The Coming

by Joe Haldeman

  His personal line chimed and he swatted the button. It was Deedee, her eyes red and streaming with tears.

  Deedee

  "My God, Mal. What have we done?"

  "The police talked to you, too?"

  "No—it's on the goddamned news. Somebody murdered him."

  "What? The cop said—"

  "Drug overdose; that's what the news said. But you can't overdose on a DD like José y María, and people who are on it don't take other drugs. They don't work…"

  "But why would anybody want to kill him? Just a hacker who wasn't as good as he thought he was."

  "I don't know. Maybe he was hacking for someone besides me, besides us. And he found out something dangerous."

  "Yeah. I doubt it was Rory Bell."

  "The damned drug might have been involved. You don't buy it at Eckerd's." She blotted her eyes with a tissue. "If he had a source in jail, they could have killed him easily by putting poison in his dose."

  "So maybe they were oversimplifying for the press, when they said overdose."

  "Or covering up. If he was getting it in jail, he was probably getting it from the police."

  Malachi winced. "Deedee! Maybe we shouldn't talk about such matters over the phone. Can I meet you somewhere?"

  She looked at the clock. Lecture in ninety minutes, but she could do it in her sleep. "Down at the mercado? The coffee end? As soon as you can get there."

  "I'll be right over." His image faded to black. She hung up and turned off the privacy shield and looked around; nobody else in the office. She got the makeup kit out of her purse and worked on her eyes and sharpened up the tattoo. It would take Mal ten minutes to huff and puff his way to the mercado.

  Somewhat fixed, she grabbed a sun hat and her lecture notes and went down the hall to the stairs. A little exercise, not using the elevator, and smaller probability of running into someone.

  It was already hot and muggy, under a sky like polished metal. She remembered a New York childhood when sometimes it would have snowed in October, at least by Halloween. But New York was hotter now, too. Her parents' weekend place on Long Island under water for the past decade.

  She got an iced coffee from a black kid wearing an Italian peasant outfit, and sat at a picnic table in the shade, pretending to study her notes.

  Poor Ybor. She already hated herself for having set him up for jail. And he'd been loyal during the trial, not implicating her. Had he kept that silence in jail? Did the people who killed him know that she was an accomplice?

  Accomplice, hell. She was the criminal, and Ybor was just a convenient tool. Or she and Malachi shared the guilt; didn't he start it?

  He sat down heavily across from her, mopping the back of his neck and his various chins.

  "No hat, Mal?"

  "Forgot it till I was outside. So it couldn't have been an overdose?"

  "No; that's impossible with bioreflexive DDs. If you shot yourself up ten times, the effect would be the same intensity and duration as one dose. I suppose your penis would hurt more."

  He made a face. "I asked for a copy of the police report. That's legitimate. We're still his employer of record. But I doubt it will have anything of interest."

  "Better hope it doesn't. Anything of interest probably would point back to us. Or at least to me."

  "It might be me as well. During the confusion of the arrest, I picked up the crystal he'd been working on. The policeman saw me do it, or do something, and asked about it later. I sort of bulled my way through it. But if that was on his report, they might come around asking questions."

  "Probably not. A prison drug death, they probably just cleaned out his cell for the next guy, and closed his file. Could you read the crystal?"

  Malachi nodded and wiped his face with the damp white handkerchief. "You're on there as well as Aurora. Did you ask him to do that?"

  "No." That was interesting. "I suppose he was trying to find something on me, for future use. Did he?"

  "Oh, I didn't read through it," he said slowly. "The file on Aurora is ten times as big; it took me a week of evenings. Nothing there, as far as I can see."

  "You might not be devious enough. Let me see a copy."

  He brought a cube from a side pocket and set it between them. "Take the original. I don't have any use for it."

  She rolled the crystal between her thumb and forefinger. "I think this is where we vow not to betray one another."

  "I trust you, Deedee."

  "A good thing, too." She removed her sunglasses and looked straight into his eyes. "I could hang your ass so high…"

  "Is the coffee good?"

  Deedee turned around, startled. It was that crazy woman who pushed the grocery cart around. "Yes. Yes, it's good."

  "I'm sorry someone died." She leaned into the cart and rattled past. "Get my coffee, too."

  Suzy Q.

  Funny how you can always tell, somebody died and they both feel guilty. He's some bigwig, I seen him give speeches. She's a teacher and real serious about it. Wonder if they killed somebody like I killed Jack. Who would they both not like enough to do that? Maybe they're in love and it was her husband or his wife, or both. Where would you put the bodies nowadays? With that new mall over the swamp. On top of old Jack, him lying there looking up the little girls' dresses while they walk over him, and he can't do a damn thing about it.

  That's a nice thought, him all bones but still can see. And a bone down there but no juice to go with it. He who lives by the bone shall die by the bone, or the frying pan. That was a mess on the rug, good thing we had so many cats.

  Maybe he couldn't see so good, his eyes hanging out like that. I remember when I drag him from the trunk of the Chevy into the swamp, I almost turn him over so he look down into hell, then thought no, make him look up at God and Jesus and Mary. Now he looks up the dresses of little girls. That's funny. And here comes my favorite little girl, with her coffee and bread for me.

  Sara

  "Here you go, Suzy Q. Sweet stuff today; a couple of almond rolls left over."

  "You sweet stuff you'self. Thank you kindly." She carefully lined up the rolls and coffee on the cart's fold-out shelf.

  She was wearing several layers of clothes in the gathering heat, her face red and sweating. "You don't have to wear all that, do you, Suzy Q.? You look so hot."

  She nodded. "I don' mind being hot, and it keep the rays out. Came down here to get hot, but that was before the rays. Don't want the cancer."

  Sara adjusted her hat. "That's a point."

  "You know," she went on, "I could leave the extra clothes somewhere, and nobody would take them. I know that, even though the town's full of murderers, but the problem is, I might not remember where I put them. Come winter I'd get awful cold."

  "It's already November, Suzy Q. It doesn't get real cold anymore."

  She laughed, a nasal wheeze. "That's what they say, all right. You watch out, though." She took a sip of coffee and pushed on. "Watch out for them murderers."

  Always good advice, Sara thought, watching her rattle away, waiting for her to say it. She stopped and turned. "You know it snowed the day I was born?"

  "No kidding!" Suzy Q. nodded slowly and pushed on. Sara went back into the place.

  José was cross-slicing onions. "That's probably enough. It's too damn hot." The onion flowers really sold when it cooled off. This year, it looked like the aliens would get here before winter did.

  And here comes Senor Alien himself, resident alien, Pepe Parker. "What'll it be, Pepe?"

  "Café con leche, por favor." He sat down at the bar. "And a date, if you dance."

  "What?"

  "New club opening in Alachua tonight. Old stuff—tango, samba. New club, new girl, what do you say?"

  She smiled and put a cup of milk in the microwave.

  "Pepe, I haven't danced in years. I had an accident, and I'm still an operation away from the dance floor." The bell rang and she took the milk out. "Thanks for asking, though."

  "Profes
sor Bell told me about that … horrible thing. They ever catch who did it?"

  "No." She stirred a heaping spoon of Bustelo into the cup and brought it over with the sugar. "I think I know. But I could never prove it."

  "Gracias. Who?"

  She looked around. The two customers had left and José was buried in his tabloid. She lowered her voice. "You're no Boy Scout, are you, Pepe? I mean, you know how the world works."

  "As much as anybody, I suppose."

  "We have to pay protection, to keep the café from getting gang-banged. Is that shocking?"

  "No. Sad, but no."

  "There's a slimeball comes in here at noon today, every first of the month, to pick up his five hundred bucks. He calls himself 'Mr. Smith,' but everybody knows he's Willy Joe Capra."

  "He did it?"

  She nodded. "Or at least knows who did it. He's made that pretty clear."

  "And you can't go to the police?"

  She shook her head wordlessly for a moment, and then knuckled at tears, her mouth in a tight scowl.

  Pepe

  He handed her the napkin that she'd just handed him. "The bastard."

  She pressed it to her eyes. "I, maybe I should. But what I'm afraid of, I go to the police, they pick him up, he gets off. And a week or a month or a year later, I'll have another accident. During which, Willy Joe will be in church or talking to the Lions Club or something."

  "The devil never forgets a face. People like him eventually get what they deserve."

  "No." She balled up the napkin and stuck it in her pocket. "This is the real world, remember?"

  Pepe poured sugar into his coffee and stirred it slowly. "Nothing people like you or me could do. Shoot the bastard, we wind up choosing the door."

  "Instead of getting a medal." She wiped the clean counter in front of him. "You want something to eat with that?"

  "No, thanks. Just had breakfast." He'd skipped it, actually, needing to lose a few pounds. He only had one suitcase of clothes, and wanted them to last another couple of months. The kilt and trousers were getting tight around the waist, and suspenders had gone out of fashion last year.

  He drank the coffee fast enough to get a little buzz. It would be nice if he could do something about this Willy Joe character. He allowed himself an adolescent fantasy about Sara's gratitude. But that sort of thing wasn't really in his job description.

  He put a ten under the saucer and waved adios to Sara and her partner. Not for the first time, he wondered whether they had something going. Their mutual affection was obvious.

  Her body would be unusual. But that could be an attraction.

  In that erotic frame of mind, he stepped out of the café and stopped dead in his tracks, paralyzed by a woman. She was dressed like any other student, jeans and halter and sun hat. But she had a classic chiseled beauty and perfect carriage, and she radiated sex.

  Gabrielle

  It barely registered that the handsome Cuban took one look at her and stood like a deer caught in headlights. Whenever she walked through campus she was caressed by eyes. Did any of them ever recognize her from the films? Not likely. She'd only had face parts twice.

  She hated physics, but couldn't put it off any longer. She had to take a chemistry elective next semester, and the only ones she could take required physics.

  So they were doing fluid dynamics today. A doctor does need to know about fluids. In her other persona, she knew plenty about them. Semen stings your eyes and makes your eyelashes look as if semen has dried on them. But it was better than the fake stuff Harry sometimes squirted on her. Soap solution and glycerine and some white powder. It stung the eyes even worse, and made you smell like a cheap whorehouse.

  That was one of her father's favorite observations: You smell like a cheap whorehouse. Just before she left home, she was able to make the obvious rejoinder: You would know, Dad, wouldn't you? Someday she'd have to find a cheap whorehouse and go in for a sniff.

  One nice thing about physics was the building, air-conditioned to the max. She went through the door and it was like walking into a refrigerator. She put her books and hat down on a table and patted the sweat from her face and hair with a handkerchief.

  A carefully beautiful woman walked in and gave her a familiar look: appraisal, hostility, neutrality. Blue cancer tattoo on her cheek, Dr. Whittier.

  Deedee

  "Oh, hi. You're in 101."

  The beautiful girl nodded. "Gabrielle Campins."

  She put the name and the face together. Pre-med, having trouble with the math. "See you there."

  Trying to act normal just after learning you killed a man. Killed him by blackmailing him into illegal activity. Directed against a friend and colleague.

  The door to Rory's office was open. On impulse, she tapped and stepped through the little entryway. Rory looked up from a journal.

  "Hi, Rory. You ready for His Holiness?"

  Aurora

  "His ass-holiness. Ready as I'll ever be." They had a meeting with Reverend Kale and some of his minions tomorrow. "I heard about Ybor Lopez. I'm sorry."

  Deedee trembled for a moment and a chill ran down her back. Could there have been something between them? The phone chimed, saved by the bell.

  "Gotta teach," Deedee said, voice quavering. "See you later."

  "Hasta luego." She picked up the phone.

  It was Marya Washington. Could they come by in twenty or thirty minutes? Rory said sure, and put the "Do Not Disturb the Bitch" sign on her office door. How much of an article could she read in twenty minutes?

  She actually got through the first page of an Astrophysical Review article by a friend at Texas, who had found a consistent correlation between galactic latitude and duration of one class of short-term gamma-ray bursters. That could imply local origin; at least not extragalactic. Or hopeful mathematics, anyhow.

  Security called up and she took the sign off her door, and ushered in the young woman and her "crew," one man shepherding three cameras. "So welcome to Gainesville, Marya. How's New York?"

  "God, don't ask. It's a miracle we got out." A two-day blizzard had just stopped. "We were able to get an old chopper into JFK this morning. Otherwise we'd still be in traffic. If you can call something 'traffic' that doesn't move."

  The cameraman suggested where to place the cameras and Marya nodded. "I know there aren't any revelations," she said, "but do you have anything new? Or that I can pretend is new?"

  "Any time now," the cameraman said. "Just be natural, ma'am; we'll edit later."

  "Well, Marya … this isn't new exactly; it's from last week. But I'm not sure anybody got the whole story."

  "You mean the bounce-back from the thing."

  "Exactly." How to phrase this diplomatically? "You reported it, and so did others. But it was more important than you gave it credit for being."

  She smiled. "Okay. Words of one syllable?"

  "We sent them a message and they sent it back. Can I say 'message'?"

  "So far so good.'

  "It came back with absolutely no distortion. We couldn't do that. Period."

  Marya shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, right. I remember." She waggled a hand in front of one of the cameras. "Off the record, Rory, we couldn't really punch that up."

  "They intercepted a signal that was 'way blue-shifted, in a relativistically accelerated frame of reference. They recorded it and re-broadcast it with exactly compensating distortion. The signal we got back was absolutely the same as the one we'd sent."

  Marya laughed and shook her head. "Jesus, Rory. Would you come join the world for a minute? The real world?"

  "Okay." Rory smiled, too. "So you couldn't 'punch it up.'"

  "Look. It's worse than that. We have to think of counter story. We run your version and three out of six tabloids are on us like clothes from Kmart. 'We got exactly the same signal.' So where do you think they'll say it came from? Outer space?"

  "Of course it came from outer space."

  "No wa
y in hell. It came from you."

  "What?"

  "You're trying to stay in the spotlight. So you generate a story."

  "God, can you hear yourself? That's so ridiculous."

  "It's not, Dr. Bell," the cameraman said. "People want to think conspiracy. Want to be on the inside. You can sell any goddamn thing if it's against the establishment."

  "I'm the establishment?"

  "You're authority," Marya said. "Bobby's right. Best way for you to get that story out would have been to let somebody else announce it and you hotly deny it."

  Rory realized she was standing, and sat down. "It's so Alice in Wonderland. So what do we do?"

  "Just what we've done here. We didn't punch it up, so when we repeat it next week, it's backstory. It's routine, so it must be true."

  "That's when people point out how important it is," Bobby said. "Do it all the time, in politics."

  "As if I, or we, didn't understand how important it was at the time."

  "You don't have to go that far," Marya said. "Just don't punch it up for now, and later it'll look like you've been cautious. Conservative."

  "Okay. You're the boss."

  Marya smiled and nodded to the cameraman. "Good evening. It's exactly one month since the discovery of the Coming, and so we've left the blizzards of New York to revisit Dr. Aurora Bell at the University of Florida…"

  Marya

  The interview went pretty well, though they had to ask Rory to repeat some things in simpler and simpler terms. They got out by ten, though; only fifteen minutes later than they'd expected.

  And about two minutes late on the parking meter. Marya saw the big white tow truck from half a block away, checked her watch, and broke into a run.

  It was a heavy-duty floater with a bed big enough to hold a large passenger car. It could park parallel to a car and, using a kind of built-in forklift, pick it straight up and haul it aboard in no time.

  Marya got to him just as he was raising the car. He was a young black man. Her intuition weighed charm versus indignation as she ran up to the driver's-side window. "I'm sorry, mister. I got held up just a minute or two."