CHAPTER 12
CUT TO THE CHASE!
Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
- Aesop
Twig was furious. This evening was to have been a triumphant conclusion to years of work by her Warren. Instead, it had been a disaster. The toxic fumes from the safe, combined with the narcotic effects of the Ca, had nearly killed them all. The good news was that Renson, with his Ca'Ra strength, had managed to open the ship's main hatch before passing out, thus allowing the deadly mixture of fumes to eventually dissipate. This she had deduced from the position of Renson's unconscious body near the hatch.
But there was far too much bad news. Barns, apparently less susceptible to the effects of the fumes, had escaped. Further, no data remained in the safe. The paper documents, magnetic and optical disks and cubes, etc. were gone! The safe contained only noxious fumes and sludge! At this late date, the top secret DOD data that had previously filled the safe was irreplaceable. In fact, in most cases, there no longer existed any other copies of the data.
Things were rapidly getting out of hand. They learned only Tuesday that the humans had found out about Dannos, and used their influence to limit the spread of that knowledge. Now this!
Bates had done this to the safe, it had to be him! The thing to do now was to pursue Bates. He must have the data; he wouldn't simply destroy it; that would be totally idiotic. But how had Bates gotten into the locked safe and replaced the data with deadly chemicals? And how had he known to do it?
She had evidently grossly under estimated both Barns and Bates, especially the surprisingly treacherous Dr. Narbando T. Bates! To think that she had personally selected Bates to replace Barns! Had she actually been DUPED into doing so? Had the man merely pretended to be an innocent, incompetent fool for all those years? Was he some sort of under-cover operative?
Finally, Renson was still unconscious, and two other of her crew were dead. One of the dead Ra had most recently posed as a top Russian scientist, while the other had infiltrated Japanese industry. Together with Twig, Melberg and other crews that came before them, they had funneled sensitive data to the Ra for nearly a century. With Renson temporarily out of action, their loss left only herself and Melberg available on Earth to immediately pursue Barns and Bates.
Since at that point Barns was only a lost meal, while the treacherous Bates had killed two Ra, she and Melberg would first revenge themselves on Bates.
She left instructions for Renson telling him to track down Barns, when he recovered. She put the ship in auto-protect mode, to prevent entry by the police if Barns were to summon them. However, Twig wasn't very worried about Earth police; they had no weapons or influence that could much harm the Ra. Right now they would focus on finding Bates. He lived nearby, so Twig and Melberg headed for the Bates apartment first.
Bates wasn't home, and they could find nothing in his apartment that looked like data from the safe, but they remotely accessed his office VISICOM and were surprised to find a recorded message from a Dr. Janet Garb in Arizona. They realized immediately that this was the same Dr. Garb who earlier that week had determined the true trajectory of Dannos and exposed Melberg's CTAO software efforts.
Bates and Garb both behaved strangely in the recorded conversation. She acted like they hadn't talked in a long time, and he acted like a deaf mute. But that had to be a ruse; Bates must have suspected that they were being monitored. Perhaps they were communicating using some sort of code; Bates certainly made some odd facial expressions during the conversation. The only immediately valuable information in the recorded conversation was that Garb wanted Bates to come to Arizona right away to meet at a pre-arranged site.
The Ra had truly underestimated these humans. Garb and Bates must have collaborated against her Warren! Who were those two, really? Who were they working for? They had to capture Bates, question, and of course kill and eat him.
Since Bates wasn’t at his apartment, he was probably already on his way to Arizona. Melberg, the Earth-computer expert of her Warren, quickly accessed local transportation computers by VIACOM and found that Bates did indeed have an airline reservation to immediately travel to Phoenix. So then, Bates did plan on joining forces with Garb in Arizona! Twig and Melberg raced to the airport, just in time for Melberg to get the last available stand-by reserve seat on Bates' flight to Phoenix.
As Twig drove back towards the ship she got more bad news on the COM. First, Melberg called to tell her that Bates wasn't even on the Phoenix flight! In fact, after he was on-board, Melberg accessed the airline reservations computer to locate Bates' seat, only to find that he was sitting in the very seat that originally had been reserved for Bates! Melberg was on a wild goose chase to Phoenix. The recorded phone message must have been deliberate deception.
Then Renson called with still worse news. After he revived, he discovered that all the data cubes Twig had shown Barns were missing! Twig didn't have them either, so they had presumably been taken by Barns!
Much of the Earth data that the missing cubes contained was public domain information that was easily retrievable from any COM net. However, Renson reminded a horrified Twig that the cubes also included Ra mission data that detailed much of their covert activities since arriving on Earth more than a hundred years earlier. In the hands of the Earth authorities, their cover would be blown!
Infinitely worse, if the news reached Galactic authorities it would be devastating for the Ra race. Even many years after the Earth's destruction, a light-speed Earth news broadcast exposing the Ra could reach Galactic League, damning all the Ra!
Finally, Renson told Twig that Master Dow, the Ra Group Commander, had minutes ago called on ship inter-net and requested a status update. Renson had told him only that he would pass the request on to her.
Status? Twig was terrified! By the gods, if the Master Na’Ra knew the true current status, as responsible Warren Leader, she would probably become dinner instead of Barns! She had to recoup, and fast. She had to find both Barns and Bates. She had to get that missing data. And after she did, neither Na'Ra nor Ca'Ra protocol would stop her from personally tearing both Barns and Bates into bite sized DOD Senior Executive Service nuggets! But first she had to find them.
Finally, she got a break. Sensors left at the Bates apartment were picking up voices. After fine-tuning the receiver, she was pleased to hear Barns spilling his guts to Bates. Wonderful! She was only minutes from them both. She inserted two fingers into the car charging outlet as she drove. By the time she reached them, she would have absorbed enough extra energy to easily crush them to bloody pulp! Then, Ca'Ra protocol be damned, she would eat their raw bloody hearts and livers!
Meanwhile, a fully recovered and recharged Renson left the ship to track Barns. A Ca'Ra of the First Order, he easily followed the trail left by the ailing human. The infrared images left by Barns of his bare feet on the cold December ground were easily distinguishable from trails left by the passage of other heat sources. In addition, the trail of Ca, blood, and tiny body parts such as hair and skin fragments, was easily followed.
The trail was erratic at first, suggesting panic, but then the route led under some bushes where the quarry had apparently lay for a short time to recover and perhaps decide what to do. Then Barns went to a public phone booth. From there the trail headed straight North through the sparsely populated DC suburbs, avoiding homes and lighted areas. Why? Why hadn't the human fled to the first home he could find? Instead, despite being naked in the cold of December and fleeing in terror, Barns was apparently headed someplace in particular.
As he trailed his prey, Renson considered the situation. Without doubt, his first priority was to retrieve the data cubes taken by Barns that implicated the Ra. This was a very serious protocol breach.
Though Twig was doubtlessly also very concerned about the potential for a security leak to the Galactic League, Renson was concerned about an even more serious matter. The data stolen by Barns, combined with the DOD data that Bates had recovered from the safe,
could reveal the true objective of the Ra mission, an objective unknown even to Twig, Master Dow, and the entire Na'Ra hierarchy.
As far as the Ra Ca'Ra sect was concerned, death of all humans and the theft and sale of their cultural heritage was purely a secondary matter of little consequence. The whole scheme to wipe out humanity, monstrous as it was, was merely cover for the true mission objective, an objective that was much too monstrous and vital for the Na'Ra or other Ra to know, until the right time.
Many Na'Ra, most of the Ra populace, and the other Galactic League members thought that the Na'Ra ruled the Ra. They were wrong. As the Ra had manipulated events on Earth for nearly a century, so the Ca'Ra had manipulated the Ra for far longer, and for purposes far more sinister. Now there was a risk, however slim, that the true mission objectives would become known to the Na’Ra and the Galactic League, or, even worse, that the true mission would actually fail. If this were to happen, the consequences could truly be disastrous.
Renson's implanted relational processors informed him that the trail he followed was leading straight towards Bates' apartment. Moments later, a call from Twig confirmed that both Barns and Twig were now at that apartment. Renson ran swiftly and tirelessly directly towards his confirmed objective. He estimated that he would get there in only a few minutes, probably even before Twig. In any case, the Ra would soon have the troublesome humans.
Though outwardly expressionless, anticipation built up in Renson. This had become a true hunt, against deadly enemies of the Ra. Hunting and killing! This was what he was trained to do. Barns and Bates would not leave that apartment alive.
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