Ancient Birthright (16 page)

“You are still an ignorant troublemaker. Even a first cycle student knows more. Your theory that English is the base language is totally ridiculous,” yelled Feuua as he paced his office as if it were a lecture room. “The current language of any culture more than a few hundred generations old is not the root language. Just the fact that the other languages have common words points to a much older common root or possibly multiple root languages and that root is not present day English. Give me a small team of true linguists two thirty-cycles, and we will build a dictionary of root words that will astound you and Command Prime in its scope.”

“Very well Team Lead Feuua, you have two thirty-cycles to develop your dictionary and present your findings.”
Let’s see how you like working under pressure and not knowing if you can deliver.
“That’s twice the length of time you gave me.”

“You will be amazed at what a true scholar can accomplish with the proper foundation tools.”

“We’ll see in two thirty-cycles. I’ll be sure to invite Command Prime to your presentation. I’ll have the materials sent to your quarters. Choose those you need to help you. Just don’t ask for the souls already involved with critical tasks on my teams.”

“I must admit Research Team Leader Garuu that was very well done. If someone had told me ten demibeats ago that I would willingly accept a position on your research team and be looking forward to the challenge, I would have told them to pull my other tail. You played me like a well-tuned VH screen. Maybe Command Prime knew what he was doing when he appointed you as team leader. But I still will not forgive you for mating with my daughter.”

”Ah, Sir, she chose me as her mate, and I will admit it was the best choice for both of us. We are very happy together.”

#

Saigg had just replaced Renna on the nest when the hatch opened and Karonna, Kaas and baby Tuuan stepped in.

“Renna, is it time yet?” Karonna asked.

“Soon, they’ve been very active today so it could be anytime,” Renna said.

Saigg stroked the two eggs, one normal sized and one much smaller. Both eggs quivered with life and movement. “They’re starting to hatch!”

Small scratch lines appeared at random around the eggs as the babies inside used their tiny claw tipped hands and feet to find the weakest spots on the semi-transparent leathery shells. The smaller egg was the first to tear. The tiny infant lay panting in the shell residue as she regained her strength. Luzzon parents had learned early in the evolutionary cycle that the young needed to hatch on their own. Something in the struggle to freedom from the egg stimulated the muscle and nervous systems to function normally outside the confines of the shell. Without the initial fight for freedom, the hatchling would not thrive.

Saigg watched the larger egg, expecting a tiny claw to cut through at any time. Everyone crowded around and exclaimed over the tiny perfection of the hatched female. Even young Tuuan was bouncing around with excitement. Karonna and Kaas’s daughter, as was typical of the luzzon species, had developed her running and climbing abilities within truebeats of hatching. A built-in instinct for protection kept her close to her parents or those she’d come to recognize as safe.

Saigg noticed the movements in the unhatched egg were slowing. Concern modified his coloration to tones of gray. Tuuan, who had been circling the newly hatched baby, turned her attention to the other egg. She circled the egg several times sniffing and nudging it with her head. On Tuuan’s third pass around the egg, she was joined by the tiny new hatchling.

Wherever a hand or foot pressed against the egg from the inside, one of the little females would press from the outside with a hand or nose. This seemed to stimulate renewed vigor in the unhatched baby until a slit finally appeared in the shell. The slit widened as the youngster struggled to push through the opening.

Saigg couldn’t hide the tears streaming down his face as he watched his son wiggle from the collapsing egg. The two little girls, Tuuan, and his unnamed daughter stood side by side watching the young male pant and gasp for breath. They stood on their legs using their tails as the third support member forming a tripod. Their tiny hands crossed in front of their chests.

Tuuan had short dark brown hair that began at a point just above her eyes and extended down her back and halfway down the top of her tail. From the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail couldn’t be more than twelve inches. The other little girl, his daughter, was only about half Tuuan’s size. She had deep violet hair, a color Saigg had never seen on a luzzon before. A normal adult luzzon male stood between five and six feet tall, and the females of his species tended to be several inches shorter. If his daughter maintained her tiny stature, she would grow to a little over half that size.

His son, on the other hand, even on his wobbly legs topped Tuuan by an inch and a half and had hair that was a deep russet similar to Renna. His dorsal spines were plastered flat to his back and were still soft. It would be a few days until they dried and became the defense and display mechanism evolution meant them to be.

The two girls looked at each other and let out high-pitched squeals, and then ran for their respective mothers. In luzzon baby talk the squeal meant, “I’m hungry Mom, and I want to eat...NOW.” Renna and Karonna went to the couch as their daughters jumped on their tails and used the hair on their back to climb to their shoulders. Karonna settled comfortably on one end of the couch while Renna took the other and stretched out her neck to expose a patch of skin normally covered by a skin fold. Saigg watched his daughter scamper to the exposed skin and begin licking. A secretion gland beneath the skin oozed a thick, sweet syrupy substance that was the baby’s food for the first month as the teeth hardened and set.

“How does Dantee sound as a name for our daughter?” Saigg asked Renna.

After rolling the name around in her mind for a few truebeats. “I like it. It fits her. How did you come up with it?” Renna asked.

“It’s a variation on an English word, ‘dainty,’ it means small or fine.”

Renna said, “I was thinking Reedn for our son. One of my grandfather’s names was Reedn.”

“Reedn it is,” Saigg said as he scooped his son into his arms and carried him to the couch where he tried to dislodge his smaller sister from her meal. Dantee planted one foot and used the other leg to topple her larger brother over backwards and off their mother. Dantee kept an eye on Tuuan, and when she was finished eating and sat back to lick the last of the sticky syrup off her face. Dantee finally permitted her brother to take her place.

The two girls met in the middle of the couch and used Karonna’s tail to dash to the floor. Tuuan was faster in a straight-line run, but Dantee passed her as they climbed the nest screen that was still propped against the wall. The little one’s giggles and squeals of delight had the adults laughing along as they explored the world around them.

Saigg could see that Reedn was torn with the need to feed and wanting to join in the games of the others. It didn’t take Reedn long to decide to have some fun. The girls saw him coming and wiggled through the screen to the backside. For the next fifteen truebeats, it was tease-Reedn-time as they reached through the screen and shook the screen material until he ran to investigate the noise trying to find them. In the end, fatigue and the ordeal of hatching caught up to him, and he fell asleep clinging to the screen. A truebeat later, he slid down the slope of the screen and landed in a ball on the floor still sleeping. A tiny head poked through the screen to see what had happened to their playmate. Moments later the flap in the bottom of the screen lifted. The two girls crawled through and piled on Reedn, creating a mound of sleeping hatchlings.

Chapter-17

“That’s the last box,” Beldon called, kicking the door shut.

“Can you believe it, our own home? I love this house, and I love you.” Cindy knocked the box from Bel’s hand and jumped into his arms.

Beldon laughed. “Married for three whole months, and the woman still can’t get enough of me.” He twirled Cindy in a circle before heading for the partially assembled master bedroom and the king sized bed.

A half hour later, naked, sweaty, and satiated to the point of being boneless, Beldon cradled Cindy in his arms and kissed her temple. “Do you think you’re going to like living out here in the boonies?”

“As long as it’s with you, I’d live on the moon,” she purred.

“You don’t mind having to drive fifteen miles to the grocery store?”

“I’ll adapt. It’s only a twenty-minute drive, and someone from one of our families is always coming for a visit. I can call them and ask them to bring whatever we’re missing.”

“I can’t believe our luck in finding this place. Fifty acres backing on the Cibola National Forest and a three bedroom cabin with all the comforts, what could be more perfect?”

Cindy rolled toward Beldon and whispered in his ear, “How about the pitter patter of …”

BOOM!

The bedroom window exploded inward as glass covered the bed and floor. Black clad men climbed through the shattered window while others smashed the bedroom door to kindling.

“Drop your weapons and don’t move!” screamed the team leader as he trained his rifle on the two naked bodies.

Beldon and Cindy lay on the bed stunned and bleeding. Rough hands grabbed them and threw them to the floor. They were cuffed with their hands behind their backs and had hoods placed over their heads before being dragged from the room.

Beldon heard sounds of furniture smashing and boxes ripping open. The sticky feel of blood oozing down his body let him know that some of the glass cuts were deep.

“Cindy, are you hurt?” Beldon called.

A boot slammed into the back of his knees as a gun butt connected with his temple. “No talking.” It was the last he heard as he cried out from the pain, went limp and fell to the floor. Everything faded to black.

#

“Colonel Striker, I have a Department of Homeland Security detail at the front gate demanding access to the facility,” reported one of the front gate MP’s.

“What’s their business?”

“They say they have a couple of aliens in custody and want to turn them over to you for interrogation.”

“Disarm the detail and escort them to the admin building. I’ll meet you by the front entrance.”

“Yes Sir.”

Striker jogged down the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. He watched as three large black SUV’s escorted by Humvee’s with machine guns mounted in roof turrets rolled to a stop in front of the building.

“Colonel Striker, I’m Justin Hooker, Department of Homeland Security, I have orders that any alien terrorists we capture be delivered to this facility.”

“Alien terrorists?”

“Yes, sir. My orders are to investigate any unusual activity in the area around NRAO and bring you the captives we apprehended.”

“Okay. What unusual activity have you uncovered?”

“The two we have in custody purchased a large fifty acre section of land backing on the Cibola National Forest. It’s a perfect location to set up a terrorist training camp.”

“How many terrorist trainees and what facilities did you find at this camp?”

“None yet, sir.”

“What led you to believe this was a terrorist stronghold.”

“It was the location that gave them away, Sir, and the fact that I have reliable reports of the male member of the cell being a trouble maker. One of my informants overheard him making anti-government statements while attending high school. The suspect and his wife are nineteen. What nineteen-year-old couple can afford to buy property like that?”

“Would you believe someone with the money or credit to get a loan?” Striker sarcastically answered. “Let’s see the dangerous alien terrorists you captured. And why are you calling them aliens if they attended high school in this country?”

Hooker dragged Cindy from the middle SUV first. She was still totally naked and bled from cuts covering the front of her abdomen and the backs of her legs. Hooker dumped her on the grass in front of Colonel Striker. Another DHS agent dropped the unconscious Beldon next to her.

“Good lord, they must have put up one hell of a fight?”

“No, sir. We didn’t give them a chance. The take down was the smoothest of my career. It was a two-pronged entry. We used a breaching charge to blow the window, and the second team caved in the bedroom door,” Hooker answered proudly.

“What were they doing when you apprehended them?”

“They’d just finished copulating and were lying on the bed.”

“Show me the weapons and training material you found in their possession.”

“We haven’t found any yet. But we will. We’ve taken apart the inside of the cabin and I’m calling ground penetrating radar in to search for buried weapons caches.”

“Please help Beldon. I think they hit him on the head when he asked if I was hurt. I heard him scream when they hit him, but he hasn’t responded since. Get him medical attention,” begged a hooded Cindy from where she lay on the ground.

“Sergeant, call for an ambulance and EMTs,” Striker ordered. “And take those cuffs and hoods off.”

Hooker looked as if he’d been slapped. “Sir, don’t you want to interrogate them before offering medical treatment?”

Striker shook his head as if to clear a buzzing in his ears. “How can anyone be interrogated if they’re unconscious? Let me see if I understand what you’ve told me. You and your team were dispatched to investigate alien terrorist activities in this area. During that investigation, you discovered this couple had purchased a fifty-acre plot of land near the Cibola National Forest. From that purchase, the age of the couple and several accounts of activities in high school four or five years ago, you determined they were alien terrorists and responded accordingly. Do I understand this correctly?”

“That’s a pretty good summation,” Hooker said with a nod and look of pride.

“Who are the witnesses?”

“A man named Danny Wilkins and the son of Senator Breathsword, William Breathsword III, came forward when we started our inquiry.”