Strange New Worlds X

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Robbie’s arm tightened around him at the sandwich remark, and he paused long enough to claim another kiss before continuing. “That means he’s a scientist, a bureaucrat, or maybe even security, though he looks too old for that. He’s in his seventies at least. In all those cases, he should be in someone’s photographic records.”

  Robbie leaned forward and examined the photo more closely. “His suit looks expensive. He’s no janitor, that’s for sure. You’d think an important man would be mentioned somewhere in all those reports you’ve copied.”

  Gary Seven looked into his wife’s clear blue eyes, kissed her again and stood up so abruptly that he nearly toppled his glass of orange juice. As often happened, Robbie saw things that he missed. That was one reason they made such a good team. “Your husband can be a fool sometimes. I only asked the Beta 5 to correlate the photo with its files. I didn’t think of names.” Seven pushed a button hidden under the edge of his desk and a panel rolled back on a wall, revealing the Beta 5’s screen. Moving the computer and the transport chamber to their apartment from his Manhattan office had been one of the first orders of business after their marriage.

  “Computer, analyze all files pertaining to the project in Uzbekistan. List any names referenced for which no photo exists. Display corresponding reports.”

  “Processing,” the computer said in its hollow, vaguely female voice. Isis lifted her head and watched the screen. In a matter of four or five seconds the Beta 5 spoke. “One name found. Jetter. Report displayed.”

  The report contained only one phrase with the man’s name: “Jetter wants more generators.” Seven turned to Robbie. “Jetter is a German name isn’t it?”

  The computer said, “Many Soviet citizens of German descent live—”

  “I was asking my wife, Beta 5,” he snapped.

  “Please direct future inquiries more precisely,” the Beta 5 said.

  Gary grimaced and glared at the screen, but Robbie smiled. His struggles with the uppity computer always seemed to amuse her. Or maybe it was just the idea that a computer could be uppity.

  “I think Jetter’s German,” Robbie said. “I had a friend in grade school with that last name, and he said his grandparents had immigrated from Germany.”

  Seven nodded and turned back to the screen. A hunch had formed which he wanted to check. “Computer, scan historical archives for the last thirty-five years for scientists with the family name ‘Jetter.’”

  The lights on the computer screen danced silently for a few seconds before the Beta 5 spoke. “Eight matches found. Professor Jacob Jetter, theoretical physicist, currently employed at University of British Columbia, Canada; Gerald Jetter, president of Jetter Pharmaceuticals, Oxnard, California, USA….”

  Seven went through the list, but none were old enough except one person, and that scientist was a woman. He frowned.

  Robbie must have read his mind. “You think he might be one of those German scientists who worked for the Nazis, like Von Braun?”

  He nodded. “The thought had occurred to me, but it looks like I’m wrong. Or maybe, they changed his name. That would be in keeping with the other secrecy measures. Either way, it’s a dead end.”

  Robbie tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips. “My aunt had a cousin whose last name was Hinkeldorff. She hated the name so much that she changed it.”

  Seven turned and said, “There is a point in this story, I hope.” Robbie pursed her lips and scrunched up her nose in that way he loved and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “She changed it to her mother’s last name.”

  Gary smiled and bowed. “A good point and worth a try. Computer, repeat last request, but this time search for scientists who are not named Jetter, but have any immediate relatives with family name Jetter.”

  It made sense. If a person were forced to choose a new last name, they might pick their mother’s or some other close relative’s. Still, it seemed like a long shot. This time the search took longer, and there were twenty-three names on the list, but one stuck out like a subspace beacon—Hans Kommer, Director Eugenics Project, Third Reich, Nazi Germany. Reported deceased, August 1945 by Soviet Commander, Berlin. His mother had been named Jetter.

  “I love you,” he said and held Robbie in his arms. But a cold knot had formed in his gut. The pieces now made an ugly picture. Direct tampering with the human genome represented a potential for disaster that few if any on the planet would yet comprehend. He knew of two humanoid civilizations that had suffered destruction by just such a route. One race had vanished altogether, while the other slipped into barbarism and had yet to find its way back.

  “You’re going over to investigate, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

  “I have to, Robbie. If they’re using genetic manipulation to accomplish what the Nazis tried by selective breeding, the Earth could be in real trouble.” Our children to come could be in real trouble.

  Robbie squeezed him tighter. “Be careful, Gary, and take Isis.”

  Before Seven could reassure Robbie, the Beta 5 blurted out a warning.

  “I have detected anomalous graviton readings, source unknown. Pattern is consistent with entry of interstellar vehicle into normal space-time.”

  “What does it mean?” Robbie asked.

  Seven frowned. “I’m not sure. Visitors maybe. Any further readings Beta 5?”

  The machine was silent for several seconds before responding. “No further readings. Long range scans negative.”

  “Continue scanning for anomalous readings or energy outputs,” he said. “In my absence, alert agent Roberta Seven of any new findings.” Then he turned to Robbie. “It looks like a false alarm. Lots of things besides a starship can cause a graviton pulse.”

  Robbie grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. “I hope so. Dealing with this Uzbekistan stuff is bad enough without little green men butting in.”

  Seven held Isis in his arms as Robbie inspected his KGB uniform one last time. Behind him, the heavy chromium door to the “bank vault,” as Robbie called the transport chamber, was already open. Of course, the chamber looked that way by design, just as the Beta 5 would be mistaken for a television by any 1971 human.

  “Colonel Vorsokov, you look good enough to take home,” Robbie said with a smile, but he heard the tension beneath her light tone.

  “Don’t worry. This is just reconnaissance. You can monitor everything from here, and I’ve got the panic button if I get into trouble.”

  “Oh, I hate this part,” she said and gave him a quick kiss.

  Seven stepped into the chamber. There was a flash of light and a familiar instant of disorientation when he felt reality twist and dissolve away. Then he and Isis stepped from what looked like a fog bank onto the crest of a small hill. It was night and a chill wind whipped across the terrain, strongly enough that he had to pull the brim of his hat down. Below them lay a broad cluster of low, flat-roofed buildings surrounded by a tall, barbed-wire fence whose top was split into two strips, one leaning outward and one leaning inward. At each of the four corners of the fence stood a guard tower, replete with search lights. There would be dog patrols around the perimeter as well. Standard security measures. Isis gave a low growl, and her thoughts simultaneously registered in his head.

  “Yes, Isis. It does look more like a prison than a research facility. We’ll know more once we’re inside.”

  He scanned the compound with a compact device that looked like an ordinary pen, then opened a channel to the Beta 5 and sent the transporter coordinates for a spot in the main complex, one that looked empty.

  Soon he stood on a polished floor in a shadowy side corridor. The place smelled of floor wax and chemicals. He set Isis down and got his bearings.

  He’d try to avoid contact with personnel, but if it happened, he was on a surprise security inspection. And if that didn’t work, he had a special setting on his pen that would put a man to sleep and let him wake with no memory of what had happened. And finally there was the small indentation on his
belt. The panic button, as Robbie had named it. Push that and the Beta 5 would transport him and Isis back to New York in an instant, no questions asked.

  Seven stepped out into the main hallway and walked at an unhurried pace with Isis running ahead to scout out any trouble. The key was to look bored and confident and hope he outranked anyone he’d meet. His Russian was quite good though he wasn’t up on the latest idioms, so he’d have to keep it basic.

  Twenty minutes later and two floors lower, he finally stood before Charles Grayson’s windowless office. Along the way, he had met several night workers, but they had seemed as uninterested in him as he had pretended to be in them. A pair of security guards had politely stopped him to check his credentials, but when they saw the KGB identification card, they blanched and couldn’t let him go through quickly enough.

  Seven transported himself and Isis inside and began to search Grayson’s files. After several minutes, Seven found what he wanted when he spotted the edge of a black book poking up at the back of a filing drawer. It was Grayson’s diary. He scanned through the pages while Isis paced before the door, keeping watch. He found an entry from over six years before: September 10, 1965: Success! The first batch of viable embryos were produced today. We should know in nine months whether my techniques will work. Pachenko and Jetter are confident, but I am worried. It’s all happening so fast. But if we succeed, the next step in human evolution will be at hand.

  Gary cursed. Just what he had feared. He moved ahead in the diary: June 15, 1966: Eighty percent of the fetuses aborted, but we have one-hundred and twenty-eight healthy specimens. Now the testing begins.

  “They’re not specimens, damn you! They’re babies!” he muttered. Angrily, Seven flipped pages, reading entries rapidly: November 5, 1967: The children are magnificent! Smarter, quicker, stronger, healthier than even I had hoped. Superhumans. Pachenko and I will get drunk tonight.

  Seven kept on reading though Isis growled from the doorway. “It’s all right Isis. Just a few minutes more.”

  July 29, 1970: What have we done? Today, I watched a child calmly choke a kitten to death with one hand, simply because the animal had scratched him. Later, we discovered a boy methodically beating another with a table leg, all over who controlled a sandbox. The child would have died if not for the guard. They have turned into deadly little beasts, selfish and ruthless. We pleaded with Jetter, but he doesn’t want to see. He still thinks they can be controlled. For God’s sake, he’s planning to produce more of these monsters. Pachenko and I will get drunk tonight.

  That was enough. Gary put the diary back and set the room as it had been. He could not have imagined anything worse. This business had to be stopped. A signal came through from the Beta 5.

  “Seven, here.”

  “Multiple transporter beams detected in your vicinity. Type unknown. Origin unknown. Vector trace shows they originated from outside Earth’s atmosphere.”

  “Thank you, Beta 5. I’ll scan locally and see what I can find out.”

  Isis leaped onto a desk and gave a throaty growl. “I don’t know who’s dropping in, Isis, but I think we’d better find out.” He brought out his versatile pen and set it for wide scan. Then he slowly rotated one full turn. “Four separate beams came down, but they terminate about ten meters below the bottom level of the complex. No life-forms. So, it’s not who, but what. And whatever it is, is shielded in some way.” Isis complained as he continued to manipulate the instrument, changing the sensory harmonics to try and penetrate the shielding. “I don’t like the smell of this, either, but if I can just get a partial reading … uh-oh! There’s anti-matter down there!”

  He probed further into the buried device, but the readings were intermittent and probably unreliable. But the main facts were all too clear. “It’s a bomb. Four bombs. This place will be a molten crater in less than six minutes.” Gary hated violence, but whoever had set the bombs was certainly solving his problem of what to do about the project.

  The Beta 5 could transport the devices one by one into space if he could get precise coordinates, but with the trouble he was having with the readings, that would be too slow and risky. It looked like the project would be obliterated no matter what he did, but there might be time to save lives. Seven quickly phoned security, told them about the bombs and ordered them to signal an immediate evacuation. That took less than thirty seconds, but the fools were wasting precious time to contact the base commander first.

  “Let’s find an alarm,” he said, and scooped Isis into his arms. He left Grayson’s office and sprinted down the narrow corridor to where it joined a larger one. He turned left at the joining and almost collided with three young boys who skidded to a halt just in time. With a start, Seven realized he must be looking at three of the “specimens.”

  They were large and strong looking for five-year-olds with bright eyes and looks of disdain. Not a hint of fear. Still, they were children, and he could not help thinking about Robbie and the family they might have someday. The middle of the three, a tall lad with shiny black hair and eyes that reminded Gary of a hawk, stepped forward and inspected Seven. A fierce intelligence burned behind the boy’s imperious stare. And a hint of curiosity. Now it was Seven who felt like the specimen.

  “Not the usual sort is he? A colonel with a black cat. Must be KGB. He’ll try to put us back, but we’ve already gotten further than Sanjo and his toads.”

  Suddenly, the boy bolted past Seven. Or tried to. The child was incredibly quick, but Gary’s trained reflexes took over, and he snatched the squirming boy by the back of his shirt and lifted him by one hand into the air. The astonished child stopped kicking and glared at Seven, their eyes locking. Isis dropped to the floor, snarled, and morphed to panther size, blocking the path of the other two. They froze in place.

  Seven glanced at his watch. Three and a half minutes! Despite what Grayson had written about them, he knew that he could not just abandon these children to be vaporized. Whatever they might become, they were innocents thrust into a situation they did not create. They did not deserve to be slaughtered. He set the boy down on his feet and knelt down to eye level. He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, but it was pushed away with surprising force. Meanwhile, Isis returned to her normal size and returned to Seven’s side. The hawk-eyed boy had not seen her transformation, but both his companions continued to watch Isis with bulging eyes and mouths agape.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  The child looked insulted. “You must be new here. My name is Khan. Khan Noonien Singh.”

  “Khan. Listen carefully. There’s a bomb in this building. We’ve got to get the children out of here immediately.”

  The boy studied Seven’s face intently as if searching for a lie or trick. Then he said, “Follow us!” and turned and ran along with his two companions. Sirens began to wail across the complex but probably too late to save anyone. Gary snatched up Isis and ran after the three boys, wondering if it was too late for them as well. His watch gave them less than three minutes.

  Khan and his friends took an ingenious route through store-rooms and access tunnels that was surely not the straightest way, but avoided all guards. By the time Seven entered the “nursery,” less than a minute remained. When he stepped into the room filled with bunks, he found the children alone. A security guard, stationed behind a wall of thick glass, lay slumped over his table near an empty bottle of vodka. Seven wondered if Khan had something to do with that. The children stopped moving and speaking as soon as they saw Seven’s uniform. Glancing around, he saw all the colors of humanity. At least the insane Nazi ideas about racial purity had been cast aside in the project.

  “Children. There’s a bomb, and we’re going to evacuate. Everyone come close to me. Crowd in as close as you can. Hurry!” The commands, given in harsh, rapid Russian, had little effect until Khan and his three companions moved forward. Then the rest crowded in quickly but with no sign of panic. Seven took out his pen and spoke to the Beta 5. “Transport everyone wit
hin six meters of my present coordinates. How far can you safely move us?”

  “Approximately 1500 kilometers.”

  Seven thought for a moment then gave orders to the Beta 5. There were five seconds left when the world disappeared. Then they were all stepping out of a fog and onto sandy soil near a large city glowing in the darkness. Tehran, though the children would not know. No one was nearby. The children burst into animated conversation, and Khan tugged at his leg. “How did you do that? I demand to know how!”

  Seven took out the pen and said, “It’s simple. You just point this and pull.” Khan collapsed to the ground, a peaceful look on his face, as did his two companions, and the five children surrounding them. Soon, Seven had all the children lying senseless, smiles on their faces. When they woke, they would remember nothing that had happened to them during the past hour. The desert air was cold, but he had no intention of stranding them there. Instead, he called the Beta 5 with a new command.

  “Beam them all into the courtyard of the Swiss Embassy.”

  Seven moved away with Isis and watched the children disappear into the night. There would be a big story in the papers, but it would soon blow over. Another unsolved mystery. The explosion in Uzbekistan would probably be passed off as an accident or some nuclear test. It was impossible to predict what would become of the children, but at least now they had a chance to find real mothers and fathers who could teach them something of compassion and responsibility. Maybe. Isis growled in his arms.

  “I’m not sure I did the right thing, either. Maybe I stopped someone else from doing the right thing,” Seven said, though he had serious doubts about anyone willing to casually slaughter hundreds of people. “I’m not sure. But I couldn’t just leave them there. I just couldn’t.” He stopped and watched the distant lights of the city for a few seconds, then pulled Isis to his chest. “Let’s go home.”