by Pam Uphoff
They divvied up the animals, and drew lots for the extras. Everyone had two cows, then either two steers or a steer and another cow. And one ewe and one 'something else', those being bulls, goats, horses, burros and the extra sheep.
Jeff had his mixed up bull, which worked out well enough. He and Melody together had five cows and three steers. No one was surprised when they started talking marriage.
Ben swapped his ewe for a female goat to go with the male he'd 'won', and started reading up on gardening.
Gwen returned two weeks later, with multiple doctors and a portable hospital. Everyone was examined and samples taken. Psychologists descended. Much talking and many forms and both written and verbal tests were taken. Gwen was officially medically discharged, as injured in the line of duty.
She slumped glumly. "I told them Q had me all fixed up and in three more months I'd be back to female, but I think that's just the excuse. They don't want to risk having an enemy soldier in the Guardians. That's why they were so . . . leery of the rest of you. A small town of merged people."
"Well, I hoped you'd return. We included you in the hoof lottery. Congratulations." Ben grinned at her pained expression. "You are now the proud owner of three cows, one steer, and two ewes."
"Female sheep, right?"
"Right. Jeff and Melody and I have moved ours out of the communal herd and over to our own communal pasture. We're surveying out plots and handing out deeds to four square miles to each of us and anyone else that shows up. It just happens that the fourth quarter of our little cul-de-sac hasn't been snatched up yet . . . "
"Hmm, well, despite the neighbors, perhaps I'd better come take a look."
Xen and Q popped in twice, made it to Jeff and Melody's wedding, missed Gwen and Ben's.
The news shifted from dire to . . . an accommodation with the new reality, the potential.
Ben sat on the porch of their log cabin and looked out over the start of cleared fields. Ten miles away, he could see this world's Mississippi River.
"Do you suppose we'll ever develop much river traffic? Those corridors take all the romance out of travel." Gwen sounded wishful as she settled down beside him.
Ben snugged her in closer. "Do you miss flying? We can't have been the only world with winged soldiers. We'll have to figure out how to trade for a flying suit."
"Oooo! Married a month and you're still trying to spoil me? This is going to work . . . "
Epilogue
Late Fall 1401 px
Embassy World
Xen eyed the bottle of whiskey on his dining room table.
Getting drunk seemed a traditional reaction, but a hangover would solve nothing.
Why didn't they believe us? Did they think that what happened to North America could never touch them?
The early censuses of the evacuated populations . . . were very low.
Only a few nations had believed, had moved their people. Some had been suspicious and moved very few. China. Less than eight hundred people. Soldiers and a few scientists and support people.
At least India was happy to have the land, and lots of people packed up and moved. But there was no general evacuation. Several million saved out of a population of almost a billion.
The Middle East? Again, they sent armies. At least a few civilians did follow. And then one small nation evacced nearly everyone. Man, woman, and child. Israel. I'll have to read up on them sometime. They must have an interesting history. Honorable, decent, people, they even urged the people of their traditional enemies who lived within their borders to come with them.
Africa, hit and miss. South America? Repressive governments, wanting to keep control. They realized too late, saved appallingly few.
He leaned back, chair against the wall. So nice to be home. So hard to not think about what we might have done differently. If only there had been enough time.
A familiar mental touch. :: You sound morbid. Can you deal with a bit of business? ::
Xen grinned, feeling himself relax. Rael sounded subdued, but any Rael was better than . . . anyone else.
:: Business? ::
:: Something we want to keep quiet for now. ::
He opened his eyes as the door opened. And stood up abruptly as the President of the Empire of the One stepped in.
"Relax. Hopefully our little problem is decades away . . . and will turn out to have been just a nasty scare."
"Oh?" Xen sat as President Orde and his right hand man sat at his little table. Only a couple of guards, including Rael.
"While you've been busy, we persuaded some of your scary people to open temporary gates to the Cannibal World. We shoved several gate anchors through, and Earth did the same. We've been measuring the distance and direction to them, tracking them.
"Earth reports solid . . . well, call it sideways motion, an increasing distortion from spherical of their magnetic field to attach to their beacons, and increased power needed, which they interpret as increasing distance." He chewed his lip.
Xen swallowed bile. "And your measurements?"
"Dead on spherical. Decreasing power. They're headed straight for us."
Excerpt From An Upcoming Release
Trouble in Paradise
The Directorate #3
Pam Uphoff
Chapter One
Tuesday 29 Shaban 1403
". . . pre-nuclear war seed bank. The geneticists were at wit's end, wondering how to catalog the mess. Thank something I'd had one Info handling class. It was actually fun, setting up the system, but no way would I want it as a career. Boring, once I got it set up." Ebsa glanced at the Counselor's office door. Still closeted with another student. "I thought I'd be late. Ha! I ought to have stopped by the dorm and dropped my luggage."
R'ad kicked his own luggage. He'd been exiting the Counselor's office as Ebsa rushed into the waiting room. "I spent six weeks analyzing Oner baby registration patterns. Boring as hell, until the patterns started showing up. Not to mention the party at Government house, where Izzo dropped an information bomb in the lap of the Prime Councilor. Glorious. But! The best part of the internship was all my extended family having gone on vacation. I stayed with Rael—you have got to see her house!"
"Really? The one they say Xen Wolfson fixed up with magic? Umm, probably be bad for my ego. So, can you talk about this information bomb?"
"Umm, it'll go public eventually. Fairly soon, in fact. Basically, all those stupid tabloid stories about the lack of Withione babies? True. Neartuones, as well. And when they retest the parents? Not Withiones. Not Neartuones. But! It's just the rape genes that are missing. None of them, parents or babies, have any of them. The problem was first seen in Alcairo, then other places, both cities and enclaves. The dates where Withione results of testing fell off the cliff progressed from place to place, spreading like an epidemic. By mid summer it was pretty well everywhere. Izzo spent a day closeted with the President and Urfa. The Prime Councilor refused to come to the meeting. 'Too busy. I have an open hour in two weeks, drop by . . . ' Then he attended the party. The bomb? The progression of places is the same, delayed a week or so, as the sightings of the Comet Fall God of Just Deserts in each place." R'ad sat back. "They've retaliated for that last raid with genetic sabotage."
Ebsa boggled, gulped. "They can't have . . . Genetic engineering to remove Oner genes? We'll go to war over that! That's . . . Are you sure?"
"Yep. Izzo has a small field analyzer. A bunch of us tested ourselves. Remember how that twist of mine went away? That was it. Mind you, it's not official, but I'm now a 210 Clostuone, and I'll never have those horrible dreams and urges again." A razor sharp grin of genuine glee.
"Holy . . . What about the One?" Ebsa sat back, and eyed his friend.
"Izzo is probably arriving there right about now. Should be . . . interesting." Ra'd's grin widened. "And don't be so sure about that war. The Multitude, the Halfers, the Servaones, the Clostuones? I think they will, by and large, be delighted by the downfall of the snobbish less than
one percent of the population who might get reranked.
"But a lot of Clostuones and Servaones will lose up to six genes of their total count."
"But they won't slip in rankings. Clostuones are defined as anyone without a singe complete set of the genes, but with six or more insertions. You, for instance, won't lose an entire insertion, so your rank won't change. How many of those genes do you have? Or more probably, used to have." That grin again. "I will lose rank, but it's worth every minute of peaceful slumber, every time I sigh in exasperation, instead of fighting down a desire to hit someone. And how many other Withiones and Neartuones feel the same way?"
"I . . . huh. I don't know." Ebsa scrambled his brains together as the door to the counselor's office opened. An irritated student exited reading his screen.
Ebsa reached for his luggage and Ra'd waved him off. "I'll wait out here for you."
***
"Well, if we aren't at war with in days, I'll be taking so many classes I won't have time to read the news and find out what comes of your information bomb. Unless, of course, Mr. High-and-Mighty Counselor changes what we'd agreed on . . . Ah, they just posted. History 200. Ugg. Sociology 100. Eh. Information 400? Yes! Yuri comes through! I got credit for the internship! Advanced Techniques of Magic. Yes! Team Equipment 400. Yes! Introduction to Project Management. Ooo, I thought the counselor was going to spit when I requested that one. Zoology across dimensions. Current Events Seminar, thank the One, just once a week, Wednesday nights. Martial Arts section B? I think I've been demoted. Firearms Practicum 3. Isn't that what I had all last year?" Ebsa lengthened his stride. Fourteen hours on the plane, and then waiting for his scheduled appointment with the counselor. Still had his fortunately small amount of luggage with him. Was not going to be late for dinner. He was starving.
Ra'd snorted. "That's how many times a week you are required to spend an hour at the range. I've got one. And Martial Arts, Advanced. They're splitting us up."
"Well, I do need more training in techniques . . . they haven't given up on you for Action Teams, have they?"
"That's what I'm afraid of. I will not merge with those twisted brutes."
Ebsa paused. "I wonder if they got dosed with whatever, however it was administered? Perhaps you should check them out, and find the ones you consider tolerable. You only have to eke out a passing grade for two more semesters."
Snort. Ra'd lifted a dismissive shoulder and looked at his minicomp. "I've got Magic, History, and Current Events with you. Then I've got Statistics and Comparative Cultures. Military Science 100, whether I want it or not."
"The counselor said there would be a seminar tonight after dinner. I didn't realize they started so soon."
"He said this was unusual." Ra'd raised his head from the list and frowned at the men casually lounging around the entrance to dorm seven.
Ebsa sighed. "Do we have to do this every year?" He made it loud enough to be heard by the loungers.
The four men stopped pretending to lounge and loomed. Not as well as they had last year. I've grown, in more ways than one.
Ebsa tried for casual. "Ed, Oh Hey. Yuck, Idjit . . . Don't tell me something happened to Ogly? And . . . who else is missing? No, wait, Ogly and Mac actually managed to graduate, didn't they."
Four glowers. "You got Wedge and City arrested. They were expelled when they were found guilty of filing a false police report." Oh Hey stepped closer. "And no one knows what the hell happened to Blob and Ape. No one will tell us anything. Not to mention Edge . . . dying. Accidentally. Five of the top Action Team Trainees. Gone."
"Leaving, what, seven seniors? That'll be a lot less competition for the across slots, eh?" Ebsa set down his suitcase, shrugged off his pack and shoved his comp into the side pocket. As this will inevitably come down to a fight.
Ed looked baffled. "Seven? You aren't any competition. Wqlw Ra'd is in . . . wait you're counting those women?"
Yuck growled and stepped forward. "Are you claiming that those cunts are real contenders for Action Team slots? Are you comparing us to women?"
Ra'd failed to resist. "You aren't women?"
Four to two. Hardly fair. They had the idiots on the ground in seconds.
Ra'd grinned at Ebsa. "Now that we've got them, what shall we do with them?"
Ebsa looked from Yuck, flat on his face with his arm twisted up behind his back, to Ed, on his knees attempting to wiggle in a way that wouldn't involve Ebsa breaking the pinky finger he was holding. "Well, I don't actually want them, so maybe we should just let them go."
Ra'd sighed loudly. "You never let me have any fun." He stood up and walked back to his luggage. Ebsa released his pair and stepped over to grab his stuff, walked back through the quartet of idiots groaning their way to their feet, and not looming. Nor interfering in any way.
"Poor things." Ebsa grinned at Ra'd. "They're used to having Edge, with his Speed, to take the lead."
"And six more idiots to help them bully other students." Ra'd shrugged. "It's just as well I decided to hit the counselor before I headed for the dorm. I might have had to hurt one of them, if I was alone."
"I wonder if they've dropped a few genes? Life could get interesting once the news is released."
"Huh. They don't act any less belligerent." Ra'd's door lock clicked as it received the signal from his ID.
"Well, they've trained themselves to be that way. At this point they hardly need help from their genes." Ebsa walked on, heard his own lock click two doors down.
"That's a depressing thought."
They'd both taken everything they owned with them, so the bare rooms were untouched. The Directorate School frowned on University property being damaged, but it actually surprised Ebsa a bit that there wasn't even a slash in the mattress. A tap on the door.
Ra'd stepped in and waved a hand at the bed. A glint of power, a wave of a spell. "Bed bugs."
Ebsa sighed. "And I thought they'd showed restraint. Rather subtle of them, actually. I wonder whose idea it was?"
"A new mastermind? Them? More likely they saw it in a movie." Ra'd shook his head and walked out.
***
"So the five of us are all together in history, magic and equipment."
Ebsa grinned at Paer's obvious relief, but shook his head. "I'm in a different equipment section. I used all the recorders, the microsamplers, the biohazard clean up stuff on my second internship. No, it wasn't really exciting, but we needed to not contaminate some other stuff, so I cleaned the room like, twice a day, while we were doing the micro samples. And I had to document everything and catalogue everything, which also qualified me for Info 400."
"Ooo! A high achiever." Heak grinned. "Mind you, I don't believe a word of what Paer told me about your joint Internship."
"Good." Ebsa grinned. "Because I don't believe it myself, and I was there."
Azko's was in his sociology class and Martial Arts B. Heak in Martial Arts C, with Paer.
A long lingering gaze into Paer's eyes . . . Professional. Remember? We're going to be ever so professional and studious until the winter break.
He glanced at the time, and dumped his tray in the disposal, hideous meal. The cooking would improve when the semester officially started tomorrow. Tonight's diner had been fabbed.
"So, shall we make bets about the subject of tonight's unexpected seminar?"
Chapter Two
Wednesday 30 Shaban 1403
The Current Events Weekly Seminar was held in the largest four lecture halls—the lower level of the Soft sciences building was split on the diagonals into four huge lecture "theatres."
The parts of the separating walls, up near the ground level entrances were retracted. Ditto the lowest sections between the last seats and the square core in the center of the building.
The core held all the piping and whatever for the upper floors, and a whole bunch of electronics for the lecturers, whose platforms surrounded the core.
For these "attendance required" evenings, they had repeaters on the
screens on every side of the core. They showed the speakers, and displayed data, as needed.
They grabbed seats where Ra'd could get his paranoid back against a side wall and settled down to see what news the Directorate wanted their students to be up to date on.
Professor Ivy started. "The diplomats have negotiated the release of the men whom the Fallen allege raided Comet Fall and kidnapped a woman. The Fallen claim that the statures left in the Gate City Central Plaza are in fact the teamers. A civilian witch is currently enroute to the warehouse where the statues are being kept. 'To release them' they said. Her name is Vulpenite Particulardaut.
"For those of you who haven't had classes on the Comet Fall magical community, the mineral name puts her at just a bit older than Xenotime Wolfson. Who was born in 1369 post exile, which is 1371 year of the prophets. Particular would be her mother's name. Most of the witches know their father's name, but rarely have anything to do with him."
The big screens switched to coverage of the late afternoon scene of a cavalcade of vehicles driving up to one of the older warehouses in the Gate Security Area. A number of people got out, including a woman in a business suit.
The screen flipped to a cam inside the warehouse. Eight statues, on large chunks of concrete. About half on their feet, all looking like they'd just been assaulted.
Ebsa recognized four of them. Blob was bent over, clutching his stomach. Wedge down on one knee, one hand on the ground, the other raised to fend off a blow. Ape throwing a punch. City sprawled limply.
The other four looked older. Experienced Teamers. They'd obviously taken the worst damage. One curled up clutching his shin, mouth open in a scream. One reeling away, clutching his arm. The third man had both hands to his face, the fourth was flying forward as if hit from behind, a single toe touching the ground.
The woman in the business suit walked up to the flying man, raised her left hand and scratched at the statue with her fingernail. The bronze color snapped away from her touch and the man completed his journey, crashing into a directorate staffer. They both hit the ground, the teamer rolling and staggering to his feet . . . slowing, his head jerking around as he took in his surroundings.
