CHAPTER 23
“HEY THERE, JIMINY, want to explain what you’re doing here before my big, brave puppies have some turtle soup?”
The turtle turned its head fully toward me. “I’m here to escort you.”
Well, that was a new one. “Um, escort me where?” The rest of those with me were also down on their hands and knees now, and Prince had come a lot closer to our newest visitor.
“To meet my people. We’ve come to ask for asylum.”
“Hey,” Garfield said, “we seen you before!”
“Yes,” Mickey agreed, “we did. They were scuttling around before your people came in. No one believed us when we pointed them out.”
“Because they’re drunks,” Kevin said quietly. “No one listens to the ravings from the drunk tank.”
“Apparently this time someone should have. What’s your name?” I asked our visitor. “Because I’m just betting that though you kind of look like Jiminy Cricket, that’s not what your parents named you. And I’m presuming you have parents, so if that’s wrong, too, just let me know.”
“I do have parents. My name is not Jiminy Cricket, but I don’t think you can pronounce it.” Sounded male, though I had no way of being sure if this was an accurate assessment or not. The females could sound like this for all we knew at this time.
“Wow. I’m going officially on record that everyone on Earth is sick and tired of every visiting alien race sharing that we can’t pronounce their fabulous names. We have a lot of weird names on this planet, including those from countries that seem like they either don’t use vowels or don’t use consonants. So, you know, try me. Just for grins and giggles.”
“Okay.” He opened his mouth and made a sound that reminded me of bubbles going through a water dispenser. He looked at me expectantly.
“Um, yeah, okay, I have no idea what that was. Anyone else?” The general comments were that no one could translate whatever that sound had been. And the Universal Translators I’d discovered we all had implanted weren’t coming up with anything, either. “Well, while we may be sick and tired of it, in your case, at least, you’re right. So, what should we call you?”
“Based on your many languages, I believe my name would translate to Muddy.”
“Like Muddy Waters?”
“I suppose so.” Muddy sounded unsure. “Fifteenth child born in mud is what my name means in my own language. If Waters is an ending name, however, that would not translate. I am from what I believe would translate as the Cabbage Clan.”
I was unsure that Muddy Cabbage was as good a name as Jiminy Cricket. It certainly wasn’t as good as being Muddy Waters. However, I chose to use some of my hard-learned diplomacy, such as it was. “Then Muddy would be fine for us, and yes, Waters is a last name in the example I was using. But, do you like how that name sounds to you? Because if you don’t, now’s your chance to change it.”
He stared at me. “You can change your names here?”
“Um, yeah, in a lot of ways. But, since you’re new here and we literally have no idea of what to call you or your people, if you want us to call you something other than Muddy, we’re okay with that.”
“I’d really like to know what planet Muddy is from,” Kevin said.
“Oh, good point.” Waited. Muddy said nothing. He looked at me expectantly, however. “Fine. Who are your people and where are they from? Oh, and please respond to any of our questions, not just mine.”
“As you wish. We are called the Turleens from the planet Tur. It’s in the system I believe you call Sirius.”
“Are you the only sentient race on your planet or in your solar system?” Kevin asked.
“No, there are others.” Muddy looked uneasy and sounded underwhelmed.
My turn to ask a question that I didn’t have to repeat. “How many of them are coming to visit Earth?”
“I have no idea. Do you feel we should change our names to be accepted by Earth?”
I found the subject change back to naming conventions interesting, but Buchanan spoke before I could say anything else. “Can we get off the floor anytime soon? I’m sure Muddy or whatever he may choose to end up calling himself can tell us what his new name will be when we’re all standing.”
Muddy looked at him. “Why do you need to stand up to have a meeting?”
“You’re standing,” I pointed out.
He nodded. “That’s true.” He took a step closer to me. Prince shared that Muddy was damn well close enough via a very intimidating growl. “I mean her no harm,” Muddy said. To Prince. Directly.
Prince growled again, this time a little less threateningly. He wasn’t convinced.
“There are indeed traitors in your midst,” Muddy said quietly. Wasn’t sure how many of the others could hear him. “But I’m not one of them.”
“Where are your friends, the other two who were pretending to be statues in the police bathroom?”
“They’re with your other friend,” Muddy said. “They are all searching the premises to make sure that there are no other traitors here.”
“Do you mean John?”
“I mean the Old One.”
Old One was close enough to Ancient, and since the Ancients and Z’porrah had meddled all over the galaxy, Muddy knowing about them wasn’t a shocker. Which side he and his people were on was a far more important question. But it was one I figured I needed to sneak up to.
“How did you deliver yourself to my office?”
“My friends and I brought the box in, I got inside of it, and they sealed me in. I was hoping to speak to you privately.”
“Interesting choice. Most people just call and make an appointment. Why didn’t the dogs smell you as anything organic?”
“When our shells encase us or when we freeze, as I did while waiting for you, we appear to be made of metal. The metal is from our world, but it smells like metal on your world as well.”
“You were in the police station,” Kevin said.
“Good point. How did you get into the bathroom before we did, Muddy?”
“My friends were in your bathroom, waiting by your transference system. When the others arrived,” he nodded toward the dogs, “they froze. They went to the police station once they realized you would be going there as well. It is imperative that we are able to plead our case to you and we wanted to ensure that you were safe. I followed behind you.”
Couldn’t argue. The third turtle statue had indeed been behind me and near the gate, so this matched up. “Okay. So, how did you get in here, in this building, without the dogs knowing?”
“We used your transference machine, the one at the police station. We felt it important to test first, to ensure we had adjusted it correctly.”
“You were able to recalibrate the gate without issue?” Kevin asked suspiciously.
“Yes. I and the two with the Old One did indeed do so. We needed to ensure that you would come here when you left.”
“How?” Kevin asked. “It’s hard for a human to do, let alone someone who’s never seen a gate before.”
“But we are not humans. We can see through your cloaking and we were careful. The calibrations are not that complex.”
Felt that this wasn’t quite true, but then again, maybe calibrating a gate wasn’t hard for Space Turtles.
“You know that place blew up, the police station,” Buchanan said casually.
Muddy looked horrified. “But . . . but there were others in there! Not traitors, just people! Who would do that?”
“Are you saying that you didn’t?” Kevin asked.
“Absolutely we did not! We are here to request amnesty, not to harm anyone. As I told you, I was coming to escort you. However, I saw that the traitors were with you and felt that I should be cautious and not present myself until I was sure that it would be safe to do so.”
“Who are you accusing of being traitors?” Buchanan asked.
“The ones who were working with the . . . thing . . . that exploded.”
“Anyone with us in this room right now?” I asked.
“No, they have gone with the others.” Muddy looked worried. “If they meet my people first it will not be good.”
Thought fast. Sincerely doubted that any of my people were who Muddy felt were traitors. Besides, if they were people he’d spotted before, he’d only had his time in the police station for traitor spotting. “Were they in the cells or outside of the cells?”
“Inside. They knew the thing. I saw them pass signals to each other.”
“How many?” Kevin asked, sounding pissed. Felt his pain.
“Two. Two males.”
Process of elimination was fast and fairly simple. “If it’s not Mickey and Garfield here,” I indicated them and Muddy shook his head emphatically, “then that leaves the jocks or, as Melville called them, the classy drunks. Were they young men or older?”
“I can’t tell your ages yet.” Muddy sounded apologetic.
“Were they dressed like him,” I pointed to Kevin, who was, like all the other men who worked with Centaurion in some way, dressed in the Armani Fatigues, “or like me?”
“Him,” Muddy said confidently.
“Crap. My canine protectors, did you smell anything off about those DUI Dudes?”
Prince wuffed, Riley whined, and Duke barked softly.
“Huh. So they smelled human. But then again, so did the Casey-Bot. At least for a while.”
Prince wuffed, whined, wuffed, and growled.
“Interesting.”
“What did he say?” Buchanan asked, in the long-suffering tone Jeff normally used when I had my Dr. Dolittle cape on.
“That the dogs gave everyone in the conference room a thorough sniffing and everyone was what they presented as, human, A-C, hybrid. So while the DUI Dudes might be androids of some kind, I’m inclined to doubt it. Oh, and Muddy smells like a person now. Well, like a Turleen person. That’s how they were able to find him—he wasn’t ‘frozen’ and so had a living organism scent, versus metal. It takes a little while for the metal scent to wear off when they ‘unfreeze,’ so that causes some delays as well.”
“Whatever that Casey Thing was, she looked human,” Kevin pointed out.
“Yeah, but Prince picked up that she was wrong. It took him a little bit, but he did notice it. And the best officers of the law here were around the other prisoners a lot longer and they didn’t give off the wrong kinds of smells.”
“So, does that mean that the Mastermind has infiltrated us again?” Kevin asked, sounding ready to bust some heads.
Pondered this again. “No, actually. I’m pretty sure I know who the DUI Dudes are working with. But we need to get upstairs and outside, before they do what I’m betting they want to do.”