Trust Territory

by Janet Morris

  Then, ashamed of himself, he had to put down his hands and look again. He had to. Eyes squeezed shut, he forced his hands away from his face. Duty was calling, loudly enough to make his ears ring. He was a diplomat, wasn't he? UNE Secretary General, wasn't he?

  He had to look at the bubble. Consider it. Evaluate it. And stride boldly forth to treat with whoever had sent it, the way he was expected to do. The way he was paid to do. He had to, didn't he?

  Somebody had to confront the beings who'd sent the bubble, that was certain. And Mickey Croft had been cashing this check for his entire adult life. All the experience of a lifetime's diplomacy ought to have prepared him for this moment.

  He forced his watering eyes open. There was the bubble-craft. Closer.

  Close enough that he could see his distorted reflection sliding along its surface. The Mickey Croft reflected there looked as stretched and twisted as he felt.

  The craft itself looked for all the world like a giant soap bubble that was about to bump into the Washington's hull.

  How the hell could anybody expect him to just walk into that thing?

  But everybody did. His staff. Every single privy soul.

  Maybe the bubble-craft wouldn't hold him. Maybe it would burst on contact when it met the Washington's hull.

  Then Mickey Croft would be safe. Temporarily. But then he'd never have a chance to see if he could just walk into the bubble-craft, the way he thought he could. He kept envisioning himself inside, standing there, without falling through into space.

  The image made sense, made all the sense in the world somehow. Despite reason. He began to sweat in his suit. The suit's physiological monitoring package hummed busily, trying to cool him. He wasn't even sure where he'd gotten the idea that the bubble was a craft. But of course it was. They'd sent it for him.

  They'd sent it.

  So the bubble-craft wouldn't pop when it hit the Washington's hull. It wouldn't disappear when he tried to step aboard—step inside. Would it?

  "Mickey, are you all right?" came Remson's soft voice in his ears. It was nice to have something to listen to inside his helmet, beside his own shallow breathing and the humming of his suit's cooling system. But it wasn't nice to remember that Remson would be monitoring not only events visible in the air lock but Croft's physiopackage as well.

  No secrets from his assistant, not this time. Not even how uncertain were his private reactions to this encounter with the unknown.

  Mankind had no privacy anymore. You couldn't even sweat in one of these Manned Manuvering Unit space suits without everybody knowing it. Life seemed to be a contradictory set of sacrifices: You were separated from your fellows by technology that precluded the necessity of face-to-face contact or physical proximity; you were intruded upon constantly by intimate communications and the ability of everyone who needed you to get to you—and at you—no matter how far away you were from them.

  At this moment Vince Remson was only a few yards away, behind the sealed inner air lock. But it might as well have been a light-year.

  The alien message had come when the aliens had decided the time was right to send it. The contact team aboard the Washington hadn't precipitated it in any way. They hadn't sent a message. They hadn't blinked Morse code. They hadn't thrown a pebble at the hull of the nearest craft or sent smoke signals or a telerobotic snooper. They hadn't even bathed the alien craft in sensoring radiation. They weren't ready to do any of those yet.

  They'd just been . . . watching.

  Waiting, supposedly, for Joe South to arrive. Riva Lowe was sure South's presence would be helpful.

  Maybe it still would, but not to Mickey Croft.

  The alien ship had lased a matter-of-fact message on a UNE hailing frequency: "sending greetings, wish representative HUMAN. WE WILL TRANSPORT. FIRST MEETING, THESE COORDINATES. WE WILL RETURN HUMAN AFTER ONE HOUR'S MEETING. HUMAN SHOULD BE RANKING. ALL PROTOCOLS OBSERVED."

  They'd sent it in English, and then in Farsi, as if they talked to UNE ships all the time.

  Vince had volunteered to go.

  Mickey Croft couldn't allow that, although he'd wanted to. Farsi?

  Everybody in Mickey's suite had looked around blankly. Only Vince had said, "Maybe they found the Cummings boy and the Forat girl—English and Farsi, after all."

  There were more than ninety separate languages and five times that many related dialects spoken among the United Nations of Earth.

  Croft had always known, in his heart, that he was destined for something more than caretaking on his shift. Steering humanity's boat was a weighty responsibility, but discharging those responsibilities had been, until now, pedestrian.

  This was . . . something else again.

  Now the bubble was so fascinating, he couldn't take his eyes from it. It seemed to undulate as it came closer. He'd loved soap bubbles when he was a kid. He shouldn't be afraid. But for a moment, as the leading edge of the bubble bumped the open air lock, he was afraid.

  He was afraid the bubble would pop.

  Then he was afraid it wouldn't.

  It didn't. It squeezed inward, without breaking, as if it were reaching for him. He stepped back.

  Remson's voice in his ears rang again: "Mickey, talk to me, damn it! What's happening out there?"

  Remson. He'd forgotten all about Remson.

  Croft tried to speak. His voice was a croak. He tried again: "Vince, the bubble's made contact with the hull and some of it's in here. It's . . . coming toward me."

  "It's okay, Mickey. I'm sure it's okay. If you don't want to get into it, we'll understand. There's still time for me to come out there."

  "No."

  Get into it. How do you do that?

  The bubble hadn't popped when it contacted the hull. It was now an oval, questing bulge, with purple and green and gold oily swirls on its transparent, curved surface.

  And that surface was coming toward him.

  The bubble was filling the air lock. It was almost touching him.

  He took a step backward, then another.

  Vince said, "Remember, you've got your MMU jets."

  As if Croft could—or would—try to escape the thing by using jetpack assist.

  He realized dimly, dully, that all this was being recorded for posterity, through the surveillance capability of the air lock monitors.

  So he wasn't going to quail before the bubble, or cower visibly, for the record, at the historic moment of making contact with the alien craft.

  He wasn't.

  He closed his eyes and took a bold step forward, thankful beyond words that he was safe inside a space suit. He was in a controlled environment. He wouldn't feel anything, unless the inside of the bubble was filled with some unimaginable acid or unsurvivable heat that would overwhelm his suit's capabilities. . . .

  He opened his eyes. He was inside the bubble. Even his feet seemed to be inside the bubble. He hadn't felt a thing.

  He asked for a status report, and his visor display told him that his suit was reading no abnormal stresses or exterior conditions. According to his suit, the space inside the bubble was indistinguishable from the space outside the bubble.

  Except that Mickey Croft was being wafted out of the air lock at what seemed to him a frightening speed.

  He said, "Vince?"

  He got no response in his com.

  "Vince?"

  Remson didn't answer. The bubble was bearing him away from the UNE flagship now. It seemed to be headed toward the teardrop hovering over the science station.

  Very fast.

  Yet the only sensation of movement that Croft experienced was precipitated by observing the rate at which the Washington was receding and the teardrop above growing large.

  He didn't ever seem to bump the membrane of the bubble. Croft wasn't conscious of any g-force, or of being thrown back toward the bubble's skin. He simply hovered in the exact middle of the bubble, as if he were floating in empty space. Except that his feet felt as if they were firmly planted.

&
nbsp; He talked, for the sake of his recording log, and also in case Remson could hear him, even though Croft couldn't hear Remson. "I'm being swept up toward UFO-1 at considerable speed. There's no sensation of movement. There's no sensation of being in microgravity. The bubble's as transparent from inside as it seemed from without. My sense is I can move around in here if I wish."

  He tried it. He could walk forward, as if he were standing on a level surface, for a while. Then he came to a point beyond which he couldn't proceed. If the bubble had an invisible cube within it, and Croft were within that cube, he would have met this sort of resistance when he reached one of the cube's walls. And yet he couldn't find a ninety-degree angle as he palmed along the barrier. Neither could he touch the clearly visible interior surface of the membrane surrounding him. His hands stopped, as if he'd encountered glass well before that point.

  An ancient named Escher had etched geometries reminiscent of the one in which Croft now found himself. He said, "I can't touch the interior of the membrane. I can now see a circular dark spot in the underside of UFO-1. We seem to be headed for it."

  He wished he knew if anyone could hear him. The aliens had promised that they'd return him after this meeting, hadn't they?

  Somehow he couldn't convince himself that it was worth the effort it took to keep describing his approach to the teardrop shape above him.

  That shape was now the size of a Threshold habitat module, anyway. He felt as if he were being swallowed by the biggest whale that ever lived as the bubble bore him "up" into the dark spot.

  As the bubble shot into darkness, Croft felt a sudden gust of wind. He was cold all over. Every hair on his body rose and fell. Then he was warm, and in a bright place full of more swirling colors.

  The geometry here made his eyes ache. Was it a cavern? A well? Were there stalactites? Stalagmites? Or were they curtains and stairs?

  Colors performed arabesques and turned impossible, angles. The bubble in which he floated continued to rise.

  He thought he was rising in some sort of tube. It seemed that he was looking at cross sections of levels. An elevator? A lift of some kind?

  He saw a stratum that appeared to be the home of a tidal sea, phosphorescent and full of froth and seaweed.

  He saw a level that seemed to be all pillars and holes, a honeycomb made by drunken bees.

  He saw a stratum that might have been a silicon world of chips and thousand-stranded, colored wire, going on forever.

  And then he saw nothing at all.

  The bubble continued to rise through a brown darkness and then, perceptibly, stopped.

  It was as if the bubble had reached a surface through which it could not pass, like a balloon bumping against the ceiling at some child's party.

  Croft heard a loud, rasping noise, and recognized it as his breathing. He tried to stop panting. His pharmakit should have been taking care of all this.

  But pant he did. He was afraid to ask for a physiology scan. Surely he wasn't dead. And he wasn't blind. He could see the lights of his visor display. And beyond, he could just distinguish the whorls of color on the membrane of the bubble.

  Then he could make out something else. The darkness was not black, but brown; maroon, the color of venal blood; then midnight blue; then deeply purple.

  And in it he saw a bright speck of light. The light jittered. It bobbled. It seemed to be growing bigger.

  Maybe it was growing closer. Maybe it was coming from very far away.

  Croft said, "I see a light. A spark. White." The sound of his own voice surprised him, it was so loud. Harsh. Somehow importunate. As if he were in a cathedral at night.

  As if he were disturbing a meditation. As if he were chattering at the knee of God.

  Still he continued to speak, for the record, because it was his job to assume that there would be a record, and that what he perceived here would be of some import, once he got back to his own people.

  His own people. He started gasping again, and this time a little red warning light on his visor told him that his suit was having trouble keeping his body's reactions within acceptable limits.

  Yet he wasn't frightened. Not yet. Or not now. The light kept coming, or growing, whichever it was doing. There was a second, and a third.

  The lights spun like huge sparks, like pin wheels, like fireworks. Then they steadied.

  They stopped spewing sparkly bits of tail and became round. The bright round spots became three bright ovals. And the ovals became three humanoid forms, walking in bright suits of light, toward him.

  Croft's red light was still on. He cautioned himself that he might be hallucinating. Hyperventilating. Dying.

  You saw all sorts of visions when you were dying.

  You saw ancestral mythic images of godhead, pink clouds and white lights, didn't you?

  He said hoarsely, "I'm punching myself in the stomach to see if I can feel it."

  He grunted when his fist hit his midsection—from the concussion that ran up his arm, not from any pain in his stomach.

  His suit dutifully recorded the impact.

  He couldn't be dead. Those weren't mythic images of godhead, coming toward him.

  The lights were making slow, measured progress. He was almost certain that one light was in front, two behind. They were tall and very bright. They reminded Croft of churchmen, religious figures in long, gorgeous robes with huge conical hats.

  Now where had he seen that image?

  "I'm having a feeling of . . . holiness, but I don't know why. The lights are dimming as they're coming closer. Three figures are approaching me, and now they have discernible arms and feet, if not legs. They have heads, as well. This species seems to be walking upright, basically bipedal, or else it has a way of approximating a two-legged gait. If they're two-legged, they're wearing long robes or skirts."

  And so they were, he soon saw. The lights about the creatures dimmed as they came on, and Croft was able to make out that one carried a staff and the other two carried basketshaped censers.

  Someone, he thought, had made quite a study of the human race—or else was damned similar in heritage.

  The darkness around him, he realized, was receding. He could see shapes through a thick mist, as if dawn were beginning.

  But this was not a place, this was the inside of a spacefaring craft.

  He said, "It's getting lighter. I can see geometric shapes, the sort of things you'd expect to be dwellings in a habitat. The three are nearly here now. And I think—"

  The bubble around Croft burst with a distinct bump. He was standing on something different. And the three aliens were right in front of him.

  He couldn't imagine how they'd crossed the remaining distance so fast.

  He was looking into slitted eyes, within a conically shaped helmet with a clear faceplate. He saw a harelip with fur around it, and a bottom lip. The lips were moving.

  And in his ears he heard, "Welcome, human. Greeting you."

  The alien was using Croft's com system, somehow, to communicate.

  Mickey Croft held out his hand and said, "On behalf of the United Nations of Earth, welcome, strangers. I'm Michael Croft, Secretary General of the Trust Territory of Threshold."

  The alien shook its staff at him and stepped back.

  Behind it was a second alien. This one had a more complicated suit of colors and a helmet with a sealed faceplate, like the first. Mickey was sure that these beings were wearing life-support.

  The second being said, "Welcome, human. Greeting you. Fear not our hospitality."

  Mickey said, hand still outstretched, "We're hoping to begin a long, fruitful, friendly relationship."

  The second being shook its basket at him and stepped back.

  Then Croft got a good look at the third one. This one was taking off its helmet. It had huge, sad eyes and a wonderful smile, a thin neck, and hands with too many fingers.

  It took his hand in its and it said, "We will have many happy talks, Michaelcroft. I am the Council's Interst
itial Interpreter. I will speak for the others to you, and for you, to them. We have been looking forward to this meeting for a long time."

  Croft hoped he hadn't offended protocol by offering his hand to the other two aliens.

  This one said, "Come, take off your breathing things and we can talk in good air, with good ears hearing."

  Croft hesitated. He couldn't keep a record without his helmet. But clearly he was expected to do as his host suggested. The two who'd preceded the interpreter were taking off their helmets and walking away. His host indicated that Croft should follow. Beyond the two furthermost aliens a vista like a landscape seemed to stretch out forever.

  Croft had to remind himself that he was inside a finite, teardropshaped craft of unremarkable size. Or was he?

  The alien had its hands in its sleeves, and those sleeves were like clouds blowing in a gentle wind.

  He fell in beside the alien, wondering why he wanted to cry every time he met those sad eyes. And why he couldn't see anything more fascinating among all the wonders around him than that wide mouth smiling at him, as if he'd been away on a long journey and was just now coming home.

  Around them, as he walked beside the interpreter, behind the two slit-eyed aliens, everything turned lavender and gold. Overhead, a flight of fireflies began to dance in circles around a globe that looked very much like ancestral Earth.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Cop Is a Cop

  Reice's one-man patrol cruiser, the Blue Tick, was parked in a 135 x 142 nautical-mile orbit around the three teardropshaped alien ships and the Ball at Spacedock Seven, working security the way he was paid to do.

  You'd think the high-and-mighty Vince Remson, the Secretary General's XO, could have found something more significant for Reice to do.

  After all, Reice was the initial reporting officer on the First Encounter with Alien Life, wasn't he?

  Didn't matter. Nothing ever changed.

  "Reice, put together a standoff force. Commandeer however much support from ConSpaceCom you need. My authority," Remson had ordered.

  Yessir, yessir, three bags full.