Jamie and Jeannie were just finishing their coffee when the door chimed. He told it to open without bothering to look; he already knew who it would be, but surprised himself by the little throb in his middle at the anticipation.
"Good morning," Kristi said, including both humans and animals in the greeting. Jamie stared. Kristi was no longer wearing ranger dress. The coveralls had been replaced by powder blue slacks and a white blouse and her blond hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. She no longer looked ready to fight wildcats, and seemed to have shrunk several sizes as well. She still retained her weapons, however, holstered neatly at her waist. He admired the waist.
"Good morning," Jeannie answered for all of them in a pleasant voice, unconsciously less possessive after her night with Jamie.
"I'm holding the sled whenever you're ready," Kristi said.
"I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Jamie said. "Hold the fort, guys. Take care of Conan." He led the way outside, threading his way amongst the contingent of a half dozen rangers and two internal security agents. He stopped before boarding the sled and turned to Jeannie.
Kristi spoke before he could. "Can we drop you somewhere, Jeannie? We'll be glad to, if it's not too far out of the way."
"I think the GE building is pretty much on the route if you're going toward the city," Jeannie said, feeling no threat in the offer.
"We are. Come on." She led Jeannie to a seat at the back of the sled and sat down beside her, leaving Jamie to share the company of the two security agents. He was a little non-plussed that Jeannie chose to share the ride with Kristi rather than him. He even wondered mildly how they were getting along; he had caught some of the nuances between the two women the night before. He would have been amazed had he heard their conversation as he was riding serenely along.
Just to make small talk, Jeannie asked after they were seated, "How could I go about getting into ranger training if I wanted to?"
Kristi smiled. "Before considering it, you might want to think about how you would feel about going days on end being dirty, sweaty, exhausted, and threatened. That's the usual routine on the outside."
"Oh," Jeannie said. Her romanticized version of ranger life hadn't included such factors.
"What do you do now?" Kristi asked.
"I run the computer at Jamie's office. That's where I met him. You don't think I'd like being a ranger?"
"No, I don't," Kristi said honestly. "You strike me as someone who would rather stay inside the barriers. I feel the same way about Jamie, by the way. I don't think he's an outside person, either."
Jeannie saw her chance and took it. "Is that all you think about him?"
Kristi turned and smiled. "Are you worried about what might happen when Jamie and I get off into the wilds together? Don't. Oh, there might be some sexual attraction -- Jamie is an interesting man, and his pets surely think well of him; that counts for a lot with me. Relax, though; I'm no threat, not in the long run."
"I'm glad," Jeannie confessed.
"No need to be that glad. I really prefer women over men. In fact, if anyone should worry, Jamie should."
"Why do you say that?" Jeannie asked, puzzled.
"Because, if push comes to shove, I'd rather have you in my bed." Kristi patted Jeannie's thigh and grinned beatifically. "Here's your stop."
Blushing furiously, Jeannie got up. She avoided eye contact with Jamie as she gave him a brief kiss and stepped off the sled. As it trailed off into the distance, her thoughts went with it, as confused as if she had just dived into a pool of Jell-O instead of water. She had a right to be; Kristi hadn't been completely honest. Jamie attracted her more than she had admitted, more so than any man she had met for some time. And he was involved with Jeannie. She liked her, too. This proposed expedition was getting more interesting all the time.
***
The two security agents sharing Jamie's seat could have been twins, or brothers. Both wore identical tan coveralls and had brown hair and brown eyes. They both wore holstered laser guns and had identical badges affixed to the lapels of their suits. Like Jamie, they wore their suits with sleeves rolled above the elbows, ready to be rolled down if need be; at this time of year, the weather could change suddenly. All purpose coveralls, shorts, slacks, and simple pullovers or shirts and blouses were all the enclave offered. There was no spare capacity for fashion designers or a wide variety of clothing. Most men took them as they came, but many women decorated the basic wardrobe to give an illusion of variety.
The conversation of the security agents was as conservative as their dress. Other than giving names, which Jamie promptly forgot, they made no conversational gambits of their own, merely answering questions with the least possible use of words. Jamie soon gave up and gazed out toward the center of the enclave as they rode. When they came to Jeannie's stop, he noticed that her face was slightly red. He wondered why, but decided not to ask. Instead, he invited her back to spend the night again. She accented, kissed him briefly, and was gone.
Once she had been let off, the sled began passing through territory he seldom frequented. It was an older section of what had once been the inner suburbs of north Houston. It harbored small businesses located in elderly buildings, interspersed with newer electronics installations and food processing plants. Almost all of the older homes had been replaced with standardized prefabricated apartments for middle and lower income residents. Housing was still at a premium after the influx of refugees from previous years. He saw few people and even fewer animals; most inhabitants of this section of the Enclave still held a distinct dislike for the enhanced animals which had displaced their forebears from the countryside. Further on, the buildings grew larger and pedestrians more numerous and prosperous looking, and a few enhanced dogs and cats appeared; those two animals were by far the most numerous pets allowed in the Enclave. The newer buildings wore a just washed appearance, having never been subjected to the smog of pre-Enclave days.
The sled stopped just short of the high rise center near a shopping mall adjacent to the security building and warehouse. From there, they had to walk; sled rails were still being laid from that point to their destination. Jamie noticed that there was no work in progress. It might be a long time before they were finished; the metal and other materials necessary to produce the rails all had to be imported and were in very short supply. Jamie remembered Whitmire's words of last night about how bad it was getting outside the walls and wondered if the rail lines would ever be completed.
The two security agents closed to either side of Jamie as they passed among the night shift workers doing their morning shopping. They drew a few curious glances, but nothing more; most people tended to mind their own business. The ones who did scrutinize him and his escorts tended to look away quickly, probably thinking he was a candidate for the ultimate penalty Enclave authorities could impose: expulsion into the wilds, where life expectancy could be gauged in days, weeks, or possibly months, rarely longer. He saw many couples and threesomes, and not a few double couples, all shopping together. Whenever possible, families worked the same shift. Entertainment tented to center on the versatile holo programs, inside apartments or in clubrooms of the complexes. Restaurants and night clubs had almost disappeared and liquor was in very short supply; grain was needed for food. Many people used mood altering drugs, but there was no addiction problem; not only had the addictive factors been designed out of the drugs, the younger portion of the population had been selected to eliminate the addictiveness inherent in some of their parents' genes.
Jamie paid little attention to the numerous threesomes he saw. It was a natural phenomena to him, although he had never been involved in one. So many males had died during the formation of the Enclaves that bonding of two females with a single male had become common. The practice had continued even after the population became more nearly balanced, although now the reverse of two males with one female was almost as common. There was a lot to be said for three (or four) adults per household once the cultural inhibitions against the practice faded.
Few of the morning shoppers were armed, although there was no restrictions at all on the possession and bearing of weapons. This far into the Enclave, there was simply little need for them; feral animals rarely managed to penetrate this far. Weapons were hardly even necessary for self-defense; the brutal methods necessary to establish a safe haven for humans and their selected pets had given short shrift to the violent criminal class, and gene selection had reduced the propensity even further. There were few of them left. Most crime was of the theft or burglar variety, and most of them were caught eventually, especially the burglars. Most upscale citizens like Jamie had protective systems in their homes, so individualized that it was almost impossible to figure them out in advance. What crime there was carried punishments of extra work or reduced salaries for a first offense; for the second, heavier penalties, and a third offense was penalized by expulsion into the wilds, with no appeal allowed. Family violence was dealt with as circumstances dictated, but there was little of that either. The threat of banishment to the wilds was always present, making for a well behaved, if slightly hungry citizenry.
A slight rain began to fall as they left the shoppers behind. They hurried to the protection of a covered walkway for the last portion of their journey. Just inside the entrance of the security building they were halted until Jamie's body computer could have an entrance code programmed into it. He looked around curiously during the couple of minutes it took, but could find nothing in the decor of the alcove to differentiate the security building from any other government office.
One of the twins departed on some errand of his own while the other escorted him to an elevator and rode with him to another floor. There, he was led through a short hallway and into a small room which Jamie immediately recognized. Without being asked, he peeled off his coveralls and sat down in the single seat in the room, a massively cushioned, tentacled travesty of a chair, known even before it's invention as an autodoc.
For the next fifteen minutes the autodoc poked and prodded, withdrew and analyzed blood, urine, saliva, and other body fluids. It snipped off a tiny lock of his hair and a piece of fingernail. It attached and withdrew electrodes, shined various colored lights in his eyes and hooted in his ear. Jamie was quiet and compliant throughout the process, but he thought dark thoughts at the impersonal AI conducting the exam, while at the same time wishing that it would find some medical reason to exclude him from the pending expedition. The autodoc found nothing wrong other than a slight slackness of muscle tone. It recommended more exercise in a pleasant bass voice, sat him upright and released him from it's tentacled grasp.
The security agent, whose first name Jamie finally remembered was Carl, had remained in the room the whole while. He favored Jamie with a slight smile. "You'll get all the exercise you need after tomorrow. Outfitting next. This way."
A supply robot in a second room required him to strip again before measuring him for ranger coveralls and boots. It queried the agent briefly. "What class outfitting?"
"Basic survival. Medium handgun. Minimal field rations for one cat and two dogs, size 2B and 3A. Standard human trail rations."
The robot put a momentary hold on the request for cat rations, leading Jamie to believe that cats seldom accompanied rangers into the field, but apparently there was a stock on hand, for it approved the request, then said, "Thank you. Good luck. You may retrieve the items from the stockroom anytime within the next twenty four hours. Please enter your code now."
Jamie touched his arm, waited for the beep, then turned to Carl for further instructions.
"A pretty heavy load," Carl said, "but it will get lighter as you go along. Target practice next." Jamie thought that Carl was becoming downright loquacious compared to his earlier self. He wondered whether the increasing verbosity had anything to do with the fact that it was he, rather than the security agent who was being outfitted for survival outside the Enclave.
He spent the next two hours in a basement firing range being instructed in the basics of his new weapon, most of which he felt he could have done without; it was almost identical to his own, smaller weapon. He was provided with a holster, five extra clips of ammunition, and two spare power packs for the laser portion of the handgun. Each of them carried the admonition DO NOT DISCARD. RETURN FOR RECHARGING. Another shortage, Jamie thought. Very few items were disposable; raw materials were scarce and likely to get more so, according to Whitmire. Jamie was just beginning to get a hint of the paucity of resupply. His work in agriculture had insulated him from most such considerations, other than his own needs.
There was a break for lunch, with Carl ever in attendance, then he was lead to a large room with twenty or so comfortable seats equipped with basic computer and holo display workstations. A group of a dozen or so rangers were already seated.
"Ah. Right on time. Very good." Jamie recognized Whitmire's British accented voice coming from behind him. He turned and saw that he was shepherding two men and a woman into the room. He held them up for introductions.
"Jamie, I want you to meet some people you will be working with. This is Maria Martinez, a physicist, and her husband -- um, companion, that is, Donald Martinez. He is an electronicist. Also Bryan Drewson, zoologist. This is Jamie Da Cruz, genetic engineer. You all have five minutes before classes begin to get acquainted. I will see you again, later. Whitmire looked harassed and sleepy eyed, and his thatch of gray hair was trying to take off in several directions at once. Jamie thought he must have worked all night, as he had said he would.
"Are we really going to try to find an alien being?" Drewson, the zoologist asked. He was a tall dark man with a full beard and piercing eyes. His voice held tones of wonder.
"I'm not really certain," Jamie said truthfully. "I'll let you decide after you meet the messenger."
"Wouldn't that be wonderful?" Maria Martinez said. She was stereotypically Hispanic, with black hair and eyes, dark complexion, rose red lips and full, almost buxom figure. Her companion, Donald, was also darkly colored, but appeared to be more of the Italian/European extraction. He said nothing, seemingly lost in thought.
"I've heard of you," Drewson said. "You invented the hambeans, didn't you?"
"My department developed them, yes," Jamie acknowledged, deferring complete credit.
"Good job. I like them. About time we got some pork back into the ecology."
"Thanks," Jamie said. "What sort of work are you doing now?"
"Taxonomy, mostly. Trying to keep up with all the new classifications of mammals the rangers keep bringing me. I'm beginning to think those old Brazilian labs altered or enhanced every animal from the Amazon north, then deliberately turned them all loose here."
"Really?"
"No, it just seems like it sometimes," Drewson amended.
"Please take your seats."
Jamie turned to see a small balding man at the front of the room, already seated at the main console which controlled the tutoring desks. He and the other three scientists took their places in a group next to the rangers. He glanced at them as he was seating himself. He recognized one face immediately. Kristi winked solemnly at him, then turned her attention back to her station.
"Please interface with your stations now and let's get started," the instructor said. There was a rustle of movement as they complied, then a momentary silence.
Holographic images appeared around each station, giving instructions and explaining the use of equipment which would be carried, flora and fauna to be expected, safety precautions, and interminable other items necessary for comfort and survival in the wilds. Jamie found it fascinating despite his reluctance to undertake the trip, but it was easy to see that it was a hurried presentation. He thought correctly that their monitor was interfacing with the main computer as they went along, deleting all but the barest essentials of what was probably a weeks long course of instruction. That didn't make him feel at all comfortable.
During the frequent minute long breaks, he noticed that the rangers appeared to be bored. No doubt they had been through the material numerous times and were there more to see what information was being skipped than being given so that they would know what to watch for. Again, he wondered at the hurried preparation, but as the presentation continued, it began to generate an interest, if not outright enthusiasm for the expedition. Some of the flora was interesting and a few he didn't recognize at all. It was too bad that it was spring rather than fall. He would have liked to collect some seeds. He made a note to include some preservative vials in his pack; he could always clone any interesting specimens later. During the heyday of undisciplined, clandestine genetic engineering of animals, many plants had been altered as well. This fact was generally unknown, though not any sort of secret; it was just that the animals had gotten all the publicity.
John Whitmire appeared at the end of the classes several hours later. He had entered unnoticed while the students were each still surrounded by the instructional images and had taken the spot vacated by the monitor.
"I wish to thank all of you for being here," he began, running a hand through his hair, further disarranging it. He settled his blocky body more comfortably in position, then continued. "Your government is entrusting to you a most crucially important mission; I beg to doubt that many of you realize yet just how important. Let me state that the continued existence of this and other Enclaves may very well depend on your success. It is becoming harder and harder to maintain our supply lines; many raw materials are becoming almost unobtainable; food production has reached a plateau barely sufficient for our needs. This is all general knowledge, of course, although it is not well publicized, and most citizens assume that somehow the problems will be solved in time. What is not generally known is that increased population pressure of altered and enhanced animals in the wilds is beginning to make significant changes in the biological ecosphere. For instance, the bird population has decreased dramatically, which in turn has led to an increase in the number of insects. I am told that this trend alone, if unchecked, could in time denude the earth of vegetation. You can imagine any other circumstances you wish. Suffice to say the Enclaves are simply a holding action, not a long term solution.
"Our best hope for the future of our civilization lies in the development of some radically new technology. While we may develop something ourselves, there is certainly no guarantee and, realistically, not much prospect of it within the projected time frame which we calculate the Enclaves can remain viable. It is fortunate that another way may be open to us. Less than two days ago we received a unique message, in a rather unique way. For those of you who have yet to examine the message and it's bearer, let me say that you will be given the opportunity soon enough. For now, please take my word for it that the technology involved in the message suggests that it is not of earth. Furthermore, there are hints of accompanying knowledge even more important. We are not certain of all this, of course. There are those within my own department, and in other departments as well, who believe the whole thing to be a hoax, perpetrated by some mad genius, or alternatively, that I have lost my mind." He smiled grimly. "I do not believe either, and I have staked my reputation on that belief. Even if the technology is not from the stars, it is still of inestimable value.
"The expedition will be linked to my headquarters. I will be following you every step of the way, and when you have reached your goal a larger and better supplied airlift will be organized and dispatched.
"I know that some of you have questions, many of them, but please forgo them for now. You will have many of them answered when you listen to the message yourself." He smiled at the puzzlement on the faces of those who had not yet had the opportunity to handle Conan's disk, then continued. "Please be dressed and ready to leave by daylight tomorrow morning. A sled will arrive at each of your homes at that time to bring you all to your departure point, which will be at the home of Jamie Da Cruz. I suggest that you have a last meal before you leave." He was interrupted by gusts of laughter, then realized the implication of his last remark. A final meal was always granted to exiles before expulsion from the Enclave. "Sorry," he continued after the laughter had died. "I meant your last meal at home for a while. "Godspeed to you all".