by John Boyd
“Matty didn’t defer to her,” he pointed out. “Matty took to her like a lost puppy.”
“I noticed.” Mrs. Breedlove nodded. “Matty was very solicitous toward her, something Matty usually isn’t. Maybe she’ll make Matty her lady-in-waiting if she decides to reign on earth. She wouldn’t have to wave any scepter to get your daddy to throw himself prostrate at her feet.”
“Mother, you sound jealous.”
“Maybe I am, Son,” she admitted, turning her attention back to the newspaper, “or maybe I’m frightened.”
Back from the ride, Kyra stayed in the kitchen to observe the icing of the cake, and Matilda reported on their activity to her brother, upstairs, where he was packing for Seattle.
“She rides like Lady Godiva, Tom, or at least the stallion must have thought so. It nickered and champed so much I thought it was going to climb into its saddle with her.”
His sister left him to go down the hall to her room and pack for Kyra, but she returned at times to confer with him on some item of dress. She was sending Kyra to Seattle with a fully equipped wardrobe, minus bras. “She doesn’t really need them, Tom. Mama’s old-fashioned.”
Mother might be old-fashioned, he observed to himself, but she was perceptive. Matilda acted the role of lady-in-waiting to the hilt, packing her favorite dresses and costume jewelry and attempting to coordinate the colors with silvery blond hair. Breedlove did not object to his sister’s generosity; hopefully he would return the clothes within two weeks.
At dinner Kyra tactfully apportioned her attention between his father, mother, and sister, with occasional asides to keep the son from feeling neglected. As guest she guided the conversation, and he noticed that she did avoid discussing Kanab or space travel, but he felt uncertain about her motives for doing so. Her interest in things of the earth was lively and genuine. She seemed spontaneous and candid, and she could have been bored with marvels to them that were commonplaces to her. He would have found it dull to lecture on the internal-combustion engine to cavemen.
After dinner Breedlove posed her alone and with his family for her “before” pictures and for Matilda’s scrapbook. She was photogenic and posed naturally, but no camera could have captured her personal magnetism. He made a snapshot of her for his billfold to show any doubting official he might encounter that her hair was naturally green.
Matilda asked her brother to leave the kitchen while she dyed Kyra’s hair, because it made her nervous when people watched her work, and he joined his parents in the living room, where they listened to the evening news. It was difficult for him to be impressed by the day’s events when he was already involved in the greatest news story in human history. He was more interested in the occasional progress bulletins Matilda came to the doorway to announce: “She’s been given a shampoo, and I’m applying the dye.” “I’m putting her hair in rollers.” “She’s under the dryer.” “She’s ready for combing out.” “She’s ready.”
In the kitchen Kyra sat on a high stool, a plastic cape over her shoulders, and Matilda was putting a few finishing fluffs into her hair when the family filed in. Then the artist flung back the cape to reveal her creation and accept the compliments of her family. The father’s praise was directed toward the subject, the mother’s to the artist, and the son stood mute.
Silvery blond, he assumed, would appear as exotic to his eyes as green, but Kyra’s hair looked natural. The color altered the hue of her complexion until it too appeared normal, although nothing could have been done to make her inconspicuous. Now framed by the platinum hair, her green eyes looked depthless, and they were focusing on him with growing trepidation as he stood silent.
“What’s the word from Breedlove?”
“You look mystic, twice mystic,” he said, trying to find the words to communicate his admiration. “Your beauty, it’s as near and shimmering as moonlight on Lake Chelan, yet as remote and as glittering as the Northern Lights. If I were king of earth, I’d make you queen, and you’d have a crown for your curls made of the stars.”
He had blown the fragile moment sky-high, he thought, with his rococo metaphors. He should have tried Keats or Shelley. His voice had trembled when he spoke, he had given his mother more reason to be disturbed, and he had only confused Kyra, who was looking at Matilda questioningly.
“Translated that means you look smarmy and romantic.”
“What’s smarmy and romantic?”
“It’s the dreamy feeling a boy and girl get when they fall in love,” Matilda explained. “Usually it lasts for a week or two after they’re married.”
“Who told you that, young lady?” Mrs. Breedlove asked.
“My sex-education teacher.”
“You’d better drop that course. Romance in marriage can last a lifetime, and don’t you dare contradict me, John.”
“Then romance has to do with marriage,” Kyra said.
“Don’t you have romance and marriage on your planet, dear?” Mrs. Breedlove asked, a slight strain in her voice.
Kyra deliberated for a moment before she answered, “After a fashion, yes. Our men were attracted to us, and they were self-sacrificing. But the custom of romance seems like a terrific idea. Does an earth girl have a wide choice of suitors?”
“A girl like Matty, no,” Matilda answered. “A girl like Kyra, yes.”
“Nonsense, Matty.” Kyra turned to her. “You are charming.”
Mrs. Breedlove would not be diverted. “Is there divorce on your planet?”
“There was no divorce on Kanab. When a man mated with a woman on our planet it was forever, but there is no more Kanab.”
She had answered with an almost painful hesitancy, and sensing that she was moved to sadness by her memories, Breedlove interjected a question, “Will the dye interfere with the light-absorption qualities of your hair?”
Looking sideways into the mirror Matilda held for her and fluffing her hair, Kyra answered absently, “Yes, but Matty tells me it will wash out, and in the interval my body will compensate. If I can find a place to sunbathe in Seattle, my pussy hair will spread like crabgrass.”
A brittle silence fell over the kitchen. There was only one source from which the curious Kyra could have learned the taboo word. Mrs. Breedlove fixed accusing eyes on her daughter, who avoided the gaze by glancing with sprightly innocence toward her brother and saying, “Tom, I’ve made up my mind about a career. I’m going to become a beauty-school technician.”
In a blue knit dress fitted snugly against her waist and revealing the lift and cleavage of her unhampered breasts, Kyra stood beside the green-uniformed Breedlove at eight-thirty the next morning, watching a long black limousine nose hesitantly into the lane and drive toward the Breedlove farm.
“Here comes Kelly,” he said.
He walked onto the porch and watched the car approach.
It pulled to a stop and a uniformed chauffeur emerged and opened the rear door. The man who got out wore a dark suit, white shirt, tie, a gray homburg, and carried an attaché case. Only one flaw marred the ambassadorial elegance of Kelly’s arrival: the car bore the commercial license plate of a rented limousine.
About five feet ten inches tall, square-shouldered, chest thrust forward, Kelly swung up the steps with a quick, prancing stride, announcing himself as he came: “Aloysius Kelly, Immigration and Naturalization, Pacific Northwest.”
“Thomas Breedlove, Forest Ranger, the Selkirk Station, Idaho.”
They shook hands. About fifty, Kelly was red-haired with an Irishman’s pinched nose, watery blue eyes, and square jaw. Pale freckles spanned the bridge of his nose and clustered under his eyes. His square, broad shoulders and spread-leg stance projected aggressiveness.
“Peterson tells me you’re holding a very important unregistered female alien for my eyes only. What’s her status or rank in the country of her origin?”
“I’ve made no determination of her rank, Mr. Kelly. For all I know she may be an empress. She’s from another planet.”
Kelly threw a searching glance at Breedlove and asked, “Has Peterson been seeing his little green men again?”
“Step into the house, Mr. Kelly, and judge for yourself. She’s waiting in the living room. I can certify she landed here from an alien planet.”
Kelly, who had started into the house, stopped. “Who’s certifying you?”
“I think the matter will become academic once you’ve met the lady.”
Kelly continued into the house and into the living room. He stepped through the door and stopped. Kyra stood at the window looking out. Her profile was starkly outlined in the eastern light.
“Jesus,” Kelly said, “is she stacked!”
“Careful, Mr. Kelly. She understands English.”
“If this lass is only a wetback from Mexico, I forgive Peterson. If she walked in from Canada, I forgive Peterson. If he claims she comes from the dark side of the moon…”
“Peterson has nothing to do with authenticating her origins. I’m here to do that.”
Kelly’s voice paused when Breedlove broke into his slow, chanting monologue, but obviously he did not hear the ranger, for he resumed where he had left off. “… then I forgive Peterson. Those breasts exonerate Peterson. Ranger Breedlove, I’m a married man and reasonably faithful to my wife, but I travel a lot and I get opportunities and what’s a man to do when something like this stands before him, spit in her eye?”
“Snap out of it, Kelly! You’ve got business to attend to.”
Kelly shook his head, like a fighter shaking off a jolting punch, and stepped forward, all smiles and affability, his officiousness shucked like a cloak at the door, ignoring Breedlove’s presence.
“Miss Kyra Lavaslatta, I’m Aloysius Kelly, Chief of Immigration and Naturalization, Pacific Northwest, but just call me Al. Please be seated, Miss Lavaslatta; I have a few questions to ask.”
She sat on the sofa. Kelly pulled a chair before her, crossed his legs, and using his kneecap as a desk, opened his attaché case. He took out a form, uncapped a pen, and looked across at her. The forms in his hand seemed to stabilize him, as similar forms had steadied Peterson.
“Give me your last name, first name, and middle initial.”
“Lavaslatta, Kyra. No middle initial.”
“How do you spell it?”
“I don’t know. Spell it for him, Breedlove.”
Breedlove spelled her name, and Kelly wrote it down in block letters.
“What is the country of your origin?”
“I come from a planet my people called Kanab.”
“Where is Kanab located?”
“Nowhere. It is gone.”
“Well, let’s just enter ‘Nowhere.’ ” Kelly’s officiousness was returning, but now briskly cordial “Where was your former planet located?”
“Without a star chart I can only say somewhere in space.”
“Very well, we’ll just put ‘Somewhere.’ Where is your closest living relative?”
“She would have to be at least five hundred light years away.”
“ ‘Closest living relative, five hundred light years away.’ ” Kelly addressed himself briskly as he wrote. “What is your political affiliation?”
“Political affiliation?”
“What philosophy of government do you embrace?”
“I believe in the sisterhood of all living creatures.”
“ ‘The sisterhood of all living creatures.’ That’s a new one on me, but different strokes for different folks.”
It was a long form, but Kelly was extremely helpful. In fact, he became hopelessly involved in a series of questions he himself answered. The questionnaire would have defied interpretation by any immigration clerk, and it was compromising Kelly as hopelessly as the UFO had compromised Peterson, but Breedlove did not interrupt the man. It was his method of coming to grips with the reality of Kyra.
He finished the form, signed it, and handed it across to Kyra. “Write your signature below mine. You may keep the original for your files.”
She signed in Kanabian script, tore off the top sheet, and handed it to Breedlove. “File this for me, very carefully.”
Her accent on “very carefully” alerted Breedlove to the importance of the document, an importance he was already aware of. He folded it and put it in the envelope with his orders from Peterson. As Kelly started to return his copies to the attaché case, he paused and took a second look at the form. He looked up at Breedlove.
“Ranger Breedlove, this is a rather unusual document. I think you should witness it.”
“No, sir. I can’t certify it. I doubt if it’s verifiable even by Kyra. What I suggest instead is that we sit down and discuss the ramifications of Miss Lavaslatta’s arrival.”
Surprisingly Kelly did not seem aggrieved at Breedlove’s refusal. Instead, he nodded judiciously. “I’m sure you’re right. That other descent from heaven had far-reaching consequences. No sacrilege intended, miss. We’re got a problem, Breedlove: who’s going to believe this? You wouldn’t have a spot of whisky around the house, would you, Tom?”
“Name your poison, Al.”
Kelly took two fingers of bourbon, neat, in one swallow, and looked around him dazedly, but the whisky braced him. His sense of reality was returning, Breedlove knew, when he muttered to no one in particular, “Peterson passed the buck.”
For a long moment he stared at the far wall as if analyzing the wallpaper. Finally his eyes swung back to the girl. “I knew you were from another planet, Kyra, when I walked into the room.”
With a soft fluttering in her voice, Kyra asked, “How did you know I was from another planet, Al?”
“Because there’s never been anything as beautiful as you on God’s green earth.”
Emotion gave Kelly’s cliché a wild, piercing Celtic beauty. Kyra’s green eyes drew in the light from the room and sent it out again in glitterings, and she smiled on Kelly. With that smile Breedlove knew Kelly was hooked. He moved to take command of the situation, seating himself beside Kyra.
“Al, we’re faced with a situation unique in human history. Kyra and her small band of exiles are looking for a planet with an oxygen environment. She landed on earth because her fuel source decayed in flight, and she needs a new supply of uranium 235.”
“That brings the Atomic Energy Commission into the picture.”
“Definitely, which means she’ll need authentication that the fuel is not to be used for military purposes. In turn, this means her identity has to be established beyond question. I can speak for the Department of Interior because any evidence I have is not hearsay. I inspected her space vehicle.”
“But you’re a ranger. You have no security rating.”
“No, but I have the original data that’s to be classified.”
Kelly smiled, his old, officious smile. “I’m prepared to take your deposition, Ranger Breedlove, and relieve you of custody of the immigrant.”
“You don’t have the security clearance to accept my testimony, Mr. Kelly, so I’m not yielding custody. I’m going with her.”
“Any person in this country without identification papers and no proof of citizenship falls under the custodial control of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.”
He arose and turned to Kyra. “I didn’t want to put this to you so bluntly, miss, but you’re under arrest. Get your things together. We’re going to Seattle.”
Kelly had drawn the bureaucratic battle lines, but he had drawn them in the wrong place.
“Sit down, Al. She’s going nowhere without me. From the nature of the form you’ve filled out and signed, I judge you incapable of taking sole control of an endangered species of park fauna previously entrusted to the park ranger who discovered it. Kyra’s not a person. She’s an unclassified member of the animal kingdom, maybe. Even her animality is in doubt.”
Chapter Five
Incredulity spread over Kelly’s face, but not confusion. “She may not be a member of the family Hominidae,” he snapped, “but it�
��s plain she belongs to the class Mammalia, even if you don’t often find the likes of her outside Italy.”
“Her breast development merely demonstrates that nature works from universal patterns. In Africa, Asia, or on the Planet Kanab, form follows function.”
“No, Breedlove,” Kyra interjected, “function follows form.”
Breedlove took her interruption in stride. “Which proves the point I’m trying to make. There’s disagreement all around. Kyra may not be an animal at all. She may descend from an air-nourished plant. The natural color of her hair is green—here, look at this snapshot I took last night… Her hair is green because it is capable of photosynthesizing sunlight, a characteristic exclusive to plants on earth. Kyra gets part of her nourishment from sunlight.”
“Now who’s crazy?”
“You’ll notice I’m telling you this, Kelly. I’m not writing it down. I’ll leave the biological depositions to the biologists. They’ll have to depose as to whether she’s plant or animal, but in either event her habitat is the Selkirk Wilderness Area, which puts her under my jurisdiction, and, flora or fauna, she’s threatened with extinction. She stays in my custody.”
“She’s an unregistered alien.”
Kelly was clinging to his one certitude with a weakening grip, and Breedlove began to pry his fingers loose.
“Even that’s open to question. As a representative of a foreign power, protocol places her under the jurisdiction of the State Department.”
“Oh, no! Not another bureau.”
“All she needs is a visitor’s permit you’re empowered to grant under your own cognizance. I’m willing to let your quarantine doctors determine her biological status, and you can share in the announcement of her arrival on earth, but I’m claiming joint jurisdiction until her status is determined.”
Kelly was confused. Breedlove’s tone became authoritative.
“The big problem is to get her the uranium. Before that, I have been given authority to see she’s properly housed, fed, and clothed.”
