The Stalk

by Janet Morris

  Instead, he sank down into a chair before the console and replied, "Then I will ask the questions and you will give me answers I can understand."

  "Ask now questions comprehensible," said the II, "and answers will come forth to you."

  Croft should bring someone with him whenever he was in the modeler. He shouldn't have these meetings alone. He couldn't trust his own impression of what was happening.

  Too late to change it now. The honor guard were swinging their pots and the smoke was thickening. Around the three beings in the modeling cone, the colored swirls of holographic readiness changed to vistas of impossible geometry. Croft gripped the padded bumper of the console, hard. Now he must carefully phrase his interrogatory. So carefully ...

  Croft said, "Where are the Cummings boy and the Forat-Cummings girl?

  "Home with us, safely sound, and never fearing harm anymore," said the II. On his right and left, smoke billowed from pots swinging round and round in the honor guards' grasp. The smoke escaped the light cone entirely and began to roam the room. It touched Croft's face, his hands, brushing up against him like some animal trying to mark its territory. Wherever it touched him, his skin tingled.

  He grasped the bumper harder and framed more words. "Why did you take them away now?"

  "Not take, receive. Welcome. As promised. Safe haven requested, giving." The words rode the smoke into his mouth and they tasted true.

  Croft took a deep breath and the smoke ran down into his lungs, filling every inch of him, spreading out, separating, meandering through his body.

  He fought for control. Truth must be demonstrated, not tasted. He must reduce these exchanges to terms that humanity could evaluate. As much as he had dreaded, even avoided, what must come next, it was the only way.

  He said to the three-fold image that was filling the confines of the light cone and overflowing it, "Will the Unity representatives meet with me in person again? Can we have a formal, corporeal—corporal—meeting out at the Ball site or near it? Your staff and mine?" It was the last thing he wanted, but he needed real-time corroboration.

  "Yessss, in due course of time, certain," replied the Interstitial Interpreter. Behind him, the honor guard began to hum—or sing—softly. "Embassy nearing finished reality. At Ball site soon manifesting. Okay meeting our embassy place, soontime now."

  "Embassy nearing finished? At the Ball site?" What trick was this? "I have people at the Ball site. There's no construction going on, either inside the Ball or near it."

  "Is very near reality," said the Interstitial Interpreter once more.

  "But I thought you said you didn't want to construct your embassy at the Ball site...." Croft reminded himself that he was assuming he was talking to something more real than a model.

  The Unity alien craned its neck as if to peer down at him. In a distinctly tutorial manner, the Interstitial Interpreter said, "Constructing, with your permission, as agreed. Not manifesting now at site yet."

  Croft's hackles rose. "I assumed—that is, I thought you wanted to put your embassy out near Pluto, and that's why you want us to move Threshold there."

  "Will put, Mickeycroft. Will put when humans are going. Not staying longtime at Ball site, future. Pluto site much more better. As we agreeing, pasttime."

  The smoke from their pots was wrapping itself around Croft like a shroud. He wanted to claw it away from his face, his eyes. He didn't move. He said grimly, "Until I understand completely what's going on here, all work on the creation of your embassy and the project to move Threshold beyond Pluto must be suspended."

  "Not possible stopping. Not going on here, going on at Unity space. Putting at Ball site, soontime," said the II implacably. "Putting at Threshold's new place, when humans going, not beforetime."

  "You're telling me that all this time you've been working away, constructing an embassy out at the Ball site, and we just can't see it yet? And that you won't stop now?"

  The singing of the honor guard ceased. Their conical heads dipped low. The pots swung faster from their arms.

  The Interstitial Interpreter said, "Constructing embassy, as agreed, Mickeycroft, for putting at Ball site. Not making at Ball site. Making in Unity spacetime. Not stopping, not be wasting worktime. Why would? Ball site no good longtime, fine good, soontime."

  Croft didn't like what he was hearing one bit. But he had to assume that he was talking to a real intelligence, and that he was understanding the conversation as it occurred. And he must respond, somehow. Regain control.

  "I will send my emissary, Vince Remson. out to the sight of the Ball, to reevaluate the matter of what, if anything, is happening at the Ball site. With or without your cooperation. If something's being built there, we'd better see it soontime. Until that evaluation is finished, everything stops, including the development of plans to move Threshold."

  "Nothing stops," said the Interstitial Interpreter. "All things continue." And, more softly: "Humanity wants continuing, safely, with Unity, yes?"

  "Ah—yes. I think, anyhow. Safely, definitely. We can't keep meeting like this," Croft said. "It's impairing my ability to function." The words came out of him very slowly, leadenly. It seemed as if he were reciting a rote speech he'd forgotten that he'd prepared.

  "Not impairing. Mickeycroft. Improving. All spacetimers growing up now."

  "Maybe, and maybe not," Croft said. "You must now show my emissary, Mr. Remson, your progress at the Ball site. He will report to me. And I'd like to see my ambassador to Unity space there, too, and her companions, to compare status reports. I can't credit these unofficial meetings with any diplomatic significance, because you're not here in person. If you want to meet with United Nations of Earth representatives, then you'd better manifest your damned embassy and yourselves out there—and quick."

  "Quick now becoming easier," said the Interstitial Interpreter. "Soontime greetings, your person."

  "First Mr. Remson's person," Croft said dryly, and pried one aching hand loose from the bumper long enough to end the simulation.

  The Unity aliens disappeared too slowly, as if reluctantly, and the smokey smell of incense remained in Croft's nostrils too long.

  Spacetimers growing up now.

  The luckless spacetimer named Croft had grown up fast, in one horrific meeting. He was limp from it.

  So there was something happening at the Ball site, despite what he'd thought.

  Had he just misinterpreted the aliens? Or had they changed their minds?

  There was no possibility of proving the truth, one way or the other, by checking the log of the modeling sessions. What had been said didn't matter, because it had been said by models.

  It was going to matter one hell of a lot if a finished alien embassy appeared from nowhere, out near the Ball. Especially after all the Unity doubletalk about moving Threshold to an orbit beyond Pluto's.

  Perhaps the Unity aliens were not as beneficient as they claimed. Perhaps Croft was only paranoid, and they were still mankind's greatest opportunity.

  Perhaps both statements were true, not mutually exclusive.

  Whatever the truth of it, Croft now had to face Dini Forat's father, the Mullah Beni Forat, and Richard Cummings the Second, and tell them that their children had left for Unity space of their own volition.

  Without a word of goodbye. By unknown conveyance. Without a trace left behind.

  Croft called Vince Remson from the modeler bay, on a secure audio-only channel. "Vince, get out to the Ball site. Shut down the task force evaluation team. Close up Science Station Seven. Stand off at a safe distance. I have reason to believe that a finished—or nearly finished—Unity embassy may pop into spacetime near the Ball site at any minute." Just because the UNE's paltry technology couldn't dream such a feat, didn't mean the Unity aliens couldn't do it with one smoking pot tied behind their collective back.

  Remson's small voice said, "Understood, sir."

  "Reroute traffic to make sure none of our ships are too near the Ball site when and if this manif
estation occurs. And ... oh, yes, Vince: Wait for a communication from the Unity aliens that they're ready for a face-to-face meeting with you, my designated representative and ad hoc emissary. When you have made contact with them, find me. I'll be with the Mullah Forat and Richard Cummings, trying to explain how those kids got away from us."

  "Yes, sir," said the attenuated voice of Remson, crisp, unquestioning, and uncomplaining.

  Croft hated to put Remson in danger of contamination by the Unity aliens, but someone else had to deal with this new chapter in UNE/Unity relations. Mickey Croft had reached the end of his ability to endure, persevere, or even trust his own judgment.

  Vince, at least, could be counted upon to follow through in a predictable fashion. To report dependably what occurred. To make sure that all possible precautions were taken against accident or error.

  Very little of Mickey Croft's world—of his personal spacetime—had even that much to recommend it anymore.

  CHAPTER 12

  Passing Strange

  The Unity Embassy—or something—manifested less than a hundred nautical miles off the Ball site, at the juncture of Ball Latitude 42 degrees and Ball Longitude 60 degrees, in a stationary parking orbit perfectly synchronized not only to the Ball but to Spacedock Seven.

  And there it sat, silent and virtually motionless, while every asset available to Vince Remson, the Secretariat, Consolidated Security, and Consolidated Space Command scanned, measured, probed, and evaluated with every technique known to humanity.

  Fourteen hours after Mickey's message, and six and two-fifths hours after the manifestation of the Unidentified Stationary Object itself, the USO sent Remson a message, just as Mickey had predicted.

  When the message came, Remson was in a situation room in the bowels of Spacedock Seven, up to his armpits in microwave radar scans and LIDAR scans and every other sort of scan which hadn't been able to penetrate the exterior surface of the USO sufficiently to determine even if it was hollow.

  Nor had more pedestrian methods been able to identify the alloy of the USO, which was shaped roughly like a hangover-induced seven-dimensional nightmare of a Moebius strip with lots of little energy ports that Remson's radar reconnaissance and electro-optical and black-body detection specialists were calling thermionic thrusters, for lack of a better definition.

  The message was delivered by hand—sort of. The sixth nonlinear surface from the southern axis of the USO opened up and out came a completely transparent soap-bubble thing with a bona fide Unity person inside.

  Remson had the whole adventure on tape in six frequency modes and 3-D video. The soap bubble meandered up to Spacedock Seven's cargo lock, oozed inside, and fused to an open pressure lock.

  Then the Unity representative walked through the lock— without waiting for it to cycle—and began wandering through Spacedock Seven's vast honeycomb of corridors without regard to security or priority.

  Wandering through, not along, the corridors. Neither doors nor walls nor floors seemed to mean a thing to it. But every time it encountered a human being, it stopped and politely asked for directions to "Emissary Remson's place of being."

  So Vince had to go out to meet the damned thing, which had on a long skirt that partially concealed either a tail or a pair of extra legs with no feet on the end of them.

  If there was contamination involved with meeting the Unity aliens, that contamination was no longer restricted to the Secretary General of the UNE Secretariat. The alien had encountered cooks, noncoms. field-grade officers, shopkeepers, and sentries before Vince caught up with it.

  He'd gone as fast as he could, but the damned thing moved in all directions, so you couldn't catch it unless you could anticipate its movements: a human walked along a floor until it got to stairs or a connecting hallway; a human didn't drop through the floor or rise through the ceiling or slide through walls instead of taking the stairs.

  Near the situation room, Remson caught up with the damned thing. Here was Vince's alien, just as Mickey had promised, calm as you please, although alarm bells were ringing at earsplitting volume, announcing the penetration of an unauthorized person into a secure area.

  Vince signaled a stand-down to a couple of sentries who hadn't gotten the word not to shoot and were slinking along the corridor, low and flat to the wall, as if they were in commando training school. "Go shut off those damned alarms," Vince yelled in their faces. "And make sure nobody else perceives this as an unauthorized penetration. This person is an invited guest who's unfamiliar with our customs. Harm it, and you're history."

  The men scurried away.

  But now there was the alien.

  Vince walked up to it, arms away from his sides, and smiling broadly. You couldn't yell at it, and the bells were still ringing.

  When Vince was maybe ten feet from the alien, the bells stopped ringing, and in the shocking silence, Remson gathered his courage. "I am Vince Remson, United Nations of Earth representative. Greetings from Secretary General Croft."

  The alien said, "Meeting being now, on our embassy place, and you are coming."

  Vince didn't want to look in its dark eyes. He focused on its conical skull. "Ah—not so fast, okay? We must contact Mr. Croft. There's some concern about whether this is the right time to ... manifest ... your embassy here."

  "No concerning, having meeting now. Our place. Your convenience, yes?"

  "Yes, but—"

  Vince was too late.

  The alien started sinking through the floor, about to leave the way it had come.

  "Stop!"

  "No stopping, now. Convincing all humans no reason not moving habitat to better spacetime, now. Coming soon, please. Your ambassador happy to see all humans again. Bring Mickeycroft. He is missed, still."

  All the while the alien was babbling, it was sinking further and further through the floor.

  By the time it had finished speaking, its head was disappearing.

  Remson stood over the conical skull as it sank through the floor as if through quicksand.

  Well, Mickey wasn't going to be thrilled that the aliens wouldn't hear of removing their embassy, or even of putting a hold on things, but you could only do your best, in any situation.

  Remson's best would be required in reporting this to Croft without seeming to have failed, or taken too much liberty with his instructions.

  The floor was solid now, marred and gray and unremarkable. Remson stepped on the spot tentatively. It was as solid as could be. Time to go call the boss and tell the whole story to higher authority.

  Vince Remson turned on his heel and headed straight for the situation room, hoping against hope that the multidimensional Unity embassy would have disappeared by the time he got there.

  But it didn't disappear. It sat there, with lights blinking on its eye-teasing expanse, waiting for humanity's representatives to come on over and take a look.

  CHAPTER 13

  Compromise

  "Dead In the water." was the expression normally used for diplomatic initiatives in as much trouble as the UNE's attempt to normalise relations with the Unity aliens. So Croft said it aloud once, and then again, in the privacy of his space suit's helmet as he wailed his turn to be ferried over to the Unity Embassy by soapbubble.

  In the GEORGE WASHINGTON'S airlock, waiting for Unity transport, water metaphors occurred to Croft by the dozen. Humanity was storm-tossed, lost in a sea of misplaced expectation, perhaps already shipwrecked on the shore of an alien continuum.

  The tempest was upon the arrogant children of some fated primate, upon the spacetimers.

  Croft had sworn he would not come out here again, therefore the Unity representatives had all but demanded it. So here he was. waning for one more cotton-candy day at the carnival from another dimension.

  Remson was already over there, conveyed in his own private bubblestuff ship of transparent design and scintillant hue. How might they look to some observer, each of the humans, caught in a soapbubble that had a mind of its own and negotiat
ed micrograviiy environments without any visible means of power but as unerringly as if traveling some infrared roadway.

  The wind and the ruin of destiny was driving humanity toward that Escher-designed embassy over there, and Croft was reading the white instead of the black of every line that fate wrote for him to read.

  The bubble that would take him to the meeting he couldn't, somehow, avoid, grew out of one of the rings on the embassy's lower midsection as if, somewhere behind the scenes, a giant child was blowing through a ring held to its lips.

  The colors reflected in the bubble as it sought Croft were all the colors of his own childhood, lavender and sunrise, cerulean and peach blossom, sunflower and daisy on a summer's afternoon in grass so green that it promised to last forever.

  The bubblestuff colors of the Unity conveyance were mirrored in the Ball, which was giving off a light show that the Spacedock Seven optics specialists couldn't characterize, let alone explain.

  All Mickey's cats were out of all the Secretariat's bags, now. You could pretend you were in control, stop work on this or that to try to stave off panic and save face, but the technical types knew from the urgency of the evaluations underway that no one in the Secretariat had the faintest idea what the United Nations of Earth ought to be doing about this invasion.

  For that was what it was. an invasion in waltz time. Cummings knew Croft had lost the reins. The Mullah Forat, complete with tribal headgear and disdainful frown punctuating his waist-long beard, knew the humans were out of their depth.

  Croft had almost invited the parents of the twice-missing children to come out to the carnival site with him. Croft would have done, if he'd been sure he could get Richard the Second and Beni Forat soapbubbles of their very own.

  A ride into another dimension was humbling, and Mickey's twin albatrosses could use a dose of that.

  But Croft, if nothing else, was a good bureaucrat. He would remain so to the end. Even when being a good bureaucrat meant answering the summons of an alien race at great personal cost.