Page 60 of Hot Zone

“What did you do last night?” she demanded. “We should have been dashed to death on the rocks when we hit the ground.”

Confusion clouded his vision. “We…I believe your word for it is teleported.”

“Tele—no way! It’s physically impossible for people to just blink out of one place and suddenly be in another. Not without some serious alien technology…. Oh, wait. You’ve got that. You did it, didn’t you? You brought us here.”

His frown deepened. “My technology is broken. Otherwise I wouldn’t be stuck on this godforsaken chunk of iron and water you call home. My people can perform time and space displacement, but we need certain equipment to do so. We do not have the capacity to do it spontaneously. In fact, no race anywhere in the galaxy has such ability. Mind power must be greatly amplified through mechanical means to affect physical objects strongly enough to disrupt their conductive field patt—”

He broke off, as if realizing he was about to digress into a technical discussion that was not germane to the conversation at hand.

And in that moment it all fell into place in her head. Her cuff. She’d reached for it at the exact moment he’d made a last-ditch effort to teleport them away from that cliff. Because of the whacky psychic link they seemed able to share, he must have tapped into the power of her cuff by accident.

Curious, she asked, “As we went over that cliff, did you try to teleport us without your…technology? When we were falling, did you do whatever it is you usually do to travel?”

He nodded tersely.

That explained it.

It was his turn to lean forward aggressively. “How did you power the jump? You had to have amplified my thought waves.”

She shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell this alien traveler that she had a piece of his technology in her pocket. He would snatch it and boogie out of here. And then she would be the one stuck in this place, waiting on an improbable rescue from the gang back in Arizona.

“You still haven’t told me where you come from,” he prompted.

She stared at him long and hard. A certain rueful humor glinted in his dark brown eyes, and gradually, the bizarre humor of the situation they found themselves in overtook her. The only two aliens on the entire planet, and they’d managed to run into each other and promptly get themselves into a horrible pickle.

Of all the people alive in this place and time, the two of them should’ve been able to use their superior educations and foreknowledge of history to their advantage. And yet here they were, stuck in the middle of nowhere, running for their lives.

Oddly enough, they had even more in common currently than they’d had before. If anything, she felt closer to him, now that she knew how alike they really were. She studied him idly. She had to admit that, for an alien, he was one serious hunk.

“Is that what you really look like?” she asked. “Or is this some sort of mental projection to hide your six octopus arms and your innards worn on the outside?”

He grinned. “When beings travel to other places, their energy fields, and hence physical appearances, align to the local field patterns. Nobody really knows why it happens. But you arrive with an ability to understand local language, too.”

She nodded. “We’re familiar with the concept. We call it Intent.”

He continued, “This is mostly how I look at home, with a minor adjustment or two to make me look fully humanoid here on your planet. Normally I have a bony ridge down the back of my neck and spine that’s slightly more pronounced, and hair grows down that ridge, too. But the rest of me is as you see it.”

For some reason, she was abjectly relieved. Not because she was worried about the looks of the creature she’d slept with but purely for selfish reasons. He was such a good-looking guy…

Ohmigosh. She’d slept with him. Could they have made a baby together? She remembered belatedly—and gratefully—that she’d gone on the pill as one of the many health precautions she’d been required to take before this mission.

He was in front of her in a flash. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

She stuttered, “I, uh, was, uh, wondering about our…genetic compatibility.”

“Ahh.” Laughter glinted in his gaze.

“It’s not funny!”

His arms went around her, gathering her lightly to him. “Our races are entirely compatible genetically. Most of the life forms in this part of the galaxy are loosely related through various planetary seeding and settlement projects.”

Whoa.Seeding and settlement?

“Humans are native to Earth, of course, but other DNA was introduced to help advance the species more rapidly.”

Had he just accounted for the jump from cave-dwelling near-ape to fire-lighting, tool-making, talking modern man?

He murmured into her hair, “When are you from?”

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