"But they're not infecting just any humans," Tess said to Larek/Brody. "The Gandarium seem to be particularly interested in one human girl."
Larek considered these words for a long moment before nodding. "That suggests that they can't infect most other humans, but I'm not quite sure why. Except... oh, hang on just a moment, I need to consult one of my references." Brody's eyes started to stare glassily into the distance, and Tess wondered if Larek was relaxing his mental control of the Earth man in order to flip through papers on his office desk, or click through files on a computer - or heck, flash pictures up on the wall using an alien orb.
"I hope that this turns into something useful," Max muttered to Liz.
"Hmm, okay," Brody muttered as Larek came back. "There's a reference from an early Gevinor scouting mission to Earth that humans are generally resistant to Gandarium hybridizing techniques. I'm not certain exactly what that means - the old Queen's people must have found a way to make it work, Max, or you wouldn't have existed. You either," he added, looking over at Tess.
"Okay, hypothetical supposition," Liz said. "Suppose that there's a very rare gene in humans that does make them susceptible to the Gandarium thing. So Nasedo, and anybody left alive on the mission - they'd have had to search to find different human subjects they could use to hybridize with the samples that they had of the Royal Four. And the Gandarium could be after any of them now, except that a lot of them are probably dead."
"I get it," Max said, smiling at her. "Laurie's grandfather must have carried the gene, which is why Michael looks like the old picture of Grandpa; Michael has Grandpa's human DNA. And Grandpa passed on the gene to his family, so now Laurie has it."
"If that's it, then the problem won't end with this Laurie girl," Larek warned. "Once the Gandarium manage to hybridize her, in an uncontrolled fashion, they'll be able to transcend their limits, create Gandarium-human hybrids that could hybridize any human."
"That's bad," Kyle said. "But okay, there's something that I don't get. If the Gandarium are just these crystals out in the woods, then who kidnapped Laurie from the asylum in Texas for them? Are there other aliens working for them, or can they control human pawns like you do - sir?"
"Well, the Gandarium have a highly organized collective society, with different special roles," Larek started.
"Like a beehive?" Tess prompted. "With workers, and drones, and the queen?"
"Wait a second," Larek muttered, and thought about it. "Yes, that will do for an analogy. So, there's a special Gandarium, just one to a 'hive', which can leave the nest and work towards its goals. It's not really like a queen bee, but let's call it the queen Gandarium anyway. The queen has been known to burrow inside some other creature, and then, yes, it can control that creature's actions and thoughts somewhat. But that's also the hive's weakness. If the queen is killed, then because of the mental linkage between them, the rest of the hive will perish also."
"Thanks very much for this info, Larek," Max said. "I know that you've got to leave Brody soon. Is there anything else you can think of that's important?"
"No, you're right, I need to go now." Larek stood up. "Don't react to Brody until he shows that he's aware of you." Larek stood up and returned to Brody's original table. Kyle reached out and pushed the chair that Larek had been using away towards the square table that it had come from, so that it wouldn't be as evident that anybody else had joined them at their booth. Then an awkward silence fell.
"So, you were saying something about spending the day out in the woods, Max?" Tess asked, her voice sounding a bit too loud, and Max winced and shook his head in her direction.
"Yes, that makes some sense," Liz said. "You can all help me out with my 'science project.'"
"Oh, joy," Kyle muttered.
"Excuse me?" Brody's voice came from behind their booth. All four teens froze in mid-conversation, but a red-haired waitress a few tables turned towards Brody's booth and waved with an "I'll be right with you" kind of gesture.
#
Alex and Isabel showed up at the Crashdown, each giving the other a cold shoulder, and very hungry. Max wanted to leave for Frazier woods right away, but neither of them wanted to drive out of town together, or hitch a ride with the same car. Eventually, Alex went with Liz and Max in the Jeep, and Kyle gave Tess and Isabel a ride - after Alex and Isabel both had their takeout orders.
"So, how much have you guys worked out about this Frazier woods stuff?" Isabel asked as Kyle passed the city limits sign.
"Not everything, but a lot," Tess said. "Larek dropped by again, and filled in some of the blanks."
"Sheesh, you'd think Max could have let me know that as soon as I showed up."
"Yeah, he could shout alien secrets from the roof while he's at it," Kyle put in.
"Was he pissed at me for yanking him to Earth?" Isabel asked after a moment
Kyle thought about that. "He didn't mention you by name."
"I'm not convinced that he knows any of us by name, except Max," Tess said. "Max introduced me at the Summit, but he didn't call me by name either."
"I guess not," Kyle said. "But there was a lot going on. Anyway, he seemed to hold Max responsible for the 'stunt,' and Max took it. Which is decent of him, he did support your plan, Isabel."
"Yeah, that's just great of him," Isabel drawled, rolling her eyes.
#
"Let's walk and talk," Liz said, once they'd filed out of their cars in the Frazier Woods campsite parking lot. "I got a check-in call from Maria on the way up here, and it could be important stuff for all of us today."
"Just how's Michael doing?" Kyle asked.
"It sounds like he's a little irritable, but not too bad otherwise. Let's see - Laurie's grandfather is dead. She must have been delusional when she told Michael that she could introduce them. Laurie's at her family's house in Tucson, with an aunt and uncle. Not long after Michael and Maria arrived, the Aunt and Uncle had their security guys throw Michael and Maria out."
"Wait, hold up?" Tess said. "How come nobody found out about this aunt and uncle? That's counting Jim and Agent Duff..."
"Dad didn't have much time to investigate Laurie, after he knew it was her, before he got suspended," Kyle muttered.
"I tend to think that Duff is fairly competent, but we don't know that for sure," Max said. "Maybe the Aunt and Uncle didn't want to be found."
"I didn't even get to the interesting part," Liz said. "Before Michael got the heave ho, the uncle paid him ten thousand dollars to not pursue an inheritance settlement against Grandpa Dupree's estate."
Tess started laughing, and Kyle shared a sidelong look at her.
"So I guess Grandpa Dupree was the one who had the money," he said. "Laurie comes back with a teenage boy who looks the spitting image of Grandpa when he was young, and a teenage girl hanging around. The aunt and uncle think that he's an illegitimate son, or pretending to be."
Tess sighed. "I guess that nobody had a chance to ask if Grandpa ever had an alien abduction experience or anything like that."
"No," Liz said. "Michael's upset about the whole thing - he promised Laurie that he'd protect her from anybody who wanted to hurt her, and now he can't. He doesn't trust the aunt and uncle to take care of their young niece. Michael and Maria tried to sneak back into the house late last night, and got caught before they got to Laurie, thrown back out again."
"Okay, well, maybe they'll be able to figure something else out from the Arizona side, or maybe they won't," Kyle decided. "And in the meantime, we go digging for Gandarium crystals."
"Yeah," Max said. "Starting with the area where Laurie was found. I'm not sure what to do when we find them, but we need to get an idea of how many are out there and why."
"I thought of one more question we should have asked Larek," Kyle said. "How do we kill them?"
"Oh, the Gandarium queen," Tess said, turning to Liz. "Or the scout or whatever. Did you tell Maria about that part, Liz?"
"Umm, I guess I mentioned it in passing, why?"
"Well, because the one thing we know about is, that queen's going after Laurie. If Michael's there, then he's the one who's going to have to protect Laurie, and we need to warn him what he's going up against."
"And stop the queen in a fatal way, I'd suggest, if we can figure out what's fatal to Gandarium," Kyle said. "Then there's no more nest to worry about."
"Maybe," Max said. "I don't really like the idea of killing other aliens just because they pose a problem - but these Gandarium don't sound like they're open to starting a dialog."
"Okay, well, Michael and Maria are probably on their way to the Hall of Records by now," Liz said. "Maria had a hunch about how they could get back inside Dupree Manor. We can call in an hour or so, find out how that went."
#
"Okay," Tess muttered, checking the map copy that Max had given her. "Grid point six-three should be here, give or take ten feet. Beginning dig number seven for team TK." She pocketed the paper and picked up the shovel, working it into the ground with gusto. "Come on, Valenti. We can break after this one."
Kyle shuffled over to the spot where Tess was working, and pitched in with a larger spade. "I used to wonder what Liz and her new friends did together last year, after she broke up with me."
"Well, I wasn't around for most of it," Tess said. "I know there were a lot of secret meetings, plenty of lying to authorities and ex-boyfriends - and relatively few moments of imminent danger." She set the shovel aside for a moment to wipe off her forehead. "I haven't heard about any other hard labour days. Are you mad at me about this, honey?"
"What - why would I be pissed at you? If anybody, it was Max and Liz who volunteered me for digging duty."
"Yeah, but - you know. Before Valentine's Day, you were able to keep all of this alien stuff at arm's length. It was a club that you didn't want to be in, and you had no problems making that clear. But since you and I became an 'us', whatever alien craziness I'm in the middle of, you're stuck with too."
"Are you really worried about that?" Kyle bent down, considered the awkward position for a second, and settled for kissing her on the cheek. "I'm not crazy about either of us being in danger, but I like being in the club if it means that I get to spend time with you, Tess. And if you're in the line of fire, then I want to help if I can - even if you're the one with the freaky powers."
Tess considered for a moment. "Aww, thanks." She hummed deep in her throat on a happy tune, and bent her face up to return a sweeter kiss. "But we've got a hole to dig." She drove her shovel into the ground, avoiding Kyle's feet, and struck something hard. "More of those damn rocks, this better not take too long..."
But when she brushed some of the softer earth away, the 'rocks' that had stopped her shovel were partially revealed, and they were bright blue and crystalline. "Jackpot," Kyle breathed.
"Gandarium," Tess agreed. "You finish uncovering them, and I'll let the leader know." She pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialled. "Hey, Max? Meet at grid point six-three; we found something."
Before too long, all six teens had gathered in the small forested clearing, and the pit that Tess and Kyle had started digging included not just a considerable amount of alien blue crystal, but also a person-sized hole opening into an underground cavern.
"Okay, so what's the plan now, Max?" Liz prompted affectionately. "You're the one who suggested that we should dig holes and look for something. They found something, so..."
Max looked around at the other faces and didn't say anything. Tess cleared her throat loudly. "Yeah, I've got an idea, though I can't say that I like it much."
"I suspect I won't either," Max muttered. "But say on."
"Somebody needs to go down there and explore the nest," Tess said. "Two people, so that they can look out for each other without risking too much of the group." She looked over at Kyle. "We found it together. What do you think?"
"Ooh." Kyle took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm in."
"Don't linger," Max said. "Go in, take a quick look around, and come back out to give us a report. Is there any gear that might get somebody out of a tight spot?"
"Do we happen to have a jaws of life sitting around?" Kyle joked. But in the space of ninety seconds, he and Kyle had been handed a flashlight, matches, Swiss army knife, first aid kit, and rope.
"This is enough," Tess decided, stuffing some granola bars and bottles of water into her shoulder bag.
"You've still got your phone?" Liz prompted. Tess tapped her jeans pocket, and Kyle brought his own phone out to wave it meaningfully. "Okay - watch that first step."
"I'll go first," Kyle said, and Tess shrugged, then nodded. He stepped down into the pit, then climbed down the cave opening until he stood at the bottom. "Not about to tell you what to do, but I'm glad that I took that carefully," he hinted.
Tess considered that for a moment, then pulled her bag off her shoulder and dropped it down into the opening, then carefully followed, bracing her arms and feet against opposite sides of the narrow gap in the rock.
"Nothing much to report from here," Kyle called up, waving the flashlight around.
"There are some blue crystals embedded into the walls, floor, and - yeah, the ceiling," Tess added. "The cavern opens up a little further this way. We won't go too far."
After Tess and Kyle had walked a few steps away from the opening together, they heard Liz's voice, sounding very faint. "Watch out, guys - get outta there!" But by the time Kyle had turned around and shone his flashlight back the way that they had come, the exit had been blocked by a solid wall of faceted blue Gandarium.
"How fast does this stuff move when it wants to?" Tess complained.
#
Luckily for them, Gandarium crystal had no obvious effect on a cell phone signal. "I'm not sure how to get you out," Max admitted reluctantly to Tess. "We can't seem to move the Gandarium directly with our powers, and throwing rocks as hard as we could against it didn't have any obvious effect."
Tess considered. "How about cutting through it? With something a little harder than a Swiss army knife?
"Well, Larek's got a diamond saw in the storeroom at the UFO center," Max said. "Okay, but - well, we'll have to split up, because I don't want to leave all these holes, and exposed Gandarium, without anyone to keep an eye on who else might show up in Frazier woods."
"If you think that's best," Tess said. "Go two and two then, is my advice, so nobody's on their own. The queen is out there somewhere - at least, she's not in here as far as we can tell."
"Good thinking," Max said. There was some conversation that Tess couldn't really make out on Max's end of the line. "Okay, Isabel and Alex are going into town for the diamond saw, and Liz and I will be right here. Do you need me to stay on the line?"
"No, that's okay," Tess said. "Call back in half an hour?"
"You got it."
"Half an hour?" Kyle demanded once Tess hung up. "We could suffocate by then."
"If you feel short of breath, feel free to call Max yourself," Tess snapped. "For all the help you think he'll be. But I don't think the air feels stuffy at all. In fact..." She broke off, opened her bag, took a bottle of water, and started to drain it methodically.
"Is this really a good time for chugging the H two oh?" Kyle asked. "Especially considering that we're low on bathroom facilities in here?"
"There's no sense letting the water go to waste," Tess said, taking a deep breath. "We'll need it sooner or later, maybe, and I'm not too proud to squat behind an outcropping. I've spotted a few channels that probably drain into the water table. Do you want part of it?"
Kyle stared at her for a moment, then took the bottle and drained the rest of the water in one long gulp. "Okay, so what now?"
"Now we've got a sample container," Tess pointed out; taking the empty bottle out of his hands and placing the cap loosely back on it.
"What do you want a sample of? And who decided I was the straight man in this act?"
Tess smiled at him, considered for a moment, and tossed the flashlight in his direction without turning it off. Kyle made a good catch, and then pointed the light away from Tess, playing it over the wall, until she clicked her tongue a few times and he shone it right in her eyes.
Tess sighed, stepped away just far enough that she could see, and Kyle didn't keep tracking her with the flashlight. With the ambient light around and a free hand, she was able to bend down, find a projecting bit of blue crystal on the cave floor, pry it away, and pop it into the bottle.
"Okay, so what have we accomplished with all that?" Kyle asked her.
Tess made a dramatic show of twisting the lid closed. There was no immediate change, and just as Kyle opened his mouth Tess told him, "Just wait a moment more."
So they stood opposite each other for a minute or so, Kyle pointedly staring at the plastic bottle in Tess' hand, while she watched his face for any reaction. And then the neck of the bottle twitched and tugged against her fingers, as if it was being blown to and fro by a wind that she couldn't feel. Tess let herself look at the bottle again, and smiled when she saw that the little blue blob was bouncing back and forth vigorously. More than anything, it reminded her of some giant insect, struggling for freedom.
But that little bit of Gandarium could strive with more force than any bug that Tess could think of, and after a few seconds of fumbling, Tess lost her grip on the bottle entirely and it fell to the cave floor. Without missing a beat, she whipped out a small flashlight pen from her jeans pocket and played it over that section of the rock surface, making sure that there was no drainage or crevices that the bottle could fall into.
"Shouldn't we grab it again, and...?"
"No, it's starting already," she told him with a soft whisper. "Let it happen in peace."
"Let what happen?" Kyle asked.
But it certainly did seem that the bottle, and the Gandarium within, was becoming more peaceful, just twitching a little back and forth. After the bottle had been still and quiet for a long moment, Tess stepped toward it, then changed her mind and invited Kyle to go and pick it up himself. When he did, Kyle started once he got a good look at what had happened inside. There was no blue crystal or blob, or any kind of blue in fact. Instead, the blob was gooey, stuck where the side and bottom of the plastic bottle met, and had turned into a sort of a greyish-brown color.
"What - what happened to it?" Kyle asked. "You seemed to know what you were doing, so..."
"It's dead," Tess said. She turned away and played her flashlight pen over the walls, staring at them intently.
"What - what killed it?"
"The same thing that you were worrying about killing you." Tess kept her face away from him. "Suffocation - lack of sufficient oxygen."
"These things breathe oxygen?"
"Well, sure, why not? I do - and though there could be aliens who breathe other things, none of them are too likely to be able to survive on Earth." She spun around to face Kyle. "So we don't need to worry about suffocating in the middle of the nest. There has to be ventilation somewhere, or the Gandarium would be dying too."
"Okay. Well, thanks." Kyle sighed and sat down on the cave floor. "Do you want a snack or something, if we're supposed to be sitting tight and waiting on the rest of the gang to rescue us?"
Tess smiled, and considered the question for a few seconds. "I'm not in a granola mood."
"Tess, we're stuck in an alien nest that has enough infectious potential to end the world as we know it. The hell with granola!" She snickered. "I grabbed some of the good junk food before breakfast. Max told us to load up on supplies, didn't he?"
Tess smiled. "Okay, so what's the most fattening thing in your bag?"
Kyle started to sort through it and compare the possibilities. "Let's see... potato chips, maybe, probably not a contender. Twinkies - getting up there. Chocolate cupcakes, here's the stuff!"
Tess licked her lips. "I don't suppose that it occurred to you to bring..." Kyle held up a little bottle of Tabasco sauce, almost full. "Have you started to feel a craving for it yourself?"
"Nope - I just figured that you'd be asking as soon as we took our first snack break from digging. I wasn't expecting these circumstances, but things work out differently sometimes."
"I love you," Tess muttered, and then gasped a little as it occurred to her just how significant that phrase could be to a boyfriend.
Kyle cocked his head slightly. "You're definitely something incredible yourself, alien girl," he drawled, and Tess let out a relieved breath.
#
It was a few hours before Tess' phone rang. "Hello?" she asked eagerly, and it rang again before she managed to hit the right button to pick up the call. "What's the news?"
"Um, well, we've gotten back inside the mansion, but Aunt Meredith and Uncle Bobby aren't too happy about it. What's going on over there? Neither Max or Isabel picked up their cell phones."
"Kyle and I discovered the Gandarium nest, and now we're trapped in it."
"Ooh," Michael muttered. "Don't you wish that you'd checked with Max before blundering into the exciting part like a goof?"
Tess snickered. "I did check! Max signed off on the two of us going in to explore. But none of us knew that they'd be able to seal over the opening again once we were in. Anyway, I haven't heard from any of the others in a little while. Max was talking about getting a diamond saw to cut us out, and I didn't really want to be pestering him with calls, in case I interrupted something important."
"Hmm," Michael muttered, sounding concerned. Tess was now a bit worried about Max too - and Isabel and even Liz and Alex, but for some reason she wanted to divert Michael - if only because that was the best way to keep him talking to her. "So how did you get back into Grandpa's house, anyway? Was it Maria's plan? Liz mentioned something, but she wasn't specific about the details."
"Yeah, actually. She found the deed to the house, which is in Laurie's name. So Maria made a fuss about talking to anybody she could to make things difficult for them if they didn't let us see Laurie - the police, the press, a lawyer, you know. Once we were inside, she asked Laurie for permission to look around, and found a check stub for a million dollar donation from Aunt Meredith to that asylum in Texas where Laurie was committed."
"Ooh, the plot thickens," Tess muttered. "Of course, she might claim she was just investing in her darling niece's comfort and care, but..."
"But it could be a kickback for diagnosing her as insane," Michael muttered. "Yeah, that was what I thought."
"And speaking of Aunt Meredith and Uncle Bobby," Tess said, "are they both her blood relations or man and wife?"
"You know, I'm actually not sure, it's really ambiguous," Michael admitted. "They act really intimate when they're in the room together, but not quite as affectionate as I'd expect a married couple to be, and they've both referred to Laurie's grandparents as Mother and Daddy."
"Weird," Tess muttered. "No mention of any of the rest of Laurie's family? Her mother, the grandmother, any children of Bobby and Meredith, or other siblings?"
"Nada. Listen, as fun as it is catching up, I should probably go and try to find Laurie, talk with her a bit more; she can probably answer some of these questions. I think that she's starting to get a bit more comfortable around me. Oh - and you guys wanted to know if Grandpa had ever been abducted by aliens?"
"Yeah, definitely! Good luck."
"Thanks."
"And do keep an eye out for anything strange. We have no idea what or who the Gandarium Queen will look like when it shows up, but it'll be after Laurie - or maybe Aunt Bobby or Uncle Meredith. Well - you know what I mean."
"What? Oh, was that why you were asking which of them were in the bloodline?"
"Yeah. If this is a dominant gene that the Gandarium are interested in, then any of Grandfather's children have a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting it. Laurie only had one chance in four."
"Just how bad would it be if I let the aliens get Bobby and Meredith? They totally deserve to be killed by aliens."
"Letting the Queen drag them back here - epically bad, end of the world in a really gross and 'Island of Doctor Moreau' kind of way," Tess summarized. "If they die in the crossfire, or get taken part of the way back but not buried in the hive - not so bad, for anybody but them, and maybe those of us who have consciences."
"Okay, talk to you later," Michael said. "Wait - Kyle's down there with you?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Hit him for me, would you?"
"Umm - any reason why?"
"Yeah, but I can't remember. It's been a rough couple of days. I just remember thinking when I was on stakeout with Maria that I needed to smack Valenti upside the head for something. I didn't think I could trust Liz or Max to take care of it."
Tess considered. "Figure out what it was and then get back to me." And without any final sign-off, she hung up on Michael.
Kyle was watching her, half a smile on his face. "What did he want you to do?"
Tess ran over her side of the end of that conversation, then unwrapped a Twinkie pack and offered Kyle one of them. "Anyway, I'm officially worried about Max and Liz now. If they were just watching the topside of the nest, waiting for Isabel and Alex, wouldn't they have picked up for Michael?"
"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "The question is - will they pick up for either of us, and if so, is it a good idea to call?"
"I'm not sure." Tess hesitated, and then reached out with her mind, scanning upwards in a wide spiral. It was an odd experience to try to focus her powers past the scattered Gandarium above her, but she was able to get something useful. "Call Liz."
"Why me?"
"Because she likes you better, and she just might refuse to pick up if she sees it's me."
"Is Max up there too?"
"Well, yeah, but he's more upset, and he doesn't like either of us as well as Liz likes you."
#
Kyle looked at Tess for a long moment, then shook his head, and pulled out his dorky second-hand cell. "Come on, Liz, pick up, pick up," he mumbled, even before the speed-dial went through.
"Hi, Kyle! Sorry that we haven't been staying in touch, but things are crazy. Isabel got attacked by somebody in town. Alex is following her, and they're both on the road west towards Arizona."
"Uh-oh." Kyle considered that. "Are we thinking it's the Gandarium queen?"
"Maybe - but why would a Gandarium want to hold a hybrid girl hostage?"
"I have to admit I don't know," Kyle said. "Unless Gandariums are the kind of aliens that try to ravish the most voluptuous maiden that they can find, in which case Isabel would qualify." Liz cleared her throat dryly, and Tess shot Kyle an unimpressed look. "What? I'm not saying that we're dealing with that kind of alien, but if we are, she totally does."
"Moving along," Liz said. "So, we're worried about Isabel, but can't really do anything more to help her, Max and I, and we've got no diamond saw. Plus, it's starting to rain up here."
"Oh, great." Kyle looked up at the cave ceiling. He didn't see any obvious holes, but there was no way that it could be watertight. "So, do you have any plan at all left for getting us out of here?"
"Short of somebody killing the queen so that the nest dissolves, not really - but let us work on it for a bit, okay?"
"Okay, okay. This is me shutting up." Kyle hung up the phone, and looked over at Tess. "Let's talk about something else, to distract ourselves from... the whole thing, okay?"
"Sure, I guess." Tess finished off her Twinkie.
"Do you remember the dream you had a few nights ago? The one that freaked you out so much that..."
"Well, yeah."
"Good." Kyle smiled. "Tell me about it."
Tess's face immediately went cold and hard. "I didn't mean that I remember the content of the dream. I just remember having it."
"Yeah." Kyle kept looking straight at Tess.
"So what, you don't believe me? Do you think that I'm holding out on you?"
"I think that maybe there's something you can't open up about, even to yourself," Kyle admitted. "But when you can, I'll be here for you. You can trust me on that."
"Screw you," Tess declared, and climbed up to storm off across the cave, taking the chocolate cupcakes with her.
#
Over the next half an hour, the rain started to drip into the cave, like it was a really crappy house with a badly leaking roof. It wasn't actually too hard to avoid the water, but the sound of the dripping got on Kyle's nerves, especially when that was the only sound. And the only time there was another sound was when he was talking at Tess.
He didn't want to talk at her. It wasn't helping.
So he looked for another way to pass the time, and ended up coming up with a piece of chalklike rock that would leave a line behind, and scratched out a game board on a flat, dry stretch of the floor. He played the fox and the sheep against himself, with ordinary dark gray pebbles for the sheep, and a bright blue Gandarium for the fox. It seemed fitting, and the things seemed completely sedate and harmless - as long as you didn't try to suffocate them, at least.
"Do you really think that you can handle what I'm going through?" Tess called just as the fox was making a determined break for freedom. "I mean, I trust in your good intentions, in theory at least. But you know where good intentions can lead."
"Yeah, I've heard," Kyle told her. "And - well, I think so, but without knowing what's involved, I guess I can't be sure. And if you're determined to keep things a secret unless you're certain that I'm prepared, you'll probably never get there. At some point, you may need to take a leap of faith."
"Like you did with your Buddhism stuff?"
"Yeah - and like we both did around Valentine's day," Kyle reminded her. "I had no certainty that I could actually get you to notice me, instead of always mooning over Max, but I knew that you were the kind of girl that it was worth it to take a chance for, even though I'd have been really hurt if I risked my ego and you didn't feel the same way. And you - when you agreed to be my valentine, you knew that I liked you, but I also know that you were scared about if we could make it work. Do you think that leap's worked out well so far?"
"Yeah," Tess admitted grudgingly. "Maybe that's why I'm not wild about the idea of risking what we have by being too honest with you."
"Not being honest can be taking a risk too." Kyle shook his head. "Is this stuff really that bad?"
"If you only knew... Liz and Maria, they think that I'm a deceptive bitch, but they don't realize the half of it."
Kyle considered, and then got up, walked away from his game, and approached her. Tess leaned away, jerking her upper body as if she was trying to squirm across the cave, but not actually moving anywhere. Kyle squatted down next to Tess and wrapped his arms around her.
"Whenever you tell me, it's going to be okay. I know that you've made bad choices, that you'll probably make more mistakes as life goes on. That's the human condition, and maybe the Antarians too; they sure don't sound like they're perfect. They have desires as strong as humans do, anyway, and the root of suffering, and of sin, is desire."
Tess looked up at him. "But where there is desire, there's the capacity for love," Kyle continued on. "And I guess where there's love, there's the capacity for forgiveness. I might not be able to forgive you as soon as you're honest with me, but I'm not going to give up trying. I promise you that, here and now."
Tess cleared her throat and snuffled. "Could - could I get a coke? I'm feeling sick and tired of water."
Kyle stared at her. "Your bladder is going to swell up and do something horrible to you, at this rate." Then he started to laugh.
"I already took care of my bladder. You were paying attention to your pebbles."
"Really?" Kyle didn't think that he could possibly have paid enough attention to the fox and the sheep to not realize that Tess Harding was pulling down her jeans and her panties - but maybe such things were possible.
Tess leaned against his side as he walked her back to his supplies, as if she had been emotionally drained by what they had been through. "Okay, you're right. I should tell you what's been weighing on my mind, and not just in my dreams, but this won't be easy to say."
Kyle felt something heavy lodge in his stomach and start weighing it down. "It might not be easy to hear, either."
"Do you want me to leave it for later?"
"Well, hell. We don't really have anything else to devote our time to, do we?"
"I guess not." Neither of them said more until Tess was set up with her full-calorie Coke. "Okay, so it started last October, before Halloween, with Zan from New York. You remember hearing about him?"
"Well, yeah. The punk version of Max. The one who punk Isabel and punk Michael killed in a car accident." Kyle shrugged. "What about him? None of our gang here in Roswell ever met him, did they?"
"I met him," Tess said, her voice quiet and toneless. "Only a week or two before he died. He came to Roswell, because he'd found out that we were here and wanted to check in on us, and he came to me first, because he was looking for Ed."
"How did he even find you?"
"That's not the important part, Kyle." Tess let out a big sigh. "The thing is, I was really upset about Max still being focused on Liz, and not letting me into his life, and I guess I started telling him about that as if it was a red alert priority. Zan liked Ava a lot, so he didn't see a problem with Max being with me, and between the two of us, we hatched up a scheme. Zan could do the same sort of thing I could do, he could fool somebody into seeing what wasn't there, and I'd been studying Liz ever since I got to town, and so..."
"Oh, no," Kyle muttered. "Future Max. You set Zan up to pose as..."
"Liz told you about that part?" Tess asked. "I thought that she just asked you for a favour without explaining why."
Kyle stared at Tess, realizing why she'd thought that what she had to confess was unforgivable.
