He stopped down by the stream and looked at the water, thinking. The water had run brown with silt for the first few weeks after the explosion but now, with the majority of runoff that would occur havinghappened and the plants coming back, it was clear as gin. Clearer, he suspected, than before the explosion. There were fish in it, as well, big guppy-looking things, some of them with bright blue tails.

They had been unable to close the remnant Titcher bosons. The destabilization seemed to spread along the "track." Which meant that besides the gates in Tennessee, Eustis, Staunton and Archer, presumably, they had to worry about thirty inactive bosons scattered from Northwest Florida to Saskatchewan. And he had no idea how soon the destabilization would go away. Just a pretty strong gut feeling, based on very limited theory, that it wouldn't be long.

He got back on the bike and pedaled up the shallow hill towards where UCF used to stand. And the anomaly was still pumping out bosons, although they had limited it to three tracks at least: one, two and four. They were all over the western hemisphere at this point, except Tierra Del Fuego, and had spread as far as the Philippines and Tibet. They were coming out a shade more slowly, now, having lost nearly four seconds in the past month. Which meant the rate wasn't going to change appreciably any time soon.

In the meantime, since they weren't closing them as fast as they were being produced, the bosons were a menace that might produce more things like the Titcher, or the Boca Raton anomaly, at any time.

The answer to that was to link the gates as fast as possible, which was one of the reasons that he was getting ticked with Columbia's civilian applications side. The news media was getting huffy because they saw it as a money grab by Columbia, which was not only a big corporation but a, horrors, Defense Contractor. They hadn't even touched on the fact that as long as the gates were open, they were available to any species that had the capability to open them, friendly or hostile. And despite his initial pronouncement, all the species they had encountered seemed to be hostile.

That was bothering the SETI folks no end, but they were blaming it on the way that the government had handled first contact. They seemed to be ignoring the fact that First Contact from the Titcher was the snatching of two innocent retirees.

Columbia's civilian side, meanwhile, had gotten wrapped up by their lawyers. Gates gave instantaneous and unhazardous communication from Point A to Point B. But that wasn't enough for the lawyers. They were trotting out all of the potential horrors that might be involved, litigation-wise. If someone tripped on the exit from the gate, who would get sued? Columbia, that's who. If someone got hit by a truck, said truck delivering materials to a gate, who would get sued? That's right, Columbia. If a gate was opened to one Point B and another Point B was considered to be more economically viable, who would get blamed? You guessed it.

So the gates remained closed while the news media howled about monopolies, the Congress held fact-finding commissions, the lobbyists ran around asking for bills and unknown potential aliens rubbed their hands in glee at all the available bosons.

And, oh, yes, transportation remained via car, truck and airplane.

Humans could not be the only sentient race in range to detect them that would sooner or later notice the available bosons. Someone was going to open one up. And, like the Titcher gates, Bill anticipated that it would be sooner rather than later.

"Boson fourteen is linking to a remote active boson; direction galactic hubward."

Tchar looked at the viewscreen and frowned at the face of his littermate, Tsho'an.

"Dreen?" "Probably not; this is a Class Nine boson, not a Class Six."

"It could be a remnant," Tchar said.

"It just started linking," Tsho'an argued. "That seems to suggest that the remote was recently formed. We are not alone. Well, alone with only the Dreen for company."

"Yes," Tchar replied, grunting in black humor. "We need Unitary approval to open a remote gate.

Especially after the disaster with gate seven. I'll submit a request."

"Do you think we'll get it?" Tsho'an asked.

"I really don't know. I think that they would like to see all the bosons turned off. The transportation guilds have been complaining, again, about incursions on their authority. Move it as quickly as possible to Sector Nine, just in case it is a hostile entity. If it is, we'll have to set up quarantine measures. I'll send a message to the Unitary Council. We will see about opening it."

"They could be friendly," Tsho'an pointed out. "Any support against the Dreen would be useful."

"I was going to bring that up," Tchar noted, closing the connection.

"It had been quiescent for two weeks," the physicist from the French Academy of Sciences said. Bill knew him, slightly, from scientific conferences they both had attended prior to the opening of the Chen Anomaly. He and Bill disagreed on just about every major scientific topic that existed, especially if it had a political flavor. They cordially detested one another, in fact. But they were buddies compared to most of the aliens humans had encountered. "Then a gate formed. The farmer who owns the vineyard contacted authorities immediately, of course. Thenthey came through. Before our reaction team could arrive, I might add."

Theywere five beings in armor that was marked with a muted, vaguely sand-colored camouflage. The beings were bipedal, nearly three meters tall, with three fingers and a thumb. Other than that it was impossible to determine what they looked like in their all-covering suits. They might not be that tall, if the suits were made like Wyverns.

One of the beings was talking in pantomime with a human wearing an environment suit. The aliens'

weapons, presumably weapons, that they had been carrying on entry were stacked up by the gate. They were large guns that looked similar to rifles but instead of a conventional barrel they had large bores that looked vaguely like a blunderbuss. Bill suspected that they fired something other than nails. The ground was torn with tracks from armored vehicles and the French Leclerc Mk2 tanks that surrounded the gate had effectively destroyed the vineyard.

Bill walked towards the group as the academic sputtered behind him. He touched the person in the environment suit on the arm and smiled as the woman turned towards him and widened her eyes in surprise that he was not similarly dressed.

"You washed them down, right?" Bill asked. "So far we haven't found anything on any of the worlds which is infectious." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a picture, holding it up so that it could be seen by the nearest of the aliens. The alien let out a hissing howl that sounded remarkably like one of the dog-demons and could best be written as "Dreeen." The picture had been of a dead dog alien.

"Yeah," Bill said, nodding. "We call them Titcher." Then he extracted his laptop and opened it up. He was no wiz at three-D modeling but there were various cartoon programs available in two-D that worked. He brought up a program and ran a short video he'd composed on the way over.

First there was video of the Titcher, taken at the attack in Eustis by a TV cameraman who would probably win some sort of posthumous award. Then there was video of Nyarowlll shaking hands with Bill, clearly in a friendly manner. Then there was some video of the nuclear attacks in Eustis and Tennessee and more video from the aftermath, centering on all the dead Titcher. Then there was a cartoon, poorly done, of Nyarowlll smiling at Bill and then, when he turned his back, sticking a knife in it.

Then there was another cartoon of Nyarowlll with her arm around a Titcher dog-demon.

The alien he had been talking to waved at the other four and they crowded around while Bill showed the video again. They nodded at each other, waving their necks back and forth, but didn't seem to be talking although there was some sound coming out of the suits. It took Bill a minute to realize that they were probably speaking via radio or some equivalent.

The first alien, he seemed to be a boss, waved at the screen on the third run-through and Bill froze it on a picture of Nyarowlll.

"Dreeen," the alien said.

"Mreee," Bill replied. "That one's Nyarowlll."

The alien cocked his head to the side. "Nyarowlll, Mreee."

Bill touched his chest. "Bill." Then he pointed at the screen. "Nyarowlll." He pointed at himself and the other humans around. "Human."

"Oooman," the alien replied. "Adar," he added, pointing at his chest.

"Humans," Bill said, then pointed at Nyarowlll. "Mreee. Bill. Nyarowlll."

Bill backed up to the point that had Nyarowlll being friendly then to the rough cartoon of her putting a knife in his back then to the picture of her being friendly with a Titcher. Then he brought up another, a video of the suited aliens, the Adar, side by side with the Titcher, one armored arm over the back of a thorn-thrower.

There was a hiss at that from the boss alien and he waved it away, spitting, clicking and gabbling in apparent anger.

Bill showed the scenes with Nyarowlll again and then waved at the pictures. Then he held up a hand and shrugged. It was anything but a universal gesture, but the alien, the Adar, seemed to get the point.

Humans had been bitten once, that was going to make them shy.

The aliens waved their arms at each other for a bit, then the boss reached out carefully and touched one of the controls on the laptop, starting the footage. He ran it forward to the nuclear blasts and stopped at the mushroom clouds. "Dreeen."

"Human," Bill said. "We did that."

"Adoool," the alien said. "Adoool." He pointed around at the tanks. "Adoool."

"Soldiers?" the French woman in the environment suit said. "War?"

"Actually," Bill replied. "I think it's more like 'smart' or 'good damned job.'"

The alien reached up and manipulated some latches on his neck at which one of the others waved a hand. He waved back and then took off his helmet, snuffling at the air.

He wasn't pretty. There were three eyes, one on either side of its head and one placed more or less where a human forehead would be. Just below it was an opening and below that was a wide beak, flat and round. Its skin was a pale bluish color.

"Tchar," the alien said through the snout; his mouth remained closed. "Tchar," he added, tapping his chest. Then he pointed at Bill. "Bill. Tchar."

"Hello, Tchar," Bill said. "Pleased to meet you. I hope."

9.

"The Adar appear to be about fifty, maybe a hundred, years advanced upon us. They use neural implants, their primary air method of transport is suborbital rockets that work off of laser launch technology, they have very advanced computing devices and the guns that they were carrying seem to be some sort of plasma-toroid generator. They're not super guns, but they'd probably take out a Bradley Fighting Vehicle from the pictures Tchar showed me. They do notappear to be friends with the Titcher or Dreen as they call them. They've showed us pictures of their planet, had one team over on a suborbital rocket from which a large area was visible, and appear to get the point that we're not going to just fall for the friendly alien thing. Once bitten twice shy and all that butthis time the aliens appear to be friendly."

"That's good," the President said. "If true."

"Yes, Mr. President," Bill replied. "If true."

"Most of the time the Adar team on Earth have been using their communicators," the national security advisor said. "They appear to be radios, they're giving off RF emissions, but we haven't figured out exactly how they're broadcasting or what is being said. So we haven't been able to get much of their language. Dr. Avery from the State Department, however, has been communicating with some of their people on the other side, we don't know if they're leadership or not, and he's making headway. He thinks he's gotten about a five-hundred-word vocabulary so far."

"Avery's amazing," the secretary of defense said to the President. "He can pick up an Earth language just listening to it for a couple of hours. If anyone can decipher their language he can."

"They're being helpful in that as well," the national security advisor said, biting her lip. "I'm inclined, this time, to side with them being friendly. As friendly as could be expected. They appear to have a couple ofinternal gates open as well and the means to move them; they apparently had the theory of wormhole formation andthen started making bosons. And Dr. Weaver will be gratified to learn that the way they move them is by using very large Van de Graaff generators."

"Yes," Bill said. "Maybe we can buy a couple off of them."

"I still want a full analysis this time," the President replied. "As much as we can determine of their economy and order of battle. I don't want to be fooled again. It's not good for politics and it's not good for America. Dr. Weaver, any idea when the Titcher gates might open?"

"No, Mr. President," Bill replied. "Tchar took me to what they call their Dreen gate. It's in the same area as the one that connects to us, a big open desert area with some mountains in the distance. Except for some of the colors it looks a lot like Groom Lake. They have the Dreen gate surrounded by their tanks inside a large hole in the ground that they can fire downwards into. And there's a big device right opposite it. Again, this was all pantomime, but I get the impression that it's got something like a nuke in it that they can trigger if their gate stabilizes. It wasn't stable, though; it was rippling just like ours. I tried to get some idea if they knew how long they stayed down but that was just too complicated. If Tchar knew what I was talking about, he couldn't answer me. Among other things, sir, they don't have our clock, obviously. Their planet seems to have about a thirty-hour day and I have no idea what their year might be. I started to try to get him to count it out in Planck seconds since every physicist in this universe would know what that is . . . but for the life of me I couldn't think of how to pantomime 'what is the time delay if you count that in the smallest possible time increment allowed in this universe?' I'm open for suggestions on that one."

"Ask Dr. Avery to concentrate on that question," the President said to the national security advisor.

"I will, sir," the NSA said, then temporized. "The thing is, they might take it as a request to find out about their nuclear capability. We'll have to know things like the yield of their weapons and delivery methods. If they started askingus those questions, I'd be uncomfortable."

"Tell him to explain why we're asking, first," the President said. "I'm sure they'll understand in that case."

He frowned and then shook his head. "They seem to have a point, though. Don't we have some artillery-fired nukes? Is there any reason we can't fix up something like that at all the sites?"

"I don't think we have any left in inventory . . ." the secretary of defense said.

"We don't," the national security advisor said, definitely. "But there ought to be some way to set up a launcher on a standard Mark 81 MIRV warhead, and we have a bunch of those in inventory." She smiled for a moment and shook her head. "We're supposed to come up with things like that, Mr.

President. What do you want to do, work us out of a job?"

"No, but I do want to make sure the Titcher stay on their side of the gate," the President answered. "Get that set up as soon as possible. Not just at the open gates but at the inactive particles as well. I don't want to be caught with our pants down again. Then there's the inactive particles. Dr. Weaver, Columbia is taking far too much time in opening them."

"I have to take the Fifth on that one, Mr. President," Bill replied, formally. "It's not my department and the one time I brought it up I was reminded of that fact."

"Well, I'm not afraid to bring it up," the President said, somewhat angrily. "I'll call Kevin Borne over at Columbia," the secretary of defense said. "I know they've got some issues but I'll point out that they really don't want to get us upset with them. I'll be pointed about that fact, rest assured, Mr. President."

"Just get it done," the President said.

"There's the point that there is still only one gate generator," Bill pointed out. "It takes a skilled team about ten hours to set up, then there's transportation time. Even if they had gotten on the ball right away, and ignored arguments about which gates should open where, there wouldn't be many linked, yet. There is a firm that was scheduled to build some more, but I don't know the status of that project."

"I'll talk to Kevin and light a fire under him," the secretary of defense said. "If there's something holding it up besides lawyers, money I guess would be the answer, I'll talk about that as well."

"I think that's all we have," the President said. "Let's hope the Titcher gates don't open soon."

"Robin," Bill said, from his office. "Could I see you for a second?"

"Sure," the programmer replied, walking to the open door.

"Come on in and close the door," Bill said, opening the refrigerator by his desk. "You drink Pepsi, right?"

"He said as he slipped in the strychnine?" Robin asked.

"No," Bill said, chuckling. "I got a call from the Columbia rep in Paris. The Adar are asking about the boson generator. Communication is still spotty so they've asked me to go over there and try to figure out how to communicate what's going on and what we think happened. You're better at 3-D modeling than I am. I'd like to just make up a little cartoon to show what we think happened and what is happening now.

Could you do that?"

"Sure," Robin said, smiling. "It doesn't require modeling at all. I'll just do a rip on an Unreal Tournament engine; that will give enough detail for what you're asking about."

"Great," Bill said. "Can you do it on a plane?"

The biggest problem had been passports; Robin didn't have one. By the time they were in D.C., though, one had been prepared and they took a trans-Atlantic flight, First Class, on British Airways.

It was a hell of a lot better than his first flight to Paris when they'd loaded him in another F-15 and flown nonstop with one aerial refueling. The service was much better, from some very pretty young English stewardesses, and Robin was good company.

They'd laid out the script for what they wanted to impart on the way to D.C., then Robin had started modeling it on her laptop. By the time they got to Paris the video, which had had some glitches, was working fine. They spent the night at the embassy, then took a French Alouette helicopter to the Adar gate site.

The French military was, apparently, not taking the Adar at their word. The vineyard was now ringed by entrenchments and a large concrete bastion was under construction. But the Adar representative, wearing a respirator, was apparently willing to ignore the formalities. Perhaps that was because when theystepped through the gate, also wearing respirators since the Adar atmosphere was high in carbon dioxide compared to Earth, there was a similar military buildup on the Adar side. There was also a large device that looked vaguely like a tank without the treads. The weapon it mounted had a large bore but no larger than that on an Abrams. Bill suspected, though, that it was something much more powerful than a 120mm tank cannon. If the humans turned out to be less friendly than it appeared, the Adar were clearly willing to close the gate with all due force.

Rather than flying casual diplomats all over their globe, the Adar had set up a meeting center near the Terran gate. Bill saw quite a few humans, most of them apparently international diplomats uncomfortable in their respirators, moving around the grounds. The Adar that had greeted them on the Terran side accompanied them by ground vehicle to the meeting center, which was a large building that had the vague feel of a hangar, sectioned up by hasty plastic panels, and turned them over to another guide. He, in turn, led them to the back of the center where a more substantial office was located.

In it were Dr. Avery, wearing an oxygen nosepiece and toting an oxygen bottle, and three Adar. There was also an Adar-sized conference table surrounded by chairs for the Adar and a few human swivel chairs that had been brought through the gate. All the Adar looked the same to Bill and he suspected that it was the same with them. But one of them stepped forward and crossed his chest, bowing slightly.

"This is Tchar, Dr. Weaver," Avery said. He was a slim man with an erect carriage, a former Navy officer who had attained the rank of rear admiral before retiring. He weighed 173 pounds, which was the same weight he had been upon entering the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. "You met him before."

"A pleasure to see you again, Tchar," Bill said, pulling aside his respirator then clamping it back down. "I see you've found a better solution, Admiral Avery."

"A necessity of the mission, Doctor," Avery replied. Before he did he took a breath through his nose which slowed his speech, but it was better than shouting through a respirator or pulling it aside. "Do you think we can explain the gate phenomenon to the Adar?"

"We can't even explain it to ourselves, Admiral," Bill admitted. "Miss Noue?"

Robin set her laptop on the table as Avery and the Adar sat down. The laptop was nearly at Avery's eye-level due to the height of the Adar table. She keyed the video and then sat down herself.

The scene was a daytime, apparently viewed from the air. The notional camera swooped in over some suburban tracts and roads and then showed a stylized college campus. A few students were walking around the campus, carrying books or laptops. The camera zoomed in on a building and then through the wall into a laboratory. A few people were grouped around a device. The only portion that was clear was a linear accelerator. A man that didn't look like Ray Chen but did have vaguely Asian features said: "Let's see what happens," and pressed a button.

The camera cut back to outside the building and there was a flash. It cut to farther away and watched the shockwave roll out from the building and the mushroom cloud form.