"Try it. We can begin by telling each other everything about our lives, in words, the life story from the time we were born. Can you do that?"
Ann was forced to explain the idea one more time before Oanss seemed to understand. No machines. Just talking. His gaze began to drift; he felt at his head.
"Thiss iis difficuult... neeew thingg..."
Ann began to giggle, shameless as it was; she couldn't help but think his reaction was so typically male.
"But my people do talk, instead of sharing thoughts directly. Take a rest now, and we can try it later. Okay?"
"Okayyy." He gave her one last puzzled glance, then slid off the floating ring and dived into the lagoon. An indistinct ache began in her stomach; she knew not what it was. Nothing about her made any sense anymore.
The soldier had asked Patty to arrange a private audience with the Regional Elder; he would make one last attempt to reach through to him, before the soldier bailed out of this escalating madness. (Security was tight; he had had to abandon his plan of smuggling in a knife to kill the leader with.)
To his surprise, the leader granted him an appointment.
The soldier entered the ramshackle beach house, which lay apart from the main camp of tents. He cautiously looked about him for any signs of an ambush; there weren't any. The leader, whatever he felt like being called at the present moment, sat in the gloom of a corner, dressed in a black silk robe. His scalp hair was growing back; his ruddy beard was tattered and filthy. The soldier frowned, when he saw just how much weight the leader had lost; his formerly large belly was all but gone.
The cult leader's breath was a heavy wheezing; he refused to move from his seat when the soldier entered. If not for the much-used insecticide and flypaper, there would have been more flies buzzing around; now, there were no more than half a dozen of them in the room.
"Elder... are you all right?" he asked, more out of curiosity than concern.
It took the leader a whole minute to gather the energy for an answer. When he spoke, his voice sounded harsh and monotonous.
"This... mortal shell... I shall cast off. When the sign comes, our flock descends into an undersea kingdom... and we leave the surface to its own deserved doom."
"Elder, please. I want to ask -"
"Shut up! Or I'll have you tried for heresy." He sniffed petulantly, tried to reach for a bottle, and barely succeeded. He took a swig, then dropped the bottle among the others on the floor.
"Have you come to seek forgiveness for your sins?" the Regional Elder said, sneering with open contempt. "You have come..." - he farted - "...to the right place. For Ranmotani speaks through me, and I am his eyes and ears."
The soldier took a deep breath - and almost gagged. Somewhere, very close, there was a rotting cadaver. He put up a handkerchief in front of his nose.
"Elder... I must learn more about the Sirians. About their homeworld. About what it looks like."
"The pictures are all over the Internet and TV channels," the Regional Elder said with a gesture of irritation.
"Not those. The other pictures. That the Sirians send into the minds of certain people."
"Oh yes. It's on my CD, 'The Secrets of Ranmotani Revealed'. The homeworld is a hollowed-out sphere, larger than the sun, with an immense ocean that fills up the inside..."
The soldier shook his head; the leader obviously knew nothing save his own invented nonsense.
"Listen! Just for once, listen to me! There really is someone putting messages into someone's head, but I don't know what is doing it or how! Something other than Sirians, maybe... do you recognize this phrase?"
The soldier cleared his throat, and attempted to repeat the alien call he had spoken during the first vision. He studied the Regional Elder for a response, any sign of recognition. The leader stared back in a mindless stupor. The soldier turned to leave; the wheezing wreck of a man called out to halt him.
"Wait! Are... are you... a messenger from...?"
The soldier did not even bother to look back as he walked out. If only it were that simple, he thought, a fairytale of perfect saviors stepping in to solve everyone's problems by a snap of his fingers...
Chapter Twenty
DAY 111
They dived together into the lagoon to catch something to eat; it wasn't audibly agreed on, but just turned out that way.
Ann used a small net and caught some small fish. Oanss nabbed a small octopus without any tools, and dragged it ashore. The two found some privacy on the southern end of the islet; this part was mostly petrified coral, worn smooth by the lapping waves, with very little vegetation or sand.
The sun burned hard, but they found a bit of shadow between two jagged rocks and proceeded to barbecue their catch; it was relatively easy for Ann, once she had recalled how she had seen people eat this way on the beaches of Sri Lanka.
Oanss, being taller and heavier, ate most of the octopus and one fish; they were in no hurry and said next to nothing. Then, lying upon the slope of a rock drenched in pleasant afternoon sunshine, he began to talk. His vocabulary had been accumulating recently; Oanss confessed to having read an enormous amount of the truckloads of books and periodicals being delivered to the Sirians by boat each week. He asked Ann if she knew about something called "science-fiction".
She answered, still drowsy, that it was a rather unimportant form of fantasy tales that were mostly inaccurate from a scientific point of view. (She meant it; fiction in any form had seldom interested her, and what little she had read proved disappointing.)
Oanss said that he was amazed by how much land-human writers had speculated about extraterrestrial life, before they could possibly have known of any life outside Earth; this interest intrigued him.
"Why is that?" Ann asked. "When you grew up during space travel, did you learn much about other life in the universe? Weren't you interested in other life back then?"
He agreed that, sure, he had learned much about land-humans from watching their television transmissions on the journey to the Solar System, and the older information from ancient Sirian space probes. The Sirians had discovered much life on other worlds, mostly primitive organisms or plants; the only other really intelligent living species they had ever encountered was that of Earth.
Yet, the question of life in the universe did not make Oanss anxious or particularly eager; the matter interested him, but not enough to fantasize about it the way Earthlings loved to. Then again, Ann, reflected, these amphibians in their present state weren't much inclined to fantasize at all.
Oanss asked her again: Why did land-humans find speculation about extraterrestrial life so interesting? She moved from her resting position and regarded the distant fleet with new eyes - yes, it was the obvious question to put to all those eager Earthlings. Aliens come here, they stay a while, exchange a few courtesies, leave for another world. The universe is full of life, and holds more than enough space for everyone. So why obsess about it?
What did it all mean to her?
Alien, shmalien... just a label on which to apply one's own murky fears and hopes. Bug-eyed savior, flesh-eating demon from space; all of it just childish projections.
And here she was, sitting next to the real thing, just starting to take him for granted. In a few months he would be gone forever, and mankind would start making more stupid films and books about his kind, less and less realistic the further time passed...
"Why, Oanss? Why did you come here?"
Oanss made a strange alien gesture that she could not identify with; he twisted one soft arm once around itself, up at the bright sky, as if it was an antenna and he the radio. It lasted a few seconds, then he uncoiled; a bone in his arm snapped audibly as he retracted it.
"I diid nnot maake thhe deecisionn... iiit is aaa... tradiitiooon. Myy peeeople muust migrrate wwhen mannny yyears hhaave passsed. Aand thiss woorld waas sso welll knoown to uus looong beffore, iit waas... ineevitablle."
"That is all?"
"I thhink thatt iss aaall."
/> The gypsies of the universe. She ought to have understood it was that simple.
"Could you imagine at least a few of your people settling down here, staying here for the rest of their lives?"
The alien laughed in his peculiar manner, making loud staccato clicks; the sound sent an unexpected chill down her spine. She feared what his reason for laughing might be, despite Carl's attempts to calm her.
"And then? What will you do with the rest of your life... are there any important things you want to do before you die?"
She expected no answer from someone who appeared so carefree, so secure, so innocent. She was wrong.
"To beecome ann Aancestorr iss thhe moost importannt thhing foor aa huumaan," he said, and the note of his singing bass voice turned almost flat. Ancestors. That imprecise term again, that Takeru assumed were related to his own fuzzy Shinto practices. Ann wasn't a believer, though.
"Oanorrn said you should not talk to my people about Ancestors," she remarked, not being too serious.
"Becauuse you haave no Aaancestorrs," he said, in a tone so low she barely heard him over the waves.
"Takeru thinks that he has his own ancestor spirits, spirits who live in the world but cannot be seen," she said uncertainly - as if she wanted to defend herself, but why?
The next thing she heard Oanss say was incomprehensible to her. He stood straight up, peered at some clouds, and made a long wailing call, rounded off by some burring notes. He remained frozen in that position. One minute went by, then two; he repeated the call, so loudly Ann's ears began to smart.
The breeze blew; the clouds drifted; a few birds flew by. Nothing particular happened. Oanss made a wheezing sound that might have been a sigh - his large rounded shoulders sagged and his head bowed down. Ann moved closer, careful not to touch him, and asked him what was the matter.
"Lllittle laand-humannn. Withouut ourr machinnnes, I mmust uuse yyour worrds wiithh more iintellligencce. I caan not ffind thhe beetter worrds too sayy my thhoughts noow. Waait...
"Alllone."
"Alone," she echoed.
A wave of conflicting thoughts welled up in Ann's mind. She was instantly paralyzed, as if her nervous system had short-circuited. The amphibian moved drunkenly, uncertainly, back into the lagoon and the safety of his people. Ann's throat would not allow her to shout at him to stop. Her legs would not let her to run after him; her face did not want her to show sadness. She cleaned up after their meal, picked up her diving equipment and walked up the beach, back to the barracks a few hundred meters northwest. She would not let herself think, and concentrated on her work schedule instead.
DAY 112
"The Pentagon has just disclosed to the public new satellite images, which show a large military buildup in the Gulf countries. A joint Arabian-Iranian fleet, including three aircraft-carriers and nine submarines, is now moving out of the Persian Gulf. The fleet's official destination is the Timor Sea north of Australia, where it is to perform a maneuver in cooperation with their newest ally - Indonesia.
"Indonesia is yet a member of the United Nations, though the largely Moslem population has demanded they leave the U.N. in protest against the alien presence in the Pacific. This morning, the U.S. Secretary of State called the intended maneuver 'a thinly veiled threat,' and warned the Arab anti-Sirian coalition against 'even considering the unthinkable'. She also again emphasized the fact that the current American fleet presence in the Pacific outnumbers the Arab fleet.
"Despite this show of confidence from the American government, international concern is growing over the perceived nuclear threat from Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both the leaders and the public of these Moslem nations, though few of them have yet realized their threats, are fiercely opposed to the visit of the Sirian amphibians to Earth. The exact motives for this are many and conflicting; CNN correspondent and Oriental expert Albert Sayed, live from Cairo, explains..."
"The visiting Sirians have actually done very little to upset the feelings of Moslems over the world; nothing has leaked out from Alien Beach to suggest, for instance, that the religious practices of the Sirians are against the laws of Islam. As everyone has learned by now, Sirians eat seafood and vegetables only; reportedly, the mere smell of pork offends their delicate senses.
Nevertheless, the Islamic protests against the Apollo Moon landings were nothing compared to the vast mass demonstrations against the Sirian Moon landing, in Saudi Arabia and Iran several months ago. Similar demonstrations have been staged practically every week since.
"The imams and high priests of both Sunni and Shi'ite Moslems have from the outset argued thus: the Sirians cannot have been created by God, therefore they must be some kind of 'mock creation' by Satan, to defy the original humans as created by Him.
The few priests in these countries who openly oppose this doctrine have either been imprisoned on grounds of heresy, or murdered, or driven into political asylum. The fact remains that the Koran says absolutely nothing about life on other planets, except for the realms of heaven and hell.
"Fundamentalist terrorist groups, which until a few months ago spent all their energy attacking American and Israeli interests, are now intensely active spreading anti-Sirian propaganda and supposedly planning attacks on the Alien Beach base.
I quote from this leaflet which can now be found in almost any café in Cairo: 'The so-called extra-terrestrial visitors are cleverly designed remote-controlled robots, built by American contractors in service of Jewish media conglomerates...'
"Another hate tract claims that the Sirians are not robots, but in fact demons: 'Satan's hordes are setting up a beach-head for their coming large-scale invasion of Earth...'
"I have asked many average Egyptians on the street what they think. Only a few of them wholeheartedly agree with the extremists. Most people here are like the rest of us: divided in mind, uncertain of what the future will bring, and painfully aware that things might change radically over their heads.
As one old woman said to me: 'If these creatures call themselves humans, maybe they are so in spirit, I don't know. But if they are like us, wouldn't that in itself make them dangerous?'
"This is Albert Sayed from Cairo, for CNN."
Chapter Twenty-One
DAY 113
The mood of communal meals of the ECT group was changing, especially for the seven who had agreed to share their dreams by way of the Sirian thought-recorders.
They felt like the chosen few, said little, but exchanged knowing glances that excluded those who were not in the know. Takeru and Ann, Stone Pound, Edmund Soto, and Mats Jonsson were among those who had stubbornly refused to take part in the mind-sharing sessions; each had his or her public excuse, neither of which the others really cared about anymore.
A certain air of giddiness was about Carl when he passed the food around the lunch-table; he was at the forefront of a revolution of the mind, which he would soon get to share with his own family back home. He had hinted some of this discovery, but not all, to his wife over the phone. Oh, how he longed to know her like never before... as soon as the risk of long-term injury had been investigated. The cell-phone vibrated in his shirt-pocket; the display told him the President was calling.
"Carl speaking..." he said in a relaxed voice.
"Hi, or should I say good morning, by the time over here? There is something we haven't brought up for a while, Carl, because our other scientists have been busy ever since it happened. Do you recall the moon landing ceremony, when Eric Bennon received the first thought-recorder?"
"Yes, I do. We have of course been examining our own ones, and the results so far are very positive..."
"I'll read your report later. We know the machines work, and they have no obvious side effects - fool-proof technology. But we tried to take apart and examine Bennon's copy, just in case. The device has no seams, so it had to be cut open - the metal cells consist of, lessee, mercury, titanium, aluminum, magnesium, copper, and a gazillion other alloys. The machine resisted being cut! It had a life
of its own, and it tried to crawl away when it felt the heat of a laser. Eventually it started to self-destruct, and just melted - as if it was programmed not to give away its design."
"With due respect, sir, that doesn't surprise me at all. The amphibians are very careful not to give away too much knowledge too fast."
"But you are on good terms with them?"
"As good as they can get."
"Then try to make them understand we need their superior technology to defend them against their enemies here on Earth."
Both men were silent for a moment.
"Then the rumors are true," Carl said. "There is a war coming."
"Afraid so," the President said. "I wouldn't be this blunt otherwise. Hell, I don't know what the Sirians really want. Some of my generals are still saying it's a setup for invasion. But those damned Arabs have made up their minds, and right now they are the greater threat! If only the Sirians would lend us one small weapon, not a deadly one, just enough to stop the enemy missiles from detonating - then they could keep the rest of their secrets."
"But these are peaceful beings. You saw them use their high-frequency screams to fend off the crowd in New York -"
"Anyone who'd visit such a violent world as ours, would be an idiot to come unarmed. Ask them. I take full responsibility."
The conversation ended a minute later. Ashen-faced, Carl pocketed his phone and addressed his colleagues.
"It's no use keeping secrets anymore, so I'll give it to you straight. There's something we need to discuss."
They hadn't agreed on the meeting-place; Ann showed up at the same southern spit, and waited among the low rocks until Oanss' familiar shape appeared in the surf.
She was melancholy; so was he, or so he appeared to her. He immediately asked her to explain to him where she was born, about her life, and what would happen to her in the future. She couldn't stand still, but wandered around as she talked; Oanss squatted upon the top of a jagged rock and followed her movements with his eyes.
"My full name," she began, "is Ann Catherine Cláve Meadbouré. I was born thirty-four years ago on Sri Lanka. My mother, Ann-Christine Cláve, was a scientist like me. My father... died when I was one year old; I have no memory of him, but he was a soldier in the Vietnam War, which you know about. So I grew up on Sri Lanka, away from the cities, with very few other children for friends. My mother was... I think now, that after my father's death she became withdrawn from the world. So she took us to the most isolated village on the coast, where I could grow up while she did her work with Arthur and explored the sea life just nearby.
Yngve, AR - Alien Beach Page 19