“They should have given you a map.” Shimon gave him a room number in another dome, on an upper floor. “Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to get here from almost anywhere else.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Fifteen minutes and five wrong turns later, Titus swung through the door to Lab 290, paused at the top of the three shallow steps that led down to the floor, and stared into chaos. Ten or fifteen people in white overalls were shouting and gesticulating as if working to patch an air leak. A large one.
Some of them had access panels off the walls exposing circuit boards. One wheeled a diagnostic cart over to a pair who were gutting one of the many consoles. Another pair argued in Japanese. Someone swore in Russian and was answered luridly in a thick, incomprehensible Aussie dialect.
Far in the back of the room, glass walls set off the observatory area. It was tied to the antenna mast he had seen on the way in, and to the antenna arrays, thus to all the observatories in orbit around Earth and around the sun. His observatory could direct or debrief most of the instruments in the solar system, even some of the farthest probes, and cross-correlate any new data with all archived data from the last several decades. A slender, somewhat feminine figure shrouded in white bent intensely over a screen in that glassed-in area, ignoring everything going on outside.
Titus drew a deep breath, and bellowed, “Silence!”
In the ensuing breathless quiet, something crackled and suddenly sparks jumped and smoke rose from several different locations. Agonized comments popped along with the sparks. “Oh, shit!” “Ditto.” “Randall!”
The Aussie muttered, “Told you those fuses weren’t enough.”
A fire extinguisher whooshed.
“That’s done it. Somebody turn up the air circulators.”
This last was Shimon Ben Zvi, rising from the cloud of vapor, coughing. Out of that same cloud, appearing like an apparition from a horror movie, came Abbot Nandoha, his white coveralls accentuating the pallor of his face.
“I knew it,” groaned Titus.
Innocently, Abbot raised one eyebrow. Cloaking his words in Influence, the older vampire explained, “All I did was insert a little glitch in the operating system. Their frantic chasing of it did all the rest. Oh well, I did play some tricks with the voltage too of course.” He smiled. “That should give me time to build a new targeting device.”
Through gritted teeth, not cloaking his words, Titus said “This is my lab. Get out and don’t come back.”
Still cloaking his words, Abbot said, “I see your meal wasn’t very satisfying. Mind your temper, Titus. I’ve always said your temper was your worst flaw.” He sidled around Titus and sauntered out the door.
Clean air began to dissipate the fog. People gathered in small groups staring at the mess. Even the person from the glass-enclosed observatory emerged to join them.
Shimon looked up from the ruin. “At least four weeks, Dr. Shiddehara.” At this, everyone turned toward Titus. The woman from the back squeezed through the group and squinted up at him through the haze. A frown gathered on her face as she mouthed his name, Shiddehara.
But even through the frown, Titus recognized her. Her hair was cut differently, and she was nearly twenty years older. The planes of her face, honed down to emphasize the nose and cheekbones of the British aristocracy, were oddly coupled to the sensuous mouth and dimpled chin he had loved to kiss. His heart paused then skittered into a panic rhythm, spurred by joy and terror. Inea!
A puzzled wonder replaced her frown as she moved up to him, staring fixedly at his face. To her, he was dead, mangled in a car crash and buried. Yet certainty grew in her as she approached, a certainty born of shock and not yet tempered by embarrassment at the mistaken identity.
If he spoke, she’d recognize his voice. She’d blurt out his identity. No matter what he did, somebody would check. Project Security was vicious. All the luren on Earth could be in danger from this one human. Titus knew he ought to use Influence to blur her perception of him until she got used to it and decided it was just a haunting similarity.
But he could not.
He had always hated Influencing humans. They were defenseless against such treatment. For this mission, he’d resigned himself to the necessity, but he couldn’t use it on Inea. She was sacred in his memory and in his heart.
CHAPTER FOUR
They stood frozen, the others watching Inea as her shock turned to love and then to disbelief overlaid with unshakable conviction. At last she whispered, under the rush of the air conditioning. “Darrell?”
He couldn’t deny his born name.
“Darrell Raaj,” she asserted so softly only he could hear. Her eyes burned with awe and fear.
The fear finally broke through his paralysis. Unable to summon Influence to mask his words, he answered in the same almost inaudible tone, “Inea, don’t betray me. Please. I beg you. Don’t. By everything we’ve ever meant to each other, don’t.”
She blanched, barely mouthing, “It is you!”
For a moment, he thought she’d faint, and he could catch her and sweep her away to get some fresh air. But no, she was made of sterner stuff. He should have known that.
Recovering, she glanced about at everyone then buried her face in her hands as if embarrassed, saying aloud, “I’m so sorry, Dr. Shiddehara. You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. Perhaps he was a relative of yours?”
It was Titus’s turn to fight off a swoop of lowered blood pressure. Even in this gravity, his knees sagged. Until this moment, he had not realized how very much he loved Inea Cellura. He found his voice at last. “Later, we can discuss the resemblance in detail. But right now”—his voice broke, and he coughed to cover his emotion—“right now, I think we’d better get to cleaning this up. Shimon, I’ll want to see you in my office. Uh—” He glanced around in a feeble attempt at humor. “I do have one, don’t I?”
Everyone laughed, and it broke the tension.
“This way, Titus,” said Shimon, leading him to a corner where partitions made of EGlass created an office around an executive desk and two chairs. The partitions were now transparent. There were empty shelves and files in dreary government-issue tan, and a large display.
Titus collapsed into his chair, which had a back higher than his head. He concealed his shaking hands from Shimon and glanced out through the partition. Inea leaned heavily against a desk, watching him with big, round eyes. Then she shook her head and turned away to help clean up.
Titus gestured at the partition, “Opaque that, would you Shimon?”
The Israeli stroked the control and the walls opaqued.
“Shimon, I have to report to Carol, so I have to know exactly what’s happened and how it affects our goals.” He rummaged in the drawers but found no paper, and turned on the display. “Is there a word processor? Report forms?”
“Inea shook you up, didn’t she?”
“Inea—” Still dazed, he answered automatically, as if reciting a lesson. “Is that her name?” Since his death, such dissembling had become an ingrained habit.
“Inea Cellura. Her degree’s in astronomy. Worked at Arecibo. She’s supposed to be your assistant, but she’s been running the observatory station all by herself for weeks now. I wonder who she mistook you for?”
“Would you expect me to know?” She’d always scorned his passion for astronomy because his fascination with the possibility of other life forms in the galaxy disturbed her. Obviously, she’d changed. A knot of apprehension, which he hadn’t even known was there, unraveled. He wiped a sheen of cold sweat from his upper lip