The Gate Read Free Page A

actually didn’t like the onions
or pickles herself but the sandwich was a perfectly balanced diet.
Discarding any of it was upsetting that balance and she wouldn’t be
getting all of the vitamins and minerals she needed. She didn’t
know how Brenda could so blithely play with her health! “Yes, I do.
I don’t know why, but I just have this feeling ….”
    “What did you do?”
    Carly felt her face reddening again. “I
asked Trude to research it for me and find out who the contributors
were.”
    Brenda stared at her. “Oh my fucking
god! You didn’t!”
    Brenda’s reaction sent a shaft of alarm
through Carly and she felt the color leave her face. “I was
careful,” she said somewhat resentfully. “I’m sure the computer
didn’t suspect.”
    “You’re pretty convinced you raised red
flags or you wouldn’t have made that comment,” Brenda said tightly.
“Why didn’t you just ask me?”
    Carly sighed gustily. “It was
impulse.”
    “It was a bad one! I wouldn’t be a bit
surprised if you didn’t make the list!”
    There is was—the mythological list
again! “Oh come on!” Carly said testily. “Just for asking the
computer to tell me who the contributors were?”
    Brenda stared at her a long moment and
finally shook her head. “Carly … I know you don’t really believe a
lot of the things I told you, but it just isn’t safe to be …
‘different’, to let the government know that you haven’t accepted
everything you’ve been told without question. It’s the questions
that get people removed.”
    An icy finger of dread traced a path
down Carly’s spine. “You don’t believe those stories?” she said
doubtfully. “It’s just … stories to make children
behave.”
    Anger flickered across Brenda’s
features but she tamped it. She shook her head. “Do you really
think you can afford to dismiss it as pure nonsense? I know for a
fact that it’s true.”
    Carly’s eyes widened.
“Seriously?”
    “I’m dead serious. My cousin
disappeared.” She glanced around uneasily. “And I know of at least
three other tribe members that did.” Her face crumpled. “And my
brother was killed in a freak accident.”
    Carly felt her jaw drop. Her uneasiness
had intensified considerably but at that comment, sympathy crept
in. “I’m so sorry! How could that happen? What
happened?”
    She immediately regretted that her
shock had led her to ask such a thing when she could see Brenda was
upset.
    Brenda shrugged. “Nobody knows. He was
doing some kind of research—on the side. He’d been assigned to work
on dimension technology, but he had a theory he was working on that
wasn’t ‘sanctioned’. He never told me what it was because the
transmissions to earth are always monitored, you know, but he
hinted at something and I think it was enough of a hint to get him
killed.”
    Shock rolled through Carly again, but
this time doubts crept in. “You’re saying … you’re suggesting ….”
She couldn’t even say the word.
    “Murder.”
    Carly dropped the remains of her
sandwich on her plate, feeling nausea wash through her. “Brenda
….”
    “You don’t believe me,” Brenda said
tightly.
    “It’s not that …. It’s just
….”
    “Unbelievable.” Brenda seemed to
wrestle with herself. “You’re right. It’s probably just
grief.”
    Dismay settled in Carly. She could
almost see a wall developing between them. “Don’t be that way!
Please! I’m just having a hard time with this, Bren.”
    Brenda stared at her for a moment and
seemed to relax fractionally. “I’m just trying to tell you to be
careful. Why don’t you let me get a friend of mine to get that
information for you? It’ll be safer.”
    “I already asked Trude,” Carly reminded
her.
    “So pretend you forgot all about it and
don’t prompt for the report. It’ll look better. My friend can get
it without raising red flags.”
    Relieved that Brenda seemed willing to
overlook her doubts, Carly smiled. “You don’t