The Fresco

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He’d tried patience. “Merilu, you said yourself your career would only have lasted a year or two more.”

  “It was an important year or two, Chad! I’d have made contacts. I’d have set myself up to move on…”

  He’d tried reality. “On where, sweetheart?”

  She’d never considered on where. Where did one move from being spokeswoman for a commuter airline? From being a sparkle on television, a smile in photographs, a warm cushiony voice-over for tourist-targeted infomercials about destinations along the air routes. It was a job that let her do the things she liked to do, like having her hair done, getting a manicure, having a makeup job, and being dressed in designer clothes so people could look at her. People had liked looking at her. Chad had liked looking at her. And being with her. Of course, back then Merilu had been habitually and refreshingly frank. Even if she hadn’t quit to be with the children, she herself had said she’d have to find something else to do because the job wouldn’t last forever. Then, she’d said so.

  Now, however, Merilu’s mom had gotten into the act. She’d brought her poor-baby backhoe from Montana so she could dig Merilu a whine pit, a hole so dark and deep there wasn’t a hope of getting her out. Not unless—so she said—she moved back to Montana, which would magically create some kind of insta-ramp, out of the pits and up to cheery-dom. It all depended on Chad, of course. All he had to do was request a transfer.

  Chad was dragging his feet. Hell, he was dragging his whole damned body! He could get a transfer, probably, maybe even without a cut in pay. Of course, doing that meant he’d give up his own career ambitions, which Merilu, with typical inconsistency, considered only fair since that’s what she’d done, never mind that she’d chosen to and he hadn’t, never mind that he’d been making enough to afford a full-time nanny, but Merilu hadn’t wanted that, never mind that she was twenty-six and he was thirty-nine. The thirteen-year difference hadn’t seemed like much when she was twenty, but lately it had opened up into a generation gap! At least she hadn’t used the D word, which he did not want to hear. That is, he thought he didn’t want to hear it, not now, though he could feel himself getting more and more used to the idea.

  He put his key in the lock and stepped into a silent house, where he held his breath and let it out slowly. Not a sound. Nothing in the living room, not in the dining room, kitchen…note on the refrigerator.

  “Chad, Mom’s in town for three days and she’s asked me and the boys to have dinner in her suite at the hotel. There’s a pool and a spa, so we may stay for awhile. Don’t expect us until late tonight or sometime tomorrow.”

  He sighed, realizing with slight shame that it was a sigh of relief. He could have a shower sans nag; a drink or two or three sans whine; a lazy loll in front of the tube sans whimper from the background. Lord, Lord, why did men and women try to live together? Those South Pacific tribes that had the men and women living in separate houses had the right idea.

  It was so peaceful that maybe he would even explore how he felt about two sari-clad women going up in a puff of nothingness at a top secret dinner which he had attended as liaison. He had made a point of approaching them and handing them things several times during the evening. He would swear they were material, real, living. He had sat across from the one who called herself Indira. She had smiled, joked, laughed, her face crinkling up in real humor. Then, poof, gone. He had suspended judgment, half expecting the bureau lab rats to come in and announce it had all been a trick, but the technicians were still examining the tapes, as baffled as everyone else.

  Real aliens. Who had come to help the United States with, how had they put it, those “small areas that need adjustment.” That was the height of arrogance. Sure there were problems in the world, but damned if Chad would call any of them “small areas that needed adjustment.”

  But the woman, Benita, she had been something different. Not only pretty, in a very natural way, but charming. That level look she gave you. The way she listened. That was really it…the way she listened. Chad felt he had not been listened to so genuinely in a very long time.

  13

  general mcvane

  THURSDAY

  Elsewhere in Washington, General McVane had made a number of hurried phone calls rousing people from sleep and was now with “Dink” Dinklemier on his way to a small, out-of-the-way hotel previously owned by a drug trafficker, recently appropriated by the DEA and currently being “managed” by a semiretired CIA employee. Called Holiday Hill, it was often used by Washington spooks for stashing witnesses, hiding informants, or holding impromptu meetings.

  “J’you get hold of Arthur?” Dink asked.

  “He’s picking up Morse, and they’ll meet us. What about Briess?” Briess was the CIA link.

  “He’s in California,” Dink replied. “I left him a message.”

  Except for this exchange, their journey was silent, unbroken even when they arrived at the hotel and went directly to a small second-floor meeting room.

  “Turn the heat off!” McVane complained. “It’s ninety in here.”

  Dink obligingly turned down the thermostat and opened the two windows to the cooler night air while McVane loaded a tape into a player and called downstairs for refreshments.

  “What’s that smell?” he asked.

  Dink sniffed. “Something outside. I thought I’d cool the room down, then shut the windows.”

  “Smells like…what? Smoke? Hot tar?”

  “Probably odors from the kitchen, General.”

  “Let’s not eat here, then,” he snorted, turning on the tape player to be sure it worked.

  The tray of drinks arrived only moments before Arthur and Morse, the senator already in a state of outrage.

  “What the bleep?” snarled the senator. “It’s bleeping midnight.”

  “We figured you’d want to know about it,” said Dink. “Remember what we told you about last time we met? The unidentified objects flying from A to B to X. Well, McVane tells us X turned out to be right here. This tape was made earlier tonight. I think it’ll be self-explanatory.”

  He pushed the button. The dinner party was on the screen. There was, however, no Indira, no Lara. There were, instead, two totally inhuman creatures who darted and clicked their way around the room and who ate, once dinner was served, in a peculiarly disgusting manner. At least, so thought the senator, though he knew he was more sensitive to such matters than many of his associates. He watched, both repulsed and fascinated, all the way through the speeches, the envoys’ explanations and farewells, and the disappearance of the envoys.

  “They just vanished!” said McVane. “Like a puff of smoke.”

  “The woman,” said Morse. “The so-called intermediary. Who is she?”

  McVane answered. “Her name is Benita Alvarez. We’re not supposed to know that, Senator. We got the information from Congressman Alvarez. She’s some kind of seventh cousin twice removed. General Wallace was in Alvarez’s office when the woman brought him a kind of cube thing that delivered the message. He, in turn, brought the thing to the president. I first knew about this on Monday, when I attended a Cabinet meeting at the White House. The real intermediary doesn’t look like the woman on the tape, by the way. She’s younger and better looking, and she has dark hair.”

  “She could be anybody!” Morse exploded. “A Chinese agent. Somebody planted before the wall came down! I want her, McVane. I want to talk to her right now!”

  “When we find out where she is, Senator. I had arranged to follow her from the meeting, but the White House managed to be obstructive, as usual. It’s only a matter of a few hours before we find her, but as you pointed out, it’s after midnight.”

  “So these damned monsters will teach us to be neighborly,” fumed the senator. “Teach a fox to eat chickens! You find that woman. You bring her here. Put her down in the basement rooms, where we can have a very private little talk. You bring somebody from that spook factory of yours, too, so we can be sure she’s telling us the truth…”r />
  “Before you consider torture or drugs, you might try just talking with her,” said Prentice Arthur, his lip curled in distaste. “As yet, we have no reason to suspect she’s anything but an ordinary American citizen.”

  “You believe that, you believe in the tooth fairy,” sneered the senator. “No, Prentice. I’ve seen this coming. All the science fiction and the TV series and the movies! We’ve had aliens pushed down our throats for decades! Softening us up. When we hear the word alien, we think of ET and little boys riding bicycles across the full moon. We think of close encounters, with musical starships. Do you think that’s all coincidence? A fad? Let me tell you, it’s purposeful, it’s arranged. Now they’re ready for the takeover, and they’ve got us so well softened up, they figure we’ll go along, no hassle, no fighting. Well, they’ve figured without Byron Morse. Get me this woman! I want her.” He paused a moment, chewing at the corner of his lips. “Does she have family?”

  “A husband in Albuquerque, two children in college in California.”

  “Well, while you’re at it, I want them, too. All three of them.”

  Even McVane looked startled at this, and Prentice actually attempted to disagree. “Senator, you’re being precipitous…”

  “I’m being fucking decisive,” Morse snarled. “And it’s damned well time! You’re a lawyer, Prentice! Get some writs or some congressional subpoenas going. Issue them in the name of the committee. We oversee intelligence, damn it, and this woman’s family may have information crucial to intelligence.”

  “Surely we can take a little time…”

  “You think I’m out of my head? Hmm? Well, you just go along with me. And you watch the news. Pretty soon you’re going to see things happening. Things you can’t explain. Oh, those aliens on the tape, they’ll explain it away, but there’ll be people dead, or people missing. When you read about it, you remember what I’m telling you. Until then, just do what I ask and pretend you believe in it! Now get off your ass and take me home!”

  Dink left with Arthur and the senator. McVane gathered up the tape and his briefcase, then went to shut the open windows. The strange smell was even stronger than it had been initially, an acrid stench, and he leaned out, searching the area for signs of smoke. Nothing there but a line of trees, some of which had been chopped off and regrown from the crown. He searched for the word. Pollarded. Ugly, in his opinion.

  “McVane,” said someone from nearby.

  He jerked upright, banging his head on the window. “Who’s that?” he snarled.

  “McVane,” said the voice again, from outside.

  He leaned out the window, one hand cupped protectively over his head. “What?”

  The voice was mechanical, artificial. “The Pistach are not the only race desirous of working with your people. Others are very interested, and others might offer better terms than the Pistach.”

  McVane stood very still. He could see no one outside the window, and the voice gave him no hints. It was directionless. “Who are you? Why did you come to me?”

  “We are members of Shalaqua, General. It is a…cadre, military, like yourself. We came to you because you were at the meeting. We followed the Pistach to the meeting. You and we may be of great service to one another. To discuss, however, we must arrange to meet.”

  “Who…who would you like to meet with?”

  “The persons with you tonight. The senator. His agents. You. Your agents, if you like.”

  “Where? When?”

  “Four day from now? Hmm?”

  “Monday?”

  “If it is called that. At darkspin, you gather others. You go somewhere distant from the city.”

  “Darkspin?” McVane whispered from a dry mouth.

  “When your world rolls into dark. Evening. Yes. We are still…accumulating vocabulary. We apologize. You go into the country, we will follow you, we will meet there. Four days will give you time to prepare, geh?”

  “Prepare what?”

  “Your safety. The senator, he will want to be safe. So with Prentice Arthur. You less so, but you are a soldier, geh? You can make secure in four days. Some armored vehicle, perhaps. We do not presume to tell you your business.”

  “Monday night, at sunset, somewhere in the country,” said McVane.

  “Assuredly,” said the voice. “We go now.”

  McVane turned away and walked dazedly to the door, shutting off the lights as he opened it, only then remembering his briefcase. It was still on the table and he stumbled toward it in the dark, halted in mid step by a sound from outside. Squadge, squadge, squadge. Flap, flap, flap. Conscious of his dry mouth and throat, he paced silently toward the window, a mouth of darkness, standing back but looking out. Nothing out there. The trees. Not as thick a grove as he had first thought. No more noise. Nothing.

  He picked up his briefcase and left as quickly as possible.

  Outside the senator’s house, where they had dropped him off, Prentice and Dink sat in the car, at the moment unwilling to move in any direction.

  “Did you know he had that rat in his craw about ETs?” Dink asked. “I thought it was only pregnant women that set him off.”

  “If you mean, did I know he’s afraid of little green men, no, or that he believes there’s an extraterrestrial conspiracy, no. I didn’t know either of those things. Maybe he had something bad happen to him when he was a boy. A movie or TV show that scared him.”

  “You think?”

  Arthur said slowly, “I’d rather think that, wouldn’t you? I mean, we occasionally work in rather…arcane ways. We…at least I try to avoid it, but it’s the exigencies of the job. But…planning to torture family members just because they might know something…that’s a little far out even for our line of work.”

  “He said there’d be people dead or missing. Maybe we’d better put someone on a survey of regional and local news, tabulate any reports of people dead or missing.”

  “If you do, he’ll have you by the short hairs. Dink. Think a moment. Aren’t there always people dead or missing?”

  “Right. Yeah. I see what you mean.”

  “I hope you do, Dink. Oh, yes, I hope you do.”

  14

  from chiddy’s journal

  Before we made contact with you, dear Benita, we watched the peoples of Earth for a very long time. It was not necessary for us to learn all the languages, as we have machines to do that, but it was necessary to learn how people think. We watched the Chinese and the Africans, the Indians and Ceylonese. I was particularly interested in the nations where ruling groups had recently come to power through advocacy of specific beliefs, as for example in Afghanistan.

  For several days, I was intrigued by one particular person there, one who thought of himself as a warrior and faithful son of the Prophet. We watched his daily routines including the rituals and prayers his people engage in several times each day. Vess listened to his memories: remembered writings, oral histories, the battles he had fought and the victory his people had won. This man—whose name was Ben Shadouf—had been given a half-ruined house, badly damaged during the war. He spent part of each day rebuilding the house where he lived with his wife and his children.

  Each evening, when he rose from his prayers, he went to the inner courtyard where his wife had set out his evening meal. On a particular evening, he sat contemplating the food for a long time, then summoned his wife and pointed at the plates before him, asking for meat.

  “We had none,” she murmured.

  “You have money to buy meat,” he said. I watched his eyes measuring her, examining her face with what I took to be concern. When we first found this family, she had looked quite healthy and vigorous, as you do, dearest Benita, but she no longer did so. Now she coughed often, there were shadows around her eyes, and her hair was rough and uncared for.

  “I gave you money,” he said.

  “You had no time to go with me to the market,” she replied. Her eyes remained fixed on her feet. She seemed feverish and unwell. �
��I am no longer permitted to be on the street without a male relative.”

  He gritted his teeth and waved her away, fingering the long scar that ran from his forehead down one cheek. Vess told me the man was proud of the scar, for he had killed the Russian soldier who had shot him. The bullet had nicked his cheekbone, however, and it hurt him still. Vess, feeling his mind, said the battles he had fought were more real to him than the present, more real than the victory his group had achieved. He had anticipated victory the way a starving person anticipates food. He had thought it would be satisfying, gladdening, but he found it to be only tiresome. He had agreed to the laws they would implement when the victory came, but he had not known how irritating and inconvenient those laws would be. He had not realized his wife would suffer from them.

  The woman, Afaya, could not go into the street without a male relative to protect her modesty, even though she would be covered from head to toe with only tiny mesh openings before her eyes. Afaya had told her husband that wearing the robe was like being blind. The wife of Mustapha, his neighbor and commanding officer, had tripped on the pavement and fallen, allowing her legs to be seen. She was then beaten by those who named themselves Guardians of Modesty. She had died of this beating. Mustapha had shrugged it away, for she was old and there were no children at home for her to care for, but he, too, found the new rules inconvenient.

  Vess and I puzzled over this. The woman was a receptor, of course. The men were all inceptors, except the very young ones, who would be, and very old ones, who had been. Was every one of them expected to go into breeding madness if he saw a receptor’s legs? Or her face? Were they totally without self-control or a sense of shame? Seemingly so, for any woman showing her face was charged with being an erotic-stimulator-for-hire who, by showing any part of herself, had stimulated breeding madness in men and must therefore be stoned to death. Actual erotic-stimulators-for-hire, of whom there were a good many, were not stoned to death. And, most interesting of all, even while the men were doing the stoning, they knew the women they called whores were, in fact, innocent. And yet, they did it.