Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers

by Pam Uphoff

  He turned his mind away from that disaster, and pulled out his note pad. It was time to start planning for the ramp up to major mining operations, or to lease mining rights to other companies. He could report the good news to the Board and get his equipment ordered, and have enough time to possibly find out what was happening on Twelve fifty-three. He should at least have an update from the astronomers waiting for him.

  He got up reluctantly and stepped outside. It was hot and steamy. In an hour it would be darkening a bit, and the mosquitoes would be coming. "Maybe the winter will be nice." One good thing about the Earth's policies toward parallel worlds was the lack of environmental controls on wetlands. He pulled out his notepad and added, Civil Engineers to drain swamp.

  He had a gate scheduled for Wednesday. He had the aerial survey under way, Farr was busy making a gravity map. The launcher was ready to return. He'd tell the Board of Directors that they had a record breaking gold find on their hands, then pop into Twelve fifty-three to check on George and the Astronomers. Perhaps it was time to yank it all. Or if the astronomers wanted to stay, arrange six month interval gate times and supplies.

  Lon threw himself into finishing reports on everything before he left, surfacing only briefly to catch the two doctors' updated genetic analysis of the Twelve fifty-three natives.

  "The whole population is genetically engineered. Even the commoners in the market that Rae touched with a sticky pad." Dee Odessa beamed at her computer. "Taking Dydit Twicecutt as having close to one hundred percent of the engineering, Lefty has eighty percent. Never has ninety nine point eight, she has one normal X chromosome and one with a unique allele of the gene the others have there, plus something else. Rustle is her daughter—and Dydit's—and she has one hundred percent, Never's allele on one X and Dydit's on the other. Dydit's other child had sixty three percent. Question has a hundred percent, with copies of the men's gene on both her Xes.

  "But. Listen up! The rest of the population averaged twenty-six percent. I found one person with only five percent, not one single person with no engineering. This world was colonized by people with genetic engineering, and there was no indigenous population, or at least none that survived. The non-engineered gene frequencies point to a North Merican Origin."

  Dee nodded. "Unless the government is completely wrong about the One, these aren't them. Everyone is quite sure they had a nuclear war in their past because of the radiation damage in the inactive DNA segments in every One sample we have."

  Lon bit his lip. "I see. They don't match for geographic profiles, and they don't have the history of radiation damage that the Oners have. I'll try to talk sense into anyone I can find, and maybe we can study these guys instead of attack them." He wrote it all up, addressed it to anyone he could think of—Howie was probably so busy campaigning he wouldn't have time to read it, but one could hope. He was the highest government official he knew. It got added to the pile of reports and tons of rock samples he drove back to Nowhereistan.

  He caught up on gossip. The Army was still moving large numbers of troops through the gate. Everyone was talking about war with the One World. Lon shuddered at the thought and decided it might be time to pull his last people out.

  He checked with the Army about gates—daily—and attached himself to an army convoy, arriving about local midnight. He parked at his box and tried to catch up on his sleep. An invasion. A bloody damned war!

  The next morning, three men in army uniforms were chatting with George over breakfast.

  The sergeant introduced himself. "Damien Malder. I wanted to take a look at anything your natives abandoned."

  Lon nodded, recognizing the man from his debriefing who'd explained what a rundown team was. "Well, they always slept out on the hills, so we have very little to show you. They did, in the course of fleeing, abandon their wagon and horses. I don't think anyone's looked at them since."

  "I saw the wagon, but we didn't stop. They left their horses as well?"

  One of the privates snickered. "Oh, oh. Someone's triggered Damien's secret addiction. Rev up the gyps, we're going to go find some horses."

  The sergeant pinned him with a beady eye. "We are going to examine the contents of the wagon. I may find it necessary to examine their motive power as well, but there's absolutely nothing personal about it."

  Lon chuckled and gave directions, apologizing for the lack of precision. "No satellite coordinate system, yet."

  "There won't be one either." The sergeant shrugged. "The LT said I should tell you lot to expect the rest of the platoon. The Oners are definitely here."

  Lon shuddered. "Damn. The genetic data was so convincing."

  "And that may be the way it is. The Oners sound like outsiders, exploring this world. They've got satellites up, and we're hacking them. The Oners are working with the Auralian Empire. Your socio team says they're all of South Merica and most of Old Mexicao. They're apparently the largest and most populous nation. The Oners will support them in taking over the other countries—if we let them."

  "Well, so much for any chance for a peaceful resolution."

  The sergeant nodded. "Not likely. Pity they won't let us infiltrate first, though. But they want to hit them before they complete the take over, not after."

  Time to stop wistful thinking and apply himself to Twelve-seventeen. There wasn't anything he could do about Twelve fifty-three. Except think, and maybe he could spot some chink, some gleam of a path to safety for the natives. He spoke briefly to the Colonel about the genetics results and the probability of comet impacts, but doubted he'd made an impression.

  He put in for the earliest gate time to Twelve-seventeen he could manage, two weeks, and headed for Dallas and the full partners meeting.

  He talked himself hoarse to various stockholders, the directors of three companies, and his own bosses. In between meetings he ordered more boxes, double checked what equipment they'd moved and what needed to be ordered for a couple of secondary sites. Worried about what was happening on Fifty-three. Worried.

  And listened to all the rumors about a war with the One World.

  ***

  He didn't see Carol the whole time. She was with Howie, frantically traveling from city to city, bucking up the faithful and talking to the undecided. He managed to get in a call to her, before the Twelve-seventeen gate time. "Have fun politicking, I'm going to be enlarging my cadre on the next prospect, so I might get back in three weeks or so. Maybe."

  "Oh, I'm sorry your first one didn't work out well. Howie's ahead in the polls, just one more week to survive and he's set for the next six."

  "I expect he'll be running for President in six. You should think about running for his seat on the United Earth Council."

  He heard her inhale, then sigh. "There are several things I've considered. I should have talked to you about them last year while you were at home most of the time."

  He hesitated. Chickened out, again. "I'll support you in anything you want to do."

  "You always have, and failed just once. Sorry. That was snippy of me."

  "There's still advanced methods, you know. We can afford them now."

  Her sigh was loud. "We need to talk. Find a way to find a couple of hours at home. Or we could meet in, oh, Baghdad, so I don't have to put up with all that security nonsense in Nowhereistan again."

  "Okay. If I have any time at all on this side, I'll call you." Lon looked apprehensively at the comm as he clicked off. Good news doesn't need face-to-face.

  But at least he should be able to do some solid work, here. No complications needed, thankyouverymuch.

  He shepherded his new people and equipment through, set up temporary camps as Ray extended the rough roads and Nelson ran around in some sort of hyper drive, collecting surface samples and coring where those and or the aerial mapping turned up something of interest. Nickel deposits were found in two of three craters checked so far. Aerial mapping had delineated another zone of faults with hydrothermal activity, the corer would go there . . . if
they could find or create a route.

  Two weeks later he was back in Nowhereistan. He delivered another truck full of geologic samples and requests for more personnel. Kia Farr came back with him to collect her gravity data from Fifty-three. The tense atmosphere around the gate snapped him alert, and he watched the uptight timekeepers pacing, spotted the heavy military presence. The skeleton staff at the warehouse filled him in. Rumors were flying about murdered Special Agents, retaliation, putting the natives in their place. An entire division of troops had crossed to some world code named Comet Fall.

  Comet Fall. No question about which world that was, was there?

  Bec gave him a worried look. "I heard the Command Staff has been to the Hague to get orders directly from the President. They got back this morning. That is our prospect, isn't it?"

  "Don't even hint about that Bec. Bad for the stock prices." He checked the gate schedule.

  Comet Fall was scheduled for a military gate in four hours. Over there they'd have more than rumors.

  All he had to do was not report in person on a project that was making every Dallas stockholder filthy rich.

  He grabbed an office at the Dallas warehouse and recorded a report to the Board, sent it to Gerald McCamey. Sent all the equipment and personnel request forms, ordered a few small items that were within his authority, then scrambled for the gate.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  30 September 3477

  Comet Fall/Dallas Twelve fifty-three

  The military people were apparently resigned to the Dallas piggybacking and he rode through with a pair of curious officers, who quizzed him about Lefty and Dydit as the driver waited through the last minutes then followed the convoy through.

  "The problem was treating them like escaping prisoners. They weren't. They simply went home and reported."

  "Which we couldn't allow."

  "If they were Oners, they no doubt had already reported electronically. If they weren't, we turned a moderately friendly first contact into an attack."

  "What else could they be, with the genetic engineering?"

  "The descendants of the early diaspora, which would have been about the time the Earth somehow got rid of millions of engineered people. Look at the timing. Thirteen hundred years ago they got rid of several million genetically engineered people in a horrible genocide—except they never found any physical evidence of the deaths, no eye witnesses. These natives are a genetic match for North America of the time. They do not have the heavy Arabic influence, nor the radiation damage that all our definite One samples have had. I suspect the genetically engineered people were dumped on several worlds, and that the One world had a native population, where this one didn't." He gritted his teeth through the gate transit. The Camp had grown enormously in a few weeks. This was looking like the preparation for a full up invasion. Why? Is the One so important? Do they know about Hygiea? Does the Army?

  Lon eyed the lines of armored gyps. "Umm, are you aware of the Company astronomers' findings?"

  "Which ones?"

  "Thirteen thousand years ago something collided with Hygiea, the fourth largest asteroid, breaking it into chunks that have been hitting this world ever since. They've spotted eighteen chunks still up there, with one likely hit in just over seven years, large enough to cause regional damage. And eight years later a possible large strike. Dinosaur killer size or larger."

  "Likely is different than 'will' so why does it matter to us?"

  "Because either the Oners are here temporarily, or they don't realize what's happening."

  The driver smiled nastily. "Wouldn't that just be a pity if they got squashed? However we can't leave it to chance."

  "A population of half a billion only sounds small in comparison to other planetary populations. Are you actually going to attack them? There's no point in conquering this world now. Might as well wait seven years and see if the Oners abandon the world."

  "For better or worse, we have orders to crop the Oners back sharply. That means we need to move quickly and snatch the capital of this 'Kingdom of the West' before the Oners move on it. We know from their transmissions that they are already cozy with one of the other countries."

  Lon felt faint. "You're going to attack a city?"

  "We're pushing through quickly to secure the sole northern pass through the Rockies equivalent. The rest of the division will be on our tail, just in case we have trouble keeping the pass open all winter."

  "Have you tried diplomacy? Spying?"

  They ignored him and pulled up beside Colonel Elton.

  Elton didn't ignore him. "From your Company I have already requisitioned your geologist, the sociologists and the linguists. That lady physicist is coming along to take measurements. If you wish to observe, you'd better go pack. We're leaving in an hour." The Colonel dismissed him from his attention, turning to the two officers.

  Lon headed for the company mess box. He gave orders while he loaded a pack with food.

  George, left in charge of no one but himself and the astronomers was still sputtering as Lon hefted his backpack and walked out to the line of gyps, trucks and tankers.

  He was directed to one of the trucks, and found the other company people.

  Johnny nodded glumly. "I win. I thought they'd bring you along so the camp was defenseless."

  "I'm a middle-aged field bureaucrat. Hardly the great defender."

  Julianne Prescott snorted. "Yeah, right. We've all seen your credentials. And Roxy told some tall tales. What I want to know is, do they really think they can drive across the Ice Cap? Didn't they read our report?"

  Scott snorted. "They probably decided we were complete fruitcakes."

  "Apparently there is a canyon full of hot springs all the way across." Johnny said. "A rift, probably started after the crust fractured when the comet hit. They wouldn't let me near it."

  "Across the ice cap?" Farr looked skeptical.

  "Probably the other way around. The comet hits, the crust cracks, the shockwave through the whole planet must have caused compressive heating all through the mantle, changed the mantle circulation pattern, sped it up maybe. Anyway, I'll bet there's a line of rising mantle material right under that canyon, the heat causes uplift, swelling, so it's all high, and any ice forming there is going to flow away. Condensing snow from the humidity of those hot springs, starts building up, and with all the dust thrown up by the strike, you can bet it got cold. Probably started their current ice age."

  "This is an ice age?" Scott Meyers sounded surprised.

  "Glaciers down to 45 south? Yeah, this is an ice age. You'll notice if you stay through the winter."

  "Are you saying this isn't winter?" The truck jolted into motion, and they shifted their gear and the truck's other contents to get as comfortable as possible on the fold down benches along either side of the truck body.

  Lon shook his head. "Late fall. Don't look so worried, Julianne. If we're going all the way across the ice cap, we won't be attacking the city you guys explored. It must be down a side canyon, just five days away."

  Julianne rested her forehead on her fists. "Lon, I hate using the term magic, but teleportation isn't much better, is it? These people are not normal, and this invasion is likely to be a disaster."

  Lon eyed her. "Teleportation?"

  "Yes. We keep telling people and they keep rolling their eyes. You'll see, soon enough." She settled huffily and closed her eyes.

  Lon turned to the more rational people.

  Kia Farr had a lot of electronic equipment along. She muttered at it getting shaken around. "I suppose there's no chance of getting them to stop every hundred kilometers for a gravity reading, is there?"

  "Not a hope. What are you doing here?"

  "When Julianne and Rae brought Dee the biological samples they'd collected in that native City, they told us all about what had been going on. I figured I'd better come tell the military about the weird gravity effects." The physicist shrugged. "I came back yesterday, to try and talk to the A
rmy's science team. If they really are doing something akin to teleportation, that might affect gravity, and be the explanation for the constant small scale fluctuations."

  Can we go back to orbiting neutronium? That's almost credible.

  It was nearly impossible to get the Army convoy to stop for anything, and the three women found even the brief potty breaks . . . lacking in privacy.

  The road at the start of the canyon was sporadic, with long stretches of untouched rock. But the side streams all had graceful arcs of bridges, occasional rubble had been melted for a good surface, landslides cleared . . . with teams of drivers trading off, they drove across the top of the world in twelve days.

  The canyon walls were higher on the far side, and they followed the road through its depths. The river—a new one, this one ran, err, south, was to their right, and the road curved between geysers and the pools and the streams running down to the river all steamed. They probably smelled of sulfur, but after nearly two weeks it wasn't registering any more.

  A day's drive to the south, the road ended at a bridge, a soaring creation that leaped the river and swooped up the west side.

  The Colonel sent scouts out, and gave his troops a break from the road.

  "I am going to wash everything I own, and my body too, there are more than enough ponds of hot water around here for the women to have their own." Julianne declared. The women had both complained about fifteen minute breaks every three hours as insufficient. A one hour break for a hot dinner, outrageous. The men all agreed, but let the women do the complaining.

  A laughing group of soldiers with the same idea were testing the waters.

  "Whoo, nice for a swim. Not hot enough to soak!"

  "Sounds great." Clothes were flying, not just there, but at ponds all around.

  "Arg!" Julianne ducked her head. "Bloody damn men no modes . . . "

  She broke off at the first scream, her head jerking around with all of them. They saw it briefly as it retreated into the water. It was large, scaly and had a soldier in its long jaws. There were more screams, then a few shots. Very few. Most of them had left their weapons in the gyps.