Alien Caller (49 page)

“If you’re
good!”

“I'll be
good!”

Chapter
Twenty

They spotted
the couple easily from half a mile away. For some reason they stood
out against the grey rocks, especially when seen from the air.

David breathed
a sigh of relief when he saw them. Despite all the gossip to the
contrary they didn’t spend all day every day making love in highly
gymnastic ways. For once they were just sitting, talking, side by
side, while their breakfast was cooking. They were even clothed,
though not very. The woman wore a skimpy ultra white bikini, and
Ayer had on just a pair of shorts.

Cyrea brought
the flier down gently on a clearing less than fifty yards from
where they sat, while David spent his time alternating between
scrutinizing the young couple, and staring in awe at the craft. The
floating bubble made no noise, floated rather then flew, and had
two little turbine engines towards the rear that pushed it silently
along at upwards of two hundred miles an hour regardless of the
wind. More than that, as light as it was it didn’t even seem to
know what turbulence was.

The tiny little
four-seater flier made every plane he’d ever flown obsolete and
uncomfortable by comparison. Nor did it apparently require advanced
training to fly. Instead, the pilot just seemed to point the
steering wheel, left right, up down, forwards or back, and the
craft’s computer took them there, automatically allowing for
obstacles and the possibility of other craft. The computer simply
wouldn’t allow them to crash. To add insult to injury the flier had
a clear plastic dome that extended to the floor, giving the
travellers the most incredible view. It was as close to actually
flying as he would ever get. He knew what he wanted for Christmas,
- flying lessons.

The two
youngsters watched them as they landed, and he doubted it was with
much joy. But then they were young. They had better things to do
than greet visitors. The moment he laid his eyes directly on them
he knew that the couple were barely out of their teens. The woman
stared, surprised though whether by the craft or its occupants he
couldn’t tell. Ayer just looked somewhat crestfallen, understanding
they’d been caught. The holiday was over. They were holding hands
he noted, apparently determined to face the music together. Why? He
knew of no trouble they could be in.

Cyrea turned
the engine off, and they popped the top and got out, a simple
procedure when all it involved was swivelling in the seat and
standing up. Even so he made sure to get out ahead of her and help
her to her feet. If army life taught a man anything it was
manners.

Then they
wandered over, hand in hand, smiling wryly. All four of them in the
same boat.

“So you’ve been
having fun I hear.” David could have pretended he was surveying the
camp site, looking at the single sleeping bag, their state of
undress, and putting the inevitable facts together, but for once he
couldn’t be bothered. Instead he chuckled quietly, while Cyrea
squeezed his hand warningly. They were here to get the facts, not
scare the kids into denial.

“How did you
know?” Ayer at least understood they had been caught long before
the two of them had arrived, while the girl just looked confused,
and slightly scared.

“Cameras.”
David waved at the trees and sky and the boy wilted visibly. But he
at least wouldn’t try to deny it, knowing he couldn’t. No doubt
later he would take the time to feel really stupid, since he knew
the woods were dotted with them, and he obviously hadn’t thought to
look.

“Who are you?”
The girl was becoming more and more uncertain as she stared at
them, evidently noting the way they held hands, the way that David
helped Cyrea to sit down, and then sat down immediately beside her.
She didn’t need his help, but she accepted it knowing he did it out
of love rather than chauvinism.

“I’m David
Hill. I live over by the next lake. This is Cyrea of Berel, my
mate. And Ayer we know, but who might you be, if it’s not too
rude?” Cyrea squeezed his hand again, partly bothered by the way he
used her full name in casual conversation with strangers and so
brutally stated their relationship, and partly pleased that he
acknowledged it so readily in front of others. It was the first
opportunity he’d had to introduce her as his mate, the Leinian
equivalent of wife, and he enjoyed being able to, no matter how
crudely he’d said it. He picked her hand up and kissed it gently,
making sure she knew he had no fear of that. It was a gesture that
was not lost on the other two, and in response Ayer picked up the
girl’s hand and kissed it in exactly the same fashion.

“I am Ayertal
of Hayle and this is Rebecca Roschelle, my mate.” At his words
David noticed that Rebecca looked both happy and confused. She
looked a little as though she was just waking from a pleasant
dream, happy but somewhat disoriented. But he also noticed that the
single word that had jarred was not being referred to as his mate,
it was her own name. Actually her surname. Family problems? He
filed it away for reference, wondering the significance, and
meaning to find out.

“So now that
the introductions are over, we’d very much like to hear how you
met. After all my mate and I owe you a very big thank you. Until
yesterday we were the only mixed couple. Today we seem to have
started a trend. And please call me Cyrea by the way.” Cyrea when
she smiled could light up a room, and the two kids were simply
overpowered by her smile. So was David. He would have told her
anything. But he hadn’t been asked to spill his guts. So instead he
sat quietly by the fire as the two of them began babbling,
listening carefully and holding Cyrea’s hand.

It was a
wonderful story of love and wonder, but very soon on he realised
things weren’t as rosy as they sounded. The investigator within
listened with ever growing sadness as the kids took it in turns to
speak, each filling in their own unique perspective, but somehow
neither understanding the other’s essence. They were in love. Of
that at least he had no doubt. But how they had gotten there, and
whether it could endure was something else again.

Rebecca, or
Becky as she asked to be called, and there was deception even in
that, told them how she had been out tramping alone through the
bush when she had decided to go swimming. But the current had been
too strong for her, and the water too cold and too treacherous, and
she had found herself swept away from her camp site. She had been
carried for miles it seemed when she started to lose consciousness
and started breathing water. From there it had been a downhill
battle as the water buffeted her and the cold sapped her strength.
She clung to a small piece of wood that was travelling with her and
tried to make the shore, but she was too weak.

Then Ayer had
come wading into the water from out of nowhere and rescued her. Her
very own angel to the rescue.

In his own
words she had been half drowned, her skin was turning blue and she
wasn’t breathing very well, and he’d begun to wonder if he was too
late. But a few deep breaths seemed to do the trick, and soon she
had been spitting up water, and coughing weakly. He’d quickly
grabbed a blanket from his kit, wrapped it round her when she began
shivering, and lit a fire. When that wasn’t enough, he’d held her
tight using his own body heat to warm her.

From that
moment on the magic as they both agreed, had begun. Which made
sense to David, as he remembered holding Cyrea only too well and
the way it had affected them, even if they’d been too pig headed to
understand it at first. That night the kids had slept in the same
bag for the first time, though not as lovers, just two people
sharing body heat. But in the morning when they had both awoken and
remembered, that was when the passion had truly begun.

At first they
had tried to deny it, which was futile. David and Cyrea could
attest to that much. But they had both known the truth, and denial
went out the window quite quickly. Then they had started to wonder
about the wisdom of the act, being so very different. But Ayer had
seen the recording of David and Cyrea, and he knew it was both
possible and welcome, something that made David chuckle a little.
He might be many things, but the boy was always a male. Ayer had
made sure Becky knew all that he knew, removing one more
impediment.

Their first
full day together was a difficult day for them, both wanting,
confused and both afraid. The tension became worse when they
realized that Becky had only her bathing costume to wear for the
day, a skimpy white bikini. Ayer’s clothes were too large for her
in some places, too small in others, and she had lost her other
clothes. Reading between the lines though David suspected she had
played that card more than she needed to. She could have fitted in
his clothes, she just enjoyed teasing him, making him stare at her
with hungry eyes while she enjoyed his desire. Neither did Ayer
object to looking, he was just frustrated. Typical teenagers in
lust.

The final crack
was the following night, when darkness fell and the air chilled.
They had a fire but only one sleeping bag. They were both fit young
people, with their hormones racing, and in a heaven sent position
to sin. Ayer being a gentleman gave her the bag saying he could
wear extra clothes, and Becky feeling both guilty and hungry said
they could share. From the moment they were together in the bag
again, everything that followed was entirely predictable. They gave
in, probably immediately, and once they'd finally given in to their
needs, there was no turning back.

Of course they
were teenagers, young fit and healthy, and with substantial needs.
They were also new to each other, and discovering the joys of their
flesh. Once they had opened the flood gates nature did the rest,
and they had spent close to a week travelling slowly up the river
supposedly looking for her belongings, and not getting very far at
all. It had taken them a whole week to travel three measly miles
and they still hadn’t found them.

Their tale made
sense to David, in the way that a story should, but it was wrong.
He knew it from the moment Becky opened her mouth. He even knew
what smelled so badly about it. But he also guessed Ayer didn’t
understand, and probably wouldn’t for a long time to come. He might
be twenty, but he was a young twenty, even for his people. His
people probably wouldn’t understand either. He knew Cyrea well
enough by then to know that the Leinians were remarkably short
sighted in some areas. But it wasn’t a flaw with them. It was the
result of being too decent. They thought everyone else was too.
They couldn’t even imagine the truth.

Carefully he
started questioning Becky about her background, already knowing it
before he asked. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in the
answers she wouldn’t give him. The same answers she hadn’t given
Ayer. The less she told him the more he knew.

Becky was a
runaway, though from a very much more privileged life than most.
She had been raised in a cold house, the only child of a distant
father and a drunk mother, though she hadn’t described either of
them as that. Instead they were busy and poorly, respectively.
There was violence too in her background; it was in the way she
described them in such polite, unemotional words. Words that
allowed her to deny the pain. He didn’t pry further. He didn’t need
to.

She had been
raised by a string of servants, and when she became too difficult
she had been sent away to boarding schools. But by the time they
got her she was already a lost child. The die had been cast early
on and she couldn’t fit in. She didn’t want to. She managed to get
herself expelled from one school after the other, always he
guessed, secretly hoping she would be welcomed back into her loving
parent’s arms. It hadn’t worked out of course. It never did. And
each time she had been thrown back into another school. That was
why she could honestly say she had been educated all over the
country and all over the world.

Her father had
died early, David suspected suicide or violence from the evasion
she gave, and her mother had walked away, leaving her at fifteen
with an allowance which would leave most people staggering, and a
life that was already in tatters. For the next five years she had
managed to waste her life, her inheritance, and her hope on world
trips, frivolities, failed relationships and new age hocus pocus.
It was written in the tattooed pentacle around her navel, the
missing tan lines and the expensive nose job. By the time she
turned twenty she was close to bankrupt, ill educated,
unemployable, morally shattered, lucky not to be pregnant, and had
a drinking problem.

It was a
tragedy but the greatest horror was that she wasn’t the only one.
Too many people like her ended up on the CIA's watch list because
of drugs and international travel. He had seen many others in her
shoes and watched them go from bad to worse. All of them he knew
would ultimately have to reach rock bottom before they could pull
themselves back from the edge, and not all of them would make it
back. Especially those who discovered drugs. For them the way back
was a hundred times harder. But her eyes were clear and he could
see no needle tracks in her arms, which gave him some hope.

At some point
she had taken the only course left open to her, and gone to see her
mother. A mother who was so drunk she didn’t recognize her, but
apparently alert enough to try and steal the last of her
inheritance from her. In her words though, her mother had been so
poorly that she needed the money for her medical expenses.