Alien Caller (67 page)

Myan in turn
was turning it into a holiday retreat for all the party, a place to
unwind for a few days at a time, and had set up a schedule of house
sitters. Which was fine by David. A house should be lived in. Once
it would have bothered him as his house was also his refuge. But no
longer. He liked the Leinians. Anything he could do to make their
lives a bit easier was good, and truthfully, the thought of living
in a metal box for any length of time, no matter how well
appointed, was unpleasant to say the least. He couldn’t imagine how
they survived it. Besides, they were also building another balcony
and tending to the new vegetable garden, so that when Cyrea and he
got back in a few months, assuming they actually did, they’d be
able to enjoy the long summer evenings even more.

According to
the share index and mail they’d thoughtfully brought with them
though he wasn't sure why, he’d made a few more tens of thousands
of dollars, pushing his portfolio’s net worth ever closer to the
magical million dollar mark even after purchasing the extra land.
Though it was a month out of date, at least, it was good to see
that his investment strategies were working well even without his
hands on guidance. Oddly though, he discovered that the money meant
far less to him than before. Living here on this prison world his
priorities had apparently changed. On Earth money was security and
comfort. Here it was just paper. On Earth his house was a fortress.
Here he didn’t really need one.

Meanwhile the
big news for the party was that they were having new problems in
their research. The prevalence of viruses on the net had started a
cascade effect as developers built new security protocols. Each of
them led to another unexpected barrier to the party’s investigation
of Earth culture that had to be overcome. Leinian IT had grown by
another fifty in response, as they brought in more computer experts
to combat the new protocols that had been developed all the while
trying not to get caught. But it was becoming more and more
difficult for the Leinians to penetrate other systems as the
software and hardware rapidly became more and more sophisticated,
and at the same time they had to defend their own system from
attacks.

It seemed that
IT was still one area where humanity was excelling, and with
millions of programmers to the Leinians' few thousand, it was
becoming a battle royale. That filled David with at least a little
pride, as well as the usual sense of dread that they would be found
out. To know that his people could do more than build weapons, that
was a good thing. And to know that they could compete in some
areas, that they could offer something, well that was good too. But
that human expertise included hacking computers and causing mayhem,
that wasn’t so good.

Maybe the
Leinians were right in one thing. They were a dangerous people.
Bringing them into the Interstellar Community was going to have to
be done carefully.

After several
hours under the watchful eye of Lar, the technicians had built a
two meter high tower of wire and circuitry that most closely
resembled a Christmas tree. And there were still at least a hundred
more pieces sitting at its feet. But David and the others gathered
that the end was in sight, mainly by the way the other builders
seemed to back off one by one and quietly celebrate as they watched
the others work. Their job was done.

Eventually
there were only two or three left working, and to David’s untrained
eyes, all they were really doing was tightening the odd screw.

Finally the
last technician backed away and while there were still a few pieces
remaining at the base of the tree, no one seemed to be in a hurry
to do anything with them. Maybe they were spares. It must have been
a signal as Lar finally came to join them, apparently satisfied
with the progress the others were making, and filled them in on the
full plan.

They were, as
David and every other person there had gathered, building an
interstellar transmitter that could reach other planets. It was the
best they could do in the limited time they had available to them.
The ship itself had been torn apart in the search for the vital
components, its own radio not being sufficient for such distances.
Though half of that radio was now sitting in the creation being
assembled before them.

At the same
time they’d tried to buy themselves some time by sending out a ten
man crew in the ship’s shuttle. The missing men. Everyone smiled as
they suddenly realised there were no casualties after all. Only
people who hadn’t been caught yet. Though they probably would be
soon.

The shuttle
might not be interstellar in its capability, but it could still zip
around a solar system pretty quickly, and was hopefully busy
leading the Mentan a merry chase through any number of asteroid
fields. Especially after they’d modified it. The shuttle was now
many times faster than it had been, and had some serious stealth
capability. All designed to make it harder to catch.

The Mentans
would catch them, of that there was no doubt. He had a better ship
still, with faster drives and superior sensors. But it wouldn’t be
easy, especially if he wasn’t expecting so much resistance. At a
guess, they could keep him running around like a flea in a fit for
at least a few days. And all the while that he spent chasing them,
he wasn’t here stopping the transmitter broadcasting. Hopefully he
wasn’t even watching and if he was, he wouldn’t be able to see
anything.

It was a plan
they’d had to develop in the very short time between when they’d
received the shipwrecked colonists’ message and being attacked. As
such David considered it brilliant. They’d realised they didn’t
have time to change their course. The Mentan would still have
caught them and then asked why. And if he'd found out what they'd
done he would have made sure they couldn't build another
transmitter. They knew they couldn’t out run him, nor fight him
off. Not when the ship they were on was another unarmed transport.
And they couldn’t hide either. So instead they’d decided to fall
into his trap prepared instead. Lar would have made a good
soldier.

And even if
that plan failed, they still had hope. The ship had launched a
probe immediately after they’d received the exile’s message, one
which wouldn’t start broadcasting until at least a month later,
when it had reached its destination, a nearby star which was also a
traffic base. Sooner or later its message would be picked up. It
was just a question of how long that would be; months or years?

David and the
others were full of praise for Lar’s plan, but he wouldn’t hear of
it. As he said, nothing would have been possible if David hadn’t
acted as quickly as he had; someone had obviously been talking
while the technicians had been working. Still it was something that
David was unbelievably glad Cyrea got to hear. She was still giving
him a hard time about his unarmed assault on the Mentan, not to
mention his reckless exploration of the surrounds and village. He
could have easily been killed and she wouldn’t quickly forget or
forgive him that. Not when she was so close to becoming a mother.
But then again, if and when they got off this world and back to her
home, she might change her tune. He could but hope.

They'd been
cleverer than that though. When the Mentan had boarded them they'd
also recorded the attack. They'd even managed to ask some leading
questions of the pirate, getting him to nicely incriminate himself.
That recording was a part of the message that would be sent. And so
the Mentan, desperate to save his people from the shame of their
past, had already exposed everything he'd tried to hide. That was a
good thing. He might be angry, in fact David was certain he would
be. Especially with him when he found out that David had robbed
him. But he no longer had a reason to hold them. Or to do something
permanent and lethal to the Earth as David still secretly feared he
was planning. Despite Cyrea and everyone else telling him he was
wrong every time he raised it, it was still the only answer he
could find to the question of how the Mentan would ultimately
protect his secret.

One of the
technicians interrupted them before Lar could tell them much more,
but David wasn't upset. Not when he saw the look on the man's face.
Eagerness. Anticipation. It was time.

Lar gave the
man a nod and instantly the technician pushed a button on the side
of the mechanical Christmas tree.

And that was
it. There were no lights, no sounds. Nothing to tell them that the
transmitter was working. No one even had to say anything. And still
David knew it was. He knew it when the technician nodded to the
security head. He knew it when all the other officers and
technicians and grinning. And he knew it most of all when everyone
started laughing and clapping.

They were going
home.

Chapter
Thirty Four

Back in Earth
space.

It was a
strangely pleasing concept for David, even if he couldn’t tell one
bit of jet black vacuum from another. But on some level he was home
again, even if he hadn’t made it back to his cottage, and wasn’t
likely to for many weeks.

It had been a
long four months to return to where he'd started from. And they'd
never even reached their destination. But a good four months. Their
second month on the prison planet - it had a name as they'd later
found out, but it didn't translate - had been far better than the
first. They'd known transport was coming for them and they just had
to wait. And when the small fleet had arrived they'd celebrated. It
would have been a great time for some bubbly save that they had
four pregnant women. Stepping on to the shuttle to bring them up to
the ship had been one of the happiest acts of his life.

Of course
happiness always had to be tempered with reality. He'd learned that
early on in life, and yet he'd still somehow forgotten it. And the
reality was that while they'd been saved, their kidnapper had got
away. And the guess was that he'd run for Earth. Why, they didn't
know. But David had a bad feeling about it.

So while the
others had headed for Leinia he'd run for home, and though he had
argued against it, Cyrea had come with him. Earth as she said, was
her home too.

And there it
was in the porthole. Though of course it wasn't a porthole. The
engineers wouldn't have tolerated such a thing. It was a view
screen fashioned to look like one. Still it looked so real, and the
Earth in it, so very beautiful. So close he could almost reach out
and touch it. And every part of him wanted to. He wanted to go
home.

Before he could
though, they had to find the Mentan, who’s own ship was hiding
somewhere in this section of space. Their ships had detected his
vessel furtively slipping around the system. Unfortunately he was
good at hiding and kept slipping away. Goodness only knew what he
was planning on doing, but David knew it couldn’t be good.

Trellin, as
he’d been named by the Mentan Council, was a fugitive, from them as
well as the Leinians. His scheme busted, his secrets exposed, he
had embarrassed his people far more than would have just the
knowledge of what his ancestors had done. Kidnapping and piracy
were crimes almost unknown to his people, and they were deeply
horrified. They had already publicly apologized to the Leinians and
the humans, or rather to David as no contact had yet been made with
Earth and none was planned. But despite calls for him to return and
face justice for his crime, something that the Mentans were truly
surprised he hadn’t done the moment his crime was discovered and
the order given, he simply didn’t seem to want to. In fact they
hadn’t heard from him at all since the second ship had been
waylaid.

That, coupled
with the fact that his vessel, one rather better armed than any
science vessel should be, had been repeatedly spotted in Earth
space by the Leinian’s long range sensors, was enough to trouble
the Leinians as well as David. Despite its impossibility for any of
the advanced races, David still had the nightmare that he wanted to
do something permanent to the Earth. No longer to cover up his
ancestors’ crimes, but simply out of revenge.

Lar, despite
his people’s almost saintly nature, had let enough of David’s
paranoia rub off on him to agree. As a result, instead of insisting
that they travel back to Leinia for Cyrea to give birth, he’d
allowed them to forego the hospital for the trip home on board a
battleship. He said it was safe.

Ironically
enough neither he nor Cyrea, nor any of the doctors, were
particularly concerned by the change in plans. Not now that they
had an explanation of how it could be that Cyrea and the others
were pregnant. With that, what had been an impossible miracle had
suddenly turned into a rather routine birth, exactly as all the
medical staff had told them it would be. And a routine birth was
something which could be handled by any competent doctor. And of
course the Sharp Claw, as the ship’s name had been translated to,
had an excellent medical facility aboard.

So they were
now spending their days on board, hunting down Trellin, trying to
figure out his next move. David somehow suspected it might be a
strike against him as he figured the Mentan wasn’t about to forget
his rough housing. The nights however, Cyrea and David spent
preparing for the baby as Cyrea was now only a week or two away at
most, and the big moment could come any day.