by Diane Duane
The team met in Jonelle’s office in Andermatt that evening, with no obvious conclusions to show for its day’s work, though there were indications that the kidnapping and mutilation problem was much worse than Jonelle had thought. One of her people, Matt Jameson, a statistician, had spread one of the Swiss topographic maps out on the wall and was sticking pins into it.
“The red pins,” he said, “are mutilations. The yellow ones are cownappings. The orange ones are a combination of the two in the same incident. Here are the most local ones.” Matt pointed. “We have mutilations up by Göschenen, at Abfutt, Schwandi, Hochegg, the Gander-enalp, and Gurst. These aren’t sorted by time, by the way. I’ll be adding that later—probably flags on these pins. Up here, north of Göschenen, we had a cownapping in Riedboden, another one in Band. Then farther up the valley, in Standental, one in Standen, one in Hochberg, one at Hoerli, another one farther up by the rail tunnel at Heggbricken, and the farthest one north, by Gurtnellen.” Matt paused, checking the map against the sheaf of papers he was holding and paging through. “On the west side, around the Oberalp Pass, we had a mutilation at Carnihutt, a mutilation at Pardatsch di Vaccas—” He smiled grimly. “Apparently the name means ‘the place where the cows hang out’ in Romansh. Another one at Missas Grond, and a fourth at Uaul.” He turned a page of his notes over. “Apparently there are none too close to Disentis, the big town in the middle of the western side of the east-west valley—our mutilators seem pretty chary of being seen. All the mutilations have been in quite isolated areas, with peaks around them high enough to prevent anyone seeing them from any kind of distance.”
Jonelle nodded, and Matt turned back to the map. “Now, the cownappings have by and large been in areas a little less remote. One near the village of Medel, here—another at Caspausa, just on the other side of the Oberalp Pass. Another one just outside of Göschenen, which is surprising, and yet another at Vausa, which is nearly as large as Göschenen.
“No one involved in such an operation would want to be noticed if they could avoid it,” Jonelle said. “Any increase in local awareness means the supply of cows will decrease.”
“Now here,” said Matt, “are the rest of the combination kidnappings and mutilations. Some cows were lifted; others were lifted, dissected, and dumped. Like Ueli’s case, the other night, from the Urserenwald Alp. That one too was surprisingly close to a large conurbation. Then another one over by Vieler, between Gurtnellen and Göschenen. Over on the other side of the Furka Pass, one at Unterwasser, and another outside a town called Münster, at a place called Schlapf. And, interestingly, one down here in Valle Leventina, at a place called Quinto. A much better populated area—nearly two thousand people living around there. But again, the valley is narrow there, and the peaks so close together that there are at least a couple of places where someone could quite easily take cows and not be seen from the town, even though it’s only half a mile away as the crow flies.”
“All right,” Jonelle said. “Matt, that’s quite a lot, for one day’s work.”
“There are incidents we heard about secondhand but haven’t yet had time to verify with the people who actually own the cows or the land involved,” Matt said. “What you see here is only firsthand info. We’ll doubtless pick up another ten or fifteen incidents tomorrow, if the stories we heard today are true. One blip, by the way: we have a place that was hit twice. Munster.”
“Twice,” Ueli said, shaking his head. “That is news. I hadn’t heard about it.”
“All right.” Jonelle turned to Ueli. “But I just want to be clear about this. If Matts data is correct, these mutilations and cownappings have been going on as close to you as Oberwald and Münster, just the other side of the Furka Pass, not ten miles away—and you didn’t know anything about it?”
“Well,” Ueli said, and shrugged and spread his hands. “That’s the Goms Valley over there, that’s another canton: it’s Valais over there. We’re in Uri. We don’t exchange official information—that’s private. And we don’t socialize much with the Gomsers. They’re a long way away…it’s hard to get there in the winter, the pass is closed, you have to put your car on the train and take it through the tunnel…. Then in summer, we’re busy. The tourists, and the cows…. And local news, you see, it mostly stays local…you don’t want other people, strangers, prying into your business.”
Jonelle raised her eyebrows, remembering the word waelisch, “foreigner,” used, to her initial amusement, for someone twenty miles away. But in the old days, when the local mindsets were first formed, twenty miles over the pass might as well have been two countries over. It was difficult to reach, the other side didn’t really have anything you wanted, anyway—why go? Why talk to those people? Why think about them?
“I heard a story,” Jonelle said. “Tell me if it’s true—that some people in a village up in these mountains built a gallows to execute criminals on, and when a neighboring village asked to borrow it to hang a thief of theirs, the people in the other village said, ‘No—these gallows are for us and our children.’”
Ueli nodded, wearing a slightly rueful look. Jonelle smiled at him and said gently, “You’re really going to have to change your habits and start talking to each other, even if the people over the other side of the mountain are just from Valais, or Vaud.”
She rubbed her head and looked at the map. “We’ll have another run at this tomorrow. I’ve got some other things to take care of.” Matt looked down, decorously, busying himself with his papers; the others looked in other directions, their expressions studiedly blank. “But Ueli, do me a favor. When my people go back to do more investigations tomorrow, I’m going to have them ask not just about cows that have gone missing, but strange occurrences. If people have seen odd lights, strange things they can’t account for in the mountains around here, I’d like to know about it. I’d like you to talk to the locals here tonight too, if you would, and just take sort of a straw poll for me. Have people seen odd things, heard weird noises? I mean, if all these mutilations and cownappings have been the work of UFOs, of aliens, well, you know how people can be about such things. Often they don’t want to talk about them. Well, maybe you don’t know how they are about such things,” Jonelle amended hastily, “and come to think of it, neither do I, but…see if you can draw people out a little bit. You’ll probably have a little more luck than we waelisch.” She put a slight twist on the word.
Ueli gave her a look that was ironic, but slightly impressed. “Well,” he said. “I have to warn you, you may get more than you bargained for. This is not one of the most normal parts of the world.”
Jonelle gave him back his ironic expression, with interest. “No,” Ueli said, earnestly, “you really don’t know what I mean. This part of the Alps, there are a lot of strange stories…people have been seeing odd lights and strange creatures in these mountains since they settled here, almost two millennia ago. You’re going to have to be careful how you ask your questions. Otherwise, people are going to start thinking you want to hear folktales, local monster stories, about things like the dwarves or the buttatsch—”
“Buttatsch?”
“It’s a cow belly with eyes,” Ueli said, straight-faced. “A flayed cow skin, with the udders flapping. It glows in the dark. The thing comes rolling downhill at you when you’re on some lonely mountain track, moaning and howling and speaking in tongues—”
“Check, please,” said Matt, standing up hurriedly. “If we leave now, we can be at the train station before nightfall.”
Jonelle laughed. “This is not something I want to meet. But—heavens, Ueli, it sounds like some kind of—alien—”
“Don’t ask me,” Ueli said. “I’ve never seen one, and I’m not sure I believe in it. But if you do see what looks like a glow-in-the-dark cowhide coming at you, I would take myself elsewhere. Consider it a public safety announcement from the local government.”
“Believe me,” Jonelle said, “if I see anything like that, I’ll call for backup right away.”
They broke up for that evening. As Jonelle strolled back to the train station with her people, one of them said, “Cow bellies!”
“I don’t know,” Jonelle said softly. They were on the sidewalk that ran through the middle of the park, and well away from listening ears. “Could it be that the aliens have been hanging around here for some time?…But let’s find out some more about these strange creatures Ueli’s been talking about—it might do us some good. Think about how long people reported skinny little, big-headed aliens being involved in their own abductions, and then we found out they had been dealing with Sectoids.” “All right, Boss…we’ll look into it.”
“The rest of you, keep on the mutilation and abduction end of things. I had no idea there were so many of them down here. I’ve never heard of such a concentration of events. I may have to go back down to Irhil tonight or tomorrow, but I want to keep this rolling. These people have been very helpful to us in a lot of ways…and I want to try to return the favor, just a little, even if it’s only covertly.”
She did indeed go back to Irhil M’Goun that evening. Repairs were coming along well on the various craft that needed them, and DeLonghi looked almost glad to see her. He at least had had a chance to get some rest and some planning done regarding his next strategies for what to do should the pace of interceptions speed up again. Jonelle, in turn, told him about the cow situation in Switzerland.
“We keep hearing that there’s been a decrease in mutilations and abductions,” she said, “but I’m not sure I believe it. I’m going to be a little busy at Andermatt tomorrow again, but if you would keep on it from this end, Joe—.” She gave him a quick rundown on the bases whose data-processing people she had already talked to. “They think I’m nuts, Joe,” Jonelle said, “so you might want to play it that way too—that you’re ‘humoring the commander.’ But see what else you can find.”
“I wonder,” DeLonghi said, “if an increase in human abductions simply blinded the upper-ups to the cow situation? Or whether they’ve bought into a blip in the statistics, one that happened at the same time the human stats jumped? You could make a case that the Powers That Be would be pleased to think that cownappings and mutilations were dropping off while they had the human problem to consider…and you could also believe that their own statisticians might not be willing to rock the boat, if they knew which way the official wind was blowing.”
Jonelle sighed and said, “Too likely to be true. Well, see what you can find out. Any paperwork for me down here?”
“It’s all been shipped back up to Andermatt.”
“Fine. How are you holding up, Joe?”
DeLonghi chuckled a little. “Better than I was. It can be a bit of a shock, I suppose, taking on command….”
“Tell me about it.”
“You didn’t show any signs of distress when you came to it, I have to tell you.”
“That,” Jonelle said softly, “is because I was doing absolutely everything I could not to let on. If I had given any sense of how frustrated and unnerved I was by the situation the way it was when I came, do you think that everybody in the place wouldn’t have noticed immediately? Imagine the effect on morale.”
DeLonghi nodded slowly. “You keep your chin up,” Jonelle said. “Never show fear—they can smell it. And don’t dwell on past performance. This has not been the easiest couple of weeks for anybody.”
“Nor for you, I would think,” said DeLonghi.
Jonelle shrugged. “I’m doing all right…I have a new toy to play with.”
DeLonghi grinned. “So have I.”
“Enjoy,” Jonelle said, patted him on the arm, and headed out.
She went on down to the infirmary. Ari was sitting up in bed, looking better. He seemed to have stopped complaining about the food—but he had not stopped complaining.
“I want out!” he was shouting at Gyorgi. “I feel fine! I don’t ache anymore!”
Gyorgi was standing across the room from him, scribbling in a chart. “You’re going to lie there,” he said, “until tomorrow, whether you like it or not. Isn’t he, Commander?”
“Of course you’re going to lie there, if that’s what Gyorgi says.”
“It’s not fair. I’m perfectly fit and ready to fly!”
“The constitution of a great ape,” Gyorgi said, sounding resigned, “and the brains of a gerbil.”
“Far be it from me to disagree with a considered medical opinion,” said Jonelle demurely “How’s the food today, Ari?”
“Better.”
“I let him have the chili,” Gyorgi said. “If he gets indigestion, serves him right. It won’t hurt his brains now, such as they are.”
“And how are his brains, such as they are? And the rest of him?”
“He can fly tomorrow,” Gyorgi said. “I just want him to take another day to restore himself.”
“I don’t need any restoring. I’m in great shape. All I want is to get up. And I want some more chili.”
“Shut up, Ari,” said Gyorgi, hanging up the chart and picking up another one. “Commander, tomorrow morning, as I said, he can fly And I’ll be pleased to get him out of here—I need the bed. Complaints, complaints all day!”
“If the food weren’t terrible—” Ari said.
Standing quite close by the bed, Jonelle bent down. “My lion,” she said, “shut up.” She raised her voice and added, “Anyway, it’s just as well, for by tomorrow I’m really going to need you back in the saddle. Things to take care of…also, I want you to come along and have a look at the Avenger.”
“They can’t have finished repairing it already!”
“No, they can’t. I want you to look at the pitiful thing and see the error of your ways.” She scowled at him, but she couldn’t hold the mood and smiled again after a few seconds. “I do have other flying for you to do. Your Firestorm is all right?”
“As far as I know.”
“Good.”
“What’s DeLonghi going to say when you take another piece of equipment away from him?”
“Nothing much, probably. He’s doing better.” Jonelle grinned. “It takes a little while to get the hang of making bricks without straw, but he’s shaking down nicely. As for you, if you’re up in Andermatt about noontime, that’ll suit me fine.” She was determined not to push him too hard; even though Gyorgi said he would be back in shape to fly, there was a slightly harrowed look about Ari, one that suggested he had looked farther down into the abyss of that Ethereal’s mind, and the abyss of death, than he would have liked to.
“I’ll be there,” Ari said. “Sooner, if the jailer will let me.”
Jonelle patted his hand and left him, then went off to make her rounds. As she was moving through the base, the Klaxons went off, signaling an interception. Jonelle hurried down to the operations center and found everything under control: DeLonghi was already there, looking over the dispatch operator’s shoulder. “Got a small Scout near Cape Town,” he said. “Just the one…first peep we’ve had out of them for a while.”
“Go get ‘im,” Jonelle said, “and good hunting!” She made her way back to the hangar for a ride to Andermatt.
As the Skyranger that brought her back settled into the hangar, Jonelle looked around and for the first time really felt herself able to think of the Hall of the Mountain King as Andermatt Base. It had the proper look and feel of an X-COM base now: busy maintenance people hurrying about, the buzz of voices, the underlying hum of big machinery. Only a few things missing now, she thought as she disembarked. That mind shield…. Well, more than a few things, actually. There was the small matter of better base defenses. But there was nothing she could do about those right now.
Jonelle sighed and made her way back to her office. Afternoon was coming on, and she had another meeting scheduled with Ueli and her “UN representatives.” On the desk in her office, she found a sealed courier box with all the paperwork from Irhil M’Goun. She looked at it, briefly sorry (as she had been more than once, lately) tha
t her secretary Joel still wasn’t going to be coming up here for a few days. She had left him with DeLonghi to ease the transition, with instructions to train a replacement. Oh well, it won’t get any better by just leaving it here.
Jonelle sat down and started to page through it. The fattest sheaf of papers in it was the transcript of the interrogation of the two Ethereals that had been captured in the attack on the Battleship in Zürich. She skimmed through it, knowing she couldn’t take time to deal with it right now. It was the kind of thing that required slow, careful reading, especially since the transcript format always slowed her down.
The cover letter on it was from Ngadge. Commander, it said, here is the first set of interrogation results on subjects B122 and B123 from the Zürich raid. Trenchard did this interrogation in company with Origen—he was one of the intelligence officers—and the results are particularly good. Trenchard seems to have a gift for this kind of work. Indications are of some kind of major thrust going on in the southern hemisphere, among less developed and prepared countries. Also odd alien interest in Antarctica…? We are investigating this and will be following it up with subject B124,B125 in the next couple of days.
Something else that’s working right, Jonelle thought with satisfaction. The southern hemisphere, though,… There had been talk among some of the statistics people that attacks in the southern hemisphere did seem to be increasing. Jonelle thought someone should look into it. Africa in particular was such a big continent that she wondered whether it was wise to have just the one base there. And it was possible that a South African-based X-COM facility might be useful. Then again, Jonelle thought, God help me, what happens if I suggest it, and they tell me to go build it? Maybe I should just keep my big mouth shut.
