Alien Tango

in Kitty. And we have some lunatic calling at odd times to tell Kitty to get out of town. If we could just go back to Dulce, believe me, I’d go in half a heartbeat.”
    He was quiet while Mom talked. Martini started looking less upset, so I hoped she was giving him some advice, as opposed to making him more stressed out.
    Gower touched my arm. “The visuals are downloaded. I’m going to have all three of them cross-reference who they’ve seen and are seeing with the archives. Only showing them folks who have been in space and are dead, as a first pass.”
    “Works for me.” Martini was still listening. I put my arm around his waist. His whole body was tensed. I wanted to rub his back but wasn’t sure if it would hurt him or not. This couldn’t be good for his empathic blocks, though, and I didn’t want to have to give him adrenaline again any time soon.
    Finally he spoke. “Okay, sounds good. You want to talk to Kitty? Great, talk to you later.” He handed me the phone and knocked his head gently against the wall.
    “Mom, what did you just harangue Jeff about?”
    “Nothing. I just gave him some suggestions and told him to make sure you were safe.”
    “Nothing my ass.”
    “I want your ass protected.”
    “Well, did you give him any help in terms of finding my stalker or did you just spend time telling him how great Brian was when we were in freaking high school?”
    She sighed. “I gave him a quick course in how to spot the likely stalker, yes. And I didn’t give it to you because it’s unlikely the stalker will identify if you’re looking at him or her. They’re likely to seem friendly to you, in order to lull you into a false sense of security. Or they’ll just attack you without warning.”
    Great news. “Can this get any more fun?”
    “Probably.” Mom sighed again. “Tell Jeff I’m sorry. The situation in Florida is out of control, and I don’t know how much of this is related to all the discussions of what to do with Centaurion Division or not.”
    “I’d guess a lot. I’m not big on the coinkydinks. I think a lot of this is interrelated, but I don’t think my stalker situation is.”
    “Wouldn’t that then be a coincidence?” I could swear she was snickering.
    “Tell Dad I’m calling him next time.”
    “Yes, Jeff mentioned that, too. Give Christopher my love, and I’ll talk to you after your next crisis. Love you, kitten.”
    “Love you too, Mom.”
    I leaned against Martini. “There are times when I wonder if she’s just pretending to be the head of antiterrorism and is actually giving me advice based on the latest hit soap’s storyline.”
    “Nah, that’d be too easy.”
    “Jeff, Kitty,” Gower was near Michael’s cell. “I think we’ve got a definitive answer.”

CHAPTER 33
    WE TROTTED OVER TO MICHAEL’S CELL. “Every person the astronauts see has been in space, and every one of them is dead.” Gower sounded calmer than I would have expected under the circumstances. He wasn’t all that calm, but at least he wasn’t screaming. I chose to see this as a positive.
    “But not every person who’s been in space and has died is in the lineup, right?”
    “Right. As Chee told us, the Challenger crew isn’t here. In fact, no one who’s died in an accident or for any other reason while in space is being seen by the astronauts.”
    “So, what does that tell us?” Christopher asked. “Are we dealing with a haunting of some kind?”
    There was something I knew I needed to remember. “That tenth planet you told me about, Jeff . . . the one that you and a couple of the other races felt were a danger. You removed their ability for space travel.”
    “Right, what about them?”
    “And you think the entities within the astronauts are here to do something, but they don’t know what?”
    “Yes, that’s the best I’ve got. Again, what about it?”
    I closed my eyes and tried to figure this out. When we’d met—over a newly formed superbeing I’d killed—Martini had implanted a memory from his aunt, Christopher’s mother, Terry, in my mind. But it wasn’t only a memory, or a prophecy. There was a little bit of Terry still inside me. I never discussed it with Martini or Christopher—Terry had programmed Martini when he was a little boy, but he still felt guilty about the implant, even though it had never upset me; and Christopher wouldn’t be able to deal properly with the idea that a part of his mother was potentially still alive.
    Over the past