Dark Dragons (11 page)

Towsley turned to General Taggart.  “The president
wants to meet Caliban.  Is Dr. Bennings down in the Containment Area?”

“I believe so,” the general replied.  “That’s where he
always is.  He lives down there you know.”

“Mr. President, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to my
office for a quick Q and A first.”

*

Towsley stared at his commander-in-chief and closely studied
the man’s face while the president reread his brief.  His eyes seemed to
wander in a sleepy, drunken way, and he appeared to be breathing through his
mouth.  Towsley saw a nonbeliever who had just read the Book of
Revelations for the first time and wanted to atone quickly for his sins.

Towsley refilled the president’s coffee mug, trying to think
of something——anything——reassuring.  “I want you to know that our
satellite defenses are quite capable of dealing with this situation, Mr.
President.  Make no mistake, we understand that we’ll be facing a foe with
greater technological advancements, but Divine Wind isn’t exactly a caveman’s
club either.  If the Law of Mediocrity says that aliens have to obey the
same laws of physics as we do, then they’re just as susceptible to weapons of
mass destruction as well.  That includes radiation exposure, chemical
agents, a bullet in the head, a stick in the eye, et cetera.”

“Tell me about yourself, colonel.”

The president’s request took Towsley, who wasn’t used to
disclosing such information, a moment to register.  Maybe the president
just wanted to change the subject to ease his anxiety.

“My previous job was with the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations.  Also known as the FBI of the Air Force.  My
specialty was cybercrime deterrence, technology protection and foreign threat
detection analysis.  Before Special Investigations, I served with the
Thirty-Fifth Tactical Fighter Wing and flew the F-4G Wild Weasel Phantom. 
My first combat mission was during Desert Storm, suppressing enemy air defenses
in and around Baghdad and generally making it safe for the other sorties.”

So why did you give up your wings to become a desk monkey?
 
He could clearly see the question on the president’s face.  He could also
remember the opening night of Desert storm, smell the fire, feel the shards of
glass, hear the screams.  Echoes of the same nightmare.  Towsley drew
in a slow, hopefully inconspicuous breath of air to regain himself.

“An unfortunate medical ailment involving my vision ended my
flying days after the Gulf War,” he lied.  “So I joined Special
Investigations.”

An explosion behind him, the windshield cracks. 
Towsley throttles to starboard, but no stick.  Jack, I’m so sorry . . . oh
god, please stop screaming!

The president mulled Towsley’s back story for a moment
before turning his attention back to his document.

A pang of anger at the president and his innocent inquiry
rose but died quickly.  It forced Towsley to recall old ghosts. 
Recall his flying days.  Recall an eight or nine year period during the
mid-to-late eighties when he felt that he was most pleased with his life. 
He was married then, happily, with a young daughter who had no problems talking
to her dad about school, and boys, and wearing makeup, and thinking about
college instead of the spiteful twenty-six year-old who no longer wanted
anything to do with him.  His buddy and co-pilot Jack Mitchell was alive
then, too.  Long before that first night of Desert Storm and the following
court martial.

Where was his daughter now?  The last he heard from his
ex-wife, Sarah was married with a child in Atlanta.

“Internationally siphoned capital?”

Towsley smiled.  “You caught that.  I don’t know
who came up with that polite term, although it’s brash I agree.”

“What percentage of the total cost of Divine Wind was
stolen, colonel?”

“I believe in the neighborhood of around thirty to
thirty-five percent.”

“From whom exactly did we steal these billions of dollars,
and will a trail lead back to the United States?”

“Several Swiss bank accounts of notable enemies of the state
were liberated.  Terrorist organizations, drug dealers.  We’re the reason
Edwardo Revenja’s mighty narcotics empire fell and there’s less drugs on our
streets.  And no, there is no trail leading back to us.”

“Cocaine-funded x-ray lasers,” the president mused with a
straight face.

Towsley sipped his coffee, and said, “Evil money baptized
into money worth survival.”

“Tell me about this alien you have.  It looks like this
Caliban is——or was——a scout of some kind.  Like a Navy SEAL or Green Beret
gathering pre-invasion intelligence.”

“Yes, he was.”

“’He?’ I thought Caliban was both male and female?”

“We address him among ourselves as ‘he.’  We feel it’s
a more individualistic pronoun than ‘it.’”

“Does he have emotions?”

Towsley shrugged.  “We’re really not sure.  At
times he appears to have feelings because he doesn’t feel like talking on some
days.  That could mean depression, frustration . . . anything.  Would
you like to meet him now?”

Towsley was not surprised by a long, uneasy pause before the
Commander-in-Chief curtly replied, “Sure.”

*

The president noted the APIS had security well concentrated
on the bottom most level of the base where the alien was being detained in
Containment Unit Three, one of five in the Containment Area wing.  Each of
these rooms was sealed off from the rest of the complex and accessed only by a
heavily guarded, steel door.  With a phalanx of armed, stoic guards and
mighty steel barriers, they meant business down here, he thought.

The president and his three Secret Service agents approached
the first entrance into the Containment Area with Colonel Towsley in the
lead.  A guard there saluted and unlocked the heavy door with a coded
series of numbers on a wall panel.  The barrier opened with a buzz and
revealed a circular room with five numbered doors along the wall.  Another
guard armed with an MP5 submachine gun sat near door Three.

“I have to remind you, Mr. President, Caliban is not the
most handsome fellow in the universe and his appearance might be a bit
overwhelming at first.  I wouldn’t let that bother you, though.”

“I understand,” the president replied, his heart racing.

Towsley walked up to CU Three and placed his face in front
of a retinal-scanner.  After the laser sweep, he typed a coded series of
numbers on a side panel.  A beep sounded, and the door clicked open. 
They followed the armed guard into a small room with a long desk flushed
against the opposite wall under a long pane of glass.  A balding man
wearing lab whites sat at the desk, moving his hands and fingers in a display
of sign language.  On the other side of the glass lay another dimly lit
room where a nightmare figure stood in the center.

The president felt goose bumps rise, and his breathing
quickened.  For some reason, he was expecting the creature to be
relatively average in height, if not smaller.

Caliban stood over seven feet tall.

It had two arms and two legs like a human, but any
additional similarities to the human anatomy ceased there.  The skin
resembled tight, shiny, black leather, giving the creature a creepy,
sadomasochistic appearance.  The president counted six clawed fingers on
each hand and three toes per foot.  The alien had a rather large head and
a protruding, lipless mouth full of prominent teeth.  So far, the creature
didn’t look as if it were endowed with any intelligence.  It looked rather
un
intelligent, but still savage and mysterious in its own way . . . that
was until the president noticed its enormous pair of eyes.  They were
incredibly striking, almost human-like.  There
was
intelligence
there.  He could see it in the way the creature moved its eyes and how it
effortlessly responded to the man’s sign language.

Additional proof of the creature’s intelligence came in the
form of several colored pastel drawings that wallpapered the alien’s
cell.  None of them displayed any natural portrayal of identifiable
objects that he could tell.  The drawings appeared rather abstract
expressionist——intense complementary colors, flattening of space, little
shading.  They seemed to be the expression of a being unwilling to reveal
its soul, as blank as the look on the creature’s face.

Caliban interrupted his end of the conversation and watched
the president approach the desk, apparently astonished by this new face.

“Hello, doctor,” Towsley said. “I’m sure you recognize our
guest.”

Dr. Bennings stood up to shake the president’s hand. 
“I sure do.  I voted for you.”

“Thank you,” he replied without expression, staring through
the glass.

“Mr. President, I would like you to meet Caliban.  I’ll
introduce you.”  Bennings turned to the glass and signaled in ASL.

Caliban turned his head to the president and signaled a
response.

“He says ‘hello,’” Towsley translated.

In the middle of its cell, Caliban sat down in a metal
recliner which looked like it had been specifically padded to conform to the
alien’s bony back.  The chair had a large Dell laptop computer mounted on
a swivel arm, an NHL playoff game incredulously playing on the monitor. 
Blackhawks-Kings, he noted.  A sealed door on the opposite wall of
Caliban’s cubical provided access to another chamber.  The men sat down at
the desk.

“You allow him to surf the web and watch TV?” the president
asked.

“He’s unable to upload or download, and our security VI
prevents him from hacking or blogging.  We installed it to cure his
boredom a few years ago which was beginning to cause psychosis and physical
illness.  He is in solitary confinement after all.  Plays a mean game
of chess, too.”

“Interesting.”

“How are you today?” Towsley signaled to Caliban, speaking
simultaneously so that the president could stay in the conversation. 
Towsley relayed Caliban’s reply to the president.  “
I am content today,
Towsley-person.”

“’Towsley-
person
?’” the president asked.

“He sometimes uses the tag ‘person’ to refer to us. 
After all these years, he still has trouble distinguishing between male and
female.  Since Caliban’s a hermaphrodite, he has no distinction of
gender.  So he addresses everyone by the word ‘person.’  He’s also a
little inept when it comes to proper sentence construction, so he talks like
the Indians in those old B-movie westerns.  You can still understand him,
though.”  Towsley continued the conversation.  “Do you wish to talk
with ‘superior-person’ today?”

Caliban’s eyes moved to the president, studying him very
closely.  The president felt more chills worm up his back.

“Caliban?”

The alien remained still, silent, only its eyes moving.

“Caliban, do you want to——?”

The alien immediately signaled. “
Yes, I will talk to
superior-person
.”

“Is there anything you would like to ask, sir?”

The president cleared his throat.  “Where are you
from?”

Towsley translated: “
I am from Realm of birth
.”

“Excuse me?” the president asked.

“As far as we can tell from the coordinates he’s drawn for
us, it appears he’s from a star system we call Mu Cygni in the constellation
Cygnus.  It’s a binary star system about seventy-one light-years
away.  We’re not sure if that’s the correct system, however.  Anyway,
Caliban always refers to his home as ‘Realm of birth.’”

The president continued.  “Why are you here?”

Caliban turned his head slightly. 
“Caliban caught
by Towsley-person
.”

“No, I mean why are your people coming here?”

“We’ve asked him that before, Mr. President, but we never
get a response.  I’ll relay your question anyway.”

Caliban waited for Towsley’s translation.  When he
finished, the creature turned to the “superior-person,” and its gaze darted
across the president’s face.  Other than that, Caliban remained still.

“What do you call yourselves?  Do you have a name?”

“
We are Merge-people
.”

“’Merge-people,’ as far as we can tell,” Bennings said,
“means ‘people full of curiosity,’ wanting to merge or exchange knowledge.”

“Do you mean us harm?” the president asked.

“I doubt he’ll answer that one either,” Towsley said,
translating.  After Caliban signaled a response, Towsley
translated——rather slowly, with a little perplexity in his voice.  “
Humanity
has no touch of harm.”

Towsley and Bennings gave each other curious looks.

“What is it?” the president asked.

“Caliban just responded to a question we’ve been pounding
him with for over ten years,” Bennings replied.

The colonel murmured, “Are we recording this, doc?”

“Yes, we are.  I just put in a new flash drive an hour
ago.”

“Caliban?” Towsley asked, taking over the
conversation.  “What do you mean by your last answer?”

“Humanity has no touch of harm, no touch of harm, touch
not there
.”

“Is he saying that we don’t understand the meaning of harm?”
Bennings asked.

“I think so.  Caliban, what is ‘harm?’”

“Harm is . . . not there, harm is gone.”

“Damn it, Caliban, talk to me,” Towsley mumbled to
himself.  “Caliban, you have to explain more ‘harm meaning.’”

The alien looked to the floor of its cell, apparently
concentrating, then, “
Harm is gone.”

“Do Merge-people have touch of harm?”

“Yes.”

“Does humanity have touch of harm?”

“No.”

“Does harm mean hurt?”

“Yes, harm hurt.”

“Caliban, humanity has hurt.”

“No . . . harm gone, not there.”

“He obviously feels that humans don’t understand emotions or
feel pain.”

“It probably means more than that,” Bennings
suggested.  “He probably feels we aren’t equal to him.  That we’re
just lowly animals.  Sounds like the ‘Aryan Race theory’ we proposed a few
years back.”