A'NIR (Jim Able: Offworld Book 4) by Ed Charlton (read after TXT) 📗

shape of the flier descended from the clear air. Several students stopped jogging around the perimeter of the sports area to stand wide-eyed and openmouthed.

Madhar Nect approached, driving a small open-top vehicle. Several of her students were standing in the back, holding on to the rollover bar. Four more hung on to the back and sides. As he walked down the entrance ramp, Jim heard their shouting and saw them pointing.

“So much for doing this quietly,” he muttered to Tella.

“You are already a TV celebrity.”

“I guess so.”

Madhar brought the vehicle to a sudden halt in front of the flier. Her passengers leapt away and began to run around and under the wings of the flier, calling excitedly to each other.

“Jim Able. You are traveling in style this time!” said Madhar Nect. To her students she called, “Take plenty of pictures. I want every child to own the model of this one too.”

She and Jim shook hands, and the Turcanian drew the human into a hug.

“Oof! Madhar, this is Tella of Neraff.”

They turned to greet the Neraffan.

“Madhar Nect, I am happy to meet with you,” said Tella, holding out a gloved hand.

“Tella of Neraff. I...”

Madhar stopped, her hand half-raised, as she stared at Tella’s face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jim.

“I’m sorry...You seem...Your skin...Do you change color?”

Tella smiled. “That depends.”

“Oh my! You’re a gallassid! I had never imagined!”

“What do you mean, ‘gallassid’?” asked Jim, feeling that the name meant nothing good.

“I’m sorry; I don’t mean to be rude. We have folktales of creatures who are like glass. They have no color or features of their own. I had never imagined that there was any truth to such tales.”

Jim turned to Tella. “Have your people been here before?”

“I have not heard of it.”

Madhar stepped forward, took Tella’s hand, and shook it.

“Please forgive me. I hope I haven’t caused offense. They are old tales...” She hesitated and then continued quietly, so that her students would not overhear, “They are superstitious tales. The gallassidnir are rarely the good guys, if you understand me. You may find a certain...caution in peoples’ reactions to you.”

“I understand. In fact, I would prefer to have little contact with your people for now. I have a mission to complete. We can turn our minds to cultural anthropology and more social matters when Jim and I have accomplished our task.”

“Okay. Let’s get to work. I’ll take you to the tower. Do you have the frequency?”

Jim and Tella walked with her, followed by the group of chattering students.

“Margrev Aplar relayed to us the frequency setting from one of Sopha’s scanners,” Jim told Madhar. “We need to send a disrupting signal at this frequency. It should be something he can easily trace to here. Enough to make him land to investigate.”

“He’ll see your craft. He’ll know it’s a trap.”

“We’ll take care of that,” said Jim, smiling. “This one is a whole lot more sophisticated than the last thing I came in.”

***

The room at the base of the TV relay tower was small. Jim, Tella, Nect, and three students were more than it could comfortably hold.

One of the students took the details of the frequency from Jim.

“Professor?”

“Yes, Glav?”

“What are we going to transmit? If it isn’t a TV or a radio that’s receiving it, he won’t get any idea of the message.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll work it out. Patch in the call signal from the campus radio.”

There was general amusement at this instruction.

“What are you sending?” asked Tella.

“It’s just a repeated sequence of letters identifying the Institute’s radio station. The authorities require a particular identification format.”

She paused to smile. “They have us sending out ‘LIRS’ for ‘Latsin Institute Radio Station.’ This lot”—she gestured to the students—”think it’s funny.”

At Tella’s puzzled expression, Madhar continued, “‘Lirs’ is the slang name for a sexually transmitted disease.”

“Ah, I see,” said Tella, shaking its head.

There were a few minutes of quiet concentration.

“Transmitting now, Professor. Power at the highest mark.”

“Thank you. Jim, how long before he notices?”

“Immediately,” Jim replied. “It may take him a moment or two to track down the signal.”

“In that time, we must prepare for his arrival,” said Tella.

“Okay, then, what do we do?” asked Madhar.

“Please have your students move to a place of safety.”

“Okay, you three! Outside!”

There was a general groan of disappointment.

“Come on, we have to let our visitors do their work. We can buy them a drink in the bar afterward.”

“Really? Do you drink alcohol?” Glav blurted out.

Jim smiled, glanced at Tella, and said, “Only in moderation.”

Happy with the prospect of a further meeting with the aliens, they rejoined their fellows outside. Nect gestured to one of them to drive the vehicle away from the tower.

“I’ll stay and make sure this works.”

She grabbed a student by the arm and whispered in her ear, “Make sure the security cameras get everything that happens!”

The student glanced up at the tower, nodded, and climbed aboard.

Tella waited until they were safely away before using the remote control unit to close the flier and have it launch itself into orbit once more.

“I hope we get it back,” muttered Jim.

“If I may quote a good friend of mine, ‘Relax. Nothing can go wrong.’”

“Bastard,” Jim said with a smile.

They stood side by side, watching the shadow diminish to a black dot and vanish.

“So, Madhar, when do I meet your government?” asked Jim.

“Huh. Didn’t your Regdenir friends tell you?”

“What?”

“They are flexing their muscles again. For the first time in a hundred years, they’re holding the threat of power disruptions over our heads.”

“Really?”

“What demands are they making?” asked Tella.

“Oh, I don’t know—some sort of joint meeting with their big chiefs and the inner circle of the government. It’s playing as a sort of power grab while we’re suffering a little instability. They don’t want you meeting us without their guys being there.”

Jim laughed and said, “It depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?”

“It does?”

“Sure. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that, faced with contact with other worlds, you might present a joint response? You know...all the people of your world?”

“Well,” she smiled, “we’d expect them to