by Janet Morris
Never punish loyalty. Never forget that people need to be praised for their successes.
Mickey Croft would have traded Keebler and his gifts—a hundred Keeblers, all with gem-encrusted boxes from Beyond—for a mere glimmering of an idea that would solve the problem before him.
If the UNE refused to allow the Council of the Unity to establish an embassy—if, as a body, the civilized worlds rebuffed the Unity's overture—then what?
Croft held tight, with both hands, to the balcony's polished railing, as if he might float away otherwise.
Sometimes, Croft knew, his staff thought he asked for their opinion and then went ahead with whatever he'd decided to do beforehand. Was Remson concurring with Mickey's plan out of resignation, or did he truly believe that Croft was right to talk to the aliens about the Cummings problem?
Croft wasn't sure he was right. He was bleary-eyed, he was so tired. Maybe there was some other way. Maybe he was missing an obvious shot. He said, "Maybe we should let the aliens mingle with the guests." But he didn't believe it.
And Remson didn't answer. Vince pretended he hadn't heard.
There'd been some question as to whether Mickey himself was fit to mingle with these guests. He knew he was not quite up to his normal range of activities.
He wanted to sit down. To just sit down here and cross his legs and forget about everything.
The world started to melt, and he propped it back up by controlling his desires.
He wanted to see the aliens. He needed to see them. There shouldn't be this much disruption of human activity.
He found himself saying, desperately, "Things have to proceed, for humans, from the past to the future, in an orderly way."
As he said it the balcony disappeared and the Interstitial Interpreter was looking at him mournfully, shaking its conical head.
So he tried harder, wondering how he'd gotten here and whether Remson was still back there, downstairs, wondering where he'd gone.
The honor guard was at work with its pots. Good. Things would be less difficult, when the pots were smoking. Mickey had learned that much.
The Interstitial Interpreter was speaking: "We are causing grieving. We are causing difficult moments. We are leaving, now. We are not being sad for you. We are not wanting confusion. Not fear. Not much unhappy people."
"Leaving?" Had he known that? Of course, Croft had always known it. "You can't ... I mean, you mustn't think that Cummings and his ilk represent the will of all mankind. I wanted to take you among the gathered ambassadors, but—"
"Fear, you are full of. And hold back a need." The Interpreter's eyes were going to crack open Croft's skull and suck out the truth. "What is need, this day, Croft?"
"I . . . must tell you. In order to demonstrate good will and secure the permission you wish for an embassy at the Ball site, you'll have to return the Cummings boy and the Forat girl—unharmed."
"Unharmed, no problem," said the Interstitial Interpreter. "Returning, their choice. What if they wish not to return? Can we guarantee against killing them? Can we convince killing is not about to happen? Children mistreated. Children unhappy here. Children happy, our place."
"We must guarantee no killing," Croft said desperately. "We will guarantee it. And you must show the children to the parents. So they must come."
"Only if they agree, the children, must they come, Mickeycroft. No one must do anything unwishing. Likewise, for your people. Not happy, us? We will go our place. You will be what you want: alone in small universe."
"No, no," Croft said. "Please. I don't think what's happened can be undone. Nor forgotten. Nor ignored. The status quo ante can't be reinstated, in any case. And I'm right, aren't I?"
"Correct. This is unavoidable. Everything observed by observer changes both observer and observation. Simple law. You know this law."
He knew that law, all right. Croft was seeing things, around the edges of his vision. He ignored the phenomena as best he could. He was different than he had been before his encounter with these beings. So were most of his staff.
Too bad Cummings hadn't become different—at least, not different enough.
"Mr. Interpreter, we have our laws. Kidnapping is against our laws. So are other acts of which you can be accused by the frightened and the greedy. You have to help us prove that you're not inimical."
"Am imical. Or not. All point of view. Unity allows room for diverse opinioning, yes? As UNE? So not stay, this mission. Send other mission, later time. Enough change for one millennium, could be."
For one millennium? No. Croft hadn't gone through all this to be cheated of seeing the matter through to its conclusion. "You've got to continue to help us as we try to forge a permanent bond," Croft said.
Now, in back of the alien, the room around them was dissolving. Croft was seeing raw spacetime, scattered with blots of majestically wheeling nebulae. He said over the cosmic wind: "We've got to find a way to continue the contact. To have continuity."
"Pioneer, Valued Friend, will come our place, an emissary from here. Can bring others. No fearing ones need join. But can make places for more visitors. More Valued Friends. But never wish divisions cause. Too many divisions, now. You are children of your children, Mickeycroft. Cannot squabbles bring to other spaces."
Croft was falling through raw space, all alone, forever. As he looked up, he could see the skirts of the Interstitial Interpreter above him.
When he landed without a jolt beside Remson, right where he'd been before, he was hardly winded.
Vince said, "Mickey, are you all right?"
"Certainly." A little ride through a vacuum that may not have happened—what was that, compared to the crisis he had on his hands among the diplomatic contingent? "Let's go find Cummings and tell him that if he's a good boy, we'll get him in contact with his son. Perhaps that will shut him up."
"Is that where you went? To check with the II about the kids?"
So he had been somewhere. At least, Vince had noticed his absence.
Somehow, that relieved Mickey mightily. The trick was, these days, to figure out what was really happening and what only seemed as if it were happening.
Come to think of it, maybe things weren't so different than they'd ever been.
As he walked down the long, curving staircase with Remson, in search of Cummings the Second, Croft was more worried that the Interstitial Interpreter and his party would withdraw because of hurt feelings than he was that Cummings couldn't be reasoned with.
After all, Cummings was human. He was a father with a missing son. And now that contact with that son could be promised, Cummings ought to come into line.
If, after that, damage control couldn't prevent a withdrawal by the Council of the Unity, then perhaps that wasn't all bad.
Everyone was so frightened of the Council representatives, perhaps the best thing they could do was to withdraw. Show everyone that no invasion was imminent.
Croft chuckled aloud at the thought.
Remson said, "What was that, sir?"
"Nothing," he told his assistant. If the change in Croft's perceptions of spacetime continued, and if that sort of skewed perception spread, then some sort of invasion had already taken place, hadn't it?
Croft stepped off the staircase and into the crowd, in search of Richard Cummings, an enemy of the right size and a threat of the right proportions for Croft's human brain to assess and combat.
When he found Cummings he was brusque: "Richard. We're getting you a message from your son. A meeting is possible, if the children agree. The kids are afraid they'll be killed—that the death sentence pronounced on them by the girl's father still holds. Now, will you stop all this foolishness?"
Richard Cummings stepped away from the camel-lipped dignitary he'd been exhorting. He puffed out his chest and said, "Mr. Secretary, I want to see my son. See for myself that he's alive and well. Know he hasn't been brainwashed. Then I'll begin to believe that you haven't been brainwashed—perhaps. Until then, I'm holding my car
ds pat." Croft said, "Stand by for a few hours then, Richard. You're about to see what a few motivated bureaucrats can really do." With Remson in tow he headed for the door, past the ice sculptures of the alien teardrops. Remson said, "Was that wise, sir?"
And Croft replied, "I have no idea. But I can't help but think that, having gotten into this Unity matter this far, our best hope lies in continuing on. If the aliens pull out, leaving us with only unresolved questions, and with missing humans known to be under their control—then what?"
Remson stopped and his eyes widened. "You don't mean it. Not war? How could we possibly wage—let alone win—a war with creatures such as they?"
"Look at Cummings. Listen to the talk. We still have a massive amount of force deployed around the Ball site. I'd hate to underestimate Mr. Cummings. I'd hate to find out that those ships have been given orders to fire on the teardrops—or on the Ball, if no message from Cummings's son and the girl is forthcoming."
"Damn, Mickey..."
"Yes. Damn," said Croft, already moving through the door and into a long, difficult night.
CHAPTER 27
Lonely Vigil
Reice had been out here circling the Ball so long he'd almost forgotten about the sinkhole lurking somewhere along his orbit.
Hell, he'd been over the place where those kids had disappeared more times than he'd been to the bathroom in Blue Tick since the security cordon had been formed.
Not only had he not been sucked into oblivion, all the ships traveling in Blue Tick's wake had passed over the spot just fine.
The Ball hadn't changed a bit. It hadn't displayed so much as a single green or yellow stripe. It hadn't sent a spark of color off into space. It hadn't moved. It hadn't signified any awareness of their presence.
If Reice hadn't remembered so well his headlong chase of the Cummings boy and Forat girl through here, he'd have been wondering whether the UNE wasn't making up scare stories.
But he knew what had happened to him. He ran his data files every now and again, to remind himself that vigilance wasn't a sometime thing. You had to be vigilant all the time.
Especially when you were bored silly. The problem with being on the sharp end of a confrontation that might or might not come was that you got bored silly. You worried. You concocted scary scenarios to keep yourself alert. Then you got used to your job. You rotated through your workday and you slept your way through your dark time. You talked to the other guys in the other ships. You swapped every scummy joke you knew, and then you tried making up new jokes.
But eventually, ennui set it. If something were to happen now, Reice was sure, the security cordon out here would react no quicker than if it had been awakened from a sound sleep.
You couldn't keep guys from getting bored when all they did was fly around in circles. The most exciting thing you think of was going home.
The ConSpaceCom contingent was running a war game based on the teardrop ships attacking Threshold, but it was a piss-poor war game. There were no parameters to attach to the enemy's capabilities. So Reice wasn't playing. He had better things to do with his time.
Or so he said. But that was a lie. He was bored stiff. So bored, in fact, that he was even talking to his AI.
So when South made contact, Reice had to work hard to keep the pleasure out of his voice. He had to pretend that he wasn't starved for news of what was going on back home.
You couldn't get any nitty-gritty news out here because of security constraints. All you heard was the regular vid broadcast, and that was pablum for the worker bees.
"South," Reice couldn't help but ask, "what's shakin' back there?"
"Not much. I need permission to cross into those coordinates you're guarding, though. I want to send you my course, my orders, and my projected ETA. Okay?"
That woke Reice up.
His feet came off the console and hit the floor. "How about you just tell me what you can, while you're dumping that data?"
His fingers flew, potentiating a secure channel so that STARBIRD's ancient coms could dump to Blue Tick in something like a secure fashion.
South's voice came back to him, doubtful and distant, as if the pilot weren't talking directly into his mike: "I'm about to do what you know we've been lookin' to do. Take a box over to the site. Mickey wants to know what's in the Christmas present."
Trust South to drop names and throw his connections around. Mickey this. Mickey that. Only when Reice's irritation at hearing South use the SecGen's first name had begun to fade did the rest of what South was telling him penetrate: "You're going to try that box, right?"
"Right."
"And what am I supposed to do if you uncork the genie from the bottle?"
"I have no orders for you on that." South's voice was now clipped and very clear. "Repeat: no action, no deviation, despite results, has been recommended, so far as I know. We just want to see what happens. I heard Mickey wants to use the results to solve a few problems back on Threshold—calm folks down."
Folks weren't going to get real calm if, when South used that box, a sinkhole opened up and sucked the entire security contingent through into some limbo, leaving Threshold unprotected. "You know I've got to confirm these orders with my command chain."
"Then you'd better get to it," South said without a hint of bend in his voice. "I'm cleared for this. I have a timetable. I expect you not to shoot when I come by. South, out."
Just like that. South was turning into a real monster. Reice pulled up the data dump, looked at it, and then hesitated.
His finger was already on the automated patch that would put him in touch with ConSec Command.
But South's data was slugged with high-security encodings and dissemination blocks. The only place Reice ought to be verifying this mission was with the SecGen's office.
So he started doing that. It took some time. While he was telling various horse-holders he needed a verbal confirm-or-deny on some very sensitive intelligence, he began wondering what the hell was going on back there.
The only thing he found out, prowling around the comlinks, was that the UNE Security Council was planning to meet to discuss the whole matter of the alien contact.
So for sure, Croft wanted this data by then. Ammunition.
Suddenly, Reice wasn't jealous of South. Or angry at South. Or even annoyed by South.
The SecGen was sending South out here to the Ball because South was expendable. If South crashed his antique ship, or died out here trying to do whatever that black box was purported to do—or even disappeared. . . . Well, South was a Relic. South couldn't be expected to understand modern equipment. Anything that happened to Joe South could be crossed off as an accident aided and abetted by ignorance.
For all Reice knew that idiot Relic had volunteered for this duty.
Probably had.
Sure as hell would have.
Reice felt suddenly responsible for South. He had found South in the first place, in his ancient ship, drifting around outside the space lanes. Reice had brought South in. Helped the ancient out whenever he could.
Maybe that help hadn't always been given with the most grace and charm, but grace and charm weren't Reice's strong suit.
Hell.
Reice stabbed a button and said, "Customs Special? This is Blue Tick. Hey, South? Good luck, you hear?"
The com crackled and South said, "Yeah. Thanks, Reice. Good luck to you, too."
Reice almost cut the circuit. Infuriating son of a bitch. Reice didn't need luck. He had competence. He also had the whole security contingent flying formation behind him, to back him up. So he said, "South, just tell me one thing: Did you volunteer for this duty, you crazy Relic?"
For a long time the com stayed silent. Just when Reice was certain that South wasn't going to answer, the pilot said, "Yessir, you bet. You see, none of you button-jockeys from the future seem to remember a whole lot about what doing this kind of job is all about."
"What kind of job is that, Relic?" Reice demanded.
&nbs
p; But by then South had broken the connection.
Reice couldn't get him back on the horn. It didn't matter. Reice could track South so close that when South farted Reice would know about it.
The fool Relic thought he could play high-security radiosilence games with ConSec? He had another think coming.
Anyhow, if South spontaneously combusted out there somebody ought to have it on the record.
Blue Tick came to full alert, all her surveillance modes trained on STARBIRD.
If Secretary General Croft wanted the results of this attempt to pierce the secret of the Ball on the record, then he was going to get it.
In spades.
That way, if there was any glory to be had here, Reice would get a piece of it. He called around and spread the word that the Relic ship and pilot were coming through the cordon, all nice and cleared, and everybody was to ignore that it was happening.
If, later, there was a fire order to be given, because South turned loose some terrible menace with that damned black box of his, then Reice would be ready to sound the alarm— when and if he needed to.
It was too early to get everybody in every ship out here all lathered up. People who'd been this bored for this long didn't need much coaxing to get their balls in an uproar. If somebody got antsy, or thought he saw things and jumped the gun, South and his antique ship might get hurt.
Reice was at pains to make sure his contingent understood that this little visit of South's was just some on-site recon, and nothing to get excited about.
That took some doing, since South's was the first spacecraft allowed to pass through the orbital plane Reice's cordon had been guarding since they'd come onstation.
So he had to be very clear, and very commanding, with the ConSpaceCom contingent, which was getting its first news of this change in standing orders from Reice.
"We're just watching. We're still waiting. Nothing's changed," he told everybody in plain, simple terms.
For now, that was all you could do. Wait. And watch. And wonder.