Even now, I still sometimes find myself wondering how far and how deep the excavations under the Sanctuary went. God knows, Chloe and I never found out.
The last cavern we got to see was on the day of our departure. It was a hangar, extending far into the depths of the mountain against whose base the Sanctuary nestled. It lacked the vertigo-inducing vastness of the one beneath Crater Korolev, for it wasn't intended to accommodate interstellar ships. Indeed, the biggest vessel it held was the one toward which Khorat conducted us.
"An interplanetary shuttle only," the old Ekhemar explained, indicating the sleek, lifting body.
"It looks pretty small, for your species," Chloe observed. In fact, it wasn't all that huge even on human standards.
"True. But the journey will be too brief for the cramped quarters to grow unbearably tedious. And it has compensating virtues . . . most notably its capability to conceal itself from all forms of observation."
"How do you manage to keep it secret from the imperial authorities?" I wondered. "I hope you're not going to try to tell us that they don't mind somebody other than themselves having that kind of capability."
"Oh, they're well aware of it. Private ownership of space vessels is not illegal. And we have a perfectly legitimate use for it, as our organization has many members in the satellite system of the third planet. And normally we put it to just those legitimate uses. It is only in emergencies that we activate the . . . special features we have had installed."
"And about which you somehow neglected to inform them?" Chloe inquired archly.
"We prefer not to bother them with things they don't need to know," replied Khorat, unconsciously anticipating certain human political operatives of a few years later.
We'd barely settled into the passenger cabin when the shuttle rose gently from the hangar floor on the wings of its impellers, and a great door slid open to reveal the desert and the canal that bisected it in the distance. As we swept through that portal and soared aloft, Khemava receded below us and soon became a globe, less blue and more buff than that of watery Earth. It was a spectacle Chloe and I had been denied on our heavily concealed arrival at Khemava. We saw it now by grace of the viewscreens with their outside pickup. Viewed directly through portholes, it would have been blurred and color-washed by the invisibility field.
Time passed, and the planet shrank to the size of a soccer ball held at arm's length . . . then a tennis ball, then a ping-pong ball. I considered inquiring as to the exact purpose of the trip, but Khorat had grown uncharacteristically taciturn. So I contented myself with watching the receding planet in the view-aft.
I was watching it when Khorat & Co. engaged another of the shuttle's "special features." With the kind of sickening suddenness I'd experienced on the occasion of my departure from the Solar system, Khemava shot away from us.
I was still gawking when Chloe touched my arm and indicated the view-forward.
A furnace-colored boulder was careening toward us.
The shuttle's illicit field drive was not the sort that could attain the incredible multiples of the speed of light which brought other stars and even other spiral arms within fairly easy reach. One of those drives couldn't have been squeezed into a craft so small, and it would have been useless within a planetary system, where not even computerized controls could have prevented it from overshooting any possible target. No, this was an underpowered version, so wasteful and inefficient as to be justifiable only when one needed to cross interplanetary distances in a great hurry.
Thus it was that we saw the titanic third planet of the Khemava system hurtling toward us at a rate that orthodox physics declared impossible, like a more-than-Jupiter-sized stone from a war god's sling.
I think I may have cried out.
Then the field was disengaged, and the planet came to an instantaneous halt in the view-forward. Well, not a complete halt, for it continued to swell as the impellers brought us into its orbit. It just seemed that way.
I wiped my brow and stared at the slightly oblate globe. It was like Jupiter, only more so. Its surface—banded by the rapidity of its rotation and swirling with storms into which Earth could have been tossed, unnoticed—glowed in sullen shades of red rather than Jupiter's orange and yellow. And it had a ring. Not a spectacular array of them like Saturn, but something more conspicuous than the thin, narrow, ethereal kind that the space probes were due to reveal in a few years around Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus, composed of little more than ice particles.
Several moons were visible. Off to the right, we could glimpse the bluish life-bearing one that I had been assuming was our destination. But it slid behind us as we proceeded on a hyperbolic course closer to the planet, approaching the ring, which soon lost the optical illusion of being a flat plane of dirty glass and resolved itself into a myriad of rocks, the rubble of a moon which had once spiraled too close to the monstrous planet that now filled most of the viewscreen
"Uh, Khorat," said Chloe nervously, "doesn't a planet like this one—almost a 'failed star'—put out a lot of radiation?"
"Oh, yes. We'd all be dying by now, were it not for the ship's force screen."
"Khorat," I said firmly, not wishing to pursue this cheery topic, "I don't suppose you could tell us just exactly what all this is about?"
"Everything will become clear in due course."
There was nothing I could do in the face of Khorat's maddening serenity but compose myself and watch the show. In spite of myself, I couldn't help but get caught up in the unfolding spectacle as our ship nosed its way cautiously into the ring. It looked, I thought, like the science-fictional vision (quite false, Dr. Fehrenbach had assured us) of the Sun's asteroid belt, thickly strewn with rocks of all sizes. Our pilot, in the control room from which our passenger cabin was quite isolated, was proceeding slowly, fending off the orbiting chunks of rock with deflector shields, an application of the same technology that provided the deck beneath our feet with a steady one Khemava G of gravity.
As I watched, the picture began to waver.
"What—?" Chloe began. Then she gasped.
For once, I caught on to something faster than she did. But I had an advantage, for years before I had gone through an invisibility field. So I wasn't as shocked as she when the picture in the view-forward restabilized . . . and was mostly filled with an interstellar space vessel that hadn't been there before. The few stars we could see, and the limb of the giant planet off to the side, were blurry and colorless, for our craft's sensors were "seeing" them through the larger field that now enveloped us as well as the ship that was generating it.
I studied that ship as we drew alongside her and a tubular passageway extruded itself from her side, seeking our air lock. Although she dwarfed our shuttle, she wasn't particularly large as interstellar ships went—especially ones designed to accommodate Ekhemasu. And she was undergoing some modifications; I could recognize the indicia here and there on the hull, and I spotted an Ekhemar doing an EVA. A centaur wearing a vac suit in free fall is something you don't see every day.
Then there was a soft clank through our hull and a hissing noise as the access tube made contact and air pressures were equalized. Khorat led us through and into the big ship, where the work of renovation was more obvious in the bustling activity and clangorous noise.
Chloe spoke up. "I didn't know the Medjavar owned interstellar spacecraft, Khorat."
"Actually, this is our only one. Such vessels are very expensive. And private ownership of them is very closely regulated. So this one is . . . unregistered."
"Illegal, you mean," I said flatly. "And I have a feeling that what whatever goodies you're adding to it are even more illegal."
Khorat didn't pretend to be surprised that I'd noticed. "Arguably, they are not. After all, a government cannot outlaw something which—" He stopped himself abruptly.
"You were saying, Khorat?" I prompted.
"Ah, here is my colleague Nafayum!" said Khorat in the slightly too eager way of someone who is anxious to change the subject. He stepped forward and exchanged ritual greetings with a female Ekhemar who looked even older than he. She studied us as Khorat made introductions.
"Ah, yes. Of course. The humans." The translator gave Nafayum the voice of an elderly woman. It also conveyed a tone I wasn't sure quite how to take, as it suggested curiosity tempered by distaste. I got the feeling Nafayum hadn't forgotten that the only other human of their acquaintance was the source of all their troubles. "At any rate, Khorat, all is in readiness for them."
"Uh . . . all of what is in readiness for us?" My anxious question was lost in the hustle and bustle as Nafayum led us through the passageways to a compartment with a large, curving viewscreen—a sort of observation lounge which also served as a meeting room. We all reclined on cushions surrounding a circular, surprisingly low table.
Khorat took charge at once. "As the two of you have surmised, this ship is reserved for special emergencies. Normally, when we of the Medjavar need to get about in interstellar space, we make arrangements through ordinary channels—"
"Like when we met you on Antyova II," I cut in. I knew I was probably being rude—in fact, I probably would have been aware of it even without the glare from Chloe I could glimpse out of the corner of my eye—but I was growing impatient with all this. "Let me guess: in the present situation, you can't take the time to bamboozle the imperial bureaucracy into transporting you wherever it is you want to go. Which, I somehow suspect, is Earth."
Khorat exchanged a brief eye contact with Nafayum before speaking in his trademark unruffled way. "Yes. Our thinking is as follows. Novak and her confederates have almost certainly returned to Earth and are in the process of preparing to equip a spacecraft with temporal displacement capability. This will no doubt take time, which provides us with our window of opportunity. We must proceed to the Solar system without delay."
"And do what, once we get there?" inquired Chloe. "Bring the matter to the attention of Novak's superiors in the Project?"
All four of Khorat's reclining legs jerked simultaneously. I suspected it was the equivalent of a human staggering backwards and clutching his chest above the heart. "By no means! Have I not explained that humans cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to learn that time travel is possible? This applies to your Prometheus Project just as strongly as to the larger society of your planet."
"Well, then?" I queried. "You must have something in mind. Otherwise, we may as well stay here and devote ourselves to serious drinking until our universe goes poof."
"We do indeed have a plan, for which we are fortunate to have your cooperation. Our intention is to depart at once, so as to arrive in your native system in time to infiltrate the two of you into Novak's organization, for the purpose of sabotaging her attempt from within."
Sheer absurdity can prevent a statement from registering on the mind, at least at first. So a moment passed before I began to wonder what had gone haywire, the translator software or Khorat.
Chloe, as usual, recovered first. "Khorat, I must remind you that Novak knows both of us."
"We are aware of that. But you are the only human operatives available to us. That is why Nafayum is here." Khorat hesitated until the pause grew awkward. "Are you familiar with the concept of genetic nanoviruses?"
Chloe and I exchanged a glance. We were, in fact familiar with it, which was why our earpieces used the term. Earth in general was still years away from being able to grasp it. Not until the 1970s would the discovery of restriction enzymes open the door to recombinant DNA. And even that was only the first step on the road to tailored genetic viruses, injected into the body and able to resequence DNA and stimulate cell growth in new directions.
"Yes," said Chloe. "The Project knows of them. We also know they have to be custom-tailored for a particular species. The Project lacks the requisite knowledge to do so for humans. And, of course, no one else has had any reason to."
"We have," said Khorat with uncharacteristic succinctness. Before either of us could manage a response, he pressed on. "As soon as we became aware that humans were involved in this affair, we commenced the needful work, against some such contingency as this one."
"But . . . how?" Chloe sounded bewildered.
"We were able to obtain the necessary data on your species through our Tonkuztra contacts. And the technique is a well-established one." Khorat looked uncomfortable. "Our organization has always been, at best, highly ambivalent about this type of biological manipulation. Its benefits—the 'editing out' of genetic defects—are undeniable. But we have made it our business to restrict its use to those benign uses, subverting all investigation of dangerous applications by subtly deflecting them into dead ends. At the same time, as I explained to you before, we preserved the knowledge ourselves even as we suppressed it. Nafayum is our leading expert in the field."
Nafayum spoke up, and the translator conveyed the patronizing enthusiasm of the fanatical specialist. "Given your culture's unfamiliarity with this form of genetic engineering, I should perhaps explain that the changes it makes are quite undetectable, for they are determined by your genetic code—your rewritten genetic code. For the same reason, they are permanent, unless you should at later time have them reversed by the same technique. Thus, for example, if we change your hair color, the hair will continue to grow in the new color. Likewise—"
"Yes, we understand," Chloe cut in testily . . . though just barely accurately, in my case. "But what you don't seem to understand is that Novak knows us very well. You could give me flaming red hair and she'd still recognize me."
"We have taken that into account," said Khorat, with a smugness which didn't last, for his tone grew troubled. "Earlier, I spoke of dangerous ramifications of this technique, the knowledge of which the we Medjavar have preserved while suppressing them. Let me be more specific. An extremely advanced, sophisticated form of nanovirus can actively alter and rearrange existing cells, and induce new ones to grow, so as to produce gross changes in the subject's anatomy—not merely modifications of body chemistry, or cosmetic alterations of such things as coloring. Taken to extremes, an organism can actually be metamorphosed into a member of a different species. The potential for abuse is so obvious that the Medjavar's task has been relatively easy, for on this point galactic society agrees with us, and bans all uses of the technique except officially sanctioned, rigorously controlled ones. Its enormous expense simplifies the problem of enforcement. Misuse of it is encountered only among the most decadent Delkasu circles, producing grotesque sexual playthings and exotic servants for the superrich."
I tried to imagine the possibilities. OutrŽ genetic tampering hadn't yet become a staple of science fiction in those days. But I recalled a line from the classic film Bride of Frankenstein: "Gods and monsters . . ."
Nafayum took up the thread. "The technique has limits, of course. For example, total body mass cannot be increased significantly. I could not, for example, transform you into an Ekhemar—"
"Aw, phooey!" I deadpanned.
"—however great an improvement it would represent," Nafayum finished without a break, confirming my opinion that the Ekhemasu sense of humor was either nonexistent or very, very dry. "I could—given a great deal of preparatory work—turn you into a Delkar, with a residue of excess cells left over in a rather unappetizing form."
"Uh, that's okay," I said hastily. "Don't put yourself out on my account."
"What I am prepared to do now, however, is modify your bone structure so as to alter your facial features and, within limits, your body size and build. I can guarantee that your own parents would not recognize you."
Chloe looked from one Ekhemar to the other and back. "So you're asking us to submit to this . . . treatment?" Her voice held the same reservations I was feeling at the thought of letting aliens futz with my genetic code.
"We should perhaps explain," said Khorat, evidently taking our assent for granted, "that there are certain complications."
"Surprise, surprise," I muttered.
"First of all, after the single injection that is required, it takes time for the biological nanomachines to replicate and perform their tasks. Even for the more elementary forms of genetic surgery, this takes a period of days. For the type of metamorphosis we are contemplating, which places a great strain on the subject's metabolism, it takes still longer, and requires rest under medical supervision—in this case, that of Nafayum, who is not accompanying us to Earth. So we would have to remain here beyond the 'window of opportunity' of which I spoke."
"Well, then, if the whole thing is impractical, why are we even discussing it?" I was starting to get annoyed.
"It is possible, with great difficulty, to produce a fast-acting version of the nanovirus, which reduces the time required by a factor of at least twenty. Nafayum has done so. We have, as you can see, spared no expense."
"And what's the catch?" Chloe asked point-blank.
"Yeah," I chimed in. "Didn't you say something about a 'great strain on the metabolism'?"
Khorat's self-satisfaction began to show a certain strain itself. "Well, you must remember that the cells are having to keep the body alive at the same time they are doing the work of the metamorphosis. This is why rest and close observation are required. And . . . I believe I forgot to mention that there are certain side effects, including cramps, fatigue, ravenous hunger, chills, sweats and fever, culminating in a comatose state which is accompanied by unpleasant secretions from the various bodily orifices."
"Yes, you did forget to mention that," said Chloe pointedly. I contented myself with an eloquent glare.
"When the process is accelerated, these phenomena are unavoidably intensified," Khorat continued. "However, the chances of survival are, we believe, within acceptable parameters."
"Survival?" and "Acceptable parameters?" Chloe and I echoed respectively.
"Well, it is possible for such an accelerated process to run out of control, so to speak. Various possibilities then arise. The overworked cells may overheat, so that the subject is, in effect, cooked from the inside. A more serious problem is the randomization of the nanomachines' directing of cell growth, to produce effects analogous to cancer but affecting all cells in the—"
"All right! That's it!" I surged to my feet. "You want to kill us, Khorat? Fine. Shove us out the airlock without vac suits. But when we volunteered to help you, we were not volunteering to become seething, shapeless blobs of cancer cells! You can take your 'acceptable parameters' and—"
"Fortunately, there is a way around these problems," Khorat said hastily.
"We're listening," said Chloe, before I could erupt.
Nafayum took over. "The difficulties Khorat has described can be avoided if we place you into biological stasis, with full life support including intravenous nourishment. Under these conditions, you are being kept alive externally and your own body cells, under the 'supervision' of the nanomachines, can do their work of transformation without endangering your lives."
"Hmm . . ." I thought about it. "Suspended animation, in other words? So we'd be unconscious and totally helpless."
"And totally at your mercy for the entire procedure," Chloe added. Looking back, I can see how one might argue that we had been at their mercy ever since coming to Khemava. But damn it, there's a difference!
Nafayum leaned forward, visibly perplexed. "But have I not explained—?"
Khorat motioned her to silence. "It is your option of course," he said suavely. "Ethics forbids us to compel you." Then, as an afterthought: "A pity, though, that our secondary preparations must go to waste."
I held out a couple of seconds before the primate curiosity on which Khorat was counting triumphed. "Uh . . . 'secondary preparations'?"
"Yes. You see, since we were planning a moderately radical metamorphosis, we naturally looked into certain relatively trivial modifications that could be made in the course of the procedure."
"Such as?" queried Chloe, also hooked.
"Oh, this and that. Things that almost all galactic cultures use as a matter of course—things not even the Medjavar find objectionable. For example, permanently correcting any genetic defects. And . . . oh, yes, life span extension. What were you telling me you thought you could achieve, Nafayum?"
"Starting at their age? Oh, probably a total life expectancy of about a hundred and thirty of their years, plus or minus five. Of course, you know how these things work. They would start exhibiting their species' superficial indica of aging at only about twenty years later than normal. But they would retain full physical and mental vigor well past the century mark. Still, as you say, it's their option." Nafayum was a bit too casual. She really wasn't as good at this as Khorat. But by that point, she didn't need to be.
Chloe wasn't very good at it either. "Khorat . . . you did say you could reverse the changes in our appearance later if we don't like them, didn't you?"
I'm sure I don't need to recount the rest of the conversation.
The things they put us into had obviously been custom-built for humans. They resembled high-tech coffins—a resemblance I didn't permit myself to dwell on.
They were set up in the interstellar ship's sick bay, which could just barely hold them and their accessory equipment. We got into them under Nafayum's fussy supervision, on opposite sides of a curtain the Ekhemasu had rigged up lest they violate any human nudity taboos. After we were settled in, the curtain was removed and each of us was fitted with various IV ports and other kinds of connections, for we would in effect be cyborgs for the duration.
Chloe raised herself up and spoke to Nafayum. "Are you going to make us unconscious before you close the lids of these things?"
"Why, yes. That is part of the standard procedure.
"Good," said Chloe, and our eyes met. She, clearly, had been thinking the same thing I had about coffins. For a long moment we looked at each other, each memorizing the other's face. Then we settled back down.
An IV tube was inserted in one of the ports. I heard a humming, chugging sound. . . .
I blinked a few times. Then I noticed that the overhead I was staring at wasn't the overhead of the sickbay. Then I noticed I was lying in a bed, in a small, featureless cabin. Then I noticed Khorat.
"There is no sensation of the passage of time," he explained.
I tried to speak, but my mouth was very dry. I swallowed and tried again. "You mean—?"
"The procedure was a success. Nafayum has already departed for Khemava with her equipment. We will soon be getting under way for Earth."
I started to sit up, but I was very stiff. I raised my right arm, so that it came into my field of vision.
It wasn't my right arm. The wrist was longer, the hand narrower, the hairs darker, the skin tone sallower.
Khorat read my expression correctly. Without being asked, he handed me a mirror. I stared into it for a long time.
I had wondered if Nafayum was going to make me Black or Asian or something. She hadn't, but the face in the mirror didn't seem to fit any familiar ethnic category. I'd always been a square-faced, blunt-nosed type. Nafayum and her swarms of microscopic little helpers had made my cheekbones grow higher, while narrowing and lengthening the jaw, and producing a snoot Caesar wouldn't have been ashamed of. To my relief, she'd left my hair as thick as ever, but instead of being wavy and medium brown it was now straight and brown-black. My complexion was likewise darker, and my hazel eyes had turned deep brown. A dark stubble shadowed my lower face; evidently I'd been out of stasis long enough for my beard to resume growing, in its new color.
"Your fingerprints, retinal pattern and blood type are also changed," Khorat informed me. "Nafayum was quite proud of her work."
I managed to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Very carefully, I stood up. There seemed something very slightly wrong with the angle at which I was seeing Khorat. I later learned that Nafayum, by some overall skeletal lengthening and narrowing, had added a little over an inch to my height, making me almost six feet three.
I stood up, and almost fell back onto the bed as a dizzy spell took me. I felt stiff and awkward as hell, but as soon as my head stopped spinning I found I could walk.
"Chloe . . . ?" I queried. My voice sounded a little odd to me: not quite as deep, and with a slight nasal quality.
"The metamorphosis was likewise a success in her case, and she is also awake. Would you like to see her?"
"Very much." Cautiously, I stepped through the hatch into the passageway. The next hatch down opened just as I was turning toward it. A figure emerged.
What's another woman doing here? I thought stupidly, before realization hit.
Chloe's hair had been lightened to a tawny blond. The vivid blue eyes that were probably her most distinctive feature were now a less memorable gray-green, and they flanked a snub nose. Her cheekbones, in contrast to mine, had been lowered to make her face oval rather than heart-shaped. Her overall bodily type, like mine, seemed to have been very slightly lengthened and narrowed. (Could this have reflected an esthetic bias of the low-gravity-dwelling Ekhemasu, who probably saw all humans as disproportionately stocky?)
Then she walked toward me and smiled . . . and I wondered if maybe Nafayum was kidding herself about our parents not recognizing us. The Chloe I knew was still in there—the Chloe that had been moving and gesturing and smiling in certain ways for a lifetime. But then, I knew this was Chloe, so I knew what to look for. Someone who didn't—Renata Novak, say—would never dream it was she.
I wondered if some such ghost of me still lived inside the character I'd seen in the mirror. I hoped so.
"Bob!" she greeted, "You look . . ." As she spoke, and looked up into my face, her smile faded into a frown of puzzlement. Then her mouth fell open in a gasp, her eyes widened, and the perplexity in her face changed to something indistinguishable from horror.
"Hey, Chloe, I know I need a shave, but . . . Chloe? Chloe?"
In fiction, women are always fainting. I'd never found that particularly believable, never having seen one actually do it. So I was unprepared when Chloe's legs collapsed under her. I managed to catch her before she hit the deck.
"Khorat!" I yelled as I picked her up and carried her into her cabin. I'd barely laid her on the bed when Khorat arrived with an Ekhemasu who I assumed was a medic. The latter proceeded to gingerly examine a member of an unfamiliar species.
"It is unfortunate that Nafayum is no longer available for consultation," Khorat remarked as we sat in his tiny—on Ekhemasu standards—office. "But given the unaccustomed strains and stimuli to which her body has been subjected, some chemical imbalances are hardly surprising."
"Yeah, that's probably it," I said, taking a fortifying swallow of the sort-of-gin. "I was feeling pretty woozy myself." But neither that line of reasoning nor the booze could make me forget the stricken look I'd seen on Chloe's new face.
The hatch beeped for admission, and the obviously relieved medic entered. "She is conscious," he reported, "and apparently suffering from no ill effects. I have told her to rest for a time."
"Thanks, Doc. Can I see her?" I glanced sideways at Khorat. "Alone?"
"Yes, although she should not be fatigued."
I hastened to the sick bay, where human-sized bedding had been improvised. Chloe was lying on her back with her eyes closed, but she didn't look asleep. Instead, she looking like she was thinking with a veritable fury of concentration.
"Hi," I said tentatively. "How are you feeling?"
Chloe's eyes snapped open, and for an instant the stunned look reappeared. But only for an instant, for she clamped a neutral expression down like a steel shutter.
"Oh, hi, Bob," she said in a voice as controlled as her features. "I'm fine, just tired."
I took Chloe's hands. To my relief, she didn't jerk them away. "Chloe, please tell me what's the matter."
She took a deep breath, and a smile trembled to life on lips that weren't quite as full as they had been. "Nothing's wrong, Bob. Nothing. I'm just not feeling myself yet, and it was disorienting, and . . . Bob, could you let me rest for a while?"
"Oh sure. Sure. Best thing for you." I hastened to leave her alone.
A few hours later, she emerged from the sick bay, to all appearances calm and cheerful. And so she remained for the next couple of Earth days, as the Ekhemasu completed their preparations for departure.
But it wasn't the same. From time to time, I caught her staring at me in a way she never had before. I told myself she was just intrigued by my new face. But I knew there was more to it than that, although I couldn't imagine what. And despite the bewildered hurt I felt, I didn't dare force the issue by demanding answers.
There was only one thing of which I was reasonably certain: behind her consciously maintained barrier of superficial normalcy, she was still thinking very, very hard.
o