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“How soon after?” Martini asked, his voice clipped.
“The next night. Then it happened again, three months later. To the day.”
I thought about it. “Um . . . you mean on my birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going,” Reader said.
“Neither do we,” Chuckie continued. “It showed up again six weeks later. Then one month later. Then three weeks later. Then two weeks. Then one.”
“What’s it on today?” My stomach felt as queasy as if I’d just walked through a gate from Arizona to Moscow.
“It’s been daily for the past week.” Chuckie sighed. “Anyone besides me find the light pattern somewhat familiar?”
“In a way,” I admitted. “But I can’t place it.”
“Same here,” Reader said.
Confirmation of familiar but not recognizable came from everyone but Martini. His grip on my hand was tighter, though.
Chuckie looked over at him. “Martini? Surely you recognize it?”
“Why the hell didn’t you bring us in on this sooner?” Martini growled.
“We had to verify where it was coming from.”
“That’s bullshit.” Martini sounded ready to get into a physical fight with Chuckie, and I started to get really worried.
Chuckie sighed. “True. We wanted to be sure it wasn’t something your people were doing intentionally. Point of fact, something you, personally, weren’t doing intentionally.”
“You have some goddamned nerve,” Martini snarled.
“It’s my job. Surprising as that may be to you after working together for the past three years.”
“We don’t work together,” Martini said through gritted teeth.
“Not so much, but we will be. You’ll find the orders when you get back. Until we have determined whether this is benign or a dangerous threat, Centaurion Division, Alpha Team in particular, will be reporting in to me. Oh,” he added, “and don’t try calling in the P.T.C.U. on this. Angela’s as worried about it as the rest of us are, and she already gave the final authorization.”
“Why did you call my mother in for whatever this is?” For some people, this would have been an odd question, all things considered. And a year ago, for me, it would have been. A year ago, I’d thought my mother was a consultant, my father was a history professor at A.S.U., and my best guy friend was merely a brilliant, globe-trotting multimillionaire.
Discovering aliens walked among us had opened up a whole new world at home for me. Turned out my mother was the only non-Israeli, non-Jew ever in the Mossad, albeit retired now, so to speak. In between directing grad students and writing papers, my father moonlighted as an active member of NASA’s ET cryptology division. And Chuckie was seeing the world because he was not only in the C.I.A. but was the guy in charge of dealing with Centaurion Division. Discovering that my mother had suggested him for the job was merely icing on the liar’s cake my nearest and dearest had been feeding me for my entire life.
My mother was now the head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, a federal agency most regular folks didn’t know existed. Of course, they didn’t know the C.I.A. and NASA both had Extraterrestrial divisions, nor did they know we had a full-on, ninety percent alien-staffed division called Centaurion, either. Most people probably slept better because of this ignorance.
“Because it clearly affects her daughter.” Chuckie sounded angry, just a little, and I didn’t think he was angry with me.
“Jeff? What’s going on?”
Martini didn’t answer. Chuckie sighed. “Kitty? What are you wearing around your neck?”
“The Unity Necklace Jeff gave me. Why?” By Alpha Centauri custom, this meant Martini and I were engaged to be married and both off the market. Which was great in terms of any and all A-Cs. But I didn’t have an engagement ring, so the majority of the humans I knew didn’t believe we were getting married.
“Oh . . . hell.” Reader sounded freaked. “What’s after her now?”
“Why is anything after me?”
“Kitty, look at the lights again. Look at them carefully.” Chuckie sounded amused.
“What’s so fu
“Imagine the pattern as smaller. And hanging around your neck.”
I did. “Oh. Well, you didn’t say tilt it.”
“Right, I realize that makes all the difference.” Chuckie was definitely amused. But that humor left his voice when he spoke to Martini again. “I’d like to know what’s going on, Martini. And I’d like to know now. Or you’ll be explaining this at C.I.A. headquarters. In a private room.”
Martini was still speaking through clenched teeth. “I have no idea.”
I was moving from worried to scared, and I could see terrified waving at me from just around the next bend in the road. “Guys? Does anyone else realize the peak we’re on corresponds to the jewel in the necklace?”
“Yes,” Chuckie said. “I do. I’m guessing I’m the only one other than your fiancé, but I’m very clear on it.”
“Is that why we’re standing here?”
“Yes. What’s significant about this peak, Martini?”
“I have no idea.”
“Come on, you gave her the necklace.”
“It’s from our home world. It’s been in our family for centuries.”
“So your family has been pla
“We’re all here,” Christopher’s voice snarled from the walkie. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Something tickled in my brain. Maybe it was because I’d been focused the past few weeks on wedding invitations and seating arrangements and all the horrors that go along with a wedding. “Um . . .”
“I’m fully aware of it,” Chuckie said, calmly but with more anger in his tone. “I’m also aware you all brought the parasites with you.”
“Um . . .”
“No they didn’t and you know it,” Reader snarled. “They’re the only people stopping the parasites.”
“Um . . .”
“Which have slowed down since Kitty joined up.” Chuckie’s voice was starting to rise, too.
“Um . . .”
“They haven’t stopped, and they won’t stop, as far as we can tell,” Christopher snarled through the walkie.
“Um . . .”
“True. We’re expecting a whole slew of them now,” Chuckie said with a mirthless laugh.
“Um . . .”
“Look, we are not calling anyone here!” Martini was close to bellowing, but not quite there.
“Um . . .”
The walkie crackled. “ACE would like to mention that Kitty wishes to say something.” It was Gower’s voice, just slightly different, which meant ACE was in charge of their main consciousness.
The men with me all stopped bickering and looked at me. I could feel everyone else on the walkies listening. “Thanks, ACE.”
“ACE is happy to help.”
“Hold onto that thought.” I took a deep breath. “Jeff, when did you decide you wanted to marry me? I mean for real, not joking around.”
Martini gave an exasperated growl. “Why are you asking me that, when you know the answer? The day we met, okay? Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, but not with that.” I gulped. “Christopher’s actually not quite right.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he snarked at me through the walkie.
“Well, I can’t speak for the other A-Cs, but the two of you actually don’t have all your families here on Earth.”
“Come again?” Martini asked, sounding confused and a little hurt and angry.
“Your dad and Christopher’s mother married into the family, they weren’t part of the original families who were exiled here.” The A-Cs on Earth were religious exiles from their home world, and they didn’t like to talk about it much.
“So?”
“You told me the necklace travels through the male line, right?”
“Right. Again, so? My father gave it to me to give to you.”
“That’s sweet. Who gave it to him?”
“His father.” Martini didn’t say “duh,” but I could feel him thinking it.
“Right. And you have no brothers, only sisters.”
“Right again. And, again, so?”
“Meaning you’re the last male in your family line.”