Catalyst Part I Read online

  Catalyst

  Part I Volume 1

  of the

  Endangered Universe Series

  By

  L. D. Strawser

  Table of Contents

  Preface 6

  Prologue 7

  Chapter One 9

  Chapter Two 20

  Chapter Three 36

  Chapter Four 59

  Chapter Five 71

  Chapter Six 86

  This is Part I of Catalyst in the Endangered Universe series. This ebook has over 34,000 words. Parts II and III will be published soon. L.D. Strawser appreciates your interest and would love to hear from you at either bemopub.com or amazon.com/author/ldstrawser.

  Copyright © 2008, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this document can be used in any form, transmitted or copied in part or whole without the express written permission of the author/publisher L.D. Strawser.

  Cover Art by L.D. Strawser Copyright © 1994 oil on canvas 18”x 24” Paper sculpture in warm and cool colors Text added with Adobe® Photoshop Elements 6.0 by L.D. Strawser Copyright © 2012.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the many friends, family, co-workers, and employees of various agencies who were so helpful and without their invaluable help this book could not have been written. I would especially like to thank my mother who has always been the one I look to for everything.

  L.D. Strawser, 2012

  Preface

  I looked into his eyes and saw only loathing and outrage. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. He had not expected me to return to this room, let alone return alive and well. The unusual pupils and intense color blazing from his orbital pits would have made me faint if I were that type of woman. Luckily I have experienced the rejection of other men that I have naively fallen in love with and he was no different. The only question was whether or not I would survive this encounter. If only my heart would be silent and not betray me in my moment of triumph.

  The Zan’Pah’rah of the Brenthin Empire continued to look at me with those piercing orbs slicing into the very core of my emotions. If he expected me to flinch he would be waiting a long time. The colony gave me their strength but remained silent. It was time for me to challenge him directly and I hoped that I could win. Who would have guessed that the fate of the world would depend on an obscure single mom from a little town in Ohio, and then he spoke.

  Prologue

  26,000 years ago, Sol System, Research Class Ship SoongiSa

  In a high orbit above the little blue and white world you would think there was nothing remarkable about it. The star of this system was unremarkable and would die a lackluster death in another five billion years or so. The interior planets were rocky with only one supporting abundant life although two others had supported some life in the past. The outer planets were ordinary gas giants some with multiple rings some with just a few. Several of the moons of these outer planets had some simple life forms. There were even a few specks of life on one of the gas giants, unusual but not unheard of. It was relatively boring really with one exception, the tall primitive beings on the planet below had something that was rare in this universe. Some of them had a genetic anomaly that allowed their minds to reach past their bodies in a variety of ways, including seeing into the future.

  If this genetic anomaly bred true it was estimated that in only another twenty-five thousand cycles around their star that a reasonable percentage of the population would have the abilities that would be granted by this genetic quirk. As it stood now the few who displayed the abilities showed it mainly as an increase in hunting skills, greater intuitive sensitivity, being an exceptional leader of the tribe, or being the tribal shaman or wise woman. This unique find would have to be protected and preserved so in all official reports there was no mention of this genetic anomaly and the planet was deemed uninhabitable with no valuable minerals. When leaving the seemingly insignificant little solar system an automated monitoring satellite defense system would be put in place to be certain this species and the surrounding planets would remain undisturbed for as long as possible.

  Of course this would obligate his department for the next two hundred generations or so but with a find like this, what did a little time and effort matter. As long as this little planet was kept a secret his people would stand to benefit greatly from a future treaty with a planet filled with psi cogs. Placing the bio samples taken from the primitive psi cogs they had found here into a stasis chamber he found himself wondering if he should request time off to be put in living stasis so he could lead the expedition that would return to make contact in the future. Indefinite living stasis was expensive but the academic rewards would be worth it in the end.

  They were almost out of the system now, it was time to activate the monitoring system and leave behind the guardians. Yes, a request for time in stasis would be just the thing. He would have them place him on sight so that as soon as he was awakened he could start collecting new bio samples to establish the percentage of the population that would have these abilities. Then he would have to test individuals for specific abilities. Usually these types of gifts became more specific over time. There were only three other worlds that were known to have beings capable of what these primitives might be capable of in the future.

  Of the three worlds, one was a deep ocean species who could not travel conveniently in space and the second was a plant species that simply protected itself from collective danger and refused to leave the dirt they grew in on their world. Rather limited and useless to the rest of the species of the universe. The third was the species that struck fear into all of the others. Luckily their ability to pass on the gene was severely limited so the percentage of their population with any kind of talent was rather small which was very fortunate for the rest of the universe.

  This small blue planet with these strange primitives would be a treasure of unimaginable possibilities, a species that was bi-pedal, communicative, capable of future space travel, and easily managed by those with superior technology. Yes, living stasis and then fame, fortune, academic accolades, a political shift in power, the possibilities were truly limitless.

  Chapter One

  45 years ago… Earth, Chillicothe, Ohio

  “Honey, get up, the phone is ringing.”

  “Damn, why is it that the only time my phone rings is after I’m asleep and it’s too early to get up?”

  “Because God has a sense of humor and you wanted to be a doctor.”

  “Right and my only consolation is you were fool enough to marry me so you get to be awakened at 3am too, who’s laughing now?”

  “I am, because I’m not the one who has to get out of the warm bed and go to the hospital.”

  “You old battleaxe.”

  “Lazy ass.”

  Dr. Modett picked up the phone and of course the nurse on the other end told him he would have to come in for one of his patients. The girl was still a teenager and having her first child. This girl was a petite little thing too. His main concern was to make sure she lived through the birth. He was pretty certain that she was having twins but he hadn’t wanted to scare her, she was so tiny, it would be a miracle to get one child out alive without doing a caesarean section. Besides there was no way to tell for certain that there were twins but it had sounded like there were two heart beats during her last appointment.

  If he had his wa
y he would put the bastard who got her pregnant in jail. Unfortunately it wasn’t up to him. The father of the girl made sure the man married his daughter even though she was only 13 and the man was 20 years old. If old Alan Jimison had bothered to talk to him first he could have told Alan what kind of man he was marrying his daughter off to.

  His office had seen more than one woman that this psychopath had dated. Every one of them came in with bruises and a few with more permanent marks. Being ashamed and afraid of the bastard they refused to say exactly what happened, but the doctor knew well enough without hearing it directly from their lips. Their bodies told the story loud and clear, and now this little girl, barely a teenager was married to him and about to have twins. God help her.

  Walking into the hospital, the doctor smelled the familiar scent of disinfectant and bleach used by the janitors to clean the halls and rooms late at night. When he arrived on the maternity ward everything was in chaos.

  “Doctor!” the head nurse yelled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Hurry, she’s hemorrhaging by the bucket load!”

  “Damn!”

  Running into the delivery room he saw the father against the wall covered in blood from the stomach down. He must have carried her in and she had bled all over him. The doctor grabbed one of the assistants and told her to get him out of the room. They had already brought blood in for a transfusion all that was needed now was for him to decide if he should save the mother or one of the children. She looked him in the eyes at that moment and told him what she wanted. It was almost as if she could read his mind.

  “Save my babies!” she pleaded weakly. “Save them…”

  The doctor decided then and there to attempt to save all three if only to find out how she knew she was having twins.

  Hours later he arrived home and his wife greeted him at the door. She could tell by the look on her husband’s face that things had not gone well.

  “What happened?”

  “I saved the mother and one of the babies.”

  “I’m so sorry, was something wrong with the one that died?”

  “I couldn’t get to her in time, she wasn’t breathing and the nurse couldn’t revive her.”

  “Twin girls?”

  “Yes, and then I lied to the mother and told her there was only the one.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because she didn’t need to know that one of her babies had died.”

  “Did you tell the father the truth?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter,” he said as he stepped into the bedroom, “they both knew the truth anyway but didn’t call me on it for some reason.”

  Present… Earth, Chillicothe, Ohio

  I like walking in the woods. There is something in the woods that draws me back over and over again. I’ve never been comfortable in cities or even small towns, I always felt most comfortable around forests and wild areas of the world. I’m one of the lucky few who have seen more of the world than just the Ohio State Fair or the Atlantic Ocean. I actually lived in Europe for a few years as a military wife. It had the advantage of giving me a new perspective on a lot of different subjects.

  While I had missed the 24/7 lifestyle I had gotten used to in the States, now that I’m back, I miss the more relaxed, laid-back lifestyle in Europe. Europeans in general and especially Italians have a love of life that I think is somehow missing in American culture. It’s one of those things you don’t know you’re missing until you have it and then it is taken away again.

  Today I had a specific purpose for being in the woods though, mushroom hunting season. The woods were warm and damp and I was determined that this year I would find some of those elusive morels if it took me all day. When I was little my mom and dad used to take me mushroom hunting in the woods behind our house. I had a hard time finding the darn things and didn’t discover why until I joined the Army. I’m one of those relatively rare females who is color blind, not completely and not with reds and greens. I have trouble seeing certain colors when the background has similar colors. It just so happens that my color problems involve browns, blacks, beiges, and yellows. The exact color range of morel mushrooms. So for me finding morels is a personal challenge that goes beyond the normal hunt for the delicacy.

  As I crossed the creek behind my house into the woods I noticed some debris that would need to be picked up. It was a never ending battle to keep all the litter and trash picked up. For some reason it seemed the farm I bought was the perfect spot for the wind to dump whatever it had brought with it across the hills of southern Ohio. I loved this place; it was mostly wooded forest and meadows with only the large clearing for the house and barn. If it weren’t for the three mile drive to the main road I would be completely isolated from civilization, which was kind of the idea.

  I haven’t lived very long but I’ve done a lot of things in the forty odd years that I’ve lived. I’ve done more than most of the people I know and seen things that they will never get the chance to see for themselves. I’ve been very lucky to have been able to experience all of these things but I paid a price for those memories. My marriage ended in divorce, my children seem like strangers to me, and my parents, sisters, and brothers don’t understand me anymore. Sometimes I think I should go back to Europe and find a little villa in Italy, nice dream but completely unrealistic since I spent all I had to buy this farm.

  I walked through the trees and brush looking for the little mushrooms sticking up out of last years’ autumn leaves and that is when I heard a strange noise. Looking around, I saw a large lump of blue and white moving behind a tree about forty feet away from me. I carefully unsnapped my holster and pulled the Colt 45 from my hip. I didn’t really like having to carry a weapon but I wasn’t fool enough to walk out in the woods without one and with my luck step on the first rattler of the season.

  Edging slowly up to the pile of white and blue I realized that I wasn’t imagining things and it was moving. When I was about fifteen feet away I began to circle around the tree to come at it from the side. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at until it raised its head. My first thought was someone got lost in the woods and half froze to death accounting for the bluish color of his skin. But the eyes changed my mind right quick. No one has eyes like that unless they’ve got some weird contacts in. That must be it, contacts and the rest was make-up.

  I lowered my Colt, smiled and said, “Hey, are you ok?” I took a few steps closer until I was within touching distance. I reached for his wrist to check his pulse. He jerked his arm away and opened his mouth and I knew at that moment he wasn’t wearing make-up or contacts. I was looking at something that appeared human shaped in that he had eyes, ears, nose, mouth, head, torso, arms, and legs, in all the normal places but this was no human.

  When someone has gums and a tongue that dark a blue, pointed ears with tiny spikes, white hair, light blue skin, and speaks a language that defies any attempt to pretend that it is a human language it’s pretty obvious that you are dealing with something that is other. Other can be alien or maybe from another dimension or maybe magic does exist.

  It didn’t hit me that I had fallen on my ass until the cold, wet ground started soaking through my pants. I holstered my Colt 45 because he didn’t look like he was in any condition to threaten me. He was pitiful looking, I could tell something was wrong but I had no idea what to do. You would think that having been around the military as a soldier and then as a military wife that my first thought would be to call in the troops. Nope, not me, all that time around the Army made me more suspicious and wary than trustful of the government. Besides they would just try to dissect this person and worry about asking questions later. Some may wonder why I wasn’t completely losing it. The answer is complicated but it boils down to this, I’ve been expecting something like this for a while so finding something not human wasn’t too much of a surprise after the initial shock.

  Ok, first priority, health of the alien, elf, or extra-dimensional bein
g. I decided that maybe he would understand if I made motions with my arms and hands for him to follow me. He just blinked his cat pupil eyes at me like I was insane. At least that was what it felt like his face was saying. He got a little more animated when I attempted to touch him again. It seemed he didn’t want me to touch him. So how the hell was I supposed to help him?

  “Ok… look, I’m just trying to help you, but I don’t know what’s wrong and I can’t speak your language to find out,” I said in exasperation.

  “I am sick, I must stay next to this tree, it is the only one that has the right kind of fungus growing next to it and I do not have the strength to walk any farther,” he said.

  I fell on my ass again. His voice was strange but his English was better than mine. Fungus? Damn! Wouldn’t you know it, of all the fungi he could be talking about he was referring to the morels he was harvesting and putting inside a metal cylinder. I sat there with my mouth hanging open for a good minute and a half. When he met my eyes again I got the distinct feeling he was just as exasperated with me as I was with him.

  “You speak my language? Where are you from? What are you doing here? What happened to you?” I blurted out in quick succession.

  At that moment he did something so human that I laughed, he rolled his eyes at me. If he could roll his eyes at me like that then maybe he was more like a human being than something “other.” So I decided to treat him like I would any other person who was a little different from everyone else.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “You would not be able to pronounce it if I told you,” he said in what sounded like an arrogant tone.

  “Do you normally act like an ass when someone is trying to help you or is that just with me?”

  His face took on a look that I was at a loss to interpret. He stopped moving and just looked at me for a good two long minutes. Then he laughed so hard that I thought he was going into convulsions at first. I smiled back but didn’t laugh since I didn’t get the joke but I didn’t want to be any ruder than I’d already been.