Misborn II: Fighting Back

By L. V. MacLean

The summer is over, with all of its drama and excitement and change. Jared and Cara are happily married. Issio and Sofi, next door, are getting ready for the arrival of their baby and enjoying the presence of their adopted Earthian daughter, Gina McIntosh. Her younger brother, Terry, is settled with the five D'ubians in the half-a-house on the corner, and studying in the music department of the Conservatory of the Performing Arts.
Jared's work team, trying to interpret the runes on the mysterious arches of OR2, have their computers and projectors and other tools in Ann's basement across the street. The security is better here. And they have the help of the representatives of the hidden fifth species, who may know a little more than they admit about the situation.
And two of the enemies are caged in harmless animal bodies, and two others in Earthian bodies have ended up in the hands of the justice system, and can expect a long incarceration in a mental institute. No one feels much sympathy for them.
But one of the enemies is not accounted for. The entity they still think of as the fly no longer has her insect body, but she is free, looking for another body in which to create mischief and chaos.
And they have to figure out a way to identify her and deal with her before she does any actual harm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. V. MacLean
• Release date: Dec 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370100774

L. V. MacLean

I come from a long line of story tellers and journalists, and I worked as a local journalist for years. That was fun, but my first love is fiction. Home is the eastern half of Montana, wheat fields and range land and small towns. I have a husband, two grown children, a lively grandson, and a superior cat. What more could anyone want? Just a laptop with a word processing program!

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was so quiet that Jared felt it was dangerous.

The fly was no longer bothering them. Well, technically, it had never been the fly that was bothering them; it was the entity which had taken over the body of the fly. The being apparently spilled into their galaxy from some other dimension through the ancient arches standing on an otherwise unoccupied planet, one that looked promising for the Four Species Alliance to colonize. Dr. Margo Lindstrom made the disastrous decision to clear the way for this by destroying the evidence that anyone else had been there – blowing up the arches. In the ensuing chaos, the invading entity had entered her mind and body; this was what Jared understood or guessed, anyway.

And at Dr. Lindstrom's death, the entity moved into another body, a housefly. It brought with it enough of the memories and the memorably unpleasant personality of it's first host that Cara Lindstrom thought she was being haunted. Jared still wasn't sure how that worked. Flies tend to lack the vocal apparatus to scream and curse and otherwise harass their housemates, but this one certainly did. He had heard it all too clearly. Dr. Lindstrom, if she had lived, would have been a disagreeable mother-in-law.

There were a host of problems connected with Cara's actual mother, including Maud's identity as a member of an unsuspected fifth species, and of course her previous relationship with Jared before Cara came into his life, but at least she was gracious and reasonably considerate and she and Cara were forming a cautious but pleasant alliance.

And the fly, imprisoned in a jar in the basement next door where their neighborhood biologist could observe her, wasn't much trouble, apart from her general vocabulary and her very loud voice. The neighborhood knew all about her and ignored her, but now and then there were strangers, visitors, unprepared for the ranting. Issio f'Alzen, teaching biology at the Multicultural Secondary, facing classrooms filled with three species of adolescents every day, was used to challenges, but he was not fond of the fly. None of them were.

And then there was the nuntulpo, the vicious lizard-like D'ubian pest, who shrieked invective at the Duri group in the voice of a disapproving progenitor. The nuntuopo was, they said, an It, like the fly, and the neighborhood had joined together to capture him and cage him, which at least got him out of the D'ubian house. And last but not least, there was the stoad, a nasty creature from Linden's World, which had taken on the ugly and perverted personality of Eugene McIntosh, legal father to Willis and Gina and Terry McIntosh, the adopted children of the neighborhood.

Jared was not fond of Chazaerte, his brother-in-law and Maud's son, but as a biological parent, he was an improvement over Eugene. Willis would never accept him as a father, but he was an adult now, not interested in fathers. Gina was polite, but she was deeply bonded with Issio and Sofi and she didn't need other parents. And Terry, in turn bonded to the Duri group, was cheerfully indifferent.

The stoad was also captured, but the fly had escaped. Well, the fly body had run into a hospital nurse and a fly swatter. The entity had briefly possessed Mimi Dokker, neighbor and good friend to Jared and Cara. Getting the invader out of Mimi's head had taught Jared and Issio a great deal about what they could actually do with the Ears that were Issio's natural attribute, as a Zamuaon, and Jared's hidden mind-reading talent. Mimi was free again, but the entity had vanished.

Maybe she had left for friendlier places. And the nuntulpo and the stoad and their attendant entities were safely under control in their cages. Whatever inhabited the persons of Ione Peterson and her brother were also caged and under control in the criminal justice system with their Earthian hosts. The crisis seemed to be over, but no one was entirely relaxed.

The Drs. Wood returned to their Seven Tree Circle house, but someone always made an excuse to call and check on them there, and they were frequent visitors to Ann's basement, where Jason and his team had set up their projectors and computers under serious security and continued to study the runes on the arches. Sometimes Jared thought they were making a very small amount of progress on the translation, with Maud and her brother Carter and other members of the fifth species, who drifted in and out. Their people had some ancient connection to the invaders, and shared some part of their written language.

Jared's team was all there. Weston, who had returned to his apartment, drove over to Ann's house daily. Patterson and Yvonne Marie, the best-dressed poodle in Bridgeton, boarded at the Hardesty house and made the two-minute walk to work every morning.

Sandy returned to her own house, but she did not bring her children or her husband, preferring to visit them on weekends at her mother's place and keep up with them daily on the phone. Her husband was job-hunting down in Miramani. Sandy's landlord did not approve of pets; instead she bought a robot watchdog. It looked like a huge ill-tempered cross between a German shepherd and a Rottweiler. She left it at home when she came to work; it patrolled her house and yard, growling and terrorizing residents of the surrounding houses.

In spite of her security system, everyone worried about her; if she were as much as ten minutes late to work, Weston or Patterson or Jared would be on the phone to her, and she was expected to keep in touch during her weekly trip south, leaving or returning.

Sofi or Phyllis or Lillian usually took Gina to school, and she came home with Issio unless he was held up by meetings or other business, in which case Sofi or Jared picked her up. The D'ubians took turns taking Terry to the Conservatory just before noon, and picking him up in the late afternoon. The Bahtan girls arranged their schedules so that they ventured into the world in pairs, and Clyde seldom left Mimi, who had some impairment on her left side since her experience with the fly and seemed a little frail.

Cara and Ann were teaching, of course; they drove together to and from the University, unless Jared drove them both and met them at the end of the day. His schedule was arranged around the Azuri/zai project now; the full committee would be gathered by the end of the semester, or so it was claimed, and Dr. Graystone, planning to host the meeting at the Institute of Sciences, was more than accommodating. Jared didn't want to give up teaching. He held on to two of his classes, but both met in the morning and he usually spent the afternoon in Ann's basement, where Willis and Weston had devised security with a little advice from the D'ubians. He knew they ought to move it all back to the Institute, that it would be much more convenient for the committee, but he wasn't comfortable with the idea yet, and neither was his team, and neither were the Drs. Wood, and they were officially in charge.

So at noon he had lunch with Cara in the park between the Institute and the University, and then he came home and changed into jeans and a T-shirt – one good thing about working here; the dress code was informal – and went down into Ann's basement, or sat on his own porch or at the picnic table in front of his house working on the copy of the scroll Carter had given him, written in the ancient language of Carter's people. Maud and Carter and sometimes Chazaerte wandered in and out. Zarei had less interest in the project, but she visited Sofi, who seemed to be adjusting, reluctantly, to the idea that this fifth-species alien was her biological mother. Bored at home, slowed up by her pregnancy, Sofi was willing to accept even Zarei's company now and then.

She was there when Jared came home this afternoon; she and Sofi were at the picnic table flipping through the pages of a reader and discussing – it wasn't quite an argument, Jared noted as he came across the lawn – the proper time to introduce pureed foods into an infant's diet. Zarei felt that Sofi should reserve such issues for the doctor to decide. Sofi, historically unwilling to reserve anything for someone else to decide, was explaining why this was a matter best settled between mother and child. Good afternoon, ladies, said Jared, thinking that the entire argument could be deferred until the infant in question was born, and got himself inside and out of the line of fire quickly.

When he emerged again in his blue T-shirt, noter in his hand, the conversation had turned to varying brands of diapers, a matter upon which Zarei and Sofi seemed in reasonably close agreement, so he stopped to ask Sofi if Gina was riding with Issio today.

Jared! said a small and imperious voice in his mind as soon as she heard his voice.

Shamri, he answered, smiling, and Sofi shook her head with resignation and beckoned for him to put his hand on her demanding unborn child.

You spoil her, she said sternly.

I'm her uncle, said Jared. I’m supposed to spoil her.

Shamri had it down now, what those pictures people kept sending her meant; she had, in fact, grasped something about the concept of images and in the last week she had gotten quite excited about them. Her parents sent her views of ordinary things, plate, cup, chair, blanket; Issio patiently went through holos of animals every night. Gina brought home glimpses of her new school, of students and screens and cheerleaders practicing in the athletic field, seen through the window of her math class; she also showed Shamri illustrations in her readers. Jared wondered what so tiny a baby thought of fire-breathing dragons and fairy princesses; she probably imagined these were real things she would see in person when she was born. She didn't seem afraid of them, but Jared supposed an unborn child would be unlikely to understand how things could hurt her.

And she wasn't a shy child, and she already knew she could count on Jared to let her probe his mind and to bring her images a little different from the rest of her people. He sat down beside Sofi and opened his mind to her, laughing at the way she eagerly plunged into it. She looked for one of her favorite pictures first – Patterson trotting down the street to Ann's house with Yvonne Marie trotting beside him, both man and poodle stepping high with their noses in the air. She thought it was funny; she may have picked this up from him, Jared thought, but it was interesting that she connected with the feeling of humor.

Next she wanted to see how the world looked from where he sat. He focused on a tree across the street next to Ann's house, a great spreading tree thick with green leaves; yesterday he had noticed a spray of yellow in the green, harbinger of autumn. Yellow, he told Shamri, and she took in the image and pondered the idea of color. Green. Yellow. She liked the look of the leaves; she liked yellow.

He shifted his eyes to Zarei; Grandma, she responded at once, another one-of-us-related, which made her mother flip her tail with a trace of irritation. But Shamri wasn't paying attention to that; she liked Grandma's clattering colorful bangles, and the multiple earrings, and the bright beads around her neck, tangled with the silver pendant. In time, she might develop her mother's quieter, more sophisticated tastes, but at the moment, Grandma's style was much more interesting.

Across the street, Ann's front door opened and Carter leaned out and waved at Jared. I have to go, he told Shamri, and she sent indignant protest and tried hard to hang on. Later. I promise, he said. The fact was, he hated to break the contact himself. He loved watching the way her mind took in the world she was too young to see for herself; he loved watching how she began to make connections and build her own view of reality.

But he really did have to go; he slid away from her and took his hand back. As I was saying, he said to Sofi, and she sent a calming thought to Shamri, who was by no means ready to end her conversation with her uncle.

Yes, Gina will ride with Issio. The Language Arts teacher on her level is organizing a storyteller's group; we have persuaded her to try it out. They meet after school today. It may be too elementary for her, but we think she should go to a meeting or two and find out. She works too much alone, or with adults. Entering adolescence, in fact, she should have friends and interests in her own age group; Jared nodded, agreeing. She might have much more knowledge of languages and history and science, but other girls her age knew a great deal more about makeup and clothes and boys. She didn't seem to have an interest in this yet, and it was probably time she should, even if Jared was reluctant to give up the little girl she had been.

Shamri clamored again; Jared sent her a warm thought and headed across the street. He liked children but he didn't have a great deal of experience with them – he didn't count the McIntosh children, with whom they had all bonded immediately – and he had no experience at all with babies. He liked the idea of Sofi and Issio having a baby because it was what they wanted; he thought of his own future children as a visible expression of his love for their mother, and when he tried to visualize them he thought of them as being about Terry or Gina's ages, young personalities he could talk to, and with whom he could explore the world.

Shamri had been no more than an abstract idea until she touched his mind. He had thought he would grow fond of her when she began to talk and walk. But here she was, a whole little person, inexperienced but eager to learn, and he was astonished at the unreserved love he felt for her when he had never seen or touched her, when she was still perhaps six weeks from birth.

Carter was back downstairs sitting with Sandy by one of the screens, and Lalia was there too, admiring the image of the second arch as it soared from the flagstone floor to the ceiling, adjusted to the height of the basement, which was a little less than the Institute conference room so that the bottom of the legs of the arch were cut off for the moment. They had finished recording the major glyphs; now they were involved in more detailed study.

So Wark's Ferry is short a doctor today, Jared greeted Lalia.

It's Wednesday afternoon, she said. My associates are off playing golf; I prefer to visit psych patients at your local jail.

I thought they were being transferred, said Patterson, looking worried; he was balanced on a small stepladder in the middle of the arch with a Zeilmar lens. Yvonne Marie, demolishing a dog biscuit by the partition to the utility area, paused to thump her tail on the floor, and Jared bent to pat her head in passing.

They're being sent to the hospital in White Reef next week, said Lalia. Ione's sister-in-law is fighting memory wiping; I don't know how many lawyers she has now. So they have to try other therapies, and the facilities at White Reef are the best on the continent.

I wish them luck, said Jared, trying to imagine what sort of therapy might work on the beings inside the ex-Mrs. Patterson and her brother. For that matter, he wasn't sure what memory wiping would accomplish, if it would work on the beings as well as on the Earthian vehicles. It would be interesting to see what happened, but he didn't expect anything very useful to come of it.

Are they, said Sandy, as nasty as those other things, the ones in cages here?

They don't have as many languages, said Lalia. Ione and her brother only speak Trade and a little Earthian. I don't know if the enemies have been here very long, but I don't think these two have used people as vehicles before. They've had to work with what they've found in these two hosts; they didn't have that much to add. And these people aren't anywhere near as bright or as well educated as Dr. Lindstrom or the D'ubian progenitor, whoever he was. Even McIntosh seems to have been brighter.

Before he burned his brains out, said Jared, without sympathy.

But the basic tone of their conversation is the same, said Lalia. Unless they're tranked, they're screaming insults at everyone they see, and of course they remember all of you fondly and frequently mention you.

She mentions me? said Patterson, looking frankly alarmed.

Does it matter? Jared asked him. She's locked up. And the divorce is final, right? The judge signed, didn't she?

Yes, said Patterson, troubled, and as soon as I get the house sold and the credits divided – but I don't like it if she still talks about me. He cast a concerned look at Yvonne Marie, who, apparently picking up on his tone of voice, was sitting up holding the end of the biscuit in her mouth, her beribboned ears cocked and her sharp little eyes fastened on him. If she has any ideas about Yvonne Marie, he said, and Lalia patted his arm.

You have custody, she said, with the full force of the law on your side. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

Jared sat down beside Carter and looked at the screen. The shapes imprinted on the face of the arches were beginning to take on meaning; the one Carter was studying had appeared in the middle of the scroll, he thought, unless the slightly different form – Warlike, he said to Carter, something about armed attack, am I right?

Threatening attack, said Carter, pointing to the hook at the bottom left. If the portal is breached. He pointed to the square sign for portal.

Attack by – Jared studied the inner curves. This is different from the warning on number seven.

Yes, specifying the form of defense, I suppose.

Leave us alone or we'll come at you with super cannons, said Jared. Not that I suppose it matters by this time. Any defense they had before Dr. Lindstrom opened the door would have been ritualized after all these centuries, I'd think. Mounting a guard because there always had been a guard, not because they expected to use it.

Maybe just an alarm system, suggested Sandy. Like that god-awful alarm system you guys have here.

Don't you insult our alarm system, said Weston, tapping figures into the projector. It works, doesn't it?

Yes, we caught dangerous intruders just last Monday, said Jared, a pair of slightly intoxicated teenagers looking for a quiet corner of the woods to make out. And they had been scared to death, he thought, when they discovered themselves surrounded by five armed adults. And Willis, who had no doubt done a certain amount of drinking and making out in the woods in his own distant youth, a year or so ago, was very embarrassed.

You need a dog like Rocky, said Sandy.

Jared imagined those disconcerting red glowing eyes peering through the darkness at the young lovers; it wouldn't be much of an improvement from their point of view. Perhaps the beings on the other side of the portal have something like Rocky, he said, and considered it. Perhaps the beings that came through are something on that line.

Living beings, said Sandy, shaking her head. Not robotic.

Maybe specialized living beings, said Jared. Think of the warrior ants defending the hive. Not necessarily postulating hive mentality; we don't have enough information to postulate anything.

If we could dissect one of those beings, said Patterson, probably thinking of one or two of them he would be willing to volunteer for this study, we could find out a lot.

Jared found Lalia looking at him speculatively. He was sincerely glad that he and Issio had managed to do something to help Mimi, a person they both loved, rid herself of one of these possessing entities. He was, privately, proud of it, of having been able to do it. He only wished fewer people knew about it. The Drs. Wood were prone to hinting in his presence that people who could accomplish that might have a special relationship with the portals, too. Chazaerte, wandering through their living room the other night, had remarked that someone, unspecified, really ought to try to question, by methods unspecified, the creatures they had in captivity.

Cara suggested it might be a good project for Chazaerte and maybe Maud. We can't get into their minds, he replied, sounding a little indignant, as if this were by no means their job to do.

Well, neither can I, said Jared, which was mostly true. He had had one good glimpse inside the mouse, probably in a moment of weakness. He and Issio had tried the stoad and the nuntulpo, not a pleasant experience in either case and not very productive. Both were well barricaded. He doubted he'd have much luck with Ione and her brother either, and wasn't tempted to try.

So he looked back at Lalia, daring her to open the subject, and she smiled and let it pass. She would try again, though, before the patients were moved to White Reef, he thought.

And perhaps he felt a little guilty for not trying harder. He stopped by the Bahtan house before going home and Ollie and Numum, who were looking at the plans for Sofi and Issio's house addition on the dining room table, let him into the basement, where Evvie and Mutai, in imitation of Ann, had set up a vid player to keep the stoad entertained. Their theory was that this was an opportunity to reeducate the It inside the stoad; they were running uplifting dramas, heartwarming family stories featuring Zamuaons and Earthians and Bahtans – no one, with the possible exception of Terry, was quite sure what constituted a heartwarming family story to the D'ubians. Jared didn't think this program was working, but it was entertaining to see how it irritated the stoad.

Willis and Al were trying to reeducate their It also; they were showing him a long series of war vids, the more violent the better. He might think twice, Willis said, about bothering them; he might warn his people, if he ever returned home, what Alliance species were capable of doing. Or he might, Jared speculated, get some ideas on how to effectively attack them, but since it didn't look as if he were going to be in a position to attack, or to get home either, Jared didn't argue about it.

The stoad was actually dozing as a group of female Bahtans danced in a green meadow in front of the player, singing sweetly; Jared left the vid playing and reached out his mind, hoping that he could catch the stoad unawares and get into his head. As usual, he touched on a barrier, got no further than the surface, which was unpleasant; this was Eugene McIntosh's garbage, about as attractive as his conversation, and Jared picked through it distastefully until the stoad opened one eye, asked him how long he had fucked his mother before she died, and thrust him out.

Jared cranked up the volume on the vid – the Bahtan actresses were decking themselves with flowers and singing of sisterhood – and went home to see about dinner. Cara had a late class today and wouldn't be home until nearly six. Across the street Sandy departed in her car. Weston lingered on the step, talking with Carter, and then went back inside for just one more adjustment; Carter touched his pendant and vanished. Phyllis and Clena were standing by the fence dividing their yards, holding bowls of salad vegetables and talking. Sofi's car was gone; she was probably shopping, not, Jared hoped, alone.

Patterson emerged from Ann's house with Yvonne Marie beside him. He had his phone in his hand; he led Yvonne Marie into the area east of the house as he scrolled for a number, and while she trotted among the trees he talked with animation, even smiling.

Issio pulled into his driveway and Gina, with her book bag, waved at Jared as she walked into the house next door. The black D'ubian car hitched down from the treetops and jolted to a stop by their corner, letting Terry out with his guitar and his own book bag. Sofi's car came around the corner and swung into the car port, and she and Zarei emerged with bags from the butcher shop and the bakery just down the block from the butcher.

Cara and Ann got home just before Willis returned from work; Ann went up the block to the Hardesty house, where she still spent at least half of her time, and Cara came in looking a little tired and sniffed the air. That smells wonderful, she said, and tossed her briefcase onto the couch and came to kiss the cook.

Outside, a car door slammed and Willis' little runabout started up, and Yvonne Marie began to bark. They looked out the kitchen window to see the poodle jumping on her hind legs as if she were dancing, trying to reach the runabout which had raised from the surface of the street. The runabout settled again and Patterson opened the driver's side door and called to her. She ran around the back of the car, and leaped into the open door and Patterson shut the door and took off at once.

Trying to leave the poor baby behind, said Cara, shaking her head.

Chapter 2

Patterson has a gir-rul, Terry sang out, swooping down the street on his new bike, the guitar bouncing over his shoulder. The daylight was fading; Mimi and Clyde and Lillian and Al were bringing this evening's edition of the Planetary Monopoly tournament to a close at the picnic table, and Jared and Cara, on the porch, were about ready to take their noters back inside. Cara had made progress on an article comparing Alliance legends. She hadn't done much writing in the last few years, but he had read her earlier work and he had been impressed; all she lacked was time and confidence, he thought.

Patterson? said Lillian, looking after Terry, and he swung his bike around and made another pass down the street.

Patterson has a gir-rul! he shouted cheerfully, and his sister, who had been sitting on the front porch next door with her screen doing her math homework, glowered at him.

It isn't nice to joke about that, Terry! she shouted.

It's not a joke, said Terry, skidding into a stop in front of Issio's house. Patterson really does have a girlfriend. That's why he borrowed Willis' car; he was gonna take her out to dinner.

With Yvonne Marie, said Cara, giggling.

Love me, love my dog, said Jared, but he felt misgivings. The divorce had become final only a short time ago. Ione was still in town, even if she was locked up. And Patterson in love might be as disruptive as Patterson in the throes of a marital break-up.

Who is it? Mimi inquired, and Terry rolled his bike down to the picnic table.

She works at the pet store, he said. Where he buys Yvonne Marie her doggy treats. Hey, did you see those butterfly things Ann brought home? She was gonna show you after dinner, he told Lillian. She said they'd be really neat on the wedding cake. They fly around in the air, he explained, demonstrating with one hand.

They light up? asked Al apprehensively.

Naw. They play music, though. Love songs, said Terry dismissively, and then he waved energetically at Durakal, peering over the D'ubian fence; Durakal beamed and waved back, and Terry took off on his bike. I got a new idea! he shouted, and he scrambled over the fence and he and Durakal lifted the bike over, to hide it in the underbrush.

Well, at least a girl from a pet store won't mind the dog, said Mimi cheerfully, tapping her noter for the totals; she was the clear winner for tonight.

It was Trudy on the phone; he hadn't heard from her since Patterson's divorce. Hey, how are you? he said, connecting the phone to his screen in the study. You look good. She looked imposing, in a well-fitted black suit and a white shirt, hair up, conservative earrings; she had not lost any weight but she hadn't gained any, he thought, and she was carrying it well, as if she had come to accept it.

A man could still drown in her gold-brown eyes.

So do you, she said. Marriage must agree with you. Speaking of which, how is Patterson? And Yvonne Marie?

Thriving. Did I ever tell you how much we all appreciated your work for him?

Several times. And so did he, and so did the other members of your team, and so did your neighbor, Mr. f'Alzen, and so did the women Patterson boards with. Phyllis. So did Yvonne Marie, for that matter. And between you and me, so did the judge; she said she couldn't believe she wasn't going to have to face their nonsense in court anymore. That was quite a case, Jared, love. But Patterson is a nice guy. Weird, but a nice guy. This case I'm calling about isn't half as much fun, but we're still working on it. Better late than never.

Maud's estate was still a long way from being settled. This call would have to do with the sale of one of the properties, only a short time from closing; Maud, who took sporadic notice of the matter, would be gratified to know it was done. You have the papers from the realtor? he asked.

"No, next week; what I have now is word from Alliance General on those tissue samples. It took some wrangling and the threat of a court order, but they've finally agreed