by John Boyd
Her work done fully and well, Annette turned and followed the model through a curtained doorway. Kyra rose and walked to the table to finger the skirt. She turned to Breedlove. “I must say you’re taking our cover story seriously. From the way you were eyeballing the lady over the price of the dress—”
“I wasn’t acting, Kyra. I’m buying you the dress.”
“Never! I’ve learned about money since I first saw the ad, and I’m not letting you squander your wages on me. Besides, I have the autographed Bulfinch.”
“The book was a gift of friendship.”
“What greater gift is there?”
“A gift of love,” he blurted out. “I’ll have a long time to make up the deficit in my savings, but how long will I have you? Another five days. I don’t want this to be from the people of the United States, people who don’t even know you. I want it to be from me. Then, long after you’re the reigning queen of some beautiful planet, you’ll wear it and remember the man of earth who loved you.”
“Breedlove, goddamn it, you’ve touched me!” Her eyes misted over. “You make me feel like an earth woman, and I like the feeling, so why do I want to cry? Hug me.”
He put his arms around her and she began to weep against his chest, and the tears amazed her. Probing her own mystification, she mumbled into his coat lapel, “I want you to know I’m crying because I feel loved and wanted and not because you’re buying me that gorgeous little number on the table.”
“You are a woman and you are loved and wanted and it makes no difference whether you came from another planet or fell out of a coconut tree, there’ll never be another woman on earth like you. You’ve given me something very dear by being here. If I should live to be one hundred, I’ll remember your radiance and be happy, and if I die remembering you, I’ll die contented.”
“Hush, Breedlove. You aren’t helping me stop crying one bit.”
He too was beginning to weep. Something was amiss in his emotional machinery. He had not wept since he was a child, and a weeping man was mawkish.
“Your crying’s not helping me either, so go try on the damned dress.”
She looked up to see his misting eyes and said, “I’m off, Breedlove. Somebody’s got to command this ship.”
Wrenching herself from him, she clutched the dress and ran sobbing into the fitting room. Assailed by a throat-tightening sadness, he turned to the window and looked down into the street, seeing it as hazy and blurred. Struggling against his inner turmoil, gulping, focusing his vision, he fought for and regained composure before the elegant and composed Annette walked out to rejoin him, smiling.
“Kyra’s being fitted for the alterations. As soon as she’s pinned up, she’ll be out to model for you. Don’t be disturbed if she seems upset. Young brides usually react that way when their husbands buy them a Polinski Creation. She’ll need accessories for the dress. I’ll give you my card to take to Mr. Landon at the jewelry counter, first floor near the entrance, and you tell him you’ve bought the Polinski Creation. He’ll find just the right diamond to match the dress.”
Accepting her card, he realized that he was being touted and that she would get a finder’s fee from the man at the jewelry counter, but she had earned her commissions. She had solved a problem of conscience for him. Since he was buying the dress, the people of the United States could buy Kyra a diamond.
“When will the dress be ready?”
“Monday.”
“Impossible, Annette. My wife has to attend a very important reception tomorrow morning. That’s why I’m buying the dress—and the diamond.”
Annette’s face fell. “Mr. Breedlove, by working a seamstress overtime, I might get the dress ready by Saturday, but tomorrow is impossible.”
He knew then that Saturday was the earliest he could expect delivery, as otherwise it meant the loss of Annette’s commission. He could set the dancing date at Pierre’s back to Saturday night and they could spend Sunday and Monday at the lake, but Kyra would be disappointed. She had wanted to charm General Norcross with the dress.
“If it’s the best you can do, I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied, but do me a favor, Annette. When Kyra comes out, say to her, ‘Kyra, you’re the height of fashion.’ ”
“Certainly, Mr. Breedlove, for she will be indeed.”
She was. Striding out, imitating the long, mechanical steps of the model who had imitated her, Kyra whirled and posed before them. Annette voiced the enchanted phrase while Breedlove stood mute. From nothing more than a line drawing in a magazine, found on a farm near Spokane, a woman from another planet had selected a garment from an alien culture that seemed specifically designed for her. It enhanced the lilt of her personality while framing her beauty in the perfect frame.
Stricken dumb, Breedlove reached into his wallet and handed Annette his own credit card as a gong sounded somewhere in the dressing area.
“I have an emergency call,” Annette whispered, taking his card and moving swiftly toward the doorway.
Flushed with happiness, Kyra swirled before him and curtsied. “I haven’t heard a peep out of you, Breedlove.”
“I’m speechless. The dress does something for you, and you do something for it, and the two of you keep reinforcing the loveliness of each other until you go beyond the limits of describable beauty.”
“You keep talking like that and I’ll have to sing you back to sanity. Do you think it will make General Norcross vote ‘Yes’?”
“I hate to tell you this, Kyra, but Norcross won’t get to see it. The alterations won’t be ready before Saturday.”
“Then we’ll change our date at Pierre’s to Saturday night, and you can swirl me around in my Polinski Creation. Did you hear Annette tell me I was the height of fashion?”
Not waiting for an answer, she whirled before a full-length mirror to admire herself. Annette returned, her face wreathed in smiles.
“Mr. Breedlove, I’ve good news. My call was from Major Laudermilk, a very dear friend of mine. He wanted me to give his good friend Kyra Breedlove special treatment, so I will personally do the alterations and the dress will be delivered to your motel this evening.”
“Now, isn’t that just like Gravy?” Kyra said. “Always trying to butter me up.”
Kyra’s remark brought from the dignified saleswoman a sidelong, animated, and knowing smile, the smile of a French coquette who shares a delicious secret with another woman. Breedlove stood beside them dumbfounded. The only way Laudermilk could have known of the problem was by overhearing Breedlove’s conversation with Annette. That meant, too, the skillful lover had listened to his inept protestation of affection for Kyra.
The unreal world of Kyra’s palace guard, Wynken, Blynken and Nod, had intruded too far on his privacy.
Slade had him bugged. Somewhere on his person, in his belt buckle, the tip of his shoelace, a microphone was hidden.
No. Not there. Here.
Neither Kyra nor Annette saw him when he slipped the wedding ring from his finger, but either might have heard the loud clunk it made when it hit the bottom of the waste basket had they not both been totally engrossed by Kyra’s Polinski Creation.
Chapter Eleven
At the hearing in the Federal Building, Commissioner Hunsaker sat at the head of the table. On his left were representatives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, State Department, and Immigration. Of the three military men jointly representing the Department of Defense, only General Norcross was in uniform. With iron gray hair and steely blue eyes, he cut an impressive figure, and he wore more ribbons than Laudermilk. To Hunsaker’s right sat Breedlove, Kyra, Abe Cohen, an HEW representative, and a man from the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee. In chairs lining the wall behind Breedlove sat advisers to the men at the table and Kyra’s bodyguard.
Around the table everyone appeared to be relaxed, but Breedlove sensed a tension in the group. Part of the unease might have emanated from the commissioner himself, a small man with bushy eyebrows and a retiring, almo
st apologetic manner. Hunsaker made the opening statement.
“Gentlemen and gentlewoman, if I occasionally forget the rules of order at this hearing, forgive me. Ordinarily the petitions I consider concern only power plants or radiology labs. I have never faced such an august group before and never in its history has the Atomic Energy Commission been petitioned by such a charming and, I might add, stylishly dressed petitioner with such an unusual request.”
His compliment brought silent shouts of agreement to the eyes of the men at the table.
“This morning,” Hunsaker continued, “Miss Kyra Lavaslatta, a citizen of no earthly realm, as duly attested, comes before this committee with a request for eighteen ounces of enriched uranium to be used in certain unspecified processes which will permit her space vehicle, now marooned somewhere in the state of Idaho, to lift off from our planet and continue on its journey in search of a habitable planet for Miss Lavaslatta and her companions. I have read the depositions and documents relating to the petition and recommend it be approved and forwarded to the President for immediate action. I am aware that any unilateral action taken by the United States in behalf of a nonresident alien for the extraterritorial use of nuclear fuel would violate the terms of the Nonproliferation Treaty, but I am positive an ex post facto explanation to the signatory powers would be concurred in by them, since I have been informed by Health, Education and Welfare that if our visitor is held beyond June twenty-first, an instinctual response of her species to the sun’s declination will compel Kyra to seek asylum on earth. Looking at the young lady, my impulse is to say ‘Welcome,’ but I understand her retention here would have grave consequences for mankind and that it is her wish to go. Although I urge haste, procedure must be followed, and any dissenting voice must be heard before my request can be acted upon. Comes now for the petitioner, her attorney, Mr. Abraham Cohen… Mr. Cohen.”
Cohen did not stand. He began the plea in a casual, conversational manner as if appealing to a circle of old friends.
“Gentlemen, the being beside me is a potential national treasure more valuable than the gold in Fort Knox, but the unfortunate legal fact is that she does not belong to this country, this planet, or to this era. You see your future before you; it’s beautiful, it’s logical, and it’s different from what men might yearn for, but it is a thousand years hence, and we must find it for ourselves, not only for moral but for practical reasons. Kyra Lavaslatta knows she holds our world and our future in her hands, but in her kindness she wishes to leave our planet and leave our future for us. We must let her go.”
He paused momentarily, looked at the faces around him, and continued: “Our time is running out. An Israeli agent, since deceased, discovered her presence amongst us. Other nations, unaware of what we have learned from Kyra and fearing what we have learned, might also discover her presence and seek to seize for themselves this treasure who belongs to no nation. If this should happen, the forces gathering for the task might prove irresistible. If it has already occurred, each hour she remains among us increases her peril and our own.
“Biological reasons of which I am not authorized to speak outweigh all other arguments for granting her request, but there are other more apparent and urgent reasons why she should not be detained. The mere outlines of her knowledge might prove as dangerous to nations as matches to children who have not learned the perils of fire, and detailed knowledge could be elicited from her by unscrupulous men.
“There are dissidents in our world, large groups of people with valid and often justifiable grievances who might make this just person the symbol and focus of their discontent. There are religious sects which would transform this being of grace and wisdom into a cult goddess worshipped against her will. Although I am Jewish, the thought even occurred to me when speaking with Kyra last night that you Christians might have been right all along, that your Messiah does live and has now returned. Would it not be fitting for Him to come back in the guise of a supplicant, a woman meek and good, asking only for a spoonful of uranium?”
“Amen,” Turpin said softly from behind Breedlove.
“I thought of these things,” Cohen continued, “and with my thoughts came a question: Gentlemen, are you ready for the Second Coming? And the Jewish observer in me, standing aside, detached, answered, ‘No, gentlemen, you Christians are not ready.’ ”
After a pause for the laughter that greeted his observation, Cohen shifted his arguments. “Let us turn now to positive reasons for granting Kyra her spoonful of uranium other than the simple reason that she asked for it. What would we get in return? It is our nature to ask that question, and I answer: we have our rewards already. We have learned from her visit that extraterrestrial life does exist. Merely by coming, she has expanded our knowledge of the universe in a manner that we could not have accomplished by emptying our treasuries for space exploration. We have learned that the patterns of evolution are universal and benign, that space is not occupied by the monsters of fantasists but by a nobler species of beings, gracious, merciful, and, in this instance, beautiful. For most of us, I suspect, she brings particular gifts. For me as a lawyer she has given the opportunity to establish a precedent in the yet unformulated laws of space, a precedent which asserts that compassion and not piracy shall rule the seas of space as it now rules the seas of earth.
“But more than all she has given she now offers, our humanity for a spoonful of uranium. If we deny her request we deny our humanity. If we grant her request we grant ourselves humanity. Gentlemen, I ask you, can we refuse such a bargain? Shall we reject this exchange Kyra offers? I think not.”
Cohen was finished. In the long silence following his words, each man at the table seemed in confrontation with himself or possibly in communion with the better angels of his nature. So exquisitely balanced were the practical and abstract appeals of Cohen’s arguments that Breedlove was certain he had captured the minds of all his listeners.
“Do I hear a dissenting opinion?” Hunsaker asked in a tone that implied he expected none.
Two hands went up. Breedlove was half surprised to see that one belonged to Norcross and wholly surprised to see that the other belonged to the man from the State Department. Slade had said that State was in the bag.
Norcross noticed the other hand, leaned over, and called graciously down the table, “The military is happy to yield to the gentleman from the civilian establishment.”
“Commissioner, I have reservations about the correctness of this procedure,” the man from State said. “I’m not disagreeing that an ex post facto explanation of the committee’s actions would not be acceptable to other treaty powers,—in fact the arguments are so persuasive I think they would agree without question and act promptly. For that reason and to preserve our international reputation for honesty, I move the proceedings be suspended until the signatory powers are notified.”
“Are you out of your pea-picking mind?”
Slade hurled the question at the speaker. Glancing behind him, Breedlove saw that Slade was not acting now, unless he could command his face to go pale with anger.
“Mr. Slade has tabled the question,” Hunsaker announced.
There were wheels within wheels in the government, and Slade was apparently a very big wheel. Although he and the Texan had not been on friendly terms since the bugging incident, Breedlove felt a proprietary pride in Slade’s command of the situation.
“I agree with Mr. Slade that this matter should be kept in the family,” General Norcross said, “but I think the operative term at this hearing has already been voiced by the commissioner, and that term was ‘unspecified processes.’ No one wishes this charming young lady Godspeed on her journey more than I, and I’m willing to grant her request with one proviso, that she be escorted to her alleged space vehicle by selected technicians, who will determine if in fact the vehicle is present and mechanically ready for liftoff.”
“What says our petitioner to the general’s request?” Hunsaker asked.
“For the g
eneral’s request,” Kyra said, “the charming young lady has another general’s answer, ‘Nuts!’ ”
The urbane Norcross did not falter at the laughter.
“Dear lady, on this planet we have what is called ‘quid pro quo.’ On the record your space vehicle does not exist. We offer an ample quid, a rare and expensive metal, for a meager quo, proof that there is indeed a vehicle and that the uranium will be used to power it. Are we being unreasonable in asking for such proof?”
“You have it in Breedlove’s testimony.”
“Ma’am, I am not questioning the credibility of Ranger Breedlove, a gentleman who I am sure would not lie—under oath. But you must admit that the young man could have succumbed to the charm you evidence in such ample quantity. I have studied his reports in the file, and I notice he has evinced a strong admiration for those charms. Though you sit before us now dressed in the height of fashion, I cannot but remember that Breedlove first looked upon your beauty bare. You might have bewitched him. While we older men dream wistful dreams, young men see visions, and another name for a vision is a hallucination.”
“Breedlove didn’t fall in love with me at first sight. It took him a little time. He told you he saw inside my ship, and he’s honest.”
“We’re all honest men, and it is my professional duty to register an honest doubt about the existence of a space vehicle which intruded into my air space without so much as rippling a radar. Dear lady, I have absolutely no doubt you descended from the heavens. Your unearthly charms tell me so. But traditionally angels arrive and depart on wings, and it is your unusual mode of transportation alone that I question. You will forgive an old soldier if he votes not against you but against the credibility of your vehicle, which is even more incredible than your incredible loveliness.”
Two champion charmers had competed, and the general won, after a fashion. The vote was seven to one for granting the petition and forwarding it directly to the President. There was polite applause for Kyra when she stood to thank the committee, or to give it a full-length view of her dress. As well-wishers gathered around her to compliment her on her victory, Breedlove turned to Cohen.
