Into the Looking Glass votsb-1

by John Ringo

  Mimi looked at the contents with the doubtful indecision millions of soldiers around the world understood, then poked at the contents. She spooned some of the mess up and tasted it, then picked at it greedily, pulling out the chicken bits.

  As she did “Tuffy” climbed down her chest and, holding onto the front of her shirt, extended its legs to fish into the contents. It seemed to be rooting through for vegetables. Since the girl was only eating the meat it was a fair apportionment. Weaver watched in amazement as the thing fished up the bits in the sauce, hooked on small claws, transferring them to its underside where they were, presumably, consumed.

  “Mimi,” the biologist suddenly said with a tone of horror. “I just realized something. That might not be good for Tuffy.”

  “Tuffy says it’s okay,” the girl said around a mouthful of vegetables. “He said that he can uh-just his fizz-ee-o-logical in-com-pat-ib-ility.” She clearly didn’t know what it meant or care.

  “Holy shit,” Weaver muttered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “We’re going to use the junior man rule, General,” Lieutenant Glasser said, gesturing at a schematic on the whiteboard.

  Brigadier General Hank Fullbright was the Assistant J-3 (Operations) of Special Operations Command. There was apparently a battle royale going on in Washington over who was to control the investigation of the gate but due to proximity SOCOM had control at the moment. Fullbright had been dispatched nearly as fast as the SEAL team and now sat in a rolling chair in the command Hummer nodding at the briefing. The “junior man rule” was well known to most of the military and certainly to the guys on the sharp end. In the event that you had no way to test for, say, poison gas, the junior man was the person you used for a guinea pig.

  “Seaman First Class Sanson has been briefed for the initial entry,” Glasser added, tapping the shoulder of the young SEAL standing at his side. He was wearing a blue environment suit and carried the full-face mask under his arm. “Just a reconnaissance. He will enter, ensure his own environmental and physical safety, do a brief video of the far side and then return.”

  “You up for this, sailor?” the general asked.

  “SEALs in, sir!” the sailor blurted, nervously.

  “Drop the hoowah, son,” the general said, mildly. “I admit that the junior man rule makes sense, but I want to know if you have reservations about this.”

  “Am I worried, sir, yes, sir,” the young SEAL said. “But I’ve been well briefed and somebody has to do it. I’m willing, trained and able, sir.”

  “Okay, you go,” the general said, looking at his watch. “It’s 2330. You planning on doing this tonight, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir,” Glasser said. “The initial entry. It’s been suggested that we do so as soon as possible due to potentiality of gate failure and to assess any threat on the far side.”

  “Other than bugs falling through,” the general said, smiling faintly. Another had fallen out of the gate less than an hour before and was being examined by Dr. McBain.

  “Yes, sir,” Glasser answered.

  “I don’t know all this science fiction stuff,” the general admitted. “You sure you’ve covered everything?”

  “Everything that we can, General,” Weaver answered. “We don’t know anything about air conditions on the far side except that the bugs have book lungs, so there is air. And they can survive for a time on this side. Sanson will be wearing a full environment suit. He won’t pop it open. We’ve come up with a very rough and ready air sampling probe. He could experience significant gravitational changes, significant light environment changes and the ground level may be different on the far side. Basically, he doesn’t know what he’ll find and we just hope he comes back at all. We sent in a roughed out rover set to roll in and roll back out. It didn’t come back.”

  “That’s not good,” the general noted. “What about just sticking a video camera through on a stick?”

  “We did, sir,” Glasser noted. “The stick sheared off.”

  “Son, you still want to go?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sanson said.

  “Well, good luck,” the general said, standing up and shaking his hand.

  The group moved out into the lights again. A platform had been rigged up under the globe. It was rickety as hell. At the base a man wearing a hard hat was looking up at it and shaking his head.

  “Who are you?” Weaver asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Bill Earp, FEMA,” the man said. “I’m the FEMA safety coordinator.” He was tall and very heavyset, with a salt and pepper beard that had been cut back along the sides for a respirator; the blue jumpsuit that he was wearing made him look like a bearded blue Buddha.

  “If you’re going to tell me that platform is unsafe,” Weaver said, “we’d sort of noticed. But we’ve got to make a penetration tonight.”

  “Oh, the whole thing is unsafe,” the FEMA representative said, grinning. “I’m just here to do the required safety briefing. Who’s doing the penetration?”

  “Seaman Sanson,” Weaver said, gesturing at the SEAL.

  “Okay, Seaman Sanson, this is your safety briefing,” the rep said, grinning again. “Be aware that the platform you are using for entry is poorly constructed and may collapse. Be aware that on the far side of the gate you may experience reduced air quality. Be aware that on the far side of the gate you may experience increased or decreased gravitational field. The far side of the gate may not be at ground level and you may experience vertical movement on exit. Upon returning you may find that you do not hit the platform in which case you will experience an approximately twenty-meter fall to ground level. The gate may not return to this same location at all in which case you may find yourself in any location in this universe or in any other universe. The environment suit that you are using is not warranted by the manufacture for use in any nonterrestrial environment and, therefore, you are using it at your own risk. Do you understand this warning?”

  “Yes, sir?” the SEAL said.

  “Has your mask been tested for fit?” the FEMA representative asked.

  “I did a breath check,” the SEAL said.

  “Not good enough,” the FEMA rep replied. “Come with me.”

  From the trunk of his rent-a-car the FEMA rep produced a mask-fit tester. He plugged the nozzle into the mask, hooked up the breath pak, then spent a few minutes ensuring that it was a perfect seal. Then he helped Sanson get the hood on. The hood was integral to the suit and flopped down in front when removed. The zipper was up the back of the suit. They got the hood on, sealed it, then zipped up the back. The FEMA rep ensured the seal of the zipper, put on the breath-pak harness and then tapped him on the shoulder.

  “That’s better,” the rep noted. “You had a fifteen-percent leakage before; if there’s anything harmful in the atmosphere on the far side you would have gone down in a heartbeat. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the SEAL said, his voice muffled. He kept his mask on as he went to the platform.

  Glasser handed him an M-4 as he reached the platform and then buckled on a combat harness — which fortunately fit over the breath pak — and looped a video camera over his shoulder.

  “Repeat your orders,” he said.

  “Start camera. Step through in tactical posture. Ensure my footing. One spin to check security. Drop weapon, pick up camera. One slow spin with the video camera. Return.” Sanson dropped the magazine from the weapon, ensured it was clear, then locked and loaded and placed it on safe.

  “If you don’t return, we won’t be going in after you for at least an hour,” Glasser noted. “If it’s due to being unable to reach the globe on the far side, assume a tactical posture and wait; we will send someone else through.”

  “Yes, sir,” the SEAL answered, knowing he only had forty-five minutes of air. They’d been over that and as many other contingencies as they could imagine. “Can I go now?”

  “Yep,” Glasser said, gesturing up the rickety scaffolding stairs.


  James Thomas Sanson had wanted to be a SEAL since he was seven years old and saw a show about them on the Discovery Channel. As he got older he studied everything he could find on the SEALs and what he needed to know before he joined. In high school he had played football and been on the track and field team. His high school didn’t have a swim team but he went down to the river, winter and summer, and swam as much as he could. He would sometimes lie in the water in winter, training himself to ignore as much as possible the cold. He’d come near to dying one time from hypothermia but he considered that just “good training.”

  He’d also been a good student and an avid reader. He had graduated high school with a 3.5 GPA after having read every book of military history and fiction in the library.

  He thought that he had prepared as well as he could for the SEAL course and with one exception Hell Week, while bad, had not been as horrific as it was for many of the other new meat. The exception had been fatigue. He had ignored the fact that SEAL students were kept awake for the entire period of Hell Week and that had almost finished him. But he made it. And he’d kept his head down in Phase One and Two and done pretty well, finished near the top of his class. When he got to the Teams he knew he’d face some harassment, nothing personal, just making sure he was adequate SEAL material. When they sent him out for flight-line he came back with a roll of climbing rope. When they sent him out for prop-wash he came back with a bucket of same, a civilian brand of aircraft cleaning solvent. He’d prepared and thought that he was ready to face anything that the SEALs could throw at him.

  Until this.

  He realized, as he reached the top of the platform, that instead of reading military fiction he should have been reading science fiction. For all his briefing he realized he had no clue what they were talking about. Different atmosphere? Different sun? Different gravity? And then there were those stinking, unworldly, bugs.

  This could really, really suck.

  He started the damned video camera then prepared to step through. At the last moment he stopped. If there might be a drop he wanted his feet together. He placed them side by side, held his weapon at high port in tactical position, and then jumped into the globe.

  There was a moment of disorientation, like being on a roller coaster upside down in the dark and then rather than falling his toes caught on something and he tripped. He automatically rolled on something soft, hit something hard and came up in a crouch with his weapon trained outward.

  Orange was his first impression; most of the environment was orange. There wasn’t a lot of sunlight; it was cut off by overarching vegetation. The “trees” seemed to be giant vines that twisted together to reach upward for the light. It was something like triple canopy jungle. But instead of the vines and moss equivalent being green, they were orange. And they were everywhere. He’d hit a small patch of “soil” (orange) but it was a small patch. Most of the ground was covered by the roots of the vines.

  He automatically stood up and did a slow turn, checking for anything hostile. There didn’t even seem to be any large bugs around although he saw a small beetle-thing in the “tree” behind him. He also saw what the globe looked like from this side. Instead of being a globe it was a mirrored circle. It was almost hard to spot, except that it was actually in the tree itself, like some sort of looking glass embedded in the bark. Half in, half out, he decided. And not perfectly straight to local gravity, either, more at an angle, lying partially on its side and tilted a bit.

  Gravity. Heavier than earth’s. It hadn’t hit him at first; he just felt a little weak. But it was definitely the gravity. It felt like he was wearing a big pack but all over his body. He completed his first turn, then whipped up the video camera and did another. No hostiles, no signs of civilization just these big honkin’ trees.

  It hit him, then, another wave of disorientation, not externally derived but internal. This wasn’t Earth. This wasn’t anything on or like Earth. This was an alien planet, completely and utterly different. For a moment he felt unbelievably frightened. This was like some hell; if the gate didn’t work he might be stuck here and he really didn’t want to stay here the rest of his life.

  Training, again, saved him. He’d done his mission. One turn for security, one turn for video. And now…

  “I am so fucking out of here,” he muttered. He turned off the camera, checked his weapon was on safe and then turned to the gate.

  “Shit, which way did I come in?” He wasn’t right in front of the gate. If he went back at the wrong angle he might fall to his death. “Why couldn’t they have put up a safety net?” he muttered. Finally, he looked at the marks from where he came through, spread his arms wide in case he missed and might be able to grab the safety poles on the platform, and jumped.

  * * *

  “We’ve put the full team through at this point and it appears to be a triple canopy jungle,” Weaver said over the videophone. He was half amazed and half amused by the military’s efficiency in setting up a headquarters around the hole. First there had been just the command Hummer and now there were tents, generators, a field kitchen, desks, computers, a video uplink to the White House, all in just the few hours since the general had arrived. “I’ve been through as well. Definitely an alien world; initial studies of the biology of the bugs that came through indicate that they don’t even use DNA, at least Dr. McBain hasn’t found any. They do have proteins, but they’re like nothing we’ve ever seen: no terrestrial amino acids at all. Higher levels of carbon dioxide, much lower level of oxygen, other than that pretty much an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere. Gravity is one point three standard, pretty heavy but survivable. Frankly, strip out the biology around the entrance, wear some sort of breath mask and you could live on the other side quite successfully. It’s all very interesting.”

  “That’s great,” the national security advisor said. “But I’ve really got to make sure; there is no sign of a threat from the far side? Either biological or military?”

  “Not so far,” Weaver temporized. “From the biology of the organisms I’d be surprised if they could even interact with our biology. Not impossible but very unlikely and Dr. McBain concurs. We’re definitely going to have to get some good biologists down here including molecular. Or we need to send organisms to them.”

  “I’m working on that,” the science advisor said. “We want samples for the CDC and the Emerging and Infectious Diseases Department at UGA. UGA’s got an excellent molecular biology department.”

  “On the military threat, ma’am,” the general interjected. “So far there’s no sign of civilization on the far side.”

  “No sign as we define it,” Weaver pointed out. “I’m not trying to disagree, General, but for all we know those lianas on the far side are their civilization. Not likely from the looks of things but don’t get the mistake that you’re looking at Earth.”

  “A point,” the general admitted. “But if anything hostile comes through we’ve got a company of infantry and a SEAL team around the site. That should at least slow them down.”

  “Now, what about this little girl and the other ET?” the national security advisor asked.

  “Well, ma’am, that’s a puzzler and no mistake,” Weaver said, grinning wryly. “She’s definitely who she says she is; the local police contacted her school and pulled the files they have on her. Mimi Jones, from Mendel Road; there was even a picture. That’s right in the totally destroyed area, practically ground zero. And the ET, initially, does not look as if it’s from the same biological framework; we haven’t seen anything with anything resembling fur on the far side so far. We sent some of the National Guard over to Mendel Road, using GPS; there’s no way to tell where it was before the explosion. And they can’t find anything resembling another gate. And let me point out that we’re not sure we’re looking at an alternate universe or another planet in this universe. There’s no reason, frankly, that any gate should have opened on a habitable planet. It’s much more likely to have opened into vacuum. Having two
separate ET species turn up from one event is just mind-boggling.”

  “I see,” the national security advisor said. “That’s a very good point. Any theories, Dr.?”

  “Not what you could call theories, ma’am,” the physicist admitted. “We don’t know a thing about the other side of the gate, really. There could be a reason it opened there. Some sort of alternate similarity that attracted the gate opening. Or it might be that there was once a civilization on the far side that opened a gate and the… resonance remains. Still doesn’t explain Tuffy.”

  “Tuffy?” the national security advisor asked, smiling.

  “That’s what the girl, Mimi, calls the ET that turned up with her,” the general interjected.

  “Right now, ma’am, nothing’s making a lot of sense,” Weaver said. “We’ll figure out what’s going on, ma’am, in time. But right now all we can do is collect data and try to come up with some theories.”

  “Okay,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose and yawning. “What else do you need?”

  “I’ve got a call out for some measurement devices, ma’am,” the physicist said. “Long-term we’re probably going to have to set up a lab right here. We need to clamp down on the biological protocols…”

  “Definitely,” the science advisor said.

  “And we need to find out if this is a Higgs boson or not and if so if it’s stable, increasing or degrading. And if it’s degrading, what the secondary effects are.” Weaver shook his head. “Lots of questions, not many good answers. Sorry.”

  “No, you’re doing a good job,” the security advisor said. “Keep at it. General, on my authority get a company or so of marines up there as well. But don’t just kill anything that comes through; it might be their equivalent of a young SEAL just having a look around.”