The doctor was every inch a professional, whether taking the branch out of the side of a transiter or seated in her office. “Why do you want to discuss the aliens with me?”
Sean leaned against the rear wall, leaving his partners in crime in the chairs that separated him from the lady behind the desk. “We think we might have been attacked by them. Twice.”
“And you survived.”
“Yes.”
“You and your brother. Raw recruits.”
Sean sensed she was not nearly as skeptical as she appeared. “When we first showed up, you suspected aliens were behind the assault.”
“What makes you say such a thing?”
“When I told you what had happened, you flashed fear. I don’t think very much scares you.”
“What—” She stopped when a chime sounded. Sandrine touched a wall panel, which became a screen showing a woman and young child in the clinic’s front room. “Wait here.”
When she was gone, Sean asked Dillon, “You want to go check things out?”
“Sure thing.”
Sean turned to Elenya. “Can I have your chair, please?”
She rose and took Sean’s position by the wall. “What are you doing?”
“Dillon is going to go have a look around the station.”
Light dawned. “While he is still here?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes went completely round. “This is the realm of senior Watchers.”
“We know.” Sean fashioned the invisible belt, then gripped his brother’s hand. “Ready?”
In reply, Dillon shut his eyes, released a long breath, and went still. Five minutes passed. Ten. Then he breathed deep, opened his eyes, and sat staring at nothing.
“You saw something?”
“Not a single solitary thing.” His words emerged very slowly. Like his mouth found it difficult to shape the words. “But, I don’t know . . .”
“You sensed a wrongness.”
“Nothing that strong. Like a taste of something bad. But old, you know?”
“Like they’ve been here and now they’re gone.”
Elenya said, “We have to tell someone!”
“They don’t believe Dillon can do this. They won’t believe anything he claims to have found.” Sean released his brother’s hand. “You need something?”
Dillon rose to his feet. Stretched. Yawned. Sat back down. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Just give me a minute.”
Sandrine chose that moment to return. She took her time crossing the office, avoiding all their eyes in the process. When she was seated behind the desk, she continued where she had left off. “Why are you asking me? What makes you think I have anything to say about aliens?”
“You told me you wanted to make a career in interplanetary medicine.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. I doubt you are drawn by the idea of treating transiters with colds.”
“Even if that were so, it is in the future. Now . . .” She gestured at the room. “You see the medicine I practice.”
Sandrine continued to avoid answering him directly. But she was also speaking Serenese. And the language continued to work its subtle effect, releasing far more than her words. With each comment, Sean grew increasingly certain that not only did Sandrine know, but she was also fascinated. And worried. The odd mixture formed a cauldron that bubbled softly in his gut. As though all his own concerns were slowly coming to a boil.
He asked, “Will you tell us what you know?”
She fiddled with an apparatus Sean assumed was used to record her clinical notes. She inspected a fingernail. Finally she said, “It has been a hundred and forty-one Serenese years since the last attack.”
Elenya calculated swiftly. “Ninety-six Earth years.”
“There is a very precise cycle. Or rather, there was. Up to that point, the attacks occurred every forty-seven Serenese years. But the last attack was their least successful. Their defeat came within days of their first appearance. For the third time in a row. Then the aliens skipped a cycle altogether. The first time in forty centuries they did not attack some planet where humans live. When the aliens did not appear on schedule, some suggested that they have learned their lesson and will not try again. Now there has been another missed cycle. And people have become very lax.”
Dillon’s eyes seemed to spark with the same odd mixture as Sean was feeling. “You’re saying it’s time for another attack?”
“No. The next attack cycle is not due for another Serenese year.”
Elenya said, “The governments are very complacent. They think the worst is over.”
Sean said to the doctor, “You’re not so optimistic.”
“We know so little about them. We have no idea where their home planet is, or even if one exists. We don’t know why the cycle has continued now for almost four thousand years. We don’t know why some assaults are much less focused than others. The last three, for example, have been very minor events. Except for one thing. The one trait that linked them together.”
Sean listened with an intensity that seemed to bind him to the doctor. Grant him the ability to track what she was not saying. “Their attack was focused on transiters.”
Sandrine snapped around. Stared at him. Gaped, really. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t.”
Dillon said, “Sean does that. Jumps ahead of where you want him to be.”
Elenya offered, “Sean is an adept.”
“No,” Sean protested. “You can’t—”
Elenya mimicked his brother. “Sean. Stop. Now.”
He sighed.
Sandrine clearly approved of this exchange. “The authorities have done their utmost to classify everything about these assaults as confidential. But I have seen medical records. I used them as part of my final thesis. Outside of the invasions themselves, there has never been an actual alien sighting. We do not even know if they exist in what we would class as a physical form. They take over people. And yes, in the last three attacks, they targeted transiters.”
Elenya said, “Which explains why everything about these attacks has remained classified. Already there are many planets that resent the transiters and seek to limit their reach.”
“Including Cyrius,” Sandrine confirmed. “A hundred and fifty years ago we were given an official warning and put on planetary watch. It lasted almost twenty years. Our leaders were humiliated. Some of the warring groups banded together and demanded a global referendum, seeking to withdraw from the league. They were defeated. But resentment still lingers.”
“And here we show up,” Dillon said.
“Flying across the station floor, knocking down over a dozen people, leaving a trail of blood in your wake. People are still upset you weren’t thrown in jail.”
“There’s something else the aliens use in their attacks, isn’t there,” Sean said, recalling the women involved in the Charger attack. “They make fake humans.”
“Human-like drones,” Sandrine confirmed. She rose from her chair. The area behind her desk did not offer much room for pacing, but she did her best. “Incredibly real. Sometimes one or two. Other times hundreds.”
Sean asked, “Do you know how?”
“Here is where we move into the realm of speculation, but it is where I want to focus my future work. What we think is this.” Three paces, her face almost planted on the side wall, swing about, three paces more. Arms linked across her middle. Holding herself tightly as she moved. “They steal a fragment of hair, skin, saliva, something that contains an entire genetic strand. They replicate. And it is from whatever intelligence they gain in the initial takeovers that governs who they replicate. They go after faces and people that the entire world wants to follow. Leaders, stars of entertainment, teachers of note. These are duplicated over and over and over. Armies wearing the planet’s most beloved faces.”
Dillon asked, “How many planets have been lost?”
“Seven. They attack, and where they win, they destroy everything. Nothing survives. Not a plant, an animal, a fish, a human. All gone.”
Sean recalled, “The Counselor said something about our Earth possibly being safe from them.”
“Again, we have nothing to go on but their past methods,” Sandrine replied. “No outpost world has ever come under attack. Why, we have no idea.”
“Do these aliens have another name?”
“They have a hundred names. A thousand. Every world that knows of them has named them. And they all come down to one concept. They are the enemy. Sometimes the assault is small. A probe, they are called. We’ve had three such probes in a row. All defeated within days. The relatively new class of Praetorian Guards known as Watchers has managed to identify the enemy, even when they transit to different worlds in the bodies of those they have taken over. Then they—”
The wall monitor chimed again. Sandrine keyed the controls, inspected the newcomers, and said, “I must see to this.”
When she was gone, Sean said, “Dillon, go take another look around. Then let’s see if we can do what she said.”
“You want to try and replicate a human?” Elenya looked from one brother to the next. “Why?”
“Because,” Dillon said, “our job is to rock their boat.”
“This I do not understand,” Elenya said. “Not at all.”
“We’ve got to find some way to make them accept our version of events,” Sean said. “And that means proving the impossible is real.”