Chapter Seven
Gastrovere

Stephanie Atto sits with her husband Marcus on the couch, not looking at Officer Patty Johnson, whom she's met twice already nor the other human, who she hasn't. She glances occasionally at George but mostly she sits tensely, huddled into the black dress that covers her from neck to floor. Her husband, a large Newcomer who looks the part of a typical lumberjack except that the nearest forest is nearly a hundred miles distant, sits with his arm about her shoulders. While not a small woman, Stephanie is dwarfed by his bulk, but much of that comes from her hunched over, pulled in posture.

None of this scene was unexpected, even in that she pointedly tries to pretend neither human is present by initially speaking only in Tenctonese. Marcus Atto tried to convince her otherwise, but only wound up serving as interpreter in both directions, which significantly slowed things at first.

It was only when her own impatience at not being clearly understood overwhelmed her that she started to open up.

"It happened four days ago," she admits for the fourth time, this time in English, knowing she has no choice but to begin the story again. "He – I thought he was just going to help me with my groceries." She tells them of the suspect's having helped her carry packages into the apartment, but then he'd taken something from his pocket and turned it on. "I tried to resist. I knew what he was doing but I tried to resist. I really tried. I did. I DID!"

"We know," George assures her.

"He left her in nok'desone!" Marcus exclaims furiously. "I came home from work over an hour later and found her on the floor."

"I understand," George tells them. Up to this point Marcus Atto had tried to hold his feelings in check but they boil over, and Patty Johnson and Matt Sikes are quickly lost in a rapid three way barrage of Tenctonese, during which Matt can only catch such words as 'Kleezantsun', 'robann' and 'gastrovere'. The last is a word Matt knows and hoped he wouldn't hear. It refers to a 'vengeance war' in which all other concerns are secondary; it's the ultimate satisfaction of a grievance. Worse than a blood feud, worse than a riot, it always ends only in savage death, usually for a great many people.

Matt hears George fight hard for conciliation and hopes he'll win. Not a prayerful man, Matt prays then. If this is as widespread as he fears, or becomes generally known, a gastrovere may be the result and the number, and variety, of casualties will be staggering. The vengeance that arises from that will cause wave upon wave of reciprocal violence that will rip both human and Tenctonese society in Los Angeles apart and tears will flow as heavily as blood on both sides.

Gradually George wins a grudging compromise: a gastrovere will not be called - yet. But Marcus Atto's parting words, clearly intended to be understood by all, are chilling: "Catch this tert. Catch him now or we will."

"We will, I promise. Mrs. Atto, nok'posa. Kesa masvant nelon. (I'm sorry. We'll do all we can.)"

"Naka tam." (Thank you.)

x

Outside and approaching their cars, George resembles a man who has averted disaster by the slimmest of margins.

"So, George, what do you make of our pervert with the horniness box?"

George turns a pained expression to his partner. "Matthew, I wish you would not refer to it as a 'horniness box', or any other euphemism for that matter. It trivializes, or even worse excuses, what has for generations been a terror and torture device against our women and those that love them. It works relentlessly against the nervous system and it is completely irresistible. The women must eventually give in, and still risk nok'desone or possibly even Victoria Seacret's fate."

"Okay, okay, I read you; we've gotta get this guy, but we still don't have much of a lead. A male tert with brown hair isn't going to get us out of the batter's box. We've gotta get better descriptions; after that sketch artist is done with Katt we've gotta get her to Atto, get something we can distribute."

"And head off gastrovere," George concurs ominously.

"Why?" Johnson demands, fed up with being left behind by the pair. "What the hell is gastrovere?"

"Armageddon, lady. And so far we don't have a clue as to how to stop it."

"Maybe we do," George says meaningfully, pointing to the street sign on the corner. It takes only a moment for Matt to realize the significance of the sign, and when he does he wants to kick himself.

"We're about a mile and a half from Seacret's place and Katt and Atto were both met by someone while carrying groceries. Time to pay another call on Erika McGiver." He turns to Patty Johnson. "Can you get back to the station, pull everything on perps that gain admittance by helping people with packages?"

"Will do."

x

In their car, wiping perspiration from his forehead that this time doesn't have much to do with the oppressive heat, the first thing Matt wants to know is: "George, how long have your people known about that Emergency Alert noise?"

"I heard rumors it was from before the descent. Our ship was monitoring your communications and there's a rumor that your E.A. signal to your people actually caused the Gruza to crash." Matt looks sharply at him, his surprise vast. He'd often wondered just what it was that had caused the 'unexplained' crash. "If so, it was a very effective weapon."

"I'll say." Matt pulls his attention back to his driving. "But after you were down, and out of Quarantine, didn't any of you guys go to the F.C.C.?"

"How could we? Tell your government what, that your system works very well against alien vessels that might attack your planet, and would you please stop using it?"

"Yeah, right."

"While the test is a considerable inconvenience, we generally get plenty of warning, the same warning you do, several seconds in which to either turn it off or let it alone to do its thing." Matt glances at him, decides not to grin, just to keep his eyes on the road as they swerve around more slowly moving traffic.

"We are not that heavily integrated into your world, and the chance of having a Human present when we cannot prevent the sound from affecting us is remote. Even Cathy, in the two occasions she was 'caught short' in your apartment, was not driven to a loss of control and would not have been yesterday if not for your actions. The best, or worst if you wish, one has to contend with is erotic stimulation. In cases like Suse and myself, it is an unexpected bonus to married couples; in your case, well, Cathy was favorably disposed toward you to begin with and would have had the option of choosing how to act."

"If I hadn't–"

"Matt, what happened last night cannot be categorized as 'rape'."

"You're lying, George. Know how I can tell? Your forehead gets pinker."

"Well … be that as it may, when we saw Cathy she did not press charges so I presume you two are going to work last night out like two rational adults. Or rather one rational adult and one human."

"Thanks, George."

"But the fact is, if we had come out and revealed what we knew to your government, you can see the potential for disaster."

x

Matt and George hadn't met until five years after First Contact, and the first months of learning about one another and trying to integrate as partners hadn't been smooth. They'd had their share of misunderstandings, mistrust and outright fights - but their interaction had gone far better than had the previous five years of friction between Newcomers and the more militant of Purists.

"No one trusted the other side," George stresses. "Even now there's not a lot of trust among some. Most humans do not know us as you do. Revealing this weakness might well have led to unrestrained private use instead of this one case, and rapes of Newcomer women would have been rampant and constant – and gastrovere wouldn't be a threat now but a sad history, possibly with Los Angeles being reduced to a ghost town."

"You're a cheerful guy, George. But what about this thing we're dealing with?"

"A robann. The Kleezantsun used them, as you know. There weren't many, and we'd hoped they were destroyed or lost in the crash, because when we did finally get out of Quarantine and our Elders returned to what was left of the ship the robanns were one of the things that could not be found."

"Pretty dense, George. Dense, wishful and stupid."

"I know," he admits dismally. "I knew about them, but those of us who knew were obliged to secrecy. I had little choi–"

Matt veers to the right, stomps on the brakes so hard George is almost flung into the dashboard. Several horns blast but Matt ignores them as much as the shouts of passing motorists.

"Listen, George, I am fed up with these secrets, with finding out things by accident or too late! I've had this out with you more than once and I want this to be the last time! I'm your partner – and if you had come to me before with this problem–"

"You would have made a lot of stupid jokes!"

"Only at first! Damn it, George, you knew these things existed; we could've done something about them! You know that! You kept faith with your people, what if those women hadn't been strangers? What if you'd kept your mouth shut and it'd been Susan? Or maybe they turn up fifteen years from now and it's Emily? Or Vessna?"