Wine of the Gods 26: Embassy

by Pam Uphoff

  She woke in the grey of predawn. All alone in bed. She stretched. No twitch of pain, no cramp . . . no numbness. She got up and walked out the bedroom's open door. Xen was on the couch, a blanket wrapped around him. She snorted with faint amusement.

  Infuriating. But I'd have been even madder if he'd assumed. Presumed. Which he had every right to do, since I was voluntarily in his bed. So he sleeps out here and makes himself even more alluring. She shook her head. And my first reaction is amusement, instead of hurt feelings and insecurity over my scars. He loves me. And he's a professional. Maybe I terrify him as much as he frightens me.

  Well, the emotions he evokes in me are terrifying. Him . . . I trust past all reasonableness.

  She left him snoozing and prowled. A kitchen with all the modern goodies. A small table by a window; the curtains were open, the window ajar. The fragrance of a flower garden floated in on a warm breeze. Bright moonlight cast shadows. She could see the full moon setting through the west facing window.

  She turned to explore the house. A hallway passed a laundry room, a bathing room with both shower and bathtub, and at the end of a breezy, open windowed corridor, the toilet. As close to being outside as possible. She snickered. Just like all the reports on the Fallen keep saying.

  She backtracked to the bathing room. Killer shower or long soak? She opted for the shower and stood under the spray, feeling it pounding on all those spots that had been numb for so long. Still scarred, but I feel so good! And big fluffy towels, just rough enough to use to scratch her back . . . big fluffy robe to borrow. She left the steamy little room for a corridor full of the smell of bacon.

  "A fully automated kitchen and you still cook for yourself?"

  Xen grinned at her. "Ugh. Me barbarian. Me no program fabricators. Damn things can't make a decent cup of coffee, no matter what." He reached for a mug and poured coffee for her. He didn't offer cream or sugar.

  Oversight, or does he actually remember that I take my coffee black?

  "Ugh, yourself. It's too late for you to pretend stupidity. I remember you tutoring Paer in calculus. How the One Hell did we not catch on to you lot?"

  "You had your eyes closed, and sent in all the haters and perverts to murder people. Oh, no use arguing. Your Action team spent one night in Karista, murdered three city policemen, froze the bodies and took them to the Earth's gate and tried to make it look like the natives had raided, and run off when three soldiers had been killed."

  Rael winced. Yeah, I read that report.

  "Then they were sent to kill all the inhabitants of a small village. Stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Poor murderous damned idiots. I'd feel bad about what happened to them, except my mother was one of the teenage girls they were planning to kill. And I suspect my dad was one of their primary targets. I do not appreciate them being targeted—well before I was born, but . . . "

  That one, too. Not that we didn't see through the implanted memories and hallucinations your people planted on the observers. The sole survivors.

  Except . . . those black goats were awfully convincing . . .

  "And then your Army killed seventy-six of my fellow troopers when you invaded the Crossroads. Not to mention three witches." He shrugged. "Water under the bridge. I ought to let it go. At least you've had the sense to stop. Earth is just begging for another period of isolation."

  Rael bit her lip. "I . . . guess I ought to have known there was a lot of animus left over."

  He sighed. "It's not widespread. But . . . well, your diplomats are facing major trust issues and it's all your own fault." He turned back to the electric stove. "One egg or two?"

  "How do you know I'm not a vegetarian?"

  "Because you had a steak for dinner, yesterday."

  "Two eggs. How do you know I eat pork?"

  "Because you were practically drooling, and recognized the smell of bacon."

  The coffee was hot and strong.

  Just like this One bedamned man. I think I need to run away. And stay away.

  But I'm not going to. Yet.

  She set her coffee mug down, and untied the robe's sash. Made sure the robe didn't gap enough to show the ruins of her right breast. "You hungry?"

  He eyed her, then reached and turned off the stove. "Starved."

  ***

  "Can I do that again, real slow?"

  Rael's brain ping ponged between an arch Can you? to a demanding You'd better! She managed to fumble out a "Yes."

  ***

  The bacon made a good lunch. And with great reluctance, she headed home. One damn it all. I'm going to have to report all of this . . . maybe if I get really detailed and long winded about Earth, I can skate past the more personal parts.

  And then the doctors are going to dissect me.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Late Summer 1399

  Some Earth, Somewhere

  Rior tracked the wizards through the Calgary gate, and then down to a party in Denver. As usual, they were doing their patriotic best to spread their genes across the multiverse. Aided by that wine, some long lasting orgasm spells, plus a compulsion that would have the women strongly inclined to go ahead with an otherwise insane pregnancy.

  What was this drive to reproduce? Mind you, the sex was fun. And no doubt the few children he'd partially engendered on the witches were superior, or would be when they were grown. But by the One, there was no need for Rior to display a male ego. He didn't need children.

  While the wizards sobered up, he toured museums and studied jewelry stores. They might was well pick up a few salable goods while in town.

  Mirk and Fidel had taken the hex potions. Rior had carefully interfered with the multiple hair color spells, but left one each operable, changing the men's hair color. Blond Mirk was now a reddish brown, and blond-gone-gray Fidel was back to blond and much younger looking. The female-to-male spell he'd analyzed carefully. Very interesting. Several other spells seemed determined to make them edgy and paranoid, and he unraveled them as well. And he studied very carefully the three spells that were inserting themselves into their X and Y chromosomes. Two of them slugging it out for the position on the X chromosome, and there was one for the Y. It was disturbing to see. Looking deeply at himself, in a way he never had before, he saw the two X chromosome genes had inserted themselves in place of a gene neither of the men had in about half his cells. The One Gene? He shuddered to think that he might have lost it completely, but it seems to have stopped before the substitution was complete. He let the spells run three weeks in the two nobles then unraveled both spells. The Y chromosome spell had already completed its job and ended itself.

  More spells to keep. It was not that different from microelectronics, when you got right down to it. He detoured to the University, and the University Bookstore. Biochemistry and genetic texts, for the advanced classes. If he ever returned to the One World he was going to have a whole new specialty. But he really doubted that he would return. At least, not to work there.

  I need to alter those spells to insert the One power gene. Talk about a money making proposition! Seven billion multitude and natives in the Empire. Charge them a hundred rials each to become Of the One . . .

  In any case, with a bit more training, the four of them ought to be able to do anything the Wizards could do, and possibly even the witches.

  The witches. Now there was an interesting problem. Betelgeuse had spent a lot of the spring in the fast room, and delivered a baby girl with the help of a midwife Smokey had fetched from Comet Fall. Jade's advancement hadn't made much of a difference, still plenty of cat fights. But the witches had started putting their babies in no time bubbles long term, and started using the haploid spell. So perhaps they could hold the line at . . . how many children were there, now? Thirty? More? At least there were a lot less than that 'out' at any given time.

  He finished his list of places to rob on the way out of town and checked the sobering progress of his henchmen. Mag was in bed with a woman, and Rior took her away. "Sleep, Mag. B
usy night starting in five hours." Mag, all of them, actually, had picked up that damned peasant rapist's spells. They were laid on with greater delicacy, but also greater effect. The dreamy woman rubbed against him in her dazed sexual fantasy, and with a shrug Rior took her back to his room. She embraced him with dreamy enthusiasm and Rior paid her back by practicing with her genes, and the genetics of the baby she was about to conceive. He gave her a bit of that wine and watched the results with fascination. The woman had no magical genes at all. The wine's ribozymes were sorting sperm and chose one of Mag's. It was pulled into the ova, but rather than fertilizing it, most of the woman's chromosomes were destroyed and the sperm's substituted. He watched as the maternal imprinting was copied. And then the new egg was fertilized in the normal way by as different but as powerful a sperm as was available –one of Rior's. Fascinating. Or should that be horrifying?

  "One! Did I just screw Mag at one remove?" The woman didn't answer, of course, she was deep into some fantasy.

  Mag's wizard X chromosome, Rior's X with the invasive witch gene. He'd have to check on her baby in fifteen years or so.

  Just about time to go. He led her dreamily back to Mag's room to dress and be sent off to wake up in fifteen minutes, find her car, drive home, delighted to be an expectant mother.

  Eighteen jewelry stores later they explored the Denver Mint and decided the alloy coins weren't worth carrying away. They picked up what they needed to restock their alcohol supplies at home, ducked into a corridor to Calgary and then through the gate.

  "It's a very interesting world, lots of potential. We should put up a corridor to another city. Or perhaps move that end of the one that's there. Keep Mag from going back and getting into more trouble in same place. Honestly, how many women does that man have children by?"

  Falchion glowered. Shrugged. "I'll move it next week. Might as well give him a new city to debauch."

  "I was thinking more of stopping him. Actually, another cover business might not be a bad idea. Let me know when you move it, I'll take a look around."

  Chapter Forty-three

  29 July 2234 BN

  Earth Bogota Nuke

  Unfortunately it appeared that Rivolti had been marooned. The only information they got from him was his use of the name Rior. Xen had wrinkled his nose and said it was a One World style name, but of the female form. Then they let him touch a blood sample and confirmed that the person had two X chromosomes. The four Law Enforcement Officers who had been temporarily marooned had all been debriefed on everything in excruciating detail. Including the goats.

  Or perhaps especially the goats. They were tested for drugs, and their eyewitness accounts dismissed as hallucinations. Until Xen demonstrated on lab rats, turning them into extra small purple bunny rabbits.

  It still took a day of the various policemen and scientists petting and poking the critters before they slowly edged toward acceptance of . . . weirdness.

  "So, one out of twenty-seven isn't Fallen. What a relief." Xen had sighed. "Of course the sex change and all just screams Fallen magic, so no doubt we'll get the blame for him or her as well. I wonder if he's actually the Rior I've encountered?"

  Xen and Hanger went over the mansion in careful detail. All Xen found was what he called a 'zero-time bubble', of the same stuff as corridors, apparently they could be used for storage. The Combat group had stored Charles Duchane. He looked pretty good for his reported sixty-nine years of age, cheerfully informing them that marriage was good for a man, and had they seen his wife, Smokey? The Feds took him off for medical tests.

  Then Xen sat down and made corridors and storage bubbles for the baffled scientists. Eventually they shifted the gate. Xen was able to knock this end loose and reattached it a hundred miles south in a secure location. The diplomacy started in earnest as the rumors and news leaks turned into press releases and economic opportunities.

  Once mining companies—and other countries—grasped the concept of 'Empty Worlds' there was no stopping them. Q, with a collection of her understudies, came through and opened permanent gates to eighteen Empty Worlds in three weeks.

  Hanger sent his resume back to Xen with her, and was hired immediately. Albrecht was one of three agents assigned to Disco by the Feds.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Late Summer 1399

  Embassy

  They wandered for days, an idyllic existence, with few anxieties or worries. Mantigo had no idea how many days, it didn't seem the least bit important. But from high vistas, he could see the lights of the small town, down there.

  And it was clear that he was going to remain a goat unless he got help.

  For better or worse, it was time to face the people down there who had changed them.

  He led the way down slowly, as various goats followed along, or lost their nerve and fled again.

  What the hell he was going to do . . . How was he going to communicate with those terrifying people?

  A man spotted them. Frowned, then turned and walked away.

  Mantigo edged cautiously closer to the boundary between wild grasslands and civilized lawn. A man walked toward them, quiet and steady.

  "I can change you back."

  Mantigo fought his goaty instincts and managed to nod, and not run as the man walked closer, and made a motion with his hand. He nose dived into the ground as his back legs grew, ouch, ouch he swore he could feel the bones crunching and his head hurt, his teeth were aching and he had hands, not goaty hooves. He felt his face. A human face.

  "Oh good, that's very very good. Thank you thank you thank you. Wow. I can think again." People were surrounding them now, a foggy barrier beyond them.

  "I figured you lot would appreciate a bit of privacy, we'll see about some clothes in a minute." The voice was feminine, and he looked up at The Girl.

  "I thought we killed you." He blurted.

  "No, but you did try really hard. We're discussing the matter with your government."

  An older man walked out of the fog with a pile of clothes. T-shirts and sweatpants.

  Mantigo stepped into the pants and pulled a shirt over his head and down. "I sort of missed the aftermath of that stupidity. What, umm, how many . . . ?"

  "Your task force managed to kill fifty-three civilians. I think all of you Earthers are alive, but you've been running around on hooves for three months."

  "Bet that was interesting to explain to the diplomats. How many of us are still out there being goats?"

  The Girl stepped over and handed another pair of pants to a mortified Lieutenant Chang.

  Mantigo ran a hand through his hair. Definitely needed a haircut.

  "Once you seven are off the roll, there will be about a dozen still missing." She nodded toward a man with a comp in his hands. "Do the name, rank, and serial number thing, please."

  "Montigo, Karl. Captain, United Earth Army. 54968573527."

  "Gottcha. Welcome back to humanity. Boy, do they want you. I just got pop ups from all over." He raised his eyebrows. "Says here the ambassador and the personnel coordinator are on their way and that we are not allowed to ask you anything."

  "Right. Great. The next couple of weeks should be a blast."

  "Ah, you're this captain they've been foaming at the mouth about?" The Girl finished handing out clothes and walked back.

  "Umm. Yes?"

  "Right. Good luck Captain. Here's the ambassador, etc."

  The ambassador looked him up and down. "Captain Mantigo?"

  "Yes, sir." I think the time for monosyllabic replies has arrived.

  "Right. Well. I'm Jacob Montgomery, Ambassador to Embassy. This is Sam Jenkins, he is coordinating the return of personnel."

  "Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Jenkins, a pleasure." Dear god, please go away and leave me alone. Eating grass all day was wonderfully peaceful.

  "Well, come along. We have a lot of questions for you."

  The ambassador glared at The Girl, but turned and walked away with no more commentary.

  Mantigo eyed the o
ther man. "What does a personnel coordinator do?"

  "In this case, I try to find all the lost soldiers from our ill-conceived and much orphaned attempt to intimidate a bunch of stubborn miners."

  "How many are missing?"

  "Just eleven now. No doubt my job will be ended soon. That few Missing In Action, Presumed Dead is not too bad, under the circumstances."

  "One can only hope they didn't wind up barbequed somewhere." Mantigo remembered a conversation ages ago.

  Jenkins shot a glance his way. "That possibility has been considered."

  The Earth Embassy was a generic glass tower. He followed the ambassador through the door and was arrested immediately.

  "On what charges?"

  "War Crimes. Crimes against Humanity. And more specifically, fifty-three counts of murder. Two counts of failure to follow orders. Do you have anything to say?"

  "I want a lawyer."

  For his lawyer, he made a statement, as exact as he could recall, of everything that had happened before he was turned into a goat.

  Apparently everything he said contradicted Captain Ghadir's account of the battle. He listened to the tapes of the radio traffic, and suggested they do some voice analysis to check who was speaking when.

  "Your vocal cords have been changed to a goat's, and then back. No one's voice prints are close enough for legal certainty."

  "And fifty some troops didn't know who was ordering them to shoot?"

  "Captain Ghadir was new to this platoon. Very few could possibly recognize his voice."

  "My drivers and gunners know mine. Try them. In fact analyze all the sentences, and see who said what, even if you just have to give them letters until you figure out how who's who."

  "I suppose that is possible."

  "In fact, do they have the complete raw radio logs? They should be separated by channel. Some Captain Ghadir had access to that I did not. My channel to my ride's crew is the only one of mine that he couldn't access, well, wouldn't access specifically in the ordinary course of things. He'd give me orders and I'd do the track-by-track specifics. In fact . . . I didn't hear the order to open fire on the shooters in the building, nor to shoot down the road. Only Track One, his ride, opened fire. Check the other track crews, see if they received those orders. Then get those voice analyses on all the communications, it ought to be clear who gave what orders."