The Visitor (37 page)

“Not so good, huh?” Ralls said.

***

The final arrangements were made but with a compromise. The Thai government was notified and agreed to a plan including the Thai Army. Ralls decided to pick up both the baron and the baroness for questioning, instead of just her. The Thai military, not the US Navy SEALs, would go to the tea plantation with one of its helicopters, taking Ralls, to collect them for interrogation at a Thai military base. The interrogation would be conducted by US representatives, which would include Ralls, with a Thai representative monitoring. They would then be returned to the tea plantation after questioning, unless there was further reason to detain them.

CHAPTER 28

Baron and Tak returned from another motorcycle tour, this time to the Mekong River, where they had taken a tiny boat across the half-mile width of the Mekong to Laos. Once in Laos, they had walked up the steep bank of the river to see Ban Houei Sai, a quaint Laotian village. The roads were dirt, the huts teak, and the living primitive, but the people were warm and wonderful to visitors. The archaic living conditions were something completely new for Tak. She and Baron returned the same day, and just in time, as rain was about to fall.

After they showered together to refresh from the dust and heat of the day, they retired to the tower, overlooking the plantation. From the tower of the hilltop tea estate, they could absorb the ambiance of the many acres of lush, deep green tea trees.

The rains, combined with the harvest of fresh tea leaves, provided a unique and lovely fragrance.

As they sat in the tower overlooking the plantation in the late afternoon, a torrential downpour fell and then subsided to a steady rain.

Over the sound of the rain, she brought up the subject that they both knew to be inevitable. “Baron, I have completed my study. The starship will soon be nearby and I must go.”

A hollow feeling overcame him at the reality of losing his lover. “Is there any chance I might talk you into staying here on Earth with me?”

“Baron, now that I’ve seen a great deal of Earth and your lifestyle, especially after the contrast of visiting the village of Ban Houei Sai in Laos, I realize that traveling with you is hardly a typical example of life on Earth. But I have loved it and you as well.”

Baron knew there had to be a “but,” and there was.

“But there is an unimaginable amount of worlds yet for me to see as a Federation anthropologist. I simply cannot end my career here on this one planet, even though it has you.”

She looked at him, took a sip of her drink to fortify herself for making a suggestion that she feared might, if accepted, compromise her impartiality on the starship as an independent anthropologist. “Why don’t you accompany me? I believe I could get permission to make you part of a team of the two of us. As I would be sent to places with beings that are much like us, and that use oxygen and water, you would fit right in. You have unique language skills, and could easily learn languages of other beings in the places that I would take you.”

Baron was quiet. He looked at her, then out to the plantation, taking in the lovely rain, wondering if he could give up the luxuries he had created, his influence, wealth, powerful contacts, properties, languages, collections...

As he did not jump at the chance, she added enticements. “There would be benefits for you if you come. You will not need to worry about being wealthy, as where you will be going, you will not need money. You will not need to worry about medicine, and your life will be greatly extended. I know you like weapons, and I’ll get you some that you will
really
like. I understand that Earthlings consider there to be seven wonders of your world, and I assume that you’ve seen them. You would be amazed to learn of the wonders of the universe.”

Contemplating her offer, he asked, “When is your starship coming?”

“In about four days, and I’ll know exactly when they contact me. But I must warn you, if you do come, you cannot plan on returning. I wouldn’t be allowed to take you on a sightseeing tour of space, only to have to bring you all the way back if you got homesick.” She paused. “Would you be able to come with all of your business here?”

“I have made provisions for Mei Ling that are in my safe in Taipei if something should happen to me. I could send her an email to set things in motion.”

She leaned over and kissed him, her tone changing, “I want you to come. After all, we are married.”

He did not answer, as he was unable to accept her invitation to leave everything that he had worked for behind. He considered his mastering of many Earth languages, the many connections he had made, and his possessions. He was very comfortable here on Earth.

He avoided giving her an answer. “Now that I have been able to get the Dalai Lama back into Tibet, and my mission is accomplished, there is something I would like you to do if you can. With your advanced medicine, when you return, could you make a formula for an antidote for the race-specific Ebola? Maybe even for all forms of Ebola? It would have to be able to be made with substances and equipment available here on Earth. You could transmit the formula to the World Health Organization without saying who it is from. It would put an end to the suffering in Tibet.”

Tak seemed a bit surprised at the request and looked at him for a few moments as she considered the interference with Earth activities.

She made her decision. “A piece of cake!” and kissed him passionately.

He then decided it might be time to get some information since she was going to be leaving. “Now that you are leaving, can you tell me what all that fancy wrist computer of yours can do? I’ve seen it act as a weapon and translator. What else?”

“Sure. It’s a sort of intergalactic laptop. It has knowledge of the parts of the universe that we have visited, which is relatively small on an intergalactic scale, and it can recall those images. Watch.”

She gave it a command to show a planet that she knew of. It sprang to life and projected a three dimensional holograph just above it of the solar system of that place, three feet in size in each direction. A projection of the planets circling their sun appeared, also showing their moons. The view moved in to a planet, a blue one, covered partially with water much like Earth. Some of the cities showed up by their lights on the dark, nighttime side.

“Here is one in your Milky Way, similar to yours. There are inhabitants, but they are not like you or me. There are so many of inhabited planets logged in our computers that you could spend your lifetime studying.” She shut down the image.

Baron decided to add a bit of humor. “Does it have a battery that needs recharging?”

“Of sorts. It uses something similar to what you call atomic power, but without radiation. I think if used continuously every day, it might grow weak in two hundred years.”

Wishfully thinking, he said, “I could easily spend the rest of my entire life doing nothing else but watching that.”

***

The night before Tak was to leave, Baron had still not declined her offer to join her, but she had taken his silence as a “no.” He obviously could not bring himself to relinquish all that he had accumulated on Earth.

It was still raining when they finished a Northern Thai meal made by the in-house chef, a meal featuring his version of Khoi Soi, a dish of egg noodles in a creamy, spicy, coconut broth.

This, their last evening, when they retired after dinner for a drink at the bar, he brought to her a briefcase covered in brown ostrich. “A small token for my favorite alien,” he announced, presenting it.

She took it, but hesitated to open it, the sadness of the gift representing the acknowledgment of her departure the next day.

She finally, and ever so slowly, opened it, revealing its sparkling contents. The inside top of the case was a map of Earth, with tiny precious jewels stuck in holes in the map in different countries. The bottom was filled with jewelry, enormous versions of the small stones stuck in the world map. Its bottom glistened like a treasure chest from a pirate movie.

“This is my private collection of the best gems from various parts of the planet. I enjoy collecting gems, and they increase in value. I want to give them to you as a going away present. Note that the inside of the top of the case is a map of the planet to show you where on the planet each gem inside came from. See here?” He pointed to the Island of Tahiti. “See the small, dark pearl? That is where the best pearls come from, and where this came from.”

He picked up a huge, nearly iridescent, dark green pearl on a gold chain from the lower part of the case.

Tak took it, turning it about. She then looked at the map and figured out what the gift was all about.

“It’s fantastic!” she nearly shrieked.

She turned her attention to one of the jewelry items in the bottom, a white dragon pendant of two inches, made all from one piece of exquisitely carved jade, with rubies for eyes. “What’s this?”

“Nephrite Jade, from Yunnan, China. See if you can find it on the map. The color in Chinese is called ‘mutton fat.’” He chuckled. “The Chinese are not known for romantic names.”

Tak found it, pointing. “China!”

She then lifted three matching objects with deep green, oval stones, mounted in platinum, partially surrounded by tiny diamonds.

“A ring and earrings in Burma Imperial Jade,” he told her. “It’s the most valuable jade.”

“Wow!” She put on the ring on one of her seven fingers and held out her hand in front of her, turning it from side to side, admiring it.

Baron then pointed to the earrings in her hand. “These go on your ears.”

She fastened them to her ears and went to the nearest mirror. She then returned and looked at the country called Myanmar where she found both a green stone as well as a red one. “There are two from this same country. One is red. There must be two gems from this country.”

She found a huge single ruby in a ring and held it up.

“This is an authentic, pigeon-blood Burmese ruby,” he said. “That is the name for the very best. I got it as a gift from the Sultan of Brunei, although it came from Burma, which is now Myanmar, very close to us. Try it on.”

Tak put it on, changing fingers on her hands until she found one that it fit.

“Why would a person give you such a beautiful thing?”

“I did him a favor.”

She looked at the map and pointed back to Myanmar, which had both the green jade and the ruby in it. “Myanmar!”

She next lifted an opal necklace with a single stone, wide and thin, an inch and a half in diameter, in a natural shape, edged in gold.

Colors radiated from it, as though it was backlit by light through a prism. “What’s this beautiful thing? It appears to be giving off light. Does it?”

“No, no light. It’s an opal, but a very special one with what they call ‘fire.’”

“It’s beautiful!” She held it in different directions to see the colors. She then found a small opal in a county in the southern hemisphere. “Australia!”

“Right!”

She then took out a bracelet of huge emeralds wrapping all around, set in twenty four karat gold.

“Oh my!”

“They’re called emeralds.”

Tak found a small green emerald on the map. “Columbia!”

The next piece she held up was a diamond necklace, covered with so many diamonds as to be a task to count. A line of large stones were set end to end around the length, and there was a huge pendant diamond surrounded by many smaller ones. Tak held it up to catch the afternoon sunlight, which struck it and refracted the light through the stones, creating a display of light and colors on the walls.

“This is like the necklace of Xiu Mei at the dinner in Hong Kong.”

“That’s right.”

She found a small embedded diamond in a country on the map. “South Africa! Absolutely beautiful!”

Tak next lifted up two, huge, blue sapphire earrings. “Earrings?”

“Yes. They’re Laotian. There is a pendant in here to match,” he added, finding the pendant. The monster stone was two dozen times the size of the earrings, and mounted in platinum with diamonds surrounding it.

Tak set out to find the small blue stone on the map. “Here it is! Laos. We were just there!”

Next, from the bottom, she lifted a light blue, star sapphire on a neck chain. The stone was an inch in diameter, and the upper part of the setting had diamonds surrounding it. She held it up and gazed at it. The light made a crisp, white crisscross across the front of it--the star.