"My lord, we are getting a response from the Aliens."
Jerrold Matthews turns to his assistant and nods to him.
"What is it?"
"sir, it reads as this: 'Who are you; and what do you want'
Matthews thinks for a moment.
"Send back: 'We are enemies of the Antarians.'
"Sir, that is a risk."
"To win anything worthwhile, risks must be taken. Send it."
"Yes, my lord."
Once he had left he contacted his deputy in charge of the operation.
"We have been successful in opening communications. But prepare the contingency plan. Do not take action without my authorization."
Urter looked at the message. Interesting. Was it a trap? One must consider all possibilities.
They had had a meeting of the core members of the group; the Royal Four and their consorts, and a few others. They were told everything.
Larek sat and thought.
"We cannot consider them anything but hostile. The Noble House that is probably behind the building of this ship was the most fanatical in maintaining the old ways. They have every reason to hate us."
Liz nodded. "We must proceed on that assumption."
Michael shook his head. "The surveillance – that seems to have been done by someone here; that ship just got to Earth such a short time ago. I don't think that it is a coincidence that both of these threats show up at the same time. And while the tech used had Antarian features to it, the Granolith was very firm about it being manufactured on earth."
Kyle nodded. "The only smart thing to do is to figure they are working together. One enemy from space and one from earth. Both hostile to us."
Max sighed. "I had such good news – and then this hits."
They all looked at him, except for Liz who smiled softly.
"The Scout ships have found a system just over 1000 light years away that has multiple planets that we can colonize."
Needless to say that garnered more than a few comments and the meeting quickly became about that.
Alex was of course VERY interested.
"Multiple planets? Is it a binary system or is it like Pegasus?"
"It is like Pegasus. 4 Separate planets that are within the boundaries that we need. One is a little cool and one is a little hot and dry. But two are just about perfect. All the scans indicate that there is nothing wrong with them: the planets and sun are stable; the atmospheres very nearly identical to earth; and so on."
Larek leaned back.
"Just what we have hoped for. One Planet for Antarians, and one for Granularians. The cool planet; what are its parameters? The People of Granular have always preferred a cooler world. Frankly, Australia is much too hot and dry for us. My people might prefer a much cooler world."
Liz nodded. "The temperate zone would be right at 70 degrees; and it would be very close to what Granular was, if a little cooler. The Axis tilt is less than Granular had, so the extremes would be less. I believe it will be a little wetter as well. The Native plants of Granular should do well there. The main continents are more oriented towards the equator. Overall you would have about 20% less land than you had comparably on Granular that would have the same climate."
Larek considered that.
"We are only relatively few. We never used all of Granular; much of it was wilderness. So less overall land is not a factor. I believe it is likely that my people will prefer that planet."
The two groups continued to communicate cautiously for several days. Finally it was agreed for one of them each to meet at an agreed place in Central Africa, far from the notice of any earth organization. A small shuttle from the ship could reach earth without detection. Or so they thought.
Jerrold sent his 2nd ranking assistant to meet; Urter sent one of equal importance. Both sides were being very cautious.
Liz stood there and thought.
"Granolith, you were able to pinpoint where the small ship landed?"
"Yes Queen Elizabeth. It is my conclusion that a small shuttle was used; it would be undetectable by any Human means. In is in central Africa at these coordinates. There is frankly nothing for many miles in any direction. The nearest of our settlements is several hundred miles away."
Max was thoughtful. "Do they not know you can detect them?"
"My abilities have never been known outside a select few on Antar. Even Kivar had no real idea of my capabilities. Most think that I am a source of Knowledge first; with communications and transportation abilities. No one really has a good estimation on my ability to detect energy readings at a distance. It was never discussed."
Liz was worried. "You still do not know how they communicated with someone here on earth?"
"Queen Elizabeth, I cannot detect certain types of transmissions due to their narrow focus and faint energy figures. They clearly used one of those types. Tightly focused Microwave; Laser; there are others."
She sighed. "We must find out who they are on this planet."
Max nodded. "I have contacted the NSA. They are tasking a satellite to watch. The Granolith will take that feed and can enhance it. So we should be able to learn quite a bit."
The two representatives met in the open. At an agreed map coordinate and time.
The shapeshifter made himself look like a native of that area. The human was not; but did not look too out of place.
The human spoke first. "My lord wishes to bring the Antarians down; and greatly change this world. What are your goals?"
"They are the same as regards the Antarians. My liege has given me leave to say this: there is a world we are interested in that the Antarians are looking to move to. We wish to injure them to the point that that will not be possible."
"My Lord wishes to make this world much less than what it was; we look for free places to do as we wish. He looks to space for that. But it would be in his interests if those here were not in the position to interfere."
"If you wish for freedom, do you mean on a world?"
"Or with a ship to go where we wish."
"Such as ours?"
"Yes."
"I will communicate this to my liege."
"And I will tell my Lord that our goals are compatible."
"It is agreed."
"So the meeting was pretty short?"
"5 minutes. We tracked the human, or who we think is human, to the nearby city where we lost him unfortunately. We had no one on the ground to track him. The vehicle identification we are working on but that will probably be a dead end or take so long to trace that it will not matter."
Max slowly nodded. "They will meet again. We will need to have someone on the ground."
"We can put people there in that area but what if they choose somewhere else for the next meeting?"
Liz had been thinking. "We need to use the Granolith; we can have a team ready and once the ship lands we can send that team nearby and they can do the work. As long as they have a portable transmitter with them the Granolith can move them around as needed."
Urter listened to his assistant.
"A ship. That is expensive."
"Yes sir. They seem to not care about this planet at all as long as they can go where they wish."
"That is convenient for our needs. And of course in the end we do not have to give them our ship if they have already done what we need."
"Yes, my liege."
Matthews listened to his deputy.
"So they want to cripple this planet and everyone on it so they can have that planet to themselves?"
"Yes my lord."
"And they basically offered us their ship?"
"Those were their words."
"But it might not be their meaning; or their final intent?"
"I would not know my lord."
"One must assume that they would have no reason to honor an agreement once their need for us is over."
"Yes, My Lord."
The announcement of the discovery of the new worlds caused quite a stir. Many on earth would miss their guests. The huge difference in the world since they had arrived was apparent to all. With the announcement by Larek that the great majority his people had voted for the cooler world, that one of the best planets would be available for colonization by humans, great interest was shown in moving there.
Many Antarians were not exactly all that thrilled at moving again. Max asked all his people to make their feelings known. It was a bit of a surprise to all of them that almost 20% of Antarians did not want to leave Earth. While over 99% of Granularians were content to move to one of the new planets. So now that meant some decisions had to be made by both those of Human origin and Antarian origin. Many of the nations that had hosted settlements let it be known that those that wanted to could stay and become citizens of those nations. Max let it be known that those that wanted to choose to stay could indeed stay. Relationships had become almost common between Antarians and Humans. Many of them would be going to the new world. Many would stay. Now the status of the word that not many seemed to be interested in was something that the UN needed to decide. There has been some interest by people used to extreme climates in that world. The status of the world that would probably become mankinds second home also needed to be figured out.
Meanwhile a second meeting was arranged between the two groups. This time a satellite was able to detect the laser transmission from the aircraft and it was traced. The NSA began to close in on the earth based group.
The second meeting between the two beings was arranged for a part of Africa hundreds of miles away from the first one. But the Granolith was able to beam the team of NSA agents right to the area. And this time they were able to follow the person.
Max looked at the report then at Liz and the rest who were waiting for it.
"They were able to trace the aircraft and the person back to a small group, or at least the NSA thinks is a small group, of very wealthy people. But that is only the outwards appearance. In every way that they can trace, they do not officially exist."
Liz pondered that. "Maybe it's time we brought in Joe and the other Immortals in on this. They have more experience than anyone at how to disappear and cover up and to not exist."
The others agreed. Then the same thought hit Max and Liz and Michael and Alex at all about the same time, Kyle almost as fast.
"Immortals?"
Joe Dawson, Duncan and Methos sat and looked at the group. They had been called in and had made it there in one day and had been given the full briefing. Methos looked hard at the pictures the NSA had been able to get but shook his head as had Duncan and Joe. Duncan looked at Joe.
"Maybe we need Constantine and Cassandra and Amanda to look as well. They might recognize one of them."
"Maybe. But if they have been together for a while, I have a feeling none of us have seen them before."
Methos had been thinking hard.
"Except for the Horsemen thousands of years ago, there has never been a record of any group of Immortals staying together for more than a couple of years before heads rolled. If the information is correct, this group could have been together for perhaps centuries."
"IF they are Immortal." Was tossed out by Joe.
Methos snorted. "You look at the records they have found so far; classic Immortal tactics to cover up identity change. Everything points to this. Including the fact that they have been very careful to have no official status at all. I would bet every place they have been they carefully scouted it out first, then made sure all the local officials were safely in their pocket."
Liz nodded. "The NSA is not certain, the CIA is checking right now, but they think that before central Africa they were in South American in the Pampas Region. In Uruguay; and I will bet they were in Argentina for a while before that. In those more remote regions they could do as they pleased as long as they had the locals in their pocket."
Max sighed. "Just when it seemed complicated enough."
Joe looked at Methos. "How do you think that group is set up?"
"One leader and a group of immortals he recruited to be loyal to him and no one else. It was tried a few times when I was much younger, but it never lasted more than a few years. But I suppose that in the 10,000 or so years Immortals have been around, something like this was inevitable. The REAL question is, why do they want to have contact with this group of Aliens?"
Liz nodded. "That is the big question. I have to think it's about getting off of this planet; their leader must be thinking that sooner or later they will not be able to do as they have done for hundreds of years. Laws and governments and the such are encroaching everywhere."
Methos nodded. "They clearly have no idea that leaving earth means leaving their Immortality behind. I would not be surprised if they wanted to find one of the worlds that we are looking at and move there and do as they please. Of course bringing some mortal subjects with them."
"But what is their reason for wanting to talk to the Aliens; they must have found out about them from the surveillance that this group must have done." This came from Alex.
Michael shrugged. "We cannot be sure that this group did the surveillance; but the fact that they were actively looking for that ship and targeted it with a laser communications device just about has to tell you that they found out about that ship from us."
Methos shrugged. "Immortals are always wary of anyone finding out about them; wanting to leave this planet would seem safer this way then talking to the Antarians or Granularians."
Liz sighed. "But why would the aliens want to have anything to do with them?"
Max looked at them all. "And there we have the proverbial $64,000 question."
The whole process of moving to another planet is incredibly complicated; but at least they had experience at doing it. And this time there was no time constraints. At least 75% of all the settlements would be closed; what to do with them was another big question. The nations where they were based at would inherit them; so it would be up to them. Most would probably be used to house the poor and such. The settlements in Australia would almost certainly be all closed. Australia really did not want a lot of immigrants; and its own population would have little use for them. But it would be such a huge waste to just let them sit there. Much of the equipment and facilities would be taken to the new worlds; but that would still leave the buildings. That would be something that would be discussed and debated for a very long time. Those nations that would use them for their own people –there the facilities would mostly be left to serve them.
Max and Liz were very aware of the fact that this time it would be a lot easier in many ways. But it would still be time consuming and labor intensive.
One night they were resting in their rooms, recovering from a very much needed bout of serious exertion, when Max voiced a thought that had so far gone unspoken.
"Well, you are going to be able to relax about anyone noticing you are not aging."
"Yes. That is a big plus."
"And with these planets so much closer to Earth, visits will be a lot easier."
"That too."
"But that of course begs the question; what about your possible task as yet unknown."
Liz was quiet for a while. "I think it's coming."
Max held her closer. "A feeling?"
"An increasing certainty."
Lisa sat in her room and stared out the window. She knew she had a big decision to make; whether to go to the new world with Liz as her ADC, or to stay on Earth and stay as an immortal. She knew that she could actually tread between the two; and that Alex and the Granolith would be able to supply her with the necessary boost to keep her immortal if she chose. She was very uncertain. Immortality had at first been a huge plus for obvious reasons. But in the nearly two years she had been aware of it she could see now both the plusses and the minuses. Being able to have children still left you with the reality of them aging and you not. She knew the immortal couples were wrestling with this as well. For her it was simpler. But she still felt torn. She had begun to realize that she was more and more starting to see it the way Liz did.
The two groups had now agreed to help each other. The question was on how to accomplish what they wanted. Both were considering the possibilities.
"So we still do not know what they are planning?"
"The last meeting we were still unable to get close enough to overhear anything. We had to be concerned that the Shapeshifters might have advanced technology monitoring the area. We have now gotten a good idea about the human group. They are small, probably not more than 20 people. But they have support offices and the like scattered around the world. We do not think we have identified all of them. As regards the core group, we still cannot figure out how they have managed to stay under the radar like they have. We cannot trace any real history of the group beyond South America, and even that is murky. Where their extreme wealth comes from we do not know; a large amount of it is in Swiss Bank accounts in banks that have so far refused to divulge anything. The identities of that core group are clearly artificial; but superbly done."
Max and Liz nodded and dismissed the NSA contact. Afterwards they cuddled on the sofa in their main room. The children were in school, so they had the suites to themselves for the time being.
Max sighed. "I do not think there is any doubt that they are Immortals."
Liz nodded. "And we need to be very careful about this; we cannot let the secret of Immortality be known to any government agency anywhere."
"I am going to talk to the President; I will ask him to pull their people off of it and that we will take care of it from now on."
"I agree. We handle this inhouse."
Joe was talking to Methos.
"I have been checking on what you have speculated on; and I think we can trace back where this all started from by tracking watcher deaths."
"That is what I thought as soon as we knew they were Immortals. I really doubt that they have been together since before the watchers were strongly established. I believe that they have only been together for the last 4-500 years at most."
"I was working on the assumption that they would make sure the body of the watcher would not be found; so no one would see that they had been tortured for information."
"Definitely."
"Watchers have disappeared with no trace now and then; but about 300 years ago there were a fair spate of them- 8 in about 30 years. Then it stopped. There have only been the occasional one since."
"Who was the first one?"
"Jerrold Matthews. BUT he was supposedly confirmed dead over 300 years ago. As a matter of fact all the immortals of the missing watchers were confirmed dead. Which is one reason why no one thought of anything of the disappearences."
"Once one knows of watchers, it's not hard to lead them down the road you want them to go. I see a carefully thought out systematic plan to make sure the only ones keeping track would not be looking."
"As you well know."
Methos grinned at his old friend. Then he sobered. "What was known about Matthews?"
"Not much. He was found after about 20 years as an immortal when he took a head of one that had a watcher. Now his watcher disappeared about thirty years later; I should say his second watcher; he was only there for a few years before he was gone."
Methos nodded. "The new guy was not as careful. He got spotted. And Matthews caught him, tortured him for all available information, and then made him disappear. And began to put his crew together. Using the watchers to confirm his death and those that he wanted to keep in the group. This guy is very smart."
"The little we have on him said that he was very sharp and very ruthless. But not a headhunter."
"They do not last long, and they do not group together. Their nature is too volatile and too easily tempted. I bet when you look at those that their watchers disappeared you will find they are all relatively quiet types. Not emotional or unstable."
"But we still do not know what they are up to."
"Whatever it is, you can bet it's not small."