United: An Alienated Novel by Melissa Landers Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t know what she’d been up to.
    But one look at their waxen faces, and she knew they wouldn’t care.
    Something was wrong.
    “We need to convene at once,” Alona said. “There’s no time to send a shuttle, so you and Devinder will participate from your quarters.” Her gaze shifted to the stretch of futon on either side of Cara. “Are you alone?”
    Cara nodded. Aelyx was close enough to overhear from the other room, but she would tell him everything anyway.
    Devinder’s hologram appeared, and Alona repeated to him what she’d told Cara. Then she called the meeting to order by abruptly dropping a bomb on them. “The Aribol have made contact. They requested a remote meeting that will begin momentarily.”
    “We’re having a conference call with the Aribol?” Cara blurted.
    “Essentially, yes.”
    “But how? The probes they launched didn’t speak any of our languages.”
    “It seems the probes were intended to collect our speech patterns, among other data, for this very purpose,” Alona said. “The fact that the request was recorded in a variety of human languages indicates probes were sent to Earth as well as L’eihr.”
    That was news to Cara. She hadn’t heard of any probes landing on her home world. The governments of Earth must’ve covered it up. They were good at that.
    “Do we know what they want?” asked Devinder.
    “No,” Alona told him. “But their request was more of a demand.”
    Cara had a bad feeling about this. If the Aribol wanted to make contact, why hadn’t they sent a representative to visit Earth and L’eihr? That would’ve been the friendlier thing to do.
    Maybe they weren’t friendly.
    A high-pitched whine rang out in the background, and all eight Elders stiffened visibly in their seats. “The transmission is about to begin,” Alona said. “Remember: We fed false information regarding our weaponry systems and our population size to their mechanical probes, so choose your words carefully.”
    She spoke her passkey, and the image of a man’s head and shoulders flickered to life, floating like a specter in front of the Elders.
    Cara leaned closer to the hologram, drinking in every detail. Until now, no one had known what the Aribol looked like. There was even some argument as to whether they existed. This creature was undeniably real, but Cara doubted she was seeing his true form. His face resembled a ceramic mask, oval and unnaturally smooth, and his shoulders lacked the contours of muscle or bone.
    “Greetings, children,” he said without moving his lips. His voice sounded computerized, as if filtered through translation software. Maybe the Aribol didn’t communicate with words. That would make sense, considering their rumored psychic abilities.
    “I am the head Elder,” Alona said. “Those of us gathered here compose The Way, our governing body. With whom are we speaking?”
    “My name and face are beyond the comprehension of your Noven brains. For the sake of simplicity, you may call me Zane.”
    “Noven?” asked Alona.
    “The collective name we give the children we’ve seeded throughout the universe. All of you are descended from a single race.”
    Cara’s brows jumped at the revelation. She’d suspected this, but had never had any proof. She wanted so badly to ask where the Noven race originated. Her bet was on Earth, where the remains of ancient primates indicated mankind had evolved slowly over time. Unless the ancient primates themselves had been seeded on Earth …
    “So the legends are true,” Alona mused. “Humans and L’eihrs share a common ancestor.”
    “Yes. Your kind is a quaint species.”
    “ My kind?” Alona said. “Is that to say you and I are unrelated?”
    “Correct.”
    “Why refer to us as your children, then?”
    “Ah.” His voice raised a pitch as if in amusement. “An understandably confusing term, meant in a figurative way. My people have grown fond of your race; we’ve come to view you as progeny. But we are a