In memory of Tim Samaras, tornado researcher, his son Paul and colleague Carl Young, who lost their lives in the May 31, 2013 El Reno, OK tornado - a 295 MPH, 2.6 mile wide EF5 monster that nobody expected. They were Storm Chasers - and scientists - who were among the very best. Sadly, sometimes even being among the best isn’t sufficient when Nature does something entirely unanticipated.

 

 Distant Relations

By Storm

 

Lt. Commander Charles Phillip Morton looked out the small porthole window of his cabin and couldn’t help a shiver. First, for a submariner, windows were a novelty on a vessel so similar in many ways to a submarine. Second, the view from that window was something he never in his life thought he’d ever see.

 

A blue and white planet that wasn’t Earth.

 

He couldn’t help being awed, fascinated and a little afraid; awed and fascinated because this was Lar, the current Dawimhlar homeworld. It was a planet that they’d starting terraforming almost twelve thousand years ago, after a massive asteroid impact had destroyed most of the native ecology less than a thousand years before they‘d discovered it - and it had taken them almost six hundred years to get the planet habitable enough to begin settling there. He was afraid because there was a real possibility he might never be able to go home again. This place might well become where he would spend the rest of his life. It or one of the other Dawimhlar worlds.

 

It would take some getting used to. He glanced down at the English language guidebook Patterson had gotten for him. Lar was eighty percent covered in water versus Earth’s seventy-one percent. It had only two large continents that were about the size of Africa; the rest of the land surface was divided among four Australian sized island continents and a half dozen volcanic island arcs. The rotational period was only twenty hours - four hours shorter than an Earth day. The length of a Lar year was three hundred and seventy-five Earth days, due to Lar being farther out from its star - Eta Cassiopeia A to him, Sillor to the Dawimhlar - than Earth was from Sol (it was the fourth planet in a system of six) but the shorter local day meant there were four hundred fifty-one days in the year. The mass was 1.1 times that of Earth - which accounted for the fact that the artificial gravity they maintained in their cities on Mars had been higher than Earth normal.

 

He’d been wondering about that.

 

Lar also had a single large moon, though it was slightly smaller in diameter than Luna. It made up for its lesser size by being closer to the planet, so according to Patterson Urra Shepak actually appeared larger in Lar‘s sky than Earth‘s moon did. He’d also told Morton the craters on the face of Lar’s moon resembled not a man’s face, but that of a big cat in profile; this accounted for the name, since the literal translation of Urra Shepak was ‘cat moon’. In addition to the single large moon there were over a dozen small moons similar in size to those of Mars - and a planetary ring system. From the porthole he could just see the crescent of Urra Shepak peeking over Lar’s horizon while the arc of the planetary ring system hung above the orbiting starliner.

 

His eyes wandered towards the northern pole. There was more ice here than on Earth - a lot more. Part of the largest continent extended above the ice line and as a result the northern half of it was covered in a continental glacier. It was another thing he’d never expected to see. According to the guidebook, one of the smaller island continents occupied the South Pole and it too was completely covered in a miles thick ice sheet. Well, that wasn’t too different from Antarctica. It even had penguins!

 

The northern continent however… He suppressed another shiver. The guidebook had a list of mammals that inhabited that continent and it read like a who’s who from Earth’s Ice Age in North America. Mastodons, mammoths, sloths, Saber-toothed cats, American lions and dire wolves! It recommended that tourists not venture out on foot or in open vehicles into the nature reserves.

 

He could certainly see why.

 

A light tap on the cabin’s hatch interrupted his musings. “Yes?” he inquired.

 

“It’s me, Pat, Mr. Morton,” came from the other side.

 

“Come on in,” he called out, “the door’s unlocked.”

 

The hatch opened, revealing Patterson dressed in a loose fitting shipsuit, travel bag at his side. “You ready to go?” he asked.

 

Morton gestured at the small bag that lay packed on the bunk. He was definitely traveling light these days. If not for the clothes he’d been loaned aboard Soese, mostly by Captain Hauer - who was fortunately very tall for a Dawimhlar - he’d have been threadbare. Scathach had pressed a credit chip into Pat’s hand before they’d boarded the liner Diyeh Shepak’s shuttle - her name translated as Blue Moon - on Mars and sternly instructed that they stop in Bahleh - the Imperial Capital - and go shopping. He didn’t know if he ought to be embarrassed or gratified. Pat had just grinned and noted that he had some female cousins who lived there - and who would be thrilled to help them shop.

 

Well, that seemed to be at least one similarity between females of both Dawimhlar and human persuasion. It must be a genetic thing. He also had to admit to some qualms about letting a gaggle of strange females organize his life, even on a temporary basis. But since neither he nor Pat were familiar with Bahleh - and there were no published maps for areas where off-planet visitors were more or less banned - a local guide was an absolute must. Pat had told him it was to keep overly nosy alien tourists from imposing themselves on the local inhabitants.

 

Alien tourists. Morton had to shake his head at the idea. He’d not had the opportunity to meet any of the true aliens that had been present on Mars, though he understood Captain Crane had. And just how would he be perceived on Lar? He knew now that Pat truly was Dawimhlar, not just by virtue of the fact that his mother’s people were citizens of the Dawimhlar Amalgamation, but by DNA. He actually had Dawimhlar blood in his family tree - and all Dawimhlar were hybrids between an ancient species called Dawam and Homo sapiens. That had been a shocker.

 

But himself? He was wholly human, unlike most of the people here who might look that way. He wasn’t sure just how he would be greeted, even though everyone on Mars had been kind to him. All he had to do was open his mouth to speak and his terribly accented Dawimhlar would instantly give him away as being from Earth.

 

While he was lost in his thoughts Patterson had gathered up his bag and was standing patiently in the hatchway waiting for him to return to reality. He couldn’t help the slight blush that crept onto his cheeks.

 

“Sorry, Pat. I was wool-gathering.”

 

“Not a problem, Mr. Morton. I’ve been doing some of that myself.” He paused for a brief moment, then added, “Even though I’ve been here before and know a lot of my relatives, I grew up on Earth. I’m going to miss it and all my friends there - especially on the boat.”

 

Chip could only nod as they headed down the passageway to the shuttle bay.

 

 

 

 

 

Morton looked out the window of the descending shuttle at the approaching planet. As the arc of the horizon grew larger, the shuttle rotated to an angle that began to obscure his view of the planet below. Tongues of superheated gas began to glow along the leading edges of the ship’s stubby wings, evidence that they were now entering the upper fringes of the atmosphere. As the air thickened the glow brightened, blotting out the exterior view entirely; turbulence made the rapidly descending ship begin to buck slightly. This was something Patterson had warned him about, otherwise this fiery reentry into the Lar’s atmosphere would have been far more alarming than it already was. It was certainly unlike the shuttles the Dawimhlar used to travel between their military starships and planetary surfaces. Those had the ability to descend even at high speed without a meteor-like trail blazing across the sky. When he’d asked why the difference, Patterson had told him that most civilian shuttles had different types of shielding and propulsion that weren’t nearly so voracious in their energy consumption as their military grade stealth counterparts. Nor were they as technically complicated, which made them more reliable and decreased both the amount and cost of maintenance - factors which made both pilots and owners happy.

 

Morton snorted to himself as he felt the ship shedding speed as it plunged deeper into the atmosphere. The idea of reliability made him happy, too. A serious malfunction at this altitude and speed would leave nothing of the shuttle and passengers but a fiery smear across the sky. The buffeting increased for a few seconds, then eased off; he suddenly realized that the intense glow outside was starting to abate as well. As he returned his attention to the outside, he realized that he could now discern the color of the sky.

 

It looked so much like Earth’s familiar blue that he felt the terrible weight of being an exile settle in his very soul. Oh, how he wanted at that moment to be able to go home.

 

There was a whine from beneath the shuttle that he recognized as the landing gear doors opening, followed by the roar of turbulence as the wheels dropped into the slipstream, slowing the descending craft still further. As the ship made a final banking turn and lined up on the runway, the intercom clicked on and the pilot came on to give the standard speech welcoming the passengers, giving local time and temperature and reminding them to have their baggage claim tickets ready. Morton had to smother a small laugh. Here he was, almost nineteen light-years from home, yet except for the different language, he could have been flying into any airport on earth.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. He’d seen that principle demonstrated before, but this had to be a classic example. The Admiral would appreciate the irony, was his next thought, and so would Lee.

 

The screech of tires on pavement brought him back to the present. The shuttle rolled out just like any earth-built aircraft, then turned off onto a taxiway and trundled to the terminal building. Wheels, it transpired, were vastly more energy efficient than trying to float something about on energy fields. So much for science fiction, it seemed. And the Dawimhlar, he’d noted, much preferred doing things the most energy thrifty way possible that would still achieve whatever their goal in a specific situation was.

 

He and Patterson gathered up their bags and exited through the jet-way. Even here, the similarities abounded. Passengers were sitting at the gate area, waiting for their shuttle flights with the same stolid patience of air travelers back on earth. The glaring difference here was that the majority of them were Dawimhlar; the rest were clearly aliens. He had to fight the urge to stare at some of the more exotic looking individuals.

 

A tug at his elbow brought him back to the business at hand. Patterson was pointing towards a small tractor looking vehicle with a string of small open passenger cars. “If we’re going to catch the train we need to get aboard the tram, sir.”

 

Morton nodded and followed as Pat hurried ahead to get them seats. They’d barely settled when the tram pulled out and turned into a tunnel dedicated solely to such vehicles. It soon became apparent why; the train station was separate from the spaceport. What was a fifteen minute ride on the tram would have taken them at least an hour - or more - to walk.

 

The tram exited the tunnel and braked to a halt under the overhang in front of a long stone building with a façade that looked so much like something out of the Victorian era that Morton couldn’t help staring. He’d noticed on Mars that the buildings had that same sort of half odd familiarity to them, but he’d simply passed that off as his imagination. The pattern here, while not exactly the same, still had a feeling of something almost but not quite recognized. Patterson, however, seemed not to notice, and was leading the way inside.

 

Once through the ornate bronze and stained glass exterior doors, Morton found himself in a large dome shaped lobby. He simply had to stop and stare. He’d once been through the New York City Hall 1904 era subway station when he‘d been on leave from Annapolis with Lee. The mezzanine level had been similar to this, right down to having an ornate round stained glass skylight in the top of the dome that filtered sunlight through in hues of blue and green. The main difference was that the skylight in New York was simply patterns in colored glass and here they were actual scenes. Oceanic scenes to be precise. Kelp and brightly colored fish seemed to be the predominate subjects. The color scheme of the intricately tiled walls here ran to many shades of light green and blue-green with a variety of browns, unlike the New York station, which was somewhat less colorful, being mostly creams and browns. The large arched passage to the platform was opposite the ornate entrance, so when Patterson moved on after purchasing their tickets, he hastily followed. Once through the short passage, he found a gently curved platform beside the tracks, a neon orange stripe marking the outer edge, while the domed walls and ceiling were geometrically tiled in the same shades as the lobby. More expanses of stained glass were set in the wonderfully ornate ceiling. The biggest difference between the New York station and here was that this entire station was at ground level and the tunnel on either end clearly led outside instead of underground into more tunnels. Well, that and the fact that there were far fewer people crowding the platform than there would have been in New York.

 

And the people! The forty or so individuals on the platform were almost all Dawimhlar, in a dizzying assortment of skin and hair colors; there probably weren’t more than half dozen people in the whole crowd who were obviously alien. He could only shake his head in amazement. The Dawimhlar on Mars had appeared less variegated in appearance, so he hadn‘t been aware that the species came in a far wider array of skin hues - not to mention varying amounts of hair and hair color - than humans. That was assuming all the shades he was seeing were in fact natural. He couldn’t tell and didn’t know enough about the culture to say if such things were possible or were permissible even if they were possible.

 

He‘d also thought the Martian Dawimhlar colorful in their dress, though it had all been in two main styles. The reason for that, he’d been told, was because almost everyone wore a skinsuit when not inside a structure that could be sealed in the event of a pressure breach in the artificial environment of the cities. As a result people mostly wore loose coveralls or robes that fitted over their skinsuits. Rather similar to what they wore on board their ships, now that he thought about it. But here… here they were in a planetary environment without that particular consideration and the results were …. eclectic.

 

They were also anything but Victorian in style, which made for a bizarre juxtaposition between the architecture and the fashion. He took note of a gaggle of Dawimhlar in what could be taken for Greco-Roman togas and gowns had they not been in a brilliant rainbow of silken hues. There was one individual dressed in what for all the world looked like bright blue and orange feathers, while two more had opted for a similar style in glossy black. Many wore kilts in varying colors that ranged from solids to intricate multicolored patterns; there was even one older female in what looked for all the world like motorcycle leathers. Some of the rest were in what were obviously shipsuits or other work clothes. Others were in styles he’d never seen and simply had no words to describe.

 

They made him and Pat look downright drab. No wonder Scathach had insisted they go shopping in Bahleh. Which reminded him…

 

“Pat,” he asked, “when is the train due?”

 

Patterson glanced over at the wall at what Morton belatedly realized was a clock. It didn’t look like any clock he’d ever seen before - there were too many of what he guessed must be numbers and many of the bronze gears seemed to be on the outside rather than hidden within. He had no clue as to how to read it, though Pat clearly was having no problem.

 

“Should be any minute now, Mr. Morton.”

 

Even as Patterson was speaking, Morton realized that he could hear an odd keening sound - and it seemed to be coming from the rails. Before he could mention the sound to Pat, however, he heard another - and it was something that he hadn’t heard since his childhood in Chicago. The sound of a steam train whistle. And with it came a huffing, chuffing, hissing, clanging, clacking that was unlike anything he’d ever heard except a steam locomotive. But surely that wasn’t possible.

 

He turned and stared in disbelief down the tracks toward the source of the sound. To his utter amazement, a steam locomotive, it’s two bright front lights one over the other illuminating the tunnel like twin suns, was indeed huffing and rumbling into the short tunnel leading into the station, bronze bell clanging. His eyes grew wide as he beheld the silver trimmed black behemoth pull slowly past the platform, showing two wheels on the side of the leading truck facing him, then four huge silver rimmed driving wheels at least two feet taller than he was, followed by a trailing truck with two more sets of small wheels under the cab itself. All the shining silvery side rods and valve gear attached to the big driving wheels wove a slow hypnotic pattern as the locomotive lumbered past him at a slow creep. White steam eddied from between the wheels and out of a short smokestack on the top, drifting across the platform as the train finally chuffed and squealed to a halt.

 

His jaw dropped as he gazed up at the apparition in front of him. For a brief moment his mind seemed frozen in incomprehension. This had to be the widest and tallest damn locomotive he’d ever seen - of any kind. No wonder the track rails looked so much farther apart and heavier than anything on Earth. They had to be to support the weight of this enormous brute of a train.

 

Some incongruity brought him back to reality and he found himself looking closer at the locomotive. There was something not quite right about it, totally aside from the fact that this iron horse was obviously not of any Earth design or manufacture. Was it the configuration of the wheels? He thought hard to remember back to his childhood and the retired neighbor who had been an engineer on the old steam trains. Manny had used to regale him with stories of life on the rails for hours on end. If he remembered correctly, this would be a four-eight-four configuration. Four guide wheels, eight drivers, four trailing wheels. No, not unusual, particularly for steam engines built after 1900. Then it hit him. There was no coal tender, no wood stacked behind the engine, no obvious source of fuel for combustion. And the smell. There was no odor of smoke coming from the engine, only the smell of steam and hot metal. He also could detect no reek of diesel or other hydrocarbons. He found himself looking at the ceiling. There were no soot stains on it. What then, were they using to power this monstrous machine? And to keep the moving parts lubricated?

 

“Mr. Morton?” The sound of Patterson’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “They’re boarding now. We need to go find our seats.”

 

Almost by reflex he followed, his mind still turning over the puzzle of what made this particular train go. Could it be some sort of nuclear power? Fusion? If so, why the archaic looking style of the engine? Why steam and not electric? Was the steam simply an effect for the tourists? He looked around at the other passengers. None of them seemed to be paying much attention to the train itself, though now that he was inside, the passenger cars were worthy of a second look all by themselves. The archaic style was continued in the interior, with plush seating in small booths with tables rather than rows of benches. Each booth had its own window and an isle curtain that could be drawn for privacy.

 

He gave his head a small shake. No one that he could see was acting like a tourist. Rather, their behavior seemed to be more that of regular commuters. But then, why so few passenger cars? He’d noted as they were boarding that there were only four in matching black and silver. The whistle blew twice, short bursts that echoed oddly within the station. He glanced a question at Patterson.

 

“Five minute warning. Anybody going needs to get aboard now.”

 

“That wasn’t a very long stop for a passenger train.” Morton wasn’t really complaining, since they were after all, already aboard, but it did seem odd to him. “And just what powers this train? Is it electric? I didn’t see anything that looked or smelled like fuel.”

 

“On your last question, sir, it’s got a hydrogen fusion mag bottle to heat the steam. As to why they don’t use it to make electricity - well, Seaview’s reactor makes steam to power the turbines too. Besides, we just like the look and sound of a steam locomotive,” responded Patterson as he stowed their bags in the overhead bins above their seats. “And it wasn’t a long stop because it’s not primarily a passenger train,”

 

“What? It only has passenger cars hooked up. I looked.” Hydrogen fusion! Well, he supposed if you had it, you could use the tech any way you wanted to.

 

“We’ll pick up the freight cars on the way out. This is a heavy cargo run. If we’d wanted a passenger train, we’d have had to wait for another four hours. And share with non-Dawimhlar tourists. Scathach wanted us to avoid them as much as possible.” At Morton’s surprised expression, Pat added, “If you‘ll come in and sit, I‘ll explain.”

 

Morton stared at him for a brief moment, uncertainty showing on his face, but then did as requested. Pat pulled the curtain closed behind them, then sat in the bench on the opposite side of the table. He looked somber as he began to speak.

 

“It’s about what’s happening with the US government right now and Admiral Tobin and company’s frantic search for Seaview. The Dawimhlar government has evidence they are being influenced by some of our enemies - and the attitude that has resulted in certain quarters is making a lot of people on other worlds very nervous that history may be trying to repeat itself.” He paused, looking rueful. “The problem is, about three hundred earth years ago, a species who called themselves Molhar - The Chosen - decided that all the other sentient species in the universe had been created by devils and that it was their ordained mission from their gods to exterminate them all. Needless to say,” Pat told him in a dry tone, “the rest of the sentient races disagreed with that belief. The Molhar refused to compromise, even when the ships from thirty worlds stood poised above their atmosphere ready to wipe them from the face of the universe. That planet is still a smoking glow-in-the-dark slag pile to this day.”

 

Morton could only shake his head at both the waste and stupidity, but inside the seed of worry had been planted that earth’s future was less than secure. There were other groups beside Tobin and his lot that had a very similar mindset, who were vying for power in not only the US but other countries as well. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face. Patterson had no trouble telling the direction his thoughts were tending.

 

“One of the reasons the Dawimhlar keep a continued interest and presence on earth is to try and prevent something like that from happening to Earth. And to keep our enemies from finally destroying humanity out of spite if they fail to provoke someone else to do it first.”

 

“So the Dawimhlar have meddled.” Morton wasn’t sure if he was glad they did or was peeved that they considered humanity so immature. But then, he reflected, humanity did frequently act like spoiled brats - or worse.

 

Shrugging, Pat informed him in a matter-of-fact tone, “If we hadn’t, it is likely that Earth would have already been destroyed. After the war with the Molhar, the other local races have been understandably paranoid about any culture that sees itself as superior to all others. If the Axis powers had won World War II and moved ahead with a space program, they were prepared to move against you. Ordinarily, by interstellar treaty we would have been helpless to intervene, but we’re originally from earth and we‘ve maintained a presence both there and on Mars all this time. It’s that loophole that allows us to stand between humans and the rest of the universe.”

 

Morton swallowed hard. It had never occurred to him that Earth had already skirted that close to annihilation. “So why do you bother?” He genuinely wanted to know.

 

Patterson rubbed thoughtfully at the side of his face. “There are many reasons. But I suppose the fact that the Dawimhlar are actually a hybrid species - part human, part Dawam - plays a large role in it. We could not have returned to the land as quickly as we did without infusions of human blood back fifteen thousand years ago.”

 

“That’s never stopped humans from killing off their own kin, let alone their own kind,” Morton pointed out.

 

“It has to do with the first interaction between humans and Dawam. Despite being hominids in the same genus as your own species, Dawam were truly marine mammals, living a lifestyle very similar to sea otters,” Patterson told him. “We had lost the use of fire and even much of our tool-making skills. You know about the K’uk - it was, you might say, the end of our species’ innocence. Our ancestors realized that they were vulnerable to tool-using species and began to view humanity with alarm. But the Goddesses led one of the Dawam shamans to a trio of sisters and their children who were of a northern tribe - and who had been unjustly outcast by their shaman. In exchange for refuge, they offered to trade the knowledge of those lost skills, their only condition being that we never use our knowledge against men except in self-defense. We’ve kept that pledge.”

 

Morton eye’s widened. “So that’s why you’ve never returned to Earth as conquerors!”

 

“Yes. And it was through them,” Pat added, “that our ancestors discovered that our two peoples could interbreed. Their blood runs in all of us who are Dawimhlar. That includes the vast majority of those of us who look human. Anybody whose ancestors have been here for more than three generations tends to be of mixed blood. Including me. And because of that blood tie - and the debt of honor - we have stood as protectors for Earth while allowing humans to find their own path to the stars.”

 

“And the aliens?”

 

Scathach prefers that no one get wind of just how precarious relations between Lar and Earth are right now.”

 

Morton thought about it, then slowly nodded. “You think some of them are spies.”

 

“We know some of them are spies,” corrected Patterson emphatically. “And there many of them who are afraid of humans - and us.”

 

“The Dawimhlar? Why would they be afraid of you?”

 

Pat steepled his fingers contemplatively. “You saw the Pumpkin Ceremony?” At Morton’s puzzled nod, he asked, “How many human cultures have survived being overrun by other civilizations with even less disparity in technology? Survived and pushed ahead with their own development?”

 

Morton considered for a long moment the bloody history of human conquest, especially in the last few centuries by the Europeans, before finally admitting, “None that I know of.”

 

“That is even more true of first contact with between alien species. Stone age cultures, particularly when their first experience with otherworlders is violent, where they are regarded as merely animals to be slaughtered, never survive intact - except for the Dawam. When they deliberately set out to reverse evolution by interbreeding with another related species - that was also something unheard of. The pace of our subsequent technological development was even more unfeasible - yet we did it. We went from stone age barbarians to building starships in just over two thousand years. We are an anomaly. That scares the shit out of them all, Mr. Morton, because we continually do things they think have to be impossible. And we frequently do them in ways they find baffling and even unsettling.”

 

“Do you think they’d try to kidnap me?” He was starting to feel a bit paranoid again.

 

Patterson reflected for a moment on the question. “Most of them probably wouldn’t do anything other than try to gain information from you,” he finally said. “They’d rightly fear the consequences of anything else. After all, Scathach, who will be Empress, carries a scar she got defending you. It would, by our customs, be an act of war. But she’d rather not lead any of them into temptation, so we’re going to keep you out of the places tourists go and dress you like one of us. And,” he admitted in a wry tone, “not all space-faring races are sane by our standards.”

 

“I guess I’m going to have to work on my language skills,” Morton grumbled good-naturedly, hiding the gnawing worm of fear, and bringing a smile to Patterson’s face.

 

“It couldn’t hurt,” Patterson replied. “And it would help if you let your hair and beard grow.”

 

The train whistled again, this time a long warbling blast, breaking into their conversation. The cessation of sound was followed immediately by the jerking of the car as the train lumbered into motion. It brought Morton to another question he’d forgotten to ask earlier.

 

“How long is this trip to Bahleh, Pat?”

 

“About five hours. We’re about two hundred miles from the edge of the city and the train terminal.”

 

Morton blinked in surprise. “That seems a bit far to put your main spaceport from your capital city.”

 

“It’s a safety issue,” Patterson told him with a grim note. “If you think an airplane crashing in a city makes a mess, wait until you’ve seen the results of a shuttle - or worse - a starship crashing into one.”

 

“But Tholus and the Martian cities have spaceports inside the main caverns.”

 

“They also don’t allow anything bigger than a small cargo shuttle or a very small starship- like Daig’ar’s ex-courier boat - to land inside - and their airspace is tightly controlled. If it looks like a ship is going to come in and crash - they’ll close the main shields. That will destroy the ship in question, but it does protect the city. So you’d better have it under control - and keep it that way. Martian cities are a lot like submarines and spaceships, Mr. Morton - hull integrity is everything. Explosive decompression is not a pretty way to die.”

 

There was that, he had to admit. Though the fact that nearly everyone who lived on Mars wore a skinsuit as a matter of course should have made that obvious. But that also answered the question of why the total population on Mars numbered less than a three hundred thousand. It was actually a pretty dangerous place to live, despite the fact it had been inhabited for thirteen thousand years.

 

Another thought occurred to him.

 

“Pat, what do the Dawimhlar call Mars? I don‘t recall anybody ever mentioning it.”

 

Pat’s answer came with a laugh. Darsooma.”

 

Morton stared at him in disbelief. “Isn’t that sort of similar to what…

 

“Edgar Rice Burroughs called Mars in his novels? He knew about us, Mr. Morton. That’s where he got the name. He just changed it some. And many of the aliens in his books are based on real people too. They just never lived anywhere in Earth‘s solar system.”

 

“And what do you call Earth?” Morton wanted to know.

 

Lah’Teh. Literally Sea-Earth. We are marine mammals after all.”

 

The train rattled and squealed to another halt. Morton’s curiosity got the better of him; he slid over next to the window and peered out to see if he could see anything since Pat had told him this was primarily a freight train.

 

They were obviously in a train switching yard. He could hear the bangs and clatter of railcars being moved and see huge boxcars, flatcars and tank cars sitting on adjacent tracks, but couldn’t really see what was happening to their own train. He turned back in obvious disappointment, but Patterson grinned at him and tapped the edge of the table between them. To Morton’s surprise, the table top lit up; the screen was filled with a host of icons. Patterson studied them for a brief moment, then tapped one. The screen shifted to show an overhead view of what looked to be the train they were on.

 

A pair of small squarish looking locomotives were busily shuffling a variety of flatcars loaded with what appeared to be huge coils and ingots of metal - mostly steel and copper from the color - into short strings, then bringing them up behind the passenger cars. There didn’t seem to be but a handful of boxcars and tank cars in the mix. There was however, what looked like a string of railcars at least two miles long being strung together.

 

That was a lot of tonnage. He wasn’t sure even a locomotive as big as the monster leading this train was going to be able to pull that much weight.

 

It soon became apparent that the Dawimhlar didn’t expect it to. Three more of the massive locomotives were moving into position, one in front to help pull and two behind to push. He looked dubiously at the arrangement; on Earth a train with multiple engines in front and one or more trailing was usually reserved for mountainous terrain. Just what lay between the spaceport and Bahleh? Or was it simply a question of weight?

 

With a final bang, the last of the cars was connected. As he watched on the screen, the big driver wheels on all four locomotives spun, gaining traction; with a final lurch the train began inching forward. This amount of mass wasn’t something that was going to be persuaded to accelerate very quickly - it would take a while to build momentum. He sincerely hoped the Dawimhlar had the railway right of way protected against the larger herbivores like mammoths, because a collision with something having this much mass would be… messy… to put it mildly.

 

Once out of the switchyard, the train was on an open, flat plain that stretched to the horizons, covered by tall grasses in a thousand shades of green and a profusion of early summer wildflowers in a rainbow of colors, all bathed in the golden light of a late planetary afternoon. Which was all wrong according to his internal clock, which insisted it was just after lunch - and that he was hungry. Morton looked down at the tabletop. “Can we get a map of where we are and the terrain around us, Pat? And something to eat?”

 

“Sure.” Patterson touched the screen; icons appeared. He touched one and the view pulled back to give a bird’s eye view that showed their entire route, with an overlay of the rail route and other notable features.

 

It was apparent from the map that the spaceport was set in the center of a high plateau on a broad peninsula jutting from the southern edge of the continent, looking rather like a mirror image of the southern tip of South America had been grafted on to a large land mass shaped vaguely like Australia. The high mountains were on the eastern edge of the continent, while the plateau dropped off in the west to… Morton did a double take. The city of Bahleh sat on a large mountainous island in the center of what looked to be two ring shaped ridges which were completely separated by water from each other. Two more ridges on the east side formed half rings with cultivated valleys between; the western half of the entire odd geological formation extended offshore into the ocean so that on the west side all four of the ridges formed arcs of islands. The whole thing had to be almost two hundred miles in diameter. The end of the track they were on looked like it extended all the way to the inner ridge, but not the central island. He lifted startled eyes to Patterson, who cocked his head in question.

 

“What is that?” asked Morton in disbelief, pointing at the map.

 

Patterson blinked in surprise and looked down where Morton was pointing. “Ah, actually, Mr. Morton, that’s the crater the asteroid left fourteen thousand years ago. The one that wiped out ninety-nine percent of the native life forms on Lar. It was just a bit bigger than the one that nailed earth at the end of the Cretaceous and took out the dinosaurs.”

 

Morton’s mouth fell open. “An asteroid killed off the dinosaurs?” This was news to him. As far as he was aware, prevailing theory was that the breakup of Pangaea, combined with realignment, volcanic eruptions and mountain building creating massive climate change had done for the dinosaurs. No one had ever mentioned asteroids to him!

 

“Well, they were already in decline, but, yeah, that seems to have been the final blow.”

 

“Where’s that crater?” This was something he ought to mention to Admiral Nelson the next time he got to speak to him.

 

“Partly in the Yucatan and partly in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Morton. It’s pretty well buried now - after all, that one was sixty-five million years ago.”

 

“But what formed the island in the center of this crater? Is that a volcano? And why the ridges?”

 

“Rebound dome. In a big impact like that, the center of the crater springs back up and makes an elevated dome that can be higher than the rim. The ridges are actually ripples formed in the surface of the crust by the sheer force of the impact. They chose that site for the city because there was a lot of geothermal heat from the impact still available for energy production and because the area was so messed up there was no putting it back the way it had been, even with the tech we have now, let alone what we had then.” He shrugged. “So it didn’t much matter what they did to it.”

 

Morton could only shake his head in amazement, but as he did his stomach growled, prompting a grin from Patterson. “Let’s see what’s on the menu.” Patterson touched the tabletop again, pulling up a smaller screen inside the larger one. This was in the Dawimhlar cuneiform script, so Morton was dependent on Patterson to translate for him.

 

“Well, it looks like fish or roast se’apall sandwiches. Choice of toppings and condiments. Juice, tea, ice water or a cultured fruit flavored milk product called ke’fir. That’s kind of like a thin yogurt.”

 

“You eat se’apall?” Morton was aghast. They looked so much like horses that the American cultural taboo against horsemeat had reared its head.

 

“We don’t have cattle, Mr. Morton. They weren’t domesticated until after the Dawimhlar had left earth. Things were pretty hardscrabble in our early history - we ate what we had. Besides, is there really any point in raising a dozen different types of animals when just a few species can provide everything you need? We get a type of wool, meat, milk and leather from se’apall. Plus transportation. They’re hardier than cows too, especially in Lar’s environment. Bison and aurochs are about the only bovines that actually thrive here - but nobody has undertaken to truly domesticate them. They’re dangerous animals to work with.” He shrugged. “And yaks were from the mountains, so we never interacted much with them back on Earth - and humans didn’t domesticate them until long after we’d left either.”

 

“What kind of fish then?” No matter what Patterson said, he wasn’t hungry enough for horse - or anything that looked like one.

 

Patterson perused the menu. “Salmon, cod, tuna or mackerel.”

 

“Real Earth type salmon? Actual cod?” That was more like it.

 

“Yes to both. Raw, fried, baked or grilled.”

 

“A fried breaded cod sandwich sounds good. Tartar sauce? Lettuce? Tomatoes?”

 

“All can be had.”

 

“The tea - real tea?”

 

“Yep. Imported from India. Black, green or white, hot or iced.”

 

“That’s it then. Cod sandwich and a cup of hot black tea. Got sugar?”

 

“Sure. We have a variety of cold adapted sugar cane, so consider it done, Mr. Morton.”

 

Patterson pressed icons on the screen, then closed out the small screen. “Lunch will be here in a minute.”

 

Morton sat back, somewhat bemused, his mind still buzzing with new information while he waited on his food. There was a lot to consider - fusion powered steam engines, aliens and politics, terraformed planets, extinction level asteroid impacts. His universe had gotten a lot more complicated than he’d ever dreamed it could be.

DR3

 

 

 

Night had fallen as Morton had sat peering out the window, entranced by the glimpses of wildlife on the vast high plain around them. Mammoth, mastodon, some kind of huge bison, smallish tan and black horses with stiff manes and sparse tails, dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, American lions that were different from the African variety he was familiar with and a huge short faced bear. He’d caught fleeting glimpses of a multitude of smaller creatures, some of which looked familiar, but many more that didn’t. There was more than one biologist - or paleontologist - who would kill to be sitting where he was just now.

 

He stifled a yawn. Despite the fact that by California time it was only midafternoon, he was already tired. Given the fourteen hour flight from Mars, during which he had slept little, it had been a long day that started too early. He pressed his face against the window and could just barely see the crescent new moon hanging slightly above the ridgeline on the western horizon ahead of the train, the last traces of orange and purple swiftly fading into the cloak of night. The glimmering ring system that arced across the night sky glimmered with soft brilliance that made the moon a mere afterthought - even with part of the ring in planetary shadow. Not nearly as large a ring system as Saturn‘s, but impressive none the less. The smaller moons were mere dots compared to Urra Shepak, more of a scale to the moons of Mars - but there were so many of them! This was a night sky that said beyond any doubt ‘Not on Earth anymore’.

 

A small dot moved against the starry background. His eyes tracked it by reflex; he supposed it was another shuttle coming in at the spaceport. He’d seen several in the two hours since the train had pulled out of the station on its journey.

 

The object in the sky suddenly changed course. He frowned. Definitely a ship, but what was it doing?

 

Feet pounded in the aisle and the curtain to the booth jerked open. It was the Dawimhlar in charge of the train, their version of a conductor. Before Morton could ask what was going on, she had grabbed both him and Patterson and was shoving them forward up the isle towards the front of the train. They passed six other female Dawimhlar headed the opposite direction; they were in what looked like the same type of battle armor that the Imperial Marines aboard the Soese wore - and armed to match. Morton suddenly had a very bad feeling about that dot in the sky and a sinking feeling in his stomach. The conductor hadn‘t bothered to grab anybody else out of their booths, just the two of them.

 

A loud thunk shivered through the train from behind them. Morton glanced back and suddenly realized he could see light from the planetary ring arc through the window in the passenger car door. The boxcar that had been next in line was rapidly dropping back - and with it the entire string of freight cars and the two trailing engines. The rest of the train seemed to suddenly leap forward in a sudden burst of acceleration.

 

It took him only a split second to realize what had happened. They had dropped the bulk of the train’s mass, leaving the two fusion powered steam locomotives at the head pulling only the four passenger cars. It was obvious the engineers were pouring on power, accelerating as fast as sixteen big driver wheels could turn. But could even a fusion powered train outrun a spaceship? Somehow he didn’t think so. This could only be a move to buy themselves time, since he rather doubted that the ship coming in was a pirate after rolls of steel or copper.

 

A brilliant flash and boom outside made the interior lights flicker, then die. Missiles of some sort. Beside him he heard Patterson mutter something about jammers, so he took it to mean the miss was deliberate. But if they were some sort of device designed to take out the power systems, were the fusion bottles in the locomotives going to die like the lights?

 

The train seemed to find another gear and accelerate even faster, so it would seem that the fusion bottles and their control systems were protected against this kind of attack. He wouldn’t have thought a mere freight train would be considered a target that would warrant such a sophisticated level of defense, but he didn’t know much about Dawimhlar history. But it also made the use of steam to propel the train suddenly not so quaint. Steam and hydraulic systems wouldn’t care about an electronic jammer. As long as there was a heat source, the wheels would turn.

 

He became aware that the train was entering a cut in the rocks. The outermost ridge of the crater! The map had shown a tunnel through it. That must be where the train was trying to take refuge.

 

Except the train wasn’t slowing down. Morton could see the walls of the cut whipping by at a frightening rate, shadows dancing crazily in the reflections from chemical light sticks the train’s crew had broken out as soon as the lights had died. He was sure at this point he really didn’t want to know how fast the train was hurtling through the night, because he was absolutely certain that if one could have attached wings to the locomotives, they would fly. He was even more afraid that if they hit an obstruction on the tracks at this speed, they’d try to launch themselves anyway - and likely succeed - at least for a moment or two.

 

The conductor pushed the two of them into the front booth by the doorway. “Stay down,” she told them in badly accented English before turning to head back to the rear of the car. Then the train was in the tunnel proper and inky darkness closed in around them.

 

But only for an instant. Another brilliant flash filled the opening just behind the car. The thunderous shock wave rushed into the tunnel carrying huge shards of stone with it, exploding the rear door inward, making the train bounce dangerously. Shrieks of pain followed, along with a sudden rush of those passengers from the rear of the car that could still get up and move. Morton looked over at Patterson in shock. Had that been an attempt to take the train out or had they been trying to block the tunnel before the train got there and simply mistimed it?

 

Pat was looking towards the rear of the car. Morton looked back and could see the conductor down in the isle, trying to crawl forward. Without even thinking about it, he got up, Patterson at his heels, and headed for the scene of the carnage. By the time they were halfway there, the rest of the passengers had sorted themselves out and the braver - or more duty conscious - who were not badly injured were also moving back to help.

 

Two of the six Dawimhlar Marines were down, critically injured. Several of the passengers who’d been near the back of the car were clearly dead. Bile rose in Morton’s throat, along with a feeling of guilt. From the conductor’s actions, this had to be about him and Pat. But who had attacked them? And why? As the downed Marines’ colleagues were tending to them, he and Patterson stopped by the conductor to see what they could do for her. Pat murmured to her in Dawimhlar, bringing a look of surprise to her face. Apparently someone had failed to mention to the train’s crew that Patterson was Dawimhlar.

 

Morton turned his attention to her injuries. A large shard of steel had hit her in the leg, breaking the left thighbone and leaving a deep gash. He looked around for something to use as a compress and found one of the other passengers at his side. Patterson asked a question and looked relieved at the answer.

 

“She’s a doctor, Mr. Morton.”

 

Patterson’s words relieved Morton as well. He scooted back and stood, letting the doctor take his place beside the conductor, then turned his attention back to the rest of the passengers. They all seemed to have the situation well in hand, which was something of a relief. He was definitely going to have to work on his language skills - the need for a translator in a situation like this was clearly a major handicap.

 

Another thunk reverberating through the train caught his attention, followed immediately by the screech of brakes being applied. But it wasn’t an emergency stop like he expected, though they were slowing, that was certain. What were the locomotive drivers thinking? And what was the thunk? It was identical to the sound the separating couplings had made when the freight cars had been ditched, just farther away and in the opposite direction. Had the engines abandoned the passenger cars? Surely not.

 

He called the map to mind and calculated their current position; if he recalled correctly, the tunnel was about five miles long, with a much shorter cut on the considerably steeper western face of the ridge; that led immediately to a bridge that spanned the valley all the way to the next ridge. He’d had Patterson zoom in on it earlier and discovered it was built in much same fashion as a Roman aqueduct with massive stone arches rather than steel girders. It meant they would be exposed to weapons fire from the attacking ship. He just hoped the spaceship crew’s instructions didn’t include simply blowing the train away if they couldn’t get it to stop.

 

The front door of the car opened, revealing two of the locomotive crew. Morton couldn’t help but blink in surprise at seeing them here. Pat had told him that since the locomotives had a fusion heart, the engineer was just that - an engineer. The driver was referred to as the pilot. He thought he recognized the auburn haired Dawimhlar pilot as being from the lead engine. He knew that on earth multiple locomotives could be controlled from just one; he supposed that was true here as well. It was possible, he reflected, that the conductor had ordered the crew of the lead locomotive out for safety, since if the train did hit something on the track, they would be the most at risk. Besides, if they were here, it meant the passenger cars had not been abandoned.

 

The pilot squatted down beside the conductor, speaking softly. As they clasped hands, Morton realized that both the pilot and engineer had tears streaking their faces and the conductor was giving them a look of… sympathy? Beside him he heard Patterson’s sudden intake of breath.

 

“What’s happening, Pat?” he whispered.

 

“They cut the lead engine loose, Mr. Morton, and sent it charging out on autopilot with all the safety locks off. They think the attackers will try to land on the track at the other end of the tunnel in anticipation of coming in after us, so they are going to use the locomotive to try and blow the ship up - or at least put a scare into them. Fighter ships are already on their way, along with the Imperial Marines. The longer the train crew can keep them from coming in, the more likely they are to give it up as a bad deal.”

 

“Unless they decide to blow us all up,” muttered Morton morosely.

 

“Not likely,” stated Patterson with conviction. “That really would be an act of war - and war with us nobody sane wants. Not even mercenaries are willing to risk that. The last bunch that tried didn‘t leave any survivors to regret their rashness.”

 

That rocked Morton back on his heels. Just when he was lulled into thinking that the Dawimhlar weren’t all that different from humanity, that core of unyielding steel showed. No wonder the other races had problems dealing with these people. There were lines in their moral code that you simply did not cross without dire consequences. He couldn’t help but shiver.

 

The train continued to slow. By now he thought, the freed locomotive should be almost to the other end of the tunnel. Their attackers were going to be in for a surprise when it came bolting out, but he didn’t see much hope for the plan to actually work. First, they would have to be dumb enough to actually land on the tracks knowing that those two big locomotives were coming…

 

The world seemed to flash an actinic white and bounce. There was the screech of metal on stone and the floor underneath them tilted to one side - and stayed that way as the train ground to a sudden halt, clearly derailed. Apparently, thought Morton to himself as he lay in the isle half stunned, afterimages dancing in his eyes, somebody was crazy enough to risk war with the Dawimhlar. His main question now was what kind of weapon had been used and how much radiation he and the rest had just been exposed to. He heard a groan that sounded like Patterson from just beyond his head. Reaching out with his right hand, he felt around and found one of the sleeves of Patterson’s shirt.

 

“Pat, you okay?” he asked.

 

“Mostly,” came the pained reply, “but I landed on my wrist and I think it’s broke - again.”

 

Morton had to suppress a hysterical laugh, for Patterson’s words reminded him that this whole insane episode had started just over a month ago with the crash of the Flying Sub on a beach in Los Angeles County. He himself was barely healed from a gunshot wound acquired after the crash, when would be hijackers attempted to steal FS1 and kidnap him. Ever since then he’d felt like Alice after falling down the rabbit hole, because his life just kept getting curiouser and curiouser.

 

A hand touched his leg; he twitched out of reflex.

 

Subcommander,” growled an unfamiliar voice, “are you injured?”

 

Morton blinked to try and clear his vision. He thought the blurry shape at his feet was one of the Dawimhlar Marines - and even now he wasn’t sure if they were truly Marines or if they were railroad security. On the other hand, if they were calling him by the Dawimhlar Navy equivalent of his rank, then they likely were Imperial Marines. Which begged the question of just what an Imperial assault team was doing on the train in the first place. Had they been expecting trouble? Was that another reason why Patterson put the two of them on the freight instead of waiting for a passenger train? To hold down casualties if it turned out there was trouble?

 

“I don’t think so. What did they hit us with? And how much radiation did we get?” He braced for bad news.

 

The Dawimhlar dryly laughed. “They didn’t hit us with anything. The locomotive hit them. Their ship had just set down on the track when the Hal Ota nailed it. The flash was mag bottles collapsing.”

 

“No shit?!” The words slipped out before Morton could stop them.

 

“No shit, indeed. I am Subcommander Felik Dawam, by the way. As for radiation - the engine we still have has shielding that stopped anything damaging from getting by.”

 

“You people think of everything,” murmured Morton, still half dazed.

 

“We try,” grinned the subcommander, patting him on the leg. “What about your companion? Patterson?”

 

“Broke my wrist - again,” answered Patterson with a groan. “Other than that, I’m just bounced around some and bruised. How bad is the train wrecked?”

 

“Ah.” It came out as a rueful sigh. “Enough that the Shik’tah’yeh Ota and many of the cars will probably have to be scrapped.”

 

Now it was Morton’s turn to sigh. “Do you know why they were after us?” he asked morosely.

 

“No,” said Felik, “but it probably has to do with interstellar politics.” She made a face.

 

“Oh, great,” said Morton with disgust. “As if the politics just on Earth wasn’t enough.”

 

That brought a laugh from the Dawimhlar officer. “I will have to leave you now, Subcommander, but I will send someone to see to Patterson. There are others I need to check on.” With those words, she rose and made her way forward out of the car, heading towards the head of the train.

 

“I hope the engine crew made it,” came from Patterson.

“I hope so too,” he replied. He paused briefly. “Pat, what do those names she gave for the engines mean?”

 

“Well, Hal Ota translates closest to Western Flyer. The other one…” Patterson thought for a minute. “In this context I’d translate it as Midnight Flyer.”

 

“Context?”

 

Shik can mean either dark or black, so shik’t can be darkest or blackest, but ah’yeh means time, so usually shik’tah’yeh literally means darkest time - which means midnight.”

 

He was definitely going to have to work on his language skills. In the meantime…

 

“Pat, I’m going forward to see if there’s anything I can do.”

 

“I’d go with you, Mr. Morton, but I don’t think I’d be of much use to you.” They were interrupted by the appearance of the doctor they’d met earlier. She spoke to Patterson; he answered and held out his wrist for her to examine. She tsked at him during his explanation, so Morton expected Pat had just informed her that this was the second time he’d injured his wrist in just over a month - and he figured she was about as happy with him as Jamieson would have been - and she didn’t even know Pat.

 

It must be a doctor thing, was all he could figure.

 

He climbed slowly to his feet, feeling bruised and battered, and made his way to the door in the front of the car. With the right side of the train against the wall of the tunnel, he had no option but to climb down on the left side. Chemical light sticks were liberally stuck on the exterior surfaces of the passenger cars, so he had plenty of illumination to see by. It looked like most of the passengers who weren’t injured were walking down the tracks towards the locomotive. Curious, he followed, but soon realized that their destination wasn’t the locomotive itself, but the tunnel opening on the west side of the ridge. He supposed it probably was closer than the east end, which was almost certainly collapsed from the missile hit anyway. However, given the explosion that had derailed the train, he had to wonder what kind of shape the west entrance was in. It might well be collapsed too.

 

He kept walking, relieved to see as he passed the wrecked locomotive that the crew had climbed down from the cab. Like himself, they moved somewhat stiffly, obviously battered from the derailment, but clearly not seriously injured. They were surveying the damage to their locomotive with unhappy faces, so he could only surmise that Subcommander Dawam’s judgment that the engine was too badly damaged to be repaired was probably correct. It was unfortunate about the train, but he couldn’t help the sigh of relief that the crew was alive and well; that anyone had been killed at all weighed on him.

 

It was perhaps half a mile to the entrance. Before they’d gotten more than halfway there, lights appeared ahead, revealing that this entrance was indeed partially collapsed. Voices called out in Dawimhlar; from the excited babble of relief from those around him, it was obvious that these were the Imperial Marines he’d been told were on the way to rescue the survivors. Those who were the least injured trotted ahead to greet the newcomers.

 

Not all of them turned out to be Marines. Morton did a double take at the familiar figure hurrying down the track towards him.

 

Scathach?” He’d last seen her on Mars less than a day earlier, something which already seemed like a lifetime ago. He wondered how she had gotten here so quickly, but decided that she had probably taken one of the Navy courier boats. They were considerably faster than the passenger ship he and Pat had come on.

 

“Chip!” The relief in Scathach’s voice was obvious. “Are you injured?”

 

“No, just rattled around some. Pat broke his wrist, but there was a doctor on the train and she’s seeing to him now.”

 

Scathach came close and stopped, looking him over carefully. “Are you certain?” she asked, worry evident in her voice.

 

“Yes, I’m certain,” he said with a wry smile. “But what are you doing here?”

 

She looked at him with arched eyebrows. “Where else would I be when the son of my heart is in danger?”

 

Morton gave her a long, searching look. She hadn’t called him that in public since he was a boy, that summer so long ago when they’d first met. It was, Faileas had told him then, a term that among the Dawimhlar was something more than merely words. It was an affirmation of family by choice. But now, with Scathach having been nominated to be the next Empress, it took on whole news levels of meaning. Interstellar politics indeed - and now he was left wondering if it might just be the reason someone had dared to attack this train, here on the Dawimhlar homeworld, only a hundred miles from their Imperial capital city. Somebody was apparently playing for very large stakes indeed - and he was merely a pawn in a greater game, even if he wasn’t formally adopted. Or perhaps that was the why - he hadn’t been formally adopted because he still had blood family on Earth who cared for him - and it may well have been that the attackers had known that as well. Had Scathach adopted him all those years ago, he would be Dawimhlar in the eyes of Imperial law - and his abduction or death a cause for war. But as a non-citizen…

 

Or maybe the whole thing had nothing to do with him at all.

 

Scathach, why were there marines on the train? To protect me and Pat? Or for some other reason?” he asked.

 

She sighed. “Chip, I never dreamed when I rescued you as a child that things would turn out this way. But now… .” She spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. “We got intelligence after you left Mars that hinted that someone wanted to abduct you, but we did not have confirmation, nor have we been able to determine with certainty who was behind the plot, though we do,” she noted grimly, “have a pretty good idea of who they might be and why. We had hoped,” she added grimly, “that by putting you on the freight and holding the passenger train that it might gain us time to prevent anything from actually happening. Obviously that didn‘t work - although it did keep all the non-Dawimhlar tourists from being involved.”

 

His own sigh echoed hers. At this point, he reflected, the die was probably cast. No matter what she said or did, someone out there knew that she cared deeply for him, and since she had no children of her own, he was the surrogate son. It was, in some ways, he reflected, much like the relationship between Admiral Nelson and Commander Crane - though it was unlikely either of them would ever publicly admit it.

 

“So where do we go from here?” he asked

 

“First,” she told him wryly, “to see Empress Toshira…”

 

There was that feeling of falling down the rabbit hole again.

DR$

 

 

 

 

Chip Morton sat at the wrought iron table across from Scathach and the Empress, ears and eyes wide open trying to absorb as much information about his surroundings as possible. He was still having trouble believing that he was really in the Imperial Complex, for it was nothing like he’d thought it would be. Oh, it was opulent enough - but much of it consisted primarily of government offices. The Empress’ private quarters were actually quite modest and took up less space than Admiral Nelson’s own home on the Institute’s grounds. It wasn’t how one would expect an Empress to live. In fact, some of the quarters for visiting dignitaries were bigger than the Empress’ own and far more luxuriously furnished. He knew this because he, Patterson and Scathach had spent what was left of the night in one of those suites. He and Scathach were currently having breakfast with the Empress and in her private garden while Patterson was being tended to by the Imperial medical staff.

 

The garden was just as unpretentious as the Empress‘ residence, taking up no more space than a small city lot - and a large part of it was an actual vegetable garden, for the majority of the plants in it were edible, including those plants in the inevitable water garden, though this one was salt water, not fresh. The corner that was given over to ornamental plantings was actually quite minimal. A set of dark stone steps led down to the stone paved patio where they were currently seated; it was surrounded by a low wall made of the same dark stone. The stone itself was metamorphic bluestone (whatever that was) from Earth. It wasn’t a particularly expensive stone, they’d told him, but its presence here was symbolic, since it came from the area of Earth the Dawimhlar considered their original homeland. The one real extravagance was the dark iridescent semiprecious gemstone circle at the top of the steps - and that had been a gift from another government back when the Imperial Complex was being built millennia ago. He couldn’t help but be entranced by the glimmering rainbow of colors created by the play of the early morning light on the ring’s polished surfaces.

 

How many figures in Dawimhlar history had passed through that ring, he wondered. How much history set in motion from where he sat right now? It boggled the mind to contemplate.

 

He found himself turning all of his attention back to the conversation, for Empress Toshira was describing the events and outcome of a meeting that Admiral Nelson, Lee Crane, Faileas and Captain Hauer had just had a few hours before with the US President, Gerald Ford.

 

He wished he’d been there to see Hauer clobber Tobin with his helmet. From the look on Scathach’s face, it was obvious she’d have liked to been there too. Morton had to shake his head at the realization of just how up to date the Dawimhlar were on current affairs back on Earth. Why, they knew more about who the political players were than most government agencies on Earth did! The other part of the discussion centered on just who might have been behind the kidnapping attempt. Unfortunately, when the locomotive had bolted from the tunnel, the final explosion had not actually been the result of mag bottles collapsing when the ship and train collided - it had been the ship’s weapons impacting on the Hal Ota’s deflector shields and exploding prematurely. It had also become apparent upon close analysis that the second missile was intended to take the train out after the jammers had failed to even slow it down, let alone stop it.

 

The result was that there were no survivors from the attacker’s ship, with little remaining to tell exactly who they had been. In fact, there wasn’t much left of the ship, the railway bridge or a sizable chunk of the cliff face. It would take weeks to repair the damage. He considered himself and Pat fortunate the Dawimhlar routinely built shielding into their locomotives to protect against any sort of accident - or attack - that might disrupt the function of the fusion plants that powered them and also contain the steam in the event of a boiler rupture. 

 

He’d been astounded to learn that the leading suspects in the bold attack were the descendants of a separate group of Dawimhlar who had split off from the majority in an event called the Third Sundering right after they’d reached the stars and discovered the K’uk Empire was a thousand years dead. That group, who took the name Tin’t’da, had taken a very different social path. Where the Dawimhlar elected an Empress - or Emperor - the other group had made it hereditary and had developed over time a hierarchy of nobles that ruled over the lower classes. The entire society was rigidly stratified, a practice the Dawimhlar found abhorrent. They had also flirted with genetic engineering and the results of that disaster had left the Tin’t’da physically changed to the point that they no longer looked anything like Dawimhlar or humans and were now unable to interbreed with either. Their gene pool had become seriously inbred as a result. Compounding their problems was an over-reliance on cloning; it turned out that DNA had a limit on how many times it could be successfully cloned. The Tin’t’da were approaching that limit, for less than half of their clones survived gestation - and they lost another thirty percent before the first six months. That translated into an overall survival rate of thirty-two percent - for the upper classes. The survival rate in the lower classes was even more dismal.

 

Consequently they had not prospered over the last thirteen millennia to the extent they thought they deserved; the Goddesses had also disowned them, even though they liked to pretend otherwise. Their resentment of the Dawimhlar had grown exponentially with the decrease in their own population - and they hated humans almost as much as they did the Dawimhlar. The Empress and her Intelligence services had long suspected them of being responsible for more than one war on Earth - and this was the main reason besides the more recent paranoia inspired by the Molhar that the Dawimhlar maintained a presence on earth. Chip could only shake his head in amazement at the convoluted twists and turns to Earth’s history that he was discovering.

 

“So what do these Tin’t’da look like,” he asked. If they had changed themselves, he supposed they could now look like anything.

 

“How familiar are you with the UFO abduction reports from your world are you?” asked the Empress.

 

A couple of weeks ago he would have laughed at the question - today he didn’t so much as crack a smile. He let his eyebrows rise before answering, knowing that before the Dawimhlar had re-entered his life he would have been loath to admit that he even knew the answer to that question. “The most common description seems to be of small grey creatures with big eyes….”

 

“Those are the lower class Tin’t’da. The worker bees if you will. They are genderless and can only reproduce by being cloned. The upper class Tin’t’da do this to ensure their … servants… can never revolt. As for their nobility - are you familiar with the myths of Europe involving the Fae or Sidhe?”

 

“They’re fairies?” asked Morton in disbelief.

 

“No.” Toshira shook her head in negation. “They lied to your ancestors and tricked them into believing that’s what they were. But what they were passing off as magic was in fact technology. At that point we kicked them off the planet and forbade them coming back.” She gave him a rueful smile. “Of course, they’ve been sneaking back and causing trouble every chance they get.”

 

“I’ll be damned,” said Morton, his eyes going wide. He was going to ask another question, but the appearance of a uniformed Imperial Marine at the head of the steps with an armed squad flanking her brought all conversation to a halt.

 

The Marine saluted, fist to chest. Toshira nodded gravely and the officer proceeded down the steps and across the small patio to where the three of them were seated. She handed the Empress one of the communications tablets and stepped back, coming to a parade rest.

 

Toshira looked grimly at him and Scathach before laying the device on the table and turning it on. A holographic sphere blinked into existence; in the sphere was Captain Hauer. Chip sucked in a breath, for the neatly pristine bridge that he’d last seen aboard Soese had been replaced by one that showed obvious signs of damage. There was a stitched gash across one side of the Captain’s face, while his left hand was wrapped in bandages and supported in a sling. He gave the Empress a grave nod and then straightened tiredly to attention.

 

“My Empress,” came Hauer’s voice from the sphere, “The Tin’t’da made the attack on Earth that we feared.” Morton went pale and was about to rise from his chair when Hauer continued. “They were successfully repelled without anyone on Earth being the wiser. Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane are still at Admiral Holloway’s home and Seaview is still safe in Tholus.”

 

“Thank you, Captain,” said Toshira gravely. “Our losses?”

 

Hauer grimaced. “Two of the older cruisers were lost with all hands, while three had significant damage, with heavy casualties but were able to limp back to Darsooma. The rest had only moderate damage. All of the new ships came through with very little in the way of harm. None of the attackers survived to flee. And Intelligence was correct - the Tin’t’da have made an alliance with the Chuid.”

 

Toshira closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. “We are at war then,” she stated bluntly.

 

“Yes, Empress.”

 

Scathach looked at Toshira with a wan smile, then as the Empress gave a slight nod, pulled the copper ring of the heir from her right hand and laid it on the table.

 

Hauer’s eyes followed the ring with a look of bewilderment that was beginning to turn to alarm.

 

“I offer my Empress my life,” said Scathach in Dawimhlar, “For I am unworthy of being Heir.” Morton could barely follow what she was saying, for the form of the language she was using was both formal and archaic.

 

“Worthy you are, for another time,” said the Empress with equal formality, “so your life is yours to keep. But for war, one needs to follow a warrior.” She and Scathach both looked at Hauer, who was looking back at them with his mouth hanging open.

 

“You can’t mean it,” he spluttered in Dawimhlar.

 

“I do,” said Toshira. “Will you accept for the sake of the People? I have neither the experience nor youth for what is to come.”

 

“And I just plain don’t have the experience,” added Scathach, “I am an able administrator, but war is not something amenable to being … administered.”

 

Hauer looked at them for a long moment before finally nodding unhappily.

 

“Then I shall invoke the War Emergency Clause of the Constitution and call an immediate vote,” said Toshira, giving Hauer a sad sort of smile. “If the people approve, I will abdicate immediately.” She touched another icon on the tablet and stood, moving to position herself so that the gleaming stone ring at the top of the steps down to the patio was behind her.

 

“My people,” she said as she looked into what must obviously be a camera in the device sitting on the table, “We are at war. The Tin’t’da and their allies the Chuid attacked Earth a short time ago and were repelled. We have taken casualties.” She bowed her head for a brief moment. “Because of my advanced age, I feel unable to lead you. Scathach, who was to follow me, rightly points out that she is an administrator, not a warrior.”

 

Morton could feel the entire Dawimhlar Amalgamation holding its collective breath.

 

“I have therefore chosen Captain Taharqa Hauer, currently commanding the heavy cruiser Soese, and senior commander of the Solar System, as Heir. How do you the people say?”

 

A second sphere popped up. What Chip now knew were Dawimhlar numbers began filling the sphere, settling into two columns. He assumed that one was aye and one was nay, but he hadn’t a clue as to which was which.

 

It was a process that took far less time than he would have thought. When the last number in each column steadied, Toshira simply nodded and pronounced, “Taharqa Hauer, I name you Heir.” She took off the heavy silver ring on her right hand and laid it on the table. “I now lay down my burden. Emperor Taharqa, I give you the Power of the Crown and the Sword, as written in the Constitution of the Dawimhlar Amalgamation.”

 

Hauer sighed. “I accept,” he said, “and I name Scathach as my heir. My people, does this meet with your approval?”

 

Scathach was looking at Hauer like he’d lost his mind.

 

He smiled wryly back at her. “As you pointed out, you are an able administrator. Since I will be otherwise occupied, much of the ordinary business of the Amalgamation would otherwise go untended. Do you not agree?”

 

Scathach sighed and nodded unhappily. “This is so, my Emperor,” she admitted.

 

“Then citizens, let the vote for my Heir, begin.”

 

The first two columns of numbers cleared, to be replaced by another set. And as quickly as before, it was done. Scathach shook her head, but picked the copper ring up off the table and put it back on.

 

Morton found himself looking at them in amazement. In less than twenty minutes they had elected a new Heir, had the Empress abdicate, crowned a new Emperor, then elected another Heir. This would have taken months - if not years - for any government he was familiar with back on Earth.

 

“I shall have a courier boat bring you the Imperial ring,” Toshira was saying when a glow on the steps caused her to go silent and stare. As the glow brightened, Chip began to discern a shape in it, a clearly female form with … two heads? His breath caught, for this was the depiction of the Dawimhlar Goddesses. But to his surprise, at least a dozen other forms were also taking shape behind them. Who they were he hadn’t a clue. Apparently the Dawimhlar present found none of them unfamiliar, for they had all bowed their heads with their hands together in obvious respect. Even Hauer, looking on from the view-sphere, had bowed his head as well.

 

“Our Children,” said two voices in perfect harmony as the first female figure solidified halfway down the steps. “It is a sad day that events have come to this, but choices long ago made have finally borne their bitter fruit. We give our blessings to Emperor Taharqa.” The other glowing ethereal presences all nodded their agreement, one by one repeating what the first had said. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the uncanny apparitions all faded, leaving behind a profound and awed silence.

 

“Well,” said Scathach after a very long moment, “That’s never happened before.”

 

Morton blinked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?” he asked, still not quite sure that he’d just seen what he thought he had.

 

“Oh, that’s not to say there isn’t a Blessing by the Goddesses and perhaps one or more of the lesser gods on a new Empress or Emperor, but it’s usually in a private ceremony at one of the temples and the only people who see it are those in actual attendance. But this, all of them together, in public…” She trailed off and shook her head. “We’ve long feared this day, when the Sundered Ones would come to us in battle, determined to destroy us because they lost their way - and we didn’t.” She paused for a moment before adding, “The Goddesses warned us long ago this day would come, as have some of the other Gods that made the journey from Earth to Lar and our other worlds, so we have been preparing for it.”

 

The new Emperor was looking pale - and not just from his injuries.

 

“What Scathach isn’t telling you, Subcommander,” said Hauer in a tight voice from the view-sphere, “is that they did it for unification. You may have noted that the Dawimhlar are still a strongly matriarchal society because of the disparity in numbers between males and females. One consequence of that is that in all of our fifteen thousand years of history we have had less than a half-dozen Emperors - and none of them have been Emperor during wartime. Disunity now would be disastrous for us as a people. I wasn’t sure how Toshira planned for me to overcome that biological bias, but…” He gave Morton a grim smile.

 

“The Goddesses solved the problem for you.” Morton blew out a breath as the enormity of the burden that had been laid on the now former cruiser captain sank in. “Just how dire is the situation anyway?”

 

“If we lose this war, it will be because there are no more Dawimhlar left to fight it - and not only our worlds but Earth will be burned out cinders.”

 

The blood drained from Morton’s face.

 

Toshira returned to the table and sat down, reaching out to the com tablet. Morton realized that their entire conversation had just been seen and heard by the whole of the Dawimhlar Amalgamation. He looked at Scathach and Toshira and realized that it hadn’t been an accident; they were pressing home the message their Gods had just delivered - stand together behind the Emperor or perish.

 

With the public transmission terminated, Toshira turned to Morton and sighed. “I am made to think,” she told him, “that there is no point in you continuing on to Seethahn. You may now actually be safer on Earth with Seaview than you would be with us.”

 

“What about Admiral Nelson’s enemies?” He couldn’t see them passing up the opportunity to snatch him for information if they realized he had actually been to another planet.

 

“Some of those enemies are in league with the Tin’t’da - and now that we are officially at war, will be dealt with,” Scathach told him grimly.

 

“And what about Pat?”

 

The two Dawimhlar looked at each other. “That,” noted Toshira wryly, “is his decision.”

 

**********

 

Harriman Nelson was starting to become concerned. It was now 9:00 AM on Saturday morning in Annapolis - and his call to the Soese had gone unanswered for over an hour. He hadn’t yet said anything to Admiral Holloway; thankfully the Soviet Ambassador and Senator Cranston were no longer there, having finally gone home shortly after midnight. Holloway had said he and Crane might as well spend the night since he had more questions.

 

Now, as they were eating a late breakfast, Holloway was asking those questions, but it was obvious that Nelson was distracted. Holloway put down his fork and looked sternly at him.

 

“Harry, there’s something wrong. Spill it.”

 

Nelson squirmed and hesitated, but finally with a sigh admitted, “Soese isn’t answering my call.”

 

“What?” Crane sat up and looked concerned.

 

“Is it night ship-time?” asked Holloway.

 

“I don’t think so,” said Nelson. “It’s not just that Hauer isn’t answering - it’s that nobody is answering.”

 

The sudden chime of the device in his pocket made them all jump. Nelson grabbed it in relief and flipped open the cover. Hauer was there - and the gash on the captain’s cheek and the wreckage of the Soese’s bridge in the background left Nelson staring in silence with a shocked expression on his face. Nelson’s reaction brought Crane and Holloway out of their seats to come stare over his shoulder.

 

Hauer gave them a wan smile as he rubbed at his bandaged left arm. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, Admiral Nelson, but we were having a bit of a … crisis.”

 

“What the hell happened, Captain?” demanded Holloway.

 

“Our mutual enemies decide to attack Earth, Admiral Holloway. None of them got through our perimeter, but…” Hauer trailed off and waved vaguely at the remnants of the carnage around him.

 

“Enemies? What enemies?” Nelson and Holloway both looked baffled.

 

“They call themselves Tin’t’da, but to our great sorrow, there was a time long ago when they were part of our own people.” He shook his head. “They took a far different path than the rest of us, experimenting with genetic engineering - and it failed to produce the results they wished, but it did change them to the point that they no longer look like us or you. We finally had to kick them out of not merely our own society but out of the Solar System.” He stopped and grimaced, rubbing his arm again before continuing. “That was almost twelve thousand years ago. They’ve sneaked back in from time to time and caused problems for both our people and yours - we suspect them of having started more than one of your wars - and we have clashed with them ourselves on numerous occasions.”

 

Nelson shared shocked looks with Holloway and Crane. “So what do they look like?” he asked.

 

Hauer gave them an ironic smile. “How familiar with the UFO reports of actual encounters are you?”

 

Crane gave Hauer a look of horror. “They’re Grays? Are you serious?” Holloway gave him a sharp look, clearly wondering how he knew the answer to Hauer’s question.

 

“I’m afraid so. The Grays are only their lower class though. Genderless neuters who are created by cloning. Their upper class is responsible for much of your legends of Sidhe, particularly Dark Court Sidhe.”

 

“Then their magic…” began Nelson.

 

“Was entirely technology.”

 

Holloway shook his head. “Now I’m wondering just how many species this world produced that we’ll have to deal with.”

 

Ten,” said Hauer, “Although there has been some interbreeding over the millennia. Only the Tin’t’da, Haita and Yeti are so distinct genetically they cannot do so.”

 

“Yeti? They’re real?” Nelson stared in disbelief. Ten? There were ten living hominid species? And what the hell were they all? Holloway had apparently been left speechless with this latest revelation.

 

“So how many of them are we going to have to be looking out for besides these Ti… Tin whatevers,” growled Holloway finally.

 

 “None,” answered Hauer tiredly. “All the rest, when they left Earth, left with us, and settled on our worlds. Though they may not have Dawimhlar blood, they are full citizens of the Amalgamation. You have no need to fear them.” He paused. “There are other complications to this, however. The Tin’t’da also attacked Lar. Your Lt. Commander Morton was caught in it but is not injured.” Crane had started to rise but settled back into his chair. “Since we are now officially at war we felt he might well be safer aboard Seaview than with us. As soon as he arrives by courier boat from Lar, we will be transporting your submarine home, Admiral. That will likely be later today.”

 

“Is that all?” Nelson had gotten to know the Dawimhlar captain well enough to know that something was bugging him.

 

“Ah well,” sighed Hauer, “You might as well know it now. Because she was planning on stepping down anyway, Empress Toshira moved up the election for Heir using the War Emergency Clause of our Constitution. Scathach, since she has no military experience also resigned as Heir Apparent.”

 

“So who is the new Empress?”

 

“Emperor.” Hauer sighed deeply. “And it’s me. It’s not something I ever expected or wanted. So the heavy cruiser Mjollnir will be bringing Seaview back to you. As soon as repairs are completed on Soese, I need to return to Lar.”

 

“What’s the likelihood these bastards will try again?” asked Holloway as Nelson struggled to absorb the fact that they were speaking with the new Dawimhlar Emperor.

 

“High,” admitted Hauer. “Since Mars is also a target, we will be keeping one of our fleets here to defend both worlds. They will get to you only if they can get past us. However, the more immediate business is where you wished Seaview to be dropped off.”

 

Nelson looked at Holloway, who sighed. “Until we make sure that everybody has gotten the message, she probably needs to be here on the East Coast.” He thought for a moment. “New London, Harry?”

 

Nelson nodded slowly. “Captain…” He stopped and shook his head. “Emperor…”

 

Taharqa,” said the former cruiser captain. “As Emperor, I no longer use my clan name, only my own.”

 

Nelson nodded again to him. “Then Emperor Taharqa, if your people would be so good as to drop Seaview east of Montauk Point, she can scoot into New London before anybody knows she’s back.”

 

“Might be best to wait for nightfall,” pointed out Hauer. “So that no one sees the shuttle.” Harry wondered to himself how long it would take him to automatically think of Soese’s captain as being Emperor Taharqa.

 

“That’ll give us time to make some preparations, Harry. Make sure nobody gets trigger happy,” noted Holloway.

 

Nelson grunted assent. “There’s sure to be somebody who’ll want make trouble even then.”

 

“And I will see to it that they get clapped into the brig and rot there if need be,” said Holloway tightly.

 

“But that won’t do much for people like Horton,” pointed out Nelson. Holloway’s lips settled into a grim thin line. He started to speak but Hauer cut him off.

 

“We are aware of this Horton person - he is working with the Tin’t’da. Now that we are officially at war, we will be doing something about that. He now has an Imperial bounty on his head - dead or alive. I expect him to be too busy looking out for his own hide to be much of a problem for you, Admiral,” noted Hauer with grim satisfaction. “And anybody caught with him… well, one gets judged by the company they keep. With civilian casualties from the unprovoked attack on Lar, we are in no mood to be forgiving.”

 

The two admirals looked at each other wide-eyed. This could have interesting repercussions. They’d need to keep a lookout for further developments.

 

**********

 

Bobby O’Brien was feeling the pressure of command. There had clearly been some sort of … crisis… among  the Dawimhlar the evening before, for they seen every small craft in Tholus screaming out of the spaceport and the lock then close tight, not just the energy shields, but actual physical doors on a scale so huge they were almost unimaginable. The Harbormaster had also directed him to button up Seaview and tether her tightly to the anchor buoys - and put her on the bottom. The other boats and the entire city of Tholus had appeared to button up as tightly as Seaview.

 

It had seemed like an eternity before anything moved again, though a look at the clock told him it had only been about four hours. The great doors covering the spaceport aperture had finally opened enough to let ships start landing; Bobby had watched in horror through the periscope as every ambulance in the city streamed onto the spaceport landing field to meet those ships. The high resolution optics in Seaview’s periscope had let him zoom in to see injured people being loaded into the waiting ambulances; it had also let him see the body-sized bags being offloaded by grim faced Dawimhlar.

 

The radio crackled; they were shallow enough that Bobby had left the radio mast up.

 

Seaview, this is the Harbormaster. Please surface and stand by to receive … Captain… Hauer aboard.”

 

Bobby heaved a sigh of relief. He’d meet Soese’s captain and knew he was a straight shooter. If anybody could tell them what was going on, it was Hauer. But why the odd pause? He turned back to the periscope and looked at the quay. It sure looked like Hauer getting into a small boat - and he looked to have injuries. Bobby’s fingers tightened on the periscope handles.

 

Something had happened aboard the Soese. Were they bringing him bad news? He turned to the watch crew. “Surface the boat easy. We have company coming.”

 

By the time the launch had made it to where Seaview was moored, she had floated serenely to the surface with little more than a ripple. Bobby climbed grimly up to the sail and stepped out through the hatch to meet Hauer.

 

“Your people are all fine,” were his first words, bringing a huge sigh of relief from all of Seaview’s personnel. “Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane are at Admiral Holloway’s house and Morton and Patterson are at the Imperial Complex on Lar.”

 

There were some looks shared among the crew, for they knew that hadn’t been their XO’s destination when he’d left.

 

“Unfortunately, The Dawimhlar Amalgamation has been attacked and we are now at war. We need to get your boat back to Earth as it is no longer safe here.”

 

“Who attacked you? And what about Tobin and the people hunting us?” asked Bobby.

 

“Ah?” Hauer looked at him, puzzled. “Did no one tell you that Nelson and Faileas met with President Ford and got the matter cleared up? That Tobin was arrested for trying to attack Faileas right in front of your President? That President Ford told Admiral Nelson to bring his boat and crew home?”

 

Jaws dropped. “So that means we can really go home?” asked one of the ratings hopefully.

 

“Yes,” said Hauer. “Although Soese will not be the one to take you back - the heavy cruiser Mjollnir will do so as soon as Commander Morton gets back.”

 

“But what’s Pat going to do?” asked another voice.

 

“Do you want him back?” asked Hauer, cocking his head to one side. “You do know he is Dawimhlar?”

 

The speaker looked around at the others on deck and finally all of them nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we know. But his dad is American, and well, he’s also one of us.”

 

“It’s up to him, but I’ll pass the message on.”

 

“But who attacked you?” asked O’Brien again.

 

Hauer sighed. “They call themselves Tin’t’da. I’ve briefed Admiral Nelson and Commander Crane and I have no doubt that Toshira and Scathach briefed your XO. Time is limited for me here - I’ve been recalled to Lar.” He turned to leave.

 

“You in trouble?” asked a voice from the group of sailors clustered on Seaview’s deck.

 

Hauer snorted a laugh and looked back over his shoulder. “I wish I was,” he responded dryly. “Being crowned Emperor was never high on my list of ambitions.” With those parting words he made his way back into the launch, leaving O’Brien and the rest looking after him in puzzlement.

 

“But I thought Scathach was supposed to be the next Empress!” It was Clark, one of the electricians, who spoke.

 

O’Brien found himself wondering why it seemed to bother Clark so much, but a shuttle similar to the one that had brought Seaview down from Soese was approaching. A Dawimhlar head poked out of the opening hatch and hailed them. Bobby put the matter out of his mind and set to work getting the boat ready for the return of her XO and the return to Earth.

 

**********

 

Harriman Nelson stood on one of the piers on the New London Naval Base, watching the lights reflecting on dark water as his gray lady made her careful way through the night, sailing slowly up the Thames River, escorted by a pair of tugs. Captain Crane and Admiral Holloway stood beside him, along with the base commander, Admiral DeWitt. Admiral Jiggs Starke was there as well - and so was Admiral Camden, COMSUBATLANT. The collection of brass standing on the pier had sailors peeking worriedly from around corners - and Nelson had no doubt the periscopes and binoculars aboard every vessel present on the base were trained on the scene, watching avidly to see just what happened.

 

Rumors must have been flying like mad the past few days.

 

As Seaview drew closer, he heard Crane sigh with relief beside him. Standing on the flying bridge was the distinctive figure of Chip Morton, conning the submarine. But his eye was caught by a familiar figure in blue among the hands on deck, a white cast - again - on one wrist. Patterson. He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until Holloway looked at him oddly.

 

“They let him come back?”

 

Crane looked over at the CNO and answered. “He was born here, Admiral Holloway. He’s an actual American citizen. And I’m now convinced that he never was a spy for them - just Chip’s watchdog against Smith coming back.”

 

“But Smith is dead,” said Starke from the other side.

 

“And Horton isn’t,” pointed out Crane grimly. “At least not yet. Emperor Taharqa promised to notify me when they catch the bastard. I‘m inclined to let the issue with Patterson be if the crew does.”

 

The other admirals shared looks and finally nodded in reluctant agreement. Better the devil you knew…

 

Epilogue

 

Don O’Brien sat at the table in his kitchen, toying with the piece of roast beef on his plate. Across from him, his mother was just as unhappily pushing potatoes around. It had been less than a week since his cousin Chip Morton had been hauled away by Federal Agents - unlawfully in his opinion - and their mutual cousin Admiral Harriman Nelson had vanished as well, along with his submarine and crew. The FBI had promptly descended on him, wanting answers he didn‘t have. He gave a mental snort. Did they really think Harry had somehow smuggled Seaview to Kansas? And from the way they continued to hover, he had the notion that Chip was no longer in their hands either.

 

Well, his cousin had said that his furry friends were back.

 

The phone rang and his wife Carolyn answered it. As she turned, holding out the receiver to him, her eyes were wide. He lurched to his feet and grabbed the phone. “Hello,” he said sharply.

 

“Don,” said a familiar voice on the other end, “It’s Chip. The Admiral, the boat and I are all in New London, Connecticut at the sub base - and we’re all okay. Our political problems have been sorted out.”

 

Don O’Brien laughed and mouthed ‘Chip, he’s okay’ at his mother. Her smile was even wider than his…

 

 

 

 

Author’s note: Is this the end? Well, maybe not. The Dawimhlar are at war after all. Seaview wouldn’t be able to help them there, but … all those plots the Tin’t’da set in motion on Earth are still swirling and somebody will have to deal with them….