Dawn Autumn (11 page)

A muffled grunt was the best she could do. Easing away, she retrieved her guitar, allowing him to carry the rest. The doors slid open onto a tiled hallway. Doors of rich, gleaming wood ran up and down it; four doors in all. Fred led her to the on the right and palmed the lock. He then keyed in a code, took her hand, and placed it over the plate. The computer hummed, beeped, and went black.

“Now you’re in the computer so you can come and go,” Fred explained. “I just got this place a couple of weeks ago. Tell me what you think.”

Jay blinked as he opened the door on a softly lit, roomy suite. She’d expected something stark, maybe all chrome and spacey, but his apartment was filled with comfortable furniture in warm, spicy tones. The walls were a relaxing cream with oak trim, and the terracotta tiles on the floor were warm as she slipped off her shoes.

Fred left her things in the entryway as he gave her a quick tour. “Here’s the kitchen. Are you hungry?” Without waiting for her to make up her sluggish mind, he got her glass of water and opened up the fridge and freezer, which looked remarkably like the units she was used to. Still stupid with exhaustion, she sat at the marble bar and watched him hustle. In minutes she had a warm teriyaki sandwich and a cup of herbal tea. It was comfortable, much like the meals she’d shared with him in the past, and she found herself relaxing. A glance at the counter showed a cardboard tea box with a familiar logo. Had he laid in a stock for her? He’d been expecting her to visit? “Were you expecting someone?” At his curious glance, she nodded to the tea.

“Can’t you guess?”

Irritable at best in the morning, today was definitely not a good day to bait her. “You were planning on bringing me here all along,” she accused him.

“Guilty.”

She glared at him. “I can’t stay here, Fred. I have a life to get back to. How long do you think we’ll be?”

He sipped his drink. “Could be a while. You’re a witness in an illegal transport case. While I can take you to Earth and then return you in time for the trial, I still have to arrange your security. You can’t go back to your apartment while there’s an open doorway.”

“You mean my fridge? What’s going on with that, anyway? Or is it a normal thing around here to have out of town visitors popping out of the cooler?” Then she remembered something else. “You lied to me about the first time! You covered it up.”

“Yes,” he said, unrepentant. “It should have been an isolated incident, and no harm was done. I didn’t want to alarm you.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said sarcastically. “Instead I was nearly eaten by giant bugs this morning.”

He sighed. “The techies told us they’d plugged the leak. That should have been the end of it. Whoever’s behind this has a lot of moxie and access to an extremely powerful space bender. I also suspect they’ve got friends in high places, which is why I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re our only witness.”

She was fascinated in spite of herself. “What’s a space bender? You still didn’t say how the thing got in my fridge.”

Fred shook his head. “The bender shoots a beam that opens space in a specific location, creating a teleportation portal. Trouble is, there are only so many locations the portals will work. The apartment complex is built over one of them, and each apartment serves as a doorway. You were in Coal’s the day we went to the “spa”.”

She blinked, absorbing that.

He went on, “Earth is just a stopping point, a depot, if you like. Space benders from both ends of the galaxy open doorways there, but none of the connecting worlds are very interesting, so beings rarely travel through. It’s just cheaper and faster than using a spaceship.”

“Okay, but look what’s happening now. It looks like something is getting interesting on the other side, or we wouldn’t have things using my apartment like Grand Central Station. What that thing did to my bathroom—ugh!”

Fred laughed. “Yeah, insectoids have terrible aim. Your fridge was just a convenient place to hide the beam, okay? They could have used a closet, too, but maybe they didn’t think they could pull it off in a higher traffic area. If those insectoids had just hurried through, they wouldn’t have woken you. For that matter, they may have thought the place was deserted.”

Something didn’t add up. “Fred, if they were using my place as a stopping point, then where were they exiting? They left my place through the front door.”

He got up to remove her empty plate. Without looking at her, he said grimly, “They probably used that as the exit point.”

She thought about chasing after the slug things and shuddered. “Would I have been trapped where they were if I’d run through the portal, instead of waiting?”

The look in his eyes confirmed it.

Jay groaned and laid her head on her arms. “I’m too tired to think about this right now.”

“Nothing a good nap won’t fix. Here, let me show you to the bedroom.” He smirked at her suspicious look. “You can have it to yourself. I’ll be on the computer the next few hours, trying to figure out what’s going on.” The bedroom was just off the living area, separated from it by curtains. Fred held them aside for her and bowed her in.

Jay gasped. White marble pillars carved in the Greek style framed the bed. Twined with roses, they supported a canopy and curtains of pink gauze. Floor candle stands set with fat candles ringed the room, but were not lit. Soft sunlight filtered through a skylight, illuminating walls painted with cloud chased blue sky and pastoral scenes. Best of all was the bathing pool set in the stone floor. Water gurgled over a tumble of rocks, forming a fountain that kept the pool full of sweetly scented water.

She looked at Fred, eyes wide.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said with a smile. “It’s nice to take a bath once in a while, but if you’re in a hurry, you can just do this.” He took her hand and drew her over to a differently tiled square near the wall. He flipped a switch, bathing them in blue light. Keeping her still with a reassuring hand on her back, he waited the thirty seconds or so until the light snapped off. “Voila,” he said. “No more chemical odor.”

“Cool,” she said appreciatively. “You’ve got some neat toys, Fred.” She yawned, tried to hide it behind her hand.

He gave her a fast kiss, then turned her toward the bed. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you up at dinner time and we can talk some more. Dream of me.”

She grinned wryly as he left the room. As tired as she was, she’d be surprised to sleep at all.

That she did, and deeply, was only one of the surprises she’d have in the next few days.

Chapter Eight

As soon as Jay’s eyes opened, she remembered where she was and jumped out of bed. Her bag was conveniently parked in front of the bed, so she dug out jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt and went in search of Fred. He was camped out in front of a giant TV screen in the living room with his chin propped on his chest. Alien words were scrolling so fast double time over the screen it made her blink. Could he really read that?

Fred paused the screen and looked up. “You look relaxed. Sleep well?”

“Definitely, thanks. So what did you find out?” She leaned on the back of the couch and stared curiously at the screen.

He grinned at her one track mind and rose, stretching. “Not much. I have a few more pieces to fit together. Meanwhile, I found out an old friend is in town. We need to talk, and Tasin has agreed to meet us at a pub. I figured you’d want dinner pretty soon?”

Jay grinned. She’d suspected he lived on takeout, and this pretty much confirmed it. “You can’t cook to save your life, can you?”

“Hey, I make a mean sandwich,” he protested, naming his other staple.

She snorted. She’d seen his Dagwood’s. One thing she could say for him, he did pile on the vegetables. Salad mix, meat, pickles, jalapenos and anything else not nailed down. Obviously a man could live on it. “Okay. Am I going to stick out dressed like this, though? I don’t know what people around here wear.”

His eyes drifted down her with an approving leer. “Baby, you’re perfect. Oh, but I forgot one thing.” He went to the wall and touched a picture, which dissolved to reveal a recessed shelf. He took something out and closed it again. “You’ll need these.”

She accepted the little silver half ovals with a frown.

“They’re translators. You wear them cuffed around the back of your ears, like this,” he placed one on her, hooking it around the back of her ear. She shivered as the thing seemed to adjust itself, molding to her skin and hooking onto the tip of her ear.

“Is it alive?” she asked uncertainly.

He flashed her a reassuring smile. “No. Its just flex metal, a polymer designed to ensure comfort. Did you understand that? I was speaking in Negati.”

She blinked. “Yeah. Wow! What other toys do you have around here?”

He grinned. “I’ll show you later. We’ve got a dinner date first. Grab your jacket—it gets cool around here at night.”

Their cab dropped them off on the roof of a five story, crystalline building. Jay rubbed her foot wonderingly on the black, glassy surface, noting the embedded trail of glowing red lights. “Is this stone?”

“A manufactured material,” he said, following the red lines. “Just follow my lead and enjoy yourself. I think you’ll like it here.” Another alien taxi dropped off a group of squat brown aliens, and Fred moved them a little to the side, where it was quieter. “By the way, I have something else for you.” He took a silver cuff from his pocket. Embedded with milky crystal, it glimmered in the city lights as he fixed it around her left wrist. He looked into her eyes. “If anything happens to me, trace this pattern here and say, ‘help’.” He showed her a symbol. “Someone will come to get you and give you a hand. Okay? Very important.”

She looked at the pretty cuff, then at him.

He raised a hand to her cheek. “Just a precaution. Life is uncertain, and I don’t want you worried about how you’ll get home or anything. Deal?”

“Okay,” she drawled, uncertain.

He gave her fast kiss. “Great! Let’s go tear down the house,” he said, striding for the entrance, her hand in his. “We’ve got some partying to do.”

A bullet-shaped elevator sped them down to the second floor, or so she surmised from the position of the blue lit symbols on the door. The translator might work great for spoken language, but she still couldn’t read the alien script. Good thing she wasn’t planning on staying or she’d have to go back to school.

Fred kept his arm around her waist as the door opened up, spilling in light and noise. Jay gaped at the roomful of aliens, all carousing and having a rockin’ good time.

“That’s a Kunjari,” Fred told her as they passed the bronze topped bar. A round, fuzzy creature the size of a soccer ball sat on it, slurping a drink from a bowl. It had big eyes, a pink tongue and cat’s ears, but no legs. Instead it balanced on feet like a penguin, running its tongue over its sharp teeth. Jay wanted to pet it.