Alien Contact for Idiots

By Edward Hoornaert

When American Indians from the future of an alternate Earth move their entire island nation to our Earth, Ell Harmon makes the first alien contact. The take-charge Seattle biologist has always yearned to find intelligent aliens, and her dream comes true when she meets Prince Tro Eaglesbrood.

Ell and Tro are quarantined together, while the fearful world awaits news of the aliens. She yearns to help the newcomers settle peacefully, so she and Tro broadcast a show daily, on which she interviews Tro and tries to humanize Kwadrans. Although Ell shrinks from the limelight, she forces herself, for peace’s sake...and for Tro’s. The show is wildly popular. More importantly, the romance developing on-screen reassures the world. If a smart woman like Ell can fall for a Kwadran, they must not be monsters.

But Tro’s duty lies with his people, and soon that duty threatens not only the show but Ell’s heart—as well as the peace and survival of our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Hoornaert
• Release date: Mar 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310339042

Edward Hoornaert

Edward Hoornaert is not only a science fiction and romance writer, he's also a certifiable Harlequin Hero, having inspired NYT best-selling author Vicki Lewis Thompson to write Mr. Valentine, which was dedicated to him. From this comes his online alter ego, "Mr. Valentine."These days, Hoornaert mostly writes science fiction—either sf romances, or sf with elements of romance. After living at 26 different addresses in his first 27 years, the rolling stone slowed in the Canadian Rockies and finally came to rest in Tucson, Arizona. Amongst other things, he has been a teacher, technical writer, and symphonic oboist. He married his high school sweetheart a week after graduation and is still in love ... which is probably why he can write romance.

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Alien Contact for Idiots

by Edward Hoornaert

http://eahoornaert.com/

Copyright 2015 by Edward Hoornaert

Second edition

All rights reserved

This novel is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents are either

the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Danielle Fine, http://www.daniellefine.com/.

ISBN: 9781310339042

DEDICATION

To Chris, who has helped so much with so many of my books.

And before that, with fictional-oboe.

Chapter One

Seattle, Washington. The early hours of April 1, next year.

The earthquake shook Elinor Harmon out of a nightmare.

She jerked to a sitting position and peered wildly around her dark bedroom. The window rattled and the bed swayed as though a flock of cats were parading across a waterbed.

But Ell had no cats. Ditto waterbed.

Snared in the sticky cobwebs of her dream, she felt sure Tommy Hercules had broken in and was stalking across the living room toward her, gun in hand, anticipating sweet revenge.

No! Roused fully awake by fear, Ell managed, just barely, to apply logic. Hercules would've made more racket getting through the deadbolt and chain latch she'd had installed yesterday. Besides, that was the stuff of her nightmare, not reality.

The bed swayed again. When she realized why, she managed a squeak and almost wished it was Hercules. She sat there, immobilized by dread that congealed in her belly as though she'd swallowed bitter-tasting concrete mix. A few years ago she'd been in Tokyo, speaking at a conference on the search for extraterrestrial life, when a massive quake struck. It, too, had started with a teasing temblor then paused before unleashing Hell's demons.

She held her breath and waited for the earth to explode in deadly fury.

Waited.

Waited...

When she could no longer hold her breath, she flopped back to the mattress like a marionette whose strings had been slashed. This was either a mini-quake or too far away to pose a threat.

She gazed at the untouched pillow on the other side of the bed. It'd be wonderful to have a man beside her right now. Someone to reassure her when things went bump in the night. Someone she could trust not to let her down.

It's that stupid burglary, she said to the empty pillow. Made me a nervous wreck. Or had you noticed?

Earthquake rules from her grad school years at UCLA clawed their way into her groggy mind. Drop to hands and knees, cover your head and neck with both arms, and hold on until the shaking stops. But she still swam through the maelstrom of the nightmare, so to heck with the rules. She jumped out of bed and ran across a floor that made her weave drunkenly. In the living room of her two-room apartment, she fed the despicable photograph through her shredder. Even after the machine finished, she watched it warily, as though the picture might reassemble itself and attack her.

It didn't. Ell stood there, panting and afraid. Not because of the quake, which was already over. Because of the nightmare. And what she'd done.

She threw on old jeans and a sweatshirt so she'd be decent in case Tommy Hercules showed up. That was impossible…but even if he did break down her door, she doubted he'd kill her. Rough her up, sure. Maybe break some bones. Leave a few painful, hideous scars.

But he wouldn't return from vacation until next week, so she should stop fretting. She'd put everything in his townhouse back exactly as it had been, comparing the after with digital photos of the before. He wouldn't notice immediately that one incriminating picture had vanished, and even if he did, he wouldn't suspect her. She'd never even met the slimeball.

Logic lectured that the police wouldn't come for her, either. Hercules was a blackmailer and drug dealer. He wouldn't dare report the burglary to the police.

But Ell had always been the good girl in the family, the smartest, the most conscientious, the best behaved. Getting her school clothes dirty was the limit of her transgressions. Although she had burgled for the best of reasons, guilt trumped logic. She shuddered.

She trudged to the washroom and splashed cold water on her face. She looked horrible, more like forty-nine than twenty-nine-almost-thirty. Dark circles underlined her eyes and the lines on her heart-shaped face seemed deeper than ever.

And her hair…! Nervous and distracted after her post-burglary shower, she hadn't combed it. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was always unruly, pushing in different directions instead of falling into attractive waves. Now it stood out like wayward springs.

Gee, Professor Harmon, an undergrad would ask tomorrow morning, why's your hair poking every which way, like a head full of snakes?

Well, Ell would respond as the student hardened into porphyritic granite, I committed my first burglary yesterday, and—

Out in the apartment building's hallway, a door slammed. Ell gasped, even though it was probably just old Mr. Applebaum leaving to open his bakery near Alki Point Beach. She held her breath while the widower's arthritic footsteps plodded down the hall.

If she'd known how the burglary would torture her conscience, she wouldn't have done it. No one had asked her to save Uncle Jake's marriage. The only person she'd told of the plan, her kid sister Marianne, had rolled her eyes. If Uncle Jake was dumb enough to have an affair with a crack head, maybe he deserves to be blackmailed. And anyway, who appointed you the savior of the world?

Great question.

If the police or Hercules learned who committed the robbery, Ell's future might include prison stripes or revenge lunging from a dark alley. Stripes made her look fat. Seattle had lots of alleys.

Her cellphone shattered the gloomy silence. Bach's majestic Toccata in D indicated an unknown caller.

Ell let the phone ring three times, perversely allowing a little more time for police or drug thugs to smash down the door and vie for the privilege of pummeling her comatose. Dread crushed her lungs as she reached into her purse, pulled out the phone, and stared as though it were a ticking time bomb. This must be what a heart attack felt like.

After a deep, painful breath, she lifted the phone to her ear.

It wasn't the police. Nor Tommy Hercules. Instead, it was a flirtatious man from the White House, saying, How are you, good to talk to you again.

Ell's chest felt even tighter than before. At any moment now, the man would shout April fools, followed by You're under arrest.

The White House?

****

Don't tell me you don't remember me, the man from the White House said. I remember you vividly, little lady.

Little lady? After fearing the worst, the sexist remark was so anticlimactic that she sank onto the arm of her couch, the only part not piled with books.

White House, she said, stalling for time. Is this some sort of prank?

Oh, come now. You PhDs are supposed to be so smart.

She glanced around her living room, searching wildly for a clue to what he was talking about. And she found one on the couch: a copy of The Journal of BioAcoustic Biology. Did we meet when the president presented the award for my paper?

You got it. David Winston's the name and presidential aide's the game. I'm the handsome guy you gave quite a show, and I'm paying you back with the biggest break of your life.

Show? Break? Ell ran a hand through her hair. The gesture often helped her to think, but this time it did nothing.

Forgive me, Mr. Winston, but it's the middle of the night and I'm… Uh, what's this about?

Call me David. It's about the earthquake.

You felt it all the way back east?

You haven't been watching the news, little lady. That was no ordinary quake. Guess what caused it?

She hated when people asked stupid questions to emphasize they knew more than she did. She didn't answer.

Silence didn't deter Winston. It was caused by—get this—a duplicate of Vancouver Island appearing off the coast of Washington State.

Ell waited for a punch line. None came. Excuse me, but are you— She stopped just before adding insane. Are you really from the White House?

Trust me on a stack of bibles, there really is a duplicate of Vancouver Island, all two-hundred-eighty miles of it. The real Vancouver Island, in Canada, is still in place. We just saw the first infrared satellite images, and let me tell you, the identical islands look ridiculous.

Ridiculous, Ell echoed. She'd need proof before she believed such an impossibility. But she loved science's mysteries, and a twitch in her toes warned her she wanted to believe, even though that was a dangerous attitude for an impartial scientist.

It's true, Winston said. Experimental software at Homeland Security, designed to extrapolate from remarkably little data, pegs a sixty-nine percent likelihood of—get this—extraterrestrial aliens. So I thought of you, Elinor. I can call you Elinor, can't I?

Ell, she corrected absentmindedly.

Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

Flirting, at a time like this? Yet the compliment made his claim of a duplicate island seem more believable. Otherwise, he'd be working harder to convince her. She vaguely remembered a short, cocky man who'd briefed her before her fifteen seconds of fame, meeting with the president when he came to U Washington. David Winston low-level flunky who might well get shunted off to call her, just to get him out of the way.

Anyhow, he said, "I remembered a summary we gave the president of your paper about managing alien contact. 'Be nice to them and they'll be nice to us.' Worked well for Native Americans after the first Thanksgiving, eh? We nicknamed you the Welcome Wagon for Bloodthirsty Extraterrestrials. But this is right up your alley, so I personally recommended you for this mission."

Her prize-winning paper was twenty-eight pages of tightly reasoned arguments, game theory equations, and computer simulations, examining whether it would be best to assume extraterrestrials were hostile, friendly, or something else. Yet this man reduced it to a one-sentence caricature.

What mission are you talking about? she asked.

I'm getting to that, Ell. The president has called out the navy and coast guard before every boat owner from Seattle to Portland ventures out to make messy little discoveries. Someone has to explore the island, though, and since he generally agrees with you about not assuming aliens are nasty, he wants scientists to lead the way, with military backup no more than half a step behind.

Ell's limbs felt light, as though all her worries had vanished. She wanted to believe Winston. Oh, how she wanted it. Let me see if I understand you. She suppressed a giggle. You want me to be the first explorer on this island?

One of the first. We're putting together as many teams as we can.

Energy cavorted around her belly and fizzed through her body all the way down to her toes. I've always dreamed of making first alien contact.

Well, little lady, I guess that makes me the man of your dreams. But exploring might be dangerous, so you can refuse your country's call.

No way.

I'm supposed to tell you that the president is prepared to nuke the island if necessary, even if you're still there. For now, though, no nukes and no guns. The military defers to you scientists. It'll take weeks or months to recruit exactly the right people, but we need brains on the island within the hour, so we're waking every university president on the west coast to get contact info for their best scientists so we can scramble them to the island. But because I recommended you personally to the president, I'm calling you directly.

Mr. Winston, I don't know how to thank you.

Start by calling me David. Couple things. First, the president wants me to ensure that you'll always remember your duty is to us, not the aliens. If you ever violate that principle…

He didn't need to finish the threat. She had no intention of forgetting her loyalties.

And second, you put a down payment on your thanks when you gave me that show.

He'd mentioned this before, and she still had no idea what he meant. Show?

Playing coy, eh? Remember when you bent forward to pick up a pen you dropped?

No, she didn't remember—but she clasped her sweatshirt against her chest and ended the call as quickly as possible.

Chapter Two

Ten minutes after the call from David Winston, a Seattle policeman knocked on Ell's door. Saying only Come along, ma'am, he escorted her downstairs to a squad car.

She scarcely breathed as they walked down the creaky stairs, but he didn't, as she half feared, arrest her. Instead, he drove her four blocks to the beach. The street was blocked by a fire engine, its emergency lights spiraling through the misty night. The officer parked behind it, leaving his own lights flashing. The night air held chaos and the lights of a dozen first-responder vehicles. Curious residents streamed toward the shore like lemmings—or maybe zombies.

This can't be real. Can't.

But the chill felt real. As Ell zipped her down-filled parka, the policeman guided her toward the briny smell of Puget Sound. Despite the pre-dawn hour, Alki Point was more crowded than a Saturday in July—so jammed that it took the policeman several minutes to elbow through the throng. When they ducked together under yellow police tape strung along the edge of the beach, he took a deep breath, as though he had hated being engulfed by so many people.

What's going on? she asked him.

Dunno, except it's all on account of you. You sure are somebody special, ma'am.

Only to Tommy Hercules, she muttered under her breath.

She couldn't see over the police and military scattered along the grass, so she climbed onto a picnic table. Shivering despite the thick parka, she thrust her hands into its pockets.

This beach had been used in her favorite romantic comedy, Sleepless in Seattle—the scene where Meg Ryan watches Tom Hanks play with his son, but flees before introducing herself. Now, though, it resembled something out of a horror flick. Across Elliot Bay, downtown's lights shrouded themselves in fog and menace. Onlookers milled around Alki Avenue like a herd of hapless extras destined to become victims. On the sand, a female sergeant with rumpled hair and a nasty vocabulary bellowed into a bullhorn, directing a motley crew of firefighters, police, and assorted military as they positioned flares to make a huge circle of light in the sand. What with the shouting, the flickering shadows, and the flares' acrid smoke, the circle resembled a satanic ritual—and its summoning worked. The devil himself, wearing the skin of a Coast Guard helicopter, snarled demonically as he descended toward the flares.

Dr. Elinor Harmon? asked a man wearing an Air Force flight jacket and pajama bottoms.

That's me. She had to say it twice to be heard over the descending demon.

For you. He shoved a laptop computer into her hands. To enter observations from the copter.

Ell stared at the laptop. So this is real? Not the computer, the whole thing?

But he was already gone. She hopped off the bench and tugged her policeman's sleeve. This duplicate Vancouver Island, she shouted. It's true, then? And they really think extraterrestrials put it there?

Extraterrestrials? he answered. Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is that what this is about?

The crowd overheard and broke into excited babble. UFOs. We're being invaded.

And they said I was crazy for ownin' five AK47s.

Relax, dude. It's just Canucks from Vancouver Island.

You idiot, they're men from Mars aiming to enslave Earth.

If you slaughter the aliens, dear Lord, I'll…I'll never touch my sister-in-law again.

Where's the army when you need 'em? This means war. Kill all the aliens!

Bewildered by this bloodlust, Ell hugged the computer to her chest like a shield. When the cries continued without growing into violence, however, she tuned them out. They weren't important.

There might be extraterrestrials within a few hundred miles—that was the important thing. And she had been chosen to search for them. Enthusiasm bubbled through her veins like the choicest champagne. Bouncing up and down on her toes, she gave an eager whoop.

It was drowned out by the helicopter and the crowd's frightened growling.

****

For the first ten minutes following takeoff, Ell was entranced by Seattle's lights. After that, though, she realized how uncomfortable the military craft was. The copter's roar penetrated the noise-deadening earphones she wore, making conversation with the other three scientists difficult. Worse, the lingering stink of aviation fuel didn't obliterate the curry from someone's dinners. She hated curry, hated all strong spices. She was a bland-foods woman thrust headlong into a curry-coated phantasmagoria.

But she forgot her discomfort the moment she glimpsed the duplicate island, two hours later. The sky had brightened enough to reveal the Pacific below. It boiled with whitecaps, furious at the rocky island that had, supposedly, invaded its lair.

Supposedly. Ell still didn't quite believe it, though she wanted to.

Her specialties were acoustic biology (the study of how animals like whales communicated) and exobiology (speculation about alien life), and both were useless until she spotted living creatures. Between the height and the light, none had appeared, so she gawked like a tourist.

The forest below contained Douglas fir, pine, and cedar; familiar, yet strangely sparse. Vancouver Island—the real one—harbored lush, mid-latitude rainforests and some of the tallest trees on the planet. By comparison, this land appeared barren, with half its trees dead or unhealthy. The ecosystem was ill.

We should be over a city called Nanaimo, the pilot announced over the radio in her headphones.

I see only a few ruins, Ell shouted.

Exactly. The city isn't there.

Peering down, Ell saw burned-out or abandoned buildings—human-style buildings—overgrown by weeds. To the overarching mystery of the island's arrival, she added two more. What disaster had struck? And who—or what—had lived here?

Look, Ell cried a few minutes later. Power transmission lines leading into the sea.

Indeed, metal towers—squat and massive and painted a weather-beaten red—supported thick electrical cables. They led to a peninsula then stopped. Most of the wires drooped into the water, but one rested on a barren rock protruding above the waves.

Can we get a closer look at those wires? she asked the pilot.

As you wish, Dr. Harmon.

One of the other scientists, an oceanologist name Ryan, objected. I think we should follow the shoreline.

Dr. Harmon got called directly by the White House, the pilot said. You didn't.

Ryan and the other scientists scowled at her, but she didn't care. She was living her dream.

The helicopter zoomed down for a closer look. The thick cable had been sliced rather than torn, leaving mirror-smooth metal at its end. But why? And how? Delicious mysteries.

She asked the pilot to follow a cracked and overgrown road leading inland, over the mountainous backbone of the island. The road turned out to be abandoned, and had been for a long time. With no people or vehicles in sight, Ell didn't expect much of interest until they reached the west coast's fiords. People—or monsters or whatever had built the road—would inhabit these fierce crags only if they valued security and defense above all.

As a result, she almost missed the flesh-colored movement halfway up a mountainside, where rock layers formed three broad, natural steps clear of trees. Something—a human?—dashed along a dirt road that zigzagged up to the top step. Holding her breath, Ell waited until the copter passed a rocky spire that hid the clearing. When they passed the spire she'd have a good view.

There. A naked youngster stared up at the helicopter from what looked like the mouth of a mine.

Stop, Ell cried. Someone's down there, a young girl. Land on that clearing, just below the mineshaft.

But before the pilot could turn the copter, the girl disappeared into the mine. I don't see anyone, Ryan said sulkily.

She's gone, Ell said, but we have to investigate. There's a side road and an arched mineshaft big enough to hold a truck. Mr. Pilot, take us down.

He headed down over the objections of the other, more timid, scientists. The top shelf isn't wide enough, ma'am. I'll land on the shelf below it.

Amazing, the power of a call from the White House. One of these days she'd have to thank David Winston, even if he was a creep.

****

Aliens, little cousin Delfina announced. In a spin-avion.

With composure he didn't feel, Prince Tro Eaglesbrood looked up calmly from the air-quality analysis he'd been reviewing with his councilors. He forced his voice to sound unruffled. Elfy? Who let you up here?

I just wanted to see if things look different now. They don't. She sounded disappointed.

Don't scream at her. Don't scream. You went outside? Elfy, no.

The first person to venture into the air of this unknown version of Earth had been an irrepressible nine-year old who hadn't even bothered to dress for the occasion? He should have taken precautions to protect her, yet he hadn't. Another failure.

As though following the bare-bottomed girl inside, the thump-thump-thump of an aircraft pounded Tro's ears. He stifled an oath. Based on pollutants and particulates in the air, the computers predicted that this world harbored industrialized civilization. And now, already, the natives were here. Wherever here was.

Wearily, Tro rose to his feet and faced his Circle of Counselors. Too bad they hadn't had more time to prepare. Too bad his bossy mother had already assumed the role of regent until Tro's crowning. Too bad her orders for this situation were to come out shooting, so as to die with honor intact.

Too bad, yes. Everything was too bad, too bad.

Yet predictable. Evils flowed like a raging river from whatever had gone wrong last night. An old saying claimed that society's failures clung to a prince's boots like steaming-fresh manure. That stinking vapor now belonged to Tro.

His brother Sharkeen, ruler of Kwadra Island, was supposed to have greeted them like an intrepid leader who had personally blazed the trail to a safe new world, even though Tro had masterminded this move. But the political theater had backfired. Sharkeen wasn't here.

Their island had landed in the wrong alternate reality.

With Sharkeen inaccessible, Tro was now the leader, along with his mother, of a small, impoverished nation lost in a world as alien as a nightmare. They were more lost than any refugees had ever been, in all of time.

Worse: He'd as good as killed his charismatic, conniving, yet beloved brother. Poor Sharkeen, stranded forever in their target reality—a wilderness world bereft of human civilization.

And because the Kwadran people now depended on him, Tro had time for neither guilt nor grief. He must pretend to be calm and confident.

They found us so soon, groaned Insook, Duke of the Makah clan. Dark circles rimmed Insook's eyes; combined with his thick, grey eyebrows, they made him look like a raccoon. The sixty-year-old duke had stayed awake all night with the rest of them.

Tro turned to Duchess Beaverpaw. Opsie, have someone make sure Delfina goes back home. And Elfy—get dressed.

Why? The girl's mouth compressed into such a tight line that her lips disappeared. You always tell me I'm just a kid. Everyone says I'm a kid. It doesn't matter if I'm dressed.

We don't know what taboos these strangers harbor. If they're human—and by all the spirits, he hoped they were human—some societies might deem your body inappropriate.

Tro smiled to hide his deeper concern: that her nudity might spur depravity if the avion carried rapacious men capable of penetrating the underground habitations. We do what we must, Elfy. Survival.

The girl rolled her eyes at this mantra, invoked too often. Survival, she muttered. But she turned and followed Opsie out of the command center toward the tunnel to the habitations.

Guilt made Tro's heart ache. His little cousin—all his people—deserved a better life than he had led her to. But Delfina would be safe down in the underground cities.

If safety existed anywhere. What if the spin-avion's owners had similar orders, to destroy first and inquire afterward? What if they had atomic weapons? A red-hot scalpel of rage sliced through Tro's heart. Rage at the universe's cruelty, at the cultus interlopers in their cultus spin-avion, even at poor Sharkeen for leaving him to deal with the twilight of the clans.

For a moment, Tro's eyes lingered on the carved eagle, his clan's spirit ancestor, atop the short, ancient totem pole that was the room's main decoration. Instead of reminding him of his people's proud history, as it usually did, the pole raised doubts. Did this world have totem poles? They symbolized his people. Without poles, this world might prove too foreign for him to comprehend.

He turned to his councilors. Shadows from overhead lights transformed their eyes into black, fathomless pits. The smell of fear mingled with the odor of bodies unwashed during these frantic, fruitless days.

Acting on Princess Isabella's orders, the Keepers of the Keys unlocked the armory. This was a large, ornate cedar crate from hundreds of years ago, when their aboriginal ancestors had carved and painted even everyday items. The councilors formed a queue. Insook, first in line, pulled out a S492 Cabrera, the largest and angriest-lookin g weapon, capable of destroying a spin-avion at five-thousand meters. He sighted along the barrel and grunted.

But what, Tro wondered, if the interlopers were friendly? Given recent history, expecting friendliness seemed foolish. His grandparents' generation had known peace, but not Tro's, and the clans had started tunneling the impregnable kwayvivas before his birth. As environmental collapse made civilization plunge like a landslide toward anarchy, even the other semi-autonomous principates of the North Coast Kingdom had turned hostile or were overrun by marauders.

Yet if the environment of this world weren't disintegrating, its peoples might not have degenerated into barbarism. Peace and survival might be achievable—and his mother, deep underground, could have no direct knowledge to adjust to the situation. Let her rule the kwayvivas for now, while he handled alien contact.

Tro's back was straight as he strode toward the armory. Put back the weapons.

Opsie Beaverpaw had returned and now held a T44 Roussel. The slender, once-beautiful duchess had a jagged scar from mouth to cheekbone. Only half her right ear remained, the result of a nightmarish encounter with marauders reduced to savagery.

Put it back? Opsie glanced from the weapon to Tro. But this is your mother's order.

I am prince premier now. My orders outrank hers.

The scars on Opsie's cheek wrinkled as she frowned. It was presumptuous and contrary to tradition for him to countermand his mother's orders before the royal succession was official. If even Opsie, a former lover, doubted