Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (10 page)

“
But when an object is dropped from a ship that is moving, only the drop is slowed,
”
Web continued,
“
there
’
s nothing to dampen the forward momentum. So, if the ship
’
s going twenty miles an hour when you leave, you
’
re going twenty when you land. And if you leave at a hundred miles an hour,
”
he smiled,
“
you
’
re going to be smeared across something.
”

Mindy nodded, feeling a little more up to speed.

“
What if they're not just vacationers,
”
Stewart pondered aloud. An ominous silence fell over the table.

In that silence, Mindy noticed something. She noticed .
.
.
Stewart
. He seemed powerful and confident in a way she hadn
’
t realized before. She looked a little closer and saw that it was something more than confidence. There was something spectacular about him. It was .
.
. oh, no .
.
. it was attraction. She had developed a crush on him. Somewhere in the excitement it had happened. It happened before she could even detect it .
.
. somewhere in the midst of lying on that red-and-white blanket and watching him confiscate a spacecraft.

Mindy noticed Stewart looking back at her. Had she been staring? Had she given herself away? She hoped not. She tried to act nonchalant. She would have to rein it in.

Stewart
had
noticed. His favorite type of person was a person who was impressed with him. And his favorite type of girl was a girl who was crushing on him. He sensed Mindy was shaping up into that type of girl. He just needed to make sure she didn't take it too far. That could be bad for business. Mindy found it hard to hide in the silence, so she broke it.

“
If they
’
re not vacationers,
”
she asked,
“
what would they be?
”

Her plan worked. Stewart
’
s thoughts returned to the trespass.

“
I
’
m not sure,
”
he responded, as he swirled his tea a few more times.
“
Order me the chicken sandwich.
”
He slid out of the booth.
“
I
’
ll be back in a minute.
”

“
Mustard?
”
Web asked.

“
Yeah,
”
Stewart replied as he headed for the door, too preoccupied to actually hear the question.

Stewart crossed the parking lot and slipped into the passenger
’
s seat of the SUV, where he placed a call to a pleasant chap named George Roman. Stewart didn
’
t like to think of himself as having a boss
—
maybe just a friend who was farther up the ladder
—
nonetheless, that
’
s what George was, Stewart
’
s boss.

“
Gooood afternoon,
”
George said into the phone.

After a few pleasantries, Stewart explained the situation and officially requested authorization to take the trespasser to a remote facility for questioning. This would require a translator and additional security to be dispatched, and it required George
’
s approval.

“
You don
’
t have any proof that those were actually aliens that were dropped from the ship, though,
”
George observed, still making up his mind.

“
No, but we don
’
t have any evidence that they
’
re not.
”

George wasn
’
t fully convinced, and he knew he wasn
’
t going to be. Questioning by a field agent was not unheard of, but it was rare. The normal protocol would be to turn the trespasser over to a holding facility for a light slap on the wrist. George trusted Stewart, but he had learned to keep a tight rein on him.
“
I don
’
t want to send an interrogation team just to find out that the pilot tossed five bags of trash overboard in the middle of a cornfield.
”

“
The pilot was sedated,
”
Stewart argued.
“
There had to be someone else on that ship .
.
. someone who
’
s not
still
on that ship.
”

“
Okay,
”
George conceded.
“
You can do the interrogation .
.
. but this probably isn
’
t anything.
”

Stewart was George
’
s discovery
—
his apprentice. When George first happened across him, Stewart was a twenty-one-year-old kid, in college because his parents had paid for him to go. Stewart could have breezed through the textbooks, but that didn
’
t interest him. Past the walls of the school, in the wide-open expanses of the real world, that
’
s where Stewart wanted to be. He knew his life wasn
’
t going to take place in a pile of stale books. This attitude didn
’
t sit well with the university, and the professors dismissed Stewart as yet another lackadaisical underachiever.

When George visited the university to interview students for a handful of entry-level government assignments, he had the misfortune of forgetting his briefcase. On the elevator ride back down to retrieve it from his car, he had the fortune of meeting a slacker named Stewart. That short elevator ride would change both men
’
s lives forever and reshape Earth
’
s relationship with alien visitors.

Jin ran the tap in the kitchen sink, filling a glass he had found on the counter. It was Rusty Wallace in the number 2 car, and Jin set him next to the other collectable NASCAR drivers, all filled with water and sitting in a line. He dropped two drops from a silver bottle into each. Vaccination or not, no one was allowed to eat
anything
for the first eighteen hours after landing on a planet. Water was all that was allowed, and the drops helped with the body
’
s transition to the new environment. Without them, the water rumbled in the pit of the stomach, like spoiled fruit.

Jin took a sip from the Jeff Gordon glass and set it back on the counter. There was always a heavy, metallic twinge to that first sip
—
not from the water itself, but from the treatment. A metallic twinge was better than spoiled fruit though, and Jin knew this first hand, having experienced both. He gathered the other three glasses and headed upstairs.

Upstairs, Lyntic was looking through the drawers and closets for anything that might assist them on their mission. Jin appeared in the doorway and set a glass of water on the dresser for her. Lyntic looked up and nodded a polite
thank you
. He didn
’
t make it farther than a step out the door before she called him back.

“
I found those for you,
”
she said, pointing to three pairs of sunglasses on the dresser.
“
You should probably have some spares.
”
It wasn
’
t exactly a heartfelt gift. Concealing his eyes was a necessity. Jin nodded, but inside it felt like a knife to the heart. He knew it was necessary to the mission, but being reminded that he was different wasn
’
t pleasant. When someone pointed this out, he couldn
’
t help but feel accused of being like the family he left behind. But he was nothing like them.

Lyntic noticed the other glass of water in his hand.
“
Don
’
t bother Dexim while he
’
s thinking.
”

“
I know.
”
Jin nodded and disappeared into the hall.

As Lyntic continued her search, she found something very useful under the bed: a duffle bag. It was blue and white, with a large blue horseshoe emblem on one side, just above the words
Indianapolis Colts
. She remembered them being a football team, and she thought they had won the Super Bowl. She was right. This bag was a suitable replacement for the nawmas bag. Mission protocol dictated that the alien bag must be destroyed, so Lyntic had filled it with charcoal briquettes, placed it on the grill in the backyard, and set it ablaze.

Across the hall, Jin headed to the bathroom where Tobi was soaking.

“
Thirsty?
”
Jin asked.

“
Yeah, thanks,
”
Tobi said.

“
Try it before you thank me.
”

“
Oh, right.
”
Tobi cringed, remembering the treatment.

Jin set the Jimmy Johnson glass on the edge of the tub, within Tobi
’
s reach.
“
I
’
d wait as long as you can before drinking that, in case it doesn
’
t sit well with the vaccine.
”

Downstairs, Dexim stood in the center of the living room, studying the supplies sprawled out over the furniture
—
a medical bag in the cloth chair, communication devices on the coffee table, and field rations spread across the couch. Dexim didn
’
t fly by the seat of his pants. He organized a mental playbook that accounted for every possibility. Long before they entered the Earth
’
s atmosphere, Dexim had visualized the possibility of the ship being confiscated
—
not because it was likely, but because he was obsessed with getting into all the nooks and crannies of possibility. He had a gift for picturing his way into and out of every problem.

What if she
’
s not out there
?
What if someone else found her already
? He didn
’
t have the answer, and neither did Dale Earnhardt. He hadn
’
t even noticed when Jin slipped the glass onto the table. He picked it up and got the first gulp over with.

A modern wooden cabin rested on the edge of a secluded lake, nestled in a thick, green forest, as if a postcard had come to life. It was called Stone Ridge Cabin
—
the last place on Earth one would expect a government interrogation to be taking place.

Inside the cabin, Denokin was coming to terms with the fact that he had been arrested
—
abducted from his own ship, no less. He sat across a table from Agent Lawrence. Both men had a cup of coffee in front of them. Denokin scratched his nail across an imperfection in the cup
’
s handle, as he listened to the earthling in the business suit churn out polished alien sentences.

Denokin
’
s thoughts flashed back to the orders he had received just twenty hours ago from his regional supervisor. He was to pick up four passengers and drop them on Earth, and he would be paid well to sit and wait for their return. There was nothing unusual about that, except the urgency of it and the amount of the pay.

Denokin was a transporter, shuttling tourists and business travelers from space stations to foreign planets and back again. He had worked all over the galaxy, but for the past four years, he had been doing mostly Earth. So, he knew the rules associated with making drops on Earth. There were certain times and places that ships were allowed to land, and abductions were NEVER allowed. Denokin knew he was breaking these rules. But he also knew the money made it worth the risk.

Since Denokin never left the ship during these drops, there was no need for him to speak English. The few sayings he had picked up were not enough to maintain a conversation. Fortunately, Agent Lawrence was a proficient translator. Denokin wouldn
’
t need to try to recall any of his English phrases.

Agent Lawrence was one of a long line of agents that Stewart would happen across. While these agents always knew Stewart, whose reputation had a way of preceding him, Stewart never knew any of the agents until their names were whispered into his ear by some helpful assistant. Agent Lawrence
’
s face was weathered and old. Other than that, he was all suit.