Darrell Bain Read online

  "Lau!” He practically shouted the word as his expression suddenly became animated with an epiphany I didn't understand.

  "Sir?"

  "Lau,” he repeated. He shook his head, as if in disgust. “That was the name the Crispy in China who became a male took. He turned out to be a fanatic in some sort of philosophy he got hold of and ... never mind. Are you certain of your research?"

  I was honest. “No, sir, I'm not absolutely certain, but I've been going over and over it and can't find any flaws. I've been trying to contact Jeri Leverson for weeks so I could get her to look at it. I had intended to make an appointment with you if Jeri didn't return soon, though. I think it's important."

  "You'll play hell seeing her now,” he said with an ironic laugh. “Her and some others’ absences have been disguised by security as troubleshooting on the FTL ship but it was actually their final prep for the voyage. The Zeng Wu left the solar system yesterday and probably won't be back for six months at least and possibly two years. That's how long we've given them to find the Cresperian system, or come back if they haven't. They'll have to find some compatible foodstuff to stay gone two years, though.” He thought for a moment. “Damn. Carol, is there another geneticist in The Group who can confirm Mai's work?"

  Carol had been sitting in on the conference at my request although she might have been there anyway. I wasn't familiar with how she and the general worked together.

  "Not of her caliber, sir, and I don't say that just because we've worked together before. Mai is in a class all by herself."

  General Shelton's face firmed. “All right, but we still need to get to the bottom of this. Carol, see if you can find Ishmael and have him report here immediately. We'll see what he has to say about his misbehavior and Mai's theory at the same time. And...” he debated something internally then made up his mind. “Let's record the conversation just in case he tries to wipe our memories. Can you do that without him knowing, Carol?"

  "Yes, sir, as long as he's not aware of it."

  "Do it, then."

  But it was too late. Ishmael had already flown the coop during the night, using his ability to remove short-term memory to get past the guards and his perceptive ability to disable part of the security system and steal an automobile. It could have been set up to stymie even a Crispy's abilities but no one had thought one of them might want to leave. Besides, the security system had been designed to keep bad guys out, not good guys in. Until I upset the buggy, Ishmael had been considered a good guy.

  I waited in the general's office until we were sure he was gone, then I decided I had done all the damage I wanted to for one day. I asked if I could go. General Shelton nodded absentmindedly and I left him sitting there, undoubtedly running over different options in his mind before acting.

  Or so I thought. Later that day I was called back to his office. Carol smiled when she saw me.

  "Go on in, Mai. He's expecting you."

  "Thanks.” I tapped on the door to the office then pushed it open. I was surprised to see our other Crispy, Sira, in with him. She was the one who'd been in the hands of the Islamic Confederation, Libya specifically, and been snatched from their grasp and brought back here. Jeri told me she'd been reluctant to convert to human form after her experiences with the Muslims, but had changed her mind after talking to Jeri. Apparently she had adapted well.

  I'd met her a few times but our work didn't coincide that much so we weren't well acquainted. From what I knew of her she was smart but not nearly as open and outgoing as Jeri. In fact she seemed rather lost the few times I'd talked with her. That tied in with another part of my theories, too, that I hadn't mentioned to anyone yet. I had wanted to run it by Jeri first. Too late now.

  "Hello Sira. It's good to see you again.” I gave her my best smile.

  "Thank you, Mai. Jeri always spoke well of you whenever we talked."

  "That's always nice to hear.” I smiled again and then saw that General Shelton was impatient. I turned to look at him.

  "Sira said she'd be glad to go over your work with you if you'd like.” It was put that way as a suggestion but his tone told me it was more of a command. “We need to have it either proven or disproven as rapidly as possible. Do you think she could help?"

  "I believe she might, sir."

  Why not? It was the notion of them being able to tap into the quantum foam with their perceptive sense that was giving me trouble. I couldn't do it, and without one of them to verify some of my equations, I wasn't able to tell if I was right or way off base.

  "How long?"

  Hell, I didn't know. That depended entirely on Sira.

  "I don't know, General Shelton. I'll work as fast as possible consistent with avoiding errors and that's all anyone can do. Is there a reason for the great rush now that the barn door is already open, so to speak?"

  "Damn right there is!” His strong countenance appeared worried for the first time since I'd met him. “Look, we've sent a FTL ship out to look for the Cresperian home planet and now it turns out that we may have gotten it off under false assumptions. God only knows what harm another mad hatter like Lau could cause on their home planet. There are other factors involved that you haven't heard about or shouldn't have. India is building a ship too, and is close to launching it if our intelligence is correct. We haven't been able to find out whether their Crispy—or Crispies—have converted to male or female but they'll sooner or later run into the same situation as us if you're right. We have plans for working with other Crispies as quickly as we can locate them, if we can, or convince the U.K. to send their Crispy here. I want to be damn sure we know what we're doing next time, especially if Intel knows what it's talking about and there are others at large."

  "Well, certainly, sir, but—"

  He cut me off. “You need to have Sira verify your work, and even if she can't, you're going to have to turn it over to her and another genetics team in the near future anyway."

  "Why is that, sir?"

  "Isn't it obvious? Well, no, I guess it wouldn't be to you. See, the first ship is not only looking for Cresperia, the planet, they're on a voyage of exploration as well. Their itinerary is pretty well set for the first part of the trip but after that it's just a search in a very large area of space with not much chance of finding the Crispy planet, not so soon. We're working on the location from very little hard data because none of their navigators survived. But just on the chance, we need to try to catch the first ship before it leaves the last star system on its list and have your data passed on to them by a person who thoroughly understands it. It would be a disaster if a lot of Cresperians converted to male humans, then became nutty, like Ishmael or Lau. Of course Ish got off to a bad start but still..."

  "I see what you mean, sir. I worked closely with Jeri during the first part of my research. Sh—shucks. She's the one I wish I could talk with."

  "Well, you may get your wish if the second ship finds them before they go into the search pattern in the area where we think the Cresperian planet is. You're going to be on the ship that's going to be looking for the one Jeri is on. That is, if you volunteer.” He looked at me closely, trying to gauge my expression.

  It couldn't have been hard, not with that silly grin on my face. I was going!

  * * * *

  It wasn't all that simple, of course. The first thing I had to do was take a refresher course in small arms and small unit tactics at one of the isolated training facilities in northern Georgia, one where the SFR had sent the scientists and non-military people who left on the first ship. General Shelton wasn't allowing any civilians to venture into unknown environments unless they had the training to provide backup for the military contingents on each ship. Those who had no former military training had to take four weeks of quickie basic training followed by the two-week course at the same camp I was being sent to.

  For me and other ex-military it would just be one week for the small arms refresher course and one week for tactics. But before leaving, I had to work
with Sira on my theories to see if she could validate them. After returning, I'd have an estimated departure time only a couple of weeks afterward! The general was pushing hard to have the second ship ready by then.

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  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Two days before leaving for the refresher courses, I was sitting in my office with Sira, talking about what we'd done together. She didn't exactly confirm my theories of unforeseen trouble with the Y chromosome but she could find nothing to disprove them, either.

  As she put it, “I think Jeri is really the person you should be asking, but of course that's impossible. I can't find any flaws in your work, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. You see, I'm not the mathematician she is. That was her specialty and she is extremely intelligent as well. More so than me, I'm afraid. She may not have said anything to you, but the crew of our ship had a great deal of respect for her despite her youth. She was an exceptional person among Cresperians just as she is proving to be as a human. Even with our history of manipulating our genetic structure, we still have a great variety among our people, purposely so, in order to keep our society stable."

  "It would seem to me that so much variety would tend to destabilize it over the long term, or am I missing something?"

  "Remember, we don't have sexual forces at work as humans do and either we eliminated the territorial aspect of our species or it was never there to begin with. A variety among individuals is all that keeps us from complete stagnation and eventually dying out as a species."

  "Hmm. Yeah, I guess I can see that. What bothers me is why Jeri didn't pick up on the sexual aspect of the conversion in relation to the Y chromosome when she changed to become human."

  "Now that I can answer, I think,” she said confidently. “By the time she began to think about such matters she was already a human female with the female hormones dominant. She had made a successful conversion and really saw no reason to look into it then, nor even later after meeting Lau. She attributed his failings to the influence of his Chinese handlers. Her attitude of thinking all was well was probably reinforced by Ishmael since on the surface he appeared to have become a normal male despite having undergone torture. She thought perhaps he was a bit too promiscuous sexually but believed he would settle down when he met the right woman."

  Uh-huh. Jeri had told me more or less the same thing. She thought he was as normal a human as a Crispy could ever be, given that they kept their previous knowledge and perceptive powers.

  "How about that Lau Crispy General Shelton was talking about? Tell me more about him."

  "I don't know too much about him. Jeri was devastated by that mission, especially when she had to kill him. She never talked about it much."

  "I can vouch for that. She hardly ever mentioned the mission, secrecy aside."

  "On the other hand, I do know a little about the other survivor who landed with me. He decided early on to convert to a man after learning how females are treated in the IC."

  "Wait a minute. Other one? That's the first I've heard about another Crispy in the lifeboat with you."

  "Well ... no, I suppose I haven't mentioned it to anyone. We ... were rather at odds about our situation and...” Her voice trailed off as she saw me reach for the phone.

  "Mai, what's wrong? Did I—?"

  I waved a hand at her to wait while I got through to headquarters. “Carol? I have what may be a piece of news the big boys haven't heard of yet. Do you know whether or not the general knows that there was another Crispy in Libya with Sira?"

  I waited impatiently while she talked to General Shelton, then when she came back to the phone all she said was, “Get over here quick and bring Sira with you!"

  * * * *

  I guess by then I was getting a reputation for upsetting apple carts. Sure enough, not a single soul knew of the other Crispy. I could see the general holding back an angry outburst at Sira after we arrived, the last thing he wanted to do. She was already upset over failing to tell us something that might impinge on the safety of the whole Group—or the nation, even. I guess he knew she was feeling very contrite when he saw her expression because he contained his anger and spoke softly.

  "Sira, didn't you know or at least suspect the presence of another Crispy under the control of the IC would be of utmost concern to us, especially considering the lengths we went to in order to pull you out of that situation in Libya?"

  "I thought you knew. Otherwise, how did you know how to find me? Besides, events were very confusing at that time, going from a prisoner to a respected guest. And the rescue was kind of ... filled with action that happened so fast and furiously I had trouble keeping up with everything that was going on, much less worrying over my companion whom I hadn't seen for weeks. Also, the debriefing from your intelligence section while I was also concentrating on converting to human form wasn't conducive to coherent thought. Remember, my conversion went very fast compared to Ishmael and especially to Jeri. Afterwards no one from Intelligence followed up and I thought no more about it."

  It made sense, I guess, but that didn't help matters.

  "All right,” he said. “It's done and as much our fault as yours. Someone dropped the ball by not talking to you at more length, but I should have picked up on it, so I'll take the blame. However, let's see what we can find out now. Sira, would you mind talking to our intelligence staff again and describe the first part of your, uh, captivity?"

  She gave the general a wry smile. “It wasn't a captivity at first, General, as I told your people to begin with. After our lifeboat came down near a military post, soldiers surrounded us quickly and we went freely with them. There wasn't much else to do. And then it wasn't more than a few minutes afterward that our survival packets were taken and we were separated from each other. I thought at first it was simply for transportation purposes but I never saw Frstiminith again. After a while I quit asking. That was after I learned Arabic, of course. Then after staying there a few weeks I was moved in great secrecy but it wasn't secret enough, obviously, since you found me. Sooner or later I would have escaped on my own but I was waiting until I had more knowledge of human affairs and other societies. I didn't care for the Muslims."

  "We don't care too much for them these days either, Sira. I still don't see how Intelligence missed knowing you had a companion during the first part of your captivity, though.” He shook his head ruefully. I knew some analysts were probably going to be skinned alive before he was through with them. “Be that as it may, sometimes the littlest thing can yield a lot of information of a useful nature. So if you don't mind...?"

  "General, please wait a moment."

  "What is it, Mai?"

  "There's some more of my research that might be important which I haven't told you about yet. I need to talk to Sira some more about it, since Jeri is already gone. And I'm scheduled to leave for the refresher course in just two more days.” I guess my expression gave away the fact that I was on the verge of tipping another apple cart.

  "I can tell by looking at you that it's not going to be good news, either. Is it important enough to delay her talking to the intelligence branch?"

  Sira interrupted. “I can go without sleep for quite a while, General Shelton."

  "Okay. Go with Mai, then report to Intelligence tomorrow morning. They're still housed in the same place. Do you remember where?"

  "Of course."

  "Right. You don't forget much even as humans, do you? Okay, that'll work. Mai, you come see me before you leave and tell me what else you've found out, hear?” He looked as if he'd like to just forget I'd said anything if that were possible. I couldn't blame him. I had dumped a wagonload or two of apples in his lap already.

  "Yes, sir. I will."

  As we left, Carol had lost her usual smile, Sira was looking embarrassed, the general looked dour and I wasn't all that happy with matters myself.

  * * * *

  Sira and I stopped for a hurried lunch then headed for my office again. Once there, I go
t some fresh coffee going. We settled into the comfortable chairs and I began discussing the other matter I'd discovered. Or thought I had.

  "Sira, I don't think you ought to talk about what I'm going to tell you to anyone else without permission. It's not really a life and death matter but it can have very important repercussions in the future if we do find your planet again."

  "That's if the big ships work as well as the model. We won't know until one of them comes back."

  "Well, yes. And if we find some more of your comrades here on Earth it could be very important.” I glanced over at the pot and saw it was ready. “Coffee?"

  "Please."

  I poured for both of us and we settled back in our chairs. I gazed at her there, a small pretty young woman with strawberry blonde hair and a hint of dimples. She didn't look a day over 18 in her slim-fit slacks and simple pullover with her hair gathered loosely behind her neck with a wide ribbon. It was hard to picture her as a being from another planet and who was 200 years old, but that's exactly what she was.

  I had to begin somewhere so I just put it to her bluntly. “Sira, are you happy here?"

  She smiled wryly. “You've noticed, have you?"

  "Well ... maybe it's just the contrast with Jeri. She's such a bright, sweet character and so much in love with Kyle and yet so smart she scares me sometimes. Much smarter than him but it doesn't seem to matter. She's outgoing, too, what we call an extrovert. On the other hand, you're so quiet one would hardly know you're around sometimes. And you don't talk much."

  "That's true. And you're right. I can't say I'm really unhappy but ... well, take sex. Sure, it's wonderful, something we never imagined as Crispies. But it's so complicated!"