Teela of Kolander, page 23
“We have a problem. Know what it is?” He asked. Teela and Mary refrained from responding, not wanting to guess, and waited for him to explain.
He looked back and forth between them and nodded. “Not talking, I see. Well, here's the problem. We have absolutely no reason to trust the Empire after their initial behavior, and therefore, no reason to trust either of you two. First the Empire is threatening and belligerent then it’s nice. First you're from Cuba, then your an alien princess, and now your from Cuba again.” He glared at Teela for a moment.
“And you, young lady,” he said, looking at Mary. “You just appear out of nowhere and lie to the aliens to get them to take you away and now it seems you want to come back.”
The agent stood up and turned his back to them. “Since your first stories were all lies, how do we know that your current stories aren't lies as well?” He spun back around. “We will learn the truth. We have truth serums and experts at discovering subterfuge. Guards, take this one to room 407 and this one to room 235. Do not let them talk to each other again. Administer the truth serum and secure them in their rooms. We will begin after the serum has had time work.”
As they were moved in opposite directions along a long hallway, they each extended their senses to test the factor of distance in their ability to follow each others emotions and thought images. As Mary entered the elevator to the fourth floor, Teela grinned. Distance didn't seem to make much difference at all, at least not the distances within the same building. Teela smiled and sensed Mary smiling as well. Maybe we'll make it through this after all.
***
Teela's First Interrogation -one hour later:
The agent activated a voice recorder and set it in the center of the table. “I am Agent MacDonald of the FBI and let's get right to it. Was Teela ever your real name? What is your real, full name?”
She had not prepared an answer to the last name question and her mind whirred. Suddenly, an Earth name popped into her head, Alana Sanchez. She would use her last name. “No, I just love the name Teela and decided to use it. My real name is Rosa Sanchez. But please call me Teela. I like that name better.”
“Alright ... Teela. Thanks for being honest about your name. We knew from the aliens that Teela was the servant's name. Now, explain your reasons for lying about being the Barkolian Princess. And be specific.”
Teela caught a few images from her interrogator and she knew he and his team would later be analyzing her voice and speech patterns from the recording. Teela had prepared this story well and even chose to speak with a slight Cuban accent to be more convincing. “I had never had the chance to be a hero before. I was just a poor, hungry farm girl from Cuba. I had already lost my family. I couldn't go back to Cuba, and suddenly, I was in a position to save the world if could get the aliens to leave with me. It felt good … I felt good ... for a while.”
“You risked your life for a good feeling? Review with me how you escaped from Cuba and ended up on the alien's lifeboat. Bear in mind, we know much of this story from our research and investigations at the alien ship's crash site.”
“My whole family left on the tenth of July last year, just after 1:00AM in the morning. It was completely dark on the beach, no moon, just starlight. There was my little sister, my baby brother, my mother, my aunt and uncle, and my grandpa. We used the currents to assist our small outboard motor for days until we ran out of gas. There should have been enough gas but the currents that were supposed to push us along seemed weak and the wind was strong and constantly pushed us East when we just needed to go North. We ended up way off course to the East.”
Teela paused allowing agent MacDonald to gauge the impact of her story. She sensed that he felt her story was at least logical so far, but he was still withholding judgment, so she continued. “We saw the alien ship streaking through the sky from the West, trailing smoke and fire, but it disappeared down in the haze toward the horizon to the East. But of course, we didn't know it was an alien ship then. Our water was running low and, until we saw the fire, we had hoped it was a rescue craft of some sort. We had no fuel left, so we rowed toward where it disappeared in the haze, hoping for some help, anything. We rowed for five days, sleeping at nights but we never saw the ship. We assumed it had sunk and we had either rowed past its position or possibly drifted past it while we slept.”
Teela took another breath and sensed the effect of her story on the agent once again. He was listening with interest. So far so good. “Early the next morning, we spotted a small boat moving west maybe a thousand yards away. We were so happy. Maybe they had some water. We hollered and hollered, but they either didn't hear us or ignored us.” She forced herself to tear up and let her voice break a few times while she paused.
“That's when, out of nowhere, without any warning at all, a rogue wave swamped us … my whole family drowned, everyone but me. None but me could swim. I used an old wooden box that had been my baby brother's bed on the boat to help me float. My baby brother was gone.” Teela acted her part and broke down in tears for a moment. She sensed faint amusement from Mary who was sensing Teela's performance from her room. “I'm performing here. You just wait your turn.” She thought back at Mary.
Teela continued to cry for a moment even as she caught emotions in the agent that indicated he knew about the rogue wave. After a shudder and one last breathy sob. “I started to swim toward the small boat. Swam all night. In the morning, I was close and I saw one naked girl about my age at the boat's edge. And I'll never forget it. Just before she slid over the edge of the boat, she said something in a foreign language and waved at another girl calling her Teela. Then she slipped into the water and never come back up. I hollered but my voice was to weak by then. Then I saw the other naked girl slid over the edge and swim around for a moment but at least this one tried to get back on board. But she did not have the energy. I hollered again and swam harder but she was gone buy the time I got there, so I climbed into the boat.” Teela looked directly into the agents eyes and grinned with feigned embarrassment. “I really liked the dress one of them left behind so I put it on and later I used the name Teela from the second girl who drowned. The rest you know.”
“So, you saw two girls drown.”
“Yeah. One of them, the first one, seemed to be on purpose. She was talking and laughing. The second one was just to weak to get back on the boat.”
“Hmm. Okay. We will analyze your story. Now, what did they do to you, after you left Earth? How did they treat you?”
“The group who picked me up was sorta mean. They hated the Princess. But later things changed. The Emperor that sent the soldiers to get us died or something and a lady took over as the new Empress. Then they got much nicer to us. They retested my blood and declared me a human from Earth along with my friend Mary. For several days we were held, like under house arrest, and saw nothing but walls and hallways. But soon, we were treated more like guests and shown around a little. There was a lot of things we wanted to see that they wouldn't let us. But we still did see a lot of amazing things.”
"Couple more questions ... how do you explain those navels of yours? Are they real?"
"Yes, they're real, a birth defect. It scared my mother to death when she had to deliver two placentas and I had two cords, or at least, that was what I was told."
MacDonald nodded. “If you're really from Cuba, you should be able to translate some Spanish into English for me.” He handed Teela a typed sheet of paper with a paragraph written in Spanish. “I am fluent in Castilian Spanish but know many dialects and variants of as well, so be accurate.”
Teela quickly scanned it. “Hey, that was almost sixty years ago. I wasn't even born yet. Even my mother wasn't born yet.”
“Just read it aloud, in Spanish. Then translate it, into English and then explain it to me … you know, what it really means, deeper than just the word for word literal translation.”
Teela sighed and read the short paragraph in her very best Cuban accent.
[La crisis de misiles cubana de 1962 con su bloqueo y enfrentamiento militar fue la situación política más aterradora desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial para los Estados Unidos. Pero todos sabíamos que teníamos que usar todos los medios a nuestro alcance para vencer el cáncer social que llamamos comunismo. Nunca se debe permitir que triunfe sobre la democracia.]
She looked the agent and translated. “The 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the military blockade and standoff was the most frightening political situation since World War II for the United States. But we all knew that we had to use whatever means at our disposal to defeat the social cancer we call communism. It must never be allowed to triumph over democracy.”
MacDonald nodded. “Now tell me about what you just read.”
Teela thought rapidly. She did not know about that piece of history, but what would a poor Cuban farmer's child know about about the Cuban Missile Crisis, either? Her make-believe parents would not even been born yet. Since Cuba had obviously lost the standoff, she felt that it would probably not have been mentioned much, anyway. “I never heard of it before. If my mother or dad knew about it, they did not speak about it. And about the communism thing, my whole family died trying to escape it and get to the United States. I believe in Democracy.”
MacDonald sighed and looked up at one of the two-way mirrors. He signaled for someone to come in and got up. “We'll talk again, several times as a matter of fact, during the next several days. We'll see if you can keep that story straight.”
He left and Immigration Agent George Hairston walked in. Teela sat up straighter but did not know if his presence was an omen of good or ill.
“Miss Alana, you have had quite an adventure.” He sat down across from her.
“Please call me Teela. I prefer it. The poor servant girl’s name.”
He nodded. “Teela, it seems that our original assumptions were indeed correct about you and Cuba, your country of origin. Why all that the coy attitude when we first talked to you?”
Teela shrugged, still not sure where he was going with his comments. “My spoken English was very poor and I was in shock for loosing my whole family and almost dying.”
“Still a little cautious I see.” He smiled for the first time. “The FBI will be releasing you into our custody when they are satisfied that you pose no threat to the US from your stay with the aliens. If and when that occurs we intend to re-activate your case as a minor Cuban refugee. It will be especially helpful if you will renounce communism and embrace democracy publicly. The FBI has a public press conference scheduled for ten days from now.”
“Good for who?”
He looked at Teela for a long moment. “Good for us and therefore, good for you.” He stood up. “Guards. We are done here for the time being. Take her back to her cell ... sorry. Room.”
Teela grimaced. He was more correct the first time. It was a cell disguised as a room. On the way back, she had to undergo a head to toe Cat Scan, a head to toe MRI, and then allow them to take several vials of her blood. Even her cell slash room seemed comforting after that.
***
Mary's First Interrogation -later after Teela's:
“Hello Mary. I am Agent Curtis of the FBI. I understand you have already completed the cat scan, the MRI scan and the blood tests.”
“Yeah, and the truth serum too.” She felt relaxed, comfortable with her preparation for debriefing.
“Good. We have a few issues that need to be cleared up, not too many, but they're important ones.” She set her voice recorder on the table. “Why did you lie to the aliens before they took you?” Her tone was not hostile but not friendly either.
Mary felt confident that she and Teela's plan would work and her responses here should be simple and truthful. “Teela is my very best friend, more like a sister, actually. My father is serving a life sentence in a Mexican prison. Then my mother got the same drug guys that used my father, to send her to Mexico just so she might get a chance to be near him ... way back in July. I haven't heard from her since, and I'm afraid she's dead. The drug guys sent her bloody necklace back to me to scare me into silence, and it worked.”
Mary didn't have to act to have tears slid down her face. “Then, when Teela said she was the alien princess and was going away too, I just could not face losing another person in my life. I wanted to go with her, to wherever. I didn't care where. She was my only friend. Of course, I really thought she was the alien princess at the time.”
“How long had you known Teela?”
“Since school started in September. We were in a lot of the same classes.”
Curtis nodded noncommittally. “Tell us how you ended up at the Harrelsons the day you were taken.”
“I had been living alone since my mother left and the Harrelsons took me in. I was living there as an unofficial foster kid.”
“What did they do to you, after you left Earth? How did they treat you?”
“Well, it took almost thirteen days to get there ... to the Empire’s capital ... and the ship's crew were rude and even violent. I got lashed a couple of times for not answering their questions. But I didn't understand the language then. Later, a few days after we got there, something happened within the royal family and the Emperor was deposed or died or something. They called him Kregus. They didn't say much about it. But after that, with the new Empress, they got much nicer, even apologetic. They tested my blood and declared me a human from Earth.”
Now it was time to really lie, not just stretch the truth. She sighed and continued. “Boy was I surprised when my friend, Teela, the alien princess, was declared an Earth girl too. But I understood why she lied. Same as me, she just needed something new and different. Eventually we were treated more like guests and we saw a lot of neat things. They seem way ahead of us here on Earth in the tech stuff, but they are so behind socially. We wanted to see more and more stuff but they got real funny about certain things, especially the military stuff.”
Mary heard a knock on the two-way mirror she was being observed through. Agent Curtis nodded and opened the door admitting a woman dressed in a black, conservative suit. She wore her hair in a short androgynous style and she was not smiling.
“Hello, Mary. My name is Harriet Burgess, and I work for the Florida Department of Social Services. We were made aware of your case by the FBI only after the announcement from the Barkol Empire about your return. We then initiated our own investigation into your circumstances and those surrounding your mother.”
Mary lowered her head as her eyes became moist for real. “She's dead isn't she?”
“I'm sorry, Mary. Yes, your mother was killed by the drug cartel that sent her to Mexico. We had Mexico's equivalent of the FBI investigate and they verified that she had been executed by the cartel. At that time she was without ID and was listed as a Jane Doe. We assume that they thought she was a narc.”
“I was afraid of that,” Mary said, wiping her tears. “But you know what's even sadder to me? Ever since my dad went away when I was five, it has felt like she has also been missing. She never recovered from his absence.” Mary straightened her shoulders and wiped her eyes again.
“If you had told us, we may been able to help you, so you would not have been living alone all those months.”
“I didn't want to lose my house or my school. I had spent my entire life in that house and I loved it and school. They had been the only things worth living for until I found Teela and the Harrelsons. I love them too, you know.”
“I know. We have already talked to the Harrelsons and they have requested to be your official foster parents as well as Teela's. Because they had already been so well vetted by immigration, we have granted their request … when your done here, of course.” She looked at the FBI agent. “Thank you agent Curtis.”
Chapter Thirty-One
-Debriefing 2-
As the days slowly dragged by, Teela's patience grew thin and maintaining her pretense became harder and harder. She knew that was exactly what her hosts intended, and that gave her some extra strength. The nights were lonely, away from friends and family, and sleep was difficult. The only thing that kept her together, besides stubbornness, was the fact that she and Mary could still feel each other's emotions and catch images from the other’s thoughts.
On day five of the debriefing, Teela walked into the observation room for the ninth time. She took her usual seat across from Agent MacDonald but without her usual forced expression of happiness. “Look, I've answered the same questions eight times already. What more can I say? You've tested my blood and my DNA. You have pictures of my insides and outsides. I know you've been monitoring my behavior and everything else, probably even had my shit tested. Enough! I just want to go home, and I mean to Florida, the Harrelsons.” Teela slouched down in the chair in frustration when her short tirade brought no response.
“We have indeed tested your DNA. It is a little unusual, but definitely human, according to our scientists.” He shifted some papers and Teela smiled a little in relief. So, my DNA and the DNA of humans from Earth are that close. Unbelievable. That really needs further investigation.
“Well it's about time!” Teela heard Mary whoop, as she was escorted into the room where Teela was sitting and her mood immediately lifted.
Teela jumped up and ran to Mary just as Mary broke free of her escort and they collided in an embrace. Several guards, additional agents, and three men in military uniforms filed into the room behind Mary and took seats around the wall. Agent Curtis, who had had been interviewing Mary, walked in and took a seat at the table beside agent MacDonald.
Curtis smiled and shook her head. “Ladies, enough. You'll have time for that later. Agent MacDonald and I have been comparing notes daily, as you most likely have already surmised. We have decided that you two will be quartering together until we are finished with this debriefing session. There will be several more days of this session and there may be may be additional debriefing sessions in later months as things change. Now have a seat, both of you.”
