The Copernicus Deception (The Human Chronicles Saga Book 15) (16 page)

Chapter 22

Nurion stared at the image of Onix Gru for several seconds before responding.

“They didn’t find anything? I can accept that as a testament to the effectiveness of the masking your agents did. However, now you raise the possibility that the Visidorans may have indeed located the artifact and are just not admitting to it.”

“It is but one possibility. That, or the Juireans have it. I know now that they also entered the ship and did an inspection. However, in both instances, all they were looking for was contraband. The artifact itself is quite small and appears to be a decorative item.”

“So they may not have known what they were looking at?”

“Would you, if you did not already know in advance?”

“Where is the ship at this moment?”

“It is on Liave, with Copernicus Smith.”

“And Adam Cain.”

“That is correct.”

“Yet you do not know if the artifact is still aboard?”

“I will not know until I arrive there tomorrow. I have a reader that will help locate the device, courtesy of the Incus.”

“My sources say they are still looking for the artifact on Incus. Let us recover the device before they begin shifting their efforts outward.”

“And what shall we do if the object is not aboard the ship? How do we locate it on Visidor or with the Juireans?”

“That, Onix, will be a challenge.” The Point-Operator then stared at the fat Silean, again with suspicion. “I still find it strange that your ship would break down during its journey here. Perhaps you should have selected a more reliable vessel for the assignment.”

“In hindsight, you are correct, however, I used one that was already on Incus at the time, so as not to arouse suspicion. Breakdowns do occur; this particular one was quite inconvenient.”

“Indeed…indeed it was.”

********

Onix cut the link.
He suspects
, he thought,
yet he has no proof. And by the time he does, Nurion Massi will be an afterthought in galactic affairs and influence.

Also by then, Onix Gru hoped to have joined the long line of Silean elites, even possibly taking his place next to the great Kroekus as the wealthiest creature in the galaxy.

He checked with the ship’s captain. Nineteen standard hours and they would be on Liave-3. Copernicus knew he was coming and had made preparations.

Then Onix shuddered.

That is assuming the artifact
is
still aboard!

The suggestion that the Visidorans or Juireans may have found the device was something he said to divert attention from himself. Yet what if it were true? What if they had stolen the artifact from the creature who had stolen it originally?

It would be up to Adam Cain to tell him if that were so, since Onix did not possess the detection device he told Nurion he had. His so-called reader was the Human, and his singularly unique electronic implant, courtesy of the Formilians. If anyone could locate the device aboard Onix’ cartel ship, it was Adam Cain.

Chapter 23

Adam hadn’t claimed a room before he went aboard the Gradis ship, so now he took one next to Riyad’s, but further away from Coop’s. He wanted to spend time with his new friend and didn’t want to risk being overheard through thin walls. That still didn’t eliminate the possibility of hidden microphones and cameras. But that was one thing his ATD
was
good for, locating such intrusions of privacy. After a thorough scan, Adam felt confident he wasn’t being observed.

He took the orb from his pocket and set it on the bed next to him.

Again he sensed that the thing was looking at him. There was an intelligence here, just something he couldn’t define.

“What are you?” he whispered.

The familiar variable vibration could be heard in his mind.

“I know you’re trying to communicate, but I don’t understand.”

There was prolonged silence, followed by a series of vibrations. He still couldn’t understand what they meant.

He shook his head in frustration. The orb vibrated.

Can it see me?
Adam questioned to himself.

More vibration.

That was a mistake,
he thought. The orb was communicating through his mind, so no thought was off limits.

“I’m at a loss,” Adam whispered. “If we’re to have a communications breakthrough, you’re the one who’s going to have to make it happen.”

Two quick vibrations…and then silence.

He lay back on the bed, but not before returning the object to his pocket. Then he closed his eyes. He needed rest. Maybe in his dreams he would be able to sort things out.

********

Adam awoke with someone staring at him. He bolted upright.

“Relax, it’s just me,” said Riyad.

“What…what time is it?”

“Isn’t that a relative question? Just suffice it to say I think you’ve been asleep for about four hours. And you were talking in your sleep. That’s what brought me in here.”

“Talking…what was I saying?”

“Typical sleep-talk. Gibberish, mostly, with a few words like lineage and remnant, which I recognized.”

Adam tensed and grabbed at his left pocket. The orb was still there.

The look on Adam’s face must have been revealing, because Riyad asked what was in his pocket.

“Where’s Coop?” he asked instead of giving an answer.

“He’s in his bedroom, I think. I have to tell you, something’s not right around here. I went in his room a while back and he wasn’t there. Then a few minutes later he comes waltzing out like he’d been there all along.”

Adam was distracted. He could see through the shades of the bedroom window that it was dark outside. “You want to take a trip into town, check out the Caribbean vibe of the place?”

Riyad frowned. “I am feeling better—found some really good salve to put on my burn. But do you think it’s a good idea to leave the compound? Who knows what Copernicus is up to?”

“It’ll be fine. I noticed a number of open-air transports parked outside. We’ll take one of those.”

As they left the building, the two men skidded to a stop, frozen by the sight they saw outside the door. Adam’s Colt .45 had been confiscated on Visidor, and all the hand-held weapons aboard the
FS-475
had been removed by the inspectors, as well. He—and Riyad—were defenseless against the fierce beast looking down at them.

It was another dinosaur. Granted, it was smaller than the ones they’d encountered on Visidor, but it was a dinosaur nonetheless. The creature was of the velociraptor variety, with a large head, elongated mouth, beady eyes, smallish arms and a menacing tail that swung back and forth as it stood ten meters from the building.

“Slowly,” Adam said to Riyad. “Begin moving back toward the door. Don’t make any sudden movements. They have very poor eyesight.”

“You learned that from
Jurassic Park
,” Riyad whispered. “Admit it, you don’t know anything about this creature.”

Together they took a cautious step toward the door.

“Ginger! Sit!”

The voice calling out from behind them, caused both men to nearly faint. They turned to see Copernicus standing brazenly in the doorway, with a big grin on his face. Adam and Riyad looked once more at the three-meter tall killer animal.

The dinosaur was leaning back on its hind legs, resting on the huge tail, its small, yet long-talon fingers opening and closing with a strange, almost hypnotic motion. Copernicus pressed past the two men and stepped up to the beast. It lowered its head so Coop could scratch the knobby skin.

“So….” Riyad began.

“Yep, I really do have a pet dinosaur.”

Adam tried to relax, but it wasn’t happening. People with pet monkeys were always getting their faces ripped off unexpectedly….

“Did I hear you call it
Ginger
?” he asked.

The beast perked up at the sound of her name and looked at Adam. The long mouth opened and a glistening pink tongue fell out, making the creature appear more like a huge dog on steroids than a relic from prehistoric times.

“Yes, this is Ginger,” Coop said proudly. “I found her abandoned by her mother when I first arrived on Liave. Raised her since she was only about three weeks old.”

“So what…a rescue dinosaur?” Adam said.

“Something like that. She’d be dead within a day if I let her out in the wild. Now she patrols the compound, keeping it free of rodents and other pests, anything smaller than a cow.”

“A cow?” Riyad questioned.

“Yeah. The rats around here are not something you want to deal with yourself. But don’t worry. She’s been trained to protect me against alien intruders. The rest of my crew try to avoid her at all cost.” Copernicus paused to scrutinize his two guests. “What are you guys doing?”

“We thought we’d go into town, check out the place,” Riyad said quickly.

Thanks, Riyad
, Adam thought. “Yeah, I noticed it has a Key West kind of look to it as we were landing.”

“That it does. But I wouldn’t recommend it, not without a guide. I’ll go with you.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure we can manage.”

“But I know all the best places. Besides, like everyplace else in the galaxy, it’s not wise to wander around a strange town without backup.”

********

Ten minutes later they were rumbling down the coast road toward town in an open-air electric Jeep-like transport. It was a single lane road, and occasionally they would yield to larger vehicles coming from the town. The etiquette seemed to be: yield to larger vehicles. When two of the same size met, that’s when things got interesting.

Through it all, Copernicus managed to get them into town and onto the colorful, palm-lined main street without killing them. The place definitely did have a Caribbean feel, although Adam soon learned that having pet dinosaurs wasn’t all that rare on Liave-3. But the ones he saw in town—mainly on leashes—were much smaller than Ginger, about the size of dogs and cats, of which he didn’t see anything resembling the ubiquitous Human pets since his arrival. Small mammals like them were probably the staple of the carnivorous lizards.

The residents of the town came in such a variety that Adam had to get an explanation from Copernicus.

“The Humanoid natives are really primitive. They hide out mainly in the mountains to the south and rarely come in contact with us. Everyone here, as you’ve guessed, came from somewhere else. That’s why you don’t really see any one dominant species. It’s that way on a lot of planets in the Frontier. This is where the galaxy’s leftover coffee grounds settle out.”

“What brought them here?” Riyad asked. “What kind of commerce is there?”

“Not much, at least with the outside world. The residents mainly service each other. Local craftsmen build things they sell to other residents, who then run shops, restaurants and build homes. There’s a lot of fishing that takes place, if you know the safe places to go. The town was colorful to begin with, but when I came here I kicked it up a notch. I even went out in the jungle and brought in most of the palm trees.” And then Copernicus smiled broadly. “I’m kind of the unofficial mayor around here.”

“So what’s this place called, Key-Pernicus, or Copernicus Key?” Adam offered.

Coop laughed. ‘Nothing that exotic. It’s called Metland, but I like your ideas, Cain. I may mention them at the next city council meeting, see what they think about a name change.”

Several of the pedestrians waved at Copernicus as he drove by. He waved back, flashing full-toothed grins. He noticed Adam’s reaction.

“Yeah, at first they were frightened, especially with our habit of sending death challenges with every grin. But they’ve gotten used to me by now.”

Copernicus pulled off the barely paved road and onto a sand parking lot. There were an additional twenty or so vehicles there, lined up outside an open-air restaurant with a thick cloud of mouth-watering smoke rising up from behind the building. Coop stepped out of the car.

“I promised you T-Rex steaks. Well this place serves the best.”

“Really, T-Rex?”

“They look like a T-Rex. Locally they’re called grenics.”

“Is that what Ginger is, just a baby version?”

“No, they’re different. A baby grenic is about twice Ginger’s size.”

“How do they catch them?”

“Modern weapons can bring down anything on this planet. It’s really not that hard. Luckily the population—the non-native population—is so small that nothing’s been hunted to the point of extinction. Besides, one adult grenic would feed the whole town for a week.”

Without waiting to be seated, Copernicus took a table at the south end of a huge wooden deck, covered only by a canopy of wide palms ten meters above waving in a gentle ocean breeze. The combination of the salty air and the grilling grenic made Adam forget where he was, until the inevitable happened.

The waiter approached, a rotund creature with two dominant arms, along with a pair of minor appendages just below. This arrangement seemed to the second-most common Prime design in the galaxy, behind the two-legged, two-armed variety. The waiter also had four eyes—two large ones in front and two smaller ones placed along each side of his round head. It was the sight of the alien that jolted Adam back to reality. He wasn’t in Kansas—or Key West—anymore.