Alien Caller (33 page)

“Me? I was your
first? I, I, had no idea. My God. I mean...” Actually he had no
idea what he meant, he was just shocked. She was a grown woman, in
all ways; she should have been married, with children, and in human
culture probably divorced by now, and instead she’d never had sex
until a few short weeks before. He kept spluttering like that for
some time, trying vaguely to understand. And deep inside he was
worried, scared all over again that he might have done something
with her that she might one day regret.

“Why do you
think it took me so long to accept you? And why do you think I was
such a mess until we did? I was scared. I was utterly confused. I
had no idea what to expect and you were completely unexpected. I
wanted you and I tried to deny it, since it didn’t make any sense,
and I was scared of you too, for all the right reasons as well as
the wrong ones.” Sometimes David did know what to do, and for once
this was one of them. He kissed her quickly, firmly, before she
became scared again.

“I am honoured
to be your first.” Which was actually true, though he was also
still somewhat hollow inside. Yet he had to ask himself; if he had
known before, would he still have done it? He had a horrible
feeling he might have. Certainly if it had been exactly the same
circumstances, lying on that floor, he just might have. It hadn’t
really been that much of a choice for him either.

“It’s just that
I never thought...” He trailed off, unable to say what he’d never
thought, and knowing she knew anyway. “I mean it’s not normal...
for humans. I mean, for us it’s normal to play around.” And yet
what they both knew he was really trying to say was that he had
been with other women. He had been married.

“I know you’ve
been with others. In your world you’d be strange if you hadn’t. I
can accept that. But in my world it’s different. We don’t play
around. We don’t pick and choose, we can’t.” Which made him wonder
again how truthful she was when she said that she understood. He
knew she meant it, but then that was from her head. In her heart it
was surely another story, one perhaps even she didn’t truly
understand. But there were things he could say to make it easier.
Things he had to say.

“Cyrea. In all
my life I have never made love to anybody as I have with you. I’ve
never even imagined it. I only wish you’d been there at the
beginning.” She heard him, she listened, and he knew that she knew
he meant it. He only hoped she could accept it. He would tell her
again and again until she did. It was the only way.

“There’s
something else you need to know.” If she had been nervous before,
suddenly she was beside herself.

“You will also
be my last. My faith doesn’t allow for more than one mate in a
lifetime. Nor does my species. It’s built almost into our genes
that we will find one mate and that’s it. That’s why it was such a
terribly difficult time for me. To know somewhere deep down inside
that you were my mate, and you weren’t even Leinian.” He kissed her
again, covering for his shock and hoping she didn’t notice. If she
did she didn’t tell him. At least she kissed him back.

“But it was
also a wonderful surprise. A blessing. I’m old for my world to be
mating. Too old. I’m twenty nine of your years old, nearly five
years past my normal bonding time. Until I met you I thought I was
destined to be alone. That’s why I went into the Service. I thought
that since I would never have to worry about being a mate or mother
I should give myself to my people.” He kissed her some more, still
trying to cover his shock and his secret shame; that he would one
day have to leave her. Either the mission would end and she would
go home and he would stay, or they would be caught and the same
thing would happen. He prayed that that terrible day would be a
long way off, but somehow he doubted it. Not when their shuttles
were falling out of the sky and they were busy telling all and
sundry of their existence.

“I had always
felt incomplete. There are a few of my people who never find their
mate, and it’s a lonely thing to be. You feel as though you’ve
missed out, as though there’s an emptiness inside you and it feels
cold. But until I met you, I had not realized how deep those
feelings ran. You filled me, heart and soul, and you made my life
worth living. Finding you, loving you was a terrible shock, but the
most wonderful surprise. I didn’t regret it that first time, and I
don’t regret it now.” But she was worried.

“Nor me. You
were a shock to me too, in so many ways. But a wonderful one. I
joined the army at seventeen, married at twenty, got divorced two
truly miserable years later, and then went fully into the covert
services.” His life story just came babbling out as he suddenly
lost control of his mouth. Yet every word was the truth and he had
to tell her. Her honesty and the way she had stripped herself bare
to him demanded it. He needed her to know him just as fully.

“From that
point on my life became more and more lonely as I learned never to
trust anybody. I lived all over the world moving from battlefield
to city, city to battlefield, sometimes moving weekly. Whenever I
met someone I liked, I had to lie to them about everything I was.
Who I was, what I did, even my name. Spies don’t make good family
men. I retired when I was thirty five, but the bullet wasn’t the
reason. It was the excuse.”

“I was just so
tired of that life. The secrets, the lies, and the evil that so
many people do in the name of their country. This country too. I
felt unclean, and like Lady MacBeth I couldn’t wash the blood and
filth away. I was totally drained. I didn’t know what was right or
wrong any longer, and I didn’t even know who I was. Getting shot
was a gift.” Which was only the truth. It had allowed him to retire
with dignity and a decent pension, and without ever giving in to
his need to tell all. Before the shooting it had been on his mind
like a cancer. Afterwards, he had been able to let it sink into the
background.

“Yet even when
I began to live apart from my past, I found my past kept me apart
from life. I couldn’t tell anybody who I was or what I’d done. I
couldn’t get close to anyone without every intelligence agent in
the country knowing about it and potentially using it against me.
In time I also discovered that I didn’t really like people. That
was a shock. I’d always thought I did and that they were the reason
I did what I did. But somewhere along the way I seemed to have lost
it.”

“I’d seen so
much evil that I found I was always looking for the bad in people.
Waiting for the betrayal, the lie. Or maybe who I was, who I had
wanted to be had just been too well hidden for too long. It had got
lost. And I didn’t even know who I was any longer.” Yet maybe the
truth was that he’d discovered he didn’t really know people any
longer. He’d been fooled too many times with seemingly decent human
beings hiding abominable secrets. He didn’t trust.

“Then you
turned up out of nowhere, breaking every rule I’d ever obeyed. You
represented the greatest security threat I’d ever imagined, but you
needed my help and somehow I couldn’t refuse you. If nothing else I
knew you weren’t a double agent or some enemy assassin. You were
therefore someone I couldn’t doubt. Someone I could trust. You
don’t know how special that is. Neither did I until I met you. I
haven’t trusted anybody in a very long time.”

“And you were
fascinating. I was just so enthralled by the whole idea of aliens
on Earth, and while maybe it took a while to understand, I was also
falling for you heavily. I wanted to know everything about you. I
still do.”

“You shattered
the secrecy of my life as you showed how much you knew about me.
Things I thought nobody knew. That scared me as I can’t even
describe. Your very existence on Earth, in America, was a dreadful
security threat. I had to tell the authorities and yet I also knew
what they’d do to you, and I couldn’t. Keeping you secret from my
people was the first time I have ever gone against my duty and it
wounds me. Every day I wake up and ask myself if I truly know what
I’m doing. And every day you convince me that I’m doing the right
thing.”

“Even then you
weren’t finished. After you destroyed my privacy, you continued
opening me up in a way I’d never expected. I didn’t know how lonely
I was until you entered my life, or how pathetic. You were so sexy
and so vulnerable, and yet with a fire in you that I just adore.
You are everything I wish I had been, and I love you for it. You
annihilated my old life, and yet it didn’t hurt, it was heaven.
Every crack you exposed in my armour you somehow made better.”

“To make things
more confusing, you were so like me in some ways that it stunned
me, but in others you’re just so much better. Your people too. No
wars, no prejudice, no trouble. Until now I had no idea that there
were any Leinians who could do wrong. I only wish my people were so
good. But we’re not. We’re so far from it that it shames me.”

“I wanted to
tell you everything from the start. I still do believe me. But I
can’t. I will tell you one thing that you probably should know
though. After being in the CIA for many years, I was seconded again
to the DOD, Project Alpha, the most paranoid and immoral agency on
Earth.”

“Its mission is
to facilitate the most highly secret research done on the planet.
To stop other powers doing the same. And sometimes to steal what
others have achieved.”

“I hated it
every single day. I felt unclean and ashamed of so much of what I
did and what I had to cover up. But I still won’t betray it.
There’s things I just can’t tell you, either because they’re
national secrets, or because I’m so ashamed of them I couldn’t
stand you knowing.”

“I’m not the
knight in armour you seem to picture me as, but I can’t stand to
have you think less of me. I’m a strong man, but I couldn’t bear
that. I’d rather die.” It was as close to a confession as he could
bring himself. He couldn’t tell her the facts of what he’d seen and
covered up, for even if they hadn’t been national secrets the
thought of seeing disappointment in her eyes was unbearable. But
she still had to know why.

“One day I hope
you’ll tell me everything. Especially the things that shame you.
Because I won’t think any less of you. I can’t. I’ve seen you at
your very worst, and it doesn’t scare me. Even at your most
dangerous, you’re a man of unyielding goodness. I know you perhaps
even better then you know yourself, and I know why you do the
things you do. They’re the same reasons that I do. You believe
you’re protecting your people. That’s who you are. You were a good
man in a bad place. That’s all.”

“There’s more
you need to know.” He didn’t want to tell her, it might drive her
away. But he had to. Nothing had changed but finally he had no
choice.

“There are
people who have good reason to hate me. People I’ve hurt, or
perhaps whose family members I’ve hurt or killed. People who may
one day, if they ever escape their prison cells or make it to
America, come after me. There’s blood on my hands, too much. And
while I’m sure that they were all in the wrong, and that none of
them left me any choice, it won’t matter to their kin. Many others
if they ever found out who and what I was would also want to find
out everything I know. All that I’ve seen. They won’t use soft
tactics. They’ll come hard and fast. They’ll be armed, and some of
them are simply too dangerous to stop. Being with me places you and
maybe your people in danger.”

“I still want
to be with you. I love you, and I will stand by you if and when
they come. Besides,” and she smiled in a way that sent his blood
racing, “- you have no understanding of our technology, our
security. One day I hope you will.”

Something deep
within him began to crack as he listened to her. It was his
self-control. He desperately wanted to believe her but there were
things he knew he could never say. Things that would make her run a
thousand miles from him if she had any sense. Yet things he also
had to tell her. She had to know who he was. She had that right.
And she also had to know that no matter how far out of that
community he lived, one day it might always come back for him. And
despite her confidence he knew it would be ugly.

“Besides, I’m
not perfect either.”

“Right now you
are.” And she was. Wrapped round him like a fur coat, she was once
again managing to fire him up, as his body finally recovered from
their last ordeal, and she knew it, instinctively rubbing herself
against him in ways designed to turn him into a panting wreck. They
were working.

“Oh yeah! It’s
about time.”

Chapter
Eleven

The trial that
afternoon was delayed a couple of hours because of the extent of
David’s injuries, or so he and Cyrea claimed; whether anyone
actually believed them or not was another matter. It was a very
different trial to any David had ever seen. There were no judges,
no lawyers and no jury. There weren’t even any charges. Instead Ayn
Lar who David thought of as the prosecutor, though Cyrea still
claimed was actually just the head of the local police detail, and
her boss, read out a simple statement of what Dr. Roze had done,
and he was asked to explain.

The doctor sat
in a simple chair in the middle of the room, surrounded by
Leinians. Many more were watching from afar. In fact, many were
watching from other worlds. Trials of such deviance as Cyrea termed
it, were extremely rare. The prosecutor stood before doctor Roze, a
picture of calm and authority. He waited for an answer. They all
did.