Alien Tango

Kitty.”
    Michael’s smile got wider and more seductive. “Kitty Katt, huh? Great name.”
    “She’s not a stripper,” Martini snapped. He also put his arm around my shoulders.
    Michael chuckled. “Staked your claim already, Jeff?”
    “Five months ago.” Martini sounded really annoyed. And jealous. I tried not to be flattered and failed.
    I cleared my throat. “So, Michael, what happened to lock you and your crew up?”
    He shook his head. “Damned if we know. Something hit the Valiant . We thought it was just space debris. But the sensors showed it as a living thing. Believe me, I was ready to fight off a parasite. But nothing happened. Mission Control had us come back.”
    “You landed back right where you took off, though.”
    “Did we?” He looked confused. “I don’t remember that.” He laughed. “Besides, that’s impossible.”
    “You did it,” Gower said flatly. “I saw the video.”
    “You don’t remember?” This was worrying.
    “No. It got jumbled there for a bit, once we were hit and then nothing happened.”
    “Do you remember landing?”
    Michael nodded. “Yeah. It was just like we were in a simulator.”
    I felt a niggling suspicion. “Let’s talk to the other astronauts.”
    “Will we be out of here soon?” Michael sounded bored again. “I’m sick of being in the zoo.”
    “Who else has come by?” Christopher asked.
    Michael shook his head. “Seems like everyone. Been a steady stream of people. No one asked questions, they just came and looked at us through the glass and left. Wouldn’t talk to us, either.”
    We moved to the next room. “Something’s really wrong,” I said as softly as I could.
    “Very.” Gower was talking in a low voice, too. “The only people coming through were medical, according to all the security logs.”
    “Maybe he got hit on the head.”
    “Maybe.” Gower didn’t sound convinced, but then, neither was I.
    We reached the next cell, to find this astronaut asleep. We knocked on the glass, and he roused up. “Who’s there?”
    “I’m Michael Gower’s brother, Paul.”
    “I’m Daniel Chee. Nice to have a visitor who’ll talk to me.”
    “Have you seen a lot of people?”
    Chee came to the door. “Oh, there’re four of you. All talking?”
    “Yes,” Martini and Christopher said together.
    “Nice. And, yeah, lots of people have been by. None of them talked to us. We’re all tired of it by now.”
    We ran through the whole hit by space debris and landed impossibly with Chee. His story was like Michael’s, though he didn’t have the parasitic superbeing worry. He’d been afraid their hull had been breached.
    We went to visit astronaut number three. “This is getting freakier by the minute. Who was here, if the records don’t show anyone?”
    “That they can’t remember the landing worries me more,” Gower said.
    We reached the third door to find this occupant pacing. I knocked on the glass. “Hi, you okay in there?”
    He spun and stared at us. “Kitty?” His eyes opened wide. “Kitty, is that you?”
    “Um . . . yes.” I had no idea who he was. To my knowledge, I didn’t know an astronaut. He was about Christopher’s height and build, with straight black hair and bright blue eyes. The thought that he was Black Irish crossed my mind, but I didn’t know why. He was cute, not A-C gorgeous, not Reader cover-boy material, but normally cute, a guy all your friends would think was a catch in the looks department.
    He came over to the door. “I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?”
    “Um . . . investigating?” Close up he looked vaguely familiar.
    He smiled, and I had to admit it was a good smile. Not up to Martini’s standards, but still, attractive. It reminded me of something. “I wasn’t expecting to see you for another couple of weeks.” I heard Christopher whispering urgently to Martini.
    “Um . . . yes. Well. Uh. . . . ” I gave up. “I’m really sorry, but, who are you?”
    He looked shocked. But it was Christopher who answered. “Brian Dwyer. Your old boyfriend from high school.”

CHAPTER 30
    CHRISTOPHER WAS THE STRONGEST imageer on the planet. During Operation Fugly, when Christopher was scoping out my place and, as it turned out, me, he’d spent a lot of time with the pictures I’d had on display. One of which was of me and Brian at my sixteenth birthday party, doing a wild version of the tango.
    That Christopher was able to recognize Brian after seeing only one picture of him