As he walked from the lodge to the dream shack, Mac felt as if his head were ready to explode. Talk about an understatement. So much had happened in the past two days, he needed a spreadsheet to keep track.
Even worse, the sense of impending danger was growing, and Zianne was running out of time. He paused at the door and knocked, then stuck his head inside the shack. “G’morn-ing, Liz.”
She glanced up from her chair with a dreamy smile on her face. Her eyes went wide and then focused. “Mac!” Laughing, she slipped the mesh cap off her hair. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. What’s up?”
“I want you to come over to the lodge. We’re having a meeting this morning, and I’d like to have everyone there.” He leaned over and scooped up the bag with Zianne. The squirrel slept soundly and barely stirred when he slipped the strap over his shoulder. “Did you have a chance to connect with anyone?”
“I did, though they’re quick to tell me it’s harder during daylight. I don’t know the guy’s name, but he came ...” She chuckled as she shoved herself out of the chair. “In more ways than one, I might add. At least he was able to load Zianne up with energy. I think they get it from us and share it with her.”
“Good. Now let’s hope she’ll wake up.” He held the door open for Lizzie. She stopped and stared at the squirrel.
“Finn told me that’s Zianne, that she’s in the squirrel.” Lizzie glanced in the tote as she walked past Mac. “As hard as it is to believe, it makes sense. I was positive she was totally aware of what I said to her. Now I know why.”
“You’ll know a lot more in a few minutes, I hope.”
When they stepped inside the main room at the lodge, Cam was at the table with a cup of coffee, already looking wired. Finn was awake and filling a cup for himself. Mac poured coffee for Lizzie and topped his off. Everyone took a seat.
He set the tote bag on the table and sat there, just staring at the sleeping squirrel inside. His heart was so full, his mind spinning, and he couldn’t stop thinking of last night, of Zianne in his arms. Had that been their last night together?
He couldn’t think that way. Refused to be that pessimistic. A pessimist wouldn’t have spent twenty years and millions of dollars building the array. That wasn’t the way he worked, so he carefully stroked the squirrel awake and then plucked her out of the bag. When he set her on the table in front of him, she stretched and yawned, stared at Mac and chattered.
It was hard to feel depressed with a cute little squirrel chattering in your face. Raising his head, Mac glanced around him at the now familiar faces, at men and women he saw as closer friends than people he’d known for years. They watched him, some more alert than others. He could certainly excuse Cam and Finn, though they actually seemed pretty alert, considering they’d gone without sleep for much of the night.
Morgan and Rodie, too, if the satisfaction they wore like a cloak of contentment was any indication. Smiling to himself, Mac ran his fingers over the squirrel’s head and back. She closed her eyes and shivered with pleasure.
He knew exactly how she felt. Damn, how he wished Zianne was touching him right now. He’d waited so long, and last night had barely been enough to tease him. He would always want more of her. Always.
Zianne? Sweetheart, do you have the energy to shift?
The squirrel turned and faced him. It was so weird, to see Zianne’s intelligence in the creature’s eyes.
For a brief time. If they see me, this project might feel more personal, more real to them, but I cannot hold the form for long. I’m afraid. I grow weaker, Mac. Soon my people’s energy will not be enough to keep me alive, no matter how much they share.
Stay with me, Zianne. We’ll make this work. Every one of my team has a stake in your survival.
I hope so. Ankar shared power with me this morning. He said the Gar are definitely making plans to move against this world. Right now they’re testing Earth’s defenses. We both know they’ll discover there are none that can stop them. We may not have much time.
Nodding, Mac took one more swallow of coffee before setting the cup aside and addressing his team members. “Good morning, and thanks for coming on such short notice. I know it may be a bit hard to believe, but this is only our third day here. Everyone’s had at least a couple of shifts. I know all of you have made contact with Nyrians in one form or another.”
“Or multiple forms,” Finn added drily.
The rest of them laughed, but Mac nodded in agreement. “Multiple partners, at least.” He chuckled softly. “That confirms my info on each of you, that you’re sexually adventurous. Remember everything that happens begins with your imagination.”
Kiera took a sip of her coffee and stared at him over the top of her cup. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not when she added, “Adventurous or at least willing to be surprised. In my case, my imagination was not talking to my conscious brain. I’ll swear to that.”
Obviously, Kiera was still coming to terms with her fantasy. “Too true. Okay. Here’s what I’ve got. After talking with all of you following your extraterrestrial visits, we’re learning more.” He held up a finger to make each point. “Nyrians need your initial fantasy to give them a strong visual. That, coupled with your mental strength, gives them something to lock onto and a form to take. The powerful signal coming through the satellite array is their actual conduit to the site.”
He held up a second finger. “Once they have that visual and the corporeal form they can create from it, they’re able to tweak as they wish by using your memories. Finn explained that to me this morning, that his visitors told him they were composites of people he remembered. That’s why they don’t look like anyone you actually know. They’re combining multiple faces and bodies and creating their own unique looks.”
A third finger. “They only need that visual once to give them shape. Once they have it, they’re able to take that particular form whenever they wish. It is, in essence, the person they’ve become, though the actual personality you see is all theirs—who they are in their natural state.”
Lizzie frowned and raised her hand. “Does that mean that once they’ve created a body, they don’t need us anymore?”
“Not to take on that form, no. It’s theirs. But without their soulstones, they can’t come here without our energy calling them from the ship. Once here, they can’t stay indefinitely, because they need the stones to stay alive.”
“But if they had their soulstones?”
Cam had been really quiet since he’d arrived, but now, when Mac turned in response to his question, he noticed the excitement in Cam’s eyes, the almost zealous fervor that had the young artist leaning forward, focusing all his attention not on Mac but on the squirrel.
On Zianne.
“If they are here, on this planet, in human form with their soulstones in place, theoretically they could stay forever. That’s what I’m hoping will happen, though I haven’t asked Zianne if Nyrians lose their immortality once they take on human form. I do know that they could live among us as humans and no one would be able to tell they were anything but what they appeared. Zianne told me they even replicate human DNA.”
“Do we know how many Nyrians there are?” Rodie was watching the squirrel as she asked, but she was smiling. Mac needed to tell her, privately, that so far she was Zianne’s favorite. Sharing muffins had gone a long way with his woman.
“Rodie, I think I’ll defer to the expert on that. Zianne? Are you sure you have enough energy to shift?”
The squirrel nodded and then began to waver, to stretch and glow, as Zianne pulled herself free of the tiny beast. As a column of energy rose glowing and crackling above the table and moved to a spot next to Mac’s chair, the squirrel yawned, crawled back into Rodie’s tote bag, curled up, and closed her eyes.
Zianne took form, standing beside Mac. Her scent enveloped him, and a wave of longing almost left him gasping in pain. He steeled himself, wrapped his emotions deep inside, and casually looped an arm around her waist. He could do this. He had to.
The room had grown absolutely silent, all eyes on Zianne.
“I have not met all of you.” Zianne’s soft voice with the sexy accent sent shivers along his spine. Mac tightened his arm around her. She glanced down at him, nodded briefly, and focused once more on his dream team.
“But I feel as if I know each of you. My fellow Nyrians and I are your greatest fans. Though we are creatures of energy, the energy you so freely share is unlike anything my people have ever experienced.”
She glanced at Mac and grinned. “From the time I spent with Mac in California, I’ve learned a few nuances of your language. I would compare your energy to fine wine, when what we usually find to empower us is more like really cheap beer.”
She got the laugh, but then she sighed. “To answer your question, Rodie, there are very few Nyrians left. Before the Gar destroyed our world, there were many millions of us, but it was a relatively small delegation that went aboard the Gar ship—a couple hundred of us. After witnessing the death of our world, facing eternity as slaves, most chose disincorporation, or death. They elected not go on, knowing our world was gone.
“Right now there are only twenty-seven Nyrians aboard the ship. I am the twenty-eighth, but without access to my soulstone, I will not live much longer. I may not be among those who are saved, if you are successful, but now there are but twenty-eight left of a once proud and numerous race of Nyrians.”
A long silence met her comment. Mac saw shock, dismay, and even tears as Zianne’s words registered. So few of them survived!
Finally, Finn broke in. “How many does it take to power the Gar ship at any given time? What’s the minimum number that can run everything? And what, exactly, do you control?” Finn seemed to be running figures in that convoluted mind of his.
“We run everything—the engines, life support, and all onboard technology—with fewer than a quarter of our number, about five providing power at any one time, though we now work two shifts of fourteen to confuse the Gar. That’s how I was able to sneak away from the ship to meet with Mac, and how those you’ve met have been able to come here. We avoid appearing as individuals so the Gar can’t tell how many of us exist.”
“Are you ever all in the same place at the same time?”
She sighed. “Yes, but only without our soulstones. All of us are required to power the planet-stripping mechanisms that steal resources from other worlds—it takes a lot of energy to strip the water and minerals, even the atmosphere.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence as they considered the implications of an alien force stripping Earth of everything.
Lizzie let out a deep breath. Mac noticed her hands were clenched into fists, and her focus was one hundred percent on Zianne. “What will happen if all of you suddenly leave the ship at once?” Lizzie glanced at the others. “Do they have a backup system in the event you escape?”
Zianne shook her head. “Not now. They must have, before we were enslaved, but we’ve powered their ship for millennia, through many generations of Gar. They are not as long-lived as Nyrians, so the population we now serve has never known anything beyond life on a ship powered by slaves. Our hope was that they had grown lax in their security.”
She sighed. “Unfortunately, their discovery that I’d been leaving the ship during my shift was a wake-up call to them. Those I’ve talked to say the Gar have tightened their hold on us and watch us much closer than before. They have no idea how many Nyrians there are, and don’t realize that they’ve reached the minimum number needed to run the ship. They know we can’t be replaced. We have never found others like us.”
“Shouldn’t they be able to tell by the number of soulstones they keep locked up?” Finn glanced at the others. “I’m picturing a tray of diamonds that would be easy to count.”
“The soulstones shimmer with angry energy when they’re stored. The Gar can’t look directly at them. The stones don’t like to be parted from us, so the Gar see nothing but a fiery glow they can’t touch. The energy would kill them.”
“How is the exchange made?”
“The ones recharging deposit their stones and go to the engine room to relieve the Nyrians on duty, who then retrieve their soulstones. There is a time when all are without the stones. Never a time when we all have them.”
“Damn.” Finn tapped his fingers on the table in a frustrated staccato. “I was hoping we could make the rescue during a shift change. So, how do they take them from you?”
Zianne bowed her head. “We give them up. Freely. It was done in the beginning when we feared for the lives of our people. We thought that by giving up our souls and promising to serve the Gar, they would spare our world.”
“But they didn’t, did they?”
Cam’s soft question seemed to rob Zianne of speech. Silently, she shook her head.
“Zianne, I think I know a way that we can free your people, with their soulstones.” Cam stood and walked around to the end of the long trestle table. He held up a canvas, but this wasn’t one of his fantastic paintings of other worlds.
Mac stared at the drawing, mostly done in charcoal and what looked like colored pens or even watercolor. Not Cam’s usual medium or subject. “What is that?” He got up and stood in front of the art with Zianne close beside him.
“It’s a schematic, drawn to scale, of the lower level of the ship.” Zianne studied it and then raised her head to stare, wide-eyed, at Cam. “Cameron! This is perfect. How did you do this?”
“While the rest of these twerps were indulging in fantasy sex with Nyrians, I was talking to one of the elders.” He grinned at Zianne. “He’s fascinating. Told me so much about your people and your world.”
“You must have met Nattoch. He’s our leader, and the eldest among us all.”
“That’s the guy. I like him.” Cam nodded as he tugged a long-handled paintbrush from his back pocket to use as a pointer. “So here’s what I’ve got. This is the engine room where the Nyrians work. They send power to the entire ship—all the life-support systems as well as the engines that keep everything going, even the barracks where the Nyrians not on duty spend time recharging. Everything we’re interested in is on this level.”