Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (35 page)

“It’s what?” Pendler asked.

Steve waved it off. “Nothing. Just a joke.” He turned with a grandiose flair to Callin. “So ... permission to come aboard?”

Callin hesitated for just a second, which Steve was learning meant he was sifting through that not-quite-instantaneous translation matrix in his brain, then smiled. “Ah. Permission granted.”

“Uh, sir ...?”

It took Steve a moment to realize that Pendler was addressing him. “Yeah?”

Pendler fidgeted, as though he needed to use the bathroom. “I was thinking that maybe it’d be a good idea for one of us to stay outside.” He rushed to add, “I mean
me
. Not you or Powerhouse.”

Astonished, Steve gaped at the man. Okay, not everyone was a geek, sure ... but was he
out of his damn mind?!
“Why, exactly, would that be ‘a good idea,’ Pendler?”

Pendler half-shrugged, skirting his eyes toward the mirage-like veil of the ship before them. Grasping for an explanation, he offered, “Well, if their cloak blocks radar, our wireless phones probably won’t work inside.”

Steve glanced at Callin, who acknowledged, “From what we know of your telecommunications, they will not.”

Pendler jumped on that. “Right! So maybe it would be best if I just wait right outside the, uh, the airlock. If Captain Brunn or anyone else tries to reach us, I’ll contact Powerhouse from there.”

“Pendler, if the phones won’t work, then how—”

“They can link unit-to-unit, sir, like walkie-talkies. I only need reasonable proximity to reach Powerhouse.” Then he frowned. “Unless our guests have something that blocks the signals even inside their ship ...?”

Keeping the bewildered shake of his head to a minimum, Steve looked to Callin, who answered, “No interior dampeners on this ship; we didn’t have the time or luxury. We could keep the hatches open behind us as we move toward the bridge — they could be locked down by remote if there’s an emergency. I wouldn’t count on the best reception, but Ensign Pendler should be able to reach you.”

Holding up his hands in exasperated surrender, Steve said, “Okay, Pendler. If it’ll make you feel better, wait for us right outside the hatch, okay?”

Pendler nodded in obvious relief. “Yes, sir— uh, Vortex.”

Returning the nod, Steve turned to follow Callin, who resumed leading the way to the hatch. As they pulled away from Pendler, who was shuffling after them at a slower pace, he whispered to Powerhouse, “Dude, what the hell is with your partner? It’s a frickin’
space ship
, for God’s sake. Doesn’t he know what most people would give to go where we’re going?”

Powerhouse shook his head and whispered back, “That’s the problem. It’s a space ship. He’s mostly okay around paranormals, but that’s his weird-limit, I guess. He’s just ... Pendler.” He sighed. “He’s an okay guy.”

“If you say so ...”

But now they had reached the hatch, and Steve forgot about everything else in the world. Callin hesitated just long enough to open the inner airlock, then led them inside.

And so, finally, Steve Davison stepped aboard the Taalu spacecraft.

Finding himself in a long, simple corridor, Steve’s cybernetic eyes instantaneously adjusted to the lower lighting. As they strode forward, he followed not quite shoulder-to-shoulder with Callin (he remained a step behind out of respect), but Powerhouse had to bring up the rear, because all three could not walk abreast here.

As he tried to inspect everything at once, two things stood out as otherworldly: First, the lighting was smooth and even, yet did not seem to come from any particular source; his best guess was that the walls, ceiling, and maybe even the floor were all glowing, but passively. The second item was the material they used; the substance itself looked like plain grey, bland-textured linoleum, except that he could see no break in the pattern — no tiles, no strips or planks or molding. He reached out to drag his fingers along the wall as they walked, but (through his glove, at least) he couldn’t feel any breaks, either. As far as he could tell, the entire corridor — top, bottom, and sides — might’ve been constructed as one large, single piece ... and maybe it was.

They continued toward the next hatch, and an odd thought struck him: This ship, even with its impressive materials and undefined light sources, was not a true example of what the Taalu could do — or, at least, could’ve done in their heyday. Callin had told them that they’d been on the run, hiding from the Verauns for decades, their resources so limited they couldn’t construct proper suspended animation equipment, a technology that was clearly known to them. So this ship, while amazing by Earth standards, only represented what the Taalu were able to scrape together while in exile.

As if reading Steve’s mind, Callin said, “This probably isn’t the majesty you imagined.” His voice carried a tone Steve couldn’t quite name. Embarrassment? No, not quite, but something close to that.

“It’s—” Steve began.

But Callin continued, “Jere used to tell me about the starship he commanded before the war, conveying missions to other worlds as a proud emissary of the Peace Council — he was just a Lord Commander in those days, not a Lord like I’ve always known him ... knew him. That ship was larger than our current fleet combined, its cargo bay immense.” He half-grunted under his breath, reminding Steve of Alan. “That ship was lost when the Verauns invaded. They used that very cargo bay to smuggle saboteurs to Taal.”

Steve glanced back at Lincoln, who shook his head — he didn’t know what to say to that, either.

Perhaps sensing the awkward moment he had created, Callin said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up. That act of ...” He swallowed, his jaw clenching visibly, before settling for repeating the same term. “... sabotage has been on my mind since you discovered the beacon. Anyway, this ship must be less grandiose than you had envisioned.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Powerhouse assured him. “This puts our space shuttles to shame.”

Steve added, with regret, “And we don’t even use those anymore.”

Callin looked back in open surprise. “Really? Well, perhaps we can get your space program moving forward again.”

Steve grinned from ear to ear.
Oh, yeah, these people rock
.

When they reached the next hatch, Callin paused before it to enter a code into a number pad that looked as simple as its Terran counterparts — to Steve’s surprise, he realized they had designed the keys with a series of countable dots! Steve himself could use this keypad without needing a translation (assuming he knew the correct codes, of course). The most notable difference was that it had sixteen keys, with 0-through-7 on the top section and 2-through-9 on the bottom section, and an amber LED-looking light between the two.

So,
he pondered,
two through seven get repeated for some reason. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t use it that easily ...

After punching in a half-dozen numbers, Callin held down the 0 button for several seconds, and the amber light switched over to a soft grey that blended with the surrounding walls.

As the door swung inward, Callin explained, as if in afterthought, “I’ve commanded the hatch to remain open so Ensign Pendler can reach you, as promised.”

“Sure,” Steve replied, craning his neck to see into the next room. He could hear Larr’s voice, speaking in the Taalu language, and one— wait, two other unfamiliar voices.

Callin stepped through the hatch, then gestured for Steve and Lincoln to follow after him. Smiling, showing some pride in
Refuge One
for the first time, he announced, “Welcome to our bridge.”

Whereas the overall ship and the inner corridor had been smaller than Steve had envisioned, the bridge was larger, at least in breadth; it had to be a good twenty yards across. Rather than having clearly defined stations, like the helm or a captain’s chair, the Taalu bridge struck Steve as being more of a command center — granted, that was the ultimate purpose of any bridge, but this looked something like NASA’s mission control.  The presumed stations were broken up into descending rows on either side, with a center aisle raking down to a huge wraparound viewport about fifteen yards in front of them (Steve had been curious if the veil would affect outward visibility; that did not seem to be the case). The ceiling sloped downward toward the fore of the ship at a sharper angle than the deck, matching the hull’s pyramidal design.

“Wow,” Steve said.

“Yeah ...” Powerhouse agreed.

The layout was broken only by a pool-table-sized console directly to their far left, here at the back of the bridge, but the surface of the console (if that’s what it indeed was) was dark at the moment.  In fact, as he took a second look around, Steve took a second look around, he realized that almost all of the stations were dark; Larr’s and the other voices were coming from closer to the forward viewport.

“Grand Lord?” Larr called out.

“Here,” Callin called back as he led the humans down the raked aisle.

Larr stood and stepped into the aisle; he had been sitting at a station one row back from the front, and the tall Taalu still had to stoop slightly under the sloped ceiling. He began speaking in the Taalu language, caught himself after just a few words, then said in English, “When I saw you and Vortex leave the other ship, I called over to Naltin. All seven hulls have been pulsed. If our bounty hunter friend stuck any beacons along the prime field emitters, they’re gone.”

Callin nodded. “Excellent.” They had reached the row two back from Larr, and Callin said, “Charl? Della?” His accent came through stronger when he said the words, making them sound like “Carl” and “Dilluh.”

Steve caught movement along the foremost stations; the tops of heads, he thought — one had thick, dark hair like the Taalu men, the other wore a glittering gold shawl or hood. A higher-pitched male voice replied in Taalu.

Callin said in English, “I’d like you to meet our human ambassadors. Use your translators, please.”

The two heads stood, but remained hunkered, with the viewport right above them, as they shuffled toward the center aisle.

What an inconvenient design
, crossed Steve’s mind. But he reminded himself once more that they’d had to work with whatever they could.

The dark-haired figure, a male, emerged and shuffled around Larr to stand beside Callin, who placed a hand on his shoulder. Even without introductions, Steve would’ve pegged him for Callin’s brother right away: He was a few inches shorter, his dark hair a tad thinner, and he appeared to be a few years younger, but otherwise he looked very much like Callin. They even wore the same basic uniform, except that, while Callin’s lustrous cape fell to the backs of his knees, this young man’s only fell to just below his waist, and it wasn’t nearly as metallic-looking; he also didn’t wear eye-mask/goggles like Callin, leaving visible the same silver eyes, maybe a touch greyer, in full view. Steve also spotted a familiar translator on his collar.

To Steve, Callin said, “My brother, and current heir to the Grand Lordship of the Taalu, Charl Lan.” He then gestured to the humans in turn while saying to Charl, “Vortex and Powerhouse of Earth.”

Steve intended to shake hands with Charl, but something completely unexpected happened: Charl bowed to him, his hands double-fisted against his abdomen, and while he did not maintain eye contact, he cocked his head upward a bit so that he wasn’t looking at the floor, either. Steve glanced over at Powerhouse, who looked back with equal surprise, but it was pretty clear that Charl was bowing only to him.

With smooth grace and poise, Steve managed to eke out a regal, “Umm ...?”

Thankfully, Shining Star came to his rescue. “I’m sure the respect you’re showing is appreciated, Charl, but the humans do not use capes the way we do. He is not their Grand Lord.”

Charl straightened, looking a little embarrassed, which made Steve feel even more awkward. “His cape is not highborn?”

“No,” Callin answered. “Vortex wears his cape for ...” Callin paused, glancing at Steve for verification, “For panache?”

Steve nodded to them both, then said to Charl, “Uh, yes, that’s right. Panache and symbolism. I wear my cape to capture iconic imagery from comic— I mean, from our graphic fiction.” When Charl’s expression remained a little blank, Steve asked Callin, “Was that too much for the translator?”

Callin smiled. “I’ll explain it to him later. Della, come forward, please.”

Charl stepped out of the aisle to stand before a control console, and Larr turned sideways to let Callin’s sister past. Steve was guessing she would know not to bow, so maybe this time he could behave a little ... more ...

Oh my God ...

Della was gorgeous — no, more than that, she was
stunning
in the truest sense of the word. Whereas the male Taalu, while humanoid, would never pass for fully human (at least, not before the Paranormal Effect skewed the perception), Della would have an easier time fitting in on Earth ... except that she was so damned attractive, she would stand out in her own way. The thinness of her Taalu face was less extreme than the males’, lending her features an elusive, indefinable quality that many an actress/model had gone under the cosmetic surgeon’s knife to achieve, but they all fell short of the beauty standing before Steve. Her lips full, her skin fair without a single blemish, her eyes golden as her brothers’ were silver ... the whole package was perfectly alluring. As with her face, her body was not as narrow as the Taalu male equivalent, and the split-difference gave her the desirable figure usually only seen on Earth courtesy of Photoshop.

But her most striking feature was her hair. Steve’s original assumption of a golden shawl or hood had been wrong — her
hair
was golden, as if the individual blonde strands were laced with fine threads of glossy brass, yet its long, human-like flow was natural, belying any suggestion of being woven with actual metal.

She, too, wore the same bright white uniform as her siblings, except that the sheen to her gloves, boots, belt, and waist-length cape was gold rather than silver; given her hair and eye color, Steve found this absolutely fitting.