In Situ (20 page)

“Now,
tell me, who’s Ara?” she asked.

Tom had gone back to his trailer to rest for a while with orders for his men to call him the minute they thought he could access the deeper sections of the caves. He was just drifting off to sleep when the phone rang.

He
had pulled his crew back together as Batter asked, and gotten most everyone back on track, but Andy and a group of a dozen or so men peeled off to begin pumping the flooded caves. Regardless of Batter’s hurry to finish, Tom was determined to find Alex’s body before he had to permanently seal off the last section of the ARC. Their search had turned up nothing so far, but his men still had not reached the section where Tom had left Alex.

The phone continued to ring and he tried to ignore it for as long as possible, his body desperate for sleep. “Hancock,” he said when he finally picked up.

“Tom?”

There was a long moment of silence. “Alex, is
it you?” Tom said, his voice shaking. He was suddenly fully awake.

“Yes.”

“I knew it! I have been looking for you, or I should say, for your body for the last 24 hours and I… and I ….” Tom was on the verge of tears he was so happy. “Alex, are you OK? Where are you? Are you calling on your cell? Do you want me to come and get you?”

“Yes,
don’t worry. I’m actually fine. Very lucky. But then you know me-I am a very lucky girl. Anyhow, I am down at Dad’s ranch and….”

“Alex, how the hell did you get all the way down there?”

“Tom, it is a very long story and I will tell you all about it, but first I need to ask you some questions. OK?”

“
OK, OK, but I just don’t get it…,” he was shaking his head. How had she gotten out? There was no way unless she had found a dry tunnel. The flood had been so sudden. Then he began to smile. Of course she got out. That’s just Alex. It was totally impossible, so Alex would do it. He was so relieved to hear her voice he was beside himself, as if his whole life had just begun again.

“Tom, I need you to focus for a minute.”

“Alright, alright, but you can’t really blame me for being happy.”

“Remember when you told me about the science team that showed up and cleared everything out in the caves?”

“Yes.”

“Where did they take everything?”

“Alex, I have no idea.”

“Come on Tom.”
she said, not caring if it was classified information or not.

“Really
, Alex, they didn’t tell me.”

“We have to find out
. Batter would know, right?”

“Alex, I think Batter knows just about everything.”

“Well, can you ask him?”

“I guess I can
, Alex. Have to try to call him though. He’s not here.”

“Where did he go?”

“He left for Area…,” Tom had to stop himself, this wasn’t a secure line. “Alex, I really can’t say. I think you know why.” Tom wasn’t sure about his private cell phone, but he knew for a fact that all of the phone lines in the complex were monitored and recorded. Batter’s whereabouts were classified. Now that he thought about it, Alex was classified, as well, since she knew about the ARC. Batter and his gang would be looking to debrief her the minute they found out she was still alive. “How did you get this number?”

“Tom, you gave it to me several months ago in case of emergency, remember?” she said, her voice now showing signs of irritation.

“Alex, who knows you’re home?”

“Well, I happened to run into Gus Hooper. You remember him, he’s deputy sheriff of
Carbon County.”

“Alex, I’m
going to come down. In the meantime, don’t let anyone else know you are there, OK?”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea
, Tom.” She was looking at Mot as she was talking on the phone.

“I don’t want you down there alone.”

“Well, I’m not actually….”

“I’ll be there
in less than two hours. Don’t go anywhere,” he said, not hearing her last statement, and hung up.

Tom hurried and dressed. H
e instinctively knew he was in a race to get to Alex before Batter did.

Less than five minutes after Tom had hung up the phone with Alex
, he was on his motorcycle and headed down to Price. He thought about trying to borrow an airplane, but then decided that by the time he got that accomplished he could be already be there.

Tom had been in the military for over six years
—a ranger and special ops guy. He was notorious for his conquests of women, but even more notorious for the way he could fly anything from a Cessna to an F-15 to an Apache helicopter. When he felt like he needed to get somewhere fast, there was still nothing like an aircraft of some sort to accomplish it. He always felt like he could walk faster than he could drive. But a fast motorcycle, well, that was another matter.

He made the turn
at Vernal and gunned his bike down the highway. It was midday and the road was radiating heat, blurring the lines far in front of him. When he reached 100 mph, he settled down and began thinking about Alex and watching for cops.

Something wasn’t right. This whole thing with the caves, the way Batter had behaved. Tom wasn’t really superstitious
, but he was wondering if there was a full moon or an eclipse, or what was going on. One thing was for sure—this thing with Alex nearly dying had confirmed that he never wanted to be without her again.

He realized that he had made a huge mistake
, and hoped that he could make it up to her. Tom knew that was not going to be easy. Alex was a tough case, and he knew he had really blown it. When Batter had originally offered him the job of constructing the ARC, he had been torn between the job of his dreams and Alex. He knew she would never accept the top secret nature of his classified position, so he had fabricated a story of infidelity in order to break the relationship: a huge mistake. A part of him, he supposed, had always hoped she would see through the charade.

As he rode, he turned his attention to Batter
, and thought back to the specimens and the way that whole K-T discovery had been handled. At first, he hadn’t considered anything about the find to be that monumental simply because he had been so preoccupied. In fact, he had been more annoyed that it had temporarily stopped work. Initially, the project’s construction was to have taken just a few days over three years to total completion, but delays had them at three years and just about three months at this point. Not bad, considering all of the contingencies, when you really thought about it. What was the rush beyond that? What did Batter know? Surely, the world wasn’t going to end in the next couple of weeks? Was it?

Tom looked down and noticed that he was going 120 miles per hour
. A chill suddenly went down his neck that had nothing to do with his speed.

“You seem bothered Pete,” was the first thing Ara had said to him in the morning when they met. She had thought of several questions she wanted to ask him, not the least of which was where were the other Arzats? In particular, where was Mot?

After Pete had said goodnight to Batter, he had gone back to check on Ara. He had his staff provide her with a portable toilet and a mattress
, and ordered them to feed her again. She was calm throughout the process and any of Pete’s angst about her becoming dangerous had subsided.

Pete had gone to sleep knowing that the world was about to end and that his family was going with it. He thought about calling home before he went to bed
, but he was afraid his wife would pick up on his mood. If Ara was a mind reader, then certainly his wife Hanna was the next closest thing. He would have to try to explain that nothing was really wrong and, in essence, he would have to lie. Pete had slept fitfully, trying to decide what to do with the news. How could he save his family? Could he? No-was the answer that kept coming back to him.

*

There w
ere no provisions for family at Area 51 other than a select few that might be coming with some of the political leaders. The entire purpose of 51 was to preserve the executive and legislative branches of the government and the judiciary. The military was primarily to be housed in the Colorado ARC and Kansas ARC, with the as yet unfinished Utah ARC designated primarily for the science community. In fact, had Utah been finished, Pete Wilson and most of his team were to have been housed there. Batter had already informed him that would now not be the case, and that he would remain at 51.

From the moment of their inception in the
mid-90s, it had always been understood that the ARCs would be a last ditch effort to save mankind and, perhaps, some semblance of the U.S., were there to be a holocaust, pandemic, or other major disaster. No one knew how long it would take the world to recover, or even if it would recover enough for life on the surface. But the ARCs would give them a shot, a few years to let things settle. Despite the fact that family, in general, was not allowed, the support personnel for all four facilities had been carefully pre-selected, not only on qualifications, but for ratios of male to female, average ages, and other such factors. There was one thing no one doubted: the strong tendency of humans to procreate regardless of conditions. No room for lay persons, everyone had to serve a specific purpose.

*

“I have a lot on my mind.” Pete didn’t try to deny that he was bothered. Ara was, after all, a mind reader. “How did you sleep?”

“I am doing as well as any captive could be expected to
do under the circumstances.” She said it with no malice. “Thank you for the bedding.”

“Ara, you are not a captive,
” Pete said, careful not to be defensive.

“Then
, perhaps I just need instruction on how to operate the exits from this room. I found I was unable to open them of my own accord last night.” Her eyes bore into Pete. Of course I am a captive, little creature, Pete son of Robert, she thought, carefully blocking, and if any of my clan had found you in our world we would have been just as quick to lock you up. That, or we’d have eaten you.

“Listen, Ara
, you are not so much a prisoner as a guest. We are only keeping you here for your own protection. You would not last out in our world very long without some knowledge of it. I imagine the world as you knew it was a very hostile place. To you, right now, it is still a very hostile place. You’ll just have to trust me on that. You were asleep for a very long time.”

A
ra considered what Pete had said. He was telling the truth, at least as far as he knew it. “Do you know how long I was asleep?”

Pete had fortunately anticipated this question and had brought a bag of sugar with him. “How do Arzats mark time
, Ara?” he asked.

“There is an orb of fire in the sky
. What do you call it?”

“We call it the sun.”

“We call him Qa’aa. When Qa’aa rises, that we call a het. When Qa’aa rises again, that is another het. This het is divided further into smaller pieces according to the names of animals in the forest. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Qa’aa likes to come up in different places,” Ara continued, indicating a horizon with her hands, “but sooner or later he always comes up at the same place again, and this we call a season or a ra. I have lived for two eights of these seasons Peter.”

My god—she is just a teenager, thought Pete. Of course, that is assuming the Arzat life cycle was anywhere near human.
It was also starting to sound like their system of time keeping might have been a sophisticated as the Mayan’s.

“So Ara, you asked me how long you were asleep.” Pete said, showing her the
five pound bag of sugar. He opened it carefully then dumped about half of the bag in a large mixing bowl. “Are you familiar with the idea of ‘imagination’ Ara, where you picture something in your head that you know may be different than reality?”

“Yes
, Pete. I have done this often, mostly regarding food.” Sometimes as of late, she wanted to add, regarding a few males of my clan-but she hid the thought from Pete.

“Our women
, our females, are very similar in that way,” Pete said. He held up one crystal of sugar on the tip of his finger and showed it to Ara. “OK, Ara, imagine that this little tiny sugar crystal is a season.”

“Yes
, Pete. Not a het?” she said, carefully following. Ara had already come to the conclusion that her survival might depend on every bit of information she could glean from this human—Pete son of Robert.

“No
. This is a ra.” Then Pete held up the bag of sugar, “And imagine that these are ra, too.” He dumped the rest of the sugar from the bag into the mixing bowl. “Now, Ara, imagine that I had many of these bags, all full of seasons—ra.” Pete stopped to see if he had lost her.

“Yes,” Ara said, understanding. “How many bags?”

“Many—many,” Pete answered, sweeping he arms around the room.

Ara said nothing to Pet
e for the next few minutes. She turned slightly away and stared off into space.

“There were others
who slept with me. Where are they?” she finally asked. “My mother and the other Elder females placed eight and five of us in the sleeping cocoons. What happened to the others? I can detect none of them around me.”

Pete gulped
. He had known the question would be coming and he had already dreaded answering it. He looked at Ara, genuine sadness in his eyes. “Ara,” he began, knowing he could not lie about what had happened, “there was an accident. We removed you and eleven… eight and three, others from the caves. On the way here, there was a terrible mishap and all of the Arzats with the exception of you were destroyed.” Pete watched as Ara’s eyes narrowed. He could feel a strange tingling in his mind he hadn’t noticed before.

Ara’s heart began to race.
Eight and three? Eight and three! Perhaps they have not found Mot, she thought, remembering his odd placement in the caves. She had to know. She just had to know! Ara debated with herself for a moment, then looked Pete directly in the eyes and searched. She knew that he had no ability to block. Ara looked deep into his mind until she could see all that had transpired. There, in Pete’s memory, she could see his vision of the eight and four spots that had been excavated in the cave, but there was nothing in his head regarding any discovery of Mot’s location in the wall! She could see the truck burning in the night, and she could feel Pete’s sadness. There were many other things in Pete’s mind that were very disturbing as well, but Ara’s heart quickened when she realized that Mot might still be alive.

“Did you have a mate?”
Pete finally offered.

“Mate?” Ara said, surprised.

“You know, a male Arzat that you were attached to. Here we call that being married, or for you, having a husband.”

Ara blushed—perhaps Pete was probing her mind as well! She could clearly remember the last time she had seen Mot, freezing in the caves together with her, sending her a signal just before they went to sleep. Oh
Great Creator of All Things, let it be true that Mot has survived! “No, but my potential mate was frozen with us,” she said.

“What was his name?”

“Mot, his name is Mot son of the great Hunter Url.”

Pete was beside himself with grief. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I’ve killed her mate, he thought to himself.

“Perhaps not,” Ara said, without thinking.

“I’m sorry?” Pete said, not understanding her response.

Ara had been probing Pete’s mind again, despite herself. She instantly knew she had been caught. It was an atrocity in the Arzat culture to probe—and it was wrong—and she had been caught. “I mean, that perhaps you do not need to be sorry Pete. It was an accident, no?” Ara said, trying to cover her indiscretion.

“Do you know if there were others
, maybe in a different location?” Pete asked, hoping for a moment there might be a way to redeem himself. Then he remembered his conversation with Batter. What would be the point?

“No.”

“You mean ‘no, there were not’ or ‘no, you don’t know’?” Pete said, suddenly curious about the Ara’s tone.

Ara did not answer for a long time. She was an
gry with herself for probing Pete’s mind, but furious that she had no way of knowing about Mot’s fate. She resolved that she must think of a way to escape and to see if she could find him. “I do not know Pete,” she finally said, hoping that he would not see through her obvious lie. “I do know that there is no future for me without a mate.”

*

Batter was in his quarters. It wasn’t much, just the equivalent of a small one bedroom apartment, but it was going to be heaven next to the much smaller room he would be assigned in the ARC. He had been pouring over the details of the plans to populate the Colorado and Kansas units. There was a knock, and he opened the door.

“Mr. Batter, sorry to disturb you, but a message just came in for you from your office marked urgent,” a uniformed
Corporal said.

Batter took the plain brown manila envelope stamped CLASSIFIED
/URGENT from him and shut the door. If he had seen one of these packages, he had seen a thousand. Most of them brought bad news, but what could be worse than what he already knew? He pulled out the papers, a note on top said: Boss: Thought you might want to see this—Mac.

Pat McCartin was one of Batter’s favorite intelligence staffers
, always looking for a needle in the haystack and often finding one, and for years Batter had always just referred to him as Mac. He got halfway through the reading and started to smile.

“I’ll be damned.”
It was a transcript of the telephone conversation between Alex and Tom.

Batter
finished reading and pondered the note for a long time. “Interesting,” he said aloud when he was done, then picked up the phone. “Good work, Mac. Now, you know my next question. Who do we have… wait… where the heck is that place? Who do we have around Price, Utah?

“I have already dispatched a team
, Boss.”

“Excellent!
” Batter said, still thinking about the conversation between Tom and Alex and the Arzat Pete had discovered. “And Mac, tell the team be ready for anything.” Batter proceeded to give Mac a long list of instructions before he finally hung up the phone.