Kaspar's Box

His teeth clenched, Macouri hissed, "Yes," although he clearly didn't like the choice. He turned around and looked at the ceiling again. "All right! All right! Resources are the better part of valor and all that! Joshua, Natasha-just put down your guns and stand by. I'm putting mine on the floor."

Joshua looked almost disappointed. "Whatever you say, sir," he responded, and both he and the hard-bitten cook put down their rifles and knives as instructed and walked over and stood behind their boss.

"I think you can go in now," Broz told Maslovic. "They look like they've given up."

Even with all that, the sergeant opened the door as if the ambush was still waiting, and Nasser and Rosen flanked either side of the double doors, weapons at the ready.

Maslovic took a deep breath and walked in. The two on either side followed him, still at the ready, and Ndulu, who was still bleeding but not badly from her earlier wound, brought up the rear directly in back of him.

"Ndulu, think you can collect the weapons and still be okay? That's not a good-looking wound," the sergeant asked, concerned.

"I'll manage."

The drill was then to cover those standing and sitting in front of them while the other two took the sides and explored the rooms, then went up both stairs and did the same upstairs to insure that there were no ugly surprises waiting for them there that the ferrets had somehow overlooked.

Nasser emerged from the far room on the right and said, "Clear!" Rosen was only a few seconds behind on the left. They started for the nearest stairs, but at just that moment Brigit Moran emerged from one of the rooms, yawned, then looked down into the great room and the scene below.

She looked puzzled for a moment, then spotted and recognized Maslovic. "Oh, hi!" she called out, sounding very friendly. She even gave him a little wave. "Can we play with your spaceship some more?"

IX: OF CABBAGES AND KINGS

"Inventory?" Lieutenant Commander Mohr still wasn't sure if he was happy or panicked to have the girls back on board, let alone the others. Maybe both.

"Thirty-two of the so-called Magi stones, all of which are secured, all recovered from the bush lodge area," Lieutenant Chung reported. "None of the subjects has been allowed near them, and they are in a secured vault."

"I find it interesting that none of the stones were being worn by the principals when they were taken."

"No, sir. They were carefully stored like precious objects. There may be many more at the city compound, but we felt it prudent not to return there, and particularly not to allow Macouri, Schwartz, or the two employees to return there. There is simply no telling what sort of mischief they could cause if they were able to get to controls that we could not."

"I see. Yes, that's probably best for now. You remained with the van after modifying it?"

"Yes, sir. That is my function, after all, in this sort of team."

"But you were the one who surveyed the entire compound after it was secure and the principals moved?"

"Sir?"

"What I'm asking, Lieutenant, is for anything you might have found that you would not have expected to be there."

"Nothing, sir. Oh. You mean, like… babies?"

"Or something like that."

"No, sir. Nothing. Haven't the young women told you what happened?"

"No, as a matter of fact they haven't. Nor have the others. Nor has our hospital unit."

"Sir?"

"Lieutenant, if we can believe the incredibly thorough going-over that they've gotten, then, except for the obvious stretch marks, there is no sign that any of the three were ever pregnant. Even their breasts, while large, are not engorged or overly distended as the medics say should be the case in such well advanced pregnancies."

"What do they say, sir? Or can't I ask?"

"You can indeed. They look rather blank, if you must know, and all our sensor readings indicate that the feeling is genuine. They simply don't remember."

"What happened to the children?"

"No, being pregnant. I should think that would be difficult to forget, yet it's a hole. Our psych people say that they've never seen such a perfect selective mindworm."

"A what, sir?"

"Mindworm. Psychs use it all the time. It's quite similar to the ones used on computers and other positronic devices when they have problems. And, in our business, both for long-term psychological health and occasionally for security purposes, there are things that simply shouldn't be recalled, even subconsciously. High pressures, bitter memories, breaking points. But using them always leaves gaps, things that you can find and pin down if you really dwell on them. Not these three. They have a perfectly consistent memory of the entire period with Murphy and with us and down there, and it simply isn't the one we know and saw. It's quite frightening, really."

"Frightening?"