by Greg Bear
Crockerman shook the doctor’s hand and slowly surveyed the laboratory. “One more civilian witness and they’d have had to double up with the military, right?” he asked Phan.
“Yes, sir,” Phan said. “We did not plan to incarcerate entire towns.” This was evidently a struggling attempt at humor, but the President was not in a bantering mood.
“Actually,” Crockerman said, “this isn’t funny in the least.”
“No, sir,” Phan said, crestfallen.
Arthur came to his rescue. “We couldn’t ask for better facilities, Mr. President,” he said. Crockerman had been behaving strangely since the meeting with the Guest. Arthur was worried; that conversation had upset them all on a deep psychological level, but Crockerman seemed to have taken it particularly to heart.
“Can they hear us?” Crockerman asked, nodding at the four steel shutters.
“Not yet, sir,” Phan said.
“Good. I’d like to get my thoughts in order, especially before I talk to Mrs. Morgan’s daughter. Otto, Mr. Lehrman here, was delayed by his duties in Europe, but Mr. Rotterjack has briefed him on what we’ve already heard.”
Lehrman took a shallow but obvious breath and nodded. Arthur had heard many things about Lehrman — his rise from microchip magnate to head of the President’s Industrial Relations Council, and only two months before, his confirmation as Secretary of Defense, replacing Hampton’s more hawkish appointee. He appeared to be a philosophical twin to Crockerman.
“I have a question for Mr. Gordon,” Lehrman said. He looked at Arthur and Harry, standing beside each other near the lab’s hooded microbiologicals workbench.
“Ask away,” Arthur said.
“When are you going to authorize a military investigation of the Furnace?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said.
“That’s your area, Arthur,” the President said in an undertone. “You make the decision.”
“Nobody has put the issue to me before now,” Arthur said. “What sort of investigation did you have in mind?”
“I’d like to find the site’s weaknesses.”
“We don’t even know what it is,” Harry said.
Lehrman shook his head. “Everybody’s guessing it’s a disguised spaceship. Do you disagree?”
“I don’t agree or disagree. I simply don’t know,” Harry replied.
“Gentlemen,” Arthur said, “I think this isn’t quite the time. We should discuss this after the President has talked with the four witnesses and we’ve all seen the site together.”
Lehrman conceded this with a nod and gestured for them to continue. General Fulton entered the lab carrying a thick sheaf of papers in a manila folder and sat to one side, saying nothing.
“All right,” Crockerman said. “Let’s have a look at them.”
Eunice’s voice came over Edward’s intercom speaker: “Folks, you’re going to meet the President now.” With a hollow humming noise, the window cover slid down into the wall, revealing a transparent panel about two meters wide and one high. Through the thick double layers of glass, Edward saw President Crockerman, two men he didn’t recognize, and several other faces he knew vaguely from television.
“Excuse me for intruding, gentlemen and Ms. Morgan,” Crockerman said, bowing slightly. “I believe we know each other, even if we haven’t been introduced formally. This is Mr. Lehrman, my Secretary of Defense, and this is Mr. Rotterjack, my science advisor. Have you met Arthur Gordon and Harry Feinman? No? They’re in charge of the presidential task force investigating what you’ve discovered. I suspect you have a few complaints to pass on to me.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Minelli said. Crockerman changed his angle. Edward realized they were all facing into the central laboratory. In the farthest window, at the opposite end of the curved wall, he could see Stella Morgan, face pale in the fluorescent lighting.
“I’d shake your hands if I could. This has been hard on all concerned, but especially hard on you.”
Edward mumbled something in agreement. “We don’t know what our situation is, Mr. President.”
“Well, I’ve been told you’re in no danger. You don’t have any…ah, space germs. I’ll level with you, in fact — you’re probably here more for security reasons than for your health.”
Edward could see why Crockerman was called the most charming of presidents since Ronald Reagan. His combination of dignified good looks and open manner — however illusory the latter was — might have made even Edward feel better.
“We’ve been worried about our families,” Stella said.
“I believe they’ve been informed that you are safe,” Crockerman said. “Haven’t they, General Fulton?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ms. Morgan’s mother has been giving us fits, however,” Crockerman said.
“Good,” was Stella’s only comment.
“Mr. Shaw, we’ve also informed the University of Texas about you and your students.”
“We’re assistant professors, not students, Mr. President,” Reslaw said. “I haven’t received any mail from my family. Can you tell me why?”
Crockerman looked to Fulton for an answer. “You haven’t been sent any,” Fulton said. “We have no control over that.”
“I just wanted to stop by and tell you that you haven’t been forgotten, and you won’t be locked away forever. Colonel Phan informs me that if no germs are discovered within a few more weeks, there will be no reason to keep you here. And by that time…well, it’s difficult to say what will be secret and what won’t be.”
Harry glanced at Arthur, one eyebrow lifted.
“I have a question, sir,” Edward said.
“Yes?”
“The creature we found—”
“We’re calling it a Guest, you know,” Crockerman interrupted with a weak smile.
“Yes, sir. It said it had bad news. What did it mean by that? Have you communicated with it?”
Crockerman’s face became ashen. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you what’s happening with the Guest. That’s irritating, I know, but even I have to dance to the tune when the fiddler plays. Now I have a question for you. You were the first to find the rock, the cinder cone. What first struck you as odd about it? I need impressions.”
“Edward thought it was odd before we did,” Minelli said.
“I’ve never seen it,” Stella added.
“Mr. Shaw, what struck you most?”
“That it wasn’t on our maps, I guess,” Edward answered. “And after that, it was…barren. It looked new. No plants, no insects, no graffiti new or old. No beer cans.”
“No beer cans,” Crockerman said, nodding. “Thank you. Ms. Morgan, I plan on seeing your mother sometime soon. May I take any personal message to her? Something uncontroversial, of course.”
“No, thank you,” Stella said. Atta woman, Edward thought.
“You’ve given me something to think about,” Crockerman said after a moment’s silence. “How strong Americans are. I hope that doesn’t sound trite or political. I mean it. I need to think we’re strong right now. That’s very important to me. Thank you.” He waved at them, and turned to leave the laboratory. The curtains hummed back into place.
13
October 7
The sky over Death Valley was a leaden gray and the air still carried the chill of morning. The presidential helicopter landed at the temporary base set up by the Army three miles from the false cinder cone. Two four-wheel-drive trucks met the party and drove them slowly over the paved roads and unpaved Jeep trails, and then off the trails, lurching and growling around creosote bushes and mesquite and over salt grass, sand, chunks of lava, and desert-varnished rocks. The false cinder cone loomed a hundred yards beyond their stopping point, the edge of a bone-white desert wash that had been filled with water just ten days before. The perimeter of the mound was cordoned off by Army troops supervised by Lieutenant Colonel Albert Rogers from Army Intelligence. Rogers, short, wiry, swarthy-skinned, an
d gentle-eyed, met the presidential party of eight, including Gordon and Feinman, at the cordon perimeter.
“We’ve had no activity,” he reported. “We have our surveillance truck on the other side now, and a survey team on the top. There’s been no radiation of any sort beyond the kind of signature we expect from sun-heated rock. We’ve inserted sensors on poles up into the hole the three geologists found, but we haven’t sent anybody past the bend. Give us the order, and we will.”
“I appreciate your eagerness, Colonel,” Otto Lehrman said. “I appreciate your caution and discipline more.”
The President approached the cinder cone’s tall black north face, accompanied by two Secret Service agents. The Marine officer who carried the “football” — presidential wartime codes and emergency communications system in a briefcase — stayed by the truck.
Rotterjack dropped back a few paces to snap a series of pictures with a Hasselblad. Crockerman ignored him. The President seemed to ignore everybody and everything but the rock. Arthur worried about the expression on his face; tense yet slightly dreamy. A man informed of a death in the immediate family, Arthur thought.
“This is where the alien was found,” Colonel Rogers explained, pointing to a sandy depression in the shadow of a lava overhang. Crockerman walked around a big lava boulder and knelt beside the depression. He reached out to touch the sand, still marked by the Guest’s movements, but Arthur restrained him. “We’re still nervous about biologicals,” he explained.
“The four civilians,” Crockerman said, not completing his thought. “I met Stella Morgan’s granddaddy thirty years ago in Washington,” he mused. “A real country gentleman. Tough as nails, smart as a whip. I’d like to meet Bernice Morgan. Maybe I could reassure her…Can we arrange something for tomorrow?”
“We go to Furnace Creek Resort, after this, and tomorrow you’re meeting with General Young and Admiral Xavier.” Rotterjack looked over the President’s schedule. “That’s going to fill most of the morning. We’re to have you back at Vandenberg and aboard the Bird at two p.m.”
“Make a slot for Bernice Morgan,” Crockerman ordered. “No more arguments.”
“Yes, sir,” Rotterjack said, pulling out his mechanical pencil.
“They should be here with me, those three geologists,” the President said. He got to his feet and walked away from the overhang, brushing his hands on his pants. The Secret Service agents watched him closely, faces impassive. Crockerman turned to Harry, still clutching his black notebook, and then nodded at the cinder cone. “You know what my conference with Young and Xavier is all about.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Harry said, matching Crocker-man’s steady gaze.
“They’re going to ask me if we should nuke this whole area.”
“I’m sure that’s going to be mentioned, Mr. President.”
“What do you think?”
Harry considered for a moment, eyebrows meeting. “The entire situation is an enigma to me, sir. Things don’t fit together.”
“Mr. Gordon, can we effectively retaliate against this?” He indicated the cinder cone.
“The Guest says we cannot. I tend to accept that statement for the time being, sir.”
“We keep calling him the Guest, with a capital G,” Crockerman said, coming to a halt about twenty yards from the formation, then turning to face south, examining the western curve. “How did that come about?”
“Hollywood’s absorbed just about every other name,” McClennan observed.
“Carl has been an avid watcher of television,” Crockerman explained candidly to Arthur,” before his duties made that impossible. He says it lets him keep in touch with the public pulse.”
“The name obviously evolved as a way to avoid other, more highly colored words,” McClennan said.
“The Guest told me he believes in God.”
Arthur chose not to correct the President.
“From what I understand,” Crockerman continued, his face drawn, eyes almost frantic above a forced calm, “the Guest’s world was found wanting, and eliminated.” He seemed to be searching the faces of Arthur and those nearest to him for sympathy or support. Arthur was too stunned to say anything. “If that’s the case, then the agency of our own destruction awaits us inside this mountain.”
“We must have more cooperation from Australia,” McClennan said, clenching one fist and shaking it in front of him.
“They’re telling quite a different story down there, aren’t they?” The President began walking back to the trucks. “I think I’ve seen enough. My eyes can’t squeeze truth out of rocks and sand.”
“Making tighter arrangements with Australia,” Rotterjack observed, “means telling them what we have here, and we’re not sure we can risk that yet.”
“There’s a possibility we’re not the only ones who have ‘bogeys,’” Harry said, giving the last word an almost comic emphasis.
Crockerman stopped and turned to face Harry. “Do you have any evidence for that?”
“None, sir. But we’ve asked for the NSA and some of our team to check it out.”
“How?”
“By comparing recent satellite photographs with past records.”
“More than two bogeys,” Crockerman said. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?”
14
Trevor Hicks slowed the rented white Chevrolet as he approached the small town of Shoshone — little more than a junction, according to the map. He saw a cinder-block U.S. post office flanked by tall tamarisk trees and beyond it, a stark sprawling white building housing a gas station and grocery store. On the opposite side of the highway was a coffee shop and attached to it, a spare building with neon beer advertisements in its two small square windows. A small sign spelled out “Crow Bar” in flickering light bulbs — a local tavern or pub, obviously. Hicks had always been partial to local pubs. This one, however, did not seem to be open.
He pulled into the post office’s gravel parking lot, hoping to ask someone if the coffee shop was worth a visit. He didn’t trust local American eateries any more than he liked most American beer, and he did not think the appearance of the coffee shop — or cafe, as it styled itself on an inconspicuous sign — was very encouraging.
It was almost five o’clock and the desert was already chilly. Twilight was an hour or so away and a mournful wind blew through the tamarisk trees beside the post office. His morning and afternoon had been frustrating — a rental car breakdown fifty miles outside Las Vegas, a ride in the tow truck, arranging for another car, and as a lagniappe, a heated conversation with his publisher’s publicist when he thought to call and explain his missed interview…Delay after delay. He stood near the car for a moment, wondering what sort of idiot he was, then chose the glass door on his right. As it happened, that led him into the local equivalent of a branch library — two tall shelves of books in a corner, with a child-sized reading table squatting before them. A counter stood opposite the shelves, and beyond it the furniture and apparatus — so a small plaque read — of the Charles Morgan Company. The door on the left led into a separate alcove that was the post office proper. The air of the office was institutional but friendly.
Beyond the counter, seated before an old desktop computer, was a stately woman of about seventy-five or eighty years, wearing jeans and a checked blouse, her white hair carelessly combed back. She spoke into a black phone receiver cradled between her neck and shoulder. Slowly, she swiveled on her chair to glance at Hicks, then raised one hand, requesting patience.
Hicks turned to examine the books in the library.
“No, Bonnie, not a word,” the woman said, her warm voice cracking slightly. “Not a word since the letter. I’m just about at my wits’ end, you know. Esther and Mike have quit. No. I’m doing fine, but things are kind of sliding here…”
The library held a fair selection of science books, including one of his own, an early popular work on communications satellites, long since out of date.
“It’s all cr
azy,” the woman said. “We used to worry about Gas Buggy, and all the radiation from the test site, and now this. They closed down our meat locker. It’s enough to scare the hell out of me. Frank came in with Tillie yesterday and they were so nice. They worried about Stella so much. Well, thank you for calling. I’ve got to start closing up now. Yes. Jack is in the warehouse and he’ll walk me down to the trailer park. Thanks. Goodbye.”
She replaced the phone and turned to Hicks. “Can I help you?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was wondering about the coffee shop across the street. Is it recommended?”
“I’m not the one to ask,” the woman said, standing.
“I’m sorry,” Hicks said politely. “Why?”
“Because I own the place,” she answered, smiling. She approached the counter and leaned on it. “I’m prejudiced. We serve good solid food there. Emphasis sometimes on the solid. You’re English, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“On your way to Las Vegas?”
“From, actually. Going to Furnace Creek.”
“Might as well turn back. Everything’s sealed up that way. The highway’s closed. They’ll just turn you around.”
“I see. Any idea what’s happening?”
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
“Hicks. Trevor Hicks.”
“I’m Bernice Morgan. I was just talking about my daughter. She’s being held by the federal government. Nobody can tell me why. She writes to say she’s well, but she can’t say anything about where she is, and I can’t talk to her. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Yes,” Hicks said, his neck hair prickling again.
“I’ve got lawyers all over the state and in Washington trying to find out what’s going on. They might think they’re tangling with some small-town yo-yos, but they’re not. My husband was a county supervisor. My father was a state senator. And here I am, talking your ear off. Trevor Hicks.” She paused, examining him more closely. “Are you the science writer?”