Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (24 page)

But Vortex only made the noncommital observation, “Your voice sounds the same. And you still have your accent.”

Not knowing what else to say, Callin replied, “Yes. The translator was designed to mimic how I would naturally speak a foreign language.”

Something was not right here. Something felt ... off. But Callin was too unfamiliar with their customs and behavior to be certain — especially with Steve’s face completely hidden by his mask.

Vortex stepped back, suggesting, “How about we go inside for a minute. You can say hello to Alan and Ardette.” He turned and strode toward the door without waiting for a response.

Warning bells went off in Callin’s head, but he willed them away. He did not want to undo the past days’ progress with unfounded paranoia.

Vortex opened the door and stepped through, then held it open while gesturing for Callin to join him. Keeping his energy sheath close to the surface, Callin entered the structure.

Across the room, Callin spotted Alan and Ardette in their familiar places by this room’s control niche. But their faces were
not
 masked, and they refused to return his greeting smile.

Something was indeed wrong.

The door closed behind him, slamming louder than necessary, and he turned to face Vortex, a demand for an explanation already forming on his lips.

Except Vortex was not alone.

By opening the door and adding his body as further coverage, Vortex had prevented Callin from spotting their additional company. With him were three more native males — all of whom Callin recognized from the same altercation where he first spotted Vortex. One wore his own full-face mask, another was clothed in a shimmering crimson body suit, similar to Vortex’s own. The last man wore a simple long coat.

Callin heard scuffling behind him, and he knew without looking that Alan and Ardette had cleared out of possible harm’s way.

Vortex centered himself in front of the others. “Shining Star,” he stated, his voice near hostility now, “you have some explaining to do.”

Callin experienced a rush of indignation.  He was raised to be the Grand Lord of his people; as such, he did not take kindly to Vortex’s disrespectful tone! For a brief moment, he steeled himself for combat, his energy sheath nearing eruption and his cape fluttering in response to his emotions. Outnumbered though he may have been, they would soon learn that the Shining Star of the Taalu would not easily—

No.

He reined these feelings in.
He
was the beggar here. If Callin Lan must humble himself to save his people, then he would do so.

He forced himself to relax in hopes that they would do the same. Choosing to remain vague — after all, what exactly did they know? — Callin gestured across the group and said, “By this unexpected reception, I gather you wish to know more about my foreign roots—”

“ ‘
Foreign
’?” scoffed the one in crimson. “That’s one way of puttin’ it.”

“Shockwave,” said the one in the coat, turning the name into a rebuke.

“I see,” Callin said, realizing he might as well discard evasion along with his temper.

Vortex stepped forward. His hands balled into fists, his knees bent slightly in preparation for action, and the others took their cue from him — the air rippled around the hands of the one in crimson; the mundane one slipped his hand inside his coat, presumably for a weapon; and the masked one, already the largest of them, flexed his considerable muscles.

Callin held his ground.

“Is it true?” Vortex demanded.

“Yes.”

“I want to hear you
say
it,” Vortex insisted. “Are you
really
an alien being from another world?”

Already committed, for better or worse, to this course of action, Callin again admitted, “Yes. I am an alien being from another world. My people are called—”

“The Taalu,” interjected the large masked one.

Callin covered his surprise as best he could, grateful that he wore his dark goggles. They did know a lot ... but
how
? “The Taalu ... yes,” he acknowledged to the big one. In an attempt to assuage the situation, he refocused on Vortex and said, “I sincerely apologize for deceiving you by omission, but knowing your people have had no relations with other galactic species, I had to be extremely cautious in regards to our first contact.” Callin paused before adding a humble and very heartfelt, “I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”

Vortex’s mask could not hide his gape. After a few seconds, his whole body unwound as he whispered the words, “Ho ... ly ... shit ...”

PCA

“First, I must ask:” said the extra-freakin’-terrestrial sitting at the work table in their control niche. “How did you realize we were in orbit? Was it from a ground transmission last night?”

Steve glanced at Takayasu, who answered, “Yes.”

Shining Star covered his face with one gloved hand in very human-looking (
human
-looking!) chagrin and added, “Larr is never going to let me forget this.”

The atmosphere had changed dramatically since the group relocated to the niche. As a group, they had mostly gone from hostility to guarded reverence, particularly Steve, who could barely sit still — his brief feelings of betrayal over Callin’s withholding such a
huge
 secret from him had been overwhelmed by his amazement at talking to a real live alien! The general exceptions to this, Steve noticed, were Lieutenant Takayasu, who was remaining conservative until he could ask what he probably felt was the most important question, and Alan, who was just being protective of Steve, as always (that, plus he was still brooding over the thorough ass-chewing Steve gave him for taking the photo of Callin behind his back).

Ardette passed around water bottles for all and handed Shining Star another tub of carrot sticks, which he accepted with grace.

“Who’s Larr?” Steve asked, raising his mask just enough to take a sip of water.

Steve saw that Callin noticed this sly maneuver, and also seemed to have picked up on the fact that the others had only addressed him as “Vortex,” not “Steve” — which was good, so that the open-secret of his identity didn’t get further blown by the Naïve Man from Mars.

“Lord Larr Maoc is an advisor of mine,” Shining Star told him, “and a longtime friend of my family. Larr chastised me for sending that transmission from the surface. I was overconfident, thinking that, because your people do not have prolight technology, you would be unable to detect our communications.” He paused, then asked the group, “How
did
you hear us?”

Shockwave and Powerhouse looked to Takayasu, who answered, “We don’t know the technical specifics. Those of us here, I mean. We have a scientific organization that has been listening for alien signals for decades, and they started coming through right after an event we call The White Flash. We’ve been listening to your people’s older messages since then — we even have a nickname for you, the ‘Arthians.’ And these same scientists now have a paranormal linguist who works for them.” He shrugged. “Maybe their paranormal managed it somehow, I honestly don’t know. But now we need to ask
you
 a question.”

Some tension returned to the room. Steve strove to remain calm, but the Lieutenant and his associates were clearly seeking, and expecting, Shining Star’s cooperation.

Luckily, Callin gave it to them. “Of course.”

“Over the past ten hours,” Takayasu explained, “there have been three separate paranormal prisonbreaks or breakout attempts.”

Steve started in surprise; this was news to him. He’d been so caught up in Shining Star, so wrapped up in the excitement of the alleged new superhero under his wing, that he hadn’t checked his PCA server all day.

Takayasu continued, “Do you understand what the term ‘prisonbreak’ means?”

“I believe so,” Callin answered. “Those you have incarcerated have escaped?”

“Or attempted to escape, yes. Paranormals who turn against our society are labeled ‘rogues,’ and we imprison them. And over the past six years, we’ve gotten pretty decent at keeping most of them locked up.” Takayasu leaned forward, his fingers lacing as he rested his forearms on the table. “But starting this morning, it appears that someone has been helping rogues break loose. We believe an outsider has been deactivating their restraining technology, and a lot of our people think the timing of this and your arrival occurred too close together to be coincidence.”

Steve looked over at Callin. Surely not ... and yet, Callin
had
been lying to him — by omission, sure, but still ...

Oh, please, let this be a coincidence. Or at least a misunderstanding!

Takayasu pressed on. “I’m not sure how to ask you, except to just ask you: Shining Star, are your people behind these prisonbreaks?”

Shining Star’s whole bearing tightened, taking on a regal air. “No. We are not.”

“You have stealth technology,” Takayasu pointed out, neither accepting nor rejecting Shining Star’s proclamation just yet, “and whoever is doing this clearly has such capabilities. They’re slipping in and out of our facilities without being detected.”

Shining Star admitted, “We can mask our
ships
from remote detection, distort visual contact, and my own energy sheath can scramble your radiolocation. But we have no means of doing what you describe, not with such precision. Could it not be one of your own ‘rogues’? One capable of invisibility, or some similar ability?”

Takayasu nodded. “It could be.”

Shining Star thought for a moment, then continued, “We have the means of detecting the bio-energy of ‘paranormal’ usage — the electrochemical byproducts created when one uses their converted abilities. The more powerful the convert, the more ambient energy remains when the individual is at rest. If permitted, we could assist you in your investigation. If this ‘rogue’ is Grand level, we might be able to help you track them down.”

Takayasu considered this offer, then said, “Okay, once more, for the record: You are stating unequivocally that neither you, nor your people, have anything to do with these escapes.”

“We have
nothing
to do with it. I give you my word as Grand Lord of the Taalu.”

Shining Star sounded completely sincere to Steve, but Takayasu glanced sideways in turn to Shockwave and Powerhouse on either side of him. The paranormal agents must have seen something on Takayasu’s face that Steve didn’t, because they unwound once more.

Takayasu said to Shining Star, “For what it’s worth, I believe you.”

Shining Star bowed his head. “Thank you.”

Awesome,
Steve thought.
Maybe now we can—

“But,” Takayasu stressed, “please understand that I can’t speak for everyone in authority. And it would help if your people would step out of the shadows and make formal contact with us.”

Shining Star responded, “I will take it under advisement.”

Steve then startled them all when he slapped the table and said in a raised, excited voice, “Okay, now that that’s all over with: Can we
please
, for the love of God, finally ask Shining Star about
his being from outer space
?! I mean, come on!”

Takayasu smiled and gestured broadly as he said, “Why don’t you start? You’re the one who made first contact.”

“Okay, Shining Star ...” Steve opened, trying to keep the reigns on his mixture of exhilaration and jitters as he addressed the alien beside him. “I’ll get to the really big questions in a second, but first, I have
to ask: How is it that you’re speaking English better
without
your translator? You’re speaking so
much better, it’s throwing me off. I mean, you just used ‘take it under advisement’ in exactly the right way, but just last night you might’ve said something more like, ‘I’ll take under the consulting.’ How have you managed
that
?”

“We began studying your English language,” Shining Star explained, “from your audio and visual broadcasts, and the translator I used on our previous meetings added everything you said into our database. I spent most of today receiving what we call a
phrenic impression
, which allows me to adapt the language centers of my brain to your language.” He tapped his head. “My own brain now acts as a translator.”

Shockwave whistled, then commented toward Steve, “Shit. Someone could sure make a lotta money off that kinda technology. Hint, hint.”

Chuckles floated around until Steve continued, “I guess the next question, the first
big
question has to be: Why are you here? I mean, thanks to SETI, we’ve known for a few years that there’s life, you know, ‘out there’ and all. But why finally come
here
? Why our planet?”

“Yeah, and why now?” Shockwave threw in. “Why haven’t any of you guys shown yourselves to us before, you know what I’m sayin’? Is it all a big secret or somethin’, or are we just too far off the beaten path?”

 Drawing a deep breath — another very human gesture, Steve noted — Shining Star began.

“To answer your first question in the simplest terms: We are looking for a new home. I am sorry to say that there is a great deal of violence and warfare occurring across a very large portion of this galaxy. Peace reigned between most spacefaring species for many generations, but that came to an end during my grandfather’s time. It all started with a race known as the Verauns, whose domain had been little more than a ... I suppose the best analogy for your perception would be ‘a third-world country.’ In their first, completely unexpected salvo, they brought invasion forces to every neighboring system under the guise of new trade agreements, and that was only the beginning.

“As a result, my people’s home world,
Taal,
was one of the first to fall. Luckily, my grandfather had been ... well, some have said the great Grand Lord Calacus Lan was farseeing and always prepared, others have described him as overzealous and paranoid, but he had contingency plans for interstellar war when others of his generation scoffed at the idea.