Into the Looking Glass votsb-1

by John Ringo

  “Yes, ma’am,” the general said dubiously.

  “Put it this way, General,” she said, smiling faintly. “We really don’t want to start an interplanetary war on the basis of one itchy trigger finger. We’ve got enough problems in the Mideast.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And get some rest,” she added, yawning again. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Weaver nodded as the transmission ended but he didn’t say he would. He’d be surprised if he could sleep for a couple of days; there was just too much to do, see and think about.

  He nodded at the general and then walked over to the lab that he had set up in a tent. Garcia was there, nodding over the instruments, half asleep. They’d gotten laser measurement gear so far and set up a slightly more precise radiation counter but so far that was it. He hoped that by the end of the day tomorrow he’d have some way to really measure emissions. He’d be surprised if the particle wasn’t giving off something, even if the radiation gear they had didn’t detect it. The gear was standard military stuff, designed for detection of alpha particles and maybe beta. It wasn’t set up to detect quark emissions.

  “Any change?” he asked Garcia, punching up the program to the lasers.

  “Nothing?” Garcia said, startling out of a half doze. “Not the last time I looked.”

  “Go get some sleep,” Bill said, waving him out of the chair.

  “Thanks,” Garcia said. “See you in the morning.”

  Weaver didn’t mention that it was already morning, about four a.m. He didn’t really care. He just wished he had some halfway decent instruments. He wanted to understand this particle, if particle it was, completely. He needed more precise size measurements. He wanted to know if it had a mass. He wanted to know what it was putting out, if anything. He wanted it folded, spindled and mutilated.

  But for now all he could do was watch it in impotent fury. It should be doing something. Not just sitting there, a big, black enigma. If this was proper science fiction it should be making a flashy light show. There should be electricity crackling over its surface. Not just this nothingness.

  He snarled at his instruments and then stood up, walking out of the tent. He headed over to where light was coming from McBain’s lab and knocked at the door.

  “Mind if I come in?” he called.

  “Come on,” McBain answered, wearily. When he walked in she was bent over a table looking through a microscope.

  “Got anything?” he asked.

  “Strangest damned physiology I’ve ever seen,” McBain answered. “Of course, you’d expect that. Some similarities to terrestrial. Book lungs, something that works for a heart, musculature, exoskeleton. But other than that, it’s just weird. No visual sensors I’ve been able to find, no audio either. Something in the region of the head that I think are sensors, but of what I have no idea. Mandibles for eating. The book lungs look scarred; I’d say that this thing is extremely sensitive to additional oxygen and that’s what killed it but it’s just a guess. The next live bug they bring me I want to put it in a reduced oxygen environment if I can figure out how to rig one.”

  “Makes you wish Spock was here, don’t it?” Weaver said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Or Bones,” she answered, looking up and grinning. “He was always my favorite. ‘Damnit, Jim, I’m a doctor not a mason!’ Well, I’m a terrestrial biologist, not a xenobiologist.”

  “You’re one now,” Weaver pointed out. “The only one, so far.”

  “There will be more,” she said, darkly. “Get what you can while you can, you know this is going to be taken away from us.”

  “Oh?” Weaver said. “Why?”

  “The military is all over it,” she sighed. “SEALs doing the biological collecting, which could be done better by grad students. Soldiers on your instruments…”

  “I asked for him,” Weaver said. “He used to be a physics masters candidate.”

  “Yeah, but some Beltway Bandit corporation is going to take all this over and bury it deep; you know they will.”

  “Well, as long as it’s Columbia I’m safe,” Weaver said, smiling. “Where do you think they found me?”

  “Really?” she asked. “You work for the Man?”

  “Most of the time,” the physicist replied. “And it’s not like a social disease or something. Sure, some of your work gets classified, but most of the time you can publish. And the pay is a hell of a lot better than working for a university. Mostly I wear my engineering hat, anyway.”

  “Well, you’re safe I guess,” she muttered.

  “So are you as long as you don’t get all upset at what’s going on,” Weaver pointed out. “Some of this stuff is going to be classified. But I’m going to argue for declass of most of it. The classified community isn’t large enough to handle the data we’ll be getting and most of the world-class people we’ll need to analyze it and make sense of it aren’t prone to working with classified material. It makes sense to classify some of it, though. You don’t want everyone and their brother making Higgs bosons if a nuclear bomb is the result.”

  “That’s a point,” she admitted.

  “And they’re already talking about bringing in the Tropical Disease people at UGA,” he noted. “I don’t think any of them are cleared for TS work. So don’t worry about it for now. Have you been able to take a good look at Tuffy, yet?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “A small one,” she said. “Mimi was getting tired, no surprise, so am I. Just before she nodded off I got her to let me hold him for a moment. I was worried but he didn’t do anything. He’s decally symmetric, covered in fur and has a mouth on the underside. That’s about all I could tell. I got a small piece of fur on my hand and I ran it through what I’ve got as an analyzer. It’s got proteins and some dense long-chain carbon molecules in it. No DNA again. That’s all I could get from it. And none of the molecules looked like what I was getting from this mess,” she added, gesturing at the dissected bugs on the worktable.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Bedded down in one of the officer tents,” Susan said. “We’re going to have to release her to her next of kin sooner or later.”

  “Only if they’re in here,” Weaver pointed out. “They don’t want anything going out unless it’s been decontaminated. I think it’s a bit late; we had soldiers going in and out for a while. If there’s going to be a purple plague, quarantine has already been breached.”

  “Let’s hope not,” McBain said, shivering. “But I’d be really surprised if this biology could interact with ours. I’m done in. I’m going to go get some rest.”

  “Go on,” Weaver said. “I’m not tired.”

  He headed back to his tent and started making notes of everything they knew, not much, and everything he wanted to know. A lot. But Tuffy kept coming back to mind. If another gate had opened during the explosion, it wouldn’t be a limited event. He suspected that they weren’t anywhere near the end of the surprises.

  * * *

  “A closed world has opened,” Collective 15379 emitted. “Intentional Boson formation from far side.”

  “Reconnaissance?” Collective 47 asked.

  “Already ordered,” 15379 answered. “Four gate parallels so far and expanding on available fractal line. Wormhole opened at one of the proximate parallels. Reconnaissance team entering now.”

  “Report back on viability for colonization.”

  * * *

  “911 emergency services,” the operator said, noting the time of the call on a pad. “Police, fire or medical?”

  “Police!” a female voice answered. The display read 1358 Jules Ct. Eustis. So far all normal, except for the boom of a shotgun in the background.

  “Is that firing?” operator asked.

  “Yes! There are demons attacking my house! My husband’s got his shotgun!”

  “Ma’am, just calm down,” the operator said. She tapped her computer, dispatching a patrol car. Possible crazy person, guns fired
. “You’ll be okay.”

  “No I won’t,” the woman sobbed. “They’re coming in the back door! Don’t you hear them?”

  It was then that the operator realized that she did hear something in the background, a strange ululation like an off-tone fire engine. It was… unworldly. She tapped the computer again and keyed for home invasion and multiple response.

  “Ma’am, the police are on their way,” she said as calmly as she could. “Is this 1358 Jules Court?”

  “Yes, they’re…” There was a scream in the background. “Please hurry! They’re coming…” The call cut off.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Doug Jones was chief investigator for the Lake County Sheriff’s department. He had gotten that position, and his promotion from sergeant, when the sheriff and his ex-boss agreed that it was unlikely the ex-boss, who had been called up in the National Guard, was going to be coming back for more than a year. Right now he regretted the promotion.

  Generally he was in charge of investigations into burglaries, fairly frequent, rapes, not too frequent, murders, infrequent and, most of all, drug dealing and drug running. Lake County was at the crossroads of several major highways and drugs flowed up from the south, coming from Miami and Tampa, and often were distributed or transferred or dealt in Lake County.

  What he wasn’t used to was investigating home invasions by demons.

  He looked at the patch of… what did the forensic tech call it? Oh, yeah, “ichor” on the ground and shook his head.

  “This truly sucks,” he said, looking over at the first-in officer. “And you didn’t see anything?”

  “No, Lieutenant,” the deputy said. “When I got here there were neighbors out in the street. Based on my information I went to the back of the house. The rear door had been busted in; it was on the floor of the kitchen. There were shotgun shells on the stairs and upstairs landing and a twelve gauge pump shotgun. Blood patch on the landing, blood patch in the upstairs bedroom, wireless phone on the floor. And…” he pointed at the patch of drying green stuff. “That on the stairs, the landing and a trail going out the door. Also blood mixed with it in places.”

  “So, what we have here, is demons coming out of nowhere, invading a house, killing or injuring two retirees, dragging them out of the house and…” He looked at the hummock of oak and cypress behind the house. It was much the same as dozens he had walked through before but at the moment it was a dark and ominous presence. “And dragging them off into the darkness. I really don’t like that.”

  “Neither do I,” the cop admitted, gulping. “After I did an initial survey I called in and requested backup and investigators, secured the area and waited for response.”

  “Must have been fun,” Jones said. He looked over at the head of the SWAT team and gestured with his chin. Like most small departments the SWAT team was a secondary duty for regular deputies. And, also like most small departments, it was made up of guys who were willing to shell out for their own equipment rather than being picked for being SWAT potential. But the Lake County squad was pretty good, all things considered. Most of the deputies were good old boys who had grown up with a rifle in their hand and knew how to shoot. That might help.

  “Hey, Van,” he said to the SWAT commander. Lieutenant VanGelder was six feet six of muscle and bone and a crack shot. He’d gone to every training course the department would pay for and many that he paid for out of his own pocket. On the other hand, “fighting on the fringes of hell” wasn’t one of the courses that was available. “I want to find out where the blood leads.”

  “Yep,” VanGelder said. “I was just waiting for your okay; we’re going to mess up any evidence going in.”

  “Well, I somehow don’t think we’re going to be standing any of the perpetrators up in court,” the investigator said, wryly. “ ‘Ma’am, do you recognize any of the demons that you saw on the night of the twenty-sixth in this lineup?’ ”

  “Yeah,” VanGelder said, waving at the rest of the team. “Okay, I’m going to take point. We’ll follow the trail to wherever it goes.”

  VanGelder pulled down his balaclava, put on his helmet and hefted his shotgun. He’d considered using an MP-5 but the shotgun just had more authority. You hit something with a shotgun and it stayed hit.

  He followed the trail, it was as clear as day, into the hummock. It curved around the cypress and oak with some side trails, moving in a generally northerly direction. Then, as he cleared a section of dense undergrowth, he saw it. A large, shiny, mirror sitting in the middle of the small forest. It extended from right at ground level up to about ten feet and was perfectly circular. And the trail went right up to it and disappeared.

  “Son of a bitch,” one of the team muttered. “Hellmouth.”

  “What?” VanGelder asked, turning around.

  “Hellmouth,” Knapp repeated. Knapp was, by nearly a foot, the shortest guy on the team. The rest tended to be over six feet but Knapp was five foot two inches tall. On the other hand, not only was he hands down the best martial artist, he was really useful for second-story entry; when the team competed five of them would just grab him and throw him through a window. Now he was pulling back his balaclava and shaking his head. “It’s like Hellmouth, sir. They’re saying there’s a gate to another world at that ball in Orlando. I bet anything this is another one. Those weren’t demons; they were aliens.”

  “Alien Abduction In Lake County,” one of the squad muttered. “I can just see the headlines now. Just fucking great.”

  “Okay,” VanGelder said, keying his mike. “Dispatch, this is SWAT One. We have what looks to be a teleportation gate in back of the incident site on Jules Court. Perpetrators appear to have escaped through the gate.” He paused and was unsure what the hell to say after that. Fall back on the oldest call in police history. “Officer requests backup.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Oh, this is so truly good,” Glasser said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Weaver agreed. McBain had already compared the ichor found at the site to the other two biologies and come up blank. All three appeared to come from different evolutionary backgrounds. “Any ideas? Other than digging in?”

  A platoon of combat engineers was felling the hummock, violating numerous environmental regulations if anyone was interested at the moment, while a company of national guardsmen were attempting to dig in. Like in much of Florida the water table in the area was high.

  “Find out what’s on the other side,” Glasser said.

  “If they’re hostile, and I have to admit that appears to be the case, that might not be too healthy,” Weaver pointed out.

  “Toss a couple of satchel charges through first, sir?” the command master chief said. Command Master Chief Miller was about six feet tall and just about as broad with a bald head and a wad of chew bulging out the left cheek. He pushed the wad across and then spat on the ground, never letting his M-4 carbine track away from the glittering mirror. “Then go in tactical, get a look around and get back out?”

  “What about blow-back through the gate?” Glasser asked.

  “Well, the back side doesn’t appear to be functional as a gate, sir,” Miller answered. “I’d say we toss ’em, duck around back and hunker down, then go back around and through.”

  “Works for me,” Glasser said. “Make it so. Oh, and Chief?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You are not the first guy through the gate.”

  “Yes, sir,” Miller said, his face unreadable.

  “Neither am I. But I am going to be on the team.”

  * * *

  First the environment suits. The SEALs had been using them on the other side of the Orlando gate so much they were used to them now. Then the mask, then the hood, then the body armor. Then the air tank, then the ammo harness. Last of all the weapon and the helmet.

  “Wish these face masks were ballistic protective,” Glasser said as Weaver helped him get adjusted.

  “Have fun,” Weaver said.

  “D
on’t I always?”

  The five-man team had assembled by the gate, two of them swinging satchel charges in their hands. The satchel charge was a nylon bag filled with explosives. A timed fuse was connected to a detonator. Hit the timer, toss the bag and when the time’s up big explosion.

  “Just remember,” Miller growled, over the radio. “Once you ignite the fuse, Mister Satchel Charge is not your friend.

  Glasser, Miller and Sanson crouched behind the gate as the other two tossed the charges through and then ducked around with them. All three clamped their hands over their ears and then waited a moment. There was a tremendous crash that was at the same time oddly muted. Then the team went in.

  Each SEAL had a number and a mission. The point, Howse, would enter, scan left and right and then concentrate on forward. Number two, Woodard, would scan as he entered, then concentrate on left. Three, Sanson, had right. Four, Command Master Chief Miller, had up and back. Five, Glasser, was in command.

  They formed, fast, on the near side then, putting their left hand on left shoulder and holding their weapons out and down, went through the gate at a run.

  This time there was no vertical discontinuity. The far side was at the same level as the world they had left. But it was an entirely different environment than either earth or the other, still unnamed, planet. They appeared to be in a large room, but the walls and floors seemed oddly organic. The light was low and either everything was green or the light was. It appeared to be vaguely oval but the most distant walls were beyond sight in the gloom.

  Glasser switched on his gun-light and swept the beam around the room. It was large enough that the light didn’t hit the far wall or the ceiling. The gate was in the middle of it, apparently. The floor, at least, was green and the diffuse light seemed to be coming up from it and the walls. The spot where the satchel charges had hit was dark as if whatever generated the light had been damaged. That was all the time he had to look, though, when Howse screamed.