by Janet Morris
This hardwired simulation of a therapist was giving South a headache, as well as a hard time. It seemed to want to know what he'd do if he was sure he had only moments to live—as if that were some kind of extraordinary state. South, who'd been in that state throughout his lengthy test flight to and from X-3, hadn't yet decided if living in Threshold's continuum was better than making a suicide run for parts unknown.
So no wonder the digital therapist couldn't get physiology readings from South that varied one hell of a lot from his baseline.
The machine was a cube with a belt of meters across it and a monitor above the meters. It had stereo speakers on each side of the monitor, and on top of that was a goose-necked videocam that followed him whenever he moved. When the therapist chose, it could be a real pain in the ass.
As a matter of fact, maybe that was all it could choose to be.
Right now it wanted to know about alien life forms. How he felt about them, how he reacted to the thought of close proximity to them, and how he would deal with one that threatened him.
He considered reaching over and punching it in the speaker grille, but that was no way to get into Consolidated Space Command, the Threshold version of U.S. Space Command. Maybe it was trying to prepare him for this trip to Earth that Riva Lowe was using to blackmail South into submission.
He said, "Aliens, huh? Well, if you're talkin' about the cute little fuzzy kind, well, you can sleep with 'em, or on 'em. If you're talkin' about the big, ugly, scaly kind, you can fry 'em, or broil 'em, but of course the best is to microwave 'em. And then there's the purely arrogant, more-human-than-thou kind, with citizenship and rights under law: those I'd treat as if they weren't any more alien than the rest of Threshold's population."
The therapist burped. Or maybe it hiccuped. Then it said, "How would you behave if you encountered an uncataloged alien life-form in need of aid?"
The thing had no sense of humor. "I'd do my best to help it, as long as it wasn't dangerous or inimical, and then I'd try to see that it got cataloged, studied, and whatever else the law recommends." He hadn't really been ready for this test.
He hadn't read all he should of the "alien encounter" handbook. When Riva Lowe had said "physical and psychological therapy" he'd thought she meant some nice lady who'd help him deal with his dreams, or reach peak physical condition circa the day before his experimental flyby.
He hadn't thought she meant that some machine would come aboard to analyze his physiological reactions to stimuli and, from that, determine if South was level enough to be considered for a job as a test pilot or a pilot of a heavy-weapons patrol spacecraft.
But that was what this machine was doing. Threshold didn't want any crazies flying birds with destructive hardware under discretionary control. He should have realized it. He hadn't. He wasn't used to thinking like a twenty-fifth-century citizen.
South was afraid he was failing and the machine knew it.
It burbled, "Commander South, you're doing fine. Let us continue with a scenario in which you find yourself interviewing a member of a bioengineered race who claims to have had his civil rights violated by members of a human colony."
Fuck. I'm not up to this.
South shot to his feet, hitting the therapist in the meters with his knees. All the meters redlined and the machine said in a fluttery voice: "Please resume your seat. Session is not over."
The hell it wasn't.
But South sat back down. Patience clearly was a desirable trait in today's test pilots. He said, "Look, have you got the right program? I thought you were here to get me ready to go to Earth with Riva Lowe's party."
It wasn't a question, but the videocam ratcheted on its stalk to face him. The therapist's voice said, "Earth is a big place, with open skies and very few conveniences. Does rusticity bother you?"
"Hell, no."
"Do you suffer from agoraphobia?"
"Agorawhat?"
"Fear of open spaces."
He suffered from a dislike of enclosed spaces, if anything. He said, "I used to race bikes in the desert, okay?"
"Do you suffer from a fear of open spaces?"
You had to give this therapist direct answers. He wished he'd asked Lowe what she meant before he'd said yes. "No."
"Do you—"
The therapist stopped in mid-query. Its videocam face gyrated wildly. Its meters peaked, then all fell to the left, inactive. It turned itself off.
The rest of the lights in his bunk went down, too. "Birdy?" South could hear his own fear. This was probably another one of the therapist's spot tests. But he couldn't hear his life-support system. You got used to the soft whirring. The sudden absence of the sound usually made by air blowing through the duct above his head was deafening.
The lights came back on. The therapist's metering band pinned and zeroed, like a bunch of saluting soldiers.
Beyond the therapist, on the control monitor in his redundant system, South's message light was blinking.
The digital therapist resumed as if there'd been no interruption: "Do you have any fear of the unknown?"
But the question sounded strange.
"Of course. Everybody does. Human nature. But I like it more than I fear it. It excites me. I'm the explorer type." What did he have to do to convince this thing he was for real, pull out his Dan'l Boon coonskin cap?
The therapist was implacable. "In the event that you were part of a contact party meeting uncataloged aliens, how would you recommend that party initiate dialogue?"
"Do I look like a diplomat to you?"
"Please answer the question, Commander South."
"In a minute. I got a message light blinking."
The therapist started blinking itself: a green standby light came on under its monitor.
"Birdy," he asked his AI, "what's the message?"
And then he couldn't believe his ears.
"Replay, Birdy," he said, forgetting the digital therapist entirely.
But the therapist hadn't forgotten him. As Riva Lowe's words rang in South's ears for the second time, the therapist's meters shivered and its video camera zoomed in on him with a hum that made him want to smack its intrusive lens out of his face and off its mounting.
Riva Lowe's voice was far too calm and reassuring, considering the content of the message: "Commander South, this is Director Lowe. We have three unidentified alien ships at Spacedock Seven. They seem to be of the same manufacture as the sphere. Please call me at your earliest convenience. We'd like your input on this matter." And she gave call signs.
South brushed unseeingly past the digital therapist, bumping its extended videocam with his shoulder, on the way to his flight deck.
Screw the infernal thing. The Threshold brass had known all about this alien contact—known before he had. Otherwise, how come all the "What if you met an alien" questions? They'd worked up some kind of method of vetting his fitness through that damned machine, and he hadn't had an inkling until they'd wanted him to.
Until they'd decided he wouldn't start frothing at the mouth if they told him what was happening out there.
He was so angry he could feel his pulse in his eyeballs. And if he hadn't passed the digital therapist's tests, then what? Would they have shut him off? Fired him from the Ball project? Or just kept him tooling around in circles out here, with only Birdy and the digital therapist for company, until the aliens were gone or until everybody knew what was going on out there at Spacedock Seven, because something had happened out there so explosive that not even the Threshold bureaucracy could keep it quiet?
When he reached his flight deck he threw himself into his command couch and said, "Birdy, Riva Lowe; if she's not at the message call signs, then find her."
Birdy was good at Threshold comlinks. Better than he was. He didn't even try to keep up with the search the AI made. "Just flash her location on screen, coordinates and all, when you find her. I want to see what's going on wherever she is."
He considered putting his helmet on his hea
d so that, when he got her on his com, all she'd see was the polarized screen of his visor—from outside.
But he didn't. He sat with it between his knees and waited, watching his flight deck search near space for the director and the ship she was traveling in.
But traveling wasn't what she was doing, according to Birdy.
His main abrogation monitor put up a split screen of Spacedock Seven in near realtime and a grid showing the science station, the Ball, and all nearby ships, parked and in traffic lanes. Each ship had beneath it a name, a designator, and a status report.
Riva Lowe was on the Secretary General's flagship, the George Washington, and the Washington was parked, with an escort flotilla, near the Ball.
Between the Washington and the Ball were nine armed TTT vessels of varying displacement, including Reice's cruiser, Blue Tick.
It was a damned Sunday picnic out there.
Except that about forty-two feet, six inches northeast of the ball were three teardrop shapes that Birdy couldn't identify, which meant that no Threshold AI could identify them either.
The three teardrops on his schematic were hovering over identifying designators, just like the TTT ships; only these designators said ufo-1; ufo-2; ufo-3.
Some days it just didn't pay to get out of your bunk.
When Riva Lowe answered Birdy's page, she said, "South, I've been waiting for you to call."
He nearly snarled at the tiny face displayed on his flight-deck com screen: "I bet. Waiting until that digital babysitter of yours approved me as psychologically ready to get the big news."
"Commander South, this is no time for recriminations."
"What's it time for?"
"It's time for you to get out here, unless you have some pertinent objection. According to your psych evaluation you're capable of continuing your duties as part of our Alien Artifact Working Group, despite recent developments."
"Or maybe because of them," he muttered. At least he wasn't crazy. He could tell anybody his dreams now, and nobody would think he was crazy.
"What did you say?"
"Never mind." He could even talk about his memories to somebody besides psychiatrists and intelligence officers—if he wanted to. But seeing those ships, he wasn't sure he wanted to. Still, she had a right to know. She was his director, after all. "The ships I . . . saw . . . weren't that shape. They were like the Ball," he told her. "So I'm no expert on those . . . whatever they are."
"And you think we are? Do you want a piece of this or don't you, Commander?"
He'd never get used to being called "commander." He said, "Yeah. Why not? When do you want me out there?"
"As soon as you can."
"I'll drop off this digital pain-in-the-arse and be out by, say, twenty-two hundred hours, if that's soon enough."
"Bring the psych-evaluator with you. We might need it. And I don't want to wait too long. Maybe you'll have an idea or two we can use."
"Anything you say." The helmet between South's knees slipped because his knees weren't gripping it hard enough. He reached over to roll it up into his lap. It felt comforting, there under his arm. He could put it on and declutter the whole universe into whatever number of data streams he felt ready to handle. But he didn't. "They . . . they didn't . . . ask for me, did they?"
Christ, that sounded dumb. Still, if he didn't ask he'd be worried all the way out there.
At least Lowe didn't smile or laugh. She said, "No, they haven't asked for anybody—or anything. Maybe there's nobody in those . . . shapes. We're assuming they're vehicles because they look to us like vehicles. For all we know the sphere was pregnant and reproduced while Reice watched."
"Reice. ConSec Lieutenant Reice?"
"He took the log of their . . . arrival. We haven't had any contact with any purported intelligence that may be in or directing them. They just . . . parked."
South's eyes kept straying to his near realtime display. Teardrops of color, parked near the Ball. "I hope you don't think I have the magic formula, or a key to those things in my pocket," he sighed. "Cause I don't. Just some weird feelings and a few half-remembered impressions."
They had his impressions, his dreams, his memories, his whole flyby transcript. He couldn't pretend they didn't. But he didn't want to go out there. And he couldn't tell her that.
She said, "We know. But Keebler predicted this, and you've had many of the same reactions to the Ball that he had."
"Predicted it? When?"
"When he came to, in custody. While we had him under observation."
"Had?"
"We released him. Had to. Salvagers' Guild sent lawyers. We couldn't hold him longer without formal charges. If we'd pressed charges they would have raised holy hell publicly, immediately, and brought our confiscation of the Ball into question." Lowe shrugged. "Unfortunately, where the Ball is concerned, we're allergic to lawyers. So you're our expert on close encounters. Just get out here, South, will you? I can make it a direct order."
"I didn't realize you hadn't," he said softly. "I'm on my way. South, out."
Once he got off-line with her he tried to get Birdy to connect him to Croft. So Keebler was free. Somehow the news eased a weight South hadn't realized was so heavy on his shoulders. Poor crazy bastard.
Crazy like a fox. Keebler had just jousted the Threshold windmill and walked away, victorious, after terrorizing innocent civilians. South knew the old guy. This wasn't the end of Keebler's attempts to regain ownership of the Ball. Riva Lowe was underestimating Keebler.
But then Lowe hadn't taken Keebler out to the Ball, the way South had. She'd ordered South to do it, to keep them both out of the way. South had an impulse to tell Mickey Croft, the Secretary General, about what had happened with the black box that Sling had made for Keebler. He'd never felt the need to do it before.
South had pacewalked with that black box, right up to the Ball, the way Keebler had told him. And the Ball had opened up for South. Keebler hadn't seen it happen. South hadn't told anybody—because at the time he wasn't sure it had really happened.
He'd been afraid nobody would believe him. He'd had no proof, no record of the Ball's opening up for the black box that way. But they'd believe him now. Maybe the Secretary General should know that the Ball had done that, before anybody went out to meet with anybody—or anything.
But South couldn't get to Croft. He didn't have the clout. He did get to Remson, and the pale blond man listened without a word to South telling him that Keebler had found a way to get into the Ball. "But Keebler doesn't know it. I didn't tell him. I didn't tell anybody. I . . . couldn't."
"Don't be so sure Keebler doesn't know it, South. And don't worry about it. Maybe we should ask Keebler to come out here too."
"Christ, that crazy old coot? He'll blow this thing sky—"
"Don't worry, I said. We'll see if we can recreate the phenomenon, once you're on-site." Remson had a predator's smile, and he shined it at South like a beacon.
South couldn't have said no to Remson if Remson had asked South to go up to the Ball and let himself in.
But Remson wasn't asking that.
Not yet, at least.
Remson just wanted South to act like nothing was wrong and go out there and be a good boy and follow orders. Okay. He could do that. He had the digital therapist with him, and the digital therapist had pronounced South fit for this duty.
It bothered the hell out of South that they'd used the digital therapist to vet him for this mission, but what could you do? He was living in a different culture, with different rules.
They'd waited for that damned machine to decide if South could be trusted, before they risked bringing him on board. So they weren't taking any risks, not with those three giant, polychromatic teardrops hovering over the science station like Armageddon. They sure weren't going to risk having Keebler shoot off his big mouth.
He had to trust that Remson knew what he was doing.
He had to trust that the digital therapist was right, too: it though
t South, Joseph, Commander, TTT Customs, was capable of performing the duties about to be asked of him.
So he must be capable.
He wanted to believe that. He really did. But all the bad dreams in the universe had suddenly come to life on his monitors and he wasn't believing in much else, right now, except the foreboding that made him so clumsy he could barely fit his helmet on his head.
When he got his suit sealed he said to Birdy, from behind the safety of his visor, "Okay, let's go to the party, Birdy."
He hoped it wasn't going to be a surprise party. South hated surprises.
Especially when the joke might be on the whole human race.
CHAPTER 10
Crazy Old Coot
Vince Remson commandeered one of the work stations in the flagship's middeck and set about finding Keebler.
Or trying to find Keebler. Not all Remson's clout or all his ingenuity could turn up the Scavenger. After an hour of running up electronic blind alleys and dead-end streets, he sat back in his chair and slid it sideways along its track until he sat before the in-ship secure communications grid. The flagship was huge. The system in front of him wasn't simple. Nothing about this venture was simple, he was beginning to think.
Remson had his finger on the touch-sensitive screen that would connect him to Mickey's stateroom, but then he thought better of it.
He slid back the way he'd come, pulled his headset back up over his ears, and talked into the throatpad mike: "Dodd, do we have anything on a black box that Keebler and South took on the first Ball EVA?"
Dodd's search came up negative.
Remson got off-line and stared blankly at the console in front of him. He had that slightly crawly, slightly unsettled feeling that always overcame him when he'd discovered an error. The feeling would go away when he knew just what kind of error, but now it was still a feeling of something unspecifiable being wrong.