“Move,” the man snapped. “Go!”
The girls started to run. Dolly winced as she realised that she was barefooted and unable to do anything, but run, despite the growing pain in her feet as she ran over uneven ground and the rubble of alien installations. She almost slipped and threw up as she realised that she’d trodden on what remained of a dead body, then smiled darkly as she saw that it was one of the creepy little worker aliens. The little bastard’s head had been almost completely shattered by a human bullet.
Several of the girls were complaining, loudly. The soldiers slapped at their bottoms to force them to run faster, despite the pain. Dolly yelped as one of them slapped her and ran faster, gritting her teeth against the pain. The world seemed to narrow down to the building buildings and the mountains, illuminated by the flare hanging high overhead. She staggered, feeling the baby kick again, wondering suddenly if she was about to give birth. The thought almost brought her to a halt ...
... And then she concentrated on running as fast as she could.
***
“Everyone’s out who’s coming out,” Corporal Pollack reported. “Sergeant?”
Edward nodded, sharply. “Start pulling back now,” he ordered. Two alien warriors showed themselves and he fired at them, but they jumped back and managed to evade the shots. The other warriors, he suspected, would be working their way around, trying to surround the humans before they could escape. They had to leave before the trap slammed shut. “And then call Group Three. I want as much covering fire laid down as possible.”
The soldiers started to move back, firing shots behind them to discourage pursuit. Given enough time, Edward would have left booby traps behind to prevent the aliens from coming after them without taking casualties, but there was no time. Instead, a handful of mortar shells cracked down, one coming alarmingly close to their position. The aliens had to be taking cover against incoming fire.
He gritted his teeth as they moved back down the streets, keeping a close eye out for additional aliens. The burning buildings had to be forcing them to leave, unless they’d already pulled out and retreated towards the rear of the city. But then one of their own craft had landed right on top of them. Who knew what the aliens were thinking right now?
There was a crash as a line of alien warriors appeared to one side, trying to ambush the humans before they could escape. Edward levelled his rifle and fired back, forcing them to dive for cover; the humans ran before the aliens could collect themselves. They ran outside the complex, past the remains of the guardpost, and headed back towards the mountains. A handful of aliens gave chase, but the snipers picked them off before they could run the humans down. Edward smiled to himself as they ran up the hidden path, steering well away from the flames burning brightly on the mountainside. The aliens seemed to have tried to burn the snipers out of their nests. It hadn't worked very well.
He paused and looked back towards the alien complex, fighting an urge to let out a war whoop as he saw the devastation. A good two-thirds of the base was on fire, burning so savagely that Edward doubted that anything could be done to prevent the flames from destroying the buildings utterly. The remainder of the base might be salvaged, if the aliens managed to dump water on the flames before it was too late. Or started knocking down buildings to provide a makeshift firebreak. Half of the mountain seemed to be on fire; several alien craft had been shot down during the attack and they’d crashed amid the trees. One way or another, the aliens were going to have real problems rebuilding the base.
High overhead, he saw alien craft circling, clearly unsure of what to do. In their place, he would have harassed the retreating insurgents, but they had to be feeling wary after they’d lost so many craft to MANPADs. Instead, the aliens seemed inclined to watch and see if they could track the insurgents back to their lair. Edward smiled, darkly, as he turned away from the glowing flames and started to walk back to the RV point. Let them try.
***
Dolly had lost all sensation in her feet by the time someone barked an order to halt. She stopped – and staggered as the pain suddenly blasted through her mind, as if she’d blocked it out long enough to survive. Her feet were cut and bleeding, covered in mud and alien blood and other liquids she didn't want to even think about, raising the very real danger of infection. The aliens had assured the human race, if she recalled correctly, that there was no danger of an alien disease moving from their bodies and attacking humanity, but there was no way to be sure. Besides, even if she didn't catch an alien disease, there were plenty of other infections she could catch through running barefooted through the countryside.
Someone pushed a metal can into her hand and she sipped gratefully, her eyes going wide as she tasted canned coffee. It had been too long since she’d been able to drink any coffee, even though she’d preferred hot coffee to cold. Now, it tasted like manna from heaven.
“Dear God,” a voice said. The speaker sounded rather flabbergasted. “You’re all pregnant.”
“You knew that,” a rougher voice said. “Or weren't you paying attention at the briefing.”
Dolly looked around. The men who had rescued them looked rougher than the insurgents who had fought like mad bastards in Chicago, but that didn't mean that they were bad people. They were clearly military, like many of the leaders from the doomed city – and there was pity, not hatred, in their eyes. Several of the girls seemed almost more frightened of them than they were of the aliens, something Dolly found easy to understand. Several women in Chicago who had lain down with collaborators had been tarred and feathered by their outraged neighbours. And they’d been the lucky ones.
“Yes,” she said, slowly. “We're all pregnant.” She hesitated. “How long has it been since Chicago fell?”
The two men exchanged glances. “Two and a half months,” the older one said, finally. “They took you from Chicago?”
“I killed one of the alien leaders,” Dolly said. She’d never dared admit to that in the alien base, not when it might well have convinced the aliens to kill her. “And then they captured me ...”
“Dolly,” the man said. “Oh, the Sergeant is going to be pleased to see you.”
Dolly felt her legs buckle underneath her. Two and a half months since the fall of the city? Maybe it had been a little longer ... although she was sure that the city wouldn't have been able to hold out for long after her capture. The aliens had simply been pushing in too hard, hammering the resistance whenever they tried to make a stand. And in two and a half months she’d somehow brought a baby to the very edge of birth? What had they done to her?
“Don’t worry about it,” the man said, as he caught her. “We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
Dolly shook her head, despite the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. There was nowhere safe, not now. The aliens had done something to her and she doubted that they’d just let her go. Which of the lights in the sky were alien craft, peering down at her from high overhead? The thought tormented her for a long moment ... and then she slid down into darkness.
***
“I’m not an expert on pregnancy,” the corpsman explained, crossly, “but I honestly don’t understand what happened to any of them.”
Edward nodded, slowly. Marine medics had had to deliver children before, but they didn't have the equipment with them to handle complications. Or, for that matter, to discover just what was growing inside Dolly’s womb. Edward was no expert either, but he did know that babies didn't grow that fast, no matter what the mother did. Dolly should, logically, have been pregnant before the aliens closed their ring of steel around Chicago, in which case she would have been smuggled out of the city along with the other pregnant women.
And she wasn't even the most extreme case. One girl had been there for barely two weeks; she’d been taken from Mannington, back when the town had been emptied and then destroyed. And she looked to be at least five months pregnant. Edward couldn't help wondering just what growing so rapidly would do to the children, if they w
ere normal human children. He'd once read a book where a girl had grown up while sleeping in suspended animation and she hadn't been prepared for the hormones of her adult body. She’d been a child in the body of a grown woman.
“We move them to the clinics,” he said. Setting up emergency medical clinics had been difficult – they hadn't wanted to risk exposing more of their infrastructure than they could avoid exposing – but there was no choice. There was some proper equipment there and they could round up a few midwives if necessary. “And we can examine them properly there.”
The corpsman caught his arm. “Sergeant,” he said, slowly, “these kids aren’t human.”
Edward nodded, impatiently.
“It might be in our best interests,” the corpsman said, “not to let them be born.”
“Oh,” Edward said, darkly. “Are you suggesting that we abort them? In their current state of development?”
“We have no idea of what is going to come out of their wombs,” the corpsman said. “It’s like that Star Trek episode where the counsellor got knocked up by an incorporeal entity and had a baby ...”
“I would have thought that V was the better example,” Edward said, although he had to admit that the series had never lived up to its promise. “But these are kids. We are not going to kill them.”
The corpsman leaned forward. “Even if they’re monsters?”
Edward had no answer.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Safe House, Texas, USA
Day 239
“Those babies are definitely not human,” Jane said.
Alex nodded, wishing he knew more about medicine. He’d taken basic First Aid because it might be useful, but he had never wanted to go into a medical career. Although, looking at the images, he wasn't sure if a vet wouldn't be more useful than a standard doctor.
“The head is oversized, for a start,” Jane continued. “There may be something odd about the brain too, but this equipment isn't good for a look inside without actually cutting the poor woman open and pulling the child out. The rest of the child’s body seems to be more normal, apart from some of the bones; I’d actually say that this child had more bones than the average human being. There are other oddities around the eye and facial structure as well.”
She shook her head. “Overall, I think we’re looking at a genetically-modified human rather than a human-alien hybrid, but we won’t know for sure until we have a chance to test the baby’s DNA properly. That won’t be possible until after the mother gives birth.
“I don’t know how they accelerated the child’s growth so rapidly either,” she continued, softly. “There were theoretical studies on speeding up pregnancy, but none of them ever came to anything; quite apart from the ethical dimensions of experimenting on human children, the most promising theory suggested that the children would continue to age rapidly after they were born. They’d have a lifespan of ten years, at best.”
Alex shuddered “Like that little girl alien from Star Trek?”
“Just like her,” Jane agreed. She snorted, rudely. “Although the producers obviously didn't think through the implications very well. If her race can only have one child at one time in their lives, they’re going to die out sooner rather than later. A population of ten would become a population of five, then two, then one ... and that would be the end.
“In this case, there’s no way to tell if whatever accelerated the baby’s growth will continue to function after their birth,” she admitted. “From the files we obtained on alien society, even the worker caste live for at least seventy years on average. There’s no reason to believe that they would create a set of engineered humans who lived much shorter lives.”
“Unless they intend to have a constant replacement,” Alex muttered. “How long will it be until the kids mature?”
“I believe that there is another question,” Colonel Juanita Seguin said. The woman didn't look very professional, certainly not a senior officer in the Texas National Guard, but there was no mistaking the snap of authority in her voice. Besides, looking professional these days was asking for attention from the Order Police. “Are these children actually dangerous?”
Jane’s lips thinned noticeably. “It’s hard to imagine that they pose any actual threat,” she said, sharply. “They’re babies in the womb!”
“Who will pop out in a few days, at best,” Juanita said, sharply. “At that point ... what will they be capable of doing?”
“They’re kids,” Jane said. “A human baby is perhaps the most helpless creature in all of creation. Without an adult, or even an older kid, to take care of them, they die – quickly.”
“But that wasn't true of the kids from Village of the Damned,” Alex said, softly. “They had mind control powers that made people do ...stuff.”
“That was a movie,” Jane snapped, giving him a look that promised trouble later. “There is absolutely no reason to assume that these kids are dangerous.”
Juanita held up a hand. “Really? What if they carry a disease that is immediately fatal to the rest of the human race?”
“The aliens could have produced a disease and distributed it on our planet a long time before they introduced themselves to us,” Jane snapped. “I don’t think, Colonel, that you appreciate what the aliens have done here, or what they have created.”
She pointed a finger towards the x-ray. “At the very least, they have created an new strain of humanity, something far ... stranger than a mixed-blood child,” she snapped. “And they have done it again and again; we pulled thirty girls out of that base and they all have the same kind of child growing in their womb. The level of expertise in genetic modification that shows is far beyond anything we have managed to produce. Dear God, if we had those capabilities, we could eradicate most of the world’s diseases once and for all.
“Or they might have successfully mixed DNA from two very different biological systems together,” she continued. “Do you understand that it is impossible for us to breed naturally with chimpanzees, our closest living relatives in the natural world? And those are tiny differences compared to the vast gulf that separates us from the aliens. If the aliens have somehow managed to bridge that gap, they’d done something that we always considered flatly impossible.
“If extermination was their goal, Colonel,” she hissed, “they could have produced something extremely lethal and sprayed it all over the Earth by now. It would have been easy to produce a disease that took a year to take effect, while becoming contagious almost at once. And then the entire human race would just have ... dropped dead. That would have been the end and they wouldn't have needed to risk a single life to do it.”
She shook her head, firmly. “I don’t believe that these kids are dangerous, at least not at birth,” she concluded. “I just think that we should try to learn from them instead of condemning them out of hand.”
“I have a question,” Alex said, before Juanita could say a word in response. “If these babies have oversized heads, can the mothers give birth naturally?”
“I’m not sure,” Jane admitted. “Sometimes children come out feet first and that tends to cause complications; in theory, at least, there should be no reason why the womb can’t stretch wide enough to allow the child to be born. However, I think we will need medical teams on standby to intervene, just in case.”
“Organising that might be difficult,” Juanita pointed out. “The aliens will certainly be hunting for the lost girls, once they get over the shock at having their base so thoroughly devastated.”
Alex nodded, knowing that the raid had achieved two of its objectives; the girls had been recovered and the alien doctors had been killed, allowing the alien rebels to fudge the question of what had happened to Theta. The alien doctor was currently hidden in yet another bunker and, assuming that the Rogue Leaders believed that he’d been among the dead, they were unlikely to start looking for him. But there was no way to know what else might have leaked out of Area 52’s unwitting spy before the alien
s attacked.
“There’s also the issue of the girls themselves,” Juanita added. “Do they want to keep the children?”
Jane winced. “Some of them were demanding abortions,” she admitted. “The doctors on site had to tell her that they had gone too far to abort the kids safely. Now the drugs have worn off ...”
Alex had wondered how the girls had adapted so calmly to being alien brood mares. It was clear, now, that the aliens had drugged them with something that kept them calm, easily suggestible and obscured their sense of time passing. Quite a few of the girls had acted more like witless animals when they’d been rescued, unable to believe that the world had changed so radically within a few short seconds. And then, when the drugs had finally started to wear off, the full horror of their situation had dawned on them.
“It isn't as if they had a one-night stand and got pregnant,” he said, slowly. “They were raped, to all intents and purposes, and they’re now carrying their attacker’s baby ...”
Jane slapped the table. “This is not the time for a debate on abortion,” she said, firmly. “Right now, the babies – whatever they may be – are too far along to abort without causing major health complications. Even if they weren’t ... we should balance the rights of the mothers with the understanding that we could learn a great deal from these children ...”
“Or maybe we should just kill them the moment they emerge,” Juanita said, softly. She held up a hand as Jane rounded on her. “Look, I understand the plight of those poor girls – and I understand why you might want to study the children, just to see what the aliens actually did to create them. But the fact that I can't wrap my head around the concept of a threat posed by little children doesn't mean that there isn’t a threat. We should take every possible precaution. Assume we’re dealing with a biohazard and work from there.”
Outside Context Problem: Book 03 - The Slightest Hope of Victory Page 32
