EXODUS

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 15
Diplomatic Solutions
 

“I don’t know if I’m the right person for this, Wyatt,” Halley said as she stood in the corridor that let out at the blast door for the main entrance. The elfin woman wrung her hands, avoiding close proximity to the savannah cat and looking into the hybrid’s eyes.

Wyatt knew that he’d frightened the girl terribly and it felt as if it was killing him not to be able to hold the young woman, to feel her arms around him, the warmth that she could provide that went far beyond the physical. Desperate to try and repair the damage his actions had caused he stepped in front of her, blocking Halley from the circuit of pacing she’d been indulging in. “Halley,” he began. “Please, look at me.”

The girl held up her hands and turned her head away, her eyes tightly closed. “Wyatt…I…I can’t. Not right now. I’m sorry.” Halley shook her head. “Not…not after what I saw you do.” She heard his sigh and chanced a glance in the savannah cat’s direction just enough to see his shoulders slum and tail hit the floor.

“Now you see me as a monster, too,” he all but whispered.

“Not a monster, Wyatt,” the young woman replied just as softly. “At least not fully.” Halley lowered her hands. “I…I know the terrible things she’s done to you. I really do. But…you killed Lesko like an animal would. That…it’s going to take me a little bit to come to grips with that.”

“Wyatt? They’re almost to the blast door. I need to open it up if we’re going to talk to them,” Tonya said over the intercom speakers, the once woman who now resembled a cheetah keeping watch over the security cameras. “Wyatt? Five of them have guns.”

“That’s expected, Tonya. Go ahead and open the doors,” Wyatt told the female hybrid while looking at Haley’s sneakered feet. In a softer voice he spoke to the girl. “I’ll stand back in the shadows while you talk to them. Warn them about what we look like and why. Tell them we won’t hurt them but definitely need their help.”

Halley nodded and stepped to the huge door that was already groaning and squealing as motors slid the high density steel into the rock and concrete.

Wyatt watched as the woman he cared about stepped into the late afternoon sunlight, the breeze that slid past the partially open blast door full of the tang of salt air that comforted the savannah cat. Though he stayed in the shadows, he saw Halley draw close to the men and begin speaking. He could hear the buzz of conversation, but not specific words as the girl gestured inside the bunker. Apparently she got to the point of what had been going on in the complex as the five men of the landing party that were armed tightened or adjusted their grip on shotguns and military style rifles. It wasn’t surprising that the sailors were so well armed as piracy had spread and it wasn’t uncommon for ships to encounter marauders in nearly all waters anymore.

One of the men, either the captain of the freighter or his first officer as he was a quite a bit better dressed than the others nodded and peered at the dark opening, the setting sun glinting off his glasses and turning his golden blond hair and beard a vibrant red. The man said something to the men that were with him accompanied by calming and placating gestures before motioning to Halley to lead him through the door.

Wyatt sighed as the pair returned to the opening and readied himself for the worst possible reaction. Halley stepped over the threshold of the armored portal, the man right on her heels. He paused as his eyes tried to acclimate to the much darker interior and blinked several times before his gaze settled on the anthrocat. The man took off his glasses, stared hard as he wiped the lenses and then resettled the gold wire framed spectacles back on his weathered nose. He stared for several long moments before shaking off whatever he was feeling and locked gazes with the cat man.

“You are being dis Vyatt I vas talking to, yes?” the man inquired in accented English.

“Yes, Sir.” The savannah cat stepped under one of the LED fixtures while trying to look as non-threatening as possible. “I’m Wyatt Renner. I’m the one who put out the mayday.”

“Dis voman says you vere being a man not long ago, and dat strange tings vere being done to be making you dis vay, correct?”

“That is also correct,” he replied. “Please, help us. There are sixty three of us left out of over one hundred fifty. For the better part of a year all we’ve known is torture and pain and abuse. Some of us have been hunted for sport. We…we aren’t even men and women anymore. There’s nothing left for us, but the ones that did this have to be brought to justice.”

The blond man narrowed his eyes as his chin lifted a little. “Are you requesting de asylum? Ve are not near Sveden. I tink dese are still being American waters…”

“If we could get asylum we’d definitely take it. I don’t know about American waters. This facility was purchased from the American government, but the laws might be a little,” Wyatt smiled slightly, “fuzzy about whose territory this really is.”

“You joke good!” the man told the anthrocat with a grin that was almost invisible under the thick beard and mustache. “I vill be calling my government. Perhaps someting can be arranged, yes?”

“I hope so,” Wyatt agreed. “You might want to let your government know that there is an American senator here that helped do this to all of us. We’re not sure of the level of his involvement, but I don’t think any of this would have been possible without him.”

“He is your prisoner? Hostage?”

“Guest,” Wyatt amended quickly. “He was here to examine us when we were able to…”

The man squinted at the savannah cat. “To vhat?”

“To gain control from the ones that were hurting us.”

“Ah. I am seeing, I tink. An vhat has happened to the people dater hurting you and using you for experiments?”

The feline fidgeted slightly but decided that honesty was the best policy. “Most of them are dead. I was the one that killed the one that ran all of this.”

The sailor nodded after a moment. “Honesty. Dis is good. You vould not lie about that.”

“Oh, and we have a witness that can corroborate the things that I’ve said.”

“Vhat kind of vitness?”

“A man that was brought here to…to hunt some of us. He was American Navy. He was injured helping us get our freedom.”

The man thought for several moments before stepping to the door and shouting at his men in Swedish then returned to where the anthrocat stood. “I am Captain Bjorn Snorrisen. You will be allowing me to speak vit dis vitness?”

“Absolutely,” Wyatt said, relief causing some of the tension to leave the set of his shoulders as he gestured down the hallway. “This way, please.” 

*** 

The sun beat down with a warmth that was unseasonably hot even for Stockholm in the middle of summer and the man that walked briskly along the pedestrian thoroughfare wished that he’d foregone the suit jacket that felt far too stifling in the heat. Fortunately the target of his foray onto the city streets was at his usual spot in the shade tree of the small outdoor café, an electronic slate in his hands that had print interspersed with different colored graphs that were visible even at a distance. The seated man’s forehead was youthfully unlined as he perused the information on the touch sensitive screen, his expression one of calm serenity.

 “There you are, Asmudr! I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am that you are so predictable sometimes!” the harried individual said as he sat in the chair opposite the other with a surprising lack of his usual decorum.

Ásmundr set the slate aside with an expression of surprise. “Thorvald?” he asked with the hint of a smile for his cousin. “What brings you out of that dreadful little office the Riksdag has you slaving away in?” He looked wryly at the other man. “Don’t tell me the Prime Minister has dismissed you from the Foreign Service?”

Thorvald shook his head as he fanned his face with an open palm. “No, though with what’s happened in the past twenty four hours that might not be such a bad thing.” A waiter came and deposited a glass of ice water for the newcomer without being asked, which Thorvald drank down gratefully. “What’s come across my desk has the potential to cause absolute international chaos. Unfortunately I’m here to ruin your afternoon.”

“And how, pray tell, are you going to ruin my afternoon?” Ásmundr asked with a wry smile.

“Because I asked my superior, who then sent my request to the Minister directly, that I be allowed to procure you for an unspecified term of service for the good of Sweden. As of,” the man looked at his Swiss made gold and sapphire watch, “ninety three minutes ago, you were appointed as a special consultant to my office.”

“Special consultant?” Ásmundr inquired with a curious twitch to his eyebrow, the only outward expression of confusion and interest. “Special consultant for what?”

“Not here,” Thorvald said as he brushed back a stray lock of hair that was the same pale gold-blond as the other man. “I’ve been instructed to request and secure your presence at the Foreign Service offices immediately…and for the foreseeable future.”

“Well, then,” Ásmundr replied lightly as he stood, “we shouldn’t keep the Minister waiting on me, should we?”

Thorvald nodded and followed his cousin’s lead and got up before stepping to the edge of the sidewalk to signal a car to pull up to the curb next to the café and gestured for the other man to precede him. Once both were comfortably ensconced in the back the Ministry driver put power from the hydrogen fuel cells to the convertor that turned the chemical reaction into electricity and from there to the four hub motors. Once they were on their way back to the offices that Thorvald worked in, the man felt comfortable to speak.

“Seventeen hours ago a freighter under our country’s flag received a distress mayday from an unknown source in the Bering Sea on a return course from Anchorage, Alaska, before making scheduled stops in Tokyo, Manila and then a return by way of South Africa. Right now the SS Valkyrie is waiting for a response from my office as the ones that have sent the mayday message are requesting asylum.” Thorvald slipped a leather covered briefcase out from under his seat as he spoke and worked the numerical lock that was augmented by a thumbprint reader. “The nature of this incident has the entire Service in quite the quandary and orders for secrecy have been handed down by the Prime Minister herself.”

“Asylum? I’m assuming that the originators of the distress are American?” Ásmundr inquired. “I wouldn’t think that the United States government would be too thrilled with us offering asylum to an untold number of their citizens without good cause.”

“Probably not,” Thorvald agreed as he pulled out a series of image flimsies from his case. “Especially as every single one of the people that the message was sent for is supposed to be dead. Apparently each one of the individuals bears the name of people that have supposedly been executed the previous year for capital crimes, and they also have an American Senator with them. It seems that he’s partly responsible for their predicament.”

Ásmundr looked at the flexible sheets of plastic that had the images on them etched in by laser that provided a much better picture than standard film and was often used for facsimile transmitted photos. “This…these are real? These aren’t fabrications? Or CGI? These are real?”

Thorvald nodded solemnly. “I have the sworn word of Captain Bjorn Snorrisen that these images are real including video in my office that one of the crewmen took on a portable recorder. The one that actually sent the message claims that he and the others were prisoners slated for execution that were illegally experimented on using a version of the DNA rewriting procedure developed by Professor Oliver McEwen of the medical sciences university in Edinburgh. According to this…man, Wyatt Renner, the one that did this to him and the others was one of the assistant developers that helped pioneer the process. She used these people to validate her hypotheses regarding McEwen’s work. That’s not all, though.”

“There’s more?” Ásmundr inquired as he continued to flip through the image sheets.

“I would say that that’s plenty, but no, there is more.” Thorvald shook his head before rubbing the bridge of his nose as if he were on the verge of a severe headache. “Some of the technicians and medical personnel that were a part of the experiments, unwillingly so they say, have thrown in with the…ah, victims of this crime, and are also requesting asylum. In return, all of those concerned are willing to turn over all of the data that’s been accumulated from this fiasco. They allege to also having proof that this was funded by the Terran Colonial Coalition. Specifically on the orders of Andre Bolivar.”

Ásmundr gave in to something that was particularly uncharacteristic and swore vehemently under his breath before regaining control and resituating the flimsies, the twenty nine year old man priding himself on his sense of propriety and decorum. He handed them back. “So what does this have to do with me, cousin? I’m not a statesman nor am I a diplomat or all that versed in international law regarding refugees.”

“No. You are not,” Thorvald agreed. “But, you are one of the premiere medical geneticists in Sweden, and you control the majority stock in great grandfather’s company. You contribute to the colonization effort, have made substantial contributions to the efforts of the TCC, and you know, or know of, the things that have been alluded to. That’s why the Prime Minister wishes your input. Needless to say, the entire Riksdag is suffering collective apoplexy over this one.”

Ásmundr rubbed at his scrupulously clean shaven chin as he looked out the window at the buildings they passed by, the old and new architecture of his home city blending together into something that was uniquely Swedish. “The first thing we have to do is grant them the asylum that they are requesting,” he told the other man softly.

“What? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Ásmundr stated firmly. “If the Americans are allowed to get their hands on these poor devils, they’ll most certainly turn them or the research involved into some form of weapon…or they may kill them all and destroy the remains outright. Talk about an embarrassment of international proportions. The second is that this might be precisely the answer for the entire interstellar colony program that it seems Bolivar felt it might be. We can take this atrocity and turn it into something beneficial, something good, Thorvald. While the thought of how this breakthrough was made sickens me, I can’t imagine letting it go to waste! We can save these people, help them, learn from this and turn something that was done completely the wrong way and use it to help untold thousands.”

The man blinked at his cousin, unsure if he was hearing things properly. “Help thousands? And how can this do that? He asked as he shook the image sheets in emphasis.

“If these people are indeed a blending of human and animal, then it’s possible that they may prove more adaptable, more resilient to alien environments than pathfinder colonists have demonstrated so far. If there is anything of the animal that they’ve been crossed with still viable, then we may be seeing the first in a new breed of interstellar explorers that can use senses far better than any man or woman is born with. If they have the same resistance to weather changes, then they may be able to better acclimate to adverse conditions or seasonal fluctuations.

“Let me put it this way,” Ásmundr said as he grew rather excited. “Picture a sled dog, a poor example, I know. It is not only tolerant of the cold, it does far better than any other canine, able to withstand temperatures that would easily kill even the most thoroughly outfitted man. Now, give it the intelligence to utilize proper gear for exploration, sensors, mappers, chemical testers, and you would have a candidate far better suited for the exploration and colonization of alien worlds!

“Not only could this individual utilize the equipment to ensure a planet is viable for colonization, but add in human intellect, the ability to make suppositions and hypotheses or even an educated guess. I would take that over a computerized probe anytime because he or she would be able to use nonlinear thinking that cannot be programmed into a machine! A machine can only look for the specifics that have been programmed into it while a person, regardless if they have been combined with an animal, will use experience and reasoning coupled with instincts to learn about the unknown!”

“We may be getting ahead of ourselves here, Ásmundr,” the other man admonished. “How would you get people to accept this? Do we do what’s been done already? Take prisoners and subjugate them to this against their will?”

“Volunteers!” Ásmundr answered, his enthusiasm growing with each passing minute. “If this is based on Professor McEwen’s cancer treatment process there are any number of people that are even now suffering from terminal illnesses that would jump at the chance just in order to be healthy once more! For others, offer them…say an enticement, a bonus. So much time on an offworld colony for a monetary payment. Considering the economic woes that so many nations are suffering, I’m sure that this would be more than sufficient for a multitude of people that are tired of their lack of wealth to volunteer.” The man paused. “There will be those that are reluctant to this, though. They’ll see it as a violation of the Human Dignity Laws the UN established a while ago when scientists first began delving into genetic modifications. We’d have to take steps.”

Ásmundr looked up to find his cousin grinning at him with a knowing expression.

“What?”

“And this is why I was the one that suggested your name for the position of consultant,” Thorvald said smugly.

It took a few moments before Ásmundr joined his cousin in grinning broadly. “I may have the intelligence and foresight, but you always were the schemer, Thorvald.” The amusement melted from the man’s face as he considered other ramifications of the situation he’d been pulled into. “Thor, we need to get everyone moving as soon as possible. Get those people. Give them asylum and get them out of there as quickly as possible. While the arrangements are being made, the process needs to be started to protect these people.”

“Can they even be classified as people anymore?” Thorvald asked. “For God’s sake, they have fur now. And tails! We can’t qualify them as people or even human!”

“They are still members of humankind, Thor,” Ásmundr said with a hardening in his tone. “They may look different, but they’re still people.” The man paused and smiled. “Furry humankind. Furmankind! We are human…we’ll call them furman!”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.