Alien Contact (17 page)

“Now just relax,” she said, her voice dripping with understanding. “It really isn’t safe. Imagine if there were a fire. You’d never be able to get out of your room with all that clutter. It’s really best—”

“If there were a fire, we’d all roast like marshmallows,” I say, but she isn’t listening.

“—best if we clean it all up for you. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t—”

I back away from her and flee to my room. Fortunately, she doesn’t follow. Even if she isn’t an agent of the government, she is dangerous. She wants to teach me to overlook things, to look past things, to ignore the world. She thinks there is only one way of looking at the world—her way. I don’t agree.

I rush into my room and close the door. The spaceship fills the space between the bed and the boxes. A hinged lid, like the lid of a pirate chest, stands open, poised to close. I put my hand on the tail section. I can feel a faint trembling, as if something were humming inside. The claw crouches beside the lid, waiting.

“You’d better get out of here,” I tell the claw. “They’re closing in on us. They’ll lock us both up.”

I open the window so that the spaceship can take off. When I stand back, nothing happens. The claw just sits by the lid, remaining motionless.

“Look, you’d really better leave,” I say. It doesn’t move. I sit in the chair and watch it, frustrated by its inaction. From the TV next door, I hear the
Star Trek
theme song.

The claw climbs to the armrest of the chair. With two of its legs, it takes hold of my finger. Gently, it tugs on my hand, trying to move me in the direction of the cylinder.

“What do you want?” I ask, but it only tugs again, more strongly this time.

I pick up the claw in my other hand and go to the spaceship. The hollow place inside it is just my height and just wide enough for my shoulders. The claw had arranged some old sweaters inside: it looks soft and rather inviting.

Maybe I wasn’t quite right the other night when I was thinking about planaria. I should have thought a little longer. Consider, for instance, the difference between a horse and a car. A horse has a mind of his own. You develop a relationship with a horse. If you like the horse and the horse likes you, you get along; if not, you don’t. A horse can miss you. If you leave a horse behind, the horse can come looking for you. A car is just a hunk of metal—no loyalty. If you sell your car, you may miss it, but it won’t miss you.

Suppose, just suppose, that someone somewhere built a spaceship that was more like a horse than a car. A spaceship that could rebuild itself from pieces. That someone went away and left the spaceship behind—died maybe, because otherwise why would anyone leave behind such a wonderful spaceship? And the spaceship waited for a while, and then came looking for its creator, its master. Maybe it couldn’t find its original master—but it found someone else. Someone who wanted to travel. The claw is purring in my hand.

I take off my shoes and step gingerly into the opening. Carefully, I slide my legs into the cylinder. At my feet, I can feel the warmth of the hidden engines. The claw curls up beside me, snuggling into the crook of my neck.

“Ready?” I ask. Reaching up, I close the lid. And we go.

o thank the Maker Of All Things for the birth of his first male offspring, the Emperor Maloth IV ordered his architects to build a temple that would forever dwarf all other buildings on the planet. It was to be made entirely of crystal, and the spire-covered roof, which looked like a million glistening spear-points aimed at the sun, would be supported by 217 columns, to honor his 217 forebears. When struck, each column would sound a musical note that could be heard for kilometers, calling the faithful to prayer.

The structure would be known as the Temple of the Honored Sun, for his heir had been born exactly at midday, when the sun was highest in the sky. The temple took 27 Standard years to complete, and although races from all across the galaxy would come to Antares III to marvel at it, Maloth further decreed that no aliens or non-believers would ever be allowed to enter it and desecrate its sacred corridors with their presence…

A man, a woman, and a child emerge from the Temple of the Honored Sun. The woman holds a camera to her eye, capturing the same image from a dozen unimaginative angles. The child, his lip sparsely covered with hair that is supposed to imply maturity, never sees beyond the game he is playing on his pocket computer. The man looks around to make sure no one is watching him, grinds out a smokeless cigar beneath his heel, and then increases his pace until he joins them.

They approach me, and I will myself to become one with my surroundings, to insinuate myself into the marble walls and stone walkways before they can speak to me.

I am invisible. You cannot see me. You will pass me by.

“Hey, fella—we’re looking for a guide,” says the man. “You interested?”

I stifle a sigh and bow deeply. “I am honored,” I say, glad that they do not understand the subtleties of Antarean inflection.

“Wow!” exclaims the woman, aiming her camera at me. “I never saw anything like that! It’s almost as if you folded your torso in half! Can you do it again?”

I am reminded of an ancient legend, possibly apocryphal though I choose to believe it. An ambassador who was equally fascinated by the way the Antarean body is jointed, once asked Komarith I, the founder of the 38th Dynasty, to bow a second time. Komarith merely stared at him without moving until the embarrassed ambassador slunk away. He went on to rule for twenty-nine years and was never known to bow again.

It has been a long time since Komarith, almost seven millennia now, and Antares and the universe have changed. I bow for the woman while she snaps her holographs.

“What’s your name?” asks the man.

“You could not pronounce it,” I reply. “When I conduct members of your race, I choose the name Hermes.”

“Herman, eh?”

“Hermes,” I correct him.

“Right. Herman.”

The boy finally looks up. “He said Hermes, Dad.”

The man shrugs. “Whatever.” He looks at his timepiece. “Well, let’s get started.”

“Yeah,” chimes in the child. “They’re piping in the game from Roosevelt III this afternoon. I’ve got to get back for it.”

“You can watch sports anytime,” says the woman. “This may be your only chance to see Antares.”

“I should be so lucky,” he mutters, returning his attention to his computer.

I recite my introductory speech almost by rote. “Allow me to welcome you to Antares III, and to its capital city of Kalimetra, known throughout the galaxy as the City of a Million Spires.”

“I didn’t see any million spires when we took the shuttle in from the spaceport,” says the child, who I could have sworn was not listening. “A thousand or two, maybe.”

“There was a time when there were a million,” I explain. “Today only 16,304 remain. Each is made of quartz or crystal. In late afternoon, when the sun sinks low in the sky, they act as a prism for its rays, creating a flood of exotic colors that stretches across the thoroughfares of the city. Races have come from halfway across the galaxy to experience the effect.”

“Sixteen thousand,” murmurs the woman. “I wonder what happened to the rest?”

No one knew why Antareans found the spires so aesthetically pleasing. They towered above the cities, casting their shadows and their shifting colors across the landscape. Tall, delicate, exquisite, they reflected a unique grandness of vision and sensitivity of spirit. The rulers of Antares III spent almost 38,000 years constructing their million spires.

During the Second Invasion, it took the Canphorite armada less than two weeks to destroy all but 16,304 of them…