Knaleg: A Terraneu Novel (Book 3) (2 page)

“No thank you Mr. McPherson.” Catherine never took food or drink from an
unknown source when undercover. Even if it looked as good as those muffins, “I
have some water in my room. Thanks for the wake up, I wouldn’t want to miss the
welcome breakfast.” Catherine went to close the door and Mr. McPherson got a
pained look on his face, and Catherine was instantly alert.

Mr. McPherson moved away from the doorway, and her shocked gaze fell on
the big one from yesterday. He held a tranquilizer gun in his hand. She dropped
and twisted toward the bed. If she could just reach her hidden side arm. Then
she felt a sharp sting in her butt.

“Don’t panic Catherine. What we gave you isn’t deadly. We just needed you
out of the way. I accessed your tablet yesterday when you were searching the
grounds. I know you are not here for the second chance as the other women are.
You are some kind of military figure sent here to investigate the missing women
from six months ago. It would seem the mind wipe didn’t work as well as I had
hoped.” He had picked her up and placed her gently on the bed, making sure she
was covered and comfortable. “We just have ten hours…you will be okay! I swear
it.”

“We need to hurry to the breakfast and get the women ready. Time is
urgent now.” Kneus was talking to Mr. McPherson. “You are going through first!
I insist upon it. I will send the items on the shopping list you were given
through directly after you. That is going to take up a lot of our time. Tell my
brothers to work as fast as they can, and get the women that don’t want to stay
returned quickly. If I am not through after the females have been sent back
they are to destroy the port pad. Even if I would be stuck here, it is too
dangerous to leave it intact. “Kneus sighed, “We knew they were going to
investigate, I was just hoping there would be more time.”

Catherine was in shock. How had he found and hacked her tablet? It had
the top of the line cryptography with biometrics, nobody could just hack it.
She tried to recall what he had said after drugging her. She had heard some
strange coded conversations before, but what was he taking about? A port pad?
What was Antilles? She was still struggling to stay focused when she lost the
fight and everything went black.

~*~*~*

Catherine felt like she had a huge sweat sock in her mouth, and it tasted
nasty! She groaned and rolled sluggishly on the bed. Her mind was fuzzy, and
she couldn’t seem to make any connection to her thoughts. She knew she was in
Scotland, there was a seemingly nice old man and a really good-looking one. She
was investigating them…but why she couldn’t remember. She looked over at the
nightstand, there was a container of water that she wanted to drink. She
struggled to a sitting position, her hands were shaking with the effort to push
her black hair out of her face. It wasn’t long, was only about shoulder length
but the bangs were bothering her. Why she couldn’t focus on anything, but was
worried about her hair puzzled her. Then her head started to clear a little,
and she stumbled to the bathroom to splash water on her face.

She had been drugged, and something was going to happen today. What time
was it? She stumbled into her bedroom and saw that the time was almost three
o’clock. The large man, Kneus had said they only had ten hours. That meant she
only had an hour to try to stop whatever they were doing. Catherine rushed to
send a coded SOS to her superiors, then got dressed, looked for her side arm in
its hiding place. Kneus must have found it because it was missing. She had
hidden another one on the premises in a secure place and hurried outside to
retrieve it.

The most activity had come from the knoll, so she quickly ran in that
direction. For a vacation destination with over a hundred women, it was eerily
quiet. Catherine knew she was running out of time. She picked up her pace until
finally she heard some sort of noise up ahead, so she turned toward the sound.
She slowed and crept around trees keeping her eyes open for anything
suspicious. When she peered around a tree into a small clearing, she swallowed
her gasp of surprise and pulled back. She saw some of the females lying on the
ground. Unconscious or dead she wasn’t sure, but the large male was standing
over them. She moved slowly around the tree, and checked to make sure he wasn’t
looking her direction. Putting one foot slowly in front of the other, she made
her way to a point until she had a clear view.

There were about six women on the ground, Kneus was moving them so they
weren’t touching the strange glassy looking ground he was standing on. When he
moved away from the last female, Catherine stepped forward. Her firearm pointed
at his heart.

“Don’t move.” Her voice sounded steady, which she was happy for. With the
adrenaline rush, and drugs he had given her she was hoping not to sound like
Mickey Mouse. “Put your hands in the air.”

He turned toward her, his hands going into the air. “I am not armed
little female.” His face showed concern over the weapon she was holding.

“I had another gun in a different hiding place.” Catherine stated at his
obvious surprise over her having a weapon. “What did you do to those women?”
Catherine asked, moving ever so slowly to see if the females on the ground had
any obvious injuries.

“Very smart tactic to have additional weaponry in a secondary location,
my brother would approve.” Kneus was looking at her with something like
admiration. Then he gestured toward the women, “They are just sleeping right
now. Dosed to stay that way until the end of the allotted portal time. They
will wake up in about ten minutes.” Kneus kept his hands up.

“Where are the others? Where is Mr. McPherson?” Catherine was standing on
the ground that upon closer inspection looked like cracking ice. Bending over
carefully, one eye still on Kneus, she checked the pulse of the woman closest
to her. She felt a strong beat against her fingers, this woman was going to be
fine as far as she could tell.

“None of the females are in any danger. They are all being well cared
for. You don’t understand what is happening, and I am out of time to explain it
to you. Please step off the ring.” Kneus was looking at her, pleading in his
eyes. She was used to die-hard criminals looking at her with anger, or malice,
or glee over the acts they committed. She had never had one look at her with
eyes full of pleading and something deeper…pain and misery.

“I am not moving until you tell me what is going on!” Catherine insisted.
Backup should be here any second, if she could just keep him talking.

Kneus just shrugged, “May I please show you something? It is not
dangerous.” He made to move his hands down, that is when Catherine noticed he
had some type of remote control.

“Is that to detonate a bomb? Is what I’m standing on some sort of
explosive?” Catherine raised her gun again to point directly at him. “Don’t
move!” She demanded. “I sent out an SOS and have backup coming!” As if on queue
she could hear distant sounds of sirens.

“This device is my way home, not a bomb. Shoot me if you must, if I am to
be stuck on this planet I would rather be dead.” His face held such misery that
Catherine froze for one second and began to lower her weapon.

“Remember, I did ask you to step off the port pad.” Then he pushed a
button.

“Port…?” The area glowed florescent blue and she felt an awful pulling,
dropping sensation and she had the urge to scream. Her arm flew wide from the
gravity as her sidearm spiraled away with a bang. She saw lights flashing past
her at an abnormal rate. She felt a burning sensation in her chest. Had she
just shot herself? Then everything went dark.

Catherine struggled to wake up. She could hear music
playing, which made no sense. Her alarm was set on the annoying beeping because
she would usually just sleep through music. She moved her hand to feel for her
alarm, and when she couldn’t find it right away, she patted around the space
looking for it. Where could it have been moved? With a frown she went to roll
over to see where she had placed it.

“What the…” with a curse she crashed onto the floor.
That was going to leave a few marks. What the heck had she just fallen off of?
Catherine was suddenly wide-awake. The last thing she recalled was facing off
with “Kneus McPherson” on what he had called a “port pad”. Then she had felt a
horrible pulling sensation, lights had flashed all around her and a sudden,
searing pain in her chest. Then she remembered that her gun had gone off too. Had
she been hit?

She jumped up frantically searching for any signs of
damage to her body. When she looked down her hair swept in front of her to fall
over her shoulders. That caused her to pause for a second. She had never worn
her hair this length, how long had she been unconscious?

She stilled for a moment, trying to get her heart
rate to slow. Taking deep breaths in through her nose, out through the mouth.
She took stock of her body. With the exception of just falling off of the bed
and getting some bruising from that she couldn’t find anything wrong. In fact
there was something weird going on. No matter how hard she trained lately she
hadn’t been able to get her body back to “fighting” form. Now as she moved, and
flexed her muscles she realized she was much stronger than she had ever been.
Then her eyes fell on her clothes. What was she wearing, some type of medical
gown?

“I see you are awake.” A female voice spoke out. “I
remember when I went through the change. I thought my hair was an animal that
was trying to eat me.”

Catherine spun around to see a hugely pregnant woman
walk into the room. Although as rounded as her stomach appeared she was doing
more of a waddle than a walk. A very tall, extremely handsome, hostile looking
male followed her closely. He was wearing some type of black pants, vest and
utilitarian boots. Her heart sank when she realized how strongly he resembled
the one she had been confronting…Kneus.

“Amber I don’t like this!” The man started to
protest but the female didn’t stop.

 
Another
woman followed closely behind him, she was a beautiful, tall brunette. “I agree
with Kniam on this one Amber, as your doctor and friend I think you should be
in bed.”

Yet another very tall, very handsome, very hostile
looking male followed the doctor. This one was wearing the same black outfit
and also resembled Kneus. “I think we should let Knaleg handle this one Amber.
You should not be here.”

Catherine started to have a bad feeling about this.
After the second male came another female. This one had fiery red hair and
flashing green eyes.

“Leave her alone Knollig. She just wants to meet the
last arrival.”

Catherine just stared dumbstruck, it was like a
clown car. Were the people ever going to stop coming through the door? She saw
with amazement that they weren’t done yet!

After the red haired woman came two more men. They
were talking and Catherine had a few moments as they moved into the room to
study “him”. He was stunning that was all there was to it! He had on the same
outfit as the others, the black vest, pants and boots. Only on him the vest
look smaller since it revealed such a large swath of tanned skin. He was tall
like the others with the same silky black hair and tanned skin. His hair was
cut shorter, more military length and he had the musculature of a bodybuilder.
She stopped in her upward perusal of the newcomer and met his eyes. She choked
back a strangled groan. Was she going crazy? All the men had purple eye color
and three out of the four resembled the man she knew as Kneus.

“What is going on…?” Catherine choked out which had
everyone looking at her now, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. The antagonism
radiating off the males, was tempered only by the friendly smiles coming from
the females.

“I am Amber.” The very pregnant one spoke, and
Catherine looked at her. She was extremely beautiful with ash blond hair. Her
hair was held back in some kind of pony-twisty thing and it still reached half
way down her back. “This is my mate, Kniam.” When the male only responded by
standing there glaring at her, the tiny woman stomped on his foot. He just
looked down patiently. She gave her “mate” the over the shoulder, smile gesture
and he turned back to Catherine and slightly nodded. Though his eyes remained
narrowed on her.

“I am Mairi.” The other female spoke next, “This is
my mate, Knollig.” Again the female had to force the male into acknowledging
her.

“I am Gwen, the ‘doctor’ here.” The tall brunette
called out doing air quotes on the doctor part of her statement with her
fingers. “Though with their technology, I don’t do a whole lot of medical
procedures. Pretty much just the basics for the females since their medical
units haven’t been programmed with everything about us yet.”

“I am Thian, my mate is at the dance. I am returning
to her once this is settled.” The one who had just introduced himself did not
resemble Kneus, but was just as hostile as the other males.

Catherine looked at the last person. It was his turn
and she drew in a deep breath waiting.

“I am Knaleg.” A man of few words it seemed,
something she had always appreciated. His deep voice ran up and down her spine
giving her chills.

“Is anyone going to answer my question?” Catherine
was used to bluffing her way through uncomfortable situations. This could
definitely apply to what was going on right now. “What is going on?”

Just when she thought this couldn’t get any
stranger, another male walked in.

“Sorry I turned at the wrong dome and got lost for a
second.” He smiled warmly at her. “Hello Catherine.” It was nice to have a
friendly male in the room but strange since she didn’t recall ever having met
him before.

“How do you know my name?” Catherine was puzzled and
her head was starting to hurt.

“You don’t recognize me?” He laughed, “It’s a good
thing I have Mairi to keep me grounded. Being this young again could go to a
fellows head!”

Catherine just stared at the man trying to place
where she could have met him. He wasn’t as tall as the others. Was only about
5’ 7- 8” if she had to guess. He had dark auburn hair and warm smiling green eyes.
”Who are you?”

“Callum McPherson. I am Mairi’s grandfather.” He
moved to stand next to Mairi and Knollig.

“That’s impossible. Callum McPherson is an older
man. You can’t expect me to believe that you are the same person!”

“I understand your skepticism but I am Callum.” He
thought for a second, “You are Catherine Chambers. I drove you on the shuttle
bus to the Bed & Breakfast I used to own. I could tell you what
conversations the women were having as I drove if you need proof it was me.” He
continued before she could say anything, “There were women staying in campsites
around my property. All of the guests for the McPherson Match Making dates as a
matter of fact.” He was still smiling warmly so Catherine held her tongue and
waited to see what else he had to say.

“While you were walking around examining my
property, Kneus hacked your tablet. He found information on it which told us
that you were working for the authorities investigating the missing women from
six months ago. All of whom you will be able to verify are here on
Terraneu.”
 
He laughed, “I knocked on
your door the morning of the welcome breakfast. I offered you something from
the cart, which you declined. That is when Kneus darted you and placed you on your
bed for your safety and comfort.”

Catherine was in shock, “How is it possible that you
know that? Is someone going to explain…?” Kniam interrupted her.

“We also would like some explanations…” he growled
out.

“Kniam, be nice. She hasn’t even been told what is
going on. We are going to be able to get answers, but she deserves some too.”
His “mate” spoke softly, and then put her arm around his waist. Leaning into
him. “I am a tad tired, the preparations for the dance wore me out. Can you
please help me to the other bed so I can put my feet up for a bit?”

Catherine had never seen such large men move as fast
as the group around her. Kniam had gently picked up Amber, Knollig was getting
a blanket or drape out of a drawer, Thian pulled a pillow out of another space,
and Knaleg just rushed to the bedside and danced on the balls of his feet,
waiting to be helpful. The only man not moving around was Callum McPherson, and
he just stood there with a huge smile, trying not to laugh.

When he noticed Catherine was watching him, he said
in a conspiratorial whisper, “This is their first pregnant woman. She is due
any day now. The triplets will be the first babies born here.”

Catherine gasped, “How is that possible?” Her head
was swimming and she didn’t know what to believe anymore.

He moved to pat the medical table she was standing
next to. “Maybe you should sit down for this.”

Thian had obviously run out of patience, “I am going
back to the celebration. My Jen loves to dance to slow songs, and I love to
make my Jen happy.” He headed for the door. “I have seen all I need to see
here. Just keep me informed if I need to come back. I will tell Asteen and
Ailech not to bother hurrying to get here, you can let us know what she has to
say.” When he reached the console he touched his hand against a pad, the doors
opened. The volume of the music increased, before it quieted again as they
closed.

She was just out of sorts enough to figure sitting
down might be a good idea. She tried to get back up onto the table but couldn’t
make it. She was just too short. After several attempts to climb up on her own,
she felt two strong hands reach around her waist and hoist her onto the table.
Her skin burned at the touch, and when she looked up to say thank-you to the
male for helping her, the words stuck on her suddenly dry lips.

She couldn’t look away from him. His flashing purple
eyes were framed with insanely long black eyelashes. A patrician nose
complimented his high cheekbones. He had full lips that she knew would be soft
against hers. She flexed her hands and fought the urge to reach up and see just
how messy she could make his hair.

“Uh. Thank you.” She managed to get out. When she
tore her gaze from his mouth back to his eyes, she saw that his frown had
intensified.

“You are welcome.” His voice came out a bit hoarse.

“So where to begin?” Amber got the attention of
everyone in the room. “I guess I get to go first since I was the one to start
it all.”

“That is not exactly true little female,” Her mate
smiled warmly into her eyes, “We started it all many thousands of years ago.”

“You know what I meant Kniam…” she brushed her hand
across his arm, and then their fingers entwined. He sat himself on the bed next
to her hip and she went on with what she was saying.

“I was staying at the Bed and Breakfast owned by
Callum.” She pointed toward the kind Auburn haired man, “I went for a walk and
tripped down a hill. I landed on a port pad left on Earth who knows how long
ago. It activated because of some blood I had on my hands. The next thing I
knew I was on Antilles.” She paused, “You wouldn’t remember being there. You
had been shot, and were brought directly to the medical tent. Then here to
Terraneu once you were stable so you were unconscious for the whole portal trip
here.”

“I can continue from this part.” Knollig jumped in.
“Amber was caught in a trap that the Antilleans had set. They traded her to us
thinking she was a primate. When she escaped her cage, Kniam caught her, and
she passed out from getting the air knocked out of her. Thinking he had killed
the little creature, Kniam put her into a medical unit to retrieve DNA and do
an autopsy.”

Mairi had heard the story and laughed, “Only she
wasn’t dead, so the computer wouldn’t do it. Kniam finally had to set it for
auto-diagnostic and the medical unit fixed her instead. It took all the damage
done on Earth and returned her to the perfect genetic blueprint of herself.
With a few modifications.”

At this time Amber got back into the story, “When I
woke up in the medical unit. I was confused and thought I was dead! I was so
pissed off that I was yelling and cursing, which had the men freaking out. They
opened the unit, and I jumped out.” Amber was laughing now, “They had never
seen a female before! They didn’t know what I was!” She was holding her sides
in her amusement.

“The original fathers were sent out looking for a
planet to colonize. They were only given a finite number of cloning eggs for
emergencies, and a port pad to Terra in the event they were successful.” Kniam
was brushing his free hand through Amber’s hair, pausing every now and then to
massage her shoulders or back. “They and in turn “we” had a procedure done that
blocked them from experiencing physical desire. It would take a female
pheromone of a highly sexual nature to remove the genetic block.”

“The original fathers found this planet, or crashed
on it…either way it was named Terraneu and they attempted to contact the port
pad on Terra. It was never successful until Amber activated it.” Knaleg’s deep
voice filled the room. “The planet we called Terra is the planet you call Earth.”

Catherine didn’t think her head could spin any
faster. She held up her hand, “Give me a second please.” They were telling her
that she as on a different planet. One with a bunch of men that didn’t know
what a woman was until Amber arrived. That they had come from Earth some
thousands of years ago?