Species II (5 page)

“Christ,” Patrick said under his breath as he sat between Anne and Dennis at a table placed on a platform at the front of the auditorium. “How many people are out there? It’s like being tossed to the wolves.”

“Nah,” Dennis said, eyeballing the microphone suspiciously and checking to be sure it wasn’t turned on before continuing. “Wolves are friendlier.” He scanned the expectant faces. “And you’re right—not so damned numerous, either. How many—”

“The auditorium seats ninety, and you can see it’s standing room only,” Patrick said, answering his friend’s unfinished question. “Be grateful. It’s clear now but there’s a storm predicted. If it weren’t for that, we’d be outside in the grandstand and facing three hundred and fifty.”

“You two just behave,” Anne said. The most reticent of the trio, she had plastered a strained smile on her face and was struggling valiantly to keep it there. “This is going to be hard enough.”

“Oh, I’ll keep your mind off of it,” Dennis promised.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Get ready, guys,” Patrick warned. “They’re starting the footage, so the rest can’t be far behind.” As he spoke, two television screens above their heads flickered to life; after a flash of blue screen, a carefully edited official NASA version of the journey began to roll simultaneously.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said NASA’s public relations director, “NASA, as well as the National Space Exploratory Group, welcomes you to this first press conference with the extraordinary crew of the
Excursion
Mars Space Landing Mission. Please note that our crew members—Commander Patrick Ross, Flight Navigator Dennis Gamble, and Mission Scientist Dr. Anne Sampas, are still recovering from this incredible, seventy-
million
-mile journey. We ask that questions be limited to one per newsperson, and that you keep your inquiries short and to the point.” The director, a polished woman bearing a strong resemblance to an actress who starred in a popular television series about aliens and secret government files, gave the crowd of reporters a somewhat condescending smile. “We and the crew of the
Excursion
appreciate your cooperation. Also note that NASA has prepared detailed press kits for all of you, including video clips of the
Excursion’s
journey, which you may pick up on your way out.”

She stepped back, and despite her request a double dozen of the reporters started firing questions at the same time, creating a completely unintelligible babble. The crew sat there for a few moments, then Patrick Ross finally held up his hand. As the noise died away, Patrick leaned forward and spoke carefully into the microphone. “I think we’ll make this a simple question-and-answer session. I’ll just call on people, one at a time, and we’ll try our best to get to everyone.” He paused. “How about you there, down in front.”

A random choice, and the woman Patrick pointed to was delighted. “Thank you, Commander Ross,” she said as she stood. “I’d like to know if the NSEG has come up with any explanation for the communication breakdown and the failure of the other systems onboard the
Excursion.”

From the corner of his eye, Patrick saw the public relations director and her companion NSEG officials frown, but the question was out now and on-camera, and it would have to be addressed. No matter; he was great at diplomacy.

“All sorts of things can go wrong when you’re thirty-five million miles from home,” he began. “We—”

“I can explain the breakdown,” Dennis interrupted.

Patrick raised an eyebrow at his friend and tilted his head to indicate that Dennis had the floor. The reporters in the audience leaned forward in anticipation, and one or two of the suits standing next to NASA’s PR directors looked ready to wince.

“I’m sure you all realize that communication is an extremely expensive industry,” Dennis said with deadly seriousness. “NSEG didn’t pay the phone bill. Government cutbacks, you know.”

The people in the audience laughed and looked at each other. When most of the chuckling had died down, the same woman fired another question before Patrick could single out a different reporter.

“Can you describe how you felt during those moments of tension?”

For a long, painful moment, none of the three spoke. Finally, Anne reluctantly pulled the microphone toward her mouth. “It was . . . a blur,” she said.

“I don’t recall,” Dennis added.

Not good answers, and Patrick could tell by the expressions on the faces before him that this had the potential to be on the front page of the next batch of tabloids—hell, it probably would be, anyway—if he didn’t jump in and fill in some blanks for these people. He cleared his throat to pull the audience’s attention off his floundering crew members and sent the reporters the most engaging smile he could manage. “Remember that we spent five years training for this mission,” he explained. “Much of that training was devoted to troubleshooting the what-ifs in a situation, so that if something were to go awry—as it did here—your training and your preparation and your
instincts
kick in. You go into a sort of autopilot function, as we did, and the next thing we knew, we were headed home.”

That seemed to satisfy the woman, and Patrick passed the lead to Dennis as she sat down. Dennis scanned the faces in front of him, then arbitrarily picked a woman four rows from the back. “You have a question?”

“How do you feel about the corporate sponsorship that made the mission possible? Isn’t that a sell-out?”

Dennis tried to arrange his face in a glare but he couldn’t hide the smile that came out with his answer. “You’re damned right it is. And do you know what I’m doing right after the longest space voyage in history?” He sat up on his chair, straightened his tie, and sent a glitzy grin at the cameras trained on them. “I’m going to Disneyland!”

Another round of laughter, at the end of which Patrick looked over at Anne. The smallest shake of her head told him she had no desire to go one-on-one with anyone in this room, so Patrick chose again, finding a harmless-looking fellow a couple of rows back. But the reporter, a balding man in his late forties, asked a question that startled Patrick enough to bring a little color to his cheeks.

“Patrick, are you surprised at your status as a sex symbol for the nineties?”

“I’m afraid that’s something you guys in the press cooked up to sell newspapers,” he replied. “I’m a one-woman kind of man.” He looked to the far left and saw Melissa standing straight and beautiful next to his father, sent her a tiny wink. Let the reporters notice her—in fact, he hoped they would. Maybe that would put a stop to all this nonsense. But still . . . he should keep it light. “My girlfriend would kill me if I didn’t say that.”

“Any thoughts about NSEG’s sexual-quarantine policy?”

“It’s standard mission procedure,” Patrick replied. “No different this time than any other.”

“After eleven months in space,” Anne put in unexpectedly, “ten more days doesn’t seem too long.”

“Correction,” Dennis said. He looked intently at his watch. “Nine days, twenty-two hours, five minutes, eleven seconds.”

Anne grinned, her face going red. “Talk about a one-track mind.”

“I believe that what the world wants to know, Commander Ross,” spoke up another man without being asked, “is whether there’s alien life on Mars.”

“Perhaps on a microscopic level there once was,” Patrick answered without missing a beat, “although it almost certainly died out billions of years ago. As someone who’s been there, I can tell you that as far as I could see, there were definitely no little green men walking around up there.” He glanced at Anne. “Or red ones either.”

Patrick Ross turned his piercing blue gaze back to the audience and sent the folks down there a perfect smile. His next words earned him and his crew a well-deserved round of applause.

“When it comes to evolution, I think we’re the ones to beat.”

2

M
onroe Air Force Base is heavily guarded, one of the most secretive facilities in the United States. It is a series of long, low-slung buildings made of dull gray-and-white cinderblock interspersed with steel-sheeted, whitewashed hangars, all surrounded by walled towers and firepower-laden sentries. For the most part, it is drab and nearly camouflaged. Harsh and sparse, from the outside it looks like the most unwelcoming, most unfriendly place in the world.

For some, the inside can be just as inhospitable.

“W
hat you are about to see here in the BioHazard Laboratory is ‘For Eyes Only’ and may not be shared with anyone other than your superiors, who already know of its existence and by whose direction you have been brought here,” Dr. Laura Baker said from her position in the main control crane a good forty feet above the floor. “Only the people who work at this facility, plus a very few others, know about this project. I’m sure you’re all aware of the ramifications of disclosing top-secret information.” This was an unnecessary warning perhaps, but one the molecular biologist felt compelled to make one that she wanted on record—the audio was always on and recording everything in this room. Laura’s own security clearance was unquestioned—the badges plastered all over her lab coat attested to that. After all, what they were about to see was her own specially altered recreation of something that once could have destroyed mankind.

Standing silently behind the glass of a viewing booth ten feet above her and next to Colonel Carter Burgess, Jr. were the men she’d come to think of as the “Pentagon Three.” That trio probably comprised a hundred and fifty years of uninterrupted military experience, and as for Colonel Burgess . . . he was what Laura privately termed a professional hard-ass, and she despised him. She had an ex-lover who fell into that category, and she was realistic enough to recognize that Press—the infamous former significant other—was probably the reason for her opinion. At least the two didn’t look alike: where Press had been dark and rugged, more fit than was apparent at first glance, Colonel Burgess was just . . . big. Slightly taller than average and on the burly side, the tautness of his muscles was finally loosening with age; Laura thought that now he most likely hired others to do his dirty work for him. No doubt the loss of one of his eyes—the glass replacement gave his face a strangely skewed look—had taken him out of the physical foray.

The other three men weren’t much different—craggy faces, stiff manners—except perhaps that their identities had been kept secret even from her. They were probably all retired four-star generals, but the fact that they still worked for the government wouldn’t be found on public records anywhere.

No one in the booth said anything in response to her warning, so Laura inhaled and began her demonstration. “We have re-created the alien being known as “Sil” from a frozen lab embryo. If you look to the center of the work area, you will see the results of our efforts.”

Laura entered a series of commands on her control keyboard and there was a ratcheting sound as unseen switches were released, followed by the hiss of hydraulics. In the middle of the floor, a petal-shaped circle spun open and a glass cylinder rose smoothly into sight. Standing inside, her beautiful face deceptively innocent, was—

Sil.

No—not quite.

“This, gentlemen, is . . .
Eve.”

Laura heard a murmur from above and resisted the urge to sneer. Had they thought she was exaggerating? Well, she hadn’t been. The same DNA, a combination of human with the alien formula transmitted in a coded message to Arecibo in 1992 and decoded in 1993 . . . the same mixture that had nearly caused a global disaster when the resulting creature had escaped.

The same kind of creature that stood before them.

Tall and stunning, Eve stood naked in the glass tube, the portrait of a perfectly formed woman. Slender but shapely, with small, perfect breasts, a flat stomach and lean hips, she looked like anything
but
the uncontrollable life-form she had the potential to become. Staring around her at the lab and the workers beyond the unbreakable quartz-glass panels—no stupid mistakes this time—Eve gave the impression of nothing more than a terrified, captive victim.

But Laura Baker knew better. God, how she knew.

“The test capsule is mirrored on the inside, and she cannot see the technicians in the lab while inside it, nor can she see you. As you’ve all probably noticed, Eve’s enclosure is in the upper part of a larger living arrangement, a sort of human ‘habitrail.’ The environment has been specifically designed so that all areas of it, including a small garden on the Upper level, are in full view. The creature can hide nothing from us.” She raised her hand so that her small audience could see it, then gestured toward the floor below. “We have a fully staffed testing laboratory, complete with technicians, biologists, and heavily armed guards—all, of course, female.”

When there was no comment from the men secluded above her, Laura continued. “Our goal is to discover a means to defend ourselves against this species should it, in its natural and purest form, ever find its way to Earth. What you see here is of necessity a genetically modified version of what we speculate that form would be, half alien and half human. She appears to be human in every respect, but I assure you that she can still be quite deadly.” Laura glanced upward, but none of the men in the viewing booth were looking at her; their gazes were riveted on the woman in the cylinder, and Laura was far too intelligent to think it was for sexual reasons.