Both were beautiful, but Corin had chosen a petite, almost boyish frame and she had short, dark red spiky hair that set her apart from most of the other women who'd chosen a more traditional look. Satza was just the opposite of Corinâa voluptuous earth mother if he could call her that, with thick brown hair falling in loose curls to her waist and brilliant blue eyes. Satza picked up the tote and cradled it in her arms.
Corin placed a restraining hand on Mac's arm when he automatically reached for the tote. “We have our soulstones and our energy is strong. Let us take Zianne. We can give her a continuous feed, keep the flow of energy constant so that her system isn't jolted with too much at once. I think it will help her keep this form longer, at least until she has her own soulstone once again.”
Mac raised his head and looked into Corin's dark brown eyes. After a moment, he nodded, but it killed him to step away. He hated giving up control, turning Zianne over to someone he didn't know, but they knew her even better than he could. They'd been with her for her entire life. “Do you need a quiet room? Someplace where you can rest?”
Staring at the small creature in the bag in her arms, Satza nodded. “That would be wonderful.” She sighed. “This is all so difficultâcoming to this new world, not knowing if the rest of us will survive, how this will end. As beings of energy, we don't actually eat or sleep, but this body requires food and rest.” She shook her head and her blue eyes glistened with tears. “Corin and I were among the last to visit because we were afraid.”
Corin leaned against Satza's arm, staring at Zianne. “I don't know about you, Satza, but I am still afraid. At least, under the Gar, we knew what to expect. It was horrible, but we learned to cope, to wall off our feelings. Here . . .” She stopped and glanced around the large dining room. “We have no idea what to expect, what our welcome will be.”
Satza shook her head. “Our work for the Gar was wrong, no matter that we were captives. We know it was wrong, but we lied to ourselves, to one another. We told ourselves that our world was gone, that we didn't care what happened to others.”
“But we do care,” Corin said. “I hope Nyria will find it in her heart to forgive us.” She straightened and looked directly at Mac. “If you have a quiet room, we would like to take Zianne there. We'll lie down on either side of her and let our energy drift over the squirrel's body. It's a slow and easy way to share. I promise we will do only good.”
Mac nodded and led the two women toward the stairs. The lodge had been the first building, designed with rooms for the workers who stayed on site while the rest of the buildings were under construction and the satellite dishes assembled. There was more than enough room for all the Nyrians, as long as they didn't mind sharing.
He opened the door on a room down the hall from his. It had a single large bed, a bathroom, and closet, but not much else. “Will this be okay?”
The women walked in, wide-eyed. “It's beautiful. So big. And look!” Corin rushed to the window and lifted the shades. Mac stepped up and showed her how to raise them. “We can see outside. Look, Satza. Mountains and trees . . .”
“And blue sky and sunshine. I remember sunshine on Nyria. And growing plants.” Satza let out a huge sigh. “So long ago. Leave the shades open, Corin. We can look outside from the bed.”
She set Zianne's tote down in the middle of the king-sized bed and lay down beside her. Corin slowly pulled herself away from the window and stretched out on the opposite side.
Mac quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. He hadn't really thought much about what the Nyrians were going through. He'd been so caught up in worry about Zianne, about Finn and Morgan, and the idiots trying to come through the fence that he'd essentially put the Nyrians and their personal issues out of his mind. They had every right to be terrified. What did they know of this new world they'd suddenly aligned themselves with?
He heard his cell phone ring and slapped his back pocket. Shit. The damned thing was still in his room on the charger. He did a quick one-eighty and reached his door, threw it open, and grabbed the phone off the charger on the bedside table.
The number was blocked. He answered anyway. “Mac Dugan here. General Adams?” Now why the hell was the Pentagon calling him? Last time they'd spoken, he'd essentially been not too politely shown the door.
But as he listened to the general, Mac realized that if he'd been a lesser man, he might actually be smiling. But he wasn't. He couldn't, because it appeared the Gar's ship had been spotted by more than one amateur astronomer, and the shit had already hit the fan. By the time he hung up the phone, neither Mac nor the general were entirely satisfied with the result of their conversation.
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“Dink? How long before you can get a news crew up here?” Mac planted his palms on the table and focused on his ace in the hole. If anyone could take this public and do it right, it was Nils Dinkemann.
“It'll take a few hours to get a full crew. Sacramento's got a chopper and everything we need. What's happened?”
“I just heard from the Pentagon. They've finally decided I'm not nuts after all. I haven't had the news on or even been online, but it appears that more than one amateur astronomer has spotted the Gar ship. They've just come around the far side of the moon and the ship is hugeâbig enough that stations all over the world are running some pretty clear pictures.”
“Holy shit.” Dink was up and heading for the flat-screen TV on the dining room wall, but Rodie was already there, turning the thing on and finding a twenty-four-hour news channel.
“I'll be damned.” Mac stared at the grainy image on the screen. The distance was so great that the photos lacked a lot of definition, but there was no denying they were looking at some kind of vessel, that it was obviously directed by sentient creatures, and that the cat was, quite literally, out of the bag.
“What's the Pentagon's take? Have you heard from the secretary of defense or the White House?” Dink stared at the screen as he fired questions at Mac.
“Not yet. Just the general so far. He says the first reaction from the population as a whole is that it's real exciting stuffâa chance to meet some authentic aliens. People with SETI are over the moon, but I told General Adams that it isn't quite like that. I also told him exactly what we know and what the threat is, that we're planning a counterattack with the Nyrians' help, though I didn't give him the details. He's going to check in with the secretary of defense and the president and get back to me, but essentially he wants us ready to go public with the Nyrians' plight, the planned rescue, the whole thing. Too many people know about the ship to keep it secret.”
“He's leaving us in charge?” Dink turned away from the screen and frowned at Mac. “You're telling me that General Arthur Alfonse Adams, the same guy who told you that you needed a good psychiatrist, is now turning the defense of the entire world over to you?”
Mac chuckled. “I think he's in shock, especially since everything is happening exactly as I said it would. I explained that the attack has to come tonight or we're screwed, that if we wait, the ship will be too close to Earth's atmosphere to blow the thing without a whole lot of collateral damage. Now that he's seen how big the sucker is, he's inclined to believe me.”
“Any chance of them getting some troops here to stop your neighbor? Bane checked in while you were gone and said they appear to be gathering on the downside of the plateau. He needs to know if you want him to stop them.”
Mac shook his head. “Not until they trespass. We go after them on Bart Roberts's property and we're screwed.”
“Even now, with the government involved? Don't you think they'd want you to do everything in your power to secure a successful mission?” Dink turned and stared at Mac with one eyebrow cocked, just the way he'd perfected it for the camera. “We're talking about an attack on the world, Mac, not merely something that's got a group of religious nuts up in arms.” He frowned. “You sure the religious angle is all that's behind them?”
Mac shook his head. He hadn't believed that for quite some time, and definitely not anymore. “Not after the research Morgan didâthe religious protest is just a cover. Morgan did some poking around the Internet and discovered that Bart Roberts, the guy who's spearheading all the protests, was Patrick Randle's brother. Randle's the guy who almost gutted you that night in '92. Bart must have seen Zianne turn into energy when she dragged Randle out of my apartment and tossed him over the balcony. Not only did she kill his brother, she turned into something impossible in order to do it. I think he's after Zianne, whether to avenge his brother's death or because he figures she's an alien and he's totally xenophobic. For whatever reason, he's been planning this for twenty years.”
“Well that certainly changes things. Have you thought of calling the Pentagon back, requesting a little help here?” Dink ran his fingers through his hair before leveling a sharp eye on Mac. “Where the hell is the sheriff? Didn't he agree to provide air support?”
“He did, Dink. I'll check.” Mac dialed the number for the sheriff's cell and left a message. “No answer. And as far as the government stepping in to help, there's really no provision for getting troops up here. No proof of wrongdoing. Nothing but the word of a guy who was labeled a crackpot not more than a few weeks ago. Adams might believe me, but he's really the only one I've ever confided any of this story to. He's going to have a hell of a job convincing the Department of Defense and the president that I've gone from being a total nutcase to actually knowing what I'm talking about.”
“So you want me to take it public, get the people behind us?”
Mac nodded. “Pretty much. I thought we'd have more time, that once we made contact, we'd have months, or at the very least, weeks, not hours, to figure out how to deal with freeing the Nyrians. I knew the Gar were dangerous, but Zianne said they were also very systematic in their process of stripping planets. Meticulous about determining risk. Sometimes they'd spend years studying a planet before actually siphoning off the atmosphere and then going for other resources. They've only been here a few months.”
“Maybe it's been a long time since they've found a planet worth plundering,” Dink said. “Could be they're growing short of stuff they need to keep their ship alive.”
“Could be. You might want to talk to more of the Nyrians, get as much background as you can so you're ready when the news crew shows up. We have to break this in such a way that there is absolutely no sympathy for the Gar.”
Dink folded his arms across his chest. “That shouldn't be all that difficult. How do you sympathize with a race of beings intent on the destruction or enslavement of everyone else they meet?”
“Good point.” Mac glanced around the dining hall. Liz and two women whose names Mac hadn't caught sat by the window. Rodie had taken a seat near them. “Rodie? Where is everyone?”
“Cam's got Mir and Niah resting in his cabin. He's down at the fence line with Bane and his guys and Ralph and the security team. I just got all five of Morgan's women settled in a couple of the extra rooms upstairs. Tara's with Morgan, Finn, Bolt, and Duran. She's helping the guys with their disassembling. Disincorporating. Whatever.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “I can't watch. It scares the crap out of me, thinking something could go wrong.”
“I know.” Mac glanced at Dink. “Okay. Here's what we need to do. See if you can get a news crew up here ASAP. Promise them an exclusive, and let 'em know we've got aliens here willing to help us fight the ship that's headed our way. Rodie, how were Morgan and Finn doing with their . . . shit. I hate to even say disassembling or disincorporating. It just sounds bad.”
She gave him a thumbs-up and he nodded.
“Good. Dink, why don't you start with Liz's two women, find out anything they can tell you, especially anything that makes them look even more sympathetic. Maybe you can use Cam's paintings to illustrate things.”
“Like the destruction of the Nyrian's planet? What turned Mars into a dead, red planet? Gotcha.”
“I knew you would. Publicity is all yours. I'm going down to the fence line to see how things are looking. I think it's about time we tell Meg and Ralph and the rest of the crew exactly what they've gotten themselves into.” He glanced at the big double doors to the kitchen. “Meg first.”
Dink reached for the phone as Mac spun around and headed for the kitchen. Meg was in there, frying up chicken for tonight's dinner. She raised her head and stared at him, and he wished he knew what she was thinking. He'd always liked Meg. She and Ralph were close to retirement ageâin their early sixtiesâbut both of them had way too much energy and drive to sit back and watch the world go by.
Using tongs, Meg lifted a perfectly browned chicken thigh out of the pan of hot grease and carefully added more pieces. Once it was filled, she raised her head and focused on Mac. “I hope you're going to tell me what's going on up here, Mac Dugan.” She wiped her hands on a towel and planted them on her hips. “I've tried really hard not to ask questions, but all of a sudden we've got a huge crowd of people who just appeared out of nowhere. People who don't seem to know a lot of things a normal person would know.”