Alien Caller (12 page)

“So what do you
think then?” She decided to push him a little.

He looked
across at her from staring at the back of the seat in front of him,
his eyes filled with worry. “I think he’s a man who’s had a big
shock today. And a man who has many more ahead of him. And I think
he’s wedded to his past, welded to his duty as an agent. And he
claims to be army but he’s really CIA.” If he thought that would
come as a surprise to Alice he was wrong. Security people! They
really had no idea.

“We know that.
Gladys at the bank processes his checks every month. We knew who he
was from the start.” Maybe it was wrong to laugh ever so slightly
at Lar, not that he would mind in the least, but it was amusing in
a way. Local gossip providing better information than a security
agency, and ten times as fast.

“You could have
mentioned it then.”

“And had you
worrying?” She smiled and patted him gently on the shoulder. “We
knew enough to make sure he was safe.” And they had. Even before
the Leinians had found out they’d been making sure of him. There
was far too much riding on the continued presence of their friends
to leave such things to chance. So from the start he’d been invited
to BBQ’s and social functions without number, directed to the best
hunting and fishing spots which coincidentally happened to be miles
from Wrath Valley, and every woman worthy of the name had tried to
set him up with her daughter or niece. If there was one thing
guaranteed to keep a man away from people it was the threat of
marriage. Men were such simple creatures.

“Besides, I think he still
is
a good
man
. He’s not
lying when he says he doesn’t want to go back to his old life.
Whatever he did for the agency in the past, he didn’t like it. It
isn’t a need for security that keeps him silent on that time, it’s
shame and guilt. He really doesn’t want to return to
that.”

“How do you
know?”

“Because it’s
who he is. It shows in his eyes. In everything he does. David isn’t
just retired; he’s locked the door completely on his past and
doesn’t appear to ever want to open it again. He never talks about
it. And he would have to if he became close with anyone. So he
avoids going in to the city at nearly all costs, and only wanders
into Redwood Falls when he absolutely has to, and when he’s there
he says almost nothing to anyone. Nothing of importance anyway. He
keeps to the absolute minimum of conversation with us, and stays
away from everyone else. No cell and only a primitive dial up
internet. He has no visitors and he stays locked up in his home
most of the time, keeping apart from everyone. That’s not duty or
security, not even for a retired agent. That’s never wanting to go
back.”

In a way David
reminded her very much of her nephew back from Iraq. And of her
cousin when he’d returned from Vietnam. Both of them had been
scarred from what they’d seen and done. And both had walled
themselves away from kith and kin. They never talked about the
wars. They buried it. David was the same.

“You’ve been
watching him.” Lar almost seemed to be accusing her of something,
and it made her smile. His people had all the security cameras in
the world floating around and protocols and procedures for
everything, and he was just beginning to realise that the locals
were better at such things than they were. Much better. But then
this was a community.

“Of course.”
She smiled some more. “I’m old, what else am I going to do with my
time?”

“But what will
he do when he finds out the rest? What will ultimately be expected
of your people before they can join us?”

“As little as
he can get away with,” Alice told him, pretending a confidence she
didn't truly have. “Make no mistake, if he thinks the country or
the people are in danger, he will act. But not otherwise. Besides,
the rest of your secrets aren’t that terrible. Not for us locals
anyway.”

“But we are
going to ask so much of your people before they can join us. Things
that most won’t be able to handle. This capitalist way of life of
yours. The American dream. It’s almost a religion. And we consider
it an obscenity. He has to guess sooner or later that it can’t
continue. That we can't allow a society to treat its people so
unfairly. It leads to poverty, social disruption and violence. And
Major Hill is a rich man.”

“Capitalism?
You mean no more money?” She laughed. “Look where you landed. We
never had any to begin with. As Mitch says, most of us don’t have a
pot to piss in. We aren’t going to lose huge piles of stock n’
shares. And the same’s true for much of the world. David
understands that I think.”

“And what about
our views on there being no private property?”

“It doesn’t
really matter as long as we can keep living where we do. Look
around you. This isn’t exactly Wall Street. Most of us live in run
down old buildings, one step up from shacks. Many aren’t even owned
by those who live there, it’s just that no one’s interested in
buying them. We scrimp by on part time work and seasonal jobs, grow
our own vegetables and hunt and fish to feed ourselves. Honestly if
we were in the south we’d be called hill-billies. As it is we
simply don’t have much to lose, and David knows that too. Though he
hides it, he’s much the same.”

“How will he
feel when he realises he has no real privacy?”

“No privacy? So
you think your floating cameras that pop up everywhere have taken
that away? Look around you. This is a small community. Everyone
knows everyone’s business anyway. The rest of the world may not
like it. But for us it’s fairly much business as usual. And David
is slowly becoming one of us.”

“Besides, he is
a law man. He hates crime. No money, no private property and no
privacy, that means no crime. He’ll like that. When the time is
right, he will join with us, and he’ll be a valuable asset.” She
wasn't completely sure of that, but she felt the need to pretend to
be. Lar after all was the one who might make the decision for the
party to leave, and he would do it the moment he thought their
secret was out and they were in danger.

“You
think.”

“Maybe. But
I’ve known him for three and a bit years. I’ve made it my business
to know him. He’s a good man who’s come from a bad place.” That was
something she rather fancied all the intelligence agencies in the
world and in the rest of the galaxy failed to do; to get to know
their neighbours. If they did then perhaps they wouldn’t have had
so many problems over the years.

“Besides, let’s
concentrate on getting Cyrea back to the ship and fixed up and then
on to the very real danger of your scientists telling everyone they
talk to about themselves.” And that was the real risk as far as she
and the others were concerned. For the longest time there’d only
been a few of them who knew. Just the locals, and they were very
careful about who they brought into the circle. They made sure they
were people they could trust. Family, friends, or neighbours they
had known for years. People who absolutely needed the Leinian’s
help. And so until a year ago maybe a hundred or so had known of
them, and things had seemed under control. Then these new
scientists had arrived, and suddenly there were hundreds more who
knew. Hundreds more that Alice and the rest of the community didn’t
know about. That they couldn’t control. The scientists seemed to
have no self control. And then there were the technical problems as
their ships apparently fell out of the sky.

Despite Lar’s
fears it wasn’t David Hill who was going to expose them she
guessed. It was their own people.

“They have been
troublesome.”

“Troublesome?
They're idiots! Honestly Lar. You have to curb them. And soon.” Lar
stared at her and she knew he was thinking exactly the same thing,
even if he wouldn't say it. They were idiots. Lost in their
research to the point of stupidity.

Was this the
time to tell him about the bug? She wondered about that for a
little. It might get the scientists in trouble. Though in her view
it was the smartest thing they'd done since arriving on the world.
Putting a bug in David's house. Keeping an eye on the major
security threat they faced. But then it could be useful for him to
know about it. Even to use it just in case the Major did revert to
type.

But on the
other hand Lar might also feel obligated to tell David that a crime
had been committed against him. That it was still being committed.
He was a policeman after all. And that could be the thing that
tipped their resident secret agent in the other direction. So maybe
not.

Still she
decided as she leaned back in her seat and watched the Wrath Valley
come into view, it might be a good time for her to visit those
particular scientists who'd done it and spend a little time
studying David. Just in case.

Lar didn't have
to know.

Chapter
Five.

David was less
than half way through his swim when he noticed his tail. A dark
shape, less than a couple of body lengths behind him, catching him
up to him as quickly as a motorboat. No human being could swim like
that. But then he didn’t even have to wonder for more than a moment
that she might be human. He knew who it was without even thinking.
It was Cyrea.

The only real
question was why was she here? Had she come to drown him, to show
off, or simply to play nicely as Alice had asked? He started
treading water, waiting to find out, uncomfortably aware that the
lake in places was at least fifty feet deep and his emergency
buoyancy device wasn’t going to survive long against glass
claws.

She pulled up
to him, and started treading water beside him, smiling. He couldn’t
help but notice her ice white fangs and the fact that she was a
better swimmer then him. Far better.

“You enjoy
swim?” She caught him off guard with her words. The fact that she
could speak English at all was a surprise in itself, and the fact
that she had mastered so much of it in a week was more so. The
syntax wasn’t perfect, and she had an accent, but she was easily
understandable.

“Very much.
It’s one of the reasons I live by a lake.” Quietly he was wondering
if it was such a clever idea any more though. Perhaps it was time
to look at a swimming pool.

“Then do more
exercise when get back. Why?” Deep within alarm bells started
ringing. She knew too much about him, about his daily routines. He
wasn’t secretive about his home gym or the fact that he kept fit,
but neither had he told her of them.

“You’ve been
following me.” It was just a flat statement with no emphasis placed
on any of the words. It was a technique designed to make her think
he was certain so she would admit it without realizing. Yet all
he’d really had was a feeling until then. The way the hairs on the
back of his neck had bristled sometimes when he was out. The odd
strange, perhaps even clawed, foot print around the house. The way
some of his outdoor plants and furniture had been moved, as if to
get a better view of his house. It hadn’t been the wind. She
nodded.

“Why?”

“Made mistake,
coming here. Thought you were other humans, not army agent. Now
whole mission in risk. My fault. Must know soonest if and when you
talk so people can leave safely. My responsibility.” Which made
perfect sense to him. It matched exactly what Alice had said to him
that day; that all they asked from him was his discretion. Or at
least some warning, so that if he said anything to the authorities
they would have time to leave in safety. And in her shoes he
probably would have felt the same. Giving away an operation was a
rather large error.

But it wasn’t
truly her fault. The ship had lost power for reasons they still
didn’t understand during its final approach. After the crash
landing, which was apparently a miracle of piloting, she’d been
wounded. She had had to walk for miles from her crashed craft with
the blood loss, infection and shock creeping in, and had still got
reasonably close to their base as she could with damaged
instruments. She had very nearly made it too. Only a few more
miles, before she'd finally collapsed. In the same situation he
might not have done so well.

“I said I would
give your people warning before I told anyone anything. And as long
as your people mean what they say and keep to their word, I won't
tell anyone anything. I meant what I said. And I won’t tell anyone
if I don’t have to. I have no reason to tell and good reason not
to. I keep my word.”

“You also said
to friends you just army soldier. But human records show you
Central Intelligence Agency. They pay your pension.”

‘Bugger!’, was
his first thought. She was right, he had very carefully skated
around that fact for the last three or four years. People changed
when they knew someone was CIA, retired or otherwise. Army was
fine, even FBI was okay, but CIA was something else. They tended to
clam up, to treat agents with a degree of distrust. But then nobody
trusted the agency. So he’d carefully never mentioned it and
thought his secret safe. But the Leinian party’s business was
studying human culture. Evidently they had been cracking databases
as part of that, or else reading his bank records, or his mail.
Either that or the local bank clerks had passed on his secret, and
from the fact that the entire town seemed to know, he had to guess
it was probably the latter. Alice from what he could gather, was a
natural born spy.