TEMPORAL AID MISSION
Tom Mazanec

This story is a work of fiction. Major historical characters, 
such as President Kennedy and Carl Sagan, are features. 
In addition, minor historical characters in Minnesota such as 
Harry Pinkham and Lloyd Hackl are used for authenticity. 
They are given their full names and are based on their depictions 
in the book The Duluth Mongoose by Jack Denton Scott. 
Totally fictional 1962 characters such as "General Smith", 
"Musical Mike" and Pinkham's assistant "John" are invented by me 
and are not intended to reflect any actual person. All actions by 
historical characters in my altered history are my own imagination 
and do not necessarily reflect how the characters would have 
actually behaved.
 
**********************************************
 
It began in the Third World War against the Chinese-Muslim 
Coalition. Devolved from the War on Terror and the Oil Wars, 
the war saw countless Black Projects used on both sides. 
One of the American projects was the attempt to create 
human-animal hybrids to serve as optimized, expendable troops. 
The project succeeded, but not in time to be used in the war. 
Instead, the mammaloids were eventually sold as military surplus, 
and Megacorps used the technique to provide sapient, tool-using 
"pets" for the population. Slavery had made a comeback. At the 
close of the 21st Century, America repented of its creation and, 
under a theocratic government, waged a Crusade to exterminate 
the mammaloids. Led by the mammaloid population of a lunar base, 
the mammaloids won the war with space weapons such as the 
Tesla Cannon and graser array that only were fireable in vacuum. 
The Human War, or the First Genocide War, killed nearly all 
the mammaloids and shattered the United States like a Ming vase. 
The few mammaloid survivors concentrated on holding humanity down. 
Relations deteriorated, and finally, in the 2160s the Mammaloid War, 
or the Second Genocide War, killed three-fifths of the Human Race 
and turned the green and verdant continents of Earth brown and 
barren. The war had seen the disassembly of Mercury into an 
ultimate Doomsday Weapon, and another uneasy peace settled in. 
The mammaloid population grew itself at a breakneck speed, 
doubling every decade, until it rivaled the surviving human 
population in the mid-23rd Century. The mammaloids were divided 
whether to use bionanotech chrysalis machines to transform Homo 
Sapiens into mammaloids, or to simply confine the species to 
Earth until their population exceeded mankinds by a orders of 
magnitude, neutralizing the threat by sheer weight of numbers. 
The controllers of the Doomsday Device favored allowing the 
species to survive, and finally, in frustration, the other party 
began dropping antimat bombs to dig humanity out of its underground 
havens. The Doomsday Device was used against these, and so the Protocol 
War,or the Third Genocide War, raged for a generation. The Doomdsay 
Device proved conclusive, and mankind was spared. In the 
24th Century memetic engineering allowed the pruning of neural 
pathways, curing the struldbrugism that limited lifespans to a 
quarter of a millennium. Also, the Korikov-Chartik Theory opened 
the posssiblity of opening a wormhole back into time and creating 
an alternate timeline. Since the traveling ship would simply 
disappear from the original timeline, this was considered to 
have no practical application. Science and technology stagnated 
for the centuries, while Terroids, human and mammaloid, filled
the solar system and began colonizing the planetoids of nearby 
stars. But the turning of a year ending in 999 to one ending in 
000 tends to bring out utopian ideas, and an overlooked body in 
Sol's Oort cloud was converted into the Second Chance and sent 
back in time to the Twentieth Century to prevent the Genocide Wars.

***********************************************************

President Sigmundson gazed out the viewscreen, moving it 
around with his laser pointer till he liked the position. The 
stars looked the same as they did before Transition, but the 
surrounding wormholer was gone, showing that they were now in 
an alternate past...hopefully in the first years of the 
Twentieth Century. The theory and equipment had been prepared 
as carefully as possible, but experiments, by the nature of 
the universe, could not give back results to the experimenter. 
The President was human, a concession to the time they had 
entered, but anyone landing on Earth would have to be a 
mammaloid, as a precaution against the nanobots used in the 
Second Genocide War against humanity. The population of the 
time-worldship had been sterized of the inorganic viruses, but 
this would make an extra firebreak against contaminating Old 
Earth.

"Has the computer determined our exact ime yet?" asked 
Sigmundon. The room replied "Processing...date corresponds to 
March 5, 1961."

That was bad. They had prepared for a discrpancy of a few 
years around the 1905 target date, and had a plan of action 
prepared which involved contact with the British Empire, but 
this threw everyting into the recycler. They were in the early 
stages of the Age of Insanity. Briefly Sigmundson considered 
building another wormholer out of resourses in the Oort cloud 
and going back again. But they had created an alternate 
timeline already, and the separation wavefron was expanding at 
lightspeed and would reach Earth in about a year. Those people 
would become separate individuals, and would be requiring help 
to get out of the Age of Insanity. Much historical data had 
been lost and confused in the Age of Insanity, but Sigmundson 
knew enough to realize that this would be an especially bad 
time for quantum uncertainty to trigger a Butterfly Effect. In 
about seven months after the wavefront reached Earth, the US 
and USSR would teeter on the brink of nuclear war. The war 
would be a pinprick compared to what the Second and Third 
Genocide Wars would have done to Mother Earth, but they would 
still be bad. If they went full speed ahead, they could reach 
Earth in about 13 months startime, 7 months shiptime. It would 
use up most of the antimatter fuel for the field effect drive, 
but they could reach Earth in April 1962 and do something. Now 
all they had to do was decide what to do.

***********************************************************

The Council took its time debating the decision of which 
course to proceed under. Sigmundson had the authority, under 
the special terms of this mission, to make a decision, but he 
was really at a loss as to what to do. All his preparation was 
for a unipolar world still in temporary peace, not for a 
bipolar one on the edge of a Third World War. The idea was to 
use London as a conduit for uptimer technology and, through 
that, culture. Then the planet could enter into the Golden 
Age, along with the Solar System and other solar systems, 
without the cost of a planet reduced to a cinder. There were 
three obvious choices. One was Moscow, another was Washington, 
and the third was the UN in New York. The culture of the 
Golden Age was intermediate between that of America and Russia 
in terms of liberty...it tried to be as libertatian as 
possible, but in a world totally dependent on advanced 
technology for survival, where a single individual could 
trigger the death of a arcology or worldship, the notion of 
privacy was a quaint memory. Russia had the advantage that the 
citizens would likely not chafe under the restrictions that 
have to be a part of any society based on nanotech, but the 
disadvantage that its basic governing philosophy was not just 
archaic, but fundamentally wrong. America had the advantage of 
having, in principle, values very similar to that of the 
Golden Age (even if it did not always follow said principles), 
but the disadvantage that not only might the citizens resent 
increased control (necessary anyway) even with the ability to 
"watch the watchers", but the fact that less than a couple 
pre-nanojuve lifetimes in the future the nation would morph 
into the horror of the theocratic government of the First 
Genocide War. This did not bode well for its ability to deal 
with a multi-species civilization. The UN had the advantage of 
ostensibly being a world organization, but historical records 
indicated that it was little more than a polite debating and 
sometimes-aid siociety. 

The debate went on with study of the surviving records of 
the time, with fairly evenly divided opinions. The Council 
could only act in an advisory capacity on this particular 
worldship, but Sigmundson wanted all the advice he could get. 
A small mistake could be particularly damaging at this time, 
and while the worldship itself would be invulnerable, they 
would have difficulty stopping all the bombers and missiles 
from singeing the planet if they should bungle this into a 
war. 

Finally, the arguments of T'charik prevailed. The tiny 
neoherpestes, little larger than an ichneumon, pointed out 
that the UN was not capable of dealing with such a large 
situation, and anyway excluded a quarter of the planet's 
population in the third most poweful nation. Providing aid to 
Moscow would anger Washington and perhaps provoke the war they 
feared. Moscow would be a better adversary in such a war, as 
their arsenals were much smaller and likely to be handleable 
by the Second Chance . America was over a century from 
its xenophobic disgrace, and judging by the fact that one of 
the few TV shows of the decade still remembered featured a 
starship with an alien first mate, would probably actually be 
less xenophobic than its rather paranoid Communist rival.

The sun, blueshifted into an actinic blaze by the 
decelerating but still racing worldship, was beginning to show 
a disk when Sigmundson made his decision. T'charik was offered 
the position of Ambassador to the United States, and happily 
accepted. He would be the smallest ambassador in history. The 
neospecies were seeded on Earth prior to the Second Genocide 
War to carry on the spark of intelligence if both human and 
humanoid mammaloids should perish. The only one to just 
survive the deteriorating ecology until the Return, neoherpestis
was also the smallest of all the neogenera as well.
His braincase was enlargened, altering his 
profile even with a nose derived from H. naso, his pelt 
was derived from the auropunctatus variety of H. 
javanicus, and his prehensile forepaws here modified 
raccoon paws. He needed yearly memetic engineering starting 
after only two or three decades of life, his tiny but capable 
brain being unable to hold more memories. His diplomatic 
shuttle would proceed to Washington as soon as the terms of 
the Protocols were communicated to the Federal Government on 
every FM channel on the old FM band.
 
*******************************************************

Music Mike was tired of the jamming. Every day, his 
Washington DC FM station was jammed by a long message about 
"protocols", "mammaloids", "wormholes" and other such 
gibberish. And the FCC did not seem intent or able to do 
anything about it. The radio pirate was hogging the entire 
spectrum, making it impossible for the new FM stations to be 
heard for nearly a third of the day. The message kept asking 
for a reply, and Mike decided to provide one. He composed a 
message in the legalese the pirate was using, inviting the 
"ambassador" to Washington. He sent it out over the airwaves 
as soon as the message ended its daily repitition. Maybe THAT 
would shut the jerk up already.

On board the Second Chance President Sigmundson 
smiled. At last, after nearly a week, he had gotten an 
official reply to his request to open diplomatic relations 
with America. Now T'charik could board the diplomatic shuttle 
and begin his mission. He entered the shuttle and put his 
collar voder in the forward compartment. T'charik hated 
wearing the thing, and hated even more the thought of it being 
implanted into his throat. He limited his implants to the 
compuer "second brain" in his chest cavity (which everyone 
had) and the medical transponder in his abdominal cavity 
(required for his diplomatic mission...his health had to be 
monitored, as executing an ambassador was how war was declared 
under the Protocols - an ambassador was assigned to keep the 
peace, if he failed he would be the first to die). The 
translator in the shuttle's computer would handle his 
chittering and chirupping. The shuttle began it's descent, and 
a few hours later he was circling Andrews Air Force Base, 
asking clearance to land on all frequencies. The scanner 
located some random signals, then finally a demand from the 
base that he identify himself. He did so on that frequency, 
but the base just kept demanding his identification over and 
over. Why couldn't they give him clearance? The tiny amount of 
antimatter in the shuttle would last awhile, but not forever. 
If they were not repeatedly demanding his ID he would just 
land at the base instead of circling interminably.

General Smith was not having a good day. It was his first 
day as Commander of the base, following the death of his 
predecessor in an automobile accident, and now some bizarre 
aircraft was circling his base at near Mach 1 and replying to 
demands for identification with nonsensical replies about 
"Ambassador T'charik" and requesting landing permission. The 
craft was none he had ever seen or heard of, and was flying in 
a way that no jet he had ever concieved of was doing. It was 
circling so fast that it was on its side, doubtless to handle 
the G forces. And it had appeared out of nowhere, decelerating 
with a sonic boom from beyond radar range in a matter of 
seconds. What's more, it had flown in straight down. Any such 
aircraft could be a potential threat to the base and the 
Capital. Perhaps this was a test? A remote controlled drone, 
testing new technology and, at the same time, testing his 
ability to defend the base? He gave the order "Shoot it down!"

T'charik's radar detected the oncoming jet. FINALLY, they 
were giving him an escort so he could land. He leveled out and 
slowed down to meet the jet. A tiny blip appeard off the jet 
and swiftly approached the shuttle. What were they - BARAMM!! 
went the shuttle as the Sidewinder missile struck and 
destroyed it. The crew pod of the shuttle was thrown clear, 
and the utilty fog protected T'charik from more than a bad 
stun. The emergency jets activated and the pod began its 
landing procedure. But the guidance computer was damaged, the 
pod began a 45 degree ascent toward the northwest and by the 
time T'charik recovered, the chemical fuel of the pod was 
exhausted and the pod had become an unguided missile which 
would land...hard...wherever it would land. The utility fog 
would protect him but he was soon in for another hard stun. He 
encircled himself in the crash cocoon for extra protection, 
and waited. The pod would go maybe a 1000 kilometers, perhaps 
more or less. He would just have to see. Minutes later, the 
pod impacted a large granite bolder near the tip of Lake 
Superior. T'charick opened the cocoon and looked at the 
damage. To his horror, he saw that the front of the pod had 
been staved in; the forward compartment completely crushed. He 
had expected to come down in soil or water, not solid rock. 
Fortunately...no, UNFORTUNATELY his voder collar had been 
smahed in two. With the shuttle's translator gone and now his 
voder, he was a mongoose on the outskirts of Duluth with no 
more ability to speak with the natives than if he had been a 
"normal" mongoose.
 
The first thing he had to do, he decided, was to get the heck 
out of here. The Air Force must have considered him to be a 
Russian test pilot or something...apparently the United States 
was more paranoid at this point in time than the fragmentary 
records indicated. But then why had they replied to the radio 
messages? Anyway, it was only the grace of God that he had not 
been killed, thus starting a war right then and there. He 
would try to find someone who would understand that he was 
trying to communicate, and then move up the ladder of the 
chain of command from there. T'charik ran out the crumpled 
gash in the front of the pod and went off in search of 
habitation. The transponder implant was letting the Second 
Chance know that he was still alive, and his 
location...President Sigmundson would get in touch with 
someone if he had to send a nandroid down with a neural link 
to himself to do it. But get out before the military arrives 
and kills him first.

He ran through the forest he had landed in. It was larger than 
any of the parks that were sprinkled on the inside surface of 
the Second Chance and subtly more "natural" looking. 
There was a greater variety of plants, and smells which were 
totally unfamiliar. He finally reached a line of houses. In 
back of one a man and woman were sitting in summer wear on 
folding chairs, and enjoying the view. T'charik went up to 
them and began trying to pantomime the predicament he had 
found himself in.

"Oh, look at that crazy animal, George." said the woman. "Is 
it sick or something? Look how it is acting!"

"It looks like a giant weasel...but it is acting like no 
animal I have ever heard of before. Like it is doing tricks or 
something." T'charik picked up a pebble and began trying to 
scratch a few letters on the cement patio, but the stone left 
no trace.

"Maybe it is someone's pet...although it would have to be an 
awfully exotic pet. I've never seen anything like it, and it 
is acting like something out of a circus."

"Maybe we should send it to the pound?" asked the woman as 
T'charik lay down at her feet.

"No, this is no cat or dog, even if it seems tame. Maybe the 
zoo would be better." T'charik bristled for a moment at this 
suggestion, then smoothed down. Yes, maybe the zoo would
be safer...and he would be more likely to be seen by 
someone who would at least understand that his antics were 
intelligent. "Oh, look! It's almost as if he understood! Yes, 
we will try the zoo."

LLoyd Hackl, director of the Duluth Zoo, accepted the gift of 
the strange animal. First of all he had something of a hard 
time figuring out just what the heck it was. He could tell by 
the teeth that it was a carnivore, but a process of 
elimination with his reference books was necessary to reduce 
the choices down to an ichneumon Herpestes ichneumon or 
a gold spotted mongoose Herpestes auropunctatus. The 
characteristic coat, with its sprinkling of gold specks, 
indicated the latter but its size indicated the former. Hackl 
finally decided that the specimen must be an over large gold 
spotted mongoose, sort of the animal equivalent of a circus 
giant. The profile seemed all wrong, too...maybe he would have 
to get a more experienced authority to confirm his 
classification for him. In the meantime, Hackl could have a 
mongoose and would be able to put it on display for the zoo 
and maybe someone would claim it as a pet. The zoo could not 
purchase the animal without authorization from the directors, 
but they could hold it for awhile as it was not being sold to 
them.

Hackl asked what they should name the critter. John Mealy, one 
of his employees, suggested Mr. Magoo..."like the cartoon 
character. Rhymes with zoo. It's perfect!" 'Mr. Magoo', aka 
T'charik, was placed in a large cage one side heavily wired so 
the zoogoers could see him, with a smaller house-like box 
labled with his new name, near the preparation room. All the 
staff and visitors fell in love with the mongoose and his 
antics. And T'charik grew increasingly frustrated by his 
inability to communicate and Sigmundson's failure to 
intervene.

************************************************

Sigmundson was well aware that T'charik was in the Duluth zoo. 
His transponder pinpointed him to within a fraction of a 
meter, and nanoprobes, disguised as local insects, were 
observing T'charik closely. Thousands more nanoprobes were 
dropping in the wee hours of the morning all over the United 
states, invisibly small to the radar systems of the time (if 
only they had arrived in 1905...). They were picking up radio 
and TV stations and observing daily life, sending their 
transmissions by SHF to a relay in Clarke orbit over the 
United States. Sigmundson had acted hastily in sending 
T'charik on down, and despite growing pressure from the 
Council he was determined to thouroughly research the United 
States before he acted again. Teams of historians scoured the 
results of the nanoprobing and tried to comp-simulate various 
reactions to an overt First Contact (or Second Contact, to be 
precise). T'charik would not need memetic engineering for 
several months at least, and Sigmundson would use as much time 
as he could to work out the proper course of action. T'charik 
was safe in the zoo, and later on things would be going 
smoothly.

The people on Earth had finally noticed the 30X150 kilometer 
craft orbiting in the Moon's L5 position. They were describing 
it as an asteroid fallen into orbit around Earth. This was 
nonsense, as the astronomers should soon realize...especially 
when they looked back over their photographic plates and 
failed to see the Polaris bright "asteroid" moving into view 
along a normal orbit. Indeed, Sigmundson was surprised (but 
grateful) that it had taken them this long to notice the 
Second Chance. It seemed the government and people thought 
their radio transmissions were some private individual in 
Washington trying to blanket the FM band with his own 
equipment, while the "reply" had been a station announcer 
broadcasting his own response. Sigmundson was determined not 
to make such a blunder again...this one almost cost him 
impeachment and his life if convicted.

*************************************************

On the first Wednesday of the month following T'charik's 
arrival occurred the monthly meeting of the Arrowhead 
Zoological Society, which sponsored the zoo and ran its 
business. Also attending this meeting were some reporters 
looking for some animal "human interest" stories. Society 
president Dr. Pershing Hofslund, suggested Hackl tell them 
about the mongoose, which he happily did. A few days latter a 
picture of Hackl holding the mongoose and a story ran in the 
morning News and Tribune and the evening Herald.

Reading these stories, among other residents of Duluth, was 
Clarence L. Bingham, Assistant Collector of U. S. Customs, who 
called Customs Marine Officer Donald Grimwood and informed him 
that a mongoose was in the United States in violation of U. S. 
Code, Title 18, Paragraph 42. Grimwood then informed Harry W. 
Nash, Director of the Duluth Department of Parks and 
Recreation and ordered him to report the violation to Floyd 
Davis in Minneapolis, the Regional Supervisor of Mamagement 
and Enforcement of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department 
of the Interior, who would order it destroyed. 

Nash sent in a plea for 'Mr. Magoo's' life, saying it was a 
single animal who could not possibly reproduce, be kept 
closely watched and was an asset to the community. The reply 
read "Reference is made to the acquisition of a mongoose by 
the Duluth Zoo. We are sorry to advise you that there is no 
way in which we can authorize you to keep the animal. Federal 
regulations prohibit the import or possession of this animal 
in the United States. We are requesting U. S. Game Management 
Agent Harry Pinkham to take charge of this animal, have it 
humanely killed by gas chamber or otherwise, and to transport 
the body intact to the Regional Office in Minneapolis for 
disposal. We would like to have some photos taken of the 
animal before it is killed."

Hackl vowed to fight this sentence. He leaked the story to the 
papers and soon, people were lined up at Mayor George D. 
Johnson's office. They demanded that something be done. The 
mayor and city attorney Harry Weinberg promised to do 
everything they could, but would not break the law to do so. 
Newspapers across the nation carried the story. And nanoprobes 
gazed up at newpapers in Duluth in their stands and narrowcast 
the headlines to Second Chance. And so President 
Sigmundson learned of the thread by which war and peace hung 
by.

Two small shuttles left the worldship and streaked towards 
Earth. Each held a globe of silvery metal, rippling like 
mercury. One was aimed at Duluth, and would be neural linked 
to Linpao Chang, the Vice President of the Second Chance
. The other was aimed at Washington DC and would be neural
linked to President Sigmundson. When they arrived, they would 
assume the form of their "hosts" and intervene in the course 
of events. Meanwhile, Harry Pinkham's schedule was favorable 
for him to reach Duluth. Across time and space, another Mr. 
Magoo's life was spared by an unfavorable schedule for a very, 
very similar Harry Pinkham, which allowed time for Secretary 
of the Interior Stewart L. Udall to to intervene. But here and 
now, Pinkham arrived at the zoo before Linpao Chang's nandroid 
avatar. 

Harry was dismayed by the near mob in front of 'Magoo's' cage, 
as he arrived with a still pleading Hackl by his side. He had 
a gun...would he have to brandish it, much less use it? He 
also had a hypodermic needle for the mongoose...the "or 
otherwise" in his instructions and far more convienient than 
hauling around a gas chamber or using some vet's. He, his 
assistant and Hackl worked his way through the crowd to enter 
the cage and picked up the sleeping mongoose, exhausted by yet 
another day of pantomiming a message, ANY message, to the 
uncomprehending people outside. 

"Do you have the photographs?' asked Pinkham.

"No, I am not going to co-operate with this travesty any more 
than I am legally forced to." replied Hackl. 

Travesty? What travesty wondered a half-awake Neoherpestes 
sapiens . And what is this guy in the cage, a vet?

"We better do it in your office, away from this crowd." said 
Pinkham and the now crying Hackl led him through the 
protesting crowd and into his office.

"This law makes no sense...Mr Magoo holds no threat to this 
country. He has no mate, he can't reproduce...why does the 
government have to kill him?"

"The law is -" Pinkham yelped as the mongoose bit him and 
streaked off into an adjoining room.

T'charik heard the door slam behind him. He was in a room full 
of filing cabinets and he jumped into the open drawer at the 
bottom of one of them. Fortunately there were only a few dust 
lined file folders. but still he was barely able to wedge his 
body into it. He pushed with his paws and succeeded in closing 
the drawer. "I'll go in, John. Make sure he doesn't escape." 
he heard. T'charik was rolled up into a ball, concentrating on 
staying still in the dusty drawer.

Pinkham opened the door a crack, squeezed in and quickly shut 
it behind him. Then he began thouroughly searching for the 
mongoose. He grew more and more frustrated as he failed to 
find him, when suddenly he heard a Cheee! and the sound 
of crumpling paper coming from one of the filing cabinets. He 
opend the drawer and plunged the needle in pushing the plunger 
hard. T'charik felt a coldness like a Bose-Einstein condensate 
and just had time for one last thought, wondering how 
Sigmundson would destroy America. Then he was dead.

Pinkham took T'charik's body out and hollered at Hackl "You 
are in serious trouble, mister. Hiding that animal makes you 
subject to prosecution -"

Now Hackl was mad. "What do you mean hiding? I took you to 
him, it's not my fault you dropped him. Frankly, I'm glad now 
that he bit you -"

"THERE WAS NO WAY THAT ANIMAL COULD HAVE GOTTEN INTO A CLOSED 
CABINET DRAWER WITHOUT HELP! tHERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THERE, 
IT HAD TO BE YOU -"

"I WAS IN HERE THE WHOLE TIME. IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO 
HAVE HIDDEN HIM IN THERE!"

"NOW LISTEN HERE -" Pinkham blinked a couple times. "You're 
right...it is impossible. How did -"

"I imagine T'charik did it himself." said an oriental looking 
man in the room.

"Who are you? Who is T'charik? And how did you get in here?" 
demanded Pinkham.

"I am Linpao Chang. T'charik is the neoherpestid you refer to 
as Mr. Magoo. I got in by flowing under the door. I will now 
take possession of T'charik". The strange man extended his 
hand. His arm seemed to dissolve into quicksilver and extended 
impossibly long to reach the body of T'charik, which he took 
from Pinkham's now unresisting fingers. All three humans 
present in the room had their jaws hanging nearly to their 
chests. Chang's "hand" flowed and enveloped T'charik for a few 
moments. "T'charik is dead. If I were president instead of 
vice president, your cities would soon be in flames." The 
phone rang and Hackl walked out like a zombie to answer it.

"They say it is the White House. They have ordered me not to 
turn over Mr. Magoo."

"I will inform my counterpart that Kennedy is too late." Chang 
morphed into a silvery manikin for a long minute, Pinkham and 
his assitant stared and Hackl listened to the phone. Then he 
came back into the room. "They say we're to be taken into 
custody at the White House."

"I suggest you co-operate" said Chang as he reappeard on the 
manikin.

************************************************
 

Kennedy looked at the blond haired "man" in the Oval Office. 
His Secret Service bodyguard had emptied his gun into the 
...thing...when it had appeared before him, flowing like water 
under the door and rising up like some grotesque plant. 
Gunshots outside the office indicated that other Secret 
Service guards had attempted the same thing. Silvery ripples 
had spread out across the chest of the whatever it was, but 
had done no other apparent damage. The person then identified 
himself as President Sigmundson of the space-time ship 
Second Chance and basically ordered Kennedy to stop the 
execution of a mongoose in Duluth, as illogical as that 
sounded. The visitor had to change shape, flowing around the 
Oval Office, before Kennedy would believe that something weird 
was happening. It took another minute or two to be convinced 
that his demand that the mongoose be spared was in earnest. 
Kennedy picked up the phone and connected to the Duluth Zoo, 
as the stranger ordered. The voice on the other end identified 
himself as Hackl, the zoo director. He sounded like he was in 
some state of shock. For some seconds Sigmundson went all 
silver, then reappeared on the entity he was represented on. 

"T'charik is dead. Bring anyone responsible for his death here 
as soon as possible."

Kennedy shook his head and spoke into the phone "You and the 
men who killed that bird or whatever it was are to be brought 
into protective custody here at the White House immediately. 
We will arrange your transport by limosine and jet at once" 
Kennedy hung up the phone and turned to the nandroid. "What 
are you? A space alien?"

"No, Mr. President. A time traveler. Perhaps it would be 
better if we used some unofficial liaison for interaction. 
My...blunders...have already placed your nation in peril. An 
'under the table' means of communication would be more...safe, 
since we would not be on record, and each can have 
communications filtered through an intermediary contemporary 
with our own time. I have already selected a historian as 
mine. May I suggest a young exobiologist and astronomer who 
seems to have had an unusually broad and pliant mind for your 
time. We named the second planet of Tau Ceti after him...his 
name is Carl Sagan. Our records indicate he is currently 
working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

******************************************

Dr.Sagan was rather more than surprised when a limosine 
appeared at the Jet Propulsion Lab and a couple official 
looking men came in and requested (quite firmly) his presence 
in said limosine, where he would be taken to the nearest 
airport and a chartered jet would transport him to Washington 
DC at once. He soon became excited. He was a very cautious 
man, but the giant asteroid in Earth orbit could not be 
explained conventionally. And there were those bizarre radio 
messages in the Washington area. Maybe he had the privilege of 
living at the time when humanity would be invited to join 
Galactic Civilization! His mind whirled with the possibilities 
during the long trip, and both a too long and a too short time 
later he was in the Oval Office, facing a very worried looking 
Kennedy.

"Mr. President, have we been contacted by extraterrestrials?' 
Sagan whispered.

"No. Our visitors are both far less and far more alien than 
you can possible imagine. OK, he is here."

A flow of liquid metal appeared from behind the president's 
desk and rose to take on the form of...a humanoid raccoon.
"Greetings, Dr. Sagan. I am Orpheus Korum 6546 Procyon. And I 
am from what you would call the early 31st Century."

**********************************************

Sigundson had given the President 96 hours to demonstratte 
that the killing of T'charik was not the government's doing or 
his worldship and the United States would be at war. Then he 
asked Sagan, Kennedy. and Korum to accompany him outside. The 
Secret Service men moved to follow, and he allowed it. They 
walked through the doors of the White House and out into the 
deepening twilight. 

"Watch the Moon" said Sigmundson simply, and flashed silver 
for a couple seconds.

The crescent moon was low in the western sky. For an 
interminable moment nothing happened. Then a blue-white point 
appeared between the horns so bright it seemed to have a 
scintillating dot-like disk. The ground behind them showed 
stark, razor-edged shadows. Gradually the blue faded and was 
replaced by yellow. The yellow dot expanded slowly, merging 
into orange as it did so. Afer a minute a disk nearly a 
quarter of the moon's size was glowing red next to the moon. 
The shadows had faded away.

"The hole is the size of Rhode Island and as deep as the Grand 
Canyon." Sigmundson told the stuned men. "Come inside...I 
believe Sagan and Korum have much to speak about, and have 
only 95 hours and 42 minutes to do it."

*********************************************

The following evening the young exobiologist asked the guard 
of the office he was in with Korum to escort him to the 
President. The guard spoke in a walky-talky for permission, 
then said "Come along."

Kennedy looked very worried and Sagan looked very exhausted. 
"Do you know what is going on out there?" exclaimed the 
President. "The cover story is that a giant meteor hit the 
moon and created the new crater. People are worried about a 
third asteroid or meteor striking the Earth. Radio talk hosts 
like Long John Nebel are fielding theories of everything from 
flying saucers from Mars to a Soviet secret super-weapon. The 
country is on the verge of panic. Civil disturbances have 
broken out in several cities already. The lid is barely 
holding on! The official comment is that the White House is 
'studying the situation' and that I will address the nation in 
two days. What will I tell them?"

"Mr. President, what it looks like you are going to have to 
tell them is that we have been contacted by time-travelers 
from the year 3006, that some of them are genetically modified 
human-animal hybrids or genetically uplifted intelligent 
quadruped animals, that one such animal came down to Earth as 
an ambassador, that his shuttle was shot out of the sky by a 
USAF general, that the ambassador survived the crash but was 
killed by a Federal Agent acting against your specific orders, 
and that both the general and the agent will be extradited to 
the timeship, that they will be placed on trial...the general 
for War Mongering and the agent for Genocide, and that they 
will be executed at once if found guilty. And they will have 
to be found guilty if we are to worm our way out of this."

"General Smith acted without my orders, and technically he 
failed to follow strict procedure by neglecting to warn the 
UFO that it would be destroyed before he destroyed it. He is a 
military man, and I could see ordering him to lay his life 
down for his country. But Pinkham is a civilian who was doing 
his job correctly...it is not his fault that my reprieve came 
a few minutes too late. And where do you get War 
Mongering...and Genocide for cryin out loud! Pinkham is no 
Hitler!"

"Actually, by their laws Hitler did not commit Genocide."

"What? Then what did he commit? Jay Walking?"

"He committed Mass Murder. Genocide under their 
Protocols...which they hold sacred, by the way...is the 
killing of one or more members of a sapient species different 
from your own because said member or members are of their 
species. Number is only needed to be one or more. The killer 
does not have to recognize the sapience of the victim. War 
Mongering is an attack by a military person or government 
employee against an ambassador, since governments go to 
war...which has not happened for more than six centuries of 
their time...by killing the ambassador of the opposing 
country."

"What kind of Medieval bullshit is that? Why would they 
declare war in such a barbaric fashion?"

"Under their Protocols, an ambassador is a hostage to peace. 
His job is to preserve the peace between his native and host 
countries. If he fails, he knows he will be the first to die."

"If they are time-travelers, why can't they just go back and 
fix things?"

"In a planetary sense, that is what they are trying to do. I 
have seen 3D images of Earth in their time. It looks like 
Death Valley...like the surface of the moon. The land is vast 
slagheaps, lakes of fused green glass, pits of calcined 
ash...even rats are an endangered species there...and they are 
the only things left on land larger than insects. And they say 
it was even worse centuries ago, before they began trying to 
restore it. All this from a series of genocidal...by their 
definition...wars in the early part of the coming millennium. 
But the Protocols were designed to put an end to these wars. 
And we have...inadvertantly, true...gone against their 
Protocols. To let T'charik's death go unpunished would make a 
mockery of all they hold dear."

"But if they go back..."

"They will create a third timeline, altered from both the 
original timeline and the first altered timeline. But T'charik 
will still have been killed in this one, and they cannot let 
that simply pass."

"Altered timeline...you mean imaginary ones? Ones that don't 
exist?"

"We are in an altered timeline. I can tell you when you would 
have died if the Second Chance had not arrived...in 
November of 1963, felled by an assassin's bullet. I would have 
died in 1996 of a disease I have never even heard of before. 
Be we...us...may die tomorrow or live to be a hundred."

"You have spoken with my alternate number on the ship? And why 
do they call him a President instead of a Captain?"

"They call him President because that is what he is...elected 
by a Council of all the species aboard, in turn elected by the 
members of their species. The ship has half the land area of 
Massachusetts and a population of nearly three million. And I 
have spoken with him on several occassions, and he was 
very...adamant. All he would say is 'You have H hours and M 
minutes left'. Korum seemed to understand our position better, 
but even he does not ...grok is the word they use...it at all. 
Korum, in fact, was the one who convinced the Council to make 
the President and Vice President be humans."

"Grok?"

"I long understood how city lights could interfere with star 
observing. I could calculate how far away lit up dust in the 
air could be seen and blot out faint celestial features...the 
formula is quite basic. But once I drove out of town into the 
outback to do some observing...and drove, and drove, and 
drove. Finally I got to the site. It was pristine...except for 
the lights of the town, still lighting the sky near the 
horizon. That was when I REALLY understood the problem...when 
I 'grokked' it. Korun told me how his parents...he is one of 
the oldest people on the ship...made him have a baculum and be 
more like his raccoon ancestors. A penis bone is not 
convienient for a biped, and as soon as he reached his 
majority...which is 35 in their culture...he had it removed.
That was half a millennium ago."

Kennedy took a deep breath and shook his head. "How did they 
manage to kill this...Tikchik or whatever? My Secret Service 
men shot their president and didn't make a scratch. And why 
didn't they use a human ambassador?'

"They did not shoot their president. They shot a nandroid...a 
sort of amoeboid gelatinous robot...actually billions of 
microscopic robots massed together...which presented the 
appearance of their president or whoever is 'broadcasting' to 
it. They could no more hurt him then an assassin could kill 
you by shooting your image on a TV screen. And they did not 
send a human because they will not send a human to this planet 
until our medical technology is able to deal with the...germs 
is not the right word, but it will have to do...that were used 
against humanity in the Genocide Wars. They are sure that 
these 'germs' are extinct, or at least not aboard their ship, 
but this provides an extra layer of protection. They do not 
want to take chances with something that could kill 3 billion 
people."

"But they don't mind panicking half the planet?"

Sagan's cleared his throat. He was getting hoarse...he had 
obviously done a lot of talking in the past day. "This was 
intended to impose their standards of Civilization on the 
world and do so without turning Earth into a burned out cinder 
doing it. Thus they could have an 'advanced' society and 
culture. while keeping Mother Earth a garden world doing it.
But it got screwed up."

"So they just come in and tell us what to do?"

"Now you know how the natives felt when the missionaries 
arrived with their Bibles and guns."

"And why send a mongoose if they knew that they are illegal in 
this country?"

"They did not know this. The wars killed huge swaths of the 
population...20 billion all together...and surviving 
populations only saved what was most important. Korum wrote 
his Dissertation on the Thesis that Sherlock Holmes was a 
historical, not fictional character. This was a minority but 
serious school of thought. He was quite disappointed to find 
out that he was wrong. I know how he felt, by the way...they 
have probed twenty planets with oceans and continents and 
found them all sterile, including the one that bears my name, 
observed thousands more and seen no signs of life, and have 
detected no radio signals equivalent to 1962 Earth out to over 
half the Hubble Radius. It seems we are alone. Anyway, they 
scanned all their databases for the Lacey Act and came up with 
only '1900 Lacey Act passed' in a chronology of significant 
events in the history of conservation. That's all they 
know...that it had something to do with conservation in 1900. 
Of the 180 million Americans I doubt if more than 180 thousand 
know that mongooses are prohibited here."

"Can't they understand that we don't get along with each 
other, much less other species?'

"Understanding that others may not hold your values is often 
the hardest thing to do. They thought they could just rescue 
us from our folly. But they have made an iron-clad set of 
rules which governs EVERYBODY, genetically engineered 
themselves to 'edit' out tendencies to xenophobia and increase 
those to xenophilia, and done the same with their adult 
brains. Bigotry is not even wrong to them. It is not like 
saying '2 + 2 = 5', it is like saying '2 + 2 = purple'. They 
think that we are literally insane...they call our time 'The 
Age of Insanity' and they came here to cure us."

"Why did they pick a mongoose if they have so many other 
species to choose from?"

"Because T'charik led the debate for the Second Chance 
to ally with America. That was his reward." 

"How are we going to get out of this? Pinkham, at least, is 
completely innocent. I have no intention of turning him over."

"Then we will be at war with the Second Chance. I know 
enough to know that our missiles cannot reach more than a 
fraction of the distance, and it will be years before they 
can. When the deadline expires, Sigmundson will destroy one of 
the largest cities in the country at random. He will continue 
doing this daily until you surrender or he runs out of 
cities."

"What about a pro forma surrender? I just say I surrendered 
and let him save face. Then we go on as if nothing has 
happened."

"The minimum requirements for a surrendered nation under the 
Protocols is withdrawal home of all the out of nation's 
military forces and equipment. In addition, they will have to 
replace America with the second leading nation of the 
Earth...which is Russia. All our efforts to contain Communism, 
all the money and blood, will have been in vain. The Kremlin 
will have won the Cold War."

Keneddy dropped his head in his hands.


**********************************************

Another one of the precious days had passed. Kennedy, Sagan 
and Korum's avatar were in the Oval Office as Pinkham, his 
assistant and Hackl were escorted in. They were told to be 
quiet, as Sagan gave a lecture describing the situation that 
the United States had found itself in. Their faces grew pale 
as the words rolled on.

"But I was just doing my job!" protested Pinkham.

"Like at Nuremberg?" snapped Sagan. Then he looked down at the 
floor and blushed. "Sorry, that was a cheap shot. I haven't 
had much sleep in the last couple of days."

"Neither have I."

Kennedy looked like he had aged years in the last few days. 
"Look, I've gone over this every way I can. I don't see that I 
have much choice but to turn you over, Pinkham. Thousands of 
Americans have died in the war against Communism already. 
Korum says even more would have died in the ...original 
future. All this will be in vain if I don't turn you over. I'm 
going to have to say that you acted against my explicit 
orders."

"But that is not true, Mr. President. I did not receive the 
orders until after I had already killed this...mongoose or 
alien or whatever."

"We have to maintain the legal fiction that you did. We have 
to pretend that the government had nothing to do with this."

"But why me, sir?"

"Because you are the one who actually did it. We could 
implicate your superiors as well, but that would just put more 
people on death row. I would even go, but as Head of 
Government that would implicate the government and we would 
just be back in a state of war."

"Can't they make an exception to these...Protocols? Can't 
their president suspend them in my case?"

Sagan spoke. "There is a short science fiction story, "The 
Cold Equations" it was called. A shuttle has a supply of 
desperately needed serum for a colony planet. But a little 
girl stows away aboard, and her added mass means the shuttle 
does not have enough fuel to land without crashing. The cold 
equations of physics mean that she has to be thrust out the 
airlock if the shuttle is to land and save the colony. She has 
to die for them. Physics has no exceptions. The Protocols were 
designed to have no exceptions."

"The law is designed to protect our wildlife. Don't they have 
laws to protect their wildlife? Can't they understand that?"

"There is no wildlife left for them to protect. The poles and 
mountaintops are tropical deserts, the temperate zones saunas, 
the equator a broiler oven. Earth is dying in their time. They 
have thousands of mile high machines on the planet trying to 
cleanse the air and stop the planet from becoming another hell 
like Venus...which is worse than even I imagined. It's finally 
beginning to work but...well, Worrying about introducing 
mongooses in their era has the absurdity of complaining about 
snowflakes on your glasses while an avalanche is bearing down 
on you."

"And what do you expect me to do when I get there?"

"You will waive the right to examination under truth detection 
technology. You will acknowledge that you killed T'charik 
because he was a mongoose species, albeit a sapient one, in 
direct defiance of the President's express order."

"Which is a lie. I had not received the order at that time."

"That is why you are to waive your right to examination under 
truth detection technology. You will then be immediately taken 
and put to death in the same fashion in which you killed 
T'charik."

Pinkham had the sudden thought he was glad he chose a needle. 
As bad as lethal injection was, a gas chamber seemed worse. 
But this still seemed absurd. "What if I use this 'truth 
detection technology'and tell the truth?"

"Then your life will be spared. Since you were acting for the 
government at the time, you will be taken as a prisoner of 
war. Your life as such will likely be more luxurious than it 
ever was here on Earth...their technology is very advanced. 
But America will be at war with them."

"We will lose." added Kennedy. "Since there is nothing I can 
do to them, I will have no choice but to surrended at once. 
They will choose the U.S.S.R. as their allies. Your friends 
and family will live in a Communist world.

"If they are so powerful, why are they so afraid of us, if 
they can burn a hole through the moon?"

"They are not afraid of us" whispered Sagan. "They are afraid 
of themselves. The Protocols were to protect sapient species, 
humanity in particular, from annihilation."

"He wasn't communicating. We loved him, but he just acted like 
a rather strange animal." said Hackl. "He would do silly 
antics like the triangle dance, then get mad when people 
laughed at it."

"Triangle dance?"

"He would move his food and water dishes across the enclosure. 
Then he would walk in a triangle from his little house to the 
water dish to the food dish and back...three steps, then four, 
then five, every time."

"Pythagoras" sighed Sagan.

"What?"

"Never mind." The world would probably know soon enough...the 
President was to give his speech tomorrow, and surely someone 
in the crowd who had seen T'charik would remember his high 
school geometry and figure it out. You just don't expect to 
see a zoo animal demonstrate a theorum. "He had a voder...a 
talking device, and clothing, and other items, in the forward 
compartment of his escape pod. but they were destroyed in the 
crash...heck, HE was nearly destroyed. There are humanoid 
animals in the Second Chance who can speak with an 
accent, though even they use voders often to ease 
communications. But T'charik's species was the last quadruped 
one left. There were a few on the slopes of the Himalayas 
rescued before Earth got too bad."

"I should have realized something was wrong when I found him 
hiding in the filing cabinet. Animals just don't do that on 
their own. If he hadn't sneezed I never would have thought to 
look there."

"Sneezed?" muttered Kennedy.

"But am I to be the scapegoat for this?"

"There are plenty of people who are responsible. President 
Sigmundson, who is avoiding the death penalty for gross 
malfeasance only because THEY have to maintain the legal 
fiction as well, General Smith, who has already agreed to be 
extradited as well to the Second Chance to stand trial 
and be executed for war mongering, T'charik for not keeping 
his damn voder on his damn neck, even Kennedy for having 
trouble believing this for a few minutes and giving you time 
to kill the ambassador. But at the very least, both you and 
Smith will have to lay down your lives if the Free World is to 
remain free. And your reputation will have to be 
destroyed...you will have to falsely be branded a traitor."

"I...see..." Pinkham seemed numb.

"I can and will extradite you to the Second Chance" 
said Kennedy. "But only you can make this work. You have to 
accept full blame for the death of T'charik. If you do, you 
die and your reputation is destroyed, but we have a chance to 
make this a better world. If you don't, you will live, but 
America will be reduced to a second rate nation in a world 
under the hammer and sickle. Do you understand this?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Do you agree to co-operate?"

"...I...yes, Mr. President."

*********************************************


At Arlington Air Force Base, Mr. Harry Pinkham, an American 
hero, walked toward the bullet shaped craft which already held 
General Smith and which would take the both of them to the 
Second Chance. America had just won the Cold War.


This story is a work of fiction. Major historical characters, 
such as President Kennedy and Carl Sagan, are features. 
In addition, minor historical characters in Minnesota such as 
Harry Pinkham and Lloyd Hackl are used for authenticity. 
They are given their full names and are based on their depictions 
in the book The Duluth Mongoose by Jack Denton Scott. 
Totally fictional 1962 characters such as "General Smith", 
"Musical Mike" and Pinkham's assistant "John" are invented by me 
and are not intended to reflect any actual person. All actions by 
historical characters in my altered history are my own imagination 
and do not necessarily reflect how the characters would have 
actually behaved.


 

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