Backyard Aliens Read online

  “It may be that you’ll figure this out before we even get there,” she said.

  “Now you’re just patronizing me.”

  “Only ‘cause I love you.”

  “Here we go,” Neil said as he pulled into the university parking area outside the archaeology building. He pulled into one of the MSU Visitor Parking areas and turned the car off. He sat for a minute. “You may have to remind me to keep my mouth shut.”

  Mavra leaned over and reached up to brush his hair down. “You always look so disheveled.” She ran her fingers through his hair a few times then settled into her seat again. She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 2

  DR. LESSER WASN’T OLD ENOUGH to be going senile. He bore the look of someone in his low to mid-fifties, and wore a brown soul patch even though his cropped hair showed gray around the edges. “Before I can let you in to see this, you’ve got to sign a few papers.”

  “For?” Mavra said.

  “Security. You can’t talk about this to anyone.”

  Neil sidled up to the desk where Dr. Lesser stood. “Used to that.”

  Mavra shook her head. “Little too late, isn’t it? We ran across a couple of men who have already handled the item in question.”

  Dr. Lesser pulled the security papers from a stack. A second stack of signed papers sat next to the first. “It’s not me who cares.”

  “Did those men sign papers?” Mavra said.

  “They were pulled off the project as soon as we learned that something really strange was happening, as soon as the government got involved.” Lesser’s hand shook as he held the papers toward Mavra. The pressure took its toll on a man’s nerves. “Some signed, some didn’t.”

  She took the paperwork from Lesser. “Why are you so nervous?”

  “We really need to go through all the right tests before we let someone else handle it. I need other scientists. Those men you’re talking about, the only ones who handled the specimen? They’re PhD candidates. I didn’t want to excuse them from the case. I could actually use their help. But I was ordered to get you involved.” He stepped back and raised a hand toward her even while looking at Neil. “No offense meant.”

  “None taken,” she said as she scanned through the security paperwork. Then she handed the papers to Neil. “Want to make sure I didn’t miss anything?” To Lesser, she said, “I’m used to people not wanting me involved. I’ll do my best to get out of your way. She looked at Neil questioningly.

  “Standard stuff,” he said.

  She took the papers from him, bent over, and signed at the bottom, then passed them back to Neil.

  “He doesn’t have to sign,” Lesser said.

  “I don’t even go in there without him,” Mavra said.

  Lesser signed with a look of disgust. “Fine, I don’t care anymore. Go ahead and sign them. I have no control over this anyway.” He snapped the papers from Neil the moment the pen lifted from the page. He dropped the paperwork on top of the short stack of signed sheets and patted it with his hand to make it stay. “Shall we?” He led the way out of the classroom where they had met and into a lab with nine workbenches and twice as many stools. “This is where we have our regular lab studies.”

  The benches were decked out with sinks and hard countertops. Bunsen burners, glass containers, and a variety of grasping tools sat at each station. Cabinets lined the room under a bank of windows. In the rear of the lab, two large military guards flanked another door that led to what looked to be a storage area behind the lab.

  “It’s through here,” Lesser said. He hesitated at the door, then reached for the doorknob. “I’m surprised they let us keep it here instead of taking it elsewhere, but I don’t think they want to transport it until they know what it is.

  The door closed behind them. The storage space opened into a messy room. A single lab setup, just like the ones in the other room, sat in the center of the floor, while metal and wood shelves stood from floor to ceiling all around them. Boxes, bottles, and numerous plastic containers filled the shelves. On the lab table, a rock the size of a baby—oblong, transparent, but too misty to see inside—sat just right of the sink.

  “This is it?” Mavra reached toward it.

  “Wait,” Dr. Lesser yelled and reached to open a drawer. “Can you do this while wearing gloves?” He removed two light blue rubber gloves from a box of a hundred.

  Mavra took them from him and put them on. While doing so, she leaned close to the rock and saw where the sandstone had stuck in some places to the transparent crystal-like stone underneath. She reached with a single finger to poke at the specimen and found it hard on the outside. “How many chemicals have you poured over this thing?”

  “We tried acid, vinegar, and the like,” Dr. Lesser said.

  “Hardness test?” Neil asked.

  “On the outside layer. By the time we came in on day two and saw that some of it had fallen away we stopped. Sandstone,” he said to answer the unasked question. “We thought we’d done something wrong, but when it began to enlarge, we figured the outer casing was a secondary layer.”

  “And you heard something?” Mavra said.

  Neil stepped to the opposite side of the bench and scrutinized the rock while Mavra waited for an answer. “What do you think?” she asked Neil.

  “I’m no archaeologist, but I’d say it sure looks like an egg.”

  Dr. Lesser shook his head at Neil. “Ancient man used oval-shaped rocks as hammers.” He walked to one of the shelves and opened a box. He lifted a much smaller, oval stone from the container, one that matched the shape of the egg. “These were used as hammers.”

  “That’s what that kid in the diner called it,” Neil said.

  “This one’s much larger now than when we found it. At its original size, it would have fit into a man’s hand.” He shrugged. “A big man.” He placed the hammer on the bench near Mavra. The egg had expanded to four or five times the size of the hammer. “As for sound, it’ll make the sound if we stay in here long enough. At first we only heard scratching.”

  “And now?”

  Dr. Lesser bit his lower lip. “It’s like…” He took a deep breath. “Like a voice,” he said, “a chatter.”

  Neil’s head waved back and forth repeatedly as though he couldn’t believe it. Or didn’t want to believe it. Mavra said, “Let’s not make decisions before we have to.”

  “Still…aliens?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “We’re ruling nothing out,” Dr. Lesser said.

  Mavra reached for the specimen. “Well, let’s find out. Is it all right if I lift it from the table?”

  She noticed sweat across Dr. Lesser’s forehead. He took a moment, then said, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “I’m okay with that.” Mavra placed both hands over the top of the misty crystal and closed her eyes. She let her shoulders relax as she exhaled from a deep breath. She breathed in, then out, three more times, each time dropping deeper and deeper into an altered state. She had rituals that she conducted, knowing that they were only performed for her. Certain sensations occurred and certain inner reactions happened because of those sensations. She could no more explain what she did or how she did it. It just happened for her. Moment by moment, she followed a well-worn path into her psychic abilities until she opened to her inner vision.

  Immediately upon arrival, images appeared in her mind’s eye. She allowed them to come and go, to inform her. She had never seen anything like this before, starships, implantation, other worlds, and yet as she went deeper, the initial images faded and the sense of complete innocence came over her, like a newborn baby. She knew the sensation because she’d found a newborn for the police once. The tiny shoe they asked her to hold came with the same sense of innocence that this egg did. A blank slate. Potential for growth. Mental activity.

  She held on for a few more moments before she backed out. The mental activity wasn’t human, and felt hundreds of times more active, a buzzing-like act
ivity she attributed to bees. That’s what she got. She didn’t question anything, only collected information. As she came back from her meditation, Mavra lowered her head and let her hands slip from the stone. She let them rest on the countertop.

  “Brennstinboolop,” came a sound from inside the egg.

  Mavra opened her eyes and stared at Neil.

  “What’d you do?” he said.

  “It’s intelligent.”

  “No,” Dr. Lesser said, slapping his palm to his damp forehead. He swung away from the bench. “You can’t say that. It’s not possible. It’s a prehistoric specimen.”

  Mavra watched as Dr. Lesser wandered away and then back again. She glanced at Neil. She had to let out the information she’d gathered or she’d begin to forget, to misinterpret as the images and sensations faded and she tried to hold onto them. “The outer shell is manmade. Well, alien made anyway. It’s artificial. I don’t care if it’s sandstone or not.”

  Neil yanked his phone from his back pocket and held it in front of Mavra as she spoke.

  “There were strange starships with long and wide things that looked like sails attached to them on several sides.”

  “Solar sails,” Neil said while she took a breath.

  “Colors. The colors I got were blue and green, richer colors. The sails were reflective. The egg was impregnated. I’m not sure with what exactly, but they were prepared and impregnated, or installed. Maybe installed is a better word. Those are the only words I have to explain the biology. And then it was ‘set.’ I don’t know why I used that word, but that’s what it was. It was ‘set’ and then put here. But not just here. Things like this were put everywhere. I got the sense that there are many of these eggs all over the universe. I saw Mars and Jupiter, and other planets not in our solar system. Maybe they’re beacons.” She turned her head. “I’m losing it.”

  “The intelligence?” Neil said.

  “A baby. It’s like a baby, innocent in its own way, its alien way, but not for long. Instinct is strong and intelligence comes quickly. It’s already smarter than what a human baby would be. Or, at least, that’s how it felt. A lot of brain activity. Like bees. Its brain buzzed like a swarm of bees. I don’t know, maybe not a swarm, but it buzzed.”

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  Mavra let her eyes go closed. A quick flash of light came through. “It has a purpose,” she said. “An honorable one…at least for them.” She opened her eyes again.

  “For them?” Neil said.

  Mavra shrugged.

  “How did you do that?” Dr. Lesser said. “It can’t be true.” He pointed at Neil’s phone. “And that can’t leave this place.”

  “What do you suppose we should do with it?”

  “I’ll have it transposed,” Lesser said. “I’ll be in trouble if I let it leave here.”

  Neil handed the phone over. He winked at Mavra, and she knew he had everything under control. She knew that he understood how she worked, too, and that little tidbits of information would come back to her for several hours, maybe even during a dream. She smiled at her husband while she peeled the gloves from her hands.

  “We haven’t discussed the sound that came from this thing,” Mavra said to Dr. Lesser.

  “If what you say is true, then it could be some kind of device and not a living being,” he said.

  Neil laughed at him.

  “What?”

  “You’ll accept part of her findings, but not all of them. Still can’t go to the alien thing, can you? I mean, I’m with you on a logical level, but I know my wife. The tables have turned, my friend.” Neil scratched his head and his hair stuck out all over when he took his hand away. “We have something in our midst that none of us could possibly understand.” Neil shook his head and slapped Lesser on the shoulder. “You’d better get used to it pretty fast because we’re going to need to do something with this egg before it hatches, or you’ll have more than a specimen on your hands.”

  “And the sound?” Mavra repeated.

  Lesser picked up a wastebasket and held it toward Mavra for her to throw her gloves into it. He set the basket back down. “More syllables,” he said. “It was just some kind of chirping before.”

  “Words,” Neil said.

  “Impossible,” Lesser countered.

  “You’re going to need guards inside this room. Do you have a cage? A large dog kennel should do.” Neil reached for Mavra and brought her close. “We need to go somewhere quiet so we can think.”

  “The auditorium is empty this time of day,” Lesser said.

  “I’d like to take a walk around campus,” Mavra said. “Movement might help.”

  “Well,” Neil said.

  “I didn’t want more people in here,” Lesser said. “I was hoping to…I don’t know. I didn’t want all this, though.”

  Neil opened the door and spoke to the guards. One of them stepped from the doorway and pulled out a cell phone.

  “We can handle this, Doctor. The military will send a kennel and place guards inside until we decide what to do with the egg, if it’s an egg, by morning. Whatever this is, it will have to be moved eventually. Perhaps sooner than we all think.” Neil nodded for Mavra to go with him. He said to Dr. Lesser, “You stay with this thing. Make sure everyone handles it with gloves, and delicately. And when you get my recording transcribed, I’d like my phone back.”

  As Mavra left with Neil, she looked back and saw that, even though slightly dazed, Dr. Lesser moved as though he was going to get things done. “Thank you for taking over,” she said.

  “I know how fuzzy you can get after a reading. This must have been draining. I’m glad I was here to help.”

  “Your phone?”

  “Straight to my computer in the car. Even the sound that thing inside the egg made. I think we start working on translation right away. If we could have that thing wired for sound all night, we might have a beginning.”

  “I’m impressed,” she said.

  “I know my job.”

  “Let’s take that walk. I need to process for a little while. That was bizarre.”

  Neil and Mavra left Dr. Lesser’s classroom and walked down the hall. When Neil shoved the door open to the outside, two kids were sitting on the stairs. They jumped from their stone seats. “Mister, did you see the egg?”

  “What egg?” Neil said.

  The kids looked to be around ten years old, maybe twelve. Mavra reached out to shake hands with the closest one. “I’m Mavra and this is my husband, Neil.” The boldest of the two had black hair and stood a few inches taller than the other, tow-headed boy. “I’m Sam and this is Gene,” the dark-haired boy said. “We found the egg.”

  “You did? And where did you find it?” Mavra let go of the boy’s hand.

  Gene poked Sam from behind, and Sam turned around. “It’s okay. They’re not from the university or the Army.” He came back around to look at Mavra. “You’re UFO investigators, aren’t you? You think it’s from an alien.”

  Mavra laughed. “Way too much History Channel,” she said to Neil. “No. We have nothing to do with UFOs. But, we are investigators. We…” she looked back at Neil.

  “Go ahead, explain what you just did,” he said.

  “A lot of people are going to be called in to see what they think of the egg. We’re just two of them.” She started to walk down the stair and put her hand on Sam’s shoulder for him to walk with her. Both boys were dressed in jeans and t-shirts and sneakers.

  “We live in a new development and found the egg in a big pile of dirt that was scooped away and put in a big empty lot. I don’t think anyone noticed the egg in there because of all the other rocks. We were playing with our trucks and uncovered it by accident,” Sam said. “They took all the dirt away, blocked off the whole area, and there are guards there now.”

  “Army men,” Gene said, “with guns.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, the boys stopped walking. Sam’s eyes pleaded with Mavra. “Can we help? Since w
e found it, we should be allowed to see it again.”

  Neil shook his head. “This isn’t a Disney movie, kid. Let the professionals handle it. You’re not going to make a pet out of whatever escapes from that egg.”

  Mavra gave Neil a quick glance. “If,” she emphasized, “it’s really an egg. We don’t know what it is yet.”

  Sam looked from Mavra to Neil and back. “It’s an egg.” He was confident. “And you two know there’s something inside. Wow. This is cooler than we thought,” he said to Gene.

  Gene just nodded excitedly, his head bobbing and jerking like he could hardly contain himself.

  “We didn’t say that,” Mavra said. “Now, go home. We’ve got work to do.” She patted Sam’s back and the boys ran off, talking excitedly between them.

  “Sorry,” Neil said.

  “You should be. Didn’t you sign the same paperwork I did?”

  “I think we’re the only ones in town who signed anything. Everyone else appears to know about it. And a good many of them have already handled it. You had to wear gloves.”

  “I’m sure the military will have a talk with those men, and these boys, if they haven’t talked with them already.”

  “You’d think they would have. Lesser never answered whether his PhD candidates had signed the security paperwork. I suspect he’s consulting with them on the side. The big problem is going to arise when the military finds out. He could be arrested.” Neil held Mavra’s hand as they strolled toward the center of the campus.

  “Maybe that’s why he was so nervous.”

  “He should be.” Neil fell silent.

  Mavra knew it was up to her to open the next conversation. Either Neil had fallen into his own thoughts, which were twice as many as anyone else on the planet, or he wanted to give her time to relax and remember additional details. Either way, Mavra took the advantage of a quiet walk to free-associate until other details returned. Finally, she stopped walking and turned to Neil. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t like the idea of a swarm of these things. When I heard the bee sounds, it scared me.”