"Ndulu, think you can collect the weapons and still be okay? That's not a good-looking wound," the sergeant asked, concerned.
"I'll manage."
The drill was then to cover those standing and sitting in front of them while the other two took the sides and explored the rooms, then went up both stairs and did the same upstairs to insure that there were no ugly surprises waiting for them there that the ferrets had somehow overlooked.
Nasser emerged from the far room on the right and said, "Clear!" Rosen was only a few seconds behind on the left. They started for the nearest stairs, but at just that moment Brigit Moran emerged from one of the rooms, yawned, then looked down into the great room and the scene below.
She looked puzzled for a moment, then spotted and recognized Maslovic. "Oh, hi!" she called out, sounding very friendly. She even gave him a little wave. "Can we play with your spaceship some more?"
IX: OF CABBAGES AND KINGS
"Inventory?" Lieutenant Commander Mohr still wasn't sure if he was happy or panicked to have the girls back on board, let alone the others. Maybe both.
"Thirty-two of the so-called Magi stones, all of which are secured, all recovered from the bush lodge area," Lieutenant Chung reported. "None of the subjects has been allowed near them, and they are in a secured vault."
"I find it interesting that none of the stones were being worn by the principals when they were taken."
"No, sir. They were carefully stored like precious objects. There may be many more at the city compound, but we felt it prudent not to return there, and particularly not to allow Macouri, Schwartz, or the two employees to return there. There is simply no telling what sort of mischief they could cause if they were able to get to controls that we could not."
"I see. Yes, that's probably best for now. You remained with the van after modifying it?"
"Yes, sir. That is my function, after all, in this sort of team."
"But you were the one who surveyed the entire compound after it was secure and the principals moved?"
"Sir?"
"What I'm asking, Lieutenant, is for anything you might have found that you would not have expected to be there."
"Nothing, sir. Oh. You mean, like… babies?"
"Or something like that."
"No, sir. Nothing. Haven't the young women told you what happened?"
"No, as a matter of fact they haven't. Nor have the others. Nor has our hospital unit."
"Sir?"
"Lieutenant, if we can believe the incredibly thorough going-over that they've gotten, then, except for the obvious stretch marks, there is no sign that any of the three were ever pregnant. Even their breasts, while large, are not engorged or overly distended as the medics say should be the case in such well advanced pregnancies."
"What do they say, sir? Or can't I ask?"
"You can indeed. They look rather blank, if you must know, and all our sensor readings indicate that the feeling is genuine. They simply don't remember."
"What happened to the children?"
"No, being pregnant. I should think that would be difficult to forget, yet it's a hole. Our psych people say that they've never seen such a perfect selective mindworm."
"A what, sir?"
"Mindworm. Psychs use it all the time. It's quite similar to the ones used on computers and other positronic devices when they have problems. And, in our business, both for long-term psychological health and occasionally for security purposes, there are things that simply shouldn't be recalled, even subconsciously. High pressures, bitter memories, breaking points. But using them always leaves gaps, things that you can find and pin down if you really dwell on them. Not these three. They have a perfectly consistent memory of the entire period with Murphy and with us and down there, and it simply isn't the one we know and saw. It's quite frightening, really."
"Frightening?"
"Consider that whatever did that with them also was in our own main computers and memory banks and even had access to the Admiralty in a limited way. Suppose that power also rewrote or redid some things there? We would never know. Our original medical scans when they were first aboard do say that they were all three undergoing normal pregnancies, but now it's not absolute that those scans were or remain correct."
"Well, sir, I'm sure Maslovic and the others can tell you that they were as distended when they left the town house as they were here, so whatever happened happened in a relatively short time after that. And we were out there doing reconnaissance within hours of their arrival."
"And that is the mystery, Commander. The physical evidence we have says that they were pregnant when they were here and when they got out there, and the stretch marks confirm it to a fair degree. Yet not just their memories but their physical state and even their hormonal balances say that they were not. And that leaves us with the big question."
"Sir?"
"If they were not carrying children, then just what the hell were they carrying?"
"I still believe that you are acting in a most uncivilized and brutish manner not even to allow me to send for my clothing!" Georgi Macouri said almost petulantly.
Maslovic gave him a wicked smile, remembering the blood on that altar or whatever it was inside the town house.
"Well, you see, Mister Macouri, we're military. We're not personally or individually brutish, but we're professionally brutish. Nothing personal, you understand."
"Yes, but to force me into this loutish, crinkly uniform, and these ill-fitting skivvies. That, sir, is going too far!"
Maslovic leaned back and took another look at the man opposite him. Macouri wasn't a particularly impressive figure. He wasn't handsome or charming or debonair like the people in commercial dramas, and he had a particularly irritating way of saying everything through his nose in a relatively high-pitched tenor. He had nothing that would mark him as brilliant or dangerous, nothing charismatic that would draw any attention to him. That, of course, was the case with all the best agents and spies in history, but Georgi Macouri wasn't particularly interested in blending in or not being noticed. He had money and he flaunted it. It was, in a sense, his only real attraction, but it was more than enough, apparently.
"Civilized simply means living in cities," the intelligence man pointed out. "You are, right now, in a rather good-sized city in space and it functions. Hence, we are civilized. More civilized than most. We have no crime here, and nobody wants more than they have or can have. Everything is provided, including a skilled job that is perfectly suited to them. The competition they do have is friendly and meretricious. Improve your skills, do it better, advance in rank which means not only position but respect. That's the only currency here. Respect. We save our violence for training and for the occasionally necessary missions. You can search all you wish on this vast ship, and you won't find a single solitary altar nor sacrifices to any deity. We believe in what we see, what we know, what we can smell and touch and measure, and we don't mind that. We don't need any altars."
"Bull! Everybody needs something greater than themselves!" Macouri snapped, showing Maslovic that he'd finally hit a rare nerve. "Why, I bet you have more shrines aboard this tub than they have on Vaticanus. Not to Saint this or that, but statues of past great military types, memorial plaques, honors lists of military achievers, and so on. Your own uniforms have these little marker things and I suspect that each one means something. Service someplace dangerous, perhaps, or best shot, or something for bravery and valor. They're all shrines. And the larger and more lasting ones are almost temples. It's simply a matter of culture in how you label or approach these things. I've never seen a military of any size that didn't do it that way."