reader asked.

  “I have no idea.” But it was a good question and bore consideration. Dang, I was going to have to start thinking again. No rest for the psychotic-alien bait, apparently.

  “What do you mean, she’s the catalyst?” Beverly asked.

  Gower answered. “From what I saw in her mind, Mephistopheles implanted a memory into Kitty. A memory of how to create more superbeings. But I don’t know why.”

  “Yates is an old man. James, you’ve said that more than once.” I did my best to stay calm and not let this freak me out completely. “Yates must be dying. Mephistopheles wants to move to someone else before that happens.”

  “And Yates wants to complete his terrorism plan before he goes, which is why he’s upping the game against your mother,” Reader added. “It’s why the plans are intersecting; he must be in the advanced stages of whatever’s wrong.”

  Score two three-pointers for the humans. I could see A-C heads nodding around the room.

  “It would be cancer,” Mom offered. “Yates had it over twenty years ago. He wasn’t expected to live this long, but it went into remission.”

  “Because the parasite found him and turned him mostly invulnerable. It can’t cure him, but it must have slowed the cancer down by quite a lot.”

  “Knowing this is great,” Christopher said. “But what good does it do us?”

  The words sounded as if they were being dragged out of him. “We finally have bait.” Martini’s jaw was clenched, and he had the stone-face on, just as when he’d told me about their being religious exiles this morning.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Christopher asked. He looked angry, but, then, so did my mother. I had a really good idea of what Martini meant.

  “We use Kitty as bait.” Martini’s voice was starting to sound like Beverly’s—monotonal.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Dad grabbed me and pulled me toward him. This wasn’t comfortable for either one of us, since I was sitting and the chair hit him in his gut, but I understood the reaction.

  “I’m the head of Field Operations,” Martini continued, voice still devoid of emotion. “We have someone who has been confirmed as a target by both Yates and Mephistopheles. We actually have a chance to do something about them, both of them.” He looked at me, and though his face was still like rock, I saw his eyes. If I’d thought they’d been filled with pain before, it was nothing compared to right now. “But only if you agree.”

  “She does not!” Mom was furious. “She’s not trained for anything like this operation will require. How dare you even suggest it?”

  I looked at Reader. He noticed and cocked his head. I raised an eyebrow. He nodded.

  “He’s got the right, Mom, beca
use he’s the one in charge.” I managed to disentangle from Dad’s clutches and stand up again. I looked straight at Martini. “I pick who goes with me, I get some clothes I can move in, and I get fully briefed and equipped with all the standard field agent stuff.” He nodded.

  I looked at Gower. “I want James with me, Paul. But not you.”

  Gower looked as though I’d hit him in the gut. “Why?”

  “He’s not the one who needs to be angry. And I need someone who I can talk to, human-experience to human-experience.” I looked at Christopher. “You, however, should plan on coming along.”

  He managed a grin. “I kind of figured. If that’s all right with you,” he added to Martini in a rather nasty tone.

  “Fine.” Martini’s voice was still clipped. I didn’t have to see him naked to tell his whole body was tensed.

  I took another deep breath. “And I want some other female A-Cs with me.”

  This brought about pandemonium. From what I could make out through the shouting, the women were never allowed to do fieldwork. But I could also tell Lorraine and Claudia wanted to go with me.

  “SHUT UP!” Martini bellowing was impressive—deep, angry and loud, with reverberations that continued for several seconds. So A-C’s could indeed rage. Either that or all his empathic shields were down and he couldn’t take it.

  The room went deathly still. Martini seemed to calm instantly. “Thanks. Kitty, please explain why.”

  “Because I think part of the reason you can’t catch these superbeings, Mephistopheles in particular, is that you’re sending out the people who also can’t actually reproduce.”

  Dead silence. Alien think time. But I decided to answer the questions that were going to come. “There are probably a lot of ways to change someone internally so it doesn’t show externally, at least at first. However, there’s only one way that’s worked for all of recorded history.”

  “You impregnate them,” Reader said with a grin.