The Fresco

by Sheri S. Tepper

  In the clearing, a fire had been built, and the Wulivery, some half dozen of them, were gathered around their fallen leader, while a dozen or so Xankatikitiki were busy with their slain comrades. The night was chilly, and she recalled that both the Wulivery and Xankatikitiki had high body temperatures. No doubt they felt the cold, but the Fluiquosm probably did not.

  Abruptly, the fire leapt up, a bright light illuminated the clearing, and Chiddy’s voice, tight with fury, said in impeccable English, “You will all have the courtesy to stay precisely where you are.” His words were followed by loud, simultaneous translations.

  There were exclamations of surprise and annoyance. There was movement among the trees, quickly stopped, and several Inkleozese moved into the clearing tugging nets that were full of something invisible. These were pegged down with considerable dispatch under Chiddy’s watchful eyes, though they continued to move restlessly as Chiddy spoke angrily.

  “Stinky seems to have met with difficulty, and so has ‘Growr. Well, they have played games with your membership in the Confederation for many years. The last time you pulled something like this your people paid a monstrous fine. That alone should have been enough to dissuade you from repeating your behavior.”

  “Oh, end talk, Pistach,” said a voice from one of the nets. “This planet is incredibly rich! There’s enough here for all of us. You take the western half of it and civilize it. We’ll take Asia and Africa and eat them. And the Inkleozese can monitor Europe to their souls’ content. We won’t even stumble over one another!”

  “That may be true,” said Chiddy. “But we have rules against involving ourselves in adversarial or factional relationships on new planets. You’re working with a rebel force against the legitimate government of this nation.”

  “You’re working with a reactionary element against the best interest of the people of this planet,” charged one of the Wulivery. “And we’re prepared to bring it before the Confederation court! These people don’t need civilizing! They need weeding out! They need cutting down, losing their flab! Our entire population could dine four meals a day for a century before humans would even notice a drop in their population density!”

  “That’s true, but irrelevant,” said Chiddy, wrathfully. “The humans must come to grips with their own population problem.”

  “Just like they come to grips with their own drug problem?” cried Odiferous Tentacle. “You’re very selective which problems you will solve and which you won’t.”

  “We only solve the ones that affect Neighborliness, and you very well known it,” snapped Chiddy. “We solve situations that may lead to general war, situations that cause continuing discontent among populations. In our opinion, drugs do that, and weapons do that and repressions do that. Such things are powderkegs, just waiting to explode! Men with breeding madness versus women. Catholic Ireland versus the northern Protestants! Israel versus the Palestinians! Iraq or the Turks versus the Kurds! Serbia, what’s left of it, versus the Universe! Ridiculous. These can be handled with a few suspensions, a few vanishments, without ending in a war that will kill off half the world’s population!”

  “Enough,” said one of the Inkleozese. “We are here to monitor this situation. We have already found the three predatory races to be in contempt of the regulations concerning hunting rights on assisted planets. We find the predatory races were properly informed of the Pistach initiative on Earth. We find the Xankatikitiki, the Fluiquosm, the Wulivery have no right to be here.”

  “We raise a point of procedure,” cried a voice from an empty net.

  “State your point,” answered the Inkleozese.

  “Section 7A of the book of procedures establishes that when an initiative is begun on a false premise, that the initiative may be cancelled when the premise is corrected.”

  “What false premise?” cried Chiddy.

  “You say that Neighborliness will be best assured by eliminating drugs and weapons and by quieting repressions. We, the predators, say that Neighborliness will be best assured when the population of this planet is reduced by at least half and that the best way to do this is to increase drugs and weapons, increase warlike situations, and let the predators have freedom to hunt here as they will.”

  Hidden behind her tree, Benita shuddered. The world had been repeatedly swept by war and famine and plague when the population had been a quarter of what it was now! Less than a hundred years ago. Sparse population didn’t equal peace. It never had. All it meant were fewer casualties.

  The agitated net spoke again: “I will quote our Pistach friend who said, on Earthian TV, that it had read in a gardening book that one saved much labor by learning to love weeds….”

  “Out of context,” cried Vess. “We said allow people to kill themselves if they will. We said nothing about doing the killing for them! We find no fault with suicide! People who risk their own lives or who do not want to live should not be rescued or required to live. We find great fault with murder!”

  Three of the Inkleozese put their heads together, their antennas touching. One of them turned to the predators, saying, “You have legitimate points of argument. However, once planetary assistance has begun, points of procedure must be argued before the Council, not on the planet in question. Research into the history of this planet must be done. We will do so, and we will notify you of the hearing. In the meantime, you will return to your ships. You will enter into no further agreements with humans on this planet. The Pistach will continue their efforts for the time being, though those efforts may be set aside if your appeal is granted.”

  There were howls, chitterings, yips and stinks of annoyance, but within a short time the predators had departed, along with their dead comrades. Then the Inkleozese set about lowering the captives from the trees and stripping off the membrane wrappers. At this point, Chiddy came to Benita.

  “Are you all right, dearest Benita?” He morphed into his favorite male human form, one she had become accustomed to, a rather professorial or perhaps wizardly form with graying hair and far-seeing eyes. “Oh, we so deeply regret not being there when these…naughty people took you away. There is your friend, Chad. The Inkleozese are helping him, now. It is necessary they work on him a little, wiping out the mind picture put in his head by the Fluiquosm.”

  “My son ought to be among those prisoners,” she murmured. “And the girl who was taken at the same time. And Bert.”

  “What is best to do with them?” Chiddy asked. “We can return them near the place they were taken from. Perhaps that would save much trouble?”

  “It would save trouble. I think. Only…didn’t the cabal ask that they be kidnapped? This has all happened in such a rush. It’s hard to think. It’s still night, but it’s Monday, isn’t it? I’m supposed to appear before a committee this morning? And…Morse? He believes he still has Bert and Carlos and Angelica, even though it wasn’t really Angelica? Maybe we shouldn’t let him know what’s happened here tonight. Maybe we should let him think he still has them.”

  “For what reason?”

  “I don’t know. Just that telling the truth to men like that never does any good. They always deal from a stacked deck.”

  “Which is cheating?”

  “Yes. And the only way to beat a cheater is to cheat better,” she said.

  The nearest Inkleozese said, “We will take these people, your son and his father and the female, and we will keep them for a time, while you decide what should be done with them. The others, we will return to the places they were taken from.”

  “Perhaps that’s best,” agreed Chiddy. “What is important now is to get you and Chad back to your homes. It is almost dawn.”

  One thing about Inkleozese, Benita soon understood, was their extreme efficiency. Everything happened with such dispatch that she found it difficult to remember how, exactly, she’d gotten home. She’d come in a ship, a very small one, and it had landed outside the back door, and they had let her in even though she hadn’t had her keys with her. It was
just as she had left it, except that the broken glass had been swept up, the broken windows had been boarded up, and Sasquatch was missing. A howl that came up the firewell from the stockroom told Benita he wasn’t far away. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. A mess. She took off her trousers and looked at her legs. Her knees and lower legs were blistered where they’d been in contact with Stinky as she crawled out.

  She stripped off the rest of her clothes, took a quick, hot shower, and put on one of her long sleep-tees. As she came out the bathroom door she heard an “Ahem” from the doorway.

  Chiddy. He was holding out a small bottle. “Tonic,” he said. “To make you feel you have slept well and are unstressed and confident. We sent some home with Chad, as well.”

  “Is it a drug?” she asked.

  He frowned. “You mean, is it addictive? No. Unless you are addicted to staying up all night every night and being frightened out of your wits all the time. Then, I suppose, one might come to rely on it.”

  She laughed, the laughter becoming almost hysterical, until she found herself sitting on the bed, Chiddy holding a cold washcloth to her head. “Did you think they would eat you?” he asked.

  “Chiddy, they did eat me! Or, one of them did. I was inside a Wulivery. My legs, look at them, they’re all red and blistered and they burn like fury…”

  He growled something and disappeared, returning in a moment with another bottle containing a lotion that he spread upon the reddened skin. The relief from pain was immediate. “Twice each day,” he muttered angrily, recapping the bottle and setting it beside her. “The Inkleozese didn’t tell me. How did you get out?”

  “I killed it,” she said. “And two Xankatikitiki, as well.”

  “You killed them! Three of them. Remarkable.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m a walking advertisement for the NRA. Where did the Inkleozese take Bert and the kids?”

  He shrugged. “Somewhere nearby. They will not suffer, any of them, and Vess and I agree it is best for the cabal not to know what has happened. In a few hours, you must appear before Senator Morse’s committee.”

  “That’s right,” she sighed.

  He stared at her for a time, nodding. “Chad will come get you. Until near the time, perhaps you should sleep.”

  “If I can, sure.”

  “Drink the tonic,” he said. “You’ll find you can.”

  44

  benita

  MONDAY

  By eight o’clock on Monday morning, Benita felt considerably better. Chiddy’s tonic had calmed her down, brightened her eyes, and allowed her to convince herself, as Chiddy suggested, that she was involved in an interesting episode in human history rather than the debacle of the millennium. Shortly after eight, Chad called to say she was to appear before Morse’s committee in closed session. “I don’t like that closed session bit.”

  “Neither do I. We’ll see what we can do when we get there.”

  Chad drove her to the Capitol, where they went down a wide hallway without attracting the least attention. In the committee room, Senator Morse was already seated, glaring at the far end of the table with its empty chair, the one Benita was presumably to occupy. When he looked up and saw her, he started, very much as though her presence was unexpected.

  Chad caught the reaction and pressed her arm. Benita murmured, “He thought I wouldn’t show up. Now isn’t that interesting.”

  To either side of the table committee members fumbled papers and murmured to one another, glancing with equal curiosity first at Benita and Chad and then at Morse. Perhaps, Benita thought, they had assumed she would have two heads. Or tentacles. Perhaps they had assumed a pregnant Morse would not appear. Whatever their assumptions, here she was, and here he was, and the one thing that really bothered her was that there were no neutral outside observers in the room. She didn’t trust Morse and much preferred that he do nothing to her or with her in private.

  “Who are you?” Morse demanded of Chad.

  “I’m the intermediary’s bodyguard, Senator. I’m an FBI agent, and I’ll stay with her during the hearing.”

  “You will not,” said Morse. “This is a private hearing.”

  Benita felt herself flushing. It was all too, too reminiscent of a former occasion. “I agreed to speak to this committee voluntarily,” she said. “However, I will not do so unless Agent Riley is here.”

  “My dear lady, you will be held in contempt of Congress if you do not do precisely what we order,” sneered Morse.

  She started to speak, hushing when Chad put his hand on her arm. “Senator, the envoys are not delighted at your demanding the intermediary to be here, and though we do not know how they might react to such an action on your part, we have seen what actions they are capable of. Our agency, at least, feels it is wiser to be cautious.”

  One of Morse’s committee members leaned over and whispered in Morse’s ear, his hand over the microphone. Morse’s nostrils flared and his mouth twisted unattractively.

  Benita distinctly heard the colleague say, “By, you’re making an ass of yourself. We don’t want to rub the envoys the wrong way and this hearing is all on the record, anyhow.”

  While Morse, flushing, pretended to look at the papers before him, Benita sat down, her feet together in ladylike fashion, her hands folded in her lap.

  The colleague asked her to state her name.

  “Your committee knows who I really am,” she said. “You were told by Congressman Alvarez. The envoys prefer that my name not be widely used. To protect my privacy and that of my family, and for the purposes of this hearing, I am Jane Doe.”

  “For the purposes of this hearing,” snarled Morse, “you are whoever you are. Give us your name.”

  “Since this intermediary business has been dumped on me, Senator, and since my family knows nothing about it, it would be polite of the committee to grant my wish for anonymity.”

  Morse spluttered and boomed, “It will be necessary to question your family in order to ascertain that you are who and what you say you are.”

  Benita glared at him, feeling her mind slip a gear. “That is utterly specious, Senator. The FBI has already ascertained that I am who I say I am. Why don’t you ask your questions, and if you think some particular question isn’t answered honestly, we can talk about a polygraph. My intention is to tell the truth, and since I have not been consulted about any decisions the envoys have made or any activity they have engaged in or thought of engaging in, I have no reason whatsoever to lie about it.”

  Benita had read McIntyre’s FrankenStarr when it first came out, so she wasn’t totally unprepared for the deep-water fishing expedition Morse conducted. Where had she met the aliens? What had they looked like to her? What had she done, where had she gone? When had she met with the president?

  “The day after I delivered the cube to Congressman Alvarez.”

  “Who else was at that meeting?”

  “General Wallace.”

  “Was that the only time you met with the president?”

  “That was the only time I have seen the president in person,” Benita answered. “Agent Riley was appointed my go-between to the White House, and I have communicated through him.”

  Her answers obviously displeased Morse. “Aside from that dinner you attended, who have you spoken to about the aliens?”

  “The only people I have spoken to about the aliens are Representative Alvarez and General Wallace, and—” she meant to continue with the SOS and the FL, but he interrupted.

  “And the president?”

  “No, I didn’t speak to him about them even when I saw him. The president simply thanked me for my efforts because by that time he’d already seen the envoys for himself.”

  “What have you done since that time?” asked someone else.

  “Once the FBI was involved, I figured the matter was out of my hands. Since then, all I’ve done is transmit messages from the Pistach to Mr. Riley, who transmits them to whoever needs to know.”
/>
  “Why was the FBI involved in the first place?” Morse snarled, with a glare at Chad.

  Benita pursed her lips, considering. “To do just what you said you wanted to do, Senator. The White House and the Justice Department felt it was wise to check me out and be sure I am who I say I am, to be sure my story is true.”

  Somebody snapped at Chad, “Is that the case?”

  Chad said it was.

  At this juncture, Senator Morse snarled at Benita, “This all sounds very innocent, but you and I both know that you and the president and others have conspired to let these predators take over our country, haven’t you?”

  That came so far from left field that her jaw dropped and the committee members hastily covered microphones and began muttering to one another. While they squabbled lengthily, she decided upon a response, beginning by saying stiffly:

  “I’m not aware they’re taking over the country, sir. If so, I certainly didn’t plan it. I can’t speak for the Pistach, though my opinion is they didn’t plan it either. They were extremely upset when they learned the predators were here, and they’ve already given them notice to leave the planet.”

  She paused, looked thoughtful, shook her head and said, barely audibly, “No, I shouldn’t say…”

  “Say what?” he pounced. “What were you going to say?”

  She bit her lip, hesitated, breathed rapidly to make herself flush. “I’m not sure it’s relevant, Senator.”

  He almost screamed at her. “I’ll be the judge of that! Answer the question.”

  She said, haltingly, as if she hadn’t planned it down to every pause and sigh: “I started to say that it…ah…probably wasn’t the envoys or the president who encouraged the predators.” Sigh. “It’s probable that the predators have sought or even made an agreement with some member or members of the U.S. Congress.” Sigh, again, look down, pick at the seam of her skirt, shake her head very slightly. “They do want hunting privileges on Earth very badly.”