by Joe Haldeman
He’d skimmed through a book of Stevenson’s poetry, and didn’t like much of it, but this one quatrain was not far off, and he typed it in:
LOVE, WHAT IS LOVE?
LOVE—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Then he pasted in thirty characters of the artifact’s message:
110100101101001011101001001011
And then his own message:
Rae, when I did see you depart, literally, I didn’t know it was you, and it deepened the mystery.
If you have to disappear, that’s your decision. But you know that if there’s anyone on this world you can trust, it’s me.
I know I don’t know you, but I love you. Come hack in whatever guise.
—Russ
There was a box for “affinities,” words that would draw a searcher, or surfer, to the site. He typed in “Poseidon,” “Apia,” “artifact,” “alien,” and so forth, ending with “Rae Archer” and “Russell Sutton.” He knew that the first people drawn to the site would probably be the CIA and their ilk, but there was no way to get around that. He assumed that Rae would be canny enough to anticipate them, too.
The Rainforest Cafe was nostalgic nineties funk in a jungle setting. Bamboo and palms and elephant ears under blue lights and mist nozzles, quaintly angry rap whispering in the background.
Russell felt a little underdressed in cutoffs and an island shirt. It was the weekend, but Sharon had come from work, wearing suit and tie. She loosened the tie and patted her brow with a tissue, prettily.
“I should have suggested an air-conditioned place.”
“Glad you didn’t. I was freezing in the office.” She shrugged out of her jacket.
“You’ve always lived in the tropics?”
“In the heat, anyhow. You?”
“As soon as I could choose.” Russell told her about growing up in the Dakotas. He’d gone to college in Florida, and never had to live through another winter. “Most of my experience with being cold now is underwater, working in a wetsuit.”
“Been there.” She covered her mouth, laughing. “When you don’t have enough pee to warm it up.”
He poured her some iced tea. “You dive a lot?”
“When I was in school, a little. Now I mostly snorkel. A guy at work took me out to the reef at Palolo last week—all those giant clams, I couldn’t believe my eyes!”
“They’re something.” He served himself. “Was it your major, marine science?”
“No, I did business administration. Minor in oceanography— that was my real cold-water experience. A summer course diving in the Peru current.” She’d actually been there as professor, not student, but the university records would confirm she’d taken the course and made an A.
“We used to be out there,” he said. “My company, Poseidon. We did marine engineering out of Baja California.”
“Until you found the alien thingie.”
“Well, we didn’t know what it was, at the time.” He broke open a roll and buttered one half carefully with healthy spread. “We pinged it with sonar and registered it for later salvage. It was a while before we actually went down and took a look.” He gestured down the road with the roll. “Then this happened.”
“It must be exciting.”
“Exciting and frustrating in about equal measures. We’re not getting anywhere.” He drew a shape on the tablecloth with his fingernail. “What do you do for excitement? Or frustration.”
“I don’t know. Come out here, run, fall down.” They laughed. “I’ve been kind of drifting. Both my parents died when I was in college, like ten years ago, eleven.”
“I’m sorry…”
She dipped her head. “Yeah. They left me some money, and I sort of wandered around Europe, then Japan. Now that the money’s gone, I wish I’d stayed in school. Not much you can do with a B.B.A.”
“You’re still young. You could go back.”
“I guess thirty-one’s young.” She stared into her tea. “Maybe not to graduate school admission committees.”
“You’d go back to business?”
She shook her head. “Maybe macroeconomics. Pacific Rim economics. But I’ve been thinking more oceanography. I could get a B.S. in a year, maybe three semesters.” She smiled. “Come out here and work for you.”
“Not with a bachelor’s,” he said seriously. “Take a couple of years and get a doctorate. The artifact’s not going anywhere.”
“But you don’t know that,” she said. “It might decide to go back to Alpha Centauri.”
Their sandwiches came. Russell discarded the top piece of bread and carefully sliced the remainder into one-inch strips, then rotated the plate 90 degrees and cut the strips into thirds. The changeling remembered the habit and smiled.
“Saves me a hundred calories,” he said. “The media all think the thing’s from another star. That’s the easiest explanation. We’re trying to come up with something less obvious.”
“Like what? Secret government project?”
“Or that it’s always been here. You know what hell this has been for physicists and chemists.”
“I can imagine.”
He took a bite and then salted everything, as the changeling expected. “That’s no different whether the thing is local or from another galaxy. It means there are very basic laws we don’t understand about… the nature of matter.” He speared a square of sandwich and gestured with it. “It’s chaos. Nothing we know is true anymore.”
“Can you really say that?” the changeling said, carving its own sandwich into quarters. “Like we learned in school, Galileo’s physics was an approximation of Newton’s; Newton got swallowed by Einstein; then Einstein by Holling.”
“Hawking, then Holling, to be technical. But this is different. It’s like everything worked, down to eight decimal places, and then somebody says, ‘Hold it. You forgot about magic’ That’s what this damned thing is.” He laughed. “I love it! But then I’m not a physicist.”
“They must be going crazy.” She picked up one quarter and nibbled on it.
“You should see my e-mail. Actually, I should see my e-mail. This indispensable woman, Michelle, throws out nine-tenths of it before I come to work.”
“She knows physics?”
“Well, like you—she’s an accountant with some course work in various sciences. But she reads everything, knows more about general science than I do.”
“She doesn’t really throw them away,” the changeling asked. “You at least glance at them?”
“Oh, yeah. At least the ones that have some entertainment value— we call them the X-files. I get together with Jan, our space scientist, every Friday to run through them. Kind of fun, actually.” He speared another square. “Pleasant nutlike flavor.”
“Did you ever get anything useful?”
“Not yet.” He turned serious. “The whole game is going to change soon. We’re going public with … an aspect we’ve kept secret. Wish I could tell you.”
The changeling was glad he couldn’t. Knowing about the message gave it an edge for Michelle’s job. Those credits in Math 471 and 472, advanced statistics. “Oh, come on. Pretty please?”
He smiled. “Your womanly wiles will get you nowhere. I’ll tell you on Monday, though, if you’d like to have lunch again.”
“Okay. Can I bring my pal from the Weekly World News’?”
“He might already be down at the office. We’re making the announcement at nine o’clock.”
“You really think you’ll be free for lunch, then?”
“I’m telling you too much.” He looked left and right. “That’s why we chose Monday. No planes till Tuesday morning. Gives us, what, some measure of spin control.”
He did look a little worried. The changeling reached over and patted his hand. �
�Mum’s the word.”
’” Mum’s the word’?” He chuckled. “I haven’t heard that since I was a kid.”
Oops. “My mother used to say it. Where does it come from?”
“Where do any of them?” He relaxed. “How are things at the bank working out?”
“They’re nice enough people,” it said, quickly. “No real challenge, though. A few times a day I haul out a language to calm down a customer. Walk him through a document or just help with numbers. The job description said ‘international relations,’ and I suppose that’s technically true.”
“Apia’s smaller than you thought it would be?”
It shrugged. “I read up on it. No real surprises … except you guys. I expected a bigger deal.”
“Well, it’s only fifty people. We had a pretty low profile until a couple of weeks ago.”
“Your space alien. That made the front page in Honolulu. You found her?” It closed its eyes and shook its head. “Sorry. Mustn’t pry.”
“No; I wish we had. Love to spring that on the tabloids.”
“You don’t believe it’s in a secret wing in the Air Force hospital in Pago Pago?”
“No, it’s locked up in Roswell, New Mexico.” He laughed. “Before your time.” The changeling had been there twice, actually, as a juggling dwarf and an anthropology graduate student.
So Monday they were going to reveal the artifact’s coded response— or at least the fact that it had responded. The changeling wondered how that would change its situation, and what it could do before then to help its chances for the job.
Russell offered a possibility. “You work tomorrow?”
“No, everybody goes to church. Except me.”
“I’m off, too. You want to bike somewhere for a picnic?”
“God, I haven’t ridden a bike since college. Give it a try, though. I guess I could rent one someplace.”
“Oh, I have a spare.” He scratched his chin. “I usually go out to Fatumes Pool or Fagaloa Bay on Sunday, but that’s a little far if you’re not used to it. We ought to just tool around, see some local sights, wind up at Palolo or the project for a picnic and a swim.”
“Does the reef go over that far?”
“No, it’s just a white-sand swimming beach. The local kids like it. We even set out a shark barrier last week.”
“You get a lot of sharks?”
“Just takes one. A big hammerhead attacked a boat in the shallows—bit a hole in the hull!—and so the family, the aiga that technically owns the land the project’s on, asked whether we’d cooperate in putting a barrier up to protect swimmers. Just a wide- mesh net”—he sketched a six-inch square with his fingers—“to keep out really big fish. We bought it and they provided the manpower.”
An interesting challenge, the changeling thought. A hammerhead could pretend it was a dolphin and jump over it. “That sounds good. They have picnic tables and all?”
He nodded. “A grill. Let’s be American—I know a place with fairly convincing hot dogs. I’ll pick some up this afternoon and put them in the office fridge.”
They made arrangements to meet at the Vaiala Beach Cottages in the morning, bring a bathing suit, and she went back to her air- conditioned bank.
As he pedaled off toward the butcher shop, Russell thought about what he was getting into. He couldn’t afford an actual girlfriend; he had to be “available” for the Rae-alien’s return. That was one element of their plans to trap the creature, because when it returned it was likely to repeat the previous strategy, and try to seduce Russell. Or maybe Jack or Jan. Anybody new who came into their lives would have to pass the DNA test.
He toyed with the idea of arguing to the others that maybe the alien had figured out a way to manufacture DNA, so he should continue to pursue Sharon even though she’d passed the test—all in the name of science, of course.
—45—
Apia, Samoa, July 2021
Russell knew he wasn’t the only one in passionate pursuit of the alien. But he didn’t know that his competition was more formidable than the CIA agents who were just now becoming interested in Sharon.
The chameleon had been in and out of Apia ever since he knew they had a vehicle from another planet. If there was anybody else like him on Earth, he would be drawn here, too.
The changeling also had spent much of its human life looking for another changeling. It saw the meeting as a kind of reunion— “together again for the first time.” They could sit down and talk, and perhaps together solve the mystery of their origin.
The chameleon, on the other hand, was not interested in mysteries. He was interested in eliminating competition.
He wasn’t stupid. Over the millennia he had often attained his culture’s highest degree of education. He knew that his desire to destroy the competition was not rational. But it was programmed into every cell of his body; it was what he had instead of the urge to reproduce. And sexual desire was a pale flame beside his passion to destroy, to protect himself.
On his own terms it was easy to rationalize: if the creature was like him, their first meeting would be short and brutal. Best strike first. No human could kill him, but no human knew how profoundly damaged he would have to be in order to actually die.
He did know and had to presume his competitor would as well.
—46—
Apia, Samoa, 24 July 2021
The changeling regretted the impulse that had made it say it hadn’t ridden a bike in years. It had been riding since before Russell was born, and simulating clumsiness on a single-speed Schwinn was an Oscar-level performance.
“How you doing up there?” She was leading them up Logan Road, not too hilly and no traffic, Sunday morning.
“I’m getting the hang of it.” She stood up to crest the hills, and felt the gentle pressure of eyetracks on her butt. Maybe it shouldn’t have worn the form-fitting jogging outfit, which got some disapproving stares from people on their way to church. But it certainly kept Russell’s attention.
“All downhill from here. Just keep bearing to your left.”
“Yeah, I’ve run this way. The project’s down after the second light, V-something Road.”
“Vaiala-vini. We’ll make you a Samoan yet.”
“As long as I don’t have to like breadfruit.”
“Fuata. We’ll start out with hot dogs and move our way down the food chain. After turkey tails and mutton flaps, you’ll be begging for fuata.”
“Oh, I’ve got a freezer full of turkey tails. Deep-fried, you can’t beat ’em.” They laughed together, but there was an edge to it. They both knew the Samoan diet had been transformed by Western intrusion, all for the worse. Turkey tails and Big Macs, mutton flaps and corned beef—there weren’t many natives over thirty who were lean and heart-healthy.
Russell waved at the guard as they went through the project gate. They dropped the bikes, no locks, in front of the main building, and raided his office fridge for hot dogs and beer, and put them in a foam cooler. He found charcoal in a utility locker and went out to start the fire while Sharon changed.
She studied her body in the ladies’ room mirror and made a few minor adjustments here and there. She knew she had Russell hooked. The question was whether to reel him in. It might be better to play a waiting game, and let Michelle get closer to delivery.
Or maybe force the issue. Get Russ in bed, and see what comes up.
It was a nice bright red thong bikini. The changeling pulled out a few pinches of excess pubic hair and ate them. It arranged the top so it just showed the wing tips of the hummingbird tattoo. It slightly deepened its lumbar dimples, a feature she remembered Russell noticing in her Rae incarnation.
It closed in for the kill, first wrapping a lavalava around its waist. It could wear the revealing suit as long as at least its toes were in the water, but Samoans weren’t happy about insensitive tourists flaunting their charms on the way there.
Russell was wearing the same blue-jean cutoffs he’d bicycled in, changin
g it into a swimsuit by taking off his shirt and shoes. The changeling smiled at his familiar body, a little pudgy in spite of athletic legs and arms, skin almost milk white—he never went out into the sun without total sunblock; both his parents had had skin cancer. His body hair was a silky down of black and white mixed, no gray, and his only tattoo, not visible now, was a small do not open till Christmas tag attached to a big scar he’d gotten from an emergency appendectomy by a village doctor in the Cook Islands. How many other women had giggled at that the first time he undressed in front of them?
He noticed her own tattoo immediately. “Bird?”
“Hummingbird.” She pulled the top of her bra down almost to the aureole. Her breasts were small, which he liked.
“Very nice.” He smiled and turned his attention back to the grill, splashing the charcoal with 100 percent isopropyl alcohol from a lab bottle. He snapped a sparker at it and it ignited with a blue puff.
“How much longer?” the changeling said. “I’m famished.”
“At least twenty minutes.” He gestured at the small cooler on the picnic table. “Beer? Or swim.”
“Swim first. I’m all sticky.” She turned her back toward him to step out of the lavalava, which under other circumstances might have been a modest posture. She snatched her face mask, fins, and mouthgill off the table and ran for the water. “Last one in has to cook the hot dogs.” He stood and watched her run, with a growing smile. Then he jogged after her. She was already sitting in the shallows, only her head showing, when he splashed in.
“Oh well. I was going to cook them anyway.”
She got the fins on, then spit into her mask and rubbed the saliva around. “Any reefs out here?”