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Excerpt
Gideon held no illusions about humans. He knew they were capable of doing horrible things to each other; their media reported it every day. He was equally as sure, given time and opportunity, the goodness they possessed would lead them to live in peace with each other and the rest of the galaxy.
He’d always assumed respect for others was an inevitable byproduct of an advancing civilization. But could he be wrong? Could the N’weretil, a much more advanced species than Earth’s humans, be harming those who were helpless against their technology? Could they have tortured a defenseless child?
Was the very Interstellar League he was sworn as an Olam to respect, just ignoring the actions of the N’weretil? Or, worse, endorsing it?
The closest of the streetlights flickered, grew dim, then flashed and exploded.
“Geez!” Hannah jerked on the steering wheel and the van swerved. “Did you see that? Must have been a heck of a short.”
“How can you be so damn clinical?”
She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t ask what he was talking about. Avoiding the scattered shards of broken glass, she angled the van into a space facing the park and cut the engine. “What would you have me do?”
“Stop saying IREAL can’t help. We must find a way to keep it from happening.”
“Stop what from happening?” She sighed and opened her door. “Come on. Let’s walk for a minute.”
He slammed his own door in the first violent move he’d ever intentionally made. But when the damaged lamppost began to vibrate, rattling the bolts anchoring it to its concrete pad, he balled his hands in his pockets and willed himself back under control.
Hannah came around the van and stopped a foot away. “Let me say it, for the both of us,” she said in a low voice, as if conscious of the patrons entering the restaurant across the street. “Jennie Sherwin might have been abducted by aliens.”
She stood close, too close. But when he took a step back, retreating to a safer distance, she followed, placing a hand on his stiff shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice the shiver that passed through him at her touch.
“Let’s go over what we know for sure.” She raised one finger of her free hand. “One, she provides a convincing argument for why she felt she lost time.”
She gently applied pressure to his shoulder until Gideon found himself walking beside her and into the unoccupied park. “Two, she has photos. Three, her prior evidence is corroborated by medical records. Four—and this one you don’t know about—there were other reports of a bright light in the area at the same time, although she seems to have been the only one affected directly.”
He felt his energy field returning to normal. As it did, the lamps brightened, surprising him. He’d thought he’d only caused one to break, not the rest to dim. Fortunately, Hannah didn’t seem to notice.
“Five, and this is probably the most important, her story is almost exactly like accounts from other alleged abductees. Remember the seminar? She described the same non-human species, right down to the type of procedures performed on her and the partial loss of memory. And there were other things, things not common knowledge, which make her story ring true to me. All in all, it adds up to one of the most convincing interviews I’ve ever done.”
They reached the gazebo, and he eased down onto the steps.
She sat beside him. “I know this upsets you, but you need to stop and think. All we can promise to do is listen, treat who she is and what she knows with respect, and share the information with other scientists so maybe one day we will be able to figure out what’s happening. If there are truly aliens out there doing things to her, they’re far more advanced than we are and it’s unlikely we could stop them.”
He found the temptation to move closer to her soft warmth almost more than he could bear. “You’ve interviewed people like her before.”
“Yes. It’s heartbreaking every time.”
He closed his eyes, but the image Jennie Sherwin had described was still there, complete with details only someone who knew of the N’weretil could add. When he opened them, Hannah was staring out into the park, her eyes unfocused. He wondered if she knew she was rubbing the back of her neck again.
“It’s not the actual experiments that cause the real harm,” she said quietly, “despite how frightening they must be. It’s the emotional damage, the loss of control that matters the most. I can only imagine, but it seems to me the worst possible experience a person can have is to be treated as if they were no more important than a lab rat. And to know they can be taken again anywhere, anytime. There is, literally, no safe place.”
No safe place. “If you could find out right now what was happening, would you be willing to do something about it?”
“Of course. I only wish I could.”
He rose. “What if the aliens who abused Jennie Sherwin were planning to take over Earth next week? What if your help could keep it from happening?”
“Wait a minute.” She stood, holding both hands palm out. “Don’t get carried away. I never said we had proof these are really alien abductions. And whatever it is has been going on for years. There’s certainly no reason to think these aliens, if they exist, are preparing to take over anything.”
Where only a moment before he’d felt like turning to her for comfort, now she made him want to grind his teeth. “What do you mean no proof? You just said—”
“I know what I said, and despite the photos, it’s still only a theory. We don’t have sufficient, irrefutable scientific proof of alien abductions yet, much less anything else. We can’t run off to do battle against a villain when we don’t even know if the villain exists. What would you have me do? Tilt at windmills?”
The literary reference wasn’t lost on Gideon. “These aren’t figments of our imagination.”
“And they aren’t exactly visible targets, either. Introduce me to an extraterrestrial and I’ll be happy to ask him what the heck he thinks he’s doing. Until then, we’re guessing.”
This seemed as good a time as any. Two nearby lamps dimmed as he squared his shoulders. “Hannah, I’m an extraterrestrial.”
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