Work The Problem Ch. 06

Grace watched Shakti as she carefully teased away another few crumbs from a soil sample. The sample itself was in a large glove box, a metal-framed and hermetically sealed chamber with inert gas inside it . The only way to manipulate things inside was through thick rubber gloves that attached to the Plexiglas front of the unit. Grace had used a few of them back in her med-school days and found them a real pain in the ass to work with.

But Shakti's gloved hands were steady and certain as she set the fragments into a petri dish and sealed it. The dish was then set into an airlock for removal. Shakti pulled her hands out of the gloves with a grateful sigh. "This should be the last one," she said in a clipped Hindi accent. "So far my findings mostly line up with your results from Ms. Arnbock. What I'm seeing is common soil bacteria, the same as we would find in arable soil around here. I've also found plenty of nitrogen-bearing compounds as you'd expect from farm soil. But there is one unfamiliar bacterial species. I'm hoping I can use this latest sample to culture more of them."

"Is it dangerous?" asked Grace.

"I'm not sure. I was able to get a couple of SEM images of it." Shakti walked over to a nearby desk and called up a few black-and white images. They showed a grainy and bumpy surface dotted here and there with small white spheres. It looked almost like grapes scattered on a roofing shingle.

The expert pointed at one of the white spheres. "It has some features in common with Staphylococcus, but that might just be a structural similarity. Whatever it is, it's present in much lower numbers than anything else. Until I know more, I'm keeping the samples isolated while I do the cultures."

Grace leaned forward and shook her head. "That's definitely not staph. I've seen plenty of that in my time. These are way too small. I guess we'll have to wait for the cultures to get proper DNA sequencing." She had an uneasy thought. "What if these are from the other portal? Could bacteria make it that far just drifting on the wind?"

"Maybe. Or if the terror-birds were some doing scouting earlier, they might have spread it around."

The doctor leaned back and looked at the picture of the mystery bug again. "What the hell is that?"

__________________________________________________________

There is no force in the cosmos more prone to mischief than a group of soldiers with time on their hands. Cal Forrester knew that down to his bones, and so he allowed his troops to sleep in for exactly one morning and then went right into a routine.

At first light, he would get up from the improvised bed in Marigold and Arabella's house. Their place would be considered cozy even with just the two lagomorphs present, and with him added it was downright small. But they insisted on him staying after that first night, and they were both very persuasive.

Having to leave behind his two warm and furry bed-mates was by far the hardest part of his day. Their dwelling was barely big enough for him to move around in, and he got real tired of banging his head on doors. Cal now saw why the lagomorphs had suggested the warehouse for his troops.

After dressing, he'd make the run from their house to the warehouse/barracks. It was five miles, enough to give him a nice warm-up before he got to the warehouse and started kicking ass...usually metaphorically.

He ran them through PT in the morning along with equipment cleaning and maintenance. He also set up a schedule for them to take turns out at Hadley's Farm, both standing guard and helping build up the defenses. Forrester knew he had to do whatever it took to keep his people moving and occupied. He couldn't allow them to just sit and get freaked out about their admittedly freaky situation.

Yuri, in his usual cheeky manner, declared his tent the Russian embassy and even drew a makeshift flag to fly outside it. The first morning after the battle, Cal had discreetly asked the Russian if their hosts had tried to 'welcome' him as well.

"Da," replied Yuri with a big laugh. "I wake up this morning and find two of the darling lisichkas cuddling me. I explain my situation and they were very understanding. Said I made good hot water bottle for sleeping." He got a wistful look on his face. "If single, would have accepted their proposition."

Cal clapped the Russian on one meaty shoulder. "Natalia's a lucky woman, Yuri."

Yuri smiled. "Of course!" His smile faded. "We have to put heads together. Might be here for quite a while, need to figure out political situation."

The sergeant held up his hands. "Ohhhhh, no, forget that shit. I'm a knuckle-dragger, not a politician."

"You are most senior leader of your people," replied Yuri with a sober expression. "Ned is good man, but just engineer. I am diplomat with no specific instructions from my people. I am not suggesting making treaties, but we do need more information. We need to find out the politics of this world, see if there are factions or countries that could make problems for us. If portal does not reopen, then it is all a moot point anyway. But we should be ready."

Cal knew that the Russian was right. And so he assigned several of his more bookish troops to 'find shit out' duty. It turned out that Holly had gotten a few terms confused. What she called 'countries' were more properly termed 'city-states'. The lagomorph planet was also called Earth, just making things more confusing. 'Earth-L' was a covered in a quilt of city-states of varying sizes. There was the occasional clash between two city-states, but it rarely got more heated than shouting. Sullivan City was located in roughly the same area as Des Moines back in Cal's world, and up until now had been considered a 'medium size' city-state. Its main strength was in having plenty of good farmland around, but now it had been suddenly thrust into front-page news across the planet.

The mayor of Sullivan was a rotund lagomorph named Otto Lightfoot, and he bore up under the increased pressure with good cheer. More delegates from the other city-states arrived every day, and all of them wanted private meetings with both the mayor and these 'monkey-boys'. Cal had to keep coming up with new ways to say "Sorry, I'm just a grunt, we're just stranded here, when my bosses arrive you can talk to them." He always made sure to stress 'when' and not 'if'.

Towards the end of his day he'd jog back to the house that he was now starting to think of as his home. Certainly he couldn't complain about the warm greeting he always received. Sometimes he even managed to keep his clothes on until after dinner.

Along with living in a place about half-again too small for him, eating was the other big adjustment. The food available was all vegan, of course. Cal used to be one of those who would joke that 'salad is what food eats', but now he was pretty much eating nothing but salad. After a while he expected to look into a mirror and see his own nose twitching like a rabbit's.

The diet was more than made up for by the company, of course. Cal was beginning to understand that the average lagomorph had a sex drive that rivaled that of an eighteen-year-old sailor on shore leave. He wondered how in the hell Ned was able to keep up with Holly for all of the months they'd been together.

Eventually, the critical mass of dignitaries from other city-states grew to such a point that they simply had to have a general meeting to hash things out. And to his utter dread Cal found himself getting dragged into attending.

__________________________________________________________

The central chamber of the Sullivan City town hall was a wide and vaulted space that reminded Ned of a cathedral, minus the religious iconography of course. The place was lit by tall windows on the two long walls, and at its far end from the big double doors was a small stage with a podium. The hall had been converted into an impromptu debate chamber, with many rows of seats arranged facing a center aisle that ran the length of the hall. Right now, those seats were going unused.

Every long-eared delegate was on his or her feet and yelling to be heard over the general din. The focus of that maelstrom were the five figures on stage. Three of them were much taller, and consisted of Cal, Ned, and Yuri. The humans had decided to sit so as to not appear quite so threatening due to their sheer size.

The other two on stage were much shorter and covered in gray fur. One of the latter was Holly, and she stood in front of Ned with her ears down, glaring out at the general chaos as if daring any of the shouters to try something. The final figure was the rotund form of Mayor Lightfoot. He clasped the lapels of his waistcoat and tried to speak up. Ned could just make out "...please, we need to have some order..." before his voice was overwhelmed by the flood of shouted voices.

The three humans exchanged glances. Yuri waved his hand at Cal in an 'after you, kind sir' gesture. The sergeant rolled his eyes and stood with great deliberation. Cal clenched his fists, drew in a deep breath, and let fly with his very loudest Drill Sergeant Voice.

"Attennnnnnn-HUUUUUTTTT!"

The yell echoed through the hall and slammed the shouting back down the throats of those present. They all stared in a mixture of fear and surprise, and in the sudden quiet Cal began to speak.

"That's better. Now, we monkey-boys are not here to throw our weight around. We're just here to plead our case and answer yer questions. This is your shindig, so follow whatever rules you want. But for FUCK'S sake y'all had better get it together or we're outta here until you can behave like adults." He nodded at Mayor Lightfoot. "The floor is yours, sir." He sat back down.

Lightfoot gave a sage nod. He turned back to the crowd of delegates in front of him. "Esteemed colleagues, this is an unprecedented meeting and we have no established procedure for such an event. You will all have your chance to be heard, but we must do this with some semblance of order. I propose that we break this into two parts. The first part will be our report to you of the extraordinary events of four days ago. You will hear the testimony of the witnesses both human and, er, ape-human."

"Monkey-boy works just fine," said Cal with a smile.

The mayor looked a little distressed at such an indecorous term. "Er, as you wish. After our report to you we will open the meeting to discussion. I will act as chairman and do my best to let each of you in turn speak your mind or ask questions. I would ask the rest of you to please let each speaker have their say without interruption until they yield the floor."

There was a general subsidence, and most of the delegates nodded. A few still looked angry as they all took their seats.

Lightfoot gave them all a little bow. "I thank you. Now, to start I would like to yield the floor to the one person who has been at the center of these events from the start. Ms. Arnbock, would you please tell us in your own words what happened?"

Holly stood and walked up beside the mayor. "I'll do my best. I was running out near Hadley's farm..."

As she recounted her story, Ned used the opportunity to get in a really good ogle of Holly's ass. She was still wearing the jeans that she'd obtained on Earth, and staring at the nicely filled-out denim topped with her little cotton-puff tail made the time fly by. He did note that she was not afraid or ashamed to admit that he was her lover, and had been since the first day of her arrival.

After her testimony, there were other stories from Marigold and the other members of the Sullivan militia that had taken part in the battle. After that, Ned had to go through his own worst fear and actually speak in public. He managed to get through it without stumbling too much. He was followed by Yuri and finally Cal.

Following the testimony, Marigold and some of the other militia then went outside and brought in one of the more intact terror-bird corpses. It had been kept in cold storage, as as they wheeled in the huge form on a long dolly Ned saw frost forming on its bloodied feathers. Most of the delegates regarded the dead carnivore with grave expressions, but Ned could tell from his experience with Holly that a lot of them were controlling the urge to bolt for the doors.

Mayor Lightfoot stood as the assembly muttered among themselves. "Colleagues, I propose a short break. You may examine this corpse at your leisure. We will re-convene in half an hour."

As the delegates rose, Lightfoot turned and gave Cal a nod. "Thanks for lending your voice."

The sergeant shrugged. "Weren't nothin'. So how do you think this is gonna go?"

Lightfoot sighed. "For the most part, I think these people will be accepting of you. Honestly, the fact that you are temporarily stranded will help garner sympathy." The mayor took great pains to stress the word 'temporarily'. He then looked out at the lagomorphs that were brave enough to mill around the terror-bird corpse. "That one there, he could be a problem." The mayor nodded with his head at a gaunt lagomorph in a blue suit who was hobbling around on a cane and peering at every part of the frosted-over body. "That's Bunce, the mayor of Ecklam."

Cal got a thoughtful look on his face. "Ecklam is one of the bigger city-states, right? I think it's about where New York is on our planet."

Lightfoot nodded. "Bunce is a contrarian at the best of times. I fear he might try to use this emergency to gain some political advantage."

__________________________________________________________

The meeting reconvened, and as Mayor Lightfoot stood a forest of furred arms raised to catch his attention. The mayor nodded at Bunce, who levered himself up with his cane. "Imbert Bunce, Mayor of Ecklam City. I thank you, Mayor Lightfoot, for your hospitality. I also commend those who have spoken, both for their bravery as well as their willingness to speak. However, I have several questions for these 'monkey boys'. May I ask them directly?

Lightfoot looked back at the three humans, who all nodded. He turned. "You may."

Bunce gave a grave nod to Cal. "Sergeant Forrester, is it true that this 'President' of yours was the one who ordered you to assist the Sullivan militia?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why were you so prepared to 'assist' us? From all accounts you were able to bring a considerable amount of weaponry through your portal very quickly."

"Sir, our initial intent was to go through the portal unarmed. We didn't expect any trouble between you guys and us. But some of the egghe...I mean, some of the scientists back home thought there might be a third party opening portals on the sly, so we had stuff ready to go just in case."

The older lagomorph nodded, but his grave expression didn't change. "Mr. Vassili...is that the correct way to address you?"

Yuri nodded with a gentle smile on his shaggy-haired face.

"You are not of the same city-state as these other two, correct?"

"Da, although my country as well as theirs is larger than any of your city-states."

"Yes, I see. Is it true that your 'countries' have been fighting each other prior to this time?"

The Russian gave Bunce a raised eyebrow. "Not exactly. We have been, let us say, 'against' each other in the past. But never fought directly, which is good. Would have been very destructive."

"And yet you were present when this portal to us was opened. You even volunteered to go through."

Yuri nodded. "Was symbolic gesture, but thought it was important to do so."

"Why?"

The cheerful smile on Yuri's face faded. "Because my country has been invaded many times by many people. Very bad each time, lots of death and destruction. But invaders were always people, always 'monkey-boys'. Motivations were known. They wished to gain treasure and land."

Yuri pointed at the terror-bird corpse in the center of the chamber. "These invaders are not people like you or I. Birds are intelligent, yes, but motivated by utter destruction. With very first portal to your world they try to invade and spread death. Who knows what they want? Perhaps just treasure and land...or maybe they wanted new food supply."

The assembled lagomorphs shuddered as one upon hearing Yuri's last words.

Bunce gave another grave nod, then turned to Ned and fixed him with a harsh stare. The engineer wondered what exactly had the old coot so riled up. Bunce pointed a furry digit at Ned as if he was about to proclaim j'accuse! "Tell me, Mr. Chiang. Is it true that your kind also eats meat?"

Ned felt a little relief over this nothing-burger of a concern. "We're omnivores, technically." Bunce's accusation and Ned's response set off a wave of whispers and worried looks.

Bunce leaned back and looked grim. "My esteemed colleagues, we must be careful of these newcomers, these...'monkey-boys'. Yes, they have driven back a major invasion by these horrors. But what of their own motivations? They claim to want only peace, but they are by their very nature warlike and aggressive." He pointed at Cal. "He is a full-time fighter, not a part-time militia. The same is true of those under his command. And they have weapons that make ours look like a sad joke. I would advise great caution in treating with their kind should the portal to their world open again." He sat down carefully.

The next to be called on was a female. She was a lot younger than Bunce but still on the elderly side. "Tavia Hedgehopper, Mayor of Hingbrook. Sergeant Forrester, I am wondering how exactly you were able to fight off these creatures so effectively. You admit that their technology is more advanced than yours."

Cal stood. "Two reasons, ma'am. First, they were limited by size in what they could bring through their portal. Their gate was a little over two meters across, and the eg...scientists back home think that's about how big a portal can be. If it's bigger, then the energy needed becomes huge. Secondly, we took 'em by surprise. It's clear that they expected to only have to deal with your militia and a few rifles. But we got there in time to stop 'em dead. Our people are trained and equipped to move fast on foot, and we carry weaponry that can hit hard even if the enemy has armored vehicles. They were adapting, though. Just before the portal got closed they tried to bring through something like a hovering tank. We ran out of missiles taking that thing out. If the portal had stayed open, well...it wouldn't have gone so well for us."

Tavia nodded soberly. "Yes, it appears we owe First-Paw Fletcher a great deal. How likely is it that these terror-birds will try to re-establish a portal?"

Cal looked over at Ned, who shrugged and stood. "It's been four days since their initial attack," said the engineer. "Nothing has appeared. They may just write this off as a dimension that turned out to be tougher than they thought. But another possibility is...I'm pretty sure that their battery technology is much more advanced than either yours or ours. They can pack a lot more energy into a smaller area, but there is a downside to that. The more energy you can store, the more gets released if your storage device breaks. Our 'lithium-ion' batteries can burn or even explode if something goes wrong with them."

"Ah!" Tavia's ears rose up. "I see. So when the explosion closed the portal..."

"It probably caused a lot of what we call 'sympathetic explosions' on the other side, from all of those batteries going kaboom. Their portal machinery is certainly wrecked. If they had a nuclear reactor on site that could make things even more problematic for them."

"Nuclear?" Mayor Hedgehopper's eyes were puzzled.

Ned cleared his throat. "Um, it's a way of getting lots of energy out of certain kinds of heavy atoms. As with batteries, the technology works well but if it breaks then things can go very bad. Their portal site might be poisoned for many, many years to come."