Amalfi Echo (2 page)

“We may not
even get out of here so let’s wait and see what happens,” Marion
replied to Tessa.

Unexpectedly,
Tessa snuggled into her like a lizard trying to hide inside
Marion’s clothing. It should have been quite inappropriate, yet the
flood of protectiveness overpowering Marion stopped her from
shrinking away. Encouraged, Tessa said, “You’re the only one who
cares about me. No one else does. Don’t let them take me away.”

“Tessa, do you
know about advocacy? These are people who are experienced with
situations like yours and may be able to speak on your behalf. But
I can’t promise you anything and right now we’ve got to focus on
getting out of here.”

Marion had
spoken loudly enough so that Joanne could hear so she didn’t bother
replying to Joanne who also didn’t speak but stood glaring at her.
However, Joanne made no move to come closer, to physically take
Tessa away so perhaps she too was thinking of the light sabre
gizmo. To discourage her further, Marion moved herself and Tessa
over to the screens, to the uncertain protection of Digby. After a
time, he joined them, sitting down on the floor, so that the three
of them formed a triangle.

“Not much will
happen now for a while,” Digby said. “They can’t penetrate our
defences and have fallen back to work out what to do next. Gives us
a little time to talk and, possibly, that’s overdue.”

Marion needed
no second urging and started with, “I don’t imagine that it was a
coincidence that your seat on the plane was so close to ours.”

“No. But the
same could be said for you sitting beside Tessa, who was a total
stranger to you.”

“That was
nothing,” Marion replied. “I wanted an aisle seat and managed a
swap with someone else. It was entirely coincidental that the seat
was beside Tessa.”

“Not so. In
fact, you wanted that swap to be close to Tessa, even though, at
the time, you had no idea she even existed,” Digby said.

“I just wanted
an aisle seat. I ended up beside Tessa. End of story,” Marion
said.

“Yeah, the
bitch wanted the window seat,” Tessa said.

“Tessa, I’m not
a big fan of Joanne Fleischer myself,” Marion said, “but she is
only trying to do her job.”

“You don’t know
anything. Joanne is part of the conspiracy,” Tessa said. “My Mom
was going to be President.”

“Of the United
States?” Marion said, taken aback.

“Uh huh,” Tessa
said.

“Happens to be
true,” Digby said. “Until a mysterious and not very much
investigated car accident happened three years ago.”

“How do you
know about that?” Tessa said, her face falling.

“Accessed your
records,” Digby said. “Let’s leave that for later.”

“I want to know
why you were on that plane,” Marion said.

“Because I was
following the two of you, or rather, not you, but something called
an ‘Amalfi Echo’ which I’ll explain in a minute.”

Digby produced
from nowhere an object like a tropical sea shell, gnarled, with
pearly iridescence. “The Amalfi Echo is the key to all of this and
it’s best shown rather than explained.” Digby stood up and led them
over to the other passengers, selecting a businessman who had a bad
case of nerves, fidgeting and constantly flicking glances at
anything that moved. He shrank back in alarm as Digby
approached.

“I haven’t done
anything,” he said with fear in his voice. He appealed to the
others. “Jesus. Help me.”

The rest of the
passengers edged away.

“Settle down,”
Digby said to him. “Your life is in Marion’s hands, not mine. I
want you to help me with a simple demonstration and you might even
learn something.” Without waiting for an answer he pointed the sea
shell at the man. An aura manifested itself about the man, made up
of millions of long hair-like tendrils emanating from his body and
swaying as though underwater or bending before a breeze. Digby now
pointed the shell at himself and a similar aura became visible.

Interested,
despite themselves, many of the passengers moved closer to get a
better view.

“The aura
you’re seeing is the life force every living organism has,” Digby
continued, “and you might regard it as the soul. Notice how the
aura around this man is bending away from me as though seeking to
get away from me. Notice how my aura is bending away or seeking to
escape this man too. This is because we don’t like each
other—.”

“I never said
that,” the man protested.

“You don’t need
to. The evidence is here. It is this effect, or process, that
occurs when we instantly dislike or like a total stranger from
across the room which your scientists have explained in various
ways, however, their explanations are incorrect. The life force is
like a magnetic field which can attract or repel other life forces
but let’s not go into that now, suffice to say that it exists.”

Digby made some
unobtrusive movement and the auras vanished. Now he turned the
shell towards Marion and Tessa. The difference was immediately
obvious. Their auras strained towards each other and were much
bigger than the auras that had been seen before, so much so, that
they easily crossed the distance between Tessa and Marion, the
tendrils intertwining and locking together.

“Clearly, your
auras like each other and you can also see that the auras are much
bigger than ours which is unusual in itself but there’s something
more.” Digby moved the shell closer to Marion, pointing to a
specific spot in her aura. A window opened in the aura, giving the
impression that the shell was zooming in on a specific spot and
presenting it in much greater detail. A pulsating, heart-like
object came into view.

“Now the
interesting thing,” Digby said, “is that that little beauty is not
human. It’s called an Amalfi Echo, a gift from a species called the
Amalfi.”

“Oh, shit,”
Tessa said. “Have I got one of those too?” Although she had a nasty
feeling she already knew the answer.

“Actually,”
Digby said casually, “I’m a bona fide member of the human species,
although from another branch with a much longer evolutionary line,
but still human. The irony of this, is that it’s not me who is the
alien here.”

“Oh, crap,”
Tessa said. Marion was unable to speak, staring open-mouthed.

“Of course,”
Digby hastened to assure them, “you’re still mostly human, only a
little bit alien.”

“Why have we
got that inside us?” Marion said, finally finding her voice.

“It’s not
inside you. Don’t think, bursting out of your chest or anything
like that. It’s a tiny addition to your life force. Or to your
soul, even, and is something to be immensely treasured. The Amalfi
must’ve been here, on this planet, and an ancestor of each of you
helped the Amalfi in some small way, probably not even knowing that
they had done so. It is Amalfi custom that, when this happens, they
give a little gift of themselves in return and this is passed down
through the generations. The Amalfi skills at leadership and things
military are legendary and it is these traits which are contained
in their gift.” Digby turned to Tessa. “Your mother would have made
an exceptional President.”

“Yeah, that’s
what everyone said. We were totally high fliers. Until the
accident. And the cover up. Then Washington dumped me. And I don’t
want to talk about it.” Tessa spun around and headed for an empty
corner, dropping to the floor to sit with her back to the rest of
the passengers. Marion raced after her and the two sat huddled,
shutting out the others.

Digby went back
to the screens. Everyone else settled down again, wondering what
would happen next.

In the corner,
Tessa said to Marion, “Do you believe all that stuff about the
alien heart thing?”

“I don’t know.
Could be all smoke and mirrors for who knows what reason. Until we
get some better evidence, I’m going to put it all on hold.”

“Yeah. It’s a
mind screw,” Tessa agreed.

Marion sought
out Digby at the screens. “I get the feeling you’re waiting on
Tessa and me,” Marion said.

“I’m in no
hurry,” Digby said. “If you need the space…”

“We’re done,”
Marion said. “Is it time to go yet?”

“As you so
intuitively discern, we are good to go.”

“So what
happens next?”

“I bring a
shuttle down from the ship. Those,” Digby gestured at the Trifids
on the screen, “lay down suppressing fire and we go on our merry
way.”

“Ship?”

“Given the
train of events, you’d have to think that there is a spaceship
lurking about somewhere. Don’t you watch the movies?”

“I’d like to go
to D.C.”

“Because?”

“It was our
destination before we were hijacked. Probably that’s where the
passengers will want to go, although I’ll check with them.”

“And you?”

“Now we’re
getting to it,” Marion said. “Are you planning to hang onto Tessa
and me?”

“I said you
were free to go about your business and that’s still the deal.
Before you go, I would appreciate some time alone with the two of
you after the other passengers disembark. I have some information I
believe you will find interesting, indeed, vital for your future
survival.”

“So you want
time to make a pitch,” Marion said. “You want us to go with you. Is
that what this is all about, Digby?” Leaving that, she said
quietly, “I worry about Tessa. I don’t want her going back into
that situation but legally there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s
tough and I don’t know if she really would…hurt herself, but I’d
never forgive myself if I found out that she had.”

“When we talk
later, I have some options for you and I wouldn’t worry about
Tessa. Go and get the passengers ready.” Before she left, Digby
halted her with a hand on her arm. “The passenger who has been
giving you a hard time, his name is Harvey. I’d leave him behind.
The world would be a better place.”

“We don’t do
that. Remember how you claim to be human?”

“I’d leave him
behind.”

“Would you
really?”

“In a
heartbeat.”

“Well, it’s
good that I’m looking after them and not you,” Marion said. “He
gets a spot in the shuttle as well. That decision is final.” Marion
stalked away to the passengers.

Predictably,
Harvey kicked up a fuss, wanting to be taken directly to his
ultimate destination, Miami. Fortunately, there were other
passengers who also did not like Harvey and shut him up. There was
hardly any reaction to the rather strange way that they were going
to escape. If escaping death at the hands of terrorists meant
hitching a lift with a bunch of aliens, it was clearly the lesser
of two evils. It was not lost on Marion that the passengers had now
lumped Tessa and her in with the enigmatic and quite scary Digby
which seemed unfair to Marion because none of them had any evidence
whatsoever of the truth of the Amalfi Echo.

It was not lost
on Joanne Fleischer either. “Tessa is leaving with me. You’d better
get that straight. You don’t screw a Federal Officer and get away
with it.”

Maybe Joanne
didn’t watch the movies either, Marion thought. Or she would have
figured out that there was an alien spaceship lurking about and no
one would thank her for putting the United States into direct
conflict with it.

The shuttle,
when it arrived, proved to be a featureless black sphere maybe 50
metres across. It floated, hovering, over the ruined courtyard
fronting the portico openings of the hall. It was big and
impressive and perhaps even Joanne was now wondering what else
might be waiting in the wings, judging by the tremendous
uncertainty now on her face. If any of the passengers were
apprehensive about departing under fire these proved to be
groundless as the sphere poked a curved section of itself through
the ceiling and columns and balustrades of the courtyard wall of
the hall without, apparently, damaging the fortress structure. An
opening manifested itself in the curved face. A soft light flooded
out of the sphere. A ramp extruded to touch the floor.

“Time to
embark, everyone,” Marion said, unnecessarily. Bravely she walked
up the ramp into the shuttle. Reluctantly everyone followed her.
Digby was the last in, folding the screens away into nothing. The
ramp winked out of existence and the opening closed.

Inside the
shuttle was nothing very much except a flat floor extending in all
directions to the curved wall of the shuttle.

Tessa collared
Digby. “Can I please, please sit up front in the cockpit?”

“There isn’t
one,” Digby said. “The shuttle is controlled by the ship.”

“Oh,” Tessa
said, deflated. “That sucks.”

Many of the
passengers were looking around for seats or seatbelts or even
something to hold on to.

“Digby?” Marion
said. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt…”

“We have
already arrived in Washington, D.C.,” Digby said.

An opening
appeared again, together with a ramp down to the tarmac at
Washington Dulles International Airport. Cold air flooded into the
shuttle, bringing a damp chill. It was night-time, the airport
terminals garishly lit. Nearby, airport ground staff, hardened to
strangeness, had already the presence of mind to whip out their
phones and get pictures. Several security vehicles arrived,
although, once they had exited their vehicles, the security
personnel simply milled about arguing, lacking, no doubt, the
requisite protocols for such a situation. Hesitantly, the
passengers disembarked and stood, looking around, bewildered by the
abrupt transition to an airport at night. Harvey complained about
losing his luggage. Last to leave was Joanne Fleischer. She stood
in the opening, a picture of resignation, looking back into the
interior of the shuttle at Tessa.

Tessa gave a
little wave. “Bye now. Have a good life.”

Joanne made a
final appeal to Marion. “This is kidnapping of a child. You do time
for that.”