The House

© 2009 David Lee Short

All rights reserved

 

 

Chapter 1  This I’ve got to see.

 

The house sat on, and continued deep into, a block of common, gray, Canadian granite so large that two successive glaciers had been unable to move it.  It, the house that is, had been there, quietly serving its masters for well over a hundred years, yet few humans had ever seen it.  Both the house and its masters thought that was as it should be.

******

  Corporal Luc Chiron, RCMP, knew nothing of the house’s history, nor that of its owners.  He only knew that the land along the Princess Royal Channel belonged to the Province of British Columbia, and that no house should be there.

A traditionalist, he wore the red uniform blouse and the broad-brimmed hat that had been generally abandond 100 years ago.  He leaned heavily on his horse to steady a powerful set of binoculars across the saddle.

A casual observer would easily miss the house.  Built of natural stone, and cedar weathered to the color of driftwood, it nestled against a stand of ancient firs that embraced it like a mother holding a newborn.  For a nearly an hour, nothing moved around the house.  Finally, he decided it was unoccupied-it was past the summerhouse season.  In fact, traces of a light snow clung to the evergreens, and the water’s edge glistened with ice crystals.

He wrapped the neck strap around the binoculars, carefully replaced them in their case, and mounted.

******

 The house watched the man in the red coat.  Technically, the man was outside its security perimeter, but humans were uncommon here.  The last one had been a trapper, twenty-three local years, eleven months, and two days ago.  That one had passed by without showing any sign that he had noticed anything remarkable.  This one was different.

The easy thing would be to kill both man and horse.  In this country, the bodies would be eaten quickly, and the remaining evidence of their existence would soon be buried, first by snow, and later by a carpet of needles.  The house hesitated.  The red coat signified a representative of government-the collective will of the people.  Killing its wearer would, doubtless, bring a search party.  Should they find the location….  The house continued to watch.  If the man crossed the security perimeter, it would be time to reevaluate.

The perimeter was once an actual clear strip cut through the forest-a semicircle running from the shoreline on the north to the equidistant point on the south.  It was now overgrown, of course, little sign of where it had run existed, but the house knew where it was.

******

So did Corporal Chiron.  He had spent his life in the forest, first as a logger’s son, and then in the service of his homeland.  It could have been an old road or utility right of way except for its circular form.  He estimated that it was four hundred meters from the house.  It formed an arc that almost undoubtedly had the house as its center.  Following his instincts, he rode just outside the faint line of nearly grown secondary growth in the open, ancient forest.  In half an hour, he had reached the shoreline once again.  From here, the maternal clump of trees hid the house, but it was there nonetheless.

            Corporal Chiron retraced his steps until the back of the house was in view, dismounted, made a small fire and boiled water for tea.  He needed to think, and it was late afternoon.

******

            The house completed a search of its archives.  The man in the red coat apparently served the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a peacekeeping force.  He had not crossed the perimeter.  To the house that implied he knew the perimeter was there, and had deduced its significance.  That, in its self, was a serious problem.  The house dispatched an urgent request to its masters asking direction.  An answer was not likely; there had been no word of any sort from the masters in 87 years, 11 months, 19 days, 22 hours, and 16 minutes.  The house sent the message anyway; it was protocol.

            Having sent the message, the house began a level-two diagnostic examination of its own defenses.

******

            On the one hand, the house had clearly been here a long time, and was causing no harm.  On the other hand, its very presence was a violation of the law.  Corporal Chiron’s inclination was to carefully open the house.  He would, no doubt, find evidence of its ownership-an address, perhaps a name.  How the owner worked out his differences with Ottawa was not his concern.  Notifying both Ottawa and the owner of their mutual problem was.

            He only hesitated because of the curved boundary line.  To his eye, it resembled a defensive perimeter much too closely for comfort.  If the house were not empty, his tunic would make a fine target.  In the forest, even law-abiding citizens often took armed exception to outsiders and lawmen, and this house had been built in violation of the law.

Darkness approached.  He gathered wood for the night, pitched a small tent, and set a freeze-dried stew to simmering on the edge of the coals.  Tomorrow would be time enough.

******

The master’s arrival was unannounced, and unexpected.  The house’s first indication was the typical power drain followed by a power surge that preceded all arrivals by a fraction of a second.  The figure that materialized in the reception room was not a master the house had ever seen.  This one stood a full six and a half feet tall by the old human measure, with scales of unusually deep crimson.  His face was long, with high-set, almost luminescent green eyes protected by bony ridges.  His head blended into his shoulders without a defined neck.  The master was wearing a policeman’s black utility belt.

“Good evening, sir,” the house said as it raised the light level to a comfortable level for its visitor.  “I do not know you.”  It spoke the sibilant tones of the Nogen tongue with fluent ease despite years of disuse.  It also started raising its internal temperature and humidity to match the norms of the masters’ home world.

The master placed an armored hand on the wall plate beside the door.  In a flash, the house knew all it was permitted to know about this master.

He was Dunenger the Lesser, second advisor to the Minister of External Contact, and the highest ranking master ever to have come under the house’s roof.  The house found itself impressed.

“I did not expect a reply so soon,” said the house.

“A reply to what?”

“I sent a message three local hours, about two microns, ago.”

“I saw no message.  I have come to prepare for an observation team.  What was the message?”

“There is a human here.”  A horizontal map of the immediate area sprang to life in the center of the room, apparently unsupported.  The outlines of the house were clearly shown, as well as the perimeter.  A green dot flashed to indicate the location of the human.  “He is dressed in the uniform of a government representative, the local equivalent to your own uniform.  I have hesitated to kill him for fear of bringing attention to this station.  So far, he has not crossed the perimeter.”

Dunenger the Lesser leaned back against his tail.  “Let him come in.  I’ll talk to him.”

“I consider that risky.”

“Noted.”

            The house replied with pragmatic acceptance.  “Humans are not generally nocturnal in a wilderness environment.  If you feel you must meet this one, you almost certainly have half a local day to make your plans.”

Dunenger appeared to ignore this piece of advice.  “My records show this station is equipped to accept six observers, is that correct?”

“Plus nine support staff.  I have completed a level-two diagnostic test of my defenses.  All systems are fully operation.  I am now running a habitability simulation-answers in point oh five microns.”

“Expect five observers and five staff in fifteen microns.  The observers will include First Citizen Donber, and First Observer Olencot.  I trust you will be fully ready to receive them.”

The house’s biomechanical circuitry was incapable of surprise, but information presented as fact by a trustworthy source, which computed to an astronomically small probability, required an unusual amount of processing time.  After an embarrassing pause, the house said simply, “Yes.”

******

Corporal Chiron had finished his supper, set his campsite in order and was about to settle in for the night.  He unrolled a thermal barrier to prevent the near-frozen ground from sapping his heat.  He preferred a goose-down sleeping bag to the modern man-made fiber-he shook his to full efficiency, set his boots and revolver within reach, and slid in.  He pillowed his head on his saddle.  He had oriented himself to have the best available view of the house.  Without warning, a light came on in a window on the right side of the house.  He sat bolt upright and instinctively reached for his saddlebags.  After a moment’s rummaging the binoculars appeared.  He reclined against the saddle, bracing his elbows on the earth.  The tiny square of wall visible through the window was nearly featureless.  As far as he could see, it was vertical wooden panels without decoration.  Then a figure brushed past the corner of the window.  The corporal could see little of the figure-an arm and shoulder for perhaps one second-but what he saw stunned him.  The person in the house wore the same red tunic and black Sam Brown belt that Luc Chiron had worn every day of his RCMP service.

Two possibilities sprang to mind. 

If there was, as he had assumed all along, something illegal going on here, there was a fellow member of the Service involved.  The thought made his gut tighten and his mouth bitter.  He had never known a bad Mountie.  If this were true, his own life would be in grave danger if he were seen.

The other possibility involved some sort of covert operation-the house would, for instance, be a fine point from which to monitor traffic along the Princess Royal Channel.  In that case, his very presence here in uniform, in plain sight from the channel, could jeopardize the operation.

His response to either possibility was the same.  Without another moment’s hesitation, he began breaking camp in the dark. 

The light in the window went out,

******

The house noted with some irritation that the windows that had recently let in sunlight were still active.  In the years since his last contact with a living master, it had grown fond of sunlight.  It was an irrational fondness, and one that had led to a lapse of security.  The house immediately set the windows to opaque.  It reviewed the events of the last few minutes, decided no harm had been done, and chose not to file a security report. 

A security lapse to cover up a security lapse.

The house noted the movement in the human’s campsite instantly.  He had gone from the tiny movements of breathing, and other small movements, to steady, organized work.  Soon, it was clear where this work was headed.

“The Human is preparing to move his campsite.”

The master had been reviewing the house’s history files.  He removed the interface band from his forehead, and stood.  “He must not leave.  If he comes this way, do not interfere.  If he moves away, send a comm hover after him.  I assume we have translator files.”

“Of course.”  The house sounded almost miffed. 

******

    Corporal Chiron fastened the last buckle on his saddlebags, and led his horse into the darkness.  Deep in the forest, night navigation was nightmarishly difficult.  His faithful GPS found the requisite three satellites only occasionally, and then briefly.  The same tall, overhanging conifers that blocked the satellites also hid the moon and stars.  Each step was carefully measured; each foot settled cautiously, testing for uneven ground, fallen deadwood, and a dozen other potential pitfalls.

“A moment, Officer, please.”  The voice carried a slightly mechanical tone.  The sibilant tones were slightly exaggerated, making it hiss oddly.

The horse whinnied, and pulled back on the reigns.

Irrationally, Corporal Chiron, a lifelong Catholic, pictured the serpent tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden.  With a smoothness born of hard-won experience, his service revolver filled his right hand and seemed to cock itself.  Simultaneously, a small, intensely bright light found its way into his left.

At first, he saw nothing but forest.

“I am properly called Dunenger the Lesser.”  The word, “Lesser” positively whistled.

“Is there a Dunenger the Greater?”  Chiron’s experienced eyes searched for the speaker.  He nearly missed it.

A tennis ball-sized sphere hung motionless no more than three meters in front of him.  Instantly, the revolver locked on the near-invisible matt-gray object.

“Weapons are not constructive in these circumstances.  Dunenger the Greater was my father’s father.”

The revolver remained trained on the sphere.

“The hover is not armed.  Its only function is communications.”

The revolver relaxed, slightly.  “So, communicate.  What do you want?”

“Return to the observation station.”

“The observ . . . ah.  Tell me, what is the RCMP’s role in this operation?”

“R.C.M.P.?  An acronym?”

“Cute.”

“Cute is a non sequitur.”

“Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

“I am an officer of the law, as you are.  My master is the Minister of External Contact.  The stationmaster is telling me that your master is this Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  To answer your third question, the RCMP had no involvement with the observation station until your arrival.”

“I saw you through the window.  Talk to me; what is going down here?”

“If you will consent to return, I will answer every question.”

“‘Come into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly.”

After a long pause, the odd serpent’s voice said, “I have researched parlor, spider, and fly.  I believe you mean to say you do not trust me.”

“Not many Red Coats in this forest.”

“What you saw was not a red coat.  What you saw is my natural color.”

Corporal Chiron let out a long slow breath.  “This I’ve got to see.”

The sphere/hover moved silently past him; leading the way back toward the house.  It began to glow softly.

In the glow of the sphere, travel was much easier.  In ten minutes he was standing in front of the house.  His revolver sat loosely in its holster; his breath came much more rapidly than was absolutely necessary.

The door opened, spilling yellow light across the overgrown yard, and ruining his night vision.  Having come this far, Luc took one deep breath, and entered.

The creature that greeted him would have seemed more at home in a Cretaceous rain forest than in a house on Princess Royal Channel.  The term velociraptor came to mind except that this one had scarlet scales, wore a black Sam Brown belt, and had a short, sturdy tail on which it was leaning.  Its eyes were green, and watched him unblinkingly.

“Welcome!  As you may have guessed, I am Dunenger the Lesser.  How should I address you?”  The creature’s mouth moved, but not in time with the words Luc was hearing.

 “You may call me Luc if you like, or Corporal Chiron if you prefer formality.  Either this is the least likely hoax ever created, or you are not of Earth.  Would you care to explain how you come to be here on land where no such house is permitted?”

“This is not a hoax Luc, and asking permission would have negated the reason for an observation station.  It is our experience that civilizations change when they know they are being observed.  You may know it as the Hawthorne Effect after a study done at a telephone assembly plant in the United States of America.  Our charter forbids interference with developing species.”

“A developing species?  Maybe you should observe more closely.  We have men in space.”

“Both governments and individuals attack each other to take what is not legally theirs.  The top three quarters of your deaths are from preventable disease.  You are trying your very best to make your planet uninhabitable. You subjugate large groups based on such arbitrary factors as the color of their skin, or the way they speak the language of their birth.  Vast numbers of your kind voluntarily ingest or inject life-threatening chemicals that you lack the collective will to eradicate. And your off-world forays are limited to your own back yard.  Developing species is a generous category.” 

The two officers glared at each other for a long moment.   Corporal Chiron broke the impasse.

“What do you want from us?”

“Want?  What did Jane Goodall want from her chimpanzees or Dian Fossey from her gorillas?  We are not missionaries, conquerors, or traders; we are scholars observing the progress of sentient life, for better or worse, wherever we find it.”

“Exactly when did your expect to introduce yourselves?”

“Never.  For us to meet as peers, you will need to find us on your own.”

“And so we have, it would seem.”

“No, you have not.  We will speak, but you will not recall any of this.  Our charter forbids interference.”

In one practiced move Corporal Chiron mounted his horse and wheeled the animal about.

“Do not kill him,” hissed Dunenger.

A large shimmering circle formed in the air to the left of the horse and rider.  With a deep boom, a blast of air left the circle, knocking the horse off its feet.  Luc slid a short distance through the mixture of snow, leaves, and pine needles, and then lay still.

“Corporal Chiron lives, but will, no doubt be more than a little annoyed when he regains consciousness,” the house announced.

“Noted.”   Dunenger walked to where the man lay, picked him up with ease, and returned to the house.  As he stepped through the door, ten scarlet reptiles appeared in quick secession in the reception room.  One wore a full-length gold cape.  The deference of the others would have been obvious to even a casual observer.  Another wore a green, insulated vest.  Two more wore the same belt that Dunenger wore.

“Shut the door,” the caped one snapped, “there is frozen moisture out there.  You’ve been here, what, fifteen or sixteen microns?  What have you done?”  He glared at the body in Dunenger’s arms.

“He was here when I arrived, First Citizen.  Apparently, the political structure of the area has changed.  He is an officer of the law, and claims that it is illegal for the station to be here.  He was determined to report its existence to his masters; I prevented that from happening.”

“So you killed him?  An officer of the law!  You may have brought down the entire operation.  The Lesser, indeed.”

“He is stunned, not dead.  I had no more than two picos to make a decision.  There may have been other valid courses of action, but none jumps immediately to mind.  Allowing him to leave was not an option,” Dunenger retorted.  There was anger in his voice, but he chose not to respond to the slanderous use of his name.

“Exactly what is your plan for when he regains consciousness?  I would not expect him to be in a mood for polite conversation.”

“Actually, I thought the best plan might be to take him back with us.  When he sees who we are, and what he would destroy by reporting what he has seen, I would expect him to allow us to wipe the memory.  He seems capable of some level of rational thought.”

“Rational thought?  This is not just a developing species, this is Amandal 3.  Your plan is to treat him like a rational thinker, and hope for an evolutionary leap?  That is not a plan, that is avoidance.”

Luc stirred and made a sound.

“It appears we are about to test your non-plan.  Good luck to you; the course of the rest of your life may depend on the outcome.”

Luc opened his eyes.  He surveyed the room now crowded with scarlet dinosaurs.  “If that’s advanced civilized behavior, I prefer my horse.  I’m leaving, or you can kill me; your choice.  Just how civilized are you?”

 “You are free to go.”  This from the one in the green vest.  “I would ask for your word that you will maintain our confidentiality.  There are forces at work here that you know nothing of.”  This one spoke slower with a much deeper tone of voice.  Its lips moved in sync with its words, and he did not hiss.

“You may not leave!”  This from the caped one that Dunenger had called First Citizen.

“Donber, let me recommend you remember where you are.  Your authority stops at the hundred thousand span limit.  We are…beyond that limit.  Here on Amandal 3, you are a guest of the Ministry of External Contact.  Kindly refrain from countermanding my decisions, and if you have any further criticism of my officers, take them up with me.  Above all, leave external contact to me.”  This last was in the same higher-pitched, out-of-sync voice as the rest.

 The implication hit Luc suddenly—something was translating their native tongue into English, but the one in the green vest actually spoke English.  He thought about that for a few seconds while the lizards glared at each other.  He finally made a decision—he rose painfully, and walked to an oddly-shaped chair in the corner.  He sat, carefully, and found a comfortable position. “Try me, what forces.”  He made a show of snapping the flap of his holster closed.

The vested one crossed the room to where Luc sat.  It moved with more grace than its short, powerful legs and stumpy tail would suggest.  It bent the legs slightly, and made a tripod with them and the tail.  “I am First Observer Olencot,” it said in its English voice.  “Our charter forbids us to interfere with developing species.  You clearly have made technology strides in recent years, and I doubt you view yourselves as a developing species; you have no one with whom to compare yourselves.  Nevertheless, our charter is very specific.  The very fact that we are speaking is a violation.”

“So Dunenger the Lesser told me.  I agree you have a problem; lawbreakers often do.  It is not the job of the RCMP to solve your problems, only to stop you from breaking Canadian law.  This house may, or may not be grandfathered.  Assaulting an officer carries no such possible protection.”

“There is a second issue here, one that may concern you less at the moment, but one that, should it become known in the wrong places, would instantly overshadow our minor infractions of Canadian law. 

“There are, so far, eleven developed species.  We are, generally, at peace with one another.  We compete; we have very different temperaments, but none of us have been at war for nearly seven hundred of your years.

“One participant in that last war was a species known as the Bak.  You would recognize a Bak instantly; they are physically indistinguishable from yourselves.  There is reason to believe that you have, at the very least, a shared ancestry.  We would like to unravel the mystery of that connection, but the Bak strictly forbid it.  They are notoriously inflexible about their rules, and there are no exceptions to their quarantine of this planet.  Nevertheless, here we are.  Should we find ourselves defending our actions in one of your courts, it is entirely possible they monitor what goes on here.  To the Bak, our science would constitute an act of war.  I would ask you, as the representative of a sovereign species, to allow us to atone for the infractions of your law quietly.  With the possible exception of some unknown Bak observer, I know this planet better than any person not born here; you would not enjoy the overt attention of the Bak.”

“I am only a cop; such decisions are above my pay grade.”

“If I am driving a vehicle three kilometers per hour faster than the posted limit, do you not have the option to issue a warning or a citation?”  

“This is not a minor moving violation; assaulting an officer is a felony.”

“Which you, as the assaulted officer, have the unique ability to overlook.”

“These Bak look like us?  Could they be living among us?”

“They not only look like you, they share your body chemistry.  Still, there are differences; more than would normally occur in the six thousand or so years the quarantine has been in place.  That is the mystery we want to solve.  As for on-planet observers, the Bak obey their own rules to the letter.  If they are monitoring, it would be remotely.”

“Six thousand years?  That’s roughly as far back as our written history goes.  Are you implying that these Bak seeded Earth with their own kind, and then left?  In my experience, that’s not the way colonization works.”

“That is what we want to determine.”

“I’d like to be a part of that investigation.”

“Not possible.”

“Then it appears you have a legal problem with Province of British Columbia.  If I were an active participant in an ongoing investigation, lots of otherwise illegal activity would be allowed.  The RCMP has considerable latitude in these matters.”

First Observer Olencot rocked forward onto his powerful legs.  “I will not be coerced.”

Luc smiled, but didn’t move.  “I would never consider trying.  I only point the realities of our current situation.  You have apparently violated the law on at least two worlds.  I can only help you with your problems on this one, and then only under specific circumstances.  It does not need to be my investigation, but I need to be part of the team.”

“Stop translation,” the First Observer said to no one visible. 

The conversation instantly shifted to a series of hisses much of which was at the very upper limit of Luc’s hearing.  There were odd gaps that implied that some of it was at a still higher frequency.  For good measure, the entire lot moved to the next room.  They were gone for what seemed like a long time.  At one point, one of the ones wearing a Sam Browne passed through the room and left the house.  Twice the lights dimmed momentarily.  At about the same time the one returned from outside and First Observer Olencot reentered the room.

“We have no precedent for your request.  The First Citizen and I spoke to the planetary council.  They have voted a special rule into existence designating you a naturalized citizen of Noger, appointing you an officer of the law, and assigning you to the Ministry of External Contact.  You now work for me, at least for the moment.  I believe you would call it a consulting position.  I would be please if you would consider lending us your expertise in this investigation.” 

If there were any emotional overtones to the speech, Luc could not detect them.  “Where do we begin?”

 

 

 

  Chapter 2

 

“You will need a translator.  The station master will fit one for you, and teach you to use it.  Right through that door.”  He indicated the door through which they had all disappeared nearly half an hour before.  By now most had drifted back to the only room Luc had seen so far.

“I need to look after my horse.”

“A security officer has already checked the horse for injury, and placed it in a temporary shelter.  You are free to see to any other needs it may have—we are not experts on horses.  The officer will show you the way, but without the translator, you will not be able to speak to him once you are more than a few feet from the station.”

On cue, what looked to be the dame one as before, left through the outside door.  Luc was directly behind him.

The horse was in a shimmery area deep in the pines between the house and the water.  Although there were no material walls that Luc could detect, it was significantly warmer within the shimmer.  His faithful animal seemed no the worse for the air blast that had knocked them both for a loop, and was munching with interest on what few tufts of grass survived under the pines.  It had been unsaddled, and all the gear was stacked neatly to one side.  After checking the horse over, Luc dug oats from a bag and spread them on a small patch of dry pine needles to one side.  The horse accepted the second course as though he expected such treatment.  Luc shrugged, and returned to the house with the security officer beside him.

The second room was bigger than Luc expected.  Windowless, it had none of the cedar, stone, and log cabin style interior decoration he had seen so far.  A dark, shiny arch dominated the center of the room.

“Please step through the portal, Corporal Chiron.”  The air beneath the arch began to shimmer.  “First Observer Olencot failed to mention that a personal translator is an implanted device not designed to be removed.  Are you comfortable with that?”

Luc could not tell where the voice was coming from.  It spoke flawless English with the distinct accent of a Quebecer.  Luc decided to let it slide for the moment. “How big a device, and implanted where?”

“About a microspan; roughly the size of…rice, I think would be the best comparison.  The size of a grain of white rice.  The translator connects to the auditory nerve behind your ear.”

“How many of these implants have you done?”

“Yours would be the first.  I have been designing and building one suitable for human physiology for the last twenty minutes.”

“You want to experiment on me?”

“I could clone you, if need be.  This would be about as experimental as your first haircut.  It would be the first time, but the outcome would not be in doubt.”