Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders
Chapter 11: No Pity for the Paranoid

Sleep didn’t come easy for me that night. Maybe because my head was using the mini-binocs for a pillow, and I kept opening one eye to search the dark to see if anyone on my team was trying to find them.

Damn this situation is starting to get my goad.

The next morning I sent the others out of the burrow to commune with town-folk, play with pups and search for eatables, while I stayed to confide in Jones everything Qualdron had told me the night before.

“The only Rosenian on my team that I haven’t known for years is the new doctor,” I said after giving Jones the details of the situation.

“How do you plan on finding out which one is the spy?”

“In thinking about this ridiculously unfortunate turn of events, I believe setting a trap to see who takes the bait could be a good start.”

“Okay, how do you intend to set a trap?”

I still wasn’t sure if I trusted Jones, uh...Ms. Jones yet, so I found myself holding back on the particulars of my half-baked plan.

“I haven’t worked out all the details yet,” I replied, which wasn’t far from the truth.

“I have an idea. Would you like to hear it?” she asked.

“I think working on one plan at a time would be best for now,” I responded, trying hard not to sound patronizing.

“Well, okay, if you don’t have the ability to multi-task that would make sense.”

Jones’s voice was starting to irritate me more than the miserable heat on this doubly miserable planet.

“Okay, thanks for the useful conversation,” I said, with only a hint of sarcasm. “Let’s go join the others topside, because I want to let Torie out of stasis for a while.”

Discussing Qualdron’s call had made us late for our visit to the lab that day. I was thinking about not going. I wasn’t sure what information the spy was after. But I decided there just wasn’t enough time left on the job to mess around. So, I gathered up my team and off we all went along our well-worn trail to the berm, where we turned right in the direction Cassie said we should go to find their lab.

By then Torie was flying overhead in the form of a golden eagle. I looked up to the sky in front of me, and I admired the sight of the majestic bird, with its massive wings outstretched, gliding in slow circles against the backdrop of a hazy sky.

Too bad such creatures no longer exist...

Jones was bringing up the rear and I had instructed her to watch everyone in the line in front of her for any unusual activity. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I meant by “unusual activity”, but it sounded good at the time. Moore was behind me, followed by Doc, who kept poking his glasses with one paw-hand, then came Brown, Davis and Jones.

Bloody hell, this was an unexpected predicament.

“How many missions have we been on together?” I asked Moore over my shoulder.

“I dunno, top dog,” replied Moore. “Maybe 6 or 7.”

“Yeah, and that’s not counting all the curriculums we took together back in training,” I replied.

Suddenly, Torie’s eagle swooped down and landed in a cloud of dust right in front of me. Then he swirled out from the eagle’s form and stood there fidgeting.

Uh-oh, he’s got something on his mind.

I sniffed the air with my increasingly keen prairie dog sense of smell.

“Man, Torie, how long has it been since you had a bath?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the salty fragrance wafting in my direction. I now appreciated that town-folk truly could identify each other by their individual smell.

“From the air I could see a small dwelling that is probably Cassie’s lab,” offered Torie, ignoring my question. “It’s not far from a massive white-dome enclosure the size of a small space station off in the distance. And the big dome had the words ‘Drake Industries’ on the side.”

Interesting...

Then he quickly swirled back into the mini-binocs and plopped on to the dirt before I had a chance to ask what he had on his mind or insult his scent any further. I picked them up, put them around my neck and kept going. We had never traveled this far away from Suburbia. We must have been an odd sight. We trooped on in silence through, what I could only describe, as the sparse remains of an ancient, fossilized forest. We were surrounded by flat, slightly bumpy landscape in every direction, which was gray, and barren of most vegetation, except a few scattered tree fossils, adorned with crooked, outstretched limbs that gave them a haunting appearance.

Dammit...what was this anxious feeling I kept getting?

Beyond the creeping weirdness that came and went, due to my unstable program, all I could think about was what I would do to the person who had betrayed my trust and they weren’t pretty thoughts. It was a novel sensation for me, because I didn’t care much for violence, preferring to verbally buffalo my way around conflicts instead. But the idea of an unscrupulous traitor in our midst was messing with what little peace of mind I had left.

The paranoia, along with my unpredictable condition, might collide and produce a fearsome, take-no-prisoners warrior or a weak-kneed, wimp...and I wasn’t keen to be either one.

“Hello, Cassie and Sarah!” I shouted a short time later, as we finally approached what had to be their lab.

It was the only structure separated from the big, white, dome a hundred yards to the left. Torie was correct...the building had the words, “Drake Industries” painted in huge, black letters on the white surface. We climbed onto the little porch of the garage-sized building, which had one window facing the settlement. Jones was in the back of our group. We all stood on our hind legs in the meerkat position and called out for Cassie again.

At the same time, I thumped on the door with the mini-binocs. We could hear more of some kind of Earth music coming from inside. The door finally opened and a rush of cool air blew my whiskers back.

“Hi guys!” shouted Cassie.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the Beach Boy’s song ‘Good Vibrations’,” She explained, looking really happy to see us.

“Yeah,” said Sara, walking up to motion us inside. “We pull that song out every time there’s a tremor.”

I looked around the place. The inside of the lab was a surprising and welcome transformation from the stark and dreary landscape outside. For one thing, it was actually comfortable, because they had a solar-powered system to run an air cooling unit. Forgetting about the spy-situation for a moment, I thought that everyone on my team must quietly be relishing the absence of searing heat.

Such a relief...

Suddenly, I could feel my nose twitching for no apparent reason, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Perhaps it had something to do with breathing air that didn’t feel like the devil’s breath.

“How did your experiments and equipment hold up? Any damage?”

“Oh, there was a little bit of broken glass, but nothing important,” answered Cassie, who was still jiving to the Beach Boys’ song.

“Is the big dome we saw in the distance where all the other people are living?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but I was trying to get better at mindless chit-chat.

“Yeah, that’s right,” replied Sara. “There are over a thousand people waiting for evacuation.”

“What do they do in there all day long...roam around like mindless androids?” asked Davis.

“No, silly. They all have work to do,” laughed Cassie.

“What kind of work?”

“Actually, they do everything from running the hydroponics and operating the cafeteria to organizing the medical and sleeping units.”

“Sorry to change the subject,” said Jones. “But is this your research?”

I knew Jones was parroting a human phrase, but I found it amusing to purposely apologize for an action then go right ahead and do it anyway.

The interior of the lab glowed with dim, bluish, lighting and there were three massive, open-air computer screens that framed three sides of the room. The screens were filled with symbols and equations. Jones hopped over to stare at figures on one of the screens, with a puzzled look on her face.

Science wasn’t my thing, but somewhere along the line I had learned that mathematical equations would ultimately be the closest thing to accepted universal language.

“Is this your plan for extracting deep-core water from the planet?” asked Jones.

“Yes,” replied Cassie, walking over to stand next to her.

Jones studied the figures quietly for a few minutes.

“Extraordinary...I see where you are going with this, but what will you use for a delivery system?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part and we haven’t quite figured it out yet,” said Sara, as she stepped up next to Jones and Cassie.

Meanwhile, I was keeping an eye on Doc, Davis, Brown and Moore as they looked around the room checking everything out. Moore had a sterling second officer record. Yeah, maybe he could be a little negative and irreverent, but I always knew I could depend on him to have my back. Same with Davis. He was known as the jolly-joker, who wouldn’t hurt a dung-beetle, but he was a sharp guy and I always knew I could count on him.

And I had known Brown for years. She had a life-long mate. I would often secure the company of a female, since I was known as something of a ladies man on Rosen, so we could all rendezvous together for an evening of entertainment. We were friends even before she joined the Rosen Special Forces.

Man, what are these strange emotions? I had to stop for a second and take a deep breath.

Almost everyone one on the team was my friend and I couldn’t believe they would be disloyal to me or Rosen. But what did I know about young Dr. Jason Jenkins? He had just completed his medical training before getting tapped for this mission, because it was supposed to be low-risk. He was a well-educated, whiz-kid, with a quiet nature, and he couldn’t see very well without artificial devices.

But sometimes the quietest brainiacs turned out to have the darkest secrets.

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