Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (32 page)

“Jesus,” Shockwave commented under his breath, but still audible enough for everyone, “go easy on ‘em.
I
don’t even know what ‘insular’ means.”

More chuckles, even from Steve this time.

Callin performed the reverse introductions, sticking to everyone’s formal nomenclature for the time being, as they had agreed — the concept of a “secret identity” might be too distracting during these first days.

Sharing some of Steve’s enthusiasm, Takayasu asked, “I don’t suppose we could come aboard your ship now?”

But Larr shook his head. “Not just yet, Lieutenant. We’re filtering in samples of your atmosphere, isolating any local pathogens or particulate matter that might give us trouble.” He pointed at the mask over his mouth. “We only have so many of these to go around, and most of us aren’t as rugged as our Grand Lord and his family.”

“Do you anticipate any trouble? In our fiction, alien visitors either shrug off our germs or drop dead, depending on the writers’ whims. I’ve always been curious how that would really work.”

Shining Star answered, “We sample the native toxins and allergens, break them down and create a form of inoculation. Our people should only need a short adjustment period, maybe endure some hypersensitive reactions for a while longer. The technology for trans-planetary acclimation has been around for centuries.”

Shockwave laughed. “One more scientific whatzit that’ll have our side droolin’. I’m glad you guys agreed to share.”

As the others got acquainted, Steve, too excited to stand still, began wandering alongside
Refuge One
. Now that it was on the ground (with, to his mild surprise, no landing struts of any kind), it amazed him that it had seemed too “small” while up in the air — standing right beside it, he could appreciate how big it really was. He had thought that very little could be as thrilling as talking to an extraterrestrial being, but seeing an extraterrestrial spacecraft came pretty damn close! This was a ship that had come from another planet, another
star system
, had traveled who knew how many light-years to be here. Shockwave was already teasing him, but if the guy had any idea just how
truly
geeked out Steve was ...

Turning his head this way and that, he examined the rippling, warping surface of the ship. Callin talked about the veil as though it were like a force field, but to Steve, it looked as if the hull were made out of some distorted material. Slowly, tentatively, he reached out a gloved hand to touch it — part of him wanted to take the glove off and really feel it, but while Callin had not mentioned any dangers of doing so, he opted to err on the side of caution; a micro-chainmail glove offered better protection than none at all.

When his fingers made contact, he sensed some warmth but little else. The warped reflection of the ground rippled, much like poking a liquid crystal screen. He dragged his fingertips along the perfectly smooth surface, and tracers rippled after him. Interesting that the color didn’t—

Once it dawned on him, Steve was amazed that he hadn’t noticed it immediately: The veil was reflecting, in deformed fashion, the ground beneath his feet — but it wasn’t reflecting
him
!

Of course! It reminded me of a crazy funhouse mirror, but that wouldn’t work, because if another ship got too close, they’d see themselves. It must be tracking larger bodies, like the ground and clouds, or maybe it looks for motionless bodies, relative to itself?

Amazing! Shockwave was right — he
had
to take a closer look at this technology as soon as possible. Alan and Ardette would’ve been so stoked to see this!

Taking a few steps back, Steve switched to his thermal vision and—

“Whoa ...”

The ship’s hull had looked pretty cool before, but viewed through the infrared spectrum, it rose to a whole new level of awesome. Gone was the distorted reflection of the ground — the ripples that he had seen in the normal light spectrum were now swirling eddies of reds, oranges, and yellows, spinning and thrashing over the ship like the world’s largest lava lamp. He stepped forward again to run his fingers back across the surface, and this time he could see the tracers he created spreading out and pulsing over and through the existing currents. All of this to create the seemingly “simple” effect of blending the ship into its environment ... but how did this trick radar and the like into not seeing them at all? He would have to ask Callin about that.

Stepping back once more, Steve switched to his ultraviolet vision, but this shift proved anticlimactic; as was frequently the case, he found that his ultraviolet vision wasn’t a great deal different from the normal spectrum — not when compared to the shift between normal and infrared, anyway. Everything took on a somewhat bluish-purple hue, and he did find that his eyes were even less fooled by the veil’s camouflage. But that was about it.

He was on the verge of switching back to normal vision when a flicker overhead caught his attention. Looking up, he spied something a little more like what he had been hoping for, a pulsing light coming from the top of
Refuge One
, so deep into the ultraviolet spectrum that it was practically an X-ray. It was originating a little closer to the ship’s prow, but still too high for him to identify the exact source. The pulse was shining up into the early-night sky with surprising strength, sending a shaft of light upward as far as he could see — if it were in the visible spectrum, it would have been brighter than the Luxor light in Las Vegas.

“Vortex!” Takayasu called. “You’re missing out over here.”

The Lieutenant’s call got his attention, but did not shake his latest curiosity. Pointing, he called back, “Shining Star! What does that do?”

Callin, who had been conversing with Larr and Powerhouse, turned his way. He glanced to where Steve indicated, but then shook his head as he walked toward him. “Are you pointing to the split in the upper ridge of the hull? That’s one of our sensor housing—”

“No, not the ridge. Further toward the prow of your ship. The light.”

Again, Shining Star shook his head, this time forgetting to do it like a human. “Light?”

“Oh, sorry, you probably can’t see it. I’m talking about your ultraviolet emitter, or whatever it is. The one that’s pulsing.”

Shining Star came alongside him, and the others were starting to follow. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.”

Steve again pointed to the source of the UV light. “Right there. You’ve got something sending out a pulse of light deep in the ultraviolet spectrum.”

“ ‘Ultraviolet?’ ” Naltin repeated, sounding confused, as the group reassembled around Vortex. “We shouldn’t have anything working in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prime field— Wait ...” He turned to Larr and started speaking in their native language.

“English, please,” Callin reminded them, but his attention was directed toward the area in question.

Bowing his head in apology, Naltin continued for the benefit of their guests, “No one bleeds ultraviolet anymore, do they? Not since the Daluvanians shared their prime regulators?”

Larr’s attention was also turned upward. “No,” he answered, and he did not sound pleased. “It could interfere with our veil.”

Naltin asked Steve, “How were you able to spot something using ultraviolet?”

Steve opened his mouth, but Shockwave answered for him. “This guy can see all kindsa stuff.”

Powerhouse was just as quick to respond. “If he says something’s up there, it’s up there.”

Naltin was somewhat taken aback. “It was not my intention to question his integrity ...”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Steve assured him. “But they’re right. Whatever it is, I can see it, bright as day. Could you guys maybe have a malfunction or something?” He glanced back toward the smaller spacecraft. “Whatever it is, it’s only on this one ship.”

“No malfunction should result in ultraviolet radiation,” Callin answered. “Are the pulses regular?”

Steve tapped one finger in time with the flashes. After a few seconds, he said, “Pretty much, yeah.”

Sounding increasingly concerned, Callin asked, “Naltin, can we nail it down with instrumentation?”

“Of course, but it might take a few minutes. I can’t remember the last time I had to tune into the ultraviolet — not regarding our own ships, anyway. No one uses it anymore.”

Shining Star was silent for a moment, then he looked to Steve. “Vortex, would you be opposed to my flying you up there?”

“No problem. I’ll take you right to it.”

Steve bunched his cape up in one hand at the small of his back so that Callin could slip his hands under his armpits. A second later, Callin’s energy sheath rose to minimal levels, and Steve’s stomach dropped as he soared into the air, courtesy of Shining Star.

“A little more forward,” he told Callin, who adjusted. “A little more. Here, right here.”

Callin set Steve down gently, facing the prow of the ship, his feet straddling the pinnacle of the ship’s upper ridge — a little awkward, but no more so than when he would climb up onto the roof of his house as a kid (not that his mom ever saw it that way!). This close, the pulse was bright enough in his UV vision that he was grateful for his eyes’ filtration.

“Where is it coming from, exactly?” Callin asked.

Steve crouched. “Right here.”

Standing across from him, also straddling the ridge but facing aft rather than forward, Callin crouched with him. “Where?”

Steve put his finger right on the spot — the UV light was so intense that his arm failed to cast a significant shadow. “Right
here
.”

Callin frowned even more than he already was. “There’s nothing there. I mean, this should just be a part of the hull. No engineering or equipment of any significance.”

“So much for a malfunction.” Steve glanced behind himself, then craned his neck to look past Callin. “Is the circular part here just, like, a space-age rivet or something?”

“What circular part?”

They looked at one another, then down to where Steve’s finger still rested. Steve flipped back to normal vision for a second, and sure enough, not only did the pulse vanish, but the circular shape he was touching was no longer visible, either. Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big — barely an inch tall from the hull, and maybe six inches in diameter.

“How do you want to handle this?” Steve asked. “Should we remove it?”

“Larr and Naltin would probably advise against that without knowing what we’re dealing with ...”

As if on cue, Larr called up from below. “Callin?! What have you found?!”

Callin ignored the old man, so Steve asked, “What do
you
think?”

Callin looked up at him again. “Whatever this is, I want it off my ship. Right now.”

Nodding his understanding and agreement, Steve reached down with both hands to run his fingers around the rim of the circular object. Finding the edges, he could get just enough purchase to try—

“Wait.”

Steve froze. “What?”

“
I’ll
pull it off. If the result is explosive, I’m less likely to get hurt.” Then he added, “I mean no offense.”

“None taken whatsoever. Put your fingers where mine are ...”

As if passing a heavy weight from one person to another, they swapped their hands, Callin grunting in mild surprise upon feeling the object that was still invisible to him. Steve stood and retreated a few steps, then grabbed one edge of his protective cape and pulled it in front of his body — just to be safe.

As it turned out, the reaction when Shining Star yanked the object from the hull was not terribly dynamic, but it did send out a few sparks that Steve was glad to have ducked. The pulse flashed once more in its usual pattern, then twice more in rapid succession, then ...

“The light’s gone,” Steve informed Callin as he stepped forward.

“I still can’t see it,” Callin commented, “but I can feel it. I think it was attached to our ship magnetically, a very strong connection. I suspect only I or Powerhouse could’ve gotten it off.”

“Callin!” Larr shouted again. “What are you doing up there?!”

Callin asked Steve, “It’s still visible to you?”

“Yeah.”

Callin pushed the device forward. “Please hold on to it while I take us down ...”

In less time than it had taken to mount the ship, they were back on the ground, with humans and Taalu alike all huddled around the device in Steve’s gloved hands, the device which only his UV vision could see. Shockwave almost called bullshit until he poked it with a finger, then he shut the hell up.

“Can you describe it to us?” Naltin asked.

To his fellow humans, Steve said, “Honestly, it just looks like a sleek smoke detector.” But he knew this meant little to the Taalu, so he described the device as best he could, its dimensions and its markings, or lack thereof on the latter.

Sighing, Naltin said to Callin, “I’m sorry, Grand Lord, but I have no idea what this might be. But I can tell you, it is not a part of the ship’s original design.”

“I think I know what it is,” Larr growled in a low voice. Everyone looked up at him, but he had eyes only for Shining Star. “Magnetic attachment, ultraviolet pulse, and what amounts to a miniature, damned perfect veil? This is a tracking beacon.”

Naltin looked down into Steve’s seemingly empty hands once more. “If that’s what it is, it was added sometime
after
we left Taal-ceky. But how?”

Larr said, “The ‘how’ doesn’t matter so much as the ‘when,’ as in
how long ago
?” He looked at Callin once more. “A beacon this size, emitting a UV signal as powerful as your friend described ... whatever its power source, it can’t have been with us for long. We’ve been in orbit here for how many days now? And with all of our attention fixed on the surface of this planet — especially since we learned of the escaping converts. Callin, we’ve had all eyes
down here
.”

Naltin spoke up again. “It can’t be the Verauns, can it? We destroyed their strike force, stranded the Cargaun—”

“It doesn’t have to be the Verauns. This sort of tech isn’t really their method, anyway.” Larr released a deep, rumbling sigh. “No, this is underworld work. Bounty hunter work.”