“How did you get out?”

  “I didn’t, really. One of the stray bullets—we were all shooting at it like mad, and we were in a tight canyon—a round bounced and hit my helmet. I went down. When I woke up, the thing was gone and everyone else was dead. It must have passed me by while I lay there unconscious.”

  Malena imagined the scene. She didn’t like the image he’d conjured in her mind. Soldiers helpless and dying at the touch of an unknown thing. It must have seemed like a demon to them.

  “When I managed to call in and make it back to be debriefed, no one believed me. No one except a major who wore sunglasses inside the dimmest rooms. He was pale and I figured him for some kind of foreign observer. There were a lot of internationals running around out in those deserts back then. Anyway, when the frustrated officers had stopped chewing on me, he approached. He’d never said a word up until that point.”

  “It was Ostlund, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah. You guessed it.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He asked me if I wanted a shot at revenge. If I wanted to get even with the thing in the canyon. I asked him what it was, and he told me that was classified, unless I joined his unit. Eventually, I did.”

  “Did you ever get to find the thing in the desert?”

  He shook his head. “No. We never have found that one. We’ve searched—and maybe you could find it with your long-range sensitivity. Or maybe you couldn’t because it’s gone now. I really don’t know. I would like to meet up with it again, though. On a more even footing this time. I think an accelerator might do the trick. Or one of the other more exotic weapons we’ve discovered.”

  Malena thought about his story. The more she got to know him, the more she warmed up to him. He’d always been good-looking to her, but from the moment she’d turned around and found him with his butt resting on her fender at that gas station, she’d been a little defensive around him. Maybe he deserved a second chance.

  “What got you in?” Tanner asked her.

  “Nothing so personal,” she said. “I needed a job. These guys pay really well.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, they do.”

  “What’s your first name, Lieutenant? I apologize for not asking until now. I think someone told me, but I guess it didn’t stick. There’s been a lot of people and a lot of things happening.”

  “Right. It’s probably not related to your concussion. The name is Bill. Bill Tanner.”

  He extended his hand, and she shook it formally. A hint of a smile played on her lips. After all they’d been through, she felt like she was meeting him for the first time in a way. She’d been in a fog of sorts. Events had propelled her forward so quickly, she hadn’t had time to breathe.

  “One more question,” she said. “What does XCU stand for? They dodged the question back at headquarters.”

  “They’ll tell you it’s just a code word and doesn’t stand for anything. That’s bullshit. It’s short for ‘Xeno Control Unit’. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Capturing aliens and their tech. We’re like glorified dog-catchers. Unfortunately, these critters sometimes win the game.”

  She took that in thoughtfully. It certainly made sense. These aliens did need to be kept under control. She now knew why they called it element-X as well. It wasn’t from Earth at all. It was absolutely alien to her homeworld.

  “Where’d you come from—originally, I mean?” Tanner asked her nonchalantly.

  “Up around D. C. I was born and raised in Virginia. It’s easy to get into a government service career up there. I traveled the world doing college research and dated a few professors. But then I came back home and got a real job. As a biologist, I’ve seen a lot of life forms I’ve considered strange. But these guys put all that to shame. A sea worm at the bottom of the ocean is homey compared to something like that jinni you met.”

  “Anyone waiting for you up north?” he asked.

  She eyed him for a moment. “There is Anthony. He’s another analyst from D. C. We had a few dates—but then I got fired and things fell apart. I haven’t seen him or started up with anyone else for months. What about you?”

  Tanner shook his head. “Too many secrets. Too many missions. I tend to vanish for a month and then come back with no coherent excuse. Girls get suspicious. My last girlfriend lost her cool. I came back to find my apartment cleaned out. She got herself a new cellphone number and she didn’t give it to me. I’m not blaming her, really. She assumed I was cheating when my stories didn’t check out.”

  Malena hadn’t thought about that part of things. Being a field agent wasn’t always glamorous, she supposed. If you were a member of a truly secret black-ops organization, one so secret you weren’t even supposed to know what it was called, the situation could be hard on relationships. It wasn’t an encouraging thought to her, as she’d been hard on relationships even without a good reason.

  She thought about Anthony and her old job doing satellite analysis. It all seemed a million miles away in another person’s life to her now. He hadn’t been such a bad guy, but she’d pushed him away after she’d been let go. Partly that was because he was still associated with the people who’d fired her.

  She noticed Tanner looking at her then. He looked away the moment she caught him, but she knew the look well. He’d been checking her out, admiring her.

  While he pretended to be busy repacking every magazine he had with bullets, she watched him in turn. Bill Tanner was giving her new thoughts. He was an interesting guy. Athletic and good-looking in a rough sort of way. She could see herself going for him, if they were to survive this mission. But she was wary of that possibility. She’d just gotten out of a work-related relationship and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start up a new one. On the positive side, at least she would know what he was really doing when he went off on a mission.

  That thought triggered another series of negative ideas. What if they did become close? How would that play out when one of them went out into the field where they could possibly be killed? What if they went together? Could they stay objective? She doubted it. Worse still, he might be her mission leader. How would she feel about taking orders from her boyfriend?

  “Um,” Tanner said, “you’re looking at me funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You okay? What’re you thinking about?”

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

  “Oh,” he said, then after a pause, he smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s against regulations anyway.”

  She reddened slightly and avoided his eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said quietly.

  She busied herself with her pack and felt oddly embarrassed. Did he have some kind of mindreading headset? She really hoped not.

  They dropped the conversation and began plotting their next move. They both wished they could simply escape this nightmarish monolithic ship and head for the beach—but they couldn’t. Outside was a swamp, an impassible barrier, then a lot more swamp. Buzzing around angrily were an unknown number of flying machines that could tear a person apart in seconds if they got ahold of you. They only way out was to shut down that barrier.

  “I think we’re on the right level,” Malena said. “Let’s find the off-switch.”

  They crossed the nearest shaft and walked up the slanting passage on the far side. When they’d judged themselves to be in the center of the ship—probably the exact center of it in every dimension—she figured they should start searching.

  “These odd levers and corkscrew-things,” she said. “They repeat often. I think they are more than decorations.”

  “I’m with you there. But what do they do? I’m reluctant to fool with them. We might fill the passage with chorine gas, or summon an army of guardians.”

  She nodded in agreement. “But we have to try something. I’d say we should look for an L-shaped lever. Like the one they used as a latch on the outside hatch.”

  “Another door?”

  “There has to be something. Some way to get into the space between these passages. There have to be rooms or some kind of chamber.”

  “Okay, here’s one. Let’s try it.”

  He put his hand on the lever and she joined him. She recoiled almost immediately and backed way, putting her hands to her head.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “That feeling again. Like the first time you brought me close to the X. I feel it here, something very powerful is nearby. I can’t touch that latch-handle—if that’s what it is.”

  Tanner looked concerned. “I didn’t feel anything. And you shouldn’t have either. Not with the headset. It’s supposed to dampen a sensitive’s overreaction.”

  “Yeah, well…it’s not working this time. I think the source might be so strong and so close it can’t be blocked.”

  Tanner nodded. He walked along the passageway, looking for more similar levers. He found one and had her touch it. She did so warily.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Tanner grinned. “Good. We’ve tested your theory. The power required to maintain that barrier must be terrific. It would take a fantastic amount of X. The find of a century. Let’s go back to the first lever.”

  She followed him reluctantly. He began to work on cranking the lever open. It didn’t want to budge. Finally, he aimed the accelerator at a spear-like thrusting spike of metal about five feet long. He put the muzzle against the base of the spear and fired. There was a tremendous flash and the acrid smell of vaporized metal filled the room. He did it again, and then lifted his prize. The spike was a thick bar of steel in his gloved hands, looking like a giant crowbar.

  “Now we have a lever,” he said.

  He walked back to the stubborn latch and shoved the smoking, red-hot end under it. Grunting as he worked, he managed to move the latch a fraction. There was a loud, unpleasant scraping noise. Metal rubbed metal in a fashion that punished their ears with the resulting grating noise.

  Tanner stopped and wiped his sweating forehead. He handed the accelerator back to Malena, who lifted it in both hands.

  “Here, watch the hatch. We don’t know what might pop out of this thing when I get it open.”

  She nodded and he went back to work. After another few minutes, the latch stopped moving. The door was unlocked. A circular section of the floor cracked open, but no light came through the crack. It was quiet and dusty down there. And cold. She felt an intense cold.

  After a brief period of staring tensely at the unlocked hatch, they both decided nothing immediate was going to happen. Tanner put his lever into the crack and began working it like a pry bar.

  “It’s cold down there,” he said. “Freezing.”

  She had to agree. All the sweat that had popped out on Tanner’s forehead and all over her own overworked body had chilled to an uncomfortable level. At first, the coolness had been welcome. But now it was becoming unpleasant.

  Finally, the door clicked and swung open. They both stepped back. Tanner dropped his pry bar and clawed for his pistol.

  A gush of frozen air came up out of the dark round opening, making them both shiver. Tanner gestured to the yawning hole.

  “What do you sense?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  “Something strong. But not peppery—it reminds me of mint now.”

  “Great.”

  Tanner took a step forward and lowered his flashlight to shine into the chamber. Malena stepped up next to him and did the same. They could see shapes inside…

  Suddenly, Tanner gave a gasping cry and staggered backward. His heel caught on one of the anvil-type things and he almost went over backward, but caught himself.

  She turned, lifting her accelerator. But she didn’t see anything attacking him. She looked down into the chamber, squinting to see what was there. The shapes below were large containers it seemed, covered in frost.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Did something move?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tanner said, regaining his composure. “It just freaked me out for a second. I’ve never seen so many of them before.”

  Malena frowned at him, then turned back toward the opening. “So many what? Is that cargo down there?”

  He chuckled without humor. “Yeah. I suppose in a way they are cargo. Look again, run your flashlight over the length of one of those ‘containers’.”

  She turned back and did as suggested. The oblong shapes were frosted over with droplets of white ice. Each was about twenty feet long, the size of a car. There were rows of them, more than she could count, all neatly lined up.

  There was something about the dimensions of these containers. They were slightly diamond-shaped. Each had an aperture at the top. She focused her light on the nearest aperture. It was like a small, frosted window. Inside, she could see something.

  It took her a few long moments to realize what she was seeing. Then she had it.

  “It’s a face,” she said in shock.

  “Yeah. This chamber is full of frozen visitors. Lots of them.”

  -20-

  Malena had been hearing about aliens for days now, and she’d met up with plenty of their hardware. But it was different to be face to face with these unknown beings in the flesh. It didn’t help that they were extremely large. Each of these coffin-like cases was as big as a sedan and the beings inside had to weigh ten times as much as a human. They were bigger than horses, if she had to guess.

  From what they could see from the safety of the passageway, the creatures had faces with humanoid proportions. When she examined one of the frosted-over capsules closely, she spotted valves on the side.

  “Look there, that must be how you open them,” she said, directing her beam down to a corkscrew-like protuberance. “I bet if you twisted that, it would unlock the case.”

  Tanner moved beside her and stared. “I’m really, really hoping you don’t want to do that.”

  She looked at him with bright eyes. “It’s scary, yes. But I actually do want to. I’m a biologist, you know. Just a few pictures—a blood sample. We’d be famous. But there’s more to it than that. Don’t you want to discover something new? Something the world’s never seen?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of things no one else has. Look, Agent Marin, I think you misunderstand our job here. We’re not here to enlighten the public. We’re advancing science, but quietly. We’re here for the X, not biological specimens.”

  “What? Are you afraid? These beings are frozen. They can’t do anything. It all makes sense to me now…the automated guardians and the big power supply. Even the size of this ship. It isn’t an exploration vessel or a military invasion ship. I think it’s a colonization ship.”

  “Maybe,” said Tanner. “But are you sure? These could be frozen troops. Even if it is a colony ship, colonization efforts often look a lot like invasions to indigenous populations.”

  She had to give him that one, but she still wanted to investigate.

  “Come out here for a second,” he said, standing in the passageway.

  She did as he asked, and to her surprise, he put the pry bar against the door and heaved it closed. It slammed shut with a tremendous reverberating clang.

  “Let’s keep looking,” he said. “There are plenty more hatches.”

  “We shouldn’t pass up this opportunity. Give me five minutes in there.”

  “No. I’m in command, and we don’t have five minutes. If you want to play around in here after we’ve secured the area, you can bring it up with Ostlund or Burke.”

  She was boiling with arguments, but she followed him to each of the nearby latches anyway. She touched them all and they felt cold. None of them made her sick or held any powerful source of power.

  Frustrated, she looked up and down the passage.

  “This must not be the right passage,” she said.

  He shook his head and pointed up. She followed his gesture and saw another latch, a smaller one on the ceiling.

  “That’s too high,” she said. “How are we going to get up there?”

  “First, let’s make sure it’s worth fooling with. I’ll stand on this big anvil thing. You get up on my shoulders.”

  It took them a moment, but she finally managed to reach out and touch the latch. The moment she did, she retched.

  Her mind blanked out. When she came to, she found herself lying on a hard metal floor. The back of her head hurt.

  “Why didn’t you catch me?” she complained.

  “I did, but I went down with you. Let me see the back of your head.”

  He checked her carefully. His hands were firm but she could tell he was trying to be gentle.

  “Just a bump. You’ll live.”

  As she watched, he climbed the wall of the passage. It wasn’t a sheer surface, as the entire ship was canted. There were plenty of handholds, too. When he reached a perch he could stand on, he began working the lever at the door latch. Malena wondered if it was such a good idea to open this one. It had given her such a feeling of raw power. There was something behind that hatch that she feared and respected.

  When the door at last fell open, she jumped back. She half-expected a shower of ancient, mummified corpses, still covered in frost. But instead, there was a rattling sound. A sound that reminded her of boulders grinding against one another.

  “Look out!” Tanner shouted. “It’s coming down. Get out of the way!”

  She climbed up onto an anvil just in time. A large bumpy spheroid dropped out of the ceiling. It sparked when it hit the floor, filling the space around them with a white flash of light that reminded her of the light the accelerator produced when she fired it.

  “It’s arcing,” Tanner said. “Don’t try to stop it.”

  There’s little danger of that, she thought to herself. She’d already figured out what it was she saw rolling down the passageway like a pinball, bouncing off obstacles. It was a huge ball of element-X. This was what they’d come for. The prize for which dozens had already died. A power source humanity couldn’t duplicate or even understand. She felt in her bones that if she so much as touched that wobbling cannonball, it would kill her.