Alien Revealed Read Online Free Page A

to keep silent and report every person aware of this sample. This is bad.” The labtech ran his fingers through his already wild hair, explaining why every strand seemed styled to stand on end.
    David set the bag gingerly down on the table. He looked at Branscombe and found the unflappable captain’s eyebrows had almost hit her hairline. “Report to whom, Harry?” David demanded,
    The labtech looked miserably up at him. “I don’t know. The security level is so high I can’t even access the sender.”
    * * *
    Alinna slid out from between the sheets on the medtech bed and put her bare feet against the coolness of the floor tiles. The halls of the facility remained quiet and empty. Her stomach grumbled, the only sound in the stillness of the early evening. Her internal command unit indicated the Earth hour of oh-two-hundred, and she was starving. Her mouth twisted. Perhaps hiding out here and studying the humans wasn’t going to be such a great idea. The cover was perfect. Her initial research on the subject of “psychtech” indicated she would have the opportunity to study the newest human flight team’s emotional stability until she was clear on every nuance. But the food…the food she’d experienced so far was simply disgusting, nothing but nutrient-enriched mush. She hadn’t been able to stomach more than a single bite.
    She had to concentrate on her successes. She’d been able to link her internal command unit to the system on the human base long enough to change the records of Dr. Janet MacPherson so that they now bore her picture. She’d read through the dead doctor’s background, all the while blessing the lost woman’s Lin’thal, her soul. It went against Inarrii custom to disturb the dead, but she hoped the woman wouldn’t mind loaning her identity for a short while. The Inarrii were here to help the humans as much as themselves, to offer them the protection and support of the huge Confederacy in exchange for some of the human solar system’s material resources, and for a partnership between the peoples. Surely the dead doctor’s soul would find comfort in that.
    Now, Alinna was prepared. She understood what Starforce would be expecting of her in terms of the psychological tests she would have to use to evaluate the new team. As long as no one looked too closely, she would pass as MacPherson. It was just very lucky she hadn’t needed a blood transfusion when she was injured, because she seriously doubted there would be a match for her on Earth.
    Her stomach rumbled again. It’s hard to concentrate on the good things when you’re starving.
    She scanned the building. Very few people were in the medical facility, let alone awake and alert. She stepped across the room to the door and peeked outside. No one. Passing through the doorway, she silently crossed the hall to a set of lockers. She’d made note of them when the young medtech had showed her the cleansing facilities. The novelty of the water shower had been pure delight to her overloaded L’inar and had given her at least a little sensory relief. She’d been space-bound for over a year, and water for more than drinking seemed like an amazing luxury. Shipboard water could never be used in such a way, but the ultra-sonics on her ship were not without their comforts.
    She flipped the door to the first locker open. Nothing. A second cabinet revealed only linens, but she grinned in relief as she opened the third. In a clear bag, she found her emergency pouch and her favorite wristlet, which until this moment she hadn’t even noticed was gone. There was simply too much happening, too much pressure. She hadn’t even tried to contact command to let them know she was alive and had assumed a human identity. A ten-second burst of verbal message might make it through without detection, but it was a huge risk. Alinna glanced up and down the hall. She quietly took out the bag with her belongings and shut the locker door. Stepping silently, she slipped