by Greg Bear
His legs stopped tingling. With some effort, Reuben stood, wobbling back and forth uncertainly. He checked himself over and found no injuries, no blood or evidence of abrasions, and only a few tender bruises. When his hand went toward his pocket, he thought better of it — or rather, something else urged caution — and slowly withdrew his arm. Hand held idly out, shivering and puzzled, Reuben looked around the alley for more of the spiders. They were gone.
The mouse lay still beside the dumpster. Reuben was allowed to kneel and examine the tiny carcass.
It had been neatly dissected, its purple, brown, and pink shiny organs laid out to one side, incisions made here and there, as if samples had been taken.
“I have to go home,” Reuben said to nobody or nothing in particular.
He was allowed to finish his walk home.
32
Arthur was delayed three days unexpectedly in Las Vegas to speak informally with three congressmen from the House Judiciary Committee. His first evening back home, back with his family and the river and the forest, he sat on the living room throw rug, legs curled into a lotus. Francine and Marty sat on the couch behind him. Marty had laid the fire in the grate all by himself, lighting the carefully placed tinder with a long match.
“Here’s what’s happening, really, as much as I know,” he said, raising himself on his arms and sweeping his locked legs around to face them. And he told them.
The heater came on at midnight and blew warm air over Arthur and Francine as they lay in bed in each other’s arms. Francine’s head rested on his shoulder. He could feel her eye movements as she stared into darkness. They had just made love and it had been very good, and against all his intellectual persuasions, he felt good, at home, at rest. Not a word had been said between them for fifteen minutes.
She lifted her head. “Marty—”
The phone rang.
“Oh, Christ.” She rolled out of his way. He reached across her to pick up the phone.
“Arthur, Chris Riley here. I’m sorry I woke you up—”
“We’re awake,” Arthur said.
“Yes. This is a bit of an emergency, I think. There are some guys in Hawaii who’d like to talk with you. They heard I knew your home number. You can call them now or I—”
“I’d like to be incommunicado, Chris, at least for a couple of days.”
“I think this could be very important, Arthur.”
“All right, what is it.”
“From the little they’ve told me, they might have found the — you know, what the press is talking about, the weapon the aliens might use against us.”
“Who are they?”
“One is Jeremy Kemp. He’s a conceited son of a bitch and hell to deal with, but he’s an excellent geologist. The other two are oceanographers. Ever hear of Walt Sam-show?”
“I think so. Wrote a textbook I read in college. He’s pretty old, isn’t he?”
“He and another fellow named Sand are with Kemp in Hawaii. They say they saw something pretty unusual.”
“All right. Give me a phone number.” He switched on the light over the nightstand.
“Samshow and Sand are on board a ship in Pearl Harbor.” Riley enunciated the number and name of the ship for him. “Ask for Walt or David.”
“Thanks, Chris,” Arthur said, hanging up.
“No rest?” Francine asked.
“Some people think they might have found the smoking gun.”
“Jesus,” Francine said softly.
“I’d better call them now.” He got out of bed and went into the den to use the extension there. Francine followed a few minutes later, wrapped in her robe.
When he had finished with the call, he turned and saw Marty standing beside her, rubbing his eyes.
“I’m going to San Francisco this weekend,” he said. “But I’ve still got a couple of days with you guys.”
“Show me how to use the telescope, Dad?” Marty asked sleepily. “I want to see what’s going on.”
Arthur picked the boy up and carried him back to his bedroom.
“Were you and Mom making love?” Marty asked as Arthur lay him down in the bed and pulled the covers over him.
“You got it, Big Ears,” Arthur said.
“That means you love Mom. And she loves you.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And you’ll go away but you’ll come back again?”
“As soon as I can.”
“If we’re all going to die, I want you both here, with me, all of us together,” Marty said.
Arthur held his son’s hand for a long moment, eyes moist, throat gnarled with love and a deep, inexpressible anguish. “We’ll start with the telescope tomorrow, and you can look tomorrow night,” he finally said in a harsh whisper.
“So I can see them come,” Marty said.
Arthur could not lie. He hugged his son firmly and stood by the bed until Marty’s eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly.
“It’s one o’clock,” Francine said as he slipped under the covers beside her.
They made love again, and it was even better.
November 22
“Gauge! Bad dog! Dammit, Gauge, that’s a frozen chicken. You can’t eat that. All you can do is ruin it.” Francine stomped her foot in fury and Gauge slunk from the kitchen, berry-colored tongue lolling, ashamed but pleased with himself.
“Wash it off,” Arthur suggested, sliding past Gauge to stand in the kitchen door, grinning.
Francine held the thoroughly toothed but whole bird in two hands, shaking her head. “He’s mangled it. Every bite will have his mark.”
“Bites within bites,” Arthur said. “How recursive.”
“Oh, shut up. Two days home and this.”
“Blame it on me, go ahead,” Arthur said. “I need a little domestic guilt.”
Francine put the bird back on the countertop and opened the sliding glass door. “Martin! Where are you? Come chastise your dog for me.”
“He’s outside with the telescope.” Arthur examined the chicken sadly. “If we don’t eat it, that’s one bird’s life wasted,” he said.
“Dog germs,” Francine argued.
“Hell, Gauge licks us all the time. He’s just a puppy. He’s still a virgin.”
Dinner — the same bird, skinned and carefully trimmed — was served at seven. Marty seemed dubious about his portion of leg and thigh, but Arthur warned him his mother would not take kindly to their being overfastidious.
“You made me cook it,” she said.
“Anything interesting?” Arthur asked his son, pointing up.
“It’s all twinkly out there,” Marty said.
“Clear night tonight?” Arthur asked.
“It’s slushy and cold,” Francine said.
“Lots of stars, but I mean…you know. Twinkly like faraway firecrackers.”
Arthur stopped chewing. “Stars?”
“You told me only supernovas would get bright and go out,” Marty said seriously. “Is that what they are?”
“I don’t think so. Let’s go look.”
Francine dropped her wing in disgust. “Go ahead. Abandon dinner. Arthur—”
“Just for a minute,” he said. Marty followed. After hanging back by the service porch door for a minute in protest, Francine joined them in the backyard.
“Up there,” Marty said, pointing. “It’s not doing anything now,” he protested.
“It’s awful cold out here.” Francine looked at Arthur with an unexpressed question on her face. Arthur examined the sky intently.
“There,” Marty said.
For the merest instant, a new star joined the panoply. A few seconds later, Arthur spotted another, much brighter, a couple of degrees away. The sparkles were all within a few degrees of the plane of the ecliptic. “Oh, Christ,” he muttered. “What now?”
“Is this something important?” Francine asked.
“Daddy,” Marty said nervously, glancing at his parents, alarmed by the tone of their voices.
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“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe it’s a meteor shower.” But the sparkles were not meteors. He was sure of that much. There was one person he could call who might know — Chris Riley. Always Riley, a still point in the moving world.
In the darkened den, he dialed Riley’s home phone. On the first attempt, it was busy. A few moments later, Riley answered, breathless.
“Chris, hello. This is Gordon, Arthur Gordon.”
“My man. Just the man.” Riley paused to catch his breath. “I hear you set up a meeting with Kemp and Samshow. I’d like to be there, but it’s getting real busy here. I’ve been running out to the telescope and back. I should get a phone out there.”
“What’s happening?”
“Have you seen it? All through the plane of the ecliptic — asteroids. They’re blowing up like firecrackers! Since dusk, apparently. I just got confirmation from Mount Laguna and somebody left a message a few minutes ago from Pic du Midi in France. The asteroid belt looks like a battlefield.”
“Damn,” Arthur said. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Marty and Francine standing in the doorway, Marty with his arms wrapped tight around his mother’s waist.
“When is this task force going to come clean?” Riley asked. “Lots of people are really angry, Arthur. The President shoots his mouth off, and nobody else is talking.”
“We can’t be sure this is connected.”
“Arthur! For God’s sake! Asteroids are blowing up! How the hell could it not be connected?”
“You’re right,” Arthur said. “I’m flying to San Francisco tomorrow. How many sparkles so far?”
“Since I’ve been watching, at least a hundred. Got to run now.”
Arthur said good-bye and hung up. Marty was owl-eyed, Francine only slightly more restrained. “It’s all right,” he said.
“Is it starting?” she asked. Marty began to whimper. Arthur had not heard his son whimper in recent memory — months, a year.
“No. I don’t think so. This is far away, in the asteroids.”
“Are they sure it’s not shooting stars?” Marty asked, a very adult rationalization.
“No. Asteroids. They’re out beyond Mars, most of them between Mars and Jupiter.”
“Why out there?” Francine asked.
Arthur could only shake his head.
33
November 23
Minelli had spent the night lying in a lounger by the broad picture windows. He was there now, head lolling, snoring softly. Edward tightened the knot on the bathrobe he had borrowed from Stella and walked past the lounger to stand by the glass. Beyond a concrete patio and a dried-up L-shaped ornamental fishpond, frost whitened several acres of winter-yellow grass.
Coming here had been a good idea. Shoshone was peaceful, isolated without being cut off. For a few days at least, they could rest, until the crowds of reporters found them again. The few townspeople aware of their return were making sure nobody knew where they were. They spent most of the day indoors, and only Bernice answered the phone.
He heard Minelli stir behind him.
“You missed the show,” Minelli said.
“Show?”
“All night long. Like a parade of lightning bugs.”
Edward raised an eyebrow.
“No joking, and I’m not crazy. Out over the mountains, all night long. Clear as a bell. The sky twinkled.”
“Meteors?”
“I’ve seen meteors, and these wasn’t them.”
“End of the world, no doubt,” Edward said.
“No doubt,” Minelli echoed.
“How are you feeling?”
“Rested. Better. I must have given everybody a bad time back there.”
“They gave us a bad time,” Edward corrected. “I was feeling a little nuts myself.”
“Nuts.” Minelli shook his head and cocked a dubious glance at Edward. “Where’s Reslaw?”
“Still sleeping.” He and Reslaw had shared a middle bedroom.
“These folks are real nice. I wish I’d had a mother like Bernice.”
Edward nodded. “Are we going to stay here,” he asked, “and keep imposing, or are we going back to Texas?”
“We’re going to have to face the music eventually,” Minelli said philosophically. “The press awaits. I watched television a little last night. The whole country’s gone nuts. Quietly, mind you, but nuts all the same.”
“I don’t blame them.”
The phone rang.
“What time is it?” Minelli asked. Edward glanced at his watch.
“Seven-thirty.”
On the second ring, the phone was silent.
They stared at it apprehensively. “Bernice must have answered it in the back bedroom,” Minelli said.
A few minutes later, Stella came out, followed by her mother, both unselfconsciously attired in flannel pajamas and flower-print robes. Bernice smiled at them. “Breakfast, gentlemen? It’s going to be a long day.”
“That was CBS,” Stella said. “They keep sniffing.”
“We can only fool them so long,” Bernice said.
Edward looked across the quiet, frosty field. A pickup truck parked just off the highway held two men in brown coats and cowboy hats — locals sworn to keep “snoops” from setting up cameras and interfering with the Morgan family’s privacy. Even at a hundred yards’ distance, they looked formidable.
Stella shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. We didn’t do anything important. I didn’t, anyway. You found the rock.”
Edward shrugged. “What’s to say about that?”
Reslaw, dressed in jeans and a blue-and-white-striped long-sleeved shirt, walked out of the hallway, past the entrance alcove and the baby grand piano in an adjacent corner. “Somebody ask about breakfast?”
“Coming up,” Mrs. Morgan said.
“You know,” Edward said, “it was probably a bad idea to come here. For you two. We all need our rest, but your mother has been through a lot.”
Bernice Morgan walked stiffly into the kitchen. “It was exhilarating, really,” she said. “I haven’t had a fight like that in years.”
“Besides, she got to talk to the President,” Stella said, grinning.
“Makes me ashamed to be a Democrat,” she said. “Mike and the boys are keeping a watch. I just have to make sure they don’t get too zealous. You stay as long as you want.”
“Please stay,” Stella said, looking at Edward. “I have to talk. To all of you. I’m still confused. We should help each other out.”
“What about the fireworks?” Minelli asked. “Maybe there’s something on the news now.”
He stretched and swung his legs off the lounger, then stood and walked across the linoleum floor and wide Navajo rugs to the living room, a few steps from the marble-top pedestal table in the open dining area. He sat in front of the television. Slowly, as if it might be hot, he turned it on, then backed up, licking his lips. Edward watched him with concern.
“Just cartoons,” Minelli said quietly. Without changing channels, he lay back to watch, as if he had forgotten his original purpose. Edward walked over and changed channels for him, looking for news. On the twenty-four-hour News Network, an announcer was finishing a story on conflict between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
“Nothing,” Minelli said pessimistically. “Maybe I was seeing things.”
Then, “Astronomers in France and California have offered varied explanations for last night’s unprecedented meteor activity in the solar system’s asteroid belt. Seen throughout the Western Hemisphere, clearly visible to the naked eye in areas with clear skies, bright explosions flashed throughout the ecliptic, the plane occupied by the Earth’s orbit and the orbits of most of the sun’s planets. Speaking from his phone in Los Angeles, presidential task force advisor Harold Feinman said it might take days to analyze data and learn what had actually happened deep in space, beyond the orbit of Mars. When asked if there was any connection between the meteor activity and the alleg
ed spacecraft and aliens on Earth, Feinman declined to comment.”
“Smart man to admit he’s an idiot,” Minelli said. “Asteroids. Jesus.”
Edward flipped past other channels, but found nothing more.
“What do you think, Ed?” Minelli asked, slouching back in the corner of the broad L-shaped couch. “What the hell did I see? More end-of-the-world shit?”
“I don’t know any more than they do,” Edward said. He entered the kitchen. “Do you have a doctor in town? A psychiatrist?” he asked Bernice.
“Nobody worth the name,” she answered, her voice as low as his. “Your friend’s still not doing too well, is he?”
“The government got rid of us in a real hurry. He should be in a hospital somewhere, resting, cooling down.”
“That can be arranged,” she said. “Did he actually see something?”
“I guess so,” Edward said. “I wish I’d seen it.”
“Day of the Triffids, that’s what it was,” Minelli said enthusiastically. “Remember? We’ll all go blind any minute now. Break out the pruning shears!”
Stella stood by the stove, methodically cracking eggs into a pan one by one. “Momma,” she said, “where’s the pepper mill?” She brushed past Edward, tears in her eyes.
34
Walt Samshow stepped from the cab on Powell Street under the shadow of the St. Francis Hotel awning and turned around briefly to look across at long, silent lines of hundreds of marchers parading around Union Square, a cable car grumbling by covered with swaying tourists, spastic traffic of cars and more cabs, civilized mayhem: San Francisco, other than the marchers, not terribly different from his memories of it in 1984, the last time he had been downtown.
In the spacious, elegant lobby of the St. Francis, with its polished black stone and dark lustrous woods, Sam-show began hearing the rumors practically the moment he set his luggage down by the front desk.
