Shadows of Mars (Broken Stars Book 1) I.O. Adler (read people like a book TXT) 📖

outdoor eating area, which had been cleared of its furniture and much of the trash and weeds, and ducked through a newly torn-down section of wall.

None of the three had noticed her tailing them.

The gray sphere stood just inside where she had last seen it. White lights on metal stands illuminated it.

“Hey, come back here!”

The doctor was hurrying to catch up with her. But even as Agent Barrett and the others paused to look, Carmen slipped into the restaurant.

Barrett moved to corral her. “Go back to the tent. You can’t be in here. It’s dangerous.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I was inside that thing. Maybe I can figure something out. Let me help.”

A third spaceman was waiting for them and looked ready to pounce on her. But he hesitated when Barrett held up his hand.

Carmen gazed at the sphere and resisted the urge to run. The surface reflected none of the light. The object was perfect darkness, a thing of awful precision and purpose beyond anything man might build. And it had been sent for her and her sister.

The front stood open.

Just inside the curved hatchway loomed the spindly robot that had taken her and Jenna. It wasn’t moving. The bubble screen it had for a head appeared to be powered down. It was hunched with its knuckles on the ground. Beyond lay her sister, propped up on the material of the sphere, which was formed into a bed identical to the ones she’d seen aboard the spaceship.

The waiting spaceman spoke loud through an amplified mic. “It just opened up. The major’s an hour out and will be landing at Travis in thirty. She’s been advised. We need to get the civilian out of here.”

Agent Barrett left Carmen’s side and approached the robot. “Well, she’s not here yet. Did that robot move?”

“No. No one was touching it. None of our people were doing anything.”

“All right. I’m making the call. I want everyone to fall back. We’re setting a new perimeter at a hundred yards. Close the freeway. I want all these walls torn down so we can watch this thing from a distance. No one does anything without my say. And get her out of here.”

One of the spacemen moved towards her.

Past the robot, a new light flickered to life, a red cone identical to the one inside what she thought of as the spaceship control room.

Agent Barrett tried to grab her as she ducked past him. But his suit hampered his movements.

“Come back here!”

He stopped short of the robot occupying the doorway.

Carmen entered the sphere. The floor sloped upward to a round interior room. She went to her sister’s side. Jenna appeared to be asleep. There was nothing attached to her skin, no spike in her neck, and nothing around her head. But if the events on the spaceship weren’t a dream, then somehow her sister was still connected to her robot body in that faraway place.

She tried to recall the details of the final moment before she had disconnected. How had she broken contact and woken up? And what had Peter done that had caused him to suffer a seizure?

Agent Barrett remained outside the sphere and was calling to her, his tone urgent.

Carmen touched her sister’s hand tentatively as if she might receive a shock. Jenna’s skin was warm. Besides the morphed bench beneath her sister and the robot in the doorway, the red light was the only other feature in the sphere’s otherwise smooth interior.

“It’s me. I’m here. Wake up.”

Jenna didn’t reply.

The red light pulsed.

During her last moments on the spaceship, Carmen had spoken with someone or something via an identical red light. What had they called themselves? Designate She Who Waits. They had accused Carmen and her mom of stealing the ship. Carmen had left that out of her interview.

Her stomach sank at the thought that now She Who Waits was once again trying to make contact. And what would happen when this She Who Waits discovered that Carmen’s mother was gone and there was no one there who could return what had been taken?

Agent Barrett entered the sphere and held his hand out for her. “Carmen, come with me. We need to leave. It’s not safe.”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you. We spoke with someone who wasn’t my mother. In the other place. There was a room with a light like that one.”

He took her by the elbow. “We’ll talk about it outside. If there’s a way to communicate with whoever is out there, we have people for that. We’ll bring your sister out.”

She took a final look at Jenna. Thought about what disconnecting her might mean. If Peter had suffered a physical shock and mental break, something even worse might happen.

She shoved his hand aside and moved to the red light. Touched it. Searched desperately for any of the other controls that had hovered in the air inside the spaceship control room.

“Hello? I’m here. She Who Waits, are you listening? Can anyone hear me?”

Agent Barrett wasn’t gentle as he seized her shoulders. But as he moved her towards the doorway, a solid curved wall materialized. They stumbled back.

The red cone of light flickered as if a breeze had struck it.

Carmen spoke louder. “This is Sylvia Vincent’s daughter. My mother stole your ship. We need your help and we want to return it. In exchange, give me my mother back and let my sister go. She’s stuck here and won’t wake up. Tell me you can understand. Are you there?”

Agent Barrett let her go and moved to where the door used to be, directly in front of the robot. He slapped his hands against the gray surface. “Open it up. What did you do?”

She ignored him as she inspected the floating light from every angle.