“Interesting choice. Most people just call and make an appointment. Why didn’t the dogs smell you as anything organic?”
“When our shells encase us or when we freeze, as I did while waiting for you, we appear to be made of metal. The metal is from our world, but it smells like metal on your world as well.”
“You were in the police station,” Kevin said.
“Good point. How did you get into the bathroom before we did, Muddy?”
“My friends were in your bathroom, waiting by your transference system. When the others arrived,” he nodded toward the dogs, “they froze. They went to the police station once they realized you would be going there as well. It is imperative that we are able to plead our case to you and we wanted to ensure that you were safe. I followed behind you.”
Couldn’t argue. The third turtle statue had indeed been behind me and near the gate, so this matched up. “Okay. So, how did you get in here, in this building, without the dogs knowing?”
“We used your transference machine, the one at the police station. We felt it important to test first, to ensure we had adjusted it correctly.”
“You were able to recalibrate the gate without issue?” Kevin asked suspiciously.
“Yes. I and the two with the Old One did indeed do so. We needed to ensure that you would come here when you left.”
“How?” Kevin asked. “It’s hard for a human to do, let alone someone who’s never seen a gate before.”
“But we are not humans. We can see through your cloaking and we were careful. The calibrations are not that complex.”
Felt that this wasn’t quite true, but then again, maybe calibrating a gate wasn’t hard for Space Turtles.
“You know that place blew up, the police station,” Buchanan said casually.
Muddy looked horrified. “But . . . but there were others in there! Not traitors, just people! Who would do that?”
“Are you saying that you didn’t?” Kevin asked.
“Absolutely we did not! We are here to request amnesty, not to harm anyone. As I told you, I was coming to escort you. However, I saw that the traitors were with you and felt that I should be cautious and not present myself until I was sure that it would be safe to do so.”
“Who are you accusing of being traitors?” Buchanan asked.
“The ones who were working with the . . . thing . . . that exploded.”
“Anyone with us in this room right now?” I asked.
“No, they have gone with the others.” Muddy looked worried. “If they meet my people first it will not be good.”
Thought fast. Sincerely doubted that any of my people were who Muddy felt were traitors. Besides, if they were people he’d spotted before, he’d only had his time in the police station for traitor spotting. “Were they in the cells or outside of the cells?”
“Inside. They knew the thing. I saw them pass signals to each other.”
“How many?” Kevin asked, sounding pissed. Felt his pain.
“Two. Two males.”
Process of elimination was fast and fairly simple. “If it’s not Mickey and Garfield here,” I indicated them and Muddy shook his head emphatically, “then that leaves the jocks or, as Melville called them, the classy drunks. Were they young men or older?”
“I can’t tell your ages yet.” Muddy sounded apologetic.
“Were they dressed like him,” I pointed to Kevin, who was, like all the other men who worked with Centaurion in some way, dressed in the Armani Fatigues, “or like me?”
“Him,” Muddy said confidently.
“Crap. My canine protectors, did you smell anything off about those DUI Dudes?”
Prince wuffed, Riley whined, and Duke barked softly.
“Huh. So they smelled human. But then again, so did the Casey-Bot. At least for a while.”
Prince wuffed, whined, wuffed, and growled.
“Interesting.”
“What did he say?” Buchanan asked, in the long-suffering tone Jeff normally used when I had my Dr. Dolittle cape on.
“That the dogs gave everyone in the conference room a thorough sniffing and everyone was what they presented as, human, A-C, hybrid. So while the DUI Dudes might be androids of some kind, I’m inclined to doubt it. Oh, and Muddy smells like a person now. Well, like a Turleen person. That’s how they were able to find him—he wasn’t ‘frozen’ and so had a living organism scent, versus metal. It takes a little while for the metal scent to wear off when they ‘unfreeze,’ so that causes some delays as well.”
“Whatever that Casey Thing was, she looked human,” Kevin pointed out.
“Yeah, but Prince picked up that she was wrong. It took him a little bit, but he did notice it. And the best officers of the law here were around the other prisoners a lot longer and they didn’t give off the wrong kinds of smells.”
“So, does that mean that the Mastermind has infiltrated us again?” Kevin asked, sounding ready to bust some heads.
Pondered this again. “No, actually. I’m pretty sure I know who the DUI Dudes are working with. But we need to get upstairs and outside, before they do what I’m betting they want to do.”
CHAPTER 24
UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, speed was of the essence, and that meant elevators were too slow. Lorraine called for more A-Cs, who arrived in a moment. Apologized to Mickey and Garfield in advance as the A-Cs picked up the dogs, then the rest of us linked up and we all hypersped off to the entrance into Caliente Base. We were outside in the Arizona heat fast. Wished I’d had the foresight to put on extra sunscreen but since I hadn’t, just hoped that what I wore on a regular basis back in D.C. would suffice. It never had before, but hope liked to spring eternal.
Unlike Dulce and most of the other A-C bases that all had a “ground floor” that made the building look mundane, Caliente technically started underground, with a wide tunnel that led into what looked like a low hill, which was the top level of the Base. The way in and out was camouflaged—not all that artfully hidden, really, but the entrance was just in the right spot to be missed if you weren’t looking exactly right. And I was sure there was some cloaking going on as well. Chuckie and I had searched in this area for years when we were teenagers, looking for signs of aliens. Well, he’d searched and I and our family’s dogs had gone along for the ride. But we’d never found anything.
The Turleens seemed to know where the entrance was, however, since they were massed around it, still looking expectant. Their ability to see through cloaking that no human nor a wide variety of other aliens could see through seemed proven.
Reached the others just as Reader was about to make first or, since I had Muddy with me, second contact. Stopped in between him and the Turleens. Lorraine and Claudia wisely stopped a bit away in a decent patch of shade so that Mickey and Garfield didn’t barf on our newest visitors. The dogs stayed with them, in a communal barfing pack. The dogs weren’t stupid, and shade was the best thing in the world in Arizona in the summertime.
Took a look around. “Where’s Siler and Manfred?”