The Cocoon Trilogy

by David Saperstein

  “We have a species like that on Earth,” Dr. Macklow said. “They are called salmon.”

  “I was fascinated with this ability,” Amos continued, “so I experimented, with their approval of course, and was able to discover the means by which they could find the clean water. I converted that to instrumentation. Perhaps, I was thinking, if we could take some of this pollution and feed it to my instrument we might find the source.”

  “I have a sample right here,” she said, picking up a jar of seawater.

  “Then, Dr. Macklow, may I have the honor of inviting you aboard the Probeship?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – I HEAR VOICES

  There was no doubt, With the exception of the mixed-mating babies, all of the Brigade fetuses seemed to be six to eight weeks advanced from the normal development of Earth-humans. During the ultrasound tests this sped up phenomenon gave the doctors pause. It was clarified when all the testing was complete and senior staff went over the results. Fetus size was deceiving - they were small, but their development was advanced. Beam was asked to join the meeting. Dr. Yee asked if she had ever witnessed this kind of change in a species’ birth pattern.

  “I cannot confirm that we have,” she answered forthrightly. “But this is the first we have processed for space travel as though the subjects were Antarean. It was not our doing originally, as you know. The four male commanders, Green, Perlman, Finley and Lewis discovered our equipment and thinking it was a health club, used it. They, in effect, processed themselves. As you know, all of the Brigade that were processed have changed. Many of their life functions have been enhanced. Their aging stopped and then some function, including reproductive, reversed. This was a surprise for all of us on Antares.”

  “Well,” Dr. Khawaja concluded, “we must assume that now a full-term baby for these mothers is possibly just seven months. Or that they all may be premature for a reason we don’t yet understand. In nay case, we must be alert to these possibilities and be prepared to adjust the schedule accordingly. Remember, the three births on the Watership were premature. That may have been due to space travel.”

  “There was also one stillborn,” Beam reminded the doctors.

  “I was told that labor of the mothers on the Watership was brief and the births came quickly and easily,” Dr. Yee said. “One of the mothers, the woman who had twins, told me it was as though the babies were controlling their own birth. And something else,” he continued. “The ultrasound tests. I watched all of them. Most of us did. Did any of you feel anything special when you were conducting them?”

  For a moment there was silence in the room. Then Dr. Fogelnest, the specialist from Columbia Presbyterian, spoke. “I’m going to say something foolish.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dr. Yee said.

  “Very well then,” Dr. Fogelnest continued hesitantly, “during the ultrasound I did on the six women assigned to my team…well…I, uh, I had the distinct impression that I was being watched.”

  “By your colleagues, Doctor?” Dr. Khawaja asked.

  “No. Not that way. It was as though. . .Oh well,” she sighed, “I hate to say this, you’ll think I’m crazy, but it was as though the fetus, the baby, was watching me as I was studying it on the TV screen.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Dr. Yee announced. “I felt . . . I saw that too.”

  “They were speaking to me,” Dr. Fogelnest admitted, encouraged by Dr. Yee’s words.

  “And me too,” the obstetrician from the Mayo Clinic admitted. “I thought I was imagining things. We’ve been working long hours here and . . .”

  “It is true,” Beam said. “I have seen it, I have heard of it before. There are species that communicate with their young before birth.”

  Dr. Michelangelo Yee leaned back in his leather chair and smiled. “Well,” he said, “if we can find a way to get those little beggars to help us, to talk to us somehow, our job here might get a whole lot easier.”

  “And safer,” Dr. Khawaja added.

  Alicia could not sleep. She watched Phil Margolin peacefully sleeping next to her, and though tempted to wake him, she resisted. Something was gnawing at her. Something weird. Then she heard a voice. “Protect us. You must protect us.” It was a child’s voice, far away, tiny. Then it was gone. She got out of bed and to relax, took a hot bath. When she returned to the room Phil was awake, sitting up in bed with the light turned on. He was writing on the yellow legal pad that he always kept nearby in case an idea or solution or a problem came to him in the middle of the night.

  “An inspiration?” she asked, toweling off and sitting next to him. He kissed her shoulder.

  “I was sleeping…dreaming I guess. Then I was up. I heard you in the bathroom and thought maybe that’s what woke me. But then I began to hear strange voices.” A shiver coursed down Alicia’s spine. “They sounded like little kids . . . no, maybe like . . .”

  “Angels?” she asked.

  “A choir. Young, clear voices. No words. Just thoughts vocalized. Maybe some backlash from that telepathy we were doing with Ben Green. Whaddya think?”

  “I heard them too, love,” she said, leaning over to see what he had written. “Protect us. Protect us,” she read aloud.

  “Protect who?” he asked.

  “The babies.”

  “From whom?”

  “Gideon Mersky, I think.” They dressed quickly, calling out to Ben Green silently as they did. He met them at the door to Phil Margolin’s room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE – THE FIRST EARTH BORN

  Marie Amato’s husband Paul was awakened by his wife at three in the morning. She was in labor. He pressed the medical call button, installed in every room. In moments an emergency team was at their door. The team chief, an obstetrician from Walter Reed, sized up the situation immediately. He ordered Marie be taken directly to prep and at the same time ordered delivery complex Alpha staffed and readied. The team rapidly deployed. The ruckus awakened everyone on the top floor. There was concern and at the same time anticipation that the first Earth-born Brigade baby was on the way.

  It was a girl, perfectly formed and appearing to be full-term. She was, as Dr. Khawaja suggested and the ultrasound confirmed, two months early and quite normal, no matter that earlier tests and . confirmation of the time of conception suggested. The baby was kept in the pediatric intensive care unit for the maximum four hours allotted, then released to the transitional nursery, where Marie Amato nursed her. They named her Beam. Her namesake, the Antarean medical officer, was honored and delighted.

  In the morning, a staff meeting was called by Dr. Khawaja as soon as things settled. The senior staff would have to reevaluate their schedule. Reexamination of all the expectant mothers, with careful attention to changes indicating time of birth, was initiated by Dr. Yee. He thought back to the incident with Ruth Charnofsky when the fetus seemed to grab at the intruding amniocentesis needle.

  “We should consider that these babies might be somehow more advanced and different than other human children. If they are coming earlier and normal, and that certainly seems to be the pattern must be ready. I want all the women, including the mixed couples, all of them, to be scheduled for ultrasound. I think we’d better have a closer look at those fetuses.”

  The commanders also met that morning, gathering in one of the large examination rooms on the top floor. During the night, just before Marie Amato went into labor, Mary Green had been awakened by someone calling to her telepathically. It had happened before to all of them, but their minds were able to block a disturbance when they slept. There were ways to awaken one another if the situation was critical. But this intrusion into Mary’s subconscious was different.

  “It came from within,” she told the others. “I heard something too,” Ruth Charnofsky admitted, “but I couldn’t understand the message.”

  “It woke you?” Frank Hankinson asked.

  “Yes. I think so. I may have been awake before . . . a moment before. I’m not sure.”

  “What did it
sound like?” Ben Green asked his wife.

  “A voice . . . no, voices. But speaking in a strange tongue. Yet I thought I could understand. It was like the time when we had just arrived on Parma Quad 2. We knew the Parman language, but other than the guides, we had never actually met any of them.”

  “You mean the dialects,” Bess Perlman suggested.

  “Not exactly,” Mary Green answered. “I mean the way they spoke to one another sometimes. The lost language, they called it . . . something like that . . .”

  “The ancient language,” Betty Franklin remembered. “That’s what they called it.”

  Betty, Bess’s sister, had been one of those who stayed behind on Parma Quad 2 after the two years of training. She had studied hard and came to know the Parman culture as well as any of the Antarean ambassadors who lived there. “It was the way of communicating before their race evolved to a total crystalline form.” An uneasy feeling passed through the room.

  “I believe we are all thinking the same thing,” Bernie Lewis said. “What woke Mary and Ruth was from within our own. Within the mothers.”

  “The babies,” Rose said aloud. “The babies are calling to us.”

  “No,” Ruth said firmly, “Not to us; to each other. Somehow they know about each other. I believe that they are speaking from the womb in a language we once knew and have long forgotten.”

  “We must reach out to them,” Mary stated matter-of-factly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR – ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMINALS

  There were two distinct sources of the pollution around the Stones. The worst of it came from a phosphorous processing plant in Lake Worth. The people there produced fertilizer and had a breakdown of their waste-material filtering system. While it was being repaired, the plant, recently acquired by a Japanese consortium, continued to operate under the orders of the new Japanese plant manager who brought with him a fierce desire to improve the bottom line. He simply stored the caustic waste material during the day and then ordered it dumped into the ocean at night. After all, he reasoned, this ocean was a long way from Japan. The most important thing was that his management efforts succeed.

  It was an easy matter for the Probeship to locate that culprit because Amos and Dr. Macklow had to track the source at night since the Probeship had to be used to transport cocoons during the day. When they found the plant’s location they sent Cummings and Betters up to Lake Worth the next day to have a good look around. The manager proudly showed the two detectives that he was storing the waste material. At the same time NOAA Captain Hadges aboard the Orca notified the Florida office of the Environmental Protection Agency of the violation. That night, as the plant spewed its killing waste, they were caught red-handed and eventually fined seven million dollars. The manager was recalled to Japan and disgraced as his government chastised him publicly and apologized to the American people.

  The sewage was more difficult to trace. It took three more nights, but eventually a barge leaving a trail of sewage just off Jupiter Beach was discovered. They did not know where the barge originated and they were sure it was, at best, an intermittent thing. All Amos could do was to notify Captain Walkly aboard the USS Simi. The captain dispatched the USS Metz to intercept the barge and put the fear of the U.S. Navy into whoever operated it.

  The sight of a Navy destroyer bearing down on them in the middle of the night was frightening enough, but when the Metz loudly hailed the errant barge with a warning that they were polluting a government area and could be fired upon, the crew aboard the barge came out of the deck cabin with their hands high in the air. The Metz came to a stop and turned on her bright searchlights. The forward machine guns were manned, aimed at the three quaking men. Satisfied, the Metz’s captain turned abruptly and put a wash across the deck that soaked the barge operators. They were not seen again in the area.

  CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE – THE SECRETARY’S PLAN

  In Washington, Gideon Mersky, who had begged off accompanying the President to Houston, called Phillip Margolin to DC from Texas for a quick meeting the night before the President left. He wanted Margolin back in Houston the next day when President Teller arrived, ostensibly for a visit to NASA. The real purpose for the President’s being there was to meet personally with the space visitors at the secreted hospital. Both Margolin and Sanchez were scheduled that same day to brief the chief executive on their progress in developing a plan for the Watership’s departure.

  It was Friday afternoon and Washington was emptying out for the weekend. The Defense Secretary kept Margolin waiting for nearly an hour. When Mersky finally emerged from his office he was with a tall, severe-looking man who Margolin immediately pegged as military, although not in uniform.

  “Phillip Margolin, I’d like you to meet an old friend, Jimmy Smith.” Margolin, who was quite strong himself, tensed at the viselike grip of Smith’s handshake.

  “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Margolin.”

  “My pleasure, sir.” Smith released Phillip’s hand and smiled. He then reached a softer handshake to the Defense Secretary.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Secretary. You take care now. And don’t worry about that little problem. We’ll be able to handle it.”

  “I’m sure you will, Jimmy. Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” Smith left. Mersky signaled Margolin into his office where Margolin, who had developed the beginnings of a plan to launch the Watership as secretly as possible, presented his ideas. The Secretary listened intently, but made no comment until the presentation was finished.

  “The plan sounds fine, Phillip. I think it needs some refining, but you’ve broken its back for sure.”

  “Sounds like a good beginning you’ve got there Phillip.”

  “Dr. Sanchez and I both worked on it.”

  “Of course. I’m sure the President will like it. I’ll be talking to him in the morning before he leaves for Houston.” Mersky shuffled some papers on his desk. He had no idea that Phillip Margolin was, in a very crude manner, trying to reach into his mind to read his thoughts. Ever since he’d discovered the Brigade commanders were able to telepath and auto-suggest, Mersky had practiced and sharpened his own abilities to block their intrusion. He never believed or accepted Alma Finley’s contention that they were not permitted to interfere with people’s actions by mind control. But not suspecting that Margolin had been developing his own telepathic abilities with the commanders’ assistance, the Secretary was not blocking.

  “That’s encouraging, sir,” Margolin answered, knowing now that their meeting had an additional agenda. Mersky continued playing with the papers for a moment, then looked up.

  “How’re you doing with those commanders?”

  “Very well, sir. I’ve become friendly with Mr. Green and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Sanchez has also met them and gone out of her way to become friendly with their wives. Of course, with the birth schedule moved up, things have been pretty busy for them.”

  “So I understand. How many born so far?”

  “Ten, I believe. And Dr. Khawaja confirms they’re not premature at all.”

  “Interesting. These babies take only seven months to fully develop.”

  “They seem to be somehow evolved.”

  “More than you know.” Margolin was inside Mersky’s head, but his exact thoughts were difficult to read. The Defense Secretary was excited. “That man you met before . . .”

  “Mr. Smith?” Margolin said, unable to hide the slight tone of sarcasm in his voice.

  That’s really his name. He’s a bird colonel stationed at Fort Campbell.”

  “The one-oh-one?”

  “No. A newly formed light infantry brigade.”

  Margolin knew something about those new brigades. They were part of the RDF - Rapid Deployment Force, a product of the need for the military to respond quickly to trouble spots on a global basis. The unit could move on a moment’s notice. From a single squad to the entire brigade, they were always combat ready. They airlifted by jet transport with all their equipment. From that point on they opera
ted with a minimum of support and a maximum of deadly force.

  “I’m concerned about the safety and security of those people down in Houston,” Mersky continued. Margolin knew Mersky was lying.

  “They seem quite secure in the hospital,” Margolin offered with a faked naiveté in his voice.

  “Well, they’re not. I’ll be giving Colonel Smith the task of relocating our visitors to a more remote and secure facility.”

  “What about the babies?”

  “Of course we’ll take the babies.”

  “No, sir. I mean what about the medical attention they need, and the ones not yet born?”

  “We’re not planning any moves until all the births are done. The last thing I want to do is run a hospital. No. It’ll be done in a few months.”

  “Will the President tell the visitors about that tomorrow?” Mersky leaned forward in his chair.

  “This is extremely confidential, Philip. The President has approved it, of course, but he wants time to develop the plan completely, covering all contingencies, so when he does present it to the, uh . . to our visitors they will have all the information and understand our reasoning. These old folks are Americans. They aren’t sedentary retired people anymore. The knowledge and abilities they now possess…well it’s all very important to the nation. I’m sure you understand that, Phillip. Its to remain top secret – need to know only”

  Margolin still couldn’t read all of Mersky’s thought processes, but he knew the Secretary was lying. H ass sure Mersky believed that part about the Brigade folks being important to the nation, but he was sure Mersky had no intention of allowing the visitors the freedom to choose where and how they wished to live. At least there was time before Mersky made his move.