“Dr. Sandler, I must protest!”
Not bothering to conceal his scowl, Dr. Sandler turned away from the large digital map, which had its yellow crosshairs centered and was zooming in on a point in what, for convenience’s sake, was delineated as the state of South Dakota. The target lay in the fertile central portion of the now-defunct state, several miles east of the James River.
Dr. Sandler did not reply to his associate’s unseemly outburst. Instead he nodded toward the hush field.
“What do you protest, Dr. Oates?” he asked once they were screened from the prying ears of techs, who, regardless of clearance, belonged to the lower orders. Consequently they could not be expected to have the mental equipment to deal with deeper truths. Even in a shadowy section of a shadow organization.
“I understand it is your intent to examine the scene of the latest anomalous incident directly, Dr. Sandler,” she said.
“You heard it as well as I did, Dr. Oates. Our instruments did not deceive us as to its magnitude. If anything, to judge by Dr. Trager’s reports, they may have understated its severity. And of course only we are in position to assess the possible ramifications of it.”
“But the risks entailed,” the woman protested. She actually allowed her voice to rise.
How like a woman, Dr. Sandler thought.
“Isn’t that why we choose to deal with our current prime subject indirectly, by means of Dr. Trager? That we need to minimize our own exposure to reactionary elements within Overproject Whisper?” she queried.
“To be sure,” he said. “But these are extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps you don’t understand the possible ramifications of power such as our instruments detect—or at least appear to?”
“I do,” she said, and sadly it surprised him very little that she sounded a touch sulky. “It could disrupt everything we’re trying to achieve. Even force us to abandon this timeline altogether.”
That’s part of it, yes, he thought. He said nothing to enlighten her as to the new trend his thoughts were taking. Information was power, after all, and even with his ostensible partner in this clandestine work, he was reluctant to share that.
“But we already have the report Dr. Trager garnered from our prime subject’s reconnaissance,” Dr. Oates persisted.
“And even though the prime subject devoted relatively scant time to his investigation, being impatient to embark upon the active conquest phase of his plans to dominate the Plains—” exactly according to our projected timeline, he did not find it necessary to say “—do the details of that report not alarm you, Dr. Oates?”
“Will it alarm you any less if we see for ourselves what the prime subject describes?”
“I do not presume to know that, Dr. Oates. That is why we do science, after all, is it not? In order to find out what is true?”
She frowned as deeply as she dared. Granted they were partners, but she was at least perceptive enough to know that this was not an equal partnership, nor could it ever be; evolution itself dictated the facts, not he or she.
“Yes,” she finally said.
“Very well. Let’s have no more of this nonsense, then, shall we?”
Without awaiting her response, which could only be redundant at this point anyway, he stepped out of the hush field, feeling a slight prickle on his skin as he broke through its invisible electromagnetic membrane.
“Are we locked on to the target location?” he demanded of the techs.
“We are, Doctor,” one replied.
“Open the portal, then.”
Dr. Oates walked to stand beside him as the techs duly manipulated their controls. He waited a few heartbeats before glancing at his colleague to confirm that she had regained her poise. He had no wish to be seen by Dr. Oates as validating her emotionalism. Fortunately, she had once again assumed a demeanor of scientific detachment.
An oval two meters in height shimmered into being between the two scientists and the main board. When it had fully resolved itself, its mirror effect vanished, to be replaced by a ground-level view of a furrowed field full of broken stakes and trampled green plants. Small craters dotted the target area, as if it had been subjected to light artillery bombardment.
The bodies of the anomalous creatures of which their prime subject’s informants had spoken had been removed. Dr. Sandler felt a certain regret; he was confident they were either deliberate releases or, better, inadvertent escapees from some other secret division of Overproject Whisper. Had he been able to obtain a specimen, or at least photographic evidence, it could very well have translated into leverage he could use to improve their status and funding at the expense of someone else.
That he might be victimizing a project that posed no direct threat to his and Dr. Oates’s joint venture, and which was more than possibly working on some aspect of the Overproject’s greater aims, troubled him not at all. Nothing could be more vital than the work he and Dr. Oates were engaged in. Anything that hindered them was intolerable and had to be removed; anything that advanced their aims was not simply justified but necessary, in the interests of science and, of course, the greater good.
But if he had to settle for achieving their primary objective—it was, after all, the prime objective. And most imperative.
“Life signs?” he said.
“No life form larger than a meadowlark detected within a radius of one hundred meters, Dr. Sandler,” a tech reported.
“It would appear the primevals are reluctant to return to work their fields,” Dr. Oates observed, “even though they have disposed of the carrion.”
“So much is obvious. We shall now pass through the portal.”
“Would you care to have us summon a security team, Dr. Sandler?” asked a senior tech. “Either to accompany you into the target zone, or to stand by?”
“Not necessary,” he said curtly. “We shall not venture far from the aperture.”
“Understood, Dr. Sandler.”
He stepped forward. Unlike leaving the hush field, there was no physical sensation at all to the transition. The matter-transfer units scattered about the globe, many of which remained operational, were ridiculously primitive by comparison to the portal—scarcely more advanced than the hand tools the primeval agriculturalists who worked these field were forced to rely upon to scratch their subsistence out of the dirt. They had been scarcely less outmoded at the time of their inspiration. After all, they had been meant to facilitate the work of the Overproject’s servitors in the outer world, who knew a very great deal less of the truth than they convinced themselves they did—and to help to both buy their loyalty and discretion, and to overawe them.
Dr. Oates stepped through with him. She was unable to stop herself wrinkling her nose at the assault of the many stinks of the exterior surface world.
“I can still smell the decomposition,” she complained. “And it would appear the primevals use animal excrement as fertilizer.”
Dr. Sandler did not deign to respond. If she was worried about filth adhering to her shoes, she was displaying her susceptibility to female hormones yet again. Of course the portal would permit only themselves and such garments and appurtenances as they had originally transitioned with to pass back through. Everything that might have adhered to them, down to the atomic level—even inhaled impurities in their nasal passages and lungs—would remain here. Unless they invoked certain override procedures to allow them to bring samples back with them.
Instead he began to walk forward with measured paces toward what appeared to be a hole in the soil, fifteen feet from their entry point. The two of them reached the lip of the pit and peered within.
“Great Teller’s Ghost!” he exclaimed.
The face Dr. Oates turned toward his was strained and pallid even by the standards of her icy northern European perfection.
“You were right to insist on seeing this ourselves, Dr. Sandler,” she said. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have conceived how momentous this is!”
He nodded, allowing himself to savor a moment of triumph at her capitulation. Only briefly, of course. Because he was a scientist, and the soul of science was objectivity.
“Clearly,” he declared, “we must take action on this directly.”
“I concur, Dr. Sandler,” Dr. Oates said.
“Satisfactory,” he said. “Let us return. We have work to do. And a specimen to obtain.”