Someone, perhaps the ET's, had morphed Benita's face and hair on the tape, making her a blonde, twenty pounds heavier, with a different nose and mouth. Benita, while being glad she wasn't recognizable, didn't appreciate the disguise. When the tape came to the after-dinner speeches, the sound came on so everyone could hear the speeches: the FL, the SOS, the general, and then the envoys. The tape stopped moments before the visitors disappeared.
The president went on in his serious voice. "Since the dinner last Wednesday evening, we have had one further message from our visitors. Tomorrow night at ten o'clock, Washington time, seven Pacific time, the envoys will address the nation on television, explaining their intentions. Prior to that occurrence, I will be meeting with various congressional committees. I know many of you have questions. Foremost among them will no doubt be the question of whether our visitors were responsible for the recent events in Israel and Afghanistan. The intermediary tells us they say they are responsible, though they have not told her how it was done. They assure her Jerusalem was not destroyed but remains whole, elsewhere. They assure her the so called ugly-plague in Afghanistan is reversible.
"I would ask you to keep in mind that no one has died in either Israel or Afghanistan as a result of these happenings. At this point, I am as much in the dark as you are, and I cannot answer any questions. We should all be patient. We have detected no malicious intent in our visitors. We believe they are what they represent themselves to be. All questions will eventually be answered, and it would be helpful if speculation were kept to a minimum."
He started to leave, to a babble of "Mr. President, Mr. President," stopping when one reporter shouted: "Tell us about Jane Doe, Mr. President, you can tell us that!"
He turned back to the lectern. "Jane Doe is an American housewife. She is married and has children. I cannot tell you why the extraterrestrials picked her, and she doesn't know. Both the envoys and Jane Doe herself have asked that she remain anonymous. She is not a celebrity, she has not chosen to be a public figure. As the envoys made clear, they chose someone who would have no personal agenda concerning their actions or ours, rather than some head of state or government employee or political figure who might have an ax to grind. She knows no more than we do. Think of her as a kind of telephone line between them and us. She's not responsible for what comes and goes over the line, so let us set aside our prurient, window-peeping greed for the private details of others' lives and leave her alone."
This time he departed, refusing any other questions.
"Fat chance they'll leave me alone," Benita remarked to Sasquatch. "The Sunday papers will be full of speculation, ninety-nine percent of it useless! Some politicos will say it's all fake."
The bookstore didn't open until noon on Sunday. Early in the morning, however, the Washington Post and the New York Times were delivered through a chute from the side street into the stockroom, along with half a dozen other papers from around the country. Around eight o'clock, she went down to get herself copies of several, bringing them back upstairs to read. The outcry was predictable. Her least favorite columnist's prissy face sneered above his usual malicious column, and a good many others decried the president's "unwillingness" to answer questions, raised the possibility that Jane Doe might be either the president's mistress or a foreign agent, or offered the idea that the whole thing had been done by special effects and that the president no doubt knew more than he admitted to knowing.
Various other pedants offered opinions ranging from the necessity for an immediate declaration of war against any one or several of five foreign countries to the novel idea, expressed by one fat talk show host, that the envoys were simply Democrats in ET suits, trying to distract the nation from more pressing matters such as cutting taxes. Photo excerpts from the dinner tape were used and reused on page after page of the newspapers. The many-eyed monsters, however, who should have seemed ogreish, actually appeared to be rather loveable, like a cross between a sharpei puppy and a jumping spider done by Disney animation artists.
The furnishings of the apartment included a television, something Benita hadn't thought to order for herself. At a quarter to ten that night she was poised on the edge of the couch with Sasquatch at her feet. No one had said which station, and she was prepared to surf them all. At five to ten, however, the show she was watching faded away and soothing music began to play over a pattern of moving fronds, like a forest. Every channel including the shopping and religious networks had the same music, the same fronds. At precisely ten o'clock, the music faded, the fronds parted to disclose the images of Chiddy and Vess, larger and smaller, side by side. They had the same form as in the tape of the dinner, though now the mouths seemed to be more flexible. They were wearing clothing that did not look at all like a uniform. When they spoke, the lips moved the way human lips move, and when not moving, they smiled. The skin around the largest pairs of eyes crinkled warmly.
"We bring greetings from the people of Pistach to the people of Earth," said Chiddy. "As we have explained to your officials, we have come to assist you in meeting the prerequisites for galactic coexistence, what we call Tassifoduma, what you in the United States would call Being Neighborly. Tassifoduma is a prerequisite for planets wishing to join the Confederation of intelligent life-forms. We have chosen to start with your country because it will serve as a pattern for all the rest.
"The first prerequisite of Being Neighborly is to have a society in which almost all individuals achieve contentment, since discontented societies often explode over their borders into other people's space, causing great trouble and woe. You have many examples of these disruptions in your own history. There are some such going on in your world even now, so we need not belabor the point.
"To begin with, therefore, we will help you balance your country among its many needs and demands to provide greater comfort and contentment to all your people, greater care and attention to your environment. The first step in any project is to find out what is happening to cause woe. The second step is to discontinue the cause! To stop a flood, one must find out where the water is coming from and then shut off the water. To stop a fire, one must find out what is burning and then remove the fuel. So, we will first find out what conditions are most distressing for the people, then we will help you discontinue the conditions which lead to pain, frustration, and misery.
"Being Neighborly means not upsetting people! In order for us to avoid upsetting you, we must first determine what you value and believe and want. This week, each person over the age of eight will receive a questionnaire designed to elicit that person's beliefs and wants. This questionnaire must be completed with promptness and complete honesty. If people were to tell us untruthfully that they wanted longer working hours for less pay, and if we were to set up conditions requiring longer working hours at less pay, those people might be most distressed. Each questionnaire will be in your language, whatever your language is, just as this program is in your language, whatever your language is. If you have any difficulty, you may call the number printed at the bottom of the questionnaire and an assistant will be provided for you. When the questionnaires have been returned in the envelopes provided, we will tabulate them, and only then will we take the first step.
"We are sure you have all heard of the disappearance of Jerusalem and the change in appearance of the women of Afghanistan. A military man who met with us last Wednesday demanded proof that we could do what we said we could. While in our society such a challenge would be very impolite, we took no offense. We selected two proofs that would harm no one and have some positive value, while still being illustrative of our abilities. The more freedom given the women of Afghanistan, the prettier they will become. The more they are kept in seclusion, the uglier they will get and the worse they will smell, and lest anyone vent anger by attacking a woman or women, anyone doing so will bear the pain himself. During the past week, several attempts to stone women to death have resulted in the severe mashing and bone-breaking of the stone-throwers. They are not
dead, we do not believe in causing deaths, but they will take a long painful time to heal.
"Also, the greater the peace prevailing among Israelis and Palestinians, the more likelihood that Jerusalem will be returned. A continuance of violence might lead to the expansion of the hole we have already made, or even to the removal of other sacred sites or what we call suspensions. Suspensions cause selective groups to fall into a comatose state. It is a most effective tool for peace when a whole nation is suspended for a week or a month or even a year or longer, while life goes on around them. Certain countries in your world seem intent upon interfering with others or harboring what you call terrorists. These countries are candidates for suspension, all or in part. The parents among you probably make fighting children take a time out. It is a good way to combat violence. If we had been here when Serbia began to behave so badly, we would have suspended all its people for a year, at least, and we would have found the leaders responsible for the bad behavior and shown them their errors.
"You should know that we do not require persons to agree with us. You have freedom of speech in this country, and it is valuable both to you and to us. We have no interest in hampering it. You may insult us if you wish. You may call us ugly names. We take no offense. Insults and names will not change the situation before you, which admits of only two alternatives. To be a neighbor, Earth must be a world in which children are born to peace and a place of their own, in which all are educated, in which personal freedoms and community civilities are well balanced, in which the environment is respected and unnatural conflict is restrained. Either we will be successful in helping your world achieve this, or we will leave it as it is, building a fence around it so that your people may not leave it. Many of your politicians may hope we do exactly that. Their horizons are narrow and they do not seek to widen them. Others, however, would regret the confinement. In order to do what is best, we need to know what you want.
"We thank you for your time and attention, and we return you to your usual programming."
The two disappeared, the screen blinked and became the X-Files. Benita reflected that the X-Files might find it necessary to do some re-taping. The truth was no longer out there, it was right here, staring her in the face.
EARTH VISITED BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS
ALIENS APPEAR ON TELEVISION
REPUBLICANS ATTACK PRESIDENT MORSE
CLAIMS PRESIDENT WITHHELD INFORMATION
WHITE HOUSE ADMITS DELAY, FEARED HOAX
PRESIDENT DIDN'T WANT TO PANIC PUBLIC
MYSTERIOUS KILLING IN FLORIDA
BONES OF MEN FOUND TRAMPLED INTO EARTH
ACLU DECRIES ATTEMPT TO QUESTION AMERICAN PUBLIC
QUESTIONNAIRES COULD THREATEN CIVIL LIBERTIES
ALIENS ARE INSECTS, SAYS SCIENTIST
OTHERS SAY TOO MANY LEGS
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION CLAIMS ET'S ARE PSYCHOLOGICALLY HUMAN
NO VIOLENCE IN MID-EAST IN PAST THREE DAYS
From Chiddy's journal
Dearest Benita, I think you may be interested in learning more of how our people deal with various difficulties, and in that regard I remember vividly the Pistach colony planet of Assurdo. Newly colonized planets seldom conform exactly to Pistach propriety. The usual pattern is one of imbalance: too few people trying to do too many things,- too many undifferentiated ones selected as breeders when their dreams lie elsewhere, selectors who are, themselves, inexperienced, though at least a few experienced selectors are always provided to new colonies. After a decade or so, things flatten out, and by the time the oldest settlers are being retired, the colony has achieved good order.
On Assurdo, however, the situation was a great deal worse than mere imbalance! In the sixth year of settlement, an inceptor had gone rogue and killed several selectors, including all the experienced ones. Ke had been immediately captured and put in a sleep locker, of course, but no one had had the presence of mind to send to Pistach-home for athyci.
Too much later, arriving for what was supposed to be a routine visit, Vess and I found the settlement in chaos. When we confronted the settlement manager, ke told us about the killings and showed us the sleep locker in which Chom, the assailant, was confined. When we reviewed the selector records, it was apparent to us that Chom should have been selected as a campes, a te. Everything about Chom screamed campes: the muscularity, the energy level, the preoccupation with present satisfactions coupled with limited ability to foresee consequences or connections, the obsessive attention to habit and routine, the suspicion of novelty.
One of the less experienced selectors, however, had selected Chom as an inceptor on the grounds of certain self-gratifying behaviors which a more experienced selector would have recognized as infantile survivals. In addition to bad selection, training for inceptor-hood had been so abbreviated that none of Chom's natural territoriality had been fully suppressed.
Campesi are obsessive about their own space and their own habits. Chom had become obsessed with one particular receptor. Campesi are suspicious of novelty, which meant that Chom could not be easily diverted to other receptors. Campesi need routine and immediate satisfactions, and Chom had enjoyed the routines and satisfactions of that particular receptor and continued to plague ker even when the receptor was brooding and not in condition to receive an inceptor's attentions.
To state it simply: Chom had gone breeding-mad, and when the receptor had repulsed ter, te had invaded a meeting of the entire selectorial body at their annual Fresco Meditation breakfast, killed over half of them and then attempted to kill self.
Though the receptor in question subsequently delivered a fine egg to the nootch, ke had been gravely traumatized by the incident and requested immediate reselection as a field campes, working on one of the outlying farms. All this, and still no one had sent for athyci! The remaining selectors were required by the rules of settlement to do so, but they did not.
We recognize a reluctance on the part of inexperienced persons to get athyci involved in their troubles. Inexperienced persons are often ingenuous. They have a sweet naivete about them, an innocent faith that if they can only talk long enough about problems, they will come up with solutions that will not hurt anyone. They have a penchant for committees and group discussions, for bumbling along, never wishing to offend but unable to avoid offense, always caring but never courageous, always pitying but never resolute, always doubting but stubbornly avoiding decision.
So they had done on Assurdo. In the absence of experienced mentors, the inexperienced selectors had continued doing their well-intentioned worst. There was no malice in them, though there was a good deal of mis-hoping. Mistake compounds mistake, and by the time we arrived, conditions had deteriorated into near anarchy. I reminded myself of panel four of the Fresco, Peaceful Work, in which the Jaupati are shown working usefully under the watchful eyes of Pistach mentors, though in the preceding panel three, Uniting the Tribes, the Jaupati are shown in total chaos and disarray. The situation could be fixed. It was not impossible. I told myself this, over and over.
The selectors, being young and proud and unwilling to offend, had fallen into the trap of choosing far too many specialized castes. When a selector is too sympathetic, le may overvalue the least passing interest expressed by an undifferentiated one, assuming this transitory regard is a sign of talent or affinity. If the selector is also impatient and/or overworked, the selector may neglect to observe the candidate's actual performance during the selection process, thus allowing the first impression to prevail. Commit this same error over and over for a period of several decades and anarchy results! The colony was awash in artists who did no art, sculptors who sculpted nothing, musicians who were pitch deaf, doctors who couldn't distinguish healthy persons from sick ones, much less treat the diseases. When I remember it, dear Benita, I think of your spouse and son. There were a great many Berts and Carloses in that settlement! There were even a few contempli sitting about, looking at the walls. One can't train contempli in a new colony! Contempli need adva
nced mentoring of very specialized types! How does one come up with the design of new nanobots or spaciotemporal diffusers by looking at walls! Oh, mathematical contempli do a lot of staring into space, I grant you, though they would rather scribble abstruse formulae on the walls than stare at them, but one cannot come up with micro-chem experts or morph-beam engineers in a new colony!
All these specialists were, of course, drawing their rations, keeping cozy and warm, accomplishing nothing, while the colony was desperate for ditch diggers to install the sewage system, plumbers to hook up the drains, technicians to install the hydroelectric plant which had been shipped with the settlers, and so on. Pistach systems are carefully engineered to afford gainful, useful employment for all members, even the inevitable supply of glusi (except under conditions of glusi glut, as previously mentioned) but in the colony of Assurdo, the balance had been lost and there were misassignment glusi everywhere!
What was wrong was apparent and needed no investigation, though the stench around the villages and the extent of the disorder overwhelmed us. As an immediate alleviation, Vess and I took over the work of the selectors on the grounds they had failed in their duty by not summoning us sooner. Due to the extremity of the situation, we decided to use the machines we carried on our ship. Philosophically, the Pistach are opposed to the use of machines on settlement worlds, preferring a lengthy, slow evolution of community, with its own history and culture. In this case, however, cjefissit moltplat gom, as we say: emergencies make their own rules. You would say, any port in a storm. Inasmuch as the community was up to its tonal detectors in sewage, the machines were necessary to speed the drainage and alleviate the smell!
Sheri Tepper - The Fresco Page 20