CHRYSALIS Read online

  Chaplain Halberd came fully into the room, looking apologetic. Hernandez closed the door.

  “You're crazy, both of you!” she hissed.

  “No we aren't,” Hernandez smiled. “You see, Marianna, the Director has given you to me. You’re my reward.”

  “Reward for treason!” she spat.

  “Not at all,” he said calmly, clearly determined to try persuasion before resorting to force. “I was only doing my job. I’m a Federation intelligence officer. I was a spy, not a turncoat.”

  “Scum is scum. Beat it, both of you!”

  “Look at the situation rationally, Marianna,” he said, still reasonable. “You’re on the losing side, but after we’re married, you’ll be on the winning side. If you look at it that way, I'm doing you a favor.”

  “I don't believe this.”

  “Read the marriage ceremony, padre,” Hernandez said shortly, reasonable no longer.

  Chaplain Halberd cleared his throat and took out a well-thumbed copy of The Federation Armed Forces Manual. He turned to the appropriate page and began to read. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered ...”

  “Cut the crap,” Hernandez said impatiently. “Get to the important part.”

  “I'm not listening to this,” Marianna said defiantly. She sat on the settee, squeezed into a corner, legs tucked under her, arms locked around her drawn up knees, trying to make herself into a porcupine.

  His voice trembling slightly, for he didn’t like the direction this was taking, Chaplain Halberd got to the important part. “Do you, Marianna,” he began, and paused. He looked at Hernandez. “Does she have a last name?” he said, reaching for anything to delay the proceedings. He was certain this bogus marriage ceremony was going to end badly, regardless of how well placed the Colonel was, and he was sorry he’d agreed to act as accomplice, though he had little choice. He had no doubt that had he not agreed, the Colonel would have shown the Director those unfortunate pictures.

  “Of course she has a last name, you idiot!” Hernandez stormed. “It's right there on the marriage contract!”

  Sweating now, Chaplain Halberd resumed. “Do you, Marianna Hennessy, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?”

  “She does,” Hernandez answered shortly.

  “And do you, Neal Hernandez, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”

  “I do.”

  “Then in accordance with the power vested in me as Chaplain of Federation Base Linngard, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  “You come near me,” Marianna said evenly, “and I'll kick you in the nuts so hard you'll look like a comma.”

  “That's all, padre,” Hernandez smiled. “File the marriage contract with whoever you file them with. I want this all legal and aboveboard. And tell the guard outside he can take a break after he locks the door. I'm going to be here for a few hours. My wife and I have much to talk about.”

  “Yes sir,” Chaplain Halberd said. He smiled tentatively and left, eager to be gone.

  The door locked, Hernandez turned to Marianna. “Well,” he grinned. “Our wedding night. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

  “I know. I saw you sneaking peeks at me back at Tal Mercury. I should’ve known it was you. Sneaks are always traitors.”

  “Have you any idea how many hours I spent reading your file, getting to know you, where you were born, where you went to school? How many hours I spent just hoping to get a glimpse of you? I love you, Marianna.”

  “I warn you. Stay where you are or I'll kick you so hard you won't be able to piss for a week.”

  “This can be pleasurable or it can be painful, Marianna. Which will it be?”

  “You’ll find out just how painful if you don't get out.”

  “You leave me no choice, my love!”

  He advanced upon her and she retreated further into herself, rolling herself up into a defensive ball, wedged into a corner of the sofa. He laughed and grabbed her savagely by the hair. The shock of the pain caused her to reach for his hands, exposing her body to attack. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off the sofa and threw her onto the bed. She clawed and scratched, but he got both her wrists in one of his own massive fists and pinned her down, laying his body heavily on top of her. He thrust her arms above her head, and drove his knee between her legs, forcing them open.

  “Goddam coveralls!” he grunted, for the one-piece red uniform was going to be a bitch to get off. He reached for the collar and ripped off the top button. With a force that caused her body to jump on the bed, he tore off the rest of the buttons, opening the coverall down the front to the navel, exposing her soft breasts. She twisted and squirmed, spit on him and tried to knee him in the crotch, but he had a counter for every move. The coverall defied all his efforts, however, for the fabric was too tough to rip, and she was exposed only to the navel. Her arms were still in the sleeves and her legs were still in the legs, and there didn't seem any way to get the coverall off without letting go one of her arms, and he was reluctant to do that while she was still capable of using it.

  He hit her once, in the jaw, stunning her. She didn’t lose consciousness, for he’d pulled his punch, not wanting to damage her too much. The blow enabled him to free one of her arms from its sleeve. She got her fingernails into his face before he recaptured it, and forced both arms back above her head. He was sweating profusely now, and his muscles were beginning to ache with the strain. He slapped her hard across the face, not pulling his punch this time, and the full force openhanded blow rocked her head back. He released her arms momentarily and freed the other arm from its coverall sleeve. She didn't resist this time.

  He got both her wrists back in his grasp and pulled the coverall down to her waist. He rested then, smiling down at the magnificent face just inches from his, noting with wonder how beautiful her hair looked spilling over onto his uniform sleeve. Her left eye was beginning to swell, beginning to blacken, and he was immensely sorry.

  “I don't want to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice wracked with emotion. “Let it happen. Please let it happen.”

  She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t answer, she didn’t move.

  “That's good,” he whispered huskily. “Don't resist. There's no point.” He moved his head to kiss her and she spit on him.

  “All right,” he said softly. Still holding her wrists, he undid his belt and opened his pants. Still pressing one knee in her crotch he lowered his pants as best he could and shifted position to get the other leg. He had to release his leg hold on her, but the two blows had made her compliant, and he was able to get his pants completely off without any reaction from her.

  “That's good,” he soothed. “That's a smart girl. Don't get hurt.”

  He pulled the coverall off her, and she didn’t resist. Fully naked, she lay quietly, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.

  “I'll let go your hands if you promise to behave.”

  She wet her lips with her tongue and said, “My arms hurt.” He took this for acquiescence and released his hold on her wrists. She immediately covered her pubic area with both hands.

  “That's not gonna help,” he laughed. He took off the rest of his clothes and lay down beside her. He took her unresisting body in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers. She did not respond, but she did not resist.

  He was on his left side, his left arm under her shoulders, left hand on her left breast, right hand on her abdomen. She kept her hands on her pubis, but otherwise offered no resistance.

  “Just a peek,” he said softly.

  He put the tips of his fingers under her hands, touching her pubic hair, caressing her mons, but he didn’t push her hands away. He removed his hand from her abdomen and ran it softly up her belly, coming to rest on her other breast.

  She didn’t resist, did not respond. Hidden by her left hand, her right index and middle fingers were moving slowly inside her vagina, searching for the plastic pouch. The butch was right. Sometimes they d
on't always search in the right places. She’d taken the small syringe from the ship's medical cabinet on the long flight north, and shoved it far up the only place accessible to her they might not search. She didn’t know what awaited her wherever they were taking her, and she planned to have a way out, if conditions made it necessary.

  Her fingertips touched the plastic outer packaging, and she tried to grip it, causing her body to move involuntarily. She covered it up by moving her lips against his, and he responded to her gratefully.

  “Yes, Marianna,” he whispered, kissing her again. “Everything’s all right, dear, everything's all right now.”

  She had her fingertips on it again, and this time she was able to hold onto it. She worked the tiny syringe out of her vagina, still covered with her left hand, and felt for the tear strip that would open the pliable plastic pouch. She found it and the syringe was free in her fingers.

  “Are you all right?” he said gently, kissing her.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I'm all right.”

  He smiled and moved his hand back to her abdomen.

  She had the cover off the needle now, and the syringe in her left hand. He was on her right side, so she’d have to do it left-handed. She took a moment to be certain it was positioned properly. The syringe was very small, and she’d have to hold it between thumb and middle finger, using the index finger to thrust home the plunger.

  His hand was on her mons veneris again, and from the sound of his breathing she knew she didn’t have a whole lot of time. She whispered, “Neal?” and turned towards him, putting her left leg over him, her left hand behind her.

  “Yes dear?”

  She kissed him. Hungrily, he returned her kiss, groaning in anticipation. She brought her left hand up and drove the needle into his back, pressing the plunger home.

  Startled, he said, “What?” and reached for his back. He pulled the syringe out and stared at it uncomprehendingly.

  “Goodbye, Neal,” she said coldly. “Roast in hell.”

  He reached for her, but iron chains bound his arms. His vision blurred, he was unable to move. He couldn’t breathe. Eyes wide, he searched her face. With immense satisfaction, she knew he understood what had happened to him, and why. His eyes glazed and he lay still.

  She went into the bathroom to look at her face. The jaw was swollen where he’d hit her, and the black eye would be a beaut, but she wasn't cut anywhere. She felt dirty though, dirtier than she’d ever felt in her life. She turned on the shower and when it was steaming hot she scrubbed until her skin was raw.

  When she was finished she dried herself carefully, did what she could with her hair, and put her torn red coverall uniform back on. She did not look at Neal Hernandez, and she had no idea what to do next. The door was locked from the outside and she had no way of opening it. She searched his pockets, hoping in vain for a key or a weapon. Finally, she did the only thing that occurred to her. She dragged him into the bathroom and stuffed him in the shower and threw his clothes in after him. She shut the bathroom door and considered what to do next.

  30

  “Quite out of the question,” Thorstenssen said firmly. “There’s no way you can go to Cleveland, the state of the Federal bureaucracy being what it is. The paperwork would take six months to reach the proper desk, let alone be acted upon. No, amigo, it cannot be done.”

  “In place of one of your researchers, perhaps.”

  “Do not ask this of me, Juan. Even if I could substitute you for one of my assistants, the portal trip to Cleveland isn’t scheduled for three days, and even then I’ll not permit any of my people to go until this anomaly is identified and seen to be harmless.”

  “Hello, Juan,” Amanda said, coming into the room. “I saw you lurking in the back of the room, lusting after that scrumptious media woman.” She kissed her brother on the cheek and turned to Thorstenssen. “Melissa thinks she has something.”

  Thorstenssen headed briskly for the door, trailed by Amanda and Juan Marie, joined in the corridor by a handful of others who had evidently heard the news. In the front of the dimly lit screening room, under the big 3D screen, Terry Mangione sat hunched over a bank of recording equipment.

  “What do you have, Melissa?” Thorstenssen said, sitting comfortably in the front row.

  “We’re not sure yet, Professor,” Melissa said, dead tired but smiling. They had been at it since early this morning, no time for lunch, no time for anything but the weekend’s worth of recorded portal pictures. While Thorstenssen and Amanda had been viewing the live portal pictures and dealing with the media, the staff had been examining the recorded pictures for clues.

  “The first thing we did this morning was to organize into teams,” Melissa said, addressing Thorstenssen and Amanda. “Terry and I worked on the transparencies, and Mei Ling, Tomas, Bob and Fiona looked at the bedroom. I’ll let Mei Ling tell you about the bedroom, and then I’ll tell you what Terry and I have discovered about the transparencies. Mei Ling?”

  Mei Ling rose, and Melissa sat next to Juan Marie, accepting a cup of tea from Amanda, who thought Juan and Melissa made a handsome couple, something both she and Melissa had thought for a long time.

  “Thank you, Melissa,” Mei Ling said. “Good afternoon, Professor. The first thing we did this morning was to try to put things in a time frame. The time is now four p.m. Tuesday, and the recording began about six p.m. Friday, our time, giving us about ninety-four hours of continuous data. In the bedroom, these ninety-four hours are divided into four dark cycles and four light cycles, the dark-light cycles lasting twenty-four hours. Two windows are in the bedroom, and they can be seen to lighten and darken with the cycle. We’ve measured the periods of dark and light and the days are very short. Unfortunately, the shades are drawn, making accurate measurements difficult, but it appears the time of year is early winter, between the eleventh and thirty-first of December, and if the portal telemetry is correct, the year is 2008 and the location is Cleveland, Ohio, in Alternate Universe 14LQ638.”

  “We’ve reason to believe the portal telemetry is correct, Mei Ling,” Thorstenssen said affably.

  “There’s also a time differential,” she continued. “In the bedroom world it is now nighttime, about three a.m., and the man has been on the floor about ten hours. Bob and Fiona ran a computer analysis of the man, and determined he’s making some small body movements, leg muscles mostly, at irregular intervals. Also, under the closed lids we see frequent periods of very rapid eye movement.”

  “So he’s not only alive, he’s dreaming,” Thorstenssen said, pleased to find the man alive.

  “That’s how it looks, Professor,” Mei Ling agreed. “Interestingly, the man wasn’t the first person in the room. The first pictures of the bedroom were taken in darkness and showed the transparency, the same transparency seen in the live pictures. Terry has done some exciting things with these transparencies, which Melissa will show you shortly. The transparencies continued throughout the dark time recording. The bedroom itself was too dark to see clearly. First morning's light revealed an elderly woman on the floor, lying by the bed. After some hours, another woman was seen to enter the room, a much younger woman, who examined the older woman briefly and left the room. Eleven minutes later a medical team arrived and removed the old woman on a stretcher.”

  “Astonishing,” Thorstenssen said.

  “The rest of that first daylight period was empty of activity,” Mei Ling continued, “except for the transparencies. The recording showed no human activity in the bedroom for several day and night periods, when the man arrived and turned on the lights and a few minutes later collapsed onto the floor.”

  “Where he still is,” Thorstenssen said.

  “Where he still is. While you were at lunch with some media people, Professor, we asked Amanda for permission to pan the camera. We had two reasons for the request. We wanted to see the rest of the room, and we wanted to see if the transparencies were fixed in space in the bedroom or whether they moved with the camer
a. Permission was given, and since remote telemetry is Tomas's specialty, he did the pan. The transparencies moved with the camera, Professor. Regardless of where the camera was pointing, the transparencies were directly in front of the camera, without any change in perspective.”

  Thorstenssen nodded at this, and made no comment, but the news was unsettling. He’d hoped the transparencies were part of the world of the bedroom only, and the portal camera an impartial and outside observer. He was now not so certain this was the case.

  “The second thing the pan discovered,” Mei Ling continued, “was a newspaper clipping in a frame on a nightstand, and what turned out to be a comic book, on the floor by the man's feet. We’ve gotten enlargements and computer enhancements of these two objects, and will show them to you in a moment. The clipping relates the long ago death of a young man named Jimmy Shallcross, who, according to the clipping, was killed in the Korean War in 1950.”

  “Ah,” Thorstenssen smiled, thinking of his urban riots project, “so there was a Korean War on 14LQ638! That bodes well for the two of us having a reasonably comparable history. That’s very good news, Mei Ling!”

  “Yes, we thought so, Professor,” Mei Ling smiled. “As for the comic book, it was lying right side up, and we have some good pix of the cover. You will see it’s the June 1946 issue of Fantastic Comics. Tomas went immediately to the university library, but the archives contained no reference to any such comic book. He did, however, examine several examples of mid-twentieth century comic books, and found they contained, typically, sixty-four pages, with an average of six drawn panels each page, although we cannot assume the comic books of mid-twentieth century 14LQ638 were identical. Terry, would you put up the clipping and the cover?”

  The computer enhanced enlargements came up on the screen, and were regarded with much interest. The comic book cover showed a large, square muzzled black dog, heavy bodied, deeply muscled, with short ears that folded over and lay flat against his head. He lay on his side, in a shallow grave, fangs bared, eyes narrowed, a bloody stake through his body, snarling defiance at a grinning man shoveling earth on top of him.