Read Online Species by Yvonne Navarro - Free Book Online Page A

unimpressed by their stares, this time only one side of her mouth curved in a smile that was just a shade short of derisive. There was no graceful way out, so Press sat, feeling self-conscious.
    “Hi.” The black man leaned forward, clasping his hands on his knees. His expression was earnest, but bemused. “I’m Dan, Dan Smithson. I . . . don’t know why I’m here, but they said they needed me. That it was very important.”
    The other man tilted his head inquisitively. “What do you do, Dan?” He resembled a doctor making notes in his mental filing cabinet.
    “They call me an ‘expert at human motivation.’ In more understandable terms, I’m an empath.” Dan clasped his hands, working his fingers nervously. “Sometimes they show me awful things that people have done. And I try to tell them why.” He shuffled his feet, worn sneakers making squeaking noises as they rubbed against each other. “The rest of the time I work in the passport office as an indexing clerk.”
    Press was curious. “What qualifies you to do that . . . you know, empath thing?”
    A slight frown creased the smooth, ebony skin of Dan’s forehead. “I . . . feel things deeply. They say I have direct access to my emotions.”
    “Really?” Press eyed him speculatively. “And what am I feeling now?”
    He looked like he didn’t want to answer, as if he were afraid of violating Press’s privacy and alienating him. Finally, out of courtesy, he gave in. “You’re . . . like the rest of us. Curious.”
    “Stephen Arden, Harvard Anthropology Department.” The other man offered his hand to the red-headed woman before Dan could continue. “I’m in human research, an expert in cross-cultural behavior.”
    She shook his hand without hesitation, her deep blue eyes bright with interest. “Laura Baker. I’m a molecular biologist. Why do you think they called us here?”
    Press answered that one, the words grinding out of the corner of his mouth around a chewed toothpick as he slumped against the chair back. “If I’m here, the excrement has definitely hit the fan. I’m Preston Lennox.”
    Stephen Arden leaned forward. “And what exactly is your particular area of specialty, Mr. Lennox?”
    “I’m an . . . investigative specialist for the army.”
    “Really?” Stephen looked intensely interested. “And what does that mean to we the public?”
    Press paused for a moment, his glance flicking to Dan. “Let’s just say that I have a talent for finding people. That makes me a freelance solution for some of our government’s problems.”
    “Really,” Stephen said again and folded his arms. “What kind of problems are we talking about, Mr. Lennox?”
    For a moment they all thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he shrugged. “Problems,” he eventually said, “that nobody likes to talk about.”
    The look on his face said they’d get no more out of him.

    F itch had the group sent to C-G-1, one of the research labs with a netlink to several eighty-inch NEC projection monitors. When Fitch finally got there, the four members of the team were already seated in the chairs that had been placed in front of the screens. In the rear of the room, a computer technician sat at the unit’s console, sequencing the upcoming high-resolution images. From the frustrated looks on most of the faces, Fitch knew the tech had brushed off their questions—as he had been instructed. Smithson, Arden and Baker looked at the doctor expectantly as he joined them, but Preston Lennox—not one of his favorite people, but unfortunately efficient—just acknowledged Fitch’s nod with a sort of “Now, what have you done?” sneer. Fitch ignored it and decided to skip the niceties.
    “I’m Xavier Fitch,” he said. “I’m in command of this operation. Lights out.”
    A mini-movie started on one of the oversized monitors, a spectacular aerial shot of the Arecibo radio telescope and the surrounding forests. Dimming the lighting in the room wasn’t really