Enemy Mine

Chapter One The stranger’s hand felt human in mine, warm, strong. But he wasn’t human. At least not entirely. I didn’t know what he was. I didn’t even know his name. But his fingers clasped mine tightly as the communications center in the alien base disappeared in a flare of brilliant yellow light. I caught the briefest flash of the despairing look in my friend Callista’s eyes, the panic on the faces of her parents, a strange resignation emanating from Raphael, Callista’s soul-bonded lover. Then they were all gone, and I found myself standing on a floor of dark polished metal, walls of the same substance close by on either side. It was a corridor, probably on the Reptilians’ spaceship, judging by the blocky, unadorned architecture, very similar to what I’d seen in their underground base outside Sedona. At least, I assumed they’d brought me to their ship and not another base, although the prescience that had told me to step forward and take the green-skinned man’s hand seemed to have deserted me for the moment, and all I had to rely on was the usual five senses. The stranger hadn’t deserted me, though. He still held my hand, and even though I didn’t know him, knew nothing of how he’d come to be here with a race of malevolent aliens, I couldn’t help being somehow reassured by his touch. At least it felt normal, an anchor of something real in a sea of strangeness. I clung to him as I tried to push back my fear. This was your decision, I told myself. You knew this was where you needed to go. For some reason, though, that inner reminder didn’t reassure me at all. Also gathered around us in the hallway were the Reptilians we’d encountered in the communications center at their former base. They stared at me with their strange red eyes, but I couldn’t begin to decipher their expressions. How could I, when the only things they shared in common with a human face were a pair of eyes and a mouth? Their noses were only two slits in the center of their faces, and their mouths not much more than that, a lipless gash. The leader, the one with the pale golden skin, who called himself Lir Shalan, bent toward the young man holding my hand and murmured something in the Reptilian language, but of course, I couldn’t understand anything he said. Nor could I pick up any of his thoughts or even his emotions. Usually, I didn’t experience that kind of difficulty — my real problem was keeping other people’s mental babble out of my head — but he was an alien, and there must have been something about my ability to read minds and sometimes see bits and pieces of possible futures that just didn’t translate when it came to dealing with the unfamiliar architecture of his brain. The stranger who held my hand replied in the same tongue, and Lir Shalan gave what looked like a satisfied nod before he made a brusque gesture with one hand. He headed off down the corridor, the rest of his team or entourage or whoever they were following only a few paces behind. The heavy boots they wore clanged off the metal floor, but within a moment the sound had faded, and I was left alone with the green-skinned man. He offered me a hesitant smile. His teeth were straight and white, and looked very human. Really, he seemed almost completely human, if you could ignore the pale sage tint to his skin and the deep ruby color of his irises. The Reptilians’ eyes were that shade, but their pupils were slits, whereas the stranger’s were round and black, like those of any human. “Come with me,” he said, and his voice sounded normal enough, too, warm and not overly deep, and with an accent as American as my own. “Your name is Taryn Oliver, correct?” “Y-yes,” I replied, startled that he knew who I was. But then, he must have known something about me, or why else would he have leaned forward and had that brief but intense exchange with Lir Shalan back in the communications center? I was almost positive it was in that moment he’d suggested it would make more sense for them to take me instead of Callista. “I am Lir Gideon,” he offered. “This ship is called — ” He hesitated, as if he’d intended to say something else, then went on, “Come to think of it, the human mouth has difficulties with the Reptilian language.” “You seem to manage all right,” I said, my voice a little shakier than I would have liked. Yes, I’d come here of my own free will, had confidently told Callista that I was ready to have an adventure of my own, but now, standing on the deck of an alien ship, I was beginning to feel some of that confidence deserting me. And while my mind boiled with questions, instead I’d taken refuge in that slightly sarcastic comment, mostly because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react to him. “Well, I’ve had my whole life to practice.” Then his shoulders lifted slightly, as if dismissing the topic. I realized then how tall he was, how broad under the heavy robes he wore. “Anyway, this ship is the Eclipse. Let me take you to the place where you will be staying.” He began to lead me down the corridor, which appeared very different from the way Callista had described Raphael’s Pleiadian-built ship. That vessel, apparently, had been quite beautiful, with colored lights serving as the ship’s signs, and furnishings that seemed almost organic rather than manufactured. In contrast, the Reptilian ship was dimly lit, all square angles and hard, cold surfaces. Doorways with rectangular panels set into the walls next to them were spaced along the hall at regular intervals, but Lir Gideon passed them all by without pausing. As we walked, I mustered enough courage to ask, “Are you taking me to a lab or something?” My question must have startled him, because he stopped almost mid-stride, then stared down at me, black brows lifting against his pale green skin. “A lab? Why would you think that?” “Well — ” I didn’t want to offend him, but it seemed like a standard enough thing to ask. After all, the Reptilians were pretty well known for performing all kinds of experiments on humans, most of them extremely unpleasant. I didn’t know why I would be treated any differently. After an awkward pause, I went on, “Your people had the captured female astronauts in a lab, and — ” “Oh, no,” he cut in. “This situation is not like that at all. You are an honored guest, Taryn Oliver.” “Just Taryn,” I said, actually managing to smile up at him. His revelation that I was a guest and not the human equivalent of a lab rat had relieved me more than I wanted to admit. Well, assuming he was telling the truth. I couldn’t read any more from him than I could from his leader. “We don’t use both names in casual conversation.” “Is that what we are having?” Well, I didn’t know how casual I felt, but it did seem a lot easier to talk to him than I’d thought. Maybe that was because, from the surreptitious glances I’d stolen at him as we walked along, he didn’t seem all that much older than I was. Maybe twenty-four or twenty-five, while I wouldn’t be twenty-two for a few more months, but still. Close enough to seem relatable. Except that he was a hybrid, or…something. I still hadn’t quite puzzled that out. The only hybrids I’d met — like Logan and Grace, who was half-hybrid — looked just like regular humans. Extremely attractive humans, but still. And Lir Gideon…he actually was good-looking as well, once you got past the odd coloring. His hair was thick and black, just slightly wavy, and something about the high cheekbones and strong nose and full, wide mouth made me think of portraits I’d seen of Renaissance courtiers. Except for the green skin and red eyes, he didn’t look as if he would have been out of place at the court of the Medicis. But there was my imagination getting the better of me again. The man who walked next to me definitely was no Medici. I really didn’t know what he was. “I suppose it’s a conversation,” I said, in answer to his question. “As for casual….” All I could do was lift my shoulders. Another smile, this one not nearly as hesitant as the last one he’d offered me. “Well, I can understand why you might feel a bit strange. But here we are.” He placed his palm against a panel embedded in the wall. As with all the others, it was placed next to a door. This door slid open at his touch. Inside was a chamber just as dimly lit as the hallway we’d traversed to get there, but by that point, I’d become accustomed to the reddish-tinged semidarkness. The Reptilians’ eyes must have been more light-sensitive than human eyes. I didn’t have much choice but to follow him inside. The room was not overly large, maybe a little bigger than my bedroom back at the house where I’d grown up. I didn’t know exactly what I’d been expecting, except this didn’t seem to match my fears of labs filled with horrible surgical equipment, or possibly some kind of jail cell. Even in the dim lighting I could see there was a table with a square metal chair sitting in front of it, and up against the windowless far wall was an odd backless kind of sofa with a metal table placed before it. Directly opposite the wall with its table and chair was a sort of cubbyhole with a rectangular opening. As I squinted into the gloom, I realized there seemed to be some kind of padded surface inside that cubbyhole, or whatever it was. The bed? The question must have been plain on my face, because Lir Gideon said, “That is where we — I mean, that is where you will sleep. You see?” Without answering right away, I went over to the cubbyhole and peered in. Sure enough, the entire surface within was raised about three feet off the floor, and held a kind of mattress, really just a pad about four inches thick and covered with a heavy, soft fabric whose nap felt surprisingly soft against my fingertips. I knew nothing about the Reptilians’ home world or how they’d evolved, but if they were anything like the reptiles on Earth, then it made sense that they’d want a dark, warm, burrow-y sort of place to sleep. “It’s — it’s very nice,” I said, then added lamely, “Thank you.” “You are welcome.” He stood there for a moment, seeming to watch me, although it was hard to tell for sure in that gloomy lighting. “I suppose this must seem very strange to you.” There was an understatement. I didn’t sense any kind of menace from him, but at the same time, I had to wonder why he’d wanted me here at all. The Reptilians were well known — among UFO circles, at least — for their rapaciousness, and yet if that sort of thing was his intention, why was he just standing there and looking at me in that calm, quiet way? “It is,” I said frankly. “I suppose I don’t understand why I’m here.” Even in the dim light, I could see his eyebrows lift. “I thought you stepped in to save your friend.” “Not really. It seemed to me that you both decided you didn’t want Callista, but wanted me instead. Or did I misread what you were saying to each other back at the base?” A pause. He shifted slightly, and I stiffened, but he’d only moved over to the chair so he could rest one hand on its back. “No, that’s an accurate assessment of our exchange.” He stopped again, the ruby eyes unreadable under his straight black brows. “Unlike her, you are completely human, correct?” “Yes.” Callista Jones might have been three-quarters Pleiadian and Grace Rinehart half-hybrid, but I wasn’t anything except your ordinary run-of-the-mill human. Well, except for being psychic, but even the powers that had been with me almost since I could remember appeared to have deserted me for the moment. “Nothing but homo sapiens in my DNA.” “And yet you have powers that most humans do not possess.” I wondered how he knew that. Then again, how did the Reptilians know anything? Some kind of strange surveillance system that no one, not my mother and father, not the Rineharts, not even Callista’s Pleiadian parents, had really been able to figure out. True, the Reptilians were supposed to have been banished from the area for the past twenty-five years, ever since Callista’s mother Kirsten drove them out of Sedona, but it seemed obvious enough to me that they’d still been keeping some sort of watch.