Phase Shift (22 page)

I nod.

Trozai stares at me with her arms crossed.
She reminds me of a high school teacher I had once who would sit on
her desk, cross her arms over her chest and look at me with this
expressionless stare that put a chill in my veins. Even when I
looked away, I could still feel the weight of her gaze bearing down
on me. I finally figured out I could get her to look away if I
asked her a question, any question. Anything to get her to point
her evil eye in someone else's direction. When I think of some of
the things I asked her, I'm sure she must've thought me the love
child of Dumb and Dumber.

At last, Trozai has an idea. "When you
return to Earth, you must investigate the shape of The Mark for us.
Any reference, in history or antiquity will suffice. I seek
reference to the crescent moon shape in either a birth mark or a
scar, on or near a major artery in the body. Here," she says,
pointing to her own mark, "here," she says, pointing to her
breastbone, the parallel location of Sam's mark, "or here," she
says, pointing to her inner-thigh.

"I will," I promise, intrigued at the
possibility there might be a connection between the Gaian Relens
and Earth. And why not? An entire religion had sprung up based on
nothing more than the existence of similar shaped scars and a
feeling. It reminds me of the countless support groups perpetuated
on Earth based on nothing more than unusual body markings and
shared memories of alien abductions.

Trozai bids me good luck and Godspeed and
directs Sam to return me to the Antiquary where I appropriate a civ
car that takes me to the Prefecture Proper. There I meet Reyes who
helps me make the transition back to Earth.

Henry "Ozzie" Osmond III caught Bob Diaz
playing trash-can basketball in his office. He cleared his throat
in an attempt to get Diaz's attention. Distracted by the
interruption, Diaz's foam rubber ball fell short of the metal hoop
poised over the small, grey, metal trash can. "Oooh! Missed the
free throw shot," Diaz announced. He turned to acknowledge Ozzie,
smiling.

"What can I do for you, Osmond?" Diaz
asked.

"Rice says SOHO's talking, sir."

Diaz jumped out of his chair and nearly
hurdled across the room. He raced past Ozzie to John Rice's desk.
"Got a locate for the flare, Rice?" he asked.

Rice pointed to a map on his monitor.
"Canada, sir. South-central Ontario, to be precise.”

"Canada!" Diaz said. Rice read a mix of
excitement and surprise in his response. He'd had the same reaction
himself initially. Any nuclear activity in Canada had to represent
a power facility gone critical. Surely not terrorist activity. Not
in Canada, the Switzerland of North America.

Visibly shaken, Diaz placed a hand on Rice's
shoulder and squeezed. "Good work, kid," he said. Diaz released
Rice's shoulder. "Keep me posted, Rice, you're doing a fine job."
He patted him on the back. "Fine job." He withdrew in the direction
of his office.

"Uh, sir?" Ozzie called after him.

Diaz turned.

"What about me, sir?"

"Continue to monitor radio and television. I
want to know the first sign of anything unusual that might be
related to this case," Diaz told him

Ozzie smiled. Once more he had been given
license to loaf. He couldn't be more pleased.

Diaz continued back to his office. He sat
behind his desk, but before he did, he retrieved a soft, orange
ball from the waste basket. He knelt, then crawled on his hands and
knees to get the one that had missed and rolled under his desk. He
contemplated recovering the points lost by the missed free throw,
but thought better of it. Securing the balls on his desk behind the
stapler to prevent them from rolling, Diaz looked up and made note
of the numbers to both Homeland Security and Royal Canadian Mounted
Police headquarters, just in case.

Loman Praetner awoke to a gust of air and
found he could not fall back asleep for the preoccupation of the
origin of the breeze. Had he barred every door and window in the
dwelling? Had the house's cooling mechanism recently turned on?
Perhaps the source was simply his wife's nocturnal exhalation as
she rolled over and away from him?

The air in the room, he noticed, was rife
with nardus-scent, commonly known as lavender on Earth. He opened
his eyes. Goren Prefect towered at his bedside. "What do you want?"
Loman groaned. He struggled to sit up somewhat.

"May the Gods bestow you too, Loman," Goren
said, affording the familiar greeting.

"Fool," Loman accused. He motioned toward
his mate. "She might wake at any moment."

"And wouldn't you have a challenge
explaining? Candidly, I don't know whatever possessed you to take
an earther as a life-mate."

Loman didn't know either. Born Loman
Prefectson of Mexus Prefecture, he was the last in a long line of
Loman Prefects. He supposed perpetuation of the Loman Prefect line
was motivation enough to take a mate on either planet, though
seeing as he had yet to have any offspring, and his mate was
nearing the end of her childbearing years, he could no longer use
that excuse to justify the decision. Perhaps it was in an effort to
avoid a life of loneliness and solitude on a foreign planet.
Ironically, as willingness to enter a union with him—that and
tolerance of his demeanor—had been the sole criteria in his
selection of a mate, the word 'lonely' best described their
relationship.

"I do not wish to discuss personal matters,
Goren. Not now. Not with the likes of you." He glanced at the
figure of his mate beneath the bed clothing. "And most certainly
not with her in the room."

"Then perhaps another room in this
dwelling?"

"Go home, Goren. Leave me to my miserable
life on this derelict world." Loman resumed his prone position on
the mattress and drew the bed sheet under his chin.

"I demand an audience, Loman. Let us not
forget it was I who appointed you to this posting. I could just as
easily dismiss you from it."

It was a threat Goren had used before. He
had been a young man when Goren first approached him. Young,
impressionable, and scared at the prospects for his planet should
phase shifting and terraforming remain unchecked. Goren had
presented the posting as an opportunity to make a difference, and
Loman couldn’t have been more eager to accept, though, truth be
told, it was a tough decision to make. He had been betrothed on
Mother Gaia, to an agreeable young woman, the daughter of a
prefect, no less. Destined to enter service to the Prefecture
within the year, Goren had doomed him to live out his days on this
dirty planet instead. He had chosen the name Praetner after seeing
it in the paper and because it resembled the moniker of his prefect
birthright. How long his service would last was at Goren's sole
discretion. So far, his years on Earth had numbered
one-and-one-quarter score, roughly the length of a life-sentence in
one of these people's prisons.

As a Second or First Prefect on Gaia, Loman
might have lived a modest life with a modest woman as his mate, and
produced a modest nurseryful of offspring. On Earth, Loman was
loathe to admit, he lived as a king by comparison. His posting as
Vice-president of the Gaia Corporation allowed him to live in a
dwelling the size of a castle. Earth's system of remuneration
allowed him to partake in the finest of food, drink, entertainment
and technology. In short, his posting on Earth had allowed him to
exploit the very environment it was GaiaCorp's mandate to protect
and without impunity.

In truth, Loman's posting on Earth was a
double-edged sword. One he wasn't sure he was willing to forfeit to
the likes of Goren. At least, not yet.

"Very well," Loman muttered as he lowered
himself gently out of bed. "In my chambers."

"Tell me, Goren." Loman poured two fingers of
scotch into two crystal, low-ball glasses. He corked the decanter
believing he had the upper-hand. "What business is so important you
must travel from another planet and drag me out of my bedstead in
the middle of the night?" He handed Goren one of the glasses, and
rose his own in a brief salute before downing the contents.

"Someone has bridged the gap."

It took a moment for this information to
sink in. "What? No." Loman dropped into the padded, executive chair
behind his desk.

"A woman. A teacher. A Professor, she calls
herself."

"But how? How could an earther
possibly—"

"She used Spencer Prescott's technology. She
found it. Buried, if you can believe it, Gods bestow us." Goren
rubbed his forehead as he sat. "Best if she were incinerated."

"The other prefects?"

"Introduced to her at today's
Symposium."

"And...?"

"Her reception was...favourable, I suppose."
Goren swallowed the remaining amber liquid in his glass and
motioned for it to be refilled.

"Does she pose a threat?"

Goren shrugged. "That depends on what you
regard a threat."

"Do not play games with me, Goren," Loman
demanded, turning an earther phrase. "I asked you if she poses a
threat."

"I would answer, 'No, not at this point'."
He placed the glass on the work table before him. Loman reached for
it as if to refill it, but Goren shook his head. "She is currently
befriended by Reyes Prefect the younger whilst on Mother."

Loman nodded. While he was not familiar with
the current Reyes Prefect, he was familiar with his father, a man
Loman greatly admired for his body of work. "And whilst on
Earth?"

"This lends itself to the urgency of my
visit, Loman, for whilst on Earth, the curatorship of Molly McBride
falls to you."

"This is her name? The interloper. Molly
McBride?"

Goren nodded.

"And what of the day-to-day machinations of
running GaiaCorp?"

"That too, remains your responsibility."

Loman frowned. He looked at his hands as
they wrung in his lap.

"I need someone familiar with this planet,
Loman, someone who might move about freely and undetected. If the
postings combined prove too difficult for a man of your
accomplishment, I can arrange for your replacement at
GaiaCorp."

Loman leaned forward onto his work table and
rubbed his eyes as he thought. To spy on this Molly McBride would
be favourable to being dismissed from his position at GaiaCorp. He
wondered how his mate might respond to his newly assigned
responsibility and the added tax on his time, even as he spoke his
next words. "That will not be necessary," he said.

Being married to the department head has its
benefits, though, as a rule, I rarely take advantage of those
benefits. While I know I shouldn't care what the faculty thinks,
it's important to me they know I earned my position on my feet
rather than on my back. But I'd barely slept over the past
forty-eight or so hours and when the radio blared at half-past six
this morning it felt like I'd only just closed my eyes.
Nevertheless, I was ready to tough out my morning classes, nap
through lunch, and finish the day. Against my better judgment and
at Palmer's behest, my classes were to be cancelled and I was to
sleep in. After a long, hot shower, protein-rich breakfast and tall
glass of O.J., I'm beginning to feel enough like myself to boot my
computer and start sifting through the information Reyes stored on
my Geo-link handset.

I’m working away maybe four or five hours
when the doorbell rings. It registers somewhere in the back of my
foggy brain, but only marginally so. I'm so mired in the
implication of Reyes's file, I'm not sure I would notice the house
if it were filled with smoke, enveloped in flames and burning down
around me.

The doorbell rings again, only this time,
something sets my mind in motion. Sometime between the back room
that houses my office and the journey down the narrow hallway,
through the kitchen and to the front door, I've convinced myself
the only people knocking on doors or ringing doorbells at this time
in the afternoon are solicitors. I should be done with the intruder
post-haste and back to Reyes's next file in no time flat.

I swing open the door, my mouth at the ready
to blow off the salesperson on the other side when I notice who it
is standing on my front stoop. Though his back is to me, the man's
identity is unmistakable: dark brown, thinning hair; sallow
skin-tone; thin frame adorned with droopy, woolen clothes.
"Stanley!" I say, in spite of myself. Once more, I feel languor in
my limbs. What is he doing here?

"Professor McBride." He nods. "May I come
in?"

"Why are you here, Stanley?" I ask, hearing
how rude it sounds even as I'm saying it.

"I'd rather not discuss it here," he says,
nervous, looking over his shoulder, as if someone may be
watching.

"I'm kind of busy now, Stanley." Damn him.
What kind of person just shows up at another person’s door? The
door of an acquaintance, no less. I know what he wants. Even before
he says it, I know. And while I also know I can lay no claim to the
artifacts, to what's rightfully his, something rooted deep within
my core, is not willing to give them up. Not yet.

"It's important," he persists.

"Call my secretary, Stanley. Make an
appointment for later in the week. Today's my day off," I say and I
begin to close the door.

Stanley almost lunges at the still closed
screen door. He pauses with one hand on the screen the other on the
frame, and his nose pressed against the mesh. "It's about the
artifacts. I want them back."

There. He said it. He wants the artifacts
back. My heart skips a beat. I can't take my next breath. I may
throw up. I freeze, door poised for closing, gray matter trying to
conceive alternatives to letting Stanley in. Truth is, I can think
of none. Against instinct, I swing the metal entry-door open to its
fullest and then swing the screen door out. I blink, and Stanley
Hume is invading my privacy, standing in the front foyer of my
house.