Quozl

by Alan Dean Foster

  The man in the business suit frowned. “Can’t they talk for themselves?” He leaned over to peer closely at Runs-red-Talking. Runs-red-Talking stared back interestedly. “How do you do the eyes? Magnifying lenses, or some kind of transparent overlay?”

  This was not how it was supposed to happen, Chad thought tiredly. There should be bands playing, fireworks exploding, important people making speeches and shaking hands with revered Quozl Elders.

  “They don’t come off. They aren’t wearing costumes. These are real Quozl, ambassadors from the Quozl colony on Earth.”

  Business suit didn’t miss a beat. “Just when I thought you people were going to cooperate.”

  Chad eyed the door, wondering if it was worth making a break for it. He decided against it. What would be the point? They couldn’t get out of the park.

  “Do you have a first-aid station here?”

  Safari sounded insulted. “Several. Why? Somebody sick?” Business suit looked suddenly alarmed even though neither he nor his partner had laid a hand on their charges.

  “Nobody’s sick.” Chad tried to be patient. “If you have X-ray facilities we can settle this once and for all.” Business suit looked dubious, so Chad made it easy for him. “One exposure. Then we’ll let you take your mug shots.”

  Arlo chimed in helpfully. “We’ll even pay for the work.”

  The two security men exchanged a glance. Then safari shrugged, which seemed to settle it.

  He returned to his post and left the tidying up to business suit, which was a pity since he missed the reaction of the young technician operating the X-ray unit. As he refused to believe his own work they had to wait and repeat the procedure twice with additional witnesses. Then all hell broke loose.

  While it was breaking, Runs and Seams insisted on a few moments of privacy. Both were nervous and uneasy, not because of the exposure but because it had been too long since either had engaged in intercourse. Chad and Mindy kept watch outside the storage room while the Quozl went about their important business.

  Meanwhile the security man consulted with the medical technicians, who called in the park administrator, who intended to have them all carted off and fired until he saw both the Quozl and the film, who then contacted his superior, who called in additional expert medical assistance, by which time the already closed-for-the-day park saw the extraordinary sight of more vehicles arriving than were departing.

  Lines of communication no matter how private or supposedly secure tend to leak like fifty-year-old steel pots. The reporter who chose to take a chance on the ridiculous found himself recording the scoop of the century, complete with pictures. The first official press conference to deal with the presence of alien life on earth was held in the Disneyland executive offices, a venue that would have pleased Dali and Bosch if not presidents and premiers.

  Runs-red-Talking and Seams-with-Metal answered the questions put to them freely and thoughtfully. So did Mindy and a reluctant Chad. As to the exact location and size of the colony the Quozl were purposefully evasive. Everything was monitored by the Council of Seven during Runs-red-Talking’s frequent trips to the bathroom, the Quozl bouncing the necessary signal off the glass window of a large 1890s peanut wagon stationed strategically outside.

  By early morning administrators, reporters (others having gotten wind of what was happening and showing up), Quozl and friends were exhausted. Both vehicular and aerial police escort was provided to convoy the visitors from elsewhere back to Chatsworth. A permanent plainclothes watch was posted around Mindy’s house, which only mildly intrigued her neighbors. Everyone knew she worked in film and tv, so such oddities were to be expected. They whispered about wild parties and drugs without suspecting a hint of the truth.

  Runs and Seams had no difficulty falling asleep in Mindy’s guest room. In contrast their human friends found it hard to get any rest, tossing and turning uneasily.

  Meanwhile the neighbors allowed as how their assumptions might have been wrong because Mindy’s front lawn began to sprout tv cameras like chickweed. If not for the presence of a small army of plainclothes police and FBI they would have walked right up to peer in the windows. By the time the sun cast its first baleful glow through the smog someone was waking up the mayor, since it had been decided it was his place to alert the federal government.

  Arlo, however, was one step ahead of them all. He was taking full advantage of the fact that no one had yet thought to screen outgoing as opposed to incoming phone calls. As much as Chad disliked his sister’s fiancé he had to admit that he knew his work.

  When a delegation including the senior senator from the state of California, two members of the House of Representatives, several people from the governor’s office, and the mayor showed up at the house at six A.M., they were informed by the police lieutenant on duty that the inhabitants had taken themselves elsewhere. Under proper escort, of course.

  “What the hell do you mean ‘proper escort’?” The senator was incensed. “Why didn’t you keep them here?”

  The lieutenant wished he was somewhere safe. Down in the gang zone, for instance. “No one said anything about keeping them here. They aren’t under arrest or anything. And the aliens insisted, sir.”

  “Idiot!” The senator whirled on an aide while the representatives caucused. “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman confessed.

  “Well, find out.”

  “Hey.” Everyone turned toward the urgent voice. “Hey, everybody. Have a look at this.”

  One of the reporters who had set up on the lawn as close to the front steps as the police would allow was gazing at the monitor attached to his cameraman’s equipment. The sun was bright and he had to shield the screen.

  “Isn’t that them?”

  The senator shoved his way to the front of the rapidly swelling crowd while police tried to keep everyone else back. Across the front yard other cameramen were rapidly switching their own monitors.

  It was a widely viewed show. Not as big as Donahue or Walters, but popular. More importantly, Arlo had a contact with the host, who at first was understandably suspicious of a fraud. When proof was offered in the form of copies of the X rays taken the previous night and a brief sprinting demonstration by Seams-with-Metal, he agreed to an unrehearsed appearance.

  “This had better be for real.” The host was giving her makeup girl fits, pacing endlessly backstage minutes before airtime.

  “Just wing it,” Arlo advised her reassuringly.

  “Everyone’ll think it’s a gag. I’ll be laughed off the air. I won’t be able to get a job hosting a cooking show in Muskogee.”

  “It’s for real.” Arlo was watching Runs-red-Talking and Seams-with-Metal grooming themselves. “In fifteen minutes you’ll have more proof than you’ll ever need. Just whatever you do, don’t stop.”

  Actually it was more like twenty minutes before every reporter in Los Angeles descended on the station, fighting, bribing, and trying to pull rank to get inside. One network anchor suffered a broken leg in the crush but was too excited to file suit. By this time the studio audience had tumbled to the fact that this “interview with aliens” might be something other than a joke, and watched enthralled as the nervous host tried to question Runs and Seams in her normal penetrating yet folksy fashion.

  When it was the turn of the studio audience to put questions to the guests, something like realization bathed them in its warm, reassuring glow. Around the country people set aside squawling infants, shopping, fast food, and work to crowd around television sets of all sizes. While Middle America watched and a representative sample of it put questions to bona fide aliens, an army of reporters battled with hard-pressed security men and plainclothes police in the hallway outside the studio.

  “Where exactly do you come from?” asked a mother of three on vacation from Nashville.

  “We’d rather not say.” Seams-with-Metal’s intricate ear gestures were lost on the woman and the rest of the audience. “It would n
ot matter anyway. It is so far distant you could not find it in your night sky.”

  “How do you like it here on Earth?” The questioner was a machinist from Detroit. Chad was thrilled to observe that, like the others, he was smiling as he asked his question.

  “What we have seen of it so far we like very much,” Runs told him politely. “But we are concerned about what humans will think of us.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” The hostess rushed her microphone to within pickup range of the heavy set woman from Reno. She was positively gushing. “My children have watched your show every Saturday for years, and they love you!”

  It was as Arlo had predicted and Chad had hoped. The audience was confusing fiction with reality, to the eventual benefit of the latter.

  “It’s not our show.” Runs indicated Mindy and proceeded to explain. It didn’t matter. Either no one in the audience believed him, or else they simply didn’t care. The actuality of the Quozl fascinated them. How could characters on which popular cartoons were based be anything other than friendly? How could anyone listening to them talk possibly think of them as “invaders”? Why, the very thought was ludicrous! All anyone had to do was look at them, listen to their high, whispery voices. Not only were they harmless, they were cute.

  “How long have you been here?” was the next question.

  For the first time, Runs-red-Talking hesitated. He whispered to his companion. Seams-with-Metal heard him clearly though not even the studio mikes were sensitive enough to pick up his words. She replied equally softly.

  “Approximately fifty of your years,” he informed the questioner.

  That provoked murmurs from the audience and hurried work by the few reporters who had succeeded in gaining entrance to the studio. Clearly everyone had expected the Quozl to say something on the order of a few weeks or, at most, a couple of months.

  “How could you stay hidden for fifty years?” a young man inquired.

  This time Runs didn’t pause. “We can be inconspicuous.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  Chad didn’t hear the answer. This was better, much better, than some lingering, solemn government interrogation. Everything was out in the open. Fear and innuendo and rumor needed dark enclosed places in which to grow. Everything Runs-red-Talking and Seams-with-Metal said was going out via relay live to the rest of the country and around the world.

  The host descended from the tiers of audience seats to thrust her microphone at the two Quozl. She was completely relaxed now. With a’ start Chad realized she might as well have been interviewing any pair of celebrities about their next picture. He looked around and, as expected, found Arlo smiling back at him and nodding knowingly.

  “So you’re worried about your reception? Let’s go with that. Tell me how you feel about that.”

  And so it went. The show ran ten minutes over, twenty, half an hour and on into a second full hour of overtime while network programmers frantically tried to clear their schedules to make room for the unprecedented live-action drama. It would be remembered that the first unarguable indication of widespread Quozl acceptance came in the form of women around the country calling their respective stations to protest the preemption of their favorite soaps for those “silly-looking aliens from another world.” As Arlo had predicted and hoped, by presenting the Quozl in this manner to the general public they had passed beyond uniqueness to achieve banality.

  Eventually technicians from the CIA arrived and sealed off the studio feed, but by then the Quozl had been on the air for more than two hours. It was too late to pretend they didn’t exist.

  As he squinted at the upper level of the studio Chad could make out the anxiety and frustration on the faces of the newly arrived government representatives. They were arguing among themselves as they gestured in the direction of the stage.

  Meanwhile the host had been informed that the show was no longer going out over the air, though she was not told the reason. Now thoroughly enjoying herself and at last aware of the historic import of the broadcast just concluded, she turned a final time to her audience.

  “I’m afraid we’ve gone over our allotted time, but I know all of you join with me in welcoming our new friends. How about it, America? Do we let our visitors who’ve nowhere else to go stay here on Earth?”

  The roar of approval that resounded from the audience induced the reporters present to scribble and dictate furiously, while the government people could only wince. They hadn’t lost control of the situation because thanks to the speed with which the Quozl and their friends had moved, they’d never been in control.

  The audience response was heartwarming but not official, as Chad discovered when they attempted to leave the studio only to find themselves surrounded by police and speechless men in gray suits.

  “You’re going to have to come with us now,” one of them informed him solemnly.

  “But we don’t want to go with you.” Mindy was equally earnest.

  “Lady, do you have any idea what this means?” The man flashed an open billfold at her, tucked it back into his suit.

  “I’ve got an idea, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t want to go with you.”

  As he spoke the man’s gaze continuously swept over the rapidly swelling crowd. Word of the Quozl’s presence was spreading fast.

  “We have to keep you away.”

  “Away from what?” Chad demanded to know. “The rest of the people? Why? They like the Quozl.”

  “This isn’t a game,” the man responded. “I’ve seen the X rays that were taken. These creatures are for real. There are more of them and they said on that damn show that they want to stay here. That’s not something you decide by voice vote in a television studio.”

  “Why can’t we go back to my place?” Mindy inquired. “You can keep just as close a watch on them there as anyplace else.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  To his alarm, Chad found that the phalanx of government operatives was edging them slowly but surely in a definite direction. He could not have escaped that ring of arms and bodies had he tried. That was when Runs-red-Talking spoke up.

  “If you are thinking of taking us to some kind of compound, we’d much rather stay with our friends. Surely you won’t try to take us somewhere against our will?”

  The man from the agency appeared nonplussed. Obviously he hadn’t expected the cute furry aliens to make demands of their own, much less press anything resembling a legal claim.

  “Nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything against their will,” he mumbled uncomfortably, suddenly wishing someone else was present to give orders.

  “That’s good,” Arlo chirped, “because otherwise it would look very, very bad in the papers.”

  “That’s right. It would,” agreed the tall, well-dressed stranger standing close to him.

  “Who the hell are you?” the agent demanded to know.

  “My name’s Akers,” the stranger said.

  Chad could see the agent wavering as he recognized the newcomer. Jack Akers was the evening anchor for CBS News. A senator or governor the agent could have handled. They were merely elected. But network anchors were worshiped. Or as his father would have warned him, You on delicate ground, boy.

  Under the circumstances and given the speed with which events had unfolded, the government had moved fast. Just not quite fast enough. Between the two-hour show and the number of important reporters present, they couldn’t take Chad and his sister and Arlo and the two aliens and stick them in a hole in the ground somewhere far away where they could interrogate them at leisure. It was too late to label them state secrets.

  While the anchor chatted amiably with Chad and Runs-red-Talking, the agents in charge of the tardy operation conferred among themselves and by radio with superiors. Eventually the taller one confronted Chad. His expression was exquisitely neutral.

  “You can go back to your house. But all of you will be under twenty-four-hour surveillance from now on. No more unapproved nocturnal ex
cursions, no more random tv appearances.”

  “Fine,” said Mindy, “so long as we stay at my house and not at your house.” She and Chad and Arlo pushed their way through the clutch of agents, searching for the Cadillac, Quozl in tow.

  As they departed, the agent felt a hand run up the back of his thigh. He jumped, turned to say something, and was startled beyond measure to see Seams-with-Metal sauntering past. As she did so, she turned and gave him a slow, unmistakably sensuous wink.

  For an instant he not only forgot why he was there, he forgot who he was. Seams-with-Metal analyzed his reaction, and was pleased.

  Perhaps, after all, this was better than being able to have set off the bomb.

  XX.

  THEY FINALLY HAD to disconnect Mindy’s old line, but the government demonstrated its belated efficiency by quickly installing half a dozen new ones. While they were usually tied up by visiting agents and representatives, those living in the house were not forbidden to make use of them. Jack Akers saw to that.

  The guard which had originally surrounded the house had to be extended to seal off most of the immediate neighborhood as word of the aliens’ presence spread. So dense was the security that it took half a day for Chad and Mindy’s parents to make their way through. They had a pleasant visit, tried to return to home and work, only to find themselves deluged with requests for interviews and comments by the swelling army of reporters. At least their father was able to escape. Not even the most powerful news-gathering organization could force an interview in the cockpit Of a 747 at forty thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific. Their mother found sanctuary with relatives.

  As for Arlo, he was in heaven, fielding an unending stream of requests for endorsements, personal appearances, movie and book rights, and all manner of promotions aimed not only at the Quozl but at Chad and Mindy as well. The figures being thrown at him usually existed only in the realm of fiction. His only regret was that none of it could be conducted in privacy, since everything coming into or going out of the house was intercepted and screened.