Alien Among Us: Homeworld: Book Two

By Casey Lytle

After escaping capture by government agents and fleeing to the Homeworld, the Tennisons are returning to Earth. But before they can return to a normal life they must complete a rescue mission. A mission which will split the family across two worlds and decide the fate of Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 8, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462085316

Casey Lytle

Casey Lytle was born on planet Earth in the early 1960’s. He hopes to one day stay in an orbiting space hotel, and eventually be the first modern human buried on Mars. When his mind is not wandering faraway places he is planted on terra firma in the Pacific Northwest.

Book preview

Contents

Prologue— Earth

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty Two

Twenty Three

Twenty Four

Twenty Five

Twenty Six

Twenty Seven

Twenty Eight

Twenty Nine

Thirty

Thirty One

Thirty Two

Thirty Three

Thirty Four

Thirty Five

Thirty Six

Thirty Seven

Thirty Eight

About the Author

Prologue— Earth 

James Morlana sat in a dark room, waiting for the sun to cast

light on the tiny frosted windowpane high in his cell. They called it his room. But beyond the thick glass he could see the vertical lines of iron bars to keep him inside even if he broke the window. Bars meant prison cell.

A couple months ago James had been a normal fifteen-year-old in Olympia, Washington. Looking forward to a new school year, just trying to fit in. No big deal. Then his parents laid the bomb.

We’re not from this planet, they said. We’re researchers from another world.

It took all summer for him to start believing them. Then a couple days ago they dropped the second bomb.

We’ve been ordered to return to the Homeworld. The government here has found out about us.

That was big. Earth teenager, to space alien fleeing the planet, all in just a couple months.

And when he was packed and ready to go…bomb number three.

We need you to help bring in Carl Tennison and his family.

Carl is one of us? It was a shock. Not an unpleasant one though. James had always felt like an outsider, and learning he was an alien made the feeling even worse. But discovering that Carl, his best friend, was an alien too…that was the best possible news. A familiar solid face in the middle of all the crazy things going on.

Except for some reason Carl and his family were running. They were not returning like they were supposed to. No one knew why.

James was given a Displacer by his mother. A device for transporting them back to the Homeworld. He was given a quick lesson on how to use it, then dropped off at a rest area along the freeway in Oregon.

I’ll be down at the next rest area, his mother said, your father will be at a freeway exit a couple miles away. If there’s no sign of them in a couple hours we’ll come get you. If you see them…you know what to do.

Yeah, he knew. Find out if they were really running, or in some other trouble. And either way, use the Displacer to zap them back home.

Well, he did part of the job anyway. He zapped Carl back to the Homeworld. Hardly fair. James was the one excited about seeing another world, but Carl got to see it first. And now James wondered if he would ever get to see it.

Before he could send the rest of the Tennisons home, Missus Tennison blasted him with her own Displacer. Her model was older; it couldn’t send him to another planet. But it did send him halfway across the Earth, to some barren field in Denmark. And right into the lap of a group of National Security Agents who she had Displaced earlier. Nice.

Of course they claimed they only wanted to help him get back home. But after a day being escorted to helicopters waiting rooms and then military transport jets—always escorted by armed guards—he ended up stepping off a jet in a barren desert wasteland, being guided into a dull concrete building which he now called home. Even if he could break the window and tear out those iron bars, where would he go? When he stepped off the jet he saw nothing but hot, flat dry waste for miles and tall brown mountains miles further. There would be nowhere to run where they couldn’t easily catch him.

Three times a day they quizzed him about the Homeworld, and his parents, and how many others were here and what their plans were. Endless questions, and no answers he could give them.

I just found out last summer! he insisted. I don’t know what any of it is about. I’m not even sure it’s true!

Oh, it’s true, the woman said. Her name was Jessica Sharpe. She seemed to be some sort of manager here. A boss. She seemed really nice, almost like a sister. But she wouldn’t let him go.

He tried to act brave. That’s what Carl would do. But at times like this, in the night with the lights off and no one around, he felt afraid. Very afraid. And lost. He didn’t know where his parents were. Or if they were coming for him.

He was glad the cell was dark, so even if someone was watching him, they couldn’t see him wipe the tears from his eyes, bury his face in his pillow, and cry like a little boy missing his family.

One 

Candy’s jaw dropped open when she turned and looked up at the building they had just been in. It was so tall it looked like it faded into the clouds. It had to be at least a mile high, if not higher.

Wow, Amy stepped up behind Candy and strained her neck looking up. They had Displaced from Grandma Tam’s house straight to the store on the fiftieth floor of the building; this was their first look outside.

Arlia and Tam stepped out of the building, their hands full with shopping bags. See? Arlia said, Sometimes it’s nice to get out and see things, not just zap from place to place.

I see what you mean, Amy said.

Will there be buildings this tall on Earth someday? Candy asked.

Probably not, Arlia said. These are old. They were built before Displacers, when they needed to put a lot of people and businesses in one place. Now they can build shops anywhere, no need for big buildings. Earth scientists are really close to Displacer technology. Before you know it there’ll be a mall on the moon that people can zap back and forth to all the time.

Is there a mall on the moon here? Amy asked.

Tam shook her head. We don’t have a moon, she said.

I thought every planet had a moon, Amy said.

Not when you’ve got two suns, Tam said. The gravitational forces make it unlikely a moon will stay in orbit.

Too much science for me, Candy thought. That’s something Carl would be more interested in. He was more of the science nut, the studious one. Sometimes she wondered if her brother knew how to have fun.

Carl blinked water out of his eyes as the Hummer screamed across the lake at over two hundred miles an hour. Ahead of him the cliff was getting close…fast. There were voices behind him but he couldn’t tell what they were saying.

About fifty yards from shore he banked the board swiftly and came to a quick stop. A wave erupted in front of him and fanned out toward the rocky shore. He took a deep breath and looked up. The jagged cliff rose a half-mile straight up, as if it had once been a whole mountain, sliced in half or half sucked into the ground forming this large lake.

It was the lake from his dream. The dream he had back on Earth.

The board hovered a couple inches above the surface of the lake, but a couple waves came up behind him and splashed onto the backs of his legs. He didn’t hear Rholette’s Hummer as it screamed up behind him. A wave blew over his head, washing him out. He fell forward off his board into the warm water. He was laughing when his head came back up. Rholette was hovering over him, grinning widely.

Ping. She sent thoughts into his head. That’s for the washout during the race.

It was a fair race, he thought to her.

If fair means washing out your opponent at the start.

Whatever, he said. She laughed. It was a joke between them to say whatever out loud, like a human way of surrendering without saying what you really wanted to say.

Get me off this training board and you’ll see a real race, he thought.

You’re not ready for a real board…you’ll hurt yourself.

He climbed onto the board and flinched as the water poured off him. His shoulders were starting to sting. Too much sun. Rholette noticed the reddened skin. Let’s hit the beach. She turned and buzzed back toward shore.

Sunburn was bad enough back on Earth, even summers in Washington—as wet and cool as they often were—could burn him like a lobster. But here on the Homeworld, with its two suns, the skin reddened faster. He had forgotten to put on sunblock before hitting the beach. His mother wouldn’t be happy.

He couldn’t see Rholette’s face; she was buzzing quickly away from him. But he could sense amusement coming from her.

Your mother won’t notice a thing, she thought to him; we’ll have that cleared up before they get home.

He felt stupid. Of course a society which could travel through space would have a quick cure for sunburn. His face reddened, but not from the sun. He stood on the board and buzzed after Rholette.

You violated procedure! a voice shouted in the darkness. Willoughby couldn’t recognize it. They were speaking to him, not telepathing. It was punishment. A show of disrespect for trying to flee from them on Earth instead of coming home when he was called.

It wasn’t working. After twenty years on Earth, he preferred voice communication to telepathy. He enjoyed the way language could say something without saying it. The way it could hint at something and leave things for interpretation. With telepathy, the thoughts passed intent as well as the message. There was no secrecy in the passing of direct thought.

Another voice came out of the darkness behind him.

It was bad enough to disobey a direct order to return…but to bring an Earth child back with you? They meant Amy, Candy’s friend.

The room was pitch black. There were probably a dozen people surrounding him, but he didn’t know who they were. He imagined one of them was Jhonnia, but he had not heard his friend’s voice…yet.

The council seemed more angry about Amy coming back with them than their attempt to run. It wasn’t as if she was the first Earth person brought back. He had earlier met the U.S. Government agent Hennesey who had been zapped here just a couple weeks ago. No one was complaining about that.

She was in danger, Willoughby said.

She could have been left behind!

She would have been hurt.

There was no evidence of that. And even so, it was not your place to make that decision.

That irritated Willoughby. It’s my decision as a thinking, feeling being, to help people who are in trouble, regardless of what planet they’re from.

You have no evidence anything would have happened to her!

"I’m much more aware of her situation than any of you. It wasn’t a matter of if anything would happen to her…just when."

It’s against procedure!

A quieter voice spoke up in the darkness. There are other considerations with the Earth child which have just been discovered this morning. I think we should study this before passing judgement on Willoughby’s decision to bring her here with his family.

There was a disgusted huff by someone in the dark. Then several moments of silence before a new voice spoke. A deep voice, carried with authority. Willoughby recognized it as the Chairman of the Council.

Your application for reassignment to Earth has been accepted. With conditions.

Willoughby didn’t like the sound of that. What conditions?

Your attempt to flee resulted in the capture of James Morlana by Earth agents. We need him returned. He is a problem if they are able to get information from him.

Willoughby had to agree with that. James was a good friend of his son Carl. James didn’t deserve whatever he was going through back on Earth.

Your first assignment is to retrieve the boy. This will mean returning to your previous post and establishing contact with the agents who pursued you. Find out where they took him, and retrieve him.

That would be dangerous. They were telling him to take his family back to Earth and allow themselves to be captured by the government. It would be okay if it was just him, but he didn’t feel comfortable putting his family in danger like that.

That will be risky for my family, he said.

You will have one of our agents with you, the voice said. She will take the place of your daughter Candy.

But the agents know my family… he began, then realized what they were planning.

No one will know the difference, a new voice said. It was Jhonnia. Willoughby grinned. His family would be safe. It was the Earth Government agents who were in for a big surprise.

Two 

Jessica Sharpe wiped a tear from her eye. She was standing at a

pop machine in the airport, watching a television screen mounted in the wall. There was a news story about a family lost in a plane crash. Mother, Father and daughter. She knew what that was like, but she didn’t want to think about it. She spent a lot of time not thinking about it. She had an important job, with a lot of responsibility. No time to shed tears. She shed enough of those a long time ago.

She dug into her purse for quarters and realized she had turned her cell-phone off when she got on the plane. She turned it back on and right away it rang.

Sharpe, she said. She was back in Portland to interview Amy Nottingham’s father. There had to be a reason the Tennisons took her with them.

Mister Nottingham had claimed to be Amy’s Uncle since moving to Olympia from Oregon. After being detained by NSA, they discovered he was her father. No one knew what happened to Amy’s mother. Jessica suspected the mother was a clue as to why the Tennisons would take Amy.

Miss Sharpe, a young woman said over the phone. An assistant in the Portland office. There’s been an incident in the Nottingham case.

Jessica felt her breath catch in her throat. Another lead drying up. What incident?

Mister Nottingham disappeared from police custody this morning.

What?

It happened when they were transferring him for the trip down here from Olympia. When they opened the back of the van, he was…gone.

Gone. That sounded suspicious. And a little too easy. Well, my money says we’re not going to find him, but spread his picture around anyway, let me know what you find.

Okay.

Jessica shut off the phone and stared at the small television screen in the wall. She took a deep breath, collected herself, and headed for baggage claim.

Three 

The stinging stopped instantly when Rholette rubbed the lotion on his shoulders. When he looked, the red skin had turned to a nice tan.

Arlia will never know the difference, she said. It surprised him to hear her speak. She had a nice voice. And don’t feel bad about looking stupid. You’re a newcomer, no one expects you to know everything.

Well, I’ve done links with you and Tam, I’ve learned a lot of stuff really fast. I guess.

Telepathy is quick and effective, but little things are easy to overlook. Sunburn medication isn’t really something people think about very much.

Carl shook his head as he stood up.