Touched by an Alien (28 page)

“The parasites would have come here no matter what. The Ancients warned everyone,” Lorraine protested.

“I’m sure they did, or tried to. But plagues don’t always hit everyone. Every dread disease leaves some alone for reasons only the disease would know. Vaccinations help, but not a hundred percent of the time.”

“Thanks, Dr. Kitty,” Christopher said, sarcasm dripping.

“Oh, stuff it. This is, essentially, a plague. The parasites don’t hit everyone. They don’t stabilize in most hosts. But in the ones they do, they create longer life, or Yates would already be dead.”

“Diseases like to attack the weak,” Reader offered. “But they also attack the strong. Polio, cancer, AIDS—they’re indiscriminate, and sometimes they’re more deadly in a healthy person.”

Christopher opened his mouth, and I decided I didn’t want to hear it. “You’d better have a snappier comeback than ‘Dr. James’ planned.”

He shut his mouth. Glare #1 in full force. Nice to see he remained consistent.

“Anything else?” Martini asked.

“Yeah, actually. If I were a being looking for another host body, I’d seriously consider the benefits of two hearts, supersonic speed, hyper-reflexes, and incredible stamina over a single heart and vastly reduced abilities.”

Martini shoved off the wall, flung himself into a chair, leaned back and put his legs up onto the desk, one ankle over the other. He looked straight at me. “The ozone shield wasn’t going to hold up against continued parasitic attacks. It’s another lie that the Ancients’ arrival was an all-world wake-up call. Just like here, it was hidden from the general populace. Because we ran heavy on the scientific side of the house, we knew what was going on. Once we got the ozone shield up and it was determined to work as well for keeping the parasites out as the ozone in, we were considered expendable.”

“You swore you’d never talk about this,” Christopher said angrily.

Martini shrugged. “We’ve sworn a lot of things. But nothing’s gotten better. The parasites arrived in our grand-parents’ time. When they wouldn’t stop trying to get in, despite the shield, the same idea dawned on the world leaders as it did on you. They wanted A-Cs, possibly more than other races, maybe only. So, they decided to doom Earth. Originally they were going to send condemned criminals here.”

“What a thoughtful bunch. How’d you all end up here?”

“Don’t,” Christopher growled at Martini. “Our entire race’s safety depends on this.”

“Our entire race’s safety depends on us succeeding,” Martini snarled right back. “Up until now, we’ve maintained, at best. Unless you have some brilliant idea you’ve been hiding all this time, stop getting in the way and break down and do something helpful.”

He and Christopher stared at each other, Christopher used his perfected Glare #1, but Martini put his bland, genial, “it’s all good” look back on. They looked as if they could do this for days.

“Guys, please. We have a world to save. The only one both of our races actually has left, right?”

Christopher spun and the glare was still going strong. “You have no right—”

“I have every right,” I interrupted him. “Stop pretending, or the big bad fugly’s going to win. And it’ll be your fault.”

“Actually,” Martini said with false, hearty cheerfulness, “it’d be our grandfather’s fault.”

STUNNED SILENCE FILLED THE ROOM
. The girls looked shocked, but I didn’t need to look at Reader or even Martini for confirmation—Christopher’s expression was proof enough. Guilt radiated from him.

The full realization of what was going on hit me. “They did send criminals here, didn’t they?”

“Just one,” Martini said, his voice clipped. “As a test.”

I wondered how to phrase this delicately and came up with no ideas. “What had your grandfather done?”

Christopher deflated. The anger just seemed to whoosh out of his body, leaving him looking sad and lost, like a little boy who’d never gotten to play with the other kids. “He was our religious leader. Only . . .” He stopped talking and closed his eyes.

“Only he wasn’t peaceful like his son,” Martini finished, voice still sharp. “He wanted to fight, to take what he considered our rightful place in the world.”

“It’s understandable. So why did they send the rest of you?”

Martini shrugged. “The shield was getting battered. They knew our grandfather had survived on Earth, so they could tell themselves they weren’t killing us or dooming all of you by sending us here. They agreed to give us what we needed to keep the parasitic threat somewhat at bay.”

“Everything but the materials to make an ozone shield here.”

“Right.” Martini looked exhausted. I wondered how long he’d been carrying this knowledge around. I checked out Christopher—at least as long as Mr. Surly had been, since he looked equally spent.

I decided to sneak up on the Horrible Truth. “You’re susceptible to Earth diseases, aren’t you? At least some of them?”

“Yes,” Christopher said. “We don’t get heart disease or anything related to it. But we’re fair game for other illnesses.”

“And, the real reason you have strict rules about interspecies marriages is, what?”

Martini looked as though I’d kicked him in the gut. Christopher didn’t reply—he looked over at Martini and I didn’t have to see his face to know he was glaring. It was clear he wanted me to hear this from Martini directly.

“The internal organs remain A-C dominant.” The words sounded dragged out of him.

“I’ll bet Paul’s parents were allowed to marry as a test, weren’t they? I’ll meet some others, interspecies couples with the human side coming from, what, every country or just every race?”

“Country and race both.” Martini’s jaw was clenched again.

I nodded. “You’re scientists, after all. Good testing theory.” I didn’t say that I figured all the tests had been run already. I’d save that for when I needed it. “So, how long before the parasites hit Earth did you arrive?”

“First waves came in the nineteen-sixties,” Christopher answered.

“Right when the parasites really started littering the ozone shield,” Martini added.

I shifted on the table, just in case I needed to jump out of reach. “Did your tribe reconnect with their exiled leader?”

Could have heard a pin drop. This time it was Martini who looked at Christopher with an expression that said it was time to return the Awkward Answer favor.

“We tried,” Christopher said finally. “But . . .”

I decided to save him some pain and me a lot of time. “But he really wasn’t like his son, and he’d discovered that he could get away with a lot more here on Earth than he had back home. Bitterness will do that to some people.”

Martini nodded. “From what we know, he rebuffed Richard’s attempts to reconnect.”

And now, here it was. Time to unveil the Horrible Truth. I took a deep breath. “He was rich, powerful, and celebrating by creating chaos all over the world. Is that why you haven’t killed him yet? Or is that just why the Mephistopheles parasite chose him?”

The girls looked sick. Claudia was obviously trying not to cry, and Lorraine was holding her stomach and rocking back and forth. Reader looked horrified. Martini and Christopher still looked exhausted, as if the weight of two worlds were on them.

Christopher managed to drag out an answer. “At first my father thought Yates could be redeemed. Then he decided we’d just ignore him. When we realized he was running a terrorist organization, we tried to stop him. But the parasites were coming, and that was more important.”

“It’s pretty odd on this world to have a terrorist group aimed at chaos only, not based on some religious belief. So what religious belief of yours is Yates actually working his terrorism for?”

“It’s not a religious belief,” Christopher said. “I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

“I do,” Martini said. “Devil worship.”

“Ah. He cracked and took the opposite side of the spectrum, religiously?”

Martini nodded. “Took every tenet of our religion and warped it.”

“Not a surprise, all things considered. And Yates doesn’t strike me as someone who controls his temper. But was it an intentional pairing?”

“We don’t know,” Martini answered. “It could have been, but I think you’re closer in saying the parasite made the decision, not good old Granddad. We hate him, you realize.”

“I can understand that.”

“No, not really,” Christopher said. “We’re not supposed to.”

“Religious rule?”

“Pretty much,” Claudia said. She seemed back under a semblance of control. “Revere your elders, that sort of thing.”

“We have that too. Some of us throw it out when said elders try to destroy entire populations.”

“And some don’t,” Martini said.

I thought about it. “The older generation’s split on this, at least.”

“They don’t know,” Lorraine said.

“Sure they do. If they came here from A-C, they know. They’re lying to all of
you
, but they know. And some of them feel they should turn the other cheek or just ignore Yates and he’ll go away. From what I’ve seen, all the active agents are Earth-born, other than the Pontifex.”

Martini took his legs off the table. “Yes. However, you’re wrong in thinking all the older generation knows. Richard never told them what name and persona his father had adopted. He looks very different here than he did before exile, apparently. Ten years of hard living and disease warped him, externally as well as internally, and that was before the Mephistopheles parasite arrived, too. Most of our people don’t know that Yates is our former religious leader let alone that he’s Mephistopheles—they think he died right after we arrived here. Some figured it out, and of those, yes, the older ones are split about what to do.”

“How long have you two known?”

“Since we were young,” Martini said. “Richard isn’t aware of how young. It wouldn’t help him to know. He feels this is all his fault, his responsibility.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “If killing Yates in human form would work to destroy the parasite, I’d do it myself, on national TV.”

“But it doesn’t work. And, now, let’s all pull ourselves together. We know the truth, and it really and truly sucks. But it’s going to suck a lot worse in a couple of minutes.”

I had their undivided attention, and I saw Reader and the girls work to get themselves under control. I wasn’t worried about Martini and Christopher—they’d been dealing with horrible news for a lot longer than I had.

“Mephistopheles knows all about you. He and Yates are still functioning as mostly separate entities, but he can pull up some of the A-C side when he needs to. Maybe he always could, maybe it’s something he’s learned. But he was talking to me, and I think that memory was implanted into me in case the Yates body died before the Mephistopheles side could enact his plan. And his plan is to use me to turn all of you into superbeings.”

“How?” Reader asked. “Since you said he doesn’t want you to birth those babies.”

“I think he’s figured out how to transfer his essence into someone else. He didn’t have enough time to do it fully with me, just enough to send in some memories.”

“Some?” Christopher was all over this. “I thought it was only one.”

“I did, too. But Yates figured out what the Ancients were trying to do—he was your religious leader after all. I think he figured it out when he got to Earth and saw our variety of religions. He’s known for a long time what the parasites really are. And, I’d guess he was setting himself up to attract the right one.” I turned to Martini. “You said it’s like a love connection.”

He nodded. “All this makes sense. But why are you the person who’s supposed to help spread the parasitic menace? I mean, you’re not an A-C woman, and a smaller percentage of human women than of males remain in control when the parasite hits them.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe we’ll find out.”

“Can’t wait,” Reader muttered.

“We won’t have to wait long. He’s going to come to us, and soon.”

“How do you know?” Christopher asked.

I shrugged. “Like I know other things; it’s just in there, in my consciousness. I think I picked it up from his breath. His awful, disgusting, stinky breath,” I had to add.

“Air transferred?” Claudia suddenly looked normal. We were back into something she was comfortable with. “That seems odd.”

“Maybe not.” Lorraine was better, too. Good old science, the savior of Dazzlers everywhere. “The parasites travel through space, through the air, in order to find a host.”

“But they’re encased in the gelatinous substance that allows the safe space travel,” Claudia argued. Gelatinous substance? I guessed that would apply to the jellyfish things, and it did sound more official.

“However, we know they alter when they join with an in-control superbeing,” Lorraine countered. “For all we know, they do change enough to transfer via air.”