Chapters 1 through 3 from the book Silver Sphere Sightings
In this city I waste one life
days of endless stress and strife
a lonely man
a loner, man
surviving in this concrete land
I had no one—no babe, no wife
just dreams that came to twist the knife...
—AJR “When I Stumble (In My Dreams)”
1
Mother was an exceptionally lovely and delicate creature. At twenty years of age she stood just a shade over five
feet tall, a willowy little thing with long, wavy locks of pale sunshine cascading just past her shoulder blades, and large, wide-spaced eyes in some rich tropical tint of azure blue. She knelt contentedly in the soft green grass by the water's edge, nimble fingers pinning oak leaves together into a little wreath. Without pause in her work she called gently to me in that rich accent I loved from so long ago. I ran to her willingly and submitted to her fussing and giggles as she held the circlet over my head, trying to nestle it snugly over my own pale yellow hair as a wild woodland crown. Somewhere behind her David shrieked happily and splashed where he was not supposed to be. I turned my head enough to see my father wade into the shallow, slow moving river after him. Dad was a slender, but broad-shouldered man with a blue-shadowed, chiseled face and sunken eyes which could stare cruelly or grow dim when he was lost in deep thought. He was stronger than he looked, and he plucked the sopping child from the water with a single arm and tucked the boy close to his side so he wouldn't drop the laughing, wriggling thing. I glanced back to find myself alone on the grassy bank. Mother was as quick and silent as a doe sometimes and could startle me with her uncanny knack of suddenly appearing and just as easily vanishing without a sound.
She'd left me for the picnic blanket we'd spread beneath a sapling willow tree. As I neared, I could hear her
humming some Old World tune as she turned each plate over to wipe against the grass and thoroughly shook
droplets of lemonade from each dime store glass before carefully putting them away in their birch bark basket lined with checkered cotton. “Sandy!” called my brother excitedly, distracting me. “Come see! Come see!” David had obviously discovered something of monumental importance to a three year old over by a rotting, fallen log at the water's edge. I was turning towards him when I heard my mother mutter, “Getting chilly....” I hesitated, waiting for her to try and coax me into my lightweight jacket. She reached for her own pale mint green sweater, but sat still with it in her hands, frozen, contemplating the warm pinkish glow of the late afternoon sky just over the gently swaying treetops. “San-deee!” David warbled, squealing when something small leapt free of his muddy hands and splashed him. I took off on little legs and ran excitedly toward my father and younger brother.
Dad's look was strange as he glanced my way. I slowed, unnerved by his demeanor, never having seen him look
quite that way before. Why was he staring at me? Had I done something wrong? Even David quieted and stared up
at our father, too, confused. He looked my way and his dark eyes grew huge. The wind picked up. Something light and scratchy suddenly had me by the neck and I barked out in fear, thinking it was some huge spider or beetle. An
end fluttered up in front of my face and I saw it was the satiny blue ribbon from mom's long hair. The wind had set
it free and it had found me. Clutching the fabric scrap, I turned and finally saw what was so mesmerizing, so
terrifying, that it had each of us rooted to the spot. It nearly filled the sky, mimicking the tree-tops, the ribbon of water, the red and white checks of the picnic blanket, reflecting us all along it's silvery, shimmery, liquidy side. A gigantic sphere. A great drop of molten metal or mercury, falling slowly, drifting downward, trailing steamy purple mists which swirled and lingered, then tattered like tobacco smoke. Mom was closest to it and she stood still,
seemingly unafraid, facing the strange anomaly in the sky. A stripe of vivid yellow bled along its side, oozed down
in a sheet which enveloped her, making her glow with a radiant light. She twisted, turning in the wind like a
marionette as she rose slowly, floating gently like a dandelion seed. As she turned, she lifted her arms out from her
sides and smiled sweetly down upon us. Into brightness like the sun she vanished and the thing in the sky quickly healed its yellow wound. For a moment all we saw were the remaining three of us, warped across its silvery side, hovering up there on a patch of grass in an upside down sky. Then the bubble zipped off beyond the tree tops,
trailing a roiling plume of quickly fading mauve, blowing the blue ribbon free of my tiny hand.
2
I sprang upright, gasping, strange pressure on my ribcage, the weight of the memory still heavy in my mind. Jesus, it had felt like I'd really been there...which, of course, I had. But that had been so many years ago...thirty eight years distant, when I'd been five and my mother had been abducted by aliens of unknown origin. Dad had driven himself crazy begging and pleading with the local authorities to do something, but with only three eye-witnesses and no known alien vessels bearing that particular description, there really wasn't anything that could have been done. ArtReal was still in its infancy, and they hadn't even thought up StarNet yet, so Karina Rukavishnikov remained lost to us forever, reappearing only in our dreams.
Why did I still have nightmares about it after such a long time? Why did each one seem so much clearer to me, the details so vivid, the old memory enhanced? The intermittent sweet scent of wild honeysuckle growing somewhere in the shadowy forest...the gentle sound of the little waterfall not far from where we'd lunched...a constant, high-pitched sizzle of cicadas in the tall, swaying pines...hazy clouds of newly hatched midge flies drifting just above the surface of the water...playing over and over...the same scenario each time...with no way to
alter the outcome....
ArtReal is short for Artificial Realities—the nice people you may have heard of who can allegedly make your
dreams come true . StarNet is their policing division, trying hard to maintain peace and order between the native and visiting alien species. Back in the nineteen forties, when my parents were preparing for their big Atlantic crossing, a World War II flying ace named Walter Neville was busy trying to convince the American government that with the proper staff and funding, he could create a perfect soldier. He theorized that by putting a subject under a light sleep state using hypnagogic suggestion, he could make a wakeful person believe he possessed all of the same suprahuman abilities he possessed within his dreams to the point of actualized manifestation in the
conscious realm. It was all a matter of the subject's intensity of belief, he'd claimed, citing the amazing feats of
mesmerists and hypnotists he'd seen at performances over in France. At first this elicited some mild, but genuine
interest, but it was quickly forgotten when the first true otherworld alien specie made itself known here on Earth.
The Librans, as we came to call them, were generally tall and spidery humanoids with ambiguous external
gender. They seemed to be a peaceful race interested in observing our various cultures first hand and sharing their own knowledge and technologies with us. And while this was all fascinating and even a boon to our country in particular, poor Walt Neville went home and continued to dream about his own superior breed of never before seen entities.
Neville's father, a retired police captain, had faith in his son, and sold their family home to give him the
money he needed to begin work on his first Super Soldiers. Walt figured if he could show up with one of his
creations in tow, somebody high up might be willing to finally pay him some mind.
He worked diligently with several subjects, including a dimwitted distant cousin of his, an injured vet he'd
flown missions with, and a terminally ill neighbor who figured he had nothing left to lose. It turned out to be a
homeless man seeking shelter from a harsh winter's night who unwittingly became the very first Soldier X. Walt
had convinced some old Army buddies of his, two local college professors, and an amateur traveling mesmerist to
assist him in his folly, and they had all been astounded by the results. When the man was made unconscious, the
proper suggestions made, and a monitored electrical stimulus applied, a vaporous, man-shaped phantasm arose
from the old beggar's chest, spent a moment taking in the scene before it, hopped silently down from the table, took three steps toward them, then dissipated like so much fog in a good wind. The man on the table continued to exist in a sort of coma for another three hours before expiring, yet the experimenters were ecstatic. After another three years' worth of developing a target profile for potential candidates, finding a system which produced replicable results, and documenting everything possible via every available means, Walt Neville walked into a second meeting with the same handful of men he had met once before, introduced them to Soldier X-24, then stepped back and grinned. His experiment moved like a zombie, talked like an idiot, was transparent as a ghost, but could float about the room as light as ether, pass effortlessly through solid objects, and alter its own size from double to half.
Within twenty minutes the entity had simply ceased to exist any longer, but Walt left with a hefty grant and a
promise of a fully staffed laboratory.
I don't think of it as a truly scientific laboratory now, and they've renamed the zombie-ghosts
Quasars—short for quasi-realities. They can sometimes achieve a lifespan of an astounding three weeks, and their
range of abilities is quite simply amazing. It was Walt's dad who came up with the idea of pairing the Quasars with specially trained para-militant officers to deal with the sudden influx of alien races to Earth. Some of the following species were so ugly, so strange and foreign to most of us that many feared to go anywhere near them. The Quasars feared no one. Would you be afraid of a ten foot tall fanged and clawed sentient predator from deep space if you could just fly away from it, pass through walls, or turn invisible at will? I thought I was joining the policing group, StarNet, when I was referred to the company sixteen years ago, but they put me on the Quasar Force instead.
Now I wanted out.
When the phone rang, I jolted again. Such a big, quiet, empty house made even more lonely by such a shrill
and demanding sound. I scowled as it rang, feeling around on the carpet beneath the edge of the bed for the thing.
“Hello?” I blurted into the television remote. “Damn.” I chucked it toward the foot of the bed and leaned perilously
over the edge of the mattress again until I discovered another palm-sized length of plastic. “Whatizzit?”
Female voice, sounded like she'd been up for hours. “That's no way to answer the telephone.”
“Just woke up. Had a nightmare."
“Poor baby. Hasn't hadems coffee yet.”
“No. What do you want, Dian?”
She said, “You're being called in for duty, Officer.”
“Me? I'm on sick leave. Got a doctor's note.”
“Says here you are to report for work immediately.”
“I've got the flu!”
“Don't we all? Get your butt in here, Alex—sounds important.”
I confessed, “I handed in my resignation! Nobody'd hand me a case right now!”
“I'm just relaying what I've been told, hon.”
“Goddamnit!”
“Calm down, honey. Get some coffee. Grab a doughnut.”
I asked her, “Will you have coffee for me when I get there?”
“Can do, mister. Now get movin’!”
The reflection in the wide mirror over my dresser showed a big hairy man in his late thirties, honey-brown hair styled by a sweat-soaked nightmare, tired deep blue eyes nearly obscured by a thick fringe of lashes as he
squinted his anger beneath a downward pointing arrow of bushy brow. I allowed the small portable to drop from my lax fingers to the plush white carpeting. My loud sigh faintly echoed through the sparsely decorated room. My watch told me it was only four hours later than when I'd last looked at it. A shower, I decided. Shave, dress, grab a quick bite of something microwaveable at the convenience store on my way into town...nah. Scratch that. There was a shirt draped over the white chair by the west window, pants on the floor beside it. A quick hit of deodorant,
run downstairs, grab the coat, the hat, my keys, and get there while my rotten attitude was still intact.
It turned out to be an unusually chilly day here in August in Manhattan. No breeze, but cold rain spattered the concrete, turning it a browner shade of grey. The guard at the gate ignored me, so familiar with my vehicle was he. I pulled into the semi-crowded lot and parked right in front of the main south entrance, heedless of the painted
yellow striping warning me to leave my car elsewhere. I raised the door, extended a leg, put a nice new Italian
wingtip into a large wad of discarded purple gum. My attitude sparked and flared. This had better be damned good,
I thought.
Dian saw me coming, partially dragging one foot behind me in an effort to scrape most of the gum off, and quickly set a dark blue company mug full of steaming joe up on her countertop. “Thanks,” I mumbled, bending to check the bottom of my shoe.
“We have danish this morning,” the receptionist offered, smiling.
“Not today, sweets.”
“Cheese danish,” she tried knowingly.
I drained the java in a few gulps, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, plunked the empty mug back on the counter in front of her, and headed up the empty hallway.
I had resigned from the Force for a couple of reasons. One, I'm a xenophobe. Can't stomach aliens. Maybe
it's because I lost my mother to entities from space, or maybe it's just all the trouble I've endured dealing with the numerous species who've dropped by the planet since this place was founded so long ago...take your pick. They say prejudice is just hating the many because of the few. I haven't yet found an alien I can remotely tolerate, so I don't consider myself prejudiced; I hate all aliens equally.
There was an odd low humming or maybe a buzzing sound emanating from the general direction I was headed in. What had I been called in here to deal with today? Had we encountered some new specie? I'm an expert with linguistics, so that was certainly a plausible explanation. Humming. Buzzing. Perhaps it was some insectile being...huge.... In my imagination the empty grey tile corridors became the cold interior of some alien spacefaring ship. I crept along terrified, awaiting the imminent vision of the gigantic, six or eight legged, multi-eyed, hook fanged, barb clawed, scorpion-tailed thing.... My breathing grew shallow as the eerie noise continued to mount in volume. Lines of sweat trickled down my back and from under each arm. It was all of twelve feet tall and black as ink when it swept around the corner on thrumming diaphanous wings, stiletto-like legs dangling, gelatinous saliva beginning a slow drool as it spied prey...the soft, pink body of an ordinary guy frozen in terror as his eyes bulge with the sight of the creeping, flying, slithering monstrosity approaching with deceptive slowness, biding its time, savoring the fear it can sense like the appetizer before the main course.... He goes stiff for a second, then limp as
spaghetti when the scythe-like forelimbs lash out and seize him, lifting his bulk effortlessly with unimaginable strength, squeezing slowly, about to pierce the flesh, antennae vibrating wildly in anticipation of-
“Roglitz! Roglitz! Congrats old buddy!" Banks jabbed me in the gut with a weak stab of masculine approval.
I bent slightly, gasping as though he'd slammed me in a tackle. “...Banks....”
“Yeah! Hey—enjoy the festivities! See ya!”
And the cause of my heart attack cheerfully sprinted away.
Once I'd regained my composure and rounded the corner the unsuspecting scientist had surprised me from,
I saw I had indeed chanced upon some kind of fiesta—the source of the strange babble which had spooked me.
There were so many people I couldn't even place all of their names, but the majority of them seemed to know mine
and put it to use with much shoulder-thumping and handshaking, lots of big smiles beamed in my direction. It was
the food which held the most appeal for me however, arranged upon plastic trays set on folding tables drug out of
storage and pushed against the hallway walls. I made my way through the ado so I could grab handfuls of cheese cubes and grapes, rolled sliced lunchmeat and assorted small Styrofoam cups full of cold mayonnaise salads.
Someone poured me punch of a dubious chemical composition, and I was about to accept when something seized my trenchcoat and tugged down on it with some urgency. “Hum?” I grunted, turning. I glanced downward. It was
Sanders. And he didn't look happy.
At four foot three, the man was nearly invisible dressed in his little white lab coat amidst a veritable sea of
them, but he was easy enough to follow—I just traveled wherever the crowd parted to make way for the tiny genius.
Ahead of me a door swung open. I caught it as it was closing behind him and stepped inside the cavernous and
comparatively quiet Quasar Release Lab. “Oh, no.”
“Something vexing you, Roglitz?” queried Halbot as she slunk into view with a clipboard gripped to her
chest.
“There is now.”
Five ten, mostly legs, makeup more suited to a nightclub act than a legitimate daytime profession, the
female scientist could sometimes be a vengeful little vixen—particularly where I was concerned. “Well, I’d advise
you to get over it—we have a job for you to do.”
“I'm sick," I blurted nasally. “Got a note an’ all.”
“Proof that you’re sick? I’ve known that all along.”
I added, “And I'm highly infectious. Why don’t you slide on over here an’ give yer good ole Uncle Alex a
kiss, babe?”
The B-word did funny things to Halbot. A couple of us more daring folk liked to spring it on her every now and then to see what her next reaction would be. Jackie’s already tight jaw clenched even further. One of these days I knew I’d piss her off enough to make a molar shatter. Haines and I had a bet on it.
“Officer,” said Sanders officially, returning with his own clipboard, “we have an unusual circumstance to-”
“New partner,” I groaned, throwing my arms up in the air. “I quit the Force, damnit! Didn’t anybody tell you guys?”
Momentary silence. Warren cleared his throat before continuing. “As I said, we have an unusual circumstance here because-”
“I gave my two-weeks' notice a week and a half ago! I can’t take on a new partner!”
“Alex, if you would listen to me-”
“No—you listen to me! I quit! I'm gone! I'm outta here! Capisce? Alex Roglitz is no longer a part of the Quasar Force! I’m Net now. You have no jurisdiction-”
“WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME?!” Such a big noise from such a small guy. “This has come down through your Chief of Assignments and-”
“Mikey? Mikey’s doin’ this? Aw—this is just some kinda joke or somethin’ then, right? He wouldn’t really do anything like this to me-”
“Alex!” Brown eyes magnified to comic proportions by oversized reading glasses bored smoldering holes
into me. He was telling the truth. There really was a new job for me....
I ignited into rage. “I'll handle this,” I growled, turning back for the door. “I’m gonna go lay things on the
line for that-”
He stopped me in my tracks by yelling, “At least take your new partner with you!”
I turned around slowly. A huge black man had entered the room through its far door. He was easily the largest human being I had ever seen in person in my entire life, just over seven feet tall, proportional in a Mr. Universe kind of way, somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred and fifty pounds—all muscle and bones of steel. And behind this moving mountain, a teenaged girl.
I hesitated, forehead puckering. “Whazzis?”
Dr. Sanders told me gently, “This is your partner, Alex.”
Mighty John Happenstance stepped aside, using one massive arm to urge the girl forward. She moved around the scientist shyly like a doe stepping free of the cover of forest into a clearing picked out by moonlight.
I shook my head. “This is a joke.”
“Use your head, Alex,” big John said softly, amused by my reaction.
She was pretty in a newly teenaged sort of way. I judged her to be about fourteen. She was pale as milk with
long black hair like shreds of dark cloud across a full moon. Big ice-blue eyes took in her surroundings
wonderingly like a content baby safe in its mother’s arms. Finally her wandering gaze settled upon me and she
broke into a coy smile of delight.
My lip curled with suspicion. “Whozzis?”
“It’s your partner, you idiot,” Halbot spat. “Haven’t you heard a single word we’ve said?”
“This is a child,” I announced decidedly.
“I've seen brighter rocks in Saturn’s orbit.”
“Jacqueline!” hissed Sanders.
Happenstance suggested, “Introduce yourself.”
I felt foolish—this was obviously some kind of an elaborate prank. Swallowing, I took a quick little trip around the girl to make certain she wasn’t concealing a cream pie or a seltzer bottle. At first glance normal, there
was still something a little unsettling about the kid. Her hair was so abnormally black that the highlights in it were blue, and while I could easily smell John’s expensive cologne when I passed him, I couldn’t even detect soap,
deodorant, or mere body odor from the kid. Wearying of the game, I finally extended a paw, bowed slightly from
the waist, and with a quick nod announced myself uncertainly as, “Roglitz.”
ROGLITZ echoed through my skull as loud as thunder with twice the echo, the psychic reverberations overwhelming me so that I became instantly disoriented and was saved from falling by John.
“Shit! What the hell whazzat?”
Halbot snorted and snickered behind raised fingers. Sanders explained, “She’s done that to each of us at least once.”
I staggered in a tight circle, trying to regain my equilibrium. “What is she?”
“She's a Quasar, Alex,” replied Happenstance casually. “Top of the line. One of a kind.”
Sanders added, “We lost the body when we tried to liberate the consciousness. Mind and body never separated, but in her case the mind takes precedence. She’s a physical Quasar—retains all of her dream abilities.”
I said testily, “So train her. What does she need a partner for?”
“She thinks she’s dreaming all this right now.”
Halbot responded to my questioning stare with, “She thinks all of us are just figments of her imagination.
She doesn't believe any of this is real. It’s her suspension of disbelief that allows her to retain the dream abilities. It’s almost as though we’ve created our own telekinetic.”
“What can she do?” I asked uneasily.
Sanders thrust at me a clipboard full of empty Quasar Analysis Charts. “You tell us. She was ‘created’ just last night.”
“What?!” My outburst was met with a pair of shrugs and a smirk. “You can’t send me out with a...a prototype! I’m not a test-pilot!”
“Smirkle’s orders.”
I squinted down at Sanders. “I’m on sick leave! You can postpone her release until I’m better and do all
your own little scientific testing things in the meantime!”
There was a rattle. I turned to catch Jacqueline prying open a small bottle from which she withdrew a large
tablet. She handed it to John. I backed away from the larger man, shaking my head in fear. The moment I attempted to spin away from him he snagged my coat and used it to snatch me toward him. Abruptly I was in a headlock, a huge brown hand looming in my vision with the pill. “Relax, Alex. This won’t hurt.”
“Whatchizzit?” I gurgled, afraid to open my mouth very far.
Jackie had turned to a cart behind Sanders. “It’s Cancerian. It’ll purge your entire body of the last traces of
your virus.”
“Pur-” was all I said before giant fingers rammed the bitter object into my mouth. Happenstance held my jaw shut so I couldn’t spit. It enraged me to see Sanders yawning and the weird kid still smiling bemusedly in my
direction, heavy lids making her look both sleepy and disturbingly seductive.
“And this,” Halbot began, pivoting toward me holding an eight inch needle oozing some clear fluid. Startled, I gulped hard. She grinned with pleasure while I coughed weakly until John released me. “This is just a prop to make you swallow.” She set the needle back down on its tray, satisfied with my performance.
“Gah!” I choked, humiliated and disgusted, trying to spit foul flavor from my tongue. “Two!”
Sanders looked puzzled. “Two?”
“This is the second reason I’m quitting the Force! I hate Quasars!” Enraged, I spun on one sticky heel and marched for the door.
“Sign her out!” Warren called after me.
I tossed the clipboard wildly behind me like a Frisbee.
Despite the fact I knew I’d slammed the door behind me, startling the closest group of revelers, the kid
apparently kept pace with me as I pushed my way rudely through mingling whitecoats then broadened my gait
through the empty halls leading to Mikey’s office in the rear of the building, listening for hurried footsteps trailing me and pleased to hear nothing but the heavy echo of my own solid tread. I had no idea how she managed to sneak in so quickly, because I purposely slammed his door behind me, too. “Mike!” I barked, clapping both hands upon his leather desktop loudly then leaned forward on them. “What the hell is going on here?”
He took a deep, slow breath through flared nostrils, leaned away from me calmly, steepled his long fingers
over his abdomen. “You’re the psychic, Alex—you tell me.”
I lingered a moment longer, working my jaw a little in contemplation before I backed into the chair set before his desk. “Well?” I said irritably.
“A final case before you leave us.”
“Why didn’t you give it to Perandah? Or Geiko?”
“They’re both preoccupied right now. I needed you.”
I told him, “You need a psychic.”
He selected a manilla folder from his desk from a short stack of them and opened it. “Tell me what you think. At ten forty-six last night the security guard at the Fisher Arms apartment building was alerted by a tenant
to a disturbance on the fifty-eighth floor. Apparently some kind of domestic disturbance in one of the apartments—loud noises, voices, a crash or thud. The guard knocked on the door of Miss Kadrienne Truscott, but there was no answer and he found nothing unusual or of any importance in the vicinity and reported such in his log. At three o’clock this morning a second guard on rounds noticed that the door to 5812 was ajar. He knocked before entering and found Miss Truscott dead on her living room floor, the carpet and her clothing soaked with blood. A semen sample was collected at the hospital and it sure wasn’t local vintage.”
“Raped by an alien.” My skin crawled.
“Apparently. Raped and killed. He stabbed her.”
I hoped, “It was a humanoid?”
“Oh, yes. But, what’s got us all baffled is that the semen tested Geminarian.”
“Yeah?” I waited blankly while he watched for me to catch on, not sure what it was I was supposed to be
remembering about Geminarians that would brighten the little dim lightbulb behind my eyes.
He sighed, disappointed. “You don’t read any of the information we send out, do you?”
“What? What?” I whined impatiently.
“They’re a peaceful specie, Alex. The most quiet one we know. They have no crime on their homeworld at
all.”
I laughed. “At all?”
He didn’t find my ignorance amusing. “And they’re sexual shapeshifters.”
“Come again?”
He was considering writing me up for dereliction of duty. It wouldn’t be the first time or the worst thing I’d
ever gotten in trouble at work for. It was my duty to stay up to date on every new scrap of information which came
our way describing the behavior and physical attributes of all of the various visitors here. I tend to prefer reading old detective novels and the sort of magazine that features lots of pictures of pretty girls that seems to accumulate on the lid of my toilet tank. He explained, “When Geminarian males lose their virginity, they literally turn into exact genetic duplicates of their partners.” He continued quickly before I could come up with some wiseassed comment about that, “The females tend to be larger than the males on their planet...in general, that is. Obviously, it wouldn’t be wise for a young male to attempt to mate with a smaller female...it would undoubtedly cause him all sorts of terrible problems trying to shed bone density and mass over a relatively short period of time. Which brings me to another point—Kadrienne was three inches shorter than the Ambassador’s son.”
“The Geminarian Ambassador...you think it was his son that committed the murder?”
“We know he committed the rape. DNA evidence proves it. We believe he figured he could attempt his first
mating with a different specie because he assumed he probably wouldn’t transform, then wound up murdering her
afterwards in hope of stopping or even maybe reversing the process once it had begun.”
“What should I call him?”
“Anlathon Sk’lrk Pent.”
“I’ll call him Pent.”
“That’s only his tribal or ancestral name. You should refer to him as Anlathon or Mr. Sk’lrk.”
“I’m not sure I can pronounce that.”
“He’s staying at the Embassy Hotel. Would you go get him, please?”
I happened to turn away from him slightly and did a double take when I noticed the kid reclining
contentedly across the black leather sofa by the door behind me. “All this,” I mentioned, gesturing toward her, “for
that?”
“There has never been a heinous act of any kind committed by a Geminarian in the entire recorded history of their planet’s existence, Alex. You don’t know about them because you’ve never had to deal with one. The circumstances are pretty unusual...possibly dangerous.”
I reached for his folder and flipped through the typed pages dubiously. “And you say he’s turning into a woman?”
“Don’t underestimate her.”
“Her? Is it a her now, or is it still a him?” I wondered what might be happening to the poor guy’s dick and
grimaced uncomfortably.
He reached into a drawer of his desk and withdrew some extra sheets of paper for me. “Here’s a basic fact sheet on Geminarians and a composite I had made up on the computer showing their faces merged to give you some idea of what he might look like about now. Try to bring this one in alive.”
I offered a toothy grin. “Yeah, yeah. Be back in an hour.”
“Good luck, Alex.”
“Hah,” I grunted, standing. The kid perked up and stared at me like a dog waiting for a treat. “Then I can
turn her in and report to the Net?”
“Perhaps....” He shrugged.
“Not good enough. Maybe you can go get this potentially dangerous alien guy yourself.”
He told me, “Be back in an hour and we can get you started with the Net this afternoon.”
“Two hours.”
“Not good enough.”
I snatched the kid upright by her wrist and dragged her after me. “See ya in an hour then, Mikey.”
3
We hadn’t traveled far when it occurred to me that I suddenly couldn’t seem to stop yawning. My pace had slowed
considerably by the time we exited the building and approached my car. I could honestly say I was beginning to feel a bit punchy. Most females are intrigued by the sight of a sleek black Lamborghini Diablo, but this chick was
completely unimpressed like they were commonly used for taxis or something wherever it was she hailed from. It
was after I had shoved her in on the passenger’s side and closed the door that my head finally cleared and I felt
fully alert again. Apparently, physical contact with the kid could make a person sleepy. I absently wiped my hand
across the thigh of my slacks as I took a seat and shut the driver’s side door. The engine uttered life and I peeled
out of the parking lot, headed for the Embassy Hotel.
Humanoid, huh? I didn’t flip out so badly around aliens that resembled the rest of us a little more than less. It was the bizarre looking ones that really triggered my fear. As I drove, I struggled to work the folder I’d
tossed down on the seat out from under my ass. Once it was free, I handed it to the Quasar. “What’s your name,
sister?”
She smiled, delighted that I was paying some attention to her. “Amanda.”
“Amanda, huh?” It wasn’t her real name, of course. She wouldn’t have any memory at all of who she might have been before. ArtReal goes to great lengths to make sure that all of its candidates for the Quasar Program have no living relatives with knowledge of their existence, no real friends, nobody waiting for them to return home anywhere. As I mentioned, the average Quasar lifespan is only two or three weeks tops, and we try to avoid taking in the very old or the terminally ill. That made the kid either an orphan or a runaway. The general public doesn’t know too much about Quasars and we prefer to keep it that way. Imagine if you saw your long-lost cousin or high school sweetheart walking down the street with a total stranger, and when you went to hug her, you passed right through her? What if you noticed a former co-worker flying around the skyscrapers like Superman? Everybody would be trying to sign up to try it until they learned about the drawbacks—like minute lifespan. And then ArtReal would be permanently shut down. “Look through here and tell me what it says, kid.”
She flipped through several pages, scanning each briefly, a look of perplexion steadily intensifying across
her fair features. “What’s...read what?”
Quasars aren’t known for their sparkling wit or intelligent conversation. I’ve gotten kinda used to it, though, after forty nine of these things had come and gone from my life. Let’s see, that made her number...148? I
wasn’t sure. “Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t know if you could read or not—you bein’ physical an’ all.”
“I...I can read.”
“Nuh-uh. You just remember bein’ able to read.”
“I can read!” she insisted petulantly.
“Okay. Read to me, babe.”
She stared at the topmost sheet for a long time. “Words...letters moving. Little ants. Crawling letters...”
I took the folder back from her. “Most people can’t read in their dreams.”
She watched me for awhile as I glanced over the compiled information and drove at the same time. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m trying to learn something here.”
“You’re reading?”
“Yeah. Shut up, will ya? I’m tryin’ to do two things at once here.”
“But you said-”
“I said you can’t read in your dreams. However, I can read in your dreams.”
She accepted that as I knew she would. That was the main reason I hated Quasars so much—they’re inherently stupid. You wouldn’t want a coherent person runnin’ around and flyin’ and walkin’ through walls and stuff—you could never control him. ArtReal doesn’t make Quasars stupid...it’s their state of mind, the fact that
they all think that they’re dreaming, that makes them behave so erratically. Trust me, very few people out there are
giving lectures on quantum physics or working out complex mathematical formulae in their dreams that make
perfect sense to them once they wake up. Thank God.
My main interest in the folder Mike had given me was the picture he’d created. It was a disturbing mishmash of a very feminine face superimposed atop a very masculine one. I discarded the entire folder in Amanda’s lap. She stared down at it unhappily.
The doorman promised to keep an eye on my car after I flashed my spiffy gold and silver badge at him. I reconfirmed the suspect’s room number at the front desk and asked when last anyone had seen or heard from the Ambassador’s errant son. No one was positive since the night crew had departed for the day already, but there were no records of room service or outgoing phone calls since the previous morning.
I rode the elevator in silence, glad to’ve remembered to pull my gun out from under the driver’s seat before leaving the Quasar alone with it. The holster fit nicely beneath my left arm, reassuring me we had yet to encounter any aliens or other threats impervious to bullet wounds. I disembarked on the appropriate floor and quickly located the room along the unnecessarily wide hallway. I knew before I knocked that there was somebody inside. “Mr. Pent?” I showed my badge to the spyhole and waited.
Faint noises from the other side, then a voice, raspy and broken with what sounded like sobbing.
“Who...are you?”
“Officer Roglitz. StarNet Intergalactic Earth Police. Can I come in, sir? I’d like to talk with you.”
“I...I suppose.”
I paused a moment to steel myself after I heard the lock release. The door opened into darkness, the only
illumination coming in around the heavy drapes that covered the window and what little light entered from the hallway with me. Senses on high alert, I detected nothing particularly malignant. There was a set of switches on a short wall to my right. “Mind if I hit the lights?” Soft yellow lit a nice, though surprisingly small space sparsely furnished. A rumpled blonde sat slumped at the edge of the unmade bed, face in her hands, draped loosely with a plush robe bearing the initials EH. The monogram amused me, but the dame made me suspicious. I tried gently as I closed the door over behind me, “Are you all right?”
The head rose slowly, and I recoiled a bit at the sight. Now I could see the mop was only partly blonde, falling in damp waves to the shoulders, and nearly black at the ends. The forehead was high and pinched with pain or concern, the brows thick, but pale gold. Tear-rimmed reddened eyes sought me nervously, the irises hazel, leaning towards blue. Full, sensuous lips trembled, swollen, above a narrow chin and gently tapered jaw. The nose
was short and rounded and slightly upturned, elegantly long fingers swiped at it as it ran. It was where it was
running to that scared me—this broad sported a pencil-thin black mustache!
“I...I don’t know what it is happening to me,” it sniffled in a mostly feminine raspy tone.
“Um...are you, uh...Analathon?”
“Anlathon,” it corrected, hiccoughing. “Are you the doctor?”
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Well, look,” it said, raising its arms so that the robe came open in the front, exposing a pair of black-haired, but ample breasts. He...she grabbed them and groaned. “Hurts so bad...why is this happening to me?”
“Don’t you know?” I asked softly, almost sorry for the pathetic creature.
She shook her head.
I swallowed, thinking. I knew it was telling the truth, but that might only mean he was unaware of what was supposed to happen to his people after they lost their virginity. How old was this kid anyway? Maybe the Ambassador just hadn’t gotten around to that birds and bees discussion yet. It honestly had no idea of why it was physically changing into somebody else. “I can take you someplace where some people can help you. I’m here to bring you in, actually.” The alien tried to smile understandingly, then fell limply onto his side on the mattress and tried to curl into a fetal position. “Put some clothes on, kid. Let’s get you the hell outta here.”
“I don’t have any clothes now,” it moaned, reaching through the robe to massage one of the breasts. Yeah...the hips were probably bigger now, too.
I said, “Stand up and let’s go through your stuff. Maybe we can come up with something.”
It tried to rise, but doubled over in pain and fell against me. My blood ran cold for a moment until it got back onto the bed. I shuddered and tried to think of some uncomplicated solution. Sighing, I pulled off my long coat and began to unbutton my shirt.
“Is that a gun?”
“Yeah,” I grunted casually. I handed the long dress shirt over and strapped my gun back on again.
“This...smells funny.”
It hadn’t been washed at any time in recent memory. “Just put it on. It’s long on you. Button it all the
way.” She was beginning to resemble a playful lover who had worn her boyfriend’s shirt to bed. With a mustache.
“Could you, uh, shave that thing or something?”
“Remove my hairlip?” it said, not quite sure of the proper English word for it. Fresh tears spilled and the shoulders hitched. “Oh! But the pain! I cannot even barely walk for it! Why must I shave just to see the doctor?”
I offered a tight-lipped smile as I buttoned up my coat. “Fine. Leave it. Can’t walk, huh? Shit.”
“Shit,” repeated the alien. “Shit I hear all the time. Why do so many all say it? Is it the name of a god?
What does it mean?”
“It means dandy. Lovely. Everything’s just hunky-dory.”
She shook her head in confusion. “This is not shit, then.”
“Oh yes, it is.” I didn’t care for any of the options playing through my head just then. “Are you ready to
go?”
“How can I go?”
Bracing myself, I bent to scoop it up, amazed at how unnaturally hot the alien felt through the fabric of my shirt and coat. “Are you feverish?”
“How can I know? I am hot all everywhere!”
“Let’s go,” I grumbled, carrying the mustached woman to the door.
I tried to think of better situations I’d been in as we descended in the elevator with an elderly Latino woman who purposely chose not to notice us. I strode swiftly through the lobby, then dumped the suspect in the startled doorman’s arms while I searched my pockets for my keys and began fumbling with the lock on the passenger’s side door. The Quasar was nowhere in sight. My day was looking better already. This would save me from having to ditch her somewhere later. I’ve had far too many cases blown by those stupid things. They’d be pissed at me at work, but it wasn’t like I’d never lost a partner before. Goodbye number fifty, I mused, accepting the alien back to place comfortably in my car. I still had thirty-five minutes left to make my deal with Smirkle. Time enough to grab a bite at a drive-through on my way back to work.
Continued
in the sci-fi collection
Quasar 169: Silver Sphere Sightings
Pieces of Eight, Part III is a collection of eight novellas to complement the eight in Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight, Part II and Pieces of Eight, Part IV.
