A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe) (2 page)

I have never been accused of being a particularly sane person.

I rise to my feet with thoughts of bursting into the side room, all bravado and bluster, and shouting that I’m tired of being shoved around by different factions of extraterrestrials who think they’re entitled to mess with my reproductive organs, and that I’m sick of waiting in this zoo, and if they’re going to interrogate me or torture me or whatever, could they please just get it over with already? But I don’t get that far, because that’s when Cinnamon finally realizes I’m in the room. He flops forward onto all fours with a harrumph and plods toward me.

“Okay, okay!” I shout. My mind is racing. Which are the sorts of bears you’re supposed to try to scare off, and which are the ones you’re supposed to play dead with? Shit. “I’m sitting,” I tell it, more gently. And I plop back down on the chair. “See how well I’m sitting? Like nobody’s business. So heel. Or mush. Or . . . go away.”

Cinnamon does not go away. He shuffles over to me, and I realize with a great amount of uneasiness that even on all fours he’s looking
down
on me. He starts nuzzling my shoulder,
and his head is so huge that he practically pushes me off the chair into a pile of something one of the birds has left behind. His fur is rough and scratchy, prickling my neck. Less “teddy bear” and more “roadhouse creeper.” I want to grab the thing’s jumbo noggin and shove him away, but I have this overwhelming desire to keep all my limbs attached to my body, so I just grip the edge of the seat until my fingers turn white, and try to look nonchalant. Like I get nuzzled by bears all the time.

“I’m just sitting,” I mutter. Cinnamon continues to get his nuzzle on. The giant furball is now licking my neck and the side of my face, long leathery slurps that leave trails of sticky bear saliva on my skin. “Not going to let a big-ass bear licking half my face off get in the way of a good sit,” I squeak out in between slurps. “Why don’t you try sitting too?”

The door to the side room opens up, and the muffled voices from within are suddenly clear.

“You cannot expect us to go along with this,” comes a strident voice. It’s angry. Pissed, even. “It goes against every protocol!”

Then I hear another voice, calmer and steadier than the rest.

“I’ve made my decision, gentlemen.” I look past the furball assaulting my personal space to see a tall, slender figure in a red jacket standing with his back to me in the doorway. “I do not make it lightly, nor should you take it as a point of debate.”

That’s when another angry voice chimes in. “The Council will never stand for such a blatant disregard for procedure!”

The figure in the doorway shifts casually. “The Council
will have their say, of course. But so long as I’m the commander of this station, I will make the call.”

“But—”

“Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all for now,” the man in the doorway interrupts. “Alan, please see that the arrangements are being made. There’s a good lad.” And with that, he turns and steps inside to join me, closing the door behind him. And the moment he enters the room, he owns it.

Byron.

That’s what the Almiri call him. Their leader. I’ve seen him before, of course—on the communication view screen back on the
Echidna
, when we were trying to avoid being blown to smithereens. But I’ve seen him elsewhere, too.
East of Eden. Giant. Rebel Without a Cause.
No matter what the leader of this group of parasitic alien life-forms chooses to call himself, I will always think of him as James Dean, my mother’s favorite 1950s flat-pic dreamboat.

“Drusilla!” he booms to the gargantuan mound of fluff that’s currently using my face as a tasting menu. “Get down off of Elvie, please. That’s a good girl.” And just like that, the licking stops. Drusilla backs away from me, giving me one last sneeze as a parting gift before retreating to her master.

I’ve got to say the guy looks pretty good for a dude who’s supposedly been dead for 120 years. He pets Drusilla on the head as he makes his way over to his desk. He’s followed by two dogs, a black-and-white long-haired Newfoundland and a large husky. Drusilla grumbles at the dogs as they pass, and the husky scurries away, tail between its legs. The Newfoundland, though, despite weighing approximately as much as one bear
poop, defiantly nips at Drusilla before wandering right up to me and putting his head in my lap.

“Boatswain likes you,” Byron says as he flops down in his big swivel chair. “That’s a good sign. Poor Thunder here”—he rubs the timid husky under the chin—“has always been a little shier with new people. Haven’t you, girl?”

I scratch Boatswain behind the ear, because it seems like the most normal thing I can do. Bears, peacocks,
James Dean talking to me about his pets
—those are the things that I’m not quite ready to process yet. “Dogs seem to have a thing for me,” I say, kneading the bed of Boatswain’s floppy ears a little harder, until he lets out a satisfied whine.

“Amazing creatures, aren’t they?” Byron replies, putting his feet up on the desk. He looks very much like he did when he was James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause
, perhaps a bit older but not by much. He’s even wearing a red windbreaker and some antique-looking jeans, which should seem ridiculous and sad, but somehow he pulls it off effortlessly. Utterly assured of himself, cool, and in charge of the whole room without even trying—that’s James Dean, all right.
“The poor dog,”
he goes on, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, as though reciting words he’s said many times before.
“In life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend.”

“Uh,” I say. “Yeah. Sure.”

Byron’s eyes pop open, and he smiles warmly. “It’s nice to meet you at last, Elvie Nara.” He seems awfully friendly for someone who’s kidnapped me and taken my newborn child. “I’ve heard only good things.”

I nod and clear my throat. “Look,” I start, as much of an edge
to my voice as I dare use with a guy who has a pet bear, “you’re a very busy alien, I’m sure.” His smile shifts sideways a little, amused. “So I’m not going to waste your time with the totally appropriate amount of indignation that I should feel right now.”

“That’s awfully understanding of you.”

I fold my arms across my chest, ignoring Boatswain’s whines for more scratching. “Why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what the hell is going on?”

Byron’s eyes brighten, like I just complimented his haircut. I cannot detect even an ounce of the cruelty that someone like, say, Dr. Marsden had when he had me at gunpoint back on the
Echidna
. By contrast, this Byron guy doesn’t seem to find the whole situation all that serious. Like hospital bed abductions are as common as artificial grass.

“Elvie, everything’s going to be fine, don’t worry. You haven’t done anything wrong. Your baby is in perfect health, and your father and friend are safe and in our care.”

It’s his casual tone that’s more disconcerting to me than anything else. I was kind of expecting a villainous speech. Boatswain starts licking the sweat from my palm. As interrogations go, I have to admit, this is all pretty chill. Everything, as Byron says, seems to be going fine.

“What was all that shouting about? Me?”

Byron waves me off dismissively. “Don’t worry about all that. Some of the lads have their knickers in a bunch over this whole Ares mess.”

“Ares?” I ask, confused. “The Ares Project?” The Ares Project is the multitrillion-dollar government program whose purpose is the wide-scale terraforming of the surface of Mars for
human habitation, the first such attempt of its kind. The idea that the Almiri are behind it in some way probably shouldn’t shock me as much as it does—since I’m well aware of how technologically advanced they are, and how they’ve made a habit of getting their hands into every major scientific breakthrough of the past several thousand years. It’s more of the fact that Byron’s dropping the information so nonchalantly that has me baffled. After all, aren’t I some sort of prisoner here?

“A bit of an issue with some cyberterrorism, nothing that should slow matters down terribly, but enough of a breach that some folks are nervous.” Byron leans forward in his chair. “Cole told me how keen you were on being a part of the project someday. You don’t know how happy that would make—”

“Cole,” I say. “What have you done with Cole?”

Byron’s face turns slightly more serious, but it’s undercut by his tickling one of the miniature monkeys with his index finger. Seriously, the thing is the size of a Ping-Pong ball.

“Cole has broken our cardinal law,” he says simply, “and will have to be dealt with accordingly.”

I can feel the color leave my face. “What do you mean, ‘dealt with’?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not—”

“Don’t
worry
?” I screech out. He might as well tell me not to blink. “Don’t
WORRY
?” Drusilla lurches to her feet at my sudden outcry, like there’s some threat she needs to deal with, but one low growl from Boatswain and she backs off. “Please don’t hurt him.” My voice is shaky, and I am
this close
to crying, but I use every ounce of strength to hold it together. Boatswain drops his head into my lap.

Again, Byron’s pretty chillaxed about the whole scene. “Ah,” he says calmly. “The drama of young love.” And he closes his eyes once more. “
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, or else this heavy heart will burst; for it hath been by sorrow nursed, and ached in sleepless silence.
” He opens his eyes once more and gives me a bittersweet smile.

“Cole told me all about your Code, or whatever,” I say, petting Boatswain with both hands in an effort to calm myself. “I know that what he did was bad. I mean, I know
you guys
think it was bad.” Cole was not supposed to sleep with me. The Almiri have superstrict rules about which human ladies are meant to be knocked up and how frequently an Almiri can do the deed, in order to avoid overpopulation and the eventual destruction of both our species, since Almiri pregnancies lead to sterility in their human hosts. Cole was originally sent to Ardmore, PA, to knock up übercheerleader-mega-skank Britta McVicker, but he disobeyed orders because, as he put it, he “fell for me.”

Also, he’s sort of a chromer.

“But it wasn’t his fault,” I go on. “I, like, totally seduced him. He tried to resist, but . . . what’s going to happen to him?” I whisper around the lump forming in my throat.

“You’ve learned quite a bit about us the past few weeks, Elvie,” Byron says. And perhaps I’m misreading things, but there seems to be some sympathy in his voice. “And seeing that this is the case, I hope that you can appreciate the reason for the Code, and why our adherence to it is so important. I can’t overemphasize what a big deal it is.” The monkey lets out a miniature cheep of insistence until Byron returns to tickling him. “Like, humongous big.”

“But Cole didn’t
mean
—”

Byron cuts me off. “I’ve tried to shield Cole from repercussions with regards to your situation, as best I could. It was no easy task, mind you. The fact that Cole violated protocol and had relations with a second host—someone who clearly had not been vetted for hosting—was not only foolish but dangerous. For both our species.” He clears his throat. “However, in light of the heroism Cole displayed on the
Echidna
, I felt compelled to petition for some degree of leniency for the boy. It was not the most popular sentiment, I can assure you, but I was able to arrange a sort of . . . tenuous probation for young Mr. Archer. Which might have been the end of it, were it not for his unfortunate behavior at the hospital. At this point, my hands are tied. One simply does not head-butt a superior and walk away, even under the cheeriest of circumstances.”

So Cole
did
head-butt that dude. At least I wasn’t hallucinating.

Byron shakes his head in a mannered gesture of regret. “He will be punished, Elvie, but I swear on my life, he will not be harmed.”

“Oh, well, if you swear on your
life
,” I reply. Still, I am relieved by the news. But . . . “That doesn’t explain why you’ve taken me or my dad. Or Ducky. And where is my baby girl?” I shove Boatswain away, suddenly very frustrated. The dog whines piteously.

Byron stands up, and Boatswain and Thunder snap to attention and move into flanking position beside him as he walks to the front of the desk. He sits on the edge and looks down on me, much like a hip teacher from a bad sitcom about
to dole out “serious life lessons.” Byron temples his fingers in front of his mouth and considers me with an intense gaze.

“Elvie, do you know how incredible your baby is?” he begins. “I mean, all babies are incredible. Life, I mean, wow, right? Whether it’s human or Almiri or, I dunno, whales . . . it’s just a miracle. But
your
baby . . . she’s even more special.”

“Because she’s a chick,” I say.

“Because she’s a chick,” he confirms. “Almiri do not have baby girls.” He reaches across his desk for a round red tin and pops open the top. “Biscuit?”

I seem to have lost my appetite. “So, my daughter’s, like, a miracle squared?”

Byron sets the tin on the desk and rests one hand on each of the heads of his two dogs. It’s a measured and self-conscious pose. I can totally picture him practicing in front of the mirror for dramatic situations just like this. Then he lapses into that annoying closed-eye reciting thing again. “
What a whirlwind is her head, and what a whirlpool full of depth and danger is all the rest about her.
” He opens his eyes again. “No,” he says, and the ice that’s suddenly in his voice startles me a bit. “Not a miracle. On the contrary, the child is a great danger.”

“A danger?” I ask, baffled. “To who?”

“All of us,” Byron says. And just as quickly he snaps back into levity. “Seriously, you should try one of these biscuits.” He plucks one from the tin. “They’re delish.”

I’m not even sure I manage to shake my head.
Dangerous?
How can one baby girl be a danger to anyone, let alone a guy who’s well over a hundred years old and has two Academy Award nominations on his résumé?