Alien Tango

want more of you in danger. We have enough problems—we can’t afford to lose Centaurion.”
    Nice to know he was pro-alien, or at least wanted to appear that way to us. “Look, Karl, every A-C’s related to every other A-C. You know that?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then let’s be real. They aren’t going to stay home if their family’s in danger.”
    “You’re human?”
    Whoops. “Yes.”
    “Are you all armed?”
    I looked at Reader. He indicated arms might be in our possession. “Somewhat. Why?”
    “Good. Look, if you’re hell-bent on coming, I can’t stop you. Just make sure you’ve got the means to protect yourselves at all times, don’t let your guard down for any reason, and don’t trust anyone.”
    “Including you?”
    “For all I know, yeah. It’s ugly here right now. You’re human, you understand—when things get ugly, good people do bad things.”
    “Sometimes. Sometimes good people do the right thing and bad people reform.”
    “I’m talking reality, not a movie.”
    “So am I.”
    “We’ll do what we can, but that may not be enough. You have to remember, not everyone likes that the A-Cs are here, and some of those people will do anything to get rid of them.” I heard something in the background. “Remember what I said, we want you to go back.” His voice was back to angry. I could hear voices, faint, but there were at least two other people with him. I could hear Smith talking to them, but his voice was muffled, like his mic was covered.
    The voices raised, and I heard some sharp sounds. They were muffled, too, but I looked at Reader, and he made the universal hand gesture for “gun.”
    “Karl?” No reply. “Karl, are you there? Are you okay?” Silence. “Karl Smith, do you copy, repeat, do you copy?” The ’com went dead.
    Reader and I looked at each other. He turned off the ’com. “We’re in trouble, girlfriend.”
    “I think Karl’s in worse trouble.”
    “I think Karl’s dead. Tim, see if you can raise anyone at Kennedy.”
    I gave Tim back his headset, and he started fiddling around. “James, fill me in on everything in the file.”
    “You have time to get caught up.”
    “The hell with that. You tell me the pertinent stuff, and I’ll skim the damn thing later.” I was trying not focus on the fact that if Smith was dead, it was likely because he’d taken the risk to warn us about whatever it was he thought he’d warned us about.
    “Fine. The shuttle wasn’t actually a shuttle. It was a prototype for long-range space travel, very hush-hush. It only had three astronauts in it. They were heading toward Mars, got hit with something, no one knows what. Whatever it was, it got into the interior without causing a breach.”
    “Sounds like a parasite.”
    “Maybe, but none of the astronauts turned into a superbeing.”
    “Well, that’s a blessing.”
    “One of those astronauts was an A-C, the other two were humans.”
    Oh? This was indeed news. “Who was the A-C?”
    Reader heaved a sigh. “Paul’s brother.”

CHAPTER 21
    “PAUL HAS A BROTHER?” Why this was a shock to me I couldn’t say. But in the five months I’d known these guys, they’d never shared this fact.
    “Yeah, Paul’s the oldest of four. Michael’s a couple of years younger. They also have two sisters.”
    “Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this before?”
    Reader shrugged. “Not important. All of Paul’s family live around and work out of East or Canaveral Base. No one was keeping the info from you, girlfriend, just hasn’t been a reason to mention it before now.” All of Martini’s family did the same, but I knew about them. Then again, I was sleeping with Martini, and Reader was sleeping with Gower, so maybe this lack of information flow was understandable.
    “No wonder Richard wanted Paul kept back at Home Base.”
    “In a way, yeah. No one knows what’s going on, but the three astronauts are under the highest-level quarantine, and no one we have access to has been allowed to talk to them.”
    “We’re sure none of them turned superbeing?”
    “Not a hundred percent, but seems a good bet so far. I don’t think a NASA quarantine chamber could stop a superbeing.”
    Couldn’t have stopped any of the ones I’d ever run across, but who knew? “How long until we’re close to Florida?”
    “About an hour,” Tim answered.
    I looked out the windshield. It looked light. I tried to do the math and gave up. “What time is it there?”
    “Right now? About nine,” Tim