Alien Infection

by Darrell Bain

  She looked back up, an incredibly sad expression haunting her face and especially her eyes. They looked into some far distance. “The entire population of one of the worlds was wiped out. They're still dying on the other. Needless to say, plans for long term observers on other worlds were cancelled and stays by survey ships are being strictly limited, especially regarding contact with indigenous humans.

  "Believe me, we had no indication that anything like that would happen. We had nothing to tell us differently. On our world, the Tersha is in all of us already. It has no reason to change or mutate. Or perhaps it has mutated, but how would we have noticed it when we already had it? You see?"

  I could feel the intensity of her emotion, almost like a wave of heat emanating from her. She was trying her very best to convince us that it was a horrible tragedy, one completely unintentional. But inadvertent or not, she knew that her people were responsible. Perhaps it was even worse in her mind for that very reason.

  "I think this calls for something a little stronger than coffee,” Jim said. He got up and found a bottle of brandy. He and I took ours neat. Mona accepted some but only used part of it in her coffee.

  Tera followed her example while remarking “By the way, you'll never be able to get drunk again. Your Tershas will get to work in your liver cells and start metabolizing the alcohol once it reaches a certain level."

  "Hmm. How about hangovers?"

  "For us, no. For you, remember: no database. If you're as much like us as I suspect, you'll never have that problem again either. I can only imagine what a hangover is like. We really don't use much alcohol or other physical stimulants as you do. For enhanced emotional states of mind, we have mental techniques that work well and have no addicting properties."

  "How long have you been here?” Mona asked suddenly. “You speak remarkably good English for not even being from the same world as us. And you keep saying ‘we'. How many of you are there?"

  "There are a dozen of us who came down in the lander and we've been here much less than a year.” Tera touched the wide part of the necklace beneath her neck. “This is a translator, among its many other functions. Much like your Pocket Computers that you carry around to stay in contact, though more advanced. We all carry one. Among other things it can do is detect the presence of Tershas. They resonate on a particular frequency that we just recently discovered. It lets us know where each of us is at any given moment. Incidentally, that's how I was able to point the pin at your location so quickly.

  "Pinpoint,” Jim said absently.

  "Pinpoint, yes. English is very odd, but I like it. So many different ways to say the same thing."

  "And I take it, your—what do you call it?” He pointed to her chest where she was still fingering the medallion-looking part of her necklace.

  She shrugged and smiled again. She had a smile almost as warm as Mona's. “Just call it a PDA, though it's not really digital and it's much more than an assistant, but PDA is close enough. What were you asking?"

  "Your PDA. That's how you stay in contact with your mother ship?"

  "Yes. Relayed through the lander, of course."

  "And you said you got word of what happened on those worlds where the Tershas got loose. Can't you ask for help?"

  "Certainly. We already have. But it will be years before another ship can get here. It's not like we have survey vessels running around the galaxy in swarms. We're just getting started with exploring. And faster than light travel isn't instantaneous either, despite some of your fiction."

  "Hmm. And you think the Tersha will mutate here before anyone else from Cinca can take you-and I presume us-off the planet?"

  "Judging by the time frame where it got loose on the other two worlds, yes, but remember, we only have two examples to draw from-and Bista-God, I mean-God knows, I hope that's all. But if it follows the other two patterns, it will be too late. We're already shoving the limit."

  "Pushing,” Jim corrected.

  "Pushing. We're already pushing the limit. You're our only hope. You and others like you."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jim stood up and began pacing. He stopped at the brandy bottle still sitting on the wooden shelf, decided against it, then resumed circling the room. I finished my drink but made no effort to refill it. Beneath the table, Mona was holding tightly to my hand, like it was the other end of a lifeline. I could feel the moisture where our fingers were entwined. I didn't try to comment. Jim was doing fine so far.

  Abruptly he stopped pacing. “Why us? No, first, how much do you know about who's in charge of this clusterfuck? The humans, I mean."

  "Clusterfuck? Is that an obscenity?"

  "Yes. It means a big foul up."

  "Oh, all right. We know quite a bit.” She touched her PDA. “We started recording radio conversations from the mother ship, then television broadcasts as soon as we were down. And of course our PDA's continually record and translate, then feed it to us on demand by—sorry, there isn't really a word for it. Just take it for granted for now that we learned English very quickly."

  "Why English?"

  "You should be able to figure that out. North America is the most technically advanced area of earth, yet still has plenty of wild country to hide in. Now back to who's in charge of the, um, clusterfuck-it's not your Homeland Security. They are just being used when it becomes necessary to interact with civilians, and even then I suspect they are disguised military. There's a general by the name of Melofton who oversees day to day operations. He—"

  "Ah, crap!” Jim interjected.

  Surprised, I looked at him. His face was screwed up with evident distaste, like he had suddenly caught a whiff of something extremely unsavory.

  "Do you know him, Jim?"

  "We had a run-in once and friends have told me more about him. He's the reason I didn't make general and had to retire. He's—he's as stubborn and opinionated as a Missouri mule and I'll swear there's something badly wrong with his head. I think he's mentally unstable but he conceals it well. He also has a lot of political pull. His brother is chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee.” He mused for a moment then continued. “When the terrorists really got started after 9/11, I heard a rumor that he was assigned to some sort of reaction force, then he disappeared from sight.” He turned back to Tera. “Let's get back to basics. Why do you need us? What do you think we can do?"

  "You can get into the lander and replace a part for us once we have it fabricated. None of us can go back to it. There's only four of us who escaped and they have our fingerprints and photos. We can't get in by intrigue, and there's not much of a chance using force to get back aboard because we know it is well guarded. Of course, none of them can get inside, either."

  "Whoa,” I told her. “this is getting all disjointed and I'm confused."

  "So am I,” Mona agreed. “Jim, it's your place, but why don't we three sit back and let her talk uninterrupted for a while? I think we might get to where we want to go sooner."

  Jim gave her one of his infectious smiles that he reserves for people he really likes. “You're probably right Mona. I tend to be a bit impatient at times. That's just the nature of us old farts who get in the habit of thinking they don't have enough time left for subtleties. All right Tera, you talk; we'll listen."

  * * * *

  And we did. Tera took a long time to tell the complete story and I won't try to give all the details here. We ran through another pot of coffee and part of the bottle of brandy before she was finished.

  The Cincan mother ship was in orbit just inside the asteroid belt and masquerading as an old rock. There was only half of the contingent remaining from the Cincans who had started the exploratory voyage. Originally there had been two landers but one had failed at the last stop. Unfortunately, it went down over an ocean and was lost, along with the crew. Even shorthanded and upset, the remaining Cincans had decided to continue on after they examined their other lander and found nothing wrong with it.

  Earth was a surprise t
o them. No other world was as technologically advanced, other than their own. The other worlds with humans found so far were still in the hunter/gatherer or early bronze age. Some had gone further but for reasons unknown had become extinct.

  With their stealthed lander, it was easy to set down on earth in the wild country near Rich Mountain and stay inside their camouflaged craft until they had finished learning the language and some of our customs. The trouble began when they attempted to lift off. A decision had been made to go into orbit before contacting any government on earth. None of the crew had liked what they learned about earth's political, cultural and social divisiveness, along with our wars, poverty, overpopulation and—well, you get the picture. Ours was a culture and society alien to their way of thinking and they were leery.

  The lander began having trouble almost immediately. They were lucky to get back to earth again without crashing, but they came down in the wildest part of the Ouashita National forest in eastern Arkansas and that's where the luck ended. They were also stuck on earth until repairs could be made. The fault lay in a part which could be fabricated on earth, or even in the tools shops of the mother ship, but it was a Catch-22 situation. They couldn't make the part because they couldn't get to the ship, and without a lander, the crew remaining in the ship couldn't get the part to them even if they made it.

  They carried precious stones and metal in the lander, intended as trade items for primitive cultures. It was enough for them to live on for a while, but not enough to have the part made through a special order at a machine and electronics shop. There were twelve of them originally. They decided to all leave the lander and establish themselves somewhere nearby and try to earn or steal enough money to have the part made. Unfortunately, the stealth mode of the lander had only worked erratically while on their last flight. The ship was spotted and by the time they left, an army swift reaction unit was on the way. All twelve of them were captured by General Melofton's terrorist reaction force no more than a few miles from their craft. It was the worst possible thing that could have happened to them.

  The lander was safe. Its weapons systems recognized the resonance pattern of Tershas and allowed only those showing that pattern to approach. Anyone else was knocked unconscious, and if they tried more than once, were killed. Robotic equipment couldn't get near. It was destroyed at once. Two helicopters crashed after their pilots were rendered unconscious trying to descend on the lander from above. There wasn't even much anyone could learn by observation. Once power wasn't needed for flight, the stealth mode came back into operation, disguising emanations or reflections from the craft. The stealth program also concealed it so well that satellite photos wouldn't detect it and even humans on the ground had to be fairly close to tell that it was there. That left the crew.

  Had it been anyone except General Melofton in charge of the reaction force, originally designed to counter terrorist threats, perhaps they might have been able to negotiate, but Melofton didn't trust them, and they quickly learned not to trust him or his minions. The situation went from bad to worse, with the general ordering isolation and complete physicals on his captives, along with extensive genetic analysis and questioning. The interrogations began normally but quickly became brutal. The general wanted to know the propulsion mechanics of the lander and how interstellar flight was possible and he was determined to get the information. The Cincans told him all that they knew but none of them were theoretical physicists; they were explorers. General Melofton didn't believe them.

  That empathic sense imparted by the Tershas that Mona and I had just begun to discover and explore with each other did allow the captive cincans to make friends with one of the guards. The friendship allowed several of them to escape, including that patient in the emergency room I had drawn blood from. That seemed like an eternity ago when I heard her tell about it. Four of the Cincans were still at large; Tera and two other women and one man. They could monitor activities around the lander from their PDAs, but had no chance to get back aboard without help. They didn't even have any valuables left; everything they owned had all been confiscated.

  The only way they kept their PDAs was that the necklace was not only too short to go over their heads; parts of it extended into their bodies. One of them had been cut free, but the process sent the Cincan into terrible convulsions and then withdrawal similar to a catatonic state in humans. That procedure wasn't tried again, especially as nothing was learned about the function of the necklace; it ceased to work as soon as it was separated from its owner.

  When Tera's PDA registered the presence of Tershas other than their own, it was like a godsend. Some humans of earth were compatible with them. Tera was closest to us, as she had been partnered with the Cincan from the emergency room. After he was recaptured by the Homeland Security agents, or perhaps military men, and not killed as I had assumed from newspaper reports, she had stuck around Lufkin-and had been utterly surprised when I popped up on her monitor.

  They had learned caution though. She was waiting for an opportunity to approach me that wouldn't arouse suspicions when Homeland Security struck first (or perhaps military intelligence in masquerade as agents). She kept tabs on me, wanting to find out why I had lived when the federal prisoners all died. When Mona joined me as a Tersha carrier, she became cautiously optimistic. She even listened in on my conversations with Jim and traced his number with her PDA, then tapped into the internet and gathered background information on him to add to what she learned of me by the same means. It was amazing what they could do once they had a Tersha source to work from. Eventually, she decided to come to the cabin and meet us while her comrades remained quietly in Dallas, slowly gathering funds by cautious gambling, of all things. That empathic sense again. Card players didn't stand a chance against them.

  When Tera finally stopped talking she looked hopefully at each of us in turn. I met her gaze but didn't say anything at first. It was a big chunk of information to assimilate, so fantastic that I wondered whether this might not be some elaborate dream. It was just so hard to believe, especially the next part, which Jim already had outlined in his ordered mind.

  "So you want us to recruit some other players, gain entrance to the lander by intrigue if possible, by force if necessary, and get you back inside it. That's after you've fabricated the part you need. Then once we get you inside, I presume we'll have to sit there while you do the repairs and maybe find out what it's like when a nuke explodes on top of us. Does that cover it?"

  Tera spread her hands apologetically. “Essentially, yes. Unless you can think of some other option?"

  I decided to contribute to the discussion. “You mentioned that you wanted us to recruit some helpers, if I heard you right. Are you talking about others who can be infected with the Tersha or just warm bodies? Because if it's just grunts to shoot their way in you're after, or to hold back the army while we get inside, it's not going to work. We won't be able to find anyone who would believe this story."

  "He's right,” Mona added. “I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen the results first hand in my own body. Would you?"

  A long silence ensued while Tera considered it but she had to agree “No, I guess I wouldn't. What, then? Remember, it's your whole population at risk. Or a good part of it, anyway."

  "There's only one way I can see,” Jim said. “We'll have to not only infect others with the Tersha but recruit very carefully even then. It won't be easy regardless of how we go about it. Unless you think one of us could fly the lander?"

  She shook her head. “First you would have to do the repair job and that will require instruments you're not familiar with. And it isn't like flying an airplane; it interfaces with the pilot's PDA."

  "Too bad,” Jim said. “I was thinking one of us could try pretending to be a recruit of theirs who survived the bug-the Tersha, but I guess that's out. And there's another factor. I mention this because there's something you haven't even thought of yet. We don't know why we three survived, not for certain. Earlier you sa
id something about a gene complex? We may all have it, but how do we tell whether anyone else does? I don't want to kill anyone by deliberately infecting them then finding out that they don't have the right genes."

  Tera was stricken. “You don't know? I just assumed-oh, damn. Yes, you're right. But—but it will take so long for the research to find out who does have the correct genes. The Tersha will probably mutate before then.” She looked ready to cry.

  "Don't be a pessimist,” Jim said. “If we had access to a DNA sequencer and splicer and an idea of where to look in the genome, I might be able to identify prospects. Or rather, find someone who can."

  "But how-Mike, I thought you knew when you infected Mona and had Jim use some of your blood to infect himself. You didn't?"

  "Mona was an accident. Jim was dying from cancer and simply took a chance after hearing what it did for me. All three of us have Cherokee blood in us, though. That's where we thought the common denominator might be.” When she brightened, I shook my head. “That doesn't mean the next Cherokee would necessarily have the same genes. It could be something else entirely. All of us have Irish ancestors, too."

  "I see. This is getting even more complicated than I thought."

  "It's getting late too,” Jim said. “Tera, would you like to stay the night here? Where is your car parked, by the way?"

  "It's not. I had Felinti-that's one of my friends-drop me off a few miles from here then head back to Dallas. We didn't want to risk both of us."