The Fresco

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Chiddy started to argue, but she took his pincers in her hands and looked straight into all his eyes. “Chiddy, you came here to help us. You were helping us. You are good people, and you were doing a good thing. Now your help is being threatened, and despite what you believe you can or cannot do, Chad and I have an ethical imperative to do what we can to prevent harm to our people.”

  “But, our people—” murmured Chiddy.

  She interrupted, “What is happening to your people should not determine what happens to ours, and you’re too ethical a person to interfere with our efforts. The predators found us originally by following you here, which means you’re responsible for the trouble we’re in. I’m not blaming you, but you have a responsibility to cooperate in solving the problem. Now, please, do as we ask. Chad and I have talked it all out, and we think we have a plan.”

  Chiddy stared at his feet, as though marshaling arguments, but Vess pulled him away, muttering, “Gefissit moltplat gom,” which sentiment Benita recognized. She and Chad had discussed just that point.

  She figured she had a least an hour before Chiddy would manage to get the Inkleozese moving, assuming they would move at all. She took fruit juice from the freezer, made a pitcherful and put in the fridge. That left her time for a shower and hair wash, a change of clothes, time to run the clothes she’d worn on Pistach-home through the washer. Every time she put them on, she felt iglak crawling out of the seams!

  Chad called twice, to ask what had happened. The first time, nothing had. The second time she told him that Vess had called to say the Inkleozese were on their way.

  “Do you need my help?” he asked.

  “Better not, Chad. They might take one good look at you and decide you’d make a good brooder.”

  He laughed, not an amused laugh, and remarked that he was glad to be relieved of the duty, as the rest of his phone calls would keep him busy for hours.

  Benita set out little glasses for the fruit juice, the Inkleozese beverage of choice. She heard movement in the elevator hall, and Chiddy and Vess came in, escorting ten of the tall, angular Inkleozese.

  Chiddy and Vess introduced her to the ladies, except for the one who had saved her life. To that one Benita bowed very low and gave heartfelt thanks. Once they had all been served little glasses of fruit juice along with a honey jar to pass around among themselves, Benita asked Chiddy and Vess to excuse themselves as she had a message from the president for the Inkleozese ears alone. They had tympanum, not ears, but everyone knew what she meant. The Inkleozese had translator machines, just as Chiddy and Vess did, so she knew she and they could make themselves mutually understood.

  The High Assessor, one K’tif’kt’hmm (who was to be addressed as Your Exactitude) leaned on the back of a chair, her entourage found other places to perch comfortably, and Benita laid out the problems, first of the Pistach, then of Earth, then of Earth and the Pistach and the Inkleozese. She had organized it in her head while in the shower, and was able to talk for about thirty minutes without losing track of where she was going or repeating herself. Through it all, a small part of herself stood to one side, listening in amazement, for Benita had never thought of herself as a speaker, but her presentation was fluent and sensible. Her voice was hoarse by the time she had finished.

  Her Exactitude asked a few questions, very politely. Benita was able to answer most of them, and those she could not answer, the other Inkleozese were able to help her think out.

  “It does not seem impossible,” murmured Her Exactitude. “Moreover, it accords with our ethical imperative. Luckily, our imperative is based upon experience, rather than upon artifacts or scriptures, so we are not likely to be thrown into disorganization by judgments made centuries ago. We do not assert as true anything which we have not proven or seen proven by others. Thus, we never claimed that we were the center either of the universe or of a deity’s attention. While we do not deny deity, we do not presume to understand it, plea bargain with it, or tell others what shape it takes. It does make life easier.”

  “I am extremely grateful for your attention,” murmured Benita. “I have told you the only solution we can think of, unless you, yourselves…”

  The High Assessor made a negating gesture. “No, your idea is quite good. Besides, we monitor, we do not labor. We judge, we do not devise. In this case, doing the right thing is its own reward and makes your gratitude unnecessary. Shall we summon the envoys?” She turned her head and looked around the group, all of whom raised a front leg, signifying assent.

  Her Exactitude spoke rapidly into her translation device-transmitter, and in a few moments, Chiddy and Vess came in, looking rather like boys who have been summoned to the principal’s office.

  Her Exactitude held up a pincer. “Pistach athyci, attend. We speak on a matter of morality. Your race has encountered a philosophical abyss. Your beliefs are threatened. Because of this and others of your actions, another race has become threatened. We speak with authority. Before you attend to the crisis of your people, you must attend to the crisis of this people, for you have reached out your manipulators and cannot withdraw them in good conscience.”

  Chiddy bowed and said something to the effect that he was always at the command of the monitors.

  “Pistach athyci, attend! This country has a chieftain, this chieftain has spiritual advisors. This man and his advisors must be taken to Pistach-home, at once. There they must see the great Fresco and spend a time in meditation, enabling the chieftain to return and explain to his people what has transpired. We, the Inkleozese, approve this journey and its objective. The chieftain and his people, however, cannot be taken in a tiny ship. A large ship is necessary.”

  Chiddy hemmed and hawed and stuttered and thought there might be a Pistach colonial ship on Inkleoza. Or maybe on Gofar or Faroff.

  Her Exactitude agreed. “This assumption has high likelihood of being accurate. We ourselves desire concurrent transport to Inkleoza, together with all the human brooders we will have impregnated by that time, in order to supervise their health. The ship must be large enough for both groups. We will need a dozen more brooders in the next few days, but this concludes the current breeding cycle. When the Inkleti have emerged, prior to pupation, the brooders will be returned to Earth.”

  Chiddy was still dithering, shifting weight from one set of legs to another, upper body twisting, eyes swiveling.

  Benita took Chiddy’s pincers in her hands, got his full attention and told him that both he and Vess must depart immediately. Chiddy finally focused on her and agreed, though he wasn’t his usual self at all.

  “Pistach selves will find a large ship somewhere and commandeer it in the name of the Inkleozese!” said Her Exactitude, sounding very magisterial and imperative. “What time will this take?”

  “Four days, minimum,” said Chiddy. “Four Earth days.”

  The ladies bowed, Benita bowed, everyone bowed, Chiddy left, the ladies left, except for Her Exactitude.

  This personage came to Benita’s side. “Aside from our providing you with the recorded voice you require, is there anything else we can do to assist you, Benita? You bear much responsibility of a suddenly imposed sort. Such surprising burdens are sometimes difficult to uphold.”

  Benita thanked her and started to say, no, nothing you can do for me right now, but then she thought of something.

  “Ma’am, Your Exactitude, I apologize if what I am about to ask is rude or impossible or simply undesirable on aesthetic grounds—” She stopped, clenched her jaw, sighed deeply and went on to make her request.

  She seemed amused as she responded, “I will take it up with my people. If they have no objection, we will be happy to grant your plea.”

  They made mutual farewells. The Inkleozese vanished just as Chiddy and Vess often did, no beam-me-up sparkles, no dissolving into space, just poof, gone. Benita had decided it was some sort of transport commonly used in the Confederation. She did not spend much time thinking about it, however, for it was ten o’clock,
she had had little lunch and no supper and was desperate for both food and sleep. Sleep aboard the ship had not been restful. She thought it possible that she had dreamed during much of it: conflict dreams, terror dreams, like those she had had long ago, as a young wife, when she would wake with her heart thundering in her ears, so frightened she couldn’t move. Night terrors, the doctor said. Fairly common. Meaningless, so far as anyone knew.

  Well. A lot of things were meaningless so far as anyone knew. A year before, what would she have thought of an ancient invasion of the lands of the Jaupati? Would she have cared at all? If she had heard of a rebellion among the critters of Quirk, or of a Fresco cleaning, or if someone had foreseen her being selected as an intermediary…

  Before she lay down, she called Chad, who sounded every bit as weary as she did.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “We’ve got seven definite yesses so far. A whole bunch of others will call back. The best ones tell us we’ll need at least eighteen or twenty, and a few more wouldn’t hurt. The pres got the preacher.”

  “The right one?”

  “Yes, the right one, plus a pinch hitter, just in case. The preacher was a little worried about the language barrier, but I said we will overcome, one way or another.”

  “Don’t forget emergency rations, supplies, you know. We won’t be eating Pistach food or using Pistach beds, and we’ll be there at least a day, maybe longer.”

  “I know. Are they getting a ship?”

  “The Inkleozese told them they had to.”

  “How long before it gets here?”

  “Four days, minimum, and I’m going to sleep two of them,” she said.

  “Both of us,” groaned Chad.

  When she lay down on her bed, Sasquatch curled up next to her, his back against her legs, just to be sure she didn’t wander off again. She fell asleep thinking of Carlos out there among the stars. Maybe he’d decide since nobody cared, he’d swim to shore.

  And, she thought, firmly, decisively, without her usual vacillation, it wasn’t up to her whether he did or not.

  51

  the cabal

  TUESDAY

  A day or so after Benita left for Pistach-home, the members of Morse’s cabal, sans Morse himself, had taken themselves down to the farm in Virginia where they’d set up camp in the house and waited for word from the predators. It was their opinion that though the predators had pretended to leave Earth, they wouldn’t go far, and the best thing to do was wait at the farm for them to show up. They had been waiting for almost a week, and were not the better tempered for it.

  “Nothing,” Dink said in an aggrieved tone, coming in from his tenth circuit of the surrounding area. “No sign of them at all.”

  “Any word from NASA?” asked Briess, who was stretched on a cot by the window.

  Dink hung up his jacket and slumped into the nearest chair. “The surveillance satellite that was kicked into a moon-loop got a clear picture of what are obviously ships, three of them, one big and two small. The satellite was a quick and dirty job, one loop only, so we don’t know if they’re still there.”

  “Are there more of them, that’s what I want to know,” said McVane. “We got damn little information for all that money.” He was slumped in a chair by the empty fireplace, his usually impeccable uniform rumpled, his tie loose, an open beer can at his elbow.

  Dink shook his head ponderously. “Be thankful we got what we did. For such a hasty modification, we’re doing well to get any pictures at all. The ships are huge. They could hold a lot more than we ever saw here on the ground.”

  “I wonder what the hell they’re playing at!” growled McVane. “They’ve obviously pulled some stunt with the Pistach, for they now say the Confederation has no right to stop them coming here. They’ve been seen hunting and eating people all over the world, or at least the results have been seen, if not the critters themselves. What happened to the agreement we were supposed to have with them?”

  “Could be they’ve decided they don’t need us anymore,” murmured Arthur. “If the Pistach have no authority to stop them, what do they need us for?”

  Dink nodded. “Or maybe the Pistach weren’t as bamboozled as they thought. We haven’t heard anything about them recently, either.”

  “My understanding was that even if the Confederation does anything about the predators being here, it would take forever,” commented Briess.

  “Unless it’s a unilateral action,” said McVane. “Maybe the Pistach went on the warpath all by themselves.”

  “Our profilers say no,” said Arthur. “They read the Pistach as nonviolent and conformist. Though they’re criticism proof when they start working with new races, when they’re finished their work is subject to review, and it seems they really care what other races think and say about them. They’re not likely to risk unpopular action.”

  “Maybe those others, those what-you-call-’ems,” murmured Briess. “Maybe they’ve stepped in. The ones that got Morse pregnant.”

  “Morse claims he’s not pregnant,” reminded Arthur.

  “Yeah, well, he claims he’s a Christian, too,” said Briess, “but last time I looked, Christians don’t assault their wives.”

  “Lupé?” asked Dink. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not Lupé, the ex-Mrs. Morse. You should read the medical reports.” Briess sniggered.

  “Let that alone,” said McVane. “It’s past. Focus on the current rapes and assaults, by the Inkleozese, even though it’s only pro-life politicians and preachers they’ve done it to so far.”

  “Be thankful for small mercies,” said Briess.

  “You’re pro-life,” Dink commented.

  Briess widened the slit of his mouth into an excruciating smile. “No, my friend, I’m merely anti-woman. I was born in the wrong system. Once female life expectancy exceeded that of men in the U.S., it was obvious we were doing something wrong.”

  “What you got against old ladies?” asked Dink. “Your mother was probably an old lady.”

  “Bingo,” said Briess, with a chilly smile. “Let’s change the subject, if you don’t mind. Since it’s obvious we’re not getting anywhere waiting here, let’s leave them a message and get back to Washington. Morse has already subpoenaed the so-called intermediary for another inquiry before his committee, and once he starts in on her sexual habits, with her husband testifying to her depravity, people will assume it’s true that she had a relationship with the president and the ETs and possibly her dog.”

  “I don’t like this,” murmured Prentice Arthur. “It smacks too much of McCarthyism.”

  Dink snorted. “You wanna grow corn, somebody’s got to turn over the dirt, Arthur! Now that we don’t have independent counsels with unlimited budgets to do it, we’ll have to pick up the spades ourselves. I suggest we get back and start digging.”

  “I hope you’ve got Bert dried out enough to be believable,” said McVane. “When I saw him on 20/20 he certainly wasn’t!”

  “We’ve got him stashed away,” said Dink, with a feral smile. “I’m told he responds well to pain.”

  They were interrupted by the blink of a red light and a hesitant beeping from a metal box by the window.

  “There they are,” breathed Briess. “Better late than never.”

  McVane was already on his feet beside the machine. “It doesn’t read their signatures,” he said doubtfully. “Too hot for a Wulivery or Fluiquosm, too cool for a Xankatikitiki. Too many for any of ‘em.”

  “Where are they?” asked Dink, peering out the window.

  “Over to our left, among the trees,” muttered McVane.

  Dink picked up his glasses, put on his jacket, and went out onto the rickety porch. From the end of it he had a good view of the trees. McVane and Arthur came out onto the porch behind him as Dink spoke over his shoulder. “Must be the invisible Fluiquosm wearing heated suits!”

  A faint yelp came from behind him, and he turned to find himself alone on the porch. He went to the door
and looked in to see Briess still hovering over the machine.

  He knocked on the door frame. Briess looked up, and not seeing anyone, went out onto the porch himself. Nobody there but him. Very shortly thereafter, nobody there at all.

  52

  benita

  WEDNESDAY

  Benita had thought there might be a quiet interlude before the large ship arrived, but the morning after her return she received a subpoena, dated several days before and routed through the White House. She was to testify that day before Morse’s committee, this time about her sexual involvement with the ETs and any current members of government. Even though the president had told her to expect it, it made her furious. It was all part of Morse’s choreography, of course, part of the shit ballet he hoped to stage.

  Chad picked her up, as before, and they arrived at the hearing chamber at the time specified to find the inquiry in some disarray because Morse wasn’t there. The vice chairman wasn’t there. Several of Morse’s staffers weren’t there. Eventually, someone was appointed to be chairman pro tem, and Benita swore to tell the truth and was then accused of sexual contact with the ETs and/or the president, et al.

  “Where on earth did you hear such a thing?” she asked, affronted.

  “We ask the questions,” muttered the senator, slightly red in the face.

  “Well, all I can say is that if you listen to alcoholics like my husband, from whom I am separated, he’ll say anything anyone tells him to say for ten dollars or a drink, whichever is closest.”

  “Are you denying these allegations?”

  “Of course I’m denying these allegations. They’re ridiculous.”

  There was muttering, leaning, whispering. The interrogator, face rather red, leaned into his microphone. “Do you have any knowledge of where your…husband is, Mrs. Alvarez?”

  She answered honestly. “I couldn’t tell you where he is, sir. He’s been working for Senator Morse for some time, so maybe the senator can tell you.”