Alien Caller (40 page)

She wished
she’d understood that at the time. That he wasn’t just scared, he
was desperate. But she’d let anger blind her to the truth.

Silence
returned to the room as she let her full attention focus again on
her mate, worried, and Lar no doubt, considered what to say. But it
couldn’t last.

“We’ll leave
that for the moment. For now we have to worry about maintaining
security, and what to do with Dimock.” Two things that they would
probably never have had to concern themselves with if she’d let
things be. Actions had consequences, and in doing what she’d done,
she’d made a bad situation worse. But David was alive, and she had
to cling to that. And also that the locals had been protected. She
had no doubt that the mad man would have killed many of them as
well had he not been stopped.

“He’s still
under restraint?” Of course he was. Her people weren’t stupid, and
when they’d seen what he could do, they’d taken the appropriate
precautions. He was chemically immobilized, kept fully sedated, and
if that wasn’t enough, bound into brackets welded on to a solid
steel table. Titanium brackets that would not give no matter how
great his strength.

“Of course. But
he does keep waking up.” That she knew. The whole ship knew it.
Because whenever he awoke, he struggled, and with whatever had been
done to him, his struggles were spectacular. When he found out that
he couldn’t break free of his shackles, he threw himself against
the table itself, a series of powerful lunges and gyrations that
while they couldn’t break the table, actually had it walking across
the floor, tearing holes in the decking. A tonne of solid steel,
leaping and dancing like a youngster playing in the fields. And
that when he was supposedly chemically restrained.

Stranger than
that though, he kept waking up. Whatever had been done to him, it
seemed he could somehow neutralize any and all of the drugs they
dosed him with, and wake up at least twenty times sooner than he
should. That was something else the doctors would have to work on.
Super strength, speed, psychosis and drug resistance. David had
been right to fear him. But going against him alone. That was
insanity. Actually it was suicide. Something else that sat badly
with her.

“There’ll be a
hearing?” Of course there would be, and even though Dimock wasn’t
one of them he would be tried for his actions, and since his guilt
was obvious, convicted. But then what would they do with him? They
couldn’t keep him locked up forever. Lar just nodded for an
answer.

“Exile?” It was
a terrible punishment to administer, the worst that they knew, and
not more than a dozen people a year faced exile. Even Doctor Roze,
a man willing to kill others in the name of science, had not been
exiled. He had lost his title, been prohibited from his work for
life, given a twenty year sentence of physical labour and required
to undergo extensive therapy. Matthew Dimock's crimes were worse
and required a tougher sentence. But he wasn’t even of her people.
Did they have the right to do such a thing? But if they didn’t,
could they return such a monster to people unready for him? Knowing
what he'd do?

Lar shrugged,
another of those gestures that they and the humans shared. Two
people from different worlds, so very similar.

“How do we try
him? He’s not one of us.”

“But David is.
He is your mate and that makes him Leinian. And Dimock attacked
him.” Tears suddenly began running down Cyrea’s cheeks as she heard
Lar tell her what she should already have known for the truth.
David was her mate, and he was Leinian by law. She should have
realised that long ago. But as good as it was to hear it spoken
aloud, it came with its own problems.

“Then David has
to obey our laws too?” Of course he did, even if no one had thought
to make that completely obvious a long time ago. And no Leinian was
allowed to live in an armed fortress, to keep a small arsenal, or
to go to war. He was a man walking between two worlds, and what he
could do as a human, was far different to what he could do as a
Leinian.

“Yes.” Lar
stared directly at her, his eyes searching her face for answers to
questions he probably didn’t want to ask. But he had to ask
them.

“Did you know
about Dimock?” He was right to ask.

“A bit maybe.
David mentioned him a couple of times. But all he said was that he
was a monster, that he would come to kill him sooner or later, and
that he had prepared for him. But this?” She gestured to the
medical unit still working furiously. “This is insane.” There were
many other words she could have used, most of them far less
retrained.

“And the
weapons?”

“No. He has a
couple of hunting rifles and a few small arms in the house. Things
he’s permitted to have under Earth law. I knew about them, and the
fortifications that had been made safe, but the rest, no. When he
opened up that trap door and started pulling out all those weapons
it was a complete shock.” And another acknowledgement that she
didn’t know her mate a tenth as well as she should.

“He had enough
to start a small war.”

“No. He had
what he hoped was enough to defend himself against a one man army.
A monster. He always knew this was coming.” They turned to see that
Alice had joined them, wandering into the observation room and
hopefully bringing with her some wisdom. She often did seem to have
a clearer perspective than them.

“This was what
he feared. All the time he's been living among us he knew this was
coming. I wish we’d known. Those guns in the trees, the knock out
gas. You were right to make them safe when you found them. They
could have hurt someone. But we needed to replace them with
something else.” Alice turned to Cyrea and put a comforting hand on
her shoulder.

“We crippled
him. Took away his defences. We thought he was simply paranoid.
Dangerous. But we never thought to wonder why he needed them. Or
that he was trying to protect us as well as himself.”

“Family,
friends, community, you may both have broken some rules in doing
what you did Cyrea, but it was still the best thing you could do
and you saved them. It was the honourable thing too. Otherwise we
would also have been responsible for David's murder. In the end you
probably saved many lives. Whatever this monster is, he seems to
like killing, and there’s not much most of us could do to stop
him.”

“Thank
you.”

“No. It's just
the truth. We had no idea. None of us. And my fear is that we still
don't. Is this Dimock the only one? Or are there more of them out
there?” Alice was right to ask of course, and thinking clearly
where Cyrea wasn't. She hadn't even thought about the possibility.
She hadn't thought about anything except David since he'd been
brought in.

“Honey, -”
Cyrea knew that when Alice used that term it was really just a way
of saying that she wanted something, “- when he's awake you need to
ask him about that. Particularly if there are any more of these
things coming for him.”

“And Lar honey,
-” Cyrea guessed she wasn't the only one about to be given a job to
do, “- your people need to start breaking in to more top secret
organizations. Secret labs, research projects. Anything this
dangerous needs to be exposed. Those hands off rules you've been
working to have to stop. This is a threat to us all.”

“If the
scientists have gone and built this monster, then the good Lord
alone knows what else they've done in their labs. They need to be
stopped, and they need to be held to account.”

There was
something in Alice's face that said she wasn't joking. Even though
she surely knew that what she was asking went against the purpose
of the mission. Sort of. Actually when Cyrea thought on it, she
realised it didn't. Finding out how well mankind would adapt to
interstellar life covered things like this. It just went far
further than they'd been willing to go so far. It was dangerous. It
risked bringing agents to their doorstep and being exposed. It
risked ending the mission early.

And yet was it
a choice? As she heard Ayn Lar's surprising silence on the idea she
realised his thoughts were running in the same direction. And when
she turned back to watch the doctors at work on David, she knew
Alice was right.

It was time to
take risks.

Chapter
Sixteen

Whiteness.
Noise. From nowhere they came to him. Destroying his sleep.
Interrupting his dreams. Assaulting him. Somehow making him aware
of them even when he didn’t want to be.

He opened his
eyes. Or rather they opened by themselves. He hadn’t realized they
were closed, or that he wanted them open. Regardless, they opened
and he found himself staring at whiteness and metal.

At first
everything was almost liquid, as though his eyes were filled with
water. But slowly enough they cleared so that he could see the
metal walls, the metal tables. Around him were people, shapes in
white gowns moving hurriedly, but still well organized. They had a
plan, a purpose. They knew what they were doing.

The noise
suddenly returned to him, and he slowly realized it was
conversation. They were talking to each other, maybe even to him.
But he couldn’t understand the words. It was as if they were
speaking under water. It wasn’t important though, so he quickly
forgot them, letting his vision wander.

It slowly
dawned on him that he was in a hospital. That he was surrounded by
doctors and nurses, all doing their thing. He didn’t know why, but
for some reason it didn’t trouble him. The doctors and nurses they
surely knew their stuff. Let them be he figured. He guessed it
meant he must be sick or hurt, though he couldn’t remember how he’d
been hurt. But it was unimportant, as was everything else. He let
the understanding flow away from him with the rest of his
kaleidoscopic thoughts. Besides, he didn’t feel ill. He didn’t feel
well either. He felt as though his body was made of cotton wool and
he was just floating.

More voices
suddenly came from somewhere near him, briefly startling him from
his reverie, and he tried to look at the speakers. But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t move his eyes let alone his head. Again though it
didn’t matter as he once more headed back into his comfortable
daze. He knew they were talking about him. That they knew he was
awake. That they were calling the others. But still it didn’t
matter. Nothing mattered except returning to his peace and
quiet.

He watched
indifferently as the white coated figures around the other tables
suddenly left what they were doing, and migrated towards him. Soon
he was surrounded, and they were shining lights in his eyes, and
poking at him. But he couldn’t feel them touching him. He could
only see their movements, and he quickly forgot about them.

But one thing
finally did stick out in his thoughts. The form, on the other
table. When the doctors moved he could see its reflection in the
steel ceiling out of the corner of his eye. He knew it, him. It was
a man. A man with knotted muscles and skin made of bark. A man he
didn’t like. He couldn’t remember anything about him, but something
deep down inside spoke to him of evil and danger. Of fear and
loathing. He wanted to get away from him, to run, but he couldn’t
move. Couldn’t even recoil.

It troubled
him, even though the other was dead. Clearly dead. He was in
pieces. Disassembled like a child’s toy. But if he was dead, why
were they working on him? Which they were, by the score. There were
doctors and nurses piled around his table like hairs on a dog, and
that was after half a dozen of them had suddenly rushed over from
the evil man’s table to him.

But no-one was
going to explain it to him. No-one was telling him anything.
Instead he felt a sudden pressure on his neck, and his eyes closed
without warning.

After that
there was only blackness.

Chapter
Seventeen

The next time
David woke, it was in Cyrea’s small cabin on the ship, and she was
with him, holding him close, waiting for him to open his eyes.

He smiled when
he saw her, as he had every morning before when he’d woken up with
her. He couldn’t have helped himself. She was simply so beautiful
and it was a miracle he woke at all. For some reason he’d thought
he was dead, and yet to be here with her was the greatest gift he
could know. It was some form of miracle. Maybe it was heaven.

“Hi.” He went
to kiss her and was suddenly slapped for his impertinence. Memories
came flooding back, and it didn’t take a genius to know why she’d
hit him. Cyrea was still angry about having been sent away, and
from the fragments of his memory, he knew she’d saved his life,
somehow. Again. But then she apologized for slapping him with the
kiss he’d wanted. Then she started crying.

“I’m sorry.” He
whispered it at her. “I tried to do the best I could, but I knew
from the start I was probably going to lose. And I knew he’d kill
everybody else around me. Horribly. I didn’t want you to die with
me. That would be worse than death.” He held her tight, surprised
to find tears in his eyes, and hers.

“But I don’t
want you to die at all. And you very nearly got yourself killed
saving me from something I could deal with. My people have highly
advanced technology and I know at least as much about security as
you do.” Which wasn’t the true core of her pain. She had wanted to
help. She felt as he would have in her place that it was her duty,
and he had sent her away, not believing in her. That hurt. Then she
had turned around and saved him, proving her point. But it was the
fact that he had gone out expecting to die, that really hurt her.
That was the truth.