Roswell Fanatics

“How could you – how could you have done something like that?”

“In fact, I didn’t, Miss Parker. As I said, these things were done by my predecessor, a career bureaucrat who I’m sure believed that if the bureaucracy defined your friends as animals – they were simply that. He seemed singularly unconcerned about the fact that he was committing assault and battery on the females – technically rape on the males. The bureaucracy has defined your friends as non-people though, Miss Parker, so in the eyes of the law they had no rights. Unless and until that is reversed in a court of law, or the bureaucracy itself is forced to admit to their mistake, that is their status.
He did at least preserve the records of his experimentation so we have them for review. Watch this, Miss Parker, and tell me what you see…”
He pushed a few keys on his notebook computer and a video played on the screen.

Liz looked at the short video. The fertilized eggs quickly became embryos – too quickly. They started to grow incredibly fast, going through many cell divisions in only a few minutes. Then, just as quickly, they died.

“I don’t get it…,” said Liz. That shouldn’t happen. I mean, I’ve never done it with humans but in AP biology we fertilized sea urchin eggs and watched them develop. Getting the eggs and sperm certainly would be harder but once you did – getting the embryos to grow until they are large enough to implant is hardly rocket science. What happened?”

Candler seemed to smile at Liz. “Ah, we have someone with the makings of a scientist. ‘What happened,’ she asks. My idiot predecessor had no such scientific curiosity. He knew only that he wanted a product, and that he could not produce one. The man was a bureaucratic idiot. Looking back dispassionately I guess the only good thing about his tenure here was that he was so completely incompetent he did not even ascertain WHY his attempts at growing embryos in vitro failed – why they seemed to him to be blighted. He ASSUMED that these particular animals just didn’t do well with in vitro fertilization, and renewed his efforts to get them to produce offspring ‘naturally’. Strangely, enough, that led to his removal from his position here – and his replacement by me.”

“What do you mean –that led to his removal?”

“A fascinating story, Miss Parker, but for another time. Right now we are discussing your previous question – why did the embryos fail? Fortunately, the technicians who assisted were far better at their record keeping than my predecessor was in his scientific curiosity – plus he left me a few things to perform experiments on myself.”

“So what did kill the embryos ? “ asked Liz.

“The embryos died of malnutrition, Miss Parker.”

“But their metabolic demands at that stage are minimal…”

“No, Miss Parker. Had they been human – had they been almost any Earth animal, then their metabolic demands would have been minimal. These embryos were not human – or more correctly, their controlling force was not human. Analyzing the nutrient solution remaining AFTER the death of the embryos shows that all of the nutrients had been used up by the rapid growth of the organisms. There were no chemicals of any kind that could have provided an additional energy source. They sucked their environment dry of amino acids – proteins – sugar – anything at all that could provide the high levels of energy requirement to sustain a growth rate that was as high as that of an aggressive cancer. And like cancers sometimes do, they outgrew their food supply and died of lack of nutrition. My predecessor probably would have discarded the results of his experiments, but again the technicians – following protocol – preserved the results in cryogenic storage. Their genome is – interesting.”

“What do you mean, interesting?”

“All in good time, Miss Parker, all in good time. First, let’s take a look at the chromosomes that make up the biological parents of these particular embryos, that would be your friend Max, and your somewhat less friendly friend, Tess. Let us start with Max.”

With that, he hit several keys on his keyboard and projected a picture of human chromosomes on the screen above.

“There he is in all his chromosomal glory, Miss Parker. Can you tell me what is wrong with this chromosomal pattern?"

“Except that someone has drawn a box around the second chromosome, it looks pretty normal to me,” replied Liz.

“Now what if I were to tell you that every DNA sequence on one of those second chromosomes within that box were precisely – exactly – without the slightest of deviations – mirrored on the other one.”

“That – that couldn’t be. Just normal random variation between the male and female contributing to that strand would make that statistically impossible.”

“But nonetheless it is true – which suggests WHAT to you, Miss Parker.”

“That it isn’t – normal. That those areas on the chromosomes – one that came from the biological mother who provided Max’s DNA, one who came from the biological father – that those two areas are artificial – that they are engineered.”

“Precisely, Miss Parker. Now Michael has precisely the same sequence spliced in among the junk DNA on both of his second chromosomes, Tess and Isabel have the same area on their second chromosomes that is somewhat similar to that of the two males, and identical to each other. Now how can you put that together into a plausible hypothesis?”

Liz struggled to think. “I’m not sure – I need more data.”

Candler smiled at her. “Very good, Miss Parker. You have the makings of an excellent scientist. The next item is experimental in nature. I took the remaining cryogenically preserved embryo – frozen just after fertilization – and thawed it in a nutrient solution. The nutrient solution was not your typical embryo nutrient solution. It was increased tenfold over that of what would normally be used. I didn’t make the solution even more concentrated, because I feared the osmotic pressure of the solution would destroy the embryo, as it certainly would have a human embryo. I needn’t have worried. Even this level of nutrients is not enough. It did allow the embryo to get almost the size of a dime before it too died of malnutrition. This is how it developed…”

Liz watched the embryo develop – at first much as the previous embryos had developed, but instead of dying almost immediately it continued to grow. It quickly became distorted – ugly – hideous. It looked nothing at all like a human embryo, and the larger it got the more alien and repulsive it became. Even the size of a dime it looked vicious and evil. Finally it thrashed around in obvious death throes and then was still.

“What was that thing?”

“That, Miss Parker? I think that should be obvious. That was an early embryonic Antaran.”

“But why? Why would they even bother with the human DNA? Surely they could have put the DNA for an Antaran in this granolith thing if that was what they wanted. Why did they bother with Max and the others at all?”

“Two reasons, I believe, Miss Parker. Take a look at the chromosome structure of the Antaran,” he said, punching a few more keys.
“What was done was to slice away a part of the ‘trash DNA’ of chromosome two, and insert in its place this alien DNA. This are functions, basically as a gamete. At fertilization, the entire genome of the Antaran is complete, but the human DNA is not totally lost. It becomes, in effect, the ‘trash DNA’ of the Antaran.”

“Why?”

“What we call ‘trash DNA,’ Miss Parker, is not really trash. The so-called trash DNA is where the majority of our mutations occur that may lead to evolution, but it is also a library of genes that were once used during our evolution as a species. It is a history of our past successes in overcoming the genetic demands of our environment. It is very likely that having these DNA remnants available – these Earth-specific genes – gives the new Antaran potential protection from stressors unique to Earth. Do you recall H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds, Miss Parker?”

Liz nodded her head.

“The aliens from Mars were finally stopped – not by the military forces sent against them, but by the bacteria and viruses native to Earth. By incorporating Earth ‘trash DNA’ into the genome of those Antarans who will be colonizing – conquering – the Earth, they make it unlikely that will happen to their colony here. Should they be challenged in the future by a biological menace from Earth – they will likely have the right genes to be able to beat back that challenge.”

Liz nodded her head again. As much as she wanted to disbelieve it, this all made sense. The hypothesis certainly wasn’t proven by any means, but Dr. Candler had given the matter an awful lot of thought.

“You mentioned a second reason?”

“Yes, Miss Parker,” Candler said, staring at her strangely. “The second reason has to do with that embryo. It’s use of nutrients was incredibly high. In the end, it died of starvation – but it didn’t go easily. I calculated out it’s energy requirements and there was no way I could have put enough nutrients into the solution to satisfy its needs for its growthrate alone, but it also was using its powers. The Petri dish it was in was polycarbonate, about the most inert of the plastics. Even so, as the nutrients ran out it was trying to convert the carbon in the plastic into its own nutrients. It etched almost through the dish before it died trying to convert the dish into more Antaran.
The things have the ability to use their powers from birth, Miss Parker, unlike your friends who learned how to use the powers they have from the alien DNA in their own ‘junk DNA’ only in late childhood. But it’s worse than that – they couldn’t use the pod incubators to produce adult Antarans because the pods simply lacked the capacity to deliver nutrients quickly enough.”

“But you said the pods would have been able to keep Max and the others alive to adulthood. That would have to mean…”

“That the Antarans came up with a plan to avoid the restraints of the human pelvis that cause human children to be born small and vulnerable, Miss Parker, … that your friends Tess and Isabel were never intended to actually give birth in a conventional manner, … that they too, like the flight crew, and Nasedo, and the ship itself, …. They were all expendable, Miss Parker.

If my calculations are correct, the embryo’s nutrient need would have exceeded the capability of the interior of the uterus within a few weeks at most. It would then use it’s powers to convert the proteins of the uterus – your friends blood – their internal organs – all to build a bigger Antaran. It would emerge from the corpse only seconds after killing it’s human-hybrid incubators and attack anything close – most likely the human-hybrid males -- themselves designed to be faithful to their own mates - genetically programmed to be there with them in times of crisis. The males wouldn’t stand a chance one on one – or even two on one, against an Antaran born to use the full extent of it’s powers and almost fully grown. Your friends were designed not just to be expendable, Miss Parker, they were designed to be nutrients – concentrated and immediately available.”

“That’s insane, doctor,” said Liz. “The whole idea is insane. I don’t believe you – I don’t believe any of this…”

“Oh come now, Miss Parker. You’ve seen the recordings – it will be easy enough to show you the specimens themselves – let you rerun the DNA samples on our equipment if you would like. But just this fellow here…” Dr. Candler depressed a few keys, and a close-up of the last embryo appeared, “ … it clearly isn’t human – isn’t even terrestrial in origin. Look at it, Miss Parker – you know enough biology to know that I’m telling you the truth. The creature is hermaphroditic – if either of the creatures produced by either of the females managed to survive, ultimately it’s progeny could destroy all terrestrial life that could compete with it. That means you, Miss Parker, my own children – grandchildren. Biologically it would certainly be advantageous if both survived so they could exchange genetic material, but it would by no means be essential.”

Liz didn’t want to believe – that Max’s child could look like this monster. That wasn’t the dream that had been keeping her going since Max disappeared almost three years ago.

“Miss Parker – you know that no one on the Earth has the technical capability to produce something like this. This creature isn’t something that I created – I do not have the ability to slice into chromosomes and insert an alien genome. You know the pairing in the second chromosome could NOT have been natural – had to have been artificial – and the same for that in the females. To produce a whole organism – you know that even a small mistake – a small miscoding, and these areas couldn’t have functioned as a gamete. You KNOW this was artificial, Miss Parker.
And the way it was done, Miss Parker, there is no non-hostile inference that can be drawn from what was done to the chromosomes of your friends. I realize I haven’t shown you all the proof of the claims that I have made, but I certainly can – and will.”

No, he hadn’t really shown proof. Liz knew that. The problem was that he had no reason to believe that SHE would arrive here. He couldn’t have done this in the fifteen minutes or so between her TASERing and her being brought here. It was clear that Doctor Candler DID believe that what he was saying was the truth but why was he telling her all this? Was he just taunting her? Was he really uncertain and wanting an honest second opinion? Did he have some hidden agenda?”

“What part don’t you believe, Miss Parker? I can certainly show you the lab data – the remainder of the specimens. What part of my hypothesis do you find in conflict with the evidence?”

“How many people who you’ve showed this to do believe you?” she asked, stalling for time as she desperately tried to come up with some logical inconsistency in his argument. She couldn’t find any. Some of what he said was certainly speculative, but if the man was being honest with her, there really were no logical inconsistencies that came rapidly to mind. If this was a fraud, it must be that he had planned it to present to someone else – most likely his superiors, in order to justify his killing of Max and the others. The problem was, the man really did seem to believe it.

“Well, Miss Parker, I believe it is fair to say that I have not WIDELY circulated my hypothesis. The lab technicians, for example, know procedures, but formulating and analyzing hypothesis I would consider a little beyond them.:

“Well how many people exactly have you told this story to? And what did they think.”
“Counting yourself, Miss Parker, … I have told one person.”

Liz looked at the man – stunned. ‘What’s going on here?’

“Why?”

“Why, what, Miss Parker?”
“Why me?”

“Well, let us say, Miss Parker, that I value your opinion, scientist to scientist…”

Liz could tell he was lying – the man didn’t lie well at all. She was no better trained than those technicians. She might be one day – but certainly not now. But that made the problem worse in its own way, because that meant he clearly DID believe this fantastic story of his – that Max’s offspring would be monsters – and also that he had some other agenda as well.

“Why have you told no other scientists?”

“I have told no one, Miss Parker, because I cannot allow this information to become generally known. Once this information leaves this facility, my options for delaying my decision – hoping that I might discover some other factor – find something else that would allow a better option than euthanizing your friends – once the information leaves this facility, those options run out, Miss Parker.”

“So I take it I’m not going to be allowed to leave. You are going to hold me here? Or perhaps you are going to ‘euthanize’ me also, once you get done with whatever game you are playing?”

“Miss Parker, you wound me greatly. We all have our own cultural values. Unlike my predecessor, I would not dream of putting pressure on a young lady to do something that she did not wish to do. I consider you a junior colleague, Miss Parker. I would no more harm you than I would harm my own daughters. You may leave of your own volition at any time. Unfortunately, once this information is no longer secure, the time runs out for me to make my decision, and at this time it would appear that my best option would be to destroy your four friends.”

“But why? If what you say is true – if the evidence really is as you say – I can talk to them and explain it. Max would believe me – He’d understand. He could explain to the others why they could never mate. You wouldn’t have to kill them.”

“I appreciate your offer of help, Miss Parker, but it wouldn’t work. It would change nothing. Your friends would still have to die.”

“But why? You admit yourself that they are not animals, whatever the bureaucracy . That makes killing them murder.”

“I suppose it does at that. I shall no doubt feel guilty about that for the rest of my days, Miss Parker, but as I told you, I am pragmatic. Their deaths are preferable to their being the cause of the destruction of the human species – something that I personally can prevent only by destroying them while they are still within my power to do so. I have already left your friends alone for four months. I have, at most, another 12 months to produce results which I have no intention of producing, before someone is sent to replace me. Once you leave I must assume that I will no longer be able to keep my secret – the fact that I have no intention of EVER permitting the hybrid males and females to mate with one another. Once that is known to my superiors, I will be replaced immediately, possibly with no time to euthanize your friends. I simply can’t take the chance – the future of the world is riding on this – the lives of my own daughters and grandchildren depend upon this.”

“But you don’t HAVE to kill them. Just explain to your superiors like you have explained to me. Once they understand, surely they won’t want Max and the others to mate….”

“Once again, Miss Parker, your naiveté concerning the bureaucracy betrays you. I have custody of your friends in this little facility because they are regarded as a low risk, long term, low cost, low priority project. It is hoped that they will produce others like themselves – infants who can be raised to do the bureaucracy’s bidding, much like those dolphins I told you about – or military working dogs. But even THAT is not the primary goal of keeping them here.
The prime purpose in having them here actually is political – to avoid offending the xenophobic voters who believe that life only exists on Earth, to avoid further stoking the paranoia of the fools who regularly gather in Roswell for your crash festival, to avoid having to deal with others who would be offended at the very fact that human- non-human hybridization is possible.”

“But the public wouldn’t have to know…”

“True, Miss Parker, but my superiors WOULD have to know, and at that point the priorities would change considerably. Your friends would no longer be what amounts to be political prisoners given the status of protected animals. They would become a priority military project, with absolute security, not even permitted the luxury of one another’s company. The new priority would be to actually produce Antarans.”

“I can’t believe anyone would actually do that – let that happen to Isabel or Tess. But more than that, why would someone go out of their way to create monsters?”

“Oh, I don’t mean to imply that they would actually let the females incubate the Antarans. They would want to keep the females, no doubt, as a future source of more eggs, which of course wouldn’t work if they died, which most certainly would be the result if they tried to gestate the creatures inside them. No, I rather suppose that host-mothers would be found. Non-human primates would certainly do the job, in fact since the host-mother will only be a meal herself after the first few months, it’s very possible even common barnyard animals such as cows or pigs would be used. No, your friends would be used only to provide Antaran gametes for what would be intended to be a weapon system. The fallacy there is that the government would believe they could control the Antarans that they would create. In fact, I don’t believe they could. Your government would create a high-priority program to create a new weapon system, but the weapon system would have a mind of it’s own. Ultimately I believe the weapon system would win, not those who created it.
I take it, Miss Parker, that you are aware of Miss Harding’s ability to – I guess you would say – remotely hypnotize someone?”

Liz hesitated only a fraction, thinking that if Candler actually didn’t know about Tess’s mindwarp powers, she didn’t want to give away that secret. It might be something the four could exploit to get away, although she didn’t know how. The system guarding them now was pretty much mechanical and electronic, with no human controllers close enough for Tess to affect them.

“Uh – I don’t know what you mean…”

Candler smiled indulgently and shook his head. “Come, come, Miss Parker. You apparently have been a very honest person – the prefect Miss Parker, wasn’t it? That is no doubt why you lie so very poorly. The hesitation gave you away.”

“Uh, really, I don’t ….”

”Miss Parker! Come now, have I not treated you collegially? Have I not shared my information with you? I have NEVER met Miss Harding in the flesh, and will resolve this problem without ever doing so, and without ever placing any of my subordinates at that risk either. I am merely trying to ascertain any flaws in my logic. Now tell the truth, Miss Parker. I believe I have been fair – and certainly honest – in what I’ve told you. Are you aware of these powers of Miss Harding? Yes or no?”

“We call it mindwarping – yeah she can do it. How did you find out?”

“I started to be suspicious when I saw their interrogation tapes. Even under drugs, the one thing all four were sure of was that Nasedo had the power to hypnotize. It was the only thing they were sure of – the drugs themselves cause some degree of hallucinations and suggestibility – that’s why the interrogations are repeated time and time again. The fact that this was the one thing your friends were adamant about suggested….”

“Suggested that it was a planted memory – meant to be revealed.”

“Precisely, Miss Parker. Were those FBI idiots as bright as you, this facility would probably never have been created, they would have likely believed that they could have made some more immediate use of your Miss Harding. But in fairness, I likely wouldn’t have understood myself, had I not known what happened to my predecessor. He confronted your friend Tess, using their collars to anesthetize the other three – then confronted her in person. I saw the tapes of that confrontation. A crude man, was my predecessor. He told her if she didn’t get busy and seduce your friend Max, he’d ‘break her in himself,’ I believe was the term he used. With her collar on he no doubt considered himself safe from her use of telekinesis – it is set to anesthetize and to shock her at the first sign of that power. So apparently she used her – what do you call it – mindwarp? What an appropriate name.”

"What happened?”

“Oh, He left – left immediately. He went directly to the other holding facility and attempted to sexually attack a young female there.”

“He tried to rape a woman?”

“Well, yes, that’s apparently what he believed he was doing at least. It wouldn’t have been without precedent if he had I fear, poor Ms. Jefferies likely suffered exactly that fate – through economic coercion rather than physical force. I simply can’t understand how an y man could pressure a woman to have sex – certainly not the cultural values I was raised with.”

“But what did he do? You said he attacked a young lady at the other facility.”

”No, no, Miss Parker, I said he attacked a young female. A female wolf – a lobo – not even in heat, mind you. Perhaps she might have been more receptive otherwise, but considering the personality of my predecessor, probably not even then. She defended her virtue, Miss Parker, with fang and claw. My predecessor went to the hospital – was removed in disgrace – and that’s how I got this job. My predecessor will require several more surgeries before Ms. Jefferies or anyone else will have to worry about the man again. I must say, whatever disputes you and Miss Harding may have had in the past, the young lady certainly does have a sense of the ironic.”

“But what does this have to do with the four of them having to die?”

“It’s simple, Miss Parker. Your friends have their powers because of the alien genes sitting in their junk DNa. They had to learn how to activate those genes – learn how to use those powers. The Antarans they would produce would have those powers at birth – full and intuitive use of them. I could never convince the Army of that – they’d have to try. They’d fail, and the human race would be destroyed. THAT is why I must destroy your friends BEFORE the bureaucracy knows about their potential. That is why I am forced into the situation that I am.”

“But why can’t you simply let them go. Once I tell them, they’ll never mate.”

“It isn’t up to them, Miss Parker, any more than it is up to the wolves in the other holding facility. They are – officially – animals. They have no rights. They can’t petition the courts – they can’t vote – they can’t get married – the bureaucracy can do anything it wishes with them, as long as they are considered animals, and the government still has legions of lawyers to fight that battle for decades. This is political, Miss Parker. Until it is more politically hazardous to classify them as animals than it is to classify them as humans, animals they are and animals they will remain – at least as far as the bureaucracy is concerned.”

“But we could all hide…”

”And be caught by someone who would be unable – or unwilling – to stop what the bureaucracy would then do? Not acceptable, Miss Parker.”

“So rather than give them even a chance to survive – a chance to live their lives, you would destroy them while you can, is that it?”

“I would prefer to phrase that differently, Miss Parker. Let us say that rather than give them a chance to destroy the human race, I would rather destroy them while I have the opportunity, yes. That is not something I find pleasant and I sincerely wish that I had other options. It is not, however, within my power to alter that situation. It is certainly not the best outcome that could be – I’ve done a total decision tree matrix on the issue. I have explored every option,” Candler said, pulling up a computer screen with an involved decision tree matrix on it, “and the best option that I have is to destroy them – while I still can.”

Liz looked at the diagram – it was enormous. The doctor had indeed attempted to consider every option. She reached for the mouse and hesitated…

“See for yourself, Miss Parker,” said Candler, pushing the notebook toward her.

She clicked on the hyperlink for the first option – to do nothing but to tell the four of what he had found – and it opened another page. There was an extensive assessment of the pros and cons of that option as well as an analysis at the bottom”

• Most Probable Outcome:
  12 months – replacement of self as director 100% probability
  14 months – new director notifies Washington of findings 99+% probability
  15 months – military program initiates host-pregnancy program 99+% probability
  26 months – Antarans escape from military 95% probability
  48 months – Antarans essentially control their own destiny 94% probability
  72 months – destruction of human race. 95% probability

Liz returned to the front diagram and clicked through option after option, each a litany of failure – each one except the bottom one. That one called for the euthanization of all four of the hybrids and destruction of all genetic material from them – even that one gave a 50% figure for destruction of the human race.

• Most Probable Outcome:
  Euthanize hybrids
  immediate – replacement of self as director 100% probability
  within 6 months – Forced resignation from government service 99+% probability
  eventual – destruction of human race. 50% probability

She looked up at him quizzically, the horror of seeing the death of Max and the others spelled out in black and white almost too great to even ask the question. He seemed to read her mind.

“The Antaran empire still exists. It may take them a few hundred years to realize they have failed and get resources into position to try this again. Perhaps we will be advanced enough then to fight them effectively – perhaps not. I wish I could say that I’m doing this for the survival of the human race, Miss Parker, but I can’t even say that. I’m going to kill your friends just to buy us time – to let my grandchildren live their lives in relative safety. That’s all it does.”
Liz looked at the other options on the page – all of them had outcomes that were worse for the human race, and none had even Max and the others surviving more than six years. They died with the rest of the human race.

Liz shook her head in disbelief. If he was telling the truth about the science – and she couldn’t see any obvious flaws in his assessments – it really came down to the accuracy of Dr. Candler’s analysis of what the bureaucracy would do. She had no way of knowing that – perhaps he was being unduly pessimistic. That’s what she wanted to believe anyway, as she scrolled through the second page.

The first option there was to attempt to force the bureaucracy to recognize the rights of the hybrids through the UN. He gave that zero chance of success, and she couldn’t fault him on that. Most of the nations in the UN didn’t have anything like those rights even for their own citizens – many would not want to accept the fact that there was ‘life out there’ for religious reasons – in fact, the longer Liz perused the hyperlinked analysis, the more she began to despair. Candler had put some real effort into this over the last four months, and the chance of her coming up with anything that he hadn’t already considered looked small.

It was the third and final page where she saw it. The page of incredible long-shot occurrences that Candler himself didn’t have the ability to control. It was, in fact, the very last option of the analysis after Candler had exhaustively explored everything else, and it was rated a ‘zero percent’ probability of his initiating it. But once initiated – it had a 95% chance of the hybrids surviving – a 90 % chance of humanity surviving long term. She went back and read the option more carefully and looked up at Candler.

“You expect me to….”

“No, Miss Parker,” said Candler, “ … blushing furiously, “I expect nothing of you. No one has the right to expect you to do that. When Max revealed himself to save you – just that spelled the doom of the Antaran plan this time. You’ve done your part, and I certainly wouldn’t ask you to do any more.”

“Max,” Liz gasped, “You surprised me!”

“I surprised YOU?” he exclaimed, “... what are you doing here?”

But even as he asked the question, his eyes were giving him the answer. Liz wasn't wearing a captives collar or bracelet. She was covered with a camouflage poncho liner, carrying a small pack,and she was infiltrating the camp quietly in the darkness. Liz wasn't a captive – not yet anyway – and if Max had his way she never would be. He had to get her out of here and back to safety, before she was discovered.

“I have a plan for freeing all four of you, but I'm going to need need your help,” Liz replied, as she bent slightly and ducked her head inside the poncho liner to push it over her head and on to the floor. Even before she had it off, Max was already voicing his objections.

“What you need, Liz, is to get out of here now, before they spot you. We've tried everything for almost three years. These collars trap us here and we can't take them off. You need to get back through the fence while you still .......”

As she looked up at him she was gnawing on her lower lip nervously and blushing fiercely. The negligee clearly emphasized far more than it concealed, but it had the desired effect. Max's lips were still moving in protest, but no sounds were coming from his mouth. She figured she had already spent enough time discussing her decision with Dr. Candler.

She should have listened when he kept saying that everyone had their own cultural values and realized that he was talking about himself. Liz hadn't met the man's daughters, but if they hadn't been virgins on their wedding nights it wouldn't have been because the good doctor hadn't shared his values with them. He'd gone through that whole damn decision matrix showing her the other options beside the obvious one – option thirty-seven – she thought to demonstrate that he'd considered every option before finally putting that one last. He'd then spent another hour making sure she understood she was under no obligation to implement option thirty-seven – none whatsoever. She might have chided him about the alternative being the likely destruction of the human race, but by then it was so apparent that he was so embarrassed at what he obviously wanted her to do – even though he couldn't ever come right out and ask her – that she was afraid he was going to lose it altogether.

It had helped – finally – when she'd told him that option thirty-seven had been a long term goal of hers all along, and pushing it up a few years in the interest of saving Max and the others – not to mention the human race, was fine with her. It appeared despite his inhibitions, he was somewhat of a romantic after all. She'd commented that she needed a shower before starting the plan – and lamented that she hadn't packed quite the right equipment for this particular job. He'd surprised her by saying he somehow doubted that – then blushing profusely at what he clearly considered a risqué' comment, before giving her a government credit card - he'd said the national debt was in the trillions anyway and she should get what she needed. He'd then had Ms. Jefferies take her in to Yuma. The negligee that had rendered Max speechless had been purchased at the Victoria's Secret in Yuma, and she'd scarcely had time to get there, get back, shower, and dry her hair, before coming out to Max's cabin.

She looked back at Max who was still somewhat speechless. She hoped to avoid the prolonged discussion with Max she'd had with Dr. Candler, in some ways the two were quite alike, Max wouldn't want her to feel pressured to execute option thirty-seven, even to save his life. Perhaps the negligee was overkill, but she simply didn't want to be bothered with that sort of argument with Max, she'd had enough of it with Dr. Candler. She was, as she'd told Candler, a big girl who knew what she was doing. This wasn't about saving the human race – it wasn't even about saving Max. This was about love, and even if she knew they both were going to die tomorrow, she'd want to be doing this tonight.

Fortunately, the negligee seemed to work. Eventually Max found his voice, and it wasn't to protest.

“I uh – think I like your plan so far, Liz.... What's in the pack?”

She blushed and chewed nervously on her lower lip before answering. “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine ....”

“I don't think either of those is really going to be necessary.”

“Don't be too sure. We have some work to do, you and I, and not a whole lot of time to do it. You are going to need to keep your strength up.”


It was nine month and fourteen days later that the four alien-hybrid captives, Liz, and nine day old Abigail Parker-Evans were released from the internment facility. The bureaucracy had screamed but little Abigail's godfather, Dr. Chandler had made it perfectly clear, he was certifying that the child was indeed the progeny of Max and Liz. The Bureaucracy was in a box. Four grandparents – two of them lawyers – were prepared to take on the bureaucracy with a writ of habeus corpus calling for the release of their grand-daughter and her father. If the bureaucracy were to admit the existence of aliens, it would enrage a huge voting constituency whose religious beliefs held that humans were the only intelligent life in the Universe. If they claimed that Max was an animal, then they had to deal with the consequences of allowing animal-human breeding on a federal facility, which was politically even more disastrous. The bureaucracy tried a bluff, offering human status for the four if everyone involved would sign non-disclosure agreements, but Chandler proved more than their equal in negotiations. Then they offered $20, 000 per internee in compensation, 'the same as Japanese-Americans interned in WWII received,' and Candler suggested that there had been a whole lot of inflation since WWII and that was NOT going to be adequate. Under threat of seeing Liz and little Abby's face on the front of the National Enquirer under the heading, 'Woman impregnated by alien at secret government facility bears sky-child,' the bureaucracy had caved completely. Candler suggested $5 million each, with an additional $2.5 million each for Liz and Abby. The bureaucracy decided what the hell, they had a national debt of trillions anyway, and another $25 million wasn't going to make that much difference.

The wedding of Liz and Max happened back in Roswell two days later, to everyone's joy and to Candler's obvious relief – he was sitting in the front row holding little Abby. Within three months three other marriages occurred, as first Tess and Kyle, then Isabel and Alex, and – finally – even Maria and Michael tied the knot. The alien gametes in the four hybrids never did manage to find other alien gametes. The genes weren't lost – in fact little Abby had inherited half the DNA to form an Antaran from her father, but the DNA was mixed with that of her mother when she was formed through a process called assortment in meiosis. Basically, once the child was conceived, their Antaran DNA was irretrievably mixed with human DNA and could never form a full fledged Antaran. But little Abby had the same genes as her daddy did, albeit spread around a little more, and eventually the same powers. Let's just say that the 'terrible twos' at the homes of the Evanses, Guerins, Whitmaan's, and Valentis, were more interesting than most.

Epilogue:

Unfortunately, nobody lives happily ever after. It was two hundred years before the next Antaran ship successfully seeded Earth again, and this time the result was the production of two viable full blooded Antarans. Max and Liz and the other three couples were long dead by that time, having lived rich lives surrounded by their families. Two hundred years is, it turns out, nine generations, and the four families had prospered indeed. The fertility rate for the couples and their progeny averaged four children per family giving the eighth generation thirty-two thousand and the ninth generation in excess of a hundred thousand descendants at the time of the second invasion.

While normal humans were unable to withstand the powers of the Antarans, the descendants of these four families retained their own Antaran genes and fought back where the unmodified humans could not. They wer nowhere near as powerful as the Antarans, but as Kipling had described hundreds of year previously in Arithmetic on the Frontier, numbers have their own strength, even if individually they were no match for purebred Antarans. When the battle was over the hybrids had sustained hundreds of casualties – including thirty that not even their powers of healing could keep alive. The Antarans casualties were only two. Game, set, and match in the second Antaran War went to Earth.

The third battle was, if anything, even more one-sided. Earth forces in deepspace detected the incoming ship in time to plot it's course before destroying it, Their granolithic drive space ships eventually found the Antaran empire. The ensuing battle lasted nearly seven centuries but at its end, 781 native intelligent species were recreated from genetic remnants and re-peopled the once captured planet while using their superior technology, Earth forces eventually beat back the Antarian race to their original planet and reduced them to a pre-technical society. The restored peoples joined the victorious Terrans in assuring that the type of savagery practiced by the Antarans could never happen again. This ushered in the first age of Galactic Enlightenment for the Milky Way Galaxy.


The End