Cross

Prologue

There is blood all over my shirt. And I washed it yesterday!

That was all Lucius could think. It was funny, really. He was lying on the kitchen floor, his head in a pool of his own blood, there were three long, deep cuts running down the right side of his face and the top part of his neck, and all he could think about was the state of his clothes. The blood had stopped, but he'd still lost an awful lot of it.

For most of his life, he'd wanted to kill his father, but he'd always been afraid of the idea of committing murder. This wasn't the first time he'd had a broken bottle thrown at his head, but it was the final straw. He wouldn't let that monster ruin his life or anyone else's any more.

His father - oh, how he hated having to use that word to describe him - was sound asleep as the result of too much alcohol. Lucius's eyes narrowed as he crept closer to the bed, knife in hand.

Then Lucius Sinistrah Sr. sat up, suddenly wide awake.

Cursing silently, his son stepped back and hid the knife behind his back. Of all the times for the old fool to wake up...

"Wha' y' doin' 'ere?" his father asked drunkenly.

"Getting rid of you."

He lunged at him with a knife before that fully registered with his hung-over brain.

"Oi! Jis' a momen'!" Lucius Sr. slurred, dodging more through luck than anything else. "Wha' all this 'bout?"

The only answer he received was the knife through his heart.

He hadn't done anything wrong. He had done the planet a favour, in fact. Unfortunately for him, though, the Intergalactic Police Service didn't see it that way. So now he was on the run, hiding on first one planet, then another, trying to get to a planet that was not under their jurisdiction.

As he ran his eyes down the list the computer had generated, one name caught his attention.

Earth

Native Species: Human

Similar to Vampiruans: In appearance

Language: Several hundred, depending on region

On InGEN's List: Yes

Acknowledgement of Existence of Other Life-Forms: No (majority)

Can Planet Sustain Vampiruan Life?: Yes, in some regions

He had been there before, several times, usually with his sister but sometimes alone, so he knew something about it. Obviously, the humans (why were they not called Earthians?) were still not advanced enough to realize how much easier it was for everyone to learn one language, but were advanced enough to have that meddling organisation InGEN (Inter-Galactic Emergency Network) on their planet. And, since they still refused to believe in other life-forms, it was likely there were even more of those other life-forms hiding on Earth and passing themselves off as human than there had been on his previous visits.

After a moment's thought, he set the controls on his starship for the planet known as Earth.

~~~~

Corporal Robert Boone turned away from the radar monitor and activated his wrist communicator. "Sir? We've picked something up on the monitor."

"What is it this time?" Colonel Jackson Brown asked wearily. "Another passenger plane that happens to have gone off schedule somehow? Another secret government test?"

"No, sir. It's too fast to be an aeroplane and it's too big to be a missile. Besides, it's the wrong shape for both - your standard flying saucer shape, I think. And it's heading for Enniskillen."

"Where in Enniskillen?"

"Somewhere around Portora School, sir."

"Right. I'll alert the police and tell them to evacuate that area."

~~~~

"Why are you standing out in the garden, in the middle of the night, in January?"

Twelve-year-old Dani Tamari rolled her eyes. "It's not the middle of the night, Legina; it's only eight o'clock," she told her sister without looking round. "And isn't it obvious what I'm doing? I'm stargazing."

She knew without having to look that Legina, who was fourteen and thought herself far too grown-up for stargazing, was giving her an exasperated look.

"What's so special about the stars that you spend so much time staring at them?" the older girl asked at last.

Here we go again, Dani thought. Aloud, she said, "You know I want to be an astronomer when I grow up. And besides, it's better than being inside and listening to Mum and Dad arguing."

Even though the doors and windows were shut, the angry voices of their parents could be heard clearly. It was just as well that the house next door was empty, or the neighbours might have complained.

Legina turned to go back to the house, and Dani almost considered following her. Despite her coat, hat, scarf and gloves, it was January and the night was cold. But she wanted to make a note of every constellation she could see, and she wasn't quite finished yet (she'd gotten up to Perseus, and had another two to go).

Then she saw it. "It" was a blur of light that was falling from the sky - or at least, it looked like it was falling.

"Legina, get me a camera!"

"What -?" The older girl was confused. "What do you want a - What on earth is that?" She raced back to her sister and took her mobile phone out of her pocket. "This has a camera built into it," she explained.

"Then take as many photos as you can!"

The blur of light soon disappeared behind some trees and out of their sight, but not before Legina had snapped about ten photos of it. "Increase zoom, bring more into focus, remove blur..." she muttered as she worked on making the pictures clearer. "Oh my god!"

"What is it?" Dani tried to look over her shoulder so she could see the screen.

Instead of a shooting star, as she had half expected to see, she saw a white, glowing, flying-saucer-like thing.

"It's a spaceship!"

~~~~

There was no one around when Lucius crashed. That was a good thing, of course, but it meant that InGEN had tracked him and warned everyone to get out of there. Unless Earth settlements were always so deserted.

The first thing he noticed about the new planet was how warm it was. There was snow on the ground, but it was still much warmer than Vampiru. There was a strange, metallic smell in the air (possibly the fuel humans used for their vehicles), and overhead dozens of unfamiliar stars glittered with varying degrees of brightness. There was a forest to his left, and not far away, running water could be heard.

That was a most unwelcome sound. He didn't know if water on Earth was poisonous, but fear of the deadly water on their own planet was too deeply ingrained in every Vampiruan for them to see it as anything but an enemy.

Lucius thought quickly. InGEN would soon be here, and they'd take his starship and him too if they found him. However, they couldn't take him if he wasn't here. He could hide among the humans and scan a human's mind to learn the language and social customs of this place. His mind made up, he headed toward the forest. He could hide there until InGEN were gone.