by Ben Bova
On the wall screen of his apartment, Holly looked just as he remembered her: pert, full of energy, bright and smiling and altogether wonderful.
He told her all that had happened to him since his return to Earth, especially about Stoner, the star voyager.
“But the government won’t let you come back here?” Holly had asked, her cheerful expression giving way to anger and concern.
“Not yet. Maybe Stoner can pull it off,” he said.
“I’ll come back there and get you,” said Holly, stern determination etching her face.
“Naw,” he replied. “I’ll work it out. Something big is happening here; I can feel it. A guy who traveled to the stars! He’s gonna bust this New Morality wide open; just you wait and see.”
“But I don’t want to wait!” Holly insisted. “I want you here! I want to be with you.”
“That’s what I want, too, Holly. But something big is gonna happen here and I’m gonna be part of it. Then I’ll come back to you.”
She looked disappointed, hurt. But she said, “Soon’s my term in office is finished I’m heading Earthside. If you’re not back by then, I’ll come and get you.”
Tavalera grinned at her image, stubborn and sure of herself. “It’s a deal,” he said.
He had forgotten about Sister Angelique’s promise to have dinner with him until some time after he’d ended his conversation with Holly. His phone chimed and Angelique’s dark, sculpted features appeared on the wall screen.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” she said without preamble. “I hope you can cook.”
He grinned at her. “Long as I’ve got a microwave.”
Her image disappeared. But before Tavalera could head for the kitchen the wall screen lit up again, this time showing Stoner’s face.
“Hello, Raoul.”
Tavalera blinked with surprise. “Hello, Dr. Stoner.”
Stoner said, “You can call me Keith, you know.”
Tavalera nodded.
“Has Bishop Craig set up a meeting for us with the Archbishop?”
“I don’t know. I’m having dinner with Sister Angelique in another few minutes. She can fill me in on what Craig’s been doing.”
“Good. Please keep me informed.”
Frowning slightly with puzzlement, Tavalera asked, “How do I get in touch with you?”
Stoner broke into a wide smile. “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”
Angelique arrived nearly an hour after her phone call, dressed in a pair of slim dark slacks and a starched white blouse. From the capacious dark leather handbag she had slung over one shoulder she pulled a green bottle of wine. Tavalera, who had searched the apartment in vain for something alcoholic, grinned in appreciation.
“It’s a sweet wine from Germany,” she said as she handed the bottle in its plastic bag to Tavalera. “It should be chilled, I’m told. I thought it would be pleasant to have it with dessert.”
“Sounds good,” he said, turning toward the kitchenette and the small freezer built in below the countertop.
He had already pulled out a pair of prepackaged meals, something called beef Stroganoff. The name sounded exotic and the picture on the packaging looked interesting. He slid the pair of them into the microwave, then turned back to Angelique, who had sat herself in one of the sitting room’s armchairs and rested her handbag on the carpeted floor beside her.
“You want something to drink?” Tavalera called from the kitchenette. Opening the refrigerator door, he said, “I’ve got orange juice, cranberry juice, and apple juice.”
“I’ll have apple juice, unsweetened,” Sister Angelique answered.
Tavalera saw that the fridge’s shelves held both sweetened and unsweetened apple juice. She knows what they’ve stocked in here, he thought.
He handed her the container of juice, then sat in the room’s only other chair. “Stoner wants to know how you’re making out with getting the Archbishop to meet with him.”
Her brows rose slightly as she sipped at the juice. Putting the plastic container down on the low table between them, Angelique asked mildly, “You’ve been in contact with Dr. Stoner?”
Tavalera nodded toward the blank wall screen. “He phoned me a little while ago.”
“Interesting,” Angelique murmured. “This phone line is supposed to be secure.”
With a grin, Tavalera said, “Nothing’s secure around him.”
“So I’m beginning to understand.”
“Well? What’s with the Archbishop?” he prodded.
“We’re working on it. Bishop Craig and I.”
“He’s kinda impatient. He says this is really important.”
She nodded and reached for the juice again.
The dinner went that way, Tavalera asking for information and Angelique parrying his questions with a soft smile. She helped him clear the kitchenette table, which was nothing more than a slim pull-down board. There were no dirty dishes to wash: the meal had come in its own packaging, complete even with utensils.
“What do you have for dessert?” Angelique asked.
Tavalera thought briefly that he wouldn’t mind having her for dessert, but he knew that was out of the question. In fact, he felt a pang of guilt at even thinking of it. But Holly was so far away and this tall, slim, smiling young woman was close enough to touch.
Yeah, he told himself. And she’s some kind of nun, a religious fanatic probably. But she didn’t look like a fanatic. Or smell like one: her perfume was light but sensuous. I wonder if she’s a virgin?
“Dessert?” she reminded him. Tavalera realized he’d been standing by the sink staring at her.
“Oh. Yeah.” He pulled the refrigerator door open again and found a small box of chocolate cookies.
“How’s this?” he asked.
She took the box from his hands. “Perfect. They should go well with the wine.”
Tavalera and Angelique sat at the kitchenette’s tiny shelf of a table. She broke open the cookies while Tavalera popped the stopper on the wine, then found two stemmed glasses.
He sat down and poured. Angelique handed him a cookie.
“What about you?” he asked.
She smiled and picked up a cookie. With his free hand, Tavalera raised his wineglass.
“What’ll we drink to?” he asked her.
Angelique cocked her head slightly, as if searching for an answer. Finally she said, “To truth.”
Tavalera thought it was a bit strange, but he shrugged and said, “Okay. To truth.”
They touched glasses. He sipped at the wine. And immediately felt the world blur around him and sink into darkness. He slumped forward helplessly. The last thing he saw was Sister Angelique reaching across the tiny table and cradling his head in both her hands so that he wouldn’t bang his nose on the tabletop and hurt himself.
CHAPTER 12
Stoner felt Tavalera’s consciousness fade. For a moment Stoner felt blinded, cut off from his link on Earth. Alarmed, he tapped into the phone system in the Atlanta complex and saw Sister Angelique bending over Tavalera’s inert body, slumped on the thin shelf of the kitchenette table.
Stoner watched with growing irritation as she grasped Tavalera by the shoulders and hauled him up to a sitting position. Then she took a hypospray gun from the shoulder bag she had left in the sitting room and rolled up Tavalera’s left sleeve.
Tavalera stirred slightly as the hypospray hissed against his bare skin. Angelique went back to her chair on the other side of the little table and sat down, her eyes intent on Tavalera.
Stoner watched intently, too. What’s she after? he wondered. He knew he could probe her mind if he had to, but he knew she would recognize his invasion of her mind and wanted to avoid that if he could. Besides, he thought, I’ve interfered enough already.
“Raoul,” Sister Angelique called softly. “Raoul, can you hear me?”
Tavalera opened his eyes, but they seemed unfocused, blank.
“Raoul?” she repeated.
&nb
sp; “Yeah.”
“Raoul, I need to know everything that Stoner’s told you. Every word.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice thick, as if he were talking in his sleep.
Hypnotic regression, Stoner realized. She doesn’t trust the doctors who examined him. She wants to pump him dry.
For more than an hour Angelique questioned Tavalera and he answered, often recalling word for word what Stoner had told him. Watching them, Stoner smiled grimly to himself. He remembers better than I would, he thought.
No, said his wife’s presence. You’d remember, too, once the mental blocks have been lowered. We used this technique back in the old days, at Vanguard Industries.
On your employees? Stoner asked her.
Employees, she replied, and others that our security people had to interrogate. The technique doesn’t harm the prisoner, and it gets much better information out of him than physical abuse.
You mean torture.
He sensed her ironic smile. They never used words like that, Keith. Our legal department trained them in vocabulary.
Stoner returned his attention to Angelique and Tavalera. She seemed nettled, a tiny pair of annoyed lines between her brows marring the flawless silkiness of her face.
“There must be more than that, Raoul,” she coaxed. “You’re leaving something out. Tell me what else he said to you.”
Even drugged, Tavalera shook his head stubbornly. “Tha’s everything. Every friggin’ word.”
“How does he appear and disappear?” she demanded, her voice rising slightly. “Where is his base of operations?”
“Starship.”
“He took you there, you say.”
“Yep. In orbit.”
“But the U.S. Space Command reports no unidentified spacecraft in orbit. Nothing between here and the Moon.”
Tavalera made a sloppy shrug.
“He can’t make a spacecraft totally invisible to radar,” she insisted. Then, after a heartbeat, she amended, “At least, that’s what the Space Command claims.”
Stoner decided the interrogation had gone far enough. He projected his presence into Tavalera’s kitchen.
“You can ask me about that,” he said.
Angelique hopped off her chair as if it had suddenly become white-hot.
Stoner grinned at her. “Sorry to startle you.”
“You . . .” She was breathless, wide-eyed.
“I can make a spacecraft totally invisible. And it’s not just an ordinary spacecraft: it’s a starship.”
She steadied herself. “You’ve been listening to us all this time, haven’t you?”
Pointing to Tavalera, who was still sitting on the kitchenette’s spindly white chair, his eyes unfocused, Stoner said, “I’m connected to him. What you do to him you do to me.”
“How can you do that?”
“It’s a gift,” he said, smiling tightly. “A gift from the stars.”
She reached out her hand and touched the fabric of Stoner’s shirt. He felt her fingertips press against him.
“You’re solid,” she whispered. “You’re real.”
Stoner said, “It’s pretty much what you said to Bishop Craig earlier today: I’m an ordinary human being who has access to extraordinary technology.”
“But you said you’ve become more than human.”
Stoner turned and stepped into the sitting room, Angelique following right behind him. He took one of the armchairs; she sat in the other. For several moments he was silent, wondering how much he should really tell her.
“You were closer to the truth than I was,” he said at last. “I’m a human being. I was born on Earth. I have access to technology that’s far beyond present human capabilities, but there’s no reason why humans couldn’t learn to develop and use such technology.”
“But you said you were more than human.”
He scratched at his beard, thinking of how he should reply to her. “That was . . . an exaggeration. You are more than the humans of the Middle Ages, aren’t you? You live longer; you’re healthier; you know far more than they did back then; you have access to much greater sources of energy.”
Angelique nodded uncertainly.
“Well, I know quite a bit more than anyone else on Earth. And I have access to much greater sources of energy. That’s what I meant when I said I’m more than human.”
You’re shading the truth! his wife accused inside his mind.
I know, he replied, but she’s frightened enough as it is.
“I’m not sure that I entirely believe that,” Angelique said slowly.
See, said Jo. She’s smarter than you think.
I could make her believe it, he said to Jo. I could manipulate her mind.
We agreed that we’d do that only if we absolutely have to.
Stoner nodded mentally. To Angelique he said, “You can believe as much or as little of it as you wish.”
Her eyes went crafty. “I’m not sure I believe any of it,” she challenged.
“Fine. But believe this. Unless you act, and act soon, the human race will destroy itself in a nuclear war. That’s why I’ve got to see your Archbishop Overmire immediately.”
“You could just appear to him, as you just did to me.”
“I could, but I’d rather he was prepared to talk with me about the impending war. I don’t want him half-collapsing on me the way that Craig did.”
Angelique started to shake her head but caught herself. “Can you really stop the war from happening?”
“No,” Stoner said flatly. “But you can—if you want to.”
“And that’s why you’ve returned to Earth?” Angelique asked almost plaintively. “To save us from this war?”
Stoner hesitated. “Yes. That, and more.”
“What more?”
“I’ll tell Overmire, and anyone he chooses to have with him when we meet.”
“Bishop Craig is trying to set up the meeting for you.”
“Tell him to hurry. Time’s growing short.”
And Stoner blinked away. One instant he was sitting in the armchair in front of Angelique, solid, real, a living, breathing, speaking person. The next instant he was gone; she was staring at an empty chair, alone in the sitting room.
Angelique drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He’s human, she told herself. He says he’s human. He cares about what happens to us. He wants to save us. Then she realized, And he wants me to help him!
For many minutes Angelique sat in the armchair, her mind turning thoughts over and over, hopes and fears and yearnings racing through her. He wants me to help him, she repeated to herself. He wants me to help him.
Slowly she picked up her shoulder bag and rummaged in it for another hypospray gun. Then she got to her feet and stepped into the kitchenette, where Tavalera was still sitting glassy-eyed.
She pressed the hypospray to Tavalera’s bare arm and squeezed its trigger. He twitched, shuddered. Quickly she rolled his sleeve back down. Before she could button the cuff, Tavalera stirred to consciousness.
“Whew,” he said a little groggily. “I musta nodded off.”
Angelique smiled sweetly for him. “The wine must be more potent than we thought. I fell asleep, too.”
Tavalera looked embarrassed. “Guess I’m outta condition, far as alcohol’s concerned.”
“Me, too,” she said. Glancing at her wristwatch, she put on an alarmed expression. “Goodness! Look at the time. I’ve got to leave, Raoul.”
He was still slightly fuddled from the drugs, but he walked her to the door—somewhat reluctantly, Angelique thought. She gave him a peck on the cheek and left hurriedly.
Tavalera stood by the door, never even thinking that it was open and he could walk out if he wanted to. Instead he grumbled to himself, Some friggin’ date. I slept through it.
CHAPTER 13
At the same time, Stoner was halfway across the world, speaking to the Iranian astronomer Karim Bakhtiar.
Stoner had contacted Bakhtiar because the m
an was the foremost astronomer in the Islamic world, a scientist whose secularist views had brought him into controversy more than once with the religious conservatives of the Light of Allah and their powerful followers. Moreover, Bakhtiar was also the brother of the chief of Greater Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and his older brother protected him. Up to a point.
Stoner had reached Bakhtiar through the perfectly prosaic telephone system, offering his credentials as an astrophysicist and asking for an hour or so to explain the strange phenomenon of the aurora. The Northern Lights had flickered in the skies over the Middle East night after night, just as they had over all the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Many faithful Muslims streamed to their mosques, fearing that the end of the world was at hand. Stoner knew that it could be true.
It wasn’t easy to manipulate Bakhtiar’s mind over the telephone link, even with a video connection, but Stoner used the astronomer’s natural curiosity to overcome his suspicious misgivings about a stranger—and an obvious American, at that—who suddenly offered to explain a phenomenon that was puzzling the entire astronomical community.
But Bakhtiar was an astronomer, and curiosity overcame his political caution. He invited Stoner to his office. I can always call for the security police, he told himself, if he turns out to be a fraud or a mental case.
Bakhtiar’s office was on the campus of the University of New Tehran, which was only lightly guarded by Iranian security forces, unless student unrest called out the riot police. At the moment all was quiet, so it wasn’t difficult for Stoner to project himself into a secluded corner of the campus, by a small copse of acacia trees, then stroll leisurely to the astronomy building. In the lobby a young security guard asked for Stoner’s visitor’s pass. He had none, but he held out his empty hand and assured the young man that it was all right to pass him through.
The dark-skinned guard frowned momentarily and touched the butt of the pistol at his hip, but then he shrugged and let Stoner pass.
As soon as he entered Bakhtiar’s small, cluttered office Stoner sensed the picocameras and microphones hidden in the walls and ceiling. He wondered if Bakhtiar himself knew that he was under constant surveillance. Stoner closed his eyes briefly and the sensors obediently turned off.
