Those Who Watch

by Robert Silverberg

  “How soon?”

  “A few hours from now is soon enough. There’s time for a fond farewell. Then a clean break, Kathryn. He doesn’t belong on this world. He can’t ever return. Did he tell you about the covenants?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see the situation, then.”

  “I see it. But I don’t want to see it. I tried to believe he’d always stay with me. I wanted to go on taking care of him, loving him, holding him.”

  “You like to take care of people?” Glair asked.

  Kathryn smiled. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Would you take care of someone else, then? For me? There’s a man in Albuquerque — the man who cared for me. He’s alone now. He needs someone warm, someone to help him. I’ve told him a little about you. In a day or two, Kathryn, go to see him. Talk to him. You and he have so much in common.”

  “That’s all you want me to do? Talk to him?”

  “I can’t ask more than that,” said Glair. “Try to make him happy, though. And perhaps you’ll make yourself happy by making him happy. Or perhaps not. Who can predict these things? See him anyway. Will you?”

  “All right,” Kathryn said. “Yes.”

  “Here’s his name, his address.”

  She handed Kathryn a card. Kathryn glanced at it and put it down. Tom Falkner — the name meant nothing to her. They would meet, anyway. And talk.

  Glair was trying to rise, without using her canes. Kathryn saw the tension in her face, and went to her, taking the blond girl’s elbows, lifting her gently to her feet. Glair, still cane-less, swayed a little, seemingly planting herself. Her arms went out and about Kathryn, and they embraced. Kathryn closed her eyes and thought of the strange alien thing within this girl’s soft flesh.

  Glair said, “I want to … thank you, Kathryn. For caring for him. For keeping him. I can’t say anything more than that. Just my thanks.”

  “I guess I’m grateful too. For having had him with me even this short time.”

  Glair released her. “I’ll go in and talk to him now. Then I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

  She took up her canes again and moved with care into the bedroom. She did not close the door after her. When they spoke, they spoke in English, and Kathryn realized that she was meant to hear what she was hearing now.

  Glair said, “You were very lucky, Vorneen. You were found by exactly the right person.”

  “Yes. I was.”

  “You don’t want to leave her now?”

  “I’ve grown fond of her, Glair. More than I can easily put into words now. But I can’t stay, can I?”

  “No.”

  “The covenants—”

  “The covenants, yes.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “That doesn’t matter much now. Sartak found you, actually. And found me. I’ll tell you the whole story later. Are you all right, Vorneen?”

  “A little battered around the edges. Nothing serious. You?”

  “The same. Where’s your suit?”

  “Hidden.”

  “Don’t forget it when you leave. Take everything you landed with.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And try to explain to her that this is — necessary. That it’s impossible for you to stay here any longer. That watchers shouldn’t get too close to the watched. The whole lousy business, Vorneen. I’ve just been through it with Tom. With the man who sheltered me.”

  “It hurt you to leave him, didn’t it, Glair?”

  “You know it did. But I left him. And you’ll leave Kathryn. And the pain will stop after a while.”

  “For us or for them?”

  “For all of us,” said Glair. “I’ll see you later. Turn the porch light on when you’re ready to leave. Our car’s parked down the street. You don’t need to hurry.”

  Glair emerged from the bedroom. Kathryn stood frozen by the door. The fact of her loss was seeping in now. Kathryn tried to tell herself that she had not lost anything, because Vorneen had never been hers at all. A guest. A visitor. What had existed between them had been a moment’s warmth, butterfly love dying at winter’s first blast.

  Glair embraced her again. She began to say something, and choked the words off before they passed her lips. Kathryn fought back the tears.

  “I won’t keep him very long,” Kathryn murmured.

  She opened the door for Glair and let the Dirnan woman out. Then she turned and went into the bedroom. Vorneen was standing by the window. Without an awareness of motion, Kathryn found herself beside him. Their bodies moved together.

  They had so much to say to one another … and so little time in which to say it.

  Twenty-One

  Tom Falkner said, “Be it ever so humble, et cetera. Will you come in for a while?”

  “Of course,” Kathryn told him.

  He opened the door and switched on the light. They had been driving around Albuquerque all afternoon. She had left her little girl with a neighbor, she said, and kept repeating that she really ought to get home and prepare dinner. But each time it had actually come down to going home, Kathryn had agreed to stay with him a little longer. And now they were at his house.

  He looked at her closely for what seemed the first time. In the car, with her beside him, he had not been able to see her properly. Now he stared without hesitation. She was tall and slim, past her first youth but much younger than he was, and of the kind of physique that he suspected would not begin to show any signs of aging for fifteen or twenty more years. She could not be called pretty, with those blade-like cheekbones and those thin lips and the too-wide mouth, but no one would find her unattractive. Right now her eyes were bordered by dark crescents. She had not slept much lately, it would seem. Neither had he. Neither had he.

  He said, “Of course, we can’t tell a soul about what we experienced.”

  “No. We don’t want to be branded as lunatics, do we?”

  He chuckled. “We could always found a new cult. Frederic Storm could use some competition. We’ll set up a temple, and preach the gospel of the watchers, and—”

  “Tom, let’s not.”

  “I’m not serious. Would you care for a drink?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ve got a very limited assortment. Ersatz Scotch, and some bourbon, and—”

  “Anything,” Kathryn said. “I don’t really care for the taste of liquor. Just give me a spray can.”

  “That’s hardly an elegant way to drink.”

  “I’m hardly an elegant person,” Kathryn said.

  He smiled and offered a tray of spray cans. She took one, and, to be polite about it, so did he, and they put the nozzles to their arms in silence. Afterward he said, “Your husband was an Air Force man, you said?”

  “That’s right. Theodore Mason. He was killed in Syria.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know him. He was stationed at Kirtland?”

  “Until they shipped him overseas.”

  “It’s a big base,” he said. “I wish I had known him, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He felt his cheeks glowing. “I don’t know. Just because — well, because he was your husband, and I — it would have been nice — if — oh, hell. I sound like a tongue-tied kid, don’t I? A big overgrown adolescent of forty-three. Another drink?”

  “Not just yet.”

  He didn’t take one either. She produced a photograph of her daughter. Falkner’s hand shook a little as he took the glossy tridim print from her, and saw a nude little girl of about two or three grinning at him from a clump of greenery.

  “Shameless hussy, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to teach her some modesty. Maybe in another fifteen years I’ll succeed.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “Three.”

  “Better teach her faster,” Falkner said.

  The conversation faltered. He was trying not to talk about the star people, and so was she, even though that was what had b
rought them together. But the topic could not be kept submerged for long.

  He said finally, “I suppose they’ve reached their relief base by now. They’re undergoing treatment by their own doctors. Do you think they’re talking about us?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Kathryn said. “They must be.”

  “Describing to each other the good-hearted shaggy apes who took care of them.”

  “That isn’t fair. They think more of us than that.”

  “Do they? Aren’t we just apes to them? Dangerous apes, with big bombs?”

  “Maybe as a race, we are. But not as individuals. I don’t know about you and Glair, but I have the feeling that Vorneen respected me as a person. That he made allowances for the fact that I was human, but that he never looked down at me, never was inwardly sneering.”

  “It was that way with me and Glair, too. I take it back.”

  “They’re pretty special people,” Kathryn said. “I believe that whatever you and I felt for them was reciprocated. They’re warm — kind—”

  “I wonder what the Kranazoi are like,” Falkner said suddenly.

  “Who?”

  “The other race. The galactic rivals. Didn’t Vorneen tell you about the political situation, the cold war out there?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “It’s funny, Kathryn. We don’t even know if the Dirnans are the good guys or the bad guys. The two we met were pretty good, but suppose the Kranazoi are the ones we should root for? We got such a thin slice of a view into their affairs. That’s why I called us apes. There’s a struggle going on out there, and we have an inkling of it, but we don’t really know what’s what. And the sky is full of Dirnan ships and Kranazoi ships, watching us, hatching schemes, outmaneuvering each other.” Falkner shrugged. “It makes me dizzy to think of it”

  “Vorneen said that one day the covenants would end and they’d be able to make open contact with us.”

  “Glair said that too.”

  “How soon do you think that will be?”

  “Fifty years, maybe. A hundred. A thousand. I don’t know.”

  “I hope it’s soon.”

  “Why, Kathryn?”

  “So that Vorneen will come back — Vorneen and Glair, both of them, and we’ll see them again.”

  He shook his head somberly. “That’s a dangerous delusion to carry around, Kathryn. They aren’t coming back. Even if the covenants are canceled next week, you’ll never see Vorneen again. And I’ll never see Glair. You can be certain of that. The break is final. It has to be. There’s no future in a love affair between people from different worlds. They’ll see to it that we never meet them again. There’s a wound, when love is cut off that way, and they mean to let that wound heal and stay healed.”

  “Do you really think it would have been impossible?”

  “Look,” he said, “it’s hard enough for two human beings to keep love alive. It’s always difficult to share your life with another person. And if the other person isn’t even a person—”

  “I don’t think it’s so difficult to fall in love,” said Kathryn.

  “Or to stay in love. And if the other person is a Dirnan, well, it may be harder, but—” She paused. “All right. I’m being foolish. They’re gone. We’ve each had a strange and wonderful experience, and now we’ve got to pick up the pieces of our lives.”

  Falkner sensed that she had thrown him a cue. But he could not respond to it, not now, not so soon. In time, he realized, he and Kathryn might help each other pick those pieces up. For the moment he had to move warily, learning who she was and perhaps even learning who he was. before he dared to open himself once again. Despite what she said, he still believed that it was a difficult thing, this business of joining your life to another person’s.

  “It’s dark out now,” she said. “I’d better start for home. Jill’s going to get cranky if I don’t show up soon.”

  “I’ll take you back.”

  Outside the house, they could see the stars, even though the young moon and the city lights of Albuquerque competed with them in the sky. Involuntarily, they both looked an. He knew what she must be thinking. Their eyes met, and he grinned, and she grinned, and they laughed.

  “We aren’t doing a very good job of forgetting them, are we?” Kathryn said.

  “Not yet. And we won’t really forget them, not ever. For a few weeks of our lives the stars came down to us. That can’t be forgotten. But it has to be survived. The stars are gone now, and we’re still here.”

  They got into his car.

  “I enjoyed this today,” she said.

  “So did I. We’ll do it again.”

  “Soon.”

  “Very soon,” Falkner told her. There was more he wanted to say, much more. It would be said, in time. He was not much for blurting things to strangers. He suspected, though, that he and Kathryn shortly would cease to be strangers to one another. Too much bound them. A shared knowledge of smooth, cool skins and galactic politics, of broken legs and sudden farewells. That much drew them together, setting them apart from the rest of this planet’s four billion people. He felt a sensation within him as of a coiled spring beginning to unwind after too many years of compression. He was smiling as he kicked the starter and got the car moving. She smiled too. Above the windshield curved the vault of the heavens. Glair and Vorneen were out there somewhere. He wished them a safe voyage home.

  Twenty-Two

  The pueblo was quiet now. The Fire Society festival was over, the white folk had gone back to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Long streaks of moonlight splashed across the plaza of the village. The television set was on in the Estancia house. Ramon and Lupe sat entranced before it, as did their grandmother. Uncle George was out getting drunk. Charley Estancia’s father was in the kiva, gambling with his friends. Rosita sulked in the kitchen. She was without a man tonight. Charley knew why, but he didn’t tell her. Marty Moquino had left the pueblo. He hadn’t been seen in San Miguel, in fact, since the time not long back when Charley had frightened him with the Dirnan laser. They said he had gone to Los Angeles again. Charley doubted that he’d come back, this time. Not after he’d shown his yellowness to the eleven-year-old.

  Standing outside his house, staring in at the bluish glow of the screen, Charley shivered a little. Winter was closing down on the Rio Grande. There had been a few wisps of snow this afternoon; there would be a heavier fall, perhaps, by Christmas. Charley didn’t mind the cold. Under his ragged jacket he had two things to keep him warm: a letter written in a loose scrawl on a square piece of shiny plastic, and a small metal tube that could hurl forth a beam of fantastic light.

  He walked across the plaza, going nowhere in particular. His dog trailed behind him.

  The moon was very bright tonight. He could see the stars, though, clearly enough. There were the three bright stars of Orion’s belt. There was Mirtin’s star. It made Charley feel good just to see it up there.”

  Year after next, he told himself, I start the high school. Whether they like it or not, I start. If they say no, I run away, and when the police catch me, I tell them why. I can tell the newspapers, too. I say, Here I am, smart Indian boy, wants to improve his lot in life, only parents won’t let me go to the high school. Then everybody makes a fuss over me. They take me away, put me in school. I can learn . . . learn rockets, learn stars, learn space. Learn everything.

  And someday I go out there into the night and visit you, Mirtin! Right up to your star! Didn’t you say we’d be getting there soon? That I’d be with them, when we did?

  He sauntered out of the village, through the empty plaza and past the ruins of the old kiva, and across the scrubby flats, past the power substation. He did not go all the way to Mirtin’s cave. He knew it would be empty. Several times Charley had gone there, just to look around, but there was no need to make that pilgrimage on this cold night. He paused at the edge of an arroyo, thinking about the high school and all he would learn there, thinking too about what it would be like to get away f
rom this village and its sleepy ways, out into the world of the white men, where someone with a mind could learn all the new things.

  Charley looked up at the sky.

  “Hey, you Dirnans!” he called. “Are you up there tonight? Can you see me? Hey, it’s me, Charley Estancia! I’m the one who brought tortillas for Mirtin!”

  How high did they fly, the saucers? Was one of them swooping back and forth, ten miles over his head, right now? Did they have machines that could pick up voices from Earth?

  “You hear me?” Charley called. “I’m the one! Come on, fly low, let me see you! I know all about you!”

  Nothing happened. Somehow, he had not expected anything. But he knew they were there. Up above … watching.

  He took the laser from its hiding place and caressed it. Setting it for a quick spurt, he touched the stud and watched the beam lick out and slice through the barren lowest limb of a cottonwood tree. It was a clever thing, a great toy. Charley promised himself that he would know what made it work, some day.

  He put it away.

  Quietly he said, “Listen, I know you’re up there. Just do me a favor. Just tell Mirtin for me that I hope he’s better fast. And tell him, thanks for talking to me. Thanks for teaching me so much. That’s all. Thank Mirtin for me, yeah?”

  He waited. After a moment, when nothing happened, he began to move away, toward the pueblo. He stopped, picked up a rock, shied it into the arroyo. His dog barked and leaped high, as though snapping his teeth at the stars. A sudden gust of wind howled across the flats.

  Then Charley saw a streak of brightness above him — a wobbly line of light that seemed to sprout from the very top of the sky and dribble downward, losing itself near the horizon. His pulse pounded, and he laughed. That hadn’t been any Dirnan ship, this time. Just an ordinary old shooting star, was all. He could tell the difference. He knew. This was nothing special, only a hunk of rock and metal burning itself up as it shot through the atmosphere.

  But he took it as a sign, all the same. Mirtin’s people were answering him, acknowledging him. They were up there in their ships right this minute. They would look after him. He waved at the stars.