His father snorted. “Is that the question a Watch Commander would ask?”
Sargon closed his eyes briefly, feeling foolish. “No,” he said, opening his eyes. “A Watch Commander of the Compact would ask—what advice do you have for my consideration?”
Salex’s headcrest flickered approvingly. “Good. You’re a grandfather in your own right. You shouldn’t ask stupid, emotional questions.” His progenitor looked around his study, eyes touching here and there on mementoes of over l50 years of life, on the colorful ceramic frieze of Horem plants, insects and animals like the one in Sargon’s own study, and on the hologram of his and Peilan’s Mating Ceremony so long ago. He looked back to Sargon. “My advice is simple. Remember that these Humans, no matter how much they look like us, don’t think like us. Their cultural heritage is far different than ours. Remember that they, however, may well be romantic about finding cousins among the stars who so resemble them—it could be a crucial Contact advantage.” Sargon flared his headcrest in agreement—these were good points. “Remember that all species can overcome a violent past—as the Arrik did—given enough motivation to do so. Don’t fear to make them full partners with the Compact.” An interesting point. “And most importantly—pick a good Human Liaison—maybe someone in their Communications Clans. The right Liaison can bring success and insight. The wrong Liaison brings disaster.”
“Father, what did you look for in picking a Liaison?” he asked, valuing again his father’s depth of experience.
His father chuff-laughed. “Silly. Someone you can get along with, obviously. Someone who can intrigue you. Someone who will be intrigued by us. Someone with both curiosity and intuition, my son.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Father, I know the dangers of First Contact. What do you see as the possible advantages of Contact with these Humans?”
Salex lay back against his pillow, showing tiredness, showing his age in the uniform black-tipping of his short fur. “Advantages?” He chuff-laughed, then coughed a bit. “Peilan would beat me for saying it, but Human females are attractive to me—in a kind of half-hairless way.”
Sargon laughed too. “That’s fine for the male half of our species. And is no help with the rest of the Compact. Do you think our females will be attracted to their males?”
His father’s yellow eyes looked out past the archway door of the study, toward the sound of merry-making that leaked in from Corin’s welcome-home party. “Listen to that. There’s bound to be several couples already sharing love in the garden or in the pool. We Horem are open about such things. Some Humans are. Some aren’t. But as a special way of sharing closeness, it is something we Horem share in common with the Humans. Don’t forget it. It can be one way to bind them to us, and to the Compact.”
Sargon wondered what Bethrin would say about him . . . and a Human female together? Jealousy would not be there—they were Life-Mated, and she knew how much he loved her. And sharing themselves with others was something only rarely done among the Mated Horem, but not unknown. He shook himself.
“Father, the Probe team report bothers me.” Salex looked sharply at him. “I’m afraid T’Klose, and Hekar, have a point. I can see the growing likelihood of isolated incidents of Human attacks on some Compact members. Your suggestions?”
“Good!” His father’s headcrest showed explicit approval. “A sign of maturity as a Watch Commander is careful consideration of your chief opponent’s arguments. T’Klose has a point—only he carries it to the extreme of near monomania.” One hand pulled the silk coverlet further up onto his father’s chest. “By now, T’Klose and the Military Compound will have dozens of conflict scenarios already thought out. Remember—he promised to do this in the first post-Detection Council meeting? Find out which ones are the highest probabilities, so you can work with T’Klose, if and when it becomes necessary. And finally, tell the Humans exactly what we will do if they dare attack us. Hekar is our home, Sargon. We should not be merciful to those who threaten it. Or threaten our people on Earth.”
That he could whole-heartedly agree with. Hekar was far too special, far too much . . . a part of himself for Sargon to even think about it suffering damage. The remote parking orbit behind l0 Hygiea had been a wise move. It put them far, far from the reach of human weapons. And Human impulses. His challenge as Trader-In-Charge would be to give the Humans enough motivation to overcome, and to control, their instinctive territorial reactions to outsiders, to strangers. An appeal to basic greed seemed like a very promising option, based on Corin and Kagen’s comments and what he’d seen from the current, real-time video images of the Human CNN WorldNet broadcast and its associated advertising. Remarkable how Humans sold everything from knowledge to toiletries by means of Imager broadcasts. Even more remarkable was their worldwide Internet that allowed the least of them to be heard by a global audience. He heard a low snore come from his father.
Age. It brought with it increasing wisdom. It brought with it the ills and aches of old age, even with the help of life-extension drugs. And it brought with it the need for a mid-day sleep. He got up from the stone pedestal and stood looking one more time at the resting figure of his father, he who had been so hard to please as Sargon grew up, he who had always watched critically from the sidelines, he who had caused him to be born from his mother Peilan.
Sargon sighed. Being a child among the Horem was special. With so few children able to be born due to limited habitat space and food supplies, every child was treasured by every adult Horem. But much was also demanded. For the child must come to replace one of the living, one who would eventually die. And on their Trek voyage through the stars, the child did not become a wise adult easily. Sargon’s childhood, adolescence and adult service on Hekar had not been easy. Errors were harshly corrected. Repeated errors could earn one undesired Suspense time.
He turned from his father’s study and headed out to the revelry of Corin’s coming-home party. Bethrin would be there. So would Grethel, his father’s sister Lorilen, their daughter Persa and Maran. They would help him. So would Corin and Smelan. So would Kagen, Hola and a limping Magen. All Horem, and probably most Compact members, would help him. But he had so much to do.
Which Human should he choose as humanity’s Liaison to the Compact?
CONTACT
CHAPTER TEN
Jack Harrigan woke up in the loft of his cabin in the Great Smoky Mountain foothills just above Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The eastern sky shone dark blue outside the nearby open window and he could tell the sun would be up over the ridgetops in a half hour. Something had awakened him out of a sound sleep. And it hadn’t been the sun or the internal clock that woke him up at 6:30 every morning, whether he had news work to do or not. It wasn’t his antique iPhone 12 or his LinkPad 4, since he’d left both in his Subaru Hovercar at the bottom of the dirt road. It wasn’t the cabin’s SmartSystem timer since he’d never stuffed the place with the appliances other folks just loved. Instead, he used a wood stove for both cooking and heating. And solar panel battery power worked just fine for lights, the frig and the pumps. A glance over the loft edge showed him the sturdy oak door of his one-room cabin securely closed. He assumed the screens on the side windows that let in the late night breeze to civilize summers in Tennessee were still in place.
Moving silently, Jack threw back the light sheet covering his nakedness, rolled over off the wood frame bed to land softly on his bare feet, and grabbed the worn but serviceable 1911A1 Colt .45 hanging on a wall peg near the bed. Working by feel, he chambered a round, saw the dull glow of the tritium night-sight, and wrapped his right hand around its Pachmyr grip surface. He wasn’t really sure someone was outside his isolated cabin, but twenty years of investigative reporting for CNN International in India, Iran, Korea, Guatemala, Brazil, Australia, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Paris and a dozen other volatile but newsworthy spots had taught him to prepare for the worst and welcome the best that life had to offer.
Jack quietly lifted the screen off the loft window, clim
bed out and shimmied down the knotted rope he kept attached to the cabin wall. Without a creak from the cabin’s wood plank siding, he reached the grass below his rear window. He moved quietly around the side of the cabin toward the front stoop and gravel driveway. Keeping behind the old oaks that bordered his retreat, Jack walked forward in the semi-darkness until he could get a clear view of the front of the cabin. Above him only the brightest stars could still be seen as sunrise approached.
A vague, black humanoid shape was sitting on his front stoop facing westerly out toward his driveway. The shape was man-sized, didn’t smoke, wasn’t fiddling with a LinkPad and was unmoving. Tired of running around in the grass buck-naked in the cool mountain air of late summer in the Smokies, Jack decided to move things along.
He picked up a palm-sized stone and threw it in a high arc over the stoop to land in the blackberry bushes growing on the opposite side of his position. At the loud thump and crackle of the rock landing in the brush, the shape looked toward him—not the sound—and spoke.
“Mr. Harrigan, I’m a peaceful visitor,” came a deep, resonant voice with an English accent. “I walked up earlier and decided to sit a spell on your porch rather than disturb your vacation sleep. Please lower your weapon. By the way, my name is Jim Langly—can we visit?”
Feeling only slightly foolish at his elaborate attempt to check out an unexpected visitor, Jack moved the gun to his left hand, stood up and walked toward his visitor, stopping beside an oak bordering his gravel driveway. He was curious why someone would track him all the way to his summer cabin.
“Well Mr. Langly, you seem to know me while I don’t know you. In such cases I’ve learned to be just a bit careful.” He squinted hard in the dark, trying to make out a face. “Would you please step away from the stoop shadow so I can see you better? I like to check out visitors to my little retreat.” Jack leaned his back against the oak tree and waited for compliance.
Standing up easily, his visitor stepped toward him and into the pale light of early morning just as the sun came glimmering above the ridgetops. He stopped about three meters from Jack and calmly looked at him.
Looking back, Jack saw a tall, lanky, middle-aged man over two meters in height and about 90 kilos in weight. Langly wore cuffless Levis, a leather belt with a large turquoise cabochon inset in the buckle, leather hiking boots, and a red and brown corduroy shirt open at the neck. The visitor’s hands, face and neck were dark brown, close to normal for a Hindu. His nose was pretty flat, as if broken in some fight. The man’s brown beard framed his jawline. Above, medium length brown hair covered Langly’s head in the “dry look” now currently popular. The eyes were gray with a slight sparkle to them that suggested old-fashioned contact lenses. Jack saw no sign of any pistol, dart ejector or large knife on Langly but, remembering the ninja throwing stars he sometimes carried while in New York City, Jack felt only provisionally reassured. Trusting to his old Marine hand-to-hand combat instructors for any remaining protection, he safetied the .45, and stepped forward to shake hands.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Langly. Care for some coffee?”
“Sure. I’m feeling a bit chill.”
Letting go the man’s hand, he ignored the sharp nails that had bit into his palm. Climbing up the front steps, Jack opened his unlocked front door, slipped on the shirt and pants lying on the couch, stuffed the .45 in the back of his pants and headed for the kitchenette in back, under the loft. Motioning his visitor to sit at the pinewood breakfast table in the middle of the room, he flicked a switch, opening a power feed from the nickel-cadmium batteries sitting below his feet in the root-cellar. Jack filled an old aluminum percolator with water from the sink, put in some instant coffee, put it on his two burner heating plate and turned on the plate. Reaching into a cupboard he grabbed an uncut loaf of sourdough bread, some chokecherry jelly, a block of farm-made butter, plastic silverware, and sat down opposite Langly. He put the food on the table, then rested his arms on the back of his split-pine chair and leaned forward.
Jack felt puzzled by the presence of a visitor. While he had not left word at CNN’s Atlanta office where he was headed, his boss, Tommy Newsome, knew him quite well and also knew about his retreat. He and Newsome had started out as international vidreporters some 33 years ago in India, just after the nuke war with Pakistan. Tommy was now CNN International’s Desk Manager and Harrigan’s nominal boss. But Jack, after two Pulitzer prizes over twenty years and an Emmy for his vid-interview of Iran’s Ayatollah Habaneri in ‘31, was the internationally famous, and infamous, vid-interviewer who could also write better than any of the current crop of mixed-media journalists and bloggers. Since he hated New York City, disliked Los Angeles and had long ago gotten fed up with the Potomac crowd, Jack had come back six years ago to prop up his boots at the Atlanta headquarters of CNN. Where the network had begun last century, when 24-hour cable news was the new thing. Knowing Newsome was there was an added motivation. And it was where he’d met the sparkling, red-haired Colleen McIntyre, who was his sat-vid producer and DNG expert. She was also his field partner when he needed someone else to vid his interviews. Neither of them would have told anyone, not even his grown kids, where Jack was. Rubbing the black bristle on his chin, he looked across at his relaxed visitor and decided to be a little impatient.
“So talk, Mr. Langly,” Jack said as the coffee pot steamed. “Tell me what brought you five miles up a rutted back country track from State Highway 71 to meet a man who’s never met you for a 6 a.m. chat.”
Langly smiled funny-like. Very toothy it was. “Well, Mr. Harrigan, it’s a long story.” Langly paused, eyes watchful. “Tell me, how many times have you had someone come up to you and say they had the ‘Story of the Century’ for you and, for a price, you could become famous?”
Shit! “Too damned many times when I was younger and not famous. Too many times even now when I can pick and choose my own stories. And interview subjects.” Jack offered a tooth-filled grin of his own that was anything but jovial—hell, he needed his morning coffee. “If you know of me, you know I don’t con easily and I don’t like superior acting sons-of-bitches who smile all the time.”
“My fault, Mr. Harrigan,” Langly said, his voice deep, almost a growl. “I apologize for my manner of speaking. However, I am sincere when I say I can put you onto the story of the millennium, and at no charge to you.” Langly paused, looking at him with those shiny eyes. “To get to the point, I am an alien visitor representing a group of eight alien races who have traveled 26 light years to Trade with you Humans. Since the mode of First Contact was up to me, I thought a vid interview from someone as well-respected as yourself would be a good way to let your fellow Humans know about us.”
Jack felt his face go flat out expressionless.
He quickly computed the odds of an escapee from the old Knoxville state sanitarium getting this far on his own, versus the odds of an Russian hit man hyped up on synthetic adrenal looking him up. The Kremlin had been very upset by the vidcast he’d done last year on the use of CX nerve gas against a Guatemalan Army battalion. Only three soldiers had survived the ambush by the Guatemalan People’s Revolutionary Forces. But one of them had used a recycled iPhone to record the jeep-mounted gas canisters with their Nordic-looking attendants during the attack in a steep-sided ravine. Jack had spent two months in the jungle near Belize before he found the survivor, but shortly thereafter the whole world knew that Russia exported more than Siberian diamonds.
Hearing the rumble of the coffee, he tried a sickly smile, carefully stood up and started backing to the counter. He spoke a mumbled garble of words.
“That’s really some story, Mr. Langly, but shouldn’t we discuss it over some coffee?” he said, reaching for the pistol he’d stuffed into the back of his pants.
“No need for your weapon, Mr. Harrigan.” Jack let go the grip of the pistol, but kept his hand close by. “I mean you no harm and I can quickly convince you. Look!”
Jack watched as Langly reached to the back
of his head, grabbed something, and pulled his face off.
Flexible polymer lifemasks were unusual, but not something he hadn’t seen before. What froze him was the face underneath the lifemask. And the headcrest of red-streaked feathers. It wasn’t that some of the features he saw were so unusual, it was just that taking them all together he knew he looked at someone not-normal. Maybe not human. Shit! Why the hell did he pick me? He grabbed the antique coffee pot. Sitting down in the chair with the pot, he stared at the stranger’s continuing transformation.
As the lifemask was laid on the table, the alien calmly pulled the little fingers off each hand, pulled caps off his front teeth to reveal four—not two—front canines, plucked out his gray eyes—or the contact lenses to be exact—to reveal yellow eyes, and brushed a hand through a red-speckled mohawk headcrest that had been covered by the discarded wig. The man’s head was flatter than a human head and he had strong eyebrow ridges. Langly then pulled his shirt off to reveal arms and a barrel chest covered with short brown fur. The chest had four nipples in two rows and a belly button too high for humans. And to Jack’s eyes there were several sets of upper body flexor and extensor muscles that no man had ever been born with. Any of these physical effects, including the small ears, could have been produced by a competent plastic surgeon. But as a group, these features convinced him that someone or something very strange had just walked into his life. They also convinced him this might be the most important news story in his life. He felt his newsman’s blood stir at the prospect of a unique story.
“So maybe you are an alien. Who the hell are you for real? And why the hell did you pick me?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Sargon watched as his choice for Liaison adjusted his personal reality. Adjusted to the fact that here was not your usual stranger, someone from a different Human Clan, someone who liked to argue but shared most Human assumptions. Sargon understood. He’d felt this way during the Contact with the Sliss on Hekar’s sixth planetfall. It had been traumatic, even for someone raised among the other four alien species of the Compact aboard Hekar. Subsequent Contacts with the Gosay and the Arrik had been far less traumatic, but still required adjustment. Seeing a . . . form that held sapience, but which bore no resemblance to you was always shocking. But that was the way the universe was built. Diversity in lifeforms was the rule, not the exception. He saw Harrigan complete the adjustment by his questions.
Retread Shop 1: First Contact Page 15