Touched by an Alien

feel normal. The warehouse is boiling hot, yet none of you were uncomfortable there—and neither were the preserved bodies of the dead superbeings.”
    “The parasites would have come here no matter what. The Ancients warned everyone,” Lorraine protested.
    “I’m sure they did, or tried to. But plagues don’t always hit everyone. Every dread disease leaves some alone for reasons only the disease would know. Vaccinations help, but not a hundred percent of the time.”
    “Thanks, Dr. Kitty,” Christopher said, sarcasm dripping.
    “Oh, stuff it. This is, essentially, a plague. The parasites don’t hit everyone. They don’t stabilize in most hosts. But in the ones they do, they create longer life, or Yates would already be dead.”
    “Diseases like to attack the weak,” Reader offered. “But they also attack the strong. Polio, cancer, AIDS—they’re indiscriminate, and sometimes they’re more deadly in a healthy person.”
    Christopher opened his mouth, and I decided I didn’t want to hear it. “You’d better have a snappier comeback than ‘Dr. James’ planned.”
    He shut his mouth. Glare #1 in full force. Nice to see he remained consistent.
    “Anything else?” Martini asked.
    “Yeah, actually. If I were a being looking for another host body, I’d seriously consider the benefits of two hearts, supersonic speed, hyper-reflexes, and incredible stamina over a single heart and vastly reduced abilities.”
    Martini shoved off the wall, flung himself into a chair, leaned back and put his legs up onto the desk, one ankle over the other. He looked straight at me. “The ozone shield wasn’t going to hold up against continued parasitic attacks. It’s another lie that the Ancients’ arrival was an all-world wake-up call. Just like here, it was hidden from the general populace. Because we ran heavy on the scientific side of the house, we knew what was going on. Once we got the ozone shield up and it was determined to work as well for keeping the parasites out as the ozone in, we were considered expendable.”
    “You swore you’d never talk about this,” Christopher said angrily.
    Martini shrugged. “We’ve sworn a lot of things. But nothing’s gotten better. The parasites arrived in our grand-parents’ time. When they wouldn’t stop trying to get in, despite the shield, the same idea dawned on the world leaders as it did on you. They wanted A-Cs, possibly more than other races, maybe only. So, they decided to doom Earth. Originally they were going to send condemned criminals here.”
    “What a thoughtful bunch. How’d you all end up here?”
    “Don’t,” Christopher growled at Martini. “Our entire race’s safety depends on this.”
    “Our entire race’s safety depends on us succeeding,” Martini snarled right back. “Up until now, we’ve maintained, at best. Unless you have some brilliant idea you’ve been hiding all this time, stop getting in the way and break down and do something helpful.”
    He and Christopher stared at each other, Christopher used his perfected Glare #1, but Martini put his bland, genial, “it’s all good” look back on. They looked as if they could do this for days.
    “Guys, please. We have a world to save. The only one both of our races actually has left, right?”
    Christopher spun and the glare was still going strong. “You have no right—”
    “I have every right,” I interrupted him. “Stop pretending, or the big bad fugly’s going to win. And it’ll be your fault.”
    “Actually,” Martini said with false, hearty cheerfulness, “it’d be our grandfather’s fault.”

CHAPTER 31
    STUNNED SILENCE FILLED THE ROOM . The girls looked shocked, but I didn’t need to look at Reader or even Martini for confirmation—Christopher’s expression was proof enough. Guilt radiated from him.
    The full realization of what was going on hit me. “They did send criminals here, didn’t they?”
    “Just one,” Martini said, his voice clipped. “As a test.”
    I wondered how to phrase this delicately and came up with no ideas. “What had your grandfather done?”
    Christopher deflated. The anger just seemed to whoosh out of his body, leaving him looking sad and lost, like a little boy who’d never gotten to play with the other kids. “He was our religious leader. Only …” He stopped talking and closed his eyes.
    “Only he wasn’t peaceful like his son,” Martini finished, voice still sharp. “He wanted to fight, to take what he considered