Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [3]
Suddenly, his tricorder began to beep. Taking it out of its loop on his tunic, he checked its tiny screen to see why. What he saw made him wonder if the tricorder was on the fritz.
It was indicating a temporal flux artifact in Cargo Bay Six. But that didn’t make sense. The base’s security station routinely scanned for such phenomena. If they had …
“Clark to Palmieri,” came a voice, shattering his thought.
Dutifully, he tapped the communications badge he wore on his chest. “Palmieri here, Chief.”
“Are you getting a temporalflux reading down there?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Palmieri, “it just registered on my tricorder. You don’t know anything about it?”
“No more than you do,” Clark told him. “Go check it out, but be careful. If there’s anything at all to be concerned about, let me know immediately.”
“Will do,” he said. “Palmieri out.”
Obviously, he thought, the chief wasn’t seriously worried about the temporalflux reading, or she would have insisted on checking it out herself. Frowning, he put his tricorder away and headed for Cargo Bay Six.
It wasn’t far. Palmieri took a left at the end of the corridor and found the entrance a few meters down on the left.
Laying his hand against the security pad on the bulkhead, he watched the door slide aside. It was dark in the bay, but he had his palm light. Palmieri took a few steps inside and played the light over the uneven terrain of stacked cargo containers.
Nothing to see. But when was there ever?
Taking out his tricorder, the security officer scanned the bay from one side to the other. There was evidence of flux, all right—not a lot, but enough to make him wary. He looked around again with the help of his light, seeking the exact location of the phenomenon.
Abruptly, without warning, the cargo bay blazed with a brilliant blue-white light. Instinctively, Palmieri threw a hand up to protect his eyes. Losing his balance, he staggered backward a step.
By the time he righted himself, the source of the illumination was gone. The bay was dark again—the neon afterimage on his retina the only evidence the flareup had happened at all.
Then he glanced at his tricorder, and he realized the afterimage wasn’t the only evidence. For a moment, apparently, the temporalflux reading had gone off the scale. Now it was back to a trace level again.
Strange, Palmieri thought. I’d better let the chief know about it.
But before he could tap his communicator, he heard a sound. Something muttered. A curse, he thought.
Whirling, he saw he was no longer alone in the cargo bay. There were shadowy figures at the far end among the largest containers, where before there had been nothing and no one. From what he could tell, they hadn’t noticed him yet.
“Where are we?” one of them asked the others.
“Weren’t we just standing in the woods outside the mansion?” someone else asked.
“I’ve got a better question,” said a third voice. “Where are our wee timehook devices?”
A fourth one spoke up gruffly. “Gone, it looks like. And don’t that take the flamin’ cake.”
Putting away his tricorder and drawing his phaser, the security officer took a breath. Then he played his palm light on the figures.
“Hey!” one of them rasped at him. “Whaddaya tryin’ ta do, blind us with that thing?”
Counting quickly, Palmieri saw there were seven of the intruders. Five males and two females, one of the latter rather young-looking. All humanoid, he decided quickly, though at least two of them looked like no species he’d ever seen before.
One had light-blue skin, but no Bolian, Andorian, Benzite, or Pandrilite ever had such yellow hair to go with it. And the great, white wings he wore looked like they had sprouted right out of his back.
Another one sported golden eyes and a dark-blue complexion—or was it some kind of fur? Also, the being had only three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand—in itself, not so unusual, maybe. But he had a tail as well, which seemed fully maneuverable and ended