Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation (32 page)

T
HE TOP OF THE
All Seeing Mountain was obviously manmade, and not by any man native to this planet.

As with the mountains in Iceland, the mountain was a mesa with a completely flat top. There was a layer of what I was willing to bet was concrete—while I hadn't seen every inch of this world yet, I'd seen enough to be able to feel with some certainty that I hadn't seen anything like this yet anywhere on this planet. You know, something that looked like it came from Earth.

The metal railings were like those I'd seen at the Grand Canyon and any other tourist spot on Earth where the authorities didn't want people to fall over, in, or off—four thick metal rungs connecting to posts every few feet or so, with a thicker bar on top. Unlike Earth, though, this railing had no gaps to allow visitors easy access in or out. It was climb over the four-foot-high barrier or go home.

The mountaintop, while flat, was also round, far too round to have formed naturally. And it was the size of not just a football field, but the entire stadium and parking lot, too. One of the big ones, like we had in Pueblo Caliente.

The setup was interesting. The area was obviously made for tourists or pilgrims or whatever. The area on the immediate inside of the railings had benches, water troughs, and other niceties sprinkled throughout. There were trees in all the main land colors, including black, which gave off shade and scent. The trees were near the benches and water troughs, and they created a cacophony of smells up here. Not unpleasant, in no small part because the place was big enough that the different colored trees weren't that close to each other.

But it was the main area that really stood out, so to speak.

There were circles within circles—blue, then green, black, white, yellow, bronze, and purple—each one inside of and smaller than the ones before, leading in to the smallest circle in the exact middle. Well, small in a relative sense. The midpoint circle was easily twenty yards in diameter. It was also a shimmery, almost opalescent silver.

What had shocked me, though, other than circles instead of spirals up here, was what was hanging above the midpoint—couldn't swear to it, but it sure looked like a giant telescope. As we got closer, it was pretty easy to confirm that it was, indeed, a giant telescope. A very complex and advanced giant telescope. Which no Bronze Age culture could have invented.

A telescope that was just hanging there. Not sitting on anything, or being held up by anything. Just hanging there, hovering over the middle of this mountain. A telescope that resembled the spyglasses of olden days, only about a thousand times bigger. It hung at least ten feet above the concrete—meaning that it would be difficult to touch unless you could fly. Didn't exclude a good portion of the planet, but did indicate that No Touching was probably a given.

It was gigantic and there was no way anyone looking at this mountain could miss seeing it. And yet, Christopher and Chuckie, and Christopher and I, hadn't seen this when we were looking right at the top. And there was no way that anyone on the other Alpha Centauri planets had seen it, either, because this telescope didn't say “Bronze Age”—it said “Looking At The Heavens With Scientific Interest Age.”

Felt certain there was another power orb somewhere close by keeping this thing running and, more importantly, floating. And, even more importantly, cloaked. Potentially several of them. But without the girls or Chuckie around to ask, just had to take that one on faith.

Realized that the railing wasn't here to keep people in or out or even make it hard to get into this area, though I was sure that the natives felt it was the Last Obstacle—it was what was powering or controlling or whatever the cloaking shield that hid the real top of the All Seeing Mountain and, more importantly, what people were all seeing through. Because that was clearly what the iridescent, shimmering thing we'd gone through was. Having this in place made sense—because there was no way that this planet would have been left alone if anyone else had noted that they were clearly spying on the neighbors.

Also had the strongest feeling of déjà vu that I'd possibly ever had in my life. I'd been here before, somehow.

“Do you feel like you've been here before?” Reader asked me quietly.

“Yeah, you too?”

He nodded. “It's incredibly strong.”

“We'll worry about that later. Is that what everyone looks through?” I asked Fancy in a normal tone, pointing to the telescope.

“Yes, Shealla.”

“One at a time, right?”

“It depends. If you have young ones, you go as a family. But never more than one family at a time. We go to look at the heavens, to see if we can see the Gods.”

“And all of King Benny's people, they saw something other than stars and planets and such?”

“Yes. Just as I and all my people did.”

“And, when you get to the railings, what do you see?” Maybe they saw things we didn't.

“We see everything that is here, Shealla.” She sounded politely confused.

“You mean that when you're outside of the railing, you can see that?” Reader pointed to the telescope.

“Yes, Leader of the Nihalani. We can see it before we are on the top as well,” she added politely, but in such a way I knew she was fearing for the Sanity of the Gods.

“Okey dokey, just checking. Hang tight, we'll be right back.” Fancy nodded and remained outside the center circle, on the purple pavement. Wilbur and Ginger stayed with her. Took Reader's arm and headed us to the center. “That's why the cloak or whatever it is looks different from the ones we're used to. It's calibrated so that the natives on this planet can see it but no one else can.”

“You, Reynolds, and Christopher all ate waterfruit. Why didn't any of you see it?”

“No idea, but my guess would be that we haven't been on the planet long enough, or it's set to show for natives only. Which may mean that the king has never seen it.”

“Possible,” he said slowly. “Meaning that maybe LaRue hasn't seen it, either. But why ostracize all those Lecanora if they didn't know about it?”

“We'll find out, I'm sure.”

We reached the center. “I wish Reynolds was here,” Reader said quietly. “I'm pretty sure this is something from Earth. A few years ago a giant telescope disappeared. We kept it quiet, because the disappearance was inexplicable and we couldn't find the telescope or anyone who knew anything about its disappearance.”

“I think we may now be able to explain it. Sort of. Was there anything special about that telescope?”

“Yeah, actually. It was designed for major amplification—the most powerful amplification we'd had to date. We've never matched it. Once you found ACE, I kind of figured he'd removed it so no one on Earth could see him, or see the Alpha Centauri system or something. This one looks like at least part of what disappeared.”

Was positive ACE wasn't the Telescope Thief, but couldn't say that to Reader. “For all we know, the other part is ‘buried' in the mountain right under us. But, why haven't we on Earth created another one of these?”

“Too expensive. And with the first one being stolen and remaining unrecovered, the consensus was that we'd already spent too much money on nothing so the plan to try again was squashed.”

Tidy. Take the thing and thereby ensure no other thing like it will be created. And so like Algar. After all, the people who'd chosen not to make another telescope had the free will to choose otherwise.

There was one problem with this theory—the Planet Colorful natives had been looking through this telescope for thousands of years, not just a few.

Neither one of us had looked into the scope yet. “Ready to see whatever it is we're going to see?”

Reader took my hand in his. “Yeah.”

Squeezed his hand and we both looked up. My iPod graced me with “Perfect Planet” by Smash Mouth. Wanted to tell Algar that I understood. And he'd been right—we'd needed to see this.

The clarity was shocking. The portion of the scope you looked through was large—easily three feet in diameter. The glass didn't need to be adjusted for eyesight limitations, either. Had no idea if this was just because the telescope had been made that way, or if Algar had had a hand in it. Gave it even odds for either or both.

It was easy to see why the people on this planet felt this was the high holy spot in the world, though—looking through this telescope was literally like gazing at the heavens.

If, you know, the heavens were filled with spaceships.

T
HERE WERE SO MANY
spaceships in Beta Eight's solar space that I literally couldn't count them all. It was difficult to see the other planets in the system, let alone all the other things out there in space, because they were blocked from view by the spaceships.

“I see at least seven kinds of ships out there,” Reader said finally.

“I spy Alpha Four battle cruisers, the Reptilian Birds of Prey, Major Doggies Paws, and Cat People Heads, so the gang's all here.”

“There are three other designs, too. Different enough that I think they represent other planets.”

“Probably. Know what else I notice?”

“They're scattered and firing at each other?”

“Got it in one! We're not just talking about starting a civil war on this planet. I think there's a much bigger civil war going on. I think we have a civil war within this entire solar system.”

“Looking at what's up there, it's easy to agree with you, babe. Based on Reynolds' theory about this planet's core, they could be fighting over who gets to rape this world.”

“I'm sure that's part of it. But not all.”

“Think this is going to be the end of the rule of Alpha Four in this system?”

“I think our enemies want it to be, yeah.”

“Why are you assuming that Alpha Four's enemies are our enemies, too?”

“Because we're here. Because the others have disappeared. Because someone has Paul and Jamie, and therefore they have ACE. Because our luck never runs any other way. Because I put Alexander on the throne and Chuckie advised Councilor Leonidas. We made enemies when we overthrew Kitler. Those enemies are Alexander's enemies, too.”

“And Alexander has blood ties with Earth.”

“And he and some of those ships up there came to save us from the Z'porrah.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew what was going on. That my iPod graced me with Motörhead's “War for War” was merely icing on my Megalomania Girl Cake. “I know what's going on.”

“Care to actually explain it to me, or are you going to do what you always do and keep it all to yourself until the big reveal?”

“Wow, bitter much? You sound as whiny as Jeff, Chuckie, and Christopher normally manage to be.”

“It's been a long few days, girlfriend.”

“True. And it's you, so I'll be kind and share. This is a chess game.”

He groaned. “It's always a chess game.”

“Yes, but this one is the complex, three dimensional chess game. You know, like on
Star Trek
?”

“I've heard of it, yeah.” Reader's sarcasm knob was heading toward eleven.

“So touchy. Anyway, there's the usual three plans going. I'd assume that each plan has three smaller plans within it, too.” I waited. It was Reader, I kind of expected him to make the same leap I had.

“That's it? Three-dimensional chess and three plans and a bunch of mini plans going? That's what you're giving me?”

Okay, apparently not. “I thought you'd make the leap.”

“No leaping here.”

“Fine. You disappoint me and I'm worried about you, but fine.”

“Leaping like you tend to do is, frankly, Tim's job, and he's not here. So, explain it for me, Megalomaniac Girl.”

“Well, when you ask so nicely . . . Plan A is to get us the hell off of Earth, hopefully to be killed in a solar system far, far away, meaning Plan A involves Cliff and LaRue and probably Leventhal Reid.” Controlled the shudder. The snakipedes were better than Reid. Anything was better than Reid.

Reader squeezed my hand and I got it together and forged on. “So, in order to achieve Plan A, there had to be interaction and connection with Plan B, which is to overthrow Alpha Four's leadership in the solar system, which also involves making this planet a sitting duck for takeover.”

“You think they've figured out about anything other than the core?”

“No, but the core of this planet is more than enough reason for why all those ships are in this planet's solar space. But Plan B is why specific people were yanked out here. Mom and Richard were right—it's based on our wedding, because whoever was doing the yanking or being fooled into yanking us only had Operation Invasion to go on. I'm sure Cliff and LaRue didn't care about everyone who was tossed into this system, but Centaurion Division and American Centaurion's core team are off planet, and the Vice President has also disappeared.”

“I really hope we get home soon. The longer Jeff's gone, the harder it's going to be to explain away his absence.”

“The VP is usually a no big deal job. I'm sure Vince and Mom can shuck and jive it enough to cover. But that's not the real problem.”

“Regardless of what's going on here, it's our real problem, babe.”

“No, it's not.
Our
real problem is Plan C. Plan C is for the Z'porrah to overtake this solar system. Without Alpha Four's leadership, this system is going to fall into and stay in what we're watching on our Telescopic Vision Channel—civil war. But most of the planets are evenly matched, so it's going to be a long, drawn-out civil war. All the planets are going to fight each other, destroy each other, and so on. And then, when they're all worn and weary, the Z'porrah are going to sweep in here and destroy them.”

And whichever conqueror got their hands, paws, claws, or talons on this planet was going to win. But at the cost of all the life on Beta Eight, and potentially all the life in the Alpha Centauri system, too, possibly before the Z'porrah armada even arrived. Mephistopheles all over again.

Reader was quiet for a few seconds. “And then they'll come and destroy Earth. We only survived before because Alpha Four and their allies intervened.”

“And because of ACE. And Naomi and Abigail. Meaning Abigail's in danger—she wasn't taken because she was filling Michael's slot—she was taken because of her power. They must not know that she's not recovered from Operation Destruction. Or else they want to be sure she can't ever recover.”

“And we have no idea where she is, any more than we know where Paul and Jamie are.”

“Yeah, and Paul and Jamie are in danger, too. Wherever they are.” My daughter needed me and I had no idea where she was. Or where her father was. Or where anyone else who mattered was. It was literally me and Reader and three Planet Colorful natives against the War of the Super Powerful Worlds right now. Felt the panic try to take over.

Reader put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me. “In my dream, Paul wasn't afraid. They're with friends, Kitty, I'm sure of it.”

Took a deep breath, let it out, and leaned my head on his shoulder. As always, a nice place to be, and it helped me relax and focus. “They may be with friends, but that just means those friends are in danger. Not all the traitors from Operation Invasion are dead. And those who are dead had friends and relatives who were clearly not on the side of Alpha Four Right.”

“Alpha Four all the way?”

“When in doubt, always back the guy who's had your back when it counted. Alexander's earned our loyalty. So, yeah, Alpha Four for the win. Besides, the Planetary Council told us that they need Alpha Four's leadership. To prevent all this.” As Eminem's “Bad Meets Evil” came on my personal airwaves, I waved my hand at the telescopic images.

And triggered something. Because the picture changed.