by Diane Duane
She made her way to the turnstile through what, as far as she could tell, was an impassioned argument about ski wax among a batch of fluorescently clad downhill enthusiasts. Out she went into the station parking lot, then full (in the swiftly falling dusk) of the cars of parents meeting kids now returning from the senior school in the next town over, Hospental. Once past the cars, Jonelle turned right at the bottom of the parking lot, past the tourist board building, and walked a little down the main street until the gap in the wall where she could cut through the town’s park to the center of Andermatt village proper.
With the snow beginning to fall again through a dusk going peach-colored from sunset light coming from a rift in clouds to the west, and the lights coming on warm in stores and houses, the town was an inviting place. There was very little architecture in Andermatt that was modern-looking. Most houses and buildings were wooden, either new wood, beautifully golden, or old wood, sometimes a couple of hundred years old, aged to a brown so dark it was almost black. And the architecture was generally a lot alike—broad, flat, shallowly sloping Alpine roofs, sometimes with stones on top to hold the tiles on (though once, on one of the local restaurants near a ski slope, Jonelle discovered that what she thought were stones were actually potatoes destined for rosti, and put up there in the snow to cool faster after boiling). Those buildings that were stuccoed rather than wooden were usually decorated with sgraffito, the swirling, abstract designs cut through white plaster into a deeper, gray plaster layer. The whole place was almost offensively rustic, quiet, and pretty, and (inevitably for Switzerland) clean.
Jonelle heartily wished she had some time to spend here that was not going to be taken up with concerns about traitors, equipment shortages, and other, deeper troubles. But since there was no chance of that, at least in the foreseeable future, she enjoyed the few minutes she had to spare, crunching through the foot-deep snow in the park. The quiet was pleasant, after the echoing clangor of the Hall of the Mountain King. There was little sound anywhere except the soft rush of the occasional car going by on the main road, the subdued jingle of snow chains, and the distance-muted shouts of children pelting one another with snow-balls over by the west side of the park, near the residential part of town.
She came out into the middle of town by the small alley that led past the town hall and made her way down to the “UN” office. Her PR assistant, an earnest young squaddie named Callie Specht, was tidying away the contents of her desk into a locked filing cabinet. She stood up hurriedly at the sight of Jonelle and said, “Oh, C—Ms. Barrett, I mean—”
“Hi, Callie,” Jonelle said, and shrugged out of her jacket. “Busy day?” Specht nodded. “Anything interesting?”
“No, ma’am. The usual complaints about the interference of government—their government and all the others—and about people from the army stomping around, doing God knows what—”
“They mean us?”
“No,” Callie said, “I think they really do mean their army. This town may depend on it for a lot of its income, but they’re still ambivalent about it. And a lot more about cows… “
Jonelle chuckled, “Inevitable. Listen: you go on ahead. Leave me the keys—I’ll lock up here.”
Her squaddie went on willingly enough. Jonelle locked herself in and lost herself, for half an hour or so, in the business of finishing cleaning the place up for the night while her head buzzed with figures and conjectures.
Now that the number-one hangar is ready—and I’ve got my Lightnings out of harm’s way—what next? The mind shield, or the hyperwave decoder? Which first? If they can have the containment area ready by the end of the week, I’d say the mind shield.
She went over it and over it. There were arguments for both pieces of equipment, but none of them seemed so overwhelming that it would leave her with a clear answer. Jonelle suspected that this was either because there really was not much difference between the two at the moment, or because she was dead tired and in no condition to make a choice on which lives might depend. Probably the latter.
She looked around her, could see nothing else that needed doing, and got busy securing the office. As she was locking the front door, a crowd of cheerful men in cold weather gear were heading up the street toward her, most of them familiar faces that she had seen in the office over the past week. One of them was Ueli Trager, the president of the town. The men were laughing and joking, and one of them was waving a wad of cash in another one’s face.
The president saw Jonelle standing there and paused while his crowd of cronies went on ahead. “Fräulein Barrett!” he said. “If you are done for the day, perhaps you will come and celebrate with us?”
“What’s the occasion?”
“My cow,” Trager said, “has gone into the national qualifiers.”
“Forgive me,” Jonelle said, somewhat bemused, “but I seem to have missed something. The national qualifiers for what?”
“The Stierkampf, the pugnieradienst,” the president said, “the cow fights which determine the herd leaders for the next year.”
“Well, congratulations! I’m sure—” Jonelle stopped, slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry—I’ve forgotten her name. And after you told me, the other day.”
“Fräulein,” Trager said, looking at her with a surprised expression, “it’s very kind of you even to be concerned about such a thing. At any rate, my Rosselana”—and he broke into a grin broader than Jonelle had ever seen on anyone there—“has, I think the English idiom would be ‘cleaned up.’ We are going down to the Krone to celebrate. Come on along!”
From these fairly reserved people, Jonelle felt sure that such an invitation was rare. Besides, it would be good PR. And it’s not like I couldn’t use something else to think ahout at the moment. “Well, thank you,” she said. “I think I will.”
She found, as she and Trager rejoined his friends and they made their way to the hotel, that reserve was not on any of their minds. They did not go to the Krone directly—they went right down to the main street, to where it curved and the other biggish hotel sat, the Stern und Post. From outside it, where some townspeople had been sitting and drinking, they collected about another ten men and women and then doubled back up to the Krone again, laughing and shouting all the way. Jonelle wondered how they were going to fit into the bar there—and indeed they didn’t. That bar was about twice the size of her office back in Irhil M’Goun, no more. But somehow, in the next ten or fifteen minutes, there were about ten or fifteen people packed into that little space, shoulder to shoulder, all very determinedly drinking schnapps and paying off a lot of bets.
Jonelle ordered a glass of the local white wine, and as she watched several particularly large cash transactions take place, she said to Ueli, only partly in jest, “Goodness, I didn’t know this kind of thing played such an important part in your local economy!”
Ueli grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her. “It is strictly seasonal.”
“But there seems to be a lot of interest. Some of these gentlemen have been collecting other people’s bets, it seems—”
“Well, lots of people in town either work with the herds routinely, or own cows themselves, or have friends who work with the herds or own cows…. A lot of competitive feeling builds up.”
“What amazes me,” Jonelle said, “is that the cows remember who wins these contests when they go out to pasture again in the spring. They do remember?”
“Oh, yes indeed. They’re not stupid. They have better memories than you might suspect—these cows in particular. They have been bred away from the original stock somewhat—what Americans call the ‘Brown Swiss.’ But they are the culmination of a long selective breeding program. Down here, where the population is so sparse and sometimes we cannot spare people to be with the cows all the time, especially at busy times like the spring and fall, the cows have to learn to take care of themselves. They have been bred to do so. And the pugnieras, the fighting cows, are bred to take care of the others, as well. It is a very sp
ecial blend of aggression and caution, in these cows. I don’t think there would be any question that they are smarter than usual. Not to mention more hardy, and more active—almost athletic, you might say.”
Something clicked in Jonelle’s mind, and she found herself thinking about the increase in cow stealings and mutilations down this way. I wonder… who besides humans might be interested in the genetic heritage of cows that are so different from the norm? One more thing to look into…. “So when does she compete again, your cow? Maybe I should put some money down.”
Ueli nodded at her, an approving look. “Well,” he said, “in all honesty, you must know what to bet on. Peter? Peter, lean over this way, this lady is looking to bet in the nationals….”
Much more drinking followed, and much more discussion of the best points of a fighting cow: big shoulders, a deep chest, short horns rather than long ones—though this particular characteristic was argued with great passion from several sides. An hour or so later, Jonelle knew more than she ever needed to on the subject. Around then, the conversation began to trail off and was replaced by singing. They sang like angels, these people. One of the biggest and brawniest-looking of the men, whom Jonelle had first thought was a farmer (only to find that he ran one of the ski lifts on the north side of town), was producing an astonishingly high, pure, sweet soprano, while the others followed him in tenor and bass harmony, about twenty strong, in some mournful piece of local folk music. It was deafening, and made Jonelle’s head pound somewhat…or was that the wine?
She made her excuses, thanked Ueli, and headed out into the night. There she shivered—the cold was beginning to get to her again. It was snowing again, through still air. She walked back to the train station, caught the slanty train down to Göschenen, and called the little rail car to take her back up to the Hall of the Mountain King. She had some phone calls to make.
By the end of the evening, the data-processing centers at four other X-COM bases were sick of the sound of her voice. She refused to leave them alone until they gave her figures on cattle heists and mutilations, which at the moment the other bases seemed to consider a lot less important than the human abductions presently going on. But Jonelle pressed. When she was finished, she had more data than she was quite sure what to do with, so she began attacking it in the simplest way: by having a spare map of the world printed out for her, so that she could begin sticking pins in it.
Late that night she heard the scream of engines from upstairs and went up to see a Skyranger arrive, along with the second group of maintenance crew and extra pilots. Enough of the living block was ready to put them up, and she showed them down there herself and got them settled, warning that service in the cafeteria was likely to be spotty until the rest of the venting was installed for the catering ranges. They took it cheerfully enough, which Jonelle could understand: pilots were notorious for having extra food cached in their quarters, just in case. “The really important question,” one of them called after her when she left them to get settled, “is where’s the Crud table?”
She laughed as she made her way back to her own quarters. The desk terminal, her link to the command-and-control center, showed no messages waiting. Jonelle looked at it, reached out to it, stopped herself, and then went ahead and touched the button to call Comms. “Anything from Irhil for me?” she said.
“No, Commander,” came the Comms officer’s voice. “Are you turning in now?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to call you if I hear anything?”
“Yes, please.”
Wearily, Jonelle locked up, undressed, and got into bed. Her mind was buzzing with cows and hyperwave decoders. Business…she could have been grateful for it, except that it didn’t do what it should have done. It didn’t shut out the one thought that wouldn’t go away. The still face on the pillow, the body stretched out sideways, not curled up properly, the concern that, in the proper conduct of her duty, she must put aside during the day—and with which she was now alone, in the dark.
When it went off, the alarm on the console sounded about a hundred times more jarring than she had expected it would—the acoustical brightness of this little bare-walled room with nothing on the walls. Her mind cried, Ari! She fumbled for the lamp, found it, stumbled out of bed toward the console, and slapped the comms button. “Yeah?”
“Trouble, Commander. M’Goun’s got a hot one coming our way.”
“What are they sending?”
“Nothing, Boss. They’re empty”
“What, again? Shit! Can’t anyone else—”
“No, Commander. That’s why they called.”
“Scramble the pilots and an assault team,” she said, heading for the closet to get dressed. “We’re going. What have they picked up?”
“Large Scout, ma’am.”
“Right. That means one of the Lightnings, and have the Skyranger loaded as backup. Get them moving.”
She pulled out a flight coverall, scrambled into it, pulled on her boots. Thank God the pilots are here, she thought. I sure couldn’t fly, not six hours after drinking. Jonelle went pounding out the door into the screech and hoot of the newly installed Klaxons. As she went by one installation, she noticed one hooter that wasn’t working. Make a note of that—
Up the stairs. The place was coming quickly alive. The bright lights were on in the number-one hangar, pilots and crews already hurrying out into the big space. Some of them looked at Jonelle in astonishment as she headed for the equipment rack and pulled off her flying armor. “Ma’am—” one of them said.
It was a captain, her only one, Matthews. She wheeled on him. “We’ve got nobody higher-ranked on hand than you right now, Matt. I will not send out a ground assault with no one higher-ranking to advise. That’s me. Get your team suited and get them loaded!”
People ran in all directions. “Command,” Jonelle shouted, “where are they?”
“Over Bellinzona now, Boss,” the voice came back. “Heading northeast.”
Chur, she thought. That was the first city of any size nearby. Thirty thousand people—the aliens would have a party there, if allowed to land. “I don’t want them to get any farther north than our latitude,” she yelled to Comms and the public at large. “Let’s go!”
The Skyranger’s troop complement was loading; its HWP was getting ready to trundle into position, last in to be first out. Jonelle headed for the Lightning. As she did, the new hangar exit door slid open. Snow fell inside in a great lump and splatted wetly on the floor. “I’ve got to do something about that,” she muttered as she ducked through the Lightning’s door.
She made her way up to the ships cockpit, buttoned up, and started to lift. There was barely room for her to wedge herself into the observer’s seat behind the young pilot, Ron Moore.
“Ronnie,” she said, “all we’ve got on this one are Stingray missiles. Your job isn’t to get too close to that guy. Just hurt him, put him down as fast as you can. But under no circumstances are you to let him get any farther north than Andermatt.”
“You got it, ma’am.” Ron hit his comms control to put his chat with Central Command at Irhil M’Goun on “open air.” “Central, where’s our baby?”
“Transferring our targeting to you until you acquire,” said Central. The screens in the cockpit came alive as the Lightning shot out the opened door in the mountain, and Jonelle braced herself in place—no straps would fit around the flying suit.
“Thanks, Central, we’ll need it. Cloud’s bad. Ceiling eighteen and snow.”
Gray cloud boiled against the cockpit windows. “He’s still heading northeast,” Ron said. “Four thousand meters.”
“Wouldn’t go much lower than that if I were him,” Jonelle muttered. In this neighborhood, the higher moun-taintops could come up on you with deceptive speed.
“Neither would I, ma’am,” Ron said. “Still heading northeast. I think he wants to go to ground in the Lukmanier Pass.”
“Don’t let him in there,” Jonelle said.
“He’ll run right up to the main east-west valley and have a straight shot at Chur. Waste a shot or two if you have to, but tum him, Ronnie.”
“Will do, Boss,” the pilot said.
He climbed, heading southeast to intercept. Conventional motion detection picked the alien up as they were swinging past the peak of Piz Paradis, one of the taller mountains southeast of Andermatt. “There he is,” said Ron, and the screen lit with the trace of the large Scout ahead of them.
“Force him up—don’t let him down into the valley!” “Stingray one,” said Ron, “targeting—”
At this range? Jonelle thought, but even with as big a miss as Ron was likely to make, the Scout might still turn at the shot across its bow. This part of the chase was going to be up to Ron, at any rate.
“Stingray one away—”
The Lightning gave the little idiosyncratic jump, which was typical when it launched a missile. Jonelle peered at the radar and motion detection screens, which were more than usually difficult to read, cluttered with ground artifact from the mountainous terrain below. The alien craft was shooting straight as an arrow for Chur: northeast, northeast—and then abruptly, it zagged almost due westward.
“He’s out of the valley, Boss. Heading toward Sedrun, right into the mountains now.”
“Good. Put him down as deep in as you can. I don’t want him near anybody”
They plunged through the air over the mountains, passing over the small town of Sumvitg, south of the main east-west valley. “Some nice glaciers down there, Boss,” Ron said, comparing the heads-up display’s map against the radar/motion detection screen. “Wouldn’t bother anybody if we knocked him down there, would it?”
“Only us,” Jonelle said, shivering, “on recovery. You really want to do a ground assault on a glacier?…But if it seems the best spot, never mind, just do it!”
