"Congressman Alvarez was annoyed at me," she admitted. "The cube opened up for General Wallace, but it didn't show the congressman anything. He turned red and got all defensive. I could see him thinking that a congressman is more important than a retired general."
Chad nodded. "I've met some of them who think they're more important than God. So. Now what?"
"Well, I guess I go on working. And waiting until Chiddy and Vess find the predators. And hoping they haven't done anything... final to Bert."
"Do you really hope so?"
"Yes. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Which he is." She reconsidered. "Almost."
"Any idea how long it will take the Pistach to find them?"
"No idea. They'll manage, sooner or later."
"Any idea what the predators are up to?"
"Sorry, Chad. I don't have a clue."
It was eight in the evening when Benita returned to her apartment, and after a few moments of irresolute wavering, she decided to call Angelica. It was only five o'clock Pacific time. Angelica might not be home yet, but she might not have another chance the way things were going. She lay down on the bed, punched in the numbers and counted the rings.
The moment Angelica came on the line, however, she began talking so hurriedly that it took Benita some time to calm her down to the point she could understand what was being said.
"What do you mean, Carlos has been kidnapped?"
"It just happened. Just now!" she cried. "Over at the sports complex..." Angelica poured out the story of the afternoon's disappearance, about the girl who had been called by Angelica's name, about the police sergeant saying it looked like an attempt to get two members of the same family.
Benita gargled, "The whole family..."
"It's crazy, isn't it, Mom? I mean, who'd want to bother us. I thought of Dad, but you know, he... he isn't... he doesn't..."
"He can't concentrate long enough to do anything like that," Benita said for her.
"Right. And it can't be for ransom, because we don't have any money."
"Was there any blood?" Benita asked with horrid foreboding.
"Blood? No. The other men weren't hurt. Nobody found any blood."
"Ah."
"What do you mean, ah?"
"I mean..." She thought, what did she mean? "It looks like no one was hurt. Not like..."
"Like those killings, you mean? The ones in Oregon?"
"No, certainly not like that. Angel, didn't the FBI contact you today?"
"Oh, Mom, yes. What's that all about? The men came to my place kind of late this afternoon, and I took them with me to find Carlos. He disappeared right after we got there! The man who was supposed to watch him was fit to be tied, and the man who's supposed to watch me is sitting on a chair outside in the hall right now. What's going on?"
Benita beat her forehead with her closed fist. It was the predators. They were doing it, and they were doing it because they'd been put up to it! They'd come to the bookstore looking for Benita, only her place was... what? It would have been easy to get into if they'd really wanted to, though getting in would have made a mess. Broken windows. Splintered doors. So, maybe they didn't want to... no, maybe they'd been told not to leave evidence they'd done it. Perhaps they needed to make her vanish, without raising a stink. So, they'd tried using Bert as bait. Now they would no doubt use Carlos. And, supposedly, Angelica. Oh, it made a certain deadly sense!
Benita took a deep breath. "Angelica, I think it would be a really good idea for you to go outside and tell the FBI man he should take you to a motel or hotel, right now. I mean now, not an hour from now. Grab what you can grab in no more than five minutes and go. Get a place that's air conditioned, and don't open the windows or the curtains."
"You're scaring me!"
"I'm scared myself. Please, Angel. Do what I ask. Just so I don't need to worry about you."
"If it's important."
"It's important. Tell the FBI man to let Chad Riley know where you are."
"Who's Chad Riley? What's this about, Mom?"
"Trust me, please. I don't want to talk about it now. Just do what I ask. Chad Riley works for the FBI in Washington, and I can get in touch with him without letting anyone know where I am. He'll give me your number, and I'll call you tomorrow when things settle down a little."
When she hung up the phone, she went into the bathroom and said Chiddy's name, over and over. No answer. No response at all! All she'd ever had to do was speak, but now they were off somewhere, or everywhere, trying to locate the predators.
"My son's been abducted," she said. "Also a girl that was mistaken for my daughter!"
No sign that he'd heard her. Lord, Lord. Now what? She stepped back into the bedroom and the phone rang. Chad, saying he'd just learned about what happened in California.
"Chad, for heaven's sake, I know! Angelica just told me."
"This girl they took? Do you know who that was?"
"They thought it was Angelica!"
"You know why?"
"They want them for bait," she cried. "To lure me out where they can get at me." She pressed her forehead with her free hand, trying to keep it from exploding. "The predators wouldn't have targeted the children on their own, so someone put them up to it. Probably Morse because he wants to talk to the intermediary."
"That's what his press release says," growled Chad.
She cried, "Well, dammit, better in public than in some cellar somewhere. Morse wants to get at me, so why don't we let him! Except for my longing for anonymity, I've got no reason to hide!"
"Volunteering to testify could be a good play," said Chad, thoughtfully. "I'll see what the powers that be have to say about that."
"Listen," Benita said, struggling to remain calm. "Morse might be doing this because he's expecting the president to duck or dodge on the subject of my whereabouts. Then Morse himself could haul me in, hoping I'll say something really damaging. Like... I was put up to this whole thing by the Chinese. Or the press and I have been having this affair ever since I came to Washington. Or something equally ridiculous. That's what he really wants, to make political hay out of the situation..."
"That's scary."
"It's not the worst. If he's using the predators, maybe he can even be sure that I'll say what he wants me to. Either they can make me do it, or they can hold the kids' lives as hostages until I do it."
"But you'd be willing to appear in order to subvert that."
"Right. I'll agree right now to appear before the committee Monday. Let the president announce that fact! He should announce it tonight or tomorrow, so it can get onto the news as soon as possible!"
"What about your son?"
"Somebody should get word to McVane, privately, that I expect my family to be released. Or that he'll be held responsible for the two of them, or something!"
"But the girl isn't your family."
"She's somebody's family," Benita snapped. "Angelica would be in their clutches right now if they hadn't made a mistake. I asked her to ask the FBI man who's guarding her to take her to a hotel for tonight and let you know where she is."
"I'll alert the powers that be," said Chad. "Including the president."
Benita called Simon at home to tell him a family emergency had come up, and she would have to take Monday off. Since she'd worked overtime on several evenings, she actually had the time coming.
He sighed. "Someday you'll tell me what's going on, won't you, Benita?"
"Someday, Simon. If I ever figure it out."
Senator Byron Morse-FRIDAY
The same evening, Senator Morse came home to find a note from Lupe saying that her mother had broken her wrist and that Lupe was driving to Baltimore to spend a day or two with Mama to reassure herself that Mama was all right. All in all, it suited the senator to spend a quiet evening at home. The last few days had been hectic. Predators picking off American citizens was not a precedent he wanted to set, but in this case the end justified the means. Once he got his hands o
n the intermediary, nobody would press him too much as to how he'd done it, and he had no doubt he could get something out of her, whether or not it led them to the envoys, that would be useful in damaging the administration!
He badly wanted a progress report, but there was no way to reach the predators until they succeeded, in which event, reaching them wouldn't be necessary. Dink had assured him it wouldn't take them long. Ridiculous, all this running about, unable to find a woman who should stick out like a sore thumb! It suggested ineptitude among people he had always valued for being good at their jobs!
Meantime, the select committee was still unable to talk to or communicate with or get at the envoys themselves, and the armies of ET hunters that were scouring the world for possible targets had as yet reported killing only a California condor, several wolverines and bear cubs, about fifty dogs, and a number of Ginko trees. The boosting of a surveillance satellite into a one-time moon loop, a little maneuver that cost too many millions, had allowed NASA to verify that predator ships were definitely on the back side of the moon. Morse had been cutting NASA's budget relentlessly as long as he'd been in the Senate, so there was no way to get at the moon any time soon. It was like being in a wartime situation. You couldn't attack the administration without seeming disloyal to the country, no matter how elusive or dangerous the president was. Maybe the thing to do was beef up NASA, fast, and see what the Russians had left over from their space program that might be useful. Though, come to think of it, the space station boosters had more or less picked over that trash heap.
Oh, hell, he told himself, pouring a scotch, let it go. Forget it for tonight. Raid the refrigerator, have a long hot shower, go to bed.
The food and the shower he managed. While luxuriating under the hot spray, however, he felt a sting on his shoulder, as though a wasp or bee was in the shower with him. Even as he slapped at the shoulder he felt overwhelmingly dizzy. The tile walls of the shower stall spun around him, he felt himself slipping, though he didn't feel himself landing on the floor. Everything went gray and silent.
He was aware that time was passing, that things seemed to have duration. He came halfway to consciousness, finding himself on an examining table, just like... well, like all that stupid X-Files stuff, and there was this... ET thing, not a little gray man, not an envoy, not one of those predators they had shown on that broadcast of theirs, something else. Like a huge wasp, only with a high cranium and a soft voice. This large creature, assisted by two smaller creatures, was very intent on doing something to him, though he felt no particular pain or apprehension. They were holding him and shifting him, quite gently, and then there was a sudden, horrible pain, terrible and piercing as the large creature stuck its... something or other, surely not what it looked like, no, that couldn't be, he meant no, not that, he meant stuck its dagger-like thing into him, right into his middle, and squirted something through it, something quite large because the dagger-like thing bulged to let it through, and then the pain again, only worse, much worse, he couldn't bear, couldn't stand...
And then only peace and euphoria. Nice. Nice restful feeling, and he woke up momentarily. He was at home, in bed, quite naked.
Senator Byron Morse never slept naked. He staggered out of bed and found his pajamas hanging where he'd left them this morning, on the back of the bathroom door. It was while he was buttoning the pajama top before the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door that he noticed a strange discoloration on his stomach. Just to the right of the belly button and a little higher. A real doozy of a bruise, with a bloody spot in the middle. He touched it, and something bit him, like being hit with a cattle prod. A second attempt had the same result. He should have been worried about it, but he still felt very happy and contented. Euphoric. That was the word. He hummed it to himself.
An isolated section of his mind repeated the word. Euphoric? From what? Why was he thinking about euphoria? He should be worried about this damned bloody spot. He was damned well worried about this bloody spot, but he was too tired to do anything about it tonight. He'd get a few hours sleep, first. This morning, first thing, he'd see his doctor.
From Chiddy's journal
Dear Benita, Vess and I are so deeply sorry about the predators. Though they will not kill nearly as many of your people as you do on your own, we realize that the simultaneous death of small groups is perceived to be more tragic than a very large mortality stretched over time and space. A plane crash that kills one hundred in one place seems a greater tragedy than the many times that number killed one or two at a time, here and there, by gunshot or car crash or tobacco addiction. When working with intelligent beings, one must work with perceptions as much as with reality, and accordingly, we know the predation must be stopped!
We have set our search devices to find the Xankatikitiki, as they are usually the easiest to locate. There are more of them, they have the strongest smell, and they tend toward noisy braggadocio, particularly the young ones. Once we find them, we will find the others. If we do not find them within a short time, we will find a human who has met with them, though we will need to wipe the memory of it later. If the predators have conspired with humans, then those humans must have a way to get in touch with them! Unfortunately, conspirators do not emit the same kinds of strong, focused signals that serial killers or terrorists do. Conspirators tend to have torturous mentalities which are often unclear even to themselves.
Meantime, Vess and I are continuing with the programs set out before our brief departure. We are extending the ugliness plague to Iran and Arabia and to parts of India where both Muslims and the wealthier Hindus seem to enjoy locking women up. This is such a unique societal trait that Vess and I brought it to the attention of the Chapter back on Pistach-home. We have been sending them reports all along, of course, and they soon saw the similarity between this human trait and the violent capture of females found among other Earthian mammals. Baboons and various kinds of deer kidnap females, for example, as do teams of dolphins, usually violently and sometimes lethally.
Our Chapter asked us why some human societies consider female capture and abuse to be barbaric while others consider it to be "traditional" or "cultural" or even "religious." Why should certain societies have very little breeding madness while others have it continuously? Are some but not all human societies genetically incapable of self-control?
This dichotomy among various subgroups of a single race is hard for us to explain, dear Benita. We've looked into the matter, and there is no clear-cut genetic difference between populations with breeding madness and those without. As we know from experience, however, even a rare genetic predisposition can survive culturally if the predisposition is found among the leaders of the society. Though a leader may be genetically driven to a certain behavior rather than choosing it, if that leader is charismatic, others will elect to copy the behavior. Thus is breeding madness spread among certain populations, first by emulation, in time acquiring a cultural or even religious cachet.
If there is a genetic predisposition to breeding madness, it may have arisen among groups who lived around your Mediterranean Sea. We hear much of the "Latin Temperament," for example, which enjoys ritualized sacrifice of or battles among male animals such as bulls and cocks. They also have dances portraying contests of sexual dominance. I apologize, dearest Benita, if I seem to be belaboring this point! Even though we are sure these things must change, first it is necessary that we understand what is going on. It is far more important to establish a civil and orderly society than it is to pander to abusive cultural and religious artifacts. This is why we are continuing the ugliness campaign. Once the societies have unlearned their present attitudes, women may become lovely again, as you are, dear Benita. In the meantime, the women will at least have the freedom to come and go as they will, to work and study and learn.
Our Inkleozese monitors were not here long before they pointed out that a nation dedicated to protecting human rights should not have warm diplomatic relations with nations tha
t have institutionalized breeding madness, not even when those nations have a lot of petroleum. We had postponed consideration of this issue formerly, but since all the Inkleozese monitors are receptors, that is, females, we are unable to delay consideration any longer. The Inkleozese react very strongly to insults to their own or similar sexes, and they feel the imprisonment of women is no less heinous than confining political prisoners for the sake of "security."
If widening the area afflicted by the ugly-plague badly upsets your country's acquisition of sufficient fuel, we will provide your nation with power technology that needs no petroleum. An equitable society capable of Neighborliness cannot be built on competition for scarce resources. Think what such cutthroat competition would mean in interstellar society?
Sheri Tepper - The Fresco Page 30