Pete Reynolds was in his private study after spending almost twelve straight hours inside his code locked laboratory just adjacent. He was poring over transcripts from his own meetings as well as the initial meeting with Kate and Pilcher and going over statistical results from her subsequent tests. She was as human as he was, except for significant variants when she held that stone in her hand. The brain patterns changed and shot off the graphs. It was like a trigger being squeezed. The only difference was with a loaded gun you could make a pretty good assumption as to what was going to happen next. With Kate, that theory shot out the door.
Pete suspected she had some kind of mental power, which he was eager to explore further. He also wanted to see if she was, as he suspected, a reincarnation of the enigmatic Queen Leah, but that was a wild assumption without any solid proof, aside from a drawing in a book. He had prepared general questions and concluded that she did not have a clue what was happening to her, and the word reincarnation never eventuated into her vocabulary. The closest she came to reasoning was that some spirit had moved in and taken over her, which to a degree could well be the truth.
A few days after Pilcher’s stern warnings, Sataal and he were alone. Pete, in a casual manner asked him if he knew anything about the relationship between an ancient queen, with possible mental powers that lived on Earth thousands of years ago and the Trimadian invasion. Sataal stared at him and paused in reflection as his mind gathered together the tale propagated to all Cantal children by the Trimadians regarding a human born queen and their leader.
“Why do you ask?”
Pete shrugged. “Just trying to piece our history together, forget it, more importantly, I need to talk more about your food supplies…”
Though Pete was bursting to tell him of Kate’s arrival, the drawing of her in a book, this weird stone, her unusual powers, he decided to say nothing. If word got out to Pilcher, he was in for an ear bashing, at worst, ostracized. He wanted to talk more to Kate first.
He was pleased with the progress he was making with her. Though she put on a brave front and her personality was strong, he could sense she was quite vulnerable, which under the circumstances was understandable. He quickly built up a bond with her, as he found her likes, dislikes, and views on the world were quite similar to his own.
He sat back in his leather bound chair, hands behind his head. He knew this was big, real big, and he was playing in an area where he would need to tread carefully, dig slowly, and chip away at the pieces, as if it was one of his archaeological finds. She had built a psychological protective wall around her, which might have something to do with her general distrust of men, thanks to her ex-husband cheating on her.
This was probably going to be the biggest prize he would ever uncover in his lifetime!
Pete Reynolds was, for once in his adventurous and intellectual life, scared.