| |
Chameleon’s hands and arms had turned blue to the elbows, and he suspected his face was, too. Had he lingered in the eatery ten minutes longer, he would have lost the personification completely.
Checking that no one was around, he dug the solar-powered hover scooter out of the bushes. Thank Xeno technology, the power core could hold a charge for a long time because with this rainy, cloudy climate, the scooter wouldn’t have enough juice to putt. He hopped on and activated the light refractor, which would render the vehicle—and anything on it—virtually invisible. Once hidden, with a sigh of relief, he relaxed into his normal self, letting his spine reform ridges, his tail extend, and his skin revert to its normal blue.
He zipped among the slower Earth automobiles on the main thoroughfare. No one would be able to see the craft or him on it; if they detected anything, the shimmer would be mistaken for a mirage. He zoomed by a white vehicle and recognized Kevanne Girardi inside it. He couldn’t believe it when the woman from the woods had come into the eatery and sat next to him.
She was part of the reason he’d lost control of the personification. Her proximity had flooded his nervous system with sensation. She’d breezed in on a scent of rain and flowers. In the woods, he’d been farther away from her and hadn’t been able to get a good look at her face because it had been half hidden by the hood of her yellow coat. In the eatery, he’d lost himself in big brown eyes, shiny shoulder-length hair a couple of shades darker, and full lips that curved into the most engaging smile. Her husky voice and her rich laugh had done the most to undermine his control, distracting him by sending tendrils of heat straight to his cock.
She’d asked a lot of questions, and he’d carefully fashioned his responses. He’d shared the name ’Topia with her, figuring she would assume it was a locality on Earth and not another planet in a different arm of the galaxy. He should have studied up on geopolitics and come up with an Earth province, but she’d caught him unawares. His accent betrayed him as a foreigner anyway. His universal translator was still updating. The more he listened to and spoke the local tongue, the more he’d understand and the better he’d speak. The ability to read the language would take a while longer.
Kevanne hadn’t been the only distraction though. The barrage of alien sounds, smells, tastes hammered at the concentration he needed to maintain the human form. It was easy to personify a being like himself. He could impersonate another Xeno without any effort at all.
But to squish himself down to a human’s size, realign his spine, eliminate his tail, change his skin color, and mimic subtle differences in jaw shape, ears, and nose required intense focus and discipline. Get the nose a little wrong, the eye shape off, the mouth misaligned, and the face would be totally wrong. He hadn’t expected the man on the highway sign to be so difficult to mimic. He’d chosen him because the billboard had provided a clear, sharp, detailed, full-body image. Mimicking someone on such prominent display wasn’t optimal, but it was safer than imitating a living person from town. The fact Kevanne had asked if they’d met indicated she’d recognized him but hadn’t placed him yet.
He’d gone into Argent because Tigre had asked him to. The Saberian had become the unofficial leader of the group, and he’d tagged Chameleon and Psy for reconnaissance. They had the best chance of blending in. Psy pretty much resembled a human, and Chameleon could mimic one. But the others? Wingman couldn’t hide his wings. Tigre’s pigmented stripes would stand out. Shadow could pass muster for a short period of time, but stress caused evaporation episodes.
Inferno looked like a human with a bad sunburn, not problematic in and of itself, but his horns changed everything. After studying Earth culture, Psy had expressed concern the combination of red epidermis and prominent horns could cause superstitious natives to mistake him for a devil, one of the mythological creatures they feared.
It made the most sense for Chameleon and Psy to scope out the local population centers. He’d headed to Argent. Psy had gone to a town called Coeur d’Alene.
“Try not to get yourself doused with any mucosal irritants, this time.” Wingman had smirked. “Psy won’t be with you to save your ass.”
“Why don’t you make yourself useful instead of lounging on the ship?” he lost his temper and snapped.
Wingman swore and stomped away. He could dish it out, but he couldn’t take it. Chameleon didn’t need the Avian’s digs to remind him of his personal shame. While it appeared he’d done too little, too late, the reality was he’d done too much. He’d have to live with that on his conscience for the rest of life.
He forced away the darkness by focusing on something more cheerful and uplifting. Kevanne. He’d never met anyone like her. Of course, he’d seen humans and had exchanged a few words with Millie, but Kevanne was the first one he’d gotten to know personally and with whom he’d had a real conversation. He’d enjoyed her company so much, he’d forgotten his mission! He should have asked more questions, felt her out on the subject of extraterrestrial visitation and the Intergalactic Dating Agency. He wondered if she had a marriage partner. He hadn’t thought to ask that, either.
But, probably just as well. He wasn’t interested in copulating with a human, no matter how much she’d intrigued him. He had responsibilities to fulfill—assisting in getting the Castaway repaired, getting everyone off the planet, and lending aid to the refugees wandering in space.
The Castaway’s coordinates had been programmed into the scooter so the vehicle automatically veered off the main thoroughfare and flew over a less-trafficked asphalted road for a mile before turning again to follow a hard-packed dirt roadway. He recognized a fallen, half-decayed tree, at which point the scooter cut through the woods. Safe from view, he switched off the invisibility screen so the crew of the Castaway could see him.
The hatch lifted, and the scooter slipped into the belly of the ship.
He found the entire group assembled on the bridge. Waiting for him. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” Tigre said.
Only a bit of one? The situation had improved, then. He kept his facetious comment to himself because everyone looked pretty grim. “How bad is it?”
“Psy almost got arrested by Earth authorities.”
“Actually, I was detained, but after I did a mind wipe on the officer, he released me.”
“How did he react?” The effect of a mind wipe on the human brain and psyche had been one of their concerns.
“He’s fine. I didn’t have to force my way into his head; his mind was wide open, so I only needed to do a recent memory cleanse. He lost about ten minutes. He was a little confused, wondering how he ended up at the police station when he thought he was at the doughnut shop, but he’ll be okay.”
“Why did he arrest you?”
“That’s the crux of our problem,” Tigre said.
“It’s a law on this planet that only the government can print currency,” Psy explained. “I had decided to try the local cuisine, so I stopped at a doughnut shop. I paid for an apple fritter with a hundred dollar bill we replicated. They ran a special pen over it and pronounced it counterfeit. An officer of the law happened to be in the shop. There were too many witnesses to wipe his mind there—I would have had to cleanse all their memories—so I let him snap metal bracelets around my wrists and shove me into his vehicle. A metal cage separated us, preventing me from touching him. I had to wait until he stopped driving and let me out.”
“I tried local food, too, and paid for it with the money we replicated. They didn’t test it.”
“I noticed they weren’t testing the smaller denominations, only the larger ones,” Psy said. “But it was explained to me that money you print yourself isn’t legal. It has no value. It’s worthless paper.”
“If we can’t make our own money, we can’t pay for the parts and services we need.” Tigre paced the bridge. “We need replacement parts to repair the main replicator to make parts! The portable one is too small to fabricate solar panels, hyperdrive units, or engine cores.”
Chameleon shook his head. “We can’t risk arrest by passing any more bad money and to do so would cheat the humans,” he said, feeling guilty for passing worthless paper to Millie. “Where would we go for parts anyway? The little town I visited had nothing like what we need.”
“While you two gadabouts were out having lunch, I used an Earth Internet search engine to locate a large industrial center several hundred miles away. It’s called Seattle,” Wingman said. “Besides an aircraft building factory and a naval base, the Seattle area has a large computer geek population, and a satellite office of the Intergalactic Dating Agency. People will be more receptive to us there, and we’ll have a better chance to get what we need.”
“We’ll still need money,” Psy said.
“We’ll have to get jobs,” Chameleon suggested.
“Doing what?” Inferno asked. He’d been silent, just observing.
“I’m not sure, but I can return to Argent and see if anyone is offering any employment opportunities.” He omitted to mention he’d met the woman from the woods. Wingman would bring up the humiliating bear spray incident.
“I can return to Coeur d’Alene and look into employment there, too,” Psy said.
“I can do that also,” Shadow volunteered
Tigre nodded at Inferno and Wingman. “We all will.”
Psy shook his head. “Not recommended. Our initial inclination to approach the locals with caution was wise. I did a little light mental probing in town, and the humans were not receptive to aliens. Most don’t believe extraterrestrial life exists, and the few who do are hostile. They’re afraid of being abducted and used for scientific experiments.”
Considering the Xenos’ history, the humans’ fears weren’t ungrounded. The consortium accepted on faith they were the most advanced beings in the universe and believed without question that superiority granted them dominion over every other living thing. They were the creators and the destroyers. Xeno gave, and Xeno took. Until now, they had forgotten about Earth. The Castaway had outrun and lost the fighter in jump space. But it wouldn’t go well for the humans if the consortium discovered Earth harbored ’Topian escapees.
“Did you get that same sense humans in Argent wouldn’t react well to us?” Tigre looked at Chameleon.
He couldn’t read minds like Psy, but he’d noticed no sign in Argent to indicate locals had ever encountered extraterrestrials. They’d been friendly, but...“If I had to guess, I’d say no, they wouldn’t.”
“You guess?” Wingman said.
“My mind-reading skills are as good as yours,” Chameleon snapped sarcastically.
Tigre shot a warning glare at both of them and then said, “We know our next steps. Get jobs if we can, and find out who in Seattle can help us repair the replicator. Working among humans will give us a better idea of who we can trust, who we can’t. We got lucky when Chameleon chased off the woman who came to investigate, but the longer we stay here, the greater the chance of discovery.”
“Human technology is light-years away from what we’re familiar with. Their industrial centers may not be able to produce what we need,” Shadow said. “If we can’t fix the ship, we can’t leave.”
Until now, no one had dared to voice the sobering possibility. They’d been pumped, ready to charge out and solve the problem, but Chameleon didn’t need to be a Verital to sense the dip in optimism. His body tingled as his skin changed from blue to grayish green, a reflection of his dejected mood.
Ever the leader, Tigre said, “Let’s not worry until we have to. We have a plan. We should focus on what we can do now.”
“Maybe we can contact the Intergalactic Dating Agency for assistance,” Inferno said. “We’re not here for mates, but they might know someone who can help us.”
“That’s an idea,” Tigre said.
“I’d be happy to take that on,” Inferno said.
“Go for it.”
That summed up all they could do: go for it.
