"Well hell, why don't you go back?"
"I'm dead, remember? Buried, at Forest Lawn. My name's been chiseled on a wall, too."
"You have a house there, don't you?"
"I did, yes. A friend is renting it, from -- 'my estate.'" He spit out those last two words angrily, looked back at the island.
Collin's snorted. "It's hell being dead, ain't it, Spud."
Sherman looked down into the water. "So, what's down here?"
"Fuck if I know. Looks like it falls off fast. What does it show on the chart?"
"Sharp drop to 110 feet, a shelf on this side, then another steep drop-off. Real deep after that."
"Well, I can see the bottom. Thirty feet, anyway...looks like some coral, too..."
They both heard it then. The wump-wump-wump of a helicopter, turbine driven and making for the island at high speed.
"There he is," Collins said, pointing at the MH-60S Knighthawk as it skimmed the surface, heading straight for the cove where Gemini lay tethered to the rock. He turned the outboard's tiller and rolled the throttle open and the Zodiac began bouncing across the lite chop, back to the cove.
+++++
"There they are, over there," the gunner onboard the Knighthawk said, pointing at the inflatable that had just pulled away from a rocky, crown-shaped islet. "Both of them."
The helicopter wheeled around and bore in on the Zodiac, then arced alongside as they skimmed along just above the water, it's two gunners leaning out the door, taking aim at the men in the Zodiac.
+++++
"They don't exactly look happy to see us, Spud."
"I do believe that one in back is going to shoot us, Sumner..."
"Oh well...that's too bad."
The rear gunner disappeared, then the man by his side vanished as well.
"Ain't life a bitch, Spud?"
"I think that Rotorhead just shit his britches."
Collins could see Gemini's mast jutting above the rocks now, and he slowed down to make the sharp turn into the narrow-walled cove. "Wonder what that was all about," he said, watching the helicopter turn and head back out to sea.
"Someone's not happy."
"Uh-huh. Well, Spud, this ain't gonna make 'em any happier."
Sherman looked at the girls standing on the aft deck; Liz and Carol waiting with arms crossed, Charley sitting beside Liz with a grin on her face, and then he saw the one they called Jenny. She was standing there too, her face impassively still, which, he knew, meant absolutely nothing. And he could just see someone sitting in the cockpit...a man...no, two men.
"Uh-oh. Trouble."
Collins perked up when he heard that, looked at the cockpit. "Damn. It's Smithfield. And who's that with him? Oh not...no..."
"Shit...that explains the helicopter."
"Yup." Collins tied-off the Zodiac and they both climbed aboard.
The Presidents, both of them, were sprawled-out in the cockpit, both deep in shade and both locked in twitching silence.
And Collins saw she was beside them now, the little blue one he called Jennie, and the sight of her still unnerved him, left him feeling more than a little dazed and confused. She was sitting on a hatch, looking at Sumner as he crawled over the coaming, and as he sat she 'spoke' to him -- in her halting, fine-pitched voice.
"The effect of transfer is still hard for me to watch -- like sitting on a rattlesnake, Smithfield told me," she said. "We are sorry."
"I know just how they feel," Collins said, looking from her to President Smithfield. Perfectly human -- aside from the pale, almost translucent blue of her skin. No hair -- yet, she said -- though maybe in time. She'd let him measure her once: 26 inches tall, 17 pounds, eyes the most piercing green he'd ever seen in his life. Fingers, toes: perfectly human -- yet no breasts, absolutely no outward signs of function or gender -- no anus, no vagina or penis. Completely asexual, yet even so Jennie was decidedly female -- and 'she' self-identified as such, too.
And the 'we are sorry' was still discomforting, as well. They had no word for 'I', never identified as just one self -- always as part of a collective. Linked, from creation onwards to their local community. No birth referred to, and no parents -- simply to creation...
"This man's group was going to imprison Smithfield, forcibly. We decided intervention was necessary. Sorry," the urJennifer said, "but life's a bitch."
"I see. This might cause a few problems."
"We have anticipated. The word Hope used is 'clusterfuck.' Does this mean something to you?"
"Yup, that's the word. Can you send this one back?" Collins asked, pointing at the current President.
"Many vessels approach now, by both air and sea. Would it not be better to keep him here? Or should we place these vessels into a low earth orbit?"
"Let's not do that, okay? Ted, would you help me with him; let's get him into the Zodiac and run him out there."
Sherman was chewing a fingernail, looking at four Hornets circling the island at about 15,000 feet. "Sounds like a plan," he said as he and Collins helped the (current) President stand...
"Where am I?" the President mumbled as he looked down at his pants. "I think I had an accident."
Sherman ignored him, helped him into the inflatable, then steadied the boat as Collins hopped aboard. They puttered out of the cove and into the open sea, and immediately saw an aircraft carrier and five frigates steaming their way.
"Put him up front, so they can see him," Collins suggested as he steered back towards the crown-shaped rocks. Seconds later the F-18s broke off and headed out to sea, while just a few yards away Collins noticed a periscope off to his right -- then he looked on as the sub's sail broke surface, it's huge black hull surfacing alongside his 12 foot long inflatable boat.
"Come alongside," Collins heard over the sub's hailing speaker, and he watched as sailors swarmed on deck, dropping a boarding net over the side. Marines followed, their M-16s still slung, and two of them came down the net to secure the Zodiac alongside. Collins looked up the wet black hull, saw the ship's C.O. heading down the net and groaned.
The Marines secured a line to the President and helped him aboard as the sub's skipper hopped into the Zodiac.
"Let's go," he said.
"Where, sir?"
The man pointed at the little cove. "Smithfield," was all he said.
Collins turned back to Gemini and they pounded through wind-driven waves to the island, arriving soaking wet and cold...only now he saw Smithfield was waiting for them, standing on the aft deck.
"No weapons, Captain," a still-dazed Smithfield said plainly, and the captain just held out his hands.
"You're welcome aboard, then."
The captain hopped across to the aft platform, waited for Collins and Sherman to come up, then they all crawled into the cockpit. Liz popped up through the companionway, passed up a tray of fresh fruit, then carried up a pitcher of margaritas and put them onto the cockpit table.
"Alright, Captain," Smithfield said slowly, "you called the meeting, so fire away."
"Yes, Mr President...uh, is that one of them, sir?"
"That's Jennifer. I'm not sure who she represents, but whatever you need to say, it probably needs to be said in front of her."
"Was she responsible for this?"
"What? Removing me from the west wing after that son of a bitch threatened to throw my ass in Guantanamo? Yeah, I guess she is."
"He what, sir?"
"You hard of hearing, skipper?" Collins asked.
The captain turned red. "You're Collins, aren't you?"
"That's a fact."
The captain looked him over, tried to reconcile the man's dossier with what he saw now. "Well, the Joint-Chiefs wanted me to pass along a request: don't do this again, okay?" He turned and looked at Jennifer. "It would be helpful if..."
"Captain," Jennifer spoke now, and her voice dripped with power, "we are allied with Hyperion. That is all. If your group moves against Hyperion, we move against your group."
"Our group? You mean...?"
"The United States, captain," Smithfield said. "As her group has already demonstrated their capabilities in this regard, I think it sound advice."
"If you seek a change in status, captain," Jennifer said now, "please relay the request through this group."
"What?"
Smithfield sighed. "If the President, or the Joint Chiefs -- or whoever happens to be running the country right now -- wants to negotiate with this group, you'll need to get in touch with me. We'll arrange a meeting."
"So, you're with them, Mr President?"
"Nope. We just happen to have a mutual set of interests, captain, that's all."
"Mr President, are you free to leave here and come with me?"
"Of course, but why the hell would I want to do that. I'm not particularly fond of Cuba, or for that matter, the climate in DC these days."
The captain reached in his pocket and placed a transmitter on the table, then he switched it off. "I'll probably be shot for this, but sir, can you tell me what the hell's going on?"
Smithfield looked at the transmitter, then at the captain -- and as he looked up he shook his head, turned to 'Jennie.' "I think it's time we left," he said, and in the blink of an eye both he and Jennie disappeared.
"That's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life," the captain said. "Do they keep an eye on you all the time?"
Collins shrugged. "I have no idea," he replied, not wanting to fall into that trap. "Can I run you back out?"
"No, that's alright," he said, smiling now as he pointed to several Navy inflatables roaring towards the cove. "I reckon we'll just take you four into custody."
Collins shook his head again. "Y'all better get it together real soon, 'cause this is getting old, and our friends are going to start thinking you're just stupid." He leaned over, looked into the sky above the island, then motioned the sub captain to come out from under the awning and take a look.
The skipper of the USS Montpelier stared open-mouthed at his ship, all 362 feet of her, now hovering hundreds of feet above the island, then -- his eyes round as saucers -- he nodded at Collins: "Okay. I'll relay the message."
"They seem to have a pretty good handle on things, captain. Shooting the messenger isn't going to solve anything."
"What about my ship?"
"What about it?"
The skipper looked up again -- and she was gone. He turned, saw his ship a mile offshore and felt sick to his stomach.
"You know," Collins said as he looked at the man, "they usually want to park things like that in orbit. They have no idea how or even why we'd spend so much money on something dedicated to defense, and they seem almost annoyed a machine so big does so little, that our ships can't leap from the sea to space. Frankly, I don't think they've realized yet just how stupid we are, technologically speaking. You might pass that thought along, too."
"Okay."
"Oh. Here's your transmitter. Don't forget," Collins said as he tossed it back to the man, "to mention this was not appreciated, too."
The skipper looked at Collins one last time. "Whose side are you on, Collins? Really?"
"Mine. Humanity's, even yours, when you get right down to it."
"So, you'd take sides against us, your country, over the Russians or the Chinese?"
"The Russians and the Chinese aren't acting in the best interest of humanity, and our allies know that."
"They do? So, why did they come here?"
"I think they're curious, but really, beyond that I have no idea."
"Curious?"
"When I figure that one out, skipper, I'll let you know."
"If they let you," the captain said under his breath, as he stepped onto one of the Navy inflatables. He looked up at Collins one more time, shook his head then left.
+++++
Hyperion Five was tumbling now, just barely under control, and Hope Sherman wished her brother -- or Sumner, really -- was here now to help fly this thing. She wasn't a pilot, had never been a pilot; she counted on the ship's computers to take control during maneuvers like this...only the computers seemed to get more freaked out by trans-light speed dilation effects than even she did. She re-booted systems one by one, and they chirped back to life one by one, only very slowly now, and she put them through simple routines to check accuracy before turning even basic operations over to them.
She saw poor, doomed Phobos ahead through the single ovoid viewport, then their colony ship -- in geosynchronous orbit above the Martian poles -- with four space elevators already running huge quantities of material down to the planet's surface.
Finally, computer links were established and Sherman's Hyperion began slowing, the ship's tumbling ceased, and she could just make out a docking platform on the colony ship -- almost identical to the platform destroyed last year -- with three Hyperion vessels already mated there. Five began it's autonomous approach now; she heard thrusters popping, watched minor attitude corrections on her primary display, then a docking monitor superimposed over the platform. She watched as ILS vectors appeared, felt rapid course corrections as docking hatches began to line up, and then, with one last gentle bump, 'positive contact' and 'hard seal established' annunciator lights appeared on the primary display.
She watched pressures equalize, then the computer cycled the airlock, and she saw Sara Green on the monitor, no helmet, no spacesuit, and she flipped the safeties to clear the airlock. Green entered the primary airlock, started the equalization process anew, then entered Five's cabin.
Sherman could tell something was wrong; the expression on her face, in her eyes was all wrong.
"What's happened?" Sherman asked as soon as the other woman was inside her pod.
"The Phage. We have more reports ready, but they're headed for this system, still sub-light but speed is picking up."
"The timeline? Have the Vulcans advanced it yet?"
"Moe is convinced we need to advance the schedule, and he wants another colony ship here, like yesterday. Larry and Curly remain unconvinced, they don't see any need to worry at this point."
"I wish we'd named them something else," Sherman sighed.
Green smiled. "I never saw those programs, so the names meant nothing to me. Then Hayden showed me a couple of episodes. Singularly appropriate, I think. Are you sure you want to call them Vulcans?"
"People will be able to relate to them better that way, at least before they see them. Once that happens, shit's going to hit the fan no matter what we call them."
"Klaatu barada nikto."
"Exactly. Unreasoning panic, all human paranoia manifest and come to life."
Green sighed too. "Nothing compared to the Phage. Damn, where'd we be without their help?"
"Extinct," said The Owl.
+++++
'Jennie' was back on Gemini, sitting on the chart table waiting for Collins, her legs crossed 'Indian-style' with her elbows resting on her knees, and Sumner laughed when he came below and found her sitting there...
"Well hello there, Tink!"
"Tink? I thought you wished to call me Jennie, or Jennifer?"
"Right you are, but you remind me of a character in a story. Remind me to tell you about Peter Pan someday."
"I will. I never get over watching you laugh."
"Oh?"
"I am simply a communicator, yet even so I have no analogue of laughter when I relay our conversations. Laughter, humor," she said, shrugging her shoulders with her palms now up, facing the sky, "they're all Greek to me?"
Collins laughed again. "You're developing a sense of humor too, I see."
"If you spent all your time around Smithfield, I suspect yours might develop as well."
"Stop it," Collins laughed as he shook his head.
"You see? Here's another example of the inherent conflict of expression in your language. You tell me to stop it, yet you laugh, an expression of pleasure. The complexity of neuronal responses is staggering, and at times the interplay of ideas and language is most upsetting to me."
"Well, you're understanding seems to be improving."
"In English, yes. French is not too bad, but Hebrew? You can not swear in Hebrew, apparently, without using your hands. This causes headaches, nausea, death-wish."
"Probably has for three thousand years."
"Collins? May we mate?"
"Excuse me?"
"Not physically, you idiot. May I have some of your genetic material?"
Collins' laughter was loud enough to cause Liz to poke her head out of the aft cabin. "What are you two talking about now?"
"Sex, mating, procreation, genetic co-mingling," Jennie said. "I asked Sumner if I could have some of his genetic material."
"Oh, did you now? And Sumner? How are we going to go about doing that?"
"I haven't the slightest idea, but maybe you could give us a hand?" He looked at Liz, at the expression of withering contempt in her eyes -- then he turned to Jennie and whispered: "Uh, now would be a good time for some humor."
"Ah yes. I see. Perhaps, Liz, I could get some of your genetic material too?" Jennie looked at Sumner -- who was now frowning, his face scrunched up like he'd just eaten a lemon -- then at Liz -- who was now staring at 'Jennie' with an odd smile on her own face.
"Oh no. Far be it for me to come between you two."
"Liz," the urJennie said, "they're going to send you to a punitentiary, for punishment."
Liz groaned, shook her head and walked back into the cabin.
"So, what's this all about," Collins asked.
"As I have explained, we are highly differentiated, genetically manipulated to fulfill specific tasks. Language skills for communicators, size and strength for those who work with heavy industrial machines, intellectual capacity for academic theorists and educators..."
"Attractiveness for the procreation class?"
"We do not conceive, or procreate in the manner you do. I think you call it asexual reproduction, but there is no absolute analogue. And Smithfield implies that at his age all his activities are asexual, and this has caused some concern among our scientists."
"It does me too. Frequently."
"Ah."
"Are you serious? About wanting genetic material?"
"It has been done many times," she said, "on this planet." She looked at him now, studying his reaction carefully.
"Oh? When?"
"A long time ago. An hour, perhaps more."
He looked at her now, wondered where this was going.
"We have manipulated genomes on this planet."
He felt pressure closing-in when he heard those words, then he pointed at the two marks under her left eye -- and she nodded her head.
"These are not what they appear to be," she said, touching her face. "These are sensory organs, and the spots under the right eye..."
"Sensory...? You have eyes, a nose, and ears...?"
"These are...geospatial might be the most appropriate term. But we can see past time, as well."
"Past time? I don't understand."
Jennie looked at him and sighed. "Some of us, communicators mostly, can see time, almost like you see a river. Some can see up the river, and down."
"You mean the past? And the future? You can see the future?"
"Me? Yes, but this is a recent genetic variation. Very few communicators have this ability. It is dangerous, the word is..."
"Paradox."
"Yes, just so. Exactly."
"Jenn? Do you know what is going to happen, here, on Earth?"
She looked away, then looked to the southern sky. "We are too far north to see the danger, but it comes from what your astronomers have termed C99, the Coalsack Nebula."
"The danger?"
"It, or perhaps they, have been named the Phage, by Ted's sister -- the Owl. They absorb planets. Planets with sentient species. They remove life, advanced lifeforms. We have observed these activities many times."
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