Eschaton 02 The Siege of Eternity

by Frederik Pohl

  "And how could I do that, when those creatures tampered with my memory?" he demanded.

  It seemed like a good time to offer sympathy. "That must be awful for you," she said.

  He glared at her, then shrugged. "What I remember is an abandoned astronomical observatory. There was no gravity, so it was difficult to move about, and the air smelled stale-because, I thought, it had been unused for so long, but perhaps it was the natural aroma of these creatures from space. But I didn't see any sign of them."

  "Haven't you seen the Doc?"

  He looked at her with what might have been amusement-at last, a human sign! "This one, no. I did see quite a bit of its-brother?- when it removed that device from my brain. But I was not in a position to study it carefully."

  "Well, General," she said sunnily, "I'm on my way there now. It isn't time for lunch yet, so you have the opportunity if you want it. Would you care to look in on the damn thing?"

  Hilda's interest in the Floridian was not particularly sexual. She certainly did not exclude that possibility. However, General Delasquez represented a force in the world with which she had little personal experience, that is, the kind of semi patriotism which marked the people of the breakaway State of Florida: adamant on running their own state as though it were a sovereign nation, yet unwilling to, or perhaps too sensible to, provoke the military retaliation that would come with any attempt at outright secession. The Floridians were not ignorant of history, and they were well aware of the outcome of the War Between the States.

  Outside the Doc's shed an armed guard was crouched over a news screen, but he was alert enough to forbid them to enter. "What's so interesting?" Hilda asked the man in a friendly way. He shrugged.

  "There's an object coming pretty close to the Earth. For a while they thought it might hit, but it's going to miss us by about fifty thousand klicks." Then, more obligingly: "I can't let you go in, but you can look at the damn beast through the door if you want to. It won't disturb him."

  The Doc looked as though nothing at all would disturb him, as a matter of fact. The creature was standing motionless, half-turned away from them, not bothering to look around to see who had come to look at him. Delasquez looked at the Doc in silence for a moment, then said wonderingly, "Excuse me, but is this the one that made the pictures of the interior of Starlab?"

  "The very one."

  "It doesn't look capable of that kind of work."

  "I know," Hilda agreed. "The story is that they come from a very high type of civilization, but the Scarecrows conquered them and planted some sort of controls in their brains. It doesn't affect their intelligence, but now they can't make any decisions on their own- especially to rebel against the Scarecrows."

  He gave her a sardonic look. "How useful that would be for your country, for dealing with people like myself."

  "Oh, but we would never do anything like that, General," Hilda protested-as a matter of form; knowing that that wasn't true, knowing that the General was well aware it wasn't.

  "Of course not," he agreed, as duplicitous as herself. "Shall we go to lunch now, Brigadier? I've seen all I need, and the creature does smell unpleasant."

  "Of course," Hilda said, cozily slipping her arm into his as they turned away; thinking about how the general was going to feel when they were stuck in the confined space of the LuftBuran with the Doc. "You know," she said, "I've always thought of Florida as a good experiment in cooperation: you have all the advantages of being part of the United States, but the freedom to follow your own principles."

  He looked at her in amusement, but without removing her arm. "Yes, that is true. I wonder, though, how well the experiment would work if we Floridians did not have our own National Guard and Air Force."

  Brigadier Morrisey would have preferred a quiet table for two, but there weren't any tables like that in the Kourou officers' mess. They wound up at a table for six, sharing it with Colonel duValier and some people on the launch controller's staff. They seemed to be old friends of General Delasquez, though there was something in their gently mocking tone that Hilda did not quite understand. Then Colonel duValier explained: "When our friend Martin was here before it was under something of a cloud, Brigadier. We borrowed him from the Floridians to brief us on what we could expect when we visited your Starlab, since he had been there himself. Of course, then we discovered that there was not much truth in what he told us."

  Delasquez said stiffly, "I told you what I thought was so. I did not know that my mind had been tampered with."

  "But of a certainty," the colonel agreed. "We did not know that you were transmitting information to our enemies, either. We did not even know that we had enemies! Or else we would have put you in a cage like the one this malodorous Doc we are taking with us is in."

  "Dr. Artzybachova says the only way to be sure the Docs aren't transmitting information is to make sure they don't get any," Hilda put in. "Of course, that policy got blown when they were at the UN."

  General Delasquez sniffed. "Dr. Artzybachova," he said in a dismissing tone.

  "You don't like her?"

  "I have no opinion at all about the woman. I saw her briefly on the launch, and then she died."

  "That one died, right," Hilda said, nodding. "But the one that's here now, she says you-the other you-and she were great friends as captives of the Scarecrows."

  Delasquez looked uneasy. "I have thought about that," he admitted. "But since that other copy of myself is not here, I am not bound by any relationships he may have assumed. She is a type of woman I do not care for."

  "What type is that?" Hilda asked. He shrugged without answering, but she didn't really need an answer. She had already diagnosed General Delasquez's own type: authoritarian male, which meant sexist pig. It was a type that she had always enjoyed encountering, on official business or in the boudoir.

  The woman from the controller's staff diplomatically changed the subject. "So, Brigadier Morrisey, are you ready to explore outer space?"

  Interoffice Memo: The Eurospace rocket. Classified.

  The "LuftBuran" was built from a German design with German money, but using Russian facilities and labor. The French didn't like the name. They wanted to call it the "Ariane 9," but when that was turned down they settled for naming a French astronaut as chief pilot.

  "Of course," Hilda said, politely enough. "In fact, I wish it would happen. How long are we going to have to wait here?"

  "That's not my decision. The LuftBuran is nearly fueled, and all the supplies are already stowed. As soon as the crew is ready we can go."

  "I'm ready now," Hilda declared, digging into the fish course that one of the waiters had placed before her. She didn't recognize the fish. There were two of them, quite tiny, but delicious; evidently Colonel duValier had made his wishes known to the kitchen staff.

  They had reached the cheese course when carryphones began beeping all over the mess hall. "What is happening?" Delasquez asked irritably.

  The woman from the controller's staff was already answering hers, and when she turned to look at them her face was pale. "That object that was approaching Earth? It is a spacecraft. It has been observed to make a burn, and its new course will impact the Earth."

  The cheese boards sat abandoned on every table, rounds of perfect Camembert, slabs of bleu and Brie.

  There was no one left in the room to eat them. Everyone had flown to the briefing room, where Colonel duValier had a phone to his ear and an eye on the wall screen.

  Hilda stared at the pictures. After all the searching, not one of Earth's giant telescopes had had its instruments bearing on the incoming object. That was left to the smaller ones, and so they had been the ones that were dazzled when the object emitted a stream of fire. Beside her Martin Delasquez muttered something in Spanish, but when she asked he said it in English for her benefit. "It is a braking burn," he said. "They are preparing for reentry."

  "But what is it?" someone asked. No one tried to answer. Everyone was thinking the same thoughts
, though, for they had all heard the stories the captives brought back of Scarecrow vengeance that dropped KT-type asteroids on the planets of their enemies, wiping them out as thoroughly as the sixty-five-million-year-old impact not far from where they were standing had wiped out the dinosaurs.

  Hilda could not help a small shudder. Then someone cried, "Look at the other screen!"

  It was displaying a series of numbers-orbital elements, Hilda supposed, though the digits meant nothing to her. Then the screen provided a graphic, a globe of the Earth, with a great oval of pink light overspreading a west-to-east area from Baja California almost to the African coast.

  "That is its landing footprint," Delasquez said tautly. "When it makes final course corrections it can strike anywhere in that area. If you notice, we are inside it here in Kourou."

  Everyone in the room had noticed that. Colonel duValier was gabbling with the controllers. Then, grim-faced, he seized the microphone.

  "It is my belief," he said, his voice taut and his accent thickening, "that these Scarecrows are aiming this missile directly at us in order to keep us from accomplishing our launch to the Starlab orbiter. I do not intend to let them do that. Our next launch window is in eighteen minutes; we can't make that one, but we can make the one after that. I order refueling topped off and the alien creature to be brought aboard. It is now a little after thirteen hundred hours local time; the remainder of the crew will board the spacecraft by fourteen ten, for possible liftoff at fourteen fifty-seven."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Even a Bureau agent was entitled to an afternoon off now and then. Once Dannerman had supervised the changing of shifts for the guards at the Observatory and the apartment, and the other guard at the hospital where poor Pat Five was flat on her back in the ob-gyn wing, he was free for personal business.

  Which, of course, was Anita Berman. He met her for a pleasant, if inexpensive, lunch not far from his room in Rita Gammidge's condo, and when he suggested they go up to his place afterward she was not surprised.

  The landlady popped out of her own room to see who was coming into her condo in the middle of the day, but when she saw Anita she smiled and closed the door. Then Dannerman and Anita did what they had come there to do; and that went well, too. Then, satisfied, they lay spooned in the bed, Dannerman's arm over her, his face in the sweet, red hair at the nape of her neck. He was quite content. When she spoke he didn't hear her at first, she spoke so softly. "I said," she repeated, "what happens next?"

  "Oh," he said. He stretched, yawned and tried to collect his thoughts. "Well, I guess I kind of get back to my life. I'm still waiting for the damn payroll people to clear my status, now that there are two of me. The big problem is-"

  But it wasn't Dannerman's file and pension account she wanted to talk about. She said, "That isn't what I meant. I meant, what happens next with us?"

  "Oh," he said again, suddenly thoughtful. He readjusted his mind. He had been asked that "what about us?" question more than once before, by more than one other young woman. When you decoded it, it usually turned out to mean, "Are we going to get married?"

  All the other times he had been asked that question the answer had been pretty much out of his control, often enough because the woman who asked it happened to be a suspect in his ongoing mission. But now..

  She wasn't waiting for his answer. She had something else on her mind. "Listen," she said tentatively, "there's something I didn't tell you."

  Oh, hell, he thought, because he could decode that one, too; it meant a lot of things, and one of them might be that another man had suddenly appeared in her life.

  But not this time. "Dan," she said, "have you ever thought of leaving the Bureau?"

  He propped himself up to look at her, honestly puzzled. "And do what?"

  "Well, I always had the idea that you really wanted to be an actor. Am I wrong?"

  That came right out of left field. Be an actor? He'd certainly thought about it, especially while he was taking all those drama courses in college. It had been a sort of dream-time thought, the way he'd also now and then thought about how nice it would be to win the Olympic decathlon or run for President. It was a daydream and not at all realistic…

  No, that wasn't true anymore. It hadn't been realistic before because of his job. The Bureau wouldn't let him go public as an actor. By definition actors were there to be seen, while a Bureau agent's chief asset was his invisibility.

  Uncle Cubby financed Dan Dannerman's education right through graduate school, whence he emerged with a doctorate in theater arts-just in time to be called up for active duty from the Police Reserve Officers Training Corps he had ill-advisedly joined as an undergraduate. Working for the Bureau didn't end his interest in theater, it just made it hard to do anything about it… until he was assigned to a drug case in New York City, and found the Off-Off-Off Broadway Theater Aristophanes Two, and the girl named Anita Herman who acted in it.

  But he wasn't invisible anymore. That had been taken care of by the Scarecrows.

  "If I quit," he said thoughtfully, "I'd be able to collect all my back pay. I guess I'd have to split with the other guy, but there should be enough there to live on, maybe."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Well, they don't pay much at Theater Aristophanes Two-"

  "Oh, Dan! Who said anything about Theater Aristophanes Two? Do you know who Ron Zigler is?"

  "The producer?"

  "Yes, the producer. He came backstage at the theater the other night and he wanted to talk to me. Did you ever hear of Star Trek!"

  "Star Trek?" Dannerman tracked down an old memory. "Oh, sure. Back in-what was it, the 1980s? Uncle Cubby was a Trekkie when he was a kid; that's what got him into the astronomy business."

  Anita frowned. "Trekkie? What's that? Never mind; the thing is, Zigler wants to do a remake of Star Trek. He's got a script, with the Scarecrows in it and everything, and he's casting. The thing is," she said, clearing her throat, "Zigler's been trying to get in touch with you, either of you, but the Bureau won't pass his messages on. He wants you for Captain Kirk. That's the lead part, in case you didn't know." Dannerman stared at her. She stood up, beginning to dress. "He said there'd be a part in it for me, too, if he could get you for the Kirk role," she finished, sounding embarrassed and defensive, "but that's my problem, not yours. Think about it, will you? Now, which way is that bathroom of yours?"

  When Anita was gone Dannerman pulled his own clothes on, thinking.

  Too much was happening. Never mind the fact that there were two of him, never mind the Scarecrows, never mind any of those great events that were screwing up the lives of everybody in the world. The things that were happening in his own personal world were already more than he knew how to handle. Acting? A starring part?-and with one of Broadway's most famous producers? And what about Anita Berman herself: what a chance this was for her, if only he'd agree to do the thing that any would-be actor in the world would kill to do?

  When the hammering began at his door Dannerman was deep in fantasies of stardom, married life with Anita, the stage, the life of a Lunt and Fontanne, fame, riches-

  "Here I come, Anita," he called, reaching for the doorknob.

  It wasn't Anita, though he saw her standing farther down the hall, looking like a woman in a state of shock. The one doing the hammering was his landlady, and she looked terrified. "Dan!" she cried. "Turn on your screen! Those space people are shooting rockets at us!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Back in New York, Pat dithered for some time before reluctantly leaving Patrice in sole charge at the Observatory. That was where all the excitement was, but sisterly duty was compelling. At the hospital entrance Pat didn't have to go through the weapons search. The Bureau guard spoke to the hospital security man at the door, who listened, then reluctantly waved them through. He didn't even make the Bureau guard check her weapon, though Pat's own little derringer was taken away.

  Pat Five was in a private room-really a suite-and paid
for, the funny thing was, by the government of the People's Republic of China on behalf of the triplets' putative father. Pat Five's own guard was sitting on a straight-backed chair outside the door; alerted to their coming, she clapped her hands and the door opened.

  Pat didn't see her semisister at first, because Pat Five's bed had pull-up sides to keep her from falling out, and they were hung with sheets to keep out drafts. Pat had to step right up to the bed and look down in order to show Pat Five the flowers she'd brought. "How are you doing?" she asked.

  Pat Five opened her eyes to peer up at her. She looked like hell. Her face was blotchier than ever, and her auburn hair was sweated into clumps. She was not going to be able to take advantage of the comfortable sitting room next door, with its picture-window view of the city, or even the fully equipped bathroom that came with the suite. One of her arms was strapped down because of the IVs that were taped in place; pulse monitors were mounted on her throat and a respiration microphone on her right side. From under the light blanket that covered the lower half of her body inconspicuous tubes led to plastic waste bags, showing that she was still catheterized. "How am I doing?" she asked. "I'm doing lousy. Do you know they want me to stay flat on my back for the next six weeks?"

  "Ah, honey," Pat clucked. The words weren't meant to convey information. It was only what you said when you had nothing better to offer. She thought of reminding Pat that this was all for the benefit of her unborn babies, but the last time she'd tried that Pat had talked fretfully of the attractions of a midterm abortion.

  "Anyway," Pat said brightly, "I've got some news. Mr. Hecksher served all the papers, and he has an appointment to talk to the people at the UN this afternoon. He has a new paper for you to sign- something for the Chinese government, to say that you are accepting their financial assistance ex gratia, whatever that is, but without admitting any claim to the children. Can you actually sign?"