Chameleon: Alien Castaways (Intergalactic Dating Agency) Read online

  “Parts can be built in the replicator,” Chameleon said.

  “No. The circuits of the large mass replicator shorted out when the Castaway took the blast. As it is, we got lucky. The electromagnetic pulse could have fried everything. The small mass replicator is working, but it can only manufacture tiny objects.”

  “Set a course for the nearest outpost, then,” Tigre said.

  “Let me figure out where we are.” Shadow strolled to his console.

  “Am I still needed here?” Psy’s shoulders and expression sagged as if the reading had drained him.

  “I think we’re all right for the present time. Thank you,” Tigre said.

  “If you need anything else, come get me.” Psy left the bridge.

  “Why don’t you put away the weapon,” Tigre said to Wingman. “I’m going with my gut on this one and say we trust him—provisionally. He could be very useful to us, if we allow him to be. As we’re the sole survivors of the bombardment, we owe it to the ’Topians who died to make their deaths mean something.”

  “I promise I will do everything in my power to help all of you,” Chameleon vowed.

  His expression grim, Shadow looked up from his console. “I’ve identified our location.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Orion Spur.”

  “The Orion Spur arm of the Milky Way? Are you sure?” Tigre’s stripes darkened and swelled.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “’Topia is in Scutum-Crux. We jumped to a completely different arm of the galaxy?”

  “’Fraid so. And I have more bad news. Forget about finding a repair station. Habitable zones are rare in the Orion Spur. The odds of finding a livable planet are between slim and none,” Shadow said.

  “I know of one,” Chameleon said.

  All heads turned to him.

  “Earth. It’s in a solar system of eight planets, third from its star. The name is kind of a misnomer because the planet is mostly water, although there are several large, habitable land masses. The atmosphere is composed of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and a few other gases in trace amounts.”

  “He could be leading us to a consortium outpost,” Wingman said. Chameleon might have earned the provisional trust of Tigre, Shadow, and Psy, but Wingman would prefer to airlock him.

  “If I’d wanted to do that, I would have left you on ’Topia,” he retorted.

  “Does Earth have intelligent life?” Tigre asked.

  “Developing,” he replied. “A species called human has developed remedial technology enabling rudimentary space travel. They’ve formed a few alliances with extraterrestrials, most notably with the Intergalactic Dating Agency.”

  Tigre narrowed his eyes. “How do you know this?”

  “Because I monitored galactic communication for the consortium.”

  “So they know about Earth! They could track us there,” Wingman said. Even Tigre and Shadow looked concerned.

  “I made sure any mention of Earth was omitted from any reports.”

  “Why did you do that?” Tigre asked.

  “Because I was establishing haven planets in the event a disaster occurred. I believe this situation qualifies.” Finding off-the-grid planets in habitable zones and further cloaking them from scrutiny had been a painstaking years-long process. He’d managed to set aside ten such havens. An outlier, Earth almost had been excluded from consideration because its science and technology was still in developmental stages. However, the humans and their culture had intrigued him. Besides, eons ago, Earth had been a donor world. “I won’t lie to you—”

  Wingman snorted.

  “Earth is more primitive than you’re used to. Humans haven’t yet implemented faster-than-light travel—mostly because they’re still using fossil fuels as an energy source.”

  “Herian!” Tigre swore.

  “Their medicine is archaic—they still excise body parts to cure disease. I mentioned the alliance with the IDA. They do enact treaties of cooperation, but the various governments still fight among themselves. They believe in a god mythology and argue about whose mythology is real and whose isn’t.”

  “You’re making it sound better and better all the time,” Wingman said.

  “It sounds like the kind of planet the consortium would ignore,” Shadow commented.

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Tigre’s stripes had flattened and faded, indicating his stress level had decreased. “If Earth is developing, would it have the resources to fix the Castaway?”

  “It’s iffy,” Chameleon admitted. “But—”

  “Well, that’s a definitive answer.” Wingman glowered.

  “But the aliens visiting Earth through the Intergalactic Dating Agency might have the technology. We might get some assistance there.”

  Tigre rubbed his jaw and sighed. “And there’s no other habitable zone in Orion Spur?”

  “No,” Chameleon said.

  Wingman swiped across the celestial locator, scrolling and tapping. “Unfortunately, it appears he’s right.”

  “We’d never make it through another a jump without repairs.” Shadow’s body wavered, winking in and out. When he returned to solid form, he wore a grim expression. “I doubt we’d be able to launch again, either. So, if we land on Earth, and we can’t repair the ship, we’ll be stuck there.”

  “Is Earth someplace we could settle? Make a home? Potentially find mates? We can’t return to ’Topia in any case,” Tigre asked.

  “Earth can support life, but the mating situation is questionable,” Chameleon said. “From what I ascertained from the communications I intercepted, humans don’t form life-link bonds with genmates the way we do.” A ’Topian’s genmate was someone with whom they had a DNA affinity. When they met the person with the complementary gene, the attraction was immediate, lifelong, and permanent. “They enter legal arrangements called marriages, which are easily and often broken.”

  “They don’t have genmates?” Pain flashed in Shadow’s eyes before he masked it.

  Chameleon shook his head. “I don’t think so. All the evidence says no.” Given that Earth had been a genetic donor planet at one time, it was possible ’Topians carried some human DNA, so hypothetically a genmate bond might be formed, but it was so wildly remote, he wished to avoid raising anyone’s hopes. Least of all Shadow’s, for whom mating was critical.

  For Avians, Saberians, Luciferians, Veritals, and Xenos, not finding a genmate partner equated to a life of loneliness. For Shadow, it meant an early death. A Vaporian who did not mate would dissipate until he ceased to exist. Shadow couldn’t live on Earth and survive.

  Chameleon didn’t think his conscience could bear one more death. They had to get to a planet where there might be Vaporians for Shadow.

  “There’s something else that might affect your decision.” Chameleon rose from his seat. Wingman eyed him, but at least he didn’t tackle him. “When I first learned of the campaign to bombard ’Topia, over a period of months, I sent several thousand ’Topians to haven planets.”

  “Other ’Topians besides us survived?” Tigre and the men gazed at him, their faces alight with hopeful expressions. That a few of their respective species might have survived was no small gift to give them. For a moment, the crushing guilt over his culpability lessened.

  “Yes.”

  “How many?” Inferno asked.

  “About ten thousand—split up among several planets. I can’t tell you their genotype because I deliberately omitted the data.” In the event his activities were discovered, he did not want a database listing who had gotten off the planet and where they had gone. “Plus, three hundred others launched just before the bombardment. I do recall seeing several Vaporian females board the spacecraft. There wasn’t time to set a haven destination for them, so their ship is wandering in space with no place to go. I fear if they don’t reach a haven planet, the consortium will intercept them.” He felt a huge responsibility to ensure their safety, and now, Shadow’s. He couldn’t
let the man die if there was a chance of saving his life.

  “We must aid them,” Tigre said to Chameleon’s relief. “And Shadow.”

  “Agreed!” Inferno said.

  “Good plan,” Wingman responded.

  Shadow’s solid form faded, dissipating, until he pulled himself together. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  He didn’t have to tell them. They could all see it.

  Tigre cleared his throat. “Plot a course for Earth. Let’s take the chance we can get the Castaway repaired, and then we’ll locate the other refugees and lead them to a safe planet where we can all make our home.”

  Chapter Three

  Plop!

  Serenaded by the rain’s pitter-patter, Kevanne snuggled under Grandma’s quilt in a peaceful fog between sleep and wakefulness until a water droplet hit her smack on a closed eyelid. Her eyes popped open.

  Plop! Another drop landed on her forehead.

  Plop. Plop.

  WTF? She shook off the drowsiness, her gaze zeroing in on a brown splotch staining the ceiling.

  Plop!

  “No, not the roof! Why?” She flung off the quilt. After donning her robe and slippers to ward off the chill of the cold spring morning, she dragged the mattress away from the leak and propped it up against the wall. She couldn’t afford to buy a new mattress and replace the roof. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t afford the roof!

  She placed a large kitchen pot under the drip and then searched her small, two-bedroom house for more signs of leakage.

  None, thank goodness. Maybe the damage wasn’t too bad. Maybe she could patch the leak, and it wouldn’t cost too much. She sighed. Coffee first. She put on a pot to brew and went to get dressed. No sense showering just to crawl around on the roof. She donned some warm clothes, including heavy wool socks and boots with some serious tread so she wouldn’t fall and break a leg.

  After a quick fortification of some strong black coffee, she slipped on her raincoat and trudged to the barn. The faint manure odor indicated a previous owner had kept horses, but Kevanne used the outbuilding for storage.

  She found a tarp, and, with it tucked under her arm, lugged an aluminum extension ladder to the house. She propped it against the pine-needle-clogged rain gutters and climbed onto the roof. At least the rain had stopped—temporarily, but the clouds remained low and heavy, darkening the morning to a dreary gray, typical for April in northern Idaho. A single patch of brightness lightened the eastern sky where the clouds had thinned a tad.

  She picked her way over the slippery shingles, praying she wouldn’t fall or damage the roof further. At forty years old, the house had been around longer than she had, and the roof appeared to be original. She’d been informed the property needed repairs when she’d bought it, but every day she discovered something else needed fixing. At this rate, Dayton’s life insurance money would run out before she could get the business up and running.

  “Instead of Lavender Bliss Farm, I should have called it Money Pit Ranch,” she muttered, but surveying her twenty-five-acre domain from the rooftop, she reminded herself how far she’d come. She inhaled a deep breath of rain, earth, pine, and lavender. The fragrance of hope. Her once impossible dream had become a possible reality.

  She’d closed escrow a couple of months ago. Most of the parcel was treed with pines and cedars, but five acres had been cleared, some areas planted with lavender. The most recent former owners, an elderly couple, had allowed the field to fallow, but she’d recognized the potential.

  Kevanne always had loved lavender and for years had purchased the flowers from nurseries for potpourri, wreaths, and jellies. Now she had her freedom and a chance to become a successful business owner. While the latter was not assured, she vowed no one would ever steal the former from her again.

  If only the damn rain would let up so she could till and plant the fields. Once the farm got squared away, she planned to open a gift shop in time for the summer tourist season. The outbuilding at the edge of her property fronting the main highway had been used for that purpose before. However, like everything else, it had fallen into disrepair.

  Over her bedroom, near the peak, she found the problem. A swath of shingles was missing. She noted other shingles that curled, some that were loose. One good wind, and they’d be gone. She spread the tarp over the problem area, draping it on both sides of the peak so the rain would hit the plastic and roll off, rather than seep underneath. Belatedly, she realized she needed weight to hold it in place or the slightest breeze would send it sailing.

  She crept back to the ladder, climbed down, and tromped to the barn where she gathered a couple of two-by-fours and a half dozen bricks. It took a few trips up the ladder to haul it all onto the roof, but she got the tarp weighted down.

  “That ought to do it.” She dusted her cold hands on her jeans. She’d have one more cup of coffee and then run into town. Argent, population: not enough, boasted of little except a diner, an antique store, two tiny churches, one bar, and a bait-and-tackle shop doubling as a hardware store. The latter had a bulletin board where locals could post ads. She’d seen Handyman for Hire flyers in the past—maybe she’d get lucky and see one today.

  Besides fixing the roof, a good handyman could make a dent in the long list of needed repairs.

  She was stepping toward the ladder when a meteorite burst through the cloud-break and streaked across the sky like a huge flaming bullet. A shooting star! Quick. Make a wish. Kevanne squeezed her eyes shut. Send me my dream man—a handyman. She opened her eyes in time to see the meteorite slow before dropping out of sight behind the tree line. It’s going to hit the ground! She braced for an explosion, but none came.

  “What the heck?” She’d never seen a falling star do that before. The meteorite had moved like it was guided. So, missile maybe? Except, unless somebody punched a wrong button in a major snafu, she doubted the government would send a test missile over Argent, Idaho.

  Maybe it’s a UFO! She chuckled.

  Then sobered.

  UFOs were possible. She’d read how an Intergalactic Dating Agency arranged meet-and-greets between humans and aliens. But the IDA district offices were located in major cities, not in towns too small to have a grocery store. No one around for hundreds of miles had ever seen a real, live extraterrestrial. No alien would ever want to settle in Argent.

  Tourists—winter snowboarders and summer boaters and water skiers—would make a pit stop in town, but Argent was the kind of no man’s land that high school kids fled the day after graduation and where everybody knew everybody, but there was nobody to date. Which was fine by her because at the ripe old age of thirty-six, she had sworn off men. She’d rather become a crazy lavender lady than marry or even date.

  Become? She was already there! She’d fancied she’d spotted a UFO. It was a meteorite!

  Still, she should check out the impact site. She hadn’t heard or seen an explosion, but it could have started a fire. Although the ground was a mucky mess from all the rain, anything could burn if it got hot enough. A meteorite screaming through the atmosphere produced a lot of heat. It would be her bad luck to lose the farm to a forest fire caused by a meteorite strike. If a fire had started, and it was still small, she could put it out herself. If it had spread, she’d call the fire department.

  The meteorite’s arc seemed to have landed it in the national forest on the other side of the Ditterman place, currently vacant while the snowbirds soaked up sun in Florida.

  She stowed the ladder in the barn then raced to the house to grab a coffee-to-go and the keys to the quad. She’d bought the vehicle used after seeing a flyer on the bait store bulletin board. She’d needed a work vehicle for the property and had gotten a good deal.

  She stuck her coffee in the handlebar cup holder, bungeed a shovel to the back grille, hopped on, fired up the four-wheeler, and zoomed toward the national forest.

  Chapter Four

  “Somebody is headed this way,” Shadow said.


  “Put the feed on the main view screen.” Tigre motioned.

  The Castaway had landed in a small secluded clearing among the trees, but because the matter-energy converter had been damaged, they’d been unable to activate the cloaking device, leaving the craft visible to anyone who might happen by. Fortunately, they had been able to release a surveillance drone.

  On the screen, a human steered a wheeled vehicle through the trees.

  “What the herian is she riding?” Wingman gawked.

  “That must be one of their fossil-fueled vehicles,” Chameleon surmised. He’d heard about them; he’d never seen one. It was astounding humans ever made it into space.

  “Do you think she saw the Castaway land?” Wingman asked.

  “I would say the timing is too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise,” Tigre said. “She’s coming to investigate.”

  “We can’t have that,” Chameleon said. “Until we can evaluate the natives and determine how receptive they are, it’s best if we remain out of sight.”

  “You said because of the Intergalactic Dating Agency, humans would be receptive to aliens,” Wingman said.

  “Yes, but we’re not with the IDA. Humans aren’t expecting us. Furthermore, my understanding is Earth is divided into different political and cultural provinces. It’s possible not everyone has been exposed to extraterrestrials, so we can’t assume they will all be welcoming. They could be dangerous.”

  “Agreed.” Tigre stroked one of his facial stripes. “Caution should always be the first priority when introducing oneself to new and primitive life-forms. How far away is he?”

  “I believe the human is a she.” Chameleon studied the rider. The bright-yellow garment she wore had a hood, but it had fallen back to reveal a mass of curly brown hair.

  Shadow peered at his console. “About one kreptac. At her present rate of speed, she’ll reach us in three minutes.”