Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) (9 page)

***

Avral contacted Menahim. “I’ve tried several times and ways under different aliases to reach Donsaii. I haven’t even been successful in setting up a meeting to talk to her. I’ve offered to pay substantial sums
just
to make a proposal to her. ‘Not interested,’ is all I get back. I’ve tried to find a way to accost her in public but she rarely goes out in public. Probably gets too much unwanted attention from creeps in public.”

“
Creeps like you?”

“Not funny.”

Avral said in a flat tone.

“
So, what’s your next step?”

“I’ve checked out where she lives. It’s on a semi-isolated small farm, lives there with a girl. A fair number of people come and go. I think that some of them might be guards of some kind because they come and go on
a semi regular schedule that leaves them there about eight hours at a time. But it seems like only about three at any one time. I’m pretty sure we could get her out of there.”

Menahim snorted, “You’re back to kidnapping her
!”

Avral
said, “We
need
her. Or what she knows anyway.  There
isn’t
any other way. Get us approval. I’ll work on a more detailed plan.”

“I’ll ask, but I don’t think that’s going to get approved.”

***

Presidential Science Adviser Kant Fladwami
spoke to his AI. “Let’s return that call from Donsaii.”

A moment later he heard her voice,
“Hello Dr. Fladwami. Thank you for calling me back. I contacted you per your request to be kept up to date about events here at D5R.”

“Oh,
no,” he chuckled. “Are you about to throw another monkey wrench into the economy?”

“Uh, no sir… Well I don’t think so anyway. But we
are going to be publishing our observations of another intelligent race in the near future.”

Fladwami felt goosebumps run up his neck, “Aliens?”
he breathed, “Where?” The first thing that ran through his mind was that somehow aliens had detected her ports or PGR communications and embarked an invasion fleet or something horrific.

“Tau Ceti sir. We’ve managed to send a small observation rocket to the third planet and it has been sending back video of primitive but intelligent beings.”

The word “primitive” washed soothingly over Fladwami. “So, I assume they aren’t about to attack us then?”

“Oh, no sir. Far from it. And so far we haven’t been successful in sending higher level animals through ports without serious neurological consequences, so it doesn’t look like we’re going
to go there anytime soon either.”

“Oh… Yeah, h
ow did you get a rocket to Tau Ceti across light years of space without years of travel time?”

“Uh, well, I’ve found a way to open what we call a ‘single ended’ port which doesn’t have to have a device on the other end like the ‘two ended’ ports you’re familiar with.”

Fladwami blinked, “So are they going to supplant the two ended ports then?”

“Oh no sir. The location of the other end of the port is unstable and inaccurate.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“
By unstable I mean that about three to five seconds is as long as you can keep a one ended port open, then it spontaneously closes and reopens in another location, closer or farther away. ‘Inaccurate’ refers to the fact that they open plus or minus 5-10% of their intended distance away. So to send a rocket to Tau Ceti we opened many, many ports, waiting for one to randomly open relatively close to the destination. Even when we did get one fairly close it still took four months for the rocket to fly the rest of the way to Tau Ceti.”

“And you found intelligent beings on this first planet? Could they live on Earth? Could
we
live on their planet?”

“Well, no. The atmosphere of TC3, as we call their planet, is very dense
and has a very high oxygen content. The air would be toxic to us. For that matter, I’m sure our atmosphere is far too thin for them.

“
I was thinking I could use our secure PGR link to send you some video and other materials to bring you up to speed? Then you could call me with questions.”

“And when are you going to be publishing these results?”

“Well, we’ll submit the papers in the next month or two. Depends on how fast the group gets their papers written to their satisfaction; they want to publish them all together, one on the Tau Ceti system and planet, one on the biota and one on the language of the Teecees, as we’ve been calling them. But then it will take more time for the journal to accept and publish them.”

“OK,” Fladwami said,
feeling completely flummoxed as he leaned back in his chair staring sightlessly at the ceiling. “Please send me that summary.” After they’d disconnected he remained motionless a long time, leaning back, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to tell his President.

***

Mack pulled up to Shelly’s apartment complex. The month Shelly’d given him to quit drinking was up. He felt pretty proud because he’d really cut back.  Never more than a six pack in an evening and many nights with only one beer, which wasn’t actually drinking in his mind. Hell, he couldn’t even feel the effect of a single beer. Not that he intended to tell Shelly that he’d only cut back. He’d claim complete abstinence and if she came back home, well
then
he’d truly stop drinking completely… Except for an occasional one with his friends… and maybe if he got too stressed.

He saw Shelly walking out to her car. She looked great in a skirt and a turtleneck. His eyes narrowed,
a short skirt! He’d been about to get out of his truck and tell her the good news about his drinking. He’d been looking forward to inviting her back to their house but now he felt unsure.

While he dithered, s
he got in her car and drove away.

After a minute Man>r a minack pulled out onto the street to follow.

Two hours later Mack pulled into Jed’s Bar. Shelly’d gone to a Mexican food restaurant where s
he’d met a Hispanic looking guy. The guy was shorter than she was for God’s sake! Mack had sat fuming while his
wife
had dinner with another man. Eventually he’d gone into the convenience mart across the street and bought a six pack to calm his nerves. In his mind the beer was a necessary medication to keep him from going in and beating the crap out of that guy.

He chuckled to himself to think that the guy’s life had just been saved by a
six pack of beer. Poor guy might not even know Shelly’s married.

But
she
knew she was married.

Mack’s thoughts turned darker. Th
e woman was ruining his life! Life’s mistakes had consequences…

***

Basir shook his head. He’d been told to work with this Farshid and Abbas team. They were long on passion and Abbas had some good ideas, but their attention to detail, or perhaps you could call it their level of ‘professionalism,’ was low. He couldn’t believe that they’d duct taped a port to a propane tank, opened the valve and then left the room! They’d done nothing to even confirm that the port had actually opened! Then they had decided that the explosion at their safe house was due to enemy action rather than their own idiocy.

Basir had considered pointing out that the death of Reza was likely due to their
own stupidity. But, telling them that wouldn’t make them smarter. And it might dampen their fanatical enthusiasm for the war against the Christians. The cause could always use a few fanatics willing to sacrifice themselves in the battle. Basir was more pragmatic. He intended to survive this war.

Still he felt unsure about the best way to find someone who worked at the infidels’ Portal Technologies plant. Someone who would know how to make ports, or at least how to disable any safeguards on the ones that could be purchased. Someone who could easily be controlled.

Basir had found it damnably difficult to get good information about the ports. Somehow, the internet had much less information on the ports than on other technologies. Where he saw th
e lack of information addressed, websites blamed it on “proprietary secret keeping” by Portal Technologies, the company that made the ports.

Basir and the team had
been hanging around the exit from the plant parking lot for a week now, following people as they left, trying to find a likely candidate to bribe or terrorize. So far they’d only followed people who went directly to their homes. He’d been expecting to follow someone to a bar by now. A bar where he could ply them with drink and find out whether they knew anything useful or not. Otherwise capturing or negotiating with them would be a waste.

Farshid had been the only one of them
so far to follow hadr to fosomeone to a bar. Rather than call in Basir like he’d been told to, Farshid had gone into the bar himself and tried to strike up a conversation with the man. The man, of a type known as a ‘red neck’ and in a bad mood to boot, had not taken kindly to being approached by Farshid who spoke poor English. He had exhibited his intolerance and narrow mindedness by giving Farshid a black eye. Basir had had to spend hours talking Farshid out of setting the man’s house on fire. He worried that Farshid’s focus had not come back on their mission even now.

Now it looked like the vehicle Basir had followed out of the Portal Technologies parking lot
after the 3-11 shift was approaching an apartment complex and worse, he thought it had a woman at the wheel. He ground his teeth together,
more wasted time
.

Just as Basir pulled into another lane to head back to their motel, he saw her little car turn into a strip mall. He changed
back to the other lane and then turned into the strip mall at the next entrance. The car he’d followed parked in front of a small bar named “Benny’s Beer and Billiards.” The car’s door opened and, as he had feared, a woman got out. She went into the bar though, so he parked and followed her in. He worried that he wouldn’t know which one she was but saw to his relief that there was only one woman with shoulder length blond hair in the bar. Only a scattering of other people populated the place but there were enough people standing at the bar that Basir didn’t think anyone would remark on his taking a position near her. He left a seat between himself and his target.

When the bartender brought her a beer he ordered one of his own, choosing Budweiser because it was the only brand he could remember at the moment. He’d never
had any alcohol but would drink some this night as part of maintaining his cover.

Allah would forgive.

The woman immediately struck up a conversation with the bartender so Basir didn’t have to speak, he could just listen.

“Benny, how they hangin’?”

“On the left, Hun’, on the left. How’s second shift treating you?”

She snorted, “One good thing, I don’t feel guilty stopping by here for a beer right after work.”

He shrugged, “You’re a grown woman. You want to stop by at 3:30 after day shift, that’s your business.”

“Damn right.”

“Say do they let you buy ports at a discount? You know for your own use?” He waggled an eyebrow. “Maybe a discount that you could pass on to your friends here?”

Basir’s heart skipped a beat. He successfully resisted glancing at them, but did let his eyes roam over to
study them in the mirror behind the bar. She was attractive in a rough, tired looking kind of way. He tsked to himself,
she should cover herself though.