Destroyers - Dave Mckay (classic literature list .TXT) 📗

that had special U.N. troops guarding it. The soldiers recognised Moses, and so, when he indicated that he wanted to go in, they did what they would not have done for anyone else in the world at that moment... they let him in without a pass.

"Where's your partner?" Dangchao growled.

Moses could see only the back of a chubby man with long brown hair, who was seated facing Dangchao.

"I don't know," the man answered quietly.

He doesn't look like an alien to me, thought Moses. He's just a harmless old man.

"Maybe I should hold you here for a few days and see if he turns up."

The alien said nothing.

"We could have some fun with you."

"And God could have some fun with you!" the alien shot back. There was an air of authority in the man's voice. Perhaps he was not entirely harmless after all. But there was something else in his voice which was even more significat. He had an accent... an Australian accent.

It sounds so much like Kyme, Moses thought to himself; but then any male Australian accent would have sounded like Kyme's, since Kyme was the only Australian he knew apart from Winky.

But from what Moses could see over the back of the seat, the man did look a lot like Kyme... a bit greyer, perhaps, and a bit heavier than Moses had remembered Kyme to be, but very much like him, all the same.

Dangchao spoke. "I was only kidding," he said.

He's afraid of him, Moses thought. But Dangchao went on. "I just want to ask your friend some questions. We really need to work together... for the good of the whole world."

Moses changed his thinking once again. Dangchao was not afraid at all. The staffer in the cafeteria was correct. He was diplomatically using one alien as bait to attract the other. But surely the aliens would know that, and they would not fall for such a trick.

Just then, the alien turned in Moses' direction, as though he had been aware all along that Moses was watching him. He looked deeply into Moses' expressionless eyes for a second or two, smiled, and then winked, before turning in the opposite direction and walking toward the door on the far side of the room. He did not even wait for clearance from the Secretary-General.

"Go with him!" Dangchao said to an aide, and the man raced to catch up with the palace guest.

"I'll show you to your room," the aide said as he approached the alien.

For Moses Chikati, however, the man would never be thought of as an alien again. He was, instead, Kyme Rosenberg, Moses' personal friend and advisor, with whom he had lost contact a couple of years earlier!

The young man's mental faculties were such that he could not experience shock, fear, disappointment, or anything more than a slight increase in curiosity in response to what he had just observed, but it did not stop his mind from sifting through events in his past as he sought an explanation for how a kindly old Quaker from Australia could be the alien monster that had threatened to undermine all that the United Nations Secretary-General had done to prosper and stabilise the nations of the world.

Moses left by the same door through which he had entered. It was around the corner from the one that Kyme had used, and so by the time he reached the hallway on that end of the room, Kyme and Dangchao's assistant had apparently disappeared around yet another corner some where down the long corridor. Moses wanted to see Kyme, but only just. He was struggling with an urge to just forget about it. What difference did it make how Kyme had come to be there? There were books to read in his room, and exercises that Moshe had laid out for him to do. But in the end, he decided that the exercises were not important, and he just wandered down one hallway after another looking for his old friend instead.

Half an hour later, and Moses had back tracked all the way to where Kyme had first disappeared. He discovered that the guards who had been outside the interrogration room were now outside the room immediately next to it. Moses reached out with his good arm to open the door, but he was stopped by one of the guards.

"Sorry, we can't let you go in this time, son. It's too dangerous."

Moses was about to say, "But he's my friend," when he suddenly lost interest and wandered off toward his own room.

 

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Chapter 33 Another One

Chapter 33. Another One

For the next three days, Moses had no further interest in seeing Kyme, or in finding answers to the questions that lay dormant in his brain. He knew there was a serious mix-up and he wanted to talk to Kyme if he could, but he had none of the overpowering urgency about it that you or I might feel. He was content to forget about it, unless circumstances changed in such a way as to let him meet up with his old friend from Australia.

On Thursday, circumstances did exactly that.

Thursday was the day when he was to have given his speech to the media, complete with plastic smiles choreographed by Moshe. But at the last minute it was called off. Moses asked Moshe why it had been cancelled, not because it made any difference to him, but just to show polite interest.

"It's a problem with the aliens," Moshe replied. "The other one is on his way here."

Just then, there was a rumble that shook the whole palace. Both men stretched their arms out to maintain balance. The damage to his brain had slightly affected his balance, and so Moses crashed to the ground, where he lay for a few seconds before climbing slowly back to his feet, with help from Moshe.

As the rumble eased, the latest bit of news from Moshe started to sink in. Dangchao's plan has worked, Moses thought to himself. The other alien is going for the bait. And then he remembered Kyme. Wait a minute. Kyme isn't an alien; so who could this second person be?

He had previously thought that Josephat was one of the aliens; but after that night on the bridge, he knew it could not be the man who had taken his sister and Winky away from him. But could there be a link between Kyme and the real aliens?

Moses dismissed himself from Moshe, relieved that he would not have to perform for the Press, and he continued to aimlessly wander the halls, as he had been doing when Moshe tracked him down. He thought back over all that he knew about the aliens and all that he knew about Kyme, but still could find no link.

A few minutes later, while approaching the room where Kyme was being held, he saw the door open, and two soldiers in U.N. uniforms come out, followed by Kyme, and then two more U.N. soldiers. They turned to walk on ahead of him, but his eyes and Kyme's eyes crossed in that split second before Kyme turned. Moses thought he picked up another wink. Was Kyme playing a game with him?

He continued walking behind his friend and the four soldiers, but fell further behind as they moved with a certainty that he lacked. Nevertheless, he did see the cluster of soldiers push out through the front doors of the palace, and he pulled out the special beeper he used to call his limo, something he had only done on two or three occasions since coming to the Palace, and then only for the experience of getting outside for a while.

"I am at the front entrance," he mumbled to the driver. Can you pick me up there?"

The limo was just pulling up when Moses pushed open the front door of the palace. He moved as quickly as he was able, which was not very quickly, down the wide stone steps. Perfect timing he thought.

A crowd of people moving slowly away from the Palace was his best clue as to where Kyme and the alien might be.

"Follow those people," Moses said to the driver, pointing in the direction of the crowd.

The driver said nothing, but drove slowly along the road leading up to the palace, until he was almost touching people at the edge of the crowd. They continued inching along like that for a few blocks, until someone from the crowd finally got the message and called on people to move aside and give the vehicle access to the two men who were the center of everyone's attention.

They were near a fountain, and so the two men sat on a bench facing the narrow roadway. The limo pulled up directly in front of them, and Moses rolled the window down. He leaned his chin on the stump of his right arm, which cushioned the edge of the open window.

Both men smiled toward him, and that is when the mystery deepened for Moses. Sitting next to Kyme was Ray, his good friend and other father figure from London. Still, in Moses' voice there was little surprise, and there was not much more in the voices of his friends either.

"Hello," Moses said, and they echoed his greeting with a wave of their hands. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"We're working for God," Rayford said. "We've been praying for you."

"Did you know I was here?"

"Yes, we heard from our people here in Israel before we left," Rayford continued. "It seems like half of Jerusalem knows about you being here."

The look on Moses' face was one of puzzlement throughout much of the conversation; mention of "their people" made him squint his eyes even more, in an effort to understand what Rayford meant.

"Did you come to see me?" he asked.

"No," they both replied simultaneously. "We had other more important business," Kyme finished off.

"Are you the aliens?"

"Do we look like aliens?" Kyme asked with a big smile.

Moses paused before he said, "I don't know what aliens look like. You're my friends."

"We are teaching people about a different world," Kyme explained. "A world where God is the king, and where people love each other."

"Can I go there?" Moses asked, without showing any serious interest.

"You can if you will just follow your heart," Ray responded.

"I don't have a heart now," Moses said, with something close to sadness in his voice. "I have no feelings. I died, you know. I went to hell. Dangchao was there."

It took ever so long for Moses to say all of this, speaking very slowly as he did, with a slight spastic slur; but neither of the men interrupted, and the crowd was totally silent as he spoke.

"Do you want to see this new world?" Rayford asked, compassion showing in his voice.

"I don't want anything. That is the way I am now," Moses replied.

"Oh but you do want things," Kyme said. "Why are you here now? Why are you talking to us? Isn't it because you wanted to talk to us."

"But I know you," Moses said.

"And you can know God too," Kyme answered. "Have you tried talking to him?"

"I did when I was dead," Moses answered more quickly than had been his earlier responses. Then he reverted to his slow drawl. "But it's too late now."

"It may be; but have you tried?" Kyme continued.

Moses remembered something from his death dream. He had felt something very strongly then. In the dream he had remembered with the deepest regret that he never even tried to talk to God when he had been alive. And it dawned on him that he had not tried to talk to God since either. He knew of one time when he had tried to do something good after coming back to life, but that was not the same as talking to God.

"What do I say?" he asked.

"Anything you want to say," Kyme replied. "And take time to listen too. God doesn't always use words, but he has ways to let you know he's there."

"Just don't try to tell him what to do." Ray interjected.

"That's true," Kyme went on. "Some people want God to do what they say, before they'll become his friends. But even when he does do what they ask for, they don't usually change their