Once we pulled away, there was the feeling of paradise lost, of Shangri-La left behind, never to be found again. Even so, we knew the Azarti would welcome us back with open arms at any time. Yet, that made it worse—the drug dealer telling us we could always come back for a free hit.
No, the best solution—the only solution—was to go cold turkey. We had no twelve-step program to fall back on. We had only each other and it was chilly out in the cold.
It could have been worse. We did have one another, and a side-benefit of having joined the gestalt was a greater merging of our minds, even more deeply than we’d managed to do before. Still, a gestalt of two lacked the richness, the fullness, of a gestalt of billions.
Once we left Lasharr, we would never experience it again.
* * * *
There is an old saying: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I had no worries that power would corrupt Karsh. Not because I believed that he was incorruptible. No, it was because alone he had little power. It was the entity of the gestalt that held all the power. He was but a bee among a swarm.
What worried me was that someday, when the Azarti were done exploring inwardly, they would explore the universe as one. What could the gestalt accomplish that individuals acting alone couldn’t? Would it someday go mad and try to conquer the galaxy?
There was no way to know. Besides, I had too many other, more immediate, concerns to focus on. For example, how to initiate trade talks between humanity and the Azarti gestalt without it looking like an invasion. And, of course, there was still the small matter of clearing myself of dozens of kidnapping charges, a prison break, and various lesser related charges.
* * * *
“Sunrise, Shari, it is time.” Allara spoke with great solemnity.
Shari and I swam to our appointed positions on either side of Galla. She twitched and shuddered as the moment approached. Our job was to project calming thoughts to keep her from reacting violently to the pain she felt. Although she was part of the Azarti gestalt now, our presence was required by tradition. However, our duties were more than merely ceremonial. As Galla’s birth minders, it was our job to keep her from accidentally injuring her litter during delivery. Physical contact was essential for this.
I stroked her flank. “There, there, Galla. It’s almost over. Shhhhh. Relax. Your babies are almost ready to meet you. Just a few more seconds.”
Even though I had known that Galla was alive for quite a while, and even though Allara had told us that she was pregnant weeks ago, it hadn’t really struck me until then just how alive this ship was. I patted her side. She certainly wasn’t metallic. Nor wooden. Her sides were smooth, and warm, and gave slightly to pressure—much like a dolphin or whale. But her lack of eyes and other facial features had made it hard for me to accept her as a living being.
Giving birth, however, that was as “alive” as it gets.
“Here comes the first,” Allara called out. “A female.”
I turned my head to look, keeping one hand always on Galla. The palla was a mottled brown-gray, and nearly twelve feet in length—small for a newborn, but similar in size to Galla herself at birth, I was told.
“I name you, ‘Shari’,” Allara intoned formally. Twenty minutes later, ‘Sunrise’ was born, fittingly just after dawn.
Earlier, Allara had informed us that she would name the pallas—always birthed in litters of one male and one female—Sunrise and Lola. Shari hesitantly pointed out her real name, hoping not to offend Allara. Instead, Allara laughed.
“You do not know how happy I am to hear that,” she said.
“What’s so funny?”
“I-I did not want to dishonor you by naming one palla after Sunrise and not naming the other after you—certainly not after you risked your life to help the Azarti people.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” Shari said with a mental frown.
Allara giggled, the first such reaction I had heard from her. “The name ‘Lola’ sounds like a word in our language that refers to a rather unpleasant skin rash that afflicts the Azarti. I was not looking forward to naming one of Galla’s pallas that.”
Shari and I burst out laughing.
“I suppose I wouldn’t care to name a puppy ‘poison oak’ either,” Shari said between chuckles.
“Or ‘jock itch’,” I added.
“Or ‘yeast infection’,” she said.
“Okay, you win,” I conceded with a laugh, “although I think we’ve strayed a bit from skin rashes.”
After delivering the pallas, it was time for the traditional birthing feast, with friends and family joining in the celebration. The Azarti treated the birth of a litter of pallas much like the birth of an Azarti child. That’s how close the bond between the Azarti people and the palashi had always been. Now, having Galla and the other palashi participate in the gestalt had to make the occasion all the sweeter for everyone involved.
Once again, we were part of the celebration, yet apart from the others. We couldn’t eat or drink underwater while wearing our threls, and Karsh and the others couldn’t eat or drink in air, for the same reason.
As welcome as they tried to make us feel, we now knew it was time to return to Earth. We had been gone for many months and we missed the small comforts of home. There were so many things I was looking forward to: a hot shower, dry clothes, a soft bed, a big juicy steak, cold beer, walking on two feet—all the simple joys of life. Shari added chocolate and a manicure to the list. “Just look at these nails!” she said with an adorable little-girl pout.
We had a lot to look forward to on our return. What I wasn’t waiting for with anticipation were all the legal hassles to come, or spending months in a room full of stuffy politicians arguing over the relative values of a ton of seafood versus a piece of art.
It promised to be a most unusual homecoming.
* * * *
We arrived on Earth eight days later, shortly before dawn, and landed in the tidal basin just south of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. Even before we landed, I sensed the crackle of static in my head. What the hell? It took me a moment to recognize the sensation of my implant reactivating. It had been so long since I’d felt its presence that at first it seemed awkward, foreign. Compared to the feel of the gestalt, it was cumbersome and mechanical. But it didn’t take long for me to get used to its touch again.
From the tidal basin, it was less than a mile-and-a-half walk down Independence Avenue to the heart of the legislative branch of the government. The four of us—Karsh, Keldor, Shari, and I—got all the way to the steps of the U.S. Capitol building before anyone seemed to take notice of the odd procession approaching. We’d kept the group small, so it wouldn’t look like an invasion.
The Capitol Police at the entrance were busy talking into their shoulder radios—beat cops didn’t rate implants—but they made no effort to stop us. However, once we were inside the rotunda, officers appearing from who-knows-where quickly surrounded us, guns drawn.
“Mr. Sunrise, Ms. Green,” the police sergeant intoned from behind his weapon, “you’re both under arrest on various felony charges. This can go down easy, or this can go down hard. Drop your weapons, get on your knees, lace your fingers behind your necks and no one has to get hurt.”
So much for anonymity. The facial-recognition software tied into the security cameras at the entrance had done its job well.
We did as he demanded, fingers-wise. “We’re unarmed, Sergeant Teague,” I replied, looking at his nametag. “We’re here to turn ourselves in. But before you take us, let me introduce our friends here: Karsh and Keldor. Karsh is the Prime Minister for the planet Lasharr and Keldor is his advisor and personal physician. Karsh has come to address the people of Earth. I suggest you inform the President that he has a visiting dignitary on the premises.”
I had to smile at the various expressions on the six officers’ faces. They ranged from interest to disbelief, with perhaps a bit of concern for the safety of the President. T
he sergeant’s eyes went wide at the touch of Karsh’s mental projections.
“What you’re feeling, sergeant, is Karsh attempting to communicate with you. As you can probably guess, he’s telepathic. Because you’re not, you’re only picking up snatches of his thoughts. That’s why I’m here. He and I can communicate fluently. I’m the translator.”
What I didn’t say was that Karsh was intentionally not communicating clearly—to ensure that my services as translator were required.
Sergeant Teague’s forehead knotted in thought for a moment. “Wait here.”
He stepped back through the cordon of officers and muttered something into his radio. A heated discussion ensued, and then he returned to the circle.
“We’re all going to wait right here until the Secret Service arrives. Then you’re someone else’s headache.”
I smiled. Everything was going according to plan.
* * * *
The Secret Service detail took us to a holding cell at the nearest police precinct. For the rest of the morning they grilled us individually. If Agent Szymanski thought that splitting us up would make us crack, or contradict one another, he was in for a disappointment. The four of us were in constant conversation with one another. I could tell that it annoyed Szymanski greatly when I kept answering questions that he hadn’t asked me. I informed him that those answers were to the questions being asked of Karsh and Keldor in the other interrogation rooms. This, too, was part of the plan. If I was to be the mouthpiece for the Azarti, I first had to convince the authorities that I was telepathic.
Finally, after several hours of my providing all the answers to questions the other agents were asking Karsh and Keldor, they compared holo footage side by side and realized that I had answered every question as soon as they were asked, even though it had been ‘impossible’ for me to have heard the questions.
There were more heated exchanges, this time between Szymanski and his superiors. By mid-afternoon, the Director of the Secret Service, Tom Herschfeld, arrived and we began the rigmarole all over again for his benefit.
“Mr. Sunrise,” Herschfeld said, “your parlor trick is very impressive, but so what? You’re a wanted felon and an escaped prisoner. I can throw you and your girlfriend—”
“Wife.”
“Wife, then. I can turn you both over to the FBI, who will toss you in jail and throw away the key. As for your little black friends—assuming they are aliens, and not some elaborate hoax—what’s to keep me from turning them over to the army to be dissected?”
“Aside from that being cold-blooded murder—a simple blood test would accomplish the same end—it would be a singularly major mistake.
“Think about it. How did they get here? They have a fleet of warships capable of interstellar travel. You are holding the head of state representing eight star systems encompassing the entire Azarti race. I think it’s fair to say that they might take offense at you murdering Karsh. And Karsh is in constant contact—he’s telepathic, remember—with his cloaked battleship, orbiting the Earth. Anything happens to him and Washington is history, followed by every other city on Earth.”
I held up a palm to forestall his objections. “Don’t even bother telling me about the latest ‘Star Wars weapons platform capable of destroying satellites in orbit.’ Aside from the impenetrable energy shield around the ship, you can’t hit what you can’t detect on radar. I imagine the Pentagon has been frantically and unsuccessfully looking for said ship.” His annoyed frown told me I was right. “As I said, the ship is cloaked.”
I figured some creative storytelling was appropriate right then. Mentioning that Galla was unarmed—and resting just offshore where she was a sitting duck—didn’t seem like the best strategy.
“How do we know this isn’t an elaborate hoax, that there really is a battleship out there?”
I shrugged. “Well, they aren’t going to uncloak so you can take potshots at them; but I could have them destroy, say, Cleveland, if you like. That should take care of the pollution problems you’ve been having there.”
Herschfeld’s face went white. “So this is it, then. An invasion.”
I closed my eyes and sighed in frustration. “No, you twit, it’s not an invasion. It’s a peaceful first-contact. That last remark was just a little joke of mine. Karsh is here to institute trade negotiations between Earth and the Azarti. You’re the one who’s being belligerent, not them.”
It seemed to take forever to get through to him, but eventually he got the President’s Chief of Staff, the Surgeon General, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Majority Leader involved in our little circus. By late evening, we had convinced them that Karsh was indeed a telepathic alien and was here with peaceful intent.
After that, they moved us to a five-star hotel, and scheduled a meeting with President Landry in the morning. Things were finally looking up.
I insisted that someone go down to the tidal basin and bring back a hundred gallons of seawater and some fresh fish for Karsh and Keldor. They hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since before dawn, and they had to be severely dehydrated sitting in a dehumidified office building all day, but they hadn’t complained once.
Stage 1 of the entrance of Earth into galactic society was complete.
* * * *
Once the presence of the Azarti was made public, humanity greeted the Azarti overture predictably: Many embraced the telepathic Azarti with open arms; others took a wait-and-see attitude. And, naturally, a large segment simply freaked.
They were invaders. They were demons sent by the Devil. They wanted our brains. They wanted our seas. They wanted our women. This latter argument was particularly funny, given that our women were half again the size of Azarti males—assuming they even had the proper “equipment” to be interested in our women, which they didn’t.
It was months before the hubbub died down. The fact that the Azarti didn’t invade, didn’t rape our women or kidnap our children, didn’t try to ‘convert anyone to their religion’—in fact did nothing but engage in trade negotiations with representatives of the United Nations—probably had a lot to do with it.
I was concerned about the fact that Karsh and Keldor would be away from Lasharr for so long. However, as I learned, one of the many advantages of the gestalt was that they could continue to interact with the other members and indeed help govern the planet from as far away as Earth—perhaps farther. There was no telling yet how extensive was the reach of the gestalt.
What complicated the negotiations was the fact that Karsh wouldn’t begin the talks without my help, and I couldn’t act as interpreter (from my hotel room) until I was cleared of all charges—which meant that Karsh had to first admit to the kidnappings and to helping Shari and me escape from jail.
Naturally, that didn’t go over well. At first, there was outrage at the admission. But the explanation of the reason behind the kidnappings—the poor, helpless, persecuted, political refugees dying of radiation poisoning—helped make the Azarti sympathetic figures. The fact that that none of the women were seriously injured helped, and the Azarti’s diminutive size didn’t hurt, either. It also explained the mystery of the jail break, where holo footage showed Shari and me escaping, aided by a pack of “wetsuit-wearing children.” Few wanted to believe that these “cute little kids” were really serial kidnappers. It might have been a tougher sell had they been seven-foot-tall horned lizards with three-inch fangs and razor-sharp talons.
Shari and I were kept in legal limbo for weeks—not taken back to prison to await trial, but not technically released, either. Shari was restricted to our suite, as was I when not in negotiations. However, as the initial discussions progressed into actual negotiations, the original desire by most of the public to have me drawn and quartered—for my part in the kidnappings—waned. Certainly, my fame as the man to make first contact with aliens worked in my favor.
My abilities as a telepath made me both a curiosity in some circles and an object of fear and revulsion in others
. For that reason, Shari and I decided to shield her from the glare of celebrity by hiding the fact that she too was telepathic. One freak in the family was plenty.
We were eventually cleared of all charges. (Fortunately, no one was injured during the jailbreak, which wouldn’t have been necessary had we not been falsely arrested in the first place.) Still, not everyone was convinced of our innocence, and I did receive the occasional death threat from crackpots blowing off steam.
After several weeks of acting as facilitator and translator between the two parties, I felt that the human negotiators had developed enough of an ability to project their thoughts and understand those of the Azarti that they were unlikely to start an interstellar war without me. It was time to return to civilian life.
With our legal troubles safely behind us, Shari and I found a judge to marry us civilly. (Our union was legal only on Lasharr, after all.) Thus began the first day of our future together.
Chapter Twenty-Six
If I’d had to wait for the UN to authorize a stipend or commission or other form of remuneration for my “meritorious actions in bringing the peoples of Lasharr and Earth together in friendship and commerce” Shari and I would have been homeless and starving to death by the time we saw any of it.
Fortunately, when Karsh, Shari, and I had discussed our plan for winning over the people of Earth, I suggested bringing a few of the minor, though still eye-catching, objets d’art from the Ballan galleries as gifts for the President and selected other heads of state, to help grease the wheels of diplomacy. And, oh by the way, I dropped a few hints about how Shari and I could use some minor compensation to help us start our lives together afterwards.
Karsh, bless his heart, handed Shari and me a basketful of one-of-a-kind, worth-a-king’s-ransom, every-art-collector-on-planet-Earth-would-kill-for treasures as a wedding present. Consequently, even after donating pieces to museums in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Moscow and Beijing—which didn’t hurt our public image any—and selling a few, we had more money than we knew what to do with. Quite a change for a discredited former cop and an ex-hooker.
Sunrise Destiny Page 30
